Anyhow, the Washington Post woke up this morning, bleary-eyed and brain-fog-fagged, and revealed, to the presumable astonishment of whoever is left in their readership doesn’t read blogs that say "fuck," that the Conservative Critique of the Administration’s Healthcare Initiative involves a whole lot of hysterical fearmongering bullshit:
The controversy stems from a proposal to pay physicians who counsel elderly or terminally ill patients about what medical interventions they would prefer near the end of life and how to prepare instructions such as living wills. Under the plan, Medicare would reimburse doctors for one session every five years to confer with a patient about his or her wishes and how to ensure those preferences are followed. The counseling sessions would be voluntary.
But on right-leaning radio programs, religious e-mail lists and Internet blogs, the proposal has been described as "guiding you in how to die," "an ORDER from the Government to end your life," promoting "death care" and, in the words of antiabortion leader Randall Terry, an attempt to "kill Granny."
I don’t listen to very much wingnut talk radio — I read the wingnut blogs, thankyewverymuch, and that’s plenty wacky enough — but I do make a point of flipping through every few days or so, just to see what crap they’re on about lately. (Often I do this if if I’m driving around listening to a Mets game, and they’ve just done something excruciating, which is pretty often — it’s like novocaine.) But it’s clear that for a month, at least, this Obama-Kill-Your-Grandma shit has been a staple of the paranoid ranters.
Now, as I said last week, this particular smear makes me nuts because it really is a slap in the face to palliative care providers, who, contra insane ideological extremist morons like Randall Terry and Jonah Goldberg, are not at all relatives of Mengele. Honestly, they are not. And it makes me nuts because from a humane medical perspective, the smear is wildly, irresponsibly wrong; as the American Medical Association (hardly a left-wing organization, to say the least) said in the WaPo article:
"These are important discussions everyone should have when they are healthy and not entering a hospital, so they are fully informed and can make their wishes known," said association President J. James Rohack. "That’s not controversial; it’s plain, old-fashioned patient-centered care."
That John Boehner to Sean Hannity to garden-variety comment-section "conservative" slime are participating in malignant fearmongering is disgusting, but, like, don’t give bareback ferry rides to scorpions, you know?
No, what really killed me about the WaPo piece, apart from their being pretty damn late to the game, is this bit:
After letting the controversy simmer on talk radio and the blogosphere, expecting that it might blow over, Democrats have begun to respond.
This is unfortunately and depressingly true — and utterly predictable. And it’s political malpractice. During the elections, Obama had a pretty good rapid-response operation for crazy internetty wingnut smears, offering the chance for rapid pushback before, well, loony stuff could get out there before it could be dislodged. Where that operation was for the Kill Your Grandma shit, I have no idea. I was on it, but I’m just a guy who likes to say "fuck" on the Internet, you know? It’s like the Obama-ites thought the election was pro baseball, and fixing healthcare would be the neighborhood rec softball league, who’s bringing the bipartisan beer? Weird, really.
Related posts:
- Late Night: Boehner — Barack Obama Wants to Kill Your Grandma
- Late Night: Wingnuts Warn: If Grandma Suddenly Sprouts a Schlong, Blame Obama
- Late Night: Obama Scandalizes Conservatives, Inexplicably Refuses to Cock-Slap Random Foreigners During UN Appearance
- Obama Mentions the Max Tax, Gets Booed
- Late Night: Birth, Death, Sex & Race
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Live from FDL, it’s Thersaturday Night!
Evening all.
“I was gonna fight wingnut smears/ But then I got high”
SaturThersday!
P.T. Barnum said it best.
I share your pain, Thers. I too have been enticed to say “fuck” on the Internet, especially when wingnuts make inane and slanderous claims about how I treat my grandmother (who, by the way, is 107 years old and a straight-ticket Republican voter in her day…and she still would know better than to listen to this trash).
Word to your grandmother!
Menken pretty much had it nailed, too:
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
Hospice care is a wonderful and glorious thing; it is a blessing and a gift, and thank god it is covered by MediCare. No one should suffer in pain. My mother and my aunt both availed themselves of palliative care and it made the final days so much more pleasant and easy for them.
Obviously displaying intolerable moral weakness by not embracing their pain and suffering as is God’s will..
*sigh* as you said thers, sadly predictable.
this fuckery has to stop.
Actually I watched my grandpa who I loved (my dad’s dad, my mom’s dad was a drunken racist) as he got older, and less aware, turn to conservative talk radio in the 90s, and get more bitter and paranoid. In the 80s, when he was still, uh, there, he once silenced a getting-angry family dispute between the liberal family wing and the conservative family wing over Iran-Contra by announcing about Ollie North, “I read about this, and it seems clear the man broke the law, whatever else he did, end of story.” Was a big moment for me. And then he got older and sicker and this talk radio stuff just sucked him in. Very sad, and one of the reasons I do what I do.
Am I supposed to be … happy? Relieved? Weirded out? that my grandma has already passed?
My Grandma died in 1961.
Barack Obama was born in 1961.
Coincidence?
I hardly think so.
BTW, can I get an all Thers channel on my teevee?
People saying “fuck all this nonsense” on a regular basis.
I’d watch that.
Yeah, my dad, a life long Republican, got sucked into the Faux Spews vortex and got ever more bitter and angry during that period. I really could not talk politics with him at all.
can I get an all Thers channel on my teevee?
People saying “fuck all this nonsense” on a regular basis.
I always kind of liked “what sort of fresh fuckery is this?”
maybe it’s a matter of taste.
in which case – I’m fuckerred.
Hell, I am the oldest living member of my immediate family.
I have a 15 year old son (straight A’s) looking at choosing a career. His mother has 33 years experience as an RN. A medical Doctor was a logical choice, I have discouraged him from this field due to an extra 8 years of schooling with 400K in dept all for government controlled wages. Additionally the tort risk are unbearable. We will need to outsource massive numbers of doctors from Pakistan, India, Nigeria just as the socialized European countries do now. VOTE to remove government from all health care control, Insurance companies are heroes not villains. Personal medical savings accounts would control the incentive to waste and could be administered by insurance companies. Save 100’s of millions of our grandchildren from suffering and early death. Keep capitalism, not communism! Hasn’t worked anywhere on the planet and caused massive suffering. Many Democrats sincerely believe that our DNA is better then all of the other countries that have Communist health Care. Some how, Communist-Progressives hope our government will be successful when no government program in any country has ever been successful.
Don’t expect credibly from me by calling me a name, tell us real solutions that aren’t based on CHANGE blindness. Some solutions that cost no Tax $s:
• We need to deal with the 100 of millions in Medicare /Medicaid fraud that only the government can afford to continue. Insurance Companies could not afford such fraud and would stop most if they could control Medicare. Get the complacent Government employees out of health control
• We desperately need tort reform to reduce doctors unimaginable insurance premiums and stop the expensive defensive medicine most need to practice.
• Allow smaller business to band together to bargain for better premiums as the large companies do.
• Allow 100% individual tax deductions for health care expenses and medical savings accounts for those that don’t get sick.
• Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines. Any form of Government health care is monopolistic and deadly.
Obama will be history’s biggest mass (unintentional) killer if this bill passes. So sad that they will be our American children and grandchildren. We have the best medical system because of capitalism. Saves lives, support it at all cost. David Fletcher Small Aviation business owner, not in the insurance business.
I find it interesting that one of our greatest founding fathers, Thomas Paine, called it correctly in his time when he said “But to expend millions for the sake of getting a few vile acts repealed, and routing the present ministry only, is unworthy the charge, and is using posterity (that’s our children’s and grandchildren’s future) with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs, from which they derive no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy of a man of honor, and is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and peddling politician.”
Wow. A totally incoherent, counterfactual, bloviating troll. Congratulations, Thers.
Get bent.
I like “fresh fuckery” better, but which would make a better slogan to go against
“Fair and Balanced?”
Would it be:
A. “Fuck the Nonsense”
or
B. “Fresh Fuckery”
Howdy, Thers!
Even though the Republicans are, as usual, spouting hyperbolic nonsense on this issue, if we’re going to get serious about cost containment, we need to have a serious dialogue about the medicalization of end of life. It has been well known for decades, ever since the Democratic governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, brought it to public attention in 1974 (or 1984?). Recent studies have documented the expense of the last six months of life in each state
(http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2006-10-18-end-of-life-costs_x.htm) The national average is almost $17,000 for the last six months of life. This is probably not a good time to have that discussion, because it is too easy to demagogue it. But it is a significant cost factor that must be dealt with eventually.
Bob in HI
(sorry, couldn’t embed the link because my browser has hung up ”Transferring data from s21.sitemeter.com…”)
It was awful to see personally — in its nasty demographics, it’s like selling cigarettes to pre-schoolers.
I kind of favor “Fucking the fucktards’ fuckery”
and speaking of fucking nonsense (or fuckery, if you prefer)
HELLO AIRMASTER!
do not feed – disagree with the message but do not attack the messenger
Cut him a break. It’s a huge effort to cut and paste the same screed a million times. And multiply that by the number of blogs out there – carpal tunnel, here he comes. I hope he has decent coverage.
Conflicted?
I’m sorry my mother is dead; she’d have cheerfully voted for whoever had a D after their name last fall (her opinion of W and his fellow party members was already low and dropping), and today she’d be a great-grandmother (but not last weekend: kid was born Monday night).
However, she’d be dealing with Part D if she were here, and I am glad she died before it took effect.
(I miss my mother.)
This is targeted to the older white males that voted for McCain.
May I feed the pups?
This is a cupcake with a little milk cup for dipping the oreos. One for everyone.
My mom would have as well.
I miss certain things about my mom.
It’s probably pointless to even respond, but every Western nation with a government sponsored plan spends less money and has better health care options than we do.
Also, Thomas Paine was not a “founding father.”
You don’t even know how ignorant you are, which is not that big a deal, except that there are so many of you.
but which would make a better slogan to go against
“Fair and Balanced?”
“Fresh Fuckery un-Fairly Foisted Upon Fools”?
Bwahahaha!
Sorry for your mom.
Amazing BTW how the skulduggery over Part D is now totally forgotten in this “let’s all be bipartisan” crap. Oh wait, it’s not amazing at all, even if it should be.
You have to admit that wanting government to get out of health care coverage, without admitting Medicare is government-run health care coverage, takes some kind of mental pretzeling. I wonder how it would do as an Olympic sport?
Should also point out that every industrialized nation (including Japan), which all have some form of government healthcare plan with universal coverage, has a longer life expectancy than we do. BTW they spend 1/3-1/2 what we do for as good or better medical outcomes and have a greater satisfaction rate with their system than we do.
How about “Fuck That Fucking Fuckery?”
The GOP would always win that event.
You’re right — it will contain costs. It’s hard to wrap your head around why the self-interested parties who insist upon ramping up costs for the terminally ill for no sound medical reason at the expense of their sanity and dignity, and the public purse, occupy the “high moral ground” in this “debate,” but, well, yippee America and the Free Market.
Every Real American should know that I think the GOP is outsourcing trolls from Pakistan, India, Nigeria. We need to track these guys one day and find out who is paying them.
Yeah. Screw government-administered health care for veterans, too. I can think of no less deserving recipients than those guys and gals. Hey, I wonder if there’s a Gooper with the stones to bring that to the floor and see how it plays.
I take that back. The Libertarians may have an advantage there. Of course most of them are Goopers as well.
ding!
yeah – but how profitable are their health insurance companies?
ChicagoCorporate rules, baby.Well, she died in 2005, and it was relatively fast if not painless.
Longish story; but she was doing chemo, the side effects got nasty, then she got a blood clot in a leg that didn’t clear (probably deep-vein thrombosis), and she died within two weeks from systems failure. She was in the hospital until they saw nothing would work, and then was moved to a nursing home for palliative care.
I remember her talking about changing her voter registration from R to D, back in 1980 (she hadn’t been voting R outside of primaries for quite a while; her opinion of Nixon went back to his campaign against Helen Gahagan). One of her aunts said that her father would roll over in his grave at that, and my mother answered that someone would have to go out and replant the grass.
And lower infant mortality! Oh noes, the Red Menace of, uh, Sweden.
That is a fantastic line! What a woman she must have been.
Yeah, it would really, really, suck to be like them.
Having worked in the health care field, I saw the end results of no preventive health care.
Someone couldn’t afford diabetes monitoring, and they end up like one woman I knew and took care of: on dialysis, blind, on a vent, a double amputee, and she died without ever leaving the hospital. It is so wrong to let this happen.
It’s horribly painful for the patients, it’s deadly and they leave families behind. We are all poorer for their loss. We can do better than this.
This message is targeted at older people but older people are the most up on this issue.
Living wills as a scare tactic for old people? The GOP seems to want to refight Terry Schiavo why? Next to hurricane Katrina and Privatizing Social Security, Terry was a big win for us.
It would be different if the infants of the rich were dying ….
My Dad was a Republican for most of his life, but became disillusioned with his party in the 1990s, partly after witnessing police suppression of a demonstration on the University of Wisconsin campus. Afterwards, he increasingly viewed himself as a “citizen of the World.” After he suffered a stroke in 2001, he lost his will to live. Physically and medically, he could have lived for years in a dependent care facility. He chose, however, to stop eating, and since it was his will, no extraordinary methods were used to prolong his life. His last several months were spent in hospice care.
A lot of money could have been spent extending his life, but it would have been pointless.
Bob in HI
Remember that these are Republicans and they occupy an alternate universe in which that was a huge victory and a majority of Americans hate Social Security.
Hey, I wonder if there’s a Gooper with the stones to bring that to the floor and see how it plays.
If someone were to tell, oh say, Michele Bachmann, that veteran’s health care is in fact (quite rightly) a form of socialized medicine…. – hey ya never know.
My mom died within weeks of beginning leukemia treatment in the early 90’s. It was the chemo more than the cancer that did her in.
Is there any polling on this issue with older voters ? I want to fight this one the GOP does not want people to have living wills. They want you to live hooked up on tubes. They would keep you alive even when your brain dead!
Our counter offensive on this issue would really scare old people.
We just need to get the media to cover our response.
Epu’d from previous screed, if I may.
When I was at Osan AB, I took a tour of the DMZ in Korea. We went on a bus to our end of the Bridge of No Return. There was a sergeant sitting in a truck perpendicular to the end of the bridge and you could see the engine idling. We were told that his foot was on the clutch and it was in gear. If the North Koreans had chosen to attack our tourbus, he would have blocked the bridge long enough to allow us a getaway. Even if he were shot first, his foot would let off the clutch and his death would buy us a few seconds.
Semper Fidelis. It’s not just for Marines.
I think my father lost much of his will to live when my mother died in 1992. It was also part of what drove him into the Faux Spews vortex. He finally died of a sudden heart attack ten years later.
Never mind Terry Schiavo — read my link to the Boehner statement.
They want to re-fight Karen Ann Quinlan.
I’m not kidding.
This counsel the elderly every 5 years has been law/regulation for 40 years, what changed is that the government now is reimbursing physicians for their time instead of making it just a requirement.
Medicare is in my future soon, does anyone think that Elmore wants me dead?
I already have a legal power of attorney, end of life designation….. anyone think by young adult children want me dead?
I have elderly parents and I didn’t work my ass off to manage the rebuild of their house after the fire?
Like I said, an alternate universe.
There is such polling — and it’s bad, hence my point about the WH being irresponsible in not getting out in front of it.
See the last link in the first para of the post.
Yeah, that’s my dad. Mom’s not as bitter/angry, but she’s off the Fundy/Jesus deep end. It’s really hard to be around the older generation of my family. Mom’s sister is convinced all gov’t is about “ripping people off”. Sigh.
Thanks, thers!
FunnyWheelieDiva
good night friends. sleep well and tell grandma we’re not out to kill her.
hey I use the VA! Don’t Take my VA AWAY!!!
I think Obama keeps beleiving, despite all evidence and numerous cases to the contrary, that his opponents are intelligent, sane, and honest and that the American people are also sane and rational. He really needs to read more Menken and Twain.
Night, Betsy.
And my blog. He should read my blog.
((((PJ!))))
Hey, congrats on the grandbaby!
FWDiva
Mom was a New Deal Democrat through and through (I take after her politically). Very much pro-civil rights and most progressive issues. She was always a moderating influence on my father, who had been a fairly moderate Republican until after her death.
That might make his head explode.
Night, TexB
Good, pain-free rest to you!
FWDiva
Hey it is all PROFIT PROFIT for they corporate masters!! The longer they keep ya alive the more they can bill thus even more Profit!!
Yup. As the late great Wolfgang Pauli once said, referring to the work of another physicist, “That’s not right. In fact, it’s not even wrong.”
pain free sleep wishes tex
And people wonder why I am a socialist.
At least you had that. I’ve had to get here to the far left through life, work and blogs. I think being a scientist and having to give up the anti-evolution bull$hit in college was the thin end of the wedge. Once you give up that first block of dogma, thinking gets easier.
FunnyWheelieDiva
Nighty night, TexBetsy!
I won’t tell my Mother, who is a Great-Grandmother. It would either just confuse her, or maybe she’d just agree that it was a good idea (she’s ready to die, and has little to live for, and knows it.)
Bob in HI
The GOP used to have first rate Ad guys what happened? Lee Atwater was Evil but a genius. The GOP has the media in their pocket the I would rather have a beer with Bush, Al Gore is boring meme proved that.
The GOP controls the media even now they get more airtime for their issues, but they are Lazy!
This campaign gets them what prolife voters? Even many Prolifers got issues with being kept alive after they are brain dead. This issue gets the base angry so what the GOP base was already angry.
This campaign is like buying the same song on Itunes twice intentionally. Who is in charge of developing their advertising strategy another Crony Capitalist hire?
thanks y’all
No kidding. Even FOX News viewers rejected the GOP line on that case, as their own polls showed.
Hokay, I’m crashing. Nites.
g’nite thers
The problem is that the GOP has become ever more ideological and extreme over the past 30 years. At this point most of them are true believers who cannot see anything except what their ideology tells them should be. Nixon, may he rot in hell, was a pragmatist, as were most of his contemporaries.
Night, Thers.
Fine we need to fight this one
Great angle we need some numbers
You know what we progressives should totally do? It’d be kind of insane, but it’d be hysterical and really throw the wingnuts for a loop.
We should get on the news and say, ” Yeah, we’re gonna be killing the SHIT out of your grandma!” Then we do a song and dance number about it.
Oh, wait, in deference to Thers, ” We’re gonna be killing the FUCK out of your grandma!” Then the song and dance.
Wouldn’t it be hysterical? I mean, the only people who’d believe it… are people who ALREADY believe it, so we’d be fine. Truth is, I’m tired right now, a bit out of it, and I’ve went from “progressively indignant” to “irreverently amused”. I’ll eventually get over it, but right now, I’m snickering at the idea of Obama shouting on national TV about how he’s gonna be killing your Grandma while dancing. It would be awesome.
Hi, Katy
Yes, you did right by your parents after the fire. And, no, NOBODY wants you dead. Esp not Elmore and your kids. That we all care very much about your QUALITY of life doesn’t change that a bit!
FWDiva
Cool responses, expected the four letter words, just not almost every response. Unfortunately my kids, grandkids and generations to come, their health is in serious threat. All of the F—k posters that stick their hand out for someone else money in the name of Castro-Care are completely blind to history. You are the enemy, I welcome the name calling as you demonstrate your attitude and arrogance. Carl Marx would be called an enlightened Progressive and would be a god to many posters. Those that think western European or Japanese health care is better then ours are badly mistaken.
Obama almost made your fantasy a reality. His two-left-footed reply to that question was about as bad a public statement as he has ever made. And in front of network cameras.
Even the King-of-Cool has to hear that question and come out swinging. It was so bad that on second thought, I think he may hate the idea about Living Wills, and was anxious to see it plundered.
Wow, cannot even spell Karl Marx’s name right. Impressive and erudite. You do not have to take our word on the quality of health care in the rest of the industrialized world, you can easily look it up (we are the only industrialized nation without national health care of some sort). There are tons of statistics on it readily available on the net.
Time for me to head off to bed, this troll is boring. Take care all (even you trolly).
They live longer than us what other measure of health is there? They spend less money to insure everyone than we do to insure some people. Public Health care, Private Health care the money is still spent.
And if you really cared for your kids then giving that McDonalds worker making your kids happymeal healthcare might be a good idea. Swine Flu is coming.
Hate the play (talking-point), not the playa.
nite doctor
I prefer my trolls at least marginally coherent and literate. Night.
Good shot! ;o)
At the base of the “Canada’s system sucks” argument are imported liars like Shona Holmes. Brain tumor my ass.
They just cannot help themselves.
Ohs Nos … teh smart Murkans are catching on to the World Wide Conspiracy … swindle America into getting Universal Health Care, adopting Green Energy and improving their education system and in 20 years, the country will be totally bankrupt, morally & materially.
It’s Fool’s Gold, ah tells ya !
The story is true … all of it !
Our Docs don’t work during Hockey Season and also during Maple Syrup Season, huntin’ season …
Thank You:)
Canukistani’s who do not tread teh Gooper Party Line are not invited.
Did you not get the memo?
Please tell me the News media is covering THAT story. Everyone automatically thinks the other side is weaker when they are caught lying.
Really? What’d he say? (I missed it.)
Yeah I remember when the GOP had good liars since Bush came in the GOP has gotten to LAZY to come up with good lies anymore.
Since when have we been that lucky, my fellow progressive? The history of the left is one damn thing after another.
Ya mean they do work some of the time?? Damn I never woulda thunk it!!
Let’s not go where they invite us to go. Please leave the vile comments to the other sites.
Thank you.
Of course they’re NOT covering it! Are you kidding me? It’s not their JOB to fact-check their sources! Silly Dam’ DFH! It only matters when DEMOCRATS seem to be lying.
Duh, mon!
FWDiva
Canuckistani … who me ?
No Sir, I’m movin’ to the newest country in the Western Hemisphere … Teyhas !
This why I gave up tv.
Gawd, when asked at a townhall about the lies about killing grama, he joked that the government didn’t have enough people to visit ALL the seniors.
CLUNK
We really need the Fairness Doctrine back!
Yee-Haw!
Stars fan in-waiting.
Yeah. I may have to do the same, after this scandalous news about Richard Wolffe. (see The Seminal or Glenn Greenwald…)
FWDiva
WHAT?!? Oh my, that is… NOT what I expected. Thanks for telling me!
There’s some video out there, and it is depressing to watch him not pick up the cue and kick that lie in the teeth. It was as if he had no clue what was being discussed.
It was Obama at his least impressive, rhetorically .
And the Mavs are gonna get LeBron next year !
*ducks and hides from STTP*
It’s… odd, how the side most devoted to truth and justice (forget the American way, we’re more multicultural than that) is the one that comes under the most attack from lies. Maybe it’s the only way to even the scales.
Also you will be deputized, as Tejas will have no defense from the brown hoards of the South.
git yer pistolas ready.
Hot Diggity Dog … I grew up on Louis L’Amour Novels !
“I want Sackett Dead or Alive !”
Gotcha evil needs an edge because it is weaker!
Will Ya Call him Deputy Dawg??
Petrocelli Bandalero. Nice. Seems to fit.
Badges ? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges !
Oh sorry, that’s the Cambridge Police … *g*
And Airmaster’s grandchildren will be marrying BLACK PEOPLE!
Good deal. I would highly recommend that you put him in a top-notch boarding school, asap, for his own good.
He better get his ass in gear- there’s a lot of bullshit about him floating around, and he should at least try to deal with it.
I would like him to look at older voters who ask questions like this and think, “This person Will Vote. Hit the damn ball out of the park with your answer.”
Somehow I think he naively thinks that what they said is obviously so ludicrous, it doesn’t deserve a very strong answer.
Actually, anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows that he meant that as a joke. And most people will see it as such.
PW ! *G*
What kid was born Monday night?
The problem is that he himself can’t — that’s what we’re here for. (And OFA, which has already been mobilized.)
One thing you can do is to do media pushback: Every time you see a lie in the press about this, push back on it. Let the press in your area know that you’re watching them.
Then evil makes mistakes pisses us off forces us to focus. But if evil/the GOP is making bad lies this suggests that their time of triumph (Bush’s reign) is over they have become lazy, debased, etc.
The Movement the Reagan Revolution seems over bad lies apathy they don’t care. No ideas of their own no new ideas much less good ideas.
They seem to be in denial refighting Terry Schiavo why not refight Custard’s last stand? They are pissing off Hispanics, Gays, Old People, Women etc and they expect to win elections.
If Obama wants to fill the quivers of assholes, I can think of a hundred policies he can propose. Giving them those optics are just plain lazy politicking, IMHO.
Pretty much. Evil… I admire the way you actually just flat-out say it. Let’s be honest, as nice as it would be to talk about how Evil is just a socio-cultural construct, there really is such a thing as freaking Evil in the world- it’s men fat on wealth they gained off the backs of others, it is monsters in the guise of men who spew racism on the radio, it’s… well, it’s the Wingnuts. Let’s not pretend.
Margot !
I think he wants that topic of conversation to go on … remember the RushBo incident and Palin’s attack speeches during the campaign ? Repugs shooting themselves in the feet is fun to watch
Only if the Black People are unlucky:)
Remember our chat about RushBo ? This is the same thing … and also the Birthers.
I like this plan! I’m a ridiculously aggressive person (my favorite quote is “There is no defense like a good offense!”), so pushing back appeals to me greatly.
ROFL !!! Yes, haven’t they suffered enough ?!!
I can see him staying clear of most of their crap, but in my opinion, he blew a gimme in that case.
And good for us. The more they shoot themselves, the more we’ll win come 2010.
Yeah. This is one of the more pernicious things- I can see him letting some of the stuff (like the Birthers) go, but he really needs to get rid of this one, fast. It’s hurting his healthcare plan- which isn’t doing that well to begin with.
BigTimeToonTime with Suzanne, upstairs!
Late Late Night FDL: The Mechanical Monsters
Agreed they are Evil! and We are the Hobbits in this story outnumbered outgunned so we have to use our brains.
I really admire your dad, Bob. And you, too, for respecting his wishes.
And up we go!
So true. Hopefully someone on Obama’s team is reading your blog…and all of FDL.
Really, that’s what so much of this stuff boils down to, isn’t it?
Or tried to pretend he was offing your grandma.
Yay to our newest Merkin!! Ah, Teyjan!
This infuriates me to no end. Someone (maybe Mike Stark????) should track down every single one of these repug congressmen/women, get them on tape, and ask them where in the legislation does it say that Obama wants to kill old people? Try to get them to tell us exactly what does it say? Make them tell us who wrote that piece of legislation?
This is disgusting; it’s despicable that these repugs lie and scare the elderly like this. There is a special place in hell for every single one of these congress people, as well as every single one of these idiot jerks in the media lying like this.
Advanced directives
Most military hospitals I served at during my career required that every single patient admitted be counseled about end-of-life issues, and offered the option for a living will and an advanced directive. But that, of course, was socialized medicine, so I guess it figures
Loo Hoo,
I don’t get much credit; it was a family decision, led by my older brother. There really didn’t seem to be any other reasonable (and legal) alternative.
Bob in HI
“Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned reason is like giving medicine to the dead.” — Thomas Paine
Many people do consider Paine a “Founding Father” although he was not a “Framer” of the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. His “Common Sense” was pampletted all over the American Colonies. I suspect if Paie had been directly influential in those documents they would have had a decidely more socialist flavor.
I suspect the screed was written or influenced by the portrayal of Paine as presented by Glenn Beck. This is crass revisionism as anyone who reads any of Paine’s works would know.
Here, for example, is Paine’s “Agrarian Justice” in which he argues the landed have a responsibility to compensate those who lack property or wealth for absconding with the “natural property” of the community. and while he does not discuss health care, he does indicate that the blind and lame have the right to sustainable support.
http://www.cooperativeindividu…..ce_02.html
Jesus fuckin christ what the hell are you talking about?
*loonicon*
So why is single payer off the blogs’ tables? We have one month to make it happen, and the blogs are pushing public option.
This mess is the Democrats Katrina. They bailed out the banks and left the people clinging to their sinking roof tops. Now they have another chance to really make things right and help the country, and single payer is still off the table.
Given all the initiatives that Obama and the Congress have to put in place, covering all of the wingnut responses with a rapid response team is a larger and more complex problem than having a rapid response team in a campaign.
Plus it will add to the idea that “Obama is conducting a permanent campaign” when he is only trying to get his mandate enacted.
Oh yes, the Washington Post talks about Democrats. Where were they in debunking this crap? Whay have they waited so long?
If her parents were right about Terri wanting to be kept alive, then something like this provision, if available to younger people, would have prevented the whole damn fight. Why doesn’t someone point out that this works BOTH WAYS?? A living will isn’t “Pull the plug” exclusively. Why is it always presented that way?? If you WANT every possible procedure as long as one cell in your body shows a sign of life when hooked up to 50 machines, having a living will ensures that this will happen, just the same as it does for the person who wants the plug pulled at the first possible moment. As one who had to deal with this decision THREE times in the space of a six-month period while also recovering from major surgery, I call total BS nonsense and will gladly stoke the fires in that special place in hell for people who demagogue these issues.
Family members should not be stuck with this painful, emotionally wrenching decision at a time when they’re having to deal with a loved one’s terminal illness. The patient him or herself should not be having to make this decision while he or she is in pain, doped up on drugs, nauseated from chemo, emotionally overwrought at the prospect of death and having enough trouble just dealing with the illness. The best time to make these decisions is before they become an absolute necessity. It’s a hard thing to deal with even when you have months or years to prepare while the person’s dying of cancer, say. People cling to hope as long as they can — and that’s not always a bad thing — finding it difficult to “give up” and deal with the fact that the chemo doesn’t work, there are no more miracle drugs, second opinions will only second the first diagnosis, etc., plus just dealing with that kind of illness takes everything out of the patient and the family and you live one day at a time. But having to make the decision suddenly when the terminal diagnosis is a surprise or the person reaches the point of death much sooner than you expected or the precipitating event is sudden and unforeseen, like a car accident, is even worse. Anything that eases this time for patients and families is worthwhile.
As a veteran of hospital admissions, late-night visits to the ER and the whole gamut of terminal illness care, I can tell you it is the most normal, standard thing to be given a living will form and the name of a social worker or some other professional to talk about it every time you check in — at your TOTAL discretion if you want to fill it out and have it on file or ignore, it’s up to the patient and family, whatever they want to do. Nobody pressures you, but it’s there if you want it, as is counseling about hospice care (which I fully recommend), home health care, etc. And my experience was at a CATHOLIC hospital. Are the Sisters of Mercy in cahoots with Obama to pull the plug on old people? And by the way, this provision was co-sponsored by a Republican doctor and endorsed by several medical organizations, including some Catholic hospital systems — hardly Hemlock Society material. What IS this wingnut compulsion to turn every decent thing in life into some paranoid evil? They do this about EVERYTHING. It’s pathological, and it’s scary if they really find this accusation credible. If they’re just cynically stirring people up with their distortions, they deserve to burn in hell or whatever equivalent of hell on Earth.
Why all the news about how horrifying health care is in Canada and the UK ? We have our own health care nightmares and rationed care but don’t hear enough about that, all they want to holler is Obama is going to kill granny. The status quo killed my father. http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=62 In Tennessee and Virginia, profit care comes way ahead of patient care.
To Bobschacht@21
Six years ago I wrote my thesis on end of life care and the ethics of physician assisted suicide. I think that the it is relevant to the current argument to bring up the cost of the last six months of terminal care in the current debate.
One of the figures I discovered during my research is that in the last six months of life, the cost of out of pocket expenses, the charges not covered by Medicare, lost productivity and costs to families in travel etc. was in 2004 $0.5 Trillion. It seems to me, that if the estimated cost for Obama’s program is $ 1.0 Trillion over 10 years someone needs to do the math and see just how much is really sucked out of the economy and how much capital would be freed up by a government option. We do not have the best health care system in the world although in places we do have world class medical care (Mayo et al). Our costs are high, outcomes and equity of distribution and access rank us pretty low vs the rest of the world.
While the right continues to whine about government dictating what treatments individuals may or may not be allowed under a government option plan and that it interferes with individual “choice” (since when did they ever advocate for choice). Do they ever consider that millions of people have their employment choice restrained because they are hostage to a company medical plan? How many people would go and create their own businesses, creating jobs and paying taxes if they weren’t hostage to the health care industry? We are forever hearing about the nobility of the small businessman and how they will be driven into the ground by federalized health care…how many small businesses would love to have their low wage workers covered under a gov’t. plan…a healthier workforce is a productive workforce why can’t they understand that or is it that our congress is happy to have us farmed like aphids by the insurance companies?