Explaining our stupid elections

In recent months we've seen the debut of new election campaign strategies. Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle is taking a page out of Sarah Palin's book by not appearing on any network or allowing any media access to a journalist that will ask a hard question or not allow her to nakedly fund-raise on air. Ran Paul learned the lesson of allowing media access when the discovered that when he stated his positions near any type of recording device, they tended to make people angry. He has since remedied that situation with a media blackout.

Soon our elections will be conducted with voters only allowed to know the name and party of a candidate, with only a headshot providing the remaining information we're allowed to know. We'll make our decision on whether or not the name is cool and whether we think the person is properly dressed and has a good enough haircut in the photo. Like the founding fathers intended.

Much in this same line is Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who yesterday took to the airwaves and responding forcefully to the suggestion that Republicans should be forced to articulate some actual policy ideas instead of "Democrats want it? No."

KING: So, It’s a combination of being against what Obama is for, and also giving certain specifics of what we are for. Having said that, I don’t think we have to lay out a complete agenda, from top to bottom, because then we would have the national mainstream media jumping on every point trying to make that a campaign issue.

That's right, the GOP can't release a policy platform or series of proposals for what they'd do if they win the upcoming election, otherwise the jerkoff media might go and make the proposed governing of this country a campaign issue. You know instead of what the GOP thinks an election is supposed to be about: bland statements about how things are going to be different, hoping no one remembers the fact that their policies, governing, and obstruction put the country in the deep hole that we're struggling to get out of now, finding an ethnic, socio-economic, or political group and blaming them for all the ills of the world, REPEAL EVERYTHING~!, and never articulating a thought that could be criticized once people understood what it would do to the country.

Great. Ah well, it's not like the coverage of those imaginary issues was going to be intelligent or enlightening anyway. Onward to voting on names, looks, and party affiliation. Whoo! America!

Must the government infringe on a man's right to be orange?

Cheap humor. Sweet, sweet, cheap humor.

We like to make fun of John Boehner for his tanning regimen. Why, because it's easy and we don't like to sweat for a joke. Besides, have you seen him? Motherfucker's orange. Thankfully, John likes easy humor as well, because he's serving up a nice opportunity for everyone to mock him for being a vain, self-obsessed Oompa Loompa.

What's he up to this time? Why he's decrying the abominable health reform bill by blasting out a press release knocking an onerous tax on... tanning beds.

The new tax adds 10 percent to the cost of tanning services businesses provide. Some 30 million Americans visit a tanning salon at least once a year and 75 percent of the employees and customers are women, according to industry sources.
...
According to this Wall Street Journal article, ObamaCare’s tanning tax is causing all kinds of problems for business owners who provide tanning services as well as other products or those who include tanning services as part of a gym membership.

And they call this America? Can't a man be uncommonly orange without the government trying to make him pay and extra buck for it? Is there an uncommonly weepy metaphor the GOP can use to complain about a tanning tax?

Unfortunately, no amount of sunscreen or Aloe will relieve the pain of the Democrats’ impending 10 percent tax on indoor tanning beds

The pain. The pain. Oh the pain. Does perhaps the former standard bearner and Presidential candidate of the Republicans have a Jersey Shore related pun he could unleash to complain about the tanning tax? Perhaps in a Tweet to Snooki?

@Sn00ki u r right, I would never tax your tanning bed! Pres Obama's tax/spend policy is quite The Situation. but I do rec wearing sunscreen!

SenJohnMcCain.

This is serious business, people! I mean, the outrage! People engaging in a luxury activity that increases their likelyhood of cancer by 74% should not be expected to pay minuscule taxes on that activity in order to pay for health care. Also, why would a Senator with a history of face tumors not want to get outraged over a tax that might decrease the amount of people who develop skin cancer?

Look, GOP... I know your minority leader is a tanning addict, but can't you let his unnatural obsession with looking like a citrus fruit be a personal thing? I mean you seemed to have organized a full court press from your leadership on this and even got the conservative media to go after it. Aren't you supposed to be a serious party concerned about serious issues? Isn't this supposed to be a serious country with adult leaders concerned about important business?

Oh, that's right, it isn't. Carry on then. OOOH THAT TANNING TAX! *shakes fist at sky*

Santorum: Now with tea leaves added to the froth

This weekend the country was subjected to more tea party rallies. Why? As best I can guess: so that the Republicans who couldn't get away from their lobbying jobs on Thursday would have a chance to stump for the cause of freedom... teadom. Case in point, Rick Santorum, last seen hilariously losing to a human sleeping pill by 18 points.

True to tea party form, Santorum stuck to grandiose claims about the importance of teabaggers and let the crazy fly when referencing King Hussein Obama X of Mombasa.

"Now it's a different kind of war. Instead of the Japanese dropping a bomb on Pearl Harbor, Barack Obama has assaulted the soul of America," he said. "And it's our watch."
...
"What did you do during this critical time in the future of this country?" "I'm not asking you to charge a beach with guns lined up against you. I'm not asking you to sacrifice anything except for some of your time, some of your energy, and some of your money, to strike a blow for freedom."

Look Rick, I know you don't live around here... or in Pennsylvania at all, but let me clue you in to a little fact about Western PA: we're cool with assault the first time it happens. Hey maybe there was some contact between Obama and freedom, but from the sounds of it things were consensual. Plus, what with these tea party demonstrations and pleas for money, it seems that freedom is only interested in cash and attention. Then there are these multiple stories of how Obama assaulted freedom; from ramming health care down freedom's throat to bailing out banks to being a Muslim, that I just don't know if we can believe freedom's allegations.

However, if this happens a second time.... well... Western PA will certainly be demanding Obama's trade. Possibly to Canada for a 5th round pick.

Surely it wasn't all third rate war and rape allegory. Surely there had to be good news to spread.

As Mr. Santorum was introduced, some chanted "2012," urging him to run for president. In an interview afterward, Mr. Santorum said only that he wants to have an impact on the race, as a candidate or otherwise.

"I'm considering it, but it's way too premature to make any decisions at this point," he said about a possible White House run.

Oh please baby Jesus, tell me that the 2012 battle for the soul of the Republican party is going to be waged by Santorum, Huckabee, Palin, Bachmann, and Newtie. I know they'll televise it, but at podiums on a stage doesn't seem to befit the majesty of such an event. Perhaps there's an open sewer pit that can be rented out. Perhaps one that has been tainted with radioactive waste. Then they can battle it out for the GOP nomination with some irradiated alligators and whoever wins, be it man, woman, or gator, will have the atomic mutations necessary to beat Barry in an election that ACORN surely will have spent years rigging.

Stop considering it, Rick. Run!

The perils of obstructionism

Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning is mad as hell. He's mad at those people who want to use fanciful digital converters to see Hollywood homosexuals cavortin' and caperin' on the picture box and he's mad that all those goldbrickin' sons a bitches without jobs who can't throw a baseball like he used to throw a baseball want to partake in the socialist enterprise known as unemployment insurance. So that's why he, despite calls from even his own GOP leadership, refused to allow a vote on the bill that contained measures on both subjects.

When it was pointed out just what the extent of his blinkered opposition would do to people and how he should drop his objection, he casually blurted out "Tough shit" to those who would not see the wisdom in his ways. But then, in a moment of self reflection, Bunning took time to lament for those who had been unfairly harmed by his obstructionism.

And at one point during the debate, which dragged on till nearly midnight, Bunning complained of missing a basketball game.

"I have missed the Kentucky-South Carolina game that started at 9:00," he said,
"and it's the only redeeming chance we had to beat South Carolina since they're the only team that has beat Kentucky this year.

"Gentlemen, it seems I have been hoisted on my own petard. Will someone think of my suffering?"

But amidst this debate over extending unemployment benefits, one silver lining was revealed.

The unemployment rate in Kentucky is 10.7 percent.

I hope they're the first ones that go broke.

Thanks Jim, stay classy.

Summitry

The all important health reform summit is ongoing RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE. This is the meeting to end all meetings, the meeting to solve all health care problems, and what America hopes will be a somewhat interesting diversion until Olympic coverage starts up again for the day.

I am actually making a large assumption that this health care summit is actually going to get out of preliminary opening speeches. After all, I have no idea if the White House was able to obey all the GOP's demands for this summit. You know, all important stuff like the use of a podium, table shape, seating and camera arrangements, and namecard design. Sure sure, we all want to come together to find a plan to fix this giant health care mess, but I'll be damned if anyone from the Republican Party is going to do it at a round table! So if the GOP is happy with the seating arrangements and Obama agrees to their other all-important demands, like the wearing of green socks and a non-threatening cornflower blue tie, blue binders to hold talking points, Harry Reid has to alternately lift his right and left feet with every word he says, and Jay Rockefeller has to be escorted to and from the proceedings in a wheelbarrow pushed by Dick Durbin, then we can finally get down to the business of fixing health care. Until the lunch break. By God the Democrats better hope they don't fuck up the lunch order or the GOP will walk away just like that.

Over the course of the six hour summit.... six hours? What the fuck? This seems less a serious effort to reform our health system than and attempt to test America's endurance for cheap political theatre. Man John Boehner is really going to have to come up with a whole hell of a lot of ways to say "While we agree with the need to reform the system, we disagree with everyone of your proposals and commit to supporting none of them", while Obama is really going to have to rephrase the sentence "Wonderful proposal you have there... was it written completely by a insurance executive? I'll have my people look over it and pretend we didn't reject it over the past few years we were working on this because that idea didn't help anyone, cut costs, or improve our health system." Ought to be an entertaining six hours.

So what is the point of this whole summit? Who knows. Republicans have already committed to opposing everything Democrats want, so I'm not sure a six hour talk is going to make them start understanding logic or caring about the health problems of people in this country. Plus, they already made the demand that unless Democrats scrap the entire plan and start over, they won't be helping in the slightest. Democrats will in no way listen to Republican ideas to scale back the entire focus of the bill and ignore things like full coverage, rate jacks, and pre-existing conditions.

So instead we'll get six hours of our elected betters coming up with circular ways of saying "Fuck you" and "No, fuck you." Which is entertaining, I guess. But that pretty much describes the entire pathetic state of our government: they can only come together to give money away to large corporations or engage in large scale theatrical bullshit that will have no effect on policy or legislation. And we wonder why our country is in dire straights. Ah well, hopefully someone says something embarrassing, passes out, or cold cocks Eric Cantor. At least then this diversion will have been useful.

Festval of Whites

The Daily Show looks at the recently completed national convention of pissed off old white males that is otherwise known as CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Crazies

As we look at the shattered remnants of our political discourse, two things about our elected betters are clear: that Democrats are money hungry, timid, spineless, fuckups and the GOP is comprised of money hungry, deranged, conspiracy theorists. Now there is no great constituency holding marches on Washington encouraging the Democrats to so completely bungle their current majority, but there are large swaths of Americans who descend upon Washington to argue that Republicans need to get crazier and espouse more and more incoherent conspiracy theories about government and the President.

The only question is how much do these fringe teabag enthusiasts represent the mainstream of Republican voter thought. Thanks to Daily Kos and Research 2000, we know that answer: they represent and disturbingly large margin.

•"Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?" Yes 63%, No 21%, Not Sure 16%.
• "Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?" Yes 39%, No 32%, Not Sure 29%.
• "Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?" Yes 42%, No 36%, Not Sure 22%.
• "Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?" Yes 24%, No 43%, Not Sure 33%.
• "Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?" Yes 21%, No 24%, Not Sure 55%.
• "Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?" Yes 31%, No 36%, Not Sure 33%.
• "Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?" The answer here is Yes 23%, No 58%, Not Sure 19%. Among Republicans in the South, secessionism is stronger at Yes 33%, No 52% Not Sure 15%.

I don't know what's more disturbing, that the Yes and No answers are so close together or the fact that the Not Sure numbers are so high on whether Barack Hussein Obama is Kenyan born socialist Muslim racist who wants America to lose, was installed into power by ACORN, and should be impeached. They can see the pro and con arguments for believing such a thing, but just need to do a little bit more research before coming down one way or the other.

That's in addition to the other finding in the poll which show, by large margins, that GOP voters don't want people in trade unions and don't wants gays to be allowed to do anything. Also: over a third believe that contraception should be outlawed and that birth control equals abortion.

So in case you had any illusions of the GOP and Democrats holding hands and working together, stow them away in the same place you put those dreams for world peace. Not only are the elected ones some of the worst conspiracy mongers out there, there exists a baseline of at least a quarter to a third of Republican voters that believes said craziness and a "not sure" base that could push support of that conspiracy up into fifty percent or two-thirds range.

So no, a battle of ideas won't be coming to our national political discourse anytime soon. Unless you think that "Run away and don't do anything" vs. "Impeach the Muslim socialist appeaser" is what a battle of ideas is. If it is, then you'll certainly be thrilled by the next few years of governance.

The army has been overrun with hippies

Over the past few years one thing we've learned from our Republican brethren is that the military is always right and must always be listened to no matter what they say. We've also learned from the GOP that global warming and climate change are utter myths that are to be ignored.

So what are they going to make of this news: the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the "statement of purpose" for the Defense Department, is going to come out virulently in favor of recognizing climate change and overdependence on fossil fuels and how the military will have to adapt to and address these issues going forward.

Climate change may be an “accelerant of instability” in future conflicts, and the U.S. military needs to plan for possible environmental catastrophes and resource wars, according to the Pentagon’s soon-to-be-released master strategy document.
...
Among other things, the draft QDR suggests the military will have to start planning for operations in which rising sea levels, an ice-free Arctic and higher overall global temperatures may be an important factor. What’s more, it suggests that military planners will have to prepared for the knock-on effects of climate change: forced migration, resource scarcity and the spread of disease.

In parallel, the draft QDR calls for a bigger push for energy independence by the military. The Defense Department, the document notes, is already “moving out smartly” to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, and to tap more renewable sources of energy.

And if that isn't enough to cause the vapors in Jim Inhofe, the Defense Department has already taken numerous steps to prepare for a dystopian world decimated by climate change and is also at the forefront of investing in green technologies and green energy sources in order to cut out supply line vulnerabilities, fuel dependence, and fuel costs. Many of those steps are documented here.

Why do I get the feeling that the global consensus of scientists, demand from the public, possibilities for new industries and economic strength, and a commitment from the rest of the world aren't enough to change the thoughts of the most rock-headed US legislator, but some three-star general with a sufficient Muslim agitating resume going "maybe we need to look at this climate thing... because of war and kaboom and freedom and the troops" is going to make a big difference?

Is it sad that this country can't get major climate legislation passed and that the most significant investments into climate research and green technology we can get without a 60 vote supermajority and some kickbacks to coal state congressmen is from our military backdooring the research so it can wage war better?

So I say to our elected betters who won't vote for environmental legislation but will vote for any and all military action: forget about the hippies, fat Al Gore, or the fact that it may or may not be cold where you are at this very moment and how that disproves global warming. Take action on climate change for the sake of the troops, so they can fight more effectively. You don't hate the troops... do you? Climate Action Now! It's what General Patton would want.

Chart of the day

From Talking Points Memo comes this handy little look at how filibuster and cloture requirements from the Republicans have effectively crippled the Senate into a quivering, useless pile of political retardation. Supermajority is the new majority!

Ignore what we said yesterday

It's official. We've reached that point in the health care debate where blind opposition to various aspects of health care has degraded to the point where you aren't even going to be required to stay consistent on an hour-to-hour or day-to-day basis. I'm disappointed, I had $100 bucks on this happening a month ago.

But, as MediaMatters illustrates, it's better late than never. From the assorted press releases from the office of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

Dec. 6: Cutting Medicare is not what Americans want

And despite the inherent bullshit involved in that lie, when it became clear that, as a compromise, that Democrats were discussing the possibility of opening up Medicare to people at age 55 plus some other things in lieu of a public option, came this:

Dec. 7: Expanding Medicare ‘a plan for financial ruin’

So....do nothing? Or is there a press release also attacking Democrats for doing nothing?

Gentlemen, do you see what happens when you try to make an actual policy argument? You contradict yourself and look like asses all within a 24 hour period. Just stick to " is going to kill grandma". It works if they're going to cut benefits, keep benefits the same, or add people into the system. All could potentially kill grandma. In horrifically painful ways. Don't get into the merits of this idea or that idea, just focus on highlighting what has worked thte best: the Democrats unending obsession with liquidating pensioners.

Brilliant ideas

Over the last few weeks, as the escalation in Afghanistan become a unavoidable reality, some of our elected betters, David Obey being one of them, decided to challenge the conventional wisdom that war is free by arguing that we should actually submit our happytime bombing adventures to the same budgetary principles we make everything else fit into. Even though Obey's "war tax" proposal, which only actually covered spending for 6% of the war, was laughed out of the room by the "serious people" who know that military spending doesn't count as spending, it has given others ideas on war spending. People like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told his colleagues during a closed-door GOP lunch Tuesday that the best way to fund the war would be to use unspent stimulus funds, according to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the third-ranking Republican.
...
"We know the stimulus failed. It was sold to the Congress and to the American people with the suggestion that it would hold unemployment below 8 percent. We know unemployment is over 10 percent," said McConnell. "If we're looking for a way to fund several years of the war I would suggest unexpended stimulus funds would be a good place to start."

Brilliant. I mean even though there's a litany of information showing things like, I don't know, how the stimulus actually averted a much larger crisis and how there's still a lot of good it can do, seeing as only a quarter of it has been spent, we need to stop undertaking measures to fix the economy and job markets and plow all of our remaining money into a largely pointless, unwinnable war.

Thanks Mitch, with Susan Collins actually contributing substantively to health care earlier, I had filled my head with childish notions of rational behavior in the Senate and GOP caucus. Thank you for reminding me that the vast majority of your party is a childish group of pro-war halfwits who want to pull the economy down on top of themselves because they see political benefit in doing so. Short circuiting the economy to pay for more war.....priceless Mitch, just priceless.

Speechishness

So last night, President Obama took time out of his schedule to talk to the nation about Afghanistan. Given the nature and timing of the speech, I'm not sure what made the public madder: escalating a war they aren't confident about or delaying both NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. But throughout his speech the President laid out the goals, perils, pitfalls, and plans for his new Afghanistan strategy in one of the most serious and adult ways that any sitting Commander has ever done to the American people. It's just a shame it was in the service of a bad idea.

But that was just one of his audiences, what of his message to our elected betters who will be called upon to ratify this plan after he's already sent the troops over and started this strategy? Were their war boners mega-huge or just nominally huge?

On Capitol Hill, they will face a major fight over funding the war. In the House, as many as half of Democrats may oppose the administration's request for money to support the surge, forcing Obama to rely on a big block of Republican votes to get the legislation through the House and Senate.

Reactions Tuesday night illustrated the challenging environment for the president. Liberal Democrats expressed opposition to any escalation, while Democratic leaders signaled their reservations by saying they will take time to study the plan. Republicans applauded the troop increase but almost uniformly warned about sending mixed messages with talk of leaving.

Ahh Republicans, you filibuster everything but war. But it's nice to see our debate so clearly lined out: Democrats who are wary of adding troops and Republicans who are wary of ever letting them leave. But we all know where this will be headed: the "centrist" Democrats who fuck up any good legislation and cry about "fiscal responsibility" when it looks like money is going to be spent on actual humans, will help grease the skids for this escalation. It is their way.

So there we are, this is already a foregone conclusion, and the default consensus of our media and political elite is "if the President wants to bomb it or invade it, then he must have a good reason. Let's all shut up now". The troops are going, escalation is happening, and all that's left is a showpiece "debate" two months from now where funding is passed and the debate over the worthiness or intelligence of this plan is reduced to "do you want to win against the terrorists or are you still a pussy?" Ain't America grand? Onward ho! More war forever.

We are ruled by adults

There are people who actually can't conceive of the health care debate sinking lower than it already has. Really? I mean John Shadegg was waving around a baby that wasn't even his. You think they can't think of new ways to take a debate that should have been about the best ways to improve a system that fails tens of millions of Americans and make it about tedious minutiae, cheap stunts, and lies? Just look at Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) & Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.). Apparently they're 13 year old boys who somehow got elected to the House and to show how radical they are they're going to TP old lady Pelosi's House to show her that it's a bad idea to pass health care reform and that she stop handing out apples on Halloween.

Early Friday afternoon, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) announced his intentions to wrap the Capitol building in a massive copy of the 1,900-page health bill. "Let's do it," he proclaimed. "Let's wrap the building."

A security guard urged them not to try ("You can't do that sir, you can't do that.") but King was determined. King and his partner Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) don't appear to have made it all the way around the Capitol, but they did climb the steps and create a giant mess of paper.

My my my, if that isn't an apt metaphor for Congress I don't know what is. Legislators attempt to do something to address a problem they see, are told it's too hard and complicated, then give up, leaving a giant mess behind that someone else has to clean up.

But I guess the point they were trying to make was....what? That the health care bill is really long? So they think that a bills that covers giant chunks of this economy, deals with several different business fields, that impacts the lives of every American in an attempt to overhaul thousands of laws, create a new regulatory and oversight structure, and reform the way health care is done in this country....should be 2-3 pages tops? And these are the people that are allowed to make and vote legislation? *shudders*

We are ruled by adults

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum looks at what it took to pass a simple extension of unemployment benefits for the 10.2% of Americans who consider canned beans a luxury.

Democrats only had to break three separate filibusters in the Senate to get this passed! The first filibuster was broken by a vote of 87-13, the second by a vote of 85-2, and the third by a vote of 97-1. The fourth and final vote, the one to actually pass the bill, was 98-0. Elapsed time: five weeks for a bill that everyone ended up voting for.

Why? Because even though Republicans were allowed to tack on a tax cut to the bill as the price of getting it passed, they decided to filibuster anyway unless they were also allowed to include an anti-ACORN amendment. Seriously. A bit of ACORN blustering to satisfy the Palin-Beck crowd is the reason they held up a bill designed to help people who are out of work in the deepest recession since World War II. Details here and here. That's called taking governing seriously, my friends.

So in order to extend a measure that everyone supported, Democrats had to add in a first-time homebuyer credit that basically adds to our problems in the housing market in an attempt to prop it up and enact a tax-cut shenanigan that allows small-businesses to engage in shadier accounting practices. All to pass a bill slightly faster so that hundreds of thousands of extra people wouldn't go broke while they dicked around.

...AND THE HOOOOOOOME OF THE BRAAAAAAVE! Makes you glad to be an American.

the Republican plan

The GOP released their own health care bill the other day. ....Stop laughing, this is serious. The basics? It costs $61 billion, would allow insurers to cut coverage for people who are ill, would allow insurance companies to deny coverage to those who are sick, allows insurers to base themselves in the state with the weakest regulation (like the credit card industry), and generally makes insurance less comprehensive and more filled with loopholes. But that's just the analysis of a douchy, left wing, liberal organization like the Wall Street Journal. What does the Congressional Budget Office say? Pretty much the same thing.

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, roughly in line with the current share.

Yeah but that's only $61 billion to cover 3 million more. The Democrats plan costs almost a trillion dollars and only covers....96%+ of Americans. So...uh....yeah. But hey, it might cut premium costs by 3%! You know every American opens their health care bill and says "Motherfuck! If only this goddamn bill was 3% lower, I could afford to feed my children." The GOP bill also shaves $68 billion off the deficit...while the Democratic bill knocks $104 billion.

So according to the non-partisan CBO, the Democrats cover 36 million more, cuts premium costs more, makes the deficit lower, allows people who are sick to get covered, doesn't allow companies to cut coverage on people who are sick, and doesn't make things like the credit card companies. Oh, and is actually a real bill and has a chance in hell of getting passed. In other words, the CBO stomped the GOP plan into a red mush and is driving out to the woods to dig a hole to bury it in.

But I would like to thank the GOP for taking this opportunity to pull out their dicks and step on them in public, committing a sad, tragic, and completely unforced error that they had to know was coming when they were putting together this "bill". I would also like to thank them for making me feel better. Because nothing makes a compromise filled, weakly incremental, and timid Democratic health care bill look like a slice of fried gold like its GOP alternative. Thanks, you made Harry Reid, Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee, the Blue Dogs, and even Joe Lieberman look good by comparison. OK, maybe not Lieberman, but making the rest look good is a stunning achievement. I can hardly await the muffled laughter and CBO shaming your climate change bill will elicit.

Stones

We've heard some bizarre penis-related conspiracies before. Who can forget Rush Limbaugh decreeing that we needed to save our penises from Obama. Well it turns out that Rush was almost right, which for him is a stunning achievement in accuracy. He just needed to turn his attention just a few tics lower....to the balls. Yes, Obama is a danger to Republican balls. Science said so.

Those who remember the street parties of Election Night 2008 might think the testosterone levels of Obama voters had shot up in triumph. That would be wrong.

Instead, liberal testosterone levels stayed stable, while those of male Republican voters plummeted. The latter also reported feeling submissive and unhappy.
...
Indeed, Republican men “felt significantly more controlled, submissive, unhappy and unpleasant at the moment of the outcome” than those who voted for Obama, the researchers wrote. “Moreover, since the dominance hierarchy shift following a presidential election is stable for four years, the stress of having one’s political party lose control of executive policy decisions could plausibly lead to continued testosterone suppression in males.”

Obama's win and McCain's loss had no effect on the testosterone of women, with male levels showing the same levels as they normally do when their sports teams win big games. Which just goes to show you that women need to invest more of their physical and emotional health into politics and sports like men do. So when you say something political felt like "getting kicked in the balls", something I do like five or twenty times a day, you're close. It's something closer to a chemical/metabolic ball kicking....from the inside.

So the next time some conservative commentator talks about how some liberal policy enacted by the liberals in Congress and the White House is damaging the masculinity of the country and pussifying it, just know that he's speaking from experience and scientific evidence. In fact were he to drop his pants on TV, which is what Glenn Beck is two weeks away from doing....tops, you would see the effects of 9+ months of shriveling, shrinkage, and receding. In fact the teabaggers might don't even have the requisite ability to teabag if Obama keeps issuing brutal commands from his throne of skulls. Still, this is a net positive. If there's anything Republicans need, it's less testosterone in their politics.

The preview of the next few weeks of our stupid discourse

Amid a weekend in which the Obama White House struck back at critics over health care, decrying those who do nothing to help and only offer criticism, attacking deceptive insurers standing in the way of meaningful reform, and ohbythewaywe'renotpushingforthepublicoptionshhhhhdon'ttellanyone, we learned of another plan for health care: the Republican's plan to derail the debate. I know, isn't that what they've been doing for the past 6 months? Apparently not. But the new plan is so transparently dishonest that you do have to kind of respect their attempt to gussy it up with proclamations of "no seriously you guys, we're gonna be telling the truth this time" and serious words about how the knowledge of the American people is what's going to finally derail this thing. Whatever guys.

With Democratic leaders and White House officials holed up in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office negotiating a final bill, Republicans are demanding a deceleration of the process and moving to define whatever plan that emerges as a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases, higher insurance premiums and rising overall costs.
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“The votes are the reality, so the only way you win this thing if you’re in our camp is if the American people are completely on your side,” a senior Republican Senate aide said. “To have a positive outcome and get back to doing what we think is good for our health care system, we need to have the American people understand this thing.
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”McConnell said Republicans are going to “insist” on several weeks of debate and argued an issue like health care — equivalent to 20 percent of the national economy — deserves more than the four weeks accorded the most recent farm bill and at least as much time as the seven weeks given the No Child Left Behind education reform effort and the eight weeks given to an energy bill earlier this decade.

Yes, because nothing screams "educating the American public on issues of importance" like the GOP caucus of the US Senate. But there's nothing like the notion that after almost a full year of a health care push, six months of serious debate on every committee's bill, and an intense last few weeks on finalizing and reconciling various bills, that the thing we need is more debate. Especially when that "debate" is going to involve trying to regurgitate all the death panel stuff that didn't work under the pretense of "knowledge".

Yay! That's alright Health Care Reform Debate, the political process surrounding you has already sunken to the lowest levels possible. What's a few more kicks to your lifeless corpse? Then we can get on with the business of making the smallest, least substantive improvements to our health care system and maybe moving our standing in world health rankings to the low thirties. Just a few more stupid, stupid weeks left.

Broken In Brief: Sonia Sotomayor implicated in Nazi War Crimes

WASHINGTON--In a shocking turn of events, Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor was accused of crimes against humanity after Fox News revealed evidence that she had overseen atrocities at the Ravensbruek Nazi concentration camp during the final years of World War II.

This revelation comes as a serious blow to the Obama Administration, which had hoped to appoint Sotomayor as Justice David Souter's replacement, making her the first Latina female to ever sit on the nation's highest court. Sotomayor's inspiring story of rising from a single-parent family in a south Bronx project, through an Ivy League education, and onto the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is now tarnished by her apparent involvement in arguably the greatest humanitarian atrocity of the last century.

When asked how Sotomayor could have possibly had any involvement in the crimes at Ravensbrueck, given that she was born five years after the camp's opening and therefore probably not capable of overseeing such atrocities, FOX News spokesperson Marissa Florentine assured reporters that although the tips had been provided "on background" and had been attributed anonymously, the network was confident the sources were "as reliable as any of those we have ever referenced in our ongoing mission to report and let you decide. Mr. Gingrich wouldn't steer us down a wrong path."

As of this hour those within the Obama Administration are unsure if the nomination will be rescinded. According to one source close to the President, the administration was "prepared for the revelation that she was in fact a woman, but this Nazi thing is really causing us to reassess our selection." Those close to the GOP leadership say many of the House and Senate leaders were "giggling uproariously" over the reaction and were debating on how best to reveal their upcoming accusation that Sotomayor had personally ferried across the border every single illegal immigrant currently in the United States.

Health Care gauntlet thrown down

President Obama, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, PhRMA, AdvaMed, America's Health Insurance Plans, the SEIU, the Greater New York Hospital Association, and the California Hospital Association are all going to come together to announce a comprehensive plan to save this country $2 trillion dollars over the next decade. That plan: To somehow make doctors pay back all the money we gave the bankers. But if that plan can't pass, they have a backup: to lower costs through greater care coordination, lower administrative costs, and the bundling of payments among health care providers and recipients. This in turn will grease the skids for a public health care plan that will be the dawning of the Fourth Reich and the end of commerce as we know it. My daily Michelle Bachmann e-mail alerts swear this is true.

So the plan has some big language, fancy plannin', large numbers, and a group of heavy hitters. Seems serious. I'm also certain it's a good plan and a necessary step. How do I know this? Because there's a concerted effort to sink it by the huge assholes who brought us the swift boat attacks and the "Harry and Lousie" ads.

The television ads that began airing last week feature horror stories from Canada and the United Kingdom: Patients who allegedly suffered long waits for surgeries, couldn't get the drugs they needed, or had to come to the United States for treatment.
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Scott, a multimillionaire investor and controversial former hospital chief executive, has become an unlikely and prominent leader of the opposition to health-care reform plans that Congress is expected to take up later this year. While disorganized Republicans and major health-care companies wait for President Obama and Democratic leaders to reveal the details of their plan before criticizing it, Scott is using $5 million of his own money and up to $15 million more from supporters to try to build resistance to any government-run program.

The campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, and is inspired by the "Harry and Louise" ads that helped torpedo health-care reform during the Clinton administration.

Seriously, Republicans are waiting until they know something before they criticize it? Good one. So on one side we have a hilariously named group (Conservatives for Patient's Rights) backed by the Swift Boaters saying do nothing, we don't have a plan. On the other side we have the Obama Administration, a bunch of health care heavy hitters all saying it's time to do something and here's our idea. An idea which made a jubilant Paul Krugman pump his fists and proclaim it "the best policy news I've heard in a long time." Sounds like we should do nothing. I mean after all, someone somewhere in Canada (or the UK, I forget) once had a bad experience one time. Our system is flawless and everyone loves it, we should not poison it with this socialism. The Swift Boaters said so.

Dear GOP, listen to this man

Not content to merely have killed the Republican party for the near future, former Vice-President Dick Cheney has decided to take off his pants, dig it a deeper grave and start firing point blank shotgun blast into the corpse, cackling while he does it. Why? That's just the kind of guy he is.

"I don't believe that's true," Cheney said, when asked to respond to Obama's statement that interrogators may not have needed to resort to torture. "That assumes that we didn't try other ways, and in fact we did. We resorted, for example, to waterboarding, which is the source of much of the controversy, with only three individuals."
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Attributing Obama's decision to end such policies to an attempt "to appeal to the far-left in their party," Cheney was not-surprisingly adamant that investigating these interrogation techniques was a bad idea. He also called on the White House to "do everything they can" to stop foreign governments from prosecuting the Bush hands who carried out these practices.
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Calling politics cyclical, he concluded that the party did not need to go through a process of moderation.

"I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate. This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas...what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and constitutional principles," he said.

This man needs to never stop talking. Whenever he opens his big mouth about how waterboarding is the awesomest thing ever, you can feel public support for prosecutions grow. But it's nice to know he's at least moved his lies forward some. Instead of only ever having waterboarded three times, now we've only ever waterboarded three guys, albeit about a hundred times each. The paean not to let the dirty Spaniards ever hold him responsible was nice.

At least he has a concrete plan to get the GOP down to a political party that's only relevant in Oklahoma, Alabama, and the extra-rural parts of Appalachia. These massive electoral defeats and party defections are nothing to worry about. Moderating? That's what they need to worry about, because that would violate their Constitution based principles. "We believe the opposite of what rational people believe" is in the Preamble, right? But belief in the Constitution has been a hallmark of the GOP and Cheney over the last few years. Oh, not in any of the rights, liberties, or laws enumerated in it, but they do believe the Constitution exists. Lindsay Graham totally swears he saw a copy of it once. C'mon Dick, your boys are primed and ready to listen. Don't give them this "don't moderate" nonsense. Give them specific instructions. "Purge the nonbelievers" "Harder right" "Get me 30 pounds of raw meat". How's this party going to become the pure vessel of Dick Cheney's essence without specific instructions?