I know it shouldn’t surprise me, but if you remember, Alan Grayson was basically made a pariah in the village for pointing out that the GOP health care plan was basically to tell you to just die if you didn’t have health insurance. And now, the GOP is charging forward with a bill to repeal the health care reform that brings coverage to millions, aids those with pre-existing conditions, lowers the deficit, and a number of other things, and they don’t even have so much as a replacement bill in the works. In essence, their health care plan is to tell you to just die already.
And the Republicans won’t pay even the slightest political price for this.
ruemara
We’re not members of the Village, ergo, what happens to us doesn’t matter.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
If Obama gets a bill to repeal it, he should have a signing ceremony for his veto. Invite the press, and everyone who was at the last signing.
WyldPirate
That’s because the sheeple want the “job-killing health care bill” killed.
My liberal media teevee just told me so.
Comrade Javamanphil
I think it more accurate to describe the GOP’s health care plan as “Get sick, go broke, give me everything you have and then die.”
Silver
@ruemara:
And with the guts of the last closeted homophobic evangelical preacher, let us strangle the last Sally Quinn.
Doesn’t quite have the impact of the original, granted, but it will work for now.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Silver: Wrong thread, Silver.
cleek
and they’ll probably get the support of a dozen or so Dems.
SFAW
They will, if they don’t get it done in a sufficiently-screw-Obama-the-Dems-and-the-middle-class manner, because that’ll piss off the Tea Baggers mightily.
Think of it – 210 Tea-Bagger-approved Rethug Representatives. That’ll teach the middle class to try to get something almost-universally beneficial!
bleh
Well, they won’t pay a price if the Democrats don’t make them.
Look, it’s an advocacy system. “The media” and “the voters” will eventually get around to punishing the most egregious offenders among the politicians, but the real check on politicians is … other politicians!
And until now, the Democrats have basically ceded the battle.
There are faint signs, though, that they’re gonna fight back on this one. Not bettin’ the farm on it, but the glimmers are stronger than before…
blondie
Maybe not for this because it is so widely recognized as little more than kabuki theatre but I keep hoping that after two years of contrarianism and stonewalling that someone will figure it out, right? I know, I know, its the equivalent of “he really loves me and he’s really sorry this time. He promises it won’t happen again ” ah well….
kindness
Honestly, Dems should let the vote take place as quickly as possible with no response to this bill. Why? Because in a month no one is going to remember this, let alone point to it as having validating Republican governance.
Maybe some Dem’s will be able to use this vote to run against their opponents in 2012, but other than that…nada.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I actually think they will pay a tiny price for this. This is being done to reinforce the 40%ers who already back them. The 40% on the other side will of course still vote against them. That leaves the 20%ers, and I doubt they’ll be much impressed by this cheap political stunt. I think this will hurt the GOP in the broader electorate, but by such a small amount that even Nate Silver will have trouble sussing it out.
Kennedy
Don’t forget that the actions of the AZ GOP have already shown just that: if you need an organ transplant but can’t pay for it, just die already.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/07/another-arizonan-dies-brewer/
I will add that this program represented approximately $1.4 million on a $1.4 billion budget deficit. In other words, they’ve decided to let people die in order to close 0.1% of the budget shortage.
Maybe this is part of Brewer’s ideology – you get to cut evil, wasteful spending, and it’s almost like cutting taxes at the same time. You know, since those people are dead and no longer around to pay any.
The Moar You Know
If the nigger wins, we all lose.
/wingnut logic
Frank
“And the Republicans won’t pay even the slightest political price for this.”
Well, they won’t pay a price from some population of the country. I know the answer may be obvious, but why are more Americans not able to see that the Republican party is essentially the party of wealthy/corporate America? Are they truly that stupid? Are they so easily persuaded by craptacular and demonstrably false rhetoric? Why has the mainstream media abdicated its responsibility to investigate and inform? Are we truly so lazy and easily distracted by Snookie and Paris and Favre and “The Real Cougar Housewives of Sheboygan” that we aren’t seeing that the water is up to our chins? (Yeah, I know that the answer is yes.) Sigh….
gene108
Why should they? You assume the gatekeepers of our information, i.e. the national media, actually care about poor people?
Do you think guys like Chris Todd, David Gregory, George Stephenopolous, would go to the ghetto or some podunk town in the sticks on purpose?
If those people can’t take care of themselves, why should it be their responsibility and why should they dump on people who absolve them of even thinking they might have some responsibility to the less fortunate?
The national media and the Republican attitudes towards everything really does converge at some level, which is the only reason I can think of that Republicans get so many free passes from the media. The national media feels a kinship and has a lot of empathy for the Republican’s point of view on most issues.
Mike G
And the Republicans won’t pay even the slightest political price for this.
Their corporate paymasters and media tools have their health care well-covered, and the teatards are smugly secure in their Medicare, Social Security and VA benefits which aren’t at all soshulism because shutupshutupshutup!
Under the rightard philosophy that “It’s not a problem until it’s MY problem”, nobody who matters lacks health care, so they don’t see any problem at all.
BGinCHI
Until CNN, MSNBC, and others put up a graphic with a middle class family detailing what they’re now getting and what they’d lose with a GOP repeal, this is all just going to seem abstract to people.
If 60 Minutes did a big, graphic expose on this, you’d hear the wheels start to turn.
Napoleon
@cleek:
I forget where I saw this but actually a fair number of Dems who voted against the Dem position in procedual votes in the lead up to passing the bill originally are now voting with the Dems on the procedual votes leading up to repeal. I think the Dems up to this point have had only 4 defections.
lacp
Pay a price? Surely you jest – the White House has announced that it’s open to Republican suggestions on amendments to HCR: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/18/AR2011011801318.html?hpid=topnews
BGinCHI
@Napoleon: Lots of Blue Dogs lost in Nov too, and so their coalition is just smaller.
LGRooney
Anyone see this one?
kay
George W. Bush used to say the same thing.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act was passed in 1986. That’s where Republicans are on health care. 1986. But, don’t lose hope, as of today, they have identified the problem which is: “preventative care and things like that”.
Shinobi
Well APPARENTLY it is all just lies that Health Care Reform would do anything for the deficit. It’s in Reason so I know it is true.
So there is only ONE reason to repeal HCR. It’s the DEFICIT people, that’s what we care about. I know the Republicans apparently didn’t care about deficits back when we gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy and invaded two countries for made up reasons having to do with someone’s daddy issues. But seriously, the deficit is bad, and HCR is bad for the deficit.
Those pesky librals, always trying to like… give things to poor people. I mean, if they wanted to give things to rich people and invade other countries it would be one thing. But giving things to poor people, don’t they know that poor people are supposed to WORK for a living.
Violet
@gene108:
When, oh when is Wikileaks going to release info on people like this? I’d love to see the insider dealings of those who like to decide what we should think.
Kyle
@kay:
“So my new proposal is to cut off right of access to emergency rooms and let people die outside the doors if they can’t pay,” Cornyn wanted to say.
JPL
@Kyle: Cornyn did not mention how much this type of mentality is costing each and everyone of us. It doesn’t feed into his narrative.
Violet
@BGinCHI:
Yep. Someone needs to come up with a graphic like this. Doesn’t even have to be created by a news network. If it’s interesting enough, they’ll air it.
Elizabelle
@gene108:
It’s not just “stereotypically’ poor people who don’t have health insurance.
It’s an incredible number of entrepreneurs and creative types, of all ages under 65. It’s people who aren’t corporate types, or opted out. Or got fired or downsized.
We need a “faces of the uninsured” media blitz, because it ain’t what a lot of the public thinks.
A lot of them are pink slipped network and media employees. Who are young or have pre-existing conditions that made health insurance unaffordable.
And the remaining mediabots KNOW this.
Eff ’em.
Mike Lamb
Shimkus was on CNBC or something like that this morning talking about the repeal. To his credit, the host asked about a GOP alternative in the event they successfully repealed the bill. Shimkus said something about preferring a market solution–aka do nothing.
kay
@Kyle:
Oh, they’d never. It’s the consistent conservative defense to the charge that their inability to grapple with this is cowardly and inhumane (which it is).
I love that he inserted it: “of course..”
Bush used to do the same thing, except more clumsily.
They really don’t know anything. The Massachusetts reform is a success in a lot of areas, but reduced emergency room visits isn’t one of them, so even his ‘efficiency” nonsense doesn’t fly.
They don’t know what they’re talking about, which may be why they skipped the debate.
Elizabelle
@Violet:
Seconded!
No wonder they are aghast at Wikileaks’ potential.
Although: Todd, Gregory, Stephanopoulous: all meritocrats. Superior to the average bear.
In their heads.
Fencedud
Don’t mind me just need a cookie
shortstop
@JPL: Also going all unmentioned — as it always does — is the fact that the ER is never free. People who can’t pay don’t walk in there, announce “I can’t pay!” and hear “No problem! We’ll treat you for free and that’s the last you’ll hear of it!” in response. If you can’t pay your ER bill, you will face collections agencies and possibly court. You may have your wages garnished. You will probably have to fight to keep your meager assets, such as your car and any small savings. You certainly will have your credit wrecked.
In addition to costing all of us gazillions, unpaid ER visits cause financially insecure patients untold economic and emotional trauma. Does that make it more or less likely that uninsured people will seek treatment for health issues before they become full-blown crises?
Violet
@Elizabelle:
I would particularly like to see the dirt on that weasel David Gregory. A sadder excuse for a “political reporter” you’d be hard pressed to find. What did he have to do, no, who did he have to do, to get the job he has now?
David Fud
About the same price they pay when the government shuts down due to not raising the debt ceiling.
That’ll be some fun times.
morzer
@Violet:
Well, I for one would like to see that slimy little fuckweasel Stephanopoulos dragged across the cheese-grater testicles first.
Violet
@morzer:
I don’t want to see them physically injured. I do want to see what hidden dealings they’ve got going on. Wikileaks should focus on the media in addition to other things. Rupert Murdoch would be a good place to start.
Suffern ACE
I’ve been concerned lately that I might be developing a cataract, so I am going to one of those eye doctor types this month. I suppose I could go to the emergency room and say “emergency! I need a cataract removed right now” if I wasn’t insured. Or I could just go blind in one eye. I’d rather not go blind, but I have the feeling that there are quite a few people who do under the current system.
Ash Can
@lacp: From the linked article:
Don’t be distracted by the window-dressing; that’s your money quote. Obama is once again portraying himself as the grown-up for that vast swath of voters in the middle who insist they like bipartisanship, that’s all.
morzer
@Violet:
Well, yes, a metaphorical cheese-grater.
JPL
@shortstop: There are only losers under the current system.
LGRooney
@Kyle: Or, better yet, “The Hippocratic oath is a quaint privilege of easier times when you could get medical care for a poultry leg and wing.”
kay
@Kyle:
I think what bothers me most about the political charade of repeal is the disdain it shows for work. For effort. You can fault Democrats a lot on health care, but if they fail, it won’t have been for political cowardice of lack of trying.
Democrats have put forth two comprehensive health care schemes, Clinton and Obama. Two HUGE fucking battles. Republicans sat on their ass and carped incessantly, for all those years.
That they keep bleating that anyone can go to an emergency room, a rule that’s been in place since 1986, is a measure of how bankrupt they are on this.
morzer
@LGRooney:
How about a bill sponsoring the right of emergency rooms to enhanced interrogation of patients re: financial status before accepting them?
Call it the “American Patients’ Equal Financial Access Bill”.
Rommie
The next few months in the House may be the easiest job ever for a non-Republican. They could just hang out and not participate at all, and let the Stars and Bars do whatever.
They are already trying to backpedal away from having a stake in running things, so they can still blame the Near Sheriff for being in power. If you let them do what they want in the House, they are forced to either do something and live with the reaction, or do nothing and get exposed nekkid as not interested in governing.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
OT, and somewhat shocking to me: The Supreme Court rejected a an appeal of a lawsuit to force DC to allow the voters to decide if gay marriage should be legal in the city. Gay marriage will remain legal and unchallenged.
morzer
@kay:
The new GOP policy:
“Preventing care is better than cure.”
Ash Can
@kay: You know, it never really occurred to me that “I favor free-market solutions” was GOP code for “I want to collect a paycheck without having to work for it.” Silly me.
SteveinSC
@Comrade Javamanphil:
(gratuitously edited) I think ultimately that is where the GOP/Plutocracy are going: cheap labor and cheap body parts. Kind of libertarian in a way if you think of it. Why shouldn’t you be able to sell your own, or your kids’, body parts? The wealthy will owe allegience to no particular country, only to their international corporate brothers. It will be the Republicans/Plutocrats who will ultimately create the One World Government.
morzer
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Not that surprising. The GOP and paymasters are clearly moving away from increasingly toothless anti-gay wedge issues. It’s time to revisit the 1960s and Civil Rights for them.
morzer
@Ash Can:
Free-market is just short-hand for “free money and rigged market”.
maye
I don’t know what’s more depressing: starting COBRA April 1st and paying through the nose, or having to watch a re-run of the inept Democratic PR machine vis-a-vis healthcare reform.
(I just reminded myself how much I despise Joe Leiberman).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@SteveinSC:
We all know who they’re thinking of.
LGRooney
@morzer: As long as they don’t do background checks on the purchase of my military hardware, they can do whatever they want. Never know when those squirrels are going to armor up!
maye
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): You know things are bad when you are happy to see Dick Cheney out from under his rock because it’s a nice change from Sarah Palin.
morzer
@LGRooney:
I feel that purchasing that old squadron of tanks was definitely the prudent move. I mean, tanks have guns, don’t they? Second Amendment! Yay!
gene108
@Elizabelle:
Michael more tried something like this, except he was talking about the insured and the problems they had, in Sicko, with regards to flaws in our health care system.
The right-wingers shot it down very quickly, before the nation started talking about it.
I don’t think there’s any way to do a “faces of the uninsured” and get people’s attention focused on any single problem, without somebody else with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo to immediately spin the issue, so a significant portion of the country wants to keep the status quo.
This has happened for decades, especially on changes to our health care system.
Plus there’s a percentage of the population, whose default setting is anyone who supports a non-right wing Tea Party endorsed position (they would call it liberal or socialism, but I digress) is by definition a liberal socialist, who therefore lacks any and all credibility. These aren’t all uneducated dolts. I know plenty of people, who went to college, who are engineers, sales people and other professionals, for example, who have bought right-wing talking points whole sale because it suits their personal and social biases on what they think society ought to be like.
They just don’t see the connection between the right-wing talking points and the reality that would ensue, if those talking points were put into practice and / or the problems we have with the status quo because we’ve given into right-wing propaganda. I think some these guys are just very literal minded people, like the right-wingers on yesterdays thread about Senator Lee of Utah wanting to do away with federal child labor laws and have it only regulated by the states, because of a archaic interpretation of the Commerce clause of the Constitution he agrees with. They really can’t see that this could lead to a weakening of protections against exploiting children in the workplace, since if you don’t support child labor in the first place, why do away with a federal minimum standard of what constitutes child labor?
I really do think we are no longer going to be able to get through to a huge portion of the population, unless something like the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent financial meltdown and / or a quagmire in Iraq happens.
Even if you try to put out a “faces of the uninsured” segment, folks like Beck, Hannity, et. al. will snap into action and push the fact these people are “lazy”, are “too cheap” to shell out money, or whatever other spin they can think of and people will eat it up and regurgitate it word for word as the inerrant truth.
LGRooney
@SteveinSC: And the debt schemes constantly being devised maintain the plutocrats’ ownership in our body parts. Sweet!
Upper West
It’s time for our billionaires (I’m talking to you
George S.) to step up and finance non-stop ads (like the Kochs did last October) stating what the GOP wants to take away from people on HC.
Public opinion on this is up for grabs.
KG
@kay: that’s actually a bit of an improvement to where they are on most other issues, which is circa 1979.
El Tiburon
We must be civil, and Alan Grayson was not civil.
The key to being civil is to maintain a level of civility.
So, when the Republicans kill off, woops, that was not very civil. When the Republicans put HCR in time-out, we must remain civil.
And when our fellow citizens die because, woops, that was not very civil. When our fellow citizens are living-disabled, we must remain civil.
Now is not the time to become uncivil.
Civil.Civil.Civil.
Say it enough times and it loses all meaning.
kay
@Ash Can:
Any random commenter here during the (actual) health care debate has thought more deeply about health care than the thought reflected in this statement.
I think I could ask anyone who wanders into this office and get a meatier paragraph. I’d also get a looong personal story, with what I think of as their “health insurance history”, and one or two personal anecdotes.
You have to conclude they just don’t give a shit, if this is representative of the level of the debate on the Right.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ash Can: But watch the difference: The Republicans just want to repeal it; Obama is asking for them to help fix the parts they don’t like. When people start hearing that the 80-85% rule will be dropped, people will once again be banned for preexisting conditions, etc, they’ll start wondering what’s so bad about those.
And the difference between now and before the law was passed is that some of the measures from the bill have been listed on the benefits descriptions we get at work. At my job, the no copy for preventative checks has been listed as being there because of the Affordable Care Act. So people are going to start knowing about this.
LGRooney
@morzer: Only problem with old tanks is finding the shells to fit. 75mm shells are harder and harder to come by.
morzer
@LGRooney:
Well, start with the assumption that every fetus is sponsored by a corporation, and so starts life financially (and morally, mustn’t forget the morality!) indebted to its benevolent guardian….
morzer
@LGRooney:
Yeah, but the Post Office have become much more cooperative when I visit them now. As for the Town Hall….
Chris Wolf
If Dick Cheney gets a heart transplant, an innocent person will die.
No way the bastard goes to the bottom of the list.
LGRooney
@morzer: Now, babies have to come with papers? How about we brand them at birth? And, I’m curious to know the profit margin on foreskin.
morzer
@Chris Wolf:
I was going to say that some family member might be a match.. and then I thought about it.
Mike in NC
@gene108:
They really, really would love to do that, but somebody has to go to Happy Hour on the Hill while Boehner holds court in a smoke-filled room, and attend all those swanky black-tie dinner parties in Georgetown. Dirty jobs, but thankfully our Villagers are up for it, God bless ’em.
geg6
@Napoleon:
Even my rep, Jason Altmire (D-UPMC Health System) has announced that he won’t vote for appeal after voting against ACA the first time around.
morzer
@LGRooney:
Bar-coding is better than branding, or so my Haliburton contacts inform me.
LGRooney
@morzer: If they don’t play ball… what town hall? The ultimate off-road vehicle.
Of course, the problem of you can be cured if we all have to drive tanks a/o are able to purchase AT mines.
morzer
@LGRooney:
I do find parking much easier these days. The Town Hall even made a dedicated space available. As for those noisy neighbors and their ungodly Elvis music…
tomvox1
This snot-nosed punk who works for Issa hits the nail on the head:
Best observation on the state of modern print journalism in the Beltway that I’ve read, well, ever.
Ash Can
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’m all for having a televised summit meeting on repealing ACA reform, just like the one that took place when the bill was being debated in Congress. Nobody in DC can do a “bitch, please” look like our prez can, and I could use a few good laughs at this point.
geg6
OT, but can I just say that my new favorite rotating tag on BJ is “Gastritis broke my calculator.”
Too fucking funny. But dangerous, as it makes me lol every time I see it, especially at work.
teak111
The GOP will not suffer political fallout with their base, but they sure will with independents.
Mark S.
Nothing about Sarah’s performance on
LapdogHannity? Apparently, it sucked.WereBear
Just because it’s in the theme of corporate indifference to life: my cat threw up this morning.
Now, this wouldn’t be unusual, except this is my cast iron stomach boy; he could digest a car engine. And he ate Friskies. And when I googled because my husband was worried about him… a woman’s cat died yesterday in Florida, because he ate Friskies.
So I don’t know if it means anything, but I would up researching and writing this post about a 2007 class action lawsuit and you can:
Click here to find out what I discovered about corporate pet food.
Frankly, I’m terrified the 2007 pet food massacre is poised to happen all over again. Because, after all, that only ended with a slap on the wrist and a fine that was a fraction of the money the perpetrators have made.
Calouste
@tomvox1
Apparently he is already walking back from that comment. Unfortunately not for the right reason, which would be that he said “Some people in the press, I think, are just lazy as hell.” instead of “Most people in the press, I think, are just lazy as hell.”
LGRooney
@tomvox1: So, Issa & Co. will promise to scratch the press’ belly and the latter will roll right over and receive the peace offering. One must be a eunuch to thrive as a DC court reporter because you will be required to take a shot to the groin regularly so the right wing can burnish their reputation as fighters of the left-wing establishment. The GOP balances budgets, the Dems only increase taxes, the press is far left, Reagan was the greatest ever, and America is Christian right always and forever. These truths (they and their idiot followers) hold to be self evident.
SteveinSC
I heard on the news that Obama has instituted a top down review of unnecessary or wasteful government regulations. As I am a strong supporter of more not less regulation and I have also been critical of Obama’s past pansy-assed dealings with republicans only out to destroy him, I think Barack may be taking a page from Bill Clinton. During the 90’s when the republicans would announce a new initiative doing this or that, Bill Clinton would announce the next day he had intiated something almost like a carbon copy. Then Bill would lead the issue. Drove the repukes bug-fucking crazy: “We gonna git him, we gonna git him”, one of that crowd told me.
Linda Featheringill
@Suffern ACE:
cataracts:
Actually, Emergency Rooms will not treat cataracts because it is not considered an emergency. They might set you up with a primary care physician who can then refer you to an ophthalmologist who does that sort of thing.
tomvox1
@Calouste:
Of course he’s walking it back. It may be well understood by all parties but you’re not supposed to actually say it, you know, out loud and on the record. LOL.
JC
That is the thing that just blows. Grayson is out. Told the truth, told it straight up – and he’s voted out. The one ‘liberal firebrand’, is held up as an example of incivility by the Rethugs, while all he was doing was mirroring the conservative firebrands.
My weekly invocation of Prophet Carlin, repeated again.
bemused
@tomvox1:
Every once in awhile, someone in rightwing media will drop the pretenses and be honest about their tactics. In David Brock’s 2004 book, “The Republican Noise Machine” Matt Labash, a reporter for Weekly Standard at the time was interviewed by a CJR reporter who asked about the popularity of right wing outlets like Fox. Labash conceded that conservatives reject in their own media the standards of fairness, accuracy and unbiased coverage that they demand from the “liberal” media. Labash said,
“Because they feed the rage. We bring pain to the liberal media….While these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media like to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We’ve created this cottage industry in which it pays to be unobjective…It’s a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It;s a great little racket.”
johnsmith1882
“And the Republicans won’t pay even the slightest political price for this.”
I don’t know why exactly, but I have the glimmer of the beginnings of the hope of a feeling that you will be proved incorrect in this. The middle 20%/independents are already having buyer’s remorse over punching the teabagger ticket, and I think that the past week and a half has to put the loony right in an even worse light. If the Republicans show their hand on this (and it seems that they already have–it will pass the House, go down in the Senate, everybody who is paying attention knows this already, and they’ve pretty much admitted they’re doing this just for show), plus continue with Issa’s witch hunts and whatever other jack-offery they have planned, all without actually doing anything positive about the economy (this last part being the most crucial), I see the Republicans paying a price two years down the line. Americans are famously stupid , but two more years of do-nothing, know-nothing-ism out of the Republicans would have to prove too much. Right? Please?
Nellcote
@SteveinSC:
I don’t think this is automatically a bad thing. For instance there’s a lot of redundant paperwork, particularly for small busness. If that sort of thing can be managed better it would be helpful. I’m sure he doesn’t mean give Coal/Banksters free reign.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
Yikes! I feed mine Blue Buffalo, but I know full well that’s no protection since Natural Balance was what killed Boris.
Immediately flushing out his kidneys was what saved Keaton, but Boris was too old to withstand the treatment since Keaton had to be there for a full week (and when we were having to make the decision at first, we didn’t realize they had been poisoned).
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your boy and all of us.
Brisbane Belff (formerly G. Nelson Buttnergle (formerly Mumphrey (formerly Renfrew Squeevil (formerly Mumphrey Oddison Yamm (formerly Mumphrey O. Yamm (formerly Mumphrey))))))
@Kennedy:
That was needlessly harsh, rude, mean and uncivil. How can anybody take anything you say seriously when you’re so shrill?
Do you really believe the governor of Arizona wants sick people to die? That’s just a mean thing to say. She doesn’t want them to die. But society can’t keep coddling people after they make mistakes. If those people didn’t want to die, they should have taken better care of the organs the Lord gave them. If we just hand out free livers to every jerk who doesn’t even have enough sense not to get liver cancer, then how will they ever learn?
And, when yuo get right down to it, how is this fair to people like me? I’ve taken good care of my liver. I was wise enough to be born to parents whose parents lived to be 96, 95, 94 and 92. Why should I have to pay through the nose to hand over a new liver to some idiot who didn’t even have enough foresight to avoid being born to parents with genetic liver defects? These people made their beds. Let them lie in them. It’s only fair.
And stop with the blood libel already against a good woman who already has her hands full overseeing the cleanup of all those beheaded bodies in the desert. You think that’s easy? You try it sometime, pal!
Brisbane Belff (formerly G. Nelson Buttnergle (formerly Mumphrey (formerly Renfrew Squeevil (formerly Mumphrey Oddison Yamm (formerly Mumphrey O. Yamm (formerly Mumphrey))))))
@BGinCHI:
This is true, and it’s one of the things that burns me. I know middle-income people are having a rough time, and that is a big deal, and we should care abut it, and snotnoses like David Broder and Chuck Todd should give a shit about what’s happening to middle-income people in America.
But something else burns me even more, and that’s that almost nobody in this fucking country, this fucking exceptional country gives even half a shit about poor people. And we have them here, even if most of us try not to think about it.
There are people, whole families, living in tents in the woods within 10 miles of downtown Washington, D.C. David Broder, if he ever cared to rouse himself from the stupor he lives in, could drive a half an hour into Maryland or Virginia, and, if he knew where to go, could find whole little shantytowns in the woods. People live there through the fucking winter.
He or Chuck Todd, if they felt like a 10 mile trip was too much of a burden, could take a nice stroll down to the Smithsonian, and they could find people, actual people, no less human than Chuck or David–and likely notably more human, now that I think of it–sleeping on steam outlets or in the lee of some building.
There’s an ugly strain in this country, and maybe it’s one that runs through any society, that equates poverty with worthlessness. Sometimes it’s explicit, but here at least, it’s more unspoken. We don’t really think that poor people are less worthy than the rest of us, at least we don’t if we take the time to think it over. But that belief pervades our society, and it affects us, even if we never think it in so many words.
How many of us have learned not to look at the guy sleeping under a bridge in January? How many of us find something urgent that we hadn’t noticed before right at the time that we pull up to a red light when there’s a woman standing on the corner with a sign asking for some help? How eagerly do we buy into the stories that a lot of these people are not homeless, but are working a scam, appealing to our sympathy to bilk hardworking drivers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?
I might draw some fire for this, especially right now, not even a month after Elizabeth Edwards died, but what the hell, we ought to be willing to stick our necks out and say what we believe. And what I believe is this: I always liked John Edwards. I voted for him twice for president in the Democratic primaries. I can’t defend his having an affair while hos wife was sick, and I’m not going to. But that isn’t why I always liked him and why, whatever he did to his wife, I still like him.
I like him because he ran a campaign on doing something about poverty. In this country, where it’s as big a problem as it is, and where for the most part, we just don’t want to talk about it or think about it, and where for years powerful interests have made it their business to make poor people seem as unsympathetic and andeserving of any help from the government, John Edwards talked about it and tried to get the rest of us to talk about it, too.
Mowgli
@Elizabelle:
A Google search showed there’s quite a nice site already up:
http://www.facesoftheuninsured.org/
Nellcote
via HuffPoo…
Bill Frist urges gop to drop health care repeal
BDeevDad
Well, at least they’re not my relatives.
Mnemosyne
@BDeevDad:
Man, I am so goddamned tired of so-called Christians who can’t be bothered to read their own damn holy book. Hint to Bentley: Jesus says over and over again that everyone is your brother and sister. Everyone. Not just the people you pick and choose.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: That’s very scary. I hope your boy and everybody’s pets are okay.
I think I’m okay with my Evo dry food, but what about Fancy Feast wet food? It’s on the list. I only I feed them the “beef Gravy Lovers” and the “shredded white meat chicken fare with savory broth and greens”. There is nothing ground up in either of the wet foods I give them, do you think that even those Fancy Feast types are at risk?
lol
Maybe if Grayson kept his mouth shut, he’d still be “in Congress” and “passing legislation” instead of “unemployed” and “fashionably shrill”.