Welcome to your Monday open thread. It’s another Monday, everyone’s favorite day of the week. What’s on your mind today? Share your thoughts below.
DougJ at Balloon Juice finds the “Worst Argument Ever” against health care reform. It comes from the NYT’s Russ Douthat.
I’ve been trying to stay off the Chunky Bobo tip, but I read this earlier today and was so struck by the awfulness of the argument that I can’t stop thinking about it:
This is true on all the great issues of the day. No matter how many lives may be saved or lost because of health care policy, no lives will be saved forever, and every gain will be an infinitely modest hedge against the wasting power of disease and death. No matter the wisdom of our politicians or the sagacity of their economic advisors, no policy course can guarantee universal wealth or permanent economic growth. And no matter the temperature of our discourse, the state of our gun laws, or the quality of our mental health care, nothing human beings do can prevent the occasional madman from shooting up a crowded parking lot.
So we just fucking give up? We can’t all live forever so why does it matter what kind of health care we have?
This kind of reasoning is truly beneath contempt. When Erick Erickson writes that Obamacare will lead to death panels, I think he’s an idiot but maybe I should think, hey, at least we’re on the same side in terms of thinking that it would be very bad if people were being arbitrarily put to death…unlike Douthat who seems to think, eh, we all die anyway so why get upset?
Well, it is creative. You know that saying “technically true but collectively complete nonsense?” That sentiment applies here.
How many things does Clarence Thomas have to do to get impeached? He lied during his confirmation hearing. He also “forgot” to report his wife’s income in his disclosures. His wife, you know, benefited from unlimited donations resulting from the Citizens United decision with her Tea Party group.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife’s income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday.
Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed.
Will Thomas just ignore this like he does all criticism or will he have to answer?