For Americans Who Need a Job, Conservatives Are Enemy Number One

For Americans Who Need a Job, Conservatives Are Enemy Number One

The August congressional recess is here, and many members of Congress will head home and touch base with their constituents. Some will have town halls. Others might conclude: better not.

Especially if you’re a House Republican. Because then you might have to answer: What have you been doing instead of trying to create jobs?

Two months ago, MSNBC’s Ari Melber tallied up [3] all 183 bills the House Republican leadership put on the floor, and found only one had anything to do with creating jobs. [3]And that was a bill to force the President to approve a single oil pipeline project that would create a few thousand jobs.

What’s happened since?

No jobs bills have been voted on that were serious attempts at reaching the president’s desk.

The most significant “jobs” bill was another attack at the President’s energy policies, this one challenging the President’s temerity to have tighter regulations on coastal oil drilling since the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill. House Republicans claimed [4] their bill expanding coastal drilling would create 1.2 million jobs … over an unspecified time period. And that flimsy statistic came from an oil industry-backed “institute.” [5]

So House Republicans yet again didn’t try very hard to create any jobs. Surely they must have been busy with more pressing matters, right?

Judge for yourself. Which of these was more important than working with Democrats to create jobs?

* Voting for the 40th time [6] to repeal ObamaCare. (Real Americans love Obamacare)
* Voting to ban nearly all abortions after 20 weeks following conception [7], an explicitly unconstitutional standard that punishes women who need abortions for medical reasons.

* After failing to pass legislation to cut food stamp funding by $20 billion – five times greater than in the Senate version – proposing new legislation to cut food stamps by $40 billion. [8] ( many Americans need food assistance because conservative businesses like McDonalds, Walmart and Hobby Lobby do not pay a living wage)

* Voting to send major regulations – which are issued when the executive branch implements laws enacted by Congress – back to Congress for another vote, effectively nullifying the power of the executive branch to implement laws as designed by our nation’s founders.

Yes, those are the kind of junk bills that made it out of the House, only to be properly ignored by the Senate. That’s why we now have the  “least productive Congress ever [9]“ despite the lingering jobs crisis. That’s what your Republican leadership has been spending its time on, instead of trying to find a middle ground with Democrats on how to create more jobs.

To those Republicans who dare hold a town hall this month to explain this sorry record to their constitutions: Good luck with that.

[1] http://www.ourfuture.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/bill-scher-0
[3] http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/29/what-the-do-nothing-congress-has-actually-done/
[4] http://naturalresources.house.gov/legislation/hr2231/
[5] http://www.npr.org/blogs/secretmoney/2008/09/udall_radio_ad.html
[6] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/gop-obamacare-vote_n_3695871.html
[7] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/18/house-takes-up-bill-banning-most-abortions-after-20-week-mark/
[8] http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/02/19831109-republicans-to-propose-40-billion-cut-over-decade-to-food-stamps-program?lite
[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/07/17/the-least-productive-congress-ever/

 Conservatives have created this fantasy world inside their heads where lazy exploiters for profit like Mitt Romney create jobs, instead of the very basic economic fact that workers with good wages create demand which creates jobs. Obamacare, while it may not be perfect will save the American people billions in health care costs over the next decade - so much for conservatives knowing or caring about saving money. 

Patriots Love The Benefits Of ObamaCare and Health Care Reform

Patriots Love The Benefits Of ObamaCare and Health Care Reform

Benefits of ObamacareAdvantages Offered By ObamaCare

As one benefit of ObamaCare, if you make less than 400% of the federal poverty level ($93,700 as a family or $46,021 as an individual), you may be eligible to receive subsidies and tax credits toward insurance purchased on your State's Health Insurance Exchange (Online Marketplaces where Americans can purchase insurance starting on October 1st, 2013). Cost assistance will help may low and middle income individuals and families to purchase affordable health insurance. Find out more about Receiving Subsidies, Tax Credits and Cost Assistance on the ObamaCare Health Insurance Exchange.

Because of the new health law, 12.8 million individuals and businesses got back more than $1.1 billion in rebates in 2012 from insurance companies who underspent on medical care.
Benefits of ObamaCare: A Quick Summary of ObamaCare Protections

ObamaCare offers you and your family many protections these protections include.

• No annual limits on healthcare
• Insurance companies can't drop you when your sick
• You can't be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions
• Obamacare has a strong focus on preventive services
• A large improvement to women's health services
• Reforms to the healthcare industry to cut wasteful spending
• Better care and protections for seniors
For a complete list of preventative services covered under the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) click this link.
A Quick Summary of ObamaCare "Essential Health Benefits"

The new ObamaCare health care law states that health plans offered in the individual and small group markets, both inside and outside of the Affordable Insurance Exchanges (Exchanges), offer "essential health benefits". Please note that grandfathered plans may not be required to provide these services. Read more information about ObamaCare "grandfathered plans".

Starting January 1st of 2014, the following "benefits" must be included under all insurance plans:

• Emergency services
• Hospitalizations
• Laboratory services
• Maternity care
• Mental health and substance abuse treatment
• Outpatient, or ambulatory care
• Pediatric care
• Prescription drugs
• Preventive care
• Rehabilitative and habilitative (helping maintain daily functioning) services
• Vision and dental care for children

The following is a full list of protections and benefits available under ObamaCare from Consumer Reports:
Full list of Protections and Benefits Offered By ObamaCare (The Affordable Care Act) - 2010 - 2013
Protections

Whether your health insurance is purchased by you or your employer, the health law has outlawed practices that have left people without health insurance when they need it most. These protections include:

Curbs on canceling policies. Insurers can no longer cancel your policy if you get sick, a practice known as "rescission." They cannot cancel your coverage if you make an honest mistake on your application.

Rapid appeals. Consumers can appeal insurance company decisions to an independent reviewer and receive a response in 72 hours for urgent medical situations.

Ban on lifetime limits. Major or long-term illness can rack up serious medical bills. Health insurance policies used to set lifetime limits on how much they would pay for an individual's medical bills. These are now illegal, meaning people with insurance won't have to get into debt because their coverage runs out.

Annual dollar limits on their way out. Insurance companies can still set limits on how much they pay for an individual's medical expenses each year, but as of September 23, 2012, the law says this limit must be no less than $2 million. In January 2014, limits will be completely eliminated. Exceptions: Insurers can still impose other types of benefit limits like doctor visit limits, prescription limits, or limits on days in the hospital.
Better Benefits

Free preventive care and annual checkups. The law focuses on prevention and primary care to help people stay healthy and to manage chronic medical conditions before they become more complex and costly to treat. New private health plans must cover and eliminate cost-sharing (co-payment, co-insurance, or deductible) for proven preventive measures such as immunizations and cancer screenings. Additional preventive measures for women kicked in August 2012, including free well-woman visits, screening for gestational diabetes, domestic violence screening, breast-feeding supplies, and contraception, all with no cost-sharing. Exceptions: Workplaces run by religious organizations that object to birth control do not have to pay for contraception, but insurers must pick up the cost. Existing plans that haven't changed significantly since passage of the law can continue to charge for preventive care until 2014.

Premium rebates if insurers underspend on care. The health law says that most insurers must spend at least 80 percent (85 percent for insurers covering large employers) of the premiums you pay on medical care and quality improvements. If insurers spend too much on overhead, such as salaries, bonuses, or administrative costs, as opposed to health care, they must issue premium rebates to consumers each summer.

Standard disclosure forms. Starting September 23, 2012, all health plans must use a standardized form to summarize benefits and coverage, including information on co-payments, deductibles, and out-of-pocket limits. Insurers must note any excluded services all in one place. Insurers must also calculate and disclose your typical out-of-pocket costs for two medical scenarios: having a baby and treating type 2 diabetes. Future years will include more coverage examples.

Expanding coverage

The law makes it easier for some uninsured Americans to find more affordable health insurance right now:

Young adults can stay on a parent's plan until age 26. Health plans must let young adults remain as dependents on their parent's policy until they turn 26, regardless of whether they live at home, attend school, or are married. Exception: Some health plans are not required to extend benefits to young adults if they can get coverage at work; this exception goes away in January 2014.

Chipping away at pre-existing condition exclusions. In 2014 insurers will no longer be able to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or charge them more for premiums. Meanwhile, the health law offers some temporary help.

Adults with pre-existing conditions who have been without coverage for at least six months may be eligible for subsidized coverage through the temporary Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan in their state.

Children under 19 with pre-existing conditions cannot now be denied coverage by most insurers. Until 2014, however, insurers can charge more for premiums than they charge for someone without such conditions. Exception: Some individual plans can still refuse to cover a child. This exception goes away in January, 2014.

There is a 365 day waiting period for individuals with pre-existing conditions the BCBS terms and the ACA section "SEC. 101. NATIONAL HIGH-RISK POOL PROGRAM" we can verify that there is a 365 day waiting period for coverage of pre-existing conditions upon purchasing insurance (eliminated along with the pool in 2017).

There is also an "Exclusion Rider" policy that essentially says until 2014 you can be denied coverage on a medically underwritten health insurance policy. EX. You have had surgery previously and you need another operation for the same issue. There are other jargon-y worded restrictions (we'll need to study and report).

The PCIP Pre-exisiting Condition Insurance Plan: makes health coverage available to you if you are a U.S. citizen or reside here legally, you have been denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, and you’ve been uninsured for at least six months. 

These plans are expensive and thus will most likely not cover low-income individuals. The Program ends in 2014 when insurance through the exchange will cover pre-existing conditions

Anti-American Legal Analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. Joins Fox News In Spreading Health Care Lies

Anti-American Legal Analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. Joins Fox News In Spreading Health Care Lies

During an appearance on Fox and Friends Friday morning, Fox News contributor and legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. claimed that Medicare beneficiaries who are losing access to critical medical services as a result of sequestration “ain’t seen nothing yet,” as Obamacare will kill off far more Americans in the next ten years.

During a segment discussing how the budget sequester’s two percent cut to Medicare is forcing cancer clinics to deny chemotherapy to thousands of beneficiaries, Johnson told host Steve Doocy that elderly Americans should expect a lot more bad news in the coming decade as a direct consequence of the health care law:

    DOOCY: This story is going to disturb you. Cancer clinics across this country are turning away thousands of Medicare patients in need of chemotherapy. You can blame the sequester. Is there more to come? Peter Johnson, Jr. has a prescription for truth. Peter, what is this about?

    JOHNSON: This is about people dying as a result of Obamacare and as a result of the sequester. What the oncology association is saying is that thousands of chemotherapy patients who should have received their treatments, their benefits under Medicare, will not based on a 2 percent reduction under the sequester. What they fail to understand — and maybe they do and they don’t want to discuss it at this point — is that over the next ten years, 2013 to 2023, under Obamacare, there will be a $716 billion reduction [to Medicare] in Obamacare. We’re talking about a $3 billion reduction in the sequester now and the $3 billion reduction in Obamacare –

    DOOCY: This is a preview of coming awful things.

    JOHNSON: You haven’t seen anything yet. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Johnson’s conflation of the sequester’s ham-fisted spending cuts with Obamacare’s Medicare savings demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the sequester, Obamacare, and how federal budgeting works. Sequestration is causing cancer clinics to turn people away because they can’t afford to keep providing expensive chemotherapy drugs to patients in the face of a two percent cut to Medicare Part B that has to come entirely out of clinics’ overhead funding — making the sequester cut more akin to a double-digit pay cut. Obamacare’s $716 billion in Medicare savings come from reducing historically excessive payments to providers that service private Medicare Advantage plans, meaning that it doesn’t affect benefits. Conservatives have consistently fear-mongered over those savings despite including them in their budgets.

Later on in the program, Johnson also revived the widely debunked claim that Obamacare has “death panels” — a claim that is so patently false that Politifact named it 2009's “Lie of the Year.”

Johnson is a wild eyed zealot for a proto-facist agenda who is willing to tell the most blatant lies to advance his anti-American agenda. he is hoping no one will look up the simple fact that conservatives voted for the sequester and held the budget and Medicare hostage because they claimed the sequester cuts are nothing. The review broads that review medical care costs are what pathological ideologue such as Johnson and Fox are calling death panels - only once again they are hoping fair minded Americans do not look up the facts - conservatives voted for such a panel. Americans should also be asking themselves why why a foaming at the mouth America hater like Steve Doocy makes millions of dollars for doing nothing but misleading the nation on crucal public policy issues. It sure looks like hating freedom and democracy pays well.

Mitt Romney Thinks Israel's Universal Health Care System Is Great, But Would Condemn 45,000 Americans To Death With Obamacare Repeal

Mitt Romney Thinks Israel's Universal Health Care System Is Great, But Would Condemn 45,000 Americans To Death With Obamacare Repeal

Throughout his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has been running away from the individual insurance mandate in the Affordable Care Act — even though a mandate is a cornerstone of the former Massachusetts governor’s health care reform law. “If I’m President of the United States, we’re gonna get rid of Obamacare and return, under our constitution, the 10th Amendment, the responsibility and care of health care to the people in the states,” Romney said during a GOP presidential debate.

But during his trip to Israel, Romney inadvertently praised the individual requirement and universal health care. “[F]or an American abroad, you can’t get much closer to the ideals and convictions of my own country than you do in Israel,” he said. And according to The New York Times, Romney spoke favorably about the fact that health care makes up a much smaller amount of Israel’s gross domestic product compared to the United States:

    “Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the G.D.P. in Israel? Eight percent,” he said. “You spend eight percent of G.D.P. on health care. You’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our G.D.P. on health care, 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, compare that with the size of our military — our military which is 4 percent, 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of G.D.P. We have to find ways — not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to fund and manage our health care costs.”

Israel spends less on health care because of a universal health system that requires everyone to have insurance. Every Israeli citizen has the obligation to purchase health care services through one of the country’s four HMOs since government officials approved the National Health Insurance Law in 1995. People pay for 40 percent of their HMO’s costs through income-related contributions collected through the tax system, and the state pays the remaining 60 percent. And by many standards, Israelis are getting better health care than U.S. citizens. The infant mortality rate is much lower, and its mortality rate due to heart disease is half the U.S. rate.

Orly Manor, dean of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Braun School of Public Health, said U.S. officials could “learn a lot from the Israeli system. The quality is high, and the outcomes are good.” And it seems that, following his trip to Jerusalem, Romney would agree.

With all of Romney's money one would think he could afford a brain transplant or hire someone smart to think for him. If he succeeds in repealing the ACA (health care reform) he will condemn 45,000 Americans to death. After he hires the smart person he also needs to hire someone who is not morally corrupt to have a conscience for him.

How the U.S. Government Helped Mitt Romney Build His Fortune

 Bain produced stellar returns for its investors--yet the bulk of these came from just a small number of its investments. Ten deals produced more than 70% of the dollar gains.

    Some of those companies, too, later ran into trouble. Of the 10 businesses on which Bain investors scored their biggest gains, four later landed in bankruptcy court.

Put another way, Mitt Romney's investing was almost risk-free. He won when his portfolio companies won and often when they lost. Thanks in large part to the dangerous incentives unleashed by the U.S. tax code.

Which is why other countries like Denmark, the UK and Germany either don't offer--or are trying to limit--the "public subsidy" that William D. Cohan deemed "the mother's milk of a leveraged buyout". As Felix Salmon noted, the United States could lower the rate at which debt interest can deducted or cap the amount of debt to which it applies. (The Obama administration is considering those kinds of changes in its recently proposed "Framework for Business Tax Reform.") In its January 30, 2012 editorial, the Financial Times lamented:

    "The system could be made fairer and more efficient by taxing debt and equity at the same rate...Most of [Romney's] money was made at Bain Capital, which, like all private equity groups, benefits from a federal debt subsidy. It should be eliminated."

U.S. tax payer subsidized every penny that Romney "built".

What Americans Would Have Lost If The Supreme Court Had Ruled Against Health Care Reform (ObamaCare)

What Americans Would Have Lost If The Supreme Court Had Ruled Against Health Care Reform (ObamaCare)

1) Access to health insurance for 30 million Americans and lower premiums. More than 30 million uninsured Americans will find coverage under the law. Middle-class families who buy health care coverage through the exchanges will be eligible for refundable and advanceable premium credits and cost-sharing subsidies to ensure that the coverage they have is affordable.

    2) The ability of businesses and individuals to purchase comprehensive coverage from a regulated marketplace. The law creates new marketplaces for individuals and small businesses to compare and purchase comprehensive coverage. Insurers will have to meet quality measures to ensure that Americans can access comprehensive coverage when they need it.

    3) Insurers’ inability to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Beginning in 2014, insurers can no longer deny insurance to families or individuals with pre-existing conditions. Insurers are also prohibited from placing lifetime limits on the dollar value of coverage and rescinding insurers except in cases of fraud. Insurers are already prohibited from discriminating against children with pre-existing conditions.

    4) Tax credits for small businesses that offer insurance. Small employers that purchase health insurance for employees are already receiving tax credits to encourage them to continue providing coverage.

    5) Assistance for businesses that provide health benefits to early retirees.The law created a temporary reinsurance program for employers providing health insurance coverage to retirees over age 55 who are not eligible for Medicare, reimbursing employers or insurers for 80% of retiree claims. The program has offered at least $4.73 billion in reinsurance payments to more than 2,800 employers and other sponsors of retiree plans, with an average cumulative reimbursement per plan sponsor of approximately $189,700.

    6) Affordable health care for lower-income Americans. Obamacare extends Medicaid to individuals with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty line, guaranteeing that the nation’ most vulnerable population has access to affordable, comprehensive coverage.

    7) Investments in women’s health. Obamacare prohibits insurers from charging women substantially more than men and requires insurers to offer preventive services — including contraception — at no additional cost.

    8) Young adults’ ability to stay on their parents’ health care plans. More than 3.1 million young people have already benefited from dependent coverage, which allows children up to age 26 to remain insured on their parents’ plans.

    9) Discounts for seniors on brand-name drugs. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are required to provide a 50% discount on prescriptions filled in the Medicare Part D coverage gap. Seniors have already saved $3.5 billion on prescription drug costs thanks to the Affordable Care Act provision.

    10) Temporary coverage for the sickest Americans. The law established temporary national high-risk pools that are providing health coverage to individuals with pre-existing medical conditions who cannot find insurance on the individual market. In 2014, they will be able to enroll in insurance through the exchanges. 67,482 individuals have already benefited from the program.

One of the crazy aspects to the opposition to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is that it was based on a conservative Republican plan from the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation and was implemented in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney. According to polls the only reason that the wacky right-wing conservatives do not like health care reform is because it has Obama's name on it. One could say shame on conservatives for their petty spitefulness, but you have to have a moral conscience to fell shame.

Mitt Romney outsourced jobs when he was at Bain. At which according to him he was a job creator. If by that he means he created jobs in Asia, he's right. Serial liar and king of conservatism and drug addict Rush Limbaugh Fabricates Wash. Post Fact Check To Cast Doubt On Romney's Outsourcing. Honor is apparently not a Republican value.


Traitors among us, Mississippi Republican Tea Party Chairman Calls For Open Rebellion Against Federal Government After Obamacare Ruling

America's Conservative Republican Sex Hypocrites

America's Conservative Republican Sex Hypocrites

1. Jimmy Swaggart

Pentecostal televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who is a cousin of rock-and-roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley, was preaching fire-and-brimstone Christian fundamentalism before the 1980s; his television program started in 1975. But it was during the 1980s that Swaggart rose to prominence in right-wing politics and, along with Rev. Jerry Falwell, Rev. James Robison and Rev. Pat Robertson, greatly influenced the Christian Right’s influence on the GOP. Swaggart’s sermons are as political as they are religious, and he has never been shy about describing feminists, liberals, Democrats and rock musicians as agents of Satan who promote immorality at every turn. But in 1988, it was revealed that the adulterous Swaggart had been cheating on his wife with a New Orleans prostitute named Debra Murphree. And his association with prostitutes did not end after his famous “I have sinned” speech of 1988. In 1991, Swaggart was with prostitute Rosemary Garcia when he was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol; Garcia said Swaggart had asked her for sex. On top of all that, Swaggart has admitted to having a long history of porn consumption (even though he has often called for tougher enforcement of obscenity laws). And he appears to have dabbled in something else Christian fundamentalists condemn: BDSM. In a 1989 Penthouse interview, a woman named Catherine Campen said that when she was having an affair with Swaggart, he asked her to beat him with a riding crop.

2. Laura Schlessinger

Although America’s Religious Right has been dominated by Protestant fundamentalists, not all far-right culture warriors are Pentecostals or Southern Baptists. For example, talk radio host Laura Schlessinger, a.k.a. Dr. Laura, was a convert to Orthodox Judaism (before renouncing it in 2003), and she has made a career out of railing against sex education, abortion, premarital sex, porn, feminism and homosexuality (the gay-bashing Schlessinger once said that “a huge portion of the male homosexual populace is predatory on young boys”). But for all her moralizing, Schlessinger hasn’t always acted like a Puritan; in the late 1990s, some nude and topless photos she had posed for in the mid-1970s were published on the Internet. The photos were taken by the late radio shock-jock Bill Balance, who sold them to an adult Web site. Schlessinger filed a lawsuit for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement, but a court ruled that the photos were not her intellectual property. Schlessinger’s “queen of family values” routine is also laughable considering that when her mother died in 2002, it was widely reported that Dr. Laura hadn’t spoken to her since 1986.

3. Newt Gingrich

In 1998, President Bill Clinton was lambasted by a long list of Republicans when it was revealed that he had cheated on his wife, Hillary Clinton, with intern Monica Lewinsky. One of his loudest critics was House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich (who asserted that Clinton showed “a level of disrespect and decadence that should appall every American”). But while Gingrich was lambasting Clinton for committing adultery and trying to get him impeached, he was also cheating on his second wife, Marianne Ginther, with a woman (Callista Bisek, who became his third wife) who was 20 years younger. And that wasn’t the first time Gingrich committed adultery. In the early 1980s, Gingrich cheated on his first wife, Jackie Battley, with Ginther—and when Battley was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery, Gingrich insisted on discussing the terms of their divorce. After that, Mr. Family Values refused to pay Battley either alimony or child support (a local church took up a collection to help her out financially). Despite his history of serial adultery, Gingrich had no problem playing the “family values” card during his recent bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

4. David Vitter

Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana is infamous for his extreme social conservatism and for pandering to the Christian Right. Vitter has supported a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage nationwide (although he claims to support “states rights,” Vitter makes an exception when it comes to gay marriage), promoted abstinence-only sex education, called for school board meetings in Louisiana to open with prayers, and repeatedly preached against abortion. Vitter loves to play the red state/blue state card, saying that he represents socially conservative “Louisiana values” rather than secular “Massachusetts values.” But in 2007, it was revealed that Vitter had been a client of the Washington, DC escort service operated by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, a.k.a. the DC Madam; Vitter admitted he had cheated on his wife with a prostitute, but no criminal charges were filed because of the statute of limitations. Despite his blatant hypocrisy, Vitter was re-elected to the Senate in 2010.

5. Rush Limbaugh

“The Rush Limbaugh Show” has always been full of sexual contradictions. On one hand, the far-right talk radio host has a long history of supporting the Christian Right and telling his audience that the Republican Party is the true voice of morality in the United States. On the other hand, the twice-divorced Limbaugh is quite fond of off-color humor (“PMSNBC” is his name for MSNBC) and sexual innuendos. Limbaugh will use sex to boost ratings at the same time he’s preaching God, family values and morality to the GOP base. Limbaugh’s schizophrenic relationship with sex was recently exemplified by his heavily publicized attack on Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, whom he denounced as a “slut” and a “prostitute” for saying that health insurance plans should cover female contraception. Limbaugh said that if other people were going to pay for Fluke to have sex, she should film the sexual act for his viewing pleasure. In other words, he was asking Fluke to make a porn video, which is ironic in light of how much time Republicans have spent railing against the adult entertainment industry. Limbaugh’s hypocrisy doesn’t end there; previous Limbaugh scandals have ranged from his well-documented addiction to painkillers in 2003 to being detained for three hours at the Palm Beach Airport in 2006 for possessing a bottle of Viagra that wasn’t in his name.

6. Larry Craig

During the many years he spent in Congress (18 years in the Senate preceded by 10 years in the House of Representatives), Republican Larry Craig of Idaho was a strident social conservative with a very anti-gay record. Craig opposed gay men serving in the U.S. military, and he favored adding an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have outlawed same-sex marriage nationwide. The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group that rates politicians’ voting records on gay issues, gave Craig a rating of 0 in 2004. But in June 2007, the married Craig was arrested for lewd conduct in a men’s room stall at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport; an undercover police officer said that Craig’s behavior indicated he was seeking a sexual encounter (Craig pled guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct). And in December 2007, no less than eight gay men alleged to the Idaho Statesman that they had either had sexual affairs with Craig or that he had made sexual advances to them.

7. Ted Haggard

Evangelical minister Ted Haggard has never been known for embracing a moderate approach to Protestant Christianity. Very much a fundamentalist, Haggard was a strong supporter of George W. Bush’s presidency and did a lot to rally GOP “values voters” in 2004. Haggard has been quite the culture warrior, loudly preaching against abortion, premarital sex, adultery and gay marriage. But in 2006, a male escort named Mike Jones revealed that the married Haggard had been a client; in addition to paying for sex and committing adultery, Jones said, Haggard was fond of using crystal meth. Admitting to his followers that he was guilty of “sexual immorality,” Jones resigned from his position with the National Association of Evangelicals.

8. Henry Hyde

Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, but the late Illinois Republican Henry Hyde (who spent 32 years in the House of Representatives and died in 2007) threw plenty of stones (figuratively speaking) during the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. Clinton, Hyde insisted, had disgraced the presidency by committing adultery and lying about it under oath. But it turned out that Hyde had his own history of adultery. In the 1960s, Hyde was married with four sons when he had an affair with a woman named Cherie Snodgrass, who had three children with Fred Snodgrass, her husband at the time. In a 1998 interview with Salon.com, Fred Snodgrass denounced Hyde as a “hypocrite who broke up my family.” Hyde described his affair with Cherie as a “youthful indiscretion,” although he was 41 when the affair started.

9. Jim Bakker

Jimmy Swaggart was not the first right-wing Pentecostal televangelist to be involved in a major sex scandal. In 1987, Jim Bakker (who co-hosted “The PTL Club” with his wife, Tammy Faye Bakker) was disgraced when it came out that he had cheated on his wife with church secretary Jessica Hahn and paid her $265,000 to keep quiet. In 1989, Bakker was convicted of fraud and racketeering charges in a federal court and sentenced to 45 years in prison and a $500,000 fine, but he was granted parole in 1994. Swaggart, ironically, was vehemently critical of Bakker in 1987, calling him “a cancer on the body of Christ” because of his affair with Hahn—and all the while, Swaggart was every bit the adulterer himself.

10. James West

The late Republican James West, who died in 2006, was a champion of anti-gay causes during his years in Washington State politics (first in the Washington State senate, then as mayor of Spokane). West promoted, among other things, a blatantly discriminatory bill that would have prohibited gay men and women from working for schools, daycare centers and certain state agencies. But in 2004, West was caught in a sex scandal when the Spokane Spokesman-Review conducted a sting operation and alleged that West, in a gay online chat room, offered a possible City Hall internship to someone he thought was an 18-year-old man (in reality, the “18-year-old” was a private investigator hired by the Spokesman-Review). The Spokane County Republican Party called for West’s resignation, and in 2005, he lost his position as mayor when voters opted to recall him.

Certainly we should all be able to agree that some consensual adult behavior should be kept behind closed doors. Conservative do not agree. They think the public and big government should patrol your bedroom. All of this as year after year there is yet another conservative Republican scandal. Sure there is a Democratic scandal once in a while, but generally Democrats are not self-righteous hypocrites that think the police and FBI are the best judges of what adult Americans should be able to do in private. Oh, that's right, conservatives do not believe in privacy. So they need to get big government involved in people's personal lives to make sure you do not have any privacy.


Mitt Romney is the Deadbeat Dad of Obamacare. Mittens gave birth to Obamacare, along with the far Right conservative Heritage Foundation. Now they both pretend they are not the daddies.

Jonah Goldberg Admits His New Book is Right-Wing Hackery on NPR. Goldberg can't tell the difference between an historical fact and a straw man.

Latest Attempt To Deny Obama Credit For Bin Laden Raid Falls Flat

Spending on the poor isn’t breaking the nation’s bank. If all spending on the poor were stopped, it would hardly make a dent in the deficit.

Anti-American Zealot Sean Hannity owes America an Apology For Lying About Women Who Face Insurance Discrimination In The Absence Of Health Care Reform

                                                                                                               
                 Anti-American Zealot Sean Hannity owes America an Apology For Lying About Women Who Face Insurance Discrimination In The Absence Of Health Care Reform

This week, Fox News host Sean Hannity scoffed at the idea that women face discriminatory practices from the health insurance industry, arguing that it is "disinformation" to claim that repeal of the health care reform law, which bans such practices, will again subject women to unfair and discriminatory treatment by insurers. In fact, the law bans insurance companies from its current practice of charging women higher premiums for the same coverage as men, and forbids insurers from listing pregnancy as a pre-existing condition, which was often used by some providers as an excuse to deny coverage.

DNC's Wasserman Schultz: Affordable Care Act Bans Discriminatory Health Insurance Practices Against Women

Rep. Wasserman Schultz: Mitt Romney Favors Going Back To "A Time When Insurance Companies Could Drop Us Or Deny Us Coverage Simply Because Of Our Gender." On MSNBC, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz stated:

    WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: It's clear that Mitt Romney is dramatically out of touch with women on the issues and the priorities that matter to us. You know, wanting to take us back to a time when insurance companies could drop us or deny us coverage simply because of our gender being considered a pre-existing condition, charging us up to 50 percent more simply because we're women, focusing on not making sure that we can have access to affordable birth control and taking us back to a time when we had to worry about that.

    Those are things -- I have never been more concerned, Martin, in my life. In my generation of women has never been more concerned where my rights that I have accepted and taken for granted for far too long are in jeopardy if Mitt Romney becomes president of the United States -- as a woman.. [MNSBC, Martin Bashir, 4/23/12]

Fox Accuses Wasserman Schultz Of "Disinformation," "Demagoguery"

Hannity: Rep. Wasserman Schultz Spreading "Disinformation" On Health Care. After playing a clip of Rep. Wasserman Schultz's comments, Hannity said that "all this disinformation [is] an attempt to sway the opinions of the American people. But guess what, congresswoman? They're smart enough to figure this out." [Fox News, Hannity, 4/25/12]

Malkin Accused Wasserman Schultz Of "Demagoguery" And Of Being A Part Of "The Unreality-Based Community." Reacting to Wasserman Schultz's statement on health care, Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin said: "I have to give Debbie Wasserman Schultz credit, she's the Energizer Bunny of Democratic demagoguery, and I think a card-carrying member of the unreality-based community." [Fox News, Hannity, 4/25/12]
In Fact, Women Routinely Face "Unfair And Discriminatory Practices" In Health Insurance Market

Congressional Investigation Found Major Health Insurance Companies Routinely Denied Coverage To Expectant Mothers. From an October 2010 House Energy and Commerce Committee memo on maternity coverage in the individual health insurance market:

    Women who are pregnant, expectant fathers, and families attempting to adopt children are generally unable to obtain health insurance in the individual market. The four largest for-profit health insurance companies, Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealth Group, and WellPoint, have each listed pregnancy as a medical condition that would result in an automatic denial of individual health insurance coverage. Health insurance companies also sometimes exclude from coverage expectant fathers, candidates for surrogacy whether they are the surrogate or recipient, and those in the process of adoption.

    [...]

    Women who are pregnant cannot obtain individual health insurance from the four largest for-profit health insurance companies, Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealth Group, and WellPoint. All four insurance companies refuse to provide coverage to applicants who have "pre-existing conditions." Each of the health insurance companies considers pregnancy to be a pre-existing condition that results in an automatic denial of health insurance coverage. [House Energy and Commerce Committee, 10/12/10, emphasis in original]

PolitiFact: Pregnancy Was Considered A "Pre-Existing Condition" In Individual Insurance Market In 39 States. In an August 18, 2009, article titled, "Pregnancy a 'pre-existing condition'? Yes, for some," PolitiFact wrote:

    In 39 states, listed here, insurers can turn down anyone for virtually any reason. It can be because you have a pre-existing condition, like cancer or diabetes. And pregnancy almost always counts too, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which represents the state government officials who regulate insurance sold within their borders. So if you're pregnant and living in one of these 39 states, you're very likely out of luck in securing individual health coverage. You'll have to pay for your care out of your own pocket or seek out charitable assistance.

    And the coverage isn't much better in the remaining 11 states. These states have "guaranteed issue" laws that say insurers cannot turn applicants down based on their health or risk status. But there's a caveat: Even if an insurer must offer you a plan, it can place exclusions on what the plan covers. Typically, the NAIC says, these exclusions last from six to 12 months, which rules out most or all maternity coverage. (After the exclusion expires, the insurer does have to cover those conditions, meaning that a subsequent pregnancy could be covered.)

    [...]

    Health care reform legislation under consideration in Congress would, if enacted, improve the situation for pregnant women seeking health insurance by prohibiting restrictions based on pre-existing conditions. But for now ... pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition and prevents many women from getting coverage if they seek insurance on the individual market. [PolitiFact, 8/19/09]

National Women's Law Center: Women Still Face "Unfair And Discriminatory Practices" In Individual Health Insurance Market. In its March 2012 report "Turning to Fairness: Insurance discrimination against women today and the Affordable Care Act," the National Women's Law Center found that women "continue to face unfair and discriminatory practices when obtaining health insurance in the individual market -- as well as in the group health insurance market. Women are charged more for health coverage simply because they are women, and individual market health plans often exclude coverage for services that only women need, like maternity care. Furthermore, insurance companies -- despite being aware of these discriminatory practices -- have not voluntarily taken steps to eliminate the inequities." The report showed:

    Gender rating, the practice of charging women different premiums than men, results in significantly higher rates charged to women throughout the country. In states that have not banned the practice, the vast majority, 92%, of best-selling plans gender rate, for example, charging 40-year-old women more than 40-year-old men for coverage. Only 3% of these plans cover maternity services.

 Hannity, Malkin and millions of other conservatives are typical cowardly conservatives. If they cannot win the argument based on reality, they make up a fairy tale. They possess all the rhetorical and ideological hallmarks of every anti-freedom authoritarian movement in modern history. They are the shrill voice of tyranny. You can wrap conservatism in all the red, white and blue they like it is still fundamentally an anti-American movement trying to pass itself off as patriotic. What a sad joke.

Romney bashes Obama for "making us like Europe." But he's the one pushing failed European austerity measures

Repealing Health Care Reform (ACA) Would Increase Government Debt

Repealing Health Care Reform (ACA) Would Increase Government Debt

A new report by an independent government auditor concludes that implementing President Obama’s health care law as intended will make a significant dent in the long-term debt forecast.

The report comes as Supreme Court justices weigh striking some of “Obamacare’s” central provisions — and perhaps the law in its entirety — and as the Republican Party remains committed to repealing the law if it seizes control of government in November.

“[I]f the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is implemented as intended it would have a major effect on the [fiscal] gap but would not eliminate it,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a Monday report — a conclusion in line with its own past research and similar research conducted by other government and non-government analysts.

GAO doesn’t isolate PPACA’s stand-alone contribution to long-term budget consolidation. But it does conclude that if key cost-control measures in the law, and other automatic cuts to Medicare spending baked into current law, are ignored, or overridden by Congress, the implications for the national debt are vast.

If “Obamacare” is implemented as intended, and other measures, such as automatic payment cuts to Medicare physicians, take effect, “spending on Medicare and Medicaid grows from 5 percent of GDP in 2010 to over 7 percent by 2030.”

By contrast, if Congress overrides those provisions, “[s]pending on health care grows much more rapidly under this more pessimistic set of assumptions,” according to the report.

 It is not as though conservatives really care about the deficit. It exploded partly because of the Bush tax cuts and failure to rise revenue for two wars. The first time in modern US history a president and his party did not attempt to pay for its foreign policy decisions. 

Ann Coulter Typifies Modern Conservatism in Her Hatred of America and the Truth

Ann Coulter Typifies Modern Conservatism in Her Hatred of America and the Truth

It's been more than two years since the Affordable Care Act became law, and Ann Coulter is still misinforming Fox News viewers about how it passed through Congress.

As the Supreme Court has considered the suits brought against the law, Fox News has been throwing falsehood after falsehood at the legislation. Some of them even made their way into a justice's questioning during oral arguments.

On Fox & Friends Saturday, Coulter repeated yet another falsehood about the law:

    COULTER: Overwhelmingly since Obamacare passed, before it passed, a majority of Americans have opposed Obamacare. And that's why the Democrats had to sneak it through on a party-line vote, and remember that sleazy little maneuver, "deem as passed"? They didn't even -- the two houses didn't even vote on the same bill.

Fox News has made this false claim before. It was widely reported on March 20, 2010, several days before the House passed the Senate's version of the bill, that the Democrats "dropped a controversial plan that would have 'deemed' Senate-approved health care legislation passed as part of a resolution setting rules of debate but would not have required House members to vote directly on the legislation." Even Fox News itself reported that the Democrats "decided against" using that legislative tactic.

Coulter holds many of the same beliefs as communist Josef Stalin and Iranian fundamentalist - the government has a right to lie spy on you, the government has a right to deny you due process, the government has the right to use lies to send you family off to die in a unnecessary war ( as long as a conservative is doing the lying), the government has the right to take your home, but the government cannot set up an insurance exchange with corporate insurance companies so that 30 million more Americans can have health insurance. Th irony, or at least one irony, is that Coulter makes millions never doing a day of honest work in the USA, the country she hates.

The Horrors of an Ayn Rand World: Why We Must Fight for America's Soul - An Objectivist America would be a dark age of unhindered free enterprise, far more primitive and Darwinian than anything seen before.

Thank Goodness For The American People, Families and The Common Good That Health care Reform is Constitutional

Thank Goodness For The American People, Families and The Common Good That Health care Reform is Constitutional

What is at stake in the case challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), scheduled for oral argument in the Supreme Court in March? The challengers maintain that the case is about fundamental liberty, specifically our freedom not to be compelled to purchase things we don’t want. But that frame, while undoubtedly appealing to the radical libertarian strain in the Tea Party, is misleading. In fact, the only “liberty” that would be protected by a victory for the challengers is the freedom of insurance companies to discriminate against sick people.

The case is principally focused on the “individual mandate,” the law’s requirement that people who are not insured and can afford health insurance must buy it or pay a tax penalty. The federal government is a government of limited powers, and although Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, the challengers concede, if it can force people to “enter into commerce” in order to regulate them, then its powers are in effect unlimited. The reason Congress has never imposed such a mandate, they maintain, is that the power does not properly exist.

The Supreme Court deems the issue sufficiently serious to schedule an almost unprecedented five and a half hours of oral argument (it usually schedules a single hour). But the argument against the law is remarkably flimsy. Two of the country’s most conservative judges, Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit and Laurence Silberman of the DC Circuit, were unable to find a valid argument against the law and voted to uphold it. Harvard law professor Charles Fried, Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general, has also said the law is plainly constitutional. It’s always dangerous to predict Supreme Court rulings on controversial cases, but if the Court applies its precedents faithfully, it should be a victory for the administration.

Although the challengers focus their attack on the individual mandate, that provision cannot be separated from the act’s prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage or charging higher rates based on “pre-existing” medical conditions. No one contests Congress’s constitutional authority to enact that overwhelmingly popular protection from dubious insurance practices. But without the individual mandate, the nondiscrimination protection would be unworkable. People would have a powerful incentive to wait until they get sick before they buy insurance, because they could not be penalized for doing so. Such “free-riding” would defeat insurance’s purpose of spreading risk. As one expert told Congress, health insurance cannot work if people can delay buying it until they are on the way to the hospital. Several states have tried to prohibit discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions, but the reforms have failed everywhere they have been enacted without an individual mandate. (Only in Massachusetts, where the protection is coupled with a mandate, has the reform been sustainable.)

Conservatives are fond of reminding us that society involves not just rights but responsibilities. Yet here, they don’t seem to get it—the right afforded by the ACA will work only if it comes with the responsibility to purchase insurance if you can afford it. In the end, the challenge to “Obamacare” is not conservative at all; it’s radically libertarian.

We’ve seen this kind of libertarian constitutional argument before. In the early twentieth century, after the Industrial Revolution had concentrated economic power in employers’ hands, Congress and the states passed many laws designed to protect workers from exploitation. Time and again, the Supreme Court invalidated these statutes. It deemed the federal laws beyond Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce because they were said to regulate the terms of production, manufacture or mining, all of which were said to precede interstate commerce. And it invalidated state labor laws as infringements on the “freedom of contract” protected by the due process clause.

In the wake of the Depression and the New Deal, however, the Court overruled both lines of precedent. It abandoned altogether the due process notion that economic regulation infringes on “freedom of contract”; it has never since invalidated any law on that ground.

After years of being being hurt in auto accidents by people with no insurance all states mandated insurance or paying into an uninsured motorist fund ( a type of insurance for the lazy and responsible). Health care insurance is not fundamentally different from that. Requiring people to have basic driving skills, knowledge of road rules, and getting a driver's license is also similar. Not letting people have the individual right to kick their dog could be -according to the way conservatives think - an infringement on the rights of animal abusers. Conservationism is a noxious and fundamentally anti-American movement whose goal is to create an authoritarian plutocracy. Always beware of its toxic agenda and laughable reasoning. 

Senior Romney Health Adviser Admits Obamacare Can Move Health Care System In The Right Direction

Senior Romney Health Adviser Admits Obamacare Can Move Health Care System In The Right Direction

Mike Leavitt, President George W. Bush’s former Secretary of Health and Human Services and a senior adviser to Mitt Romney, says the Affordable Care Act could help reduce health care costs and transform America’s existing fee-for-service health care model. In an apparent break from Romney’s pledge to “easily” repeal the law, Leavitt told ModernHealthcare that the measure could help move the nation in the right direction:

    Mike Leavitt, the former secretary of HHS under President George W. Bush and current Romney adviser, said the federal government’s historic $15 trillion debt will drive “hard” changes in healthcare system to reduce its costs. Those changes, including moving across healthcare from a fee-for-service model to outcomes based payment, may be facilitated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Romney has repeatedly urged repeal and replacement of the law.

    The law “gives the secretary authority to do certain things that are clearly aimed at trying to move us in this direction,” he said in a brief interview after addressing a Washington gathering of the Cancer Action Network. “A lot of it will depend on how aggressively the secretary chooses to use the authorities in the law to move us in that direction.”

Leavitt’s consulting firm, Leavitt Partners, is also heavily invested in the health law’s exchanges and “has been advising companies and state legislatures” on how to build the new marketplaces. He has also said that companies and states will likely implement the measure despite the GOP’s efforts to unravel the law, arguing that “they recognize that individual insurance shoppers and small businesses have long been at a disadvantage, lacking the negotiating power of large companies that can demand better prices.”

So Romney's advisory says that Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction - even as the far right conservatives like Sarah Palin and anti-American Fox News still claim ObamaCare is composed of "death panels".