CUCCI COUP

MADDOW SLAYING KEN "THE COOCH" CUCCINELLI

Continuing from yesterday's blog - where Rachael Maddow picked apart Ken Cuccinelli piece by piece - last night was no different, as Maddow skewered Cuccinelli, literally roasting him for his less than ethical ways while being Virginia's Attorney General and then eviscerating the Cooch for the "Coup" attempt over Transvaginal Bob.

While the State of Virginia was concentrating on Virginia's disgraced Governor Bob McDonnell's "gifts" from Star Scientific CEO Johnnie Williams - and soon-to-be-ex-Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who also took gifts from Star Scientific -considered a never-before used tactic/section of the Virginia Constitution to force McDonnell to be declared unfit for office.

That's right readers, as first reported by Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and further reported by Politico, The Cooch and Transvaginal Bob had a particularly acrimonious relationship - all hands in the Star Scientific goody bag aside - all stemming mostly from the Cooch's irritation towards McDonnell's preference for Lt. Gov Bill Bolling to be the 2013 GOP Gubernatorial nominee.

As the Star Scientific scandal heated up, Cuccinelli presupposed that McDonnell would be federally indicted and prepared to make a dramatic break from McDonnell by declaring him "unfit for service" and therefore, which seems to be a bit ironic - would put Lt. Governor Bolling as Virginia's acting Governor.

MADDOW ON KEN CUCCINELLI




It is truly great fun for me to watch the GOP/Tea Party eat there own, specifically when its two of the most deviant Conservatives to ever hold office in the state of Virginia.

To often the case with these right wing nut jobs, Republicans take a worse beating from irony than Wile E. Coyote does from Acme products.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

THE GOP, THE PARTY OF HUBRIS

I love Rachael Maddow. The dissection of the GOP in her reporting is bar none top shelf material. In an age where 'bullshit mountain" [Fox News] piece meals content to appease the unlettered GOPer , its soothing to see real journalism taking place during Maddow's hour segment on MSNBC.

In the clip below, Maddow tells the story of the reality, the after effects, the state of the GOP, after the Virginia gubernatorial race - how the GOP and the Tea Party have major issues ahead. But in perfect true to form GOP fashion, they ignore the facts and the obvious - and deny that any problems exist.

The GOP is truly the party of hubris. When you alienate African Americans, women, students and the elderly alike - and you find yourself wondering and asking why you lost an election, - one doesn't need to be Einstein to be able to connect the dots.

MADDOW Video courtesy of MSNBC




As long as the GOP links themselves to the tea party, they shall always remain the pimple on the ass of society, and therefore solidifying that they never ever occupy the oval office again.

If you look at the exit poll data via the NY Times, the picture isn't rosy for the GOP, especially with gender gaps, color gaps, age and educational gaps. Cuccinelli performed very poorly compared to his Republican counterpart in 2009 - in nearly every group, including his base: white men and women and Republicans. He also failed to get the same level of support among independents, almost a third of the electorate, with the Libertarian candidate, Robert Sarvis, picking up 16 percent of respondents.

Should the National Democratic base -  stay steadfast, resolved and engaged like Virginia's liberal base, then the conservatives are indeed in trouble in the 2014 mid-term elections. Needing only 17 seats to retake the house of representatives, at this point in the game, anything is possible.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

SO MUCH FOR A NRA GRADE "F "

VIRGINIA VOTERS SAY "HELL NO" TO TEA PARTY,  "NOT ON MY WATCH"!

Ken Cuccinelli — the loudest critic of health care reform — went down in a ball of flames last night, paving the way for the “bellwether for national politics” to expand Obamacare to nearly 400,000 Virginians.

By defeating this radical teabagger, voters rejected one of the most openly-right wing politicians this country has to offer. Terry McAuliffe repeatedly hammered the point that Cuccinelli was focused on his own agenda of climate change denial, anti-LGBT discrimination, restrictions on women’s reproductive health, steadfast opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and blocking any gun violence reduction efforts.

The good guys [and gals] of Virginia win this round. While only 38% of registered voters voted this go around, the final word was -even with Obamacare looming in the air, that Virginian's do not want Radical Right Wing Nut Jobs, the tin foil hat society running their state.

Why did the republican ticket lose you ask?: list from thinkprogress


He fought against all abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.

Cuccinelli once boasted that his first campaign won by mobilizing churches on abortion and taxes — while misleading the press into think he was concerned about transportation. His 2002 campaign website laid out Cuccinelli’s abortion views clearly: “Ken believes that human life begins at conception, and that human beings should be respected and protected from conception to natural death,” it said. “Ken would seek to require sonograms to be part of a 24-hour waiting period with an informed consent requirement. Ken opposes abortions that are not for the purpose of saving the mother’s life.” He sought defund Planned Parenthood and embryonic stem cell research.

He pushed for a ban on third trimester abortions — making no exception for serious health risks on the woman — and bullied the state Board of Health to implement “safety” regulations for abortion providers designed to force clinics to close. He has also highlighted his opposition to RU-486 and his support for a “conscience” law protecting the “right of professionals to refuse to perform an action that is inconsistent with their moral convictions” — such as providing emergency contraception — “without losing their job.” Cuccinelli frequently attacks Planned Parenthood and has suggested that the fact that abortion clinics in Virginia are in urban areas with large African American populations is an example of white racism. His “ultimate goal,” he has said, is to “make abortion disappear in America.” Instead, Cuccinelli helped fund “crisis” pregnancy centers that lie to women to manipulate their reproductive health choices.


He called a safe sex fair “soft porn” and sought to censor it.

In 2005, Cucinnelli used his position as a state Senator to try to censor a university sexual education event he felt was “pushing a pro-sex agenda and an anything goes agenda.” Cuccinelli, however, was outraged that his alma mater George Mason — a public state university — would host an event he believed “really just designed to push sex and sexual libertine behavior as far, fast and furiously as possibly.” Upset that information about sexuality — other than abstinence only — would be presented to adult college students, he said it was symptomatic of the “moral depravity that has crept across this commonwealth and this country.” The university’s administration emphatically rejected Cuccinelli’s suggestions that they cancel the event and it was repeated in future years.

His war on sodomy may have helped set free sexual predators.

After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state sodomy bans as unconstitutional in 2003, a bipartisan group in the Virginia General Assembly proposed updating the state’s law that made oral and anal sex a felony (even between consenting married adults) to comply with the ruling by eliminating provisions dealing with consenting adults in private and leaving in place provisions relating to prostitution, public sex, and those other than consenting adults. Cuccinelli, then a state senator, opposed the bill in committee and helped kill it on the Senate floor. In 2009, he told a newspaper that he supported keeping restrictions on the sexual behavior of consenting adults: “My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. … They don’t comport with natural law.” As a result, the law was never updated and the courts struck down the entire law earlier this year — throwing into question the convictions of numerous sexual predators.

VIRGINIA ELECTIONS RESULTS

He said Catholic Church creates a “culture of dependency on government, not God.”

In a stunning 2012 speech at a Christian Life Summit, Cuccinelli took aim at the Catholic Church for its advocacy on behalf of the poor, immigrants, and the uninsured. Because the Church’s leadership has advocated for the government to provide a social safety net, a role he believes is the responsibility of the Catholic Church itself, Cuccinelli said, “they have made themselves out to be nothing but the largest special interest group in America.” Rev. Gerry Creedon, pastor at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Dale City, Virginia, added that the Church can’t do it all alone. “Not everything can be done with charity,” he explained, “The tithes of our church can’t deal with the housing crisis [or hunger]. Those are issues that go beyond private donations.” In a June 2011 speech to the Virginia Christian Association, he mocked a Catholic diocese newspaper for including in its voter guides both issues like poverty assistance and health care access for the uninsured, in addition to the issues he deems more important, such as abortion.

He turned his climate change denial into an illegal witch hunt.

Cuccinelli’s denial of climate science was extreme enough — frequently asking his audiences to exhale carbon dioxide together in unison just to “annoy the EPA.” But as Virginia Attorney General, he took it a step further, launching an illegal fishing expedition against former University of Virginia climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann. State courts rejected as unfounded his theory that Mann committed fraud in seeking government funding for climate change research.

His office improperly aided fossil fuel companies.

Much of Cuccinelli’s fundraising came from dirty energy companies. But a six-figure donation from Pennsylvania-based CONSOL Energy came under heavy scrutiny after his office was accused of improperly aiding Consol and others in a class-action lawsuit brought by southwest Virginians over coalbed methane extraction rights. The state judge in the case called the behavior of Cuccinelli’s senior assistant attorney general shocking and referred the matter to the Virginia’s inspector general — who found she had acted “inappropriately.”


He took thousands in gifts from the a controversial tobacco executive.

Though Cuccinelli initially failed to disclose them, he received more than $18,000 in gifts from controversial Star Scientific CEO Jonnie R. Williams Sr. Williams provided the attorney general with free lodging at his homes, $6,711 worth of supplements, transportation to New York City and Kentucky, and an elaborate $1,500 Thanksgiving dinner. Though as of 2012, Star Scientific has reported annual losses for a decade, just one Virginia elected official or candidate invested upwards of $10,000 in the company: Cuccinelli. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Star Scientific is the only significant holding he has reported since his first filing in 2003. Cuccinelli, whose position makes him the Commonwealth of Virginia’s lawyer, did not follow state disclosure law and disclose this investment in a timely manner. After the controversy became public, he sold off the stock and grudgingly donated the estimated value of the gifts he received to charity.

He questioned President Obama’s legitimacy as president.

Cuccinelli dabbled in birtherism in 2010, telling a questioner that the idea that President Obama was secretly born in Kenya “doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.” After the 2012 election, Cuccinelli embraced a conspiracy theory proposed by right-wing radio host that President Obama had only be re-elected because of voter fraud. he completely agreed assertion that investigations were needed to determine why President Obama lost “every one” of the states with photo identification requirements for voting, yet won re-election. Of course, Obama won four states with photo identification requirements for voters and studies have shown Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud.

He fought against LGBT equality at every possible opportunity.

Cuccinelli’s anti-LGBT rhetoric and record may be unmatched by any other Virginia gubernatorial candidate in history. He actively pushed for state and federal constitutional amendments to prevent any legal recognition of what he terms “what they’d like to refer to as ‘homosexual families,’” authoring a resolution calling for a federal amendment to invalidate any same-sex marriage, civil union, domestic partnership, or “other relationship analogous to marriage.”

He has opined that “giving public sanction to homosexual marriage ends up redefining marriage and it’s certain to harm children.” He even opposed a state bill that allowed private companies to voluntarily provide health insurance benefits to employees’ domestic partners, warning it might “encourage this type of behavior.” His advisory opinion that Virginia’s public colleges and universities should rescind their non-discrimination policies was called “reprehensible” by a former Republican state legislator. Asked in this campaign about his previous claim that the “homosexual agenda… brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul,” Cuccinelli conceded that his views about “the personal challenge of homosexuality have not changed.”

He bragged about his “A” rating from the NRA at the site of a mass shooting.

Cuccinelli’s strong opposition to gun violence prevention efforts extends to even modest steps like universal background checks. Asked about the subject at an October debate a Virginia Tech, where a mass shooting in 2007 killed 32 people, Cuccinelli made clear that he opposed expanded background checks and boasted his “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. In a 2011 speech to a gun rights group, he called the notion of gun bans on campus “crazy.”

He embraced radical “tenther” theories about the U.S. constitution.

Cuccinelli espoused a radical interpretation of the constitution that the federal government should cede much more power to the states under the 10th Amendment. His 2013 book No Apologies called Medicare “despicable," dismissed Social Security, Medicaid and food stamps as deliberate attacks on Americans’ freedom, and argued that all welfare and anti-trust laws are unconstitutional.

At a 2010 Tenth Amendment rally in Richmond, he told supporters of the view that “what we can do, where we live, is advocate again to bring back to life the 10th amendment, to bring back to life those boundaries in our constitutional system that were supposed to be the critical checks in the checks and balances system. Without them, we lose – gradually, we lose our liberty.” In one of his briefs challenging health reform, Cuccinelli suggested that Congress is allowed to regulate “commerce on one hand” but not “manufacturing or agriculture.” This is exactly the same discredited vision of the Constitution the Supreme Court implemented in the late 19th and early 20th century, and it would strike down child labor laws, the minimum wage, the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters, and countless other cherished laws.

Virginia has historically been a conservative-leaning swing state, backing every Republican presidential nominee from Richard Nixon through George W. Bush and electing a Republican governor by a 59 to 41 landslide in 2009. But polling showed Cuccinelli out of step with their views on climate change, background checks, marriage equality, and abortion rights.

Yes Virginia, we have our own version of the Taliban, its called the Tea Party.

The Cooch rallied against Sodomy, and lost, rallied against women, and lost [with a resounding and overwhelming thud], rallied against the LBGT, and lost.

Things to take away form this election: that only 38% of Virginian's who could vote did so. Many moderate republicans jumped ship and voted against the Cooch. That over 900 thousand Virginian's voted for E.W. Jackson. And this number alone, is by far, the most concerning one, as Jackson, is by far the most radical, most disgusting human to ever run for office. Really Virginia, 900 thousand votes, this show us just how far back in times some Virginian's are willing to go back - and that unlettered GOPers still exist in great numbers in rural areas of my state, but.......

The best news from this race is - besides women's rights, is that the NRA cannot bully Democratic Virginian's, that any grade from the Guns Over People is irrelevant. Virginia dodge a bullet if you will, because the Cooch was shoulder deep in the NRA's posterior - we now have a Governor-Elect who says "I don't care what grade I got from the NRA". For the record McAullife sported a "F" grade, the lowest the gun huggers have to offer.

Virginia conservatives are crying it their beer today, crying foul because they lost, because the Libertarian stole or split the votes from the GOP - no RWNJ, you lost because progressives and true moderate GOPers, along with logical thinking Virginians said, "hell no, not on my watch"!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS, GET OUT AND VOTE! #UNITEBLUE

If your a women, a minority, and veteran, a worker, a student, there is no other choice for you if you want to keep what's yours.

This election is just as big, implications are just as high as the Presidential election - because true governing is at the State level.

MADDOW Video courtesy of MSNBC




It's time to turn Virginia BLUE readers! It's time to set the precedence in this county, that vagina probing, radical right wing extremism is not welcome in this country!

There is a reason why the conservative tries to disenfranchise voters - because the lower the turn out, the better their chances to win.

So no big blog today -  other than to say, if you're a Democrat - get off your posterior and go vote, your livelihood as you know it depends on it.

Exercise your most powerful right, and remember, voting has consequences, sever consequences.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

SUPREME BEINGS [COURT] PUNT ABORTION RIGHTS ATTACKS

From thinkprogress:

In an important, if likely temporary, victory for abortion rights, the Supreme Court took a major abortion case off its docket on Monday. The Court’s brief order does not explain the justices’ reason for doing so — it simply provides that “[t]he writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted. Nevertheless, it is likely that the justices decided that a recent Oklahoma Supreme Court decision muddied the issues presented by the case to such an extent that it made sense to wait to decide an important question regarding the ability of states to restrict the use of medication abortions.

Though the Supreme Court agreed to hear Cline v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice earlier this year, it also asked Oklahoma’s highest court to resolve two questions regarding the scope of an Oklahoma law banning certain forms of non-surgical abortions induced by medication. Last Tuesday, Oklahoma’s justices answered these questions by explaining that the state law at issue in Cline outlaws all medication abortions — including methods of terminating a pregnancy that were specifically approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Thus, if the U.S. Supreme Court were to rule on Clinethey would have to answer the much larger question of whether an abortion procedure that’s specifically been approved by the federal government can be banned by a state, rather than considering a narrower question of whether specific methods of abortion lacking FDA sanction can be targeted by states.

In the short term, Monday’s order means that a conservative Supreme Court that’s shown considerable eagerness to restrict abortion rights in the past will not decide a major abortion case. In the medium term, however, the question of medication abortions is likely to be in front of the justices again very soon. Texas recently enacted a law that, among other things, includes restrictions on medication abortions that are narrower than the restrictions in Oklahoma. A challenge to the Texas law is barreling towards the Supreme Court, and would likely present the justices with the opportunity to decide a medication abortion case if they choose to do so.

Nevertheless, the fact that the justices turned aside an opportunity to uphold the very broad Oklahoma law may offer a small ray of hope to supporters of abortion rights. For the moment, the justices seem uninterested in endorsing an expansive ban on medication abortions, even if there may be five votes to uphold a narrower ban like the one in Texas.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

GUNS IN AIRPORTS COURTESY OF THE NRA

On Friday, a gunman “pulled a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber assault rifle from his duffel bag” and opened fire on an airport. Officials have arrested the alleged shooter, 23-year-old Paul Ciancia, who killed a TSA agent and wounded six others at a security checkpoint. The incident is the second airport shooting in six months.

The National Rifle Association has not yet said a word on the tragedy (the day before, the NRA tweeted a story about the so-called “exploitation” of Sandy Hook). But in the past, the NRA has vigorously campaigned to make it easier to bring firearms into airports and criticized TSA agents for their aggressive efforts to ensure guns don’t make it onto a plane. Federal law prevents all travelers from transporting firearms beyond checkpoints (they must be unloaded, checked, and declared in luggage), but the NRA has been a force in weakening state law to permit guns before the security checkpoint.

Advance laws that allow guns in airport terminals.
Over the last decade, the NRA has repeatedly lobbied against airport firearm restrictions. According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, states including Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin either expressly allow firearms in specific sections or only prohibit firearms in airports beyond checkpoints.

And in California in 2012, the NRA formally opposed Assembly Bill 2182, which would have required a person be arrested if they brought a firearm into the airport and ban them from entering in the future. The bill never moved from committee. More recently, bills introduced in Virginia, Georgia, and Ohio would allow people to carry their weapons inside.

Intimidate TSA agents for aggressively screening for guns.
When the TSA subjected a girl carrying a firearm-shaped purse to extra questioning, the NRA responded that this extra precaution constituted harassment. “We shouldn’t be surprised that security personnel who see nothing wrong with humiliating 85-year-old women at our nation’s airports might see a teenage girl sporting a purse with a firearm motif as a potential danger,” NRA President David Keene said said at the time. “But it should upset us as much as it did her and her parents.” The extra scrutiny may be needed: TSA agents have confiscated 30 percent more guns from passengers, many of them loaded, in 2013 compared to last year. Most travelers say they “forgot” they had the firearm, which has made sociologists think the trend is a result of people being permitted to carry their guns virtually anywhere.

Endorse candidates who oppose limiting guns at airports.
The NRA’s “A-rated” allies are trying to make it even easier to access guns in airports. Virginia Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli and Virginia Attorney General candidate Mark Obenshain voted against a 2004 bill banning guns in airport terminals (it passed anyway). The NRA has spent more than $500,000 to make Cuccinelli Virginia’s next governor.

The NRA will likely argue that this shooting is more proof guns restrictions should be weakened, not strengthened in public areas, since a bystander could intervene in a shooting. All the best research points to this being even more dangerous.

Why do conservatives worry so much about people who get get food stamps and not worry about guns being in the wrong hands?

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

ELMER FUDD GOES HUNTING

ELMER J. FUDD GOES HUNTING

Bill Maher offered some free advice to the Republican party on Friday night to appeal to young people. Firstly, stop going on hunting trips to prove you’re a man of the people. And two, come out for legalizing weed so you can be a true dude of the people.

The genesis of the bit was Ted Cruz going out and hunting this week, which Maher thought was unnecessary because “you've already proved your total dominion over creatures with brains the size of walnuts. After all, you’re the leader of the tea party!”

Maher said young people don’t care about hunting, that “if they want to kill something, there’s an Xbox right downstairs.” The average voter is not an elderly, gun-toting middle American, it’s a “young Latino lesbian who smoked a boatload of dope.”

But Maher may have only been suggesting the GOP embrace this issue because of his frustration with Democrats who have been far too quiet on this issue. He said if the Democrats want to win young people in 2016, they’ll have to say “welcome back to stoner Hillary!”

NFTOS 

STAFF WRITER

JUST REMEMBER, ITS NOT A LIE IF YOU BELIEVE IT

PAGE ONE:

Since insurers have begun informing beneficiaries that their health care plans do not meet the new federal requirements of Obamacare, and will be either cancelled or significantly altered, the media has profiled countless middle class Americans who claim that the new health care law will force them to pay more for coverage.

Deborah Cavallaro, for instance, a real estate agent from Los Angeles, was enrolled in an individual plan that cost her just $293 per month. Under Obamacare, Cavallaro says she’ll have to pay over $400 for coverage she doesn’t need or want. But a higher premium doesn't tell the whole story: while Cavallaro may spend more each month, she’ll be buying more comprehensive insurance with fewer out-of-pocket costs, better benefits that will cover more and cost her less if she actually falls ill, and much more robust consumer protections.

So before you buy into the sticker shock hysteria, here are four questions you should ask:

What does the old plan actually cover? Most of the policies in the existing individual health care market — which are currently issuing notices — offer low premiums, but also come with skimpy benefits and high out-of-pocket costs. These plans often have low limits for outpatient treatment, hospitalization or don’t offer any benefits for procedures like colonoscopy, chemotherapy or mental health treatment. Insurers market these policies to young and healthy people who don’t use their coverage — and never know the true extent of their benefits. (The market is also fairly mobile, with just 17 percent of individual subscribers purchasing the same plan for two years or longer.)

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurers cover 10 essential categories of benefits, offering far more comprehensive coverage than what’s available in most individual insurance plans.

Did this person go to the exchanges? Insurers informing policy holders that their health care costs will go up, often direct beneficiaries to their other brand products without telling them about competitive options and prices available through the exchanges. Cavallaro, for instance, got a quote from a broker, but did not explore the available options on her own.

Prices are lowest in areas with the most insurer competition. An analysis from the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform found that “new entrants into the market make up 26 percent of all insurers,” and “tend to price their plans lower than the median premiums in their market.” The average premium in the exchanges is 16 percent lower than previously projected.

Yes, the premium is low, but what are the co-pays and deductibles? This coverage often forces individuals who do use care to meet high deductibles — the amount you pay out-of-pocket before your insurance kicks in — pay high co-pays and co-insurance or limit the number of doctor visits that are allowed. Cavallaro, for instance, must meet a deductible of $5,000 a year and has an out-of-pocket cap of $8,500 a year. The plan covers just two doctors’ visits and each include a $40 co-pay.

As the LA Times’ Michael Hiltzik points out in California, Cavallaro could sign-up for a Silver level plan with a $2,000 deductible, maximum out-of-pocket cost of $6,350, pay $45 for a primary care visit and $65 for a specialty visit — “but all visits would be covered, not just two.”

The health law sets exchange enrollees’ maximum annual out-of-pocket costs at $6,350, and silver plans have deductibles ranging from $1,500 to $5,000.

Does this person qualify for subsidies? Americans between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line ($46,000 for an individual, or about $78,000 for a family of three) qualify for tax credits under the law. Six of the 7 million individuals who are expected to sign up for insurance through the exchange will receive an average tax credit of $5,290 per year.

Cavallaro “qualifies her for a hefty federal premium subsidy,” Hiltzik reports and can purchase a silver plan for $333, $40 more than she’s paying now. A cheaper bronze plan would be in the $200s.

PAGE TWO - FACT:

Let's take a look at the Northern territory; in British Columbia (Canada) a single person pays $66.50 a month for comprehensive health care, with no co-pays, no deductibles, no lifetime caps, and no payments for a doctor's visit. The only things not covered are dental and prescriptions, which many employers and individuals cover with supplemental insurance.

If you want to really learn about single-payer health insurance, got to PNHP. This site has a plethora of facts on the topic - an organization of over 18,000 physicians who support the concept. There is a reason readers why America ranks so low [37th] in the world with regards to healthcare.

According to the World Health organization, the U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.

Five factors that went into WHO's calculation:

Health level, as defined by a measure of life expectancy, which shows how healthy a country's population is. This factor gets a 25 percent weight. 

Responsiveness, which includes factors such as speed of health services, privacy protections, choice of doctors and quality of amenities. This factor gets a 12.5 percent weight. 

Financial fairness, which measures how progressive or regressive the financing of a country's health care system is — that is, whether or not the financial burdens are borne by those who are economically better off. This factor receives a 25 percent weight. 

Health distribution, which measures how equally a nation's health care resources are allocated among the population. This factor receives a 25 percent weight. 

Responsiveness distribution, which measures how equally a nation's health care responsiveness (which we defined above) is spread through society. This factor gets a 12.5 percent weight.

John Boehner said that the health care law signed by President Barack Obama -- and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court -- imperiled the nation’s health care system saying:

"Gov. Romney understands that Obamacare will bankrupt our country and ruin the best health care delivery system in the world," Boehner said, during the July 1, 2012, edition of CBS’ Face the Nation.

While some US techniques may be far better advanced from a scientific perspective, the actual Healthcare system prior to Obamacare, fell way short of what "lesser" nations provide. For any tin foil hat society member to suggest and claim that the United States had "the best health care delivery system in the world" prior to the ACA - is too glib to accurately characterize - and in reality, its much more a nuanced delusional fallacy from the "know-nothings"!

Portions of blog from thinkprogress.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

CHASING WINDMILLS

LINDSEY GRAHAM, BENGHAZI YOU SAY?

On Monday we wrote about Lindsey Graham wanting to hold presidential nominees hostage - until he vetted the Benghazi issue just one more time. And now the rest of the story:

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday made clear that President Obama’s nominees to become the Chair of the Federal Reserve and Secretary of Homeland Security would be his latest hostages in his ongoing quest to unearth the “truth” about Benghazi.

Since the attack last year that ended in the death of four American citizens in Benghazi, Libya, Graham has been a stalwart crusader on the hunt to expose the supposed White House cover-up that he knows exists. On Monday, he indicated that a new push would be coming, warning on Fox News, “I’m going to block every appointment in the United States Senate until the survivors are being made available to the Congress.”

Graham followed through on Wednesday, announcing at a news conference that he would be placing a hold on Janet Yellen’s nomination to become the new Federal Reserve Chair and Jeh Johnson’s to replace Janet Napolitano at DHS. “That is the only leverage we have,” he told the assembled reporters. Yellen’s nomination is also being threatened by Sen. Rand Paul over different demands.

“Before you can close the books on Benghazi, I think Congress needs to look over the administration’s shoulder,” Graham told CNN on Thursday, “it’s called oversight.” Graham insisted that he’s “not asking for too much” in holding up the nominations. “Is it really too much for me to want to talk to the people who were in Benghazi independent of the administration?” he asked rhetorically, refusing to answer critiques asking if his Tea Party challengers had anything to do with the singular focus on the issue.

The facts are: As Media Matters points out, the crux of Graham’s demands have already been met. Two “key witnesses in last year’s terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, were summoned to Capitol Hill this month and grilled for hours in separate legal depositions,” the Los Angeles Times reported just days ago. The Department of Justice, however, has urged House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa to keep the interviews under wraps to prevent them from corrupting ongoing prosecution efforts.

This is not a new modus operandi for Graham, as he has opted to use these same tactic in the past, and like most hostage taking scenarios, the results have not always come out in Dear Lindsey's favor. When he got his wish to have the names revealed of who deleted references to al Qaeda from then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s talking points in the days after the attack, the released emails showed clearly that the CIA itself was the one who did so, not the White House, thus debunking the right-wing myth that the changes were political. Likewise, when Graham demanded that then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Panetta took the opportunity to chide the SASC’s Republicans for treating the military like a 911 service and debunk many of the rumors about available military assistance at the time of the attack.

Remember when readers, remember when 13 Benghazi's occurred on George W. Bush's watch without a peep from Lindsey Graham or the GOP? For the record, here are Bush's 13 Benghazi's:

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.

June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al Qaeda attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of "Bali Bombings." No fatalities.

February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.

May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al Qaeda terrorists storm the diplomatic compound, killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.

July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.

December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda terrorists storm the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall. Nine people are killed.

March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who was directly targeted by the attackers. (I wonder if Lindsey Graham or Fox News would even recognize the name "David Foy." This is the third Karachi terrorist attack in four years on what's considered American soil.)

September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four armed gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar" storm the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people are killed, 13 are wounded.

January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. Members of a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.

March 18, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Members of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen fire a mortar at the U.S. Embassy. The shot misses the embassy, but hits nearby school killing two.

July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four armed terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed.

September 17, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband (they had been married for three weeks when the attack occurred). This is the second attack on this embassy in seven months.

Even if Lindsey and his band of banshees never arrive at their goal, they have in their possession a cudgel formed of horseshit - a means of flogging the dead horse yet again.

Very seldom do these teahadists discuss the truth or history- not to mention dubiously sourced chunks of "truth" proffered by radio and cable news conspiracy theorists who, if nothing else, are masters at telling angry tea baggers precisely what they want to hear: that this Muslim Koran thumping president is the main source of failure for the Benghazi incident. And so they'll keep repeating "Benghazi-Gate, Benghazi-Gate, Benghazi-Gate!" without any regard for history or reality. All to well we have come to know nothing else from the American Taliban - which is to forget all history prior to 2009. When in doubt, at all costs, invoke "Bushensia"!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

VIRGINIA [MIDDLE PENINSULA] TIN FOIL HAT SOCIETY......."UNITED NATIONS MIND CONTROL PLOTS"

PAGE ONE

Make no bones about it readers, the tea party lunatics are no more rampant and ignorant than in my own back yard. [Virginia Middle Peninsula]

Climate deniers should be insulted, mocked, and humiliated often. When future history books are written, when lives and property are truly in danger- these people will be first in the long list of history to blame for the lack of preparation regarding climate change.

The tin foil hat society tends to be at odds with the reality-based community when it comes to climate science. This topic comes up from frequently here in rural, Eastern shore Virginia, and it’s always disconcerting. There’s a political dispute underway about an issue with unrivaled consequences – the climate crisis has the capacity to change conditions on the planet to the detriment of humanity. One side of this political argument is relying on evidence and science to draw attention to a potentially catastrophic problem in the hopes of coming up with a solution.

The other side of the argument includes a variety of prominent voices who've come to believe that the entirety of climate science is a hoax perpetrated by secret communists who hate free enterprise. Other conservatives don’t go quite this far, but nevertheless say the problem, if it exists, can’t or shouldn't be addressed.

The Globe doesn't have time to wait for the benighted ignorant to catch up - for those who are wrong, and for those who embrace dangerous pseudo-science. With so much on the line and at stake, waiting for the willful ignorance of the tin foil hate society seems deeply irresponsible.

MADDOW ON SCIENCE DENIERS




PAGE TWO
Bad time to be a Virginia Tea Bagger




PAGE THREE

Maddow Breaking Down The Virginia 2013 Election



Virginia Democrats, get out and vote, lets make this a slam dunk and get a Democrat clean sweep for this elections cycle. This is the time as we sit center stage - to tell the National Tin Foil Hat Society, not on our watch!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

DOES IT MATTER WHO'S DRIVING THE CAR?

ALL MEN PANEL DECIDING WOMEN'S RIGHT'S

A federal judge has sided with reproductive rights advocates to declare one of Texas’ new abortion restrictions unconstitutional, ensuring that one of the provisions in a sweeping new anti-choice law will not take effect this week.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel heard the case last week and had promised to issue a ruling before the bill, HB 2, was scheduled to take go into place on Tuesday. Texas’ GOP-led legislature enacted HB 2 over the summer, after the dramatic debate over the proposed restrictions was elevated to the national stage. All eyes were on Texas after state Sen. Wendy Davis  filibustered the bill for 11 hours straight during a special legislative session in June. Less than 24 hours after Davis successfully blocked the bill, however, Gov. Rick Perry called yet another special session to force the legislation through.

In September, more than a dozen women’s health providers sued the state to block several of HB 2′s provisions from taking effect. Their challenge specifically concerned the provisions requiring abortion clinics to obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals — a medically unnecessary requirement that ultimately forces clinics to close when they’re unable to comply — and requiring doctors to use an outdated protocol to administer the abortion pill. They pointed out that the combination of those two restrictions would have “catastrophic” effects on abortion access in the state.

In his opinion, Yeakel noted that the “admitting-privileges provision is without a rational basis and places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.” Similar logic has led several federal judges to block identical provisions in other states. Yeakel did not completely strike down the provision related to medication-induced abortions, determining that women whose lives are at risk should be able to follow the off-label procedure for taking the abortion pill.

Federal District Court Judge - Texas Abortion Law is Unconstitutional

The ruling also does not affect several of the other provisions in Texas’ omnibus law, such as the requirement that abortion clinics need to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers — which won’t take effect until 2014 — or the ban that outlaws abortion procedures after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Women’s health advocates have estimated that taken together, the harsh new regulations could force the vast majority of the state’s clinics to close, leaving more than 22,000 Texas women without any safe options for terminating a pregnancy. They warn that the law will force more low-income women to cross the border into Mexico to obtain illegal and unsafe abortion-inducing drugs. Striking the admitting privileges provision will help somewhat improve this situation, but abortion rights activists have already vowed to keep fighting the rest of HB 2.

I am a firm believer in striking down all the anti-abortion rhetoric and laws, if it's not your abortion, it's none of your business, and it should never ever be regulated by a group of old pasty white men. In the retro world of the archaic GOP, women still take a back seat when it comes to controlling their own bodies. Without any safety precautions its a dangerous ride indeed. Does it matter who's at the wheel driving the car? You can bet your sweet ass is does.

Life decisions, if there not your own - mind your own fracking business - for the bible thumping Christian; Judge not lest ye be judged - and let him, who is without sin cast the first stone [Matt. 7:1 Do not judge, or you too will be judged."] If it is truly wrong to abort - then let the all powerful OZ will take care of it!

YES WE ARE BACK TO BENGHAZI....... AGAIN

LINDSEY "BENGHAZI" GRAHAM

Are you looking for a fun drinking game to play? If so, turn on Fox News and take a drink of your favorite alcohol beverage every time you hear Benghazi mentioned. More than likely you will be drunk in less than fifteen minutes.

Amid the sense of gridlock that has become the norm in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Lindsey Graham is now threatening to block every single nomination from the Obama administration until he gets what he wants on Benghazi — again.

On Sunday evening, CBS’ 60 Minutes aired a new report on the attack in Benghazi, Libya that took place last year, examining the nature of the attack, which analysts are now calling pre-planned. This differs greatly from the early days and weeks after the attack, when members of the administration were still attempting to find out what went wrong and what led to the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

In that light, and still on the hunt for a White House cover-up, Graham was on Fox News on Monday, advocating for yet another look into the tragedy, echoing the demands of the most conspiracy-minded members of the House of Representatives:

GRAHAM: So I am calling for a joint select committee. But for God’s sake, let the House have a select committee where you get three or four committees together to look at this situation as one unit rather than stove piping. And where are the survivors? 14 months later, Steve, the survivors, the people who survived the attack in Benghazi, have not been made available to the U.S. congress for oversight purposes. I’m going to block every appointment in the United States Senate until the survivors are being made available to the Congress. I’m tired of hearing from people on TV and reading about stuff in books.

“We need to get to the bottom of this and to my house colleagues, Darrell Issa has done great job,” Graham continued in his Fox interview, referring to the many House Oversight Committee hearings that Rep. Darrell Issa has held related to the attack. Issa himself, however, has admitted that he did not learn much in his last major round of public hearings.

In demanding that a special committee be convened in the House to take over the Benghazi investigation, Graham is aligning himself with many of the more conservative members of the House Republican caucus and against Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Rep. Frank Wolff has been rallying conservatives to press Boehner for a special committee for months now, aligning himself with outside groups who have attempted — and failed — to show that public opinion is on their side. Despite their past failures, Graham’s decision to join their ranks will surely help him fend off the Tea Party challenger he’s facing ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.

This is not the first time at all that Graham has threatened to take hostages in the Senate to get his way, nor even the first time his demands have related to Benghazi. Graham issued a warning about no nominations proceeding unless the Port of Charleston received the $50,000 needed to be deepened back in 2011. In Dec. 2012, Graham threatened to allow the U.S. to go over the so-called “fiscal cliff” unless the Social Security age was raised.

On Benghazi itself, Graham has had his exact demands change along with his targets. CIA Director John Brennan was threatened not to be confirmed unless Graham was able to learn precisely who changed the infamous “talking points” that now-National Security Adviser Susan Rice delivered the week after the attack. He also swore to not allow a vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Secretary of Defense unless his predecessor Leon Panetta testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Both of those demands were met, showing that the CIA itself was the one who deleted references to Al Qaeda from Rice’s talking points and allowing Panetta to chide the SASC’s Republicans for treating the military like a 911 service.

Graham’s threat comes just as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prepares a new wave of Obama administration nominees to be brought before the Senate. Even before the threat to hold all of these nominees was issued, Senate Democrats have been mulling the so-called “nuclear option” of allowing for votes to proceed with a majority 51 votes, ending the threat of the filibuster on certain types of votes.

Ironically enough, Graham recently chastised his colleagues for blocking an up or down vote on the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, calling it the “wrong” thing to do.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

LIVING WAGE YOU SAY?

McDonald's Not MY Kinda Place




Bill Maher ended his show Friday night going after GOP opposition to the minimum wage, calling them out for opposing something that would make people less dependent on government handouts. He targeted McDonald's in particular, saying “until Ronald McDonald starts paying his employees a living wage, he has to wipe that fucking smile off his face.”

On the charge minimum wages cut into profits, Maher mockingly explained, “Paying workers is one of those unfortunate expenses of running a business, like taxes or making a product.”

He asked, “When did the American dream become a pathway to indentured servitude?” and made the argument that the GOP can have a “smaller government with less handouts” or a low minimum wage, but they can’t have both.

And Maher doesn't even eat fast food anyway. He said, “If I want to talk into the face of some red-nosed clown, I’ll debate John Bohener.”


BILL MAHER 

McDonalds is my kind of place! Hamburgers in your face! French fries up your nose! Pickles between your toes! And don't forget those luscious shakes! Made from polluted lakes! McDonald's is my kind of plaaaace!

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

NORTH CAROLINA GOP, RACISTS MUCH? "IF THE HAT FITS, WEAR IT"!

NORTH CAROLINA GOP RACISTS DON YELTON

PAGE ONE:

Apparently ex-GOP county chair Don Yelton never took a course in crisis management; nor does he think he’s in the midst of a GOP cataclysmic crisis after deriding “lazy blacks” on The Daily Show Wednesday evening and subsequently resigning from his post. While continuing to defend himself from accusations of racism, Yelton has dug in even deeper, using the “n-word” repeatedly to make his point.

In an interview with The Wrap, Yelton once again stood by his controversial remarks, pointing the finger at reverse-racism.

“When a n—– can use the word n—– and it not be considered racist, that’s the utmost racism in the world, and it’s hypocrisy,” he told The Wrap.

MADDOWS DISCUSSES NORTH CAROLINA RACISTS

JON STEWART AND THE GOP RACISTS




According to Yelton, not only is the Republican Party “gutless” for forcing him out of his position, but they missed a perfect opportunity to use his comments as proof they are tolerant of many views.

“They can turn it into a positive if they want to,” he told The Wrap. “The party does not try to control the speech of individuals. That’s the point they could have made. You have to let people have an opinion.”

Instead, he lamented how the party chose to accept “this comedy show” as “the truth” and “come down with an iron fist.” 

“There’s no political party that’s going to tell me what to say as long as I have breath in my body,” he concluded.

Yelton, meanwhile, feels no remorse since resigning, naturally, and claims that the comments of his that aired were actually tame compared to some of the others he made during the sit-down that were edited out.

Reports the Mountain Xpress:

Despite the controversy, Yelton tells Xpress: “The comments that were made, that I said, I stand behind them. I believe them.” 

The short interview clips were edited together from a much longer two-hour sit-down, says Yelton. But he says he was pleased overall with the parts that were included. In fact, he notes that some of the comments he made that weren't included might’ve even been more controversial. “To tell you the truth, there were a lot of things I said that they could’ve made sound worse than what they put up.”

Well there you go!

Lets be clear readers, the republican party did not distance themselves from this guy until after he/they got caught. Does anyone in their right mind believe that Yelton, a "party leader" became a racist just in time for an interview with The Daily Show? Yelton was in a party leadership position because the people who put him there had no problems with his bigotry - that is until he made the critical error of telling the truth about his party in public.

PAGE TWO:

Alan Grayson, with his email to the masses, which compared the Tea Party to the KKK, while upsetting to the racists, it is a fair analogy of the tin foil hat society, as Grayson said. "if the hat fits wear it".

Megan Kelly and Allen West [no relationship to this blogger] Defending the Racists



Grayson's full statement below.

Regarding the image that the campaign circulated, the Tea Party has engaged in relentless racist attacks against our African-American President. For example, when the President visited my home of Orlando, Tea Party protesters shouted “Kenyan Go Home.” Other examples include Tea Party chants of “Bye Bye, Blackbird,” and Tea Party posters saying “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery,” “Imam Obama Wants to Ban Pork” and “The Zoo Has An African Lion, and the White House Has a Lyin’ African,” as well as this repulsive one, depicting the President of the United States as an African witch doctor with bananas in his hair:

Tea Party members also have persisted in falsely characterizing the President as Kenyan and Moslem, despite all evidence, in order to disparage him. Members of the Tea Party have circulated countless altered pictures depicting President Obama and the First Lady as monkeys. Tea Party members also called my fellow Member of Congress, civil rights hero John Lewis, a “n***ger,” and Rep. Barney Frank a “faggot.” More generally, the leader of the Texas Tea Party displayed a poster saying “Congress=Slave Owner, Taxpayer=Niggar [sic].” Tea Party Members of Congress have referred to Hispanics as “wetbacks,” and having “cantaloupe-sized calves” from picking fruit. Tea Party candidates, including my opponent in the last election, have endorsed forcing Hispanics to speak English. One could go on and on, because there is overwhelming evidence that the Tea Party is the home of bigotry and discrimination in America today, just as the KKK was for an earlier generation. If the hood fits, wear it.

Grayson's comparison is not novel. Professors Matt Barretto and Christopher Parker, in their book "Tea Party, Change They Can't Believe In," published by Princeton University Press, make a similar case. "The authors argue that this isn't the first time a segment of American society has perceived the American way of life as under siege," the book's blurb reads. "In fact, movements of this kind often appear when some individuals believe that 'American' values are under threat by rapid social changes. Drawing connections between the Tea Party and right-wing reactionary movements of the past, including the Know-Nothing Party, the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920's, and the John Birch Society, Parker and Barreto develop a framework that transcends the Tea Party to shed light on its current and future consequences.

Regarding Allen West - when one of the most foul-mouthed ex-congressman is upset by someone else's "inflammatory" remarks - its truly a moment saturated in irony.

I keep harping back to the quote, "if that hat fits, wear it"!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

GOP MONKEY COURT

GOP MONKEY COURT 

“I will not yield to this monkey court or whatever it is,” Pallone said in response to Republican interruptions. “Why are we going down this path?” he asked. “Because you are trying to scare people so they don’t apply and so therefore the legislation gets delayed or the Affordable Care Act gets defunded or it’s repealed. That’s all it is, hoping people won’t apply.”

MONKEY COURT




Rather than focusing on the real problems plaguing HealthCare.gov, House Republicans sought to portray the website as an insecure portal that will endanger the privacy of American’s medical information during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing focusing on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The accusations led one Democratic lawmaker to label the hearing “a monkey court.”

In heated exchanges, Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Joe Barton (R-TX) pressed the contractors responsible for writing the code behind HealthCare.gov about why some of their employees had access to “the database servers storing the enrolling information,” and questioned source code informing users that they “have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting stored on this information system.”

“How in the world can this be HIPAA compliant when HIPAA is designed to protect the patient’s privacy and this explicitly says in order to continue you have to accept this condition that you have no privacy — no reasonable expectation of privacy?” Barton asked Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI, one of the firms that wrote the website. He was referring to The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the law that guarantees “federal protections for individually identifiable health information held by covered entities and their business associates and gives patients an array of rights with respect to that information.”

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) pushed back against the implications, arguing that “HIPAA only applies when there’s health information is being provided,” not the biographical enrollment information that’s being entered by programmers. “HIPAA doesn’t apply. There is no health information in the process. You’re asked about your address, your date of birth. you are not asked health information,” he said.

As Washington & Lee Law Professor Timothy S. Jost explained in an email, “HIPAA only applies to health care providers, clearinghouses (and this is a narrowly defined term) health plans, and their business associates.” “Even so, access is available to data without consent for health care operations, which this would be.” Deven McGraw, of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, agreed, adding, “It does not violate HIPAA – it’s not even covered by HIPAA.”

Jost adds that “even if the rule applies to the information and to the exchange, sharing information with a contractor would be a routine operation, and HIPAA allows disclosure of information without consent for operations. Surely a health plan that contracted with a company to build its software would not be violating HIPAA as long as the computer company also observed HIPAA protections. The exchange is subject to the Privacy Act, but the

It should be noted that all of the contractors at the hearing indicated that they had received HIPAA training and were HIPAA compliant.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

REMEMBER WHEN......

BUSH'S BITTER PILL WAS TOUGH TO SWALLOW

........Millions of Americans tried to enroll in health care benefits during the first days of a new government health care program. They were to rely on indispensable government website that had been touted and “pitched as a high-tech way” to sort through available coverage options. They’re encountering countless glitches and technical errors: the website freezes, displays incorrect plan information and sends insurers erroneous reports.

Administration officials — clearly caught off guard by the surge of technical difficulties — respond to “tens of thousands of complaints” from angry beneficiaries and promise to “fix every problem as quickly possible.”

Doesn't this sounds like the familiar story of the last few days of the Obama administration’s roll-out of the exchanges? But, actually, the above quotes, and the scenarios, are taken from the Bush administration’s efforts to implement the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2005 and 2006.

Not only was Bush’s roll-out “anything but smooth,” but administration officials had “some trouble getting the [online] tool up and running” and had to delay its debut for weeks. What’s more, computer glitches caused low-income beneficiaries to go without needed medications and sent pharmacies the wrong drug information. Before it was all resolved, Dr. Mark McClellan, Bush’s head of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), appeared at hearings before the House Committee On Energy And Commerce, laying out the flaws in the law’s implementation and detailing how the administration would address them.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee holds its first hearing on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act this morning, it’s worth noting that some of the very same Teahadists who are lashing out against Obamacare - arguing that the botched roll-out is proof that the government cannot implement effectively and should repeal the law entirely - gave the Bush administration a free get out trouble pass and urged Americans not to pre-judge such a complicated process. At least four of these Teahadists are still on the committee had argued that early implementation hurdles should not taint the entirety of reform:

REP. JOE BARTON (R-TX): “This is a huge undertaking and there are going to be glitches. My goal is the same as yours: Get rid of the glitches. The committee will work closely with yourself and Dr. Mark McClellan at CMS to get problems noticed and solved.” [Barton Statement via Archive.org, 2/15/2006] 

REP. TIM MURPHY (R-PA): “Any time something is new, there is going to be some glitches. All of us, when our children were new, well, we knew as parents we didn’t exactly know everything we were doing and we had a foul-up or two, but we persevered and our children turned out well. No matter what one does in life, when it is something new in learning the ropes of it, it is going to take a little adjustment.” [Murphy Floor Speech via Congressional Record, 4/6/2006] 

REP. MICHAEL BURGESS (R-TX): “We can’t undo the past, but certainly they can make the argument that we are having this hearing a month late and perhaps we are, but the reality is the prescription drug benefit is 40 years late and seniors who signed up for Medicare those first days back in 1965 when they were 65 years of age are now 106 years of age waiting for that prescription drug benefit, so I hope it doesn't take us that long to get this right and I don’t believe that it will. And I do believe that fundamentally it is a good plan.” [“Medicare Part D: Implementation of the New Drug Benefit,” 3/1/2006] 

REP. PHIL GINGREY (R-GA): “I delivered 5,200 babies, but this may be the best delivery that I have ever been a part of, Mr. Speaker, and that is delivering, as I say, on a promise made by former Congresses and other Presidents over the 45-year history of the Medicare program, which was introduced in 1965 with no prescription drug benefit. And what we have done here is add part D, the ‘D’ for ‘drug’ or, if you want, the ‘delivery’ that we have finally provided to our American seniors.” [Gingrey Floor Speech via Congressional Record, 4/6/06]

Ultimately, the Bush administration fixed the law’s technical glitches, but more than half of the beneficiaries who ended up signing up for insurance didn’t do so until after the first of the year. Significantly, they signed up for coverage despite the Bush administration’s well-publicized initial glitches in extending coverage to low-income beneficiaries. Whereas only 21 percent of seniors had a favorable impression of the law and 66 percent didn't know what was in it in April of 2005, by November of 2006, “half of the seniors polled said the program was working well or that just minor changes were needed.”


Often is the case - that RWNJ's fail to recognize that American history existed prior to 2009.

The party who; wanted to stop the ACA in its tracks, lie about it, derail it, and defund it, are now frothing at the mouth and outraged at the ACA computer issues . Please make up my mind teabaggers, are you for it or against it?

I am reminded of the old adage in politics that says, "it is easier to throw a hand grenade than catch one". The ever so sad corollary says, "you can raise more money by throwing mud than fixing problems".

Right wing shill heads will implode, how dare anybody bash the "Welfare for Big Pharma Act," and compare it to the ACA? Its always acceptable if a "conservative" fucks up, but it's either a felony or a firing if someone else did.

It never ceases to amaze this blogger, the hypocrisy of the Right Wing Nut Job.

RELATED:

Despite bungling Bush's Medicare drug rollout, GOP still attacks Obamacare 'navigators'

How Democrats Saved Bush's Medicare Drug Program

Drug Addled

Bush Defends Medicare Drug Plan

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West