Rick Sanchez Blasts Health Care Reform Opponent

CNN's Rick Sanchez tears into one of the leading voices against any health care reform, Rick Scott. This "concerned citizen" who "just wants people to read the bill" has been accused of buying up local hospitals and closing all but one. He denies that accusation in the report, but then defends the action as something that happens every day.

Most interestingly, Rick Scott's company was fined $1.2 billion dollars for taking advantage of Medicare and Medicaid. Sanchez said that "Some would argue, and it would be hard to say they're wrong, that you would be the poster child for everything that's wrong with the greed that has hurt our current health care system."

In order to defend himself, Scott pointed out that other companies also received fines. Sanchez's response?

"How much more wrong can you be than what you just said? Not only is your company screwd up, and you just admitted to it, but you said look at all the other companies, they did the same thing. It doesn't look like a sterling system we have here, does it?"

Exciting!

The Principled Senator from Arizona

John McCain has had a long, distinguished career in government service, and while I disagree with the vast majority of his political views, I believe he has represented the interests of the Republican Party well in the Senate.  But like most politicians, he does tend to make a fool out of himself from time to time.   The frequency hit its peak when he was fighting for the presidency, but is now once again on the upswing, likely a result of his struggle to be crowned the new leader of the GOP.

Yesterday was one of those foolish days for Senator McCain.

In Senate hearings yesterday, McCain threatened his opposition to President Obama's nominee for Deputy Secretary of the Interior, David Hayes.  What reason could the Senator have for his "principled opposition?"  In 2006, David Hayes wrote an article that McCain found "deeply offensive" towards Ronald Reagan.

From the "controversial" article:

The conservative political agenda in the West is grounded in hoary stereotypes about the region and its people...Out of this conservative world view emerges the stereotypical Western man (and it is unquestionably a “he”)—a rugged, gun-toting individualist who fiercely guards every man’s right to drill, mine, log, or do whatever he damn well pleases on the land; he hates government, taxes, regulations, environmentalists, and anyone or anything else that tries to tell him what to do (provided, of course, that federal subsidies for mining, logging, grazing, and the like continue unabated).

Like Ronald Reagan before him, President Bush has embraced the Western stereotype to the point of adopting some of itsaffectations—the boots, brush-clearing, and get-the-government-off-our-backs bravado.

It was this passage that caused McCain to umbrage, and question "You had to throw Reagan in there?"  Strangely, McCain expressed no discomfort about Hayes' comments about Bush.  McCain's final opinion on the matter: 

I will be considering seriously whether I can support your nomination or not.

I find it exceptionally odd that Senator McCain believes a prerequisite for this office is adoration of Reagan, while Bush-mocking is entirely okay.

Limbaugh Hates the Constitution

Good old Rush Limbaugh was given an award at CPAC last weekend for his "defense of the Constitution."  Hilarious that in his CPAC speech he would then quote the Declaration of Independence and say it was from the preamble to the document he is supposed to have so expertly defended:

We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

It's somehow so fitting that the Republican "Defender of the Constitution" has seemingly never read the document.

New Stimulus Provides Fewer Jobs! Yay!

If there's one thing I think a stimulus plan should definitely NOT do, it's create jobs.  That would just be terrible.  Thanks to the "centrists" in the Senate, Paul Krugman thinks this bill will leave about 600,000 fewer people without jobs.

Speaking of Krugman, loved his performance on Morning Joe the other day...

Joe Scarborough: ...George Bush over the past eight years had the most disastrous spending policy.  They decided to cut taxes, they decided to increase the deficit.  They decided to increase entitlement spending while they were fighting two wars.  They made no tough decisions whatsoever.  You can't say that that's the traditional conservative approach to economics.  It was a disaster and I think we can all agree with that, can we not?

Paul Krugman:  You've got some mythical image of what a modern conservative is.  Reagan increased spending while cutting taxes.  Bush increased spending while cutting taxes.  Who is your ideal here?

Stimulate Without the Stimulation, Please.

While her jokes are more often miss than they are hit, I believe that Rachel Maddow is likely the most informed political pundit on television.  Whether you agree or disagree with her conclusions, Rachel provides solid data and examples explaining her position.  Her response to the debate in the Senate tonight over Obama's stimulus package is no exception.  While it runs a bit long at 8 minutes, it's definitely worth the time:

Rachel does a wonderful job of illustrating the cost/benefit analysis of something like infrastructure spending compared to the Republican idea of tax rebates.  While rebates are barely stimulative at all (at roughly $1.02 put back into the economy for every $1 the government spends), infrastructure spending yields $1.59 for every  buck the government throws at it.  That is precisely what we are trying to accomplish with this package.  To STIMULATE the economy.

The Republicans, however, are being entirely foolish.  

Even though food stamps are the single most effective way the federal government can stimulate the economy, they pouted and threw tantrums until it was removed.  

Even though there is a mountain of evidence suggesting that the impact of tax cuts on stimulating the economy is negligible, Republicans were able to get a whopping 42% of the bill to be dedicated to them.  While Karl Rove claims no Republicans wanted nothing but tax cuts, 36 of the 41 Senate Republicans voted for just that.

Republicans are putting their party loyalty over their desire to actually address the problems facing America.  

Therefore, they are boneheads.