More of This Please

Speaking of nutjobs, Mann Coulter announces that Ezekial Emanuel is on her death list.

[S]he is such a dick.

Really, if he thinks the guy is no value, he shouldn’t have bothered to interview him. If he thinks he is systematically lying and wants to do some liebusting, he should have let him repeat his mendacious talking point and then taken it apart step by step, say, interrogating how the Obamacare plan would “get between Americans and their doctors.” O’Donnell’s preamble was, at best, browbeating, regardless of the fact that his claims were true.

@FlyingChainSaw: True, but it was funny to watch that guy walk right into O’Donnell’s trap and then have nothing to come back with but “this is why your channel has low ratings”.

@FlyingChainSaw: He needs polish, but I liked the use of the word “lie” for a change.

@blogenfreude: Would have been nicer if he could concluded with it after taking the guy apart.

The first half which was all I could stomach sounded exactly like an “interview” by Bill O. Both the interviewer and guest were trying to shout over each other. Please don’t turn MSNBC into a Fox News clone.

It’s so much more effective to allow the guest to say his piece and then afterward rip it to shreds. See the Daily Show for many many examples.

Anyone else see the report on the RAM (Remote Area Medical) in Los Angeles last light on Bill Maher? The RAM is a mobile hospital designed to provide medical, dental and vision care in third world countries. This week they deployed in the Forum. The people who started lining up at 2 AM for medical care were not only the poor who lack any medical coverage but also the working poor whose coverage is so minimal they can’t afford basic medical care.

As Bill noted the semi-haves who flock to the town halls to scream against national health care are so ANGRY they are certainly creating their own health issues. The have-nots who came to RAM are so patient and so appreciative and so loving that by comparison the screamers look like shrill spoiled brats who never grew up.

@FlyingChainSaw: I offer some background, not commentary:
Culberson represents one of the richest districts in Texas. The seat was once held by G.H. W. Bush. The scooter and ambulance Medicare fraud , of which he spoke, was prosecuted back in 2007. He’s living in the past,man!
This is commentary:
I have no problem with the way O’Donnell handled that. Lawrence didn’t give him a chance to get his TP’s in. Chris will be back and it will go back to the old sop it was. A good kicking to the curb now and again to get the troops roused.

@Dave H: Saw this on the news. It was remarkable. Save me a place in line sometime. I am going to need it.

I think I agree with FCS on this one. As refreshing as it is to have these douchenoozles called what they are, L. was too hot out of the gate. As for Culberson’s talking points, he got those in just fine when they finally gave him a minute and a half of uninterrupted airtime.
@texrednface: Sounds like he represents that impressive medical-industrial complex in Houston. My wife was medevaced to there for a neurological workup when we were in the back of beyond, and I wandered the streets of the Medical Mile where everone was dressed in scrubs and I felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. One can understand that Culberson is merely giving his overlords a nutrub for all the lucre they kick his way.

@The Nabisco Quiver: My best friend is a M.D. in Houston’s medical mile and she is rabidly in favor of single-payer as much as I am.

@Dave H: I was posting photos on RAM in LA a few days ago. Amazing. Hearbreaking. Similar events are staged on a less large scale in Ess Eff that include not just medical but other social services including legal advice. I only volunteered once – I confess I was not strong enough to go back to subsequent events (they’re every 2 months here) because it was so heartbreaking I thought I was going to pass out. I have issues with boundaries when it comes to my work, and I was about to bring a whole shitload of people and dogs home with me.

@SanFranLefty: I meant the insurers; he slipped in a shout out to one of them in that clip.

Those RAM are awesome, how come I’ve never seen or heard of them before? Who backs them for domestic and international use? If we can send bookmobiles around (and I don’t know if we do that annymore, but I loved them as a kid), why can’t we have full service mobile support services for the inner cities? I know a few nooks and crannies of Pennsyltucky where they would be deeply appreciated. Adding legal and social services is fooking brilliant, stick a trailer on with some tools and do some basic plumbing, insulation, carpentry and electrical work on shelter.

Shit, that’d be socialism now, wouldn’t it?

@SanFranLefty: Our entire system is totally fucked. Of course, your friend is in favor of universal single payer. She wouldn’t be your friend if she were not an intelligent, and decent, human being, and any intelligent, decent human being should be appalled at the current system.

Lifegiving health care should not be a profit enterprise, period. Lifesaving drugs should not be part of a profit-driven “market” at all.

There is a deep and unbridgeable divide between a profit driven market and providing aid and cures for the sick and dying.

And this evil amoral bullshit, to the effect that noone would do medical research and find new cures if not motivated by patents that allow them to charge high prices for life and get rich from their discoveries. All of the greatest scientific and medical discoveries and advances in history were motivated by nobler causes, the sheer thirst for discovery, the desire to make a difference, yes, the quest for fame, even, and professional recognition, yes, “glory” does not every scientist have an overriding passion to discover, to discover something amazing that will make a mark in the world, to discover a cure for cancer, this is not something that requires the promise of riches as motivation.

Oh, oour society is so sick, so infected with this amoral, evil, insane idea that all aspects of human existence should be subject to economic, cash profit, invisible hand bullshit philosophy.

Human beings actually do have higher and greater values than sheer greed, human beings can be motivated to a higher degree by non-economic factors, than by the mere promise of material riches.

No, our society is completely fucked, because what I am saying is incomprehensible in our society.

They have won. Everything, now, is all supply-demand.

TJ/ Mormoni feeling the heat from it’s less than background rol in Prop 8. Truth is, sometimes “winning” isn’t really winning.

“What I hear from my community and from straight progressive individuals is that they now see the church as a force for evil and as an enemy of fairness and equality,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights. Kendell grew up Mormon in Utah. “To have the church’s very deep and noble history telescoped down into this very nasty little image is as painful for me as for any faithful Mormon.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090815/ap_on_re_us/us_mormon_church_image

@blogenfreude:

That was fan-freaking-tastic BF. I am not sure how much context was lost, but it almost doesn’t matter.

I love they guy looking around like, what is this? My town hall meetings are happy fun house events of the highest integrity! {straightens tie, looks around again}

What would be even better if they fact checked some of these guys in advance and set a real trap. Would be so easy.

Uh, I saw that completely differently. I saw the host being an asshole O’Reilly clone, a lot of overtalking, and the guest come out looking like someone sympathetic (regardless of the hackneyed stuff coming out of his mouth). I don’t think that was a win – at all. But, to be honest, I do really only watch the Daily Show these days (blood pressure), and they’re so awesome at the video research and BADABING moments.

@Dave H: @The Nabisco Quiver: More on the RAM clinic in LA, including this quote:
“The people we’re seeing here have teeth as bad as the people in the Upper Amazon.”

I like your traveling medical/legal bookmobile idea, Nabisco.

I weighed in after watching the clip Friday, and yes, Larry disappointed me in that he didn’t offer Culberson enough rope before hanging him. The proper procedure is to cock your head and ask sweetly, “You don’t really mean that, do you?”