In its latest and desperate attempts to kill off health care reform, insurance industry lobbyists will unleash $1 million in HCR attack ads over the next few days. This is $1 million, by the way, that could be put to far better use such as funding treatments for patients. But who cares about patients?
The ads, which will run on cable, will focus on "setting the record straight about rising health care costs" as the Obama administration goes after big insurers for raising insurance rates.
I betcha the industry's attempts to set the record straight will be a verbatim replay of last summer's fear fest frenzies that were ginned up by the health industry lobbyists and its go to politicians. Why is it that the fear fests surrounding health care reform remind me of another orchestrated event called Iraq?
Fear coupled with deception.
Health insurance CEOs take home record profits while volunteer groups of doctors and nurses will roll up their sleeves to clean out animal stalls, if need be, to set up free health clinics in Republican held states that are hell holes for the jobless and uninsured.
In Texas we have Good Hair, nationally, well, what Republican politician has NOT invoked the Gipper over and over again. St. Reagan is the all purpose quote machine. Charlies Crist down in Florida is invoking him as his moderate, big tent Republican approach is overwhelmed by the Republican right-wing.
How Reagan ruined conservatism Battling my way through Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue, last weekend, I began to wonder how American conservatism had come to this. Ms Palin's book is smug, lightweight, nationalistic, entirely free of original ideas. How has this woman become the darling of the American right? How has she become so popular that some bookmakers make her the favourite to win the Republican party nomination in 2012?
And then I realised - the rot set in with Ronald Reagan
How Reagan ruined conservatism The most damaging idea propagated by the Reagan myth is the cult of the idiot-savant (the wise fool). You can see it in the very first line of Dinesh D'Souza's admiring biography of Reagan, which proclaims: "Sometimes it really helps to be a dummy." Mr D'Souza recounts numerous stories in which intellectuals - even conservative intellectuals - disdained Reagan. They scorned his tendency to spend cabinet meetings sorting jelly beans into different colours, and his taste for flaky anecdotes. But, Mr D'Souza concludes, the "dummy" was right and the pointy-heads were wrong.
This week on Left of College Station, Teddy covers all of the results of the primary elections including the surprising defeat of Don McLeroy in the State Board of Education District 9 Republican primary. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines, and this week will begin coverage of the local municipal elections.
We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"
The Party of No and Obstruction not only despises jobless and uninsured Americans, apparently it also loathes its donors, both big and small.
According to Politico, The RNC Finance Director gave a 74 page power point presentation to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Florida a couple of weeks ago. The presentation mocked at its donors urging fundraisers to appeal to their egos and play upon their fears.
The memo candidly confirms that the aim of such caricature is to amp up "fear" among the GOP's conservative base. The memo also makes fun of major RNC donors, categorizing some as "ego-driven" and easily pacified with "tchochkes" (a Slavic word for toys).
Go ahead Republicans. Keep on emptying your pockets for those who disrespect and ridicule you.
The reason we know about this no longer secret strategy is because someone attending the retreat had left behind a paper handout of the presentation. As we can see, the handout is now making its way through the tubes and Internets. The mainstream media, including FOX "News" has covered this.
Thanks for making our day you careless and irresponsible silly ones.
More info from diarist Deep Harm over at Daily Kos:
Because HVP is used in so many products, consumers can expect to see rolling recalls over subsequent weeks and months, as we saw during the pet food crisis of 2007. Consumers therefore need to take the initiative to protect their health by carefully examining labels on any processed foods they purchase and any already on pantry shelves. Keep in mind that the federal government's 'food safety' strategy serves the profit-making interests of industry, i.e., issuing narrowly focused recalls based on test results. Consumers, however, need to take an opposite approach, avoiding the consumption of all suspect products until proven safe.
(John Robert Behrman is an economist and fifth-generation Texan. He is Executive Vice-Chair of the Progressive Populist Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party and State Committeeman for Senate District 13 writing his column here on Texas Kaos with his personal views only - promoted by boadicea)
Nominations for Tax Assessor-Collector (voter registrar) and County Clerk (elections administrator) in both parties were swept by newbies. The incumbent and annointed successors went down in the GOP Primary, and a former County Chair and State representative lost in the Democratic Primary.
So, in November, four relatively inexperienced candidates will be contesting the two offices responsible for elections in Harris County.
The projections for Democratic turnout in Harris ran 40 to 60,000. The actual turnout was close to 100,000. Also hopeful is the data on the undervote. The undervote is a measure of the difference between the voter totals for candidates at the top of the ticket and those down ballot. That figure was 30+%.
What does this mean about November? Several things. First, out base is more energized than the dismal projections of the national electorate seems to be projecting for November. Voting in primary elections is not that much fun. The ballots are long and, outside of the races at the top of the ticket, few know or care about who is running. To have this kind of turnout is very encouraging and projected to November bodes well. Even more so, the undervote of 30% means that 70% of the primary voters have bought into the whole ticket, into the party itself. It means that they are more likely to vote in November as well.
A strong Democratic voter turnout in Harris in November is a very good thing for Democrats.
According to the health care industry, c. would be the correct answer. According to the GOP c. is also the correct answer.
Lately we've been hearing a lot of hot air and pure BS spewing from the mouths of Republicans on health care reform. When in front of TV cameras the GOP tools for the health care industry say they speak on behalf the American people. According to the GOP:
The American people don't want it.
Oh really? Since when? You, Sir and Madam, certainly do not speak for me or for the vast majority of Americans, thank you.
One would think that broadcast journalists would at the very least ask the merchants of misinformation to cite the source of their lie. Where is John Boehner getting his data that reveals the majority of the American people are opposed to health care reform?
Why do few broadcast journalists fact check Republican statements and ask them to reveal their sources of information when there are blatant and obvious differences between known facts and GOP myths?
Crickets are chirping and they will continue to chirp until a pollster polls viewers and readers.
Broadcast journalists are unprepared, essentially lazy and don't care.
Broadcast journalists possess few if any critical thinking skills.
Broadcast journalists can't think straight b/c of the distracting voices in their ear pieces.
Broadcast journalists can't think while reading teleprompters especially when there are voices in their ear pieces at the same time.
The voices in the ear pieces and the those feeding the words into the teleprompters work for the same interests as the Republicans who lie about HCR and just about everything else 24/7/365.
All of the above.
The Senator from Kentucky blocked extended federal unemployment benefits and Cobra health coverage for the down and out and jobless Americans. Both expired today for millions.
No one in the Senate could reason with the man who is obviously hell bent on a crusade to further punish the struggling and out of work families in his district and across the U.S. Senator Bunning does not care about people in Kentucky. Nor does he care about anyone other than his vile, mean-spirited and narcissistic self.
There is no reason for Senator Bunning to have done this other than spite and pure cold hearted vindictiveness. He is not running for a third term. He chose to retire but he obviously has every intention of heaping as much hell and misery upon the American people as possible until November.
It takes a Texas Republican to go as low as Bunning.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) took the floor after Reid to stick up for Bunning. He noted that there is broad bipartisan support for extending benefits, but said Bunning was right to take a stand against adding $10 billion to the deficit. He also pointed out that the jobs bill that Reid scrapped two weeks ago, crafted by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), contained an extension of UI and COBRA.
Can someone please tell me why Republicans continue to vote for politicians who so nakedly hate them?
(This is so much more polite than I was feeling when I read about McCain's comment. Thank you, Pollchecker for crossposting from the Great Orange Satan... - promoted by boadicea)
At today's health care summit, Senator McCain used Texas as an example of HCR. Bad example John.
Yesterday I had emailed Senators Cornyn and Hutchison in a hopeless attempt to prevail upon them to work with President Obama on passing health care reform. I knew that my plea was very likely a useless exercise in both the hopeless and the impossible.
At the very least, I thought, the horrible statistics I presented would perhaps grab the attention of one of their staff members.
Surely, I thought, both U.S. Senators would put aside their partisan differences, at least for a few hours, in order to serve the needs of those who elected them to office.
23 million folks will lose their insurance this year, 930,000 will file bankruptcy and 45,000 more people will die.
As we know Texas has the highest number of uninsured resident. Folks can learn about the appalling state of our health care system here and here.
Below is Senator Hutchison's response.
Hint: My efforts were a miserable failure. I did not get through. Senator Hutchison, it seems, has received $619,450 from the insurance industry and she is obviously working overtime to protect it.
None of the above statistics had any impact on her whatsoever. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison could care less about the plight of hard working Texans.
Texans are particularly aware of the need for health care reform, but it cannot come with a trillion dollar price tag and a government takeover of our health care system. Our state has over 6 million uninsured residents, the highest percentage of uninsured in the nation. This number poses a huge challenge for our hospitals, taxpayers, and many working individuals and families who cannot afford the health care coverage they need.
Lie 1: Several months ago, Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC challenged Senator Hutchison's assertions that the current proposals for HCR are a government takeover of health care. HCR is not a government takeover of the insurance industry. Mitchell is correct, Hutchison lied.
As far as 6 million uninsured residents in Texas are concerned, all have been posing problems 24/7/365 for doctors, hospitals and taxpayers. Senator Hutchison has been in the U.S. Senate since 1993. If she was so concerned about affordable insurance for Texans she would have done something about it by now.
Last week in Austin, an untreated mentally ill man with serious federal tax problems flew his plane into an IRS building. The suicide bomber, Joe Stack was a software engineer who owned a home and a pricey private plane. Instead of making reasonable efforts to work with the IRS to pay his tax burden, Mr. Stack chose the irrational and pathological path to violence. He killed a federal employee, Mr. Vernon Hunter and himself. Thirteen other federal employees were injured.
The long, rambling rant posted on a website eerily reflected the angry populist sentiments that have swept the country in the past year. In it, a Joe Stack inveighed against intrusive Big Brother government, corrupt corporate giants, irrational taxes, as well as the "puppet" George Bush. "I choose not to pretend that business as usual won't continue," he wrote. "I have just had enough. I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt." And then Stack apparently got in a Piper Cherokee PA-28 at about 9:40 a.m. at an airport in suburban Austin, Texas, and flew the plane into a commercial building housing an IRS office, killing himself, seriously injuring two people on the ground and starting a conflagration that lasted several hours.
The Texas Progressive Alliance reminds you that early voting runs through this Friday at 7 PM for the primaries as it brings you this week's blog highlights.
BossKitty at TruthHugger is amazed that anger is directed toward the Internal Revenue Service when Americans elect the very people who make the laws IRS enforces. Joe Stack targeted the wrong end of this chain. Taxpayers get end up owing money because they do not understand the laws their representatives make. Tax and Defiance - Short Sighted Protester, Joe Stack.
Governor, lately you've been pitching, twitching and puffing a lot of hot air about secession.
Texas is a real unique place all right and the Governor is a major contributor to its uniqueness.
Come on Governor, put your money where your mouth is. Just do it. Leave already. You can take all of your worshipers, i.e. secessionists, teabaggers, Birchers, birthers, racists and xenophobes with you.
Hit the road dude.
Leave, dude. Voters are the meanest old women you will have ever seen. You won't be packing any of our money with you when you leave, either.
But you can, Sir, help yourself to all of the creationism, witchcraft and voodoo science text books that you and your supporters put in our schools in yet another endless crusade of right wing conservative efforts to dumb down the children of Texas.
I'm sure you all will find a cozy place to establish a new Republic, Governor. Hell, Sir, you could name your new territory the New Republic of Teabagistan, Secessistan or Birchistan in honor of your strongest supporters. Below is a little reminder to help you sort out the guiding principles of your new Republic.
This would be a perfect time for you to leave Governor. After all, Bill White, Houston's former and very popular mayor raised $2.2 million last month. So far he has over $9 mil in his war chest.
Of course we evil doing liberals know for absolute certain that Republicans would never, ever, hell would have to freeze over,crack down on a scam that rips off people but is good for business.
Houston's conservative readers in Houston did not want to know about the totally screwed temporary but really permanent employees as reported by Rick Casey. With all due respect to Casey, he is not exactly a flaming liberal pinko communist progressive.
Houston area conservatives tore into Casey because they did not like his article.
In response to a comment I had posted on Mr. Casey's online article, a conservative responded with the following.
....as far as jobs and benefits, the unemployment rate has increased dramatically since the Demos took charge of both houses of Congress and Presidency. this is because evil white old white guys, the Chinese who hold our debt and many others are scared of the Demos reckless spending that will soon bankrupt the country.
Hint: This dude watches FOX and listens to Rush.
I wonder where this guy was when then Vice President Dick Cheney said deficits didn't matter and he and Bush stuck an unnecessary war and tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans at the same time, putting all on our national credit card? All of a sudden Republicans are all but hysterical over the deficit. And yet when the Senate introduced a bill proposing a deficit reduction commission 7 Republicans who supported it voted NO when the President said it was a good idea. Talk about political bi-polar disorderly dysfunction syndrome. What is wrong with them?
The truth of the matter is, Democrats are really good at cleaning up Republican made messes. We know what it takes to rebuild a devastated economy and we know how to catch terrorist leaders. The Obama Administration has caught more Taliban terrorist leaders, by the way, in one month than the Bush Administration caught in 6 years. And U.S. troops seized a Taliban headquarters in Afghanistan today. Poor Dick Cheney must have fainted when he learned about this. He is running out of stones to throw at President Obama. So much for Democrats being weak on national security.
The anti-choice protest 40 Days for Life began yesterday, and for the next forty days clients of Planned Parenthood will be subjected to harassment from protesters. The protest, which takes place during the forty days of Lent and forty days in the fall, focuses on reproductive health care facilities and specifically on Planned Parenthood. This protest has been happening for several years and each year they have expanded the protest to more locations around the country. However, locally the protest has received less media coverage and the amount of protesters who have continued the vigil throughout the protest has also diminished. But, something is different this time.
What makes this 40 Days for Life different is that it is the first protest since the former director of Planned Parenthood Abby Johnson resigned, and joined the organizer of the protest the Coalition for Life. When Johnson first resigned I was among the first to question the validity of the claims that she made against Planned Parenthood. Recently investigations by Texas Monthly, and the Texas Observer also raised questions about the legitimacy her conversion. Fellow KEOS radio show host and blogger, Shelly Blair, was interview for both of those stories, and appeared on Biased Transmission last night and gave more insight into those events.
That is the only thing that is different this time. Nothing has changed about the message of the protesters, and none of the information given to clients has become more factual. Nothing has change the fact that women need access to reproductive health care, and the protesters continue to harass and impede women's ability to access reproductive health care while having their privacy protected. Nothing has changed the dedication of the employees of Planned Parenthood, and the volunteers who escort patients into the facility. Nothing has changed except that there is a new face on the other side of the fence.
