More crazy from the fringe

I have to admit, I've fallen behind on pointing out stupid things that wingers are saying, so I'm going to try to get caught up in the next little while.

Here's one you may have heard of already. Now that health care reform has passed, you probably want to be prepared for all its scary consequences.

Like REQUIRED IMPLANTABLE MICROCHIPS!!!!!!!!!!!

Approved by the FDA, a class II implantable device is a "implantable radiofrequency
transponder system for patient identification and health information." The purpose of a class II device is to collect data in medical patients such as "claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary."

Some of these people are so stupid you have to wonder how they dress themselves in the morning.

In case you're wondering, the provision of the law we're talking about does talk about registration of implantable devices. Artificial hips. Stents. Pacemakers. If you think about it, it is probably useful to know who gets them, so if it's discovered a few years later that the pacemaker you got was defective, they can come and tell you about it and maybe give you one that works.

And these are the people with supposedly above-average educations?

What is he, kidding?

Did you see what McCain said today?

Democrats shouldn't expect much cooperation from Republicans the rest of this year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Monday.

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

Can anyone else think of any bipartisanship or cooperation the Republicans have shown in this Congress?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Death of a labor hero

Thanks to Scaypgrayce for putting me onto this.



Remember back when labor organizers, and even just plain workers, could be such American heroes that they would make movies about them? Like Terry Malloy standing up to the crooked bosses in "On the Waterfront", or, more recently, Norma Rae as portrayed by Sally Field, fighting to organize J.P. Stevens?

As usual, reality isn't quite the same as the movies, but it's still important to realize that at a time when workers and unions are under attack, the impulse to stand up for yourself and your fellow workers, at the risk of your job, and sometimes even your life, is a thread that runs deep in our history.

We can also remember the lively, living movie stars as they appeared on the screen, which is a luxury we don't have with our real-life heroes. Today, Crystal Lee Sutton, the model for Sally Field's Norma Rae, is dead at 68 of brain cancer.

Or, to put it another way, dead of insurance abuse.

She went two months without possible life-saving medications because her insurance wouldn't cover it, another example of abusing the working poor, she said.
"How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death," she said. "It is almost like, in a way, committing murder."
She eventually received the medication, but the cancer is taking a toll on her strong will and solid frame. Her thin black hair is brittle from the drugs and chemo treatments. She has had brain surgery twice -once on Jan. 29, 2007, and again on Jan. 11, 2008.

I'm sure the Republicans and Blue Dogs who are doing everything they can to block real health care reform would make appropriate expressions of sympathy if they knew of her death, but the true goal and effect of their efforts is clear.

This fight is important. It's a matter of life and death.

Cokie Roberts Repeats the Republican Lie

NPR is required listening for liberals, right? In fact, it's nothing but a liberal sounding board, right?

Maybe it's time to rethink that. Here's an example. Every Monday morning on Morning Edition they call Cokie Roberts and she gets to blather on about her view of what's happening in the news. She actually does it from her house, and she can pretty much say anything she wants.

Today one of her key topics was health care, and Cokie's disquisition included the following statement:

ROBERTS: . . . The Democrats will shift, think they have something the Republicans will go for, and then the Republicans shift further. And they make a big deal about something that distracts and frightens the voters like those so-called death panels, then the Democrats drop that and Republicans find something else to object to.

Let me just repeat that:

And they make a big deal about something that distracts and frightens the voters like those so-called death panels, then the Democrats drop that . . .

I'm sure she thinks she's being fair and balanced because she said "so-called", thus imparting a note of skepticism. But this is inadequate. What she said was that the death panels were in the bill until the Republicans made a big deal about them, and then the Democrats dropped them. In other words, the Democrats' plan was to kill your grandmother and Sarah Palin's baby.

How about telling the truth: the Republicans made it all up. There are no death panels, so-called or not. It's all a big lie by the Republicans.

I don't know about you, but I think the job of journalists goes beyond parroting what the various sides say, and extends to actually reporting the facts. Of course, Roberts didn't even do that. She didn't resort to the old reliable, "he said, she said" formulation. If you listened to her commentary, not only would you get no idea of what the truth is you would get no idea of what the Democrats say about the Republican claim about death panels.

And this is what passes for a respected journalist in this country?