Today’s opining on the public discourse.

We saw through their cunning little schemes long ago, but today, the Cons got busted (h/t & h/t):

A private memo distributed by the Republican National Committee calls for like-minded advocates to help defeat President Barack Obama’s health care proposals by delaying its consideration.

The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post from a Democratic source, provides the clearest illustration to date of the political playbook being used to stop Democratic attempts at a health care overhaul. Much of the material mirrors the speeches and presentations made by conservatives both inside and out of elected office to date. Obama’s plan for health care is deemed an “experiment” and a “risk” that could bankrupt the country and dangerously change the doctor-patient relationship.

In particular, the 12-page memo makes the case that it is a Republican priority to slow down the consideration of health care reform before it can become codified.

“The Republican National Committee will engage in every activity we can to slow down this mad rush while promoting sensible alternatives that address health care costs and preserve quality,” the memo affirmatively declares.

What fucking quality?

Digby demolishes this dumbfuckery point by point. Since you know all your Faux News-loving friends will be spouting these talking points like perfect little parrots, it may be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the antidote.

Oh, and Blue Dogs? When you scream for delay, you do realize you’re playing right into the Cons’ hands, right? This will not go well for you come Election Day:

Now, I have no doubt that certain Blue Dogs and Democratic wingnuts think they can personally benefit by distancing themselves from Democratic initiatives. They are stupid. If Obama goes down in flames, as Brownstien says, those in conservative districts will get creamed by a Republican challenger in 2010, regardless of whether they voted against the health care bill. They are the ones who will pay the price for Obama’s failure, not him and not the liberals who voted for it.

Any Blue Dog from a swing district who is listening to little Republican birdies whispering in his ear telling them that he has to vote against Obama’s agenda or risk losing in 2010 is a useful idiot who is engineering his own defeat.

Hear that, Rep. Dan “I’m Really a Con, but They Were Losing at the Time” Boren?

Oh, and speaking of losers whose last names begin with the letter B, Con Rep. Joe Barton can’t remember how much campain cash he’s taken from the health insurance industry. Let’s give him a little reminder, shall we?

According to OpenSecrets, the health care sector has been Barton’s second largest contributor over the years, donating $2,096,021. In the current election cycle, only the energy and natural resources industries have given him more money.

Could this be one of the reasons why Cons and Blue Dogs are so desperate to maintain the status quo? I do believe it might, I do I do.

Now, we all know what’s going to happen when health care reform passes over the screaming tantrums of the fucktards who’ve been sucking at the insurance industry’s teat. They’ll rail and cry about evil big gubmint and socialism and how very awful it is, all the while taking credit for the benefits flowing from the legislation they so desperately fought. How do we know? It’s because that’s exactly what the fucktards are doing with the stimulus:

Indeed, this happens quite a bit. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) hates the stimulus, except for the transportation money it brought to his district. Other House Republicans have bragged about recovery funds headed for their communities, thanks to a bill they voted in lock-step against.

Bobby Jindal’s not even being subtle about it:

Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) reemerged on the national stage yesterday, penning an op-ed in the Politico to slam efforts to reform health care and declaring the Economic Recovery Act a failure. Jindal declared the Recovery Act “a nearly trillion-dollar stimulus that has not stimulated.” However, less than 24 hours before Jindal published his op-ed, Jindal traveled to Anacoco, Louisiana to present a jumbo-sized check to residents of Vernon Parish. The funds included hundreds of thousands of dollars directly from the Recovery Act — at least $157,848 in Community Block Grant money authorized by the Recovery Act and $138,611 for Byrne/JAG job training programs created by the Recovery Act. Rather than credit the federal government or the Recovery Act he opposed, Jindal printed his own name on the corner of the massive check.

And Mark Pence should be joining the hypocritical harmony any moment now:

Pence recently attacked the stimulus in a speech, declaring that “the American people deserve a real plan for a real recovery.” Back in February he called for a Federal spending freeze amid the recession.

So how will Pence react to this big story in one of his state’s major papers?

Stimulus Has Hoosiers Working

INDIANAPOLIS — More than 2,400 people are now at work on federal stimulus-funded roadway projects in Indiana, according to a state report being released today.

Covering 83 projects and listing a total payroll of $2.8 million, the Indiana Department of Transportation report details only a small fraction of the hundreds of projects so far selected for funding using the $440 million the agency received under the American Relief and Recovery Act.

Economists say it’s too early to tell whether the long-term value of President Barack Obama’s economy-boosting effort will justify its $787 billion cost. But construction executives say stimulus-funded projects certainly have created jobs and spared layoffs within the industry.

Since Indiana’s only seen the benefits of a drop of that stimulus cash, Pence feels comfortable singing the tax cut song. But you can bet he’ll be singing a different song to his constituents.

I can hardly wait till these fuckers come up for reelection. All those ads using their own non-cherrypicked words to show them up for two-faced fucktards should be a lot of fun.

We talked a bit recently about the GOP’s propensity for extortion. Sen. DeMint’s decided to try his own hand at the racket:

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-N.C.) delayed committee votes on two State Department posts today over objections to the administration’s policy towards Honduras, Reuters reports.

DeMint, who believes the recent coup in Honduras was legal, asked to delay votes on the nominations of (1) Arturo Valenzuela to be Assistant Secretary of State for western hemisphere affairs and (2) Thomas Shannon to be Ambassador to Brazil.

[snip]

The Senate Foreign Relations committee will likely vote on the nominations next week, by which time DeMint hopes the administration will reconsider its support for ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

I wonder if RICO covers rackets like this?

We’ll close Happy Hour with a rare bit of Con sanity that has neocons shitting their pants:

Given Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) work on eliminating unnecessary F-22 funding, I sort of expected the Weekly Standard‘s Michael Goldfarb, a former McCain aide, to support the majority today.

No such luck.

If there is any consolation to be had here it comes from the fact that there will be a time when this administration’s weakness on defense, and the subservience of their enablers in Congress, will reemerge as a national political issue. And at that time, some Republican will run an add [sic] that shows the trillions this government has wasted on pet projects and social experiments and contrast that with the determination that same government showed in killing a crucial weapons system — because they decided there isn’t enough money left for our military to have the very best equipment money can buy.

America is less safe now than it was an hour ago.

OK, let’s get into this a bit. On the latter point, it’s worth remembering that the F-22 is a bit of a mess. For every hour it spends in the air, it requires more than 30 hours of maintenance. One of its key problems is — I’m not kidding — “vulnerability to rain.” After years of effort, the plane, in operational flight tests, has met only seven of its 22 “key requirements.” It features a radar-absorbing canopy that tends to imprison pilots for hours. It was designed to address Cold War-era national security needs, and has flown a grand total of zero missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Even if we exclude President Obama from the equation, the excess F-22 spending was opposed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates (a Bush/Cheney appointee), the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (a Bush/Cheney appointee), the current Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff, and the leading Democrat and Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Senate vote today had 15 GOP members, including some very conservative lawmakers, joining with the majority.

Goldfarb’s having a heart attack from delusions that the fatally-fucked up F-22 was keeping America safe, and now the evil Senators have made us less safe. I’m having a heart attack because 15 GOP members displayed some actual sense.

If only it wasn’t for the relentless parade of dumbfuckery we saw today, I’d think it’s a sign of hope. Alas, it appears a mere abberation. But perhaps the exotic tang of rationality shall linger on their tongues. Perhaps they’ll even like it, and want to try a little bit more.

We can but dream.

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Here it is, the Con strategy on health care reform, all nice and out in the open:

Indeed, the conservative effort to “kill” reform was clarified today by Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, an architect of obstructing reform in the ’90s, who wrote that Republicans should “go for the kill”:

With Obamacare on the ropes, there will be a temptation for opponents to let up on their criticism, and to try to appear constructive, or at least responsible. There will be a tendency to want to let the Democrats’ plans sink of their own weight, to emphasize that the critics have been pushing sound reform ideas all along and suggest it’s not too late for a bipartisan compromise over the next couple of weeks or months.

My advice, for what it’s worth: Resist the temptation. This is no time to pull punches. Go for the kill.

Kristol asserts that “we have plenty of time to work next year on sensible and targeted health reform in a bipartisan way,” but Dave Weigel notes the disingenuousness of the claim, since “Republicans had, of course, plenty of time for bipartisan health reform from 2001 to 2009, but they punted, because they don’t believe that the country needs fundamental reform that covers everyone.”

Why don’t they believe we need fundamental reform? Why, because the system already provides health care for everyone:

Mitch McConnell came on Meet the Press to spew some more Frank Luntz talking points on health care reform, but when asked whether the United States actually has the “best health care in the world”, McConnell punts and retreats to the Republican mantra of more tax cuts and then adds this little gem when asked if it’s a moral issue that 47 million Americans go without health insurance:

McCONNELL: Well, they don’t go without health care. It’s not the most efficient way to provide it. As we know, the doctors in the hospitals are sworn to provide health care. We all agree it is not the most efficient way to provide health care to find somebody only in the emergency room and then pass those costs on to those who are paying for insurance. So it is important, I think, to reduce the number of uninsured. The question is, what is the best way to do that?

So in other words, Americans have access to health care because they can go get in line at the emergency room, and the hospital cannot turn them away. I’m curious if Sen. McConnell would care to opt out of his government run health care plan and take a vow only to use the emergency room when he needs to see a doctor from now on since he believes it would mean he has access to health care?

Here’s what I think: dumbfuck Senators who make dumbfuck remarks like this should have their health benefits canceled. They obviously don’t want any of that icky gubmint-run socialist health care stuff. And if they’re so positive America has the most wonderfullest health care system in the whole wide world, they can go take their chances in the private market – after having their income reduced to the median income. What could be more awesome?

You can bet McConnell and the rest of the “Waterloo” crowd will hold on to their government-run health care with both fists while trying to defeat Obama’s reform efforts, claiming all the while Americans are doing just fine. Let’s check in with their constituents and see how the status quo’s working out for them:

Meanwhile, as Jim DeMint puts party before country, the people he’s supposed to be representing are suffering.

After 25 years with the same company, Andy Stark lost his job and his health insurance.

While he found other work, it paid 30 percent less and had no benefits.

Then his wife got cancer.

Now the Simpsonville couple is struggling to pay medical bills they expect will total about $140,000.

“This is not the way things should be in America,” Andy Stark said.

The Starks lost their insurance after Andy was laid off, and they couldn’t afford COBRA premiums. That was before the cancer diagnosis. And they’re hardly alone.

In South Carolina, 670 people a week lose their health coverage, according to data from Families USA. In the decade ending in 2008, premiums soared 119 percent, increasing costs to employers and workers and adding to the spiraling cost of health care, according to the nonprofit group.

Jim DeMint’s and the GOP’s answer? Screw them. It’s all about defeating Obama.

Two can play at Waterloo. And this isn’t 1994, my friends. I do believe we can make health care reform the issue that breaks the Cons’ backs. If they want to defeat it for political purposes, well, there’s millions of people who are sick, uninsured, and bankrupted by medical bills. The Cons will own all that suffering.

So will the Blue Dogs:

Look at this man, Rep. Mike Ross, who’s proud of himself for defying President Obama and working to kill health care reform in the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up today.

[snip]

Rep. Mike Ross sounds just like Senator DeMint when he says stuff like these below and wants to delay the passage of health care reform:

“I think they underestimated the Blue Dogs on this. They are dug in. They’re ‘bowed up.’ They’ve all gotten an earful back home.

[snip]

“When I’m invited in to meet with the Speaker or the president,” he said, “I go into those meetings thinking that I don’t need to come around to their opinion — they need to come around.”

What about the people in Rep. Mike Ross’s district? Doesn’t he need to come around for the 21.8% of people in his district that are uninsured? That’s 500,000 constituents that he doesn’t care about when he works to weaken the House Tri-Committee bill, and doesn’t accept President Obama’s suggestion to create a MedPac panel to oversee Medicare reimbursement rates.

Blue Cross Blue Shield in Rep. Mike Ross’s district has a 75% market share–that means it has a near monopoly, and people can’t get insurance anywhere else in his district. It’s why they need the choice of a public option to help lower the costs of private insurers and helps keep them honest in that district.

Blue Dogs, mind you, who are standing athwart health care reform because they’re oh-so concerned about its cost. Blue Dogs who didn’t give two shits about costs just a short while ago:

While Cohn is clearly right about the selective concerns from McConnell and congressional Republicans, let’s also not forget that there are a handful of Democrats who have the same problem. Ben Nelson and Max Baucus, for example, both voted for Bush’s tax cuts, funding for both of the Bush-launched wars, and spending on Bush’s Medicare Part D, without so much as a hint about how to pay for them.

Now, Nelson and Baucus are suddenly deeply concerned about whether the country can really afford health care reform, and in Nelson’s case, whether Democrats should even be allowed to vote on their own reform plan in the Senate.

It’s maddening.

Yes, it is. Getting the “fiscal responsibility” lecture from Cons and Blue Dogs who spent like frat boys with their daddy’s credit card so Bush could play warrior chief is infuriating. And this is something else that should hang around their necks until it breaks their backs.

So should Bill Moyers’ lecture. He contrasted Dr. Regina Benjamin, Obama’s nominee for Surgeon General, with the fat cats in the insurance industry, and it’s a devastating comparison:

Here’s the difference. To Dr. Regina Benjamin, health care is a service, helping people in need with grace and compassion. To Ed Hanway and his highly paid friends, it’s big business, a commodity to be sold to those who can afford it. And woe to anyone who gets between them and the profits they reap from sick people.

That behavior includes spending nearly a million and a half a day–a day!–to make sure health care reform comes out their way. Over the years they’ve lavished millions on the politicians who are writing and voting on the bills coming out of committee. Now it’s payback time. See for yourself here on our website, where you’ll find a link to campaign contributions and the politicians who right now are deciding who wins and who loses the heath care debate.

The pols who are working for the insurance industry rather than patients and doctors need to have their jobs voted right from under them. Remember them, when Election Day rolls around.

And now, on a lighter note, assclowns.

Michael Steele at the National Press Club:

When stumped with numerous health care policy questions, Steele said, “I don’t do policy,” acknowledging that he’s paying attention to his internal RNC polling to craft his political message. Moments later, Steele said he’s “not concerned” about the politics of health care.

Jonah Goldberg living in the past:

Over at “The Corner,” Jonah Goldberg highlights this 1961 clip from Ronald Reagan, criticizing Medicare. Goldberg said Reagan’s criticism of the landmark health care program is, nearly a half-century later, “still fresh today.”

[snip]

According to Reagan, Medicare would lead federal officials to dictate where physicians could practice medicine, and open the door to government control over where Americans were allowed to live. In fact, Reagan warned that if Medicare became law, there was a real possibility that the federal government would control where Americans go and what they do for a living.

In a line that may sound familiar to Sarah Palin fans, Reagan added, “[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

[snip]

Reagan’s misguided diatribe from 48 years ago also serves as a reminder that we hear the same arguments from conservatives, over and over again, every time real reform is on the table. Republicans, Fox News, and Limbaugh, for example, reflexively shout “socialized medicine” whenever the issue comes up — just as the right has done for 75 years.

Time to tune them out and get the job done.

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Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Scene: health care reform lying on city street, bleeding profusely from deep stab wounds, staring up at the mob of Cons and Blue Dogs surrounding it with knives still drawn.

HEATH CARE REFORM [to Blue Dogs]: Et tu, Brute?

The demands of conservative Blue Dog Democrats in health care reform have been odd and contradictory. But their capacity to kill this rare opportunity remains great, and they can still make matters even worse.

Some centrist House Democrats have reached out to Republicans to explore breaking with their party leadership on healthcare and crafting a reform bill with the rival GOP, one congressman claimed Saturday.

Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) asserted that an “interesting development” is taking place underway that, if true, could effectively remove Democratic leadership from the driver’s seat on healthcare reform legislation in the House.

“There’s an interesting development occurring behind the scenes, wherein moderate Democrats — so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats — and business-friendly new Democrats are actually starting to have conversations with us to build a coalition from the center outward, to actually really come up with substantive and well-founded healthcare reform,” Boustany said during an appearance on Fox News. “And that’s the only way to do this.”

Really? That’s the “only” way to reform the system? For conservatives in one party to join up with conservatives in the other party, in order to undermine months of progress? Funny, I can think of other ways to reform the broken system.

So can we all. In fact, most of us understand that joining up with the Cons is the best way to not reform the system. It’s probably because we don’t have the siren song of insurance industry money driving us to distraction.

Maybe the Blue Dogs just didn’t get the memo:

A strategy memo authored by GOP consultant Alex Castellanos suggests that “it is crucial for Republicans to slow down what it calls ‘the Obama experiment with our health.’” The memo concludes, “If we slow this sausage-making process down, we can defeat it, and advance real reform that will actually help.”

Alex, of course, forgot the crucial last phrase of his memo: “no one except the insurance companies and the Cons.”

Let’s not forget that the Cons have absolutely no reason to see health care reform succeed and every reason to root for failure:

In 1993, Bill Kristol privately advised congressional Republicans to do whatever it took to “kill” the Clinton health care reform initiative. It wasn’t that the policy proposal was a bad idea; it was that passage would help the Democratic Party for years to come. The GOP, he said, for the sake of its own future, couldn’t compromise or negotiate with the majority.

Sixteen years later, a wide variety of Democrats are working hard to convince Republicans to support reform, despite the built-in incentive for seeing reform fail.

[snip]

It occurs to me, then, that there’s at least a possibility that “centrist” Democrats — Blue Dogs, New Democrats, Lieberman, et al — might not see failure as such a horrible option here. In other words, they may realize that coming up short on health care, letting this opportunity slip away, and hurting millions of Americans in the process may be devastating for the Democratic majority, but these same “centrist” Democrats may prefer a smaller majority, or perhaps even a GOP majority to “balance” the Democratic president. They may very well disagree with the party’s leadership on most issues, and think the best course of action is taking away their power by undermining the party’s agenda.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which turns out to be true. Blue Dogs and New Democrats [sic] just need their asses primaried. Playing nice with the frothing insane minority is fine on some shit, but not on the shit that matters.

And health care reform matters:

The larger points made in [Obama’s] speech are really good and it’s too bad that only about 12 people will hear it.

You’d think this wouldn’t have to be said, but it’s actually an argument that can’t be made often enough:

This is an issue that affects the health and financial well-being of every single American and the stability of our entire economy.

It’s about every family unable to keep up with soaring out of pocket costs and premiums rising three times faster than wages. Every worker afraid of losing health insurance if they lose their job, or change jobs. Everyone who’s worried that they may not be able to get insurance or change insurance if someone in their family has a pre-existing condition.

It’s about a woman in Colorado who told us that when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her insurance company – the one she’d paid over $700 a month to – refused to pay for her treatment. She had to use up her retirement funds to save her own life.

It’s about a man from Maryland who sent us his story – a middle class college graduate whose health insurance expired when he changed jobs. During that time, he needed emergency surgery, and woke up $10,000 in debt – debt that has left him unable to save, buy a home, or make a career change.

It’s about every business forced to shut their doors, or shed jobs, or ship them overseas. It’s about state governments overwhelmed by Medicaid, federal budgets consumed by Medicare, and deficits piling higher year after year.

This is the status quo. This is the system we have today. This is what the debate in Congress is all about:
Whether we’ll keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem fester as more families and businesses go under, and more Americans lose their coverage. Or whether we’ll seize this opportunity – one we might not have again for generations – and finally pass health insurance reform this year, in 2009.

The insurance companies, the politicians who serve them and the wealthy ideologues who want to ensure that the rubes never realize that they have the power to challenge the ruling class, are working overtime to redirect the free floating anxiety people feel over jobs and health care and a whole host of very real problems to a fear of abstractions like future deficits. I think people have to be reminded that the status quo equals the very real and immediate threat of losing everything they have if they get sick.

This is the status quo the Blue Dogs and New Democrats [sic] are dragging their heels on fixing, the status quo the Cons see absolutely nothing wrong with (except that it doesn’t include insurance insurance yet). We need to spend a lot of time patiently explaning to people who’ve fallen for insurance company lies, slick Con talking points, and Blue Dog bullshit exactly why it’s in their best interest to see those fuckers fail, not health care reform. We need them to understand exactly what’s at stake and who’s trying to shaft them, because they’ll need long memories come Election Day and it’s time to run the bastards out of town.

I’ll bring the pitchforks if you bring the torches.

Let’s finish up Happy Hour with two fine examples of Con “reasoning,” shall we? Just make sure you’ve swallowed all drinks first:

One of the most amusing genres of wingnut writing is the “it was cool somewhere on the planet today which proves Al Gore is lying” post. Nate Silver had a funny take on this yesterday (also noted by Thers), in response to this Assrocket post.

Silver, unlike Assrocket, actually bothered to look up the temperatures and it turns out that, surprise!, Assrocket was completely wrong about the weather in his own city. Oh well.

Undeterred by that rather embarrassing exchange, the non-partisan liberatarian Putz jumped to Assrocket’s defense.

OKAY, I STEPPED OUTSIDE A LITTLE WHILE AGO, and it was actually a bit chilly. In Knoxville, in mid-July. My dad says it hasn’t broken 90 all summer, which may be right. I’m saving real money on A/C bills this year. Could be worse — could be Michigan.

Meanwhile, Nate Silver says it’s all in your mind. Two thoughts: (1) I hope so — better that than living in a John Ringo novel. (2) Just remember Nate’s stuff when the press is yammering on about a hot day, or a hurricane, being “caused by global warming.”

So Nate mocks wingnuts for ignoring hard data in favor of rather shallow, subjective observations, and Putz responds with “Nate Silver is clearly wrong about the weather in Minneapolis because it’s chilly in Knoxville today and additionally, my dad said something that I haven’t bothered to verify–Heh.” Priceless.

And naturally, Father of Putz was wrong — the temperature in Knoxville exceeded 90 four times last month.

You’re welcome.

Now, if you’ve got a Blue Dog in your district, go make his or her life a living hell.

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