Historic Vote: House Passes Healthcare Bill

The final vote was 220-215, with ONE Republican vote: Joseph Cao of Louisiana, the Vietnamese immigrant who defeated Democrat William Jefferson. Congressman Cao, below, decided he wanted to be on the right side of history.

Oscar the Grouch Trashes FOX News, Wingnuts Go Ballistic

Not known for their sense of humor, wingnuts cried foul. Here's a typical blog comment:

The message is clear, I can’t even sit my kids in front of “Sesame Street” without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority. And don’t tell me, “If you don’t like it change the channel.”

Dudes, lighten up. Have you seen liberals complain that ABC's "V", a show about cannibalistic reptilian aliens with human skins promising everyone universal healthcare, is a thinly-veiled anti-Obama allegory? Hey, as long as it's mindless but entertaining sci-fi, who cares!

Quotable Republican: P.J. O'Rourke

“I kept waiting for the Tony Soprano votes to come (for Corzine) in the end, the ones that are in alphabetical order and everyone down the list is dead.”

--P. J. O’Rourke

Ha! Me too, P.J. … Only that half the Democratic politicians in Hudson County, NJ are under indictment. (Rimshot!)

How You Can Help the Victims of the Fort Hood Tragedy

As Americans mourn the loss of life and horrible tragedy of the shootings at Fort Hood, the loved ones of the victims are in our thoughts and prayers. Find ways to help here and here.

Is This the Face of the Republican Party: Hatred and Racism?

At the Tea Bagger rally instigated by Michelle Bachmann, ignorant hate peddlers and racists were bussed in to our nation's capital by corporate astro-turf fat cats to scream “kill the bill” and wave racist, repugnant signs in front of the Capitol. House Republican Leader John Boehner claims he didn’t see any such signs. Oh, really?

This repulsive sign compares healthcare reform to the Nazi death camp at Dachau with a picture of piled bodies and the caption: “National Socialist Health Care – Dachau, Germany 1945.” David Schuster of MSNBC, an accomplished TV journalist and all-round good guy, couldn't have said it better: “Some of us had relatives who were in the piles. Do these wingers have ANY decency?”



Boehner can pretend all he wants that he didn’t see the sign (among so many other open displays of racism and hatred) comparing healthcare reform to the Holocaust. But he can’t deny knowing about them now. Eric Cantor, the House Republican Whip, who is Jewish, also spoke at the haters’ rally. What were you thinking, Mr. Cantor? SHAME ON YOU.

It appears Boehner and Cantor are siding with the wingnut lunatic fringe faction of their Party led by Michelle Bachmann. Still waiting for your denunciations, Reps. Boehner and Cantor.

*CRICKETS*

Come to think of it, Boehner could have some things in common with the Tea Baggers: One is an urgent need for remedial history lessons such that he could pass the standard citizenship test to be an American. Here is Hispanic American Rick Sanchez pointing out Boehner’s ignorance with deadpan mockery:



(Sorry for the slight redundancy, Peter, but it's even more pathetically funny on video.)

What a MORON. Truly. Is Boehner really this clueless? It would explain a lot about the Republican Party’s glaring ineptitude. Not that I'm complaining.

Ladies and Gentlemen, your House Minority Leader

The creepily over-tanned John Boehner held up a copy of the constitution and said he was there to "stand here with our Founding Fathers, who wrote in the preamble: 'We hold these truths to be self evident'..."

Umm, John, those are Jefferson's words from the Declaration of Independence. I know you're probably none too happy with the actual preamble with that whole promoting the "general welfare" stuff.

Meme shot to death, funeral on Saturday

In the wake of today's tragic deaths at Ft. Hood, I find myself asking this question:

Normally, when someone brings a gun into a not-traditionally-armed environment, like a store or a school, the wingnuts start going off on how the tragedy would have been easily avoided, if only everyone was walking around armed. Every teacher and student would turn into Clint Eastwood at the end of Unforgiven and take that gunman down slicker than snot, saving lives and protecting Baby Jesus in the bargain. Today's shooting took place at an army base, right? People carry guns there, right? And they're trained to use them, and trained to shoot to kill, right? So if someone could shoot at least 42 people at Ft. Hood before being taken down, when the shooter was surrounded by trained killers armed with cutting-edge weaponry, what the hell do they expect the rest of us to do when someone walks into a classroom or shopping mall and opens fire?

You can have your rifle back when you pry your head from your cold dead ass, Mr. Heston. And that goes for the rest of you 2nd Amendment morons as well.

We’ll Always Have New York's 23rd

So said Andrea Mitchell to David Axelrod. (Hmm …)

Thanks to the right wing PAC ‘Club for Growth’, the gift that keeps on giving!

The Democratic Party’s BFF just elected another Democrat, Bill Owens, from a safe Republican district to join Nancy Pelosi’s growing army of infidels in the House. The notorious New York 23rd was such a reliable Republican redoubt that no Democrat had been elected there to Congress for the past 140 years.

It all changed yesterday when Caribou Barbie, Tim Pawlenti, the Pigman, and the lunatic Beck intervened to purge the Republican establishment candidate in favor of a wingnut, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. The Club for Growth poured $1 million to support Hoffman, and the RNC answered with $1 million for their candidate Dede Scozzafava. All of it down the tubes when Dede dropped out endorsing the Democrat, Bill Owens, who won.

Question: Is the Club for Growth a front group for the Democratic Party? By raising money from Tea Bagger dupes for marginal candidates to knock off Republicans in the primaries, the Club for Growth so far is 0-for-2: They forced PA Senator Arlen Specter to switch parties, and now they’ve elected a Democrat from a 140-year Republican mortal-lock-safe district. Ah, we so love Sarah Palin. She's promising to return, saying the race isn't over, just “postponed” until 2010. Please come back, Sarah, and meddle some more!

Hopefully the wingnuts have enough money in the till to knock off Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, their next target, in his bid for the open Senate seat of retired Republican Sen. Mel Martinez.

Despite Michael Steele’s comic gloating, Republicans would be mistaken to read national implications into the races they won, much less that their governor pickups were a referendum on President Obama. The President’s job approval numbers remain solid with voters in both states.

Virginia and New Jersey reverted to historical form in off-year results electing candidates different than the party controlling the White House. Add to that a weak Democratic candidate (VA), a highly unpopular incumbent (NJ), local issues and low voter turnout, forming the perfect storm that was too much even for President Obama’s campaigning to overcome.

The lesson for Democrats is clear: not delivering on healthcare and jobs for the American people will cost them dearly at the polls in 2010. Had healthcare reform passed Congress with the President’s signature before the elections, I think the base would have been energized to turn out at the polls in sufficient numbers to hold NJ, and make Virginia competitive.

The Democrats need to pass comprehensive, meaningful healthcare reform and a second stimulus that emphasizes jobs. Now is not the time for timidity.

New York’s 23rd District: More Evidence of Republican Madness

The 23rd District in upstate New York is moderate to conservative and a reliable Republican bastion that hasn’t elected a Democrat to Congress for well over one century. This could end tomorrow if Republicans have anything to say about it. The RNC pumped $1 million down a black hole in that district to support the establishment Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, a moderate favored to win ... but for the Tea Baggers, that is, with a little help from Sarah Palin.

They decided Scozzafava -- who is pro-choice -- apparently isn’t ideologically pure enough. So they threw their support behind Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, a wingnut who calls Glenn Beck a “mentor.” Hoffman catapulted to the front with a narrow lead in a three-way race, until Scozzafava dropped out this weekend and threw her support behind the Democrat, Bill Owens.

The race is up for grabs, but whatever the result, it’s a win-win for Democrats: If the Tea Bagger/Palin candidate wins, this could be the first battle of a GOP civil war for the soul of the Republican Party. Succumb to emboldened Tea Baggers and drift even further to the extreme right and over the cliff, or … marginalize their most extreme elements and try to attract moderate independent voters. Because they are still prisoners of an extremist ideology, there are no good choices for the Republican Party.

As Republicans fight over their identity crisis, Democrats can only hope that the winners will be the Palin/Beck/Limbaugh extremist faction. If they win beginning with New York’s 23rd, the Republican Party could become a permanent minority party with a public identification hovering between 20% and 23%.

In other election news, Republicans will capture the governorship in Virginia, which is no bellwether since, historically, the off-year gubernatorial election in that swing state has gone to the party out of power in the presidency. In New Jersey, it's too close to call now, but I predict the Democrat Jon Corzine will win, with a substantial assist from President Obama. Jersey’s a Democratic state, and this election reminds me a lot of Brendan Byrne's re-election in the 70s, where he overcame a double-digit deficit to win with a weak economy and state taxes as the cutting issues, just as they are this year. In the end, voters grumbled but realized taxes fund things they want, like education and services.

Hypocrite of the Week: Remember Joe “you LIE!” Wilson? Well, it seems Wilson is blaming President Obama for the delays in the delivery of H1N1 vaccines. Except that he voted against legislation funding the accelerated efforts to combat H1N1. So, if it had been up to Wilson, the vaccine shortages would have been more severe. The irony of this situation is that his wife is infected with the H1N1 virus. We hope she recovers, of course, but the Religious Right, that believes in divine intervention, might have taken a different view … if Joe Wilson were a Democrat.

Memo to "Anonymous"

If you have a cogent thought, I'll publish it, but save your racist rants for the freepers.

From the Sheeple Corner

We get this masterpiece from Jeannie Doyle Curtin of Elmhurst, Illinois:

For years now, we have had to watch Republicans battle the elite television media for a fair chance at debate, with "panel discussions" stacked five to one, liberal to conservative. Now there is a network, Fox News, that allows both sides to have a fair chance to present their opinions, and this is somehow unfair to Obama's people. Ridiculous. He's only making Fox more popular and interesting to the American people.

You mean the "elite" networks that put Bill Kristol on every week? Where conservative guests on the morning shows always outnumbered those from the left?

I don't mind the existence of Fox "News." Mouthbreathers need love too. Just don't pretend it is a "news" network, and by the way....

More immigration, less crime

http://reason.com/archives/2009/07/06/the-el-paso-miracle

Deja Vu All Over Again

KABUL (AP) — President Hamid Karzai's challenger withdrew Sunday from next weekend's runoff election, effectively handing the incumbent a victory but raising doubts about the credibility of the government.

A divided country is torn apart by a stolen election characterized by massive fraud. The incumbent has done little to inspire confidence in a time of national crisis, and the vast majority of the citizenry have a very low opinion of President Karzai, pictured below.

Lou Dobbs, Racist: The Hatemonger's Slander of an Entire Race of People

There is no greater racism, as Geraldo Rivera said so well, than to “slander an entire race of people.” One the BIGGEST LIES, so damaging to latinos in this country, that is repeatedly and irresponsibly stated by Lou Dobbs is that illegal aliens make up one-third of our prison population, when the figure is less than 7% and closer to 6%. Significantly, noncitizens in federal prisons are mostly being held on immigration violations rather than on crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, etc. This is such a putrid and inflammatory lie that Lou Dobbs should be held personally responsible for inciting hatred and violence against latinos.

Here are the FACTS:

He also said that illegal immigrants were “an increasing part of America’s prison population.”

“Here are the facts, according to the Department of Justice:

- In 2000, 27 percent of the inmates in federal prisons were noncitizens. Some of these noncitizens were illegal immigrants, and some were in this country legally. In 2001, this percentage dropped to 24 percent, and it continued dropping over the next four years, falling to 20 percent in 2005.

Bottom line: illegal immigrants make up significantly less than a third of the federal prison population, and the share has been falling in recent years.

- The share of state prison inmates who are noncitizens is much lower. (This is largely because immigration violations themselves are federal crimes.) In 2000, 4.6 percent of inmates in state prisons were noncitizens. This number remained quite steady over the next five years, right around 4.6 percent.

- Over all — combining federal and state prisons — 6.4 percent of the nation’s prisoners were noncitizens in 2005. This is down from 6.8 percent in 2000.

By comparison, 6.9 percent of the total United States population were noncitizens in 2003, according to the Census Bureau.

Anne Morrison Piehl, an economist at Rutgers, says there are a number of reasons that immigrants have a lower crime rate than the native-born population. (To read a paper by Ms. Piehl and Kristin Butcher on immigrants and crime, click here.)”

Like Father, Like Daughter: Lizzie ‘Mini-Me’ Cheney Is (Surprise!) a Pathological LIAR

It’s still puzzling how often Liz Cheney gets away with manipulating the “soft” media venues into letting her lie with impunity. Lizzie will seize any and every opportunity to trash President Obama while fiercely defending her father’s indefensible record with flat-out LIES. Unchallenged, uncontested, shameless LIES.

Lizzie's devil masquerading as Swiss Miss wholesomeness may explain her license to lie on major media outlets. To some the angelic-looking Cheney family provocateur may make for good television, but at what cost the truth? In the rare instances where Lizzie is challenged, as by Lawrence O’Donnell, she will chalk it off as a learning experience and blacklist the interviewer for the future. When Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC lamely admitted that she’d have to “do my homework” and have Lizzie back with some answers, Lizzie whined, “that’s actually not fair, Andrea …” and kept on moving. She hasn’t been back. And despite repeated requests for interviews, Lizzie refuses to go on the Rachel Maddow show. You see, Rachel’s staff has a penchant for research and preparation, and Rachel’s got her number: “Liz Cheney is still on TV — making news by apparently making stuff up.”



Here’s the latest example, Lizzie ‘Mini-Me’ Cheney's cheap shot at President Obama for attending a late night, early morning ceremony at Dover AFB to receive the war dead from Afghanistan:

Liz ‘Mini-Me’ Cheney: “I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras. And I don't understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking family members if you can take pictures. That's really hard for me to get my head around...It was a surprising way for the president to choose to do this.”

LIZZIE LIE #6549: President Bush NEVER attended any ceremonies receiving America’s war dead, PERIOD.

LIZZIE LIE #6550: The ban on cameras and media covering these ceremonies was lifted by the Obama Administration. Furthermore, the cameras recorded one ceremony of 18, the one whose family had given its consent to be photographed. The choice was always left to the families, and the President was there to pay his respects and meet privately with the families in a somber and dignified manner.

Lou Dobbs, CNN’s Resident Racist, Falls Victim to Fearmongering Self

Isn’t it invariably true that the media wingnut Carney Criers trafficking in fear and hatred will eventually fall victim to their own self-inflicted irrational paranoia? Glenn Beck never leaves his bunker without an armed bodyguard. Talk radio racist Rush Limbaugh and CNN hater Lou Dobbs have taken similarly draconian measures.

After years of tolerating scurrilous, largely unanswered attacks on latino immigrants from Dobbs, the popular FOX TV tabloid personality Geraldo Rivera has finally had enough. Rivera fired a verbal broadside at Dobbs, blaming him for the “reckless beyond imagining, reckless beyond precedent … defamatory tone” of the immigration debate in this country, adding that Dobbs “is almost singlehandedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country.”

The slippery Dobbs, who probably viewed Rivera as a fellow traveler, since Rivera’s tabloid brand of sensationalism fits the Murdoch media profile to a T, was clearly rattled by the attack. Rivera is a conservative who appeals to a sizable swath of conservative Hispanic Americans, yes, but one issue that cuts across ideological lines among latinos in this country is immigration. This becomes evident considering that the only pro-Dobbs latinos on his show are so virulently right wing that their ethnic heritage is incidental and exceedingly elitist.

And so, lurking just beneath the surface, the real Lou Dobbs revealed himself: a paranoid coward afraid of his own shadow –- traits common to racists and hatemongers.

After the expected ad hominen attacks on Rivera, avoiding the substance of the criticisms, Dobbs made a sympathy play by claiming he had received threatening phone calls for weeks (which went unreported until now) and that gunshots had been fired at his house. Dobbs linked the alleged threats and gunshots to his “crackdown on illegal immigration and to his opponents’ rhetoric,” Geraldo Rivera most prominent among them. It wasn’t necessary for Dobbs to mention Rivera’s name for the inference to be drawn.

When asked to comment on Dobbs’s complaint of shots fired at his house in Sussex County, New Jersey, a NJ state police spokesperson “chuckled out loud” in a phone interview, and said he “wouldn’t classify the [alleged gunfire incident] as very unusual.” There are hunters in the area and, “at this time of year hunter (shooting) complaints go up.” When asked what he thought of Dobbs’s version of the gunfire incident, the very professional Sgt. Jones said, "I'm really going to leave Lou Dobbs’s assessment to himself.”

LOU'S LUCK RUNS OUT: MEXICAN CHUPACABRA MONSTER FINDS HIM TREMBLING UNDER THE BED!

And so it is. Lou Dobbs is spooked by nonexistent threats and irrational dangers hiding in the shadows and attics of his brain. You’ve made your bed, Mr. Dobbs. Now it’s time to sleep in it with your demons. If you can.

Shep, Shep ... What Are you Waiting FOR?

JOE LIEBERMAN (BACKSTABBER) MEETS WITH HIS PUBLIC

MEMO TO SENATE MAJORITY LEADER REID: If Joe Lieberman follows through with his threat to kill the public option, the least you can do is FINALLY kick him out of the Democratic Caucus and strip him of his seniority and chairmanship. YA THINK?

Because if you don't, there are 30 votes, at least, in the Caucus to do it right now, whether you get out in front of this or not.

Oh, by the way: The people of Connecticut, Joe Lieberman's constituents, favor a public option by a margin of 68% to 21%.

Public Option Will Be in Both Senate and House Bills: The American People Win

Sure, this is Round 1, with several more to come, but it's a big win for progressives and the American people, any which way you look at it. In meetings with Sens. Baucus (Chmn., Finance) and Dodd (transitional chair of Ted Kennedy's Health Committee) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid produced a combined bill that includes the public option with an opt out provision: states may opt out of offering their citizens a choice to buy into a government-run public health insurance option to compete with private insurance.

Considering that public approval for a public option ranges from 65% and up nationwide, the politicos who have been posturing on behalf of BIG CORPORATE INSURANCE will have to justify this disgusting sellout to the American people, and in particular, their constituents.

That means you, Sen. Mary Landrieu. I'd like to see you tell the people of Louisiana, which ranks first in federal dollars per capita and last in (private) healthcare delivery and quality, why you would want to deny your constituents the public option that blue states will surely opt into. Do you really want to go there, Senator Landrieu? Do you really want to lecture us on how stupid and selfish we are because we think the public option is "free healthcare"?

What a Dickensian DINO -- FROM THE STATE THAT SUFFERED THROUGH HURRICANE KATRINA, NO LESS!

That also means you, Senators Lincoln and Pryor of Arkansas. You have a really TOUGH choice to make: "Hmm ... shall I stand with the special interest private insurers or the American people?" And you, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, let's see just how brave you are when the voters come a-knockin'. And Nelson, cut the crap about being a "Jeffersonian Democrat," 'kay? The only similarity between you and Jefferson is that you're quite willing to make uninsured and underinsured Americans SLAVES of the private insurers -- "small government" ceding its role to the corporate monopolies. Jefferson would quite readily have tossed you into the Federalist camp.

By the way, after the despicable insurance industry vastly overplayed its hand by issuing false reports against the most conservative bill, from Finance, basically threatening to raise their rates sky-high if they didn't get their way, the House and Senate are now considering versions of repealing the insurers' antitrust exemption. You see, even the sellout DINOS don't like it when their would-be masters flaunt their would-be ownership. Hence the DINOS rebelled against their sugar daddies and got themselves a spine transplant.

Olympia Snowe, take thy "trigger" and go jump in a primordial Maine lake. This notion that the Democratic Party won its electoral majority to effect major change only to have its change agenda, including comprehensive healthcare reform, held hostage by a crabby old lady from Maine is ... well, RIDICULOUS.

We've already got bipartisanship, Mr. President. Longtime Republican Arlen Specter loves the Democratic Party so much that he switched parties, and now he's TO THE LEFT of the DINOS! What could be more bipartisan than that?

Next year, the mid-term elections with 37 governorships on the line will have the public option opt out front and center as a campaign issue. You're up, Gramps Grassley. Let's see you and your right wing colleagues put your money where your mouths are on all that talk about a "government takeover" of healthcare. You'll get the town hall crazy screamers vote, though. Good luck!

The public option opt out could well be the Republican Party's WATERLOO, a term diaper-wearing Republican Senator David Vitter used to attack President Obama. The diapers could come in handy when Mary Landrieu's Louisiana colleague craps in them.

Nice, if stinky, bit of irony. Nice move, Harry.

Postcript: For those of us who fought long and hard for a public option, against the inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom of a punditocracy of idiots, this is a sweet win. Nothing charged me up more than watching David Brooks pontificate on PBS's Newshour that the public option was "dead" and liberals were going through "various stages of withdrawal." Here's to you, Brooks, you arrogant jerk.

Progressives must keep up the pressure. We're close and we've pulled ahead. Now we've got to maintain this momentum all the way to the finish line.

Guerrillas Crash AHIP (Ass Hole Insurance Plans) Conference

I Loooove these guys! YES!!!