What Reform Means To You?

No shouting of cut-and-paste talking points that make zero sense. No more misinformation, "death panels" or made-up conclusions to crafted, self-serving hypotheticals. You tried to scare us, now get out of the way of the peoples' mandate.

This is what health care reform is all about:

"What does health insurance reform mean for you? It means you can't be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition or dropped if you get sick. It means putting health care decisions in the hands of you and your doctor. It means lower costs, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses, tough new rules to cut waste and red tape and a focus on preventing illness before it strikes. So what does health insurance reform really mean? Quality, affordable care you can count on."

Source: Washington Monthly

Town Hall Screamers And Hyperbolic Rage, FAIL

Part of the reason there is so much hype on these town hall meetings is, unlike George Bush who pre-screened everyone and had them sign oaths to the Republican party before entry, Barack Obama is taking on his detractors more head on.

And thus, the cable news channels get to hype the narrative they've created by focusing on certain parts of the debate, i.e. the screaming hyperbolic cretins that think we are going to become Russia overnight. Who somehow equate tackling rising health care costs with "losing their country".

Jon Stewart does a good segment on this recent coverage, including the 15 seconds of fame the loonies are getting for screaming fantastical, self-predicted legends of how America, their America mind you, will be crushed by caring for each other with lower priced, competitive health care.

Considering they are yelling about a Bill that has NOT left the Congressional Committees yet in its final phase, what are they REALLY mad at?

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Do As I Say, Not As I Say

"Sarah Palin School Of Public Speaking" recent graduate on SNL perfecting the jumbled "do as I say, not as I say" narcissistic method of Sarah-speak.

Two days after calling Obama's healthcare plan a "downright evil" that will target her Down Syndrome baby with a "death panel", Palin has these words:

"[W]e must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment. Such tactics diminish our nation’s civil discourse".

I wonder if Sarah's Borderline Personality Disorder [BPD] is covered by her health insurance now that she is unemployed?



Source: The Daily Dish

Quote Of The Day: Bob Cesca

When political failures are given a unchecked voice within their party, you get a certain kind of crazy that lives off the hype and headlines they once made. The GOP fantastical terror squad of misinformation and its TV-friendly rogues gallery has to be stopped.

"I tell you what, if any government panel tries to tell Sarah Palin that she has to euthanize her Down's baby, I will stand with her and Mr. "What If The South Won the Civil War?" Gingrich in vocally opposing this panel. As will the hobbits of the Shire and the munchkins of Munchkinland because the whole goddamn thing is an utter fairy tale!" -- Bob Cesca

The Right has always been great at creating a scenario that will never happen, then forcing the rest of us to defend the counter position. Reagan had his "welfare Queen and her Cadillac", Bush had his WMD. Their base eats it up, but at no point, once everything is disproved, do they ever atone. It's on to the next big lie.

Source: http://www.bobcesca.com/

Have You Ever Been Polled?

Considering all these polling numbers floating around used to influence our decisions, I have never been called by a pollster. My opinion has never been used about anything, let alone politics. And once you see how they get the information for these polls, you'll wonder who the hell do they actually talk to.

Phone polling depends on a set of assumptions: "You're at home; you have a phone; your phone has a hard-coded area code and exchange which means I know where you are; ... you're waiting for your phone to ring; when it rings you'll answer it; it's OK for me to interrupt you; you're happy to talk to me; whatever you're doing is less important than talking to me; and I won't take no for an answer -- I'm going to keep calling back until you talk to me."

Here is the world most of us live in:

However, the reality is much different: "In fact, you don't have a home phone; your number can ring anywhere in the world; you're not waiting for your phone to ring; nobody calls you on the phone anyway they text you or IM you; when your phone rings you don't answer it -- your time is precious, you have competing interests, you resent calls from strangers, you're on one or more do-not-call lists, and 20 minutes [the length of many pollsters' interviews] is an eternity."

Not to mention how the question is framed, the validity of modern polling is over. Plus, where people spend most of their time, online, is just too hard to poll because of the anonymity and the ability to rig the results [Stephen Colbert knows a thing or two about that, *wink*].

So with landlines being the traditional means and cell phones, text messaging and IM the unused new means, any model without all these factors is pretty useless.

As Jay Leve, founder of SurveyUSA, says, "If you look at where we are here in 2009, it's over... this is the end. Something else has got to come along."

Just like the MSM's decline, people will have to piece together aggregates from sources around the web to form their own "average" opinion.

Source: Political Wire

Get Your Boots On, Sarah Palin Is Talking Again

This would have sounded better from the helicopter as she is shooting the wolf with the high powered rifle.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."-- Sarah Palin

She was 100% behind Bush's "death panel" as they killed thousands of civilians, but I guess if you can make up the biggest lie and spread it lie fact, you can say just about anything.

I can see it now, people applying for "death panel" jobs, hanging out with rest of us as they kill all these Americans. How in the world could we stop this atrocity from happening? I mean, Obama will have power over all of them, directing them to kill as they stand before the panel. Will they be wearing black robes and hoods? What will the music be like? This "death panel" is just an unstoppable force, thank you, Sarah Palin, for giving us a view from your future.

At what point does actual shit start coming out of Palin's mouth?

Source: Facebook