12 Days of Christmas Scorn: Day 9 -- The They Have a Right to Remain Silent and I Wish They Would, Forever Edition

Yes, it's your Senate Finance Committee at, er, work.

by Noah

We begin with two awards in one.

1A. THE PRE-EXISTING CONDITION AWARD

To the $enate Finance Committee. Another award for $en. Max Baucus, but also for his co-conspirators, who started healthcare hearings in January by refusing to even discuss single-payer care. It all went to hell from there. Not only that, but committee Chairsleaze Baucus arrested responsible professionals who did want to discuss it. They should have brought bags of cash. They misunderstood the name of the committee. When dealing with the U.S. $enate, always bring a nice gift. Cash, booze, or something on two legs (or four?) is always accepted, if not requested as a condition of the meeting.

The list of who parks their fat butts on this committee includes quite a supply of shovel-ready political swine. There are a few, very few, members who aren’t filth personified. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) comes to mind. So does Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). But this committee is home to porkers like Conartist (D-ND), Schumer (D-NY), Hatch (R-UT), Kyl (R-AZ), Bunning (R-KY), Ensign (R-NV), Cornyn (R-TX), Lincoln (D-AR), Grasshole (R-IA), Crapo (R-ID) . . . you get the picture. However, my --

1B. DEMON SPAWN OF THE YEAR AWARD

goes to Max Baucus himself for leading the despicable proceedings. His picture has spent the most time on my dartboard. Think about it. We live in a country where a two-bit $enator from a sparsely populated tumbleweed state can presume to speak for a whole country and literally have doctors arrested who wish to speak in favor of single-payer healthcare for all, yet the K Street criminal element that stuffs his pockets with increasingly larger amounts of bribes goes uncharged and unprosecuted, and walks free to mingle with the rest of us, breathing our air and polluting our streets. Unleash the ravenous hounds!


2. THE CLARENCE THOMAS AWARD

To 137-year-old $en. Arlen Specter (R/D/?-PA). How could we not give this one to old “Tell Us About the Breasts” Arlen? After all, he earned it 18 years ago. Without him, there is no Justice Clarence Thomas snoozing through cases before the “Supreme” Court, resenting all the lawyers cutting into his valuable porn-viewing time. Without Thomas, there is no sad history of a GWB “presidency.” Thanks so much, Arlen. Now you think the Democrats, let alone any Americans, should embrace you, after all the damage you share so much responsibility for? One person can make a difference, and you did.

It’s fascinating to watch $pecter fight for his political life. He gets a primary challenger from the Far Right of his party who would beat him, so what to do? Simple: Move over to the Democratic Party! Then he gets a challenger there too, in Admiral Joe Sestak, running to his left in his new party. The rat is cornered. All of a sudden, he’s now for the public option that, as a Repug, he was so vehemently against. Card check and other union issues? Same thing.

It’s all about doing and saying anything to keep his position and his power. I seriously doubt that there has ever been a more clear-cut depiction of the phoniness and insincerity of our politicians. No doubt if Clarence Thomas was nominated for the High Court today, Arlen would be verbally pulverizing him and supporting the sexual harassment claims of Anita Hill. What else should we expect from a creature whose whole career has been built on bullcrap, starting with his creation of the “single-bullet theory” back in 1964?

Ah, Arlen, it was so much easier to get over back then, wasn’t it? Your fraud of a life has almost run its course, but look at the legacy you have left behind.


3. THE RAHM EMANUEL AWARD FOR FUND-RAISING

That’s what the whole healthcare battle appears to me to have really been about: sucking money out of the Medical-Industrial Complex, through K Street, and into the coffers of Blue Dogs and the DCCC, in exchange for a piece of legislation that is a piece of toothless sell-out crap. Money buys elections. Money buys power. I think I also heard something about it corrupting absolutely somewhere along the line.

As I write this, the healthcare “reform” bill from the $enate says the Insuromafia can’t dump you for a pre-existing condition, as long as you pay more, lots, lots more, and lots more the older you get. Say the Insuromafiosi: “Just call it protection money. We would hate for anything bad to happen to your insurance.” It’s a completely transparent scheme to allow the insurance companies to soak customers for more of their cash.

The bill also forces (mandates) about 40 million citizens to become insurance company customers and buy their faulty insurance plans, and if they can’t afford such an exorbitant percentage of their income going to an outfit that will dedicate its entire being to looking for ways not to pay their bills, the government will hand over bags of free government money (taxpayer money) to them as what are cynically called “subsidies.” Along the way, the ideas of single-payer care, a public option, Medicare expansion, and drug importation, along with the health of women and anti-trust restrictions for the insurance thugs, were all gleefully bargained away to the Medical-Industrial Complex by Emanuel and $ens. B. Nelson (D-NB), Lieberwhore (CFL-CT), Landrieu (D-LA), and Baucus in exchange for what are euphemistically called “campaign contributions.” It’s all nice and legal-like.

The Sopranos can serve as a metaphor for Washington, D.C. First it was the banks and Wall Street’s goons. Then it was the car companies. Now it’s Big Pharma and the Insurance Boys. They’ll all be real happy with their inside man, Rahm, and the DSCC/DCCC. Next it will be the energy companies that will be driving their trucks up to the U.S. Treasury loading docks. Hell, Rahm may even be telling them to just drive out to Fort Knox like a battalion of Goldfingers. Come campaign time, the money will be flowing back to Rahm and the DSCC/DCCC. He’s a great earner. Coming and going, everything in Washington, Dirtbag Central, is about campaign financing. It’s a culture of wiseguys in suits and bagmen lawyers. Will it be enough to overcome the bitterness of the Democratic base?

Rahm’s award is also known as THE CONNIVING WEASEL AWARD and features a lovely plastic sculpture of a weasel with shifty eyes.


4. THE CHRISTMAS COVEN AWARD



To Tom Coburn for urging Americans to ask God to intercede in Senate proceedings and do something to prevent a senator from being available to vote, the same week that 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd was wheeled into the Senate for a crucial vote on healthcare and told Repug $enators that they should be ashamed of their actions in opposition to any kind of insurance or healthcare reform whatsoever. I don't know why Coburn thinks that any god would listen to him, but we shouldn’t be surprised. This prayer for someone’s unavailability was further proof that Repugs are longing for medieval times.

Coburn and his trusty Oklahoma sidekick, climate change denier and overall maxi-loon Jim Inhofe, runner-up for this award, are to Christianity what the Islamic extremists are to the Moslem religion. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that they both belong to a coven in the woods somewhere, drinking some mighty powerful black-magic potions in some sort of twisted communion ceremony. One of Coburn’s whackjob teabag followers even phoned in to C-SPAN to question an on-air guest, Coburn cohort $en. John Barrasso (R-WY), when the sicko prayer seemed to have backfired and it was not Byrd but Inhofe who didn’t show up.




5. THE PLEASE TURN THY GUNS ON THYSELVES AWARD

To the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of America (GOA). Both of these groups see healthcare reform as a threat to gun ownership. Say what? They base their disturbingly neurotic fantasies about this on a few things: (1) the alleged cost and tax factors of the plan; (2) the idea that one’s overall health, including mental health, may be used against them when it comes time to purchase a gun; and (3) HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s supposed opposition to gun ownership. First from the GOA’s own site, in addition to some references to the place where they get their “information,” Fox News, we get this:

"Of course, all this increased spending—and taxes—means that you will have less money to spend on pursuing your real passions: like providing for your family and purchasing guns and ammunition."

Second, the gun lobby fears that mandates in the healthcare reform legislation will result in what they refer to as “gun-related health data” being dumped into a government database that was created in Section 13001 of the stimulus bill. By “gun-related health data,” the gun lobby means mental health data, including things like post-traumatic stress disorder. Hey, just because you’ve got some mental issues doesn’t mean your efforts to buy a chine pistol should be impeded in any way, ya know! Guns are for everyone, just ask David Hinckley, or maybe some very angry religious nut who listens to bin Laden or O’Lie-ley tapes a bit too much.

Lastly, the gun lobby, in its paranoia, is very concerned about the special wellness and prevention programs in Section 2717 of the Public Health Services Act. These programs are designed to incentivize employers who encourage healthier lifestyles, i.e., things like exercising at a gym, healthier food in the company cafeteria, etc. Unfortunately, the gun lobby thinks that Secretary Sebelius will one day just up and decree that “no guns” is part of the wellness and prevention program and part of living a healthier, happier lifestyle. Thus, in their minds, the new health care legislation is a secret and dastardly plot to “take away our guns,” an affront to their Second Amendment rights, and should therefore be rejected.

Obviously, they haven’t considered that if we don’t do something about rising health care costs and other insurance company thuggery, people will be paying so much more out of pocket just to stay alive that they won’t have any discretionary income to spend on guns and ammo. Ergo, the people the gun lobby should see as their obstacle to guns-and-ammo nirvana are the Medical-Industrial Complex. In joining the fight against reform, NRA and GOA members are being used, and they don’t even know it.


6. THE IGNOR-ANUS AWARD

Awarded jointly to: Rep. Todd Tiahrt (Republoloon-KS) [right]; his mentor in Congress, House Minority Leader John Bo(eh)ner; and $en. Richard Shelby (R-Alabamy), for being the nexus of the fear-mongering about Gitmo terrorists walking the streets of American towns after the prison there is closed down. With Bo(eh)ner’s guidance, Tiahrt introduced a bill to prevent Gitmo terrorists ever being housed on American soil and led the drum-beating about terrorists hanging out down on the corner.

If you ever doubted that there is a bozone layer within the Washington Beltway, you need look no further for evidence than the statements on this matter that came from the Crackpot Party when President Obama made the announcement. Several Repugs and their Fox-CNN allies immediately began spreading the word that terrorists would be walking the streets of Our Town, U.S.A. Rep. Tiahrt swept into action, introducing his bill and saying, “Do you want the terrorists in your hometown?” Of course, the fact that we already have over 300 terrorists in jails on American soil, including the perps of the 1993 WTC bombing, the Shoe Bomber, and Zacharias Moussaoui, and the fact that several leading Repugs (including former President Bush II, whose administration put over 200 terrorists in jails on U.S. soil) have no problem with the concept, goes right through their empty skulls. Hey, as usual with Republikooks, why let facts get in the way of some good old fear-mongering? Immediately, of course, those who believe in Glenn Beck, witches, and Sarah Palin went even more berserk than they are as soon as they get out of bed in the morning.

In a fleeting moment of lucidity, even $en. John McCain got it right, saying that Guantanamo is “harming our ability to win the psychological part of the war against radical Islamic extremism.” He gets it that Gitmo is the best recruiting tool the terrorist organizations have, but hey, why listen to a man who actually was a prisoner of war? Most Repugs would rather take the word of the ultimate draft dodger, Mr. Other Priorities, Mr. Five Deferments, aka Darth Cheney.


7. THE OBESE RACIST TURD OF THE YEAR AWARD

Another one for Rush Limbaugh! This time it’s for his attempt to buy an NFL franchise after comparing watching an NFL game to watching a battle between the Bloods and the Crips; as if his Donovan McNabb stinker wasn’t enough. No, Rush, you don’t get two trophies, but I’m sure you’ll have a great shot at winning something next year too, assuming you're still with us. (And if not, you're a lock for some posthumous awards.) Come to think of it, Lush would make a great Balloon Boy, if science can imagine a balloon big enough to get that load off the ground. Of course, we could just pump him full of helium and send him into the Wild Blue Yonder -- high, high, and higher. Be the balloon, pill boy -- up, up, and away! Aw, I know. I’m just fantasizing. I’ll settle for pumping his studio full of helium and listening to him do his entire hatefest of a show in a squeaky cartoon voice. It would add a nice perspective.


8. THE TED BUNDY AWARD

To $en. "Joe the Bummer" Lieberwhore, the $enator from Aetna and narcissistic attention addict supreme, Mr. “Is the Camera On?” How many people will die due to his action in joining with the Repugs against healthcare reform. How many will die while $enator Joe smiles his smug, gratified smile as he stares at his reflection in one of his many mirrors. When will the media hacks get it that this evil assclown has serious mental disorders?


TOMORROW: DAY 10 -- Dumb and Dumber, with a Huge Glop of Arrogance Edition

1. The Journalistic Has-Been Award
2. The Kanye West Born Loser Award
3. The I Wear My Bigotries on My Ruffled Lace Sleeves Award
4. The Donald J. Trump What the Hell Is That on Yo' Head? Award
5. The Shit from Shinola Award
6. The John McCain Get Off My Lawn Award
7. The Hanging's Too Good for 'em Award
8. The Miss Disingenuous Award


THE SERIES SO FAR

Day 1: Con Men, Grifters, and Outlaws Edition
Day 2: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same Edition
Day 3: Media Manipulators and Seditionistas Edition
Day 4: Teabaggers Edition
Day 5: A Circus of Horrors
Day 6: Toys in the Attic Edition
Day 7: A Circus of Horrors, Carny Row Edition
Day 8: Utter Freak Show Edition, Part 1
Day 8: Utter Freak Show Edition, Part 2

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