Weekend Open Thread
Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins of Kansas says the GOP needs a “great white hope” and then denies she knew the racial connotations of the phrase. It turns out she may not be truthful in that regard. Jess Willard, the original “great white hope” lived in a town just 30 miles from Jenkins’s hometown.
At a town hall forum last week, Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) offered encouragement to conservative activists by saying there were some “really sharp” young Republicans in the House. “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope,” said Jenkins. “I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.” Jenkins proceeded to name three GOP members of Congress who are all white — Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).
Mike Huckabee, what a nice guy. Pssstt…Mike…Kennedy had government-run health care.
Get ready for swine flu. The WHO reports that H1N1 is now the dominant flu strain. They are also reporting cases of a more severe respiratory version of H1N1 (about 15% of cases). The WHO estimates that within 2 years, 1/3 of the world’s population will have been infected with swine flu.
Tags: Open Thread
Robin Brown has a cute article in the News Journal debunking the Newark flush urban legend.
Curious – when is that special election for Booth’s House seat? Any reason why there’s been (apparently) zero news about it?
It’s on September 12, johnny. We plan on some coverage of the race. There was a debate last night and a write up of the debate in today’s NJ.
Isn’t Sept. 12th the day Glenn Beck’s minions take to the streets of DC?
Mike Huckabee is a despicable asshole. And puts on display what counts as “Christianity” among the christianist set — namely, that the 10 Commandments are supposed to apply to everyone but them.
John Cole has the definitive take on this. I wish I could excerpt a portion of it, but you need to read the whole thing.
I read Cole’s piece this morning. He’s exactly correct.
This morning I was speaking with my brother-in-law (former Reagan republican, now a right leaning independent) and we both agreed that our tolerance towards these christianists for all these years was probably a mistake. We also agreed that if Jesus ever showed up these christianists would be the first ones yelling “Crucify him!”
The 2008 Republican presidential candidate suggested during his radio show on Friday that, under President Obama’s health care plan, Kennedy would have been told to “go home to take pain pills and die” during his last year of life.
“[I]t was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don’t have as long to live might want to just consider taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them,” said Huckabee. “Yet when Sen. Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 77, did he give up on life and go home to take pain pills and die? Of course not. He freely did what most of us would do. He choose an expensive operation and painful follow up treatments. He saw his work as vitally important and so he fought for every minute he could stay on this earth doing it. He would be a very fortunate man if his heroic last few months were what future generations remember him most for.”
Huckabee sounds reasonable to me. It is the imposition of care rationing boards that seem unreasonable. Now everyone can judge for themselves without going to the link.
Death Panel David. I am disappointed that you have stooped to such lies. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Cantor is Jewish by the way so the lady can’t be too exclusive. It is an interesting phrase to choose. It would raise my eyebrows if I were in the room. I wouldn’t put too much into it though. If it were a prepared statement and not an off the cuff remark, I would wonder more about it. Anyone who speaks enough says something stupid.
I am off to find the great green hope to save the NASA Mars mission.
You’re right, DD. David is a blatant and willful liar. Furthermore, his website was used to try to out Kavips with his full endorsement. Kavips hasn’t been heard from since, but we still have repub david’s nonsense here.
Call them what you want whether that is death panels, care standards boards, rationing boards, or health care commissars. I choose not to use the term Death Panel because that is a loaded phrase, but I have no objection if you use it.
In both the Senate and House bills voted out of committee there are boards which will try to find cost cutting and determine what procedures will normally be covered. They are essentially one measure used to ration care. That may or may not be a death panel depending upon the composition. We already have various decision makers but they are constrained by lack of concentration of power. They can’t get too far out of the norm. These bills would change that.
The fact is someone as rich as Kennedy would be ok. It is the rest of us who need to be mindful.
David,
Do you and your wife have a living will? Because, seriously, that’s what we’re talking about.
David gets it wrong about Kennedy . . . Kennedy had gov’t healthcare, so he’d be better off than us.
The rich, well the rich always have advantages that you and I don’t have.
Death panels, illegal wars, they’re just words.
Huckabee would sound reasonable to Delusional David because both of them are comfortable with lying to people in order to justify a political point. And the lie would include the rationing business too.
Shame on all of you. Especially for taking the cheap way out.
I think we exhausted the Kavips issue. The only thing that I will add is that he did not respond to inquiries or offers to reach an accommodation except on another website where he said in a comment that he didn’t care because the Burris piece was wrong. I don’t think that Mr. Burris was wrong. Either way I choose not to care more than he did and risk damaging friendships over something that he publicly said he didn’t care about. If he would have raised a concern, then I would have taken a more active role. As is, I took it as a response to my post on his site and emails that he didn’t care.
If it could be done all over again, I would have had a policy in place. This event was not something I had considered. We are developing one as a team right now. We have people who think none is necessary and those who want the strictest of policies including bans. We will announce one before Mike Castle decides on his future. I am just not happy with some of the aftermath. It is like getting sucked into a storm which overtakes you from nowhere. I am an issues guy not a political warrior. This state is too small to let things get personal.
That is my last word on this, I think.
Read the Dodd bill Cass.
I have read all of the bills. Which is more than you can say.
And you are still lying about what these bills say.
Which, of course, you know. Because you are never able to defend your position with anything other than Read the Bill. If all you have are Glen Beck talking points, then you are lying to people.
Adding — just like that huckster Huckabee.
While we are talking about being offended, I will add that the attacks on Dave personally offended me. They were attacks on his person, his business, and his weight. I considered those distasteful enough to be disgusted by them. It all needs to stop. If the same type of attacks were made on someone’s race, gender, or sexual orientation, everyone would have been mad. I for one do consider attacks on a person’s weight to be acceptable. Civility should be a two way street.
If you had read them, you would not have been saying what you did. It is not hidden. You are either exaggerating or you have poor comprehension of mind boggling legislation. Tell me what the Coburn/Ryan and Bennett/Wyden bills say then. I can. I have perused the top eight bills including the single payer bill and read analysis on them from various sources including the Kaiser Family Foundation.
We have so many posts on the substance of health reform that I don’t understand your attitude that we just have talking points from anyone. Sure we share them to because they are news, but most of them are original excerpts or top rated analysis.
And the Kaiser Family Foundation does not find death panels or rationing.
The only people providing analysis on death panels or rationing are the people providing you your talking points. There is no rational read of any of those bills that gets you to either of those things.
Which is how I know you haven’t read them. And if I was really wrong on this you would actually point to the places in the bill that would prove it. But you can’t. All of that page number crap ginned up by the folks bamboozling you has already been quite thoroughly debunked. So to keep on repeating that is to continue to lie to people.
So if you want to keep lying, go right ahead. Just know that no one here is buying the lies, ok?
AGAIN, David, do you and your wife have a living will?
We have loving wills which direct that all available life saving measures be used.
I can’t blame David. With all the lies that he has told and all the killing and torture he has promoted, he must be terrified to face the final judgement that he so fervently claims to believe in.
Isn’t it interesting, Cassandra how all these Republicans swear up and down the bills say this or that but can never provide a link to the actual bill to prove their allegations.
They can’t link to the bill — we’ve already debunked all of the stupidity they tried to link to it. The people who need to read the bill are those who keep repeating the stuff that Dick Armey and friends ginned up to scare the pants off of folks. Unfortunately, the intersection between the people who are first to the jingoistic American independence meme and the people who are delighted to be lied to by their media and leadership is pretty damn big.
We have loving wills which direct that all available life saving measures be used.
Guess science trumps god’s will. And, please read up on living wills (your ignorance is showing). All life saving measures are used.