…here’s what I’ve collected over the last five days:

HEALTHCARE -- THE DEBATE THAT’S KILLING US SLOWLY:

• Despite the thorough, public debunking of the ridiculous “death panel” claims, and the fact that even the right-wing press outlets aren’t mentioning the conspiracy theory anymore, some politicians may not have received the memo.  Representative Pete Olson (R-TX) was holding a recent town hall meeting, and he told the crowd about a girl named “Britney.”  The girl’s unborn child was found to have a heart defect…and despite her best efforts she couldn’t find a doctor to treat her baby until she located a remote, out-of-state specialist.  Olson goes on to claim…that in any proposed “government-run” system, the baby would have died for lack of treatment.  The crowd, who apparently HAD received the memo…and who knew that these types of claims are false and intended only to scare them…proceeded to boo Representative Olson, and shouted, “Oh Jesus Christ, that’s terrible,” and, “That’s not true!“  To these people, Olson nonsensically responded, “For those of you who say it’s not true, don’t talk to me, talk to Britney.”  Wait…what?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_MvNF2GUE0

• Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee…not only didn’t get the “mentioning-death-panels-now-makes-you-look-like-an-idiot” memo, but he also decided that merely repeating a claim that has been proven false…wasn’t quite tacky enough.  So Huckabee went on his radio show and suggested that the recently departed Senator Kennedy…would have been urged to “go home to take pain pills and die” under Obama’s reform plan.  And we’ll add some more “tackiness points” since Huckabee, just last week, chided Democrats for what he perceived as them using Ted Kennedy’s death to advance the cause of reform.  Oh Mike: it’s just as sick to use his name AGAINST reform…especially when you consider health care reform was his LIFELONG goal.
• Generally, I don’t pass on “moving stories that explain the need for Health Care Reform.“  Except, in this case, the story is a lot more “illuminating” than it is “moving,” and it represents yet another deficiency of our current system that most people are not aware of.  You probably did know, that nearly 68% of all bankruptcies in America result from medical costs.  What you may not know…is that many divorces are also caused by a mixture of financial and medical necessity.  Case in point, read this story…it’s actually quite common: husband develops debilitating disease, doctors shock wife by suggesting she immediately get a divorce or she will lose everything, wife consults lawyers who confirm what the doctors are saying, wife has a terrible choice to make…leave her husband or lose all their savings, retirement, and property.
• Interesting: I’m first to admit that I am no expert on taxes.  But it is interesting to note, as this columnist does, that while Republicans have been heavily utilizing the “health care reform will urge grandma to die sooner” attack…many past tax bills (sponsored by Republicans, and notably one Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)) have done just that:  urged grandma to die sooner.  In addition to initiating tax changes that penalize seniors for living longer, Republicans have supported companies that swindled seniors out of their retirement money (they dismiss it as “that’s the way the free market cookie crumbles!”), and they refuse to let more money go into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research.
• And Jesus Shakes His Head, Woefully: At Congressman Frank Pallone’s (D-NJ) town hall, a woman was attempting to describe her situation…from her wheelchair, she told the congressman that she had “two incurable auto-immune diseases.“  As the woman continued, anti-reform members of the crowd…started heckling her.  I’m just guessing that most of these hecklers would call themselves “Christians“…I’m also guessing that Jesus might have a problem with that.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkrW22u7SwU

• Most Lopsided Interview This Week: On MSNBC, Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and CNBC’s anchor Maria Bartiromo were on as guests, to discuss Health Care Reform.  From early in the interview, it is apparent that Weiner appeared more than a bit better versed on the subject…but the best moment occurred when Bartiromo mocks Weiner’s support of Medicare, snapping, “How come you don’t use it [Medicare]? You don’t have it. How come you don’t have it?“  Representative Weiner…points out that he is only 45, to which Bartiromo lamely retorts, “Yeah, c’mon…“

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfv_KeKRsBo

• Word is now coming out of the White House, via correspondence with Health Care Advocacy groups, that the administration may be abandoning its fight for the public option and several other KEY elements of the reform bill.  While some White House insiders seem to support the idea that “some bill, even a bad bill, is better than no bill“…too many people disagree.  House Speaker Pelosi has chosen to side with the caucus of Democratic Progressives who are saying that they WILL NOT support a bill that does not include the public option.  Representative Weiner has made his own claims, that these compromises represent a failure of leadership on the part of the President…and as some point out, if “change we can believe in” becomes “change we can barely stomach,” Obama could face challenges in the next primaries from Democrats claiming that they would show a bit more backbone if given the majority in both houses of Congress.  I think the votes are in: if the majority of the public wants reform and the public option to be a part of that reform, and you control all of Congress, and all the Republican minority promises is dissent…then you really have no excuse for not going to the mat, fighting for the best reform possible.

POLITICIANS BEHAVING BADLY:

• Stand Back, Genius At Work: Robert F. McDonnell is a candidate for Virginia Governor, and in a recent speech, he proudly mentioned his Master’s thesis, which he wrote while attending an evangelical college in Virginia Beach.  Apparently…McDonnell didn’t think anyone would bother to look up the thesis in question…but they did.  The thesis, which outlines the steps McDonnell suggested the Republican Party should take to “protect” families…says that feminists and working women are “detrimental” to families, contraception for unmarried people is “illogical,” and that government should show clear preference for married people and not “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.“  Hear that WHOOSHING sound? Enjoy your trip down the political whirlpool, Mr. McDonnell.
• First Representative Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) made the mistake of referring to Republican’s search for a viable presidential candidate as the quest to find “The Great White Hope.“  Jenkins then responded to the resulting outcry, by stating that she had no idea that this was a racist sentiment referring back to the search for a white boxer who could defeat black boxing champion, Jack Johnson.  THEN…we find out that back in JULY (that’s right, just a few months ago), Jenkins supported a resolution that explicitly STATED the history of the phrase: “Whereas the victory by Jack Johnson over Tommy Burns prompted a search for a White boxer who could beat Jack Johnson, a recruitment effort that was dubbed the search for the ‘great white hope.’“  Jenkins new position?  She says she never read the resolution, choosing to look like an incompetent legislator, rather than a racist.
• Minnesota Republican Representative Michele Bachmann is now well known for making odd and inflammatory statements (most recently she proposed that health care legislation should be defeated with “fasting and prayer”).  But now, she has her own theory why Democrats, and apparently most of her constituents, want her out of office: “Also with women politicians, they want to make sure no women, no woman becomes president before a Democrat woman, and so they’re doing everything they can to, I think, sabotage women like Sarah Palin, perhaps women like myself, or similarly situated women, to make sure that we don’t have a prominent national voice.  But the thing is, the people in our country, they don’t care who the voice is, they just want someone, they want to know that someone is speaking out for them against what will certainly bring about the destruction of our great country if we continue to go down the Obama path.“  Yeah…it’s the DEMOCRATS who have such a pronounced diversity problem…

GHOSTS OF OUR PAST:

• Flip-Flop Number One: President Obama has now reversed his initial position, and has said that the White House visitor records will be released to the public, in a clear reversal of Bush policy.  That’s great…one down, eleven to go.  Next we’d like to see an end to renditions, warrantless wiretaps, signing statements, excessive use of the “State Secrets” defense, and refusal of Due Process to detainees…
• Flip-Flop Number Two: Former Secretary of Homeland Defense Tom Ridge stunned many when his book was released and clearly indicated that he had been suspiciously pressured to raise the Terror Alert Level.  He surprised everyone even more when he went on Rachel Maddow’s show, denied that the claim was true, said that any suspicions he had in the past he now knew were false (but not for any particular reason…he just “knows”),  he criticizes the government response to Katrina…then defends it, and he says that even though every reason the government gave us for going into Iraq has been proven false, it’s “ok” because it was really always about bringing democracy to the country.  Rachel…seemed to take issue…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIzsZ3g7dTU

• Flip-Flop Number Three: Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales…raised a few eyebrows when he stated that he approved of Attorney General Holder’s investigation into interrogators who exceeded the bounds of the controversial DOJ memos justifying torture: “...if people go beyond that, I think it is legitimate to question and examine that conduct to ensure people are held accountable for their actions, even if it’s action in prosecuting the war on terror.“  It took about a day for Alberto to change his mind: “I don’t support the investigation by the department because this is a matter that has already been reviewed thoroughly and because I believe that another investigation is going to harm our intelligence gathering capabilities and that’s a concern that’s shared by career intelligence officials and so for those reasons I respectfully disagree with the decision.“  I don’t know how he keeps from getting whiplash…my neck hurts just reading this.

THE MEDIA -- HACKS, PUNDITS, AND OTHER INVETERATE LIARS:

• The Today Show has a new hire:  Jenna Hager, formerly Jenna Bush, daughter of former President George Bush.  Ok…yes, she has knowledge of “living in the White House,” but that does not equal “White House insider knowledge.“  She is a fledgling school teacher…but that does not make her an “expert on education.“  Lastly, besides her apparent expertise in NOTHING, I’m just not certain that hiring the daughter of one of the most partisan presidents in recent history will result in anything resembling unbiased, non-partisan journalism.  Just my prediction…
• How Does This Guy Stay On Television: Pat Buchanan…it’s not bad enough that he was part of Nixon’s cabal…or that when running for president he revealed a deep-seated anger towards immigrants…and later as a columnist and MSNBC commentator, he voiced racist and anti-Semitic sentiments…but now, his recent column “Did Hitler Want War,” Buchanan seems to defend the worst genocidal dictator in world history.  You be the judge.  When a man has an entire page dedicated to him on the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) website, maybe he should not be featured so prominently in the mainstream media…

MISCELLANY:

• Has everybody lost their minds? When I heard that the President was going to address the nation’s schoolchildren, I thought “big deal.“  Presidents do this.  All presidents…both parties.  They say “hey, stay in school…don’t do drugs…you could be presidents someday…wink.“  Well, the conservative media, and the GOP, specifically the Florida Republican Party, have decided that the message is an attempt to…wait for it…INDOCTRINATE OUR CHILDREN.  They say kids, “will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president.“  Of course…this is BEYOND ridiculous, and Politifact.com has chosen to give the myth the much coveted “Pants On Fire” designation.

That brings this week to a much-needed close.  Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend, and we’ll see you next week.

Let’s get started…

GOODBYE, TEDDY:

• It’s the end of an era…with the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy, the last of the four Kennedy brothers leaves our world and immediately enters the pages of the history books.  He was many things: a staunch liberal, a man well liked by legislators on both sides of the aisle, a skilled negotiator, a survivor of numerous personal tragedies and scandals, and a man who generally favored the pursuit of equality and the betterment of the lives of less-fortunate Americans.  Want to know more of Ted Kennedy’s accomplishments?  Here’s a good write-up of the man often called the “Liberal Lion of the Senate.“  You’ve been affected by his work…and may not have even known it:  The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the Family Opportunity Act of 2006…all of which are related to his lifelong goal of providing better health care opportunities to more Americans, especially children.
• Both Democrats and Republicans have been quick to praise the late senator and his life’s work.  If you want to hear some remarkable praise from men and women of ALL political leanings…this is a good source.  Some examples: President George W. Bush said, “In a life filled with trials, Ted Kennedy never gave in to self-pity or despair.“  President George H.W. Bush said, “While we didn’t see eye to eye on many political issues through the years, I always respected his steadfast public service.“  Nancy Reagan had this to say: “Ronnie and Ted could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another. In recent years, Ted and I found our common ground in stem cell research.“  President Obama praised Kennedy thusly: “His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives – in seniors who know new dignity, in families that know new opportunity, in children who know education’s promise, and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just – including myself.“  And Hillary Clinton said Kennedy was, “a legislator without peer” who “inspired generation after generation of young Americans to enter public service, to stand up for justice and to fight for progress,” while President Bill Clinton described Kennedy as having a “big heart, sharp mind and boundless energy…gifts he gave to make our democracy a more perfect union.“
• For other Republicans…the praise was much more disingenuous and often, opportunistically inaccurate.  Senators McCain, Hatch, and Gregg…used Kennedy’s passing as an excuse to attempt to drive a stake through health care reform, by intimating that compromise could not be reached without Kennedy’s help.  The three Republican senators have tried to paint the current failure to arrive at a bipartisan solution as the result of Kennedy’s lack of involvement, falling just short of saying that Kennedy…would have given up all the parts of the bill they wanted him to, in order to reach agreement.  Rachel Maddow does a good examination of this desire to make one of the most liberal members of the Senate look more “centrist.”  One…they are trying to shift the blame from the GOP and its unreasonable demands for concessions from the bill.  The truth is, if there is no bipartisanship on this bill, it has everything to do with them…and nothing to do with Kennedy.  Two…they are afraid.  Afraid that people will admire Kennedy.  Afraid that they will hear about his attempts to secure more equality for women, minorities, and gay citizens…that they will hear about his attempts to garner security and opportunity for America’s least powerful citizens…that the people will realize that these things are what liberalism is all about, and will come to the conclusion that it must, therefore, be a good thing.  And if there is one thing the GOP does not want…it is liberalism being seen as a good thing.
• Ok…this is a little bit more bizarre than usual.  Here’s a list of the “8 Strangest Reactions to Kennedy’s Death.“  Some are real doozies…and Rush made the list.  Showing his usual lack of taste AND sense, Rush praised himself for predicting Senator Kennedy’s death.  Really?  Wow…who could have guessed that a 77-year-old man with a brain tumor, and who keeps having seizures, would die so soon…?
• I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills: With the news of Edward Kennedy’s passing…the Conservatives for Patients Rights organization has declared that it will temporarily suspend its vicious, and often false, attacks on the health care reform bills, out of respect for the senator.  Of course…it has been pointed out that this “polite suspension of hostilities” will save the group millions of dollars in ad money, but…I’m sure that has nothing to do with it.

THE GREAT HEALTH CARE DEBATE:

• We shouldn’t be surprised at reports that some doctors…are using their offices as “bully pulpits” to promote their own political agendas.  Here is a story of a woman who went to see a specialist, only to have him say, “Well, we’re in a box, because I can’t give you a cortisone shot, because of the valley fever [an illness the patient had recently suffered]…Your valley fever doctor would not be happy with me. But we’re lucky we’re not in the Obama box, because if we were, I couldn’t treat you because you’re over 70.“  This is, of course, a variation on the wildly inaccurate “death panel” theme espoused by opponents of reform, and it does not bear any resemblance to the truth…and it goes without saying that the patient was none to pleased to be confronted with partisan politics while seeking treatment for her ills.
• You heard it here first: in a note similar to the item above, in both its nature and its inherent unprofessionalism…a Dean of the Vanderbilt School of Nursing, Colleen Conway Welch, saw fit to email ALL THE SCHOOL’S STUDENTS and faculty a copy of an extremely partisan, anti-reform document.  The document may be viewed here.  If you skip past the non-factual bullet items to the section containing the “sources” of the information, you will find that two bullet points came from the now-discredited Lewin Group (a research group exposed as being wholly owned by United Health Care), one point is attributed to the Heritage Foundation (a partisan, right-wing “think tank”), and another point is directly sourced to Representative John Boehner and Governor Tim Pawlenty (who are, of course, motivated by partisan politics).  Fortunately, another Dean saw fit to respond,  telling the students that health care is an important topic that they should research themselves (especially for the sake of the 45 million Americans without proper access to care)…and that they should certainly not be swayed by partisan, chain letter propaganda.
• Representative Michele Bachmann thought it a good idea to start her town hall meeting with a long, pointless joke about President Obama playing golf with Tiger Woods…many attendees disagreed and heckled the legislator with chants of “Health care! Health care!“  Clips here.  She would later enchant the crowd with this particular piece of wisdom: “Sometimes we can sometimes get confused when we hear the terms – millions , billions, trillions.  What does that mean? Let’s just take an example: A million seconds is eleven and a half days. A second is 32 years. A trillion seconds is 32,000 years – there’s a big difference between billions and trillions.“   And thousands of miles away, Stephen Hawking threw up in his mouth a little bit, and didn’t know why…
• Just yesterday, Senator Inhofe joined Senator McConnell in the “I-haven’t-read-the-bill-but-will-vote-against-it” club…today they are joined by Representative Jim Marshall (D-GA), who said that we have to do something or health care will bankrupt the economy…and even though he hasn’t read either of the bills, he JUST KNOWS that they don’t contain the right measures, so he will oppose them.

POLITICIANS BEHAVING BADLY:

• Freshman Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins has now apologized:  at a recent press conference she stated that Republicans are looking for the “great white hope” to come and revitalize the party.  The choice of this phrase is, of course, exceedingly unwise, given it entered usage during the civil rights era, when white Americans were looking for the “great white hope“…a white boxer that could defeat the boxing champion, Jack Johnson, who was black.
• In a recent interview with NPR, RNC Chairman Michael Steele showed us that it is not hard to for a man who has not thought through any of his positions to get forced into a corner. The short version: Steele says insurance should be regulated…the interviewer says “wait a minute you would trust the government to look into that?“…to which a flustered Steele says, “No, I’m talking about private. I’m talking about citizens..,” at which point the interviewer points out the government regulates insurance, not private citizens…Steele says, “And so what. Wait a minute. Hold up. You’re doing a wonderful little dance here and trying to be cute.“  You can hear the entire, highly entertaining clip here.
• Sarah Palin…now doing most of her communications, rather bizarrely, through Facebook, recently posted the following: “FOX News’ Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House.  Monday night he asked us to invite one friend to watch; tonight I invite all my friends to watch.“  That’s right…Beck is doing such an extraordinary job that over forty of his advertisers have left his show after he called the President a “racist” who has “a deep-seated hatred of white people.“
• Rex Rammell, an Idaho gubernatorial candidate, says he was only joking when he said he’d buy a license to hunt President Obama.  Not funny…and arguably not legal, Mr. Rammell.  Democratic Party Chairman Keith Roark was overly kind in saying: “Rex Rammell is pretty shrill, and I don’t think he represents the mainstream of the Republican Party by any means.“  Mr. Roark…I’m no longer certain that’s true.

THE MEDIA – HACKS, PUNDITS, AND OTHER INVETERATE LIARS:

• Remember Mark J. Penn…the devious mastermind behind most of the more vicious attacks to emanate from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign?  Well, Penn is now president and chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world’s largest public relations firms.  Penn ALSO writes as a columnist for the Wall Street Journal.  The problem arose with Penn recently wrote a column for WSJ, about “luxury camping” and the impact it could have on the hotel/sporting good/travel industries.  After posting this column…Penn’s company sends an internal email…suggesting they should use Penn’s article as an excuse to contact hotel/sporting good/travel industries for their business.  While to you and I this appears to be a fairly clear example of a legal conflict of interest, but “not so” says the Wall Street Journal: “the reality is that freelancers do use their columns as ways of marketing themselves.“  Ummm…”marketing themselves” is perfectly fine…marketing their companies’ products and/or services…not so much.
• A guest on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, compares the Obama administration to the Nazis: “National Socialism is very much what we see today in this administration, it’s a policy almost line for line. It’s the same economic policy, it’s the same political policy. And so if they want to talk about Nazis, they better be careful about that conversation because they might find that the swastika is on their own arm.“  Hannity’s response to this:  “Ok.”  Sean Hannity, folks…continuing to lower the bar of “responsible journalism,” one notch at a time.

GHOSTS OF OUR PAST:

• The Pentagon…is profiling journalists.  Newly released files prove that, despite the Pentagon’s claims that reporters were not “graded” on their coverage of military events, the Pentagon has been assessing members of the media as “positive,” “neutral,” or “negative.”  So-called “neutral” reporters were seen as malleable:  a potentially negative story could be “softened” just by spoonfeeding them some positive quotes.  Meanwhile, if an action occurred that was a success and the Pentagon wanted to get maximum “mileage” out of it…they just had to present it to one of the reporters they knew to be “positive” and “subjective.”
• Earlier this week, we covered the disturbing number of Bush-era policies that President Obama has kept in place…or even expanded.  Well, add another to the list:  the Obama administration has chosen to preserve the controversial policy that allows the government to search your laptop computer, cellphone, or any other electronic media…without probable cause or warrant while you are travelling.  Elizabeth Goitein, of the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice says, “Under the policy begun by Bush and now continued by Obama, the government can open your laptop and read your medical records, financial records, e-mails, work product and personal correspondence – all without any suspicion of illegal activity.“  The ACLU and other civil liberties groups have responded as would be expected.
• The release of the Inspector General’s report on American interrogation practices during the Bush administration, has caused many conservatives and conservative media outlets to proclaim that “torture works,” simply because the report shows that the torture produced “information.”  Well, Frances Fragos Townsend, Homeland Security adviser and close, personal adviser to President Bush states otherwise.  Townsend responds, “It’s very difficult to draw a cause and effect, because it’s not clear when techniques were applied vs. when that information was received. It’s implicit. It seems, when you read the report, that we got the – the – the most critical information after techniques had been applied. But the report doesn’t say that.“  Oh yeah…and lest we forget:  it wouldn’t even matter if it DID work…it would still be ILLEGAL according to federal and international law.
• Remember months ago, when former Vice President Cheney said that releasing the CIA documents would show that torture had been very effective?  Well, they did not show that to be true at all…and they also showed him to be a liar when he said, “The professionals involved in that program were very, very cautious, very careful – wouldn’t do anything without making certain it was authorized and that it was legal…and any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong. Did it produce the desired results? I think it did.“  The report clearly shows just the opposite:  these “professionals” were not cautious, not careful, and did quite a bit that was unauthorized…and it DID NOT produce the desired results.  You’re batting .000, Dick.

That wraps up another week.  A special thanks to The Library Atheist blog, who linked to yesterday’s post…be sure to check them out!