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.

Immediate failure

Once must applaud the speed at which much heralded House GOP initiatives proceed to immediately fall on their face. The previous record was something in the vicinity of 30 seconds after unveiling. They might have just beat that.

House Republican leadership unveiled a new interactive website on Tuesday which they hailed as "revolutionary" in its democratization of the political process.
...
On Tuesday morning, GOP leaders unveiled americaspeakingout.com, a website that they pitched as a "giant step forward" towards popularizing the Republican platform. The idea is simple -- allow viewers to suggest legislative remedies that they and others could then debate and vote upon. The top suggestions would, naturally, rise to the top.

Do you see where this is going?

But opening up the process of debate means inviting in uncomfortable voices. Within minutes, a poster on the site suggested repealing Section II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it was "UNCONSTITUTIONAL, PROGRESSIVE and HITLER."

That entry has since been shut down by the GOP.

That and numerous other suggestions have had to be shut down by the GOP for reasons ranging from too racist, to too teabaggy, to too racist and already under consideration by GOP leadership, to too hateful, to too obviously illegal. It's almost as if they didn't foresee their own fringe voters pushing politically embarrassing ideas to the forefront of their new "vote on it" website. Senate Republicans have already distanced themselves from the site and are moving to create their own version that isn't so much tainted by the stench of low-grade partisan racism. It's slated to immediately fail a few months from now.

At the very least we did have someone use the name Hitler as a adjective for the very first time in human history. That is an achievement the GOP can look at and nod their heads in pride over.

What next for House Republicans? Eventually they're going to create a quantum state where ideas of their simultaneously fail at the very moment of their inception. What this will mean for the world of theoretical physics is unclear, but it will prove Heisenberg's LOLFail Principle correct. Well done.

This also happened

Lost in all the hysteria about Barack Obama traveling back in time to help Benedict Arnold surrender West Point to the limeys and alternately murder all four of Thomas Jefferson's grandparents while they were children (that's why Texas had to erase him from history), was the fact that something else happened. Student Loans were reformed. And, in a break from tradition, was done so in a non-corrupt manner that didn't result in tons of shady giveaways to corporate interests, and could actually be classified as *whispers* liberal. Shh, don't tell anyone.

Now on any other week this would be hailed as some sort of massive progressive achievement. But this week also included the systematic dismantling of Abe Lincoln's log cabin or something, so it got lost in the shuffle. What happened?

Ending one of the fiercest lobbying fights in Washington, Congress voted Thursday to force commercial banks out of the federal student loan market, cutting off billions of dollars in profits in a sweeping restructuring of financial-aid programs and redirecting most of the money to new education initiatives.
...
The Congressional Budget Office said the direct-lending approach would save taxpayers about $61 billion over 10 years. Roughly $40 billion of the savings will be redirected to higher education. Education programs will get an additional $10 billion from the health care package.

The bill includes some landmark changes, like automatic increases, tied to inflation, in the maximum Pell grant award.
...
The legislation will make it easier to pay back student loans, by reducing the share of income that a graduate must devote to loan payments and by accelerating loan forgiveness

Wait, they ended the bank racket that allowed them to make risk free government backed loans, expanded access to college for lower income students, made serious investments in higher education, and making it easier to pay off those loans? I'm not sure I feel comfortable with this unless I'm assured there's some sort of crooked deal with banks and financial giants that we haven't heard about. This just isn't how the American government is supposed to do business! This is an outrage! Now Sean is going to have to stop stripping to pay off his loans!

Listen, I'd like to be able to explain to you just what all of this means. But unless I have Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or the Congressional GOP telling me specifically how this is going to rough up my mother in a dark alley, cause tiny Joesph Stalins to burst out of my ribcage, pour sugar in my father's gas tank, and date rape Betsy Ross I'm not sure how to grasp what I'm sure was an unprecedented assault on freedom.

Let's just assume they dug up the corpse of liberty that they had previously killed and buried during health reform and had sex with it while MSNBC filmed it. Deal? Deal. Now let's go cut the breaks on the car of some Congressmen who voted for it.

Yub nub!

House Approves Landmark Bill to Extend Health Care to Millions



Or, alternately...



Your mileage may vary.

And now a weary nation turns it's eyes to the Senate and asks itself "How are they gonna fuck this up?"

Down with the union!

Look we all know that health care reform is many things. A nefarious conspiracy to murder the Greatest Generation, a liberal communist socialist plot to retroactively rape the founding fathers, Nazism, an affront to God, and the personification of all various forms of wars, atrocities, historical black marks, and the work of evil men.

In recent days we've been getting even more specific criticisms of what reform is like. Lindsay Graham mused that it was just like when the dirty japs got all liquored up on sake and made kamikaze runs on our warships. Glenn Beck disagreed. He feels that reform is like when the dirty japs bombed us at Pearl Harbor. In any event I think we know one thing: the passage of health care is a revenge plot from Emperor Hirohito, Japan sucks, and Sunday might just be the day that lives in infamy.

But Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia has other ideas. Health care reform is like the bloodiest conflict in US history... but in a bad way.

BROUN: If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression.

OK, that wasn't so much a critique of health reform as it was a cheap way to get indignant about Lincoln. Free insurance card? What the hell is that? Plus, the reason Confederate money was so worthless is because they lost the Civil War. By the way, that's what we call it: the Civil War. Or, alternately, the Great War of Southern Treason. In any event, this marks an improvement in Broun's rhetoric as he previously was warning his constituents about how Obama had taken the necessary steps to declare martial law and rule as a dictator.

Maybe this is just part of a new "late 19th century Reconstruction-era racism" bent to health reform criticism. Many have taken up calling reform reparations for black people. Like Glenn Beck. Becuase if there's one thing worse than the descent into socialism, it's the idea that the descent into socialism will result in blacks getting stuff, which is against the founding principles of this country.

So let me reassure the Broun's, Beck's, and Limbaugh's of the world: even if health reform does pass whites will still have considerably more shit than black people. Regrettably though, the South will still have lost the Civil War. So there's a positive and negative flipside to that coin. Sorry, and might I add: THE UNION FOREVER!

Quote of the day

God love Michelle Bachmann. She's easy on the eyes and just a constant font of all kinds of bizarre conspiracies, juvenile legal theories, and homespun lunacy just like crazy mom used to make. What's she up to today? Well she's just trying to explain that she doesn't mean to offend when she claims large sections of this country are giving aid and comfort to some nebulous enemy.

BENNETT: Are you kind of surprised with even the media’s disgust with the procedures?

BACHMANN: Well, I’m amazed that they actually were willing to be shocked. Because for most of the time they have been, and you know, I don’t mean any disrespect, but they’ve been treason media. They haven’t been telling the whole story.

I don't mean any disrespect, I'm just saying you want America to fail and a series of legal procedures ending in your execution should be enacted for you actions. No disrespect intended. And, I don't want to offend you further, but I just think that your mother exchanges sexual services for cash and that your father acts as some sort of broker for these transactions. I don't mean anything bad by that, I'm just stating that charges of pimping and prostitution should be brought up in court... on your parents. I also think you molest children, but don't get all bent out of shape about me saying that.

Well done, Michelle. It's that extra sugary coating of fluffy bunnies and sunshine that our reckless accusations of treason have been missing in the past. If only Joseph McCarthy had baked sugar cookies that said "I think you're a commie" and handed them out with a smiling kitten card, we might not have such negative connotations associated with McCarthyism. Keep up the good work.

Angering God

Health reform is seemingly on it's way to passing. Nancy Pelosi has begun her brutal campaign of kidnapping on the fence Democrat's children, has begun breaking arms, has collected a gruesome menagerie of nude photos of our elected betters, and has singled out several pictures where Representatives kind look like they have boners while children sit on their laps. She's playing for keeps and wants this vote done by Sunday.

And in the last gasp of whining before they have to face the fact that Americans might be getting better health care, right wing commentators have moved off the "granny kill squad", "reconciliation and deem & pass are demonic tolls of the devil that have never been used before", and other such memes to latch onto one last pathetic criticism of Barack Obama's attempt to move US health care into the low thirties on WHO rankings: it'll make the baby Jesus sad. Of course Glenn Beck and Rep Steve "Revolution" King of Iowa were involved.

KING: They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God. [...]

BECK: You couldn’t have said it better. Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity, that is a — this is an affront to God. ... But I think it’s absolutely appropriate that these people are trying to put the nail in the coffin on our country on a Sunday — something our founders would have never, ever, ever done. Out of respect for God.

The triple threat. The health care bill will not only put the final nail in the coffin of America, but it is both an affront to God and a violation of the principles of the founding father. A Trinity of America hatred.

And you know how pissed God gets about these things. "My children, I know you were attempt to better the health and well being of My other children, but for the love of Me why did you do it on a Sunday? Unconscionable. It's right in the Ten Commandments! You're all being banished to hell and I'm using My veto power, as enumerated to me in the US Constitution, to strike this bill from all creation."

So take note, we've officially reached the "It'll make the baby Jesus cry" stage of health care opposition. It's the last sad stage before what I'm assuming are mass suicides scheduled for a few minutes after Democrats vote to destroy the country, Barry high fives everyone, they eat an ice cream cake shaped like Karl Marx, and Genn Beck immolates himself on the Capitol steps. Rest easy, this whole horrid shitshow is almost over. Except for the filing lawsuits part. By which I mean to say this will never end.

Revolution!

Out of all the elected Tea Party cranks, one of my favorites has to be Iowa's Steve King. He hasn't met a Democratic idea he can't shriek about hysterically and in his spare time he talks extensively about how he sympathizes with terrorists who commit terrorist acts on American soil. Good man, lofty man.

Events like yesterday's final Tea Party rally against the socialist health care bill is an event tailor made for a man like King. Dozens of people waving signs about communism and socialism without understanding what either is can have their fears stoked by a man who doesn't understand the terms either, and as a bonus doesn't understand recent world history and trivializes rule under fascist regimes. It's a fetid petri dish of blinkered stupidity. Which is of course why King used the platform to argue for a new American Revolution.

Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 "would be fine with me."

"Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can't get in, they can't get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people," he said.

"So this is just like Prague under communist rule?" the Huffington Post asked.

"Oh yeah, it is very, very close," King replied. "It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there."

Yeah, the federal government is taking our liberty over.

So if we have any Czech readers, first I'd like to say thanks for Jaromir Jagr, we appreciated him. Secondly, yes he is trying to compare the passage of a health reform bill that would give us health care coverage that isn't as good as theirs or their neighbors to a 1968 Soviet invasion, "Normalization" policies, the arrests of hundreds of thousands of dissidents over the years, the forced emigration of nearly half a million people out of the country, and living under decades of Communist rule. If your country ever deigned to find out who a low level idiot like Steve King was, I'm sure your papers today would feature headlines like "American half-wit trivializes our entire history".

But yes the time for revolution is at hand. No longer must the people suffer the indignities on having the government try to make health care better, more accessable, and more affordable for them. No longer will the people have to stand for our elected leaders trying to make it so that insurance comapnies can't fuck them over as hard as they used to. No longer will the jackbooted armies of communism march through our streets chanting "Would you like marginally better health care?" No longer will our people have to suffer under an attempt to pass legislation that is morally, ethically, spiritually, factually, and historically indistinguishable from post-WWII Soviet communist rule in Eastern Europe. Overthrow the government! Steve King is the new Vaclav Havel.

I'll see you in the streets.

Getting it

We have made great hay over the past few weeks knocking supposed pro-life supporters for outright opposing the health bill or trying to play hardball on the health care bill in a manner that they say will result in the death of health reform if they don't get their way. "How can one oppose something that will have lives, hundreds of thousands of lives, and still call themselves pro-life" the question typically goes.

But, these people, mostly the Stupak-ers in the House led by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, would rather make a dishonest point over arcane wording in a health bill that already moves to put greater restrictions on women deciding what they want to do with their own bodies then actually contribute to saving actual people's actual lives.

But it seems that one pro-life organization seems to understand that and realizes how important it is for a cause allegedly committed to life to support a bill that helps save lives. Unsurprisingly, it's the Catholic organization that actually deals with health care: the Catholic Hospital Association.

A group representing Catholic hospitals Saturday rallied behind President Barack Obama's health care bill ahead of a House vote in which anti-abortion lawmakers could play a decisive role.

The chief executive of the Catholic Health Association, Carol Keehan, wrote on the group's Web site that although the legislation isn't perfect, it represents a "major first step" toward covering all Americans and would make "great improvements" for millions of people. The more than 600 Catholic hospitals across the country do not provide abortions as a matter of conscience.
...
''We are trying to respect other people's conscience and views,'' she said. ''But we also weigh in with our conscience and views. We think this bill is a good first step to health care reform.''

Their full statement is here. They were also joined by the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, who released their own letter supporting the plan.

Who knew that rationally looking at what's in the bill, not resorting to dishonest political grandstanding, not lying, and calmly voicing support for a measure which saves lives was going to become a part of the pro-life movement? Or should I say, part of a small section of the pro-life movement. Well done.

Just what we wanted: more health care gamesmanship

Pop quiz, hotshot. You're willing to derail better access to health care at cheaper prices over abortion funding language, ensuring that 45,000 additional people are going to die each year because of an inability to get coverage... what do we call you? Pro-Life of course!

That's right, with the horrible health care shitshow kicked off again with the President imposing another useless deadline on passing legislation that they already passed, we've once again returned to Bart Stupak, the man who believes all your uterus belong to him. He popped his head back up to remind everyone that unless he gets what he wants, no health care for anyone.

The logjam is a familiar one, and comes down to simple political arithmetic. For health care reform to pass, he House must pass the Senate bill word for word, then make minor tweaks to it through the budget reconciliation process. But Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)--and, if we take him at his word, about a dozen of his Democratic colleagues--say they won't vote for health care again unless the Senate's abortion language is made more restrictive--a demand that seems like a legislative impossibility.

And yeah, it seems like he can do what he says. Even though his claims about the abortion language in the bill are entirely bullshit and his quest is not one to reduce abortions for all or knock out federal funding for abortions, but to narrowly screw over poor women while pretending the government doesn't federally subsidize abortions.

One must appreciate his balls. I mean to be so committed to the pro-life ideals, that he's willing to sacrifice the general health and lives of millions of actual Americans over concerns for invisible theoretical Americans is admirable. Sure 45,000 a year croak because of gaps in our coverage and we could save an extra 100,000 if we brought our standards of coverage up to that of other Western countries and were no longer the worst in preventable death, but there's slutty poor women to persecute here. I'm just glad Stupak is living up to the maxim that life begins at conception, ends at birth. Because he's sure trying to fuck over everyone that actually got born.

I just hope no one giggles too hard around him when he talks about how concerned with life he is.

Keep the money flowing, boys

It's been a banner year for people who think that corporations, industries, and big money donors don't have enough influence and power within our political system. First there was the Supreme Court affirming the rights of corporations to spend as much money as they want in our elections. Now, we have a Congressional ethics panel affirming the right of our elected betters to trade votes and influence in return for campaign contributions.

The House ethics committee ruled Friday that seven lawmakers who steered hundreds of millions of dollars in largely no-bid contracts to clients of a lobbying firm had not violated any rules or laws by also collecting large campaign donations from those contractors.

In a 305-page report, the ethics committee declared that lawmakers are free to raise campaign money from the very companies they are benefiting so long as the deciding factors in granting those "earmarks" are "criteria independent" of the contributions. The report served as a blunt rejection of ethics watchdogs and a different group of congressional investigators, who have contended that in some instances the connection between donations and earmarks was so close that it had to be inappropriate.

Finally! I was worried for a second there that the nakedly shady relationship between corporate donations and earmarks would be seen for the open graft and corruption that it is.

Thankfully we have a supposed ethics panel to tell us that "Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member's actions are being influenced by campaign contributions," and that as long as there is some nebulous, invisible "independent criteria" for handing over million and billions of government contracts in return for a couple thousand in campaign contributions, everything is copacetic. Sure that kind of thing might look like and, in most cases, actually be pay-for-play, but.... it isn't. Because.... HEY LOOK OVER THERE!

Whew! We almost lost the self-perpetuating low ethical and moral standards of Congress. Some form of common sense and a pointing out of the obvious was not allowed to worm its way into the conversation or block off the money spigot between our elected betters and our corporate masters. We, as a country, have dodged that bullet.

Governmental hilarity

Missed amongst all the the summit coverage is the simple fact that none of it would be necessary if the Democrats could, how should I phrase it... get of their fat lazy fucking asses and pass small tweaks to the bills they already fucking passed.

This fact does not seem to be lost on Nancy Pelosi, who has to pass the Senate bill, and Senator Kent Conrad, Chairman of the Budget Committee who is going to have to handle the reconciliation part of the tweaks the Senate is going to have to pass. But you see *laughs* there's just a *laughs* hilarious mix-em-up that's preventing it all from happening.

Democrats finally seem ready to act on health care reform, and for perhaps the first time in the entire year-long health care reform debate, they're speaking--openly--about the likelihood that they'll invoke the budget reconciliation process to make some tweaks to the Senate's health care bill. But there remains no clear path forward, with the House and Senate still jockeying over who will make the first move, and even Senate Democrats divided on how the process should work in their chamber and who among them gets to decide on it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she won't pass the Senate bill until the reconciliation process is complete. And Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) says the Senate can't do reconciliation until after the House acts on the Senate bill.

I imagine the conversation goes some thing like..... "You got legislative peanut butter in my chocolate!" "No, you got legislative chocolate in my peanut butter!", then they both try to speak at the same time, do that whole "You speak" "No, you speak" thing for a few minutes, both end up speaking at the same time again, give up, then both attempt to walk away..... except they both step in the same direction, almost bump into each other, get stuck doing the whole "After you" "No, after you" thing, until hours later staffers have to come and physically remove them from the scene as they've devolved into simpering, weeping messes.

It would all be hilarious if it didn't effect tens of millions of people without health care, the hundreds of millions that need better access and cheaper prices, and a massive chunk of our economy.

So that's why Democrats can't move forward on health care. There's a charmingly befuddled argument over turf, who moves first, and whether Kent Conrad likes Nancy Pelosi or likes likes her. This is important shit people. Until they work out their sexual tension and basic fucking legislative procedure, you're just going to have to will yourself better or hope that money you buried in the back yard sprouts a money tree with which you can use to actually pay your skyrocketing premiums.

Stay classy, Stevesy

Steve King (R-IA), sometimes know as the House GOP's other crazy congressman named King, hates his ass some IRS. And who could disagree with him. I mean they just take our money and give it to the government to spend on things like roads, defense, and other such things a government does. Who came up with this idea? The IRS sucks! Also the DMV is slow and why can't the airlines give us a bigger bag of peanuts, amirite?

But considering that whole thing where a fringe lunatic rammed his airplane into an IRS building in a bloody, fiery explosion of short-sighted, petty, and murderous spite, you'd think that maybe a certain IRS hating congressman would want to tone down his rhetoric just a tad. Well, that's why you don't have the smarts to get elected in Iowa's 5th District.

KING: I think if we’d abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn’t have a target for his airplane. ... It’s sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it’s going to be a happy day for America.

TP: So some of his grievances were legitimate?

KING: I don’t know if his grievances were legitimate, I’ve read part of the material. I can tell you I’ve been audited by the IRS and I’ve had the sense of ‘why is the IRS in my kitchen.’ Why do they have their thumb in the middle of my back.

It's sad and all, but he sympathizes with a terrorist. The IRS, who do they think they are investigating discrepancies in tax filings?

But while someone might think that saying something like that while bodies and a building are still smoldering is a touch indelicate, isn't smart, and that staffers somewhere would be imminently yelling at their boss to just shut the fuck up already, well, again, that's why he's in the House and you're sitting there in your house.

During his closing remarks [at CPAC], King veered into a complaint about high taxes, and said he could "empathize" with the man who flew a plane into an IRS building last week.

During the question and answer session, the Media Matters staffer asked King to clarify his comment, reminding him of his sworn duty to protect the American people from all sworn enemies, foreign and domestic. In response, said the staffer, King gave a long and convoluted answer about having been personally audited by the IRS, and ended by saying he intended to hold a fundraiser to help people "implode" their local IRS office.

Don't you understand that this man was audited! Audited! A US Congressman, one of the most honest subset of people of earth. On earth! That's why we need to implode the IRS. Implode, which I'll note is a totally classy suggestion and not at all as offensive as using the word explode.

So congrats to Iowa's Steve King. You took a right wing terrorist attack against the government that resulted in dead Americans and tried to spin it into right wing street cred by repeatedly announcing your empathy for a terrorist, announcing how you sympathized with his motives (I still can't get over the fucking gall of that audit), and noting how you wanted to organize citizens to take further action against the IRS, though probably not with airplane attacks. How nicely offensive of you. The IRS sucks, don't let any terrorist attack, basic human decency, tact, or common sense momentarily sway you from that crusade. Stay classy.

Compare/Contrast

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on health care:

As I said to some friends yesterday in the press, we will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit.

Various and sundry Senate assholes on health care:

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said health care reform “is on life support, unfortunately,” and the president should have been more specific with how Democrats should move forward.
...
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said it was “a real possibility that health care is at a stalemate and you can’t solve it this year.”
...
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on health care reform, Democrats are “thinking about it and how to move on it.”

But, he added, jobs are the current high priority and that is what we are going to work on for now.

Anyone still confident that health care is going to be acted on anytime soon? They've got to pretend they're doing something on jobs now.

So there was this speech thing last night

Last night the President gave his State of the Union and the response seem to be pretty good. The speech was so good that Chris Matthews forgot Barack Obama was black for an hour. Me? I forgot the President was half white for an hour, then I forgot I was black for a half hour, remembered that I'm lily white for the other half hour, acutely remembered the religion and ethnicity of everyone I know for an hour, and then forgot who the supporting cast in the Godfather Part II was. I still can't remember.

It was a long speech, long on optimism, quick with mocking humor, and took numerous opportunities to chastise the shitty legislature, the problems he inherited, and the fact that nobody seems to want to do anything to address them. Here are some of the more buzzworthy lines from the speech. The TB consensus favorite was this:

"At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door."

A completely true statement about the absolute horrowshow he was handed, which also triggered another running theme of the evening: human blights on the country mouthing bullshit when the cameras were on them.

But what were the themes of the evening? Jobs... and jobs, and jobs, and jobs, and jobs. Why? No one has one. Barry also took the time out to pledge and urge support for passing health care in the vague, nonspecific way that has been so infuriating during the health debate. He wants Congress to trust in the recovery path he put this country on, threatened to veto financial reform if it's the festering pile of lobbyist bullshit we all know it will be, ordered his party to get some balls, and offered up that maybe we should let gays serve in the military.

That's all good and well, but if good speeches that were very popular with the American people got things done, we'd have decent health care, smart regulatory reforms, action on climate change, decent bailouts and stimulus plans passed, and the country wouldn't be the shithole that it is. But as we've learned over the past year; talk is cheap, and so is owning a lawmaker. Well, cheap relative to the cost of what they can do for you by stalling, killing, or weakening laws. For all the good ideas, smart words, and big plans Obama has, they still have to go through the fiery crucible of stupid that is the US Senate and the lesser stupidity of the House.

So, Mr. President... yeah, good luck with all of that. I'll believe it when I see it. Still, nicely delivered and thought out. It's that implementation thing we're all still waiting on.

Time to get jerked around more on health care

It's clear what the main purpose of health care reform is: to jerk so many people around emotionally at such breakneck speeds for the purposes of our elected betters' entertainment. There doesn't seem to be any other explanation. It surely isn't "passing the best bill", as that option went off the table months ago.

If you remember where we last were in the health care debate, Scott Brown had just won in Massachusetts, giving Republicans their 41-59 majority. This of course caused Democrats to inexplicably start concocting new ways to fuck over people and make sure they get defeated in the 2010 elections as they all suddenly decided that finishing the work on the bill that both the House and Senate had already passed was a bad idea. The best solution forward, the House passes the Senate bill while the Senate passes the conference committee agreed upon changes through reconciliation, was jettisoned by House members for some undiscernable reason.

But because it is a new week, the House has a new opinion, and all is well in health care reform again.

But for the first time since last Tuesday's special election in Massachusetts, it's clear that they're coalescing around the most widely discussed option: moving ahead with the Senate bill once it's clear that it will be changed through the filibuster-proof reconciliation process. Before they can move ahead, they need the Senate to make some real headway on their end of the bargain--and they're not getting the signs they need.

"I thought we could get the votes in the House to pass the [Senate] bill if fixes to the Senate bill can be done," House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) told reporters today.

"That would be a good option as far as I'm concerned," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), leader of the House progressives' health care task force. "I could support it. Reconciliation. Majority rule."

Finally. How about it Senate? Just pass the ideas you had already agreed to support in the conference committee through reconciliation and we can bang out this bill and have it signed by next week?

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, deflected questions about health care. “We’re not on health care now,” Mr. Reid said. “We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.”

He added, “There is no rush,” and noted that Congress still had most of this year to work on the health bills passed in 2009 by the Senate and the House.

Great job, Harry. Make sure to also thank Landrieu, Bayh, Lincoln, Lieberman, Pryor, Begich, Nelson, and McCaskill, who have all come out a bitched to various degrees about using reconciliation to vote for something they would have voted for had Martha Coakley been elected. But the beauty of reconciliation is that those 8 assholes, plus one more asshole can be jettisoned and the reconciliation bill can still be passed. So of course there's movement on making sure health care is passed, right?

No, most of the Senate is content to sit around and go "rush, what rush" and dick around supporting the easy and obvious thing to do to get health care reform passed. I'm sure that'll change next week... at which point the House will invariably have a problem. And on and on and on until somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million people have their heads explode from the inanity of their elected betters, thus solving the uninsured crisis.

So just a word of thanks to Congress. You may be slow on action and bad at legislating, but you are experts at dicking around, blame shifting, kicking back, and fucking around. Here's to the next seven dramatic shifts in the health reform battle. Seven dramatic reversals, that's all I can deal with before I'm out.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 01.11

Why Is the Whistleblower Who Exposed the Massive UBS Tax Evasion Scheme the Only One Heading to Prison?
When a massive international bank helps thousands upon thousands of people evade taxes and hide money to flagrantly that it has to pay almost a billion dollars in fines, who goes to jail? If you answered "One guy, the one who blew the life off the scandal in the first place" then you... must have read the headline above. Democracy Now conducts and extensive interview with the executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center to show just exactly how banks, the US justice system, and the US government endeared themselves to you again.

Chinese Coal Formed During Earth’s Greatest Extinction Is Still Deadly
You have to hand it to the Chinese. Not only are the set to drag ass on climate change in such an epic manner that it would make the US stand back in awe, they've apparently found and are burning the deadliest and most polluting coal known to man. Not only does this coal, formed 250 million years ago during a massive extinction (I wonder...), pollute just as effectively as the regular stuff, but it come with a cancer chaser that's 20 times greater than normal. See, the Chinese even pollute and poison their populace more effectively than us. We just can't win.

ABC News embraces the nonsense
Let's say you were a TV news director and you were doing a piece on the fact that 28 doctors who have spent their lives studying autism, conducted an exhaustive study that found no correlation between GI disorders, diets and causing autism or diets in improving autism cases. Who is the first person you'd rush to interview for the story? If you said "a Playboy model/vaccine denier", you get to run ABC's news division for the next month. The Bad Astronomy blog takes a look at autism, ABC, Jenny McCarthy, vaccine gainsayers, and the difference between news and "news" and science and "science".

Abortion Foe Defies Party on Health Care Bill
Question. What do you call someone who would kill an attempt to make sure that 45,000 people a year don't die due to lack of access to health care as well as better the lives of millions, because he doesn't think he's getting enough control over women's bodies? That's a serious question, because I don't think "pro-life" quite covers it. The NYT covers Bob Stupak's bitching and moaning over the fact that people don't agree with him.

Google Earth helps find El Dorado
According to some wags on the internet, they've used Google Earth to find the fabled "lost city of gold." Sounds all well and good, but this better not be like the time some jagoffs said the found the lost city of Atlantis on Google Earth or those people who said they found the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This time their treasure better not be knowledge. The lost city of gold better contain some gold. This time I better see some archeologist in a fedora hauling 24 karat bricks of of the Bolivian brush and whipping some fascists in the face.

Vatican takes aim at 'Avatar'
id you ever want to see movie criticism from a leading religious body that not only accurately described the flaws in a movie but also unknowingly provided a meta criticism about itself and the way it runs said religion? Well, God bless the Catholic Church. It's the pot shooting the kettle in the kneecap.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.02

Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan
Jeremy Scahill really wants to write about something other than all the shady shit Blackwater, nee Xe Services, does, but it's just they're given so many opportunities to do shady shit and it is so utterly shady that he's just forced to write about it. More or less, Blackwater is running a secret assassination/kidnapping ring at the behest of the CIA in a program so secret that the White House might not even know about it. Well at least the CIA is getting a handle on this "plausible deniability" stuff, you just kind of wish they wouldn't use the only American organization in the area with a worse reputation than themselves.

Sarah Palin, Israel and Armageddon
Hey, wouldn't it be great if Sarah Palin just started getting really crazy and started spouting off weird Israel related rapture buzzwords, started hanging out with evangelicals who openly promote pro-Israel policies in service of the second Exodus/second coming of Christ/Armageddon, and generally became more dangerous, Jesusy, and crazy? Well...good news then; you got your wish.

UK Iraq War Inquiry: Blair Was Told Iraq War Was Illegal, Decided On War In 2002
Ahh, the United Kingdom, you poor hopeless bastards. Let me see if I have this right: you not only investigated your involvement in the Iraq war, but you did so in a serious manner, and are releasing finding as the investigation goes on? Rookie mistake. The correct way to do things is to admit "mistakes were made", never authorize investigating those mistakes because "they were in the past and we're focused on the future", and then set about whitewashing everything and making the same mistakes, either on a whole new war or and golden oldie.

Capital in the Capitol: Total House Wealth Exceeds $1 Billion
Yup, humble servants of the people all. Plus, as a bonus, their actual net worth is probably more that twice that figure. It's probably even higher, on average, in the Senate. So now you don't have to wonder why no one in government ever seems to be concerned with the plight of regular "non-top 5% Americans". It's because none of them are one, and if they ever were one they've long since forgotten it. Perhaps we need to organize expeditions into America for our elected betters, so that they may study us "normals" much like Jane Goodall studied chimps. Perhaps then they can learn to understand us and learn that we aren't all that thrilled with massive corporate handouts, endless wars, and getting bent over various barrels of their choice.

The Bank Job
This time, it's Vanity Fair and Bethany McLean who decide to take the baton from Matt Taibbi and get in a good couple of shots at our money overlords at Goldman-Sachs. Did you know that ole GS pretty much never loses on the financial bets it makes, essentially has a license to print money because of securities "spreads", and ripped off it's own customers to the tune of $40 billion by selling them shoddy mortgage securities? Probably not, but I bet you could have guessed something equally shady and ethically questionable and been pretty close. I just hope when they're allowed to rewrite our regulatory laws, they throw some of all that excess cash on the nightstand and tell us they'll call us. We could use the ego boost.

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*

All that history

It's Monday and freedom is still dead. I'm sure you felt it die, as I did, late Saturday night. That sharp stabbing pain in your Liberty Gland as you felt all your blood eagles dissipate and a steep drop in the patriotoxins that stimulate your brain. Yes, health care passed the House and we're all gonna fucking die.

At least that's what I think happened. Granted I'm basing that on all the GOP's floor speeches before the bill passed, so my information might not be 100% accurate, but I'm fairly sure that's the medical process we all went through as the Democrats made sure that freedom was garroted and robots were sent back in time to rape the founding fathers. Yes, the House of Representatives stood up and said "YES! We can barely support mild, minor health reforms by the slimmest of margins!" and then proceeded to rack up injuries patting their own backs and attempting to blow themselves.

But it wasn't without complications and stories. 64 Democrats and the Republican caucus voted to strip abortion and reproductive rights out of the bill. Because, as always, a bunch of men following the moral compass of an organization that is fighting bankruptcy because of all the child rapes it covered up, know better than women about women's bodies. Isn't that always the way? 39 Democrats ended up voting against the bill, while only one Republican voted for it, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana. I guess that makes the bill "bipartisan" and we have to pretend he acted as a man of conscience, instead of what really happened: Cao coming down with an acute case of "District full of black people that Obama won by 75%" and knowing he wasn't going to have the luxury of Richard Jefferson being the most corrupt man on earth to sweep him back into power.

So history has happened: health care has passed the House. And for as disappointing as the bill was and for how even more disappointing the Senate bill will be, that's something that every Democratic or Republican President who vowed to "reform health care" wasn't able to do. Now we sit and wait for the Senate...and the conference committees....then back to each body for voting again......this is still going to be weeks and weeks and weeks an weeks until anything concrete happens. Ugh. I can imagine what the Senate deliberations are going to look like. Still....history,....mediocre, over-compromised history. That's...something.