Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

Watching the conservative echo chamber in action is a frightening experience that most people don’t have to stomach on a daily basis.

The latest misinformation parroted by the rightwing machinery is that President Obama is buying votes on health care with judicial nominations.

As usual, it all starts with just a simple question. This time the ultra-conservative Weekly Standard got the ball rolling.

Read the entire story on Examiner.com

Politico Exclusive

Politico broke a scary story today. They’ve un-earthed a PowerPoint slideshow detailing the GOP strategy to use fear and mockery to stop Obama’s “socialist” agenda. It includes pictures of the president as the Joker, House Leader Nancy Pelosi as Cruella DeVille and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as Scooby Doo.

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

Read the entire story on Politico

John McCain on Meet The Press

Almost all politicians stretch the truth, or outright lie, to convince people that what they’re doing is for their benefit. But what’s happening right now regarding a possible parliamentary move by Senate Democrats to use reconciliation to pass health care reform is just too much.

There are so many Republican lies whizzing across the media landscape about reconciliation it’s hard to keep up. The two biggest whoppers that GOP Senators and Fox News are disseminating are that Republicans would never dream of using reconciliation to thwart a filibuster, and that the use of the existing reconciliation rule (created in 1974) is the so-called “nuclear option.”

Republicans and Fox News are counting on no one looking at the public record and uncovering their blatant fabrications. If you look, you’ll see that Republicans have used reconciliation way more often than Democrats have. In fact, in the more than 20 times it’s been used, Republicans are on record with using reconciliation 17 times.

Most recently the GOP chose reconciliation to pass the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005.

And as far as the so-called “nuclear option” is concerned – that has absolutely nothing to do with reconciliation – nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

It was Republicans who coined the “nuclear option” phrase back in 2003 when they threatened to change Senate rules outlawing the filibuster. They were pissed at Democrats who were trying to filibuster judicial nominees. It had nothing to do with reconciliation.

Watch this video. Stop watching Fox News. Think. Read. Research. Be critical. The information is there. “The truth is out there.” — Fox Mulder

Rachel Maddow Mar. 1, 2010

President Obama appears to have finally realized that Republicans will never support any effort to reform health care. On Wed., Obama is expected to release a plan to pass health care reform. According to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the president would like Republicans to not filibuster the bill in the Senate and allow a simple up-or-down vote, but that’s not going to happen.

Now Republicans know they have lost this battle and they’re freaking out. One can only hope there’s a special place in hell for these so-called Christians who lie through their teeth.

Rep. Peter DeFazio

This is the complete rush transcript of a speech Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) gave on the House floor this morning at approximately 11:30 a.m. eastern time.

The House was debating the health insurance anti-trust exemption created in 1945 by the McCarran-Ferguson Act. The act allows insurance companies to collude with one another to keep prices high and to share data for the purposes of cherry picking the best customers to insure.

We should listen to our constituents.

I did town halls in August and they were attended by over 8,000 people.

And there was one item of agreement between the extremes in the debate between those representing the Tea Party and those representing single-payer.

And that was consensus, that this industry, the health insurance industry, should not enjoy a special exemption under the law.

They should not be able to collude to drive up prices. Limit competition. Price gouge consumers. They should play by the same rules as every other industry in America.

And this archaic exemption from anti-trust law should go to the dustbin of history.

There was consensus on that.

Now come the Republicans, oh wait a minute, “We’re not protecting the industry, we don’t to allow them to still have the anti-trust exemption, it’s about the little guys.”

It’s always about the little guys, isn’t it? So let’s give the little guys a loophole, oh but wait a minute, the big guys can use the same loophole.

Now the other thing I’ve heard is let’s be bipartisan.

Well there’s nothing much more bipartisan than the report of The Anti-trust Modernization Commission from April 2007.

This was a commission created by the Republican Congress when they controlled both the House and the Senate and the White House with the members named by President George Bush and the Republican leadership of Congress.

They came to the conclusion that this loophole, that they’re advocating today, should not exist.

And I’ll quote briefly from the conclusions from the bipartisan Republican created commission.

They said, “A proposed exemption should be recognized as a decision to sacrifice competition.”

Oops, I thought they were for competition?

“And consumer welfare.”

I thought they were for the consumers?

“And should be allowed only if Congress determines that a substantial and significant counter-valuing societal value outweighs the presumption in favor of competition and the widespread benefits it provides.”

They go on to address their arguments and they say, there are those who will argue that the small companies need to aggregate data and they will need this safe harbor.

And they [the commission] say, no actually not.

This again is the Republican created commission.

“Like all potentially beneficial competitor collaboration generally, however such data sharing would assessed by anti-trust enforcers, and the courts, under rule of reason analysis. They would fully consider the potential pro-competitive effects of such conduct and condemn it only if on balance it was anti-competitive. Insurance companies would bare no greater risk then companies in other industries engaged in data sharing and other collaborative undertakings. To the extent that insurance companies engage in anti-competitive collusion, however, they would then be appropriately subject to anti-trust liability.”

They want to give them a safe harbor – that is so big that the Justice Department could never review it. Their objective to the fact that the Justice Department might look at and investigate the activities surrounding data sharing and potential collusion by the industry to continue to price gouge consumers and benefit unreasonably and profit unreasonably.

They want to create that loophole. That loophole is unnecessary.

If you adopt that proposal, we might as well just not pretend to care about consumers and consumer welfare and that we’re going to meaningfully address this industry playing by the same rules as every other industry.

[Will the gentleman yield?]

No I will not yield. The gentleman has his own time.

This industry should play by the same rules as all others – plain and simple.

Americans get that.

They’re not happy with seeing their insurance premiums double every ten years – and now it’s more of doubling rate of three to five years.

They know that they are being taken to the cleaners.

They know that the industry is trying to cherry pick.

They know there’s anti-trust activity going on.

It’s time for that to change.

No loopholes!

Last night the Senate Finance Committee worked until 2 a.m. this morning to vote on all of the remaining amendments to the Baucus bill. Unfortunately, aside from some minor tweaking, the bill still looks like a huge pile of steaming horse manure.

Almost everyone will be forced to purchase health insurance – a boon for the insurance companies. Some poor people will be exempt from the individual mandate, but that just means they’ll still not have health care. The public option is nowhere in sight.

It’s too bad the Senate is such a worthless governing body – apparently filled with lapdogs for insurance companies, Big Pharma and hospitals. I’m not surprised. It’s obvious that the politicians have successfully rigged our political system so that they can remain in power while doing nothing for us and everything for their real constituents – corporations and the Elite. Oh well, did we really think anything good would come from Congress? Nope.

I keep saying it, but now is the time for a real revolution. We need a real government run by the people. Let’s organize.

Read the New York Times story on the latest Baucus bill developments

It appears that the crazy radical-right has continued killing people they don’t like. The latest murder is of a census worker in Kentucky. On Sept. 12, 51-year-old Bill Sparkman was found dead in a Kentucky cemetery. Sparkman was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape and the word “fed” written across his chest.

This is just the beginning, now the right-wing – fueled by Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and politicians like Michele Bachmann from Minnesota – have murdered an abortion doctor, shot up the holocaust museum in DC – killing a security guard – and now a census worker is dead. Crazy.

Read the Huffington Post story about Sparkman’s death
Books about right-wingers on Amazon READ!

WASHINGTON — A sea of protesters filled the west lawn of the Capitol and spilled onto the National Mall on Saturday in the largest rally against President Obama since he took office, a culmination of a summer-long season of protests that began with opposition to a health care overhaul and grew into a broader dissatisfaction with government.

Read the complete New York Times story

The New York Times ran an editorial calling for Democrats to abandon any hope of Republican support for health care reform. Screw the super-majority necessary to stop a filibuster, the Democrats need to go it alone. It should be interesting.

The talk in Washington is that Senate Democrats are preparing to push through health care reforms using parliamentary procedures that will allow a simple majority to prevail in their chamber, as it does in the House, instead of the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster that Senate Republicans are sure to mount.

With the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, the Democrats do not have the votes just among their 57 members (and the two independents) to break a filibuster, and not all of these can be counted on to vote in lock step. If the Democrats want to enact health care reform this year, they appear to have little choice but to adopt a high-risk, go-it-alone, majority-rules strategy.

Read the entire story on The New York Times

The last time the Republican party was this disseminated, disorganized and dysfunctional was 1974 when Richard Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal. I was too young to remember – only five days old when Nixon’s crew broke into that Democratic National Committee office – but I’m going to guess that Americans were sick of Republicans after Nixon’s shenanigans and President Ford’s pardon. In 1976, Jimmy Carter was seen by voters as unique, an honest man in a sea of corrupt politicians. Unfortunately, Carter’s popularity plummeted when the people decided that being a nice guy wasn’t what they wanted. Carter became a one-term president. Just like 30 years ago, the Republican party is in a shambles following eight years of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, two wars, 9/11 and a crippled economy. And just like 1976, voters in 2008 elected a president because he seemed different and campaigned on hope and change. Will President Obama become the first one-term black president?

What should be scaring Obama and his supporters is that while the Republican party has been shattered, they can still tear his policies to shreds. Obama was elected because he promised to end the war in Iraq and reform health care. The war sponsored by Halliburton, Bechtel and Blackwater is still raging and health care reform is already so compromised that real reform seems unlikely.

Like Carter, Obama is trying to be the nice guy and Republicans are taking advantage of that by punching him in the face whenever they can. Sarah Palin accused Obama of wanting to kill her son because he has down syndrome (I know what you’re thinking, why does Palin keep complaining about the media talking about her kids, when she never shuts up about them). But rather than coming out strong with a message decrying these false accusations as ridiculous and educating the public on what health care reform will actually look like, Obama and the Democrats are going to pull the “confusing” section of the bill on setting up living wills.

The Republicans don’t control the White House or Congress, yet they continue to dominate the news cycle and have a stranglehold on Obama’s policies. If they can hold on for a couple more months, Obama’s window of opportunity will close, next year’s elections will get going, and there’s a real possibility that Obama could become the first one-term black president.

The alleged debate over “death panels” that was started by Sarah Palin has resulted in legislative action. Apparently, Congress has removed a provision from the health care reform bills that would allow doctors to be reimbursed for end-of-life consultations. While there’s no evidence that this provision had anything to do with “death panels,” Congress continues to buckle under the pressure of Republican propaganda. Here’s a story Keith Olbermann did last night on this all-too-familiar scenario of Democrats caving and Republican lying. Here we go again.

Is Sarah Palin for real, or is she auditioning for a recurring spot on The Daily Show?

Whatever. Here’s her latest Facebook post on health care reform and Obama’s murder-machine. I’ve also created an archive of Palin’s post in case her Facebook page is taken down or modified (pdf).