Can't stand it ...

While Keith and Rachel are must-see viewing in Casa de la Fixer every evening after dinner, neither the Mrs. or I can stomach Matthews (I even concede to watching the Mrs.' HGTV shows during the 7 pm hour). Digby documents his latest jackassery with regard to our hero, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Huge Balls).

Quote of the Day

Maru (who else?):

The syphilitic tranny, warned by the Canadian govt not to use hate speech in her act, cancelled her gig when she realized she would have absolutely no material left.

Heh ...

Update:

Bonus Maru:

Rush Limbaugh, who vowed to leave the country if HCR passed, has gone back on his word. On the positive side, thousands of young Costa Rican boys can now sleep peacefully knowing the odious, Viagra-swilling gasbag won’t be rolling by any time soon.

Heh ... squared.

Health Care

I got this from my old school pal Paul in Hawaii, the lucky bastard. Take it for what it's worth.

[ No matter where you stand on Health Care Reform, it’s a good idea to be aware and informed. Here are the elements as seen from the White House:

Since the House of Representatives voted to pass health reform legislation on Sunday night, the legislative process and its political impact have been the focus of all the newspapers and cable TV pundits.

Outside of DC, however, many Americans are trying to cut through the chatter and get to the substance of reform with a simple question: "What does health insurance reform actually mean for me?" To help, we've put together some of the key benefits from health insurance reform.

Let's start with how health insurance reform will expand and strengthen coverage:

This year, children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied health insurance coverage. Once the new health insurance exchanges begin in the coming years, pre-existing condition discrimination will become a thing of the past for everyone.

This year, health care plans will allow young people to remain on their parents' insurance policy up until their 26th birthday.

This year, insurance companies will be banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick, and they will be banned from implementing lifetime caps on coverage. This year, restrictive annual limits on coverage will be banned for certain plans. Under health insurance reform, Americans will be ensured access to the care they need.

This year, adults who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions will have access to affordable insurance through a temporary subsidized high-risk pool.
In the next fiscal year, the bill increases funding for community health centers, so they can treat nearly double the number of patients over the next five years.

This year, we'll also establish an independent commission to advise on how best to build the health care workforce and increase the number of nurses, doctors and other professionals to meet our country's needs. Going forward, we will provide $1.5 billion in funding to support the next generation of doctors, nurses and other primary care practitioners -- on top of a $500 million investment from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Health insurance reform will also curb some of the worst insurance industry practices and strengthen consumer protections:

This year, this bill creates a new, independent appeals process that ensures consumers in new private plans have access to an effective process to appeal decisions made by their insurer.

This year, discrimination based on salary will be outlawed. New group health plans will be prohibited from establishing any eligibility rules for health care coverage that discriminate in favor of higher-wage employees.
Beginning this fiscal year, this bill provides funding to states to help establish offices of health insurance consumer assistance in order to help individuals in the process of filing complaints or appeals against insurance companies.

Starting January 1, 2011, insurers in the individual and small group market will be required to spend 80 percent of their premium dollars on medical services. Insurers in the large group market will be required to spend 85 percent of their premium dollars on medical services. Any insurers who don't meet those thresholds will be required to provide rebates to their policyholders.

Starting in 2011, this bill helps states require insurance companies to submit justification for requested premium increases. Any company with excessive or unjustified premium increases may not be able to participate in the new health insurance exchanges.
Reform immediately begins to lower health care costs for American families and small businesses:

This year, small businesses that choose to offer coverage will begin to receive tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums to help make employee coverage more affordable.

This year, new private plans will be required to provide free preventive care: no co-payments and no deductibles for preventive services. And beginning January 1, 2011, Medicare will do the same.

This year, this bill will provide help for early retirees by creating a temporary re-insurance program to help offset the costs of expensive premiums for employers and retirees age 55-64.

This year, this bill starts to close the Medicare Part D 'donut hole' by providing a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the gap in prescription drug coverage. And beginning in 2011, the bill institutes a 50% discount on prescription drugs in the 'donut hole.' ]

The bill doesn't do everything as quickly as we would like, but these things will help people right away. It's a start, and it's better than what we had, which was virtually nothing.

The black commie Nazi did it!

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford.

Behold, with the astonishing passage of flawed-but-incredible health care reform, we have the concomitant, frightening realization that this remains one of the most acidic, bitter, hopelessly divisive times to live in America and care a whit for national politics while maintaining a shred of morality, hope, a progressive soul.

Like millions, I was fairly convinced it simply could not get much worse or more acrimonious than when Dubya ran the nation into the ground, embarrassing and humiliating us planetwide a thousand times over as the rogue idiot pseudo-cowboy laughingstock war-hungry prick of the civilized world. I was wrong. But not in the way I imagined.

In short, despite all their whining and infighting, the left wasn't pushing HCR because they wanted to stick it to the GOP. They weren't pushing it because they wanted to personally profit from various corporate cronies, though I'm sure some certainly will. They weren't pushing it due to multiple personal agendas. It was an authentic, at least somewhat egalitarian push to advance a basic ideal of the nation. Well, mostly. Which, in politics, is about as good as it gets.

The Republicans, on the other hand, were pure venom. Theirs was a systematic fearmongering, a nonstop bombardment of misguidings and untruths, an acid bath of panic overlaid with a fine sheen of racism and rage. This is turning out to be easily the nastiest, meanest GOP organization in ages, the house that Karl Rove built, a group shaming their own party's once-noble legacy. Even Reagan, who claimed Medicare would destroy the country, would be stunned at this gang's level of savagery.

If Nancy had told him about it...

Verily, health care reform will go down in history for many things -- Catholic nuns kicking ass, Ted Kennedy not having to roll in his grave, Democrats actually vaguely unifying -- but few are as amusing as the creation of the silliest political movement in recent American history, the Tea Party, a group barely cognizant of what it even stands for, with zero grasp of the history it's named after, who nevertheless will doubtlessly grab every tax benefit, housing subsidy, COBRA extension, Restoration Act moneys and (now) health care benefit that evil socialist Obama hands to them and their sniveling home states, even as they spit tobacco juice in his face. Adorable.

Yeah, ain't it just?

Lots more. Go.

Sore Losers Don't Even Know When They've Lost

El Rude-o

What else? Sarah Palin did something retarded, which is a little like saying "Sarah Palin breathed." Her SarahPAC (motto: "You think these hair styles are cheap?") has a poster up on Facebook (of course) that uses gun crosshairs to demonstrate where to target members of Congress for "defeat." Or shooting. Either way. The poster says, "It's time to take a stand," to which one wants to respond, "Um, didn't you already take a stand and lose?"

More offices of Democrats have been targeted by brick throwing idiots. Bart Stupak has received death threats. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and all of their wannabes are declaring Democrats and liberals enemies of the United States. Somebody is going to get fucking killed, and it ain't gonna be Beck, even if he implies Barack Obama wants to shiv him.

We on the left used the rhetoric of battle during the Bush administration. But we used it when people were actually being killed and tortured by our nation. There's a vast qualitative difference to saying you are going to fight against people who lied us into war and saying you are going to take down those who are trying to get health care to poor people.

What this belies is the point the Rude Pundit's been making again and again: not one of these mass actions is going to happen. There will continue to be incidents, yes, and some of them may even veer into what we might call, if we weren't such racists, "terrorism." But mostly, this is done, this health care battle. The last stand happened. The battle was joined. The war was fought. And we won. And you lost, dear conservatives. Now, stop trying to dictate the terms of your defeat.

Yeah, like that'll happen.

Republicans: Stuck Between Their Crock And A Hard Place

The lovely Mad Kane on HCR. Links at site:

Repeal (requiring a veto-proof majority as long as Obama is president) is virtually impossible, not to mention unpopular. But the very GOP lies that came close to blocking health reform have brainwashed the Republican base into demanding its rescission. Consequently, many Republican leaders feel forced to perpetuate their doomsday and Armageddon claims and fight for repeal, even though they know it’s a lost cause.
...

Republicans: Stuck Between Their Crock And A Hard Place
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The GOP base screams “Repeal!”
And Republicans pledge to with zeal.
Cuz they set their own trap
With their factual gap:
Nixing laws that have widespread appeal.

On the theory of in for a dime, in for twenty cents, here's another Mad lim:

How ironic that GOP state leaders are vowing to challenge the Affordable Health Care for America Act in court. For a party that’s always lambasting trial attorneys and activist judges, Republicans sure are litigious:

Republican Trials (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Republicans constantly boo
Trial lawyers. They do it on cue.
For a party that feels
Such attorneys are heels,
The GOP sure likes to sue.

Note to the Repugs: Keep up the good work. Eventually, you'll come to like losing, even look forward to it.

Headline of the Day Zwei

GOP Seeks Federal Mandate: Everyone Must Buy Their ‘Bullshit’

Isn't that unconstitutional?

What they got, nobody wants. Might as well pass a law saying we gotta patronize eighty-year-old hookers. Oh, that'd be redundant, huh?

Green Capitalists

NYTimes

A proposal to put the legalization of marijuana in California to a vote this November is causing some growers of the plant in the state to worry about a sharp drop in the value of their crop if the measure succeeds.

Watch for the Cheeb Lobby to spend millions on this. They need the War On Some Drugs. Another good reason to legalize this lovely roadside weed.

Update:

LATimes

On Wednesday, Los Angeles County elections officials must turn in their count of valid signatures collected in the county on a statewide legalization initiative. The number is virtually certain to be enough to qualify the initiative for the November ballot, according to a tally kept by state election officials.

That will once again make California the focal point of the long-stewing argument over marijuana legalization, a debate likely to be a high-dollar brawl between adversaries who believe it could launch or stifle another national trend.

Dollars again. Yeesh.

California is not alone in weighing legalization. Several state legislatures have considered bills and two other Western states may vote on initiatives. In Nevada, a measure aimed for 2012 would allow state-licensed pot stores. And a campaign in Washington hopes to put a legalization measure on the fall ballot.

I'm down wid Washington! Me 'n David Aquarius have a date for a "beer (ice tea for me, mox nix) an' a legal bong".

The shocker is Nevada. NV looks at pot like CA looks at guns - not friendly at all. I have a friend in Nevada who told me that the one thing he really liked about California was that we could keep our pot on the coffee table. You can still go to prison there for possession. Nevada's a trifle backwards in some respects.

I think it's because it slows the deal. The goal is 90 hands an hour: "Wow, man. Should I hit or stand on 9? Lemme have another toke and ponder it", unlike the effect of the free booze in the 24-hour casinos: "Yahoo! Hit that 19! Come on, two!"

But I digress...

The 10-page California initiative would allow anyone 21 or older to possess, share and transport up to an ounce for personal use and to grow up to 25 square feet per residence or parcel. It would allow local governments, but not the state, to authorize the cultivation, transportation and sale of marijuana and to impose taxes to raise revenues.

That's a lot like prostitution in Nevada: it's up to the counties. In Washoe County (Reno) and Clark County (Lost Wages), prostitution is illegal and hookers and johns are criminals. Just over the county line in the, and I hesitate but not much to use this term, cow counties, heh, they become respected taxpaying citizens and valued customers. Fiscally for business and county revenue, it's the difference between living and dying.

If it's OK for pussy in Nevada, it'll be fine for weed in California. Now we gotta work on this 'transporting across state lines' crap. Both ways. Whee! Heh.

To make the ballot, the measure needs 433,971 valid signatures. By Tuesday, it was just 15,000 short. Los Angeles County, where supporters collected 142,246 signatures, is expected to put it over the top.

Sounds good. Stay tuned in and turned on.

In related news:

Apparently, in Missouri, it's illegal to sell even fake weed. Clear the oregano off the shelves!

The end of The Age Of Reagan? Bring it!

A 'recommended read' in the NYTimes

For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.

Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction. This fact helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to spend so much political capital on the issue, even though it did not appear to be his top priority as a presidential candidate. Beyond the health reform’s effect on the medical system, it is the centerpiece of his deliberate effort to end what historians have called the age of Reagan.

"The Age Of Reagan": Weak government lets the Robber Barons roll. It's the American Way!

It's way past time to end it.

Before he became Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers told me a story about helping his daughter study for her Advanced Placement exam in American history. While doing so, Mr. Summers realized that the federal government had not passed major social legislation in decades. There was the frenzy of the New Deal, followed by the G.I. Bill, the Interstate Highway System, civil rights and Medicare — and then nothing worth its own section in the history books.

Now there is.

It bears repeating: "...the New Deal, followed by the G.I. Bill, the Interstate Highway System, civil rights and Medicare — and then nothing..."

The four out of the five that came in under Democrats helped people. The Repug one lets us drive to the poorhouse really fast. Or at least without traffic lights.

Headline of the Day

Ari Fleischer quits PR job for Tiger Woods because his legacy was so bad it harmed Tiger’s rehabilitation.

Bush's flack is making a whoremonger look bad. Oh my sides, they hurt...

Listen up ...

All you conservative 'constitutional scholars':

...

Nowhere in the constitution does it authorize the Federal Aviation Administration or the Center For Disease Control either, so I guess they're out too. The fact that the founders weren't psychics or time travelers is a real problem for us, apparently.

...

And for those who say it's unconstitutional to force people to buy insurance, they do it with auto insurance every day. And yes, I know it's regulated by the individual states, but how do you think the feds got them to comply? By withholding highway funding. Any states that try to opt out of HCR will be pressured by the loss of federal funds they probably can't do without.

Grab 'em by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow. HCR is a done deal.

The real deal ...

That would be Joe Biden of course. I heard somewhere, while they call Roosevelt's initiative the "New Deal", they're gonna call HCR the "Big Fucking Deal".



Heh ...

Vid stolen from Adrastos.

Quote of the Day

Our pal David Aquarius in comments on my earlier post:

Expecting cooperation from the Repugs is like expecting Pamela Anderson to get an Oscar.

We have HCR!

And a really good thing about it is that wingnut heads are exploding!

...

This wasn't just a major victory for Obama. This was a resounding defeat for the increasingly marginalized Republican Party and its controlling and now thoroughly repudiated conservative movement.

...

Still decompressing...

...from one helluva case of truck lag. Unloaded the truck and unpacked, still workin' on un-fuckin'-up my gear (military guys will understand that after a change of station), catchin' up on email, snail mail, etc. No energy. All I wanta do today is eat and sleep.

Nothing much goin' on today anyway. In the wake of lyin' & losin' on HCR, the Repugs are redoubling their efforts in doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, vowing to stomp on their weenies even better this time. I suggest cleats or golf spikes - hurry up and get it over with. I haven't heard this much whining from adults in, well, never.

See yas tomorrow.

"... a dick wrapped in a flag ..."

... As someone on the intarweb pointed out, the teabagger party logo looks, appropriately enough, like a dick wrapped in a flag ...

Just go.

Heh ...

Like they cooperated in the first place:

Democrats shouldn't expect much cooperation from Republicans the rest of this year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Monday.

...

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

..

.

Shaddap and get back up on the porch, grandpa. Little old dick.

Thanks to Digby for the link.

The Doctor Will See You Now...And Pronounce You Dead

David Frum

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. [...]

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

For once, Frummie, I hope you're right.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

TEA PARTIERS FURIOUS ABOUT BEING FORCED TO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE
Say they'll move to Canada.

Obama: Congress Must Act on Financial Reform
GOP warns any reform could mean end of free checking.

GOP: Health Bill Rammed Down Our Throats With No Debate
Unlike invasion of Iraq.

U.S. Senate Bill Threatens China Over Currency
If they don’t revalue yuan, we’ll stop borrowing money from them.

The payoff ...

You know Stupnagel didn't come around out of the goodness of his heart. The women got thrown under the bus once more and they're pissed, rightly so:

The president of the National Organization for Women said her group is "incensed" about the impasse-breaking deal between President Obama and a group of anti-abortion Catholic Democrats that seems likely to allow historic health-care reform legislation to pass the House later Sunday night, saying the planned presidential executive order "breaks faith with women."

Other reproductive rights groups, as well as abortion opponents, are also displeased with the compromise.

...

As our pal Creature said:

Maybe one day Americans won't be held captive by another group's religious doctrine, but today is not that day.

Great thanks to Mr. Aravosis for the WaPo link.