Caterpillar Wants Caterpillar Profits Boost Reform

I heard on NPR this morning that the billionaires who run Caterpillar are complaining that the health care reform law that just passed will cost them $100 million - and they say they may have to cut retiree benefits!

Oh no! We better repeal that law now!

Hold on a sec. Let's take a look at this:

• Caterpillar has been getting free money from the government - from us - to pay for prescription drugs:

When Congress and President George W. Bush enacted a prescription drug plan for seniors in 2003, the legislation encouraged companies to continue providing prescription coverage to retirees, instead of shifting retirees to Medicare Part D, by having the government give those companies large subsidies for each retiree — and also allowing them to deduct those subsidies from their income taxes.

• Caterpillar got free money - and they got to deduct that money from their taxes - costing us even more money.

• The health care reform law says, "That's stupid," and now Caterpillar and other companies will still get the free money, but they don't get to deduct it from their taxes anymore.

• For that Caterpillar is threatening to cut retiree drug benefits altogether.

• Hey Caterpillar: F*ck You.

Rep. Cantor "Directly Threatened" By Someone Who Doesn't Know He Exists

You lie!

P.S. Minnesota Palin eats more paste.

Sarah Palin Thinks Killing Cops is Funny

A little less than a year ago a man who was afraid of Barack Obama - because of people who irrationally and irresponsibly stoked fears of Barack Obama, including Sarah Palin - shot and killed three Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, police officers.

What are we supposd to take from Palin's continued use of violent rhetoric but that she doesn't give a goddamn for those officers' lives? Or for anyone else threatened, harmed, or murdered by people inspired by such rhetoric? What a horrible, despicable person.

* And one of the people Palin put crosshairs on: Tom Periello.

• And it gets worse.

L.A. Freeway

Mr. Guy Clark.

Pack up all your dishes.
Make note of all good wishes.
Say goodbye to the landlord for me.
That son of a bitch has always bored me.
Throw out them LA papers
And that moldy box of vanilla wafers.
Adios to all this concrete.
Gonna get me some dirt road back street

Chorus
If I can just get off of this LA freeway
Without getting killed or caught
I'd be down that road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought bought bought

Here's to you old skinny Dennis
Only one I think I will miss
I can hear that old bass singing
Sweet and low like a gift you're bringin'
Play it for me just one more time now
Got to give it all we can now
I beleive everything your saying
Just keep on, keep on playing

Chorus

And you put the pink card in the mailbox
Leave the key in the old front door lock
They will find it likely as not
I'm sure there's somethin' we have forgot
Oh Susanna, don't you cry, babe
Love's a gift that's surely handmade
We've got something to believe in
Dontcha' think it's time we're leavin'

Chorus

Repeat 1/2 of verse 1

Death Paneling

I'm thinking about getting some death paneling in my living room. Should go great with all my Che posters.

Tea Partiers: Partying Like it's 1969 [updtd]

As I watched coverage last night of Tea Partiers doing disorganized loud things somewhere I figured out what's really going on here: These folks, most of them up there in years, are reliving the 1960s and 70s that they didn't live at the time. They're carrying signs, staging protests, shouting slogans in unison - they're letting their Freak Flags fly. These are the folks that really wanted to wear the clothes, grow their hair, do the drugs, have the hot hippy sex—but they were insecure. They were afraid. They felt silly. And the 1960s and 70s passed them by. And they've always been a little mad about that. A little resentful. They've always been a little Rush Limbaugh inside: They could have been cool, but nobody let them. And now they've got another chance, and they're not going to let it pass them by again. So they're going to get out there, and they are really going to FREAK IT UP.

Except it's not against war, or for civil rights, or for cleaner air, or for peace on Earth. It's against improvements in American health care.

Far out, man.

Update: Too damn funny. Tea partiers to hold Conservative Woodstock. Was I right or was I right?

Holy crap, Sarah Palin commented on my blog post

Yesterday I put up a post titled, "So, Sarah Palin, how's that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?" Today I find this in my comments:

Anonymous said...

Understandably your article helped me truly much in my college assignment. Hats incorrect to you send, choice look progressive in behalf of more interdependent articles soon as its united of my favourite subject-matter to read.

I know Sarah Palin-speak when I see it. Thank you, Sarah, thank you. I'll never wash this comment again.

So, Sarah Palin, how's that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?

And, American People, don't forget that they warned you: Soylent Green is your grandparents who were murdered personally by Barack HUSSEIN Obama via his communistic DEATH PANELS.

...grandma got run over by a health care...

Anti-health care reform junkies freaking out

THERE ARE HEALTH CARE COCKROACHES CRAWLING ALL OVER MY SKIN!!!

The St. Louis Tea Party Coalition will hold a candlelight protest tonight ouside Russ Carnahan’s office for the millions of elderly patients who will die under Obamacare.

You'd think something called "Death Panels!" could, like, die.

Deep Thought

If so many American pundits and politicians didn't have the very bizarre need to say things like "The U.S. has the best health care system in the world!" we might actually end up with a health care system that doesn't suck.

Pearl Jam: Black

It's weird to have a song in your head that you can't actually understand the words to.



P.S. This is a really good video and recording.

Why don't Republicans want to lower the deficit?

The health care bill LOWERS the deficit by more than $1 trillion in 20 years. It saves money. It reduces spending. It costs less. It's fiscally responsible.

That's good. Right? isn't it what Republicans constantly scream about - fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction?

Obligatory chart that should make everyone who votes Republican because of "fiscal responsibility" never do it again (click to enlarge):

Good God

How the Catholic Church still exists at all is completely beyond me.

Cardinal Sean Brady has said he was at meetings in 1975 where two abused children signed vows of silence over complaints against Fr Brendan Smyth. [...]

Smyth's child abusing continued for many years after 1975.

Makes me sick to my stomach.

Meat thermometer-large popcorn day at the theater?

Or: Don't bring a neck to a meat thermometer fight. Or something.

Aztec Two Step: Prisoner

Lordy, didn't know these guys* were still doing their thing. So good. (*Music plays automatically at their site.)

A Question: Does Wolf Blitzer have a boss at CNN? [updtd]

Is there anyone there who watches what he does, to see if he's doing what might be called really awful, bad, terrible, offensive, monumentally shitty journalism? Because I swear to god, it sometimes seems like he could one day rape a baby goat on his show, and then do it every day for the next week. Nobody at CNN seems to care about anything he does.

It's not the first time that Blitzer has made it clear that he has either no respect for the kind of law that went into the making of the U.S. Constitution, or that he is simply much more stupid than people would assume.

Update: Wolf regrets the chyron . Great.

Orrin Opens His Hatch

And out falls a lie.