Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the Senate Budget Committee chairman and a member of the unsuccessful Gang of Six effort, raised a few eyebrows this week with a message for his "progressive friends."What a fucking loser. Total reading comprehension fail, not to mention total awareness-of-how-other-countries-actually-run-their-health-care-systems fail. When this putz comes up for election, he's gotta go. This is Bush-level stupidity, and it's unbecoming in an ostensible Democrat.Conrad, a consistent opponent of the public option, wanted liberals to know "government-run programs" aren't necessary to lower costs and expand access. He explained that he'd finished reading T.R. Reid's "The Healing of America" over the weekend, and learned Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France, and Belgium are doing just fine. "[A]ll of them contain costs, have universal coverage, have very high quality care and yet are not government-run systems," Conrad said.
It was an odd thing to say, and reflects some important confusion about these international systems. As Ezra Klein explained, "In France, for instance, the government provides all basic insurance coverage directly. In Germany, insurers aren't permitted to make a profit. In Japan, health insurance is publicly provided, and private insurance is available only to ease co-payments or cover services that the government leaves out."
It's hard to forgive Rockefeller's FISA fuckery, but after this, I shall never again call him "Jello Jay." Snap!Discussing one of Sen. John Cornyn's (R-TX) amendments, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said, "If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but it is running certain people in this markup."
He went on to say that Cornyn's amendment -- one that would add caveats to an employer mandate -- "is about giving subsidies to insurance companies... instead of giving it, helping people. This is the grandfather of all grandfathers."
"With all due respect, Senator, I don't know what amendment you're referring to --," Cornyn said.
"I'm referring to yours," Rockefeller said.
"You're certainly not referring to my amendment --," Cornyn said.
"I am," Rockefeller said.
Rove is a complete hack, and so we cannot expect him to reference reality in his scare-mongering. But I do believe events from the recent presidential campaign should debunk this myth before it even starts.Forget the death panel stuff -- Karl Rove may have hit on a scare tactic that could really get people angry about a government takeover of health care.
In one paragraph in his latest Wall Street Journal column, Rove wonders which industries might be next to face President Obama's criticism of health insurance profits. Here's the key quote, with emphasis added:
Mr. Obama's dig at profits reveals a certain disdain for markets. Health insurers have a 3.3% profit margin, less than the 4.6% average for all businesses in the country. Drug companies do enjoy, on average, a 17% profit margin. But that's still less than software companies, which earn on average a 22% profit margin. Brewers make 18%. Are these industries the next targets for a revenue hungry Obama administration?
Obama, on the other hand, did not vow to veto beer:
The man even held a beer summit, for fuck's sake. Do you think a man who holds a beer summit would fuck with brewers' profits? No. He would not.I rather suspect he can't. So he turns to boiling rubber frogs instead:During the interview, Couric posed a question from a Twitter user who wanted to know what Beck meant by “white culture” in his attack on Obama. Beck responded by stuttering: “Ummmmm, I don’t know.” He then suggested that he had already answered the criticism on his website, and therefore didn’t want to “make news” by responding to Couric.
“Can you explain what you mean by the white culture?” Couric insisted, “because some people say that sounds kind of racist.” Beck complained that he shouldn’t be the “target” for “asking” if Obama is a racist. Then he turned snarky as Couric persisted with her line of questioning:
When Beck said that he’s “not going to get into your soundbite gotcha game,” Couric noted that the interview would be “completely unedited so if you felt like you wanted to explain it, you have all the time in the world.” But Beck still wouldn’t give an answer.COURIC: People just want to know. What is white culture?
BECK: I’m going to see if I can play your game. People just want to know.
COURIC: You know, well, [Twitter questioner] Adrian wants to know.
BECK: That’s good for Adrian.
Glenn Beck has intimated previously that President Obama wants to destroy you -- after all, who could forget the time he doused another Fox weenie with "gasoline" and then held a match in his vicinity, saying he was Obama?
He did it again last night, by way of explaining why he said he thought John McCain would have been worse than Obama. He put out a pot of boiling water, playing off the old scenario about boiled frogs, and how they can't tell they're in lethally hot water until it's too late if you turn the heat up slowly. That, he argues, is what has been happening to us, and McCain just would have continued the process.
Beck thinks what Obama is actually doing is turning the heat up all at once and then tossing the frogs (that is, the American people) in. So he grabbed a supposedly live frog and tossed it into the water. (Later, he had John Bolton declare that it was actually a fake rubber frog.) Gosh, he says, he was hoping the frog would jump out.
No wonder the Mt. Vernon city council wants nothing to do with him:
On September 26, Bud Norris, the mayor of Mt. Vernon, WA, will award the ceremonial key to the city to Glenn Beck, who grew up there. Norris’ decision to declare “Glenn Beck Day” has led to demonstrations “on the streets and in city council meetings over the conservative commentator’s visit.” Last night, the city council voted unanimously to distance itself from honoring Beck:
On Wednesday night, the City Council of this town of 32,000 distanced itself from Mayor Bud Norris, who plans to give the keys to the city to talk-show personality Glenn Beck on Saturday.
The seven-member council unanimously passed a resolution proposed by member Dale Ragan that stated, “Mount Vernon City Council is in no way sponsoring the Mayor’s event on September 26, 2009 and is not connected to the Glenn Beck event in any manner.”
And his fellow right-wingers seem to be feeling the same way. Can't say as I blame them.
She's got some insane idea that the world's laughing at us because we're no longer playing cowboy and riding roughshod over them. That, boys and girls, is what we call delusional. But still, it's no rubber frog boiling.Michelle Malkin was the featured guest on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night to talk about President Obama's address to the United Nations, and it was a sight to behold. A wretched, horrifyingly ugly sight, but yeah, a sight:
Malkin: He doesn't like this country very much. And I think you did a great video tour there of all of his wonderful hits on his "We Suck '09" tour, ah, so far. And this latest speech before the United Nations and its cast of villainous characters -- it was really a Legion of Doom parade that he dignified with his presence -- and he solidified his place in the international view as the Great Appeaser and the Groveler in Chief!
Hannity finds it "almost shocking" that "Obama was saying we're not going to force our values on you." Malkin correctly calls this "a rejection of American exceptionalism" -- as though that were a bad thing. Maybe that's one of the differences between movement conservatives and sane people: The latter do not harbor megalomaniacal visions of American power ruling the world and forcing our values on other nations.
Ah, but we liberals are so naive, Malkin says, because "hatred of America is never going to go away" -- which is probably true. On the other hand, policies that arrogantly inflame and deepen that hatred are not, you know, really in our best interests.
Let this be a lesson: those who linger in houses of ill repute should not throw anti-crime amendments.The Louisiana Democratic Party has a funny new online petition, targeting Republican Senator David Vitter, and his campaigns against ACORN.
The petition calls upon Congress to defund David Vitter, citing Vitter's own past involvement with prostitutes. From the party's press release:
Last week, admitted criminal Vitter introduced an amendment that would have kicked innocent families out of public housing in New Orleans if one member of that family committed a crime. Vitter said the federal government should not fund centers of crime.
Just yesterday, Vitter asked the U.S. Justice Department - whose investigation turned up Vitter's phone number in the DC Madame's phone records - to investigate an organization recently implicated in a prostitution scandal. Think about that one for a second.
There's been an odd trend in recent months in which mainstream media outlets criticize President Obama for caring too much about public policy. I tend to find it a refreshing change of pace after the Bush era to have a curious, intellectually engaged leader, but a surprising number of observers feel differently.I have nothing to add except "Brav-fucking-o!"MSNBC's First Read, for example, recently suggested the president "knows too much" about health care policy. Soon after, the Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman also complained that the president cares too much about policy details.
David Broder raises a similar point today, riffing off a piece from William Schambra in National Affairs.
[snip]The pitch, in a nutshell, is that the president cares far too much about facts, reason, and evidence. He insists on shaping policies based on their effectiveness. This White House, like the two other Democratic White House of the last 40 years, is convinced that problem-solving is possible through coherent policymaking.
And that's a mistake, Broder suggests, because politics is messy. It's better, the argument goes, to take policy matters far less seriously.
Joe Klein had a good response to this: "Yes, it is possible for liberals to go too utopian, to lose sight of the importance of private entrepreneuralism, to be deluded into believing that government can impose perfect justice and perfect order. But neither Clinton nor Obama -- moderate liberals, at best -- seem even vaguely utopian. The real question is this: if liberals are in favor of policy solutions to chronic societal problems, what are conservatives for? ... It's not liberals who have an existential problem right now. It is conservatives, who believe in nothing, it seems, but winning...and winning at all costs, even at the expense of truth, civility and honor."
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civil award, and is given to individuals who have contributed to: 1) the security or national interests of the United States, 2) world peace, or 3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
In his new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals how politicized the revered Presidential Medal of Freedom became during the Bush administration.
Latimer writes that administration officials objected to giving author J.K. Rowling the Presidential Medal of Freedom because her writing “encouraged witchcraft” (p. 201):
This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged withcraft.
Now I think I understand why a DOJ official found it "surreal" to be thoroughly grilled by Sen. Franken on policy and Constitutional questions raised by the Patriot Act. It's not because Franken used to be a comedian. It's because under the previous administration, the White House turned our nation's government into a joke.
In the meantime, Democrats on the Hill were quick to note the background of the company Republicans were desperate to defend: "Humana was recently featured in a HuffPost story for denying health care due to lack of an enema. In 2005, it settled a racketeering suit for $40 million. It settled a fraud lawsuit in 2000 for $14.5 million. Since 2000, its profits have soared from $90 million to $834 million."
Republicans often pick the wrong friends, don't they?
Indeed they do.
With Faux News ranting about FEMA concentration camps and Michele Bachmann fearmongering over the Census, I guarantee that this tragedy will not be the last.When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former cop drawing on years of experience warned: "Be careful."
The 51-year-old Sparkman was found hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery and had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.
Needless to say, everything they said afterward is completely debunked bullshit, and need not distract from the fact that these two assclowns see Obama putting America in a leadership position on combating climate change is somehow taking a jab at America. Even the most moonbat lunatic Bush haters were never quite this detached from reality.Yesterday, President Obama delivered a speech at the U.N.’s climate change summit, saying the U.S. is “determined to act,” that “the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing,” and “the time we have to reverse this tide is running out.”
Last night on Fox News, host Sean Hannity and former Bush adviser Karl Rove predictably mocked Obama. It’s “his mandatory jab at America,” Hannity said. “I love the blame America first,” Rove piled on. The anti-Obama duo then moved into global warming denier territory...
That's so fucking beyond the pale it's unbelievable. Democrats should be screaming bloody murder - the Cons would've been if Dems had pulled anything like this on Bush. How the fuck is this country supposed to be governed with one civilized party and one band of absolute batshit insane dipshits? If Americans are stupid enough to vote Cons back into power, I think Atheist Chaplain's going to end up with a live-in handyman, because I'm not sure I could stand to be in the same country with these dumbfucks.Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has announced to National Review that he will be personally leading a "truth squad" to the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, where he will make it clear to international leaders not to believe that the United States will pass legislation to deal with the issue.
"Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate," said Inhofe. "Some people, like Senator Barbara Boxer, will tell the conference, with Waxman-Markey having passed in the House, that they can anticipate that some kind of bill will pass EPW."
It's nice to see how seriously foreign policy is taken these days -- when a member of the political minority will send his own delegation to an international conference, in order to undermine the government and tell other countries that they can't work with the United States.
Sarah Palin made her international debut today in a closed-door speech at the CLSA Investors’ Forum in Hong Kong. AFP reports that Palin’s speech, which touched on issues like international terrorism and the U.S. debt, “divided” the audience and even prompted a few delegates to leave in disgust:
Former US vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin divided an international audience of financial big-hitters at her first speech outside North America on Wednesday with some leaving in disgust. [...]
Some listeners praised her forthright views on government social and economic intervention but others walked out early citing boredom or disgust. [...]
A US delegate leaving early with a colleague said: “it was awful, we couldn’t stand it any longer.”
I wonder if that was before or after Palin parroted debunked GOP talking points about cap-and-trade:
Headache now.Three more Republican politicians have now used the heavily discredited and factually incorrect $1,761 figure as a per-family per-year price tag for cap and trade legislation, bringing the current total to 12.
- John Cornyn issued a press release saying "According to a the Department of Treasury's analysis, new taxes would be between $100 and $200 billion each year, costing families up to 1,761 each year." Unlike some of the others, Cornyn didn't even try to hide his source. He linked directly to the conservative blogger who came up with the $1,761 figure. He attributes the figure to the Treasury Department -- which is false.
- According to user casinclair on Twitter, Sarah Palin repeated the lie at her speech in Hong Kong yesterday. I'm assuming this is paraphrased, and am trying to find a full transcript: "Cap and tax (trade) will cause unemployment. Say it will cost $1800 per Americans and cause no change." [emphasis added]
- Republican Senate Candidate Scott Brown said yesterday: "They want a "yes" vote on cap and trade, even if it will raise energy costs on the average family in this country by $1,761 a year."
In April, when the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state law defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) called it an “unconstitutional” decision and predicted that it could lead to Iowa becoming “the gay marriage Mecca.” On WorldNetDaily’s radio show today, King was asked what the “impact” of the decision has been on Iowa. He replied by saying that his prediction is becoming true...[snip]
Earlier this week, the Des Moines Register released a poll showing that “Iowans are almost evenly divided about whether they would vote for or against a constitutional amendment to end marriage for same-sex couples.” It also found that “the overwhelming majority of Iowans – 92 percent – say gay marriage has brought no real change to their lives.” Asked about the poll, King complained that many Iowans do not have “a very good understanding of what same-sex marriage does to the overall institution of marriage.” After claiming that “Rick Santorum was right” when he said that expanding gay rights would lead to a “right to incest,” King asserted that same-sex marriage is “a purely socialist concept”:
KING: But if, there also would be no rational argument against group marriage. And I just take this along the rationale even further and would say if relationships between individuals cannot be prohibited by the state legislature then there is no ban that can actually be constitutional that would ban group marriage. And it wouldn’t have to be for reasons of, let me say, love or lust. It could be reasons of profitability or avoiding taxes or accessing benefits.
So in the end this is something that has to come with a, if there’s a push for a socialist society, a society where the foundations of individual rights and liberties are undermined and everybody is thrown together, living collectively off of one pot of resources earned by everyone. That is, this is one of the goals they have to go to is same-sex marriage because it has to plow through marriage in order to get to their goal. They want public affirmation. They want access to public funds and resources. Eventually all those resources will be pooled because that’s the direction we’re going. And not only is it a radical social idea, it is a purely socialist concept in the final analysis.
So, he insults 92% of his constituents, and then tops it off by babbling about socialism while demonstrating he has no fucking idea what socialism actually is. One thing it's not: a big gay plot to rope all of us into communal marriages. What a motherfucking dumbass.
Last week, Politico reported that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) were worried about “the possible damage inflicted on the party’s reputation by bomb-throwing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).” Bachmann, of course, has called for McCarthyite investigations into fellow lawmakers and encouraged conservatives to “slit” their “wrists” to oppose health care reform. However, conservative blogger Andy Aplikowski received a letter from Boehner and Cantor in which they denied the Politico report, asserting their full support for Bachmann:But not proud enough to keep that letter prominently displayed on Boehner's website, apparently. Upshot: they want the batshit crazy base to know they fully support batshit crazy Bachmann, but they're apparently hoping to conceal that support from non-batshit crazy Americans. Sad.We wanted to respond to your letter to us last week and to assure you that regardless of what inside-the-beltway media writes or what unnamed “sources” it quotes, we are proud to serve with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. [...]
Any day now, we'll have Michael Steele coming out with the Cons' version of the infamous banana video.Politico reporter Glenn Thrush has an extraordinary post up that essentially calls out the National Republican Congressional Committee for sending him a deeply misleading, sliced-and-diced trascript of supposedly incendiary remarks about race and the town halls made by a Democrat.
Bear with me on this one, because it’s interesting. Thrush says that a few days ago, an NRCC spokesman sent him a transcript of some comments by Dem Rep. Tom Perreillo, in which he said he’d witnessed “very racist remarks” at town halls. Thrush ran the NRCC version of the transcript, and the Perriello comments have since gone viral on the right.
Turns out, though, that the transcript the NRCC sent had cut a bunch of words out of what Perriello actually said, relacing them with ellipses, in a way that made his comments seem much worse than they were, Thrush says. Here’s the updated transcript, with the words the NRCC spokesman cut out in bold:
“I conducted over a hundred hours of town hall meetings in central and southern Virginia [and the vast majority of them were civil; people disagreed passionately on ideological grounds]. And there were [rare] cases where very racist remarks were made. Sometimes they were called out by neighbors in the audience; sometimes they weren’t. Clearly, race remains a factor in America, [but] there’s also a lot of disagreement here that is genuine and not based on race, so I think we have to have both conversations.”
Thrush (full disclosure: He’s a friend of mine) doesn’t blame the NRCC spokesman, saying that he’s a “partisan operative,” and took responsibility for what happened himself. Kudos to Thrush for that, but I think he’s being too kind to the NRCC, which induldged in some seriously dishonest cherry-picking here on a highly incendiary topic.
I wonder which of Beck's "9 Principles, 12 Values" this would fall under.
The animosity between Beck and Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" for Halloween -- a recurring motif in Beck's life and career -- Kelly told a local reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest bits in the history of morning radio. "A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a miscarriage,' " remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. "When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a baby."
If you think he's changed since his Y95 days, you've not been paying attention.
I feel better after a good laugh. How about you guys?
And this is one of the many reasons I loves me the intertoobz.Next time you get one of those right-wing emails trumpeting a bunch of silly lies, shoot this back at them. The NRSC says it's totally legit, after all.I see. Democratic reform proposals are still taking shape, and the White House hasn't introduced formal language, so as far as the National Republican Senatorial Committee is concerned, quite literally anything is possible. Got it.
Of course, it's also worth noting that GOP leaders have promised to unveil an alternative Republican reform plan "soon." They have not put forward legislative text, and we have no idea what the Republican bill is going to look like.
With that in mind, it's entirely plausible that the Republican Party's health care agenda may require child sacrifice in some kind of cultish ritual. What's more, the GOP plan may include mandates that physicians hit patients in the face with a baseball bat. If the Republican proposals become law, it's possible that only Southerners will be allowed to call 911 in an emergency. Perhaps most alarmingly, the GOP agenda might make it illegal to go to the bathroom.
I'm not describing the details of the still-hidden Republican plans; I'm just musing on the open-ended possibilities. This isn't a definite description of what the GOP plan is, but rather, a possible scenario that the minority party might pursue.
This morning, Fox News' Jon Scott led off a "Happening Now!" with a report on some very worthy legislation now making its way through the halls of Congress:
Scott: Despite talk that the recession is easing, the House is taking up emergency legislation this week that would help Americans out of work. A bill offered by Republican Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits. The checks would go to more than 300,000 people living in states with unemployment rates at 8.5 percent or higher. ...
I imagine it's news to Jim McDermott that he is now a Republican. He's not only an ardent Democrat, he's considered one of the most liberal members of Congress. (Here's more on his legislation to help out the long-term unemployed.)
[snip]
It's sort of the usual Fox principle -- if a Republican is caught in a sex scandal, ID him as a Democrat -- in reverse.
That's only one of the many reasons why Faux News Managing Editor Bill Sammon's memo is such a piss-poor joke. In order to maintain a reputation as a respectable news organization, one must first be a respectable news organization. But then, right-wingers never seem overly concerned with having steak with their sizzle.
Speaking of Faux News and its hacks, looks like Glenn Beck may have finally pissed off the wrong people. Even other Con hacks are giving him negative reviews:
In an interview with Katie Couric for her new web-only show, Fox News pundit Glenn Beck said he thinks John McCain would have been a bad president because he’s “this weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was.” Beck added that McCain would be worse than Obama:
I think John McCain would have been worse — [laughs] How about this? I think John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama. How’s that?
[snip]
Beck’s opinion elicited a fierce and angry response from right-wing radio host Mark Levin yesterday. “To say [McCain] would be worse is mindless, mindless, incoherent as a matter of fact,” Levin said on his radio show. He then suggested Beck is playing politics: “I don’t know who people are playing to. I don’t know why they’re playing to certain people.”
Um. Ratings, mebbe? Or just stark raving batshit insanity. Take your pick.
Levin isn't alone in his laments:
Commentary's Peter Wehner worries that Beck's "erratic behavior" and "interest in conspiracy theories" will make conservatives look like insane clowns rather than respectable sages, and Joe Scarborough absolutely goes off, saying that Beck's race-baiting and "wallow[ing] in conspiracy theories" is "playing with fire" and could have tragic, Waco-like consequences.
Even Rush Limbaugh, who never met a race-baiter he didn't like, seems a bit rankled by Beck's prominent role in marshaling the teabag troops for the 9/12 Racistpalooza in DC. Or could he be feeling a teensy bit threatened? How many crazies can Rush mobilize? How many Democratic scalps has he claimed lately? Is it possible that Rush is no longer bigoted and crazy enough to lead today's Republican Party?
Probably.
Joe Scarborough had some especially harsh words:
Scarborough was even more damning:
Scarborough: But when you preach this kind of hatred, and say that an African American president hates all white people -- stay with me -- hates all white people, you are playing with fire. And bad things can happen. And if they do happen, not only is Glenn Beck responsible, but conservatives who don't -- call -- him -- out -- are responsible.
We shall see if there's a stampede of elephants calling Beck on his bullshit. In the interests of health and safety, I'd advise against holding your breath. Especially since Michele Bachmann still loves Glenn Beck:
In an interview with Fox News, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) kissed up to Bill O’Reilly and his audience, telling producer Jesse Watters, “The Factor is the factor. That’s what’s important.” Bachmann then showered O’Reilly and Glenn Beck with her praise:
People vote with their feet. And they love Bill O’Reilly; they love Glenn Beck. They love the shows that are on Fox. That’s what matters. Because people want to go where they can find truth. They obviously aren’t finding truth over on some of these other channels.
And that, my darlings, is all you'll ever need to know about Michele Bachmann's judgement.
Let us move on to politicians behaving badly. I have just a quick question: what, exactly, will it take before Dems realize that Joe Lieberman is a total douchebag?
This morning, Politico reported on how some Democratic senators are already preparing for their reelection efforts in 2012, “boosting their campaign coffers, raising millions for an election that is still 37 months away.” In an interview, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) joked that he could potentially run as a Republican...
Connecticut, rid yourselves of this disgrace in 2012. Trust me, you'll feel better if you do.
Speaking of disgraces, here's a Dem who needs kicking to the curb:
Rep. Mike Ross (D) of Arkansas, the Blue Dog caucus' point-man on health care policy, sold some commercial property in 2007 for a lot more money that it's worth. That, coupled with the pharmacy chain that bought it, makes this a potentially problematic story.
Ross sold Holly's Health Mart in Prescott, Ark., to USA Drug for $420,000 -- an eye-popping price for real estate in a tiny train and lumber town about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock.
"You can buy half the town for $420,000," said Adam Guthrie, chairman of the county Board of Equalization and the only licensed real estate appraiser in Prescott.
But the $420,000 that USA Drug paid for the pharmacy's building and land was just the beginning of what Ross and his wife, Holly, made from the sale of Holly's Health Mart. USA Drug owner Stephen L. LaFrance Sr. also paid the Rosses $500,000 to $1 million for the pharmacy's assets and paid Holly Ross an additional $100,000 to $250,000 for signing a noncompete agreement. Those numbers, which Mike Ross listed on the financial disclosure reports he files as a member of Congress, bring the total value of the transaction to between $1 million and $1.67 million.
And that's not counting the $2,300 campaign contribution Ross received from LaFrance two weeks after the sale closed.
Ross, who recently reversed course on the Democratic reform plan after having already voted for it in committee, is a member of the Congressional Community Pharmacy Coalition. Trade associations have recently thanked the conservative Democrat for approving measures favorable to the industry.
He might as well run as a Con next cycle. He already is one.
Of course, there's no one quite like a Con for saying (and doing) the most outrageous shit:
In a new interview with The Hill, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) reveals his proudest moment as a lawmaker:
King was one of just 11 members of Congress to vote against the $52 billion aid package.THE HILL: What vote would you like to redo?
KING: I don’t really go back and re-live that sort of thing. Some of the big votes that I’ve thought about, some of the jury’s still out. And at this point, maybe I’d answer that question another way, probably the singular vote that stands out that went against the grain, and it turns out to be the best vote that I cast, was my “no” vote to the $51.5 billion to [Hurricane] Katrina. That probably was my best vote. But as far as doing something different again, I don’t know.
It's hard to put into words just what a nauseating piece of shit this fucktard is. Of all the things to be proud of, giving a big fat "fuck you!" to the victims of one of the worst natural disasters America's ever suffered is not first on the list for most decent human beings.
And, finally, under the heading of "be careful what you wish for" comes poetic justice the likes of which we seldom see:
It no doubt seemed like a good idea at the time. Republican lawmakers intended to stop federal funds that might go to ACORN, wrote a measure that blocked expenditures for "any organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency."
Because ACORN has experienced problems with voter-registration efforts, proponents found it an easy way to block funding for the group without being explicit about the intended target. The problem, as Ryan Grim reports, is that the provision also applies to entities Republican lawmakers want to give federal funds to.
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.
Oops.
That's just awesome. I hope it's just the first of many more such moments as Cons forget to contemplate the consequences of their actions.
1. Pick a blog post o' yours that hits the stupid where it hurts.That be it.
2. Send us the link at elitistbastardscarnival@gmail.com.
