The End of Medicare

Funny.

Governor Walker: "In my heart I know I am funny."

I finally found Walker's equal from the movies:



The moment beginning at 5:34 pretty much sums up where Scott Walker is going to be one day. Hopefully one day soon.

The Proper Way For Americans to Think

Professional political-religious-asshole Mike Huckabee was on a radio show yesterday talking about how African President Obama is, because it's what professional political-religious-assholes do. In the course of the conversation he said this:

.

..one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American ... his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours

"Ours." Our way of viewing the world, history, liberty, truth - all that jazz. Because, you see, there is only one proper way for YOU, American, to think. And Mike Huckabee knows it. Exceptional.

Boiling down the RW response to Loughner

Joe Scarborough of all people finally helps me to boil down what's so wrong the RW response to the Tucson shooting. What they all are really saying:

The fact that I'm an irresponsible and offensive asshole doesn't make me responsible for the Tucson shooting!

Yeah, well, they may be right.

What a Jerk!

Ahem.



And evil to boot!

Now TPM has unearthed a 1997 C-SPAN video that shows O'Donnell voicing concerns that a drag queen ball "celebrates the type of lifestyle which leads to the disease," objecting to terming those with AIDS "victims" and calling AIDS a consequence of a certain "lifestyle which brings about this disease."

What an asshole.

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.

GOP Rep Introduces "Holocaust/Zyklon B Remembrance Day"

Might as well have.

Deep Thought: Reconciliation

When Republicans used the reconciliation process in both 2001 and 2003 to pass massive tax cuts, primarily for the most wealthy in the country, it was Holy reconciliation. If it's used to pass health care reform, which would overwhelmingly help the poorest in the country, it will be like killing Jesus again.

Extra.

Extra.

Extra.

Extra. (This one is a really good explanation and history of reconciliation.)

O'Reilly: "We Can't Kill *All* the Muslims"

This is someone held up by a significant portion of our population as a respectable and thoughtful commentator. And he thinks it's perfectly normal to make an offhand comment implying that Americans actually want to kill every Muslim alive.

Even the kids, Bill?

We want to - but we can't. That's why we, in O'Reilly's thinking, try to "win hearts and minds." Because we can't kill them all.

Jesus.

$1 Trillion For Unnecessary War Good; For Health Care Bad

How often does it hit you in the gut that George Bush and Dick Cheney started an unnecessary war, and that more than 1 million men, women, and children died horribly violent and painful deaths - that didn't have to happen? Most of them would be alive today if that unnecessary war wasn't started. I mean just think of that.

Kicks me in the gut nearly every day.

* And stories like this kick you again. This did not have to happen.

"There are no Americans who don't have health care." [updtd]

The equivalent of saying, "There are no Americans who don't have food. There's food all over the place!"

Horrible, uncaring, heartless assholes.

Update: More than 2,000 people have attended the free Remote Area Medical (RAM) health clinic (h/t) at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Wise, Virginia this weekend. They're treated in barns, in animal stalls:

For many residents of this Appalachian area, the RAM clinic serves as the only medical care they may receive each year.

Soldiers Cremated at "Pet Cremation Service"

"Small government," anti-regulation Republicans want a world like this:

The U.S. military has, since 2001, cremated some of the remains of American service members killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere at a Delaware facility that also cremates pets, a practice that ended yesterday when the Pentagon banned the arrangement.

The facility, located in an industrial park near Dover Air Force Base, has cremated about 200 service members, manager David A. Bose estimated last night. It uses separate crematories a few feet apart to cremate humans and animals, he added, insisting that there had "not been any people gone through the pet crematory."

If that's not bad enough, fallen American troops are not supposed to be DROPPED OFF LIKE LAUNDRY:

The Friends Forever manager said that service members usually dropped off remains and returned the next day to pick them up. The practice is “contrary to the normal procedure,” in which the military is supposed to provide “an escort for all service members killed overseas during transport to the United States, and again after ‘medical processing’ at the Dover mortuary as the deceased returns home for interment.”

Support the troops, my ass.

More at CNN.

And the link to the facility, Forever Friends Pet Cremation Service.

"It's Not Like Putting Hot Coals on People's Bodies?"

Joe Lieberman shows that special kind of wisdom that makes one U.S. Senate material. On waterboarding:

It's is not like putting burning coals on people’s bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological.

Hey Joe, so it's okay to force them to masturbate and take photos of them doing so? And it's okay to rape them?

The person is in no real danger. The impact is only psychological.

Too Chicken to Take My Comments

Far Right columnist and blogger Don Surber wrote yesterday about the Senate banning waterboarding: 



Waterboarding banned

Now if only we could get al-Qaida to quit beheading people.

Stunning logic. I left a tiny comment: "So you think of the United States as the equivalent of Al Qaeda. Brilliant."

He refused to post it. Chickenshit.

Aside from the nutjobbery of comparing the United States Congress to the murdering extremists that make up Al Qaeda - imagine Surber's argument from a more domestic direction:

Medical experiments on U.S. prisoners banned

Now if only we could get prisoners to quit breaking the law.

Surber seems to be in complete lack of ability to view and question his own or our own actions. It is impossible for him to find anything like a "wrong" coming from within - it's invisible unless someone else is doing the wrong.






Your Daughter's a Slut

The Modern Republican Party in all its glory:

COLORADO SPRINGS — “In my parents’ day and age, (unmarried teen parents) were sent away, they were shunned, they were called what they are,” Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Larry Liston said during a GOP legislative caucus meeting in Denver. “There was at least a sense of shame.

“There’s no sense of shame today," Liston continued, according to the The Gazette of Colorado Springs. "Society condones it. ... I think it’s wrong. They’re sluts. And I don’t mean just the women. I mean the men, too.”

"There was at least a sense of shame." Yup, we sure knew how to be ashamed and to vomit that shame into our children in the old days. It's really a shame that we lost that. It's a shame that we don't "send them away" and "shun" them anymore.

What the hell happened to us?

Just Get Him Off the Air [Updated]

John Gibson has a radio show and a TV show on FOXNews. That that is true says much about other people than it does John Gibson.

May he finally get the boot he has so long deserved.

GLAAD has numbers we can call.






Rush Limbaugh: Aging American Women Should Be Forced to Wear Burqas

Via Digby:

Rush Limbaugh said this on his show yesterday about Hillary Clinton and her possible presidency:

So the question is this: Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?

Roll that around in your mind for awhile. Let it foam up on your shoreline. Let it sink in.

Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?

No, really. You haven't absorbed it yet. You have to hold it up, let the light shine through it.

Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?

Overlay it with an image of your mother, or your grandmother, or your wife - or your young daughter.

Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?

Can we stand such a hideous spectacle? Should we be made to? Is America not better than this? More decent? More modern?

Shouldn't she be covered up?

***

Note: Limbaugh is a coward, so he of course built himself what he thinks is an escape hatch for this story:

Now, I want to preface this by saying I know it's going to get out there. Media Matters is going to get hold of this and they're going to take it all out of context.

It's what he did with the Donavan McNabb story. It's what he does with much of what he puts out there. "They took me out of context!" No, that's not true. It's entirely his context. (Well, with a little help from Matt Drudge, as he says.) It's his question. It's his perspective. It didn't fall out of the sky. It's Limbaugh's. He's just way too much of a coward to admit it.

Right Wing Blogs "regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them"

NEVER FORGET THIS QUOTE. NEVER.

Dan Bartlett, White House Communications Director until 2005, and Counseler to the President until June, 2007, said this in November about the White House's relationship with Right Wing blogs:

That’s what I mean by influential. I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.

It is so honest, so funny, so sad, and so embarassing all in one shattering moment.

It is Michelle Malkin - regurgitating.
It is Redstate - regurgitating.
It is Instapundit - regurgitating.
It is The Corner at the National Review - regurgitating.
It is Power Line - regurgitating.
It is All the bloggers at Townhall - regurgitating.

It's all of them. The New Stenographers. The Regurgitators. The Right Wing Blogs, revealed as the spectacular hacks they are by the very source of their hackiness.

Don't forget that quote.

They're All Losing It [Updated]

Following up on the last post: The slippage into darkness and drooling by the Modern Right is being noticed. And noticed. And noticed. And noticed. And noticed. [Links fixed.] Update: And noticed some more.

Seriously broken people.

P.S. Remember: This is all about the SCHIP program. They're in a full-throated, lathering rage over people supporting health care for poor kids. Honestly, it's hard to view these people as anything but broken, un-sane things.