If Max Baucus Has His Way, I’m Joining the Racists – I Mean, Teabaggers

By now it is common knowledge that Blue Dog Montana Democrat Senator Max Baucus is a kept man, a lap dog of the health care lobby.

“In the past six years, nearly one-fourth of every dime raised by Baucus, D-Mont., and his political-action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical-supply firms, health-service companies and other health professionals. These donations total about $3.4 million, or $1,500 a day, every day, from January 2003 through 2008.”
– The Montana Standard, June 14, 2009

With Baucus’ bill finally emerging from the Senate Finance Committee, we are learning he intends to carve chunks off of Medicare, reduce aid to people struggling with health care premiums, and force everyone into the private insurance system by levying fines for those unwilling or unable to buy in. How that’s going to work, I cannot say. If you can’t afford insurance, you can’t afford a fine for not having it, either.

Not only would all this be a total betrayal of any half-ass attempt at improvement President Obama may have intended for our dilapidated health care system, but it would be a total give-away to the very pirates who have ruined the system in the first place: the same interests whose lobbyists have been dumping money into Baucus’ campaign coffers for the past six years.

Preamble to the Capitalist Constitution

We the Corporations of the United States, in Order to dominate a more profitable Union, establish Monopoly, insure domestic Subsidiaries, provide for the golden Parachute, promote Warfare in general, and secure the Blessings of Opulence to ourselves and our Prosperity, do highjack and subvert this Constitution for the United States of America.

How Does Freedom Work?

Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks is a corporate-funded “grassroots” lobbying group that astroturfs members of Congress and is responsible for, among other things, the Tea Party movement we saw last April. They have begun deploying their mindless (and, no doubt, unwitting) minions to descend on congressmen at town hall meetings, shouting down the “socialist” health-care agenda of the “Democrat” party, filled with a new vigor inspired by a recently leaked document that tells them “Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half”, “Be Disruptive Early And Often,” and “Try To ‘Rattle Him,’ Not Have An Intelligent Debate.”

Back to the Stone Age

Really? Is this how stupid the right wing echo chamber is? Climate change deniers hit more new lows in this outrageous CNBC clip. Not only does Dennis Kneale have no clue who his guest Chris Hayes is (research? that’s for elitist leftists!), he coins a whole slew of new grade-school put-downs for environmentalism. When did CNBC become the Fox News of money talk? Total garbage.

Bush to Anti-Abortion Terrorists: “Go For It!”

A recent post at Think Progress notes that the Bush Department of Justice failed to enforce laws designed to keep anti-abortion protesters from obstructing work at health clinics.

Between 2000 and 2008, the National Abortion Federation recorded 3,291 acts of violence against abortion providers and “at least 17 cases of ‘extreme’ violence against abortion providers in the United States, such as arson, stabbing and bomb attacks.” However, the Bush Administration’s Department of Justice “prosecuted only 11 individuals for any acts of violence against abortion clinics or providers.”

So, big shocker that hard-line pseudo-Christian wackos would think that vigilante “justice” might be justified. The Bushies didn’t bother changing Roe v. Wade (even though they had full control of the House, the Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court for a while there), but they did tell the confused far-right militant activist weirdos to go ahead and have a free-for-all on women’s protected rights.

Letter to Tom Perriello

Dear Representative Perriello,

As a proud long-time resident of Virginia’s 5th District and one who loudly backed your campaign and cheered your victory last November, I am somewhat disheartened by your new television ad campaign. While the ad itself is upbeat and admirable, I couldn’t help but notice it was paid for by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC).

Are we to gather from this that your health care-related legislative decisions will be made for you by one of the more questionable (and, unfortunately, powerful) lobbying concerns in the U.S.? Is it safe to assume that you would never sponsor a single payer health care option for the American taxpayer? If this is the case, then in the future I will certainly consider a candidate who will put the people’s needs before campaign contributions.

Christian Murder, Inc.

There are all kinds of right-wing knuckle-draggers I can’t for the life of me fathom, but the anti-choice crowd is definitely the lowest. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Claiming that Jesus declared life begins at conception (he didn’t), they humiliate women making very hard choices, harass doctors performing desperately needed services, legislate clinics almost out of existence, and occasionally, assassinate a person many consider a hero.

single payer palmed

It breaks my mind the control corporate America exerts over the U.S. Congress. At a time when polls show that 60% of both the American public and health care professionals desire an effective single-payer health care plan that cuts the profiteers (insurance and pharmaceutical cabals) out of the loop, Senator Max Baucus’ hearings have no single-payer representatives. The fact that the single payer option isn’t even being voiced raises hard questions about who’s really in charge here. (HINT: It ain’t you unless you own a huge company, hide from taxes and keep all your money in the Caymans.)

party?

more like confused grudgefuck…..

I’m sorry, I was spacing out for a second there.

I have every reason, having just returned from “The Dead” at John Paul Jones Arena, Charlottesville (our arena is named after the bass player for Led Zeppelin? Can I get a “FUCK YEAH!?”), following a rigorous afternoon trying to figure out what the hell the “tea partiers” were talking about in the Downtown Pavillion,…. and well,

I’m a CONFUSED LITTLE AMERICAN!

You call that a party?

Rick Santelli started a real shit storm when he announced from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that he didn’t want to bail out errant mortgage holders and was instead contemplating a “tea party” in Chicago. Since that day, Republican nit-wits have been coming out of the woodwork, including useless windhole Michelle Malkin, “Contract with Fellatio” Newt Gingrich, and the Howard Beale of the new world, Glenn Beck. (who lends new meaning to the term “vapid.”)