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I read Nicholas Kristof’s column in The New York Times today, and he called out one Republican, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who last June said that the United States has “the best health care system in the world.”  But who else in the party has made that claim?  Turns out a lot of them have.  Here are a few quotes:

Representative Mike Pence (R-IA), ”And ‘we the people’ have the ability to protect the finest health care system this world has ever known and demand real health care reform that will reduce the cost of health care without growing government.”

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), ”America’s health care system has a lot of problems, there is no question, and we ought to be addressing those problems.  But, don’t forget it’s the best health care system in the World.“

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), “There’s a better way to reform the best health care system in the world.“

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), “Democrats and Republicans understand that we do have the best health care system in the world.“

Rudy Giuliani (R-former NYC Mayor), ”The reality is that, with all of its infirmities and difficulties, we have the best health care system in the world.  And it may be because we have a system that still is, if not wholly, at least in large part still private.”

Rush Limbaugh (R – Disinfotainer), “Well, you don’t have to convince me.  I think it’s the best health care system in the world.  We never hear anything good about it from the leaders of the Democrat Party.”

They all said it and they are all wrong.  Why do they keep saying it?  Because for them -  wealthy people  –  there’s no problem.  They get all the health care they need from the best doctors.  They are privileged and they’re covered, and the current system works great for them, so there’s no problem.  They want to believe we have the best system because they can’t believe that they would participate in anything but the best system.

Kristof throws out a few inconvenient truths about our health care system that say otherwise:

The United States ranks 31st in life expectancy (tied with Kuwait and Chile)

We rank 37th in infant mortality (partly because of many premature births) and 34th in maternal mortality.

Canadians live longer than Americans do after kidney transplants and after dialysis, and that may be typical of cross-border differences.  One review examined 10 studies of how the American and Canadian systems dealt with various medical issues.  The United States did better in two, Canada did better in five and in three they were similar or it was difficult to determine.

[In a study of how] well 19 developed countries succeeded in avoiding “preventable deaths,” such as those where a disease could be cured or forestalled. What Senator Shelby called “the best health care system” ranked in last place.

…in the United States, 90 percent of hernia surgery is performed on an outpatient basis. In Britain, only 40 percent is, according to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute.

Americans take 10 percent fewer drugs than citizens in other countries — but pay 118 percent more per pill that they do take, McKinsey said.

Kristof closed with this point that blows apart the Republican argument that a government healthcare  plan will destroy the best health care system in the world.

…there is one American health statistic that is strikingly above average: life expectancy for Americans who have already reached the age of 65.  At that point, they can expect to live longer than the average in industrialized countries.  That’s because Americans above age 65 actually have universal health care coverage: Medicare.  Suddenly, a diverse population with pockets of poverty is no longer such a drawback.

Here is the World Health Organization’s 2000 ranking of of health care systems in all countries around the world: 

Rank       Country 

1         France (and they make great wine too)
2         Italy (they also make great wine)
3         San Marino
4         Andorra
5         Malta
6         Singapore
7         Spain (some good wines from here)
8         Oman
9         Austria (really good reislings)
10        Japan
11        Norway
12        Portugal (port!)
13        Monaco
14        Greece (wine is not so good)
15        Iceland
16        Luxembourg
17        Netherlands
18        United  Kingdom
19        Ireland
20        Switzerland
21        Belgium
22        Colombia
23        Sweden
24        Cyprus
25        Germany (fine white wines)
26        Saudi Arabia
27        United  Arab  Emirates
28        Israel
29        Morocco
30        Canada (beer)
31        Finland
32        Australia (shiraz)
33        Chile
34        Denmark
35        Dominica
36        Costa Rica (damn good coffee)
37        United States of America (But they make really great wine)
38        Slovenia
39        Cuba
40        Brunei
41        New Zealand (but they make really greate wine)
42        Bahrain
43        Croatia
44        Qatar
45        Kuwait
46        Barbados
47        Thailand
48        Czech Republic
49        Malaysia
50        Poland
51        Dominican Republic
52        Tunisia
53        Jamaica (damn good weed)
54        Venezuela
55        Albania
56        Seychelles
57        Paraguay
58        South     Korea
59        Senegal
60        Philippines
61        Mexico
62        Slovakia
63        Egypt
64        Kazakhstan
65        Uruguay
66        Hungary
67        Trinidad and Tobago
68        Saint     Lucia
69        Belize
70        Turkey
71        Nicaragua
72        Belarus
73        Lithuania
74        Saint Vincent  and the   Grenadines
75        Argentina
76        Sri  Lanka
77        Estonia
78        Guatemala
79        Ukraine
80        Solomon   Islands
81        Algeria
82        Palau
83        Jordan
84        Mauritius
85        Grenada
86        Antigua   and Barbuda
87        Libya
88        Bangladesh
89        Macedonia
90        Bosnia-Herzegovina
91        Lebanon
92        Indonesia (they grow some awesome coffee)
93        Iran
94        Bahamas
95        Panama
96        Fiji
97        Benin
98        Nauru
99        Romania
100       Saint Kitts and Nevis
101       Moldova
102       Bulgaria
103       Iraq (boom)
104       Armenia
105       Latvia
106       Yugoslavia
107       Cook Islands
108       Syria
109       Azerbaijan
110       Suriname
111       Ecuador
112       India
113       Cape Verde
114       Georgia
115       El   Salvador
116       Tonga
117       Uzbekistan
118       Comoros
119       Samoa
120       Yemen
121       Niue
122       Pakistan
123       Micronesia
124       Bhutan
125       Brazil
126       Bolivia
127       Vanuatu
128       Guyana
129       Peru
130       Russia
131       Honduras
132       Burkina   Faso
133       Sao Tome and Principe
134       Sudan
135       Ghana
136       Tuvalu
137       Ivory Coast
138       Haiti
139       Gabon
140       Kenya
141       Marshall Islands
142       Kiribati
143       Burundi
144       China
145       Mongolia
146       Gambia
147       Maldives
148       Papua New Guinea
149       Uganda
150       Nepal
151       Kyrgystan
152       Togo
153       Turkmenistan
154       Tajikistan
155       Zimbabwe
156       Tanzania
157       Djibouti
158       Eritrea
159       Madagascar
160       Vietnam
161       Guinea
162       Mauritania
163       Mali
164       Cameroon
165       Laos
166       Congo
167       North Korea
168       Namibia
169       Botswana
170       Niger
171       Equatorial Guinea
172       Rwanda
173       Afghanistan (boom boom)
174       Cambodia
175       South     Africa
176       Guinea-Bissau
177       Swaziland
178       Chad
179       Somalia
180       Ethiopia
181       Angola
182       Zambia
183       Lesotho
184       Mozambique
185       Malawi
186       Liberia
187       Nigeria
188       Democratic Republic of   the Congo
189       Central   African   Republic
190       Myanmar

Rush Limbaugh was fooled by a satirical blog post reporting that Obama wrote in a college thesis that he wasn’t too pleased with the U.S. Constitution.  The Buzz Log reports:

Supposedly titled “Aristocracy Revisited,” the excerpt revealed the president had “doubts” about the “so-called founders.”  Juicy.  Except not true.  Limbaugh discovered halfway through his show that he’d been had, but defended himself by saying basically the thesis felt true.  Listen in to Rush’s mea sorta culpa.

Yes it “felt true” to Rush Limbaugh because he wanted it to be true, not because he checked sources and verified what he was reporting. 

Rush Limbaugh truely is a Big Fat Idiot.

Paul Krugman wrote about right-wing, hate-filled extremists in his column “The Big Hate” for The New York Times today.  In it he references a report released by the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, an office of the Department of Homeland Security, that was released last April.

Here are three key points from the report titled, Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment:

Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts. Nevertheless, the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn-including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit-could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.

Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.

Proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans likely would attract new members into the ranks of rightwing extremist groups, as well as potentially spur some of them to begin planning and training for violence against the government. The high volume of purchases and stockpiling of weapons and ammunition by rightwing extremists in anticipation of restrictions and bans in some parts of the country continue to be a primary concern to law enforcement.

And here are excerpts from Krugman’s column:

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

…

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news – and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).

…

What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s – that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”

He also commented on an opinion piece for The Washington Times, the bile spewing out of the Republican Party’s main mouthpiece – Rush Limbaugh, and the recent remarks by a new member (new to me anyway) of the lunatic fringe – Jon Voight.

So all you liberals out there, I guess this is really just a warning to watch your back.  You never know who might show up at your next MoveOn.org meeting, environmental group meeting, ACLU function, or even you local library for that matter.

While watching this morning’s news I saw a clip of Rush Limbaugh calling Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist.

Media Matters has the full quote from Limbaugh’s radio show:

“…she’s an angry woman, she’s got a — she’s a bigot. She’s a racist. In her own words, she’s the antithesis of a judge.”

Really?  Of all the people who could attempt to get away with saying something like that, Limbaugh would be last on the list.  I guess that kind of makes him the antithessis of an informed political commentator.

Everybody who doesn’t know already wants to know if waterboarding is torture.  They simply aren’t satisfied with what our own courts have decided or what Jesse Ventura said on the Larry King show not long ago:

Larry King: You were a Navy S.E.A.L.

Jesse Ventura: Yes, and I was waterboarded [in training] so I know…It is torture…I’ll put it to you this way: You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

Nope.  They have to figure it out for themselves.

Today was Mancow’s turn.  He agreed to subject himself to waterboarding thinking he could tell all his listeners that it’s really no big deal.  Some water on the face… a little up the nose… no big deal.  Well, here’s how it went down:

Listeners had the chance to decide whether Mancow himself or his co-host, Chicago radio personality Pat Cassidy, would undergo the interrogation method during the broadcast.  The voters ultimately decided Mancow would be the one donning the soaked towel and shackles, and at about 8:40 a.m., he entered a small storage room next to his studio that was compared to a “dungeon” by Cassidy.

“The average person can take this for 14 seconds,” Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, “  He’s going to wiggle, he’s going to scream, he’s going to wish he never did this.”
 
With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand,  Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.  
 
Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop.  He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.
 
“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,” Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child.  “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.“

Okay then… another convert.  WATERBOARDING IS TORTURE! 

Oh but they say it’s not if it’s not for very long.  How long is that?  Six or seven seconds and Mancow saw the light.  Watch the video on The Huffington Post.

Next up?  I nominate Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney (although he is not human, so it would not affect him like it did Mancow), Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, and Stephen Bradbury.  Line them up in their orange jumpsuits.  There’s plenty of water to go around and there are Marine seargents ready and waiting to torture the assholes that authorized it.

Wanda Sykes at the National Correspondents dinner on Saturday night:

“Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails,” Sykes said.  “So you’re saying, ‘I hope America fails’, you’re, like, ‘I don’t care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq’.  He just wants the country to fail.  To me, that’s treason He’s not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying.  You know, you might want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker.  But he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight.”

Nicely done.  But then there’s this…

Sykes then said, “Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails, I hope his kidneys fail, how about that?  He needs a good waterboarding, that’s what he needs.”

Does it cross a line separating good humor from Rush’s own dirty playground of hate-filled speech?  Yes…

I didn’t see any of it, but I read that Obama laughed, so now the wacked-out Limbaugh crowd hates Obama even more!  Their level of hatred was already off the chart, so not much more could be squeezed out of them anyway.  Overall I’d say not much harm was done.

Can Rush take a little of what he serves up on his hate radio show every day?  Stay tuned.

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”  – H. L. Mencken

I think he’s right about that.

The simpletons in the oppositon party continue to demand simple answers:  Cut taxes for the rich!  Stop spending money to help people!  Spend more to blow things up!  Kill the Pirates!!!!

As long as those remaining in the Republican Party continue to watch FOX News and listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, they won’t even try to understand the problems or the solutions.  They’ll just get crazier and crazier…

But I’m looking forward to some muddy, difficult, and correct solutions to the many complex problems we face today. 

Rush Limbaugh, one of the most least deserving humans of anyone’s apology received one from a man who claims to be the leader of the RNC.

The New York Times reports:

The new chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, apologized to Rush Limbaugh on Monday after describing him in a television interview over the weekend as an “entertainer” who made incendiary and sometimes ugly remarks, party officials said.

Why is there any need to apologize for that?  One need only go to the post below to find just a few of Limbaugh’s “incendiary and sometimes ugly remarks.”

…Says Steele:

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Mr. Steele told The Politico. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

So there you go, the leader of the RNC backed off his accurate portrayal of Rush Limbaugh as one of the most obnoxious voices of our age and then praised his leadership.  There can be no doubt who’s in charge of the party now.

The Conservative Political Action Committee has chosen a Big Fat Idiot as the recipient of their Defender of the Constitution Award.  Tomorrow night at their annual conference Rush Limbaugh, the bigoted hardline-conservative mouthpiece for the GOP, will deliver the closing speech and then receive his prize.  They couldn’t have picked a nicer guy.  I mean really, only a great statesmen and defender of the Constitution can come up with stuff like this:

Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.

“The difference between Los Angeles and yogurt is that yogurt comes with less fruit.”

“He is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He’s moving all around and shaking and it’s purely an act. … This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn’t take his medication or he’s acting.”–on an ad by Michael J. Fox endorsing Claire McCaskill for Senate for supporting embryonic stem cell research.

“This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation…I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of the need to blow some steam off?” –on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

“I’m just watching Sen. ‘Dick Turban,’ ah, Dick Turban is doing his — from Illinois — he of Club G’itmo fame. Ha! I wish Roberts would have shown up in the Club G’itmo T-shirt today.  Maybe, maybe a Club G’itmo java coffee cup, just for Dick Turban. Ah, but anyway, Dick Turban.”

“It’s called Operation Chaos. The dream end, I mean, if people say what is your exit strate… strategery, the dream end of this is that if this keeps up to the convention, and we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that, that’s the objective here.” — On the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

“You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James.  Godspeed.”

“Let me leave you with a thought that most honestly summarizes my sentiments: I love the women’s movement…especially when I am walking behind it.”

Thinking ahead to next year… Who would want the award after it was given to Rush Limbaugh?  Ann Coulter is the only other person I can think of that would be worthy of such a “prestigious” award.

a BIG FAT IDIOT, he is also

and the Republicans are following this ranting gas bag over a cliff.

Not one of them would break rank with their brownshirted, jackbooted colleagues and vote for the Obama stimulus package.

They are becoming more and more irrelevant every day. If they keep it up, maybe some day not too far in the future when my kids have kids, my grandchildren will ask their old grandpa, “Hey gramps, what was a Republican?”  I’m not looking forward to getting old, but I am looking forward to that.