9/25/09 Healthcare Reform Update

The Real Death Panel

No Public Option, Eh?

Origin of Stupidity

This video debunks anti-evolutionist rhetoric and at the end suggests the best thing to do with the fifty page "creationist" introduction included in a new edition of Darwin's Origin of Species which is being promoted by Kirk Cameron for free distribution on college campuses.

Enjoy!

The GOP Health Care Plan

Thanks to Eric Cantor (R-VA) We now know what the GOP has in mind as an alternative to the healthcare reform efforts of President Obama.

In a meeting hosted by the Richmond Times, Rep. Cantor answers a question about a woman who had lost her job and her health care and then learned that she had had abdominal tumors which required an operation. His reply includes the suggestion that she do what it takes to qualify for an existing government program or find a charitable organization to help her.

That, my friend, is the failed and discredited supply-side (i.e. "trickle-down") economic model applied to health care.

Cantor: First of all, I guess I would ask what the situation is in terms of income eligibility and the existing programs that are out there. Because if we look at the uninsured that are out there right now, there is probably 23, 24% of the uninsured that is already eligible for an existing government program [...] Beyond that, I know that there are programs, there are charitable organizations, there are hospitals here who do provide charity care that if there's an instance of indigemcy and the individual is not eligible for existing programs that there can be some cooperative effort. No one in this country, given who we are, should be sitting without an option to go be addressed.

If you don't understand exactly what Cantor's reply means, watch this video:

Finally, you may view the entire, 97 minute Richmond Times Public Square: Health Care Reform meeting held on September 21 (below) at which Virginia representatives Bobby Scott (D-3rd) and Eric Cantor (R-7th) discussed the issue, presented their respective views on what reform should look like, and answered questions from the audience.

It's quite informative and worth watching.

The question about the woman with abdominal cancer and the responses of both Rep. Scott and response begins at the 59 minute mark. Watch and listen carefully. Notice which representative addresses the issue from the standpoint of helping the woman and which from the standpoint of protecting the profits of the insurance companies.

Waking the Sleeping Elephant

The cartoon above fairly accurately depicts how conservative talk radio and cable-television news, broadcasting 24/7 and appealing to the lunatic fringe of the far-right, have hijacked the GOP and driven an agenda based on hatred, fear, and lies about the lawfully elected President of the United States.

Now at long last, it looks as if thinking Republicans may have awakened to the realization that such an agenda is not good for their party or for the country.

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Publication: The Columbus Dispatch; Date: Sep 23 2009; Section: Front Page; Page: A1

Secretary slams political 'trash talk'

LaHood blames drop in civility on hosts of radio, cable shows

By Joe Hallett THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

A Republican member of President Barack Obama's cabinet blistered conservative talk-radio hosts and cable-television news yesterday, saying they have eroded civility and impeded the nation's ability to solve big problems.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told The Dispatch that the level of "harsh discourse in Washington has probably reached an all-time high," and he partly blamed it on "all of this trash talk about the process and about politicians 24/7" on cable television and talk radio.

LaHood referred to criticism Obama received for appearing Sunday on five television news shows to promote his health-care overhaul. The secretary also indicated that even the president's bully pulpit is no match for the cacophony over the airwaves from the political right.

"He can't even compete with all this stuff that people are saying about him, so the idea that he did five interviews on Sunday, that's just minuscule compared to the kind of trash talk that goes on all week prior to that," LaHood said.

"All of this background, all of this trash talk in the background, it does not contribute to civil discourse, and it does not contribute to the government or the country's ability to solve big issues."

LaHood made his comments while in town to tout the benefits for Ohio of the federal economic-stimulus bill. LaHood, a former 14-year member of the U.S. House from Peoria, Ill., is one of two Republicans serving in Obama's cabinet. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates is the other.)

A moderate known for his ability to get along with both parties in Congress, LaHood was chosen to preside over the 1998 House impeachment vote of then-President Bill Clinton, and he voted to impeach.

LaHood is the second high-ranking Republican in the past dozen days to decry the influence of conservative talk-show hosts on civil political discourse.

On Sept. 11, retired longtime Ohio GOP Chairman Robert T. Bennett told the state party's governing board that the party should stand up against "some of our talking heads" who led the opposition to Obama's televised speech to schoolchildren or risk "losing the battle with middle America."

Bennett singled out Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Yesterday, LaHood named them and Fox News commentator Sean Hannity for diminishing civility. In the rural central-Illinois congressional district LaHood used to represent, he said, Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity dominate the daytime airwaves.

"Now, when you get farmers picking their corn and beans, driving around in their (tractor) cabs listening to, from 9 to 3, these guys all revved up against Obama, against everything that he's trying to accomplish, that gets people stirred up. …They're making an enormous amount of money by trashing politicians and trashing the process."

Referring to cable TV news shows, LaHood said, "Look, you know as well as I do that there's not enough news for 24 hours, so what happens is that these channels keep repeating politicians yelling at one another or people that are all exercised, and that gets people all revved up.

"And it also gives the idea that maybe these politicians don't know what they're doing."

Asked whether he envisions any changes in the media that might reverse the trend of incivility, LaHood replied, "In a word, no. Unless the people decide that the way, you know, (is) to shut it off, turn it off."

jhallett@dispatch.com

Ray LaHood, U.S. secretary of transportation

Good, Clean, Healthy Fun

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

You can fool some of the people... (Part 2)

Now that we know how and why the right-wingnuts are so successful in subverting attempts to bring real reform to Washington, Wall Street, and America in general, let's take a look at who is behind the whole pack of lies.

It's none other than Dick Armey, former Speaker of the House and chairman of the right-wing advocacy group Freedom Works.

Mr. Armey is on record saying, "Politics is about 97% fiction and 3% imagination," and he certainly has the fiction part down pat. He was the man behind the "Tea Party" rallies earlier this year as well as the town hall meeting disruptions, both of which used Freedom Works-financed professional lobbyists to spread lies about health care reform while presenting them as "grass roots" movements.

The greatest hypocrisy, however, is that Dick Armey, staunch opponent of government-run health care, has never had any health care plan other than one paid for with tax money.

Discover the truth about Dick Armey and the health coverage he enjoys - coverage to which he does not want to grant you access.

Click here or on the image below to watch Bill Moyers on the Man Behind the March.

We're Number 37

Here's a musical response to the song and dance routine the right-wingnuts have been performing in opposition to healthcare reform:

You can fool some of the people...

This is a most interesting video. It demonstrates how our memories work. It also shows how memory and perception can be manipulated by someone posing as an unbiased source of information.

Although it was not intended for this purpose, the video also shows precisely how and why the right-wing spin machine is so effective in duping the public.

In the video, Elizabeth Loftus inserts a bogus image into an ostensibly objective test, and Leslie Stahl is manipulated into believing she saw the bogus face even when presented with the actual face she had seen in the test.

In the same way and for completely ideological reasons the talking heads at FOX News, talk show hosts, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al., and the leaders of the GOP use conflation to control perception.

They present contradictory ideas (e.g. "Obama is a fascist" and "Obama is a socialist.") as if they were interchangeable. No person, however, can be both a fascist and a socialist because those are polar opposite political concepts.

Having established doubt in the minds of their audience they then repeat the conflation at every opportunity.

This makes it very difficult for people to recognize the truth; and, because most folks are predisposed to trust any person claiming to present "fair and balanced" information, they are duped into believing one lie after another.

A Cure For The Red-State Blues

I am an Ohioan. I was born, raised, educated, married, and will likely be buried here. However, from the time I first became aware of Ohio's political climate as a teenager, I have suffered from a chronic case of the red-state blues.

It's endemic among Ohioans who have come to recognize that greed, prejudice, and ignorance drive a regressive legislative agenda within the chambers of the Ohio Statehouse.

Finally, after more than fifty years, someone has come up with a plan offering hope and a possible cure...

The Right to Remain Ignorant

There are just some kind of men who—who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one..."

— Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

In To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee broached the subject of how otherwise intelligent, caring people let religious dogma justify prejudice toward others and insulate themselves, their behavior, and their belief system from introspection.

Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD—How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

Schaeffer is the bridge which links the truth expressed through fiction in Harper Lee's novel to the political, religious, and social realities of today's world.

In a recent post to his blog, he comments:

As a former Religious Right leader, who was raised (and home-schooled by my Evangelical-leader parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer) in the movement, let me explain just why the ordinary rules of decency don't apply to the right these days.

Watch Schaeffer's discussion of the danger to America posed by the religious right's rejection of facts.

Ties That Bind

There are two ridiculously inefficient and ineffective (no, they are not the same) economic entities within the American system of government which foster prejudice and prevent citizens of the richest country in the world from enjoying services people in less wealthy nations take for granted. Much like a shotgun wedding, each creates a tie which binds a critical service to a recalcitrant partner.

Public education and health care are the entities. The recalcitrant partners are property owners and employers respectively. In each case something which improves the lot of the entire populace depends on the largess of a portion of the populace for funding.

All modern societies, indeed all societies which have ever functioned above the level of nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers, have maintained themselves through an economic system of wealth redistribution. America is no exception. However, certain groups in America have consistently argued that this is not the case and that a complex society can exist without a functioning government-run economic system. They believe, or claim to believe, that America could get along just fine if taxes were eliminated and public services were provided by privately funded charities.

The United States tried that under the Articles of Confederation. It didn't work, and the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Ever since its ratification, however, those whose wealth depends on the existence of an underpaid but compliant workforce have taken steps to undermine any attempt by the government "to 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" as set forth in the Preamble.

Calling themselves "strict constructionists," they assert that to the Founding Fathers the phrase "ourselves and our Posterity" meant wealthy property owners like themselves, not ordinary citizens.

This narrow interpretation of four words within the Preamble to the Constitution allowed slavery to exist until the Civil War and then morph into Jim Crow after emancipation.

Today that same mindset undermines the public education system by tying funding to property taxes while sustaining a system of private educational institutions available predominately to the wealthy. It is also the reason health insurance is tied to employment. Such an arrangement denies adequate health care to millions of unemployed and under-employed Americans while coercing millions more with better-paying jobs to resign themselves to unjust and inequitable working conditions.

Remember this whenever you hear folks shouting "Socialism!" in response to the current attempt to reform the health care system.

Link to source: http://www.gocomics.com/patoliphant/2009/09/08/

Oh, the Absurdity!

I had intended to post this a while back but life got in the way. Oh well. Better late than never.

With all the spin occurring on the so-called cable news channels, I
regularly check BadReporter to help maintain balance.

Enjoy

Link to source: http://www.gocomics.com/badreporter/

If you fold a $100 bill just right...

Here's a bit of creative money-folding magic I thought you might enjoy. Both the subject line above and the image below are from www.farleftside.com. The commentary is mine.

George
===

Isn't it amazing what you can pass off as "revealed truth" if you're willing to alter or completely ignore the reality on which your conclusions are based?

Since Glenn Beck has built his entire career on doing just that, while making a ton of money in the process, I believe it's only fitting that someone decided to amend as well as fold a $100 bill to reveal this bit of truth about the FOX News bloviator.

amend |əˈmend|
verb [ trans. ]
make minor changes in (a text) in order to make it fairer, more accurate, or more up-to-date

Permalink to original: http://www.farleftside.com/2009/7-17-09.html