Lieberman threatens to filibuster public option, alienating no one new

By Dan Brooks in corporatocracy, health care, health insurance reform, representative democracy 0 Comment
Senator Lieberman and another wealthy old man with full health insurance coverage

Senator Joe Lieberman, seen here with another wealthy old man who has full insurance coverage

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is an independent in the truest sense of the word. He may be an elected representative of the American people, but that doesn’t mean he gives a damn what you think. You think he’s against George Bush just because he was on the opposite ticket in a Presidential election? Bam!—he votes to invade Iraq. You think you can keep him out of the Senate by voting for the other guy, who didn’t want to invade Iraq, in the Democratic primary? Bam!—he runs as an independent. You think the $1.98 million in campaign contributions he’s received from securities and investment firms since 2005 make him a darling of the financial industry? Girl, Joe Lieberman can’t be tied down to one lobby. Even though the insurance, health and pharmaceutical industries have only given him a million dollars in the last four years, he’s still declared himself willing to filibuster any health care bill that includes a public option. Joe Lieberman is the Senator from the great state of Fuck You, and when Harry Reid moves for cloture on whatever Keep America Strong and Healthy Flag-Lovers Bill he comes up with, Lieberman is going to stand up, look straight into the C-SPAN camera, and spend the next 36 hours calmly describing exactly which blindingly white and quivering part of his body the American people can bite.

Continue reading

The historical analog: Glenn Beck and Father Coughlin

By Dan Brooks in glenn beck, populism, Reactionary Populism, representative democracy, shows 9 Comments
They're both on the radio, they both love Jesus, and they're both deeply committed to cardiovascular exercise

They're both on the radio, they both love Jesus, and they're both deeply committed to cardiovascular exercise

Part of the difficulty in understanding the cultural phenomenon that is Glenn Beck—and he’s been on the cover of Time magazine, just like Arsenio Hall, so it’s official now—is pinning down exactly what he is. Despite his occasional declarations to the contrary, it seems safe to say that Beck is some kind of a Political Person. Rarely does he use his shows to give us an awesome recipe for brownies or tell us how to fix our cars; pretty much everything Glenn Beck talks about relates to the federal government of the United States. Yet where he might fit, in terms of a coherent ideology that relates to our historical moment, is infuriatingly difficult to assess. “I’m so tired of everybody having a political agenda,” he has said. “Do you know what my political agenda is? America! America!” That’s super and all, but you can’t really cite “America” as your approach to American politics, for the same reason you can’t give directions to the mall by shouting “this Subaru! this Subaru!” over and over. Beck appears to be a conservative, insofar as he is dedicated in his opposition to President Obama, but he also spends a lot of time criticizing the Republican Party. He’s deeply alarmed about both fascism and socialism, as embodied in the continued existence of the federal government; that and the general protect-your-freedom tenor of his beloved Tea Party movement suggest that he might be some kind of libertarian. But he’s also a converted Mormon, a virulent opponent of gay marriage, and a crusader against drug legalization. In general, Beck is against so much and for so little that he functions as a sort of political ghost: vaporous, impossible to pin down, yet seemingly everywhere and constantly moaning.

Continue reading

Corn syrup manufacturers expose global conspiracy against corn syrup

By Dan Brooks in health care, obesity, oppositional culture, representative democracy, rumormongering, Uncategorized, widespread dumbening 4 Comments
fat_kid

This picture of a fat kid demanding something comes courtesy of a Fox News story about obesity in America. Check out the lettering on the window advertisement in the upper left-hand corner. It's like they're inaccurate for sport, now.

Assuming that you get all your news directly from press releases, you’re probably already familiar with this story of the truth shining forth despite the best efforts of the sugar-industrial complex to cover it up. With the dead bodies of fat kids. “Today,” it reads, “the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) launched a new million dollar ad campaign designed to put an end to the blatant inaccuracies surrounding the much-maligned ingredient: high fructose corn syrup.” Ah, yes, the Center for Consumer Freedom—so named because “People’s Center for Consumer Freedom,” “Glorious Center for Freedom and Truth” and “Southern Poverty Law Center” were already taken. Apparently so was “Corn Refiners Association,” because that’s who sponsored the press release. They’ve also created the website Sweetscam.com, which sheds some long-overdue light on the conspiracy to make people think that eating a bunch of high-fructose corn syrup will make you fat, when in fact “Some research demonstrates that lean people actually eat more sugar (and less fat) than obese people.” That’s one of the many myths debunked on Sweetscam.com’s Myths and Facts page, along with “sugary sweeteners are bad for your teeth” (in fact, “almost any food left on your teeth for too long will lead to tooth decay over time”) and “high-fructose corn syrup is actually high in fructose.” See, that’s actually sort of a private joke among high-fructose corn syrup’s friends, like the way you call an enormous black man “Tiny.”

Continue reading

Know your corporatocracy: The Lewin Group

By Dan Brooks in corporatocracy, health care, health insurance reform, representative democracy 3 Comments
eric_cantor_tshirt-p235633834078488886qsfl_400

Eric Cantor, the t-shirt. For Eric Cantor, the douchebag, see disambiguation.

If you’re on the mailing list of House Republican Whip Eric Cantor—and if you’re not, you are missing out on some absolutely delightful pictures of kittens wearing hats—you’ve probably already seen this memo about health care reform. Come to think of it, if you’ve watched C-SPAN or listened to Glenn Beck or been anywhere the reproduction of moving images of Republican congresspeople is not religiously forbidden, you’re probably familiar with its startling contention: If a government-run health insurance plan becomes a reality, 112 million Americans will lose their existing coverage. That’s two out of three working Americans, according to a study by the Lewin Group. And what is the Lewin Group? Only “the gold standard for this kind of analysis,” says Michael Steel (note: not the hilarious one,) a spokesman for John Boehner (R-OH.) He was probably paraphrasing a 2007 Wall Street Journal editorial, in which Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Bob Bennet (R-UT) said almost exactly the same thing. Unfortunately, the AOL has been all screwed up in John Boehner’s office since Father’s Day 2007. If it hadn’t, Steel probably would have mentioned that, as of June 18, 2007, the Lewin Group isn’t just the industry standard for health-care related independent analyses: it’s also a wholly-owned subsidiary of the UnitedHealth Group.

Continue reading

“I’m just saying” has become the big lie of right-wing politics

By Dan Brooks in conservative liars, glenn beck, health care, health insurance reform, help me kill zombies, obama, Obama citizenship, Reactionary Populism, representative democracy, rumormongering, Uncategorized 2 Comments
Who doesn't love a military coup? It's like a county fair that nobody can leave.

Tell me that heavily armed Thai soldier isn't wearing a Livestrong bracelet.

Wouldn’t it be great if the American military seized control of the government, deposed our duly-elected President and enforced their own interpretations of the Constitution without the oversight of Congress or the judiciary? No? Um, yeah, I don’t think so either—I was just asking. I’m going to go over here now and absolutely not advocate the armed overthrow of the U.S. government.

That’s essentially the position of John L. Perry, who two days ago used his Newsmax.com column to advocate a domestic military coup to solve “the Obama problem.” I’m going to go ahead and use the word “advocate,” despite Perry’s assertion—possibly deployed to prevent, you know, his being arrested for sedition—that “describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.” He says so just before reminding us that “Officers swear to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to ‘obey the orders of the president of the United States,'” rhapsodizing for 350 words about the possible reasons why this possible coup would be totally justified, and winding everything up with a completely hypothetical, non-advocating question: “Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a ‘family intervention,’ with some form of limited, shared responsibility?”

Continue reading