Quote of the day

We've long since left the health care debate and Barack Obama and the Democrat Party's desire to murder everyone's grandma. We've now moved on to climate legislation. Or not.

But did you know that this climate bill was also a liberal plot to murder Americans? It's true. So says Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA).

BROUN: A lot of old people in Georgia and Florida and all out through the southeast and southwest they’re depending upon air condition just to live. And if their electricity goes sky high, and the energy bill is gonna make that happen if it ever passes. And a lot of people aren’t gonna be able to afford to run their air condition anymore. And a lot of people are gonna have a hard time with, hyperthermia is what we call in medicine as a medical doctor, their body temperature is gonna go up. They’re gonna get dehydration and people are gonna have a lot of problems and it’s gonna have a greater impact on our health care system and people are gonna die because of that. And it’s gonna kill jobs too.

OH OBAMA, WILL YOUR ENDLESS ATTEMPTS TO KILL EVERYONE'S GRANDMA NEVER END? WHY!?!?!?!?!?!? HYPERTHERMIA IS WHAT THEY CALL IN MEDICINE AS A MEDICAL DOCTOR!!

The climate bill will force everyone in hot states to turn off their air conditioning, causing massive heat based death. Makes sense to me.

You know what isn't going to cause heat related deaths? Global warming. So hopefully we follow Broun's lead and do nothing about it.

What to fear next

Now that health care has passed what are we supposed to fear? I'm sure the general icy black hand of socialism is a given, but what specifically? In the run-up it was the grim spectre of death panels. But here we are a few weeks past the bill's passage and both of my grandmothers are still up and kicking. I'm neck deep in grandmothers and it looks like there's nary a government sponsored plan to ice them. We were lied to.

Surely we can't be done with being afraid of health reform, can we? I saw the rage people tried to gin up about the IRS, flying planes into offices and such, but it didn't seem like their crazy heart was in it. There has to be some other nefarious plans hidden within the depths of this health reform bill that was some unconscionable number of pages. Something that can be compared to Nazism. Wait, I have an idea that combines the nascent IRS fear mongering, classic health care panic, and liberal doses of Godwin's Law. Someone get me Newt Gingrich!

GINGRICH: I believe one of the biggest issues in September and October will be 16,000 IRS agents and I suspect every Republican candidate will campaign on a promise to cut off all funding in January for the 16,000 IRS agents. You don’t need a health Gestapo in the United States. And I think the Democrats are going to be faced with a real decision, do they really want to campaign in September, October favoring 16,000 more IRS agents to enforce the health law? And what does it tell you about a health law so complicated that you need 16,000 government policemen? It’s sort of creating a brand new health police.

That's right, in the murky depths of the health care bill, comrade Obama has empowered the IRS to be some sort of health care Gestapo that... polices... your health.... care. Or something. I'm not really following what they'll do, but I'll be damned if it isn't sinister, ominous, and should be accompanied by some sort of Bond-style arch-evil music or perhaps the dulcet tones of Richard Wagner.

You know, I can feel that warm sensation of impotent rage in my gut. This feels good. It had left me these last few weeks and I was considering going to a doctor to see if there was anything I could do to get it fixed, but I was too worried my coverage might be better and my bill might be cheaper so I stayed away.

Sure, raging against the IRS is sort of the hack material someone should get to after his bit on women drivers, gittin' 'er done, and why they should make the entire plane out of the black box, but it just feels right. I think it can get me through the summer and into the election period without making me stop to think about how ridiculous it sounds. Thanks, Newt.

That health care bill

You know that health care bill? Yeah, you know, the one that is seemingly never going to get passed. The one that is simultaneously a strong people first approach to dealing with health care problems, a total corporate sellout to insurance and pharmaceutical interests, a progressive back-stab of epic proportions, an average timidly incremental bill that does little to seriously move this country's health care system forward, and also an unending dark veil of socialist misery that will enslave our children as it grinds up our elderly into a paste we will be forced to spread onto our sandwiches of government bread and cheese?

Yeah, well according to Kaiser Health News it's also almost completely indistinguishable from Senator John Chafee's (R-RI) GOP counter-proposal to Bill Clinton's failed 1993 health reform effort. One that, at the time, was considered an unacceptable right wing proposal and deal breaker by 1993 Democrats and is now considered the best plan ever by current Democrats; was considered the serious principled conservative solution to health care problems by 193 Republicans and is now considered a grandma liquidating Bolshevik plot by today's GOP.

Funny how that worked out. That is if you happen to find not getting decent health care reform passed in 1993 and 2010 funny.

The full Kaiser chart is after the jump.

Major Provisions	Senate Bill 2009	Sen. Chafee (R) Bill 1993	Rep. Boehner (R) Bill 2009
Require Individuals To Purchase Health Insurance (Includes Religious and/or Hardship Exemption)	Yes	Yes	No (individuals without coverage would be taxed)
Requires Employers To Offer Health Insurance To Employees	Yes (above 50 employees, must help pay for insurance costs to workers receiving tax credits for insurance)	Yes (but no requirement to contribute to premium cost)	No
Standard Benefits Package	Yes	Yes	No
Bans Denying Medical Coverage For Pre-existing Conditions	Yes	Yes	No (establishes high risk pools)
Establish State-based Exchanges/Purchasing Groups	Yes	Yes	No
Offers Subsidies For Low-Income People To Buy Insurance	Yes	Yes	No
Long Term Care Insurance	Yes (sets up a voluntary insurance plan)	Yes (sets standards for insurance)	No
Makes Efforts To Create More Efficient Health Care System	Yes	Yes	Yes
Medicaid Expansion	Yes	No	No
Reduces Growth In Medicare Spending	Yes	Yes	No
Medical Malpractice Reform	No	Yes	Yes
Controls High Cost Health Plans	Yes (taxes on plans over $8,500 for single coverage to $23,000 for family plan)	Yes (caps tax exemption for employer-sponsored plans)	No
Prohibits Insurance Company From Cancelling Coverage	Yes	Yes	Yes
Prohibits Insurers From Setting Lifetime Spending Caps	Yes	No	Yes
Equalize Tax Treatment For Insurance Of Self-Employed	No	Yes	No
Extends Coverage To Dependents	Yes (up to age 26)	No	Yes (up to age 25)
Cost	$871 billion over 10 years	No CBO estimate	$8 billion over 10 years
Impact On Deficit	Reduces by $132 billion over 10 years	No CBO estimate	Reduces by $68 billion over 10 years
Percentage Of Americans Covered	94% by 2019	92-94% by 2005	82% by 2019

Lie of the year

As we reach the end of the year, there are many year end lists to get to along with a whole crop of all-decade lists. Debates ensue over which annoying pop song was the song of the year, whether Transformers 2, GI JOE, or 2012 was the movie of the year, and which person in America had the best emotional meltdown over the state of the economy. I think "everyone from Detroit" is the answer to the last one.

But some lists are closer to America's heart than others and such is the case for Politifact's "Lie of the Year". With the health care fight taking center stage, fallout from the bailouts, and the President trying to hide the fact that he was a Kenyan born Muslim socialist, the lie harvest was bountiful. What ended up taking the prize in an overcrowded field was the Sarah Palin classic "Death panels", also known as "The government's gonna murder your grandma."

The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a television ad. Sarah Palin posted it on her Facebook page.

Her assertion — that the government would set up boards to determine whether seniors and the disabled were worthy of care — spread through newscasts, talk shows, blogs and town hall meetings. Opponents of health care legislation said it revealed the real goals of the Democratic proposals. Advocates for health reform said it showed the depths to which their opponents would sink. Still others scratched their heads and said, "Death panels? Really?"

The editors of PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking Web site of the St. Petersburg Times, have chosen it as our inaugural "Lie of the Year."

Some of the runners up were "anything Glenn Beck said",the Orly Taitz "Obama was born in Kenya" birth certificate nonsense, "global warming, evolution, and all non-Bible based sciences", the President Obama "pretending that he wasn't born in Kenya" nonsense, Joe Wilson's "You lie!", "anything Michelle Bachmann said", and Joe Biden opining on aircraft air circulation and Porcine AIDS. It was a crowded field, but I think the right one won. "Everything Glenn Beck said" is just too broad a category. In fact, maybe Glenn needs his own category or immediate entry into the liars Hall of Fame, which I was told was in St. Louis, but I went and not only couldn't I find it, but people there were claiming it didn't even exist. Maybe Glenn can just be dipped in bronze.

All in all, it was a nicely played lie Mrs. Palin. It took the issue of the day and completely distorted it with irrational fear, government backed murder conspiracies, and thoughts of grandmas being shotgunned by civil servants. What's more you got other politicians to spring to action based on this lie and fight over it. All over a tiny portion of the bill that was relatively unimportant. That's how the pros do it, Sarah. I can see why you're the 2012 front-runner.

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.

No, kill grandma

From Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the same conglomeration that brought you the Tea Parties, the Tea Baggers, and other such expressions of "grassroots protests", comes the latest inept salvo in the war against health care: Don't Kill Grandma.com. Their message? Don't kill grandma.....dot com. No, they would instead prefer to kill the health reform bill, which we all know will result in the violent murder of everyone's elderly relatives.

Ok, first off, what is with every right wing group using Monty Python clips now? First Chris Christie did it, now Freedom Works. What is it about left wing absurdist satire that so appeals to the right wing "grassroots" organizer? What I'm saying is: stop tainting the things I like or it's going to get violent in here.

Secondly: how come they're ignoring the wishes of the elderly who want the government to violently and brutally put them down without any remorse, pity, or mercy? What about those of us who would like to see grandma murdered in exchange for cheaper health care? As in every debate, we're cruelly pushed to the sidelines by the decency police.

Sadly, we here at TB Industries lack the means to start up our own fake grassroots protests and are much, much too lazy to try and start a real one. But for any left wing cranks with money (George Soros?) or billionaires with an abiding love for killing the elderly (George Soros?), we'd just like to point out that Kill Grandma.com , Off Gramps For the Greater Good.com, This Is the Way They'd Want to Die.com are all available, as well as their .org and .net equivalents. All I'm saying is post up a couple Python clips, add in a few testimonials of the elderly who want to be shotgunned by Barack Hussein Obama, stage a completely corporate backed protest mach on Washington, and we can finally swing this debate back to where we want it: murdering grandmothers. It's for the greater good.

The debate over showing a spine

God love the Democratic Party. They have opposing movements out there attacking them for everything from trying to kill everyone's grandma, to calling them fascists, Marxists, communists, socialists, they don't even believe the President was born in this country, that he tried to indoctrinate schoolchildren, use health care reform in place of slavery reparations, and they've basically announced they'll say anything in order to stop any movement on possibly the biggest Democratic priority in the post-WW2 period. So what do Democrats do in response to this? They have an internal debate about the possibility of responding to these attacks in a strong manner....maybe.

Facing a near-daily barrage of attacks from conservative opponents, White House officials are engaged in an internal debate over how hard to hit back, even as they have grown increasingly aggressive in countering allegations they deem to be absurd.

After brushing aside criticism during the presidential campaign that they tried to keep candidate Barack Obama too far above the fray -- and with memories of the abundance of media coverage during the Clinton years -- administration officials are accelerating their efforts to anticipate and respond to the most sharp-edged charges.

The White House officials are eager to avoid the perception that the president is directly engaging critics who appear to speak only for a vocal minority...

Sure it must seem like these attacks are so crazy that they'll negate themselves. I mean the Tea bag leader went on TV yesterday to prove how mainstream and not crazy his movement was...and ended up calling the President an "Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief." But don't you think, with Republican leaders echoing these attacks, and with the media treating them as legitimate debate, that you should maybe spend a minute or two vigorously batting them down?

No? Don't want to make it seem like your engaging a vocal minority? Even though that minority seems to encompass the entire elected Republican party and conservative media establishment? Even though this strategy of "take abuse, hope someone recognizes what's being said isn't true" has helped drive down support for health care? Still unsure? Good plan. I mean it's not like there's numerous examples in recent history of these types of attacks working to derail progressive legislation and the various efforts at health care reform undertaken by several Presidents, now is there?

Important science

I know I am. Hell, it's all I think about. Finally science is getting the fuck onboard.

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.
...
The scientific paper is published in a book - Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.
...
Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.
...
In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity's only hope is to "hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often".

They added: "It's imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else... we are all in a great deal of trouble."
...
Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisers on controlling the spread of swine flu, said the study did have parallels with some infectious diseases.
...
Ferguson continued, "My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days."

All I'm glad to know is that science has finally started to come around to the idea that we need to shitcan cancer research, AIDS research, swine flu nonsense and start focusing on real problems. And finally, governments like the UK and it's scientific advisers are taking it seriously. Now if we just start the process of pre-decapitating corpses, we can make sure that we only have to deal with the newly dead/infected and no ghouls will be climbing up out of their graves to feast on the living. How about putting that in a health care bill, Barry? You want to set up government panels to kill grandma, but yet you don't care enough to behead her so she doesn't rise again and burden society with flesh eating chaos? Whatever.

Fr those who are interested, the study is here, your instruction on how to survive are here and here.

Stay classy, health care protesters

Degenerate right wing extremist Randall Terry, fresh off of claiming that his supporters will engage in violent acts of terrorism to fight cheaper health care, on his great new idea to protest Obamacare....through the magic of racist playacting:

Terry’s colleagues put on a skit with a man in an Obama mask pretending to whip a bloodied woman, who kept saying, “Massa, don’t hit me no more. I got the money to kill the babies.”

Terry himself dressed in a doctor’s lab coat and pretended to stab a woman in a gray wig.

“There’s no way to pay for this thing without killing granny,” Terry explained.

Fuck, I'm convinced. It's such a well made argument, down with health care!

Broken News: Rogue doctor declares himself 'one man death panel'

BRADENTON—With the shotgun blasts distantly echoing through the hallways of the Sunny Glades Retirement and Rest Home, local authorities are still trying to come to grips with the carnage inside. With the toll currently at 12 dead and 7 critically injured, area residents are still in a state of shock.

“At approximately 9:17 this morning, Dr. Eric Francis rampaged through this facility wielding a gavel, costume judicial robes, and a sawed off shotgun,” explained Sheriff Dane Collig during this afternoon’s press conference. “Dubbing himself The Adjudicator, Dr. Francis declared himself a ‘one man death panel’, handed out mock prescriptions for ‘lead’, and set about making ‘end of life care decisions’ for any resident he came across in the interest of reducing health care costs and easing society’s burden. After being confronted by a young, physically fit orderly, the doctor dove out a window, fled, and is currently at-large.”

Law enforcement officials are currently at a loss to explain why Francis would begin to take these measures now, seeing as, from what they understood of the current health care debate in Washington, his actions had not yet been made legal by Congress.

“I was under the impression from watching Glenn Beck that the Kenyan was going to make all this legal in a few weeks time,” said Deputy Samuel Weber. “I mean, the guy couldn’t wait until it was OK for doctors and specially authorized elected representatives to kill the elderly in a manner of their own choosing if they did not fit into the grand socialist future that has been envisioned for this country? Now we might have to arrest him. Some people just got no patience.”

Others simply wondered if perhaps Dr. Francis was engaging in the field testing of some of the Department of Health and the Obama Administration’s palliative care concepts in order for them to be able to present more a more concrete cost analysis of the death panels to the Office of Management and Budget. But this rumor was quickly squashed by the White House.

“I would just like to state unequivocally that we did not authorize Dr. Francis to form his own death panel,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, during a briefing session. “I think we’ve been absolutely clear that our death panels would involve a number of doctors sitting on ornately carved wooden thrones, make use of an ominous courtroom setting, involve shimmering black robes, tall opulent hats, and other quasi-religious garb, and generally be conducted in the manner of a futuristic Spanish Inquisition. Or, if you aren’t a history buff: like the ‘Death Eater’ trials in the Harry Potter movies. Plus I would just like to acknowledge the sheer waste in using bullets.”

Gibbs then proceeded to list killing objects that would be authorized because of their reuse and environmentally friendly aspects. These included knives, truncheons carved out of driftwood or reclaimed lumber, a large rock on a pulley or lever system, or simply using the pillow of an indigent or elderly patient and suffocating them with it.

“Clearly we would not authorize the use of bullets when you’d just have to buy more. That just doesn’t make sense when you’re trying to find ways to cuts costs. Hell that’s the whole point of eliminated these drags on society through the death panel system,” an exasperated Gibbs continued. “Plus, we’d like to keep the *ahem* handy work of our death panels out of the public eye. We wouldn’t ever be so gauche as to organize a shotgun rampage. We’d make it look more like we did when our provisional Washington death panel judged and killed Bob Novak. Still, we applaud Dr. Francis’ support.”

But even with the explicit support of the White House, Bradenton police are going to have to expend the effort to eventually bring Dr. Francis in. Some deputies grumbled about Francis’ actions, noting that while he had saved the municipality thousands in health care costs and provided a much needed economic boon, this was offset by the extra costs the country was going to have to pay out in overtime for the police officers.

As for Francis’ whereabouts, the sheriff’s department was unsure, but they know Florida has not seen the last of “the Adjudicator.” They cited a note that the doctor left at the scene that told of Francis’ desire to “bring affordable health care to America, one buckshot blast at a time.”

“God bless the boy for what he’s trying to do,” said Sheriff Collig, a tear glinting in his eye. “I’m gonna regret having to bring him in. If only he had an effective solution for medical malpractice tort reform.”

Pictures of the day

The best in crazy and sarcastic protest signs from granitepic's photos of New Hampshire health care protests. The cute kids almost make me believe the government is gonna kill grandma.

This is how stupid the health care debate has gotten

No, no, no, the health care debate didn't reach it's nadir when people started yelling about government sponsored grandma killing squads. It officially hit a low point when changes started being made to health care bills because of lies about "death panels" and piles of dead grandmas stacked on street corners like cord wood. That's right, sensible end of life planning, things like living wills and discussions about what you'd like to happen if you slip into a coma, have been dropped because enough liars stoked the fires of hysteria.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa said in a statement that the committee “dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”

A Senate Finance Committee aide confirmed that the panel was not discussing end-of-life measures, adding that they were “never a major focus” of the committee’s negotiations.
...
In his statement, Mr. Grassley called the House legislation “so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences.”

“On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options,” he continued, adding “Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can’t.”

Oh that's right, it was all a matter of leaving "major areas open to interpretation" and not the fact that your party is comprised of craven liars, Chuck. I mean there's one thing I do know is how easy it is to confuse making a living will with the forced euthanasia of anyone who has crossed the government's new age restrictions. I mean we can't leave it vague, otherwise an elderly man who comes in to discuss what he wants to happen if he should become paralyzed might be blown away by the shotgun blast of a doctor who is convinced he now has the right to kill indiscriminately. Whew! Bullet dodged.

So, what did we learn today kids? That no matter how inane, stupid, dishonest, deranged, crazy, or ridiculous your conspiracy theory is, if it comes in relation to an important legislative debate and the opposition party is dishonest enough to repeat it, then you can get useful provisions stripped out of said legislation. AND THE HOOOOOOOME OF THE BRAAAAAAAAAAAVE!!!

I am shocked to hear this

According to a study published by Media Matters, Fox News is putting on health care opponents six times as much as health care supporters. My God, next you'll be telling me that they have multiple shows hosted by deranged right wing pundits who traffic in deluded conspiracy theories, fear mongering, lies, rabble rousing, and unseemly aardvark affections.

All I can say to this dramatic revelations is....really? Only 6 to 1? It isn't more? Because really, when you turn on Fox News it doesn't look like they would even put on one person who supported health care reform. I guess that's just because every show on Fox News where these 63 guests have talked on is hosted by a talking head who is also against the creeping grandma murdering death of Obama's socialist health care wasteland. I'd really like to see a "minutes spent attacking health care reform vs. minutes spent defending health care reform" graph. I can already imagine it: one number bar dwarfing another, the way the Sears Tower dwarfs an ant.

Stay classy, Chuck

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) deciding that, hey, what the fuck, it's time to just start fuckin' lying to his constituents.

“In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life,” Grassley said. “You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.”

You know what the funny part about all of this is? He's the main senator that Max Baucus is spending all his time with in the Finance Committee, "negotiating" with over the parameters of the health care bill. You know, the "couldn't ask for a better partner" guy. The Republican who's supposedly serious about health care reform. The "gubmint gon' execute granny" guy.

Great negotiating partner, Max.