The other fun thing that happened at the debate

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 7 Comments

Google search results for "rick santorum"—note that the top result is a paid advertisement, and that the neologism is beating the original.

In all the chanting for death and keeping promises to seniors, we lost track of the other exciting development from the CNN Tea Party Republican Debate. Wolf Blitzer fielded questions from Twitter, one of which asked the candidates what they were doing to attract the Latino vote. Before Herman Cain could angrily shout whom?, Rick Santorum jumped on it:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PH8TJeP3MI

Santorum is doing the same thing to attract Latino voters that he’s doing to get votes from outside his personal church: nothing. When I first read this quote in print media, I assumed his “illegal—I mean Latino—voters” was a snide jab. Now I’m not so sure. We are talking about the man who, at the first Republican debate, said that if—when!—Rick Santorum becomes President, “the world as we know it will be no more.” Whether he just said illegal already and had it in his cache memory or was deliberately conflating ethnic identity with false citizenship, Santorum can be forgiven, because he was pursuing the objective of the debate: messing with Rick Perry.

Continue reading

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

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