Like, zoiks, Scoob! Jeb Bush is talking about d-d-d-d-death panels!
Jeb Bush, defending his efforts to keep alive Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman, when he was governor of Florida, suggested on Friday that patients on Medicare should be required to sign advance directives dictating their care if they become incapacitated.
A similar proposal by President Obama — that doctors should be paid to advise patients on end-of-life decisions — became a political firestorm in 2009, when Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate, claimed that the legislation would give bureaucrats the power to decide if some frail or disabled people were deserving of medical care. The assertion was shown to be false.
In 2010, Medicare tried to add a regulation that would permit “voluntary advance care planning” during yearly checkups. But after an uproar, President Obama’s administration pushed to drop that provision.
Mr. Bush’s suggestion that advance directives be required under Medicare showed how much public opinion has shifted on the subject since.
Oh it has, huh. Or maybe, Maggie Haberman, IOKIYAR.
So death panels are now a totally cool thing called “Medicare end-of-life directives.” I’m sure this won’t be the last thing that President Obama proposed and was destroyed by media pissing and moaning that Jebya here will be able to get away with.
Wonder why that is.
germy shoemangler
Is Jeb going to be challenged on this during the GOP debates? Will someone (Cruz, Paul) throw the term “death panels” at him, and call him a continuation of the Obama presidency?
Belafon
If Obama had only called it ReaganCare…
germy shoemangler
Just saw the Batman v Superman trailer online. Somebody in Brazil, I think it was, captured it on a cellphone camera. It’s probably been taken down by now, but it looked amazing.
Patricia Kayden
Any day now, Sarah Palin will pop up with another word salad to condemn Jeb for adopting the Kenyan Muslim Communist’s death panels. I can just hear her now.
gratuitous
Has Sarah Palin been notified of Jeb!’s endorsement of death panels? Should we all duck before the Shrieking Harpy of the Northwoods swoops down out of the sky? Hide the women and children!
Not sure, though, why Jeb! would be talking about end-of-life directives or wishes. He has a lamentable track record as chief executive of a sovereign state of ignoring laws, court rulings, and people’s wishes when it’s politically expedient for him to do so. And he has just stated that he has no regrets about doing that, either.
Keep this man away from the levers of political power. He is not to be trusted, based on his personal and familial history.
germy shoemangler
@Patricia Kayden: Her subscribers will hear it. Isn’t she still doing some sort of subscription-only broadcast?
Mike J
The guy at the center of the Terri Schiavo case wants the government to pay for planning for pulling the plug.
Which is actually a reasonable thing to do, but the choots-paw is stunning.
Belafon
@gratuitous: He’s trying to justify his actions regarding Terri Schiavo. If she’d only told everyone not her husband about her wishes he wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
Peale
@Patricia Kayden: No she won’t. None of the people who were opposed to “Death Panels” knew what they were talking about.
WereBear
This is so incredibly disgusting. The deck is so stacked against the forces of all that is good and decent.
Calouste
@germy shoemangler: I wouldn’t be surprised if Cruz or Paul do something like that. They’re not fishing for VP or a cabinet position like some of the others. Cruz because he thinks he is smarter than everybody else, Paul won’t because VP or Cabinet Secretary means the end of the Paul family eternal electoral grifting empire.
the Conster
That death panels were ever even discussed as a thing and those town hall shit show fail parades that took place that summer before the ACA vote were the dumbest things I’ve ever borne witness to, and the way the media failed to address the stupidity of it was the nail in the coffin of this country. The dumbassery on display by everyone on just that one issue was just complete and total FAIL.
Tenar Darell
@WereBear: Jebbie Bush, walking evil poltroon.
Turgidson
Semi-related, but Jeb also jumped on the Chris Christie crazy train to oblivion in promoting granny-starving, in the form of raising the retirement age, as a solution to Social Security’s
continuing existencesupposed budget ills.In some Village green room, Ron “severe dementia” Fournier’s knees just went a little wobbly again. And Morning Joke suddenly disappeared into the mens’ room with some tissues. This kind of bravery, seriousness and boldness just makes them melt.
Eric U.
@the Conster: the fact that the media is so cowed by republicans that they can’t note such a blatant lie is telling. Of course, the lot of them are republican tools, but that’s another thing nobody ever mentions. The relationship between end of life counseling and “death panels” is so tenuous that I certainly had a hard time figuring out what the repubs were talking about at first, and I would occasionally think they were making a different point than what the were making. I think it’s all projection, they certainly would like to kick more expensive patients out of the boat
Iowa Old Lady
@Turgidson: The most disgusting part of the proposal to raise the retirement age is the way they all say “But of course, this will not apply to people over a certain age,” that being the age of their base. I’m horrified if their base is selfish enough to buy that, but I’m afraid it may be.
ETA: It ratifies their whole world view which is “I got mine. Screw you.”
germy shoemangler
@Turgidson: Yes, just what our unemployed young people need: a workforce in their late ’60s, holding on until they can retire at almost 70.
It’s a great idea if your job consists of sitting at a desk with your feet up, or if you absolutely LOVE what you do for a living, but most working people have to stand all day, and lift stuff, and deal with customers.
boatboy_srq
Key distinction here. The ACA provision was for physician consultation on end-of-life care, or professional consultation on Advanced Directives. If the quote is accurate, JEB is simply requiring that Medicare recipients have Advanced Directives signed and on file. There’s no indication that he has the least interest in whether those are right for the recipients or if they’re boilerplate legalese to protect physicians when they do something stupid that isn’t covered by the document. It’s very clear he has no interest in providing any resource to assist with crafting those documents beyond the most basic list – complete with check boxes (“I do / do not agree that I will accept [insert specific death-prolonging treatment]”).
And it’s not as if NDRs and other docs are the sinecure everyone thinks: not too long after the Schaivo circus, a friend in Florida lost her grandmother. She told me her grandmother survived the first heart attack, and was in ICU when the second one hit – and the attending physician asked her son (my friend’s dad) whether he wanted to override his own mother’s Advanced Directives and allow resuscitation.
WereBear
@Tenar Darell: I am dead certain he either never knew, or totally forgot, the whole Palin “death panels” thing. Why should he keep track of reality?
boatboy_srq
@the Conster: I still marvel that the same party that pouts that Big Gummint Can’t Do Nuffin’ are terrified that Big Gummint will suddenly come for them to cart them off and kill them unless they squeal like a threatened ammosexual.
Turgidson
@Eric U.:
Eventually, Palin’s word vomit was tagged with “lie of the year” status, but only long after the damage had been done, and if memory serves, the initial accusation was taken a lot more seriously, and for a longer time, than one would hope in a civilized democracy.
Contrast that, of course, with the hysteria that greeted Obama when his “if you like your insurance you can keep it” assertion proved wrong. It wasn’t even a lie at the time it was stated – the ACA was written to allow people to stay on non-compliant policies. But it wasn’t written to prevent insurance companies from cancelling the policies and blaming Obamacare. He was wrong to unequivocally make that promise, but not wrong to assert that this was his intention.
Also consider that “end of Medicare as we know it” was labeled a lie of the year candidate by, I think Politifact. Absolutely goddamn true that the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver’s budgets kill Medicare as we know it. But since there would still be something called Medicare after he shoots the current program in the face and twice in the chest, the Village dolts called it a lie.
The stupid truly does burn.
Turgidson
@Iowa Old Lady:
This may be naive of me, but I’m hoping the blue hair stampede into the GOP camp since 2006 is partly due to the fact that That Boy has been the face of the Democratic Party in every election since.
When our 2016 standard-bearer is the familiar, white, somewhat elderly, new grandmother, Hillary Clinton, and the GOP is proposing to take a bazooka to the New Deal and Great Society again, which they seem well on their way to doing, maybe some of them will come back.
But some of them will absolutely vote GOP because of I got mine F you logic.
coin operated
Gotta give some credit to whoever is advising Jeb…credit for being the most deceitful sonofabitch on the planet. Brilliant attempt to whitewash his duplicitous actions during the Schiavo affair. Damn shame nobody in our failed media experiment will hold his feet to the fire here.
the Conster
@Eric U.:
PolitiFact gave it their Lie of the Year, but the media of course gave it their view from nowhere treatment during that time by reporting on high profile Republicans like Grassley and Gingrich’s characterization of the provision as death panels, and pundits weighing in with “some say there are death panels” in the bill. I hate hate hate our media as much or more than the fucktarded Republicans.
Frankensteinbeck
@Eric U.:
Obama terrifies them and they have no trouble believing that a black man would create a health system that includes euthanizing all the old white people. They’ve been fed stories all their lives about this stuff happening in Communist countries, and they already feel like they’re living through the apocalypse. A black president is unthinkable, impossible, to most folks who lived through desegregation. Even for most of the ones who embrace it, they didn’t expect to see it in their lifetimes.
EDIT – And that’s why they have no worries Jeb is calling for death panels. Although @Calouste has a point. Cruz is so fucking nuts and shameless, he might try it.
Roger Moore
@gratuitous:
I’m sure he would argue that the Schaivo case is an example of exactly why a written directive is so important. After all, if Terry had a proper, written advance directive, it would have been much easier to decide exactly what her treatment should be. The lack of a written directive made it much easier for her parents to dispute her husband’s claims about her wishes. That doesn’t justify the political meddling in the case, but the case is actually a strong argument in favor of written directives.
germy shoemangler
@Frankensteinbeck: I still encounter the “death panel” myth. It has NOT died. Lots of people still believe it.
azlib
And Sister Sarah is strangely silent…
coin operated
@Roger Moore:
Except for a half dozen state and federal judges affirming Terri’s wishes and Jeb ignoring them anyway…yeah…would have been much easier.
Edited to add…there have been plenty of articles written that say Jeb’s gonna do what Jeb’s gonna do despite those pesky laws on the books. Jeb would have had no problem meddling in these affairs, even with a DNR, if he thought it would buy additional cred with the ‘culture of life’ crew.
jonas
@Turgidson: I don’t get this move my Christie — and now, apparently, Bush — to raise the SS retirement age. I assume that blue-collar white guys are most likely Republican voters. Is there really a huge block of 40-50 year-old construction workers and ranchers listening to Rush on their lunch breaks and thinking “yeah — I think having to do this kind of back-breaking labor until I’m almost 70 would be awesome!”
Turgidson
@jonas:
You’d think after GWB’s 2nd term started going tits-up the moment he started stammering about privatizing Social Security that Jeb would just keep his trap shut about it until he was safely elected. Maybe Christie’s move prompted questions about it, which he answered rather than ducking.
I think Christie is self-aware enough to realize he’s damaged good and he won’t be president unless he finds a way to turn the race on its ear somehow, yet simultaneously oblivious enough that he thought this was a way to do that. I really do think it’s a symptom of him being in the East Coast elite/Village media bubble, hanging out with rancid turds like Scarbrough and Fournier, who just love that kind of talk. He may genuinely not realize that this constituency could fit into a large conference room.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Belafon: I thought Heb said he’d do the same thing again? Politico link, which I confess I haven’t read yet, so if someone who has can tell me what it says, so I don’t have to, I’d be most grateful. kthxbai.
germy shoemangler
@jonas: AARP sends me their magazine and little newspaper. Their editorials always say “Don’t retire! The longer you wait to retire, the more SS you’ll collect!” They say if you wait until 70 or 72 to retire, you’ll get an extra 50 bucks or something per month. “Compared to a person who retires at 62”
Finally (and this person became my hero) there was a letter to the editor saying “True, the person who works until age 70 collects more per month than the person who retires at 62, but if they both die at age 77, then the early retirer has more years to collect, and actually gets more.”
The people who advocate for working into your 70s, or never retiring, are people who absolutely LOVE what they do for a living (editing the AARP newspaper/magazine) and forget that lots of folks get more excited about hobbies and vacations and days off than they do about their bullshit jobs.
chopper
@Roger Moore:
a-yup.
germy shoemangler
@chopper: Terri was 41 when she died? Who could have anticipated that tragedy? Most people thinking about end-of-life directives are in their contemplative years with grown children and grandchildren.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@azlib: her handlers haven’t yet explained to her how she feels. I imagine Mr Van Susteren and the failed screenwriter are tossing the word salad, and Herself will mix up her special hate-filled-dog-whistle dressing as soon as she’s done on the elliptical. I can’t imagine she has a lot of love for the Bushes. I think Cruz and Walker are more her style.
I don’t know. I think that ego has its own gravity field, or maybe a reverse-gravity field that repels reality. From what I saw of that Lauer interview, his faith in himself is unshakeable.
boatboy_srq
@Roger Moore:
FTFY. See my comment earlier for an example.
Napoleon
@Turgidson:
They want to gut SS so they feel that they need to mention it at some point during the campaign so that they can claim after they win that it was the central plank in the program that they ran on. That is exactly what GWB did.
Turgidson
@germy shoemangler:
Exactly. It’s no surprise that the people advocating for raising the retirement age are at least one, and often both, of the following: 1) doing a job that they enjoy, is not physically demanding and/or probably pays well; 2) rich enough not to give a shit about their own SS anyway.
These people should be told to go play in traffic with blindfolds on in lieu of offering their Very Serious wisdom on entitlement spending, but instead have a dangerous amount of influence on this country’s fiscal policy. Including among Democrats.
coin operated
@germy shoemangler:
Or they drive a keyboard for a living. Or shine a wooden chair with their ass all day. I find it hard to believe that someone who breaks their back for a living wants to do that 40 hrs/wk until they’re 70.
My dad retired at 62 and did some under the table work…but there was no way was he going to haul sheetrock every day into his 70s. Not with some strapping young non-union lad ready to take his job for half price.
Roger Moore
@coin operated:
I think you’re underestimating the importance of the lack of written directives in that case. The thing that really sold the Schaivo case was the parents’ ability to sell the story of Michael wanting her dead so he could marry his new flame. Without that narrative, the case wouldn’t have been able to attract the attention it eventually got.
Litlebritdifrnt
@germy shoemangler:
Tell it to a waitress or construction worker and see how they feel about it.
Turgidson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, maybe. I very highly doubt he thinks it’s fair that he’s damaged goods or has spent a moment questioning his past behavior. More, I think he is able to read a poll. But maybe he’s too full of himself to believe them even if he does read them.
Turgidson
@Napoleon:
Did GWB ever actually say during the 2004 campaign that he intended to do anything at all regarding Social Security? I have tried to banish all memory of that election from my consciousness, but all I remember him talking about was how rabid terrorist wolves will eat your family if you vote for the cowardly windsurfing fake war hero.
Frankensteinbeck
@germy shoemangler:
Never underestimate that for a lot, and I mean a LOT of these folks, they seriously are living in an alien world, a nightmare dystopia. A black man is president. That’s impossible. Death panels make more sense. Even for the ones who aren’t all that racist, it’s just something they couldn’t imagine would happen. Throw in the rapid changes of technology and social standards over the last 30 years, and it’s no wonder they fall for Fox scare stories.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Turgidson: true, could be his new interest in Social Security is an audition to become Wall St’s new media spokes-model. Even Palin and Trump are smart enough to know they’re only pretending to be interested in a real campaign
Shell
Just shaking the old Etch-A-Sketch
Tree With Water
Jeb must be feeling desperate to hand Ted Cruz (et.al.) that sword.*
*(inspired by the title of volume 13 of the Checker Series, by Richard Nixon: I Gave Them A Sword).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this is interesting, if Sheriff Beaufort T Jeebus really is running, I can never get a read on him
Napoleon
@Turgidson:
Yes he did.
By the way I just read over at Ed Kilgore’s blog that Huck is blasting Bush’s and Christie’s SS plans.
Calouste
@germy shoemangler:
Last week my brother’s best friend from high school died aged 47. When I was talking to my brother about this, he mentioned that according to life insurance statistics, 25% of males and 22% of females die before the age of 65. It’s a lot less uncommon than you think. So it’s never really too early to start thinking about an end-of-life directive or a will.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@germy shoemangler: Anyone with a working brain.
Oh. She didn’t have one. Whoops.
But anyhow, my wife and I are in our forties (me not for much longer) and no kids and the FIRST thing we did when we did our wills/trust was the end of life/advanced medical directives. Interestingly enough, our lawyer was a true-believing fundie Christian and I expected some trouble about what we wanted, but his first wife died of bone cancer and he put in language that pain relief was the first priority, no matter what, even if it hastened our demise. He also put in language to the effect that we were not to be put on life support no matter what, unless we specifically requested it in writing. Which we were both totally on board with. He put it very simply: God wouldn’t want and never intended that anyone go through what his wife went through.
I did not ask him about his opinion on Schaivo, he has blood pressure issues at it is. He probably still votes straight-ticket Republican, but his heart is in the right place.
Turgidson
@Napoleon:
OK, I stand corrected. It definitely wasn’t discussed much though. But Google confirms it – there are a bunch of hits from fall 2004 for him discussing his “private accounts” scam.
Amir Khalid
@germy shoemangler:
Teri Schiavo’s age at death depends on what you consider “death”, I reckon. I think she was irrecoverably gone when the massive brain damage hit in 1990. A body with no functioning brain was kept alive to no purpose for 15 years. It’s not a fate I would wish on any sentient creature.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@boatboy_srq: Ha. If I allowed them to do that to my mother, she’d survive just to come and murder my ass for daring to disobey her directive.
She’d kill the doctor first, though.
And I’m not joking, she really would.
Gin & Tonic
@Turgidson: He talked about privatization during his acceptance speech at the 2004 convention. Don’t know if that’s what you were looking for.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In some ways, Huckabee is an old-fashioned Southern populist in the Huey Long mold. He’s happy for working-class white folks to get everything they need, not so thrilled to let non-whites get it.
Gravenstone
OT, but there seems to be a new Cadillac commercial which features a female voiceover saying “it is a weak man who urges compromise”. Pisses me off every damned time I hear it. Seriously, they’re stigmatizing fucking compromise?
germy shoemangler
@Calouste: I agree with you. It’s just that most young people don’t.
Roger Moore
@germy shoemangler:
They also do desk work, so it’s actually practical to keep doing it for that long. People who do work that sends them home physically exhausted at the end of the day, like construction workers, aren’t going to be physically capable of continuing to work that long.
Tommy
The whole Terri Schiavo thing is going to come back to bite Jeb in the General if he makes it that far. Mark my words. It made me sick to my stomach beyond words to watch that unfold. I can’t believe that my family is that different than the majority, if not vast major8ity of Americans. My parents have DNRs. I am 45 and have one. My brother is 36 and has one.
I want the docs to give me a chance to fight for my life of course. But when/if the time comes I am brain dead. I can’t eat unless I am basically being force feed through a tube and machines are the only think keeping my organs running, pull the fucking plug!!!!!!!!!!!!
Again I can’t believe we are in the minority here.
When I leave this world I bet I will be fighting to the last second, but I am not going out a decade or so later with tubes and machines keeping me alive.
WereBear
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Good to know that some of them can learn from experience. While it’s not as good as actual empathy, it’s better than the ones who get their noses rubbed in things… and still don’t get it.
Howlin Wolfe
@gratuitous:
Hide the booze, too!
raven
@germy shoemangler: I have known too many people that get deathly ill or die as soon as they retire, I’m gonna keep on pushin. . . .yea yea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh7ANTOQ2Rs
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They cannot leave it alone. It just drives them crazy that people have some measure of security, something they can rely on.
We need a study on the Social Security obsession among powerful people. What is the problem with leaving it alone? “There’s a big pot of money somewhere and we’re not getting a cut!”
It’s freaking repulsive.
JPL
@raven: That’s your choice. What Jeb and Christi want to do is take that decision away for the average person.
raven
And while we are on Curtis and the Ice Man
JPL
The republicans created a system of crisis by changing the way SocSec retirement fund transfers money to the disability side. The republicans opened the door for Jeb saying he is saving the system.
JPL
Now Social Security is an insurance retirement fund and by means testing, you are changing it to a welfare plan.
Christi must know this.
Tommy
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Well that is good to hear.
I have almost never been sick a day in my life. I joke I don’t even have any cold medicine or aspirin in my house because other than a runny nose for a few days I year I don’t even get colds, headaches, much less something like the flu.
Well about 12 years ago I caught like a 1 in 10,000,000 virus.
Went to my local doc and he told me my salivary gland was infected. Gave me some meds. Then said maybe the most important thing anybody has ever said to me. If he gets worse don’t come to me, to straight to the ER.
I did get worse and I did as instructed. From when I entered until when I was in the OR was under 15 minutes. They cut the cloths off of me. I was signing papers I didn’t even have a chance to read. I could see through a window doctors and nurses were running in the direction of the OR I would soon be in.
Honestly, I didn’t even know what was going on it all happened so fast.
I woke up later, hands tied (tried to pull out the tubes) to the bed, cut from ear to ear, with a tube down my throat. I was like this in the ICU for a week.
I was not near dying really because I got to the hospital. But what I had affected the epiglottitis and a few hours or a day more it would have failed and I would have lost the ability to breath. If somebody was around to help and dial 911, well there was a real chance I could have ended up in the hospital with brain damage for lack of oxygen.
Soon after this myself and my family put wills with medical directives in place and made it very clear to each other verbally, ina group setting, how we wanted things to be handled.
I hope myself and everybody in my family die of very old age in our sleep, but if that isn’t the case we’re not going to be hooked up to machines for years and years. I can assure you of that.
JDM
The two proposals are not similar. One pays doctors to discuss possible options with patients who wish to discuss it:; the other forces patients to do something.
Cacti
Jeb also says that he has no regrets about how he handled the Terri Schiavo situation.
I guess that’s up to and including leaning on the county prosecutor to trump up charges against Michael Schiavo.
Hooray for small government conservative principles.
gene108
@Gravenstone:
I see it more in liquor ads than car ads. But the no compromise, “never settle for second best” thing has been around for a long time.
germy shoemangler
@Cacti: Hooray for small government conservative principles.
There is no logic there. They do whatever they want whenever they want. They use their power as weapons to punish whoever crosses them.
What is sad is all the “little” people who defend them.
@raven: I have known too many people that get deathly ill or die as soon as they retire
I’ve known several people who died on the job. I knew they were looking forward to retirement, to travel and enjoy free time, and the fucking ambulances were called to their jobs to get them.
I wonder if this “he retired, and soon after that he died” is the same as “he became president and then his hair turned gray” correlation without causation.
I don’t believe in anyone being forced into retirement (unless their hands shake while doing brain surgery, or they’re going blind while operating a tractor trailer) but I think Christie’s and Jeb’s calls for raising the age is clueless and insensitive to all the waitresses and blue collar workers and others who don’t polish chairs or drive keyboards (to quote other commenters here).
Tommy
@Cacti: This is what I never understood about the situation, and I don’t really think this is a liberal/conservative thing. I am 45. Single. Never married. My parents still give me advice if I ask for it or not. Push me to bounce large decisions off of them.
I think, no I know they do this because I don’t have a spouse that would/could/should do the same. If I did, somebody that loved me as much as they do, they step the fuck back. Not get in the way because unless I asked them, it was none of their business.
Between me and my wife.
I could never understand why the courts, politicians, you name it thought Terri’s parents wishes trumped that of her husbands, or were even equal* …. but I guess that is why they tried to gin up he abused her. Didn’t want to pay the hospice bills. You name it.
I have a very, very close relationship with my parents (wasn’t always that way), but if I was married my closest relationship would be with my wife. And why I love my parents not only would they be cool with that, I think they’d expect it.
It was just ugly all around on like a 100 different levels.
*I do know why and it makes me more sick to my stomach.
Napoleon
@Turgidson:
It was not discussed much, but that didn’t stop him from acting as if it was the only thing he talked about the second he was elected (kind of again). Jeb is running the same game, mention it so you can say you ran on it but never emphasis it. We are way out in advance of the election, a perfect time to mention something like this so everyone forgets about it by the time they go in the voting booth.
OzarkHillbilly
I heard a segment on Radio Lab where they were talking about end of life arrangements. Every Doctor they talked to was adamantly against any kind of extreme measures, because they knew how things would play out and they wanted none of that. Some have even gone so far as to have, “NO CODE” tattooed on their chests.
That’s a tattoo I could wear.
MomSense
@WereBear:
It’s infuriating.
dogwood
I said somewhere here yesterday tha Christie is this cycle’s Rudy. Both obnoxious est coast urbanites who have no base in the GOP. Christie is actually a bit luckier than Rudy though. He won’t have the money to last long enough to be humiliated by the voters.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Cacti: Need to get him saying that in a debate, by fair means or foul. That decision pissed a lot of people off, even the GOP base, and it won’t change their vote but it might get them to stay home.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Napoleon: kinda like Walker and his anti-unionism, or the recent moves against abortion in January. The one good thing about Christie is he’s making it harder to hide the ball, to borrow Joe Biden’s phrase.
boatboy_srq
@CONGRATULATIONS!: He didn’t – because she probably would have done the same. The hospital was saved from a lawsuit because the exchange was verbal and not recorded.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I wonder if any Bush in the last three generations has regretted anything more serious than ordering the turbot instead of the chateaubriand.
Actually I think Poppy has some real regrets about the Shrubb, and the petty part of my soul hopes he and Big Bad Bar are alive and lucid to see Jebbie eat it hard in this attempt to redeem the old family name.
WereBear
And if you have elderly friends or relatives, check with them to see if they need help to fill out one of these documents. It’s scary to look at all those what-ifs, and they should not have to figure this out alone.
Also, a lot of them get it all ready… and then neglect to sign it. Happened to Mr WereBear’s grandmother, and a friend’s mother, and someone else I know.
Then put it in a place where everyone knows about, and a copy to the doctor.
Tommy
Let’s say I am in a terrible wreck. The docs have to cut off a leg above the knee because they can’t stop the bleeding. I will lose an eye and ear. My spine was broken to the point I won’t have feeling below my chest, ever. They’ve cracked my chest.
At this point I WANT THEM to keep doing everything to save me, keep me alive. My quality of life would be 110% different than it is now, but I’ll still take it.
It is when my organs can’t work on my own without machines and most important I don’t have brain function that I want them stop working on me. Just call it.
Fair Economist
@Turgidson:
I suspect this is a case of believing your own side’s propaganda. He probably really thinks SS is doomed and so he’s being heroic and daring by offering to put it out of its misery first.
It would be hard to be a Republican while realizing how many of these “serious government problems” can be easily fixed with mild tax increases and reforms. The Obamacare on-the-side reforms may have fixed the Medicare collapse bugaboo they’ve been waving around for so long, and that one really looked big – much worse than the SS problems.
ThresherK (GPad)
@germy shoemangler: Also these are the people waving around”average” life expectancy numbers over the last eighty years. That means nothing, as the people who “shower before work” are getting the extra years of SocSec. Blue collar workers expected years after 65 have barely budged.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Tommy:
I’m not trying to start a semantic pissing match here, but “brain dead” is dead. Persistent vegetative state is one not, though they are easily confused by us non-doc types, since they have some similarities:
Emphasis added – link
It was a distinction argued over in the Jahi McMath case. And it’s still in litigation, from the original suit to insert a vent and feeding tubes to the new malpractice action.
All that said, advance directives are essential, in my view. And I suspect we all hope to go to a secular hospital where they will be honored. I’m considering getting a “no code” tattoo. The location is the primary question for me.
germy shoemangler
@Fair Economist: many of these “serious government problems” can be easily fixed with mild tax increases
But that is the THING THEY CANNOT DO. Many of them have signed pledges to that effect.
Their base has been convinced that taxes are a scam to feed a bloated corrupt machine. Any vote to increase any tax anywhere (unless it is an inner-city sales tax) will doom them to the phantom zone.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@OzarkHillbilly: I mentioned in a comment currently in moderation (too many links) that I want to get one. I think I read about it in the New Yorker.
The rest of my comment is a reminder that brain death is death – w/o a live brain stem unassisted respiration is impossible, while a persistent vegetative state (Terri Schaivo) is not equivalent to death, since folks in that state can often breath without a vent..
samiam
It’s Jim Ellis Bush. Not Jeb. Please stop playing along like the rest of the media with this good ole boy game the Bushes like to play. They are filthy rich 1%ers. Treat them as such.
Litlebritdifrnt
@ThresherK (GPad): From what I understand black males are basically funding little old white ladies benefits thanks to black males life expectancy being so much lower than little old white ladies.
Villago Delenda Est
What unmitigated bullshit.
Absolutely pure.
coin operated
@Villago Delenda Est: Agreed. I about lost my lunch when I read that line.
I have to say…I hate this SOB with the heat of 1000 suns. I used to be a nurse in the Army, and had to deal with this most painful of decisions in person on a monthly, sometimes weekly basis. The Schiavo affair really hit a nerve with me…even more than GWB lying us into a war.
Amir Khalid
@samiam:
Wrong. It’s John Ellis Bush — nicknamed Jeb for his initials. Unless, of course, he changed it to Juan Ellis Bush when he was a Hispanic. In which case you pronounce his nickname “Heb”.
Tree With Water
U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz is a disgrace to her office, and should be canned. The Boston Marathon bomber should be tossed into a cell for the rest of his life and there left to rot.. A lifetime sequestered from the rest of the people in the world is a sentence that befits his crime. It’s irrelevant if Ortiz is just following orders in seeking the death penalty. Indeed, if she is, I think it’s even worse.
The parents of a child slaughtered that day have appealed that Ortiz do just that, but her answer today was “no”. Someone should reconsider.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I assume 41 regrets saying “Read my lips: No New Taxes”, since that gets the blame for him losing his reelection.
Roger Moore
@Tree With Water:
They aren’t going to drop the death penalty, because that’s the whole point of having it be a federal case in the first place. If they didn’t want death, they could have let Massachusetts take the case.
Baud
Baud’s Advance Directive: If Jeb! is elected president, shoot me dead.
srv
@Baud: You don’t have to die, just accept disolution of the Union and move to your Valhalla state.
germy shoemangler
@Baud: And do you wish to be resuscitated?
Here is the leaked Batman v. Superman trailer. It looks to be a realistic depiction of superheroes, because there is endless talking head chatter about their implications. I can hear the voices of Charlie Rose and Neil DeGrasse Tyson discussing the Man of Steel, as well as Alfred the Butler and Lex Luthor.
http://www.movieweb.com/movie/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice/trailer
Baud
@srv:
Balloon Juice is my Valhalla state.
@germy shoemangler:
Both superheroes do it!
Tree With Water
@Roger Moore: The family’s wise counsel in their letter to Ortiz (et.al.) provides a fulcrum that Ortiz (et.al.) could cite to reverse the USG’s call that blood be shed for compassion’s sake, while also serving to strike a blow at capital punishment in its own right.
Disclaimer: I’ve only read a bit of the letter posted by Pierce of Esquire.com. At no point did the family suggest the death penalty wasn’t justified. Rather, they point out the appeals process would subject them to further anguish.
srv
@Baud: They can turn your ashes into diamonds, I wonder if they could turn them into an ARM chip. BJ could then go on, hosted on the ash heap of Balloon-Juicers.
Patrick
@Cacti:
Forget about everything else.The way he handled the Terri Schiavo situation meant I could never ever possible think about voting for him. That guy is scary. And the way he went after Michael Schiavo trying to get him indicted for having caused Terry’s situation. Just imagine a Jeb Bush with the power of the Presidency…
Baud
@srv:
L. Ron Hubbard would be proud.
Hungry Joe
My wife and I have both signed The Directive but I’ve told her that if it comes to that, she should pull the plug … then wait a minute, kick the bed a couple of times, plug it back in and see what happens. Who knows? — I might come back online, and on the same page as when I checked out.
burnspbesq
@Tree With Water:
Carmen Ortiz is highly competent, and has done an outstanding job as USA for Massachusetts. If you don’t like this particular decision, that’s your fucking problem (FTR, I don’t like it either).
You really shouldn’t write about shit you don’t understand.
Craig Pennington
There is a fundamental difference here between Jeb’s proposal and the one in Obamacare. In Jeb’s proposal patients are required to sign advance directives. In the Obamacare proposal doctors could have billed insurance companies for end of life counciling requested by patients. Calling either “death panels”is of course risible on its face, but the latter is clearly less coercive. It’s clear to anyone who is not a contemptible asshole, anyway.
WereBear
More compassionate conservatism!
D58826
@Iowa Old Lady: Well I’m of that certain age and I would not buy a seat on a Titanic life boat from any one in the GOP. They actually make used car salesmen and phony home repair cons look honorable
Chaney is running his mouth about Iran again. Never mind most of the problems today were caused by his incompetence. Jon Stewart found a video of Chaney complaining that the sanctions happy Clinton was preventing American companies (i.e. Halliburton) from doing business in Iran. And speaking of nuclear weapons, N. Korea went nuclear on the Bush/Chaney watch. But for the GOP the past is a black hole that devours everything. The only thing that counts are today’s talking points/lies. It is beyond disgusting.
Unless there are a couple of wave electrons that replace the GOOPers at the state and federal level with moderate to progressive democrats and some Eisenhower type republicans then the country is doomed to be purchased lock stock and barrel by the Koch Brothers and their friends.
Patrick
They also under the illusion that Bush kept us safe from terrorists.
Amir Khalid
@Tree With Water:
Martin Richards’ parents want Johar Tsarnaev put away quickly so they don’t have to spend years reading in the papers about his appeals process. The other victims’ families are in favour of the death penalty, so it seems the Richards are outvoted on that point. I don’t see exacting revenge as an effective or moral approach to punishment. Aside from opposing capital punishment (ETA: in general) I don’t prefer any particular punishment for him, really. Johar needs to be kept locked up as long as he’s assessed as a danger to others, and not one day longer. If no panel of shrinks will sign off on letting him out, then I’d be content to let hm die in jail.
Kay
@Hungry Joe:
We have them too. I’m a pull-the-plugger.
My husband wants extraordinary measures for himself, I guess “on his behalf” but he’d really prefer to direct it. He wants all efforts made- science, religion, wizards, incantations, whatever. I told him I’ll parade a whole crowd thru there, maybe take a vote.
J R in WV
@Tommy:
This!
Mrs J spent 59 days in the hospital, 30-odd of them in ICU from septic shock caused by pneumonia. Across the hall in ICU a middle-aged woman was brought in and put on life support. They had everyone who knew her well enough come in to see her and hold her hand, including their minister.
Then at 2 am they turned off the equipment. It took about an hour for her to die. I was there for the “wake”, for the family consult with their minister, and for the equipment being shut off. I also spent a lot of time with the family in the ICU waiting room the afternoon she came in.
I was alone, and they were a big crowd, and they adopted me for the time being as we were all sharing the ICU experience.
Keeping someone who isn’t going to get better alive with hardware is about the only huge sin I believe in. J.E.B. Bush – for trying to keep Ms Shiavo alive years past her time to pass – is a horrible, evil, monster.
My Grand-dad had a stroke. It eliminated his personality, he was awake, would chew and swallow if you put food in his mouth, smiled when he got ice cream, but that which made him my Grandfather was gone. G.O.N.E! There was no one home. He lived almost 10 years in a hospital room, with 24-hour private nursing. Horrible.
I have been there, experienced it, there is nothing worse. J.E.B. Bush is a monster for not knowing that.
Tree With Water
@Amir Khalid: The instant release of death, or life behind bars at age 20? As well as being a more just sentence (like you, I oppose the death penalty), I also think it the crueler of the two. And I’m OK with that.
Turgidson
@D58826:
Only with regard to them being wrong about every single fucking thing they’ve done or predicted. They have memories like elephants when it comes to Dem misdeeds from years or decades ago. I only know a few real, devoted right-wingers (live in the Bay Area), but they still bring up Joe Biden’s plagiarism dust-up from 1988 every chance they get.
They’ll still be digging up Saul Alinsky’s corpse to drag into any discussion of Obama’s legacy in the next 30 years too, I’m sure. To say nothing of Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright, and they’ll probably make a big fuss over whether Hillary has sufficiently distanced herself from and disavowed at some point during this campaign when they get bored with finding synonyms for bitch or harpy to call her.
AxelFoley
@WereBear:
Wouldn’t be a problem if people fucking vote, especially if they voted in 2010 and 2014.
Tree With Water
@burnspbesq: I didn’t like her part in having driven that young man to suicide a couple of years ago either. It was prosecutorial malpractice, and from a respectably disenthralled distance I have sized her up as a nasty piece of work. I’m gratified you respect my right to it.
rikyrah
@Kay:
as usual, you are on the money Kay.
Bystander
Hate for people to have a measure of financial security? Hate women making their own healthcare decisions? Don’t want lesbians and gays to have equal rights? Feel entitled to unlimited personal arsenals? Ready to strip insurance from people with “pre-existing conditions”? Want to free us from job-killing regulations except when a husband acts to complete his spouse’s wishes?
Yes, but Hillary looks so inauthentic at a Chipotle and why did she make those journalists run to follow her tour bus which she is not even bothering to act as if she is driving herself?