3 US prisoners rescued, for Obama in three weeks.

Senator Webb Travels To Myanmar, Wins Release Of US Prisoner

YANGON, Myanmar — Days after the world slammed Myanmar for sentencing Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to more house arrest, U.S. Senator Jim Webb arrived in the military-ruled country's capital Friday.
The visit – the first in more than a decade by a senior U.S. official – has drawn criticism from activists who say it confers legitimacy on a brutal regime, but the Obama administration gave the Virginia Democrat its blessing.
Relations between Myanmar, also known as Burma, and the U.S. have been strained since its military crushed pro-democracy protests in 1988. LinkHere

Obama Goes After Politicians Spreading "Death Panels" Lie At Colorado Town Hall

Obamas Grandma did die on the eve of his election, you stupid uneducated women, go home, and take in some more Faux Lies.

Grassley brings Glenn Beck’s book to town hall meeting to ‘pass it on.’

NO KIDDING

On Wednesday, during Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) town hall in Winterset, Iowa, an attendee proudly noted that the Senator brought his personal copy of Glenn Beck’s book “Common Sense.” Grassley responded stating that he has read the book and that he intended to “pass it on”:

TOWN HALL ATTENDEE: I noticed that you have the book “Common Sense” with you today, I hope you share it with a lot more of those 535 people.

GRASSLEY: Well the reason I brought it is you’re supposed to pass it on to other people when you’re not reading it.

At the end of the town hall, Grassley gave an autographed copy of “Common Sense” to ThinkProgress and said “it’s something you gotta read a couple times.” Watch the video:
Grassley autographs a copy of Glenn Beck's book LinkHere

THEY PROBABLY WOULDN'T TAKE 'YES' FOR AN ANSWER

Paul Krugman had a very good appearance on MSNBC yesterday, and following on his NYT column, noted that conservative opponents of health care reform are "unappeasable."

Describing the various objections from the right, Krugman explained, "It's not actually about the end-of-life provisions. It's not about this specific thing in the bill. They're just going to grab onto anything and try to turn it into something awful.... It's not about the substance and that means that you can't actually satisfy the crazies by offering substantive concessions."
What I found especially interesting, though, is what John Harwood added, "I gotta tell you what a White House official told me today: 'Our problem right now is, if we tell some of the Republican opponents in the Senate, 'You can have everything you want in the bill,' they still won't vote for it.'"
That's almost certainly true. Republican lawmakers don't support meaningful health care reform. That's certainly their right, but it's a point that's often overlooked. If White House negotiators were to offer them a compromise today with no public option, no reimbursements for end-of-life counseling, and no taxes on the middle class, Republicans lawmakers will still oppose meaningful health care reform.
The moral of the story: there's no real point in still more negotiations with conservative Republican lawmakers.
LinkHere

ROFLMAO!!! you need to add more nuts to the GOP 2012 freakshow.

This is the freak who took his dead child home from the hospital, to interact with his children, isn't he?
SANTORUM 2012? REALLY?

There was a fair amount of talk in, say, 2005, that Sen. Rick Santorum (R) was eyeing the 2008 presidential race. It was hard to take the scuttlebutt seriously, but Santorum was quietly making some behind-the-scenes moves in that direction.
The talk came to an abrupt halt when Santorum, whose most notable Senate achievement was an interview in which he compared gay couples to "man-on-dog" relations, lost his re-election bid by a humiliating 18 points. The idea of Santorum having national ambitions was obviously silly.
And yet, here we are.
Add former Sen. Rick Santorum to the list of potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates.
POLITICO has learned Santorum will visit first-in-the-nation Iowa this fall for a series of appearances before the sort of conservative activists who dominate the state GOP's key presidential caucuses.
The Pennsylvanian, who lost his 2006 reelection bid, will visit Iowa on October 1, appearing on a Des Moines radio talk show and speaking to a luncheon and workshop of Iowa's Right to Life group before heading east to Dubuque, where he'll headline a fundraiser for the conservative America's Future Fund PAC and then speak about the future of the GOP to a public audience in the Mississippi River city. LinkHere

THE PENANCE HAS NOT BEEN PAID

Following up on this item from yesterday, I had an interesting conversation via email yesterday with Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations. Bruce made a point that really resonated with me, and he was gracious enough to allow me to republish it here.
I believe that political parties should do penance for their mistakes and just losing power is not enough. Part of that involves understanding why those mistakes were made and how to prevent them from happening again. Republicans, however, have done no penance. They just pretend that they did nothing wrong. But until they do penance they don't deserve any credibility and should be ignored until they do. That's what my attacks on Bush are all about. I want Republicans to admit they were wrong about him, accept blame for his mistakes, and take some meaningful action to keep them from happening again. Bush should be treated as a pariah, as Richard Nixon was for many years until he rebuilt his credibility by more or less coming clean about Watergate with David Frost and writing a number of thoughtful books.
One reason this isn't happening is because the media don't treat Republicans as if they are discredited. On the contrary, they often seem to be treated as if they have more credibility than the administration. Just look at the silly issue of death panels. The media should have laughed it out the window, ridiculed it or at least ignored it once it was determined that there was no basis to the charge. Instead, those making the most outlandish charges are treated with deference and respect, while those that actually have credibility on the subject are treated as equals at best and often with deep skepticism, as if they are the ones with an ax to grind.
I am truly baffled by this situation, as I'm sure you are.
As regular readers may imagine, I find this overwhelmingly persuasive. Bush/Cheney policies failed so spectacularly, Republican candidates and officeholders are generally reluctant to associate themselves with the tarnished name of the previous administration. But Bush/Cheney policies are still those of the contemporary Republican Party. Nothing has changed. Failure and defeat haven't chastened the GOP at all, and if given a chance to govern again, Republican leaders are quite anxious to return to the exact same agenda they embraced when they were in the majority.
And the political mainstream seems to think this is sane. LinkHere

BIG... BUT NOT TOO BIG TO FAIL

Latest Bank Failure Is Biggest Of The Year... $25 Billion In Assets... 77 Banks Have Failed In 2009

WASHINGTON - Real estate lender Colonial BancGroup Inc. has been shut down by federal officials in the biggest U.S. bank failure this year.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was appointed receiver of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial and its about $25 billion in assets, said the failed bank's 346 branches in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas will reopen at the normal times starting on Saturday as offices of Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T.
The FDIC has approved the sale of Colonial's $20 billion in deposits and about $22 billion of its assets to BB&T Corp.
Regulators also closed four other banks: Community Bank of Arizona, based in Phoenix; Union Bank, based in Gilbert, Ariz.; Community Bank of Nevada, based in Las Vegas; and Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association, located in Pittsburgh.
The closures boosted to 77 the number of federally insured banks that have failed in 2009.
LinkHere

Toxic Loans May Push 150 Banks To Point Of No Return

Bloomberg News:
Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- More than 150 publicly traded U.S. lenders own nonperforming loans that equal 5 percent or more of their holdings, a level that former regulators say can wipe out a bank's equity and threaten its survival.
Read the whole story: Bloomberg News

Wont the Republicans luv this

Americans working much harder – for less pay
Productivity surged, labor costs dropped sharply in the second quarter

Feel like you’re working a lot harder these days, putting in longer hours for the same pay — or even less? The latest round of government data on worker productivity indicates that you probably are.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labor costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.
That is, despite the deep job cuts of the past year, workers who remain on the payroll are filling in and making up the work that had been done by their departed colleagues. In some cases, that extra work came with a smaller paycheck. LinkHere

Who needs Health Care Reform? This from the Leading Country of the Free World

God Bless Australia

The LA Forum in Inglewood, California, hosted dental and medical examinations, for thousands of people thanks to the charity Remote Area Medical.
The brutal truth about America?s healthcare

Posted by The Independent
Saturday, 15 August 2009 at 12:49 am
In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an "evil and Orwellian" example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.
The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed ? for eight days only ? into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.
In the first two days, more than 1,500 men, women and children received free treatments worth $503,000 (£304,000). Thirty dentists pulled 471 teeth; 320 people were given standard issue spectacles; 80 had mammograms; dozens more had acupuncture, or saw kidney specialists. By the time the makeshift medical centre leaves town on Tuesday, staff expect to have dispensed $2m worth of treatments to 10,000 patients.
The gritty district of Inglewood lies just a few miles from the palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills and the bright lights of Hollywood, but is a world away. And the residents who had flocked for the free medical care, courtesy of mobile charity Remote Area Medical, bore testament to the human cost of the healthcare mess that President Obama is attempting to fix.
Christine Smith arrived at 3am in the hope of seeing a dentist for the first time since she turned 18. That was almost eight years ago. Her need is obvious and pressing: 17 of her teeth are rotten; some have large visible holes in them. She is living in constant pain and has been unable to eat solid food for several years.
"I had a gastric bypass in 2002, but it went wrong, and stomach acid began rotting my teeth. I've had several jobs since, but none with medical insurance, so I've not been able to see a dentist to get it fixed," she told The Independent. "I've not been able to chew food for as long as I can remember. I've been living on soup, and noodles, and blending meals in a food mixer. I'm in constant pain. Normally, it would cost $5,000 to fix it. So if I have to wait a week to get treated for free, I'll do it. This will change my life." LinkHere

His life is always at risk with the uneducated mob mentality, carrying loaded guns at Town Hall meetings.

Ovid
Isn't this what Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh have been praying for all these years? To unleash terror and violence on all who oppose their particular ideal? It's Ann Coulters wet dream to see blood shed in the name of Conservatism.

And sadly it's inevitable. The biggest mistake is thinking you can have a logical argument with these people. You can't. They are psychopaths on a feeding frenzy. And the worst things get the more gleeful they will become.

The veneer is wearing thin and whats under the mask is finally starting to show.

Report: Obama's life at risk in health care battle

White House officials are "privately admitting concern" for President Barack Obama's safety as incidents of attempted or threatened violence against the president skyrocket in the midst of the country's heated health care debate.
That's the word from an ABC News report that says racist groups are thriving on the backlash in some corners of the United States to a black president who is working overtime to overhaul the country's social safety system.
"Experts say a sharp growth in so-called militia groups that helped spawn a wave of domestic terrorism in the 1990s—and are now using YouTube, rock music and the Internet to recruit members and spread hate and fear—shouldn't be ignored," the report says.
Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent who now consults for ABC News, told the network that the Secret Service "cannot afford to pass on anyone" because "they really do fear that something could happen to [Obama].
"It's certainly a scary time," he said.
From ABC News:
Garrett said statements like one recently made by controversial radio host Rush Limbaugh comparing a logo for the White House plan to a Nazi symbol "legitimizes people who are on the edge to go do something or say something."
"And if you go and take a look at this, you will find that the Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo," Limbaugh said.
Limbaugh's comments are part of a growing trend of influential figures stirring up hatred—or even implicitly pressing for violence—against the president.
A California city councilman is under pressure to resign after sending emails joking about assassinating the president. And yet another talk show host is under investigation after advising a caller not to waste ammunition on target practice, and "save it for the administration." LinkHere

Insurance giant hikes individual, group rates over 20 percent

In MI., Blue Cross raising individual, group rates 22 pct.

Insurer originally sought 56 percent rate hike, but regulators refused
Michigan insurance regulators have approved a 22 percent increase for group and individual Blue Cross Blue Shield health policies in the state, according to reports published Thursday.
“Blue Cross officials have said they need rate increases to help cover $133 million in financial losses in 2008 on its individual health insurance policies,” reported Crain’s Detroit Business.
Blue Cross originally sought to raise individual rates by 56 percent and group rates by 41 percent. Its proposed rate increases were initially rejected by the state’s Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation, which negotiated the still-significant hikes.
The new rates, set to take effect October 1, will affect 163,000 policies.
Blue Cross is also awaiting a September 14 hearing on its proposed 33 percent rate hike for senior citizens, according to Detroit Free Press.
Monthly premiums for some of Blue Cross’ most popular plans would be increased this way:
• Young Adult Blue PPO, now $47.14 a month and will be increased 4.5% to $49.30.
• Individual Care Blue between the ages of 40-44 was $230.30 and will increase 28.2% to $296.67.
• Non-group Option C, for people who once had workplace coverage, was $361.42 and will go up 21.3% to $438.86.
• Group Conversion Individual Care Blue for an individual between the ages of 40-44 was $238.72 and will be increased 11.3% to $265.72.
• Group conversion Option C was $233.60 and will go up 24% to $289.75.
“The state’s insurance commissioner also approved an interim increase of 4.7 percent on Blue Cross’s supplemental Medicare policies, known as Medigap, which will affect more than 200,000 seniors in Michigan,” added Detroit News. LinkHere

"Ain't that the truth"

Katie Couric Denounces "Fear" And "Ignorance" Driving People To Town-Hall Forums

Watch CBS Videos Online Link Here

Go get him, the hypocrites, time someone called them the liars that they are.

Lawrence O'Donnell Exposes GOP Congressman's Hypocrisy On Government Health Care

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Obama says insurance companies holding US hostage

Source: Reuters
BELGRADE, Mont., Aug 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama, pushing for healthcare reform during a trip to conservative Montana, said on Friday the country was "held hostage" by insurance companies that deny coverage to sick people.
Obama, on a multi-state swing to tamp down vociferous opposition to his top domestic priority, targeted insurance companies for dropping customers who become sick or forcing patients to cover huge costs.
"We are held hostage at any given moment by health insurance companies that deny coverage or drop coverage or charge fees that people can't afford," Obama told a crowd of some 1,000 people in Montana.
"It's wrong. It's bankrupting families. It's bankrupting businesses. And we are going to fix it when we pass health insurance reform this year," he said. LinkHere

Obama says he's not trying to vilify insurers

BELGRADE, Mont. — President Barack Obama says he isn't trying to vilify the insurance companies. He says he's just trying to stop their practices that hurt people.
Obama was responding to an insurance salesman who asked about the president's change in terminology. Obama has switched from calling for "health reform" to "health insurance reform." He's also complained about insurance companies' profits.
The president says his intent was not to vilify the big companies. He said some, like Aetna, are working with the administration on overhaul. But he said others are spending money to oppose his efforts to remake the system.
Obama kicked off a four-state swing in Montana to push for his top domestic priority and regain the initiative in the bitter debate. LinkHere

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Wonder where Faux Propaganda was?
Nashville anti-health care reform protest a bust (1 person shows up)

Source: AP
NASHVILLE — The leader of a Tennessee group opposing the Obama administration’s health care reform plan said today he’s disappointed he was the only one who showed up for a protest in Nashville.
Tom Kovach, state director of America’s Independent Party, said he’d hoped to see at least 50 people at the protest in a parking lot in front of West End Middle School near downtown.
Instead, the only company he had was a hand full of reporters and a few passing joggers.
Kovach acknowledged that today was school students’ first day back and that protesters may have wanted to be ‘‘cautious,’’ considering the group was criticized for protesting near the school. LinkHere

We were duped, say two British women used in US health campaign Source: Times of London
Two British women who have become the unwitting stars of a campaign to derail Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms yesterday said that their views on the NHS had been misrepresented.
Katie Brickell and Kate Spall said that they strongly supported state-funded healthcare, but their descriptions of poor treatment at the hands of the NHS form the centrepiece of an advertising campaign against the proposed reforms in America.
Both appear in adverts for Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR), a lobby group that opposes Mr Obama’s plans for universal medical insurance, which have caused a transatlantic rift over the merits of the NHS. LinkHere

Wank, Wank!!!! "If You Believe That, I've Got A Bridge In Alaska To Sell You"

Poll: Voters Give GOP First-Time Lead on Health Care

Source: Rasmussen Reports
For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%.
Democrats held a four-point lead on the issue last month and a 10-point lead in June. For most of the past two years, more than 50% of voters said they trusted Democrats on health care. The latest results mark the lowest level of support measured for the party on the now-contentious issue.
Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low with just 42% of U.S. voters now in favor of it. That’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.
Overall, Republicans lead Democrats in terms of voter trust on eight out of 10 key issues for the second consecutive month, and the two are tied on one issue. LinkHere

GETPLANING
I posted this at Reuters concerning Rasmussen

Rasmussen polls may show a majority of respondents do not want a government run (or any similar version) health care program, but the Rasmussen polls themselves are in the minority of polling results. The reason conservatives only quote Rasmussen Polls is that Rasmussen is the only poll that tells them what they want to hear. The reason is, Scott Rasmussen is a conservative pollster. He is very good with issue polling that has wording that’s designed to lead to conservative-friendly results. When those results come out, conservatives promote the results as vindicating their position.
So here is little background on Scott Rasmussen-
During the 2000 election season, Scott Rasmussen wrote a column for rabidly conservative WorldNetDaily. Yes, the same WorldNetDaily that just claimed to have Barack Obama’s actual Kenyan birth certificate. Whoops!
After the 2000 election, Rasmussen wrote articles and spoke at the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, pushing the case for privatizing Social Security. “In fact, 46 percent of American adults say that relying on the government is riskier than letting workers invest for their own retirement,” wrote Rasmussen in a January 2001 article arguing that incoming President Bush should push for private accounts. “Just 36 percent say letting workers invest is more risky, while 18 percent are not sure.” As you can see, Rasmussen is influential with conservatives because his carefully crafted questions produce answers that conservatives like.
During the debate over the Stimulus Bill, other pollsters, such as Gallup and CBS News, found support for it rising as high as 60 percent, but Rasmussen never saw it rise above 45 percent. He was the only pollster to find support for the plan falling, in a poll conducted on February 2 and 3. Rasmussen leaked the poll numbers to Bill Kristol, who used it to write articles against the plan. Republicans such as Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) cited Rasmussen to argue that support for the Democratic version of the stimulus was plunging. At a Feb. 10 briefing, Pence argued with reporters who cited Gallup instead of Rasmussen.
Now we see the same pattern merging in the healthcare debate. Polls across the board show overwhelming support for a public option, for single payer, and for Democratic policy proposals over Republican ones. Except one. I urge anyone following this thread to go to
http://www.pollingreport.com/health.htm and scroll down the page. There are no less than 12 polls listed. None reflect what the Medical Industrial Complex is pushing at you. Not one.

Fox News' "Glenn Beck" loses advertisers

Source: BBC
Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:00pm EDT
NEW YORK (Nielsen Business Media) - Some of the nation's biggest advertisers are distancing themselves from Fox News host Glenn Beck after he called President Obama a racist during a July 28 broadcast.
Geico has pulled its ads from Fox News Channel's "The Glenn Beck Program." Lawyers.com, which is owned by LexisNexis, also has vowed not to advertise during the program, according to Color of Change, an African-American online political organization that has been urging advertisers to stop supporting the show.
Additionally, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson all said their ad placements during the broadcast were made in error and that they would correct the mistake.
The controversy stems from Beck's comment that President Obama is a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people."
Geico spent more than a half-billion dollars on ads last year, according to the Nielsen Co. It spent more than a quarter-billion dollars in the first half of 2009. LinkHere

Glenn-Harried Glenn-Lost

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Glenn-Harried Glenn-Lost
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Meryl Streep

Caught Red-Handed: Grassley Voted For So-Called "Death Panel" In 2003

Oh, Those Death Panels

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!!
Let's go to the bill text, shall we? "The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary's need for pain and symptom management, including the individual's need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning." The only difference between the 2003 provision and the infamous Section 1233 that threatens the very future and moral sanctity of the Republic is that the first applied only to terminally ill patients. Section 1233 would expand funding so that people could voluntarily receive counseling before they become terminally ill.
So either Republicans were for death panels in 2003 before turning against them now--or they're lying about end-of-life counseling in order to frighten the bejeezus out of their fellow citizens and defeat health reform by any means necessary. Which is it, Mr. Grassley ("Yea," 2003)? LinkHere

Reps. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), who both claimed end-of-life consultations could result in "government encouraged euthanasia," also voted for similar policy in 2003.

Making Painfull Decisions

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FLASHBACK: GOPers Decrying Obama "Death Panels" Supported Intervention For Schiavo

On a conference call with reporters this week, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas.) repeated what has become the most popular conservative canard about President Obama's health care agenda. The government, Cornyn ominously warned, would end up deciding the "cost and the value of one's life, rather than leaving those decisions in the hands of the family." A "firewall" needed to be put in place to prevent this from happening.
Four and a half years ago, the Texas Republican wasn't heeding any firewalls. He was one of the lead sponsors of unprecedented government intervention to keep the permanently brain-damaged Terri Schiavo alive.
"Congress has a right and a responsibility to investigate this case and explore possible means to protect the defenseless such as Terri Schiavo and others, including those in Texas who are in similar situations," Cornyn said at the time.
The Schiavo case became an embarrassment for the Republican Party and a crucial turning point in the 2006 election. Conservative lawmakers later acknowledged mistakes in their handling of the entire episode, but at the time they defended their actions by framing them as a desire to protect both life and due process.
Some of the same conservative figures taking potshots at Democrats for wanting to fund voluntary discussions about end-of-life decisions between doctors and their patients were leading the charge four years ago to contravene the decision by Schiavo's husband and guardian to remove the feeding tubes from his wife after she had spent 15 years in a vegetative state. LinkHere

Sarah Palin Claims Victory On Death Panels: "Gratified"
Palin Was For "Death Panels" Before She Was Against Them

Sarah Palin crowed Friday over news that the Senate Finance Committee will leave end-of-life care out of its health care legislation.
"I join millions of Americans in expressing appreciation for the Senate Finance Committee's decision to remove the provision in the pending health care bill that authorizes end-of-life consultations (Section 1233 of HR 3200)," she wrote on her Facebook page. "It's gratifying that the voice of the people is getting through to Congress." LinkHere

For ‘Death Panels’ Before She Was Against Them? Palin Endorsed End Of Life Counseling As Governor

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the state of Alaska, do hereby proclaim April 16, 2008, as:
Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.
In recent weeks, right-wing groups have been pushing the myth that health care reform will somehow kill seniors. One of the most high profile voices pushing this lie has been Sarah Palin, who claimed President Obama will institute bureaucratic “death panels.” Today, again on her Facebook page, she continued the attack. Though some Republicans have rebuffed this absurd, inaccurate notion — like Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who called such talk “nuts” — others, like Newt Gingrich, have piled on to agree with Palin.
However, on April 16th 2008, then Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed some of the same end of life counseling she now decries as a form of euthanasia. In a proclamation announcing “Healthcare Decisions Day,” Palin urged public facilities to provide better information about advance directives, and made it clear that it is critical for seniors to be informed of such options:
WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. [...]
WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives. LinkHere

Republican Death Trip

“I am in this race because I don’t want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s. I don’t want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.” So declared Barack Obama in November 2007, making the case that Democrats should nominate him, rather than one of his rivals, because he could free the nation from the bitter partisanship of the past.
Some of us were skeptical. A couple of months after Mr. Obama gave that speech, I warned that his vision of a “different kind of politics” was a vain hope, that any Democrat who made it to the White House would face “an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false.”
So, how’s it going?
Sure enough, President Obama is now facing the same kind of opposition that President Bill Clinton had to deal with: an enraged right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency, that eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media complex.
This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing.
Right now, the charge that’s gaining the most traction is the claim that health care reform will create “death panels” (in Sarah Palin’s words) that will shuffle the elderly and others off to an early grave. It’s a complete fabrication, of course. The provision requiring that Medicare pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling was introduced by Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican — yes, Republican — of Georgia, who says that it’s “nuts” to claim that it has anything to do with euthanasia.
And not long ago, some of the most enthusiastic peddlers of the euthanasia smear, including Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, and Mrs. Palin herself, were all for “advance directives” for medical care in the event that you are incapacitated or comatose. That’s exactly what was being proposed — and has now, in the face of all the hysteria, been dropped from the bill.
Yet the smear continues to spread. And as the example of Mr. Gingrich shows, it’s not a fringe phenomenon: Senior G.O.P. figures, including so-called moderates, have endorsed the lie.
Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is one of these supposed moderates. I’m not sure where his centrist reputation comes from — he did, after all, compare critics of the Bush tax cuts to Hitler. But in any case, his role in the health care debate has been flat-out despicable.
Last week, Mr. Grassley claimed that his colleague Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor wouldn’t have been treated properly in other countries because they prefer to “spend money on people who can contribute more to the economy.” This week, he told an audience that “you have every right to fear,” that we “should not have a government-run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.”
Again, that’s what a supposedly centrist Republican, a member of the Gang of Six trying to devise a bipartisan health plan, sounds like.
So much, then, for Mr. Obama’s dream of moving beyond divisive politics. The truth is that the factors that made politics so ugly in the Clinton years — the paranoia of a significant minority of Americans and the cynical willingness of leading Republicans to cater to that paranoia — are as strong as ever. In fact, the situation may be even worse than it was in the 1990s because the collapse of the Bush administration has left the G.O.P. with no real leaders other than Rush Limbaugh.
The question now is how Mr. Obama will deal with the death of his postpartisan dream.
LinkHere

GOP Lobbyist Quits Law Firm Over Town Hall Disruptions

August 14, 2009
Armey resigns amid Freedom Works scrutiny
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) is resigning from DLA Piper law firm, Politico reports, because of criticism of his organization FreedomWorks and its role in town hall disruptions.
In an interview with POLITCO Armey said that he was concerned about the media scrutiny the health care protests were drawing to the firm he has been associated with since retiring from Congress.
"The firm is busy with its business, and shouldn't be asked to take time out from their work, to defend themselves of spurious allegations," Armey said. "No client of this firm is going to be free to mind its own business without harassment as long as I'm associated with it."
In April, ThinkProgress reported on how Armey used the "grassroots" FreedomWorks movement to support his corporate lobbying clients. LinkHere

You and what Armey?

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Political Outrage for Hire

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Clinton Urges Progressive Push On Health Care, Shoots Down Euthanasia Myth

"Do you want to go through that again?"
"Right now the Republicans are sitting around rooting for the President to fail," Clinton said. "And one of the reasons people are so hysterical at all these health care town-hall meetings... is they know they have no chance to beat health care this time, unless they can mortify with rigid fears some moderate conservative Democrats. Why do I know? Because they don't have the filibuster this time."

LinkHere

False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots

WASHINGTON — The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.
Advanced even this week by Republican stalwarts including the party’s last vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and Charles E. Grassley, the veteran Iowa senator, the nature of the assertion nonetheless seemed reminiscent of the modern-day viral Internet campaigns that dogged Mr. Obama last year, falsely calling him a Muslim and questioning his nationality.
But the rumor — which has come up at Congressional town-hall-style meetings this week in spite of an avalanche of reports laying out why it was false — was not born of anonymous e-mailers, partisan bloggers or stealthy cyberconspiracy theorists.
Rather, it has a far more mainstream provenance, openly emanating months ago from many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating President Bill Clinton’s health care proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey, whose 1994 health care critique made her a star of the conservative movement (and ultimately, New York’s lieutenant governor).
There is nothing in any of the legislative proposals that would call for the creation of death panels or any other governmental body that would cut off care for the critically ill as a cost-cutting measure. But over the course of the past few months, early, stated fears from anti-abortion conservatives that Mr. Obama would pursue a pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia agenda, combined with twisted accounts of actual legislative proposals that would provide financing for optional consultations with doctors about hospice care and other “end of life” services, fed the rumor to the point where it overcame the debate.
On Thursday, Mr. Grassley said in a statement that he and others in the small group of senators that was trying to negotiate a health care plan had dropped any “end of life” proposals from consideration. LinkHere

Ahahahahahahah, good for you little one, you finally got your interview, you will go far.

"President Obama is now my homeboy too."

Damon Reports You decide

Now is only you can give lessons on dignified and responsible journalism to the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Becks, Dodds and Oriellys of this world, cable might be worth watching.

US Battling CIA Rendition Case in Three Courts

Bob Egelko, The San Francisco Chronicle: "The Obama administration is fighting on multiple fronts - in courts in San Francisco, Washington and London - to keep an official veil of secrecy over the treatment of a former prisoner who says he was tortured at Guantanamo Bay."
LinkHere

Behind Rove's Latest Lies

As Rove discounts new proof of his influence in the firing of U.S. attorneys, Rove biographer James Moore explains how “Bush’s Brain” has manipulated hard evidence for decades.
One of my chief personal goals with the departure of the Bush administration has been not to think any more about Karl Rove. If I were as indelicate as Barbara Bush, I might toss out the rhetorical jibe, “Why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” Unfortunately, Rove refuses to disappear and I am saddled with knowing the historical context for his behavior, which, apparently, I am doomed to explain. My painful concession is that Rove and I are inextricably connected and share the certainty that the two words “Bush’s Brain,” the title of my biography of Karl, will be in both of our obituaries. Maybe I am obligated to keep casting a skeptical eye in the direction of his brooding darkness until we both are silenced by time.
When Rove is confronted by the same incontrovertible data he proclaims, “…I never sought to influence.” This is not denial; this is pathology.
Whenever I am compelled to consider Rove, though, my immediate thought is of a troubled soul with deep psychological issues. My sense is that in a different culture a man with such a practiced disconnection from reality would be likely to find himself marginalized instead of acting as an actor, commentator and consultant on matters of great social and political import. Even an armchair psychiatrist can see Rove is most likely pathological and much prefers the manufactured realities delivered to him by his determined mind than the sensory input he gets from the actual world.
Sure, I realize that is a slightly hyperbolic assertion, but allow me to build my case. There is no better body of evidence that the convolutions of Rove’s brain work in interpretive fashions far different from normal than the recent documents, including deposition transcripts and White House emails, revealed by the House Judiciary Committee. The material relates the involvement of Rove and White House Counsel Harriet Miers in the political firings of U.S. attorneys that were not serving Republican political purposes. Virtually every news outlet reported on the documents and characterized them as proof of political machinations by Rove and the Bush administration in the scheme to replace targeted U.S. attorneys LinkHere

Malkin and Fox News Are Stalking Children Again

Bring on the Boogey Man, an 11 year old!!!!!!

In their zeal to promote their own ideology, anyone in the opposition is fair game, anyone in the opposition is a target.

Sound familiar?
Michelle Malkin and Fox News Channel have finally blown the lid off the biggest conspiracy of our time. No, it's not the one about how the Obama administration is going to take over your computer, banish white people to FEMA camps, poison your tap water, murder your special needs children and strangle your grandmother with its government robot claws ("because they're made of metal and robots are strong").
It's a brand new conspiracy involving President Obama and an 11-year-old girl. The plot? To ask a question at a town hall meeting.
Scary. Run for your lives and all that.
Rewind to Tuesday afternoon when an 11-year-old girl asked President Obama a question about the "mean things" she observed on various protest signs outside. Malkin and other wingnuts swooped into action, investigating and exposing the girl's parents as -- shock, horror! -- supporters of the president. The girl's parents even donated some money and volunteered on the campaign.
Mind blowing, I know. It's like the Donald Sutherland scene in JFK.
But considering that there were literally millions of volunteers associated with the president's campaign, and considering that tickets for the event were available online where millions of supporters of the president typically hang out, it stands to reason that a few actual, you know, supporters would manage to acquire tickets.
Yet beyond this earth-shattering information uncovered by Malkin that Obama supporters attended an Obama event, there isn't any evidence whatsoever that the 11-year-old girl was coached or scripted by the White House. None. And, it goes without saying that Malkin and Fox News Channel are entirely ignorant of the fact that similar Bush events were revealed to be literally and entirely staged and scripted with attendees having to sign loyalty oaths.
Nevertheless, given that Republican hero Sarah Palin just recently warned everyone about attacking her kids, and given that there's no evidence of any White House meddling in this case, you would think both Malkin and Fox News Channel would back off and avoid the story, especially considering that the target was an 11-year-old child without any relationship to a public figure. Naturally, this would be the decent thing to do since there's no story here.
LinkHere

The GOP's Misplaced Rage

Leading conservative economist Bruce Bartlett writes that the Obama-hating town-hall mobs have it wrong—the person they should be angry with left the White House seven months ago.
Where is the evidence that everything would be better if Republicans were in charge? Does anyone believe the economy would be growing faster or that unemployment would be lower today if John McCain had won the election? I know of no economist who holds that view. The economy is like an ocean liner that turns only very slowly. The gross domestic product and the level of employment would be pretty much the same today under any conceivable set of policies enacted since Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Until conservatives once again hold Republicans to the same standard they hold Democrats, they will have no credibility and deserve no respect.

In January, the Congressional Budget Office projected a deficit this year of $1.2 trillion before Obama took office, with no estimate for actions he might take. To a large extent, the CBO’s estimate simply represented the $482 billion deficit projected by the Bush administration in last summer’s budget review, plus the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which George W. Bush rammed through Congress in September over strenuous conservative objections. Thus the vast bulk of this year’s currently estimated $1.8 trillion deficit was determined by Bush’s policies, not Obama’s.
I think conservative anger is misplaced. To a large extent, Obama is only cleaning up messes created by Bush. This is not to say Obama hasn’t made mistakes himself, but even they can be blamed on Bush insofar as Bush’s incompetence led to the election of a Democrat. If he had done half as good a job as most Republicans have talked themselves into believing he did, McCain would have won easily.
Conservative protesters should remember that the recession, which led to so many of the policies they oppose, is almost entirely the result of Bush’s policies. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession began in December 2007—long before Obama was even nominated. And the previous recession ended in November 2001, so the current recession cannot be blamed on cyclical forces that Bush inherited.
Indeed, Bush’s responsibility for the recession is implicit in every conservative analysis of its origins. The most thorough has been done by John Taylor, a respected economist from Stanford University who served during most of the Bush administration as the No. 3 official at the Treasury Department. In his book, Getting Off Track, he puts most of the blame on the Federal Reserve for holding interest rates down too low for too long. LinkHere

Abu Ghraib Torture Was "Like Nothing" (says Lynndie England)

Source: CBS News
Five years after the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos came to light, Lynndie England says the government's "softening up tactics" are acceptable ways to get information from prisoners.
In an interview with the BBC, England defends herself and fellow soldiers who posed Iraqi prisoners in degrading positions for photographs in 2004.
"Compared to what they do to us, that's like nothing," England says in the BBC video, referring to instances where Americans were decapitated, burned, dragged through the streets or hung from a bridge by insurgents. She likens the physical degradation that appears in the Abu Ghraib photos to the kinds of hazing that go on in American colleges and boot camps.
"Similar humiliation tactics and physical exertion, you know, everybody goes through that stuff in boot camp in the military," she says.
England, whose biography was published in May, has popped up in the media several times in recent months. In June, she admitted to the Associated Press that she made some bad decisions, but says she was only following orders. LinkHere

Fox cuts away from polite town hall meeting on health care reform; CNN and MSNBC carry it all

FAIR AND BALANCED, you decide?

Obama is playing chess, while all of cable are playing checkers.

Source: AP
NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel cut away from President Barack Obama's town hall meeting on health care reform Tuesday as he faced a far more polite crowd than has attended many meetings hosted by members of Congress recently. CNN and MSNBC carried the session in full.
The loud public debates have been a tonic for cable news networks during normally quiet August. The audience for Fox's Bill O'Reilly last Thursday was a half-million more than on a typical evening this year, and he credited his network's willingness to listen to health care reform opponents for helping bring in viewers.
The cable networks all covered a much livelier forum held Tuesday morning by Sen. Arlen Specter in Lebanon, Pa. One woman, nearly shaking in anger, stood directly in front of Specter and said the reform bill "is about the systematic dismantling of our country."
CNN called it a "town hell."
...
Obama gave an opening statement at his town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., then invited questions. Fox cut away after a couple of questions, which appeared to come from supporters of the president's plan.
"The president has a town hall and it looks like it could be a campaign stop," said Fox anchor Trace Gallagher.
Fox analyst Tucker Carlson said there was "no way" that the White House didn't screen questions, despite the administration's claim otherwise. LinkHere

U.S. Enters Recovery as Stimulus Refutes Skeptics, Survey Shows

To bad Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and Faux Obama checkmates you again, still a long way to go I'd say.

Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s has begun as President Barack Obama’s fiscal stimulus -- derided as insufficient and budget-busting months ago -- takes effect, a survey of economists indicated.
The economy will expand 2 percent or more in four straight quarters through June, the first such streak in more than four years, according to the median of 53 forecasts in the monthly Bloomberg News survey. Analysts lifted their estimate for the third quarter by 1.2 percentage points compared with July, the biggest such boost in surveys dating from May 2003.
“We’ve averted the worst, and there are clear signs the stimulus is working,” said Kenneth Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board in New York.
The new projections, following better-than-anticipated reports on manufacturing, employment and home construction, echo gains in investor confidence that have propelled the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index to its high for the year. A rebound may help cushion declines in Obama’s approval ratings, political analysts said.
“The fact that people for the first time in over a year are starting to look at some glimmers of hope plays to the prospect of some strength in the stimulus,” said Susan Molinari, a Republican strategist in Washington who advised Rudy Giuliani during his presidential nomination campaign in 2008. LinkHere

The medical group typically serves patients in rural parts of the United States and travels to underdeveloped countries.

STILL DON'T THINK YOU NEED HEALTH REFORM?
Long lines as free health care offered in LA area

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Though he'd waited since 3:25 a.m. to see a dentist, a smile graced the face of Arturo Castaneda on Tuesday afternoon as he leaned against his blind man's cane and waited for someone to pull his bothersome tooth.
Like hundreds of others who showed up in the pre-dawn hours for free health care at The Forum in Inglewood, the 50-year-old man was relieved that he would receive the care he needed. Eventually.
Though blind, Castaneda's wasted eyes flitted over the hundreds of doctors and nurses who had volunteered to provide free dentistry, medical exams and vision care to the 1,500 uninsured, underinsured, unemployed and needy patients.
"This is beautiful, very beautiful. A very beautiful service they are doing for these people," he said.
The Los Angeles event marks the first time Remote Area Medical has provided such medical care in a major urban area. The medical group typically serves patients in rural parts of the United States and travels to underdeveloped countries. LinkHere

Lines in Sullivan County Virginia 2008

Remote Area Medical

•CBS's 60 Minutes
◦March 2, 2008
•New York Times
◦November 18, 2007
•PBS's News Hour
◦March 20, 2007 - New Orleans
◦August 23, 2006 - Wise, VA
◦February 8, 2006 - New Orleans

Hey Palin, Grassley, is this what you refer to as the death panels?

HHS: Insurance Companies Encourage Employees to "Revoke Sick People's Health Coverage"

Source: Washington Post
HHS: Insurance Companies Encourage Employees to "Revoke Sick People's Health Coverage"
By David S. Hilzenrath
You might have known that insurers can deny health coverage based on preexisting medical conditions, but here’s something else to worry about: They can take away the coverage you thought you had when actually need it, the government says.
The Department of Health and Human Services put a spotlight on that practice Tuesday in its continuing campaign to build support for an overhaul of health insurance.
“When a person is diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer, some insurance companies review his/her initial health status questionnaire,” the HHS said in a posting at HealthReform.Gov. In most states, insurance companies can retroactively cancel individuals' policies if any condition was not disclosed when the policy was obtained, "even if the medical condition is unrelated, and even if the person was not aware of the condition at the time.”
...............
The department cited recent research by the staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which found that three large insurers rescinded almost 20,000 policies over five years, saving $300 million in medical claims. LinkHere

"I AM THE MOB" We are supposed to be the leading country of the free World!!!!!!?

peace4zoe
Looking at these pictures and watching the news these days, I feel like I am watching that movie Mississippi Burning. Just looking at their faces scares me. They all have so much hate. This is ridiculous. This is not about health care. This is the fact that we have a black President, period. You could almost put these pictures side by side with the pictures taken during the Civil Rights movement and they would be the same. Sad!!!

The Secret Service is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading "Death to Obama" outside a town hall meeting held by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) in western Maryland. The sign also read, "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids." LinkHere

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Jon Stewart Goes After Angry Town Hallers & The Networks That Give Them Airtime

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
PR
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Leaked Email: CNBC Went To Tea Partiers Looking for Angry Protests

Source: Talking Points Memo
Leaked Email: CNBC Went To Tea Partiers Looking for Angry Protests
By Zachary Roth - August 12, 2009, 12:21PM
CNBC approached Tea Party activists, looking for angry protest events that would make good television, according to a leaked email from a Tea Party discussion group. And one Tea Bagger responded by flagging an upcoming event that, he said, "should be a riot ... literally."
Yesterday, Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin sent an email, obtained by TPMmuckraker, to a Tea Party google group. Martin told the group: "We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is for CNBC."
She then asked: "So, where are the big events this week and where can TPP best be represented on the news?"
Later that day, a Tea Bagger named Pat Wayman responded with a suggestion, also obtained by TPMmuckraker: "This one should be a riot! literally...." he wrote.
LinkHere

When does she learn, to just shut her mouth?

Palin's Popularity Plummets, Dems Continue To Whack Away

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's standing among the American public has plummeted in recent weeks, as the potential 2012 presidential candidate has weighed in forcefully (and inaccurately) into the health care debate.
A new CNN Poll shows that Palin's favorability rating has fallen seven percentage points since May, from 46 percent to 39 percent. Anything under the 50 percent mark is considered problematic, especially when the politician is a known quantity (only five percent of the public said they had never heard of the former governor). Fully 48 percent of those polled said they had an unfavorable impression of Palin.
The same poll found that the man who tapped Palin to be a vice presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ..) had also seen his favorability rating drop by seven percentage points. But the Arizona Republican still is viewed positively by 51 percent of the public.
CNN's findings are, of course, just a snapshot of public perception at a given time. But they do come as Palin has begun to make her first political steps in her post-gubernatorial career. Last week, the Alaska Republican posted a Facebook message declaring that President Obama wanted to set up "death panels" to determine which sick and elderly patients would be euthanized.
Meanwhile, Palin's partisan detractors are determined to keep her as the face of the opposition.
LinkHere

Jon Stewart: Can The Clintons Do Anything Without It Being Reduced To A 'Real Housewives' Episode?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Hillary in the Congo
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

DUMB, DUMB, AND DUMBER, GOVT TAKE YOUR HAND OFF MY MEDICARE

Obama-Nazi Sign Made By Ill Woman On Medicare

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- President Barack Obama, confronting protests out on the street and serious questions about his health plan inside a high school, slammed talk of euthanasia "death panels" and Medicare cuts, urging supporters to confront the opposition that has forced him onto his political heels.
At his first town-hall meeting since opponents began roiling such gatherings, the president was faced with respectful questions and real concerns head-on. Questioners worried that a government-sponsored option would overwhelm the private-health-care market, and one participant said he was pushed off his name-brand high-cholesterol medication by Medicaid officials. "I'm dealing with the same thing that you're telling me the insurance companies are doing," said Bill Anderson of New Hampshire.
The town-hall meeting here was the first of three this week, as the president tried to regain his political footing. It also featured the largest protests of the Obama presidency. Mr. Obama has acknowledged for weeks that passing a plan to rein in health-care spending, cover most of the 46 million uninsured Americans and mend the holes in the private insurance market would be difficult.
"History is clear. Every time we come close to passing health-insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got. They use their influence. They use their political allies to scare and mislead the American people. They start running ads. This is what they always do," Mr. Obama said. "We can't let them do it again. Not this time. Not now."
Inside Portsmouth High School, Mr. Obama faced a friendly crowd, so much so that he sought out some tough questioners. Participants had signed up online for the event and then were picked in a lottery.
Outside, the gathering verged on a street brawl. The opposing forces lined up like screaming armies on either side of the street, about 1,000 people a side. Diane Campbell of Kingston, N.H., held a sign with Mr. Obama's face superimposed on a Nazi storm trooper, a sign, she said, that was made by her chronically ill mother.
Her mother's hereditary autoimmune disease is treated with expensive transfusions of gamma globulin, paid for by Medicare. Her sister, Louise, was born with no arms and one leg, and is also covered by Medicare, the government-run, health-insurance program for the elderly and disabled.
"Adolf Hitler was for exterminating the weak, not just the Jews and stuff, and socialism -- that's what's going to happen." Link Here

St. Louis Teabag Protester Lies about Medical Coverage to Solicit "Donations"

It's been widely reported that Kenneth Gladney, the African American man who claimed he was beaten during a scuffle at a St. Louis health care town hall did not have health insurance. His attorney, David Brown actually solicited funds for his medical bills:
Kenneth Gladney sat in a wheelchair on Pershing Avenue Saturday, his knee bandaged, holding a flag that read: "Don't Tread on Me."
Gladney, 38, was handing out the same flags after a town hall forum in Mehlville Thursday night, when, he says, he was attacked by members of the Service Employees International Union.
Less than 48 hours later, protesters gathered Saturday in front of the union's offices, many of them holding signs with a slightly different version of the message: "Don't Tread on Kenny."
Supporters cheered. [His attorney, David] Brown finished by telling the crowd that Gladney is accepting donations toward his medical expenses. Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance.
. The Washington Independent is now reporting that this was a complete fabrication and that Mr. Gladney was neither "laid off" nor without health insurance coverage. Despite this, he still collected over $1,000 in donations LinkHere

July 10, 2009

Wendell Potter and the health insurance industry.

With almost 20 years inside the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter saw for-profit insurers hijack our health care system and put profits before patients. Now, he speaks with Bill Moyers about how those companies are standing in the way of health care reform. LinkHere
More about Wendell Potter and the health insurance industry.

WENDELL POTTER'S TESTIMONY
MONEY, POLITICS AND HEALTH
Trace campaign contributions, ad spending and the revolving door between industry and government.