[ Mar 20th, 10 | No Comments ]
A Guide to the Fear-Mongering Lies on Health Care Reform

With the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finding that the health care bill under consideration in the House would reduce both health care costs and the deficit over the next ten years, the right is running out of legitimate arguments against the bill. Not that Republicans ever really offered legitimate criticisms, relying almost entirely on lies and fear mongering (Death panels! Government takeover!) to scare off support.
Health care is a complicated issue that has components that are moral, should people in one of the wealthiest countries in the world be allowed to die…

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Archived, Best of the Rest, Opinion »

[ Aug 15th, 09 | 27 Comments ]
To All Teabaggers, You didn’t get mad when…

This is dedicated to all you self proclaimed conscientious patriots, We want to get this straight.
You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn’t get mad when …

News, Washington Ind. »

[ Mar 16th, 10 | No Comments ]
House Panel Jumpstarts Reconciliation on Health Care

Monday, the House Budget Committee approved a budget reconciliation bill that jumpstarts the process that Democrats hope will end in the Senate passing sweeping health care reforms by a simple majority.
The reconciliation bill, which will be the vehicle for the health care “fixes” the Democrats will add later this week, passed through the panel on a 21-16 vote. Two Democrats, Reps. Allen Boyd (Fla.) and Chet Edwards (Tex.), joined every Republican in opposing the measure. The process is starting in the House because, by …

News, Washington Ind. »

[ Mar 15th, 10 | No Comments ]
DeMint Fears Health Care Success Will Reignite Obama’s “Boldness”

In a fairly muted online Q&A with Florida U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio — questions were along the lines of “what can we do to stop this health care takeover?” — Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) let the cat out of the bag on the possible effect of a Democratic victory on health care reform.
“If the president is successful,” said DeMint, answering a question about the prospects for cap-and-trade, “I think it will give him some boldness to go back to other programs.”

DeMint, of …

Huffington Post, Opinion »

[ Mar 14th, 10 | No Comments ]
We Could Use Another Progressive Roosevelt, Teddy That Is.

“I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Theodore Roosevelt – 1912

With these fighting words, Teddy Roosevelt shrugged off an assassination attempt by a deranged Milwaukee saloon owner and — bullet still lodged in his chest — launched into a ninety-minute address railing against the corporatism and corruption that dominated both parties in Washington.
The year was 1912, a time of widespread discontent among both Democratic and Republican reformers. …

News, TPMMuckraker »

[ Mar 12th, 10 | 3 Comments ]
More GOP Hypocricy: Hot-Tubbing with a 15 Year-Old Girl

The Majority Leader of the Utah House took a nude hot-tub with a 15-year old employee, then paid her $150,000 and had her pledge to keep quiet, he admitted yesterday.
The incident occurred in 1985, when Kevin Garn was 30, and married. In 2002, when Garn, a Republican, was running for Congress, the woman, Cheryl Maher, began contacting reporters with the story, prompting Garn to pay her and have an attorney draft a non-disclosure agreement, reports the Salt Lake Tribune.
With his wife by his …

Huffington Post, Satire »

[ Mar 11th, 10 | No Comments ]
Liz Cheney’s New “Unpatriotic Seven”

Following her call to remove the “Al-Qaeda Seven,” Liz Cheney has released a list of seven additional U.S. officials whose work on behalf of enemies of the state makes them unfit to serve their country.
While most historians agree these people were among some of the greatest legal minds of their respective times, if not of all time, Ms Cheney believes she knows better because daddy says so.
Now, without further ado, we present Liz Cheney’s “Unpatriotic Seven”
John Adams defended British solders accused of perpetrating …

News, Opinion, Washington Ind. »

[ Mar 11th, 10 | No Comments ]
Rove Speaks: It’s Everybody Else’s Fault

Washington memoirs are all about settling scores. Karl Rove’s “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight” takes that tradition to new and self-parodying heights. To read Rove’s recollections of George W. Bush’s White House is to believe that, for eight years, men of “courage and moral clarity” governed the United States and were beset by critics who refused to give them any credit. On page after page, Rove names the naysayers and picks apart their claims. He’s most at ease …

News, Opinion, The Political Animal »

[ Mar 10th, 10 | 2 Comments ]
Glenn Beck: “Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

On his radio show, right-wing host Glenn Beck warned his audience about churches that care about social justice. As the deranged media personality sees it, “social justice” is code for … something nefarious.

“I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them … are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long …

News, Opinion, Washington Ind. »

[ Mar 9th, 10 | One Comment ]
States Play Fast and Loose With Employee Pension Funds

One of the reasons many people work for government even when there’s not a recession going on (despite the fact that government jobs often pay lower salaries than private sector ones) is the job security and generous benefits. Particularly for the younger generation of workers, there remain relatively few companies that offer traditional pension plans, but they still abound for workers in government jobs. But if Mary Williams Walsh’s story in The New York Times is any guide, those supposedly secure government pensions are …

Guest Author, Hrafnkell Haraldsson, Opinion »

[ Mar 5th, 10 | No Comments ]
Equal Rights Are Not Anti-Christian

I saw the following story on the Minnesota Independent this morning and being a Minnesota native myself, I felt moved to respond: White on same-sex marriage: Rosa Parks didn’t ‘move to the front of the bus to support sodomy’
“For the first time in Minnesota history, a legislative committee contemplated the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state on Monday.” About time, I’d say. And it’s a shame that Minnesota’s political landscape has been dirtied by the reprehensible beliefs of a small group of narrow-minded …

News, Opinion, TPMMuckraker »

[ Mar 5th, 10 | No Comments ]
More Hypocrisy From Another GOP “Family Values” Legislator

A California Republican family values legislator who was arrested early Wednesday morning for drunk driving had recently left a gay club, sources tell a local news channel.
State senator Roy Ashburn was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol on Wednesday at 2am in Sacramento, after police saw the car he was driving swerving erratically. An unidentified male passenger was in the car with Ashburn.
The sources told CBS13 that Ashburn, a father of four, had that night been at Faces, which touts itself as …

Huffington Post, Opinion »

[ Mar 4th, 10 | 2 Comments ]
Jim Bunning, Obstructionist Extraordinaire & Republican Superhero

Sen. Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Republican who single handedly delayed unemployment benefits for 400,000 desperate Americans and forced an unnecessary furlough of another 2,000, should be a figure regarded with wonderment.
The awesome power he held in his hands! The utter disregard for vulnerable Americans he exhibited while wielding it!
Bunning is a Republican superhero. He personifies the mean-spirited, hypocritical, wealthy-serving, obstructionist Republican Party. As a result, his fellow GOP senators championed him. South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint said, “He’s my hero this week.” Alabama Republican …