Jan Brewer's Arizona Death Panel

Yes, Mrs. Palin - Death Panels are Real... in Jan Brewer's Arizona.



More on this with Chris Hayes.

All the Vitriol isn't (just) because Obama is Black

He's a Damn Dirty "Liberal".

Crossposted from Dailykos.

Although Ministry of Truth made a great many good points yesterday with his Kosdiary "Why don't you just get it over and call him N----", I think he's missing a much deeper point that everyone who is left of center in this nation needs to understand.

Those on the right don't Fear and Loathe President Elect Barack Obama simply because he's Black - that a negative bonus point for them - it's largely because he's Democrat and for them - as I stated back in 2006 - Liberal Bashing in the New Racism

In 2006 I said...

John Lennon once sang that "Woman is the Nigger of the World". In the last few weeks, something has become increasing clear to me. Times have indeed changed from the bad-old days of the Civil Rights movement and women's suffrage. No longer is it women who are the chief second-class citizen of this nation. It's not the gays. It's not the immigrants. It's not minorities, be they Black, Brown, Red or Yellow.

Granted, there are an increasing number of issues which affect each of them, but the one method for getting a full on smash-mouth whack at all the above - without being called nasty names, and being accused of being uncivil, impolite, or basically a Fucking Dick - is to attack just one group.

Liberals.

In Hating the "Enemy",... Namely Us. I pointed out what the usual type of attacks against Democrats from Republicans have been for some time...

# Sean Hannity suggested that the DNC may have been behind the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos, asking: "Was that a DNC plot too?" (The Sean Hannity Show, 9/10/04)

# Laura Ingraham stated that Democratic Sens. John Kerry (MA), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (DE), and Barbara Boxer (CA) are "on the side of" North Korea leader Kim Jong Il because they were opposed to John R. Bolton's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. (Hannity & Colmes, 4/11/05).

# Ann Coulter on Bill Clinton, "he was a very good rapist" and "molested the help" and on Al Gore, "Before we knew he was clinically insane" - "He seemed kinda gay".

# Bill O'Reilly says he doesn't do "personal attacks", except of course for when he does.

I'm not saying that the most recent vile attacks on our current President haven't been ramping things up to a entire new level of ugly and vicious - not to mention completely unjustified - but the ground work for this type of thing has been well laid for a very long time, and it's been part of the MAINSTREAM of Political discourse for that entire time.

It's only natural that with the Trifeca of a Smart/Left-of-Center, African-American, PRESIDENT would drive some people completely up the batshit crazy cave.

But just imagine if that President were a Republican like say, Colin Powell? What if it were Michael Steele? What if it were Alan Keyes (who the Repubs carpet-bagged in to challenge Obama for the Senate?) What if it were someone they find "acceptable" (and easily bribable) like Armstrong Williams?

You think we'd be seeing bone-through-the-nose cartoons about them? You realize how loudly they would bellow at Watermelon Patches on the White House Lawn, if it were a Black Conservative were President?

To this very day - they complain about how badly Clarence Thomas was treated and say his grilling was entirely Racial - then turn around in a blink and accuse Justice Sotomayor of so-called Reverse Racism. for accurately following precedent.

They'd be more than willing to tolerate the "Blackness" of those particular people and pat themselves on the back for us - at least in public - just as Laura Ingraham was able to be good "friends" with the rather Gay David Brock back when he still a part of the Right-Wing establishment before he regained his dignity and self-respect (as well as sanity) and started Media Matters.

As he wrote in his book Blinded by the Right.

...of all the conservatives I had met since coming to Washington, I grew closes to Laura. For several months after we met in November 1994, we were inseparable companions. Laura drew me out of my shell; she helped me to relax and enjoy myself among the conservatives. She was a much more prodigious networker than I was, and she was also a wicked gossip, befriending the likes of Rush Limbaugh and George Will, then repeating their often creepy confidences to me.

Even after he came out they remained close...

Laura took the place of a mate. We were out on the town virtually every night together, cohosted seveal parties and dinners at my home, and vacations in souther California with the Huffingtons. [Long before Arriana's split with her gay husband Michael and her own eventual disenchantment with the right] We shared a lot of laughs. Despite her public persona as a voice of Gingrichism, I also saw in Laura a glimmer of humanity, softness and vulnerability, buried beneath all of the role-playing. In candid moments, she confided she didn't believe much of what she was saying on the airwaves. Channeling into our politics our emotional problems [in Laura's case, the pain of a difficult childhood, and her tortured relations with men, whether married or not], we were both trapped in devices of our own making.

But then he learned the truth.

I hadn't known of Laura's antigay past at Darthmouth, where, along with her then-boyfriend Dinesh D'Souza, she had participated in the infamous outing of gay students, who were branded "sodomites," until I cringed as I read about her Dartmouth Review exploits in a 1997 profile in Vanity Fair. To make matters worse, I was quoted int the piece saying that Laura was unreservedly accepting of homosexuality, which in my presence she always had seemed to be.

We'll, you were one of the "good ones" David. Like Andrew Sullivan, acceptable for deviant ways because of your "Right" thinking. Then that changed.

The bottom line being that if Barack Obama were A Conservative - we wouldn't be seeing any of this crap. He'd be "One of the GOOD Ones" - not one of those Reparations Seeking, Angry, Socialist, Black-Nationalist, Commie, Pinko, Anti-American, White-Hating, LIBERALS! that they so fear.

It was the Liberals - like John, Robert and Teddy Kennedy - who fought against Racial Oppression during the Civil Rights movement. It was Liberals who removed blatant racial bigotry from our immigration policies. It was the Liberals who fought against the crimes of the Vietnam - and Iraq - Wars. It was the Liberals who fought for Women's Equality. It was the Liberals who fought for the protection of the Elderly. It continues to be the Liberals who fight for the Sick and the Dying.

Very often, the ones who feel the most vicious brunt of Racial Hatred aren't black people or brown people. It's those LIBERALS who dared to stand beside them, like the Freedom Riders. They called them "Race-Traitors" "N--gger Lovers!"

The same is true of those who stood with women through suffrage.

Liberals represent All of the Oppressed and Disenfranchised. The Workers. The Poor. The Gay. The Alternative Worshipper. The Dismissed. The Ignored. THE HATED!

If we think things are bad now, we should remember just how bad they used to be. Back when the person they called "Socialist" - was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.



Barack represents for them something they fear above all other things. The potential for a resurgent and vibrant new Liberal Movement which would bring together all of these factions and forever change the power structure of this nation. Barack WILL Take "Their" (White, Christian, Straight, Right-Wing and Priviledge) America away from them, and share it with the rest of us. All of us.

Barack is a dramatic shift away the bleak, but determined, outlook I wrote about in 2006.

But Last year Rosa Parks died. This year saw the passing of Coretta Scott King. Many of the old Civil Rights Warhorses are losing their steam (Rep. John Conyers being a notable exception). The time is coming where we will need to begin the planning and actualization of a new Human Rights Movement.

A movement that focuses on spreading and protecting the basic and fully equal rights to election integrity, personal privacy, habeas corpus, trail by jury, freedom from torture, access to affordable healthcare, quality education, security, retirement protection, comprehensive sex education, preservation of reproduction rights and access to contraception along with an improved adoption and foster care system for alternative parenting options, an aggressively green energy policy, and the right to love and marry one consenting adult of your choice for all persons, regardless of race, nationality, religous persuasion, gender or gender orientation.
In short, for Freedom. But not Freedom as the Right defines it, as the "Right" to amass power and fortune unto onto oneself by taking it away from everyone else. True Freedom is not just a manifestation of personal desire, it has to be tempered with public responsibility, it is the right to do as you please, except when your actions begin to limit the freedom of others. We have to be willing to protect each others personal freedom as carefully as we protect our own, or none of us will be free.

This New Freedom Movement will need to fight as relentlessly as does the Reich-Wing, if not nearly as underhandedly.

We need to embrace who we are. We are the Fags. We are the Niggers. (Yes, dammit I'm saying it - and I'm Black!) We are the Dykes, the Kikes, the Goyim, the Gaijin, the Rag-heads, the Geeks, the Freaks, Weirdos, Nutballs, and Moon-bats. We are also the bold, whom fortune will ultimately favor. The meek who will inherit the Earth.

We're coming for our rights, and we're not stopping until we have them -- all of them. It won't be easy, it's going to be painful, difficult, dangerous, frustrating and thankless - but worth it.

Are you with me?

Now in 2009 I ask again but with renewed vigor, we are coming for our Rights - we won't get them easily or all at once. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow then the next day - if not then, the day after that, but we WILL have them. All of them.

Are you with me?

And are we with Barack?

It's not just Barack they're truly afraid of, it's all the rest of us.

Vyan


Updated For those who've stated that Ideological Bigotry is somehow lesser than Racial Bigotry either in intensity or Danger : Watch these.

Couple Arrested for wearing Anti-Bush T-Shirts.



2008 RNC Protestors charged with "Terrorism"


During the Bush Era people with Anti-Bush or Anti-Iraq Bumper Stickers on their cars were targeted, harassed and excluded from even being involved in Presidential Town Halls. Now people bring AR-15's to them.

Vyan

Have we Forgotten Who We're Dealing With?

Just a few thoughts...

It's been pointed out time and time again, that some people in this nation - are simply Impervious to Fact. Unwilling and unable to accept a simple truth.

There are NO DEATH PANELS.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

He Never "Palled Around" with a Domestic Terrorist.

No one is planning to "Take your guns away" (Although for some of these guys, that might be a real good idea)!


It's just well past the point of the patently ridiculous, and we all have to come to grips with it. Some members of our country are pathologically deluded.

And what's worse, is they like it that way.

Yes, a lot of this comes from Fox News non-stop pandering Fear and Loathing.

Some of it comes from Right-Wing Radio.

But a lot of it, comes right from the frightened fevered imaginations of otherwise regular citizens like your neighbors, or your cousins, or your brother.

They want to be on the Right side, the good side - they just aren't.

They want you to see their copy of the U.S.S. Constitution!

Right here. I got a book here called the U.S.S. Constitution. I’m sure everybody’s seen this before. And you know what? I’ve this book three times now, and I’ve referenced it dozens of times and I can’t find one little paragraph in here that says the government has the right to take over our health care.

They desperately cling to an America that never existed. Where the rugged achieved and they were no handouts (except for the tens of thousands of acres of free land the Government provided to thousands of settlers in the 19th Century - or the GI Bill after World War II - or... well, you get the picture)

They don't know what happened to Their America.

And they won't be reasoned with. They won't be bargained down to some mutually equitable compromise. Not on Health Care. Not on Guns. Not on Torture. Not on the Environment. Nothing.

Just yesterday the Arizona AR-15 Toter wished Death on the President and preferred that it come "Sooner rather than Later".

This is not some rhetorical flourish - this is a Death Threat.

The guns have already started firing, at the Holocaust Museum, in Pittsburgh at the Police, at Dr. George Tiller and more...

We've already had the "Lone Wolves", now comes the Organized Attacks.

These people will not be talked down.

As the August Recess comes to an end we need to remind our Representatives that we're counting on them to deliver the Change we Need. Come Hell. Come High Water. Come Hot Lead or Cold Steel.

Edward M. Kennedy is gone.

We no longer have his shoulders to stand on to help lift is up, when we're down.

Our time is now.

Let's get on with it.

Vyan

Keith Olbermann's Palin "Death Panel" Special Comment

Even for Keith, this was s Tour De Force



Full Transcript.

I think Keith did a great job of seperating the honest (if deeply misinformed) passions of those who are current raging at these Town Halls from those who've cynically done the mis-informing. Forgive them, they know NOT what the spew!

For example let's all please remember that the provision which allows Medicare to pay for Voluntary End of Life Discussion was originally suggested by a Republican, Rep Johnny Isakson, and he thinks all this "Death Panel" talk is Nuts.

ISAKSON: I have no idea. I understand — and you have to check this out — I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up. [...]

It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you

But it's a form of NUTS that the PR firms supporting the current Health Care establishment have carefully cultivated as Rachel pointed out last night with her piece on the lobbying firm 60 Plus.




The hysteria these lies have created have led to a Four Foot Swastika being painted on the Office Walls of Rep David Scott (D-GA).



I have one small quibble with Keith's comment here, but it's not really his fault. It was only revealed yesteday by kossack booksnmore4you - that while Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin's Administration really DID run a "Death Panel" involving restrictions of care provided to the Elderly.

In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help.

This came from an initial report last July from the Anchorage Daily News on the massive failings in the Alaska In-Home Care system.

State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.

The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements.

No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Clearly 99.9% percent of us didn't Rise Up to prevent this - but the Federal Government did. Thank Allah, Vishnu and Jehova for the "Intrusive" Intervention of the Feds.

I would also give her slightly more credit for calling for non-violence at the Town Hall Riots

Also this week, Alaskans will join Senators Murkowski and Begich in town hall meetings to discuss the current health care legislation. There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to rush through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment. Such tactics diminish our nation’s civil discourse which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters’ passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying.

But then again this could simply be an elaborate case of C.Y.A.

Let’s not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us

Yeah. You guys don't want to get Criticized for derailing the first real chance at deeply needed Health Care reform in 50 years wouldja? Not like that Scarle Letter "H" branding would ever come out.

A similar call for "calm" (y'know that thing the head of FreedomWorks said couldn't be asked for) has come from Glen Beck ("One Lunatic Like Timothy McVeigh Could Ruin Everything") unfortunately Beck still believes the "Death Panel" claim is true.

Only in Sarah Palin's Alaska Glen... only there.

Vyan

Baggers, Birthers and Deathers Losing it over Snitch-Gate!

Ok, just like a bunch of schoolyard bullies who curl up in a ball and scream for Mama!!! as soon as you question or challenge them the Health-Care Mobs are now screaming FOUL because the White House has asked people to - Gasp - PAY ATTENTION!

A leading Republican US Senator on Wednesday sharply assailed a White House request for supporters to help track “fishy” claims about President Barack Obama’s plans to overhaul US health care.

”I am not aware of any precedent for a president asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ?fishy? or otherwise inimical to the White House?s political interests,” John Cornyn of Texas wrote US President Barack Obama.

God, the Nerve, the President wants to know what are the latest Right Wing Lies to derail Health Care Reform? What was he thinking?
Maybe what he was thinking is that being fore-warned is being fore-armed, that knowledge is the primary path to power and effectiveness, and the truth is stronger than fiction?

I've been taking a peak at Faux News this morning with Cavuto and Beck and their are practically Livid that their fellow Americans might be telling the White House what they're saying.

Despite all the hysteria, this is what the White House actually said.

Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.

In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to "eliminate" private coverage, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.



For the record, the President has consistently said that if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them. He has even proposed eight consumer protections relating specifically to the health insurance industry.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

So let me get this straight, the people who said when it was revealed that President Bush was illegally surveiling The Entire Country, with special attention to spying on journalists are now Outraged - OUTRAGED that President Obama has an email address for tracking false propaganda?

You guys should be happy he's not just telling the NSA to take it rout out of your Email Mailbox the way that Bush did. Besides if you've done and said nothing wrong, "why should you be worried about it" - isn't that what everyone (at Fox) said about Bush's Spy program?

"Only the Bad Guys Should be Worried?"

I guess we can see who the bad guys are now pretty clearly.

They want to pretend that Obama's plan - which is really Congresses Plan at this point - is a "Government Takeover" when Single Payer is Off the Table and that it's just a secret plot to Euthanisze the Elderly and that these are "legitimate concerns by Average Americans".

They are not.



I'm not so ridiculous as to proclaim that some of these people aren't sincere, because being sincerely misinformed is not a crime. But more than few of them really are being driven by Right-Wing Lobbyist Groups such as Dick Armey's Freedom Works who pushed the "Tea Parties" and now have an Action Plan to Stop Socialized Medicine.

But you see the real problem is that Liberals are just so Mean!



Beck and his ilk are already saying this is just like "community organizing" by Acorn - except it's not legitimate community organizing to accomplish positive goals, it's the deliberate exploitation of false fears to create an angry uninformed mob to INTIMIDATE congress by criminal corporations who want to protect their profits and stock price at the expense of American Lives.

Sorry but just like some of the Tea Partiers really were Racist, some of these people are propelled by completely INSANE fears of "Socialism".

No, not all of them are "Crazy" - but some of them are.

And if they don't like being called "Crazy" - then they should STOP ACTING LIKE IT! If they don't want to be connected with crazy people and ideas they should stop supporting nutty ideas.

To this they respond that the Administration is "Marginalizing Them".

Well, if their concerns were close to "Legitimate" they wouldn't be Marginalized. Single Payer is not on the table. Euthanasia is not on the table. You can't have a rational conversation with someone screaming the equivelent of Bigfoot and and Roswell conspiracies at you. All the real data shows that America spends twice as much on Private Health care as most countries and gets about half the quality for it. Our most effective delivery systems are the VA and Tricare - both are government run.

UN Ranks of Public vs Private Health Care Costs as percentage of GDP

HDI Rank	Expenditure on health (% of GDP)	Public	Private	Combined
12	United States	6.9	8.5	15.4
106	Occupied Palestinian Territories	7.8	5.2	13
164	Malawi	9.6	3.3	12.9
88	Lebanon	3.2	8.4	11.6
7	Switzerland	6.7	4.8	11.5
123	Sao Tome and Principe	9.9	1.6	11.5
150	Timor-Leste	8.8	2.4	11.2
22	Germany	8.2	2.4	10.6
10	France	8.2	2.3	10.5
15	Austria	7.8	2.5	10.3
1	Iceland	8.3	1.6	9.9
4	Canada	6.8	3	9.8
29	Portugal	7	2.8	9.8
86	Jordan	4.7	5.1	9.8
2	Norway	8.1	1.6	9.7
17	Belgium	6.9	2.8	9.7
3	Australia	6.5	3.1	9.6
38	Argentina	4.3	5.3	9.6
9	Netherlands	5.7	3.5	9.2
34	Malta	7	2.2	9.2
6	Sweden	7.7	1.4	9.1
70	Brazil	4.8	4	8.8
20	Italy	6.5	2.2	8.7
23	Israel	6.1	2.6	8.7
27	Slovenia	6.6	2.1	8.7
14	Denmark	7.1	1.5	8.6
121	South Africa	3.5	5.1	8.6
19	New Zealand	6.5	1.9	8.4
66	Bosnia and Herzegovina	4.1	4.2	8.3
46	Uruguay	3.6	4.6	8.2
110	Nicaragua	3.9	4.3	8.2
13	Spain	5.7	2.4	8.1
16	United Kingdom	7	1.1	8.1

France and Canada pay a fraction of what we do for Health Care and have far better outcomes, England pays half - literally HALF - what we pay and nearly equals our results. It should be a source of national shame and disgrace.

We simply can not afford to continue being gouged for Health Care at this rate by Private Companies. They're DROWNING THE NATION in Red ink. We simply can't afford to keep doing what we have been.

What do these people who just love these corporations have to say the families of people like Eric De La Cruz and Nataline Sarkisyan after their care was Rationed by Private Insurance accelerating their untimely deaths?

GLENDALE, Calif. - The family of a 17-year-old girl who died hours after her health insurer reversed a decision and said it would pay for a liver transplant plans to sue the company, their attorney said Friday.

Nataline Sarkisyan died Thursday at about 6 p.m. at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center. She had been in a vegetative state for weeks, said her mother, Hilda.

Attorney Mark Geragos said he plans to ask the district attorney to press murder or manslaughter charges against Cigna HealthCare in the case. The insurer "maliciously killed her" because it did not want to bear the expense of her transplant and aftercare, Geragos said.

What do they say to the other 18,000 people this happens to per year while the Health Care Industries continue to Rank in 3 of the Top Ten Slots for profitable companies on the Fortune 500?

1	Network and Other Communications Equipment	28.8%
2	Mining, Crude-Oil Production	23.8%
3	Pharmaceuticals	15.8%
4	Medical Products and Equipment	15.2%
5	Oil and Gas Equipment, Services	13.7%
6	Commercial Banks	12.6%
7	Railroads	12.4%
8	Entertainment	12.4%
9	Insurance: Life, Health (stock)	10.6%
10	Household and Personal Products	10.2%

How could a Public Option NOT cost less and be more efficient than this?

A Private Option might have saved Eric and Nataline at least for a while longer - no one lives forever - but it would have dipped into the profit of these companies. Which do you think should be our most important issue? Profit or Life?

We need the courage for a paradigm shift forward, not fear mongering to hold us back.

I don't think that's too much to ask.

Vyan