Weekend Open Thread
Catching up with the news…
In birth certificate non-story conspiracy nuts news:
CNN tells Dobbs the birther story is over. Dobbs persists. (h/t Cassandra)
Oopsie! Now the CNN president is walking back the criticism.
The SPLC weighs in. The birther rumors have their origin in the radical racist right. Holocaust Museum James Von Brunn was a birther.
McCain and Palin are in on the conspiracy!
This whole article is worth a read, just to give you an idea of the complete idiocy and ineptness of the birthers. I’ll bet you’re not surprised to learn that one of the head birther is also a truther. Here’s a taste of the article:
But the flawed conception of the many “birther” lawsuits, coupled with the inexperience and foul-ups of “birther” lawyers, have only fed the frenzy over Obama’s legitimacy to serve as president of the United States. A survey of the lawsuits filed against Obama reveals a reliance on widely debunked rumors, bogus stories sourced back to web sites, affidavits from “experts” who refuse to provide credentials or even their real names, and frequent and blatant misunderstandings of basic constitutional law. The dismissal of “birther” lawsuits has allowed conspiracy theorists to believe that the information in those suits is accurate–a belief that manifests itself in the emails, phone calls, and town hall meeting rants that have pushed the theories into the mainstream media and the halls of Congress.
The birthers are in a self-referential clusterf*ck. You don’t say!
In Gates-gate news:
Obama speaks with Officer Crowley and invites Crowley and Gates over to the White House for a beer.
In other news:
Former Miss California Carrie Prejean is writing a book. I can’t wait to read it. I’ll read it right after I read Joe the Plumber’s book and Sarah Palin’s book. It’s the quitter-loser-liar trifecta.
Henry Waxman stands up to the Blue Dogs. It’s about time. Now we’ll find out if the Blue Dogs have enough power to kill health care reform.
Tags: Open Thread
The Birther Legal Team.
Priceless.
Another abstinence-only GOPer caught with his pants down!
With an intern…
All pervy C-Street Republican promise keepers have to throw a little twist in the story line:
Fresh Bacon (flavored Diet Coke). You think I’m lying?
http://schlicken.blogsome.com/2007/06/21/diet-coke-w-bacon/
D’oh. Someone got April fooled.
“Highlights” from the Health Care Bill: Pages (1-500)
I (mike volpe)just received a summary of the first five hundred pages of the health care bill. Here are some highlights.
Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure.
Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get
Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange
Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No “judicial review” is permitted against the government monopoly.
Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payrol
Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
Page 167: Any individual who doesn’t’ have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected
Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.
Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.
Page 379: Creation of the Telehealth Advisory Committee
Page 425: Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources,
Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient’s health deteriorates.
Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
Read all the summary here.
Posted by mike volpe at 8:43 AM
Labels: health care
http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com
Propaganda FAIL by anoni and his handler here:
1. There’s no 500 page bill linked to the referenced post.
2. Snopes already debunks the page 425 bit.
The only point of anoni’s post here is to get more of the stupidity into circulation. Don’t believe a word of it until you get a real link to real 500 pages that you can fact check against. Because fact checking you will certainly need to do — these wingnuts are allergic to the practice.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:H.R.3200:
jason said you were capable of using google. I think he was wrong.
White House eases stimulus lobbyist restrictions [flip, flop………..]
The Hill ^
White House eases stimulus lobbyist restrictions By Roxana Tiron Posted: 07/25/09 01:25 PM [ET]
In a significant change, the Obama administration will now allow lobbyists to meet and have telephonic discussions with government officials regarding economic recovery projects. The lifting of the ban comes after K Street has cried foul for months and has challenged the White House on its restrictions. In March, President Obama announced that government officials would not be allowed to consider the views of lobbyists regarding specific stimulus projects unless the requests are put in writing.
We do know how to use google. The usual convention is that if you are making a claim about something, you provide a link to it so the reader can check for themselves. Verifying what your wingnut handlers tell you is clearly not one of your core skills. Or perhaps you are perfectly content to be lied to. But google came up with the pdf (page numbered) version of the bill (all 1000+ pages, not the first 500) and just checking two things:
1. The page 22 “audit of all employers that self-insure” is not here. This page is part of the description of a study/survey to be performed by HHS of insured and self-insured health care markets.
2. And we are back to page 425 and including page 429 and 430. All of these pages are in a section that defines and described the services that would be covered for Advance Care Planning Consults. You should educate yourself on what it takes to develop one of these plans and get back to us. But the gist is that you, your doctor and whoever of your family put together this plan that is supposed to guide end of life care.
So I am presuming that all of anoni’s so-called “details” of the plan are just as suspect, cherry-picked and out of context. And I know that anoni just reposted that crap here without checking to see if he would be embarrassed by it.
Now, you could have posted this over at Delaware Politics and they would still be busy high-fiving you since this is exactly the kind of stuff they specialize in….
On the other hand, using google to show something that the “progressives” around here don’t agree with will get you labeled a racist, bigot, fascist, or whatever the “progressive” insult du jour is.
Only when you’ve used suspect sites, data or documents.
But you do notice that we at least check.
Actually, that isn’t the case.
One time, i was trying to provide a counterexample of something that another poster claimed was NEVER done in mocking George W. Bush.
In the other case I was accused of hatemongering for linking to a document on Tony Alamo’s site to prove an assertion I made about claims made by Tony Alamo
54% Still Blame Bush for Nation’s Economic Woes
Rasmussen Reports ^ | July 25, 2009 | Scott Rasmussen
Most Americans—54%–still blame President George W. Bush for the nation’s economic woes. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 39% say the policies of President Barack Obama are to blame.
Those top-line figures are unchanged from a month ago. Two months ago, 62% blamed Bush.
By a two-to-one margin, voters trust their own economic judgment more than the President’s. That, too, is little changed over the past month. However, in February, just 49% trusted their own economic judgment more than the president’s.
Fifty-seven percent (57%) of women still blame Bush for the economic problems. That view is shared by 50% of men.
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Democrats point the finger at Bush while 65% of Republicans say Obama now bears responsibility. Those not affiliated with either major party are more evenly divided—51% blame Bush and 43% say Obama.
Man, this is like an accident you can’t look away from. More lies from anoni’s post above:
1. Page 50 — the business about all persons in the US getting care regardless of citizenship — totally wrong. There are multiple misc. provisions prohibiting discrimination and what looks like preserving most state’s rights in overseeing insurers
2. Page 58 — National Health ID — please. This page is part of a section that discusses standardizing electronic transactions and provides some requirements for what that standardization should do. No ID called for here.
I really want to know why people like anoni are so comfortable with being lied to so often.
Bet any amount of money that the wingnut media will be going to town with these lies next week.
cassy, you have the reading comprehension skills of a 7 year old.
Not like you could actually tell that. I mean, you aren’t reading the actual bill to check these claims, right? You are just repeating what they tell you to repeat.
I mean, if you think I’ve missed something here you would likely be pointing that out — with detail from the actual text of the bill — rather than lamely calling names.
During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Democratic Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill.“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2009/07/congressman-john-conyers-says-theres-no.html