In its latest and desperate attempts to kill off health care reform, insurance industry lobbyists will unleash $1 million in HCR attack ads over the next few days. This is $1 million, by the way, that could be put to far better use such as funding treatments for patients. But who cares about patients?
The ads, which will run on cable, will focus on "setting the record straight about rising health care costs" as the Obama administration goes after big insurers for raising insurance rates.
I betcha the industry's attempts to set the record straight will be a verbatim replay of last summer's fear fest frenzies that were ginned up by the health industry lobbyists and its go to politicians. Why is it that the fear fests surrounding health care reform remind me of another orchestrated event called Iraq?
Fear coupled with deception.
Health insurance CEOs take home record profits while volunteer groups of doctors and nurses will roll up their sleeves to clean out animal stalls, if need be, to set up free health clinics in Republican held states that are hell holes for the jobless and uninsured.
Last Sunday, on Meet the Press, Kay Bailey Hutchison spewed one whopper after another about the recently passed Senate health care reform bill. KBH spouted the same fear mongering myths as had John Cornyn in his recent newsletter to his so-called constituents. Kay and John's grotesquely misleading talking points are also a clone of what John Culberson (TX7-TeabaggerR) stated in his pricey and slick brochure.
This week alone I have been bombarded by snail mail and electronic mail from my Texas lawmakers mentioned above. Sadly and outrageously, all of the letters and brochures are filled with nothing but fear mongering tactics and blatant lies.
From Hutchison:
After hearing from constituents over the last several months, some members of Congress have now learned that using the term "government plan" elicits a strong negative from voters (because you have been scaring voters about government for years.) so they have now latched onto a new way to describe the same thing: a co-op. Texans should not be confused by this new packaging of the same idea. The co-op is a back door to a government takeover of our health care. (Really? According to whom? You?) The co-op would be started with federal funds, and it remains unclear whether or not taxpayer dollars would be used if the co-ops begin to fail. The Administration has tried to bail out the banking, housing and auto-industry. Would the co-ops be next?
Wow. Let's talk about an exercise in deceitful fear mongering. This is the first time I have heard about a co-op that would replace the public option and would ultimately become single payer health care. This would be a true dream come true for the American people.
But it ain't going to happen.
Because if a single payer, universal health care reform bill had been introduced there is no way in hell that Republican enabling Lieberman and the three sell-out Democrats known as Blue Dogs would have ever in their dreams voted for the Senate HCR Bill. Like Cornyn and Hutchison, Lieberman and the Blue Dogs serve as major pimps and go to bitches for the insurance industry.
Kay Bailey Hutchison should also remind herself that banking, housing and the auto-industry collapsed under her and her Party's watch. Like most Republicans Kay Bailey has always been in favor of dismantling every living regulatory legislation and she has never supported government oversight, transparency nor checks and balances of any sort.
Based on the mail I have read from Senators Hutchison, Cornyn and my U.S. House Rep. John Culberson, it is obvious that the Republicans are repeating the same lies over and over. The cover of Culberson's brochure reads:
HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER
.
The brochure shows a stethoscope lying on a flag draped on top of a building called:
INSURANCE
A couple of Culberson's bullet pointed lies:
2.5% tax on all individuals who do not purchase government run health care.
8% tax on businesses who cannot afford to purchase government run health care.
Notice how the Republicans frequently use the term government run. They do this to attach a negative and fearful meaning of government. The intended message? The evil government will take over one's life and control one's destiny. The Republican Party has spent years demonizing government run anything b/c they'd rather have the sharks, i.e. their cash cow donors, on Wall St.,in corporate America and the insurance industry to remain permanently in the driver seats.
Let's take a peek at Republican and other pimped out lawmakers willingness to enable corporate greed and corruption.
First up, Culberson's lies. His are only the tip of the iceberg.
Hey dude, I am one of your constituents and quite frankly you are full of stupid nonsense. It is stunning to me that you would include me and other progressives in your district among your special interest groups and deluded teabaggers. I'd venture to suggest that you will have an election challenge in the very near future.
According to Culberson's brochure.
The uninsured should 1. don't get sick or 2. if you do, die quickly.
The Democratic leadership bill, H.R. 3962 costs over $1.2 trillion; contains $729.5 billion in new taxes, adds 111 new offices to the government (jobs anyone?); and creates, expands and extends 43 entitlement programs. (There they go again with their entitlement obsession. Apparently the only ones who are entitled to be entitled are Republicans.) Now here is a really huge whopper: The bill also prohibits the sale of private insurance after 2013; cuts more than $150 billion from Medicare; and exempts members of Congress from the public options but no one else.
If Culberson had really read the bill instead of dancing with teabaggers he would have known that his claim about prohibiting private insurance is a bald faced lie. It is outrageous for Culberson to think he can willfully insult the intelligence of so many of his constituents with such stupid nonsense.
What Republicans are not telling us is the fact that HCR will cut the deficit by $127 billion, coverage will be extended to 94% Americans, 31 million more than have coverage today.
What the heck is wrong with that?
Remember those evil doing non-existent WMDs in Iraq? And Iraq's non-existent ties to Al-Qaeda?
The GOP is promoting health care reform as if it is a WMD. It is one that exists only in their heads.
(Some Sunday color... - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
LBJ would use the term "peckers in pockets" when pushing through Medicare. According to the former President, he needed "peckers in his pocket" to make sure the bill passed. I imagine few Presidents have made abundant use of such colorful language as LBJ. It sure would be nice if we had LBJ with us today. Given our present political climate of hysterical drama queens and kings on the right, LBJ's descriptions would no doubt be brutally hilarious and priceless.
Speaking of pocketed peckers, who is running the Senate healthcare mark-up? Are our Senators working for us or are they working for insurance?
Yesterday, on CSPAN our very own Senator John Cornyn shows us he is a pawn for the insurance industry. Cornyn likes things the way they are, meaning he does not care that Texas has the highest number of uninsured residents. And he has no intention of lifting a finger to change the plight of the untreated. Predictably Cornyn had tried to "grandfather in" insurance companies in order to protect their profits. According to Senator Rockefeller Cornyn's amendment also favored 46% of the population while it would work against 54% of the people. Is this the best Big John could do? What a stand up dude. Texas should be so proud. Fortunately his pandering amendment promoting the status quo failed 13-10.
Reacting to an amendment proposed by Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Texas) during the Senate Finance Committee's markup of health care reform legislation on Thursday, committee member Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called his colleague a pawn of the health insurance industry.
"This is a very, very important amendment and it's a very, very bad amendment," said Rockefeller. "If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but is running certain people in this markup."
Senator Cornyn, by the way, received $759,000 from health professionals, $350,000 from insurance, $222,000 from Pharma and $248,000 from lobbyists. A video clip of the exchange between Senators Cornyn and Rockefeller can be seen in the link above.
The Huffinton Post reveals that Senate GOP intends to send out misleading mailers from a so-called non-partisan and vague task force called:
U.S.Senate Health Care Task Force
The mailer is actually commissioned by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and it is by no means non-partisan. The letter is signed by yours truly John Cornyn.
All of these descriptions are either intentionally misleading or deeply contested interpretations of the health care provisions put forth by Democrats. And while the name and NRSC title -- "Chairman" -- of Senator John Cornyn, (R-Texas) is listed in the header, there is no mention of the fact that he's a Republican. Only in the sixth paragraph is it revealed that "Republican leadership of the United States Senate" commissioned the survey.
This is yet another pathetic attempt for pimped out Republicans to kill health care reform.
The mailer uses the usual GOP fear mongering tactics by insisting that a lottery system will be set up that will determine who does and does not get care. The system will be based on age, race and gender.
I guess y'all think it's OK for big insurance to rob you blind. I guess y'all think it's OK that your elected representative thinks it's OK for big insurance to rob you blind.
No wonder Republicans have become a rump party comprised of dumb bunnies who will vote against their own self-interests, self-preservation, financial security and well-being over and over and over, just like an Energizer bunny. Over and over and over and over........Your Republican politicians are joined at the hip with guys like the one in the video. They lie to you, they mislead you, they manipulate you and they use you. OH, how they use you.
But you will vote for them time and time again, over and over and over, just like the Energizer Bunny.
As we all know, an anti-abortion extremist gunned down and murdered Dr. George Tiller in his church where he served as an usher and his wife sang in the choir. This was the second attempt on the physician's life. In 1993 Dr. Tiller had been wounded by anti-abortion extremists in an unsuccessful assassination attempt. During that same year, Dr. David Gunn was murdered by anti-abortionists in Pensacola.
Records reveal that Tiller's murder suspect has a criminal record and a history of anti-abortion postings on friendly web sites. Apparently the suspect also spends a lot of time at a home known for its strange gatherings.
Neighbors said they've seen a similar car at the house in Merriam. They describe the ongoings at the house as strange. They said it's a revolving door of men coming and staying there and describe what appear to be religious gatherings.
Dr. Tiller has been a target of the right for some time as he was one of the few doctors in the country who would perform late term abortions. A number of right wing TV and radio talk show hosts have made a practice of demonizing Dr. Tiller in an attempt to whip the religious right into frenzy. This time the hate talkers hit the jackpot.
Bill O'Reilly of FOX "News" is one of those who led the charge against Dr. Tiller.
Jed Lewison over at Daily Kos captured the video clip below in which Bill O'Reilly called Dr. Tiller:
Ok, so we've been hearing about this deadly swine flu that has many folks panicking right and left. Schools are closing, people are wearing surgical masks, and many are avoiding their local public transportation systems, railroads and airlines. In Texas alone, 300,000 children are not in school.
Indeed the reaction has been so strong that a flight enroute to the U.S. from Europe diverted to Boston because a passenger said she had flu like symptoms. Some folks, mainly Republican politicians and xenophobic pundits, have demanded that we immediately shut down the U.S./Mexico border. Apparently these folks have not heard the latest reports on the swine flu.
Apparently we were warned about this flu's potential as far back as 1999. The forewarning obviously fell on deaf ears.
As one would expect Karl Rove blatantly lied about Senator Arlen Specter's motivation for switching his Party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.
In a statement issued earlier today, Senator Specter said his former Party had moved too far right.
Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.
Speaking from FOX Looney Tunes News, Rove said Specter had lurched left.
(Really solid post w/ lots of videos. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
First, from the Texas wing of The Party of Torture and Tax Cuts.
Senator John Cornyn, prominent member of the Party of Torture and willing player in the Bush Administration's
Journey to Depravity must think Democrats are quaking in their boots because, according to The Huffington Post he attempted to bully and blackmail them on the torture issue.
Cornyn apparently prefers to sweep the recent revelations of torture under the rug. That or pin the blame on Democrats who served on the Foreign Intelligence Committee at the time, and/or stick it to low level military and CIA officers at the bottom of the torture chain of command.
If Democrats insist on probing the Bush administration's program of detainee torture, they'd better be careful, a senior Senate Republican said Tuesday, because they might find blood on their own hands as well.
"To sit quietly and to let this happen and then to come back later and say people ought to be prosecuted criminally, not just here in the United States but perhaps internationally, to me is inconsistent, to say the least," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
