(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.
There they go again. Texas Republicans continue to bring embarrassment and shame to the people of Texas. This time Kay Bailey Hutchison is busted for lying on national TV. She called the public option in health care reform a "government takeover."
Please. Enough already. No more lies!
No wonder Texas is the butt of national derision and provides great material in the stupidity and jackassery departments for late night comedy.
Reality Check. What a public option really does mean.
(This is happening Wednesday morning. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Public Citizen is holding one of a series of national events in front of the Capitol in Austin on Wednesday about the upcoming Citizens United v. FEC case in the Supreme Court.
This will take place Sep 9th starting at 10:30 am on the South steps of the Texas Capitol (11th and Congress), to coincide with the Supreme Court hearing the Citizens United case, in which they have signaled they want to overturn a century-old principle that bans corporations from directly participating in campaigns.
Imagine it-- if corporations could openly support or oppose political candidates and give money to their elections!
We will need people to come who support clean elections and are tired of corporate influence in our politics. We will be holding two simultaneous rallies. One will be a Citizens Rally with homemade signs (feel free to bring your own) and another with people dressed in suits (led by your truly) representing the corporations, carrying stock signs saying "Corporations are People Too", "Why shouldn't I be able to buy a President?",
If interested or for more info, go to www.DontGetRolled.org or please email Andy Wilson awilson-at-citizen.org
Also read our full press statement from Public Citizen's New President, Rob Weissman here and after the jump
Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chroncle attended a medical support group with a family member in Katy outside Houston recently. The group's leader handed out a flyer that was supposedly distributed to share information on the U.S. House healthcare proposals. The flyer was anything but credible. It contained nothing but pants-on-fire whoppers and frightening misinformation surrounding healthcare reform.
The first order of business was for the group's leader to pass around a handout that supposedly offered a page-by-page translation of the House health care reform bill from an alien bureaucratic dialect to everyday English.
"A U.S. Army translator has been found who speaks 'Washington Doublespeak' and he was kind enough to decode the bill and post his plain-language findings," read an introductory paragraph.
As one who also has a family member who attends medical support group meetings I must say the group's leader did the unspeakable and unforgivable. Folks attend these meetings for support, empathy and encouragement. They are there to learn ways in which they and their families can cope with the diseases that plague them. They are there to learn how to fight the depression and fear that accompanies so many diseases. For a leader to introduce a new level of fear and anxiety to people in this state is criminal.
Obviously the GOP and HCR opponents know no shame.
Below are a few of the despicable whoppers used to foment fear among the ill.
Among the supposed findings: "Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed! ... Page 42: The 'Health Choices Commissioner' will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None. ... Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with fee healthcare services. ... Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer."
My U.S. House Rep (Houston) never fails to embarrass the living daylights out of many of his constituents. That would be those of us who are not invited to Culberson's orchestrated town hall meetings.
GOP Playbook, Chapter I: When you don't like the question posed by a journalist or if you simply can't handle it, change the subject.
Chapter 2: If the journalist won't let you change the subject, ties you into a pretzel and if you fall into his/her trap, attack the interviewer's network.
What happens when none of the above works?
Play dumb.
Or
Throw a tantrum. Look like a deer caught in the headlights because you really, really believe your own fabricated spin.
Caught Red Handed. Sen. Grassley Voted for "Death Panels" in 2003
Oh those lying liars and the lies they tell.
According to Amy Sullivan at Time many of the very same death panel liars voted in favor of end-of-life counseling in 2003.
You would think that if Republicans wanted to totally mischaracterize a health care provision and demagogue it like nobody's business, they would at least pick something that the vast majority of them hadn't already voted for just a few years earlier. Because that's not just shameless, it's stupid.
Yes, that's right. Remember the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, the one that passed with the votes of 204 GOP House members and 42 GOP Senators? Anyone want to guess what it provided funding for? Did you say counseling for end-of-life issues and care? Ding ding ding!!
Yesterday I posted a video clip of a former physician/death decider for Humana and Blue Cross/Blue Shield who had testified at a Congressional hearing in 1996. Dr. Peeno admitted that she had made decisions in favor of the profit margins that resulted in the deaths of patients.
Thirteen years later, after the Republicans and health care lobbyists devastated all hopes and efforts at any kind of healthcare reform, the death panels remain in full force today. I suppose this is the reason Sarah Palin suddenly ratcheted down her rhetoric about them. Someone in the GOP likely reminded Ms. Clueless that um, er, silly, silly woman, the insurance companies are knowingly killing off patients. Don't bring attention to it for crying out loud!
Poor, poor short-sighted, seriously uninformed Sarah. That woman does not know when to quit. This time she let the real death panel genie out of its hole in hell.
It was so very naive and silly of me to suggest that the GOP should step up and take responsibility, as any adult would do, by calling a halt to the brown shirt shout downs at town hall meetings on healthcare reform.
Silly, silly me. That won't happen. Never. Ever. Even if hell freezes over and the entire country is in the throes of death, the answer remains to be no, never, in your dreams, not even if hell freezes over.
Despite GOP cries for freedom, its flag waving, its prominence of lapel wearing flag pins, its highly orchestrated scenarios of patriotism and noble words about freedom, the GOP's behavior has nothing to do with any of the principles mentioned above.
Actions speak louder than words. Shouting down and shutting out the questions and opinions that fellow Americans want to ask and share with their elected representative is:
anti-democratic,
anti-patriotic and
anti-American.
When political rhetoric goes over the top, inaction by a party's leadership is the same as blind acquiescence.
According to former right wing Republican and evangelical Christian leader, Frank Schaeffer, the GOP, its conservative pundits and the self-serving corporate sharks in the healthcare industry know no bounds in pulling off what is best for them.
For right wing Republicans, conservative pundits, the corporate sharks and their now enabled fruit loop nut jobs, it is a fight to the death.
By now many of you have seen the many YouTube videos of right wingers and libertarians "protesting" Democratic members of Congress as they attempt to hold town hall meetings or public forums during the August recess to discuss healthcare reform, among other things.
Be sure of a few things, but most importantly be sure that these are not meant to do anything other than raise hell, create a disruption, shut down discourse and steamroll anyone and everyone in the way.
Certainly it is well within the right of every American to voice their opinions, protest, and, yes, even raise hell...especially with their elected officials. But that isn't really what this is about.
This is about harnessing the frustration and anger of middle class Americans and working folks. The very same folks who were victimized and injured by the policies of the disgraced, former President Bush.
So why are they so mad? Is it really about health care? Does cap and trade really light their britches on fire?
Somewhat, perhaps, but not really.
I try and refrain from lenghty, Unabomber diatribes, but this is a special case.
Just when you think the Republicans and their love mates in big insurance and pharma have sunk to the lowest hole in a snake pit, they manage to creep into an even deeper one. Their latest stunt goes beyond the pale in much the same fashion as the GOP did in the Terri Schiavo case. But the Schiavo incident was child's play when compared to the cruel and sinister stuff Republicans and their love mates are up to today.
In a recent multi-million dollar PR campaign to kill off health care reform, insurance companies, special interest groups and Republicans are lying to and scaring the daylights out of senior citizens in the most appalling manner. The self-serving, unconscionable and greedy ghouls are telling older folks that health care reform will literally kill them. They will be euthanized, or they will be required to have five- year medical reviews that could result in death sentences.
I am not making this up or telling a really sick and inappropriate joke. This ruthless fear and smear campaign is happening while I type. And, as I mentioned in a diary posted below, Republicans in Congress are completely on board with this beyond the pale campaign of terror against senior citizens.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has revealed much about the despicable "deather" movement.
Yesterday I posted a 
