Messed with the Zohan

Click image for full Mark Streeter/Savannah Morning News cartoon.

Don't tase me, bro

The punishment fits the crime!

Click image for full Rob Rogers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoon.

Concierge voting

Meg Whitman (R-eBay) knows the price of everything, but does she know the value of anything? She's running for governor of California - and thinks she's qualified - despite having never even registered to vote between attaining the age of majority in 1974 and, apparently, 2002. That means she never voted before age 46 - hardly a youthful indiscretion. It also means that she has probably never served on a jury, even if she has been called in the last seven years.

Without juries and voting, I wonder what exactly she thinks our form of government is about. Was even the Magna Carta a mistake? She's in the right party, though, the party that's opposed to government. She was standing on principle! Though it is odd that she now wants to run the state that is home to more than one in eight Americans.

Maybe she would have been able to grace us with her votes if her city hall or voting precinct had had concierge service to allow her to skip waiting in line with hoi polloi. Airports and the FAA are getting this. Restaurants and even hospitals provide valet parking. Couldn't we make it easier for the long-suffering high-self-esteem population to cut line in front of the rest of us, as is their due? Oh, pity the poor wealthy!

Watch this story. The Sacramento Bee broke it, referencing a Business Week story from 2000, and CNN brought it to my attention. If it were about a Democrat, Fox would go wall-to-wall on it. But Whitman is a Republican. Will this die quietly with no louder criticism than tut-tut?

Update: No mention on Fox...

Brown polyester

Inside baseball but really funny if you're a political nerd like me.

Click image for full Nick Anderson/Houston Chronicle cartoon.

DNR

This cartoon is not an appeal for bipartisanship.

Click image for full Clay Bennett/Chattanooga Times Free Press cartoon.

Guarding the chicken coop

Click image for full Mike Keefe/Denver Post cartoon.

Funny or die

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Mighty oak

ACORN's selection of Scott Harshbarger to investigate the brothel sting indicates that they want a real investigation. Harshbarger would have been elected governor of Massachusetts in 1998 if he had been a go-along-to-get-ahead Democrat. Instead, he had angered the traditional wing of the party by prosecuting official misconduct, and many of them refused to support him.

Get a room

[O]ne person’s vision of a cleaner, safer park is another person’s possible civil rights violation. Some are concerned that the patrols may be targeting gay men, who often use the reeds as cover for their trysts.

Some years ago, the SJC ruled, against all reason, that the police could not raid gay hook-up sites along highways, that to send grown-ups indoors for sex is illegal discrimination.

You be the judge: Am I just unsympathetic to claims that amount to a civil right to have sex in public places? Or am I just jealous that I'm not having sex outdoors too?

Self-entitlement

Wall Street intentionally builds systems to cream off massive payments:

What’s wrong with financial-industry compensation? In a nutshell, bank executives are lavishly rewarded if they deliver big short-term profits — but aren’t correspondingly punished if they later suffer even bigger losses. This encourages excessive risk-taking: some of the men most responsible for the current crisis walked away immensely rich from the bonuses they earned in the good years, even though the high-risk strategies that led to those bonuses eventually decimated their companies, taking down a large part of the financial system in the process.

Family values

Click image for full Elena Steier cartoon.

Raucous Baucus caucus

Click image for full Bruce Plante/Tulsa World cartoon.

Something that really bites

Click image for full Pat Bagley/Salt Lake Tribune cartoon.

Keynes was too expensive

We had to let him go. It's amazing how thoroughly conservatives must assert their ignorance of Keynes.


Click image for full Tom Toles/Washington Post cartoon.

Poof!

That can't be healthy!

Click image for full Tom Toles/Washington Post cartoon.

Slightly less insane

The rest of big media may finally be figuring out that trying to be only slightly more honest than Fox is a losing proposition - Fox is still going harder right to distinguish its brand, and Fox will still say nasty lies about you. Meanwhile, you've lost any chance you had of serving a different market segment because everything you say looks (and smells) like slightly watered down bullshit.

Could CNN, ABC, MSNBC, NBC, and CBS finally learn to consider the source?

One other thing to notice: When their ox is gored, media outlets have no trouble whatsoever calling a falsehood false. If only they'd be so bold when Republicans lie...

Argotamine poisoning

Vocab transitions because individuals want their words to impact on those who hear them, never mind that English already has good, well-known, strong words.

Strangulation is better than “traumatic asphyxia” caused by “neck compression.”

Suspect is better than person of interest.

Longer is often not better. See my first clause above. Individuals!? People! (Or persons if you're using 1930s vocabulary.)

Colin Ferguson protection act

Happiness is a warm gun. On a train, with the Tangerine Dream (do they cover the Beatles?) and Rebecca DeMornay. Or something.

It's risky to parse big media too closely. Which is true about the bill that allows guns on Amtrak?

• "allows individuals to bring their guns on trains in a manner similar to that of airlines", or
• "Before checking the bag or boarding the train, the passenger must declare that the firearm or pistol is in his or her bag and is unloaded." (emphasis added)

Shipping your gun in checked baggage? No problem. As a carry-on? Colin Ferguson, this Colin Ferguson, would love it.

Side note for Republicans who want to verify everything regarding immigration status (papers please!), two of the three provisions that CNN calls out amount to: you're a gun owner; hey, we trust you.

First draught of history

Media coverage of politics is no longer driven by the New York Times or the Washington Post, not even by CBS, but rather by Fox News, talk radio, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Drudge's rumor-mongering (still prospering on one semen stain after all these years!), and the rest of the concerted conservative corporate propaganda machine. The first draught of history is a heady blend of angry, paranoid, proudly ignorant Kool-Aid.

Any history of this period that's not a revisionist history will purvey the thoroughgoing bullshit of our age.

(h/t Philosoraptor)

Conceding South Carolina

South Carolina Republicans are gleeful because they're going to save "Joe" Wilson's seat in Congress. Whoop-de-doo.

Democrats don't need another Blue Dog , and that district is not going to elect even a moderate.

Censuring "Joe" casts in high relief the difference between Democrats and Republicans, and that helps Democrats. Helping South Carolina Republicans, who were going to win everything that matters in the Palmetto bug state, is a small price to pay.

Rope-a-dope ain't working

Bill Maher tells Barack Obama to man up:

What got Van Jones fired was they caught him on tape saying that Republicans are assholes. And they call it "news." And Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like we dropped "end of life counseling" from health care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page.

Crazy evil morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it.

There goes the neighborhood

Click image for Bruce Beattie/Daytona Beach News-Journal cartoon.

Look in the mirror

Click image for full John Branch/San Antonio Express-News cartoon.

Reverse Robin Hood

Without substantial regulation of Wall St., the fall 2008 bailout of irresponsible and bankrupt titans of finance amounts to theft from the middle class for the benefit of the rich.

Click image for full Bruce Plante/Tulsa World cartoon.

Number two for brains

(h/t truth)

Did you notice the pic of Duhbya kissing the Saudis? Imagine if Obama had done that!

In which loath is used correctly

Gail Collins ranges widely and well. Here's a nice bit:

The one thing that unites [tea party movement activists] seems to be a sense of inchoate rage. Although mentioning it makes them really, really mad.

Please sir, may I have another

Senate Democrats roll over and acquiesce to "Joe" Wilson's breach of decorum.

Maybe changes were needed in this area. But to make them right now rewards the worst elements of American politics.

Any idiot would know that. But apparently not the Democratic leadership in the Senate.

Folding the Cards

It's really too bad Andrew Card isn't going to run for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. I would have enjoyed immensely the chance the electorate would have had to call Card onto the carpet for his record of obeisant Bushism. Any Massachusetts election that's a referendum on Duhbya is a good election.

Stand with the snitch

If law enforcement can't protect a witness from a two-bit gang member, it surrenders the field to violence. This punk needs to go away for a long, long time, till his balls shrivel up to the size of raisins at least and probably for life.

On this strange and mournful day

Republicans are fond of claiming that Duhbya "kept us safe" after 9/11. Well, I would not give you false hope, but today Obama's record by their standards is undeniably better than Duhbya's.

As a defender of rationality rather than sticking my head in the sand, I know that there's no guarantee of the continued providence of safety. But maybe we can all agree on the hope of our continued safety and argue about credit at leisure.

Zombie health care

Night of the living dead in the Republican caucus! Zombies don't need health care.

Job qualification

The other Joe Wilson (R-You Lie!) may have won the race to the bottom for Republicans - though only when sitting in joint session of Congress; outside they wouldn't see the bottom in the Marianas Trench. Even in the allegedly hallowed halls of the Capitol, that's quite an achievement in the GOP, which finds civility to be a virtue if only Democrats would practice it by laying [sic] back and thinking of England (again!).

Still, Wilson will not lose his seat in Congress in 2010. His voters think that being an asshole in defense of know-nothing wingnut conservatism is exactly what qualifies him for the job. He stood up to Barack Hussein Obama, gol'darnit! Wilson's constituents think Barry Goldwater went soft, although they'd have "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" chiseled on their tombstones if it didn't take up so much space.

Update: See!

Another orphan of a bankrupt culture

Universal access is not the only problem America faces regarding health care. It's breaking us.

Galloping individual bankruptcies from medical costs are incontrovertible. Nearly one of every 100 Americans will be in a family that declares bankruptcy this year alone because it can't afford treatment. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats don't care.

Medical costs next will bankrupt the country. We now pay waaay more than any other country for our medical care. Our government's per capita expenditures top those of every other country on earth except Norway and Luxembourg. Then we add on an even greater amount of private expenditures. For mediocre outcomes.

These cost problems cannot be solved by an individual mandate in the absence of a public option. Even a public option is only a tepid half-measure that might lead to what's really needed - single-payer.

Let's invade Iraq

Boycotting the census works against the interest of all foreign nationals in the United States, but the boycott advocates don't let a little thing like logic stop them from making lots of noise while cutting off their nose to spite their face.

If they did this in Texas, it might make sense. Here in Massachusetts, even illegal aliens would help retain a seat in Congress that's much more likely to frame immigration policy in a non-punitive way that might build a path to citizenship that's not too onerous.

I have to wonder who's paying for this.

Another failure

This reporter fails to have even the slightest skepticism regarding official bullshit from the authorities in the Garrido case. Law enforcement, particularly the parole officers, didn't do their jobs. Maybe there are extenuating circumstances, but no one made it a practice to get the information they needed.

Furthermore, the Garridos' private prison is not in a rural area. It's in a neighborhood that borders a few fields.

Wingnut rope-a-dope

By all means, President Obama should make himself the target of more disproportionate wingnut outrage similar to the existential panic that has gripped them over the mere fact that that President of the United States can use his office to talk to the citizenry. The craaazy things they've said about him make the wingers look very bad. The more Obama can be the reasonable voice amidst the keening and wailing of extremists, the better for him.

Of course, the President's political people need to be ready to respond to each fresh Glenn Beck outrage with Youtube mash-ups of the worst nutjobs.

Pro-labor

Some people demand that everyone else make the same choices they make about sexual mores.

Currently, Revere High School students who have parental approval can receive free condoms and prescriptions for birth control pills.

Yet half the country hates labor

No labor scandal ever came close to the cost of the Madoff Ponzi scheme.

Click image for full Tom Toles/Washington Post cartoon.

Real fascist menace

Click image for full Elena Steier cartoon.

Perfect storm

Next up, the forcast: Hurricane nor'easter of wingnuttery.

Click image for full Tom Toles/Washington Post cartoon.

Never forgets

When the elephant has only one line, he never forgets.

Click image for full Tom Toles/Washington Post cartoon.

No one's tellin' me nuthin'

Click images for full cartoons from John Branch/San Antonio Express-News (left) and Bruce Plante/Tulsa World (right).

Argle-bargle

No one thinks Darth Cheney is stupid.

Click image for full Jeff Danziger cartoon.

Don't forget your GPS

Click image for full Ted Rall cartoon.

What was it Santayana said?

No way can I add noticeable page views to Paul Krugman, but here's remedial macroeconomics for all believers in perfect markets:

Mulligan has suggested, in particular, that workers are choosing to remain unemployed because that improves their odds of receiving mortgage relief. And Cochrane declares that high unemployment is actually good: “We should have a recession. People who spend their lives pounding nails in Nevada need something else to do.”

Personally, I think this is crazy. Why should it take mass unemployment across the whole nation to get carpenters to move out of Nevada? Can anyone seriously claim that we’ve lost 6.7 million jobs because fewer Americans want to work? But it was inevitable that freshwater economists would find themselves trapped in this cul-de-sac: if you start from the assumption that people are perfectly rational and markets are perfectly efficient, you have to conclude that unemployment is voluntary and recessions are desirable.

A nation of assholes

David Sirota nails the trouble with our current culture of political hysteria.

Most often, the haters have succeeded in turning political discourse into a war of attrition against their personal demons -a war won by those who can go nuclear the fastest.

That's clearly been the story of the summer on health care - and it continues to be the story on most major issues. I mean, conservatives are quite literally calling the president's plan to promote the value of education to the nation's schoolchildren a secret socialist plot. All of it has convinced me we are living through one of the darkest periods in the last 50 years - one in which intense hatred has now become an accepted - even celebrated - part of our democracy.

This hysteria is mostly driven by the right, though not quite completely. But it infects me, too, to name only a single minor example. There are days when I don't easily find my arsenals of snark and sarcasm - the best rhetorical weapons against frothing stupid rage - and I defend myself and my ideals from attacks with strong counterattacks.

I'd rather be an asshole myself than a sap. I wish that were not my choice. As a nation, we need to find a way to broaden our choices from the current polarization.

Just what the Senate needs

Another Hall of Fame pitcher to replace Jim Bunning...

Yah, sure. That worked out so well.

Left-wing terrorism

This property crime is, thank goodness, what passes for left-wing terrorism in this country. No one was hurt. No one in fact was terrorized. It's still a crime deserving prosecution, but it's small potatoes. And that's a good thing. We should be glad that ELF isn't injuring people.

We should be glad that the liberal establishment doesn't have raving lunatics in the media fanning the flames of its fringes, the way the conservative establishment does. Unlike conservatives, who often defend their extremes, liberals don't.

There's a key difference between right-wing fringe violence and left-wing fringe violence: The right-wing fringe kills people; the left-wing fringe kills radio towers.

Who we ah

Until I got to New England, I had no idea I had a Southern accent. My college roommates quickly disabused me of the idea that having educated parents had immunized me against regional speech. In time, I overcame my initial distaste for regional New England accents, and I now appreciate them for their distinctiveness even as they sink into the great gray homogenized mix standardized by electronic media.

Mordred rules

It's not surprising that a political party that drove its entire public position for a decade off of perjury traps should view the law as pliable to whatever ends they desire.

A central theme of "Camelot" (the musical, not the Kennedy drama) is that the king is bound by law, too. Republicans such as John Ashcroft (though he's hardly the most extreme) could find no law that they would not run roughshod over. The fact that they would hold a man for more than two weeks on a pretext is just one more in a long series of usurpations.

Yet conservatives now want to refresh the tree of liberty. Glenn Beck thinks (I use the word think metaphorically) President Obama achieved coup by election. There's just no oxy in the man.

The Republican Party is a blight on American politics and, until responsible conservatives excise it, America will be unable to make the rational public policy decisions and compromises that are required for the survival of our democracy.

What they're afraid of

I'm trying hard not to question the sanity of the craaazy wingnuts who think it's inappropriate for their children to hear the President of the United States speak without their specific permission. I've been trying this because we are so deeply divided that I've started to question whether we have a future as a nation.

Really, though, the sanity of the true believers is beside the point. As long as the raving loons in the bilious wingnut media are primed to go nuclear against any Democrat who dares to show his face in public, no matter how innocently, I'm not willing to give their intelligence or their good faith the benefit of the doubt.

Wingnuts are afraid that their children might get a good impression of Barack Obama and come home wondering what else their parents are lying to them about. Could fundamentalism be bullshit? Could evolution be true? Was Jesus really a liberal? Could sex for something besides procreation be a good thing? Even for unmarried people? Even for gay and lesbian people? Could a little recreational - or even medicinal - marijuana be acceptable?

The right and their bullshit issue arsonists in their media want to live in an ultraconservative, fundie ghetto.

Example for Scotland

You can say no to a dying criminal. Mercy parole is by no means a right.

I guess the Manson family, unlike Libya, has nothing anyone wants.

Rule of thumb

Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has the unmitigated gall to whine:

Alexander also complained the White House has cut Republicans out of talks.

"Either they don't know how to operate in a bipartisan way or they don't want to operate in a bipartisan way," he said.

The Republican Party thinks it has the right to be an abusive spouse. No matter what lies and abuse it heaps upon the Democrats, no matter what slanders and borderline threats it utters against President Obama, it expects to be politely, even timorously, invited to the table to negotiate. Good faith isn't even up for negotiation.

The rule of thumb: When ugly partisans pick up the stick of bipartisanship, they're asking you to let them smack you around.

Reliquary of a saint

Joe Klein is out of his depth when he attacks Glenn Greenwald. He shouldn't pick a fight with someone who buys pixels by the megaton. Between all the exclusive parties and the exhausting difficulty of maintaining his access to power, Klein doesn't have the stamina for it.

Greenwald's a big boy, though, and doesn't need my puny defense. Nor does aimai. I've noticed that she can handle herself.

Still, my fellow travellers in the left blogosphere annoy me in one way when they back aimai. She's I.F. Stone's granddaughter! they protest. As if that mattered a whit. As if she had touched the hem of his shroud and was therefore gifted with sacred powers to see through the ever-present bullshit of the big media.

I realize that many are using this identification simply to extend her handle. Others, though, imply that she deserves admission to the conversation because of it. Identity is not central to this dust-up at all. Quite the contrary in fact.

Aimai's commentary has always stood as her own, not that of the priestess of a dead saint. I found it trenchant and incisive and insightful enough long before I knew her pedigree. I remembered her handle and knew when I happened upon her commentary that she would be worth reading.

This is an earned reputation, not the fruit of admission to an elite. Aimai didn't get her credibility through Washington nepotism. Unlike Joe Klein, she hasn't relied on obeisant touches of reliquaries. She has done her homework instead.

Don't forget that that's the path to real credibility.

By any other name

As a rule, the Boston Globe spends way too much effort reporting on Harvard, trying I suppose to appeal to readers like me. With this little jest of Harvardiana, though, they've succeeded.

What I'd like to see is more than a one-time nod to simpler yesteryear in wry promotion of a newly published book. Harvard's students - and professors, too - need more reinforcement of the proud old and now disused habit of bullshit detection. More than passing familiarity with its odor would be a good place to start.

(Yes, I know that Faith, neé Pride, is not actually a bull, but there's a sweet little joke in that, too. In these welcome days of feminism, why shouldn't a cow be equally able to instruct in the art of literal bullshit?)

Joining the bullshit parade

Kicking legislative bodies is a common ploy for bullshit traders in the punditocracy. Howie Carr's entire career is filled with perfect examples.

Adrian Walker knows the Massachusetts legislature has been on summer recess, but he stamps his foot and demands action now. As if journalists themselves don't typically send their brains on vacation for the entire silly season of August...

Maybe that explains Walker's column.

Triage

Click image for full Bruce Beattie/Daytona Beach News-Journal cartoon.

Third degree

Click image for full Bruce Plante/Tulsa World cartoon.

Nerds needed

The discovery of Jaycee Dugard after nineteen years happened in an office. Two police officers (o.k., reading between the lines, Lisa Campbell is apparently not a sworn officer, but whatever) left their bullshit detectors running, and Phillip Garrido would have set off even a fully squelched bullshit detector. They were tech savvy enough to confirm immediately that Garrido warranted scrutiny.

None of the many law enforcement personnel who went to Phillip and Nancy Garrido's doorstep over those nineteen years discovered Jaycee because they were insufficiently informed and insufficiently suspicious. They never looked at the extent of his backyard. Here's a property record they could have pulled up from their very own city's geographical information system:


This is basic preparatory information that I found in less than 30 minutes, despite the crudeness of Antioch's search function. Don't cops all have laptops in their patrol cars? Don't parole officers have access to the Internet?

Armed with this plat and with the fact that Garrido was a registered and paroled serious sex offender, law enforcement could have taken neighbor reports seriously enough to really look into all the blue tarps and sheds.

There's a wealth of information on the web that could help prevent law enforcement errors. (Think, never enter the wrong house to execute a warrant again!) What we need are more nerds in any position that requires access to information.

Missing in action

Hop across the big pond for this report (h/t R. Neal on KnoxViews) on threats against President Obama. Maybe overwork is why the Secret Service couldn't be troubled to arrest William Kostric.

Who's MIA? The American media.

Light summer reading

Hey, is that a thriller?

Click image for full Rob Rogers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoon.

Thinks he's Stevie Wonder

Using primitive religion to buffalo and bullshit irrational followers - who would do that?

Click image for full Tim Eagan/Press-Democrat cartoon.

On Paine of death

Glenn Greenwald lays a smack-down on pro-torture right-wingers. Support for torture is a mainstream Republican principle. They have surrendered their founding American ideals - if they ever had them.

Teddy's dead

Ted Kennedy was human, flawed like the rest of us. I know other people who have been in fatal traffic accidents. I know other people who have made bad and selfish career decisions. I know lots and lots of people who have drunk too much. I know other people who have divorced and fooled around, often not in that order. I know other people who lived as long as they could with terminal brain cancer. I know other people who have healed their fractious families even when they needed healing themselves. In fact, there are many of these people in my own family.

Without the riches and reputation of his family, Ted would never have had the chance to do what he did. But given that chance, he made a tremendous difference. Who cares that greatness was thrust upon him! He then worked his whole life to achieve greatness all over again.

I remember a Kennedy floor demonstration at a Massachusetts Democratic Party convention some years ago. We delegates were of course cheering and stamping our feet, but Ted's people flowed in from the wings with signs to make as much joyful noise as they could. They were different from the delegates. They weren't the polished public people who get voted to go to the convention. They were the halt and the lame, the laborers and the fishermen, the grandmothers and the families. They were people that Ted had helped, and they were loyal to him, as he was to them.

I met Ted Kennedy just once, at Kennedy's Pub (no relation) in Marlborough, where he was playing second fiddle to Luis Tiant. He was obese and drinking seltzer or a soft drink. He leaned firmly against a high stool backed up to the wall in order to ease the pain in his back. He seemed to love what he was doing. How else could he have done it so long and so well?

Ted achieved the distinction of living out his natural life making America a more perfect union. I'll miss him.

Who speaks for the bank man?

Well-paid lobbyists! Free market conservatives on both sides of the aisle. TV shills.

Click image for full Tom Tomorrow/Salon cartoon.

Split the difference between lies and arguments

The utter failure of the America press to write the truth is on display here. Republican bullshit gets pride of place in the first three paragraphs, ending with:

The [Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights] includes protecting Medicare from major cuts, preserving the doctor-patient relationship, banning any rationing of care or interference in end-of-life decisions, guaranteeing that seniors can keep their current coverage, and protecting current veterans’ health care programs.

The rest of the story is limited to Medicare cuts, the sole real issue, leaving five lies unrebutted.

One silver lining: The DNC is finally attacking what should already be the non-existent credibility of the entire Republican Party:

“It should be no surprise that the Republican Party - which whipped many Americans into a frenzy at town hall meetings on health care this month by spreading one lie about reform after another - has now taken to scaring seniors who have nothing to fear and much to gain from reform,’’ Brad Woodhouse, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.

Baldwin on points

The first round of Alec Baldwin vs. Joe Lieberman goes to Baldwin. Lieberman started with a tiresome old Reaganesque chestnut, badly delivered:

“You know, make my day.”

Baldwin, who disclaims any intent to run, offers this rejoinder:

"Part of me would hate to see Lieberman go, because there are so few moderate Republicans left in the Senate today."

Lieberman is going to need better writers, at least until Democrats get a candidate.

007 percent solution

James Bond health care. No, not NHS. Say live and let die.

Click image for full Jeff Danziger cartoon.

When liberals attack

Click image for full Joel Pett/Lexington Herald-Leader cartoon.

Shocking exposé

Everything the skeptics claimed about the Bush administration has turned out to be true. Only the lunatic Lyndon LaRouche conspiracy theorists overestimated the Bushists' criminality, and now they're hand in glove with the teabaggers.

Click image for full John Cole/Scranton Times-Tribune cartoon.

Coming distractions

The VA was handing out piles of bonuses to technical employees in 2007 and 2008. A grandstanding Republican Congressman (yes, all sorts of redundancies in those three words) wants, nay, demands an investigation:

"I am extremely troubled by the Inspector General's findings," said Richard Burr, R-NC, the ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. "I believe Congress should use its oversight authority to further investigate these matters," he said in an e-mail to CNN.

The point that will likely be forgotten about this: It happened during the reign of the Bushists, when Burr and the rest of the Republicans opposed anything resembling oversight of the executive branch.

The next step in the laundering of bullshit into conventional wisdom will be some wingnut blogger blaming this on President Obama.

Note: The VA, which is socialized medicine, delivers better care more cheaply than the dominant semi-private part of American health care, even with these bonuses.

Different kind of tail-chasing

My hiking experience has almost entirely been in heavily forested mountains, where it's just as impossible to go in a circle as it is to go in a straight line. In mountains, topographic features are what matter to navigation.

Still, it's easy to get disoriented in mountains, especially when you're a tiny little ant on the feature and it's too large to use it to orient yourself. The reported finding, in keeping with long anecdotal experience, is one more feature of human behavior to watch for when navigating without the crutch of a GPS.

Well-known advice bears repeating:

“Your job as the lost person is to sit down,” [Carroll M. Ware, a licensed guide in Maine,] said. “By moving you make everybody’s job more difficult.”

This is good advice even if you're still oriented to the local features. It's very easy to over-exert, even if you don't panic, and make a little trouble into a lot of trouble.

Where does the money go?

This is why we need single-payer - no sweeteners needed to purchase insurance company approval. Single-payer is the only way to get costs in line with world-wide norms - and in time there will be no way we can escape that unless we decide that half our population can do without non-emergency health care.

A real public option is the only proposal that could possibly evolve over time into single-payer. That's why the Blue Dog Democrats and the Republicans are fighting so hard on behalf of their insurance industry sponsors to kill every competitive public option.

Someone's lying

Maybe it's both of them. They are, after all, both Bushists.

My natural inclination is to believe anything plausible that casts the Bushists in a bad light. I already believed that they manipulated threat levels for baldly political purposes. They manipulated everything for baldly political purposes, right up to the stove-piped intelligence they used to manipulate the people and the Congress into the panic that put us stupidly into Iraq.

Mass hysteria

Happily, no!

Over budget but a success and not very costly - not 40% of the budget, not 4% of the budget, 0.4% of the budget.

Biconservativeship

Republicans are thrilled with bipartisanship just so long as it's the effort to find the sweet spot of compromise between the center-right and the extreme right. Otherwise, they'll take their ball and go home.

It's long past time to fight back.

Potted plants

To say what they're saying, you'd think they'd have to be potted.

Except that they're plants.

Click image for full Joel Pett/Lexington Herald-Leader cartoon.

Mona!

He may need a bigger dose.

Click image for full Bruce Beattie/Daytona Beach News-Journal cartoon.

Triumph of Reaganism

If this isn't irrefutable evidence of the success of the class warfare of the rich on the rest of us, I don't know what would be.

Note when it started.

Insane on the face of it

“Compassionate release on the face of it is insane for a convicted mass murderer,” said Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, N.J., whose 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, died in the attack.

Liberal media

All this item does is push forward right-wing propaganda. There's not even an opportunity for anyone to the left of the center-right to rebut. A perfect opportunity would have been a response to this arrant bullshit:

[T]he announcer then warns that what Democrats are talking about includes a government-run health plan, bureaucrats deciding coverage, new regulations that would kill small business, and tax hikes.

No Democrat need comment!

Stand up

Barney Frank shows the way: Don't take wingnut bullshit lying down. (Don't take the Lyndon LaRouche perennial bullshit lying down either.)

The purpose of these protests is not to have a rational, fact-based discussion. The purpose is to disrupt and shout down even the tepid reforms that are still on the table.

Slow learners

... but at least they're learning. The Republicans will not negotiate in good faith if they won't even debate in good faith.

Something troubles me about the Times story, though: Not one Congressional Democrat has enough spine to be quoted. That makes the story look like a threat, rather than a real determination to ram through a good bill without all the dreck foisted on us by Republicans and Blue Dogs.

Update (8/19): CNN follows the Times.

Only a matter of time

Wingnuts carry guns to intimidate their opposition. There is going to be violence. And the country's craziest weirdos have bought up every last shred of ammunition in the country.

Update (8/18): CNN gives this story a little big media oxygen.

Bomb the death panels

When wingnuts wake up and smell the antiseptic...

Click image for full Matt Bors cartoon.

A few grains shy of a load

Click image for full Jen Sorenson cartoon.

Pascal's lottery

Give me your money, and when you're truly deserving, god will give it back ten-fold. Or not.

Meanwhile, at least Kenneth and Gloria Copeland are living in the lap dance of luxury.

Best health care in the world

Here's how broken our health financing system is: We not only spend waaay more total dollars per person on health care than any other nation, we spend more tax dollars per person than everyone else but Norway and Luxembourg. For this, we have millions uncovered, and the health outcomes for those of us who are covered are worse. Are we idiots?

The morons who are screaming lies about "death panels" must really enjoy overspending on less.

(h/t Avedon on Eschaton)

Somebody needs a timeout

Click image for full Signe Wilkinson cartoon.

Misty watercolor mem'ries

Click image for full Rob Rogers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoon.

Would I lie to you?

Click image for full MStreeter/Savannah Morning News cartoon.

American politics in an age of bullshit

Click image for full Dan Wasserman/Boston Globe cartoon.

Kindness of strangers

Most people who have been in the backcountry for any good length of time at all, including me, have benefited from the kindness of strangers. The moral obligation is that you look out for each other.

In this story, a stranger named Karen Picotte was instrumental in saving the life of a lost man hiking alone. Picotte acted altruistically even though her phone call did not take a huge effort.

This generosity of spirit is widely spread among humans and knows no ideological boundaries. There are differences in how it applies, however.

My mother is fond of saying that East Tennesseans would literally give you their shirt if they found you in dire straits, but that they'd never ever put together a program to distribute shirts to people in need.

Liberals like me are willing to tax ourselves and, yes, conservatives to make the moral obligation legal, as well as more consistent and widespread. Sometimes we do it badly, but the results are pretty good, despite what you may hear from libertarians who put their precious theories ahead of actual real-world facts. Look around: The high tax states with strong commitment to the common weal are by and large the wealthy states, while the low tax states without that commitment are the poor states.

Conservatives resent every dime they pay in taxes. Well, maybe not what goes to the military, to the police, and to themselves - but every other dime. They are happy to say when there's no Karen Picotte around to help: Tough luck, you deserve what happened to you.

Somewhere in that tough luck is a willingness to cast others in an out group aside that few people have when confronted with a single person in need, an eagerness to rationalize that bad choices are the problem (and they do sometimes contribute) instead of imperfect social organization.

No enemies to the right

On the national scene, there are no Republican moderates. Oh, sure, Colin Powell, but how many divisions does he have?

In Texas, of course, the Republican primary for governor is a contest between a hard-line conservative and an out-and-out frothing wingnut.

There is nothing useful to be gained from negotiating with these people.

Eyeballing the meniscus

Hang onto your natural joints. Orthopedic carpentry may have been a good option when there wasn't another option, but repairing knee cartilage and bone will eventually be waaay better than replacing it with teflon and titanium.

True, repair is not all the way here yet, and this article does save the worst for last:

But the scaffolds aren’t appropriate for everyone, Dr. [Bert] Mandelbaum said: “The problem is that sometimes they don’t integrate with the surrounding bone.”

One solution is to consider surgical intervention earlier in life and in the development of the problem being treated. “A 16-year-old will respond well to our interventions, but a person who has had a problem for 16 years might respond differently,” Dr. Mandelbaum said. “Every cartilage repair technique works better in the young.”

C'mon, I need a repair technique that works in middle age. (And since I'm a boomer, it's all about me, right?) Meanwhile, I'm sticking with glucosamine and ibuprofen.

Hackneyed hackney hacks

It's bad policy to select the technology to meet mileage goals in a cab fleet. The result is what matters, not how it's achieved.

At the same time, the negotiated bargain between cabbies and the city of Boston to allow a fare increase in exchange for agreement to accept hybrids as mandated should now be repealed. They sued to get out of their side of the bargain? Fine. They shouldn't get the extra money.

Green cheese

Click image for full John Branch/San Antonio Express-News cartoon.

Time flies when you're middle-aged

Click image for full Bruce Plante/Tulsa World cartoon.

Days of our lives

Sarah Palin, stop her before she tweets again.

Sheila Jackson Lee dares to use a cell phone in search of the truth, how scandalous!

Mark Sanford, lonely heart in the guv'nah's mansion.

Regina Benjamin has had the temerity to advise Burger King to make their menu healthier. For pay, ZOMG!!!11!

Microscopic scrutiny of inconsequential events while giving the short shrift to momentous decisions is why we as a society and a set of political ideals are doomed.

Debate is not detergent

Belatedly, the White House is trying to disperse lies with facts. This is rational, sweet even, but it doesn't get to the heart of what they need to do. A little factual detergent won't magically clean away all the oily bullshit the other side is flinging.

The Republicans and their insurance company clients have scared a whole lot of weak-minded people. Yes, they've lied to do it. But simple truths won't bring back those who are afraid. You have to cut through their fears.

The long email that David Axelrod sent out may arm us Democrats with talking points, but no one we need to convince will read all three sets of eight points each. In case you want to prove me wrong, here it is:

Dear Friend,

This is probably one of the longest emails I’ve ever sent, but it could be the most important.

Across the country we are seeing vigorous debate about health insurance reform. Unfortunately, some of the old tactics we know so well are back — even the viral emails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions.

As President Obama said at the town hall in New Hampshire, “where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed.”

So let’s start a chain email of our own. At the end of my email, you’ll find a lot of information about health insurance reform, distilled into 8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage, 8 common myths about reform and 8 reasons we need health insurance reform now.

Right now, someone you know probably has a question about reform that could be answered by what’s below. So what are you waiting for? Forward this email.

Thanks,
David

David Axelrod
Senior Adviser to the President

P.S. We launched www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck this week to knock down the rumors and lies that are floating around the internet. You can find the information below, and much more, there. For example, we've just added a video of Nancy-Ann DeParle from our Health Reform Office tackling a viral email head on. Check it out:


8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage

1. Ends Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.
2. Ends Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays: Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.
3. Ends Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care: Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
4. Ends Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill: Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.
5. Ends Gender Discrimination: Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.
6. Ends Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage: Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.
7. Extends Coverage for Young Adults: Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.
8. Guarantees Insurance Renewal: Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won't be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.

Learn more and get details: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/health-insurance-consumer-protections/

8 common myths about health insurance reform

1. Reform will stop "rationing" - not increase it: It’s a myth that reform will mean a "government takeover" of health care or lead to "rationing." To the contrary, reform will forbid many forms of rationing that are currently being used by insurance companies.
2. We can’t afford reform: It's the status quo we can't afford. It’s a myth that reform will bust the budget. To the contrary, the President has identified ways to pay for the vast majority of the up-front costs by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse within existing government health programs; ending big subsidies to insurance companies; and increasing efficiency with such steps as coordinating care and streamlining paperwork. In the long term, reform can help bring down costs that will otherwise lead to a fiscal crisis.
3. Reform would encourage "euthanasia": It does not. It’s a malicious myth that reform would encourage or even require euthanasia for seniors. For seniors who want to consult with their family and physicians about end-of life decisions, reform will help to cover these voluntary, private consultations for those who want help with these personal and difficult family decisions.
4. Vets' health care is safe and sound: It’s a myth that health insurance reform will affect veterans' access to the care they get now. To the contrary, the President's budget significantly expands coverage under the VA, extending care to 500,000 more veterans who were previously excluded. The VA Healthcare system will continue to be available for all eligible veterans.
5. Reform will benefit small business - not burden it: It’s a myth that health insurance reform will hurt small businesses. To the contrary, reform will ease the burdens on small businesses, provide tax credits to help them pay for employee coverage and help level the playing field with big firms who pay much less to cover their employees on average.
6. Your Medicare is safe, and stronger with reform: It’s myth that Health Insurance Reform would be financed by cutting Medicare benefits. To the contrary, reform will improve the long-term financial health of Medicare, ensure better coordination, eliminate waste and unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies, and help to close the Medicare "doughnut" hole to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors.
7. You can keep your own insurance: It’s myth that reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors. To the contrary, reform will expand your choices, not eliminate them.
8. No, government will not do anything with your bank account: It is an absurd myth that government will be in charge of your bank accounts. Health insurance reform will simplify administration, making it easier and more convenient for you to pay bills in a method that you choose. Just like paying a phone bill or a utility bill, you can pay by traditional check, or by a direct electronic payment. And forms will be standardized so they will be easier to understand. The choice is up to you – and the same rules of privacy will apply as they do for all other electronic payments that people make.

Learn more and get details:
http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck
http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck/faq

8 Reasons We Need Health Insurance Reform Now

1. Coverage Denied to Millions: A recent national survey estimated that 12.6 million non-elderly adults – 36 percent of those who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company in the individual insurance market – were in fact discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years or dropped from coverage when they became seriously ill. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/denied_coverage/index.html
2. Less Care for More Costs: With each passing year, Americans are paying more for health care coverage. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have nearly doubled since 2000, a rate three times faster than wages. In 2008, the average premium for a family plan purchased through an employer was $12,680, nearly the annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage job. Americans pay more than ever for health insurance, but get less coverage. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/hiddencosts/index.html
3. Roadblocks to Care for Women: Women’s reproductive health requires more regular contact with health care providers, including yearly pap smears, mammograms, and obstetric care. Women are also more likely to report fair or poor health than men (9.5% versus 9.0%). While rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure are similar to men, women are twice as likely to suffer from headaches and are more likely to experience joint, back or neck pain. These chronic conditions often require regular and frequent treatment and follow-up care. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/women/index.html
4. Hard Times in the Heartland: Throughout rural America, there are nearly 50 million people who face challenges in accessing health care. The past several decades have consistently shown higher rates of poverty, mortality, uninsurance, and limited access to a primary health care provider in rural areas. With the recent economic downturn, there is potential for an increase in many of the health disparities and access concerns that are already elevated in rural communities. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/hardtimes
5. Small Businesses Struggle to Provide Health Coverage: Nearly one-third of the uninsured – 13 million people – are employees of firms with less than 100 workers. From 2000 to 2007, the proportion of non-elderly Americans covered by employer-based health insurance fell from 66% to 61%. Much of this decline stems from small business. The percentage of small businesses offering coverage dropped from 68% to 59%, while large firms held stable at 99%. About a third of such workers in firms with fewer than 50 employees obtain insurance through a spouse. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/helpbottomline
6. The Tragedies are Personal: Half of all personal bankruptcies are at least partly the result of medical expenses. The typical elderly couple may have to save nearly $300,000 to pay for health costs not covered by Medicare alone. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/inaction
7. Diminishing Access to Care: From 2000 to 2007, the proportion of non-elderly Americans covered by employer-based health insurance fell from 66% to 61%. An estimated 87 million people - one in every three Americans under the age of 65 - were uninsured at some point in 2007 and 2008. More than 80% of the uninsured are in working families. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/inaction/diminishing/index.html
8. The Trends are Troubling: Without reform, health care costs will continue to skyrocket unabated, putting unbearable strain on families, businesses, and state and federal government budgets. Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance - projections suggest that this number will rise to about 72 million in 2040 in the absence of reform. Learn more: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/assets/documents/CEA_Health_Care_Report.pdf

The need to fight back is real, but this is not an effective way. Seriously, is even a single persuadable going to read all that?

The Republican willingness - eagerness - to lie is the reason I've long advocated unrelenting attacks on their credibility by directly assaulting their honesty. If more Americans knew there's nothing to trust in the GOP's simplest statements, we could debate this in a civil, rational manner. But the White House ought to realize we're in a street fight, not Independence Hall.