Definition of Batshit Crazy Wingnuts

What you are about to see is a video of Congressional Rep. Jean Schmidt, Republican from Ohio, when she (as Fox News and CNN did) initially thought that the individual mandate on the Affordable Care Act was struck down by the Supreme Court. Hold on to your seats.

 

This is an elected representative acting like a spoiled child with Tourette Syndrome in public based on what she thought was a decision in favor of her ideology. I wish (and I hope someone has video out there) that we could have seen her reaction when she found out she was wrong. Did she run down the street tearing her hair out? Did she repeatedly slam her head against a wall? Did she self-immolate?

And she wasn't the only one. It seems that other Republican and conservative politicians, talking heads, pundits, bloggers and tweeters were apoplectic and hyperbole doesn't even begin to describe their reaction.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to "repeal Obamacare on Day One" of his presidency, as has Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Radio host Michael Savage blamed Chief Justice Roberts' decision on his epilepsy medication.

Rush Limbaugh claimed "a giant, total fraud was perpetrated on this country." I don't remember such a reaction to Citizens United.

Indiana  Congressman Mike Pence compared the expansion of health care coverage to millions of Americans to the biggest terrorist attack on American soil. Yes, 9/11. Seriously.

Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro likened the ruling to the Dred Scott decision. You know, the 1850s ruling that stated people of African descent were property whether or not they were slaves. And he ended his tweet (yes, he tweeted that) with "This is the end of America as we know it. No exaggeration." Nope. No exaggeration there!

And you have your usual, standard fare racist tweets; a self avowed Christian asking why they should pay for some "dumb nigger['s]" insurance, and one gem blaming "that nigger Coonance Thomas" for the Supreme Court's decision, even though Thomas was one of four who dissented. Classy.

This is what we find not only from fringe wingnuts, but actual mainstream and in some cases duly elected wingnuts. Is mental health covered under Obamacare?

VERY LARGE Pants On Fire

Via PolitiFact:

...Having endorsed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, [New Jersey Governor Chris] Christie has been addressing what he considers illegitimate comparisons between Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts and the national health care reform led by President Barack Obama...

"...ninety-three percent of the people in Massachusetts had private insurance then and have private insurance now. That’s not what’s gonna happen under Obamacare. It’s gonna be a government takeover of health care."

PolitiFact previously addressed the "government takeover of healthcare" talking point as its 2010 Lie of the Year.

Dumbass Quote of the Day

...when you find out we're being sent to Libya to use our treasure and American lives there, maybe there's intention to so deplete the military that we're going to need that presidential reserve officer commissioned corps and non-commissioned corps that the president can call up on a moment's notice involuntarily, according to the Obamacare bill.

~Louie Gohmert (R-Wingnutville) on the House floor March 30th, 2011

Yes, you read that correctly. It's not an April Fool's joke. Gohmert thinks that the Affordable Care Act creates a private army for the President to call up at any time. Maybe if Gohmmert could read, and actually looked through the "2,800 page bill" as he incessantly reminds us, he'd know that what that provision in the bill does is create a corp of public health workers to react to disasters. But why bother reading a bill you have no intention of voting in favor of anyway?

As TPM notes...

Some on the far-right believe the health care law creates a private army for President Obama to call up and train on U.S. citizens. What it really does is make good on a plan first envisioned by Bush HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson in the wake of the September 11 attack to create a Ready Reserve Corps of several thousand public health professionals -- nurses, doctors -- that can be called up to treat people in the wake of an epidemic or a disaster like Hurricane Katrina.

Gohmert gave credence to the theory on the House floor, with an addendum. The administration's Libya operation is actually a false flag, to draw down the country's military reserves, and give Obama the excuse he needs to call up his private army.

This is 9/11 truther-type stuff, on the House floor.

And I thought Michele Bachmann was the stupidest member of Congress. I stand corrected.

Romneycare Architect Blasts Romney

From the "No Shit, Sherlock" annals of GOP politics, M.I.T. economist Jonathan Gruber called Mitt Romney's loud noises about repealing the Obama Administration's Affordable Care Act "largely political."

For the federal law, "Massachusetts absolutely was the model," Gruber said. "It would have been much harder if we didn't have a working example to show that it worked."
 ..."Romney likes to brag he did it without raising taxes, but he doesn't mention that the feds paid for half of it," Gruber said, referring to $400 million in unused Medicaid funds that Massachusetts had to spend or else return to Washington.

It also didn't hurt that in 2006, Massachusetts already had the lowest proportion of residents without health insurance of any state, 7.7 percent compared to 14.8 percent nationwide.
"It was cheaper because we had fewer people to cover," said Gruber, who is on the board of the state's health insurance purchasing exchange.
The exchange, along with the individual mandate and subsidies to low-income people who can't afford health insurance, are at the heart of both the Massachusetts and national plans -- another key similarity, Gruber said.
"The basic framework is identical," he said. "The details differ."

Mitt, just say "oops" and get out.

White House White Boards are so cool

POSTED BY JHW22

Brain Dump

POSTED BY JHW22

OK, so I've been away for a while and that last post felt good. But I need to get a few things out that aren't really post-worthy. More reflection and curiosity than anything deep and thoughtful:

I fear I am inadvertently raising a Republican. My child hates change. He likes the Christmas tree but is mad that I moved a bookshelf to put the tree up. He hates when I change throw pillows. He hates the new toothpaste. He falls apart over transitions. He falls into ritualistic OCD. SEE! He's a Republican. What am I doing wrong? ;)

Why did Bristol Palin drive to LA for DWTS? Her mom flies all over the country on private jets and she can't bother to send her kid to LA on a plane? Is it so she could have a "truck" in LA? Or was it just for a story? And really, a truck? Who is she? Scott Brown?

Did people call Laura Bush a fascist for encouraging parents to read to their children? No. So why can't Michelle Obama encourage healthy eating and *gasp* exercise without being labeled a Nazi? I have a friend in a small red-state town who seriously fell into the trap of blaming Michelle Obama for the cafeteria menu changing to things her kid hates. The whole town is in an uproar over Michelle Obama personally changing every elementary school menu in the country. Yet, I don't hear them yelling at Rachel Ray for doing the same thing. Shame on that hyperactive speed-cooker for trying to discourage crappy eating habits. Personal freedom means being able to raise an obese child if a parent chooses. Don't tread on them and don't make them use a treadmill, damn it.

Wikileaks: Someone needs to plug that leak. Transparency is one thing. Theft is another. And really, it pisses me off that it's not even an American who has single-handedly decided what to do with our documents.

I cheer each time a judge determines that the health care law isn't unconstitutional.

The DADT study is exactly what I thought it was going to be: a review of what the effects of repeal will be and how to move forward. I wish people like Rachel Maddow and Bill Press, etc, etc, would have realized that sooner rather than acting as if it were a survey about whether to repeal. They really ranted about a lot of nonsense. Much Ado About Nada.

I like Secretary Gates.

I think I'll be writing another Palin post soon. Trying to figure out how to write something thorough and organized. I tend to lose my mind when thinking about her and I want to be clear and linear and make relevant connections. Trying to manage that when discussing the walking chaos factory is hard.

Health Care Reform Works

POSTED BY JHW22

Three years ago we paid $230/month for my son and my private health insurance plan. Today we pay $411/month. When I signed up for the plan, I put money aside each month to save for the deductible. We paid out-of-pocket for each appointment. In two years we have spent nearly $10,000 in premiums and appointments. The insurance company has covered $600 in covered immunizations (which I imagine they are subsidized for in some way). Me = $10,000. Them = $600. I haven't been able to save toward the deductible in two years.

This morning my son was diagnosed with the all-too-common -- and COMPLETELY surprising to us -- peanut allergy.

This afternoon I called my insurance company to see about changing plans to one that makes more sense and is more affordable. I can lower my monthly costs by raising my deductible and going to a co-pay plan. But because we are existing customers they don't have to cover preventive care.

So, using the handy government health reform site, I was able to compare companies and plans and I am about to embark on the tedious application for new insurance at a new company where I WILL get preventative for my son and me and where my son's allergy can't be excluded from his care.

We will save almost $400 in preventative appointment costs alone. We will save more going to a co-pay plan and raising the deductible. Now I will actually be able to save money for the deductible again.

So I wanted to say, thank you to President Obama, the Democrats in Congress and all the Democrats who encouraged progress. We didn't get everything but we got enough to make this mom feel better about tomorrow.


EDITOR'S NOTE: As JHW22 pointed out on her Facebook page, there's also this:

Beck Reveals Himself To Be Most Despicable Human Being On Earth

Glenn Beck thinks health care reform is bad. Because of government involvement. Because it's "enslaving the American public." Oh, and by the way, slavery was not really evil until the government got involved.



Besides being completely wrong and just pulling things out of his ass about the history of slavery, he's equating slavery to participating in health care reform. This guy will say anything, ANYTHING, to put his audience into a frenzy. And the rubes who listen to his daily insane rants take it at face value, without fact checking or reasonable analysis.

Now call me crazy, but there's got to be some kind of blowback from these abhorrent statements. If not from the sane people of the world, there must be at least one of his listeners who'd think to question Beck's deranged train of thought. At least one, no?

If you're a Beck fan, I'd ask you to take a step back and seriously question what it is that makes you follow someone who is obviously a narcissistic, sociopathic, financial opportunist. Glenn Beck is clearly a confidence man.

Must Reads

Bob Cesca: Despite America's Temper Tantrum, It's Still a Center-Left Nation

Paul Krugman: I’m Ellsworth Toohey!

Sean Cockerham: Senate Candidate Miller Explains Views on Federal Spending

The Rude Pundit: Random Observations About the House GOP's "Pledge to America"

Gail Collins: Unhold Us, Senators

JHW22 recommends...

Summary of New Health Care Reform Law

FactCheck.Org: FactChecking ‘The Pledge’ - Republicans' "Pledge to America" falls short on some of its facts.

President Obama's Weekly Address - August 7, 2010

Medicare Officially Safer After Health Reform

Why I Love Rep. Anthony Weiner

Weiner: “I follow Twitter for the Tea Party and just show up to fuck with them... No, I don’t do that. I just sit at my desk and they send me talcum powder every couple of weeks.”

Republicans Fighting For The Banks

This is what happens when you let the children sit at the grown up's table. For a year now, we've been hearing about the "Obama bank bailout" (started by Bush if you've forgotten) and how Wall Street was propsering while Main Street suffered. President Obama has even gotten the banks to pay back part if not all of the bailout money, but no matter.

And now that the Obama administration is forging ahead with major financial reform, the GOP is crying foul.

President Barack Obama planned to "turn up the pressure for an overhaul of Wall Street regulations" as he met with congressional leaders this morning, including the Democratic and Republican leaders of both the House and Senate.

The Senate is preparing to take up a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations regimen in less than two weeks. Republican leaders have already promised to reject broad changes proposed by Democrats.

So do the Republicans plan on winning in November on a platform of repealing health care reform and protecting the status quo of the banks and Wall Street? God, I hope so.

Health Care Reform: The Morning After

~Submitted by special guest contributor, Barbara O'Brien of The Mahablog fame.

Many politicians and pundits warned us that the health care reform (HCR) legislation that just became law will destroy America. Government bureaucrats will take over health care decisions, we were told. The old and infirm would be hauled away by death panels. Everything about the way we receive our medical care will change, and change drastically, they said.

Medicare recipients have been frightened by stories that their benefits will be cut. Middle-age people are worried they will lose their jobs when the law’s dreaded regulations, or taxes, or maybe regulations with taxes, would destroy their employers’ businesses.

The truth is, very little will change for most people. If you were insured by employee benefits before HCR, you will be insured by exactly the same policy in exactly the same way after HCR. You will have access to the same doctors on the same terms. “Government bureaucrats” will no more be involved in your health care than they were before.

And the same is true of Medicare, which of course is a government program, although many of the people who opposed the HCR bill don’t seem to know that.

Here are the “cataclysmic” changes to health care that are now in effect, or which will go into effect within the next six months for people who are already in group insurance plans:

• The law says you can’t lose your insurance coverage because you get sick. Before, in many states, if you were stricken with a severe illness such as mesothelioma cancer that would be expensive to treat, your insurer could use just about any excuse to cancel your coverage. That is over.

• HCR has ended lifetime limits on coverage. As long as you are receiving medical care, your insurer pays the bills.

• Your children can be covered on your existing policy until they are 26 years old.

• In six months, insurers cannot refuse to insure people under the age of 19 because of “pre-existing conditions.” This provision will go into effect for everyone in 2014.

And if you are on Medicare, you will be asked to struggle with the following:

• You get a free annual checkup.

• The co-pays and deductibles on many preventive care services are eliminated.

• If you are in the Medicare D “doughnut hole,” doughnut hole,” doughnut hole,” doughnut hole,” you will get a $250 rebate check in a few weeks. The hole itself will be closed gradually and will be gone by 2020.

But what about all those terrible regulations and taxes that are about to drive businesses out of business? Um, there really isn’t much to report. Oh, wait, here’s one — a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps will go into effect July 1. That’s about it.

However, beginning this year a tax credit will be available for some small businesses to help provide insurance coverage for employees.

Soon the politicians and pundits will start trying to frighten you about the provisions that will go into effect after this year. I assure you they are about as scary as the provisions that go into effect this year, but I will discuss them in a follow-up post.

— Barbara O’Brien

Don't You Love A President with A Sense of Humor?

...and perspective?



(H/T Cesca)

Don't Fuck With Kathy

If there were any incentive for a public option or Medicare buy-in, this is it.

"The American people debated and discussed health insurance reform for more than a year. Congress and the President have acted. Now is not the time to search for non-existent loopholes that preserve a broken system." 

~ Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a letter to top insurance lobbyist Karen Ignagni after stories emerged of insurance companies searching for loopholes to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.

There Is No Equivalency

Eric Cantor is a douchebag of epic proportions.

While criticizing Democrats who've been the targets of vandalism, assault and domestic terrorism claiming they are "dangerously fanning the flames by suggesting that these incidents be used as a political weapon," simply for acknowledging they happened, said douchebag politicized the bullet that was shot into his window. There's only one problem: the bullet wasn't shot into his window.

Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor's office had been randomly fired skyward.

...In a news release, Richmond police said that the bullet had been fired into the air early Tuesday. It hit the front window of a building that houses Cantor's campaign office as it fell to back earth at a sharp angle.

So he criticizes Democrats for publicizing the acts of violence... while publicizing his own event, which turned out not to be a direct act upon his office.

There is no equivalency to this incident and shattering windows with rocks. There is no equivalency to this incident and being spat upon. There is no equivalency to this incident and deliberately cutting someone's gas line whose address you got from a right wing blog.

If Cantor gets death threats in his Virginia district because he's Jewish, it's a different matter than getting death threats because you voted to give more Americans access to health care. Those are two very different scenarios.

But douchebags wouldn't know that. Or won't acknowledge it.

Adding... Perhaps Eric Cantor should look into stricter gun laws that would prevent incidents like his accidental bullet through a window to occur. What do you think are the chances?

GOP Attorneys General File Suits Against Health Care Law

Breaking News from MSNBC: Thirteen Republican attorneys general are filing lawsuits against the individual mandate. This is going to get interesting.

The lawsuit — which names the U.S. departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury and Labor — was filed immediately after the president's signing ceremony Tuesday. Attorneys general from Florida, South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota, Louisiana, Idaho, Washington and Colorado are joining in. Other GOP attorneys general may join the lawsuit later or sue separately.

The issue at the heart of the lawsuit is the constitutionality of the so-called "individual mandate," which requires most Americans to have an insurance plan or else pay a federal penalty.

HISTORY

President Obama signed major health care legislation into law on Tuesday.

Keith's Baaa-aaaack!

After being away for three weeks due to the death of his father, Keith Olbermann was back with a vengeance with a special comment on the Republican's Party's failure to stop health care and their suicide run if they continue to appeal to the fringiest of the fringe.

Welcome back, Keith.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Who's Waterloo?

Much was made, and rightly so, of Senator Jim DeMint's comment about the failure of health care reform as President Obama's Waterloo. They wanted to "break him," proving that the defeat of the administration was first and foremost on the minds of the GOP, and not about the welfare of the American people.

Well, someone on their side happens to disagree. Just as the failure of health care reform may have been Obama's Waterloo, the passage of it may signal the Republican Party's own demise.

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. [...]

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. [...]

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

Boehner and McConnell bet 'NO' and lost. Instead of being part of the process, they put their hopes on fringiest of the fringe and a Tea Party revolt, preferring to let Michele Bachmann and Steve King lead. They delayed for a year and it still passed.

And as David Frum notes, the only winners here are Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Fox News.

(H/T HuffPo)