Last Call

Republicans are definitely scared that the Democrats are serious about passing health care reform in the week ahead, because Moose Lady is back with the death panel lie, imploring her legions to pressure the Blue Dogs to fold in order to save America from Sauron, or Hitler, or Lucifer, or whatever.  Tana Geneva:

In her latest Facebook contribution to the health care debate, Palin calls on Americans to “get stiff” against health reform and stand behind the hero Democrat so committed to denying women rights he’s willing to kill the bill. Said Palin:

Republicans in Congress are holding the line, and some Democrats are standing with them. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) said he won’t vote for the Senate bill if federal funding of abortion is included.
…
There’s a great deal of pressure being put on Stupak’s pro-life Democrats. They’re already dwindling in number. Their party is threatening them, and so are powerful SEIU labor union bosses. The Democrats respecting the sanctity of life have every incentive to buckle under the pressure, so they need to know that we’ll support them if they do the right thing and vote no on Obamacare.

Oh yeah, and speaking of the sanctity of life …

As I wrote in my first post on this topic, human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion. Government health care will not reduce the cost of medical care; it will simply refuse to pay it. And who will get left behind when they have to ration care to save money?

Please ask yourself: who will be left behind? And who will decide – what kind of panel will decide – who receives the health care that government will obviously have to ration?

The death kind?

As you no doubt remember, Palin helped kick off a summer of townhall hysterics by basically saying that Obama wants to kill her down syndrome baby; on a Facebook post she wailed that health reform would result in “death panels” with the power to decide if the disabled and old would live or die. She backpedaled a bit after a huge outcry by conservatives and liberals alike, who didn’t think she should be telling her unhinged supporters the government plans to euthanize them.

But with Dems increasingly confident about the passage of the Senate bill, I guess it’s time to pull out the big guns again — e.g. whip up the base with crazy ass lies.

It's the last gamble they have, Sister Sarah duct taping herself to the cross and using a big screen TV and one of those fake fireplace DVDs and begging the Teabaggers to smite down some Democrat evil before they harm St. Trig of Alaska.  Indeed, Tuesday is expected to have another 1.99 million invisible Teabaggers marching on Washington again in order to strike a final, decisive blow for rule by an angry minority who lost the elections.


Jefferson and Washington clearly wanted America run that way.  Hell, Virginia is already working on passing a law that will ban the state from participating in government health care.  I wonder how long that'll last.  I'd say it wouldn't survive a court challenge, but all they have to do is argue that it's free speech, and the Supremes may strike down the last 200 years of precedent on the interstate commerce clause.  Far more worried about that than I am Moose Lady.

A Supreme Case Of Conflicting Interests

Justice Clarence Thomas's wife is pursuing a career as a hard right lobbyist (Via AmericaBlog)

As Virginia Thomas tells it in her soft-spoken, Midwestern cadence, the story of her involvement in the "tea party" movement is the tale of an average citizen in action.

"I am an ordinary citizen from Omaha, Neb., who just may have the chance to preserve liberty along with you and other people like you," she said at a recent panel discussion with tea party leaders in Washington. Thomas went on to count herself among those energized into action by President Obama's "hard-left agenda."

But Thomas is no ordinary activist.

She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a tea-party-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court.

In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative "core principles," she said.

The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources -- including corporations -- as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.

That's nice. Funny how this lobbying career only started just after the decision that granted corporations nearly unfettered access to donate as much money as they want to to whomever they wish.  But the real tale here is the silly defense of this from K-Lo:

Does the fact that she's married to a Supreme Court justice give her an unfair advantage in politics? Maybe sometimes it does give her an advantage. In some crowds — like the Los Angeles Times — it probably does just the opposite. Either way, it is a free country. We're allowed to be married and still have careers, even careers involving politics. Ginni wants to do what she can to preserve freedom. And the Supreme Court, mercifully, doesn't stand in her way. 

That's her defense.  Pray tell, what should happen if a company that donates to Virginia Thomas's Liberty Central group finds itself before the Supreme Court as a litigant?  Lopez doesn't say.  Nor, apparently, does she find that situation even remotely objectionable, after all it would be "standing in Ginni Thomas's way" for her to exercise her free speech rights in order to influence Congress.

With news that 89-year-old Justice Stevens will be retiring before the end of Obama's first term, we've seen the Supreme Court already balance on the edge of a knife and go over that edge on a number of occasions, most notably that recent Citizens United ruling that effectively struck down campaign finance laws.  If you don't think the goal here is for conservatives to win back Congress in 2010 and make replacing Stevens impossible for anyone other than another Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia, giving them a 5-4 edge that will allow them to freely dismantle Roe v. Wade and 80 some odd years of post New Deal liberalism and civil rights protections, you're kidding yourself.

And of course, conservatives find nothing objectionable about this.

Death Panel Dan Doubles Down Doubly

Dan Riehl continues to dig a massive, idiotic hole for himself.

The state in the hands of the statist is most purely utilitarian by definition. It embraces what it believes has a useful function. And the statist's goal is to empower and preserve the state, not any one of its people. That is a myth. That's what makes putting health care into the hands of the state so dangerous. It goes to what Stupak was pointing out when he said the Democrat leadership viewed more abortions as a good thing. It reduces costs for the state.

Health care must remain an individual utility, for the individual to choose when and how it is utilized in their life. Those decisions will only sometimes mirror what the state would decide. That Congress exempted itself from this very act is all the proof one should need to have. As Melissa Clouthier points out, as functionaries of the state, they will preserve themselves and their families at all cost. That will never apply to you and yours. It simply is untrue. Were it so, they'd have no need to exempt themselves. We will end up with a two-tiered system of health care in America. And the majority of the population will never have access to the upper tier reserved expressly for the moneyed and political elites.

Because the system we have now, where insurance companies decide who receives health care strictly on a cost-benefit analysis based on making a profit off health insurance premiums, and care is denied to those who cannot pay for it, is magically completely unlike the hell that Riehl describes where people are seen as purely actuarial numbers, those in most of need of care are rejected because they have pre-existing conditions, and people are denied any more care once they reach a pre-set limit.

We totally do not have a two-tiered system now where the moneyed and elite can afford health care and the rest of us have to pray that bureaucrats decide to pay for coverage, or our loved ones suffer.  My goodness.  How does he get up in the morning without tripping over his own stupid?

I don't say this often about people, but this guy is a complete moron.

Sunday Funnies: Everything Old Is New Again

With Johhny Volcano and Fluffy off this week (I guess it's time to fire up the grill) it's Old Skool time on the Sunday Funnies, with President Scott Brown's chief of staff Karl Rove and Tom Brokaw and of course, Axeman and Huckleberry Hound.

Tapper: Lindsey you say reconciliation is fascist
but you voted for reconciliation when it suited you

Graham: yes but health care affects one sixth
of the economy

Tapper: and Bush tax cuts don’t?

Graham: this is completely different after all we
have a black Democratic President now

Tapper: The Democrats say the people want this bill

Graham: the American people are just sick of
this crap

Tapper: meaning what?

Graham: they’re going to cut Medicare!

Tapper: you’re the President’s best friend - is Obama committed to immigration?

Graham: no he doesn’t meet with Republicans every day - it’s so sad

Tapper: what should be do

Graham: let Senator Obama propose a bill and I
will decide whether or not to veto it

Tapper: where is the leadership from John McCain

Graham: give the old man a break - he’s being primaried by a lunatic

Tapper: to be fair last time the GOP killed the immigration bill!

Graham: no that’s not fair - Obama is a sleazy black man cheating and is going to use a trick which we used to use all the time

Because of course the best way to get a bead on Obama is to ask Karl Rove.

[UPDATE 4:25 PM]  It's worth noting however that Digby is right about Huckleberry, who went on to blame the Dems for Bush's immigration reform failing when it was killed by the Wingers.  Graham is hoping you'll forget Malkinvania's screams of SHAMNESTY at the top of her lungs.

 I hope everyone realizes that this is a set-up on immigration reform. Graham is a snake. He is trying to position the Republicans as friends of the Hispanic community, but he will torpedo anything meaningful and then blame it on the Democrats. The GOP has no intention of going up against their tea party bigots, but they'd sure like to demobilize the Hispanic community by undermining their loyalty to the Democrats.

I consider Graham to be one of the most dangerous Republicans in the government. He's a very bad faith player whom the villagers love as a sort of cornpone Jimmy Stewart. I hope the Democrats don't underestimate him.

It would be a bad idea indeed to do so.  Graham isn't nearly as stupid as he appears.

Cleaning Up The Mess, Part 3

Everything you need to know about how Israel's settlement expansion is going to play out in the Village is summed up by Paul Mirengoff at Power Line (emphasis mine):

Whether the administration was genuinely insulted is questionable. I suspect that it simply wishes to present itself as an injured party in order to push Israel for concessions.

After all, this administration isn't easily offended. The governments of Iran, China, and Russia (among other regimes) have all, in various ways, insulted the U.S.and its president with no reaction, at least not a public one. Moreover, Israel has apologized for the timing of its announcement of plans for the new housing units. I don't recall our enemies apologizing for their various derisive comments about President Obama.

Frankly, I'm not sure Israel should have apologized either. Doing so emboldens the administration to become more aggressive. On the other hand, Netanyahu understandably feels the need to come across as reasonable and conciliatory. That way, if the White House continues to overreact, Israel will be seen by its citizens and its supporters in the U.S. as more sinned against than sinning in this matter. 

"Emboldens the administration to become more aggressive."  Mirengoff has no problems using the kind of language usually reserved for rogue terrorist regimes to warn Israel of emboldening the President of the United States.

Which country does he consider to be more important, us or Israel?  Isn't that a bit of a problem?  Israel has the right to exist of course, and it is a sovereign nation.  But why are we responsible for its welfare?  Don't we have 300 million of our own to worry about here in this recession?  Isn't that the "fiscally responsible" thing to do?

Or is that a sham too?

Happy Pi Day!

It's 3/14, better known as Pi Day!




Math.  It works.