GOP Sweetheart – 2/27/2010: Jim Bunning

I’ve read several rants blaming Democrats for letting Bunning get away with this, but that’s not fair.  The Republican and Democratic leadership had agrees to pass this measure by unanimous consent, and most of the Senators left for the weekend.  The Democratic leadership had no idea that Bunning planned this, and when he dropped the bomb, there were no longer sixty Senator’s left to override his filibuster.  The net effect is that the GOP derailed several important programs in addition to cutting off unemployment benefits for thousands of workers, displaced by the GOP’s No Millionaire Left Behind program.  They can now lie and say they did not know either, blaming it all on Bunning, who is not seeking reelection.

In the midst of the worst economy in decades, Republican U.S. Senator Jim Bunning last night again took to the floor of the United States Senate to block passage of legislation that would extend unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans -- and his party is doing nothing to stop him.

It's worth watching his mean-spirited obstructionism -- and Harry Reid's and Dick Durbin's attempts to cajole him into supporting the legislation -- to get a sense of just how committed some Republicans are to doing the wrong thing for America:

Bunning is the poster-child of the most callous, heartless political party in modern American history, and they are proud of it. If they get their way, this coming Sunday, unemployment benefits will expire for countless out-of-work Americans because a handful of extremist ideologues decided to tie the U.S. Senate up in knots… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

Only a true GOP Sweetheart could be so heartless and so devious.

Mooseolini and the Professor

Sarah Palin will be getting some ‘fair and balanced’ political education, thanks to Rupert Murdoch.  She will be tutored by paragon of fairness, love and understanding, Professor Glen Beck.
 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Somehow I think that Bimbo Barbie’s first course will be Tea Buggery 101.

A Moment in Time at the Summit

I tried to find one exchange that personified the health care summit.  Here’s my choice.

CALVIN WOODWARD

AP News

Feb 25, 2010 13:07 EST

When President Barack Obama and a Republican lawmaker sparred Thursday over what might happen to health insurance premiums in an overhauled system, both cited a nonpartisan analysis that looked at that very question. The president gave a fairer summary of what the analysis found.

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander declared in his statement to the White House health policy conference that "for millions of Americans, premiums will go up" under the Obama plan. That much could be true — but for millions of others, premiums are expected to go down and those who face higher costs would be getting better coverage than they have now.

The debate on that point is key if Americans are to accept the insurance changes Obama wants. Democrats know that pitching their plan as a means to extend coverage to the uninsured is not enough: They must convince middle-income Americans who already have insurance that they, too, will end up with a better deal under the overhaul. So the squabble was about more than a bureaucratic report.

Obama sharply challenged Alexander on his claim and insisted he had the facts on his side when quoting from the report by the Congressional Budget Office. For the most part, he did.

THE CLAIMS:

Obama: "Lamar, when you mentioned earlier that you said premiums go up, that's just not the case, according to the Congressional Budget Office."

Alexander: "Mr. President, if you're going to contradict me, I ought to have a chance .... The Congressional Budget Office report says that premiums will rise in the individual market as a result of the Senate bill."

Obama: "No, no, no, no. Let me — and this is an example of where we've got to get our facts straight."

Alexander: "That's my point."

Obama: "Well, exactly, so let me — let me respond to what you just said, Lamar, because it's not factually accurate. ... Here's what the Congressional Budget Office says: The costs for families for the same type of coverage that they're currently receiving would go down 14 percent to 20 percent. What the Congressional Budget Office says is that because now they've got a better deal, because policies are cheaper, they may choose to buy better coverage than they have right now, and that might be 10 percent to 13 percent more expensive than the bad insurance that they had previously."

THE FACTS:

Both are right, but Obama offered important context that Alexander left out.

The analysis estimated that average premiums for people buying insurance individually would be 10 to 13 percent higher in 2016 under the Senate legislation, as Alexander said. But the policies would cover more, and about half the people would be getting substantial government subsidies to defray the extra costs.

As the president said, if the policies offered today were offered in 2016, they would be considerably cheaper under the plan, even without subsidies. One big reason: Many more healthy young people would be signing up for the coverage because insurance would become mandatory. They are cheap to insure and would moderate costs for others.

Moreover, the analysis estimated that almost 60 percent of the people covered under individual policies would qualify for subsidies, bringing their own costs down by more than half from what they pay now…

Inserted from <TPM>

Here’s the video:

 

In short, while the Republicans were not as ill prepared as they were during their conference, they had nothing to bring to the table, except for their tired old talking points and lies.  The Democrats were not that impressive either, but Obama stood out.

The GOP has made it abundantly clear that there is no negotiating with them.  Without the public option, the bill is far less than it should be.  Nevertheless, the good qualities it does have are too significant to allow it to slip away.  After a VERY brief pause (ten minutes would be ideal), lets move on to reconciliation.  AQs soon as it’s passes, and signed, it will be tome to start pushing for health care reform: single-payer.

Keith Olbermann - Special Comment - For His Father

If you have not seen this, watch it.  If you have, watch it again.  I wish every Senator and Representative would watch this.  I have nothing else to say, because my words would only lessen the impact of his.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Three More Health Care Videos

First, Rachel Maddow and Barbara Boxer discuss the despicable GOP tactic of lying that reconciliation is ‘the nuclear option’.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now you know full well what the nuclear option is, because we have discussed it here and here.

Next Rachel Maddow explains why Health Insurance companies just don’t care who they hurt or kill.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

She raises an excellent point.  The sole purpose for their existence is to make as much money as they can.  What she does not say here is that it is the same reason corporations should not have the same political rights as people, since corporate interest and public interest are diametrically opposed.

Finally, Anthony Weiner ripped into the Republicans like gangbusters!

 

Peter DeFazio is a Representative from Oregon, and was the one granting Weiner time.  Did you see the grin on his face when Weiner was done?  What a grin!  I’d have to munch down half the birds in the Western Hemisphere to have a grin like that!  Bravo Weiner!!

About that Useless Stimulus

The nonpartisan CBO has finally weighed in.

For months, conservatives have been claiming that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, i.e. the stimulus) is a “boondoggle” that “failed” and did not create “one new job.” But last week, the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted that economic research firms estimate that ARRA created or saved 1.6 to 1.8 million jobs. And today, the non-partisan Congressional Research Office placed the estimate even higher, saying that ARRA is responsible for up to 2.1 million jobs in the 4th quarter of last year:

CBO estimates that in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2009, ARRA added between 1.0 million and 2.1 million to the number of workers employed in the United States, and it increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by between 1.4 million and 3.0 million…CBO also estimates that real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) was 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent higher in the fourth quarter than would have been the case in the absence of ARRA.

CBO calculated that without the stimulus package, the unemployment rate would be up to 1.1 percent higher. It also said that unemployment is higher than analysts predicted after passage of the ARRA due to “greater-than-projected weakness in the underlying economy rather than lower-than-expected effects of ARRA.”  [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Now we can prove it it from multiple sources.  The GOP has been lying all along.  The stimulus is helping.  Unemployment is higher than predicted not because the stimulus failed, but because the depth and breadth of the havoc GOP policies had on our economy was worse than most realized.  Former readers will remember that I said, before Obama had even won the Democratic nomination, that it would take a generation, not a single presidency to undo the damage that is the legacy of Bush and the GOP.

On to HCR!

I suspect that everyone will be posting an analysis of Obama’s proposed fixes to the Senate bill.  I like most of them, but rather than duplicating many efforts, I’d like to look at what the upcoming summit means.

Responding to the release of Obama’s health care plan, the House Minority Leader forgets to mention that the plan pulls the plug on grandma:

“This new Democrats-only backroom deal doubles down on the same failed approach that will drive up premiums, destroy jobs, raise taxes, and slash Medicare benefits,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). “This week’s summit clearly has all the makings of a Democratic infomercial for continuing on a partisan course.”

What’s interesting about this official response is that it appears to fall directly into a trap that the White House has been quite candid about in their off-the-record comments. The White House is using this summit on Thursday to “shine a light” on the lack of any serious counterproposals from the Republicans. They will also be able to demonstrate that independent experts disagree with Republican assertions that the proposed legislation will drive up premiums, increase the budget deficit, create death panels, raise taxes (except on the wealthiest Americans), or slash Medicare benefits.

There’s a basic clash that is being set up on the White House’s terms. On the one side, the White House is presenting this as a situation where health care reform is going to pass. That aspect is removed as part of the debate. All that remains to decide is what precisely will be in the legislation. On the other side, the Republicans simply want to defeat any health care reform, no matter what is in the bill. But that position violates the entire premise and spirit of the summit, including its aspirational bipartisanship. It also means that the Republicans do not concede that some reform is urgently needed. That’s why the Blue Anthem rate hikes of 39% are being put forward by the White House. How can hikes that large not require a response?

The Republicans had already convinced their supporters that the battle to kill health care reform was won. This puts them in a bind. How can they concede that something needs to pass? How can they accept the very premise of the summit that they feel politically compelled to attend? Yet, if they do attend the summit and they behave in the way they’ve been behaving, they’ll be sharply corrected by representatives of the Office of Management and Budget, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

It appears that the Republicans are headed full-steam into a political trainwreck. If they engage seriously during the summit, embracing the premise that reform needs to pass, they’ll enrage their base beyond description. But if they petulantly refuse to accept the premise and keep repeating their mantra that the American people have already rejected reform, they’ll come off exactly the way the White House wants them to come off. And then the Democrats will have renewed momentum for passing a bill under reconciliation rules…

Inserted from <Alternet>

To point out just how absurd their position is, here’s some great video from the Daily Show.  (Big thanks to RJ, who sent me this in an email.)

 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Apparent Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The President’s plan has one huge fault.  It lacks a public option, despite wide-spread public support for it:

…A batch of state polls by the non-partisan Research 2000 shows that in multiple states represented by key Dem Senators who will have to decide whether to support reconciliation, the public option polls far better than the Senate bill does, often by lopsided margins.

Here’s a rundown, sent over by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which commissioned the polls:

* In Nevada, only 34% support the Senate bill, while 56% support the public option.

* In Illinois, only 37% support the Senate bill, while 68% support the public option.

* In Washington State, only 38% support the Senate bill, while 65% support the public option.

* In Missouri, only 33% support the Senate bill, while 57% support the public option.

* In Virginia, only 36% support the Senate bill, while 61% support the public option.

* In Iowa, only 35% support the Senate bill, while 62% support the public option.

*In Minnesota, only 35% support the Senate bill, while 62% support the public option.

* In Colorado, only 32% support the Senate bill, while 58% support the public option.

When the White House unveiled its new proposal to take to the summit, it did not include a public option, as expected. Obviously, including one would have made it easier for Republicans to argue that Dems aren’t making a good-faith effort to compromise, since the public option is the centerpiece of the dreaded “government takeover” that Republicans have warned against.

But if the summit yields no compromises, and Dems decide to forge ahead on their own and pass reform via reconciliation, including the public option at that point might make some political sense, if the above polls are to be believed.

Inserted from <The Plumline>

At the very least we need to include a Medicare expansion, as Keith Olbermann and Howard Dean discussed.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bold Progressives are undertaking a campaign to press for the public option.  Please join me in signing it.  To do so, click here.

Teabaggers Are Crawling from Under Their Rocks

Yesterday I told you about a Facebook group honoring Joseph Stack, the nut case who crashed his plane into an Austin office building.  AmericaBlog captured images the teabaggers’ attempt to restart it, before Facebook took it down:

Is this foul or what?  How anyone could honor this mad man boggles my mind.  But this had risen all the way to the GOP mainstream.

Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes discuss the GOP love affair with violence.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Please take a few minutes to read today’s other articles. I wish I could put all of them on top, today.

Tax the Rich!

For years the GOP, with the complicity of some Democrats, has used our tax code to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the very rich.

For Democrats wavering in their resolve to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, shocking new data from the IRS should hopefully stiffen their backbones. Between 2001 and 2007, the 400 richest taxpayers doubled their annual incomes to an average of $345 million, while their effective tax rate plummeted to only 16.6% from 29.4% in 1993.

Following recent analyses confirming that income inequality in the United States has reached record levels, noted tax journalist David Cay Johnston summed up the new data, "The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low. The numbers tell the tale of the widening chasm between the rich and everyone else:

In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16...

Adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars, the top 400 enjoyed a 27 percent increase in their income, or nine times the rate of increase for the bottom 90 percent...Since 1992, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen their incomes rise by 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with an increase of 399 percent for the top 400.

Unsurprisingly, the public disclosure of the top 400 report first introduced by the Clinton administration was halted by President Bush (only to be reinstituted by the Obama White House last year). Unsurprising that is, because the sheer size of the massive windfall for America's rich due to the Bush tax cuts would make a Warren Buffet blush.

 

 

As the Center for American Progress noted, the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. And to be sure, their payday was staggering. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities detailed that by 2007, millionaires on average pocketed $120,000 from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Those in the top 1% stashed an extra $45,000 a year. As a result, millionaires saw their after-tax incomes rise by 7.6%, while the gains for the middle quintile and bottom 20% of Americans were a paltry 2.3% and 0.4%, respectively. (Other CBPP studies demonstrated that the Bush tax cuts accounted for half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure in the White House and will continue to do so over the next decade.)

And as the New York Times uncovered in 2006, the 2003 Bush dividend and capital gains tax cuts offered almost nothing to taxpayers earning below $100,000 a year. Instead, those windfalls reduced taxes "on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000." As the Times revealed in a jaw-dropping chart, "the top 2 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $200,000, received more than 70% of the increased tax savings from those cuts in investment income." So it should come as no surprise that the income share of the 400 richest Americans doubled over the past decade.

 

 

And yet, the usual suspects among the Republican Party (and some quislings among the Democrats) are pleading that the rich should be spared even as their share of the national wealth reaches stratospheric levels…

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

I have long held that a seldom discussed cause of the Republican recession is this grotesque transfer of wealth.  As the filthy rich sucked up more and more of our nation’s wealth, lower and middle class Americans found themselves getting poorer in real terms.  Everything was going up except their stagnant wages.  The housing bubble would never have occurred, if these Americans, encouraged by smooth-talking predators,  had not felt the need to leverage the equity in their homes to educate their children, pay for their sky-rocketing health care premiums, or just maintain their standard of living.

Most economies resemble a pyramid in which a broad base holds up a small capstone.  But in today’s GOP rendered economy, the capstone has become so heave that its weight is crushing the base.  Until this gross inequity is addressed, there can be no escape from the bubble/crash cycle.  The solution is easy enough, if we have the political will to do it.  Tax the rich.  For example, if rich people had Social Security and Medicare payments deducted from their entire salaries, including bonuses and stock, the solvency issue in those programs would be instantly cured.

Cousin FatCat has a different opinion.

.

The Afghanistan Story

On November 5, I posted this article as part of Blog Blast for Peace.  I am reposting it today, because they are featuring this article as I learned in the following email:

I wish the world could recognize today the sound of all our voices - crying for peace.
I applaud your entry for BlogBlast For Peace on November 5, 2009. I learned and was reminded of a great deal in this post. I am just now getting around to all the entries....reading them carefully.
One thing is certain: Bloggers and journalists in 50 countries have spoken in record numbers and continue to speak.
When will they listen?
You are #1640 in the official peace globe gallery found here. http://blogblastforpeace.com/
It will post February 19, 2010 and will be linked back to this post.
Welcome to the peace globe movement. I am reminded to keep going and let the people speak.
You spoke eloquently.
I appreciate your time and effort, Tomcat.
Mimi Lenox

Thank you, Mimi.  Contributing my small part was an honor.
Before I begin, I wish to give credit to a rather remarkable woman on Facebook named Mimi Lenox.   She started a Facebook “cause” which has become quite successful, Blog Blast for Peace.  It is an annual event every November 5, and this article is my contribution to that cause.
Before long, President Barack Obama will have to commit himself on a way to proceed in the Afghanistan War.  It struck me that most Americans know little or nothing about that nation, because that’s not how the MSM covers news.  Most major networks cover only the sensational.  The one that does try to do a small amount of education does so only because they are the propaganda arm of the Republican party.  Education based on lies is not helpful.  So to assist you, here’s my take on the subject.
Afghanistan occupies an area between the middle east and the Indian sub continent.  It is peopled by at least a dozen separate ethnic groups including Baluch, Chahar Aimak, Turkmen, Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Nuristani, Arab, Kirghiz, Pashai and Persian.  The Pashtun are the largest and represent about half the population.  The Tajik represent about one fourth of the population.  While there are small religious communities from other faiths, Islam is the country’s principle religion, brought there by Arabs in the eighth and ninth centuries.  Before that, Afghanistan was often occupied but seldom ruled by the Persians, Greeks, and Sassanians.  The Mongols ruled there from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries.  Next Afghanistan was caught between two warring empires, the Mughal of India and the Safavid of Iran.  Both concentrated on destroying the region’s population and resources to deny it to each other.
In 1747, Ahmad Shah, a Pashtun, unified and expanded the country well beyond it’s present borders.  After his death Afghanistan entered a period of civil war.  In the nineteenth century, Afghanistan became a bone of contention between the British Empire and Czarist Russia.  It became a British protectorate until 1919.  Following the Russian Revolution, Afghanistan revolted with Soviet help.  Britain agreed to Afghanistan's independence, but secretly organized a coup by King Zahir Shaw.  He ruled as a complete dictator until ke was overthrown in 1973 by family members who declared a Republic.  Dahoud became President, supported by the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan, a pro Moscow party.  The PDPA overthrew Dahoud in 1978.  Moscow, not pleased with the progress of “reforms”.  They invaded in 1979 and turned the government over to Karmal.
Following the Soviet invasion, the USA provided aid and weapons to the Mujahedeen.  The CIA, under Reagan and the GOP,  paid $30 million to Osama bin Laden to organize a network of terrorists and unleash them against the USSR.  In 1989 the Soviets withdrew.  The US had a perfect opportunity to help build the nation and use the goodwill we had developed.  But with the Soviets gone, GHW Bush and the GOP had no interest.  The country remained in a state of chaos until the ISI, Pakistani Intelligence, aided a new religious group, the Taliban, who stabilized the country over the next ten years.  In the meantime, Osama bin Laden had turned against the US, because he objected to US forces being stationed in his Saudi homeland during and after the First Gulf War.
To the north, a vast reserve of natural gas was discovered in Turkmenistan.  Allowed to develop without interference, it would become part of the Russian Gazprom network.  But Big Energy in the US had other ideas.  Unocal planned a pipeline between the Caspian Sea in Turkmenistan and Karachi in Pakistan on the Gulf of Oman, cutting Russia out of the loop.  The route ran across Afghanistan, right through the enclave being used by bin Laden for his training camps.  So Unocal, backed by the Carlisle Group, a hedge fund whose most active participants are the Saudi Royal family and the Bush family, for the Taliban to agree to an election, to give the Taliban an aura of legitimacy, and a deal to build the pipeline.  The Taliban would not agree to an election.  Women’s rights groups got wind of the negotiations and objected in support of Afghan women and Clinton refused to invade as Unocal requested, so Unocal backed off and began negotiations with the Northern Alliance.  In 2,000 the pipeline was back on the table, because a stolen election in the US put the GOP back in power under GW Bush.  He threatened the Taliban to either turn over bin Laden or face military consequences.  Bin Laden launched his own preemptive strike to hit the US before we could get him.  That strike was the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon on 9/11/2001.  The rest is history.  The US invaded Afghanistan and installed a Unocal employee, Hamid Karzai to head our puppet government there.
Had we started nation building at that time, we still had an opportunity to stabilize Afghanistan, but GW “Chicken Hawk” Bush, Dick “5 deferment” Cheney, and Donald “I got Saddam his first chemical weapons” Rumsfeld were focused on attacking Iraq, in a failed attempt to control their oil and establish permanent military bases there.
In the meantime, Afghanistan has divided into two camps: a small, thoroughly corrupt, urban elite that controls the large cities and a much more populous, decentralized rural majority that hates the elite minority and the foreign powers whose backing keeps that minority in power.
So this is the mess Obama inherited.  The Afghan people have good cause to distrust foreigners, developed over centuries, and thanks to GOP duplicity from three different administrations, they have ample cause to hate Americans.  As much as I would love to see Afghanistan brought into the 21st Century, and Afghan women given the human rights they deserve, our troops are the wrong nationality in the wrong place at the wrong time to accomplish that goal.
Unfortunately, we have commitments with several allies to be there, so we cannot arbitrarily withdraw and leave them holding the bag, but the time has come to negotiate a withdrawal with those allies and work with the UN to alter the mandate backing our presence there.  Our men and women in uniform are far too precious to spend their blood on a war that we will not win.

GOP Hypocrites Begging for Stimulation

The stimulus is beginning to work.  There’s certainly more stimulus required.  How do I know?  If not, why are GOP politicians grubbing for the money?

The Wall Street Journal has followed up on The Washington Times report about Republican lawmakers who publicly opposed the stimulus but privately sought stimulus funds to create jobs in their states and districts. Some nuggets:

Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who called the stimulus a "wasteful spending spree" that "misses the mark on all counts," wrote to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in October in support of a grant application from a group in his district which, he said, "intends to place 1,000 workers in green jobs."

Republican Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina and Jean Schmidt of Ohio sent letters in October asking for consideration of funding requests from local organizations training workers for energy-efficiency projects.

The Environmental Protection Agency received two letters from Sen. John Cornyn of Texas asking for consideration of grants for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston. Mr. Cornyn is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. One of the letters was signed jointly with Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, also of Texas.

The agency also appeared to have received eight identical letters from Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah recommending infrastructure projects in his state, seven of which were sent before stimulus legislation was passed by Congress.

The entire congressional delegation of Alabama, including its two Republican senators, wrote to then-Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell asking for $15 million for cogongrass eradication and control programs in the state. The state ended up getting a $6.3 million grant.

It's not just the WSJ and Washington Times that are paying attention. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Gov. Tim Pawlenty used stimulus funds to balance his state's budget. TPM notes new Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has privately thanked the administration for offering stimulus funds to his state.

Based on these and other reports, the Obama Administration is mounting an aggressive defense of the stimulus program, pointing to the 'slam it in public, beg for it in private' hypocrisy of its Republican critics… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

I know you’ve seen that chart before at other blogs, but the Democratic Party sent it to me in email and asked me to spread it around, and it does fit this article perfectly.  As bad as things still are, that condition is a result of the disaster Bush and the GOP left Obama and the Democrats to clean up.  Long term readers who were here during the previous incarnation of Politics Plus will remember that, during the last year of the Bush/GOP regime, I often speculated that the GOP, knowing they would face major losses in 2008, intentionally allowed the economy to tank, even including the misuse of their half of TARP spending, to leave a mess behind that was so bad that they could blame Democrats for the effects of their own policies and use that blame in an attempt to regain power.  While In have no proof that was their intent, inductive logic indicates likelihood.  Look at that chart again.  Things are not as bad as they used to be.

Bear in mind that these reports of GOP duplicity regarding the stimulus are not coming from left wing sources.  Both papers are bastions of the right.

Two of my favorite people had a field day with this story.

First, here’s Rachel Maddow with DNC Chair, Tim Kaine.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Next, here’s Keith Olbermann with Eugene Robinson.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I hope you watched both.

Now the next time a rabid right winger tells you that the stimulus is _________ [insert GOP lie at hand], you are now armed with the truth.  Let them have it with both barrels.

Palin for President?

I’d love to see her get the nod from the GOP.

Hyper-partisan, painfully ignorant, pathologically dishonest, chronically unethical, intellectually unconscious, and jaw-droppingly stupid. And those are her better qualities.

Sarah Palin is so soulless that she traded away her credibility on the one issue on which she had any authority: her personal story about raising a child with special needs. That was it, the full sum of her sliver of sincerity. And she gave it up to offer political cover to an equally soulless ally.

In other words, she is the perfect embodiment of what her party has become. Unlike past nominees and potential candidates for 2012, Sarah Palin is a pure Republican, unable or unwilling to take any position on any issue that would put her at odds with her party. And that's why Sarah Palin should run for president.

And she thinks so too:

"I would, I would if I believe that is the right thing to do for our country and the Palin family. Certainly I would do so," she told "Fox News Sunday," in an interview that was taped before she addressed a Tea Party convention the night before. "I think that it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I could potentially do to help our country ... . I won't close a door that perhaps could be open for me in the future."

Absurdity, Sarah? That doesn't begin to cover it. And that is why she is the ideal Republican candidate.

Thinks ACORN put Obama in the White House? Check.

Obama is a socialist? Check.

Obama wasn’t born in the United States? Check.

Obama loves terrorists? Check.

Abortion bad, death penalty good? Check.

Hates gay marriage? Check.

Creationism? Of course.

Jesus = Good? You betcha.

Against sex education? Obviously. Checkmate.

Plus secession points from the extra-nutty 40 percenters. And Governor Perry.

Sarah Palin dared to criticize Hillary Clinton for "whining" about sexism in the media, yet she hides behind that very criticism whenever the media dares to point out her lies, her contradictions, or her outright ignorance. Last month, she called out [Mooseolini delinked] women's rights groups for their "double standard."

...please concentrate on empowering women, help with efforts to prevent unexpected pregnancies, stay consistent with your message that for too long women have been made to feel like sex objects in our “modern” culture and that we can expect better in 2010.

Yet her policies and positions -- from opposing sex education to requiring rape victims to pay for their own rape kits -- do nothing to empower women, prevent unexpected pregnancies, or help to change the image of women as sex objects. After all, this is the woman who thought she could win a vice presidential debate with a short skirt and a whole lot of winking.

Sarah Palin cannot remember the six words that form her entire ideology. David Frum makes the ridiculous claim that Sarah using her hand as a cheat sheet was actually a brilliant chess move. Does anyone (other than Frum) really believe that Sarah Palin is capable of 11th-dimensional chess? She couldn't even get her crib notes right.

Sarah Palin slammed "bored...pathetic bloggers who lie," yet uses her Facebook and Twitter accounts to spread ludicrous lies about the president's policies. Who's the bored, pathetic one, Sarah?

After the President's State of the Union speech, she took to her Facebook page to criticize him:

Real leadership requires results. Real hope lies in the ingenuity, generosity, and boundless courage of the American people whose voices are still not being heard in Washington.

Sarah Palin ran from her opportunity to demonstrate "real leadership" because "only dead fish go with the flow."

Sarah Palin knows nothing and is proud of it. And so is her party. And the Republicans are the party of Sarah Palin, even if some them are embarrassed to admit it. They should be embarrassed. This is what their cynical embrace of ignorance has wrought. It has wrought Sarah Palin.

We know, from Markos's poll, that the majority of the Republican party is crazy and stupid. Despite the whining [Faux Noise delinked] from the very merchants of stupid who have been so successful at pushing these memes, the poll reveals the depth to which this party of Lincoln (as they are so fond of saying) has sunk, willfully embracing hate and ignorance and things that are just factually wrong.

And that is why Sarah Palin should run for president and lead the Republican party's pursuit of pure teabagggery.

If this is the war the party of stupid wants, let them have it. Let us see what their rightwing insanity has sown. Let us watch Sarah debate President Obama, crib notes and all. Because even though the entire Republican Congress was outmatched in a battle of wits only a few weeks ago, Sarah, being Sarah, will strut into any debate thinking she has the upper hand. And America needs to watch that, the arrogance of someone so hopelessly out of her league that she doesn’t even realize she’s out of her league, daring to take on President Obama, daring to claim that she could do his job better as she spouts meaningless platitudes about budget tax cuts and energy and lifting American spirit. It doesn’t matter that she knows nothing. It doesn’t matter that she’s an embarrassment to herself every time she speaks. We need to have our options so obviously spelled out for us that there can be no mistake...

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

Mooseolini would be the ideal candidate from our perspective.  We’d be far worse off it the GOP could manage to nominate a Machiavellian goose-stepper capable of pretending that he or she is a moderate, like GW Bush did.

Whistleblowers Sue Blackwater (Xe)

The private military of Bush, Cheney and the GOP is in hot water again.

Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security company of defrauding the government for years by filing bogus receipts, double billing for the same services and charging government agencies for strippers and prostitutes, according to court documents unsealed this week.

In a December 2008 lawsuit, the former employees said top Blackwater officials had engaged in a pattern of deception as they carried out government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The lawsuit, filed under the False Claims Act, also asserts that Blackwater officials turned a blind eye to “excessive and unjustified” force against Iraqi civilians by several Blackwater guards.

Blackwater has earned billions of dollars from government agencies in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, when the company won contracts to protect American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan. The former employees who filed the lawsuit, a married couple named Brad and Melan Davis, said there was little financial oversight of the money.

Last year, an audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction and the State Department’s inspector general found that the State Department had overpaid Blackwater $55 million because the company had failed to adequately staff its teams assigned to protect American diplomats in Iraq.

The documents detailing the Davises’ accusations were unsealed after the Justice Department declined to join in the case against Blackwater, which last year changed its name to Xe Services. A Xe spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment about the case.

In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Davis said that she and her husband had decided to proceed with the case because “it’s the right thing to do,” and that it was time for “the truth from inside the company” to be made public. If the government is able to recover money from Blackwater as a result of the lawsuit, the Davises could claim a percentage as whistleblowers.

Mr. Davis, a former Marine, performed a number of jobs for the company, including working as a private security guard in Iraq.

Ms. Davis was fired from the company, and she is challenging the legality of her dismissal. Mr. Davis voluntarily resigned from the company.

According to the lawsuit, Ms. Davis raised concerns about the company’s bookkeeping with her bosses in March 2006, when she was handling accounts for the company’s contracts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The lawsuit claims she was told to “back off,” and that she “would never win a medal for saving the government money.”

Ms. Davis also asserts that a Filipino prostitute in Afghanistan was put on the Blackwater payroll under the “Morale Welfare Recreation” category, and that the company had billed the prostitute’s plane tickets and monthly salary to the government...

Inserted from <NY Times>

Keith Olbermann had some excellent background on this story.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now I know that prostitutes in US Embassies are a common occurrence, but extending that recreation from diplomats to hired thugs at taxpayer expense is absurd.  And that is the least of the complaints.  Using mercenaries to protect our diplomats is nothing but Bush/GOP scheme to transfer wealth from the lower and middle classes to corporate cronies.  This company costs several times what military personnel used to cost.  They are a stain on our reputation, and their GOP storm-trooper tactics put our diplomats even more at risk.  Obama is clearly on the wrong page by continuing to use them.  Isn’t it time we fired America’s foulest and returned it to America’s finest?

GOP Hypocrites Want That Stimulus Cash!

Isn’t it amazing how Republicans fought the stimulus tooth and nail but are handing out the money at home as though they fought to get it?

If there's one thing that unites the Republican Party it's that the stimulus bill was a job-killing piece of legislation that was the worst thing in the whole entire world for the economy, right? Or maybe that's just what unites them in public, because in private the Washington Times reports they've been working overtime to get their hands on job-creating stimulus cash.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond regularly railed against President Obama's economic stimulus plan as irresponsible spending that would drive up the national debt. But behind the scenes, the Missouri Republican quietly sought more than $50 million from a federal agency for two projects in his state.

...

In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Mr. Bond noted that one project applying to the USDA for stimulus money would "create jobs and ultimately spur economic opportunities."

Bond isn't alone. Remember Joe "You Lie" Wilson?

Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican who became famous after yelling, "You lie," during Mr. Obama's addresses to Congress in September, voted against the stimulus. Nonetheless, Mr. Wilson elbowed his way into the rush for federal stimulus cash in a letter he sent to Mr. Vilsack on behalf of a foundation seeking funding.

"We know their endeavor will provide jobs and investment in one of the poorer sections of the Congressional District," he wrote to Mr. Vilsack in the Aug. 26, 2009, letter…

You see the pattern?...

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

Rachel Maddow took names… LOTS of names.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I knew this was going on, but the extent baffles the mind.  What hypocrites!  Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!

Death Panels Are Real – We Need Real Reform

In hope we never become immune to the stories of real people suffering from Big Insurance criminal abuse and from having no health coverage.  Sometimes, though the stories are so far removed from human decency that indignation is the only appropriate reaction.

PAUL AND MARIA VanNocker are filing a federal lawsuit today on behalf of their 5-year-old son, Kyler, whose insurance company, HealthAmerica, refuses to pay for the latest treatment needed to prolong his life.

The complaint raises lots of questions that I assume will be answered at trial, should it come to that. The question it won't answer is one that's been gnawing at me since I first wrote of Kyler's plight in December:

How do HealthAmerica's overlords sleep at night?

I know my own dreams would be haunted if I acted as arbitrarily, capriciously and abusively - to borrow some pointed adjectives from the complaint - as the VanNockers allege HealthAmerica has regarding their little boy.

The Harrisburg-based company's denial of benefits to Kyler, the lawsuit claims, is the result of "a biased, self-serving misreading and misinterpretation" of everything from Kyler's medical records to the company's own internal documents.

HealthAmerica's Kendall Marcocci told me yesterday that the company won't comment on pending litigation. Center City attorney David Senoff, though, was happy to explain why he is representing the Van Nockers for free in the lawsuit.

"These companies have to be brought to the courthouse to get them to do the right thing," said Senoff, a specialist in insurance disputes. "This child needs this treatment, or else."

He didn't need to explain what "or else" meant.

Readers may recall that Kyler has neuroblastoma, a rare, deadly childhood cancer that attacks the nervous system, creating tumors throughout his body.

He was diagnosed in 2007 and endured a year of medical treatment, with complications he barely survived. Thankfully, it knocked his cancer into remission for 12 lovely months, and he got to revel once again in the glories of childhood.

Last September, the disease came roaring back. This time, only one form of treatment, something called MIBG therapy, could help save his life.

But HealthAmerica refused to pay for the MIBG, which it considers "investigational/experimental" because there is "inadequate evidence in the peer-reviewed published clinical literature regarding its effectiveness." Nor is MIBG approved by the Food and Drug Administration, another criterion that HealthAmerica requires.

How come, then, asks the lawsuit, HealthAmerica covered not one but two prior therapies for Kyler that did not possess these supposed requirements?

In April 2008, the company approved Kyler's use of a drug to treat a life-threatening blood-flow complication, even though the drug wasn't FDA-approved, wasn't manufactured in the United States and wasn't "peer-reviewed."

However, it was the only known drug to treat Kyler's condition, and he responded well to it. Four months later, HealthAmerica paid for another medication that wasn't FDA-approved for neuroblastoma treatment.

Again, Kyler responded well.

So why, pray tell, is HealthAmerica playing the "experimental therapy" card in the case of the MIBG treatment Kyler now needs? Gee, money couldn't have anything to do with the decision, could it?

In my December column, HealthAmerica's Marcocci was emphatic that her company declined Kyler's MIBG therapy not because of its cost but because of its experimental nature.

But that doesn't mean MIBG is ineffective.

"It's considered the standard of care in Europe and the United States for recurrent neuroblastoma," Kyler's oncologist, Stephan Grupp, told me then. "It's not an unproven treatment with no basis in medical science. Actually, the results are often very good."

Regardless of how you describe MIBG, one thing became clear last week when Paul and Maria got the results of Kyler's latest tests to track his neuroblastoma.

The MIBG is working.

Children's Hospital, where Kyler receives much of his care, proceeded with two rounds of MIBG therapy for Kyler - at a cost of $110,000 - despite the VanNockers' inability to pay for it…

Inserted from <Philadelphia Daily News>

Here’s Keith Olbermann’s take on this.  His closing is particularly effective.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I have nothing but praise for the hospital that saved Kyler’s life with no guarantee of payment.  I have nothing but scorn for the insurance company death panel that denied his treatment and for the Republicans and DINOs that are blocking reform.

Meanwhile, the uninsured are still dying at a rate of several 9/11s per year.

Since the unlikely election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, hardly a day goes by in Washington without a torrent of speculation on what loss of a filibuster-proof majority will mean for the healthcare reform legislation that both houses have already passed. But as the president recently noted, the intense focus on the process of moving the bill over the finish line has done much to obscure the actual human stakes of the policy being debated.

Particularly striking is the near-total absence of the voices of those most acutely affected by the capriciousness of our current healthcare system, the millions who have no insurance. Despite the fact that 30 million of these folks have arguably the largest stake in the legislative outcome, they're almost totally absent from the national conversation over its fate.

Here at The Nation, we have been working to right this in our own small way. We've spent the last two weeks searching for stories from the uninsured. Despite our chosen tools (Twitter and e-mail), or perhaps because of them, we received 185 responses from a diverse group of people. From recent college graduates, to struggling single parents, to recent retirees, the storytellers ranged vastly in age, background and occupation. However, a common thread held them all together: the anxiety and uncertainty that comes with being uninsured.

Many stories expressed great, unshakeable fear that one medical emergency would ruin them. "I would say my wife and I are one medical emergency away from losing everything, but actually I've pretty much resigned myself in my head to the reality that if I have a medical emergency I am going to die," says a used-book seller in California.

The responses included wide array of opinions and varied hopes for the future of healthcare reform, but what an overwhelming majority agreed upon was that the United States government, particularly Congress, had failed to represent them within the debate…

Inserted from <The Nation>

This article goes on to detail many of the stories mentioned.  I hope you will click through.  They are worth the read.