Eyeballs Popping From Sockets

by dday

I think every post I write gets me angrier and angrier, so I may need to take a time out. But first:

Max Baucus spoke at the Academy Health National Policy Conference today. His first words were:

The 19th Century British philosopher Herbert Spencer wrote: “The preservation of health is a duty.”

I believe that this Congress has a duty to reform health care.


And he continued, "this morning, I’d like to spend some time talking about the potential obstacles we may face as we move forward – and the reasons why those barriers can be overcome." So his talk was a kind of analysis, setting out the barriers and how they can be surmounted.

The Washington Times watched that performance, listened to it, and wrote this.

A key Senate Democrat charged with overseeing his party's swift push for universal health care indicated on Tuesday that reform may have to wait until next year, as other priorities related to the economy and wars take precedent.

"Why might reform not happen this year? As is often the case, the new administration and the new Congress face competing priorities," said Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat and Senate Finance Committee chairman, at a health policy conference in Washington hosted by AcademyHealth and Health Affairs magazine. "These priorities compete for time on the agenda and attention in the press and in public."

"The president's dance card is indeed full," he added.


Seriously, shoot me in the face.

These people are not too dumb to breathe, though it looks like it, but devious beyond all reason, ready to intentionally misinterpret anything to preserve the status quo. Do you want to know the very next sentence Baucus said? The RESPONSE to what he laid out?

Despite all of these competing demands, however, nothing seems to resonate with families more than the issue of health care.


We see the same thuddingly stupid, knowingly stupid tripe on the recovery package, with tired arguments about how government spending isn't economic stimulus (that's pretty much ALL it is) and how FDR didn't pull the country out of the Great Depression, relying on the rantings of discredited hack Amity Shlaes to simply lie to the public.

Now the Democrats aren't doing their job of selling this thing effectively, and it's jaw-dropping that they can't turn a fucking jobs program into a positive good. But make no mistake, they're swimming uphill. The media is standing in the way of anyone but their rich friends and neighbors from making it out of this economic disaster alive, and I'm totally sick of it. They are corporate toadies who are nothing short of treasonous.

I'm not calling the Senate. I'm calling MSNBC, calling CNN, calling the New York Times, calling ABC, calling CBS, and telling them I'm advising everyone I know to sell their stock and doing whatever I can to hurt their bottom line even worse than it is now. We need to throw a Sinclair Broadcasting on their collective asses. They are doing more than hurting America this time. They are destroying it.

...and Think Progress falls for this, which is just, you know, awesome.



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