You Better Call Me A Doctor!

Sometimes this (voluntary) job breaks my heart. I know I'm just preaching to the choir, but I'd like to point out a few things, in the form of Republicans v. reality.

Republicans: The health care bill says ...

reality: THERE IS NO FINAL HEALTH CARE BILL!

Sorry for shouting, but there was no debate in the full Senate and what debate there was was being stifled in the Senate committees. It has yet to make it thru the House committees, and the multiple versions being offered change from committee to committee. Those have to be reconciled, then the House and Senate bills will have to be reconciled. And the way it's going the bastards who take the most money from health care corporations are going to kill it.

Republicans: Death Panels will decide whether you, your child or your parents will die.

reality: Getting medical advice when you have a terminal condition, (and life itself is a terminal condition), on how much you want to put up with when it's still your choice is a sign, the ultimate sign, of freedom and freewill.
It's only advice, the government doesn't get to make the decision. Unlike in Texas.
BTW, many Republicans, including Gov. Palin, have either authored or signed bills for this very choice.

Republicans: You'll be forced into ObamaCare!

reality: Nope. If you like your health care insurance and providers, keep 'em! If you don't or you are uninsured, the gov't plan may turn out to be an option for you. (See above, there isn't a final bill yet.)

Republicans: Obama's gonna cut Medicare!

reality: This is true, but in a way that only Republicans can spin it. Obama's plan cuts bureaucratic waste but benefits won't decrease. Let me repeat that, YOUR BENEFITS WON'T DECREASE.
That means more money can go to your health care.

Republicans: Your taxes will increase!

reality: Not unless you make over a quarter of a million dollars per year. Not that your business makes that, but that you make that personally. And even then the higher tax rate only applies to how much you make after you make 1/4 million dollars per year. Even then it's a pittance compared to what you make.
If the 'public option' is included and passes it means there is a wider insurance pool that includes younger people. Then everyone's taxes can go down.

Republicans: We already have the best health care system in the world.

reality: No, we don't. We rank 37th in the world. Our life expectancy is 24th. And we pay the 2nd highest percentage of GDP of any nation in the world for our 37th best corporate health care.

Republicans: It's socialism!

reality: I don't even know what that means when they say that. We already have gov't funded health care.
If any republicans actually believe that then they should get off our gov't funded health care, our gov't funded health care, our VA, our Medicare, our Medicaid, our CHIPS and try to find a private insurer that will accept you and do it cheaper. e.g.

Michigan insurance regulators have approved a 22 percent increase for group and individual Blue Cross Blue Shield health policies in the state
[...]
Blue Cross originally sought to raise individual rates by 56 percent and group rates by 41 percent.

Republicans: It would be unfair competition between private and public health insurance.

reality: So what? Corporations already decide what health care we deserve. Sure, an emergency room might have to treat you, in some places, but they don't have to provide medicine or aftercare or wheel chairs or crutches or dialysis. A faceless bureaucrat decides whether you 'deserve' that treatment. After paying in thousands of dollars over the years, their paycheck depends on your dying before you can collect.

Republicans: This isn't what the founders of our country envisioned.

reality: The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution say different:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It's kind of hard to promote the general welfare, have life and pursue happiness if you're sick and can't afford health care.

Somebody get me a doctor!





Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

And I feel fine

AARP, for many, especially, well, retired folks, is a benevolent organization helping senior citizens make their way through the autumn of their lives. The reality is far from that:

Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus founded AARP in 1958. AARP evolved from the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA), which Andrus had established in 1947 to promote her philosophy of productive aging, and in response to the need of retired teachers for health insurance. After ten years, Andrus opened the organization to all Americans over 50, creating AARP. Today, NRTA is a division within AARP. According to Andy Rooney, AARP was established by insurance salesman Leonard Davis in 1958, after he met Ethel Percy Andrus. Ms. Andrus was at the time helping teachers get health insurance through the National Retired Teachers Association. According to Rooney, Davis saw the opportunity to sell medical insurance to the elderly rather than just retired teachers and for that purpose put in $50,000 establishing AARP. According to Rooney, Davis established the Colonial Penn Insurance Co. in order to control AARP, selling millions of dollars in insurance to its members through advertisings in AARP's magazine Modern Maturity and for several years Colonial Penn Insurance Co. became one of the most profitable in the U. S. In 1978, after a 60 Minutes report exposé, AARP got rid of Colonial Penn Insurance Co. and signed up with Prudential Insurance Co.^[3]

According to critics, until the 1980s AARP was controlled by businessman Leonard Davis, who promoted its image as a non-profit advocate of retirees in order to sell insurance to members.^[4] In the 1990s, the United States Senate investigated AARP's non-profit status, with Republican Senator Alan Simpson, then chairman of the Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, questioning the organization's tax exempt status in congressional hearings. These investigations did not reveal sufficient evidence to change the organization's status.^[5]

As an insurance sales organization, AARP shouild be considered immediately suspect. But that doesn't mean they can occasionally get it right.

Here's a commercial they're running, criticising the lying by Health Care Reform opponents:



I can't fault their statement, but I still don't trust them. Still, AARP is beloved by many older folks. My grandmother, who died 10 years ago, had become knee-jerk paranoid conservative in her later years, and railed against Reaganesque welfare cheats and other symbols of "I got mine, screw you" selfish conservatism. But she had AARP insurance, and believed in them faithfully.

I'd like to think that if she were alive today, she'd listen to AARP and not Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Chuck Grassley, Newt Gingrich, and the rest of the lying bastards on the right.

So for that, AARP, you have my thanks.

They'll Never Be Another Like You

R.I.P. Lester William Polfuss, a/k/a Les Paul.



So much of what we actualize and perform as modern musicians had this man to thank for its conception and creation.
Thus, as I never got the chance to say it in person, I will say it here.

Thank you for making what I enjoy possible, Mr. Paul.

Via con Dios

Can't put it off another day

A clueless Ilya Shapiro from the non-partisan libertarian Cato Institute goes all post racial:

Although her selection represents the very worst of racial politics — she is not a leading light of the judiciary and would not have been considered had she not been a Hispanic woman — her career achievements show that the American Dream endures. While in this world it is rare for an underprivileged child from a minority group to attain a modicum of professional success — let alone reach its pinnacle — in America it happens again and again.

Um, yeah. Since Thomas, Alito, and Roberts-especially Thomas! were such "leading lights of the judiciary". Seems like Mr. Shapiro is looking at Sotomayor through his 'Latina' lenses, holding her to higher standards than the . . . men. Hmm, maybe his lenses are 'male'.

Matthew Yglesias explains her qualifications to Shapiro:

I think this is a revealing moment. Sotomayor has the normal qualifications for a Supreme Court justice—she shares the president’s political views, she lacks a record of inflammatory legal writing that would prevent confirmation, the has experience as an appellate judge, she went to fancy schools. Insofar as her background was a consideration in selecting her, which it undoubtedly was, this is also totally normal. Presidents have always sought various kinds of regional, religious, and ethnic balance in the courts. Much was made out of Samuel Alito’s Italian American ancestry, and obviously Thurgood Marshall was initially put on the court in part to make a symbolic statement about civil rights and Clarence Thomas was appointed to replace him in part out of a desire to fill Marshall’s old seat with an African-American. There was a tradition of a “Jewish seat” at various times, etc.

Then he explains race to Shapiro:

But even more revealing is that even if Sotomayor’s selection were somehow out of the ordinary, the idea that picking one appellate judge rather than another for a promotion could possibly be the very worst of racial politics is ludicrous. At its very worst, racial politics in the United States involved the systematic disenfranchisement of millions of people, their subjection to pervasive social and economic discrimination, and the maintenance of the apartheid system via the threat and reality of state-sponsored terrorist violence. At its very worst, racial politics in the United States involved persistent filibustering to prevent the federal government from doing anything to curb widespread lynching. At its very worst, racial politics in the United States involved a violent rebellion that sought to dismantle the country in the name of chattel slavery and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

But despite that long history, broad swathes of the American right remain persistently and willfully blind to the problem of discrimination against non-whites. Their view is, essentially, that racism emerged as a problem sometime in the year 1967 and that the problem consists of white people being unduly burdened by efforts to remediate something or other.

Best last paragraph ever, Thanks, Matt.

The Chambers Bros. explain race to the country in 1968:



To this day I'm not sure which brother, Willie or Joe, is singing lead here. But it's clearly one of the best R'n'B/Rock vocals ever.

The Farce Is Strong With This One

They think, theyre so cute when they got you in that condition

There been much press about the so-called protesters lately, disrupting Democratic politician's townhalls, and holding their own teabagging protests about Health Care Reform. The MSM has done their usual of equivocating, reporting both sides as "he said, she said". Of course this is absurd, but so is this type of MSM reporting. "Some say Earth is round, others say flat" isn't reality based, but they bend over backward to cover their asses, trying not to piss off conservatives who are inflaming these disruptions.

Hearing confused and angry people say "I don't want the government to take over my Medicare" is surreal, because anyone who says that is underinformed, and misinformed by propogandistic intention.

Some on the left speculate that one thing helping drive this anger is white folks who don't like a black President, and from what I've heard anecdotally the last several months, I think that's right.

So those same people won't be impressed by Prof. Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton Univ. as she attemps to explain all the coincident issues driving this current bus. Because she's black too:



I think she's spot on. There was further discussion of Right-wing authoritarianism, and mention of this book:

THE AUTHORITARIAN DYNAMIC

What are the root causes of intolerance? This book addresses that question by developing a universal theory of what determines intolerance of difference in general, which includes racism, political intolerance (e.g., restriction of free speech), moral intolerance (e.g., homophobia, supporting censorship and school prayer), and punitiveness. It demonstrates that all of these seemingly disparate attitudes are principally caused by just two factors: individuals’ innate psychological predispositions to intolerance (“ authoritarianism”) interacting with changing conditions of societal threat.

I'm trying to find the video, will post ASAP.

And in re: authority, well, here's the obvious song:

Around Blogtopia

skippy, in skippy's snark tank asks "is it obama's economy yet?"

Cookie Jill, in skippy's arboretum has a great rundown of the 20 largest cases of companies bilking the government
Hint: The 1st 3 are 'health care' companies.

Extra bonus feature: stan by your lee for folks like me who grew up Marveling at comics books.

Crooks & Liars has the goods on repub lies about Health Insurance Reform: Grover Norquist Distributes Lies - Uh, Helpful Talking Points on Health-Care Reform

And last, but never least, WTF?!?

From the GOP harassment memo, entitled “best practices”:

Artificially Inflate Your Numbers. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive.

Be Disruptive Early And Often

Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate

Notice the complete lack of anything resembling "have your facts well-prepared for Q&A sessions."

Gosh, it's nice to know that all the 'conservative', corporate funded 'grass roots' folks are disrupting meetings where members of congress can talk to their constituents and then answer questions.


* y! wksctp! (yes, we know skippy coined that phrase!)


Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

No Matter What You Do

No matter what the Dems do the Grand Obstructionist Party will just say no. If legislation might be successful, they want to kill it, if legislation is successful, they definitely want to kill it.

If a former president actually gets Americans released from a communist country, they'll spin that as a bad thing.[Pfft, Bolton has such a great track record.]

See, it's OK for Nixon to make deals with China, it's OK for Reagan to make deals with Russia, it's OK for Rumsfeld to make deals with Saddam. It's always OKIYAR.

And, according to the wingnuts, everything a Dem does is by definition wrong.

In my fantasies I think that this a strategy on the part of Dems to let the party of fail just get wackier and torpedo themselves. In reality, I don't think Dems are that smart and they are in a race to the bottom with the repubs.

Here's an open letter to all elected Dems:
You can't argue with crazy, you can't fix stupid, and you can't bargain with repubs whose only goal is to make the country fail so that they can win the next election.




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

You Fails It, It Don't Fail You

Leave agitprop to the pros, kids

;>)

How many more years, have I got to let you dog me around

Our house has always been Keith Olbermann friendly since he started hosting his MSNBC show. As many have pointed out, we're not sure of his actual politics, but very sure of his disdain for virtually everything the Right has done for the last umpteen years.

And we've always enjoyed Richard Wolffe's appearances on the show. Labelled as an "MSNBC political analyst", he seemed, like Olbermann, to dislike the same people we did. In other words, the 'enemy of my enemy'.

But that was before Glenn Greenwald said this:

On a very related note: this week, former Newsweek reporter Richard Wolffe was a guest-host on MSNBC's Countdown while Keith Olbermann is on vacation. When Olbermann is there, Wolffe is a very frequent guest on Countdown, where he is called an "MSNBC political analyst" and comments on political news. All of this, despite the fact that Wolffe left Newsweek last March in order to join "Public Strategies, Inc.," the corporate communications firm run by former Bush White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, its President and CEO. According to the Press Release they issued to announce Wolffe's joining the company:

Wolffe, most recently Newsweek's senior White House correspondent, officially assumes his new position as a senior strategist on April 13, 2009. He will be based in the firm's Washington office, where he will advise several of its top clients. . . .

Public Strategies, Inc. is a business advisory firm that serves a diverse clientele including some of the world's largest and best-known corporations, nonprofit organizations, associations and professional firms. Public Strategies helps forward-thinking organizations assess public opinion and risk, and develops strategies for managing corporate reputation and uncertainty. Much of its practice involves managing high-stakes campaigns for corporate clients, anticipating and responding to crises.

Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program -- or serving as an almost daily "political analyst" -- is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist. Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, including corporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover. Yet MSNBC is putting him on as a guest-host and "political analyst" on one of its prime-time political shows. What makes that even more appalling is that, as Ana Marie Cox first noted, neither MSNBC nor Wolffe even disclose any of this.

Dang. So even if you agree with them, they can't be trusted.

And indeed, that's the point. Liberal media indeed.

And tonight, an update from Glennzilla:

UPDATE III: Mediaite notes that Olbermann has decided that Richard Wolffe will no longer be on Countdown. At Daily Kos today, Olbermann wrote:

As to Richard Wolffe I can offer far less insight. I honor Mr. Greenwald's insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and his reporting on Richard's other jobs. I must confess I was caught flat-footed. I do not know what the truth is; my executive producer and I have spent the last two months dealing with other things (see above) but what appears to be the truth here is certainly not what Richard told us about his non-news job.

I am confident his commentary to this point has not been compromised - he has been an insightful analyst and a great friend to this show - but until we can clarify what else he is doing, he will not be appearing with us. I apologize for not being able to prevent this unhappy set of circumstances from developing.

Good for Olbermann for doing the right thing there, at least provisionally. As for the comments Olbermann made tonight on Countdown -- in which he denied that GE barred him from mentioning O'Reilly and even mocked O'Reilly for working at a place (Fox) where corporate pressures restrict editorial freedom (claiming that such a thing would never, ever happen at MSNBC) -- for the moment, I will simply note what I wrote on Twitter: "Really surprised by the Olbermann denial -- there's lots and lots of evidence that the NYT's description about what GE did is 100% accurate."

Indeed.