The Republican War On Women: The Rape Of Planned Parenthood Edition

Posted by Mark NC on July 18, 2015 at 11:27 pm. 11 Comments :

If there was ever any doubt in the past, the Republican Party is affirming its commitment to a full-blown War on Women, and they don’t seem the least bit concerned about the negative consequences of their deceitful and destructive actions.

Last week a video was released by a group of anti-abortion activists seeking to malign Planned Parenthood. The video purported to show a Planned Parenthood official discussing the harvesting and sale of fetal tissue. However, it didn’t take long for the video to be repudiated as a fraud that was heavily edited to distort the context. The organization that made the video was also shown to be associated with prior attempts to falsely malign women’s health care groups.

Notwithstanding the now obvious misrepresentations in the video, Republican members of Congress are already drafting legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. They have zero evidence that Planned Parenthood did anything illegal or unethical, but that is not stopping them from grabbing their pitchforks and igniting their torches.

This is reminiscent of the shameful conduct of the GOP Congress a few years ago when a similar video smear job by convicted criminal James O’Keefe resulted in the demise of ACORN, an organization that provided much needed assistance to low income Americans. O’Keefe was later proven to have deceitfully edited his videos and he lost a $100,000 lawsuit for defamation against a former ACORN official. But the damage had already been done and ACORN was gone before the truth was fully revealed.

Should the lying propagandists get their way in this attack on Planned Parenthood the results could be even more destructive. For one thing, defunding Planned Parenthood would have almost no effect on the abortion rate at all. That’s because abortion services amount to a mere 3% of Planned Parenthood’s work. So the services that would suffer from the denial of funds would primarily be those related to cancer screening and prevention, contraception, and STD testing and treatment. Those services comprise up to 85% of Planned Parenthood’s work.

Therefore, the consequences of denying funding would be an increase in unwanted or unplanned pregnancies, something that the anti-abortion activists profess to be against. What’s more, there would be more women suffering from undiagnosed or untreated illnesses.

There can be no other conclusion then that the Republicans in Congress are deliberating trying to advance legislation that will do demonstrable harm to the women in America. Yet the GOP complains when they are portrayed as engaging in a War On Women. But what else can you call it? Women are well aware of the antagonistic behavior of Republican lawmakers, which is why they generally favor Democrats at the polls. And things like this renewed effort to financially strangle a charitable enterprise upon which they rely is not likely to put the GOP in a better light with America’s women voters or the men in their lives.

The GOP seems to be committing electoral suicide with their racist agenda aimed at African-Americans and Latinos. Likewise they are not making friends in the senior community by threatening Social Security and Medicare. And young people are decidedly turned off by their opposition to marriage equality, education funding, and student debt relief. Add to that the country’s female voters and there is little left of the electorate to support the Republicans but their base of Teabaggers, evangelicals, and wealthy corporations and individuals. Good luck with that, Republicans.

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Rush To Judgment: Fox News On Chattanooga Terrorism vs. Charleston Racism

Posted by Mark NC on July 17, 2015 at 8:41 pm. 2 Comments :

On Thursday morning a shooting occurred at a military facility in Chattanooga, TN. News of the tragic event was quickly broadcast by most major news networks even while next to nothing was known about the shooter or the victims. Nevertheless, Fox News almost immediately began speculating about the “likelihood” that the shooter was Muslim and the motivation was an ISIS-related jihad. This was even before the shooter’s name was released.

The eagerness with which Fox News sought to portray this event as a terrorist act, prior to having any evidence of it, is typical of their hysteria-driven reporting. Radical Islamic assassins make for better ratings than run-of-the-mill mass murders. Plus, Fox’s audience is primed to perk up their ears at the first mention of domestic terror. They have been well trained by Fox to respond with frenzied panic whenever such threats are reported, whether or not they are true.

In this case, it appears that the perpetrator may actually have been motivated by his devotion to a perverse brand of Islam. But that doesn’t justify Fox’s rush to judgment before they had any factual basis for the accusation. On prior occasions Fox has notoriously hyped fake threats to the American people like the time they warned that the Taliban were training Monkey Mercenaries. Or the time they falsely reported that a dozen missing Libyan planes were being prepared for 9/11 style attacks. Or the most dastardly plot of all: Boob Bombs.

The tendency of Fox News flying off the handle is thus not particularly surprising. However, it is an indication of the repulsive zeal they have for fear mongering so long as it affirms their long-held biases. It is notable that they did not rush to judgment following the murder of nine African-Americans in Charleston, SC, by a Confederate flag waving racist. Well, actually they did rush to judgment, but only to advance the delusional theory that the murders were aimed at persecuted Christians. It took several days before Fox News dropped the “Attack on Faith” message and admitted that the perpetrator was motivated by his hatred and fear of African-Americans.

Fox News

These otherwise unrelated events tell us a lot about how Fox News slants their coverage. Any opportunity to slander Muslims is embraced in a matter of minutes. But if they have to reluctantly concede that there are still vile racists at large, Fox will stall for as long as possible. Furthermore, any terrorist activity will be exploited to intensify their anti-Muslim bigotry and to bash President Obama. But evidence of overt racism will be dismissed while they defend the blatant icons of racism like the Confederate flag. This is an all-too-predictable pattern at Fox News.

Clowns File Lawsuit Against The Republican Party For Defamation

Posted by Mark NC on July 16, 2015 at 8:11 pm. 3 Comments :

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sarasota, Florida, July 16, 2015. The Distinguished Union of National Clown Entertainers (DUNCE) has filed a complaint against the Republican Party (GOP) for defamation and the willful infliction of reputational disparagement. The complaint alleges that the GOP did intentionally engage in activities that brought unwarranted shame to distinguished practitioners of clowning and the variety arts, and they failed to refrain from such activities when alerted to their impending harm.

DUNCE is being represented by the firm of ICP & Associates in this matter, in the jurisdiction of the State of Florida.

Members of DUNCE claim to have have been irreparably damaged professionally and personally as a result of the negligence and/or deliberate actions by the GOP. Specifically, by assembling a field of candidates with buffoonish characteristics that blatantly infringe on the intellectual property of the members of DUNCE, the GOP did appropriate the image and reputation of authentic clowns without authorization. They then proceeded to tarnish the good name of professional clowning by engaging in behaviors that were malicious and false.

Furthermore, the unsanctioned seizure of the recognized trademarks of the members of DUNCE has resulted in the public’s confusion of legitimate and honorable clowns with the political hackery of the GOP. Making ludicrous statements that compel laughter, stumbling over concepts that are commonly understood, juggling positions on issues, and throwing figurative pies in the faces of their political rivals, as well as their audience (i.e. voters), is unarguably an infringement of the rights of the clowning community, even though the GOP’s attempts are embarrassingly crude and amateurish.

In a statement to the media, DUNCE spokesman Flacko said that his members would no longer sit by and watch the GOP “drive their Clown Car over our rights.” “There is nothing more disheartening,” he said, “than watching someone like Donald Trump acting like a fool, and thereby taking the rubber chickens from mouths of our jesting brothers and sisters and their families.” Flacko also singled out Ted Cruz, whose candidacy has been aggressively farcical and even included a video “audition” for the animated TV program “The Simpsons.”

Other candidates committed their own brand of infringement with Chris Christie playing a loudmouth lout in a fat suit; Ben Carson doing his version of a Minstrel Show while calling ObamaCare “the worst thing since slavery;” Rick Perry donning “nutty professor” glasses; and Jeb Bush (who’s very name invokes clownishness) carrying on the tradition of his family’s “dimwitted yokel” act. In a recent performance he complained that “big-syllable words and lots of fancy conferences…creates a more dangerous world.” Indeed, that is funny material, but these people are not trained, experienced, or certified to practice professional clownery.

By acting like clowns, and appropriating the likeness of those who legitimately practice this age-old art, the GOP is doing demonstrable harm to an honored profession. They are creating confusion among the public. And they are damaging the profession and the people who have worked so hard to perfect it. It is on the basis of that harm that DUNCE is seeking compensation from the GOP collectively and the candidates individually.

“The reputation and honor of our members must be preserved,” said Flacko. “We have had no success getting the GOP to take responsibility prior to this, which is why this lawsuit became necessary. They have been openly belligerent and disrespectful up until now and, frankly, we don’t find it very funny.”

Media Ignores That Hillary Clinton Is Crushing Donald Trump And All Other GOP Candidates

Posted by Mark NC on July 15, 2015 at 5:40 pm. 15 Comments :

For most of the past decade TV news has struggled to adapt to the Internet era by employing sensationalism and tabloid scandal-mongering to boost ratings and save their failing industry. This seems like a scenario custom made for the political ascendancy of a faux-reality cartoon character like Donald Trump. In this environment a clown like Trump steals the editorial spotlight every time he belches out some typically ignorant and/or hostile opinion. He revels in all the attention he gets, despite the fact that most people are laughing at him. And the media regards their ratings as evidence that they are producing valid journalism.

So it is not surprising that when a new poll is published that shows Trump leading the pack of Republican losers, that the press will jump on that news and try to invent some sort of relevance to the state of the political landscape. In truth, Trump’s poll-topping position could not be more irrelevant. As reported here at News Corpse, polls that attempt to capture the mood of the GOP electorate at this early stage of a campaign are not particularly meaningful. Republican voters are as fickle as they are ignorant. Anyone who expects Trump’s polling to remain at these levels is woefully ill-informed about these election cycles.

While most of the media was pumping up Trump’s temporary and insignificant poll numbers, some other data released in the same survey was far more consequential and nearly entirely ignored. The USA Today/Suffolk University poll also did head-to-head matchups between Hillary Clinton and each of the GOP’s leading candidates. The headline that ought to have leaped out at the news editors’ desks was that “Hillary Clinton Beats All Republican Challengers.” That’s right, every last one of them, including the allegedly surging Donald Trump.

Clinton is beating Jeb Bush by four points, Marco Rubio by six, Mike Huckabee by nine, Rand Paul by ten, Scott Walker by eleven, Ben Carson by thirteen, and the Golden Boy of the quarter-hour, Donald Trump, by a landslide seventeen points. So Trump is actually faring far worse than any other Republican candidate against the likely Democratic nominee.

What’s more, an ABCNews/Washington Post poll shows that while Clinton’s favorables have risen to a majority (52%), Trump’s numbers, although improved, are still at 61% unfavorable. That includes 81% of Latinos (who Trump laughably said he would carry) having a negative view of Trump. And if further evidence of Trump’s unpopularity is needed, a Fox News poll last month reported that Trump led the field in candidates for whom voters say they would never vote. A substantial majority of 59% said that Trump would never get their support.

So why all the hoopla over a poll that shows Trump leading his Republican rivals? When there are sixteen candidates vying for the nomination, it doesn’t take much to grab the lead. Indeed, it only takes 17%, a number that no self-respecting candidate would ever brag about. It means that 83% of your own party’s voters chose someone else, or no one. Yet these are the numbers that the press has been hyping all day long, while virtually ignoring the far more significant results showing Hillary Clinton easily besting all of her GOP challengers. And her popularity is increasing even after a season of Clinton bashing over phony scandals about emails, charitable donations, and the unrelenting specter of Benghazi.

For the record, this is not the first time that the media has ignored polling that showed Clinton beating her GOP rivals. Two months ago the same thing happened with a Quinnipiac poll where Clinton also beat every Republican they matched against her. It kind of makes you wonder whether they will ever report any poll reflecting positively on Clinton. Especially when there is hoax candidate like Trump in the race.

The Most Hilariously Delusional Response To The Iran Nuclear Arms Negotiations

Posted by Mark NC on July 14, 2015 at 11:28 pm. 3 Comments :

In the early hours of Tuesday, July 14, 2015, an announcement was made that Iran had agreed to a deal with the United States (and England, France, Germany, Russia, and China) restricting their ability to advance any weapons related nuclear programs. The deal required significant concessions from Iran with regard to research, production, storage, etc., of fissile materials, and set stiff obligations for verification and inspection. It further held that existing sanctions would remain in place until it is certified that Iran is complying with the conditions of the agreement.

This announcement predictably triggered a tempest of antipathy from the usual quarters of the Obama Hate Squad (aka the Republican Party). They immediately jerked their auto-tuned knees to complain that President Obama had just surrendered America to its enemies and offered to build Iran as many nuclear warheads as they want and help to aim them at Israel. This went on all day at Fox News with each anchor and pundit taking turns to find the most scurrilous attack on what they regard as a traitorous president.

Among the critics of the new deal was Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn of Texas. He stood shoulder to shoulder with his GOP leadership colleagues (Senators McConnell, Barrasso, and Corker) to denounce Obama’s appeasement of Iran, the next perpetrators of a holocaust. Cornyn said that the deal allows Iran “a clear path to develop nuclear weapons.” (Which it does not).

But apparently the risk of global conflagration grew considerably since a previous statement Cornyn made about the arms deal. Back in 2013 he took note of Obama’s nascent efforts at bringing Iran to the table and could not contain himself. He feverishly tweeted…

So Cornyn originally believed that Obama’s initiative to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions was merely an attempt to keep everyone from paying attention to the fact that he had made health insurance available to more Americans than ever before. How insidious. This is truly a crafty president who, for some reason, didn’t want anyone to know that he was expanding access to healthcare, so he contrived a historic deal to remove Iran’s potential for nuclear warfare as a diversion.

With today’s announcement of a successful agreement, we learn that Obama’s attempted diversion has actually born fruit. The five other negotiating partners, as well as the United Nations, all approved of the deal and celebrated it as an unprecedented achievement. And through it all the Affordable Care Act continued to roll out and is now responsible for producing the highest rate of coverage ever for the American people.

I suppose you could therefore call the Iranian arms deal distraction an unqualified success. It enabled ObamaCare to become ingrained in American society while no one was looking, and it also put the screws to Iran’s devious weapons plans. How ever did Cornyn figure all of that out two years ago? He must be some kind of genius, or prophet.

Scott Walker Promises To Ruin …er… Turn America Around

Posted by Mark NC on July 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm. 31 Comments :

The latest passenger in the Republican Presidential Clown Car is Wisconsin’s union-busting governor, Scott Walker. His announcement address today was rife with the routine braggadocio required by all aspirants to high office.

Among his laundry list of campaign pledges was the promise to “fight and win” for the “born and unborn.” And apparently what Walker thinks born and unborn Americans need most is to have their health insurance repealed, because that’s what he swore to do to ObamaCare. Although he did express support for healthcare for veterans, which is fortunate because he practically declared war on Russia and China, so they’re gonna need it.

Walker spoke at length about his record in Wisconsin but, not surprisingly, left out his numerous failures that place Wisconsin near the bottom on job creation, education, economic growth, etc. But perhaps the most intriguing pronouncement he made was his promise that…

Well, that’s a relief. Because if America had to proceed any further in the positive direction it has been going for the last six years, who knows how long we would endure. Thankfully, Walker has arrived just in time to turn things around, back in the direction that George W. Bush had taken us.

And if anyone can turn things around from the course of sustained prosperity that we’ve been on, it’s a Koch brothers puppet like Scott Walker. He was famously fooled by a blogger who called him pretending to be David Koch (YouTube audio below). They spoke for about ten minutes with Walker pandering shamelessly to who he thought was the billionaire who has been a reliable donor to his Wisconsin campaigns. At one point “David” suggested that Walker should plant troublemakers among the protesters who were packing the capital office. Walker answered saying “we thought about that.”

Of course, it would have been illegal for Walker to dispatch provocateurs to disrupt people who were exercising their free speech rights, but Walker is no stranger to unlawful activities. He is currently being investigated for election irregularities that have already seen six of his associates convicted.

Here is a transcript of the Walker phone call with the fake Koch.

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Donald Trump Exposes The Illegal Alien Lizard Overlords Controlling The Planet

Posted by Mark NC on July 12, 2015 at 9:39 pm. 6 Comments :

It’s no wonder that both David Letterman and Jon Stewart have expressed deep regrets at leaving their programs just as Donald Trump has announced his pretend campaign for the Republican nomination for president. It seems that every day there is another gift to comedy emanating from The Donald. Today Trump is testing the totally insane conspiracy theorist waters and, in the trademark Trump fashion, he is making a HUGE splash.

With the news that Joaquin Guzman (aka El Chapo), the leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, has engineered an elaborate escape from prison, Trump is conspiracy theorizing that “Corrupt Mexican officials obviously let him go.” Of course they did. Why wouldn’t they after just having spent years and untold sums of money to capture him only last year? Trump’s theory goes on to surmise that Guzman is “possibly” in the U.S. because naturally a fugitive Mexican drug lord who Trump says was released by friendly Mexican officials would hightail it to a country that would love to put him away for two or three hundred years, rather than stay in his homeland where he has allies, hideouts, and, according to Trump, cooperative government accomplices who will spring him from prison should he get nabbed again?

But it gets even more bizarre. In the same statement, Trump veered off to accuse American politicians of being responsible for El Chapo’s jailbreak, even though he just finished blaming it on the corrupt Mexican officials.

So all of a sudden his amigos in Mexico are merely the unfortunate victims of some unnamed cabal of American politicians. No doubt President Obama is the kingpin of this gringo crime syndicate that is now harboring El Chapo in a San Fernando Valley safe house. [Hmm, isn’t San Fernando Spanish?]

Glenn Beck and Alex Jones had better watch out. Trump is rapidly moving in on their delusional, tin-foil hat territory. He has even earned the enmity of the boss of the world’s biggest media family. When Fox News Godfather Rupert Murdoch got around to paying attention to the Frankenstein monster that he and his network created he tweeted…

That’s actually true. And furthermore, cities like New York and Los Angeles, where the undocumented immigrant population is the highest, also have declining rates of crime that are lower than cities with fewer immigrants. But these are not the sort of facts that Fox News regards as newsworthy. Geraldo Rivera tried to report it as a fill-in guest on The Five, but was quickly shouted down by the other four goons who were busy exploiting the murder of a San Francisco woman whom they they felt it necessary to shamelessly politicize before she was even buried.

The Trump Show is certain to keep getting better and better. Here’s hoping he stays in the race long enough to participate in a debate or two. He still has not filed his financial reports which are due in four days. He could request an extension (which he swore he would not do) and that would permit him to continue running, but it would exclude him from the first debate that is on Fox News. So stay tuned kiddies. The fun is just beginning.

Bonus Addendum: Trump Tweets:
“When will people, and the media, start to apologize to me for my statement, “Mexico is sending….”, which turned out to be true? El Chapo”
Trump continues to think that Mexico has an official policy of organizing undesirables and arranging for their transport to the U.S.

“The U.S. will invite El Chapo, the Mexican drug lord who just escaped prison, to become a U.S. citizen because our “leaders” can’t say no!”
Just like all the other drug lords that have received invitations to visit America – mostly from red-state drug addicts who dominate the the demand in this country for illegal narcotics.

“Can you envision Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton negotiating with ‘El Chapo’, the Mexican drug lord who escaped from prison?”
After previously saying he would negotiate with ISIS, Trump now adds El Chapo to the list of criminals he thinks should be negotiated with.

“Sleep eyes @ChuckTodd is killing Meet The Press. Isn’t he pathetic? Love watching him fail!”
This is Trump’s typically personalized and insulting (and oh-so-presidential) response to the devastating “Trump vs. Trump” segment Todd did on Meet the Press yesterday.

The Stupid Party: Jeb Bush Fears That Big Words Make The World Dangerous

Posted by Mark NC on July 12, 2015 at 3:55 pm. 7 Comments :

The new Prince of the Bush Dynasty is succeeding in stealing back some of the limelight that Donald Trump has been hogging. However, Jeb Bush’s method of getting attention may not be the most effective in terms of gaining respect. In the same interview where Bush revealed that he thinks Americans are not working enough, he also expressed his disdain for “sophisticated” communication:

Oh my, Matilda. The prezdent uses them long words what make chaos. It’s all parta his socialismic plot.

The problem with Bush’s criticism of President Obama et al, is that it affirms what can only be described as the aspirational ignorance (sorry for all the syllables, Tea Partyers) of the GOP. There has long been a deliberate objective within the conservative political sphere to literally dumb down their discourse to appeal to a constituency for which they obviously have little respect.

This could be traced back to Ronald Reagan’s fist-shaking demand that “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” which today is regaled by fans as soaring oratory on the scale of Churchill’s “blood, sweat, and tears.” In fact it’s more akin to an old man bellowing at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn. If Reagan had been FDR he would have settled for “Just stop fearin’ y’all.”

Jeb’s aversion to being articulate seems to run in the Bush family. His brother George is famous for his verbal gaffes and low-brow manner of speech. What’s worse, he actually regards under-achievement as a virtue. Part of a commencement speech he gave included this inspirational message: “To the C Students I say, you too can be President of the United States.” A similar message of intellectual lethargy was conveyed in a commencement address by Rick Perry who said “I’m very proud to tell you I graduated in the top 10 of my graduating class – of 13.”

Academic achievement and critical thinking is not particularly valued among some of the other current Republicans aspiring to the White House. Scott Walker is a college dropout. Rand Paul is a serial plagiarist. Harvard law grad Ted Cruz thinks the Supreme Court is too political, so the judges should be subjected to political reconfirmation votes. Chris Christie’s idea of adult discourse is to tell people to “sit down and shut up.” Ben Carson thinks that ObamaCare is the worst thing since slavery. Donald Trump just tweeted that he had 20,000 people in a hall that only fits 4,100 (He has since deleted that tweet). And of course, Bobby Jindal is the guy who coined the phrase “The Stupid Party” in reference to the GOP. Apparently he knows of what he speaks.

Remember also that Republicans are opponents of education in general. They oppose increased funding and anything that benefits teachers. They are fiercely anti-science. They cannot agree that evolution is a valid theory or that Climate Change is actually occurring, despite all of the scientific evidence for both. They advocate teaching so-called creation science in public schools. They are a party that has open disdain for the high-performing Ivy League institutions that they regard as elitist. And they are strong advocates of homeschooling where no standards of education are maintained.

No wonder leading Republican candidates are so notorious for talking down to their constituents. No wonder they talk in sound bites and bumper sticker cliches. They either don’t understand more complex concepts, or they are afraid their audience won’t. Consequently, Jeb Bush has to demean Obama for using too many syllables and holding “fancy” meetings. I guess the meetings held during a Bush administration would be dominated by coloring books and nap time. Why waste energy with boring and complicated discussions about international law and treaties? That sort of advanced intelligence doesn’t sit well with the right-wing electorate.

Nor does it work for viewers of Fox News, who are treated to a 24/7 barrage of painfully ignorant and dishonest propaganda. That’s a sad fact that was hilariously explained by Monty Python’s John Cleese, who offered a brief description of the Dunning-Kruger effect wherein stupid people are too stupid to realize how stupid they are.

Sarah Palin Stars In Night Of The Living Death Panels Sequel: The Re-Dumbification

Posted by Mark NC on July 11, 2015 at 12:42 pm. 12 Comments :

Now that Sarah Palin has been unceremoniously jettisoned from her Fox News post, she has deemed it necessary to whip up as much controversy as possible in order to keep from becoming nothing more than a creepy memory and the reason for John McCain’s eternal damnation to Hell. That’s why she ditched her unsuccessful Internet video subscription service hoping more people would watch if they didn’t have to pay.

To that end, Palin has posted a screed on her Facebook page declaring in all caps that “DEATH PANELS STILL NOT DEAD.” As the title suggests, Palin continues to suffer from an acute ignorance of law, facts, and common sense. Her blitheringly dumb resurrection of the Death Panel nonsense begins with the hilariously oblivious assertion that it’s the politicians who don’t get it.

Palin then launches into a self-defense of her faulty grasp of what “end-of-life” plans (aka Advanced Directives) are. And she predictably slams the media for correctly noting that she has been “universally discredited” on this subject. She rants about the non-existent government rationing of healthcare and criticizes the imaginary “faceless bureaucrats” who she says “will measure a person’s worth.” She preaches about the “sanctity of life” in her trademark politi-vangelical style bemoaning that “a bloated bureaucracy and weak-kneed politicians sent millions of Americans into financial distress, unseen in history, with this leftist scheme called Obamacare.” Of course the documented truth is that, since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, more Americans are covered by insurance than ever before, and fewer are facing financial difficulties and bankruptcies due to medical bills.

What launched Palin into this confused orbit was news that Medicare is considering reimbursing doctors for consulting with patients about Advanced Directives. And while Palin calls it an “unnecessary scheme,” it is something virtually every medical professional and patient advocate recommends. The Medicare proposal does not require consultations, nor steers patients toward any specific preference of care. So in effect, what Palin is objecting to is giving people more control over their medical care. And when she fails to make a coherent case against Advanced Directives, she diverts her argument to a completely different and equally benign part of the Affordable Care Act, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is a doctor-run advisory group tasked with identifying the best practices in health care to insure the best medical outcomes and to avoid unnecessary or exploitative procedures.

None of this is new. Palin has been on a rampage against these useful services for as long as they have been public. And for all of that time she has intensely misunderstood them. A year ago Fox News railed against Medicare’s exploration of this policy, making the same irrational arguments that Palin makes. In short, conservative wingnuts believe that it is a God-given right to be denied healthcare by the faceless bureaucrats at greedy insurance companies. But it is submission to tyranny if the government steps in and makes such care available and affordable. Palin et al prefer the old ways when Americans went bankrupt (or died) because they didn’t have insurance or their coverage was insufficient. And it is obvious that this zombie lie about Death Panels is going to be a cornerstone of conservative politics for the foreseeable future, despite how thoroughly it has been debunked by knowledgeable sources.

Update 7/14/2015: Sean Hannity weighed in on this with his predictably inane commentary saying…

What a boob. He apparently has forgotten that end-of-life counseling may also result in patients choosing to prolong their lives with every expensive medical procedure that exists. It’s the patient’s choice. That’s the whole point. Hannity and Palin are arguing to prohibit patients from being able to make their choices known. What’s really sad is that they have so many people who blindly believe what they spew.

Ted Cruz Whines Because NY Times Won’t Let Him Cheat His Way Onto The Best Sellers List

Posted by Mark NC on July 10, 2015 at 2:01 pm. 8 Comments :

What is it about Conservatives that makes them so ultra-sensitive about persecution when they are caught doing something wrong? Whenever they are discovered to have broken a law or violated an ethical principle, they turn it into a case of an out-of-control government trying to put the boot of tyranny on their throats.

For instance, Dinesh D’Souza insisted he was a victim of Obama’s Storm Troopers right up until he admitted guilt of election fraud. Same thing with serial slanderer James O’Keefe who confessed to unlawful activity in the office of a United States senator, but now thinks he’s a victim of federal oppressors. And then there is former Fox News anchor, Glenn Beck, who regards himself as more persecuted than Jesus.

Now we can add Senator and Republican presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz to the list. Cruz recently released a propaganda tract that he calls “A Time For Truth.” And to start off the book tour Cruz is discarding the truth in order to bitch about his book not being included on the New York Times best sellers list. Why he would want to be recognized by a news enterprise that he considers to be in cahoots with the international communist conspiracy is anyone’s guess.

More to the point, Cruz and his disciples are certain that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy intent on suppressing his book and his First Amendment rights. No doubt President Obama himself ordered the Times to remove Cruz’s book from the list in order to smother his sizzling ascendancy to the White House (for which he is currently in a distant eighth place according to the latest Fox News poll).

Of course, there may be another reason that Cruz failed to make the list. When asked by Politico why Cruz was omitted, the Times told them that “the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases.” In other words, Cruz’s book was bought by his campaign or its allies in an effort to game the system. This is often done to artificially inflate sales and grab a spot on the coveted Times list. Then they give the books away to supporters as candidate swag. The Times has procedures in place to ascertain the actual sales data so that only authentic buyers are counted. Otherwise the Koch brothers could purchase a few thousand copies of any book that they want to promote and it would become a Times best seller.

If any other evidence is needed to debunk the paranoid notion that Cruz is being singled out for persecution, a quick check of the current best sellers list shows that several right-wing authors who didn’t cheat (so far as we know) managed to get recognized. They include David Brooks, Ann Coulter, Dana Perino, and Bill O’Reilly. Going back a little further we find folks like Charles Krauthammer, Edward Klein, Dinesh D’Souza, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin. We even see current GOP primary candidates Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Ben Carson.

So obviously Ted Cruz alone has been stifled by the liberal gatekeepers of the literary world. The socialists at the Times are penalizing him simply because he and his publisher chose to engage in deliberate fraud in order to gain benefits from the Times to which they were not entitled. And they probably think that their only crime is that they were caught. Because that’s how paranoid cheaters with persecution complexes view every dilemma they encounter. In fact, this article is all part of the conspiracy.

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