From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
When the GOP does it, it's awesome!
John Cole wields a sharp stick:
I think it is worth discussing, as we watch Congress try to cobble together some sort of health care bill that will cover tens of millions of additional people while still remaining "deficit neutral," that the Bush administration Prescription Drug Entitlement, passed by the "fiscally conservative" Senate and the "fiscally conservative" house (loaded with members of the 1994 Republican Revolution who were now reneging on their term limit pledges) and signed by the "fiscally conservative" Bush administration, didn’t have one single penny set aside to pay for the promises.
And I don’t remember hearing howls of outrage from the Blue Dogs.
Ah, yes. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. The signature "health care reform" bill of the Bush administration. Remember that? Good times. In fact, as I'm writing this, Rudy Giuliani is telling Chris Matthews on Hardball that "Republicans did the best reform ever for seniors in terms of bringing down the cost of drugs. ... It's working out really well." Really??? It's surprising to hear him say that, considering that Republicans think government is evil and can't do anything well. Me confused!
Just a couple words about that Medicare bill: it prohibits the government from using its bargaining power to negotiate for lower drug prices; the administration lied to Congress about the true cost and threatened to fire the actuary if he opened his yap about it; and the House held the vote open way longer than they should have so that arms could be twisted and at least one GOP congressman could be bribed so they could ram it through by the slimmest of margins. What fun.
And then there's this from Paul Krugman, who wrote in 2005:
If all this sounds like a story of a corrupt deal created by a corrupt system, it is. And it was a very expensive deal indeed. According to the Medicare trustees, the fiscal gap over the next 75 years created by the 2003 law---not the financing gap for Medicare as a whole, just the additional gap created by legislation passed 18 months ago---will be $8.7 trillion.
That's about three times the amount President Bush proposes to save by cutting middle-class Social Security benefits.
Elections have consequences. Bush and his congress did health care reform their way. Now it's our turn. And the reason Republicans are terrified and want to turn this into "Obama's Waterloo" isn’t because they're afraid it will fall short of expectations, but rather because it will exceed them and send McConnell, Boehner & Co. even further into the wilderness.
Meanwhile the Blue Dogs should take a look at their party ID cards to remind themselves whose side they're on.
Update: Going through the C&J archives I found this gem from a year ago:
U.S. drug manufacturers are reaping a windfall from taxpayers because Medicare's privately administered prescription drug benefit program pays more than other government programs for the same medicines, a House committee charged in a report Thursday.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that taxpayers are paying up to 30% more for prescription drugs under Medicare's privatized Part D program for seniors and the disabled than under the government's Medicaid program for the poor. "Medicare Part D has given the major drug companies a taxpayer-funded windfall worth billions of dollars," said committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman.
Any comment, Blue Dogs?
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, July 23, 2009
Note: Dear Abby: My teddy bear just exploded. Should I be concerned?
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Netroots Nation convention in Pittsburgh Aug. 13-16: 21
Days `til the North Carolina Watermelon Festival in Fair Bluff: 2
Number of banks that have failed so far this year: 52
Number that failed in all of 2008: 25
(Source: AP via The Week)
Number of Americans who voted in, respectively, the 2000 and 2008 elections: 105 million / 131 million
(Source: New York Times)
Approximate number of birdshot fragments that remain in Harry Whittington's face three years after Dick Cheney shot him: 30
(Source: Harry Whittington, via Parade)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
No one who loved someone who was killed in Vietnam, and Bill Clinton did, ever confused being anti-war with being against those who served there. Many of us who love this country hated that war and still believe the highest patriotism was to oppose it. Mr. [George H.W.] Bush now implies that someone who has not served in a war is unfit to be president, might be too easily inclined to risk American lives. I believe the opposite, although you could cite Ronald Reagan as evidence of Bush's thesis.
---September, 1992
[One might also cite the product of H.W.'s own loins. -BiPM]
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The 11th Commandment.
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CHEERS to a good show. Sometimes I worry that Obama gets so deep in the policy-detail weeds at his primetime press conferences that he might turn off viewers. And I would also add that he's bent or broken enough pledges and promises already that I now take everything he says with a rather large grain of salt. Having said that, I find it refreshing to watch a president so willing to get deep into the policy weeds at his primetime press conferences...do it while talking neither up nor down to the public (in complete sentences, no less)...and know there's a good chance that much of what he says isn’t bullshit. Today Obama takes his bully pulpit to the op-ed pages of USA Today and the halls of the Cleveland Clinic. I think he should help deliver a baby---that would be a kickass metaphor.
JEERS to conjunction madness. Look, I understand reporters want to make hay of their moment in the klieg lights, but come on. This is an approximation of how obnoxious they're getting at White House press conferences:
"Thank you, Mr. President. How do you plan to pay for health care reform and when do you expect Congress to vote on it and is a public option a deal-breaker and what did you have for lunch today and can you explain your views on Euclidean geometry and why not bomb Iran sooner rather than later and do you think the Black Eyed Peas have jumped the shark and what about 'drill, baby, drill?' and what's the meaning of it all?"
Okay, so maybe there is a useful function for Tasers, after all.
CHEERS to Franken's first foray...it's furry! Senator #60 has set his first legislative goal. It's modest but smart:
"Service dogs ... can be of immense benefit to vets suffering from physical and emotional wounds," Franken wrote in a column published in the Star Tribune. "Yes, they provide companionship. But they can also detect changes in a person's breathing, perspiration or scent to anticipate and ward off an impending panic attack with some well-timed nuzzling. They are trained to let their masters know when it's time to take their medication and to wake them from terrifying nightmares."
A bill starring puppies and veterans? Oh, well played, sir.
CHEERS to racism made easy. Time goes so fast that it seems like it's impossible to keep track of how to inferiorize the scary black people. Thankfully, the goddess Digby has kept a close eye on the whiner wing of the Republican party, and posts this handy guide to keep you up to date:
1955 - They are an inferior race
1965 - They are lazy workers
1975 - They make old white customers uncomfortable
1985 - Affirmative action means their diplomas are bogus
1995 - They are a litigation risk for discrimination
2009 - They are racists who discriminate against white people
We understand that the above list has been authenticated and endorsed by Pat Buchanan, so you know it's spot-on. Happy hating!
CHEERS to defying expectations. Nineteen years ago today, President George Bush---the relatively sane one---announced that David Souter was his pick to replace William Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court. Souter's liberal leanings took conservatives by surprise. (I believe their exact words were, "Whaaaaat the F....??!!") We wish him a long and happy retirement in New Hampshire cracking walnuts with his gavel. He earned it.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Granny Doc asks: Why is Chris Matthews trying to start the Abortion Wars?
Ratings.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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JEERS to false equivocation. The "birthers" are out in force and the traditional media is pouncing on them as the loons they are. But, unfortunately, the traditional media just has to point out that, hey, the left does this stuff too! So, as much as I like Roland Martin's rant on CNN, he blows it by adding this bullshit so he can appear "fair and balanced":
"And let me tell you something. On the left...there are also some nutjobs on the left. All this stuff about John McCain, that was ridiculous as well. Get over it. The election is over."
Um, sir, you do know that the McCain campaign was so unsure about its candidate's own eligibility that it launched its own internal investigation of McCain himself, right? I'm sure Roland regrets the error. Mainly because I kept calling him around 3am until he said, "Okay, okay, I regret the fuckin' error already, so quit calling me!"
CHEERS to Union-savers. On July 23, 1885, Ulysses S. Grant, the larger-than-life general who helped win the Civil War (even though he fainted at the sight of blood---really) and then went on to spend a rocky, cronies-run-amok eight years in the White House, died in Mount McGregor, N.Y. at 63. Today we appreciate him for this nugget from the book Rating the Presidents:
He kept his own religious values and practice to himself. In the larger view for the country, he believed in a strict separation of church and state, stating in his seventh annual message to Congress: "Declare church and state forever separate and distinct; but each free within their proper spheres."
Go pay your respects here. But don’t leave any cigars lying around---that’s what killed him.
CHEERS to fountains of money. Wow! Trickle-down economics really works! To watch rivers of cash flow from the rich to the rest of us, all you have to do is close your eyes, clap your hands, wish on a star, rub a lucky rabbit's foot, throw some salt behind ytour shoulder, and turn this chart upside down. My villa's gonna be in the south of France. How 'bout yours?
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Five years ago in C&J: July 23, 2004
JEERS to sleeping on the job. 9/11 commission report reveals that our nation's terror defenses were run by Larry, Curly and Moe. And still no one loses their job.
CHEERS to Dennis Kucinich. Bows out of the race and endorses Kerry:. A good man--we could use more like him.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to snappy answers from 220 miles up. It finally dawned on me why we need to always be in space and expanding our presence there: for the simple reason that we-the-earthbound get to find out the answers to questions like, "How do you sneeze in your flight suit?" and have them answered live by astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle. (Short answer: "Aim low.") Seriously...nearly 50 years after Alan Shepard's inaugural flight with the Mercury program, space is about the only thing left that can still generate a true sense of wonder in the human mind, whether it's the Hubble telescope sending back pics of a planet that might be covered with marijuana plants and stripper bars, or the effect of weightlessness on snot. It's all cool. Frequently gross...but cool.
Have an enjoyable Thursday. Be helpful. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
As a side note, I have no idea what it is, but Bill in Portland Maine in buckets or kiddie pools, and cats in boxes always kill me.
---John Cole, Balloon Juice
7/21/09
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