SGW says: His Kung Fu Is Strong
John Cole: My Good Buddy Tom is Gonna Fix EverythingCongressman Anthony Weiner walked onto the set of Fox & Friends to talk about health care reform and straight owned the joint. Rarely will you see even the best of Congressional Democrats so thoroughly smack down right wing talking points without even blinking an eye. If President Obama were smart, he would track Weiner down and ask him to help craft some speeches and some talking points for the rest of the Democratic caucus to use going forward. And that's real.
Steve Benen quickies:What a jackass:
Yesterday CNN’s Rick Sanchez aired a segment from a health care town hall where a weeping constituent explained to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that her husband’s health insurer refuses to cover his treatment for a traumatic brain injury. As the woman continued to cry, Coburn told her that his office would try to assist her individually.So why is MoveOn.Org and the other groups pushing for health care reform making sure every single American with a problem is not sending Tom Coburn mail, emailing him asking for help, and calling his office to help him? Why is there not already a “Tom Coburn’s Medical Miracles” website up for people to write “Dear Tom” letters? Why can’t Democrats play this game like Republicans?
Christ on a crutch, the entire Republican health care proposal can be summed up as “Voting No and blaming Obama for not being bipartisan enough,” and the Democrats and their left-wing allies are just hopeless.
* John McCain today told supportive constituents today that President Obama supports the Constitution. The senator was roundly booed for the comment.
* On a related note, McCain's discussion with constituents was aired live on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. I don't why.
- Think Progress: Fox News’ Shep Smith debunks McCain’s charge that reconciliation would be a ‘drastic change.’
This afternoon in his town hall, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he is “unalterably opposed” to using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform. “It would be a drastic change in the way that the United States Senate does business.” Fox News’ Shep Smith fact-checked McCain’s claim immediately upon the conclusion of the town hall. “The truth is Republicans used this in 2001, 2003, and 2005 to pass then-President George Bush’s tax cuts,” Smith said. Armed with some research, he then reported this quote from Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH):
“Reconciliation is a rule of the Senate (that) has been used before for purposes exactly like this on numerous occasions.” … “Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don’t think so. … The point, of course, is this: If you have 51 votes for your position, you win.”
Smith concluded that if Democrats “were to take health care and put it in under reconciliation, they could do that.” Watch it:
* Obama's FCC will enforce net neutrality and vowed to go after companies that violate its tenets.
* South Carolina Republicans continue to weigh impeachment against Gov. Mark Sanford (R).
* The result of our public discourse: "A 'vandalism spree' hit the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters in Denver today, where the 'vandal allegedly used a hammer to smash' 11 windows."
* Rush Limbaugh thinks the president might be after his genitalia.
* Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars (R) sure does seem to hate gay people.
* Sean Hannity invited a guest onto his program last night to complain about comparisons between right-wing activists and "brown shirts." The guest proceeded to compare the Democratic agenda to "National Socialism" and accuse administration officials of having swastikas on their arms.
Kurtz: (TPM): Golden Oldies
As over the top as death panels and gun-wielding tea partiers have been, the biggest bamboozlement of the summer in terms of sheer audacity is the GOP's sudden concern for Medicare. Since everyone seems to have forgotten, we hit the video highlights of the GOP's 40-year effort to pull the plug on Medicare.
Josh Marshall: Serious Question to Consider
Can Health Care Reform survive the fact that Arkansas voters have basically lost their minds?
That's a poetic way to put it. But I'm not sure anyone should be betting on Blanche Lincoln's vote on health care.
Hint: Most Arkansans trust Limbaugh more than Obama and a majority in the state is either 'birther' or 'birther-curious'.
Steven Pearlstein (WaPost): The GOP's Top Chef Starves a Beast and Poisons a Debate
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, this week revealed a secret Republican plan that would end up eliminating all federal farm subsidies; closing down Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks; selling off the interstate highway system; and canceling Head Start, subsidized school lunches and the entire college loan program.
The plan came to light as a result of an op-ed piece this week in The Washington Post in which the party chairman committed the GOP to spending an ever-increasing share of the federal budget, and the national income, on Medicare. When combined with other Republican promises -- to balance the budget, protect defense spending and never, ever raise anyone's taxes -- the inescapable inference is that the government would run out of money for every other domestic program sometime around 2035.
Steele's stunning announcement brings the conservative strategy of "starving the beast" to a new level. Under the guise of protecting the elderly, Republicans hope to realize their dream of eliminating half a dozen Cabinet agencies, firing tens of thousands of government workers and ending government regulation as we know it.
Steele's op-ed was the latest salvo in his party's campaign to defeat President Obama's health-care reform effort at all costs and build public support for a Republican alternative that remains, to this day, a closely held secret. The new Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, however, hints at the outlines of the GOP domestic strategy.
Steele promised that under the Republican health plan, runaway Medicare spending would continue unabated. Not only would that mean no cuts in benefits, but it would ensure that reimbursement rates to doctors, hospitals and drugmakers would continue to rise faster than inflation, regardless of how much they earn or how unnecessary or wasteful the services they provide. Any effort to contain future spending growth, Republicans now believe, is nothing more than a "raid" on Medicare, the government-run health plan that Republicans were against before they were for it.
The country's top Republican official also vowed to cut off all federal funding for research to determine what are the most effective treatments for heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even that new scourge, restless leg syndrome. Left unclear was whether he prefers to have such research done by the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries, but one suspects that is the case.
On the issue of end-of-life care, Steele was uncompromising: In a Republican world, no government funds could be used to pay doctors to provide information about living wills, hospices or palliative care, whether seniors and their families ask for it or not.
"Government programs that seem benign at first can become anything but," Steele explained in articulating the new philosophy. Once back in power, look for Republicans to apply the same approach to issues such as flu vaccinations, disaster relief and air traffic control.
According to Steele, Republicans will also seek to outlaw "any effort to ration health care based on age." You don't have to be a lawyer like Steele to understand that would effectively make it a federal crime for any hospital to refuse a heart transplant to a 95-year-old, or for any doctor to refuse to prescribe Viagra to a sexually precocious seventh-grader. Although Steele did not indicate what the penalty would be, he did not rule out the death penalty.
Indeed, Republicans seem determined to preserve the uniquely American system under which health care is rationed today -- on the basis of employment status and ability to pay. According to the respected Institute of Medicine, this market-based approach to rationing has held the number of untimely deaths each year to a mere 18,000 uninsured souls. Thanks to Medicare, all of those victims are younger than 65, but apparently that is the kind of age-based rationing that real Republicans can embrace.
After reading his broadside, one is left wondering exactly what health reform plan Steele thought he was attacking. At one point, Steele claims that Democrats would prevent Americans from keeping their doctors or an insurance plan they like. Later, he warns that government will soon be setting caps on how many heart surgeries could be performed in the United States each year. Where is he getting this stuff? Has the chairman of the Republican Party somehow gotten hold of a top-secret plan for a government takeover of the health-care system that GOP operatives snatched during a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters?
If all that sounds spurious and unsubstantiated, it is. And like many of the overstated claims in this column, its purpose is to highlight the lies, distortions and political scare tactics that Steele and other Republicans have used to poison the national debate over health reform.
Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?
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