Conservative MacIver Institute: "Heatlh Insurance isn't about providing health care."

On WHA's Joy Cardin Show the other day, this entertaining "left" vs "right" exchange took place on health care reform. One Wisconsin Now's Scot Ross and the wingnut MacIver Institute's Brian Fraley went at it on the role insurers have in health care and young adult coverage.

Notice how easy it is to expose the conservatives cruel agenda for America, when they're forced to say just what they would do to turn this country into a Dickensian nightmare.

Brian Fraley: "Health insurance isn't about providing health care, auto insurance isn't about fixing your car. It's about having money available for you to do this."

Scot Ross: I'd like to have Brian go on ad infinitum, about how the health insurance industry isn't about providing us care. Go ahead, go nuts."

Or this little chestnut taking aim at the comfort families now feel, knowing their kids are still covered by their insurance policy when their off at college or out on their own. It seems so "ridiculous" and "farcical."

Brian Fraley: "Do you realize how ridiculous it is that you're creating a dependency for individual "adults" until they're 26 to be taken care of by their parents? I mean, that's farcical on its face. Now Wisconsin already had that mandate to 25 I believe, which was a joke unto itself.

So if you're an employer, you not only have to cover the family living in the house of your employee, but you have to cover their "adult children" up to the age of 26, regardless of where they live, regardless of the coverage they have."

Palin, Bachmann, Beck...what is it that happens in 3's? Crazy

The unbridled crazy talk as compiled by the DNC of Palin/Bachmann:

Here's Bachmann/Palin thrilling the tea party crowd in Minneapolis:

Like all conservatives, Glenn Beck doesn't even believe in unemployment checks for those workers displaced by Republican free market economics.

Gun Crazy GOP Congressional Candidate Allen West Asks Supporters to "Scare" his Opponent.

Here's an inspiring speech by GOP congressional candidate Allen West to supporters in Jupiter, Fl., as introduced by Keith Olbermann.








Allen West is a capable fear monger with a history of instability. West is running against the incumbant Democrat Ron Klein, who I guess should be too "scared to come out of his house"?

Who the hell suggested this nut job run for congress?

Milwaukee School Choice Study: No Difference!

Can anyone really be happy with this result from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program :

Students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program scored at similar levels as their peers not participating in the school choice program, according to a study released Wednesday.

Patrick J. Wolf, University of Arkansas professor of education reform and holder of an endowed chair in school choice. "… at this point the voucher students are showing average rates of achievement gain similar to their public school peers."

Where's the innovation? Where's the competitive pressure to improve student scores? Where are the politicians questioning the logic of pulling taxpayer dollars away from the majority of students in the public school systems?

Dozens of private schools have left the school choice program over the past few years, either because they violated state regulations or failed to attract enough students. The research team concluded that the private schools driven from the program had much lower student test scores than the schools still participating in the choice program.

I wonder how the parents of those failed schools feel about picking the wrong choice school for the child? Did those tossed out low test scores get included in this evaluation? Or what would happen is a school just up and left one day, a deeply unsettling possibility. It's not a problem with public schools.

Highlighting another huge problem, the report laments that many poor choice parents are exposed to choice school advertising and hyperbole, and lack the ability to do extensive research or access peer groups for recommendations. As private businesses, they can tell a prospective parent anything they want. In the reports own words:

In Milwaukee … instead of applying through a program administrator, interested families engage individual schools that are participating in the MPCP. As is often the case, MPCP schools actually recruit families to their schools, inform them of the MPCP, and assist them with applying.

In Milwaukee it appears that participating schools more actively recruit eligible families. Given the circumstances of the school choice environment in Milwaukee, the process does not lend itself to exploring multiple school options particularly for MPCP families. As Teske and his team point out, this can be very appealing to and consistent with the preferences of the lowest income parents, who may not have access to well-informed peer networks, engage in less extensive data gathering, and end up basing their choices more on school familiarity and proximity than measures of academic quality. However, a lack of knowledge about all possible options can lead to poor school choice decisions.6

Another big talking point is that choice schools accomplish the same grades as the more expensive per student costs of public students. Really? Of course, charters don't have the infrastructure or private tuitions to balance off the lower priced choice students. Think about it, this is an alternate system that accomplishes the same thing. Why don't we make it even more complicated by having two or three more alternate systems running parallel to the public schools.

One more thing that should be mentioned, according to the report:

The research team found that school choice in Milwaukee has neither worsened nor improved the levels of racial segregation.

Stock Market Rise "One for the Ages."

Economist Peter Morici says in the clip below the last 15 month rise in the stock market is "one for the ages."

"I think the president is soft peddling a bit, the stock market turnaround, because he doesn't want to appear insensative to mainstreet...you have to go back to FDR to see a new president that has made the stock market perform like this."

That doens't mean we're out of the woods, or protected from another economic crash, but it is a glimmer of hope.

Jonathan Alter Points out the Republican Hyposcisy over Activist Supreme Court Justices.

Sen. Jon Kyle's urging for judicial restraint when picking the nations next supreme court justice is bizarre, when you consider the activist hard right agenda of Justices Alito and Roberts.

Despite Jonathan Alter's articulation of the GOP hypocrisy over activist justices, that doesn't mean Republicans won't still be perfectly fine talking out of both sides of their mouth.

Have they no shame? Blurring the line between right and wrong.

Isn't it funny how forgiving the news media is over the crazy racist insanity of the conservative movement. Can they get any more overt in their messaging. Slavery isn't even considered a major reason by we had a civil war. Good God.


Think Progress: Calvin E. Johnson, Jr., who chairs the Confederate History and Heritage Month Committee for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, sent around a press release touting the group’s success:

In 2009, the Georgia General Assembly approved Senate Bill No. 27, signed by Governor Sonny Perdue, officially designating April permanently as Confederate History and Heritage Month.

In 1999, Texas Senate Resolution No. 526 passed designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month.

Georgia’s Governor Sonny Perdue, Mississippi’s Governor Haley Barbour and Virginia’s Governor Robert F. McDonnell have all signed a proclamation designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month for 2010.

Picture and story Christian Science Monitor

Obamacare Opponent Urologist Jack Cassell, "I get what I get online, just like any other American."

Urologist Jack Cassell, the outspoken doctor who directed patients who supported "Obamacare" to seek treatment elsewhere, is starting to look like the poster boy for what appears to be the typical right wing low information voter.

How would you feel if you found out your doctor is a closed minded, ill informed, partisan wingnut. The Daily Show knows.

Sen. Coburn admits Health Care debate "Biased by Fox News."

It's nice to see Republican Sen. Tom Coburn admit that some, like Fox News specifically, misinforms Americans. It's 10 months too late, but proves liberals weren't wrong or had a partisan agenda making such a claim.

Gubernatorial Candidate Neumann Throws a Small Health Care Tax Deduction Bone to Voters, While Seeking Obamacare Exemption.

Republican Mark Neumann must think we're stupid. His plan is to throw a health care bone to angry voters so he'll get their vote in November.

What will this governor candidate do once his delusional party "repeals and reforms" Obamacare?

If Neumann has his way, he'll give you a "deduction" for anything you pay over and above the employers contribution, plus 10 percent. A deduction is nothing compared to a tax credit, as explained below. But don't drop to your knees and thank Neumann for saving you money just yet. If $30 to $200 will be enough to buy your vote, let me know. That's nothing compared to health care reforms subsidy for average working class Americans.

Below, Mike Gousha (goo-shay) quiz's Neumann on his cock-eyed plan. Neumann whines big business will no longer get a double dip tax deduction on a TAXPAYER subsidy, our money.

Neumann insists allowing businesses the chance to deduct 110 percent of there health care costs will make Wisconsin look great for business. But as Neumann knows, businesses can already deduct 100 percent of their health insurance costs. Throwing in an extra 10% deduction is ridiculous, or as Neumann puts it, "a significant tax deduction, that will give Wisconsin an advantage when attracting jobs."



Finweb.com: "Let’s start with deductions. A deduction is an expense or an amount of money which lowers your taxable income. It is subtracted "off-the-top" from the amount of money you made throughout the year, your gross income. Once all deductions are subtracted, this amount is known as your adjusted gross income, or AGI. Tax credits, on the other hand, are dollar-for-dollar reductions which are subtracted from your tax liability. Let’s say, for instance, that you qualify for a $100 tax credit. The government is, in essence, saying to you “We are giving you credit for having already paid $100 in tax." Therefore, $100 is subtracted directly from the amount of tax that you owe. Tax credits can be more valuable than deductions, Let’s assume, for example, that you owe $1,000 in tax. For the purposes of this illustration, you are eligible for either a $1,000 tax deduction or a $1,000 tax credit. Which would you choose? Well, the deduction, when subtracted from your gross income to get your taxable income, will only decrease the tax you owe by about $10. The tax credit would be subtracted directly from the tax you owe, which would mean that you owe no tax at all."

Kiplinger.com: "If you're in the 25% bracket, a $1,000 deduction lowers your tax bill by $250. But a $1,000 credit lowers the bill by the full $1,000, no matter in which bracket you are."

Check out Kiplinger for more details about the business requirements with health care reform.

The Worst DA in Wisconsin (no surprise he's a Republican), and He's Warning teachers He'll Arrest them for Contributing to minors for teaching Sex Ed.

Where the hell did this guy come from, and even more worse, how the hell did he get elected? I'm talking about DA Scott Southworth.

JSonline:(He)is telling Juneau County schools to abandon their sex education courses, saying a new curriculum law could lead to criminal charges against teachers for contributing to the delinquency of minors … Southworth said such education encourages sex among children, which is illegal, and could lead to charges against teachers.

"Forcing our schools to instruct children on how to utilize contraceptives encourages our children to engage in sexual behavior, whether as a victim or an offender," he wrote.

Rep. Kelda Helen Roys (D-Madison), who helped write the new law, said Southworth's letter was irresponsible and that it was laughable to think teachers could be charged for telling students how to use contraception. "Using condoms isn't a crime for anyone," she said. "This guy is not a credible legal source on this matter, I'm sorry to say. His purpose is to intimidate and create enough panic in the minds of school administrators that they'll turn their backs on young people and their families."

Any highly educated adult would laugh in Southworth's face and vote him out of office next time around, but no, do we know our spineless, easily intimidated school administrators or what?

Tom Andres, superintendent of the New Lisbon School DistrictAndres said district officials are studying Southworth's letter and will consider it in the coming months as they decide what to do.

Could there really be any other answer but, "go to hell you legal hack."

Southworth says in his letter "If a teacher instructs any student aged 16 or younger how to utilize contraceptives under circumstances … where the 'natural and probable consequences' of the teacher's instruction is to cause that child to engage in sexual intercourse with a child - that teacher can be charged under this statute" of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

He disputed claims by Roys that he was inciting fear in teachers or trying to promote his political views, saying he had an ethical obligation to tell districts his interpretation of the law.

If this is how Southworth interprets law, the district has every reason to toss this whack job out of office.

Feingold’s Obamacare? Republican Wall Afraid too Many People will Seek Doctors, creating demand for more Physicians. Not that!

Millionaire senate candidate Terrence Wall wants to ration health care with high prices and pre-existing conditions, by keeping the status quo in place, in an effort to prevent waiting lists for primary care doctors. That's right, there's a new influx of customers seeking primary care doctors due to health care reform. That's a bad thing?

The solution for Wall is to keep people away from the doctors so there won't be lines or a shortage. No, really, that's his plan.

Usually when there is a shortage of any kind in the market, they call it demand Mr. Wall, people are inclined to seek jobs in those areas. It's a basic business concept Mr. Wall. The problem with doctors not taking new patients is nothing new, and not caused by "Obamacare," as Wall would have you believe:

Doctors say there won’t be enough physicians to fulfill the mandates imposed in Obamacare … Senator Feingold’s take-over must be repealed, refunded and replaced. The Campaign Manager for Terrence Wall, Ryan Murray, says “It doesn’t help anyone to have government mandated insurance if you can’t use it anywhere.” A recent story in the Cincinnati Business Journal reports “There are simply not enough primary-care providers available to take care of all these newly insured individuals.”

So Wall's solution is to keep people from getting a doctor? First, most of these newly insured people are seeking these doctors to interview them, they aren't sick and needing immediate care. I just went through this process myself when my doctor retired (last summer, before Obamacare).

Let me repeat the concept of supply and demand for Terrance Wall again: Doctor shortages will create a rush to fill the demand. I think that's what the Business Courier of Cincinnati was getting at when they wrote, “Greater Cincinnati’s primary-care shortage about to get worse.”

Open the flood gates for the young new doctors.

Vote the Rascals Back In! Losing Formula an Election Year Winner. Are We in Wonderland Yet? A Christmas Carol in Reverse?

Let me get this right; After the Republican Party's economic policy since 1995 resulted in what we now call the Great Recession, which has now become even more radicalized by the tea party movement, is about to be swept back into power recovery isn't happening fast enough?

Oblivious to this whole notion, the major news media has avoided connecting the dots. It's a whole lot more fun watching the GOP beat the Democrats bloody for stopping a recession and providing health care for the uninsured.

Ayn Rand couldn't write or more wacky story line than this. No more social safety nets for sick and elderly, no more unemployment checks if they add to the deficit in a recession, no more environmental restrictions protecting our air and water, no more compensation for product injuries and deaths and no more financial protections on an already deregulated Wall Street.

Good luck folks, you've now been given your constitutional freedoms and liberties back.

Wisconsin State Journal: Wisconsin tea party members are … working hand-in-glove with GOP leaders … tea party … positions, such as deep cuts in social services, strong anti-immigrant policies and the right for citizens to carry guns in public places … are not popular among many moderates.

Nancy Milholland, 47, an unemployed sales manager and organizer of the Racine County Tea Party … said Republicans must do more to cut taxes, spending and the size of government … "We are the people that were screaming and yelling at Bush, by the way, when he was spending."

I don't recall seeing the tea party movement back then. Did I miss something when the tax cuts, the Iraq war and Medicare Part D were passed but not paid for? Did I miss their protests when the Patriot Act passed time and time again?

Unfortunately, the following statement is not true:

Scot Ross, director of the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now, said he believes the tea party movement will force Republicans to move further to the right, hurting their chances with voters in November.

Ross is a victim of liberal "projection," "a defense mechanism by which your own traits and emotions are attributed to someone else." Not one of the conservatives I've talked to believes in anything coming from the media, liberals or Democrats. Nothing. Irrefutable evidence and historical fact is liberally tainted propaganda. Even though the constitution was never meant to be a ridged "check list" of every right you were ever given, in anticipation of societal progress, it is now. As for progress:

Recently, tea partiers consulted with Republican state lawmakers about taking action to block the recently approved federal health care overhaul law from taking effect in Wisconsin.

The fallout from the Republican Great Recession:

Gov. Jim Doyle's approval rating is at an all-time low (because) Doyle has had to deal with record-high state budget shortfalls and high unemployment over the past year. Republican Scott Walker holds a 44 percent to 28 percent edge over Dem. Tom Barrett and Republican Mark Neumann holds a 43 percent to 29 percent advantage over Barrett. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson leads Sen. Russ Feingold 45 percent to 33 percent.

Thompson you might remember during the Republican presidential debates, shocked everyone when he came right out and said employers should have the right to fire gay employees. He also left the state with a massive structural deficit, but he's a Republican, what else is new.

If you thought Sarah Palin was scary and uninformed, just imagine hundreds of nationalistic capitalists winning in a tsunami of unforgiving cruelty on November 2nd.

Possible Taxpayer Profits on Bailout Loans Not Complete Truth.

I posted this interesting story thinking all is well:

According to the Financial Times:

The US government has made more than $10bn so far on banks’ repayments of bail-out funds, according to a new analysis that suggests taxpayers might turn a profit on the unprecedented help extended to the financial sector during the crisis.

We should still regulate the hell out of the bastards, break 'em up and let 'em fail next time. BUT WE MIGHT BE MAKING MONEY ON THEM. Kinda' worth dodging another Great Depression.

April 7: Even though we are making some money on the loans, we actually lent out more than the press is ballyhooing:

Banksterusa.org- Today, the Financial Times reported that the U.S. made $10 billion off bank repayments on the bailout funds. $10 billion, hooray! We are in the black! Unfortunately, our recent comprehensive bailout accounting puts taxpayers $2 trillion in the red. That is right $2 trillion. While most of this money was in the form of loans, and American taxpayers might recoup those funds one day, it is foolish for the press to declare "Mission Accomplished" based on a thin study by the SNL Group. (Saturday Night Live strikes again?) Especially when taxpayers also lost $14 trillion in wages, retirement, college savings and housing wealth. Declaring "Mission Accomplished" on the bailout may make some democrats facing reelection
happier, but the public, which is still suffering from one of the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in history, is not buying it. The U.S. goverment should give taxpayers zero percent loans and we will show you that we can make money too.

Massachusetts Insurers Sue State after Rate Hike Denial. What's wrong with a 32 percent hike?

In a glimpse of health care power plays to come, the insurance industry is now suing the state of Massachusetts for denying huge rate increases. Isn't it time for these guys to go?

A half dozen state health insurers, warning they faced collective losses of hundreds of millions of dollars this year, today filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse last week's decision by the Massachusetts insurance commissioner to block double-digit premium increases.

Insurers had proposed base rate increases averaging 8 to 32 percent … health insurers argue that government is forcing them to sell policies at a loss that is unsustainable as the cost of medical services climbs. "What the commissioner did, we think, is going to create tremendous disruption in the marketplace," said Dean Richlin, a partner at Boston law firm Foley Hoag, who represents insurers.

Not that the disruption of coverage for someone with a pre-existing condition is more important than the hungry for profit "market." The horrors of a less profitable market, or the loss of a few poorly run bloodsucking insurers, can't be the end of the world can it?

"As a result of the commissioner's action," Richlin said, "the insurance companies will experience substantial and, in some cases, staggering losses. We estimate the collective loss among all of the insurers will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars just for 2010.

Bye bye! Our hearts are breaking. Maybe insurers are a little loose with their money, or perhaps their CEO's paychecks and bonuses are excessive.

Three of the largest state health insurers -- Blue Cross Blue Shield, Tufts Health Plan, and Fallon Community Health Plan -- posted operating losses for 2009.

Maybe we won't need them after all. I'm bettin on it.

The Real Reagan Legacy Betrays Republican Whining.

The possible hero of the fifty dollar bill, Ronald Reagan, is all myth.

Even though Republicans know the gory details of the Reagan administration failures, they have decided instead to create a different reality. If Obama's unemployment numbers are so bad, and the recovery from the recession is so slow, why give a pass to Reagan's tax cut mess?

CBSNews.com: (Reagan's tax cut of 1982 was quickly followed by a depression of some two years) From January 1982 to November 1982, the unemployment rate rose from 8.6 to 10.4 percent. On election eve, unemployment was higher than it had been since the Great Depression. Reagan would urge voters to have patience with his economic policies and to “vote your hopes, not your fears.”

They took the patience route, surprisingly. It took over two years for the unemployment numbers to improve. But not for Obama. Republicans didn't even wait a year to save the economy they destroyed.

So with Obama in charge, Republicans warn he'll turn the U.S into a European country. How bad is that:

Thepeopleschoice.org: Today, Germany is the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods, ahead of China. To make the point even more dramatically, German wages and benefits today are higher than those in the America even as it maintains a much higher and better 'safety net'. Germany alone disproves just about everything the GOP ever told you about economics.

Proving Naomi Klein's theory of disaster capitalism true:

The GOP (always proves) beneficial to ruling elites. It is during depressions that they get richer and everyone else gets poorer. It is during periods in which prices decline that the 'robber baron' mentality picks up bargains among stocks and properties. The GOP adoration of Milton Friedman is misplaced. Friedman does not have the track record to disprove anything that resulted as a result of the application of Keynesian principles.

So which party is better for the working class? Take a look at the job growth numbers:

Johnson 3.8%
Carter 3.1
Clinton 2.4
Kennedy 2.3
Nixon 2.3
Reagan 2.1
Bush 0.6
Source: US DEPT OF COMMERCE

Are Threats of Violence the same Between the "Left" and the "Right?"

From the Rude Pundit:

Right Wing Vs. Left Wing Violence: Conservatives Desperately Try to Justify

Buchanan was raging against those who are upset about violent right wing rhetoric and actions. In essence, Buchanan was saying, you think a few bricks through windows and a bit of spittle and nasty words are bad? He compared the recent actions to the Weather Underground and National Guard post bombings." … That pathetic apologist for all things evil is right. Throwing a brick through a window is not as bad as setting a ROTC office ablaze." Of course, the Obama administration hasn't sent the National Guard to break up a Tea Party protest with batons, teargas, and bullets, but, hey, everything's relative. And then there's that whole Oklahoma City bombing, but, shit, we can't count that, right?

'Cause, see, whenever anyone tries to make some kind of moral equivalence between the actions of leftist protesters in the 1960s and 1970s and those of the teabaggers (or, indeed, the militia movement), they are forgetting context. In that time way back when, people were protesting things like the Vietnam War, which was killing hundreds of Americans a month, the invasion of Cambodia, and the ongoing FBI crackdown against radical groups in America, especially civil rights organizations like the Black Panthers. To oversimplify here: you could be forced to go and fight a war you knew was useless. And if you refused, you faced arrest or self-imposed exile. You could attempt "conscientious objector" status, but that was hard to come by.

Now, you got that? The federal government could seize you and make you kill people under a pretense of "defense" in a conflict that had long ago been revealed to be based on lies and with no effect on the safety of America. How do you think citizens should react to that? How would people react today if Obama had a draft? And while we say that violence is never justified, well, shit, at least in this case it was in reaction to actual violent actions by the government. It was, to say the least, about life and death.

Most of the leftist groups that engaged in violence targeted property, not people. Indeed, the accidental deaths of people caused violence as a tactic to be discredited. What exactly are today's violent protesters angry about? A mandate that all people in this country legally must buy health insurance? That those who can't afford it will get subsidies from the government? Really? Stop being easily manipulated tools. And talk to someone who was at Kent State before you jump on the fascism express. No action that the Weather Underground ever undertook approaches the amount of evil in a single hair on Timothy McVeigh's rotting head. Like millennialists and survivalists, they are fighting phantoms, finding evidence like ghost hunters who see a reflected light as a spirit's orb or some such shit. All lies and delusions.

You see, if you're gonna be violent, if you're gonna commit crimes as protests, at least do it because something real is occurring. Like, you know, vast numbers of young Americans coming home in body bags. Not because some redneck jerk-off or some power-hungry bitch with Bump Ups in her hair told you they can predict the future. Of course, they're just pissed that Obama's a black man.

Wisconsin Activist has Little Luck Getting Tea Party Protesters to "Take the Pledge" Refusing Government Services.

Thom Hartmann interviews Wisconsin's citizen activist Troy Winkelman, who tried to get tea party protesters outside the Janesville post office to "Take the Pledge," a document that informs the government that the signers be removed from all socialized public safety nets and services.

Sen. Glenn Grothman's Fantasy World of Voter Fraud & Uninformed Lazy (black) Voters.

Why the Republican Party in Wisconsin allows State Sen. Glenn Grothman to spill the beans on their now "out there for everyone to see" racist, anti-liberal opposition to election reform, is a mystery to me. Maybe their sharp-as-a-tack conservative voters aren't getting the subtleties of their once reliable coded language.

In the face of contradictory election statistics and arrest/conviction records, Grothman manufactures a long list of "possible" issues of fraud if election reform becomes law. Oddly, Grothman is most concerned with "liberal" university campuses, uniformed lazy voters and those coercive families and friends who force people to fill out absentee ballots in favor of liberal politicians against their will.

Never losing sight of Republican "projection" (a defense mechanism by which their own traits and emotions are attributed to someone else (voters)), Grothman imagines the following horrors;

The wrong people might vote, people being coached to vote, not knowing if the right people are filling our absentee ballots, making it easier for the liberal college students to vote, claiming to be someone you're not at the polls, the reform law is to big-72 pages, reform is moving too fast, "anacdotal evidence" and the time when students admitted they we're kidding when they told people they voted more than once.

I'd like to remind Glenn who was actually convicted of real Election fraud, 8 high ranking Republican election officials. Below is the audio appearance Glenn made on WPR's Joy Cardin show:

Republicans and Tea Party Patriots: Lies, lies and more lies! Now, Elect us.

Rachel Maddow, one of the few media host who has the courage, called out the Republicans and tea party organizeres on their endless stream of paranoid lies and fantasies. When you hear the list of insane issues, you can't help but wonder why any news network would allowed any of these rantings to become a legitimate part of the debate.

American History=Opinion=Conservative Fiction.

It's nice to see that traditional news reporting lives on at McClatchy News. This is a great report on the latest conservative assault; rewriting history.

McClatchy News: The right is rewriting history.

The most ballyhooed effort is under way in Texas, where conservatives have pushed the state school board to rewrite guidelines, downplaying Thomas Jefferson in one high school course, playing up such conservatives as Phyllis Schlafly and the Heritage Foundation and challenging the idea that the Founding Fathers wanted to separate church and state.
In articles and speeches, on radio and TV, conservatives are working to redefine major turning points and influential figures in American history, often to slam liberals, promote Republicans and reinforce their positions in today's politics.

The Jamestown settlers? Socialists. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton? Ill-informed professors made up all that bunk about him advocating a strong central government.
Theodore Roosevelt? Another socialist. Franklin D. Roosevelt? Not only did he not end the Great Depression, he also created it.

Joe McCarthy? Liberals lied about him. He was a hero.

"We are adding balance," Texas school board member Don McLeroy said. "History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left." McLeroy was defeated in a recent primary after he led the campaign for a more conservative version of history, a defeat that the

Here are five recent examples of new conservative versions of history: JAMESTOWN

Reaching for an example of how bad socialism can be, former House of Representatives Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said recently that the people who settled Jamestown, Va., in 1607 were socialists and that their ideology doomed them. "Jamestown colony, when it was first founded as a socialist venture, dang near failed with everybody dead and dying in the snow," he said in a speech March 15 at the National Press Club.

It was a good, strong story. It was not, however, true. The Jamestown settlement was a capitalist venture financed by the Virginia Company of London — a joint stock corporation — to make a profit. The colony nearly foundered owing to a harsh winter, brackish water and lack of food, but reinforcements enabled it to survive. It was never socialistic. In fact, in 1619, Jamestown planters imported the first African slaves to the 13 colonies that later formed the United States.

Rep. Ryan on Evil Government: "Direct everyone's career, arrange everyone's important private affairs, and work for everyone's pleasure."

I've had it up to here with Paul Ryan's imaginary world of marshmallow friendly corporations and fiscal Kool-Aid lakes we'd all be happy to dive into despite our deepening debt. Let's tear apart his economic alchemy.

This is from a March 31, 2010 speech by Rep. Paul Ryan to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, Future of Capitalism:

Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution … Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power ... or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?

Ryan's perpetuates the conservative word games that have been fooling people for years. Only a con man would try to give people the idea that small government RETURNS the power to the people, which is just the opposite. It would reduce the peoples roll in government. I remember a conservative talk host speaking before a tea party protest at our capital, demanding the people take their government back. Did they have it wrong? Ryan would take it back and then hand it over to the very businesses that already own and control congress. Ryan would essentially get rid of the elected middle man.

"Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity ... or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means?"

Didn't Ryan see how Wall Street bankers brought down the global economy? Sure politicians contributed by repealing and not enforcing the laws, but big business crushed jobs, stalled prosperity, outsourced manufacturing and weren't turned out of their offices but given bonuses. It's the debt forced on us by corporate recklessness we should think scandalous.

Ryan also warns us that we might turn into the god awful forward looking economic force that is Europe, a trading friend and ally.

"…we are approaching a "tipping point. Once we pass it, we will become a different people."

Complete BS. Back it up Ryan.

"Once we have gone beyond the "tipping point," that self-sufficient outlook will be gradually transformed into a soft despotism a lot like Europe's social welfare states. Soft despotism isn't cruel or mean, it's kindly and sympathetic. It doesn't help anyone take charge of life…"

Ryan really thinks we should FEAR a kindly and sympathetic government? But it's at this point Ryan goes right off the Richter scale with fictions, silly analogies and scare tactics.

"but it does keep everyone in a happy state of childhood. A growing centralized bureaucracy will provide for everyone's needs, care for everyone's heath, direct everyone's career, arrange everyone's important private affairs, and work for everyone's pleasure. The only hitch is, government must be the sole supplier of everyone's happiness ... the shepherd over this flock of sheep."

And this is the genius policy wonk the press is swooning over?

iPad: "The Apple of your Buy"

Incredibly, defying common sense and logic, people are falling all over themselves just to buy the new iPad. It doesn't play the most basic video file on the internet, and lacks a cam and mic. And that's only scratching the surface. This pretty eye popping gadget short changes customers for its own proprietary money grubbing purposes, and the fools and their money couldn't get enough of it.

I loved this Tweet: ConanOBrien Just got the new iPad. This amazing device has already revolutionized the way I use a calculator.

The Simpsons clip below proves my point about the dunking for Apple idiots:



I'm waiting for the HP Slate.

GOP Child Care Fear Mongers Accuse Democrat of, "lin(ing) the pockets of convicted criminals" with Taxpayer money.

If you were to believe the Republican Party of Wisconsin, you'd think were handing fistfuls of money over to the criminal scum of the earth to take care of our children running day care centers.

WisGOP: Senator Kathleen Vinehout('s) (D) new proposal (would loosen) restrictions on criminals who would continue to defraud the state of taxpayer dollars through the embattled Wisconsin Shares childcare program. This operation was found to be rife with fraud with hundreds of thousands of dollars going to line the pockets of convicted criminals and those cheating the system.

“…Vinehout is trying to let criminals back onto the government dole while spending more taxpayer dollars to do it,” Senate Republican Leader Scott Fitzgerald said. “With this apparent flip-flop, she is clearly perpetuating the problem of waste and fraud in government"

Sounds like we need a "right to carry" law allowing pre-schoolers to pack heat, or take a closer look at what constitutes "waste, fraud and who are convicted criminals." From Frederica Freyberg, Here and Now:



To tough on crime, truth in sentencing state budget buster laws and disbelief in rehebilitation GOP will never pass up a chance to scare the public. The profile of a hardened criminal now about to be protected by Vinehout?:

JSonlin: Vinehout said she heard from a couple of providers with "extreme cases" that had been barred from the program. One was caring for her gravely ill, bedridden father who has a criminal conviction, and as such the woman was forced to choose between caring for him or relinquishing her in-home child-care license. In other cases, providers themselves had criminal convictions that were decades old. "People change. Rehabilitation can happen," Vinehout said. "It has to be on a case-by-case basis."

Unfortunately, the spineless nature of the Democratic Party would allow the loudest whiners and "sky is falling" fear mongers the upper hand:

State Sen. Robert Jauch (D-Poplar) said "If you begin to reopen the manner in which the department should consider these suspensions, you incite a political war from some of the strident critics who will see any common sense legislation as a weakening of the state's resolve to It would be viewed as weakening and lowering the bar." . . . combat fraud.

Well then, I can't think of a better reason than that to discourage small businesses from growing. After all, once a criminal, always a criminal.

Health Reform for Pre-existing Conditions starts in June, Limits Out of Pocket Costs to $5950 a year.

NY Times:

Federal health officials said the program would be available from late June of this year to Jan. 1, 2014.

Ms. Sebelius can sign contracts with states to operate insurance pools meeting federal standards. The federal government can operate the pool directly or hire a nonprofit organization to run it in any state that does not want to do so.

To qualify for the high-risk pool, a consumer must have a pre-existing condition and must have been uninsured for the six months before filing an application.

Premiums in the new program will be set at “standard rates,” based on the average premiums charged by private insurers for similar coverage in the individual market. “If I have cancer, my rate cannot vary based on my having cancer,” said the director of the Office of Health Reform at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Ms. Sebelius may establish a minimum set of benefits. The law specifies a limit on out-of-pocket medical costs, which cannot exceed $5,950 a year for an individual in the pool.

The law provides $5 billion to help pay claims for people in the risk pool.

A recent study published by the Kaiser Family Foundation says that 35 states have high-risk pools with enrollment that totaled 200,000 at the end of 2008. States with the largest enrollment include Wisconsin, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

State high-risk pools is an indirect subsidy to insurers who then don't have to reduce their profit margins, but instead leave it up to taxpayers. This is a major component of Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, and another reason his "Road Map for a Dickensian future" is so wrong for Americans. These pools lose money. Someone should ask Ryan how he intends to pay for them.

State high-risk pools, all of which operate at a loss, paid a total of $1.9 billion in claims in 2008, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress. The average claims per person totaled $9,437 in that year. (Remember, reform will pay $6,000)

The formula goes something like this:

Premiums paid by beneficiaries accounted for 54 percent of the money used to operate the existing high-risk pools. Assessments collected from insurance companies accounted for 23 percent of the total, while state general revenues and other taxes accounted for most of the remainder.

IRS Won't Be Hiring New Agents. Period.

Lawrence O'Donnell breaks down, in the simplest terms, why the IRS isn't going to hire 16, ooo new agents. I heard recently that Rep. Ron Kind specifically asked the IRS whether they would be hiring new agents because of the mandate, and the answer was no. Check it out below.

Right Wing Nut Blogger Compares Obama's "Go for It" Health care Repeal challenge to Bush's "Bring it On."

Boots and Saber blogger Owen Robinson is another right wing loon stirring up the pot of Obama discontent with another conservative bad analogy. And this guy is a regular guest on public radio's morning show. I guess now you can say anything without consequence.

Obama's "go for it" Republican challenge to repeal health care reform reminds Robinson of Bush's "Bring it on" comment encouraging terrorists and insurgents to attack and kill our troops. You can't make this stuff up.

Robinson: "What you're seeing is some of the...that arrogance from this administration. This...this you know, "bring it on." Things that I recall the left ridiculing Bush for when he took "similar" stances against terrorism. But Obama is doing it, not against terrorism, but against the American people. Against the majority who have been polled who oppose this health care reform. He's out there saying, bring it on."

"Guardians of the free Republics" wants to "restore America," politely asks 30 Governors to Step Down.

Is it's insane to think that the call to over throw the government in just coming from the right wingers? Is it really both sides? Give me a break.

While tea party protesters, Sarah Palin, Republican leadership along with elected politicians and conservative media hosts are "suggesting" taking their government back from the duly elected Democratic majority, using the language of revolution, secession and gun analogies, some anti-government "patriots" are now threatening our governors.

CNN: A domestic extremist group has sent letters to more than 30 U.S. governors demanding they resign (in three days), the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said in an intelligence note. They said there do not appear to be credible or immediate threats of violence attached to the letters.

The group behind the letters has a "Restore America Plan" that calls for the removal of any governor who fails to comply.

"Law enforcement should be aware that this could be interpreted as a justification for violence or other criminal actions."

Other steps in the group's plan include "establishing bogus courts, calling of 'de jure' grand juries, and issuing so-called 'legal orders' to gain control of the state."

Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Utah, Arkansas, Maine, Colorado, Rhode Island and Nevada are among the states that have received the letters.

MSNBC:

The group called the Guardians of the free Republics wants to "restore America" by peacefully dismantling parts of the government, according to its Web site.

The group purportedly doesn't believe in paying federal taxes or submitting to the authority of existing courts. Such themes are common among "sovereign citizen" groups who don't recognize the legitimacy of the federal government. Some also refuse to submit to state and local authority.

Cavuto's April Fools Day Mea Culpa: A look at the right wing world through the Looking Glass

Knowing that this is an April Fools prank, watch Fox News' Neil Cavuto use common sense and rational thought as if it were a joke, treating reality like a Bizarro World nightmare created by the left. Sadly, the joke is on Neil.

Republicans, the party of responsibility: Hell No, We Don't Want to Buy Our Own Health Insurance!

Remember when Bush thought universal health care meant going to the emergency room? I'm beginning to think conservatives actually agree with Bush. And for a party that swears by their own belief in, and strict interpretation of the constitution, they sure want to change it. Often.

Channel3000: New Berlin Republican Sen. Mary Lazich wants the Senate Health Committee to hold a hearing on her proposed "Health Care Freedom Amendment," which she said will safeguard a citizen's right to decide if they want to buy health insurance, rather than having it mandated by Washington. "People are not being heard. They want to be heard. A way for them to be heard is for a constitutional amendment

Oh we hear them Sen. Lazich, but they are now part of the minority party NOT in control anymore, thank god. When another party wins, they get to pass the laws they think will move this country forward. Civics 101.

Take a lesson from Republican Sen. Richard Burr, who has backtracked on repeal:













Shout it loud: "Incremental Changes... incremental changes....incremental changes..."

Megyn Kelly: Calling Obama a socialist is not a mischaracterization, it's an opinion! Everything is Relative.

Fox News' Megyn Kelly tries to debate Alan Colmes about the tea parties racist tone and fight against socialism, but loses miserably with comments like this:

Kelly on calling Obama a socialist: "Why is that a mischaracterization as opposed to their opinion? You have your opinion and they have theirs."

or...

Kelly: "Socialism is a short form way of saying government is butting its way in many aspects of our lives."

Alan Colmes: "That is not an opinion, it is political inaccuracy."

Colmes has had a lot of practice taking on these crazy arguments on his evening radio show, and it shows.