Cheney

Cheney’s never wrong! Back then, he was just constrained from telling us everything by imaginary national security concerns. Now, he can tell us the real deal (torture=the best) because there are socialists in the whitehouse.

Pff. Too little, too late, dems. You guys really think tossing out this useless, mouldy old bone helps anything now? We all know he’s a dick. Tell us something we need to know, like, “Healthcare is going to be fucked until we man up and realize that we are all living longer, and we have to pay for that somehow. Tax hikes for everyone!”

@IanJ: Well, let’s see what Mitch at BOHQ sent today…

Opponents of health insurance reform have power. Some reap huge profits from the status quo. Others take large campaign contributions from those who profit.

So they’ll do anything to keep the current system in place. When fact-based arguments don’t work, they attack President Obama with outlandish lies about a government takeover and euthanizing the elderly. And once that doesn’t work, they’ll go even further.

They got “lies” into the second graf, which is an improvement. But it’s still too NPR-ish for my taste. No $25 from me until I see bared teeth.

Oh, and I guess it should be mentioned that Barry has scheduled a joint-session healthcare speech next Wednesday night. Maybe he’ll pull this one out of the hat yet, instead of out his arse.

@nojo: I also want to see health insurance companies put in their place. They’ve been money-grubbing bastards for far too long. I don’t normally think of myself as a “trash it all and start over” person on big things like this, but it kind of looks like the right choice. Nuke the healthcare insurers from orbit once you’ve got a national single-payer system in place. We need them just long enough for the transition, no longer.

@IanJ: Nuke the healthcare insurers from orbit once you’ve got a national single-payer system in place.

That’s apparently the endgame, as seen by friend and foe alike. The public option is just a foot in the door for a better system later.

Which is why, even though it’s not single-payer Medicare for All, progressives are drawing a line in the sand in front of it. If you can get the precedent established, the rest may be less difficult.

(Of course, given the inevitable histrionic opposition, the proposal for a staged expansion of Medicare coverage may have been easier to pitch instead of a “public option” that nobody understands. But this is where we’re at.)

The Onion nails it again. My favorite bit:
“I can’t tell you the number of patients I’ve had to deliver the bad news to over the years,” said Haige’s longtime family physician, Dr. Howard Silverman. “It’s never easy to look someone in the eye and tell them it’s going to have to be out-of-pocket. For most of these poor people, prayer is the only hope.”

@Mistress Cynica: And…

According to sources, the 46-year-old was laid to rest at Fairplains cemetery, surrounded by friends, family members, and more than $300,000 of mounting debt.

I guess our best hope is to pray that all those town hall yokels get diagnosed with a preexisting condition.

TJ

There’s going to be a love-in against the anti-Obama “preacher” this week.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/tempe/articles/2009/09/02/20090902tr-preach0904.html

@Jamie Sommers: Which reminds me I have to do a survey about Andersen.

/TJ

and speaking of chupacabras…

@Jamie Sommers: Fun!

Goldfinger 2009

007: You expect me to pay $10,000 a year for basic family medical??

Cigna CEO: No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.

@Original Andrew: No. There’s no such thing at that price – without taking on unlimited liability.

@IanJ: I agree. What’s the point of going against the CheneyBot, unless it is to distract attention from the town halls threatened to continue into September.

@nojo: Second speech to both houses of congress in seven months? Bush and Clinton each did a total of two in eight years. Yes we are in several crises right now, but if he doesn’t bring his A game along with some serious performance enhancers, the bully pulpit is going to far less effective down the road.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Oh and, totalmente awesome!

@The Nabisco Quiver:

It’s a greyhound, but still.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Oh, but as the taxi-dermist says “I prefer to call it chupacabra”!

@The Nabisco Quiver: If you think about it, it is the only way to present a complete argument on a complicated issue directly to the public, instead of it getting sound-bited into incomprehensibility.

The fact that he appears rational, sane, and intelligent, at all times, and speaks in complete sentences, and doesn’t drool, cry, or rage, has value, just to see someone who has an air of “not crazy and stupid” about him will have a positive impact, I think.

@The Nabisco Quiver: The difficult thing here is writing a speach which does not have one single phrase in it which, taken out of context, exxagerated, and repeated ad absurdeum, will not give the liars another hook to start screaching about.

You know how if you take just about any word at all, and just repeat it to yourself enough, it comes to seem foreign and strange? Cliff, cliff, cliff, what a strange word, why do we call a steep precipice a cliff, thats an absurd word, cliff. Thats what the GOP does, they isolate any one simple and sensible phrase that a dem says, and just repeat it over and over, drawing out ridiculous illogical supposed meanings and implications, until the most harmless and sensible thing comes to seem evil. “Compassion,” there’s an evil genius to being able to make the word “compassion” become sinister and evil, as happened with Sotomayor, the evil woman who was going to bring the evil socialist value of “compassion” to the Supreme Court, and thus make the founding fathers cry.

@Tommmcatt Floats: I’m trying to convince Mr. SFL that we can adopt a greyhound rescue. Just need to find an old lazy one that doesn’t have separation anxiety and doesn’t mind chilling on the sofa for 10 hours a day.

My secretary told me today I’m working too many hours and I need to get a dog or a kid so I stop coming in so early and staying so late. Ergo, a greyhound.

@SanFranLefty: I’d love to have a greyhound. So sweet. They do get cold, though, so in SF you might be forced to invest in doggie coats.
@Promnight: sound-bited.
I’m thinking “sound-bitten”. What say you, SFL?

@SanFranLefty: Ex gf of mine had a greyhound … if they’re 2 yrs old, they l0st … if they’re 4, they’ve won, but no matter. They are sweet dogs. Go for it.

@Mistress Cynica: I vote for sound-bitten.

@blogenfreude: @Mistress Cynica: Another vote for the greyhound rescue. My brother has had a couple, great dogs. Sure they need their exercise, but they are also very accomplished layabouts, and sweet. Although there has always been something too angular about them that turns me off personally.

I had never heard the cold bothered them, Cyn. Northeast winters here, and none of the bro’s dogs ever had to put on a costume sweater far as I know.

@SanFranLefty: Most people are surprised to learn that greyhounds are actually low-energy dogs. I have two friends with rescue greyhounds and both dogs are mellow, sweet dogs who are content to go run at the dogpark for half an hour, then sleep or chill the rest of the day. Go for it!