If the world made sense, this would happen:

Via benediction

It is truly crazy to incite violence against abortion providers with lies about "baby parts", and then to become self-righteously offended when the connection between your words and someone's violent actions are pointed out. The right-wingnuts own the Planned Parenthood murders. They have cried fire in a crowded theater until some bastard started a blaze, and then they act surprised? Please . . . . .

Quote for the Day (Iconic Former President Who Deserves to be Iconic Division)

Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - Franklin Roosevelt

Recycling the old lies:

(Via Juan Cole)

Serious monsters

This analysis by Paul Krugman of the Republican options for cutting the deficit by cutting entitlements deserves posting in full (via the NYT):

In his interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mitch McConnell finally mentioned a few sort-of specifics about what spending cuts the GOP wants: raising the Medicare age, charging higher premiums to affluent Medicare recipients, and changing the price indexing of Social Security. But how much does all this amount to? 

I've already noted that the CBO has estimated the fiscal savings from raising the Medicare age at $113 billion over the next decade. A study of health care options (pdf) from a few years ago put the savings from expanded premiums at $20 billion (Option 91) - that number would be somewhat higher now, but still small. 

I haven't found a 10-year estimate of the Social Security indexing idea, but we can roll our own. The idea is to replace the CPI with a "chained" measure that typically rises about 0.3 percentage points less per year. Apply this to the CBO projections of Social Security spending under current policy and I get 10-year savings of $186 billion. 

So, if we take all of McConnell's ideas together, we get a bit more than $300 billion. Getting this would, by the way, impose substantial hardship - seniors would be forced into inferior private insurance, and there are good reasons to believe that the true inflation rate facing seniors is actually higher, not lower, than the CPI. Still, what we're looking at overall is a saving equal to only about one-fifth of what Obama is proposing to raise by higher taxes. 

And that's it; has anyone heard even a peep from the GOP about what else they'd like to cut? 

This is pathetic - and these people are definitely not serious.

There's not much to add to this, other than to say that making old and poor people suffer does not make you a serious person---it makes you a monster.

Jon Stewart on Fox Spews' meltdown

Priceless!

“What an incredible story to tell yourselves,” Stewart said. “We would’ve won if it weren’t for the moral failings of the non-real America. Fox lost because last night, minorities, who feel entitled to things, came and took the country away form the self-sufficient, white, Medicare retirees and upper class tax avoidance experts — or, as they’re also known, your audience.”

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Class warfare and Mitt Romney

A couple of quick thoughts about "class warfare":

Whenever someone questions the income disparity and inequality in our society, the main tactic seems to be to scream "class warfare" loudly, as if that invalidates any point that might be being made. But when Mitt Romney makes a statement about 47 per cent of this country's population being unwilling to take responsibility for their lives (which I guess means "Shut up and get back to work . . . YOU TOO GRANDPA!"), I saw no attempts by anyone, even the Democrats, to frame that as "class warfare". Which, by the way, given the audience Mittens was speaking to (a bunch of rich donors who had paid more than many people make in a year to have dinner with Mitt) and Romney's own financial status, it is.

I'd love to hear THAT point made in the next debate . . .

(p.s.: I know that Mittens and Appalling Ryan have tried to walk this quote back, but I think you only need to look at Mitt's record of lies and flip flops to know what to believe.)

I do know this:

One thing for sure:

Mitt and Paul will lie their asses off all throughout the campaign.

Stop Spewman!

Jack Black stars in an epose of the way misinformation gets spread:
Stop Spewman!

Finally . . . .

(Via The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval on Sunday to legislation that would provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and remake the nation’s health care system along the lines proposed by President Obama.

By a vote of 219 to 212, the House passed the bill after a day of tumultuous debate that echoed the epic struggle of the last year. The action sent the bill to President Obama, whose crusade for such legislation has been a hallmark of his presidency.

“This isn’t radical reform, but it is major reform,” Mr. Obama said after the vote. “This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system, but it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like.”

So here we are, after all the shouting and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The bill, which I think does some things good but mostly far too little, has passed. Will the skies turn black and the earth crack and open up to swallow us all? Somehow, I doubt it.

Here's hoping this is just a beginning of the change this country needs. The change that Barrack Obama was elected for. And here's hoping the Republicans who have lied and screamed and thrown tantrums about all this are seen for what they are: craven, ignorant jackasses.

Public Option Explained

(Via Crooks and Liars) It doesn't get any clearer than this:

The level of the healthcare debate

(Via Huffington Post)

A particularly outlandish example of a U.S. editorial, printed in the Investor's Business Daily, claimed that renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who is disabled, "wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

Hawking, who was born and lives in Britain, personally debunked the claim. "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he told The Guardian newspaper. Investor's Business Daily has since corrected the editorial

I guess you DO have to be a genius to figure this out . . . .