Family Research Monkey Council, Values Voter Monkey Summit, Monkey Expert Roy Blunt (R-MO), Bill O'Reilly Gets Monkey Courage Award & Prejean Primate.

And now for something completely different.


I'm going to take a not very well thought out, possibly racist statement by Congressman Roy Blunt (R-MO) and prove the truth of it.


At the Family Research Council Action's 2009 Values Voter Summit Roy Blunt speaking to a like minded audience of the self-righteous decided to tell an amusing anecdote.


Trying to be humorous is always a dangerous thing for a right winger to attempt. I mean, humor is not one of their strong suits.


A lot of folks on the left took Blunt's little story and figured that it must have racist overtones. Possible, but I doubt it. Like humor, nuance is something not really grasped by the Right.


Here's the story of Blunt's story. Thanks, Talk to Action.


Congressman Blunt then went on to tell an anecdote which suggested that life in Washington, for GOP members today, is comparable to the lot of imperial British agents in India who had to contend with monkeys running amok on a golf course that the colonial occupiers had carved out of the verdant Indian jungle. There was a problem, the Missouri Representative explained; monkeys would come out of the jungle, grab golf balls, and throw them about. Amidst swelling laughter from his audience Roy Blunt narrated,

"I could go into great and long detail about how many things they did to try and eliminate the 'monkey problem.' But they never got it done, so finally this golf course and this golf course only, they passed a rule and the rule was - you have to play the ball where the monkey throws it. [audience laughter swells] And that is the rule in Washington all the time."

It seemed like a direct window into the psyche of the revanchist wing of the GOP; politics is a golf game and unruly Democrat "monkeys" have swarmed out of the jungle to disrupt the play. Since it is impractical to "eliminate" the monkeys, accommodations will have to be made. Republicans will now "play the ball where the monkey throws it."


If Congressman Blunt would have expanded on the story he could have made it something rare for a Republican or for the Family Research Council, a factual point. So I'll make ol' Roy's point for him.


Indeed, the monkeys do get in the way of efficient government. Take health care, we want it and the Brits have had it since 1948. You'd think that after all this time with universal health care Great Britain would have it's monkey problem handled.


They don't and look who the monkeys actually are.


The system suffered greatly under the "conservative" governments, to the point that is almost collapsed under its own weight back in the 1970s and 1980s, as these "conservatives" withheld funding, and ordered unrealistic changes in the system under the guise of "efficiency." During the Thatcher years, only about 6% of GDP was expended on health care, and resulted in an extremely high level of dissatisfaction with the system. Since then, subsequent governments have increased funding greatly, bringing spending levels up to 8.4% of GDP, which is just slightly below the 8.9% average of OECDs, and about 1% below the EU average, and you'd be hard pressed to find a poll in which the British express overwhelming dissatisfaction with NHS.

Yes, the monkeys on the golf course are little right wing, conservative monkeys. And they are more than just a nuisance, they are deadly. At least, for the 45,000 Americans who will die this year because they have no health care.


Also at the "Holier Than Thou Summit" Bill O'Reilly was awarded the “Media Courage Award.” It seems that to receive this award requires so much courage that none of the other media were even able to watch the acceptance speech.

It's hard to imagine the amount of courage that it must take to stand up and fight liberalism, night after night on Fox News where the audience is so well informed that it riots at even the hint of anything that's not "Fair and Balanced".


Bill has been courageous ever since he got out of high school when he showed it by courageously avoiding military service.


Way to go Bill. You deserve this award. You and the Family Research Council are made for each other.


Kinda like another one of their guests, Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California who believes that homosexuality is not natural, yet man-made hooters are.


So I'll leave you with this little slice of Americana. The folks who believe that they are mainstream America. The folks who believe that they are doing God's will by trying to tell the rest of us how to live. The folks who would be more than happy to put you down if you don't listen. The other end of the political spectrum.


Later, Sphere: Related Content

9/12 Teabagging Protesters Motivations and Explanations, Rep. Joe Wilson (Goober-SC), Extreme GOP, Religious Right & Charles Darwin.

Wow! Look at all those people.

This is supposed to be a shot of the 9/12 protesters last Saturday.

Since turning 60-70,000 people into a million would be a miracle of Biblical proportions a lot of folks on the Right will instinctively believe it.

And like a lot of things that they instinctively believe, it would be wrong.

There's another big problem with the photograph: it doesn't include the National Museum of the American Indian, a building located at the corner of Fourth St. and Independence Ave. that opened on Sept. 14, 2004. (Looking at the photograph, the building should be in the upper right hand corner of the National Mall, next to the Air and Space Museum.) That means the picture was taken before the museum opened exactly five years ago. So clearly the photo doesn't show the "tea party" crowd from the Sept. 12 protest.

Now that America's Ignorancefest 2009 is over, what conclusions can we draw from this spontaneous, grassroots, Fox News/Freedom Works/Health Insurance Industry sponsored and coordinated outpouring of white people's inability to grasp reality?

Well, the most obvious thing that they are wrong about is who they are. They believe that they are independent thinking defenders of the Constitution and the "American Way of Life". You gotta admit that sounds a lot better than corporate lackeys.

What's really happening with these protests is that the genuine rage and not unreasonable economic insecurity of these citizens is being stoked, exploited, distorted and manipulated by movement leaders for entirely different ends. The people who are leading them -- Rush Limbaugh, the Murdoch-owned Fox News, Glenn Beck, business-dominated organizations of the type led by Dick Armey -- are cultural warriors above everything else. They're all in a far different socioeconomic position than the "middle-income Americans" whose anger they're ostensibly representing. Their principal preoccupation is their cultural contempt for various groups (illegal immigrants, the "undeserving" poor, liberals) and their desire to preserve the status quo whereby the prime beneficiaries of government policies remain themselves: the super rich and the interests that control Washington. It's certainly true that many of these protesters are driven by the standard right-wing cultural issues which have long shaped that movement -- social issues, religious fears, cultural and racial divisions, and hatred for "liberals" as Communist-Muslim-Terrorist-lovers. For many, all of that is intensified by the humiliation of being completely thrown out of power, at the hands of the first black President. But much of it is fueled by the pillaging of the corporations and Wall St. interests which own their government.

Ouch!

70,000 dupes getting together to show the world just how little they know about the things that they are protesting against.

Congressman Joe Wilson, (Idiot-SC) is a microcosm of the 70,000 and the Right's approach to the health care debate. I could care less that Wilson shouted, "You lie!" to the President on the floor of Congress. That's just free speech. However, if you are going to do a major breach of decorum then you should at least be correct in your accusations. It's not a hard thing to do, ten seconds on Google would have saved Joe from showing the world just how big of a moron he really is. Now we all know.

The 70,000 Fox News induced protesters are just Joe Wilson gone Viral.

Neal Gabler, Boston Globe covers this phenomenon nicely in his article, The extreme Republican Party.

Let’s not mince words here: We now have an entire political party that is not only dedicated to the mediocre. It is dedicated to the nearly deranged.

Nearly?

Anyway, we kinda know what they are protesting against, which is more than they seem to do. So what are they for?

That's easy, just type into Google, Health Insurance Horror Stories.

"When Steve and Leslie Shaeffer's daughter, Selah, was diagnosed at age 4 with a potentially fatal tumor in her jaw, they figured their health insurance would cover the bulk of her treatment costs." But "shortly after Selah's medical bills hit $20,000, Blue Cross stopped covering them and eventually canceled her coverage retroactively."
So begins a recent report in The Los Angeles Times titled "Sick but Insured? Think Again," which offers a series of similar horror stories, and suggests that these stories represent a growing trend: more and more health insurers are finding ways to yank your insurance when you get sick.

Beats the hell out of me why they would want more of that. But there it is and that's what we'll be getting without the public option in the Health Care Reform Bill.

70,000 people getting together to show their support for health insurance company profits and taking a dump on their fellow citizens. I'll bet Glenn Beck is proud.

To be honest, some of the protesters could care less about the insurance companies, Fox News, you, me or anything else. They are on a mission, they believe that they are doing the Lord's work. Like He would need any help from these cretins, right?

If you're not fortunate enough to live in the Bible Belt and can't really experience this first hand, then I would highly recommend reading the full article, Glenn Beck and The 9/12 Marchers: Subversives From Within. It's about a growing group of people who want to do away with the America that we know and replace it with a country based on some lame preacher's interpretation of the Bible.

Sounds far-fetched? Well, both of my U.S. Senators from Oklahoma belong to that C. Street cult known as "The Family".

The tactics that progressives develop for actually winning against the right have to involve far more than politics. They have to also involve ceaseless vigilance against an enemy that has now -- literally -- raised up an armed, paranoid and deluded alternative nation within our borders and created a fifth column to undermine the United States and our democracy. They need to be called out by the rest of us in no uncertain terms.
Long term the Religious Right subculture has to be understood, then exposed for what it is: an anti-democracy movement built on willful lies with potentially violent underpinnings in the thrall of an apocalyptic cult of revenge on everyone not like "us." It is also the useful tool of corporate lobbyists. Who use these shock troops of the proudly ignorant for non-ideological reasons.

This article was written by Frank Schaeffer, he knows because he was once a big dog in the Religious Right.

The BBC has just made a movie about the life of Charles Darwin. But it looks like it won't be shown here. Any guesses as to why?

"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.
"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.

In light of a recent survey, it looks like the health care reform protesters will have to stop seeing their doctors. Because they are communists! At least by their own reasoning.

A RWJF survey summarized in the September 14, 2009 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine shows that 62.9 percent of physicians nationwide support proposals to expand health care coverage that include both public and private insurance options—where people under the age of 65 would have the choice of enrolling in a new public health insurance plan (like Medicare) or in private plans.

If you think that things are crazy now, just wait until we tackle the most important issue: Climate Change.

Later

Sphere: Related Content

Stand Up for Single Payer/Public Option. Stand With Doctor Howard Dean.

Click on it and sign the petition.

If you care more for the American people than you do for the health insurance industry's profits, it's the right thing to do.

Thanks.

Sphere: Related Content

Right Wing E-Mail, Confusion, Evil Democrat Social Security, Obama's Ten Commandments & Right Wing Humor?.

I got this in my e-mail, it was titled, "Obama's Health Care Letter".

To the average right winger who is intended to be the recipient it's obvious that Obama wants to kill off all the elderly in this country.

Well, all the elderly white folks.

But if you actually go to the trouble of reading the cartoon, the letter is from the health care industry.

Which would make this cartoon a fairly accurate representation of what is really going on.

But for right wingers, accuracy doesn't enter into the equation. They tend to be more instinctive, rather than rational beings and their instincts are predicated on misperceptions and out and out lies put out by the Right Wing Propaganda Machine. "Gullibility r' Us". Not to mention their racial, sexual and religious hangups.

So once again we'll delve into Right Wing Fantasy Land by checking out the Right Wing Propaganda Machine's lowest tech, but nonetheless effective, method of spreading their version of the gospel.

Hopefully, this will be done over several posts because they pack a lot of crap into a single e-mail.

The first is about Social Security, it fits into their current campaign of Obama and the Democrats are turning this country into a socialist/communist/fascist nation. They use all three terms because most of them don't really know what they mean.

Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones too)

Weren't taught or just didn't know this. Be sure and show it to your kids. They need a little history lesson on what's what.

And it doesn't matter whether you are Democrat of Republican.

Facts are facts!!!

Our Social Security

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program.

He promised:

1.) That participation in the program would be completely voluntary.

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the program,

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,

4.) That the money the participants put into the independent 'Trust Fund' rather than into the General Operating Fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no otherGovernment program, and,

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the federal government to 'putaway, you may be interested in the following:

-------------------------------------------------- -----------

Q: Which political party took Social Security from the Independent 'Trust Fund' and put it in to the General Fund so that Congress could spend it? A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate.

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Q: Which political party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding? A: The Democratic Party.

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Q: Which political party started taxing Social Security annuities? A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the 'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Q: Which political party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?AND MY FAVORITE: A: That's right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, they began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them even though they never paid a dime into it!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away! And the worst part about it is, uninformed citizens believe it!

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, some Democrats are awfullysure of what isn't so. But it's worth a try.

How many people canYOU send this to?Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.

AND CONGRESS GIVES THEMSELVES 100% RETIREMENTFOR ONLY SERVING ONE TERM!!!'

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.'-Thomas Jefferson

Yes, "Facts are facts!!!" and that's about the only fact in this. Fortunately, there are folks who save me a lot of trouble by checking into these facts.

So here's the first paragraph of FactCheck.org's debunking of these "facts".

This elaborate collection of falsehoods is so detailed that we believe it must be an intentional and malicious effort at disinformation. It grafts some new whoppers on top of a list that we debunked in April 2004, in a special report we called "Lies in the E-mail, Part 2." The earlier version, we said, was "full of laughably inaccurate claims," and this one is worse.

Yet there are plenty of folks out there who believe this laughably inaccurate stuff and they vote and they are armed. Plus they see the rest of us as the enemy.

Here's an example.

© 2009 The Patriot Update. Feel free to circulate this article, but please give credit and link to The Patriot Update!Click here for the Online Version.

I certainly want to give credit where it's due.

After observing Obama on the campaign trail and during his first six months in office, we have concluded that our President lives and governs according to his own set of "Ten Commandments." They're certainly NOT the Ten Commandments you learned in Sunday School. In fact, many are the direct opposite! To prove that our conclusions are correct, you will find a link to source documentation for each commandment on the Patriot Update web site.

Source documentation, that's a damned funny way to describe NewsMax.

I. Thou shalt have no God in America , except for me. For we are no longer a Christian nation and, after all, I am the chosen One. (And like God, I do not have a birth certificate.) SOURCE

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, unless it is my face carved on Mt. Rushmore . SOURCE

III. Thou shalt not utter my middle name in vain (or in public). Only I can say Barack Hussein Obama. SOURCE

IV. Remember tax day, April 15th, to keep it holy. SOURCE

V. Honour thy father and thy mother until they are too old and sick to care for. They will cost our public-funded health-care system too much money. SOURCE

VI. Thou shalt not kill, unless you have an unwanted, unborn baby. For it would be an abomination to punish your daughter with a baby. SOURCE

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery if you are conservative or a Republican. Liberals and Democrats are hereby forgiven for all of their infidelity and immorality, but the careers of conservatives will be forever destroyed. SOURCE

VIII. Thou shalt not steal, until you've been elected to public office. Only then is it acceptable to take money from hard-working, successful citizens and give it to those who do not work, illegal immigrants, or those who do not have the motivation to better their own lives. SOURCE

IX. Thou shalt not discriminate against thy neighbor unless they are conservative, Caucasian, or Christian. SOURCE

X. Thou shalt not covet because it is simply unnecessary. I will place such a heavy tax burden on those that have achieved the American Dream that, by the end of my term as President, nobody will have any wealth or material goods left for you to covet. SOURCE

Don't you just pity the white, conservative Christians. They're just so persecuted. Well, they think they are! And they'll look you right in the eye and tell you it's not paranoia if it's really happening to you. If you happen to mention it during a conversation. Which I do. Well hell, I live right here in the big middle of them and I like to have a little fun. And it's a lot of fun to mess with people who actually think that Fox News is "Fair and Balanced". It's my hobby.

I'll leave you with a little of what passes for humor on the right.

Drinking with a Redneck Girl

A Mexican, an Arab, and a redneck girl are in the same bar. When the Mexican finishes his beer, he throws his glass in the air, pulls out his pistol, and shoots the glass to pieces. He says, 'In Mexico , our glasses are so cheap we don't need to drink with the same one twice.'

The Arab, obviously impressed by this, drinks his beer, throws it into the air, pulls out his AK-47, and shoots the glass to pieces... He says, 'In the Arab World, we have so much sand to make glasses that we don't need to drink with the same one twice either...'

The redneck girl, cool as a cucumber, picks up her beer, downs it in one gulp, throws the glass into the air, whips out her 45, and shoots the Mexican and the Arab. Catching her glass, setting it on the bar, and calling for a refill, she says, 'In America we have so many illegal aliens that we don't have to drink with the same ones twice.'

' God Bless America

Naw, they're not racist, xenophobic, homophobic, neurotic or paranoid, right wingers are what made this country great. Don't believe me, just ask one.

Acually I have done quite a bit of drinking with redneck girls in the past. And those stories are no doubt more interesting than the ones I post now.

And since today's my 26th wedding anniversary I'll say no more about it.

Thanks for putting up with me all these years, Boo-Boo.

Later.

Sphere: Related Content

Blue Dog Democrat: A Right Wing Nut by Any Other Name is Still..., Health Care Reform, Dan Boren and Maxine Waters.

OK, just who are the Blue Dog "Democrats"?

Well that's easy, considering that these people are actually proud of their efforts to destroy the Democratic Party and what it stands for.

From their own website,

Blue Dog Leadership Team

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Blue Dog Co-Chair for AdministrationRep. Baron Hill (IN-09), Blue Dog Co-Chair for PolicyRep. Charlie Melancon (LA-03), Blue Dog Co-Chair for CommunicationsRep. Heath Shuler (NC-11), Blue Dog Whip

Blue Dog Members

Altmire, Jason (PA-04) Arcuri, Mike (NY-24)Baca, Joe (CA-43)Barrow, John (GA-12)Berry, Marion (AR-01)Bishop, Sanford (GA-02)Boren, Dan (OK-02)Boswell, Leonard (IA-03) Boyd, Allen (FL-02)Bright, Bobby (AL-02)Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18)Carney, Christopher (PA-10)Chandler, Ben (KY-06)Childers, Travis (MS-01)Cooper, Jim (TN-05)Costa, Jim (CA-20)Cuellar, Henry (TX-28)Dahlkemper, Kathy (PA-03)Davis, Lincoln (TN-04)Donnelly, Joe (IN-02)Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08)Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)Gordon, Bart (TN-06)Griffith, Parker (AL-05) Harman, Jane (CA-36)Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD)Hill, Baron (IN-09)Holden, Tim (PA-17)Kratovil, Jr., Frank (MD-01)McIntyre, Mike (NC-07)Marshall, Jim (GA-03)Matheson, Jim (UT-02)Melancon, Charlie (LA-03)Michaud, Mike (ME-02)Minnick, Walt (ID-01)Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05)Moore, Dennis (KS-03)Murphy, Patrick (PA-08)Nye, Glenn (VA-02) Peterson, Collin (MN-07)Pomeroy, Earl (ND)Ross, Mike (AR-04)Salazar, John (CO-03)Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47)Schiff, Adam (CA-29)Scott, David (GA-13)Shuler, Heath (NC-11)Space, Zack (OH-18)Tanner, John (TN-08)Taylor, Gene (MS-04)Thompson, Mike (CA-01)Wilson, Charles (OH-06)

What purpose do these Blue Dog "Democrats" serve?

According to their website,

The fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition was formed in 1995 with the goal of representing the center of the House of Representatives and appealing to the mainstream values of the American public. The Blue Dogs are dedicated to a core set of beliefs that transcend partisan politics, including a deep commitment to the financial stability and national security of the United States. Currently there are 51 members of the Blue Dog Coalition.

"Center"? Better make that "Way Right". "Mainstream values of the American public", how about "Twisted values of the American Right". "A core set of beliefs that transend partisan politics", apparently their "core set of beliefs" is that the Republicans are right and "transend partisan politics" is just obvious BS. Maybe they can fool the blissfully ignorant with that transending partisan politics line. They should really hire someone who knows something about fantasy writing to do this stuff. And they do have a commitment to the financial stability and national security of this country. That is, if you remove the code words and replace them with what they actually mean. "Financial stability", that means "Status Quo", in other words, keep things like they are now, the rich getting richer and the rest of us getting crapped on. No tax hikes for the wealthy or Big Business, we can cut services instead. "National Security" is code for throwing taxpayer dollars at military contractors while doing virtually nothing for the troops.

There probably are 51 members, but since this is from their website, who can be sure?

The Blue Dogs were called the Bush Dogs by discerning observers. Wonder why?

A tightly-knit group of self-styled moderate and conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives known as the Blue Dog Coalition supported controversial legislation granting the Bush administration expanded powers to spy on Americans.

The Blue Dogs have apparently informed the Democratic leadership in the House that they support the ongoing occupation of Iraq.

The Blue Dogs have provided key votes on controversial bills backed by the Bush administration. In September of 2006, 31 Democratic representatives voted with the Republican majority in the House to pass The Military Commissions Act. The controversial act empowered Bush to designate individuals as "enemy combatants," and deny them certain legal rights.

"The FISA bill is an absolute embarrassment. The idea that Congress would pass legislation, in this day and age, that would allow the government to spy on Americans with out any independent review from the courts or Congress is unbelievable."

You even have to pass an ideological purity test to Join the Blue Dogs.

According to Mahoney, he faced a thorough vetting process before being accepted into the group. "You have to be interviewed and accepted by the group. You have to be able to demonstrate that you're ideologically supportive of being fiscally conservative. You show them speeches and statements you've made in the past," Mahoney told the Charlotte Sun, a local paper from his district.

Wow. I'd be happy to show them some of my statements.

Let's recap, the Blue Dogs claim to be fiscally responsible, yet they backed Bush's trillion dollar war for no reason.

So, what are the Blue Dogs doing for us now? Quite a bit actually, if you're an insurance company. Squat, if your uninsured or underinsured.

The support for Blue Dogs from health care professionals is even more evident. Health pros are among the top 20 industry donors to 38 Blue Dogs since 1989 and are the No. 1 donor for five of them. Health pros have also given the typical Blue Dog $47,550 more than the typical non-Blue Dog Democrat in the House. This month the American Medical Association, which lobbies on behalf of doctors, also came out against a public health insurance plan. The AMA is among the top 20 contributors to 10 Blue Dogs since 1989.

Insurance and pharmaceutical companies fear that a public health option would allow the government to control costs and steal business. And with the Blue Dogs leading the charge against the government-funded plan, the industries might just get their way. Without any support from the GOP, two-thirds of the coalition's members, who mostly represent Southern and Midwestern states, would have to get behind the House legislation, according to Kaiser Health News.

The Blue Dogs by working hand in hand with their ideological soulmates, the GOP and the Mainstream Media, are going to blow the smartest thing that this country has been trying to do in a long time.

But be forewarned, the rot from within the Republican Party doesn’t mean Republicans can’t still win elections. They know how to drive up the “negatives” of their opponents. In a rare display of candor, North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry said: “Our goal is to bring down the approval numbers for [Speaker] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint.” He boasted about the GOP’s “strategy” going forward: “We will lose on legislation. But we will win the message war every day, and every week, until November 2010.” This Republican “communications” operation is already in full swing with the corporate media playing the usual enabler role.

The Blue Dogs provide an opening for the Republicans to “triangulate” against the progressives inside the Democratic Party. They’re calling for “belt tightening” at a time of severe under-consumption and high employment. Republican leaders in the Senate will try to use the Evan Bayhs and Blanche Lincolns of the Blue Dog faction as a wedge to defeat vital parts of President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda.

Blue Dogs, willing dupes of the Right.

But there are still some real Democrats who have the cojones to stand up and say what needs to be said.

WATERS: Well that may be difficult for Rahm Emanuel, because don't forget -- he recruited most of them. As when he was over in the Congress, in the leadership, Rahm Emanuel recruited more conservative members and based on some of the information I'm getting, they told them that they could vote the way they wanted to vote, that they would not interfere with what was considered their philosophy about some of these things. So, now the chickens have come home to roost.

But many of these Blue Dogs represent districts that have strong pockets of poverty and minorities and they're not representing them with this approach that they're taking. And so I don't know whether or not there will be people running against them. Certainly we're not organized to run anybody against anybody, that's not normally what's done. But there may be people out there listening and observing all of this who may get motivated based on what they're seeing, and throw their hat into the ring.

The folks over a Open Left have been on top of this for a while. You should really check them out, excellent stuff.

Without challenging these members, we will never be able to get progressive legislation through Congress. Or, to put it another way, we think expanded warrantless wiretapping authority is awful for any President to have because we don't want to be spied on. We think the Iraq war is really bad and that troops should be withdrawn. We don't agree with Bush Dog Democrats on the substance of their policy ideas, nor do we think it's a good thing that they are helping George W. Bush govern in an effective working conservative majority.

That was from 2007, they're now fighting the Bush Dogs on health care. The principle's the same.

My personal "Dog" went on MSNBC to lie about health care.

One of the most recalcitrant Democrats in the health care debate said on Wednesday that his skepticism about a public health insurance option was driven by concern for the health of private insurers.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting," Blue Dog Democrat Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma said that he generally agreed that a government-run insurance program could effectively lower costs for consumers.

"The problem," he argued, "is in a state like Oklahoma, where we have a lot of private insurers, you have a public option come in and it drives everything else out and the only thing left is the public option and then you have rationed care."

This is what Boren and the Blue Dogs and the Republicans are backing.

Rescission (also known as "post-claims underwriting") is the process whereby health insurers avoid paying out benefits to treat cancer and other serious illnesses by seeking and often finding chickenshit errors in the policyholder's paperwork that can justify canceling the policy. In one job evaluation, the health insurer WellPoint actually scored a director of group underwriting on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the dollar amount she had managed to deny through rescission. (The director had saved the company nearly $10 million, earning a score of 3. WellPoint's president, Brian A. Sassi, insists this is not routine company practice.) Rescission's victims tend typically to be less-educated people who are more likely to make an error in filling out their insurance forms and lack the means to challenge a rescission in court—a path in which success is, at any rate, not guaranteed, because under state law the practice is perfectly legal if done within the allowable time frame (typically up to two years after a policy is issued).

The health crisis doesn't get more gothic than this. Robin Beaton, a retired nurse in Texas, was rescinded last year by Blue Cross and Blue Shield after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Blue Cross said this was because she had neglected to state on her forms that she had been treated previously … for acne. Beaton eventually persuaded her congressman, Rep. Joe Barton, to twist Blue Cross' arm, but the delay meant it was five months before she could receive her operation. Otto Raddatz, a restaurant owner in Illinois, was rescinded in 2004 by Fortis Insurance Co. after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Fortis said this was because Raddatz had failed to disclose that a CT scan four years earlier had revealed that he had an aneurism and gall stones. Raddatz replied—and his doctor confirmed—that he had never been told about these conditions (the doctor said they were "very minor" and didn't require treatment), but Fortis nonetheless refused a payout until the state attorney general intervened. The delay in treatment eliminated Raddatz's chances of recovery, and he died.

The bottom line is this, we have to have a single payer (government) option. This is the one thing that Big Biz and their minions are fighting the most. Without it we would have the same thing that we have now. What we have now is paying the highest price in the world for the 37th ranked health care.

What single payer means is the country would expand Medicare i.e. to cover all its citizens. If they wanted it. And who wouldn't.

Or you could look at it as everyone receiving Veterans Administration health care. That's what I have and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So don't believe the scare tactics and lies that the Right is putting out. It's just a part of their evil plan to regain power and it's not in your own best self interest.

Even the nutcases on the Religious Right are getting into the act.

Perkins explains: "In a world of health care rationing, the elderly, the handicapped and the frail are the most likely to lose their lives because care was delayed or denied. Under the government-run plans in England and Canada, the countries' sick and elderly aren't getting the care they need. As a result, their system isn't improving lives but prematurely taking them. Here in the United States, President Obama's rationing would mean that you and I could be denied basic care while our tax dollars are used to underwrite a mother choosing to end the life of her unborn child."

Scare tactics and lies. I guess some of us are just as stupid as the politicians think we are.

Later.

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