Obama Health Plan is Evil: Palin
Former governor Sarah Palin has finally published her analysis of the Obama health care proposal. She and her advisors have rated the plan Evil, especially due to the fact that sick people will have to "stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."
Obama's death panel. That is good. Really really stupid people will buy this, no problem.
Oh, by the way, you can read the details of the evil plan HERE.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says President Obama's plan to overhaul health care is evil.
The former Republican vice presidential candidate posted her thoughts Friday on Facebook.
Palin says in the America she knows, people won't have to "stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."
She says such a system is "downright evil."
An e-mail sent to Palin's spokeswoman confirming authorship was not immediately returned.
Palin resigned as Alaska governor July 26. She promised to speak out on issues but has largely been silent on both Facebook and Twitter since resigning. Palin says Obama's health care plan is 'evil'
Obama's death panel. That is good. Really really stupid people will buy this, no problem.
Oh, by the way, you can read the details of the evil plan HERE.
posted by JimK at 12:26 PM
35 Comments:
Andrea- not anon
She is beyond stupid- but perfect for her future plans to work on Fox "news"
Sarah's smarter than any TTfer.
Andrea is even following Sarah's advice and retiring.
She can devote herself fulltime to standing in the rain.
Besides paying for abortions, the healthcare bill will pressure old people to sign up for euthanasia and try to make them feel guilty for burdening their families.:
"As I read it, Section 1233 is not totally innocuous.
Until now, federal law has encouraged end-of-life planning -- gently.
Section 1233, however, addresses end-of-life planning in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.
Supporters protest that they're just trying to facilitate choice -- even if patients opt for expensive life-prolonging care.
I think they protest too much: If it's all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what's it doing in a measure to "bend the curve" on health-care costs?
Though not mandatory, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren't quite "purely voluntary," as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts.
To me, "purely voluntary" means "not unless the patient requests one."
Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so.
Indeed, that's an incentive to insist.
Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority.
Once they're in the meeting, the bill does permit "formulation" of a plug-pulling order right then and there.
So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would "place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign," I don't think he's being realistic.
What's more, Section 1233 dictates, at some length, the content of the consultation.
The doctor "shall" discuss "advanced care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to"; "an explanation of . . . living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses" (even though these are legal, not medical, instruments); and "a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families."
The doctor "shall" explain that Medicare pays for hospice care (hint, hint).
Admittedly, this script is vague and possibly unenforceable.
What are "key questions"?
Who belongs on "a list" of helpful "resources"?
The Roman Catholic Church?
Jack Kevorkian?
Ideally, the delicate decisions about how to manage life's end would be made in a setting that is neutral in both appearance and fact.
Yes, it's good to have a doctor's perspective.
But Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it.
Indeed, the measure would have an interested party -- the government -- recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations.
You don't have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach.
As it happens, I have a living will and a durable power of attorney for health care.
I'm glad I do.
I drew them up based on publicly available medical information, in consultation with my family and a lawyer.
No authority figure got paid by federal bean-counters to influence me.
I have a hunch I'm not the only one who would rather do it that way."
FactCheck.org has debunked this newest GOP lie being spread by Ms. Palin and the GOP's health insurance company backers.
Talking to your doctor about your wishes should you become incapacitated so you can write up a living will in no way mandates anybody making "subjective judgments" except patients. There are certainly no judgments about people's "level of productivity in society" to determine if someone gets healthcare or not.
Section 1233, however, addresses end-of-life planning in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.
Oooo scary! Talking about the decisions to be made to write your living will, means that healthcare costs will be reduced because unwanted treatments will not be provided against the wishes of the patient who do not want them. If you want every lifesaving medical trick used, then don't write a living will asking for a DNR order for yourself. If you want to die naturally and not be kept alive on ventilators like Terry Schiavo was, then write a living will and let your doctor and loved ones know about it. The only change this healthcare plan makes is that your doctor will get paid to let you talk to him about your wishes.
The truth is federal law already excludes funding for "assisted suicide" or "euthanasia"; Section 1233 does not change that.
Federal law bars Medicare from paying for services "the purpose of which is to cause, or assist in causing," suicide, euthanasia or mercy killing.
True, nothing in Section 1233 would change that.
Still, Americans can not be reassured to read that "Democratic strategists" are "hesitant to give extra attention to the issue by refuting the inaccuracies, because they worry that it will further agitate already-skeptical seniors."
If Section 1233 is innocuous, why would "strategists" want to tip-toe around the subject?
Perhaps because Section 1233 is not totally innocuous.
Until now, federal law has encouraged end-of-life planning -- gently.
In 1990, Congress required health-care institutions (not individual doctors) to give new patients written notice of their rights to make living wills, advance directives and the like -- but also required them to treat patients regardless of whether they have such documents.
The 1997 ban on assisted-suicide support specifically allowed doctors to honor advance directives.
And last year, Congress told doctors to offer a brief chat on end-of-life documents to consenting patients during their initial "Welcome to Medicare" physical exam.
That mandate took effect this year.
Section 1233, however, addresses end-of-life planning in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.
Supporters protest that they're just trying to facilitate choice -- even if patients opt for expensive life-prolonging care.
But, if it's all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what's it doing in a measure to "bend the curve" on health-care costs?
Though not mandatory, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren't quite "purely voluntary," as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts.
To most, "purely voluntary" means "not unless the patient requests one."
Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so.
Indeed, that's an incentive to insist.
Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority.
Once they're in the meeting, the bill does permit "formulation" of a plug-pulling order right then and there.
So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would "place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign," I don't think he's being realistic.
What's more, Section 1233 dictates, at some length, the content of the consultation.
The doctor "shall" discuss "advanced care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to"; "an explanation of . . . living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses" (even though these are legal, not medical, instruments); and "a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families."
The doctor "shall" explain that Medicare pays for hospice care (hint, hint).
Ideally, the delicate decisions about how to manage life's end would be made in a setting that is neutral in both appearance and fact.
Yes, it's good to have a doctor's perspective.
But Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it.
Indeed, the measure would have an interested party -- the government -- recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations.
You don't have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.
Under any plan likely to emerge from Congress, the vast majority of Americans who are not old or poor will continue to buy health insurance from private companies, continue to get their health care from doctors in private practice and continue to be treated at privately owned hospitals.
The centerpiece of all the plans is a new health insurance exchange set up by the government where individuals, small businesses and eventually larger businesses will be able to purchase insurance from private insurers at lower rates than are now generally available under rules that require insurers to offer coverage to anyone regardless of health condition. Low-income workers buying insurance through the exchange -- along with their employers -- would be eligible for government subsidies. While the government will take a more active role in regulating the insurance market and increase its spending for health care, that hardly amounts to the kind of government-run system that critics conjure up when they trot out that oh-so-clever line about the Department of Motor Vehicles being in charge of your colonoscopy.
There is still a vigorous debate as to whether one of the insurance options offered through those exchanges would be a government-run insurance company of some sort. There are now less-than-even odds that such a public option will survive in the Senate, while even House leaders have agreed that the public plan won't be able to piggy-back on Medicare. So the probability that a public-run insurance plan is about to drive every private insurer out of business -- the Republican nightmare scenario -- is approximately zero.
By now, you've probably also heard that health reform will cost taxpayers at least a trillion dollars. Another lie.
First of all, that's not a trillion every year, as most people assume -- it's a trillion over 10 years, which is the silly way that people in Washington talk about federal budgets. On an annual basis, that translates to about $140 billion, when things are up and running.
Even that, however, grossly overstates the net cost to the government of providing universal coverage. Other parts of the reform plan would result in offsetting savings for Medicare: reductions in unnecessary subsidies to private insurers, in annual increases in payments rates for doctors and in payments to hospitals for providing free care to the uninsured. The net increase in government spending for health care would likely be about $100 billion a year, a one-time increase equal to less than 1 percent of a national income that grows at an average rate of 2.5 percent every year.
The Republican lies about the economics of health reform are also heavily laced with hypocrisy.
While holding themselves out as paragons of fiscal rectitude, Republicans grandstand against just about every idea to reduce the amount of health care people consume or the prices paid to health-care providers -- the only two ways I can think of to credibly bring health spending under control.
When Democrats, for example, propose to fund research to give doctors, patients and health plans better information on what works and what doesn't, Republicans sense a sinister plot to have the government decide what treatments you will get. By the same wacko-logic, a proposal that Medicare pay for counseling on end-of-life care is transformed into a secret plan for mass euthanasia of the elderly.
Government negotiation on drug prices? The end of medical innovation as we know it, according to the GOP's Dr. No. Reduce Medicare payments to overpriced specialists and inefficient hospitals? The first step on the slippery slope toward rationing.
Can there be anyone more two-faced than the Republican leaders who in one breath rail against the evils of government-run health care and in another propose a government-subsidized high-risk pool for people with chronic illness, government-subsidized community health centers for the uninsured, and opening up Medicare to people at age 55?
Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.
If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.
"every idea to reduce the amount of health care people consume or the prices paid to health-care providers -- the only two ways I can think of to credibly bring health spending under control"
You need to stretch your mind a little, give it a workout.
Healthcare spending could probably be drastically affected by reforming the malpractice system and ending the tax deduction for employer-sponsored health insurance.
You say the new health care reform will "only" cost 100 billion?
Someone will have to pay for that.
Most of us think we're already paying enough for healthcare without a new Obama tax increase.
There are many ludicrous things you've said here so it would be a waste to mention them all.
Here's an example:
"there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system"
No, not now. But that's only because of compromises forced by Republicans.
Now, Democrats have gone back to their districts during the recess to rebuild momentum but they are getting an unpleasant surprise.
When conservatives and Republicans ask citizens to come out and let these Democrats know what they think, they come.
And Democrats think of what 2010 will be like if they ignore their constitutents.
August 8, 1974
I'd like to know if there is anyone who actually believes that people will have to "stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care" if the health care system is overhauled.
Raise your hand if you literally believe this will happen, or that there is any nonzero probability that Obama's "death panel" will subjectively judge whether people are productive enough to deserve health care.
JimK
Government healthcare rationing is all about the government deciding who is fit to receive various forms of healthcare and who isn't fit. And the decisions are based upon a subjective assessment of a patient's productivity level in society. Do an Internet search on healthcare rationing in the United Kingdom and you get a good idea of the issues at stake.
Most Americans don't want the government making those kinds of decisions for them.
I, for one, would rather die because I simply can't afford a treatment than to die because the government won't allow me to get the treatment.
When you allow the government to make laws which give the government the power to control all aspects of your life, then you are always at the mercy of the government's leader. The people become slaves of the government. If that government leader is benevolent, then, like a well cared for slave, the people are better off. If that leader is malevolent, then, like an abused slave, the people suffer greatly.
Andrea- not anon
Dear Moron Anon- unlike Caribou Barbie- I am not quitting. I am retiring after 35 years of gov't service- there is a difference. I understand to you and people like you the difference is hard to see- it takes intelligence and integrity. Snowbilly will become another Fox news media whore-her "ability" to appeal to the lowest common denominator was her selling point to the GOP- and now it will be her selling point to Fox.
well, you've got a point
no one is going to call you any kind of Barbie and there's no danger of a news show hiring you
Jim, Sarah is guilty of a little hyperbole but the direction of her comment is valid. The government will begin now to subtly, slowly and inexorably begin to feel empowered to interfere in the life and death decisions of Americans if a government run option exists.
Americans are not only sick and tired of Democrat negativity but also their dishonesty:
"Democrats, with polls showing increasing nervousness about health care, have resorted to vilifying the health-insurance industry.
No doubt, insurers engage in rational but disturbing practices under the current system: They angle to attract the healthiest customers, refuse coverage to the riskiest and seek to avoid paying claims.
But the insurance industry of 2009 is in a far different place than it was 16 years ago; it has agreed to accept all applicants and generally charge the same amount, in exchange for a requirement that all individuals obtain insurance.
So it is disappointing, to say the least, to see Ms. Pelosi and other Democrats revert to round-up-the-usual-suspects demagoguery.
President Obama has been more restrained but hardly more accurate; in a news conference last month, he inaccurately complained about insurers making "record profits, right now."
In fact, among U.S. industries generally and other parts of the health sector in particular, insurers are not particularly profitable.
The latest Fortune 500 ranking of most profitable industries has pharmaceuticals third, medical products and equipment fourth, and health insurers down at No. 35.
Drugmakers reported a 19.3 percent profit margin; insurers, 2.2 percent.
More fundamentally, the Obama administration is peddling health reform as an everybody-wins scenario in which no one, except perhaps the wealthiest of the wealthy, has to sacrifice anything.
We recognize that selling dessert is easier than selling spinach, especially when the other side is falsely claiming that your food is poisonous.
But if health reform passes and starts bringing down costs, it is going to pinch some patients who have become accustomed to getting every test or procedure they want.
At that point, Mr. Obama might wish he had done a little more to prepare people for the changes."
Let us know when the Democrats get some guts and tackle the real problem: John Edwards and the trial lawyers who have caused our system to be so expensive.
I think that different people use the word "evil" to convey different things. Some people, when they hear the word "evil" think of the obvious evil things -- rape, murder, etc.
People who are accustomed to thinking about important issues use the word "evil" in a much broader sense. If we run our economy into the ground, ensuring that our children and grandchildren will pay the price, there is an inherent, underlying evilness to that.
Just like...there is something evil, and sinister, about setting up a healthcare system where the government is responsible for deciding who lives and who dies.
Plain comments are disgusting for obama's health care plan..... she is oops.......
prior comment was a TTF Freudian slip
Sarah Palin is the plain speaker that Americans are coming to realize we need
Palin 2012
This Time We Go For Executive Experience
Palin's executive experience:
Treat the treasury you oversee like it's your own piggy bank by charging per diem to stay home and travel for your kids when you have to go to work at your office or on the road. When your constituents complain about it and file ethics complaints against you, quit, go fishing, and find a nice outlet for your deep thoughts about governing, Twitter.
Sarah the Quitter on Twitter in 2012 and beyond!
It looks like Palin isn't the only Governor to abuse state taxpayer money for non-official travel.
AP reports
COLUMBIA, S.C. (Aug. 10) - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford used state aircraft for personal and political trips, often bringing along his wife and children — contrary to state law regarding official use, an Associated Press investigation has found.
Records reviewed by the AP show that since he took office in 2003, the two-term Republican has taken trips on state aircraft to locations of his children's sporting events, hair and dentist appointments, political party gatherings and a birthday party for a campaign donor.
According to state budget law, "Any and all aircraft owned or operated by agencies of the State Government shall be used only for official business."
On March 10, 2006, a state plane was sent to pick up Sanford in Myrtle Beach and return him to Columbia, the state capital, at a cost of $1,265 — when his calendar showed his only appointment in Columbia was "personal time" at his favorite discount hair salon. He had flown to Myrtle Beach on a private plane and attended a county GOP event.
The trip home on the state aircraft took off at 1:50 p.m. and arrived in Columbia at 2:35 p.m., enabling the governor to keep his plans for a 3 p.m. haircut across town. There were no other appointments on his official schedule that afternoon; the trip back to Columbia would have taken about three hours by car.
Also, on five of the last six Thanksgiving weekends, Sanford used a state plane to fly himself, his wife and their four sons from the family's plantation in Beaufort County to Columbia for the state Christmas tree lighting. The cost for those flights alone: $5,536, including $2,869 for flying the plane empty to pick them up...
Funny that you should bring up plane travel, Bea, considering the fleet of jets that the Dems in Congress just bought for their personal travel! And this, after Obama panned corporate execs for taking jets!
Of course, "Anonymous"...not one of the Republicans in Congress will set foot on one of those planes. Why should they? They can fly by any one of hundreds of Corporate Jets, paid for by their corporate pimps. You are an outstanding hypocrite!! (One of your more endearing attributes, unfortunately).
Citizen
"not one of the Republicans in Congress will set foot on one of those planes"
Irrelevant.
A republican wasn't complaining about Sarah Palin's expenses.
A Democrat was.
A dirty, lying hypocritical Democrat.
Party's over.
Palin
2012
boo!
Palin the Quitter has pedaled back from her "death panel" comment for the pitchfork crowd and has called for civility:
...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. Let's not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us.
Salon has done some research and come up with example of decisions made private insurers' "death panels:"
private insurers are already doing what reform opponents say they want to save us from. (The insurance industry, pushing back against charges that they're part of the problem, said last month that "healthcare reform is far too important to be dragged down by divisive political rhetoric." The industry has long maintained that its decisions on what to cover are the result of careful investigations of each claim.) Here is a look at a handful of healthcare horror stories, brought to you by the current system. It took Salon staff less than an hour to round these up -- which might indicate how many other such stories are out there.
-- In June 2008, Robin Beaton, a retired nurse from Waxahachie, Texas, found out she had breast cancer and needed a double mastectomy. Two days before her surgery, her insurance company, Blue Cross, flagged her chart and told the hospital they wouldn't allow the procedure to go forward until they finished an examination of five years of her medical history -- which could take three months. It turned out that a month before the cancer diagnosis, Beaton had gone to a dermatologist for acne treatment, and Blue Cross incorrectly interpreted a word on her chart to mean that the acne was precancerous.
Not long into the investigation, the insurer canceled her policy. Beaton, they said, had listed her weight incorrectly when she bought it, and had also failed to disclose that she'd once taken medicine for a heart condition -- which she hadn't been taking at the time she filled out the application. By October, thanks to an intervention from her member of Congress, Blue Cross reinstated Beaton's insurance coverage. But the tumor she had removed had grown 2 centimeters in the meantime, and she had to have her lymph nodes removed as well as her breasts amputated because of the delay...
-- David Denney was less than a year old when he was diagnosed in 1995 with glutaric acidemia Type 1, a rare blood disorder that left him severely brain damaged and unable to eat, walk or speak without assistance. For more than a decade, Blue Cross of California -- his parents' insurance company -- paid the $1,200 weekly cost to have a nurse care for him, giving him exercise and administering anti-seizure medication.
But in March 2006, Blue Cross told the Denney family their claims had exceeded the annual cost limit for his care. When they wrote back, objecting and pointing out that their annual limit was higher, the company changed its mind -- about the reason for the denial. The nurse's services weren't medically necessary, the insurers said. His family sued, and the case went to arbitration, as their policy allowed. California taxpayers, meanwhile, got stuck with the bill -- after years of paying their own premiums, the Denney family went on Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid system.
Thank goodness the Denny's had a public option available in their state so they could continue to get necessary medical treatments for their son after their private insurer cut them off.
To the Anon who blames trial lawyers for all our healthcare problems, here's one for you:
I just got off the phone with David Brian Brown, the St. Louis, Mo., lawyer who has appeared with Kenneth Gladney, the black man who claims he was beaten up by a bunch of Service Employees International Union members outside a town hall meeting in St. Louis. Gladney says he was just there innocently selling Gadsden flags — those flags with the coiled snake that say “Don’t Tread On Me” and became symbols of the recent GOP Tea Party protests.
Here’s the video that shows the alleged attack — and Gladney (the one in the grey polo shirt) walking around casually after the incident, claiming that an SEIU member attacked him. Meanwhile, as Daily Kos diarist KevinNYC points out in his play-by-play of the event, there’s a big white guy in a white polo shirt yelling — “they attacked him!” The guy on the video looks strikingly like his lawyer, David Brown, who now says he was a witness to the event, so he can’t officially represent Gladney.
When I asked Brown, who was in a car with Gladney on their way to see Brown’s brother, who is going to be Gladney’s official lawyer, Brown said that there’s been lots of misinformation floating around online about this case.
For one, Brown said, contrary to recent reports like this one from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Gladney wasn’t laid off and has health insurance. “He’s just unemployed,” says Brown, and “has insurance through his wife.”
Although Brown initially identified Gladney as “a friend,” when I asked him what line of work Gladney is in, he had to go ask Gladney about that before he could report back to me that about a year ago, Gladney worked for an optical store. Brown said he thinks Gladney’s wife is a social worker, but he’s really not sure.
Meanwhile, though Gladney appears to be just fine in the video right after he was supposedly beaten up, he showed up the next day at a tea party event in a wheelchair. At the event, Bill Hennessy, the organizer of the St. Louis tea parties, asked the crowd to donate money to Gladney to help him pay for his injuries, despite the fact that he now says he has insurance. When I asked Brown about this, he said: “Well, who doesn’t need a donation? If people want to give him a donation because he’s injured and unemployed, that’s up to them.” Brown said Gladney has raised about $1,100 in donations so far.
Brown also told me that Gladney is not a conservative activist. He was just selling the 18th-century patriotic resistance flags to try to make some extra money. Brown said Gladney plans to sue both the individuals he says attacked him and the SEIU, since the “attackers” were wearing union T-shirts...
Special Comment
‘Death Panel’ Palin dangerously irresponsible:
Sarah the Quitter incites mob violence and national disunity by ‘making stuff up’
Finally as promised a Special Comment on this terrible moment in American history, and those unfortunate and irresponsible Americans who have brought us to it.
"The America I know and love," the quitter governor of Alaska Sarah Palin began, "is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
Of course it is, Ms. Palin, and that is why it does not exist, has not existed, and would never, under this president, nor any other president, ever exist, in this country.
There is no 'death panel.' There is no judgment based on societal productivity. There is no worthiness test. But there is downright evil, and Ms. Palin, you just served its cause. You shouted "fire" in a crowded theater — a hot one — and then today tried to roll it back with "no, no, sorry, not fire, I meant flashlights."
Too little, too late, too obvious. Madam, you are a clear and present danger to the safety and security of this nation. Whether the 'death panel' is something you dreamed, or something you dreamed-up, whether it is the product of a low intellect and a fevered imagination, or the product of a high intelligence and a sober ability to exploit people, you should be ashamed of yourself for having introduced it into the public discourse, and it should debar you, for all time, from any position of responsibility or trust in the governance of this nation or any of its states or municipalities.
But it will not. Because a percentage of America does not want explanations nor serious conversation. It wants panic and the guilty thrill of chaos and an excuse to bash skulls and hang people in effigy. Or not in effigy. Ms. Palin, what, in spirit, is the difference between this monstrous image of a congressman hanged in effigy and the indefensible smile of pride on the idiot's face.
And this image with not one murderer in the mob even feeling the need to hide his face for fear of justice that would never come? They are both, to use your phrase, "Death Panels." Ms. Palin, you might as well have declared that the government is being run by a coven of witches with fake Kenyan birth certificates.
And you might as well have told the vast unthinking throng that mistakes your ability to wink for leadership, that they should start shooting at Democrats. There would be no need to tell them to bring guns. Others have done that. Somebody left his at an Arizona Town Hall.
And incidentally, Madam, you have forfeited your right to be taken seriously the next time you claim offense at somebody mentioning your children. You have just exploited your youngest child, dangled him in front of a mindless mob as surely as if you were Michael Jackson. You have used this innocent infant as an excuse to pander to the worst and least of us in this nation. You have used him to create the false image of 'death panels.'
The only 'death panels,' Ms. Palin, are the figurative ones you have inspired with such irresponsible, dangerous, facile, vile, hate speech. The death of common sense. The death of logic.The death, perhaps, of Democracy, at the hands of mob rule. If someone is hurt at one of these Town Halls, pro-Reform, anti-Reform, or, most likely, as these things tend to play out in the real life you know so little about, Ms. Palin — if the hurt befalls an innocent bystander —you will have contributed to the harm.
You might very well become, Ms. Palin, the very thing you have sought to create in the lurid imaginations of those spoiling for a fight, waiting for an excuse, looking for a rationalization of their own hatred, their own racism, their own unwillingness to accept Democracy. You, Ms. Palin, may yet become the de facto chairman of a Death Panel. Your higher calling, Ms. Palin. God forgive you, Ms. Palin.
It is hardly all Sarah Palin. She is in fact a relative newcomer to the orgy of fantasized violence and imagined revolution, whose fires have been stoked, for weeks, for months, for years, by Conservatives — but more often by mere mercenaries, men and women who believe nothing, who are in it for the game, or the profit, or the sheer kick of bending masses to their will. Glenn Beck, who recoils when somebody actually readies for an attack on one of the "FEMA internment camps" he so cavalierly invented, who so cowers at the thought that he might get blamed, or might lose his precious and well-earned gold, that he actually has to plead with his viewers not to become new Timothy McVeighs.
Glenn Beck, says that and then comes back three days later and jokes about — poisoning the Speaker of the House. It is irresistible to you, isn't it? It's the same thrill of irresponsibility, of caveman thought, of the drug addict who suddenly and joyously cares nothing about self-restraint. Sobered momentarily into realizing the prospective outline of the horrible shape on the horizon — soldiers wounded, shooter says she was liberating FEMA camp, says she saw Glenn Beck tell her to rise up and fight back' — awakened to the idea that words you say on television have consequences which you cannot control, you plead, almost cry, for non-violence.
And yet within 72 hours the thrill again rises up in your blood and you cannot resist it, you must fantasize about murder, and by the very action of speaking it aloud, you enable others to join you in this neanderthalian ritual of violence to overcome the enemy — whether the enemy is real, or imagined, or whether the enemy really isn't an enemy at all, just your neighbor, with a different point of view, who wants to talk about it, who wants to involve you in the decision even though it is his turn to steer and not yours, and even though you both know that some day our system will give you another turn to steer.
But ranting and crying and playing with toys on television, does not work, if you are advocating compromise and dialogue and thought. It works only for a mountebank making the promise of magic and power, with the underlying inherent threat of carnage and chaos. And now you add you believe 'death panels' are real. An idea so insane, which mainlines so directly back to the mercenary fantasies of the pathetic Betsy McCoy, that even Sarah Palin backed quickly away from them.
But what a scare tactic! The big lie in the flesh. Your dream come true. Which is probably why, Mr. Beck, we have not lately heard much of your "9/12" groups. Because there you had the germ of an idea, exploitative perhaps, but at its core, beneficial, calming, unifying, thoughtful: restore the sense of September 12th, 2001 — not of dread or threat, but of collaboration, of meeting in the middle, of standing together under one flag and trying to improve the conditions of all Americans.
And then somebody from your 9/12 group told its members they should all go to the Health Care Reform Town Hall in Tampa, and break it up, and shout down anybody who disagreed with them, and scuffle with the police, and demand not discourse but disaster. Your work, Mr. Beck.
Your contribution to this. God forgive you.
There are other instigators free in the land, nearly all of them, in effect, un-true believers. Men intelligent enough to work their way up the political ladder in this country into the Senate of this nation, and yet suddenly foolish enough, or suddenly opportunistic enough like Mr. Cornyn of Texas, to float conspiracy theories about the White House using Health Care Reform to try to compile an enemies list, one e-mail address at a time, when four years ago the same Senator was saying that the previous White House's pernicious, warrantless, illegal consumption of everybody's e-mail address, and everybody's e-mail, and everybody's websites, was defensible and justifiable because, quote, "none of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."
And now pushing — is Mr. Cornyn — the supposedly independent analysis of the proposed Health Care reform by "The Lewin Group" that 119 million people would have to change their insurance — Mr. Cornyn not knowing, or being paid not to know, that "The Lewin Group" is wholly owned by an Insurance Company, the way the Lewin Group gave Mr. Boehner and Mr. Cantor 60-thousand dollars apiece. Wholly owned!
Then there are the birthers, laughable from the moment they opened their mouths, proffering a conspiracy that somehow began with the placement of birth notices in two Hawaiian newspapers 48 years ago this month. But people who do not want this president to be president will believe anything, and that is meat for fading commentators like Lou Dobbs, whatever he actually believes.
Because the birther movement touches another essential part of the defective soul — the need for an excuse. For they need to convince themselves of an immense conspiracy, and place that conviction as a barrier between their actions, and the sad reality that they are not the victims of intricate machinations against freedom, but are just garden-variety, ordinary, racists — that they can handle the most limited of integration only in theory.
They will take anything that will let them pretend that — when they burst into tears and cry that they want their America back — they are not asking for White Power, not asking that somebody make the black man in the White House go away. There are other instigators, of course, so obvious, so careless — knowing so well that anybody who desperately wants to believe lies, will not even notice the truth standing next to them wearing a big red sign.
Like the "just a Mom from a few blocks away" at the Wisconsin town hall, who didn't think anybody might google her name and find out she was really the ex-vice-chairman of the county GOP and part of the campaign of the Republican who lost to the Democrat whose town hall she was at that moment, helping to disrupt. Like the smooth-talking hospital corporate titan, spreading millions around to enable the hate, knowing that none of the haters will ever realize that they have become prostitutes for the health care industries.
Like the people who propagated this widely-cut-and-pasted quote "line by line analysis" of the Health Care Reform Act —one that saves Right Wingers the trouble of actually reading the bill.
This is where the fictions come from: that it's funding ACORN, that it guarantees free health care for illegal immigrants, mandates abortions, demands euthanasia. If you read it without knowing the truth, you might shove the right-wingers out of the way at the Town Halls and start screaming yourself!
It seems to have been created by "The Liberty Counsel" — an off-shoot of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University — whose other big policy concern is the attack on Christmas. And maybe the most brazen of them all. That man at the Town Hall in Connecticut, carrying the "We don't want government run health care" sign, while still wearing his Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield shirt.
You might think it was because he was too stupid to wear something a little less corporately-slavish. But given what those around him have read, they not only wouldn't care, they might even take comfort from the logo; that he could boast, and that they could hate under the auspices of, an actual, caring, friendly, ruthless insurance company. My words of course, are nothing to Mr. Anthem, or Mr. Cornyn or Mr. Dobbs or Ms. Blish or Mr. Scott or the others.
This is a job to them, and since we have placed a price tag on everything in this country, there is no soul-searching involved. You have a job. If it involves stirring up frightened people to defend the corporation against the citizen, well, you have a salary to earn and a family to feed. The same rationalization that enables mob hit men to sleep at night.
But somewhere in those crowds of genuinely angry people, people who listen to Cornyn or Dobbs, or fantasize with Beck about poisoning their way to a Democrat-free world, or salivate like Pavlovian dogs at the sound of the shrill whistle from Sarah "Death Panel" Palin, somewhere in those crowds are some actual people with some actual brains still working and thinking and evaluating. For God's sake, trust your instinct to think.
There are no death panels, there could never be. Were there steps taken towards them, I, and 99.9 percent of the people in this country, from the fiercest liberal to the most apolitical blob, would be standing next to you preventing their creation. There are no plans to take your insurance away from you. There will be no rationing of care. There will be no Health Choices Commissioner and he will not be able to transfer money electronically out of your bank account.
There will be nobody coming into your house and telling you what to eat. There will be no euthanasia. And the people to whom you are listening with half an ear, are telling you half the truth — on a good day! The euthanasia scare comes from something as benign as a proposal to let you put in for insurance if you have to consult a doctor about what to do if you or a loved one are fatally ill.
If you are where I was last March — when I sat down with the doctors to talk about my mother, fatally ill, not awake, not aware — the health care reform will now pay you back for the doctor's fee for that conversation. And it will pay, whether you decide to let your loved one go, or you insist to the doctor that they keep that dear one alive at all costs, to treat them for months or years or decades more.
And this part of this bill was originally co-sponsored by a Republican congressman. And from that caring bi-partisan starting point, through her own paranoia or for her own political gain, Sarah Palin has invented the boogeyman of "death panels." Think, please. Think, before something horrible happens. As you move to bellow that which you know not to be true. As you try to shout down a Congressman who is there to answer your concerns. As, God forbid, you think there has been enough talking and not enough of something else.
Think of how Lincoln closed his first Inaugural address, and remember that wise words stand the test of time.
If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way, all our present difficulty. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being you yourselves the aggressors. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Seven straight posts by Anon-B.
Six at the maximum verbiage level.
This would hold in any court in the land as evidence of desperation.
Sarah Palin has scared the bejeebies out of her.
2012
boo!
Does anyone know where to get the new Sarah Palin bumper sticker? It reads "Sarah Palin: 2012 - 2014 1/2"
Sarah would be able to accomplish a lot in a short time.
Golly Anon. I'm sorry for posting three items, two of them about Palin and one about a trial lawyer ready to sue on behalf of a GOP supporter who attended a healthcare town hall meeting, on a blog thread about Palin and Obama's health care plan.
The last 5 posts were all a single special comment by Keith Olberman.
Talking about the topic of a blog thread or another topic brought up in its comments section, does not denote fear to anyone but you, who can't keep yourself from lurking in the shadows here. It's funny how you are the one who always brings up fear from your troll hiding place under the bridge.
I hope Caribou Barbie the ditz is the GOP nominee in 2012; it'll make President Obama's reelection a slam dunk. Maybe she can field dress a moose but she can't name the newspapers she reads or apparently bother to read (or cannot comprehend) the House's healthcare plan if she thinks talking to your doctor about your end of life wishes is facing a "death panel."
Palin in 2012! The GOP's last hope.
Glub glub glub
A lot of us are looking forward to Palin running again. Saturday Night Live was in the doldrums for decades and completely unfunny until Tina Fey came along and did her version of Sarah Palin.
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/vp-debate-open-palin-biden/727421/
Tina’s genius was in not going over the top, but in combining all of Sarah’s little quirks in just a slightly different, but believable way – you can just imagine Sarah saying most of those things herself. The only difference is that Tina knows she’s the punch-line to a joke. Sarah doesn’t.
Since Sarah has been out of the limelight and Tina has left SNL, SNL has returned to its boring, un-funny state. I miss the belly-laughs.
“I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred union between two… unwilling teenagers.”
(Tina Fey channeling Sarah Palin)
Have a nice day,
Cynthia
There was an interesting conversation last night. Here's what John Rother, of AARP had to say about the health care plan Congress is considering:
MADDOW: ...Joining us now is John Rother. He is executive vice president of policy at AARP.
Mr. Rother, thank you very much for coming on the show tonight. I appreciate it.
JOHN ROTHER, AARP EXEC. V.P. OF POLICY: Good evening.
MADDOW: Now, on the surface, it looks like your organization, AARP, and 60 Plus could be rival groups. Are we looking at a turf war between your two competing organizations here, or is there something that's fundamentally different about these two groups?
ROTHER: Well, we represent 40 million members, 50 and older. We don't know if they have members or what they do when there's not a big controversy. But clearly, they're funded primarily by corporate interests, especially pharmaceuticals.
So, there's a big difference. We take no corporate money. We have no pharmaceutical money. Our income is from member dues and the services and products that members buy.
MADDOW: One of the things that we have talked about on this show is the investigation that is AARP bulletin did a couple of years ago into why 60 Plus was opposing pharmaceutical reform at the state level. Can you tell us what that organization found about this group?
ROTHER: Well, we hired an independent investigator and found that 60 Plus in that year was taking most of its money from the pharmaceutical industry and kind of using it as a screen to pretend that they were really representing the interest of seniors, when in fact, of course, seniors very much want more affordable medications. But 60 Plus never owned up to who was funding it until well after the fact.
MADDOW: You know, everybody is being hit with misinformation about health care reform. But one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you, Mr. Rother, is because it seems like seniors are being targeted with some of the scariest allegations. Do you think that is by design, that older people are being singled out for this type of-these types of scare tactics? Have you seen this kind of strategy before?
ROTHER: I don't think you can look at those commercials and not conclude that seniors are the target of a very intentional scare campaign. And many seniors, of course, are worried about change because they depend on Medicare. They are perhaps not in the greatest of health, and they definitely want to know that Medicare will be there, their doctor will be there when they need it. So, change can be a little scary.
On the other hand, when we've looked at this bill and we read every page, we've concluded that the bills proposed in the Congress would be good for seniors, would actually help them afford their medications better, make sure that doctors are there when they need them. So, we feel there's nothing to be scared about in the actual legislation.
MADDOW: I know that you're the executive vice president of policy at AARP and your job is to be analytical and to do these things sort of to the letter and to the service of your members. But I just have to ask you if it-if it makes you mad to see fearmongering of America's seniors over this issue or any policy issue, does it? For me, it makes me feel protective and angry.
ROTHER: It certainly makes me angry because, you know, there are real issues and people should be engaged in this debate. But to scare people, to raise these bogus issues, to intentionally mislead a big part of the population is-you know, it's a subversion of democracy. And it does make me mad. And I think that the news media, such as yourself, are starting to catch on to what's going on.
MADDOW: John Rother, executive vice president of policy for the American Association of Retired Persons, AARP-thank you so much for joining us tonight, sir. Thank you.
ROTHER: Thank you, Rachel.
"I hope Caribou Barbie the ditz is the GOP nominee in 2012; it'll make President Obama's reelection a slam dunk."
actually, by 2012, Obama's renomination will make virtually any Republican a slam dunk for the Presidency
it's sad, really
"Maybe she can field dress a moose but she can't name the newspapers she reads or apparently bother to read"
You may all remember one time when I ask Anon-B what papers she reads and she gave the same answer as Palin did, almost verbatim.
Anon-B, reads, you know, like, all the papers.
wink-wink
You may all remember one time when I ask Anon-B what papers she reads and she gave the same answer as Palin did, almost verbatim.
I think you better look up "verbatim" because I don't think you know what it means.
Here's the CBS News transcript of Couric's simple direct question and follow-ups along with Palin's flustered non-responses.
Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?
Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
Couric: What, specifically?
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
She couldn't name a single magazine or newspaper she reads.
Here's my answer to your question:
In response to your question, I read many news sources, not just newspapers. They include the Washington Post, New York Times, Salon, AOL News, MSNBC.com, FOXNews.com, network news (ABC, CBS, NBC) websites, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, and many others you can easily find by searching the many comments with links to news sources I have placed over the years on this blog...
Oh, and FYI:
verbatim - in the exact words : word for word
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