Another thing that really pisses me off about this jihad against Rahm Emanuel is that the message it implicitly sends is that Obama is not calling the shots- he’s just Rahm’s puppet. That is explicitly a Republican frame- that Obama is weak and an empty suit.
Idiots. We’ve got the Democrats so mad at Republican obstructionism that we actually got 58 and two independents to vote for HCR reform, even bipartisanship fetishists like Evan Bayh are spitting mad, and the left wing of the party ant to do whatever they can to destroy Obama because he hasn’t done everything they want in 11 months.
And you can not convince me that a lot of this isn’t just the same old PUMA bullshit. BTW- has Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild vented about the public option yet?
mr. whipple
Me, neither.
Jamie
Nah. Clearly, we need interparty couch-shitting. That’s what we’re good at!
If Hamster can’t crap on Rahm’s couch and be cheered for it, the Republicans win! Er, the one’s she’s not working with, that is.
seabe
And people wonder why the Democrats cannot govern.
Holding feet to the fire is reasonable, what Hamsher is doing is treasonous.
Did you hear that Bernie Sanders is a corporate sell out?
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/23/vt-voters-to-bernie-sanders-stand-up-for-whats-right-or-risk-losing-your-seat/
Joshua Norton
John – if you really want to change direction of the conversation, why not do a ‘decade in review’ of all your top stories, both from the right and left. That should start a food fight to last us into the next decade.
Merry, merry.
Elisabeth
Why should she? I’m sure she pays much less in taxes than she should and she gets her healthcare in London where, although she can afford to pay for the best, she wonder of wonders doesn’t have to.
jacy
I like Rahm Emanuel, and you can’t convince me otherwise. So screw all the micro-managers, come back in 3 years with your whiny asses. So there.
Just Some Fuckhead
I dunno. I’m willing to entertain the possibility Rahm is a douchebag and deserves every bad thing that comes his way. Not saying it isn’t a conspiracy, so please don’t savage me, Obots.
asiangrrlMN
@jacy: I like him, too. I think he is teh hawtness. And, happy birthday early.
Martin
@jacy:
I do too. He’s a West Wing character after all. Well, so is Obama…
gnomedad
@Joshua Norton:
Bah. This feels even less like the end of a decade than 1999 did. 2010, bitches!
— Pedant and proud of it
aimai
Oh, well, no. I’ve always hated Rahm. I hate him Qua jewish progressive and because I think he’s a corporatist stooge and not very good at his job. This is not PUMA shit at all. Most of the people I know who hate Rahm hated him from the get go, long before he held this position, because they identified him (quite rightly) as part of the corporatist wing of the Democratic party, as well as an absurdly pro-israeli voice. I could have forgiven all of that if he were good at his job but-again like a lot of progressives–I don’t think he is. I think he’s *terribly* at getting anyone to do anything they weren’t already going to do. That is, he’s responsible for the Blue Dogs in Congress and he can’t get them to act as other than Blue Dogs. So who needs him? He’s no magic worker. And he goes out of his way to attack and demean the progressives in Congress. That’s as much a republican trope as any.
Obama has an incredibly significant “narrative” about himself as above the fray, a peacemaker, centrist, etc..etc…etc… Rahm was explicitly brought in to do the dirty work that Obama–or any president–prefers to leave to his subordinates. And Rahm can’t even manage to go on TV without flipping the bird to some of Obama’s supporters without, apparently, carrying out what Obama says his objectives are. I don’t think Obama is Rahm’s puppet. I think Obama keeps Rahm around because they are friends and Rahm acts out what Obama only dreams of giving himself permission to act out. He’s Obama’s hatchet man.
So I’d like to see him go because I think he’s a lousy politician with lousy instincts, bad friends, corporatist leanings, anti progressive and too pro-israel. I’d like to see him replaced by someone who wouldn’t be acting out all over the place but instead be sucessfully carrying out Obama’s agenda which, last time I checked, did not include pissing off his supporters.
aimai
MikeJ
I think it’s entirely possible that Rahm is a douchebag AND all kinds of awesome too.
I like him no matter how many so called fauxgressives insist on pushing the Protocols of the Elders of Rahm.
Elisabeth
Not **of** Rahm but about him. Still cracks me up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdphzxz64BY
beltane
Jane Hamsher uses all the wingnut framing. And she will continue using wingnut framing as she unites with real live wingnuts who want to completely eliminate Medicaid and SCHIP, because when the young, the sick and the poor are left with nothing, then Miss Jane will feel vindicated.
With “advocates” like Hamsher, who needs Republicans.
John Cole
@aimai: They’re calling for the head of Bernie Sanders. Mr. Rogers would not be able to soothe these Obama “supporters.”
K. Grant
Reading the comments over at Firedoglake just now, and I am stunned at how many of the posters are celebrating this turn of events – they just lurve the fact that their ‘Jane’ has the courage to make common cause with Grover Norquist to bring down Rahm, and not realizing that Norquist simply wants to watch the Democrats implode. These are some seriously screwed-up people, and I have no idea what benefit that they think will come of this knavery.
Many of them are simply trying to figure out who they can run against Obama in 2012. My god, these people are certifiable. Do they want Republicans in office for their rest of their lives? Do they not see how disastrous this is?
And my goodness, TaosJohn, do you need a few boxes of kleenex for all of your efforts at FDL? A smoke perhaps? Was it good? Yikes.
mr. whipple
And I should add that another component may not be Puma-ism, but rather Obama wasn’t their first choice in the primaries. You see a lot of this in comments at some blogs, “we tried to tell you so” that began even before the inauguration, and every day they search until the find something to continue in the same vein, ” I told you so.”
Then you have bloggers that want to see Obama do a certain thing, say economic or jobs-related. You can tell these people are really, really smart. Self-evident smart. And if Obama didn’t do what they want, you get an endless series of ‘I knew this was going to happen’-type posts, usually accompanied by a sigh that the White House must have missed their brilliant post(s).
I don’t see the point of really, really smart people continue to point out how really, really prescient they were and posting endless examples same. We get it, already.
Ana Gama
@seabe:
This is just insane! Who are they gonna get to the left of Bernie Sanders?
beltane
@John Cole: Hamsher’s only allies in the Senate are Republicans, who share her desire to kill the bill and weaken the president. I do not understand how anyone can not question her motives at this point.
And the silence of the GOS front pagers on this is starting to piss me off, as the FDL gang has been bullying and troll rating anyone who disagrees with her highness.
BR
When Franken and Sanders are called sellouts and Kucinich is out there repeating GOP “rationing” memes, you know the nutty wing of progressivism are at it again.
We really need to do an Alinsky on this: mock them, rather than being pissed. If I had photoshop I’d put together the DHS loony Obama sellout threat scale that we talked about yesterday:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2009/09/dhs-threat1.jpg
atariage
Um… no, the concern is not that Obama is a puppet. The concern is that what Rahm is doing is precisely what Obama wants to be done and that having Rahm do it gives some (inexplicable) cover as if the President wouldn’t know about it.
The former concern was understandable with W Bush, there was something that ultimately became unhinged with him and it’s as if he just gave up. But with Obama, who I don’t think is truly weak or a fool in any way, the latter is what is most likely to be true.
That doesn’t make people feel any better, of course. Worse, in fact. Because that means that these actions are the clear desire of the President. Which does, in fact, differ from the promise. And not by a little bit, either.
PeakVT
@seabe: You wouldn’t know Sanders is a sellout from this video.
Also, what aimai said, too.
carlos the dwarf
fuckin’ wolverines.
+3
stevie314159
Maybe if we’re really clever we can primary Obama in 2012, and make sure that the Dems start to lose the black vote too.
WOLVERINES!
Oops..wrong blog :)
P.S. I hear there’s a whitey tape too.
beltane
@K. Grant: The craziness of some on the left went unnoticed during the Bush years because most of us were focused on Bush. Now the lunacy is laid bare for all to see.
BR
@beltane:
Jed’s hitting back tomorrow at GOS.
Annie
Republicans will sit back and enjoy Christmas while they watch progressives destroy Obama from within…
kth
No, but next best thing (or better thing): the No Quarter blog is on the bandwagon in earnest.
mr. whipple
I don’t think they care. They are just full of rage, and they get whipped up post after post, and spend contless hours with others of like mind, all venting in an ever-increasing, never-ending tornado of kook feedback loop.
Santiago
What the…???
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/12/22/rock-the-vote-says-teen-abstinence-transphobia-will-win-health-care-reform/#more-8054
Tomlinson
Oh my. Any doubt I might have had that the far left is as whacked as the teabaggers….well…all doubt is gone.
Whatever else Rahm may be, Rahm is a lightning rod for Obama. Like any good lightning rod, he’s taking the strikes and directing them to ground, relatively harmlessly.
Or maybe he’s more like the chaff that a fighter releases to confuse a missile. In any case, the more noise around him, the better for Obama.
And I would imagine that, at some point, Obama will can his ass to win some political points, and that is all planned out.
Just Some Fuckhead
Oh noes, someone is doing something I disagree with. This is the end of the world. We’re all doomed.
TaosJohn
Okay, calm down: here’s a real mountain with real snow on it!
[Would that I could require the use of multiple Kleenex boxes. These days a single tissue will do for quite a spell. And John told me to say what I feel, so take this up with him.]
MikeJ
Who was it who came up with the replacement abbreviation for the PUMAs? Someone here today had NOKIAs: None Other the Kucinich Is Alright.
Joshua Norton
@K. Grant: The same thing happened at Americablog. During the last Pres. election John Aravosis got full of himself from being on TV all the time and decided he hated HRC because Bill didn’t kiss his ass enough or something. Suddenly the site became a swampland of freepers linking to Drudge, Wingnut Daily, Redstate and all the rest. Any blog that knocked Clinton got a link.
It was skeevy to be in that sort of company so I left and never looked back. Apparently a lot of others did too because now his site is a sad shell of its former self. FDL will have the same problem soon enough.
PaulW
A lot of this is misdirected anger. The far left wingnuts want to vent at the likes of Lieberman and Nelson and Baucus for their sins against Public Option, but because of the Democrats’ need to hold a supermajority at all costs no one is in a position to inflict damage on them. So FDL and their clan want to aim their venom at those who are shielding them: above all Reid and Rahm.
This is BS.
Firedoglake should be spending more energy fighting against the far right wingnut Teabaggers who are fomenting falsehoods than their own in the D party. Hamsher should be pushing for legislative reform to eliminate the threat of filibuster and bring an end to constant cloture. Instead they are shooting their own.
I’m gonna go herd my cats now. It’s an easier and less destructive task than what FDL is doing now.
General Winfield Stuck
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’s like Beavis and Butthead goes to Rome to save the empire, and just end up making Glen Beck cry.
Tomlinson
Does the corollary apply? If we support healthcare reform, does that mean they will fuck us?
Maybe if they offer to wear diapers or do it in the mens room, we can actually get some republican votes on this bill?
Shalimar
Wow. I thought I was a member of the far left, but I guess I’m not even close compared to the people who are willing to accept Grover Norquist as an ally on anything. I always wondered how the ideological spectrum could wrap around and have people like David Horowitz jumping from one extreme to another. Now it feels like we’re witnessing a live demonstration of that transformation in progress.
Edit: and I’ll add, I’m as pissed off at the corporatists as anyone else. It’s depressing that our entire government is bought and there doesn’t appear to be any way out. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to ally with someone like Norquist, he’s 10 times more crazy and evil than Rahm will ever be.
eastriver
Rahm is a scumbag. And he’s been ineffective. He hasn’t been the ass-kicker he was supposed to be. Other than kicking ass on democrats.
Putting pressure on Rahm isn’t trying to tear down, Obama.
Surely we can all agree with that? Right?
Criticism is a good thing. No one is talking impeach O.
And huzzahs to Jane at FDL for playing tackle, not the 2-hand touch you seem to only be capable of playing, JC.
beltane
@BR: That’s good because all of Wingnut Jane’s “action emails” are cosigned by Kos. At least they were before I unsubscribed from her mailing list.
4tehlulz
TV appearances corrode your soul. Please John, don’t ever be a pundit.
MikeJ
Our scumbag, so it’s fine with me.
So where would you get 60 votes to pass a bill?
mr. whipple
Hey man, we gotta have some standards.
handy
I try to stay out of this mess, I know what we’re all witnessing is the goings on inside the sausage factory, but I have to concur with this:
It’s really simple. Yes Democrats suck. Republicans suck more. Because at least we can pressure Dems to do something about health care. That is a nonstarter for the Repubs and the teabaggers.
Fern
@Joshua Norton:
I spent a little while there this afternoon – first time in a very long while – and was shocked. People who I had once had regard for are singing exactly the same song, and anyone who disagrees is a troll.
I profoundly hope they are overestimating their influence.
Elisabeth
@mr. whipple:
One of the admins at GOS started back in the spring with the “we tried to tell the rest of you idiots” stuff. I lost some respect for him.
Comrade Jake
LMAO!
Fern
@MikeJ:
If he was ineffective, I suspect Obama would have kicked his ass to the curb.
Comrade Jake
If only John Edwards had obtained the Democratic nomination, none of this would have happened my friends!
jacy
@asiangrrlMN:
Thanks!. And hot never never hurts. Neither does cursing like a sailor, in my book. Never trust someone who won’t let loose an impressive stream of expletives if you cross them.
BR
Let’s not forget that the best way of characterizing political spectrums is with more than one dimension. The two dimensional one is the one i usually use:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum
That is you have on one axis liberal/progressive to conservative/reactionary and on another axis you have libertarian to authoritarian.
I think this is one of those situations where while many of us posting here who are reasonable about shit are “far left”, we’re just not in the same place on the other axis as the nutty Hamsherites.
(I think I fall into “left-libertarian”)
handy
@Comrade Jake:
Great News. For John McCain!
General Winfield Stuck
@handy:
This should be the default position for all activism, and work your program to change stuff within these goalposts. You go outside of that, and you end up cutting off nose/face and giving the other side an advantage, which BTW is republicans, lest we forget the past 8 years.
TaosJohn
@K. Grant: Actually, it was good to see someone trying something different. Sure, it sounds crazy, but it beats waving the flag for nothing.
Well see, that doesn’t work for me any more. I don’t see any disaster. Everyone here survived Bush-Cheney. We’ll probably survive Obama. I’m 64 and fed up with the whole thing. I would vote for a pack of rabid wolves if I thought they would REALLY do some good for the American people.
seabe
@eastriver:
Criticism is great, but they’re more or less one step away from impeaching. There’s talk of primary; could be posturing, who knows anymore?
Jane is going on FOX, Jane is giving Orin Hatch attacking points, Jane is getting Chumy with Norquist.
Where does it end? You ask liberals how far they’re willing to compromise, how far is Jane willing to go until she understands that she’s being used like the toolbag that she is?
Steve M. put it nicely:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2009/12/no-jane-question-is-why-did-they-book.html
asiangrrlMN
@gnomedad: Thank you for pointing that out. It irritates me to no end. The decade goes until the end of 2010.
/curmudgeonly grouchiness.
Tomlinson
Dude, this isn’t reality, it’s happyflowerkittyland. In happyflowerkittyland, you start with a completely outrageous negotiating position and your opponent magically folds. Or if that doesn’t happen, you kinda sorta suspend the rules and ram through what you wanted anyway. Then the entire country suddenly sees your point of view and accepts that you were right all along.
You need to go on Fox though. That’s the downside.
Shell
Jeez, just looked in, and judging by the last three threads, I guess we don’t have to worry about John’s good mood anymore.
mcc
So, And Another Thing, what is your response?
@K. Grant: I think there’s kind of a point where you go from “actively healthy internal dissent” to “harmless” to “potential to cause internal splits” to “extremely dangerous” and then back to “kind of just harmless” again. FDL seems to be gradually gliding over the top there. I think anyone who seriously starts talking about primarying, or running third party against, Barack Obama from the left (especially when the great sin justifying this is that he fulfilled a campaign promise and/or achieved a lifelong dream of Ted Kennedy) has kind of removed themselves from the point where any significant group of Democrats would take them seriously enough that they could begin to constitute a threat to anyone. At a certain point the rhetoric gets so extreme that it becomes self-refuting. Once that point is reached continuing to trash them becomes just sort of obsessing.
Martin
We need to liberate TBogg.
General Winfield Stuck
@Martin:
Bring him here, or Cole could start a sister blog with TBogg. Just thinking out loud.
seabe
@Martin:
And David Dayen.
I was so upset when he left Digby’s blog for FDL.
Comrade Jake
@eastriver:
Give them a week.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I’d say that’s Rahmbama’s fault for allowing it to happen. They’re free to go on Meet the Press 400 times in a row and dispel it.
Sorry to break it to y’all, but Rahm and Barack are grownups. If they can’t handle a blogger with a funny haircut then they’re not cut out for the job. Ya think?
Ana Gama
Putting pressure on Rahm is one thing. Partnering with Grover Norquist in requesting a DOJ investigation is quite another. Referring to Grover Norquist as a “conservative head of a transparency foundation” is just plain delusional.
mr. whipple
I think of it more as a circle, which explains how close the 11:59 and 12:01 spots can be.
D-Chance.
So HRC could do a better job with HCR?
Brien Jackson
@mr. whipple:
Just like…talk radio.
Comrade Jake
@TaosJohn:
I don’t know about that. After reading FDL I’m just about convinced that Obama is WORSE THAN BUSH.
Davis X. Machina
Tbogg took the king’s shilling, he fights the king’s war.
I’ve know him for over a decade, from Salon TableTalk in ’98/99… He may not be dead to me, but he’s in danger of falling into a coma to me.
Just Some Fuckhead
@D-Chance.:
Maybe not, but someone’s nuts would be cut. And not her own.
Sly
What I find funny about all this is that they are clearly demonstrating why Obama chose Emanuel in the first place.
“Sure, I’d like to work with you guys. But if you come at me with nonsense in an attempt to completely derail my agenda, you should know I have backup.”
The ignorance lies in the fact that people thought Rahm was just supposed to handle dim-witted conservatives. If people like Jane want to blow up the administration for not being sufficiently pure through a bevy of shitty arguments, Emanuel works just as well against them too.
Which I don’t mind, frankly. You could make the argument that the activist left was lacking leadership over the past decade or so. I wouldn’t fully agree with it, but I understand that it is a common enough meme and I have a rough idea of where it comes from. But assuming that the premise is true, what the activist left does not need are self-absorbed leaders who lie to them for influence or leaders who are too inept to know what their doing.
Which is why I won’t bother thinking about whether Hamsher is doing this for the publicity or she’s simply being stupid. The end result is the same, so I don’t really care.
@MikeJ:
There are certain people who you hate with a blinding passion when they oppose you and who you admire and love when they’re on your side. The only thing this says about them is how effective they are at what they do.
Davis X. Machina
Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Byrd (too old), Clinton…
That’s too ambitious even for the die-hards.
Just Some Fuckhead
He’s making America cool again!
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Obama has surely been a letdown because he wants to give healthcare to 30M people instead of cutting Joe Lieberman’s nuts off.
handy
But do you really want that again? I mean, really?
General Winfield Stuck
@Ana Gama:
Christ almighty. Rahm is a chief of staff for fucks sake, he is not appointed by anyone other than Obama, he is not confirmed by congress, and serves at the presidents pleasure. He is not a fucking bouncer in a bar, or muscle for the mob. He is a GS level management guy that handles the staff at the WH. Sure he has a duel role of working with congress, but going after a presidents COS is insane. He is not responsible for not getting Lieberman’s vote for the PO, and neither is Obama. Someday the stench of Bush’s quasi autocratic dictatorship will fade, but apparently not soon enough.
Maybe we should go after Obama’s office secretary next for not getting Lieberman’s vote
BlizzardOfOz
@seabe
That’s funny, I would have thought mandating private citizens fork over 20% of their income to corrupt multinational corporations would be closer to “treason” than expressing an earnest civic point of view. But I guess you meant treason against the Party, which is apparently higher than country for you, isn’t it?
mr. whipple
@Brien Jackson:
Exactly.
Santiago
@eastriver: Even if I concede that Rahm is a scumbag yada yada…but investigating Rahm ?on Freddie Mac?
Jane’s after Rahm for payback on herding that 60 votes.
BR
@Comrade Jake:
That, right there, is the best description I’ve read.
Bostondreams
@Comrade Jake:
I read through hundreds of the comments on Hamsher’s post. I think the 3rd one in talked about the possibility of this being an opening to impeach Obama. Who needs a week?
seabe
@BlizzardOfOz:
Oh hey look, more distortions and lies to make one’s premise look more appealing than it is.
Jane’s taught you well.
Oh, and as an aside, I’m not a one issue voter, but I am *ahem* a civil libertarian “purist,” and I don’t intend to vote for Obama in 2012 unless he corrects what he has currently wronged with regard to trials in Gitmo. So no, I could give a fuck about the Democratic party.
John Cole
@Comrade Jake: I just stole that and tweeted it.
srv
The John Cole’s of Teh Left are now at war with the Jane Hamsher’s of Teh Real Left and shills to the Corporate Option(TM) and Rahmbiotches.
I’m popping popcorn for the Civil Wars of the left and right in 2010.
Tomlinson
@BlizzardOfOz:
You guys are better at spelling than the teabaggers, that’s a plus.
Comrade Jake
@John Cole:
Wait a minute. You have a twitter page? Where’s that at?
Bostondreams
@Sly:
Like Derek Jeter. Spawn of the devil…but damn I want him on the Sox!
Or like Kevin Youkilis. Angel from Heaven to me.
SenyorDave
Referring to Grover Norquist as a “conservative head of a transparency foundation” is just plain delusional.
Michael Vick ran a training facility for competitive dogs.
Seebach
@aimai: No fan of Rahm, but Hamsher is playing with dangerous fire. Norquist is obviously setting this up as Whitewater II, as Cole has observed. I don’t really think Norquist cares about auditing the fed. His political idol is Lenin, isn’t it?
ds
The PUMA comparison is apt, because they have about the same level of influence.
Progressives are not going after Obama. In the time that Firedoglake can gone apoplectic, Obama’s approval rating among self-described liberals has gone up.
If this bill is killed it’s because Lieberman or some other “centrist” decides to jam the knife in at the last second.
Liberals (at least elected ones) tend not to be sociopathic megalomaniacs, and won’t have the heart to risk blowing up health care reform for 20 years and wrecking Obama’s presidency.
Even Louise Slaughter isn’t saying she’ll actually vote against the bill. Most likely she’s criticizing the Senate bill in an attempt to increase liberal influence in the conference committee.
mr. whipple
We’ll surely run out of either popcorn or money first.
Instead of going broke buying popcorn, I’m trying to think what a Republican would do?
Start a popcorn farm? Nah.
Buy a popcorn farm, get some government subsidies and have some illegal aliens do the work? Possible.
Buy popcorn futures? Intriguing.
Buy some popcorn futures with a popcorn derivative hedge? YES!
Dr. I. F. Stone
Why is everyone acting so very surprised. Everyone in Chicago has known that Rahm was just another thug, even if he did have some brains. Once a thug, always a thug, as former Mayor Richard Daley once bragged.
Gwangung
@Tomlinson: FTW.
Comrade Kevin
@Bostondreams:
Eww, you can keep him. I’d much rather keep Kurt Suzuki.
mcc
@Sly: Yeah, that’s one of the things that’s kinda interesting to me. People demand a Fighter. Just, you know. Not someone who Fights them.
They want an enforcer who keeps people in line and doesn’t brook dissent, but they also want that enforcer to be keeping people in their line. They want there to be solid party unity, but not if that means them being forced to agree with someone else as opposed to the other way around. If they were being forced to agree with others, that’s fascism or something.
And this, y’know, isn’t really much of a surprise. All this is saying is that people want to get everything they want. Why would it make sense for anyone want less? But at some point, you’d think, someone who feels this way would have to kind of think out the consequences of what this does on a large scale. There are like three hundred million people in this country and most of them disagree with each other. So if every single one demands politicians must fight to the bitter end for them and them only then this means basically nothing can get done, ever, because in the best case scenario Congress splits into 4 groups each of which gets 25% of the vote and none of which can support the programs of any of the others. Nobody benefits from that, except people who have an ideological interest in the government not doing anything ever. People like… um… Grover Norquist.
(I feel like this post got a little too abstract somewhere.)
Davis X. Machina
Orville Redenbacher didn’t live to see this day.
Sniff….
joe from Lowell
In addition to the “empty suit” charge against Obama, this wonderful little tale also casts a Jew in the role of scheming, behind the scenes manipulator.
Bostondreams
@Comrade Kevin:
But ‘Suzzzzzz’ is not as much fun to scream as ‘Yoooooouk’!
Plus, all the cool facial hair.
Ana Gama
@General Winfield Stuck:
I screwed up the end of the block quote….you must have replied while I was fixing it.
I truly think Jane is heading around the bend, maybe even off the edge of the Bridge to Nowhere.
Kevin Drum says it’s a scorched earth campaign against the WH. I tend to agree.
mcc
@ds: I don’t think conservatives (or possibly even anyone) have the ability to kill this anymore. We’ve already passed the last cloture vote. Final vote is 7 AM tomorrow morning, and I’m told that’s a 50-vote vote. There will later be a round of conference or conference-like gimmicks and then one more 60-vote cloture vote. But, I’m almost certain, it’s not technically possible for that last cloture vote to kill the bill. Cuz the thing is, technically it’s possible for the House to just pass the Senate bill verbatim and it becomes law. So if the conference somehow sends back something from conference that’s even worse than the bill they’re passing now, or the Senate falls apart and can’t pass whatever comes back from conference at all, as I understand the House basically has the ability as of 7 AM tomorrow to make the bill law entirely on its own. That obviously won’t happen, because it would be stupid. But the bill being killed obviously won’t happen either at this point.
Tomlinson
And the republican party, of course.
Sly
@ds:
If she votes against it, it’ll basically be a Kucinich Nay. In other words, she’ll hold out and vote no once 218 members voted yes. Proving what a progressive champion she is and getting some donations in the process. Huzzah!
BlizzardOfOz
@seabe
Lies and distortions… Like “I didn’t campaign on the public option”?
If you’re a libertarian, why so much teabagger antipathy? Watching the revolting corporate-government circle jerk has me ready to join their bandwagon.
Seebach
If Hamsher doesn’t mind losing friends and incurring hatred, why not go after Lieberman with everything? Like, seriously… everything.
Comrade Jake
Just found Cole’s twitter feed, and it’s hilarious.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake: Well, he ain’t giving ’em health care, for starters, he’s forcing ’em to buy insurance, something he appeared to oppose during the primary and for which I supported him. He also made a lot of rousing speeches about taking back Washington from special interests but that appears to have been so much hot air as well.
But, tell ya what Jake, you can continue to be a little bitch because we aren’t clapping louder and I’ll continue to disagree. If you don’t like it, you can pie me.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ana Gama:
Yes, I saw that. And gathered from the rest of the comment that wasn’t what you meant. I just used your quote as a springboard for my little rant. Not directed at you :-)
Seebach
@BlizzardOfOz: How many teabaggers do you know, personally? I know several. Let’s talk about their motivations, dear.
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Jake:
Well please give the link, I wanna see it too:)
Just Some Fuckhead
Did I count two subtle accusations of anti-semitism now for thinking Rahm’s a douchebag? This is almost like having an I/P flamewar. Good stuff.
seabe
@BlizzardOfOz:
Did I say I was a libertarian? Perhaps you missed the qualifier: “civil.” You know, like giving the detainees trials, not just moving Gitmo to Illinois. It’s an important type of word, those qualifiers.
Why would I even be reading Balloon Juice if I were a libertarian? I’d be hanging around Campaign for Liberty and/or Mises.org. I’d most certainly oppose any and all health care legislation, if I were a libertarian, not just what’s coming through the Senate; that is unless the legislation repealed the FDA.
Ed Marshall
I would like to see a Ven Diagram of how much overlap there is between PUMA’s and the Kill Billers. I can tell they are there in the mix but it’s not all of them.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Balloon Juice has established that Lieberman is impervious to everything. Reid and Obama were utterly helpless against him, but if you’re right perhaps the blogger with the funny haircut could defeat him.
Comrade Jake
We are all teabaggers now, my friends.
Midnight Marauder
Wow. So the blogosphere is in full-on freak out mode now, right? Holy hell, this is insane. And we’re not even still close to hitting 2012 yet. What the fuck is gonna happen if the Mayans were right?
This is probably the biggest issue I have with all the FDL invective being sprayed everywhere. If you’re going to criticize the president and his administration, fine. Go nuts, you silly rascals. But in the name of all that is good and logical, don’t do it in the language and terms of the opposition. That is just a basic failure of Constructive Activism 101. When you are calling President Obama a corporate whore, WORSE THAN BUSH!, some kind of ruthless authoritarian, and just an overall heartless bastard–WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THAT IS GOING TO ACCOMPLISH?! (sorry…Jesus Key got stuck.)
I mean, it’s just completely nonsensical, they way they’re going about this entire thing. And they’re going after Bernie Sanders now? Bernie “I’m actually a sushalist” Sanders?! Are you kidding me? Every time I see one of these wreck diaries about “OBAMA IS BETRAYING US!” I just want to ask these clowns, “What do you think is benefiting from this action you’re taking right now? Do you really think it is the people who share your ideological and personal interests?”
And for the record, this shit is some crazy weak sauce, Jane.
Then, by all means, what is the fucking point?
Moran.
+2
Comrade Jake
@General Winfield Stuck:
Enjoy the hilarity.
Tomlinson
Is there a handbook? Who’s handing out the signs?
CaseyL
Those FUCKERS. Those fucking fuckers at FDL are doing a PUSH POLL. I just got this canned call “sponsored by FDL Action Pack” trying to push me into supporting a petition and fund raising drive to kill HCR.
I am FURIOUS. I can’t believe I ever gave those fuckwits money.
God DAMN Hamsher. God DAMN her.
K. Grant
@TaosJohn:
That is not a ringing endorsement. In fact, it is frightening in its implication. The country is screwed completely, but that is okay, as the majority actually survived in some kind of decent shape.
That’s swell.
What a complete and utter self-centered ass you are. Piss on the poor, downtrodden, out-of-work, needy, and hurting – I got mine, screw them. Whatever happened to the common welfare, the good of the people, whatever happened to trying to figure out how to help people and not just score cheap political points? Or, in your enlightenment and freedom, have you become a bitter old John McCain, yelling at clouds, telling the kids to get off their lawn, pissing on people’s cornflakes, and being an all around cantankerous SOB.
You are 64, you had better not take a penny of Medicare or Social Security next year, you miserable scrooge, or else you are hypocrite of galactic proportions. Dante has a special corner of the Inferno reserved for people of your ilk.
Seebach
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): I did not know he was impervious to being taken hostage on a submarine piloted by Hamsher and taken to the Arctic circle to subsist on seal meat. I’m just saying she could try and be useful.
mr. whipple
There’s a shock.
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Jake:
Thanks!!
mcc
@CaseyL: Is it possible they only called you because you gave them money before?
Comrade Jake
@Tomlinson:
Ask JustSomeFuckhead. He plans to run for President under the TeaBag party. Something to do about liking dicks.
Seebach
@CaseyL: The rest of the blogosphere need to call her out on this. It’s side taking time. And I’m on the not destroying Obama side.
mcc
@Seebach: It’s at times like this I start to be bothered by the tea party activists having somehow taken on a name which could be easily confused with MSMs*.
(asterisk: “MSM” is a term medical health professionals use to describe Men who have Sex with Men)
Martin
@mcc:
No. Jane just wants to be able to wave her foam finger. That was the public option. Lieberman/Nelson stole that from her and everyone let them do it.
If these people had any real conviction they’d be just as unhappy at losing single payer as the public option, but they aren’t. They realized that single payer was impossible and made the public option the real progressive line in the sand. When that was crossed (and they never had a comprehensive definition for what an acceptable public option looked like either) then it was war on progressives and everyone had to go down.
What’s interesting is that the message these guys are sending is that single payer wouldn’t put them in any better standing than just passing a public option. So why bother? By burning everyone, the progressive agenda ends up moving right rather than left. It’s stupid and destructive and is happening just because people aren’t getting some arbitrary thing that they decided they can’t go on without.
Midnight Marauder
@Comrade Jake:
FTW!
Corner Stone
You and Stuck with a mindmeld.
Makes sense.
Tomlinson
There ya go.
Joe Lieberman is loving this, BTW. If he had a master plan to prove that Kos and FDL were some combination of amateurish, dangerously radical and politically radioactive, it would go down just like this.
If there is a God of Own Goals, [s]he’s smiling.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake:
lolz
You getting putdown pointers from Stuck now?
srv
http://twitter.com/Johngcole
“In order to be taken seriously, I am suspending all blogging and communicating only through facebook communiques.”
edit: ah, Jake posted it above
ds
Obama had a good line in his Lehrer interview. He got 95% of what he wanted. But some people assume he’s caving and selling out because he didn’t get what they wanted.
OK. This is really starting to irk me.
Where did anyone get the crazy ass idea that the teabaggers are in some sort of revolt against corporate dominance of politics?????
These fuckers started protesting in the streets the month our black Democratic president entered office, after loyally supporting Bush all those years (even though they now consider him a liberal). And they in their protests their message varies from typical conservative tropes like “DOWN WITH TAXES! SLASH SPENDING! NO MORE WELFARE!” to racist xenophobic craziness like blackface, apes that are supposed to be the Obama family, and “WHERE’S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?”
If you want to go out and protest, go right ahead. But don’t assume that teabaggers are card-carrying liberals who got confused and joined the Republican party because they thought Bill Clinton was too conservative.
Libertarians aren’t going to “bring down the man.” They’re protesting because they’re scared to death that the president isn’t some old white guy telling us tales about welfare queens driving Cadillacs or slashing the top tax rates.
KDP
@Martin:
I was thinking much the same thing. I only go to FDL nowadays to check in on TBOGG.
*Sigh*
cleek
Hamsher proves conclusively that there are a lot of idiots on the left who are looking for an Alpha Idiot to lead them.
Chad S
So, let me see if I get this straight: Rahm Emanuel supposedly pushed through a bill during his last days in congress which contained a loophole that stripped any oversight of Freddie/Fannie and he supposedly was involved in intentional deception of congress when he was a director of Fannie/Freddie(without anything but supposition of his role in that) AND he’s pushing the White House to get Freddie/Fannie’s money before the deadline so that congress doesn’t have to approve the money….all as big conspiracy on his part to forestall any “exposure” of his supposed role in the problems at Freddie/Fannie…well I’m convinced…oh wait, Congress could still hold hearings on Freddie/Fannie anytime they wanted to so Emanuel’s “cover up” is basically pointless. And if Emanuel had any substantive role in the problems at Freddie/Fannie, I have a feeling that it would have surfaced long before he became WHCOS.
williamc
Goddamned you, Jane Hamsher.
I agreed with her on some of her points for the Senate Bill, but going on FOX to help fluff their “Even the really liberal Jane Hamsher of far-left loon site Firedog Lake agrees with the teabaggers” meme-of-the-week and joining up with Grover F*ckingJackAmbermoff Norquist? WTF?! I don’t care if the President was found eating a dead baby sandwich, I wouldn’t team up with Grover Norquist, the man is anti-everything she claims to stand for AND one of W’s henchmen?
What’s worse is that her self-righteousness is probably crowding her senses so much that she doesn’t realize that a Liberal-Teabagger alliance could never work: libs want to help all the people of this country survive the ravages of capitalism and the teabaggers think we are evil like taxes and want us dead (by their own hands if they can).
WTF? Does this lady not know that she is dragging the rest of us down with her?
MikeJ
@General Winfield Stuck:
Actually I think he’s SES and he does a hell of a lot more than handle staff at the White House. He has two doors in his office and one of them opens into a funny looking almost, but not quite, round room.
Sly
@mcc:
They don’t get that Rahm isn’t out to enforce the will of Progressives or some shadowy puppet government run by Goldman Sachs and UnitedHealth. When he worked for Bill Clinton, his job was to push as much of Bill Clinton’s agenda through as possible. The job did not change when he became a Congressman or Obama’s Chief of Staff. Just his employer.
All three of these jobs entailed getting important legislative tasks done. This can be called realism or practicality or selling out, it really doesn’t matter. But you can wish for Single Payer in one had and take a shit in the other, and anyone who observes American politics knows that the hand that gets filled first is the one you don’t want to wipe your face with. You’ll have 60 votes in the Senate and 218 in the House for dedicating a new Federal monument to Satan before you’ll have the same number for putting every single private health insurer in the country permanently out of business and forcing every medical practitioner in the country to take a ~20% pay cut. And that’s exactly what eliminating the words “65 and Over” from the Medicare statutes would do.
That people need to be told this is infuriating. Yeah, it would likely be a really good move for the country. But a coverage expansion of 30M people, along with assisting the 30M more people who have shitty insurance, is too huge to scrap for some hypothetical piece of legislation you may or may not pass at a later date. Arguing for it is flat out unconscionable.
This.
fordpowers
i wish there was a like button on bj, kuz i would like the shit out of this post title
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Relax Dorothy. I think I care as much about you as you do about me.
tillkan
I don’t believe that it is mainly PUMA opposition. One of the more disgusting things about Clinton was that early in the campaign she sent out a mailing accusing Obama of being for single payer, like that is a bad thing. Made me even more of a fan of his than I already was, which was a lot. Obviously I shouldn’t have got my hopes up. And Rahm? You really think a fan of the Iraq war like him, who recruited a bunchof other fans of the Iraq war to run for Congress as Democrats, is a
treasure?
Tonal Crow
@Tomlinson:
This approach actually worked quite well for Bush for some years (see, e.g., Iraq, “PATRIOT Act”, etc.) I think it’s still working to “justify” warrantless spying and, to a somewhat lesser degree, to “justify” letting torturers ride off into the sunset without so much as a wrist-slap.
Seebach
@williamc: My teabagger in-laws also think Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachman are awesome people. The teabaggers are who we are fighting against. They are not our allies.
They are BLIND to the corporate dominance of the Republican party. To the extent they acknowledge it, black people are worse. Black people and Mexicans are the true problems.
Martin
@ds:
TEA stands for ‘Taxed Enough Already’ which was a revolt against Obama’s supposed tax hikes at the very moment he was signing the stimulus bill to lower taxes.
These people have embraced dishonesty in their very name.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Senator Lieberman would simply walk across the ice to cast to deciding vote against cloture, even on the Sabbath. You underestimate his powers.
Comrade Jake
@Chad S:
I’m telling you: Hamsher and FDL was a mirror image of this sort of nonsense around the time of the Scooter Libby trial. They are more than capable of bringing on the full-gale wingnut over there.
ilsita
I am cracking up. johngcole owns #high-petulance on twitter.
I can never have anything nice, because of Rahm Emmanuel.
Ruemara
@seabe:
So basically, you’re saying that Jane Hamsher, purist, is compromising to form an effective coalition to kill the bill. MMMhmmm, I see.
@eastriver:
I was hearing impeach Obama comments since about November. And the Obama is Bush-lite was, what maybe 2-3 weeks after he took office? Face it, you guys were done with him the minute the Age of Aquarius failed to happen January 31st.
The problem, as I see it, is FDL et al are upset that voting for the improbable black man did not mean that suddenly medicine would be a not-for-profit enterprise, wars would be illegal, food would be mandatory locavore organic and leg fur would be fashionable. Dear me, how terrible.
Modest progressive change in the face of a Congress of 90% Olds & Intractibles would have been a big whoop te do if Hil or Ed were in charge, but this guy should’ve done this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYpfHBicjQk
He should’ve been armed and angry, because you know, black people are angry and they’re good at doing things angry. It makes white folks get out of their way or shoot or taser them. Or something.
I’m no big fan of Hamsher. I took umbrage at being forced to defend Lieberman from the blackface ad she ran, since, initially we were on the same page. I’ve donated to FDL since then, but I think my wallet will be closed from now on. She has no solutions but to divide the party and tear down the president.
I get it. Black people who are so damn smart they can succeed in something besides sports or entertainment always seem to have to deal with some seriously unreasonable demands. And if they fail to meet the expectations, they just aren’t as good as the hype around them, right? Hillary could’ve taken a full 2 years to get things in order and it would’ve been A-OK, but this guy should have the whole ball of progressive wax done in 11 months. Well, really 7 months since bitching started up pretty damn early.
I’ve been working on a series of post cards to mail every day until conference ends detailing what I want for my Congress persons because that’s how things change. She can hang out with m-f-ing Grover bloody Norquist and pretend teabaggers really have the same goals as progressives.
General Winfield Stuck
@MikeJ:
I know he does a lot more than handle staff, but going after a COS in still insane, douchebag or not. And holding him responsible for what congress does is just as crazy.
Obama is the president, not Rahm Emmanuel. And a lot of this making him into some sort of Rasputin character is dumb as rocks. As is “going after him”
Tonal Crow
@Ana Gama:
“Delusional” is too kind a term for that. I suggest “Rovian”.
seabe
@Sly:
@ Post 140:
Well said, Sly.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake:
Orly? Yer panties must be pretty knotted up then because you seem damn near to tears we ain’t all on the unity bus.
ericblair
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): Balloon Juice has established that Lieberman is impervious to everything. Reid and Obama were utterly helpless against him, but if you’re right perhaps the blogger with the funny haircut could defeat him.
I’m not sure what you’re suggesting anyone do here. Lieberman is a sanctimonious, puerile little prick, and the Powers That Be really screwed the pooch when they supported him over Lamont. That is water under the bridge, and we have to live with that evil fucking imp. If anyone can show another path to 60 in the Senate I’m sure a lot of people are all ears. Otherwise, what’s the fucking point of this.
The Hamsherites aren’t exactly far lefties, but they’re now radicals. They’re far more concerned with sticking it to their political enemies than they are about solving problems or even self-preservation. The whole Republican party is going down that path, and That Way Lies Madness.
Mike G
Just to remind you how bad the Bush assholes were:
http://gawker.com/5433134/our-favorite-things-about-2009-these-people-are-gone
General Winfield Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Maybe you and corner stone should get a room, so you can obsess about a false persona. and plan some PUMA payback.
Tomlinson
@Ruemara:
Wait…what? What’s this about the leg fur? Did Rahm Emmanuel fuck up the leg fur clause?
Does anyone have the number for Fox news?
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Winfield Stuck:
We’ll just use yers when you and Jake are done.
joe from Lowell
Why, from their sponsorship by such scourges of corporate America as Dick Armey and the Koch brothers.
mcd410x
Is there anything more disappointing that seeing a movie on that you think says The Wedding Singer … and it’s The Wedding Planner.
Teh suck. Defined. Also.
General Winfield Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Your material is slipping fuckhead, just repeating back insults you receive is kind of pathetic.
Midnight Marauder
Keep ’em comin’, John Cole.
Keep.Them.Coming.
Edit: Because I still can, motherfuckers. That’s why.
cleek
the Hamsters are just jealous of the attention the teabaggers get from the GOP. they think that they can get the same kind of love and attention from the Dems, if they make enough noise.
fail
tomvox1
@TaosJohn:
That’s cause “everyone here” didn’t happen to live in New Orleans during Katrina. Or wasn’t in the National Guard and deployed overseas. Or wasn’t an Iraqi civilian or POW. I could go on…
Try again, pal.
joe from Lowell
I’ve said it before: the most important thing to Protest People is their self-image as Protest People.
Jane Hamsher looked at the behavior of the angry teabagging hordes, and thought “My kind of folks.” The attraction isn’t ideological, obviously. It’s their character.
Which is pretty effed up, yo.
I predict that the White House allows Hamsher to become just famous enough to make an effective Sistah Souljah, and turns her into pink mist sometime around, oh, mid-to-late January.
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Indeed. Surely I can’t get over the fact that some asshole with a login of Just Some Fuckhead has decided to join the all-star, mentally retarded progressive team. Yes, you have me in tears, tears of laughter.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
just fwiw, it’s not all that ridiculous.
I’ve never seen any evidence that Rahm is an AIPAC tool. NONE. In fact, I believe he publicly told one of them to fuck off when they tried to get him to do something.
Even so, he is routinely accused of being an AIPAC tool. Now, why would that be?
Just Some Fuckhead
@mcd410x:
Yes, thinking Monster’s Ball was the sequel to Monsters, Inc.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: I dunno, I didn’t accuse him of that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake: It doesn’t seem like tears of laughter. You seem genuinely distressed that someone dares to have a different opinion than you.
Comrade Jake
I’m kind of wondering when I’ll start to see old ladies running down the street outside of my house shouting “INADEQUATE BLACK MALE! INADEQUATE BLACK MALE!”
Surely that can’t be far away, no?
tomvox1
Jane Hamsher working with Grover Norquist = Shark Jumped
And Another Thing...
@mcc: You talken’ to me…?
It’s been snowing at my house for 2 days…which is a big effin deal cause I’m on crutches.
I actually finished my Christmas shopping on Sunday, the earliest in my life, and all day long my door bell has been ringing with UPS delivering the goodies.
So, I’m enjoying the snow, feeling bad for Jane blowing herself up but been skeevy on her since her bright idea to put someone in blackface…remember that?
I’m thinking the world and America are in better shape than a year ago November, and the trend line is pretty damn good. We’re beating the crap out of each other over the public option instead of having bombed Iran cause Pres McCain can sing a cool dittie.
My smart, fine young uninsurable nephew is going to get a better shot at life because his congenital heart defect isn’t going to doom him to living on the edge of financial and medical disaster.
That’s a good thing for all the nephews I don’t know.
Lilly rescued John.
It’s been a good year.
+2
Midnight Marauder
@joe from Lowell:
“It’s the State of the Union Address on line 1, sir…”
Platonicspoof
@TaosJohn:
Obviously you aren’t including Iraq in “here”, and even more obviously any former American BJ reader who died in Iraq is unable to be “here”.
Brien Jackson
@joe from Lowell:
Controlling the uppity negro no less.
Seebach
@joe from Lowell: The blogs need to Souljah her first, unless they want to completely lose their influence and credibility, and I think the blogs and their ideas and their fundraising can play a legitimate role. But if they’re seen as undermining the Democratic party, they will be cut off.
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yes, just like everyone else here at BJ. The place where people with different opinions become genuinely distressed. I’m surprised Cole just doesn’t change his logo to that.
Chill out, brother. Go smoke a rope or have a good beer. I’m on number three.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake:
You said calls of impeachment were a week away, so I’m guessing this would have to happen between now and then.
mcc
So the Nolan Chart, as near as I can tell, was basically designed as a recruiting tool for libertarian groups. It’s legitimately useful for making a point about libertarianism but sometimes I don’t feel like it’s really all that helpful for describing American politics because social conservatism and economic conservatism really are very strongly correlated in this country and people tend to bunch up in certain parts of the chart. I guess we’re seeing the splits more clearly right now than we normally would. Still doesn’t seem like a very safe time to be an anti-choice democrat, or a pro-business republican who isn’t a mainline conservative Christian.
You know what might be more useful for describing American politics right now? Take the 2D political chart idea. Make one axis progressive <-> conservative, and the other axis pragmatic <-> populist.
If you tried to fill out this chart, what would you see? I’d put Barack Obama up in the northwest corner, very progressive but also very, very pragmatic. I’d put Rahm Emanuel, as far as I can tell, pretty darn close to the center on the progressive vs conservative axis but also very high up on the pragmatic axis. I think everyone would agree people like Hamsher or Sirota are deep in the populist, progressive corner, maybe people like Kos or Dean also in that corner but not quite as far down on the populist axis. People like the Tea Partiers or Ron Paul would be deep in the populist, conservative axis, most of the elected Conservative leadership would be very far over on the conservative axis but kind of in the middle on pragmatic vs populist, and the pragmatic conservative corner would be basically empty, at least empty of any elected officials, with maybe lonely old Snowe, Collins and Voinovich hanging around up there but dropping very very quickly on the pragmatic axis while Specter breaks away from their group and, staying about steady on the pragmatic axis, makes a run for the nearby “progressive” border.
And maybe there would be some things you’d notice from a chart like this. You’d see people who really maybe shouldn’t be considered all that progressive, someone like I guess Jay Rockefeller (remember when progressives all hated him because of FISA?), who certainly seems to be acting more progressive than say Barack Obama a lot of the time lately just because he’s closer to the populist line. You might find a couple of people who are very far on the conservative side but are sometimes indistinguishable from progressives right now because they’re so far up on the pragmatic axis, maybe a Larison or a Sullivan. And you’d maybe realize that the reason people in the Hamsher/Sirota corner are trashing people like Al Franken or Bernie Sanders (note, I’ve heard claims Sanders is getting called a sellout now, I’ve never actually seen a single example of that) isn’t because they’re any more or less progressive than they are, it’s just because they’re not far enough down on the populist axis.
CalD
That there is some high octane horse shit right there. I got news for you: This is coming straight from people like the loudmouth conspiracy theorists of “progressive” satellite radio a lot of the very same people who called me a tool of the corporations for preferring Clinton in the primaries are the ones eating it up. I can say that with some confidence because I just had this conversation over dinner with two of them. One of them actually raised the Rahm Emanuel meme and I know for a fact that’s where he got it.
The hilarious thing is that I told them both almost two years ago that if Obama were nominated and elected, I would be the one defending him to them once he was in office. And here we are.
PUMA my ass.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake: Douche, it’s not me that needs to chill out. It’s you.
eemom
oh, and Mr. Cole……may I humbly ask your agreement at this point that Jane Hamsher is not, in fact, a “true believer”?
No biggie……it’s just that it kind of bothers me to see that kind of honest righteousness attributed to someone so utterly undeserving.
Now if you wanna call someone like Somerby a “true believer” — redundant and irritating as he sometimes is — I’m WITH ya on that one.
mcc
@And Another Thing…: Goodness. Did you have to go Christmas shopping on crutches then?
Comrade Kevin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
What does Orly Taitz have to do with this?
Seebach
@CalD: In all fairness, then, I wouldn’t say you were a PUMA, if you thought you would be willing to defend him. The PUMAs all decided to support Sarah Palin since Party Unity was inferior to supporting a woman.
My definition might differ from yours, but the trait in common seems to be ditching the democratic party once things go south from your perspective.
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead:
“I know I’m not but what are you?” That’s your comeback? Dude, you are killing it tonight. Killing it. LMAO.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I know you didn’t; just saying the “anti-semitic” response is not all that far fetched.
Yeah, yeah, I know it often is. But not always.
Seebach
@mcc: This is awesome.
And Another Thing...
@Santiago: and lots of bad blood left over from Lieberman vs what’s his name in the Conn. Senate race. Rahm & Obama didn’t knife Liebermann and O beat Hillary..QED.
Midnight Marauder
@mcc:
I really like the sound of this idea. However:
If you were pragmatic, you probably wouldn’t be a conservative these days.
/obligatory
mcd410x
@Just Some Fuckhead: Nice.
On to more Angel season 2. Everything I like is years old. I think that makes me old. Suck it, maturity.
cleek
you’re both going into the pie filter if you don’t chill the fuck out
Keith G
Maybe we can entertain ourselves by starting a pool re: how long is this inter-sine war is going to last.
Bonus point for what the results are, eg: Jane and Grover get along so well that they send out a mutual Christmas greeting email to all their new admirers and followers.
mcc
@Seebach: You know, thinking about this a moment longer, I realize I totally stole this idea from a Nate Silver post I’d since forgotten specifically reading.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom:
And it is here.
valdivia
maybe this thread is dead but if anyone here who is sane can explain to me why someone was saying that Hamsher’s proof of Rahm’s malfeasance is ‘serious’ and that it will impeach Obama? Huh? I refuse to read and don’t get it.
Tomlinson
If you are pragmatic, you’re probably not in politics these days.
Seebach
@valdivia: My worry is that it is not serious and it will impeach Obama. They’re Republicans. And the Media is still Our Media. And Lieberman would love to vote to impeach.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake: You’ve spent, what, two days now practically beside yourself with anger that some people think this bill sucks and yer telling me to chill out? I’m always chilled, dawg. Ice fucking cold.
Seebach
@And Another Thing…: So, they’re pissed at Lieberman, so they’ve decided to go after Rahm? That makes sense. I say kidnap and submarine. Easy to do for a mob of crazy people.
Midnight Marauder
@Tomlinson:
And circle gets the square!
+3
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: You remind me of the SpongeBob episode where he’s scared of the dark and he buys a thousand night lights to keep it away from him.
PUMA! Run Stuck, run! The boogies are gonna get you!
Poor thing.
srv
Long enough to derail banking “reform” legislation – either by design or by accident.
par4
Why don’t you fucking DINOs go back to the Republican party?
TaosJohn
@ K. Grant
I think you have me confused with somebody else, but boy are you making this easy:
For the record, my gross adjusted income last year was under $14K. I owe credit card companies over $12K for things like the two teeth I had repaired last year for $7K. At this moment I have less than $700 in savings. We have no equity and rent an 800-sq. ft. 100-year-old adobe home with no closets. We haven’t been able to afford health insurance for the last five years. It’s very scary being my age and having no insurance, but we’re both healthy, the damn teeth notwithstanding. We have no TV and almost never go to movies. I write and build websites. Life is hard but full of possibilities. My wife said this morning that she was happy and didn’t want anything for Christmas except me. This after I moved us out here in ’99, losing in the process our home, all our old friends, her college teaching career, and soft warm breezes in the spring. In that regard, I am without a doubt the luckiest goddamn bastard that ever walked the earth.
I’ve been a college teacher, groundskeeper, cartoonist, sculptor, painter, Internet editor, Web columnist, songwriter, musician, office manager, and a lot more. I marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam war. I did everything I could to fight BushCo and the horrible, idiotic, immoral war in Iraq. I gave money to the Obama campaign and cried with joy at his election. I fucking sobbed, dammit.
But there is no issue I have cared about more than universal health care. My wife and I have suffered enormously at the hands of insurance companies and the medical/industrial complex. There is no person on earth with more fire in his heart to bring an end to this madness than me. What I see with the so-called health care bill is an utter betrayal of everything I thought the Democratic party stood for. It is a body blow. The sanctioned transfer of billions and billions of dollars to for-profit insurance companies is appalling to me, and I cannot for the life of me understand why any Democrat considers this a good thing. It is incomprehensible to me.
My wife went on Medicare last year. She worked her ass off all her life and paid taxes so she could have this promised care. I will most certainly start my own Medicare this coming year. I’ve paid for it, too. Medicare isn’t an “entitlement,” it’s something we’ve paid into for decades. Medicare is a fucking GODSEND, let me tell you, and that is what the Democratic party should be fighting to provide for every American.
I’ve voted solid Democratic for 43 years, and I applaud Jane Hamsher for trying to find some area of common cause with right-wing loonies. It’s a nearly impossible task, and no one else has tried it yet. They’re people, too, and there are millions of them, God help us. We make a big mistake by demonizing them constantly, though. They can perhaps be brought into the fold — NOT the Democratic party fold, but something new — with education and compassion. What got me all excited over at FDL was just that, that it was something new that no one had tried yet. I also had the distinct intuition that this potential populist awareness was very frightening to the Wall Street crowd. Just thinking of that made me happier than I’ve been in months.
Somebody has to take the risk. Jane has guts. It takes guts to have disfiguring cancer surgery and keep on living. It takes guts to do something that will bring the wrath of everyone else down on your head. It takes guts to TRY something different. I don’t see any guts at all on own side, frankly.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
not really, because no one has yet explained exactly what is so dastardly about teh Rahm — other than him not rolling over for the “I want my pony” crowd.
RAM
I wandered into one of those threads over at FDL and thought I’d accidentally blundered into No Quarter. Anyone who has anything at all to do with Grover Norquist is an idiot. I don’t know what Hampsher’s been smoking over there, but it must be pretty powerful shit.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: So it must be his delicious jewy center, then. Gotcha.
Chad S
@Comrade Jake: Then why aren’t they pushing for a congressional coalition to investigate it or at least have a fecking hearing. Writing a letter to DOJ is guaranteeing that nothing will get done except for trying to get headlines.
ds
I agree that this isn’t really PUMAs. It’s the OBAMA BACKSTABBED US crowd.
Even though Obama ran to the right of pretty much everyone in the Democratic primary, they assumed he was a far left radical who was hoodwinking the public, because FOX News said so.
Within the first week it was obvious that Obama was pretty much what he said he was, and they felt betrayed.
It’s got even wackier and wackier with time. At first it was “Obama betrayed liberals” which kinda sorta had a basis in fact, because there have been some letdowns. But now it’s gotten to the point where they’re claiming that teabaggers are out in the street protesting against Obama’s policies because they think they’re too conservative.
Next they’re going to argue that Rush and Glenn Beck are really just trying to push Obama to get a public option.
valdivia
@Seebach:
sorry but I don’t get what it is they are accusing Rahm of? Can someone please explain?
Midnight Marauder
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I wish Cole would put that at the top of the site. I would have my LOLerskates on every day for that.
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Dude, you don’t know me from Adam. You’re talking straight out of your ass. I realize that’s your preferred position but in this case it’s not really bringing home the bacon.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
My Dinosaur eats PUMA pea brains for snacks. Christ you are a dumbass.
Chad S
@TaosJohn: Teaming with a corporate whore in Norquist to try and dump on Rahm isn’t trying to find common cause in anything, nor does it have anything to do with trying to do anything for people in a situation like yours or fighting for people’s access to health care. Norquist ain’t sticking with Hamshear when she starts pushing for single payer or anything close to that.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Nothing. Lieberman and Hamsher are the Borg. Resistance is futile.
This will be the third time I’ve pointed this out. Go back a bazillion years to April of 2009. 59 were on record as either for it or open to it. Q (aka Joe Lieberman) didn’t explicitly threaten to filibuster until several months later. If the most influential people in Amercian politics really wanted a public option April was the time to work for it. They didn’t, we don’t have it. Now it’s all in the evil, irresistible mitts of Q Lieberman and Locutus Hamsher. Frankly, I’m surprised all you brave souls on Balloon Juice even bother. Resistance is futile, after all.
eemom
@TaosJohn:
then why don’t you go sign up full time on the long list of Jane’s gentlemen-in-waiting, and leave us the fuck alone? As you can see we’re hopeless……..and according to you, you’d be doing the Lord’s finest work over there.
Brick Oven Bill
The President himself fuels these theories by spending $6 million of some undisclosed person’s money to not produce the Certificate, when $15 of his own money would put the issue to rest.
A rational person now is forced to wonder if the President of the United States is a puppet of those who possess the records from Columbia University. The Bankers would have these records.
Emmanuel at his Hedge Fund cleared $16 million from a deal with that lanky guy now hawking General Motors products, then of AT&T, that Rahm made Chairman.
Sixteen Million Dollars. In contrast, Barack made Five Hundred Thousand Dollars for his book advance, following the election.
Five Hundred Thousand Dollars for the President-elect divided by Sixteen Million Dollars for Rahm of the Hedge Fund equals 0.03125, or around Three Percent.
Rahm is thus the Alpha.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake: Per yer resume, yer a professor down in Carolina, right? From NH originally?
Seebach
@TaosJohn: You must have America confused with some social democracy somewhere. Americans don’t have the stones for any real reform. All Hamsher is going to do is get Palin elected.
srv
@par4:
There’d practically be nobody Left.
Midnight Marauder
@TaosJohn:
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Glocksman
TL:DR, but I’ll throw in my 2 cents.
If the bullshit tax on so called ‘cadillac health insurance plans’ remains once the conferees are done, I’ll oppose this monstrosity of a bill to my last breath.
Not because I object to paying the taxes needed to finance it, but because I object to being singled out to pay the burden at my $13/hr salary while the people who helped crater the economy to begin with escape tax free.
Finance it through a tax increase involving everyone, and I’ll support it.
Finance it with a tax increase aimed primarily at union members who have had the good fortune over the years to win decent health insurance, and you have my both my undying opposition and a spit in the eye at any alleged ‘Democrat’ who supports it.
Chad S
@valdivia: They’re accusing Rahm of:
1-being a part of a criminal conspiracy at Freddie/Fannie to mislead congress(without any proof and they have the minutes of the board’s meetings)
2-Pushing through a law during his last days in congress to gut the IG’s powers over Freddie/Fannie(which congress could easily re-enact).
3-trying to push funding to Freddie/Fannie by the end of the year so that they don’t have to get congressional approval for it(and QED, Congress couldn’t hold any hearing about Rahm’s role in Freddie/Fannie, which is moronic since Congress can hold hearings about whatever they want whenever they want to).
ds
Those “right wing loonies” dominated politics from 1980 to 2008. The teabagger movement is funded by DICK ARMEY for Christ’s sake.
They’re angry because they don’t have power anymore. They’re not populists who are trying to take down the system. You honestly think they’d be hitting the streets if McCain was in office?
Read their signs. They’re scared that Obama is going to take away their Medicare and give it to black people. They’re not concerned about corporate dominance. It’s what they crave.
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Good for you, asshole. You still don’t know me from Adam.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Maybe not. But what exactly is it then, Fuckie? Does anyone in their right mind really think that Rahm is Obama’s Rove?
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: You poor little child.
I hope someone’s fitted you for the special little helmet so when you run into the walls you don’t hurt yourself too bad.
And I get the sense you and the T-Rex seem to somehow smash headlong into the sides of your trailer quite often.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake: I’d say I know you a little better than Adam. Never saw his resume.
ds
I call bullshit. You make $13/hr and you have a health plan that costs over $21,000 a year?
I just don’t buy it. No company structures compensation that way.
Seebach
@TaosJohn: Oh yes, please talk with Brick Oven Bill here and see what common ground you stand on. I will welcome your new alliance. Show me how it works.
valdivia
@Chad S:
Thanks! And this is what she is partnering with norquist for? Really? Just wow. I really do see she wants to start impeachment out of this, a nice juicy scandal so she can have her scalp. Maybe next she will be on Glen Beck.
Comrade Kevin
Yay, the Grinch is on tonight!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
lmao
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone: LOL
You are a piece of work, my man.
Mnemosyne
I’m still convinced that what set Hamsher off was Lieberman inserting himself into the debate at the last minute. If not for that, I honestly think she wouldn’t have gone off the deep end, or at least not thrown herself into Norquist’s welcoming arms.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: Shrug. What would be wrong with that if he was?
joe from Lowell
JSF is hilarious on this thread.
I am not defensive. You’re defensive.
This is very relaxed person, no?
That’s how relaxed I am: like really cold ice. Fucking cold ice – which is also relaxing. Are you relaxed, Douche?
lol
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Well, just go to the Bible and read all about Adam. You’ll know him like a brother then, just like you know all about HCR.
Corner Stone
@par4: I’m assuming by DINO you mean the happy little authoritarians like Stuck and Cole.
And Another Thing...
@mcc: Very well done.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake: Alrighty.
Sly
@par4:
You want more people voting for Republicans?
That’s an intriguing path to victory. Please elaborate.
Glocksman
@ds:
For starters, I’m single so the threshold is much lower that the figure you quoted.
Secondly, as of today the total cost of my insurance is slightly over $6000/year, despite a drop in the benefit levels from 100% coverage to 90-10% during the last contract.
I know this for a fact because I’ve been on the negotiating committee that had access to the real numbers.
Because of that I also know that the costs to the company have far outpaced the official inflation rate.
Given that, it wouldn’t take long until our insurance costs exceed the Senate threshold for ‘Cadillac taxation’ to take effect.
IOW, shove your uninformed opinion up your ass.
Midnight Marauder
@valdivia:
I honestly don’t think it’s that far away given that she’s teaming up with Grover Fucking Norquist. And she’s already had a victory lap on Fox and Friends, for crying out loud. I mean, Steve Doocy?! Really?! Steve Doocy?! You are chatting it up with Steve Doocy and Co. these days?! “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Jane Hamsher.” “You are dead to me.”
I don’t think you would be all that surprised if, in two weeks, Hamsher was flirting with teaming up with Glen Beck in some capacity. If you got online and saw that story first thing tomorrow morning, would you think it was a joke after her actions the past few days? Or would you completely waive any benefit of the doubt for her, because what has she done to deserve it anymore?
Comrade Jake
@Sly:
Haven’t you heard? We survived Bush. It can be done.
Mnemosyne
@TaosJohn:
Are you kidding? These are the same people who were praying for the Wall Street crowd to save them just last year. What makes you think they’ve gone 180 degrees and now blame Wall Street?
Tomlinson
I want to hear about this $21K+ a year plan. What do you get for this? I mean, seriously. Do you get house visits? Gold plated MRI’s? Someone dedicated to trimming your toenails?
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: Shhh…shhhh…
Hush little baby, don’t say a word.
Cole’s gonna buy you a hummingbird.
And if that hummingbird won’t sing,
kay’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.
And if that diamond ring turns brass,
eemom’s gonna buy you a looking glass.
Shhh…shhh, now.
wilfred
Obama is responsible for anything he does or doesn’t do. But this frame was almost constant when Bush was President – it was always Cheney or Rove, never him. In the end it served to absolve Bush of responsibility.
The Othello/Iago image is hardwired into Western mimesis – it was only waiting for something to prove it’s point.
kay
@Chad S:
She throws the word “criminal” around like crazy.
I always think that’s a sure sign of an authoritarian.
She lost a round in Congress so she wants him removed, and charged with something (anything)? Charming. Very “liberal”.
Scratch a lunatic ideologue, find an authoritarian.
Glocksman
@Tomlinson:
Up until 2007, our plan was a 100% inpatient coverage plan with a $10/$25 prescription plan.
After that, in the name of cost containment, we accepted a 90-10 plan with higher prescription copays.
We did so because despite rumors to the contrary, not all unionists are willing to commit economic suicide based on an unconfirmed rumor.
pillsy
So now the story isn’t that the public option is really all that important as a matter of policy, but including it is all about “respect[ing], empower[ing] and includ[ing]” the Left.
That’s some seriously narcissistic shit right there.
Martin
@ds:
The state does, btw. I work for an .edu and virtually everyone gets the same health care plan because, well, it’s just easier that way. So even the people earning $32K ($16/hr) have the option for obscenely good health insurance – probably right up near the edge of the taxation limit.
That said, they also have the option of a plan that is much cheaper (but covers just as much, just swizzles the premiums/copays a bit and has a different network of doctors to work in) so employees can easily avoid the limit as well.
However, anyone who thinks the tax won’t encourage employers to tuck around the edges to avoid the tax for their employees is just stupid. People just aren’t seeing the big picture here.
Mary
I think we should all do a class action for fraud against Hamsher for taking our donations into her PAC and not doing anything with them except using them as her own personal slush fund. I am convinced that there is financial malfeasance in addition to the general douchebaggery.
4jkb4ia
@seabe:
That was it? I saw the headline and thought there was a protest or something. Also it is too late for Sanders to kill it before it goes to conference.
Sly
@Chad S:
Was their intent anything but getting headlines?
@ds:
In fairness, the structure of employer-based health care creates many situations where they employee doesn’t know how much their paying for his/her benefits.
But yeah, if someone is getting that kind of benefits package at $13/hr, is amazing to the point of being highly questionable. Benefits like that usually come into play when the employee is either very high up on the totem pole or an employee who’s job basically puts their health at risk on a constant basis. In the first case they’re not making an hourly wage. In the second case, they’re making a whole hell of a lot more than $13/hr. Especially if its a union job.
fraught
@Joshua Norton: I’ve been banned four times from AmericaBlog for just mentioning that Aravosis is running an Obama hatesite. His blog rarely gets more than a handful of comments except when John writes a post about what kind of shithead Obama is that day. Then he gets about 90 of the dumbest, least informed, unhinged Obama trolls writing the exact same thing they did the last time John whistled for them. He does it to keep his numbers up…and because he’s really not too smart.
valdivia
@Midnight Marauder:
it would not surprise me seeing her with Glenn Beck, because you know he is anti corporation right and that is all that matters now.
Tomlinson
@Glocksman:
I’d really like to see the internals of that plan, because I’m thinking someone is blowing smoke. We’re paying about $12K a year for family coverage, in one of the most expensive states in the union – and the benefits sound pretty comparable (actually, I think ours are better, but impossible to say.)
We’re a tiny little company, BTW.
It’s conceivable that we could hit the $23K limit at some point, but if that’s where we end up, I’m thinking that the cadillac tax is going to be the least of everyone’s worries.
joe from Lowell
It just looks awful when they demean Obama’s intelligence. It makes them look racist.
It reminds me of the teleprompter talk – the man’s a best-selling author, but there’s no way he could have written his speeches. Gee, whatever makes you say that?
Creeps.
Martin
@Tomlinson: In addition to full medical, we get vision, dental, and mental health coverage for a family of 4. We’ve had in-home nursing, mountains of equipment, testing, long hospital stays in a private room – none of it cost a penny – not even a co-pay. Nothing.
Getting a $21K plan isn’t that hard to get to. In the 15 years I’ve had the coverage, I’m also positive we’ve incurred over $300K in bills.
Chad S
@kay: The funniest part is that she has(as does everyone) the Freddie/Fannie minutes where they conspire, but she can’t make any direct accusations re: Rahm since she doesn’t have anything to do so with, so she’s just using guilt by association. This is pulling a Beck: accusation without substance just trying to force a resignation.
@Sly: There’s grandstanding to draw attention to an issue so that someone in authority does something and then there’s grandstanding to get attention. Hamshear is doing the latter, much like Lindsey Graham asking the South Carolina AG to investigate Ben Nelson for bribery…as long as he never asks what earmarks Graham ever got for the Republic of South Carolina….lol
Glocksman
@Tomlinson:
I am not a liberty to give out the exact figures WRT my employer, but I can point you to the county government’s site that does give out exact figures.
link
Let’s just say that we (my employer) wasn’t able to negotiate such a favorable deal despite being one of the largest employers in our county.
Keep in mind that the costs quoted are monthly.
IOW, multply by 12 to get the annual cost.
eemom
@Mary:
Yer onto something there. I’ll take it on pro bono.
The thing is though, I’m thinking she has an exit strategy. After the shit hits the fan, and the whole charade falls apart…….she’ll just go back to Hollywood and make a movie out of it.
Comrade Jake
@Chad S:
The absence of evidence is used as evidence. This is classic conspiracy-theory stuff. Next week she’ll be telling everyone why the moon landing was a hoax.
Tomlinson
@Martin:
We’re pretty comparable, then – maybe a touch more co-pay, but driving that down wouldn’t hike the cost anything like $9K a year.
I would disagree that taking that to 21K wouldn’t be that hard. I’m sure I could figure a way to do it, but it would be well into the silly, well into the cadillac zone. You guys must have some seriously high-risk people in your pool to get to a number like that.
cleek
@pillsy:
she’s a ham. Ham’s her.
Martin
Oh, and for all those who are so outraged that insurance dollars are going to a corporation, what do you do when you need actual care? Do you demand non-corporation made drugs, riding in a non-corporation made ambulance, getting non-corporation bandages? During a heart attack are you offended by the mandate that you be resuscitated by a corporation-made defibrillator?
I find the arbitrary demarkation between insurance and almost every single other component to health care to be very curious. All corporations are equal, but some are more equal than others, I suppose.
4jkb4ia
But John, here is the thing. I finished “The Audacity To Win” tonight. There are two incidents at least where Obama wants to be more cautious than Plouffe and Plouffe, the master of calmness and discipline, says, “Let’s take a risk”. In the first case Obama wants to be 110% sure that at Mile High Stadium it won’t rain. In the second case Obama is scared that when they cut to the live rally at the end of his infomercial it won’t work. Plouffe knows that they cannot run the only campaign the media understands in order to win, so they have to find the voters who will passionately go for Obama and make the campaign about them. Is Rahm going to say, “Let’s take a risk”, especially if Rahm could give a flying leap about how the left is organizing to be let down by Obama in the end? No, Rahm’s an operator. Rahm will encourage his boss to think that this is a long-term deal and you pass something. Rahm will play to the presidency that the media understands, especially when he loves seeing his name in the paper.
This is not saying “It is all Rahm’s fault” but that Obama is seeing strategic thinking differently when he has so many different goals, the Republicans are obstructing all of them, and he is surrounded by some more conventional people, which admittedly he did to himself.
Tomlinson
@Glocksman:
OK, now I’m *really* curious. We are paying a LOT less than any of those family plans – for a PPO. For a 40 person company.
Midnight Marauder
@eemom:
Like anyone there is going to want anything to do with her? Assuming that they would have in the first place before this steaming shitpile she created for herself? And by the way, this is the kind of action those morans at FDL should be dedicating themselves to these days:
Is Obama Growing Weary Of The GOP’s ‘Filibuster Everything’ MO?
Leave it to the budding war criminal to get the dialogue started amirite, TaosJohn?
Edit: And you want to primary this guy? THREE YEARS FROM NOW?! Yikes, you people are dumb!
Martin
@Tomlinson: I think the distinction is that we have 7 or so different plans to choose from. Some are considerably less expensive for my employer to offer (such as the one that uses the doctors employed and hospital run by my employer) and others are considerably more. Mostly its a circumstance of being geographically spread out and having employees that do all manner of different things – including a lot of international travel and unusual and dangerous work so they have plans that basically have no network, they’ll cover just about anything, anywhere.
Mine is probably a bit cheaper because I have Kaiser and isn’t one of the ‘anything anywhere’ plans, but I know those others cost.
rs
@Martin: Exactly what value does the insurance company add to the care I would receive? The drug that kills bacteria, the ambulance that gets me to the hospital, or the defibrillator that starts my heart all have some tangible value. But aside from taking 20%-30% off the top, what fucking good is private insurance?
kay
@Chad S:
Except she did make a direct accusation.
Based on “not shit”, but that’s how authoritarians are: if she disagrees with the health care bill, there must be a crime here somewhere!
I don’t read the site, but doesn’t she pretend to be some sort of Rule Of Law – blather blather- civil libertarian?
Except when she’s on a mission of vengeance. Then all that goes out the window, right?
They’re scary people.
mcc
@Martin: The thing that’s mostly mysterious to me about that particular element is, if the only problem is that you don’t want your money going to a corporation, then why not just sign up for the FEHBP/nonprofit plan? I mean the reason I demanded a real public option over FEHBP back when that was still an option was I thought an actual government-operated entity would be more accountable to the people and serve as a more sound basis for future expansion. But if the only complaint is that you have a moral objection to paying a for-profit insurance company and/or you believe a for-profit insurance company will inherently attempt to screw you (and succeed) regardless of what kind of regulatory regime it’s under, then hey. FEHBP should be good for that much.
Ana Gama
I won’t testify to the $13/hr part, but among my UAW (and other union) family members, the Cadillac tax is a huge deal mostly because they traded away wages for years or gave back wages in exchange for top-notch health insurance.
Anya
@MikeJ: I like Rahm and I think this hatred against him is irrational. I don’t know the origin of it, did he by any chance send a dead fish to Dean?
Joel
It must get awfully uncomfortable riding in a clown car with Jane Hamsher and Grover Nordquist.
Chad S
@kay: No, she says that the Freddie/Fannie executives were engaged in planning intentional deception of earnings and that Rahm was a board member during the time, but she never makes a direct accusation of Rahm’s role in any cover-up. She’s trying to smear Rahm through association here. And she’s using this as the crux of her accusations by saying that Rahm continued to be working for Freddie/Fannie even to this day(which again she has no evidence of).
Glocksman
@Tomlinson:
A lot of it probably has to do with competition.
IOW, we haven’t had any real competition in health insurance in this area in decades.
My insurance in 1990 from my former employer (a local restaurant) was better than the coverage I have now.
That said, only my current employer’s size today allows me to have coverage similar to what I enjoyed then.
Tomlinson
@Martin:
We’re insuring in four states.
It would be interesting to see what community rating would do to your premiums, because if it pulls them into line with ours (and we’re in a couple of community rating states, so it be representative), you’re going to see quite an interesting drop in premiums.
Our family PPO is running quite a bit less than those HMO plans – and I could save a little money by going with an HMO.
Martin
@rs: That same argument applies to everything else, however. What’s the difference between drugs made in Cuba by the state and drugs made in the US that have whatever profit margin dumped on top? And the government is incapable of making things? Why is that?
How many states mandate that drivers carry auto insurance? And almost none of them are not-for-profit unlike the health insurers. No outrage there.
Keep in mind that I’m a public option advocate here, I just don’t understand why profits at one level triggers such intense outrage but profits just one level beyond, which are generally eating up MUCH more of the health care dollar are just shrugged off.
Brick Oven Bill
Re: “It just looks awful when they demean Obama’s intelligence. It makes them look racist.”
Good Christ, joe from Lowell, read his pre-Establishment writings. The man himself cannot conjugate the English language. Sarah wrote a book too.
The taxpayers of California incurred those bills Martin. Good luck going forward.
Glocksman
@Ana Gama:
Bingo.
I have no objection to shared sacrifice, but If you want me to bear the burden out of proportion, let’s just say that I’d sooner vote Republican than do so.
Tsulagi
Well, if believing that makes you feel better make it easy on yourself.
Normally don’t cite polls, but a Quinnipiac poll released just yesterday pegs independent voters disapproving of what’s on the HCR table by a margin of 58 to 30. Almost two to one. That represents quite a few million. Kinda doubt the majority of those were ever or still are PUMAs.
Some people can just call a turd a turd. Some think if it’s dressed up right it can be pretty. Some think they can later go back to the turd and build on it as a foundation. Such is the power of the turd that got dropped.
Midnight Marauder
@Brick Oven Bill:
You are so gross.
kay
@Chad S:
I read it. It’s a cowardly direct accusation. That’s what guilt by association is, as far as I’m concerned. It’s how cowards attack. Stupid people “connect the dots” and pile on, and cowards depend on that.
I thought this woman was revered for her amazing bravery?
So far, I’ve seen an appearance on FOX and Friends and a smear letter, where she’s too afraid to make the direct accusation, because that might actually get her into some hot water, where she’d have to back it up.
I don’t know. There’s a low bar for bravery, I guess.
geg6
I’m not a compensation specialist, but I do know plenty of union workers who make in the $13-17 range and have unreal health benefit packages. Hell, I make less than $40K and have been informed that my health benefits (without including my portion of the premium) is in the $10-11K range. We used to have a choice of packages, but we don’t anymore as of a year ago. I haven’t had a raise higher than 1.5% in five years and no raise at all last year. I’m not thrilled at all about paying taxes on my health care insurance under those circumstances. What I taking home is not adequate to keep up with the cost of living, let alone have a big tax come out of it for something I’m forced to pay for (and paying more for every year–this year’s increase was 20%). Why should I get this burden when the House bill places the burden back where it belongs, on the wealthiest mother fuckers who will be happy to burden me instead because they are masters of the universe and I’m just another pointy headed loser in academia.
Martin
@Brick Oven Bill:
Every health care dollar gets paid for BOB. Not only are the taxpayers paying for those dollars, those premiums are also jacked up to cover all the uninsured and folks that don’t pay.
If you don’t like the taxpayer paying, you should be demanding single-payer so everyone pays.
Brien Jackson
@Glocksman:
When you can give me a good reason why you ought to get in excess of $23,000 in compensation completely tax free, from a progressive standpoint, then we’ll talk.
Martin
@kay:
People confuse recklessness for bravery all the time.
ds
Well, because right now the main role of insurance companies is to underwrite policies and assign risk based on demographic characteristics and medical history, and figure clever out ways to reduce their risk burden in order to increase their profitability.
And the whole point of reform is to get them to stop doing that. If reform goes as planned, insurance companies won’t be able to charge riskier people more money, or deny them policies, and there will be a minimum benefits package set by the federal government.
So basically they’ll be sitting around doing absolutely nothing besides a relatively trivial administrative role, (which is a very good thing from a social perspective), while making up to a 15% profit margin.
I think keeping the insurance companies around is a necessary compromise to get reform. They have lots of money and they’re very media savvy and influential with legislators, and could tank any reform effort that would actually send them out of business. But we shouldn’t pretend that we’re happy about them staying around.
They’re just leaches that we can’t safely rip out because they’ve embedded themselves too deeply into the flesh.
Ana Gama
@Brick Oven Bill:
No she didn’t. She put her name on a book cover and got on a bus. (Or was it a plane?)
Chad S
@kay: A direct accusation would be saying: “Rahm Emanuel ran asian hookers and stolen plasma TVs with Terry McAuliffe out of the back of the DNC headquarters from 2001-2004.” Hamshear is essentially saying that “You could buy asian hookers and plasma TVs at the back of the DNC headquarters from 2001-2004 and Rahm was on the board of the DNC, draw your own conclusions.”
Hamshear doesn’t have the goods(and she knows it), thats why she’s hinting that Rahm knew about misstating earnings at Freddie/Fannie. She’s also showing a total lack of knowledge about how congress works and assuming that the White House(well, Rahm) can shut down any congressional hearing or investigations with a phone call(which is absurd).
Sleeper
@ds:
Thank you! It pisses me off that people don’t see that. “Why is she saying mean things about this bill? Why why why???” Because she wants to improve it, you dumbasses. Christ.
Glocksman
@Brien Jackson:
For one thing, my insurance is single coverage.
IOW, when you quote the ‘$23k’ figure at me, you’re already proven yourself to be either an ignoramus or a lying fuck.
Secondly, given the history of insurance inflation, the figures I’ve mentioned fall easily in line.
I suggest the onus is on you to prove I’m wrong.
mcc
@Ana Gama:
Would the UAW not be covered under the “hazardous employment” exception thing that raises the limit before the excise tax kicks in? I mean, the UAW is a manufacturing union making devices with electrical components, right? This is an honest question, I don’t understand very well how the exception works.
Corner Stone
@Tsulagi:
Obviously it does for Cole and his BFF Stuck.
fauxpopuli
More of the typical straw man stuff from Cole. So if in observing Obama’s first 10+ months in office I come to the honest conclusion that he’s weak, avoids conflict, caves in rather than take a stand, etc. then I should suppress what I actually think because it fits a Republican frame? How do you form your opinions John, do you have some kind of checklist you go over to make sure you don’t accidentally reinforce some frame or other or at some point is it ok to just say what you think?
And your explanation of why people are upset at Obama — please. What a crock. Of course it’s easy to paint people as ridiculous when you argue against caricatures. If you can’t even grant that people have legitimate beefs with the way Obama has handled the healthcare thing just save yourself the trouble of further rationalization. Shut the computer off and leave it off. We know how much trouble you have with criticism of authority and unless the president changes his tune it’s only going to get worse.
geg6
geg6 @291: Moderation?? Seriously? I have no idea why. Well, if it ever pops back up, I wanted to add, on topic, that Hamsher is deranged. I read the shit she’s accusing Rahm of (NOT on FDL) and it’s some pretty absurd shit. I’m no fan of the Senate bill and Rahm is and always will be an asshole (as was Obama for his disingenuous claims about not campaigning on the public option), but damn, girl. This is some fucked up shit, Jane. There are thoughtful, principled critics of the current bill. I agree with them, though the bill should pass, hopefully improved by the House. But disagreement with the bill does not make one a Hamster. Or PUMA. These people are truly deranged.
kay
@Chad S:
I will make a prediction.
If the DOJ does or doesn’t pursue this, unless Rahm Emanual is frog-marched out in hand cuffs, she will claim a cover-up, and collusion by Eric Holder.
The people who do this sort of thing are all the same, whether it’s here in my rural county or at the national level.
Once they launch the accusation, they’re all in, and they can never, ever back down. That’s why they’re so scary.
She’ll go to her grave insisting there was a crime.
auntieeminaz
@Ana Gama: Exactly!
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
This stuff is just too bizarre to contemplate.
Chad S
@kay: I have an equally likely prediction: the sun will rise tomorrow lol.
The accusation is the entire playlet here. She didn’t get her way on health care, no one listened to her objections(and they failed to sway legislation), so this is her “trying to send a message” by going after Rahm. It made the front of Huffpo, but it’ll be ignored/forgotten after the HCR vote tomorrow morning.
Ana Gama
@mcc:
Not as they understand it, but I don’t know for sure. It may need some clarifying in the bill. All I know is that they feel like they are being screwed again, since they gave up wages and took concessions, and now would probably give up the benefits they negotiated for in good faith. I see their point.
Martin
Ah, that’s the problem. You have one view of the problem. There are other valid views. Those include reducing entitlement costs, getting more uniform cost arrangements between care providers and insurers (be they for-profit or otherwise), getting care providers to take more broad responsibility for care (not dumping off a patient to a nursing facility when they aren’t cost effective) and so on.
ALL of those things are important, and given that we are 7 years out from Medicare going negative, that’s really what’s driving the Senate and the White House.
But the argument that insurers do nothing is a distorted view. It assumes that care providers do no wrong, aren’t equally as interested in sucking dollars out of patients as the insurers are, and are always honest brokers. They aren’t. The drug companies aren’t. The equipment makers aren’t. In many cases the clinics and hospitals aren’t. People seem to think that every hospital is a public hospital like on ER and every insurer is an Aetna for-profit entity. The world isn’t nearly that black and white, and the insurers do help protect patients in less direct ways by negotiating for lower costs, refusing to pay for expensive treatments when cheaper ones are available and so on. A public entity will have to do all of these things up to the point that we get to single-payer when the public insurer will simply dictate the pricing.
The outrage over the $3M per year insurance CEO is curious when the average salary for a great many medial specialities is around $500K. Anyone actually getting regular care is sending WAY more money to doctor salaries than CEO salaries. Anyone talking about doctor salaries being too high? The insurance companies are, I can tell you that, which is why so many have started HMOs and why many of those HMOs have succeeded at reducing costs.
I just don’t understand the lack of balance here. People are stuck only on the layer they directly interact with and blame all problems that might exist below there on that layer. Should we get a public option and premiums are *still* going up 30% per year, where will that outrage get directed? Bonking the insurers helps the problem, no question, but it hardly solves it. Medicare wouldn’t have the problems it has today if insurers were the problem.
rs
@Martin: It’s not the same argument. What value does health insurance add to health care? What can it do to save my life like an antibiotic or defibrillator?
I’m not arguing that I’m thrilled about the high profits reaped by drug and medical device companies, much of it piggy-backed on taxpayer funded research, but at least they deliver a valuable product at the end of the day. Insurance companies, not so.
kay
@Chad S:
Have you ever, in your life, seen someone launch one of these and then back down? Admit they were wrong? I never have.
It’s why rational people don’t launch them.
The accusation is the point of no return. Then it’s their “credibility” or “integrity” on the line, and they have to drag a shit load of people in, and it goes on and on.
She’s got him tried and convicted, or she wouldn’t have written the letter. If he isn’t tried and convicted, it is never, ever going to be her error.
Martin
@Glocksman:
I haven’t been paying terribly close attention to the cadillac tax (mainly because I’m convinced it’ll never happen) but is that the cutoff for a policy, or the cost per individual covered under the policy?
I honestly wasn’t paying attention to that in my discussions above.
Oh, and there must be a considerable number of people with these plans because the CBO believes there’s enough in taxation to pay for all the subsidies.
kay
@Martin:
Great to read, Martin. Agreed.
Martin
@rs: They deliver the ability for someone to give you treatment disproportionate to what you pay each year in premiums. I’m sorry, but you are confusing what insurance does with what ‘for profit’ insurance does. Insurance is a very valuable component to health care. Without it, you’re whipping out your Mastercard in the ambulance. If you think eliminating insurance will make things better, you are wholly and completely wrong.
Mary
@eemom: I know that she must have an exit strategy, right? Because she won’t last in this town and Grover Norquist is just having a little fun, it won’t hurt him. But I don’t think she can go to Hollywood. They kicked her out and she burned all her bridges.
I feel sorry for TBogg, Emptywheel and Spencer Ackerman. And Glenn Greenwald is trying to defend her. It’s all very strange.
Ana Gama
@Martin:
THIS!
Thank you.
And that’s why this bill must pass. Because it’s a start. And we have to do something NOW. But it will have to be revisited soon. And the Dems would then have a track record of being able to solve the long-term financial problems if they can get this blimp off the ground and flying relatively well for a few years.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom:
Good plan. By then David Zucker should be planning a sequel to An American Carol. Or perhaps Chuck Norris and whichever Baldwin is the conservative jackass will be interested.
Is it possible that “Jane Hamsher” is just an alter ego of Michelle Malkin?
fauxpopuli
@Platonicspoof:
Right, I remember how zero Democrats voted for the Iraq authorization.
FlipYrWhig
@Mary:
That’s been the axis all along. The Self-Important Uncompromising Dickbag Axis.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
I’m pissed, actually.
I recognize that she’s some liberal hero, although I don’t read the site, and don’t know who she is, so I’ll take you-all’s word for that, but really, screw these tactics, whoever she is.
She lost. That’s what happened.
She misread everything that happened (by my reckoning, which is as reliable as hers, I think) and convinced herself that she was driving this debate, when that isn’t what was happening.
Faced with that, she goes completely batshit and starts launching criminal accusations?
I’m supposed to admire this person as a populist warrior, while ruefully shaking my head in disappointment at this behavior? Give me a break. I won’t.
She doesn’t speak for me, and she doesn’t act on my behalf.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
Obama was intereviewed on NPR today and said that congresscritters have a plan that costs $15k a year and that a “cadillac plan” tax on plans that cost over $23k a year should be understood as being directed at insurance companies, not the insured. He was asked directly about how this may hurt people who have “cadillac plans” on “chevrolet wages.” His response was, roughly, that the insurance company is milking people at those rates and needs to be pursuaded to reconsider their rates. I happen to think he’s probably right.
rs
@Martin: Agreed, and it’s why I included “private” in my initial comment upthread. I got a little sloppy with my response.
You’re also correct about physician’s pay being too high (at least relative to physicians in other developed countries-2x more than other countries). If I’m not mistaken, as it stands it’s about 15% of health care spending.
Mary
Al at the Field says he will have some good dirt on Jane and Glenn and their Accountability Now PAC soon. We should be looking for plaintiffs.
I worked on the Fannie/Freddie cases. There is no there there but it’s red meat for the teabaggers, that’s for sure. A ratf*ck.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
She has never been a hero to me, as far as politics goes. I’ve never had any interest in reading her blog, or anything else she does or says.
But I just acknowledge her fighting against the cancer.
Martin
@rs: Hospitals, clinics, doctor visits are 60% of all spending. Insurance is 7%. Drugs (prescription and OTC) are 10%.
But there are only about 50 insurance CEOs. Hell, my employer alone has over 300 physicians.
Sly
@Glocksman:
OK, I see where your coming from. Because benefit plans aren’t taxed, unions put a higher value on every dollar they get through them than in dollars won through wage increases. The increased reliance on benefits makes unions nervous about the tax as it relates to medical inflation. Perfectly understandable given the current framework of negotiations.
But this is where we’ll likely have some big disagreements. I’m a big union supporter, but you can’t have your cake, eat it too, and then complain that the frosting wasn’t sufficiently sweet. My basic response, before the nuance, is its pretty ballsy for unions to complain that wages have been stagnant for years because of increased reliance on benefits and then, with a pivot of their foot, object to a framework that would help bring these two items into equilibrium.
Here’s the nuance:
1) The disparity in preference for benefits dollars is actually a source of medical inflation. Likely not the biggest source, but it is a source. And if we’re all serious about bring down medical costs, we shouldn’t to to preserve an incentive that pushes for more expensive benefits plans (note that I didn’t describe them as “better plans” because there’s little evidence that they actually are) simply because they aren’t taxed. It’s important to remember that management actually prefers to do this, because the alternative is to subject the same funds to payroll taxes.
Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say that benefits should be taxed the same as payroll, across the board. That would be rather draconian and would certainly punish people. But we shouldn’t be incentivizing companies to dump money into overpriced insurance as a way to avoid taxes.
2) You assume that medical inflation won’t go down. Medical inflation has a number of sources (the benefits/wages disparity being just one of them), and one source is that tens of millions lack usable coverage. You can look at medical inflation as, in large part, a subsidy the rest of us pay for those tens of millions getting more expensive care at emergency services for want of insurance. Once those people are covered, medical inflation comes closer to general inflation. It won’t be a perfect match, but keep in mind that CBOs projections on medical inflation don’t go much beyond 2016 (at least none that I’ve seen of the current Senate bill), which is before many of the reforms start to seriously kick in.
3) Employers may chose cheaper plans by today’s standards to avoid the tax, but the insurance reforms will make those plans better anyway. More dollars directed into care, the more abusive practices outlawed, etc. This is regardless of whether medical inflation goes down, up, or remains the same. And there seems to be a fair bit of consensus that the average plan’s value will increase even beyond the current rate of medical inflation. So if the price of insurance goes up substantially, we’ll get more for our dollar. If it stays the same, that’s a bit better. If it goes down, then we’re getting more for less.
Chad S
@kay: Which is why I said what I said previously. And I doubt there’s a “point of no return” here: no matter how bad a prediction or outrageous an accusation, the village protects it’s own. Hamshear will pretend she never said what she did and privately blame Norquist for railroading her into a letter whenever someone brings it up.
Mary
@Chad S: Hamsher is not a member of the Village. They will not protect her. She is Michaele Salahi to the Village. Grover Norquist, though, they will protect him. He’s a member.
eemom
“I don’t read the site, and don’t know who she is”
OMG, I envy you. My history at RadioactiveDogShitLake goes back to ’06, when Jane and Christy the Reddhead seemed like two totally cool chicks calling daily bullshit on the evil antics of the Bush regime, while TRex the master snarker rocked the Late Nite.
It’s been a long, strange, ugly trip since then.
Mnemosyne
@Tsulagi:
That same poll says that a strong majority of those polled said that taxpayer dollars should not be used to pay for abortions. I guess Stupak had his finger on the pulse of the common man with that one.
Martin
@Sly:
It’s actually a pretty big source. I read a study a bit back that said that a moderate copay on all medical visits except for prenatal or other regularly scheduled (dialysis, that kind of thing) would substantially lower medical costs because people would stop going to the doctor for every sniffle. I think the copay was $50, but with some reduction on certain classes of drug costs to balance it out if the visit yielded a real medical issue, and something like an exception for a routine checkup.
The disparity is that some people (like me) can see the doctor for free, so there is no disincentive for abusing it. Or the copay is sufficiently low that it doesn’t serve as a disincentive. At the other end of the spectrum you have people paying everything out of pocket so even routine and valid stuff goes untreated because it’s simply too expensive.
A minimum copay basically causes a whole mess of people to opt out of care they don’t need. It’s hard to structure, but it can be done, but employers don’t like it because a lower copay plan makes it a lot easier to attract new hires. Insurance companies hate, hate, hate low copay plans because its just insanely expensive for them.
Andy K
@Tsulagi:
Okay, you’ve got raw numbers, now tell me this: Of that 58%, how many disapprove because what they see on the table goes too far, and how many disapprove because what they see doesn’t go far enough?
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Seriously, a $50 co-pay? Considering that my job requires me to bring in a doctor’s note if I’m sick more than two days in a row, that would really piss me off.
I thought my co-pay was too high and it’s $20.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@beltane:
That diary by Joe Beese (I take it this is the same Joe Beese who posts here) over at Kos about Norquist stuffing a Hamster in his ass and then demanding Rahm resigns has over 1,600 comments yet only 144 tips in his tip jar. Seems that the natives are pissed at this development and that the front pagers have been silent except for one poster there who said MeteorBlades responded to them with just a little note about “pony invective”.
@PaulW:
What really makes me laugh at Hamster’s stupidity is the fact that the very teabaggers she is aligning herself with were the very ones who were disrupting town halls last summer to shut down any discussion about health care reform or the public option she claims to love so much. Jane has jumped the rat and she’s fucking it for all it is worth.
@SenyorDave:
That has EPIC WIN written all over it.
/lmao
This is a joint ratfucking/PUMA effort. Shrill, bitter Hillary dead-enders have befriended the ratfuckers of the right in a giant hatefestapalooza orgy of bitter ratfucking led by the twisted and tormenting tones of the Pied Piper of ratfucking PUMAs, Jane the Hamster.
mcd410x
May I say that Julie Benz is truly amazing (funny they killed her off Buffy in season 1). And she’s 2 years younger than I am!
So you’re saying I’ve got a chance …
Kyle Moore
http://twitpic.com/ux13i
There’s BR’s DHS scale.
John Sears
You know, after last night I swore I wasn’t going to comment here for a while, take a breather, but for some reason I peeked in here. I wish to Cthulhu I hadn’t. My blood pressure just went through the roof.
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Funny haircut. Really? You’re mocking Jane Hamsher’s hair?
She’s a CANCER SURVIVOR YOU USELESS SACK OF DOG SHIT.
Her hair didn’t grow back properly. That’s true for a lot of people who go through chemo.
The level of utter inhumanity it takes to pick on someone who lost their hair with chemo, ye fucking gods. I don’t care how much you disagree with their politics.
Martin
@Mnemosyne:
I would think that employers would change such policies. Consider too that your employer has such a policy because they know your copay and paid for it to be as low as it is.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
No, it’s a pretty common policy among employers, even ones that don’t offer health insurance at all. They want to make sure you’re actually sick and not just slacking.
I wouldn’t mind a sliding scale co-pay, but asking an $8-an-hour worker to pay $50 so s/he can prove to their boss that they honestly do have the flu is pretty onerous.
Martin
And we would know that how? I didn’t know her hair didn’t grow back properly.
And who the fuck don’t we pick on? If you’re going to throw a rod over ‘funny hair’ you’re really in the wrong place.
Martin
@Mnemosyne: Since the copay would be the product of legislation, I’d imagine legislation that would guarantee employees more right to use their sick leave.
Tsulagi
@Mnemosyne: And so that makes them PUMAs? How does that work, I thought Hillary was pro-choice.
@Andy K:
Well, Andy, if you had clicked on that link I provided you would already have a pretty good idea. Geez, you try to make it easy…anyway, for the link challenged…
They must be the far left. Or PUMAs too. Good thing those evildoers were shut down.
Those numbers for PO or Medicare buy-in are across the board; they didn’t break that down by D,I, and R.
FlipYrWhig
@John Sears: Bruce’s comments on the thread are mocking people who think Hamsher has so much power. Note his initial comment:
So the tone of the comment would be, “Oh, I thought you (the post to which he was responding) believed that Lieberman couldn’t be pressured, but now you think Jane Hamsher, who you don’t even like, could do it?” I don’t think he disagrees with her politics. He’s spoofing people who he thinks are overreacting to Hamsher. I can’t speak for him, but I thought he was _defending_ Hamsher, and that the “funny haircut” line was supposed to represent how her critics see her, not now _he_ sees her.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Also, I’m still not quite convinced that overuse of primary care doctors is a huge factor in medical costs. I would think that encouraging people to see a primary care doctor (substitute nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant if you want to save a few bucks) would actually save money by keeping people from going to urgent care or the ER with major problems that would have been minor if they had had primary care.
Of course, we have a severe shortage of primary care doctors in this country. I think the ratio is something like 5 specialists to every 1 primary care physician right now. So at this point, you really can’t encourage people to start with a primary care doctor because they literally don’t exist.
And veering off a bit, I think you would see a huge decrease in medical expenses if prescription drugs were banned from advertising on TV. Those ads really do drive a lot of people to insist on expensive patented drugs. (Though you do sometimes need the name brand. Of the three prescriptions I use regularly, generics work for two of them, but there is no generic substitute for my rosacea cream, so I have to have the name brand.)
Midnight Marauder
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s amazing how clearly you can see things when you’re not drowning in poutrage.
FlipYrWhig
@Tsulagi: Did they poll all of the features that are _in_ the Senate bill? Because my sense is that people who aren’t following the ins and outs of debate don’t really know what’s in it, because all the discussion has been about what’s out. Community health centers, no more “preexisting conditions,” “community rating,” expanded Medicare, etc. I highly doubt that people know what they’re getting. I think instead that very many people think they’re getting a tax increase to pay for people poorer than they are to go to the doctor.
Mnemosyne
@Tsulagi:
Where did I say they were PUMAs? You said that the poll proves that people hate healthcare reform and we should kill the bill. I pointed out that if we go by opinion polls, we actually need to make the Stupak amendment stronger in the next version of the bill, because people don’t want their tax money to pay for abortions.
Mnemosyne
I hate trying to talk about healthcare when there are certain forbidden words that trigger moderation. Gah!
Tsulagi
@Tsulagi: @Andy K: Okay, my mistake, looking further down in the poll, they do break it out. For PO, Independents break for that 54% to 41. For Medicare buy-in, 57% to 36. Pretty much in line with the across the board numbers.
FlipYrWhig
@Midnight Marauder: One thing that comes from having read hundreds and hundreds of student essays is the capacity to read something, say, “Wait, that doesn’t look right,” read it again and try to figure out what was _meant_. Of course, sometimes it still makes no sense, like BoB, or Jonah Goldberg.
Ailuridae
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Except the 10M people he is adding to the Medicaid rolls. Or is Medicaid now private insurance too?
Andy K
@Tsulagi:
Uhm, i don’t think so.
That 58%-30% is a breakdown of all self-identified independent voters. The number you’re giving me isn’t a breakdown within the 58% of independents who oppose the bill quite specifically, but a percentage of what all the independents support in a very general sense. That second set of numbers does little to explain the first set of numbers. They’re nearly completely unrelated statistics.
Mnemosyne
@Ailuridae:
I just wish Medicaid didn’t suck so bad. My friend’s sister had a breakthrough seizure recently and broke two of her front teeth. Turns out that Medicaid (technically speaking, Medi-Cal) doesn’t cover dental work anymore. They were finally able to get some of the cost covered by pointing out that the damage was due to a medical issue (in this case, falling on her face during a seizure) and wasn’t “real” dental work. Still frustrating as hell.
Tsulagi
@Andy K: See this @Tsulagi: comment. Yeah, I missed that the first time. Funny thing is, while not for the PO, Rs polled supported Medicare buy-in 50% to 44%.
@Mnemosyne: Let me make it simple for you. Here’s the chronology…Cole’s post ended saying of the opposition to this turd…”you can not convince me that a lot of this isn’t just the same old PUMA bullshit.”
I posted a comment citing a poll giving the number of Independents who don’t care for the turd either with a bit of sarcasm that I doubt they are PUMAs. You then essentially said lookey over here at abortion. Since the topic had been PUMAs, that prompted my question. Need it simplified further?
Mnemosyne
@Tsulagi:
Maybe you should pipe in earlier than comment #288 if you expect people to only comment on the original post and not continue a conversation that’s already been established.
Tsulagi
@Mnemosyne: Sorry for my cranky tone. The SO has been fighting a cold or flu and I haven’t been getting any. Like that should be an excuse. So here I am late at night commenting on a blog. Fuck.
yeah
puma bullshit … me neither. i was thinking the same thing.
Mnemosyne
@Tsulagi:
S’okay. I’m waiting for G’s Nyquil to kick in before I go to bed, too. ;-)
I actually do think that a lot of this blogwar is unresolved stuff from the primary, though not in quite as simple a way as John put it. The two candidates were so close together in their policy ideas that it came down to a battle to the death over very small differences. There was a lot of nastiness on both sides with a lot of long-time blogger friends breaking up over stuff like whether the Michigan primary votes should be counted, and it never really has been resolved. So now people are upset/defensive out of proportion to what it really deserves because it’s making us relive all of those conflicts from last year.
When someone’s vote is coming down to such small differences between candidates as public option+mandate or public option without mandate, that’s setting up some ugly battles down the road.
Unfortunately, I have no idea how to resolve it. Clearly, the candidates themselves have amicably resolved it, but I don’t know how you get their followers to drop their weapons, too.
TaosJohn
Just a note for the sake of accuracy, and no, I haven’t read any other comments since my loooong one… I went over my returns and see that my wife and I had taxable income of just under $20K last year and somewhat less in 2008, not $14K. That was 2006, before her teacher’s pension kicked in.
Without Social Security, we’d be goners. Taos is one of the few places in the country where Social Security really makes a difference, if you get my drift.
(No jobs…)
Andy K
@Tsulagi:
Yeah, but even then, the polling question is very general, theoretical. It doesn’t attach any costs to the PO (or Medicare expansion), The 58%-30% number to which you originally referred pertains to the bills that are on the table, with costs and mechanisms of implementation attached, but there’s no explanation as to why, exactly, people oppose or support those bills.
So at what point do you start losing support for the PO or expanded Medicare?
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
I think the primary season got us all used to picking at a candidate’s statements and second-guessing her or his strategy, which we usually feel very vindicated by, because since the internet-media age dawned way back in those days of yore, our guy always loses. So we’re always right! Everything Gore did was lousy! Kerry shoulda done X, because he didn’t, and look what happened! But this time our guy won. Despite all the shit he did that was obviously Teh Stupidest EVAR. So I think we’re all very confused about how to demonstrate that we’re cleverer than our politicians. But, by God, the only way to do that is to fight and complain amongst ourselves. To wit…
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s part of it. We’ve been able to say we were right since Reagan, but weren’t able to turn that into actual political power. So now you have an entire generation of political junkies who really only know how to yell things from the stands and have no idea what to do when we’re told it’s time for us to take the field. Some people are going to stay in the stands no matter what, because it’s what they know.
But the high emotion and nastiness is coming from last year’s primaries. Otherwise, it would just be our normal familial bickering, not comparing Senate bill supporters to Iraq War supporters.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
The reason I think polls on topics like HCR are next to worthless is that the resulting data is useless, it doesn’t have any relationship to the distribution of yea and nay votes among congressional reps and senators in a vote for a bill. All a poll like that is good for is a nationwide sense of what the people think. The problem with this is that our representatives are not distributed by population numbers in the senate. That and the individual congressional districts in some states are split between the parties so even that would make state by state polling useless.
I know that this would be a huge undertaking and not likely to be done but I would be interested in polling numbers by congressional district. Use that data to tally the congressional votes and then extrapolate the same data for each state senator from the congressional district data. While it would be an expensive and time consuming endeavor the resulting data would show where the votes for HCR line up on a population-per-representative/senator level. Then the poll would be worth something…lol
Our country is not a direct democracy and I never want to see such a thing. Majority rule is not the way it works and as imperfect as our government is I am glad the had the foresight to prevent that with the establishment of the Senate. The House is about as close as we get to majority rule and that is where that should stay.
Chuck Butcher
I come here and read this and realize with glee no one is going to ask me anything in an official capacity. I don’t have to say shit and I ain’t gonna. Besides, it’s late and I’ve got a cold … caught from a baby of all things.
Martin
@Mnemosyne:
The key is striking a balance. Yeah, if a more acute problem is developing you want everyone going to the doctor, so you need to capture those 47M uninsured. But at the other end, you have the majority of the public who log a doctor visit when they get the flu. Not much the doctor can do for the flu other than OTC symptom relievers until you develop some secondary illness like a sinus infection, that kind of thing.
How do you encourage the former and discourage the latter? Well, it’s hard – let’s not be shy about that – but the costs are significant. Add in unnecessary treatment – the mom that insists on antibiotics for their kid with a virus, that sort of deal, and you’re way past insurance profits and CEO pay.
And yes, more acceptance of PAs and non-physicians would help as well. Ultimately, the government is going to have to trade the salary incentives around – cover med school costs for primary care, push down salaries for specialists, take a big whack at malpractice, help get more RNs in the right areas, and so on. But there’s a lot of money to be saved in the mundane area of where most of the public intersects with the health care industry.
rs
@Martin: I’d need to see some proof that “the majority of the public” visit the doctor every time they “they get the flu” before I etch that in stone. While I can vouch from my frontline experience there are many unnecessary ER visits, most people tend to shrug off minor symptoms and avoid doctors and hospitals altogether. Those minor illnesses aren’t the problem anyway. It’s the expensive, frequently futile end-of-life care when there’s a revolving door from hospital to ECF to hospital to ECF to hospital that rack up the dollars. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon with the undue influence of the snakehandlers on American politics, as witnessed by the the Schiavo debacle and the recent “death panel” hysteria.
You’re correct that we need to revamp medical education in the US, with incentives to lure students into primary care. We could learn something from Cuba in that regard, where medical education is community based, as opposed to hospital based.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Take it easy, dude. I’m well aware that she’s a cancer survivor and she herself has referred to her funny looking hair. I’m using it to point out how idiotic this Hamsher Derangement Syndrome is, to be so goddamned frightened of and irritated by everything she does. Now relax and move on to the next thread.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
And I see it as an easy shorthand cop-out. It is not at all clear that this issue has anything at all to do with a nasty primary over a year ago.
And seeing as most of the people who are so upset right now started out supporting Obama’s/anyone’s attempt to reform healthcare, it makes no sense to say it’s about people who are trying to take some personal revenge on Obama (or anyone who wasn’t “their” candidate).
It’s much more of an Occam’s Razor type answer to say the people who are screaming are mad at the end result of the HCR bill itself.
But that would lead to a whole host of uncomfortable statements and questions.
So, it’s a much simpler, and more simpleminded, tack to just slap an easily derided label on it and try to slander people who have real, genuine issues with the HCR bill they are trying to work through.
Hence, both Cole and Stuck on a PUMA mindmeld. It’s simple, it’s easy, and the more people question it the easier it gets to keep screaming it at them.
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): No thanks for my on-target defense of your comment? You make me feel like a useless sack of dog shit. /pouting
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I don’t think that the people who are OUTRAGED!~!11! about the health care reform results are literally people who backed a candidate other than Obama. But I do think that the _form_ of that outrage echoes the _form_ of outrage from the primary, when people did things like say that Clinton’s mention of RFK was tantamount to wishing Obama would get shot, or that Clinton was saying that only white people were hard working. That’s exactly what happened all summer with “public option”: oh no! he’s flip-flopping on the public option because he says he supports it one day and the next day he says it’s only a small part of the plan! Well, you know, that’s not even a contradiction, much less a flip-flop, but by the standards of campaign second-guessery, it was a Huge Mistake That Causes Me To Question My Support.
IMHO the tenor of the discussion has been not only that this health care bill is bad policy, but that it’s bad policy because Obama is a sell-out, corporatist, wuss, etc. And all those judgments first arose in the context of questions like “Why does he support the bailout?” and “Why is the stimulus too small?” and “Why is he sending more troops to Afghanistan?” and “Why did he invite Rick Warren to the inauguration?” The core complaint is, he’s not liberal enough, and so each successive debate gets read in the light of whether Obama will come down on the side of being liberal enough.
That wouldn’t be a problem to me, I don’t think, except that the _way_ it gets hashed out is that someone will pick up a news story or a blog post or a line in a speech and use it to re-confirm what they already think. How does New Thing _prove_ that Obama isn’t liberal enough, regardless of whether “liberal enough” is even possible? That’s not evaluating information, that’s just taking sides for the sake of taking sides. Which is what everyone did to perfection in the campaign season.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Missed it the first time around, Flip. Good job.
4jkb4ia
Oh, my, goodness. I did not see what sort of DOJ investigation of Rahm was being called for. I think EW was smart to get out of town if she knew this was going to hit the fan.
4jkb4ia
To say in a torture panel that we should go after Rahm, even if he is not the only one responsible, because it is fun and it may make Obama listen to him less is NOT the same thing as making everything into a vendetta against Rahm.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Ummm, I’m cooking my balls off right now but shorthand:
I disagree.
Cole and Stuck et al are using a clear rightwing tactic here: The Easy Label.
They’ve got nothing and are falling back to the low ground. For example, if I disagree with you and call you a Communist! then you’re no longer working against my stated policies or beliefs but are fighting against something we all understand, a logos if you will.
Listen, Cole etc have their viewpoint. As usual Cole couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a shotgun but that’s cool.
But do not slap some irrelevant bullshit tag on this life and death discussion.
And also:
These are legit questions.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Nice Try Hillbot. You have a history here dipshit. And really it has never changed. Dead ender is what you came to this blog as and PUMA is what you have been since. You can fool others with your bullshit, but not moi. I was one who greeted you with your bullshit from day one.
And do you even know what PUMA stands for. It’s Party Unity My Ass, that’s it. Just because it arose from the primaries last year doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean what it says. It is not perjorative so much as a current description that accurately reflects some of those who have gone crazy over one provision in one bill, to Obama lied, to he has failed and has to go. Just for starters. You have been one all along, others seems to joined up recently. Quit your revisionist history shit.
And as long as folks like you and some others continue the anti Obama bashing with ignorance, you will get labeled a PUMA.
Merry Christmas meathead
General Winfield Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
And exactly what Flipyrwhig said.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone:
Right, I agreed that those were legit questions, but they don’t all have the same answer, to wit, “corporate.” I think some of the indignation about health care is aftershock, particularly from some of the LGBT discontent that was percolating right as health care started to dominate the political discussion, amplified by the Afghanistan decision that came right in the middle of it all. But there are separate reasons for why these policies have been handled as they have been, not one magic-bullet reason, which has been defined variously as “corporatism” or “hippie-punching.” And my thinking is that it has been crucial to keep from making any big sudden movements on virtually any other issue while health care has been hanging in the balance, because if health care fails, Obama ends up presiding over a Fail Cascade. But if it passes, then there can be other successes. Tentative and incremental successes, perhaps. But that’s the idea. YMMV.
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): Woo-hoo! /stops thinking he is useless sack of dog shit; starts thinking he is useFUL sack of dog shit.
Mike in NC
Like a GOP member of Congress, his heart was two sizes too small.
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: No, you greeted me with a label of racist because I made a joke off Bill Hicks routine. And more importantly because my viewpoint did not agree with yours. You are about the most worthless piece of shit a significant portion of the commenters of BJ have ever had the misfortune to experience.
Stuck, there is one thing that has never changed on this blog. And that is you are the dumbest motherfucker to ever breathe. How you manage to open a browser and connect to the internet I will never understand. You are that fucking stupid.
I do have a history, and it’s one I’m not ashamed of. I was a proud supporter of HRC during the primaries, and a fan of HRC to this day. Sorry if her vagina scares the absolute bejeezus outta you. I’m sorry you’ve never had the opportunity to see one in your real life.
But you will never, and can never, pin anything on me with regard to saying anything regarding “Hillary would do XYZ better than Obama” or suchlike. Because I’ve never said, typed, expressed, etc. or anything like that.
The fact that you are so mentally weak, and completely incapable of making a cogent argument on basically anything – and having to rely on some weak sauce PUMA boogeyman label to make a point – that tells pretty much everyone here what a weak little child you are.
But please keep it up. Because the more you pathetically scream “PUMA!” the more people here come to understand that you got nothin’.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
LOL. PUMA hissyfits are the best ones. Have some eggnog, but I would stay away from The Bottle Worm. Ya know you get with that..Later PUMAgator.
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: Yep. You got nothin’.
Anytime someone smacks you the fuck down, and displays your bare little bottom for all to see, you fall back on the dreaded “alcohol” and/or “PUMA” scream.
You’re a pathetic little man Stuck.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
It’s Christmas eve. Lighten up Gracie. And have a happy one, I mean that. We can take up the blog lance later :)
Poicephalus
JC,
your “another thing” is way better than their “thing”.
Thanks for that added reality check.
C