What's Wrong With The Confused Republican Position On Sequestration? Stockman, Bachmann, Isakson

Bachmann: all pearls, no meat

Monday I noticed that far right-extremist-- some would say domestic terrorist-- Steve Stockman (R-TX), who keeps changing his twitter handle as though he's trying to hide from the FBI again, tweeting away about how Obama is responsible for the Sequester's painful impact on people in his poverty stricken, backward district northeast of Houston. No one who knows squat about Stockman's virulently anti-family ideologically-driven voting record could possibly think he gives a damn about Texas special ed students or poor students-- even if he is a former vagrant who spent years sleeping under a highway underpass. And as much as he would like to spread the GOP myth that Obama owns the sequester, this is the warning the White House put out, for residents of Jasper, Vidor, Lumberton, Silsbee, Liberty and Livingston before Republican nihilists like Stockman forced it into existence:

If sequestration were to take effect, some examples of the impacts on Texas this year alone are:

• Teachers and Schools: Texas will lose approximately $67.8 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting around 930 teacher and aide jobs at risk. In addition about 172,000 fewer students would be served and approximately280 fewer schools would receive funding.
o Education for Children with Disabilities: In addition, Texas will lose approximately $51 million in funds for about 620 teachers, aides, and staff who help children with disabilities.

• Work-Study Jobs: Around 4,720 fewer low income students in Texas would receive aid to help them finance the costs of college and around 1,450 fewer students will get work-study jobs that help them pay for college.

• Head Start: Head Start and Early Head Start services would be eliminated for approximately 4,800 children in Texas, reducing access to critical early education.

• Protections for Clean Air and Clean Water: Texas would lose about $8,467,000 in environmental funding to ensure clean water and air quality, as well as prevent pollution from pesticides and hazardous waste. In addition, Texas could lose another $2,235,000 in grants for fish and wildlife protection.

• Military Readiness: In Texas, approximately 52,000 civilian Department of Defense employees would be furloughed, reducing gross pay by around $274.8 million in total.
o Army: Base operation funding would be cut by about $233 million in Texas.
o Air Force: Funding for Air Force operations in Texas would be cut by about $27 million.
o Navy: Reduce procurement of the Joint Strike Fighter from Texas, and cancel scheduled Blue Angels shows in Corpus Christi and Fort Worth.

• Law Enforcement and Public Safety Funds for Crime Prevention and Prosecution: Texas will lose about $1,103,000 in Justice Assistance Grants that support law enforcement, prosecution and courts, crime prevention and education, corrections and community corrections, drug treatment and enforcement, and crime victim and witness initiatives.

• Job Search Assistance to Help those in Texas find Employment and Training: Texas will lose about $2,263,000 in funding for job search assistance, referral, and placement, meaning around 83,750 fewer people will get the help and skills they need to find employment.

• Child Care: Up to 2,300 disadvantaged and vulnerable children could lose access to child care, which is also essential for working parents to hold down a job.

• Vaccines for Children: In Texas around 9,730 fewer children will receive vaccines for diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, whooping cough, influenza, and Hepatitis B due to reduced funding for vaccinations of about $665,000.

• Public Health: Texas will lose approximately $2,402,000 in funds to help upgrade its ability to respond to public health threats including infectious diseases, natural disasters, and biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological events. In addition, Texas will lose about $6,750,000 in grants to help prevent and treat substance abuse, resulting in around 2,800 fewer admissions to substance abuse programs. And Texas’ health departments will lose about $1,146,000 resulting in around 28,600 fewer HIV tests.

• STOP Violence Against Women Program: Texas could lose up to $543,000 in funds that provide services to victims of domestic violence, resulting in up to 2,100 fewer victims being served.

• Nutrition Assistance for Seniors: Texas would lose approximately $3,557,000 in funds that provide meals for seniors.

Not that Stockman is the only right-wing hypocrite forcing Boehner's and Cantor's sequestration down everyone's throat and trying to blame it on the Democrats.

The sequester passed on the evening of August 1, 2011. 174 Republicans and 95 Democrats voted for it. 95 Democrats also opposed it (as did 66 Republicans). Boehner, as Speaker, wasn't expected to vote. But he did. He wanted to make a point. He voted YES. So did all his top lieutenants: Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Whip Kevin McCarthy, NRCC head Pete Sessions, Party Conference Chair Jeb Hensarling, Budget chair Paul Ryan, Armed Services Committee chair Buck McKeon, Ways and Means Committee chair Dave Camp, Energy and Commerce Committee chair Fred Upton, Financial Services Committee chair Spencer Bachus, Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers, Foreign Affairs Committee chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen... Boehner's entire inner circle of elite GOP leaders voted for the sequestration.

Leading the opposition were progressive Caucus leaders Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Donna Edwards, Chellie Pingree, Jim McDermott, Dennis Kucinich, John Lewis, Jerry Nadler, Barney Frank, Jan Schakowsky, Xavier Becerra, Judy Chu, Ed Markey, John Yarmuth, Brad Miller, Yvette Clarke, Barbara Lee... and the Republicans who voted with them against this? Outliers like Ron Paul, Tom McClintock, Michele Bachmann, Todd Akin, Louie Gohmert, Paul Broun, Joe Walsh, Jeff Duncan, Mo Brooks, Lynn Westmoreland, Steve King, Quayle's kid, Mick Mulvaney, Justin Amash, the freaks and loons that the GOP Establishment would like to muzzle and neutralize.

Yes, Bachmann originally voted against it-- though she has since come around to a Boehner perspective. That hasn't stopped her from whining about the consequences for her own constituents. I looked again to see if she had signed the simple "end the Sequester" bill that John Conyers and Alan Grayson introduced. In fact, as I look down the list of cosponsors, the closest thing I see to a Republican on the list is California ConservaDem Juan Vargas... no actual Republicans, not even Stockman or Bachmann. Greg Sargent Monday:

Michele Bachmann has taken a fair amount of heat lately for various over the top statements about the evils of government spending, from her false claim that 70 percent of food stamp money goes to “bureaucrats” to her false claim that President Obama and his family enjoy $1.4 billion in personal “perks and excess.”

But there’s nothing like a few spending cuts in your own district to concentrate the mind. Bachmann is, understandably, upset to hear that the Federal Aviation Administration-- as part of its move to close air traffic control towers across the country due to sequestration’s spending cuts-- will be closing two towers in Bachmann’s district. And she’s suddenly making sense, putting out a statement decrying the sequester cuts and calling for a more “responsible” approach:

“I am deeply disappointed with the FAA’s decision to close the air traffic control towers at the Anoka County-Blaine Airport and St. Cloud Regional Airport. Throughout this decision-making process, I have been in touch with FAA and DOT officials urging them to focus first on eliminating waste and trimming non-essential items in the FAA’s budget before they even consider shutting down essential safety operations. Today’s decision shows a troubling lack of priorities-- closing control towers should be a last, not a first, resort.”

She added: ”While I certainly agree we need to balance our budget, it must be done in a responsible way that sets priorities, not in an arbitrary way.”

As the Star-Tribune’s headline aptly put it: “FAA tower closings bring sequester home for Bachmann.”

Now, presumably Bachmann would insist that the sequester cuts must be replaced only with other spending cuts, and no new revenues. But the point here is that, with some Republicans trying to cast the sequester as a “victory” for the GOP, not even the ardently anti-government-spending Bachmann can maintain this pretense when it comes to cuts that are hitting her district with particular force. Instead, she’s forced to distance herself from them by positioning herself as an advocate for replacing them with something more “responsible.”

Then you have ole Johnny Isakson, the right-wing Georgia senator who isn't retiring next year. He says Georgians are so happy to see Congress cutting the budget that they don't care about the impact of the Sequester. Except he's wrong. Sam Stein writes that "a survey of local news reports in Isakson's home state paints a very different picture, with Georgians in all sectors of society-- the military, education, health care and transportation-- worried about how they will grapple with the $85 billion in federal spending cuts to programs across the country."

Across the country, stories are emerging about the dramatic ripple effects of sequestration, from air traffic towers being closed to scientific research being slashed, from tuition assistance for military personnel getting suspended to Head Start programs being gutted.

The White House estimates Georgia will lose around $28.6 million in funding for primary and secondary education, meaning the jobs of 390 teachers and aides will be at risk.

This will probably come as a total surprise to Senator Isakson, the wealthiest Georgian in Congress, all of whose social acquaintances are stinking rich and unaffected by anything touched by the sequester-- unless the local airport where their private planes are kept have to shut down. No one knows exactly how much Isakson is worth-- he guards that carefully-- but his public financial statements show the reported figure somewhere between $6 million and $17.7 million-- so, in all likelihood something north of $10 million. The sequester was designed to hurt people whose net worth is considerably south of $10 million-- like in the $1,000 to $10,000 range, like many Georgians whose interests Isakson has never shown the slightest interest in.

The Republican Party of Stockman, Bachmann, Isakson and the rest have a vision for a dark dystopian future. Paul Ryan summed it up best:

New GOP Civil War: Those Who Believe The Death Panel Gibbersh And Those Who Don't-- Michael Steele Says He Does

I spent much of Tuesday palling around with teabaggers at Adam Schiff's health care forum in Alhambra. Before I headed out there I looked into conservative Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson's reaction to Sarah Palin's myth-making episode about death squads or death panels in the health care bill. Just hours before Rush Limbaugh told him he'd better retract his statements-- or else-- this is what he told the Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

I have no idea. I understand-- and you have to check this out-- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.

Like Isakson, Insurance Industry shill Chuck Grassley (R-IA- $931,874) is up for re-election in 2010 and very scared that he could be primaried by a teabagger or birther. So he's moved further to the right than he's ever been in a very long-- many would say overly long-- career. Today he endorsed Sarah Palin's death panel calumny. "Appearing at a town hall in his home state of Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 that they were correct to fear that the government would 'pull the plug on grandma.'" Oddly, by his twisted logic, it looks like Grassley's own grandson, a member of the state legislature, is eager to pull the plug on Grassley (as are more and more Iowa voters)!

Looks like the next GOP senator who will be hearing from Limbaugh will be Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who told an Anchorage crowd that Palin's bullshit is offensive. "It does us no good to incite fear in people by saying that there's these end-of-life provisions, these death panels," Murkowski, a Republican, said. "Quite honestly, I'm so offended at that terminology because it absolutely isn't (in the bill). There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill." GOP Florida Neanderthal John Mica, on the other hand, may not have read the bill be he sure spends a lot of time listening to Hate Talk Radio and he's on the death counselor team.

It's an outrageous lie and it's been debunked over and over by responsible political leaders and analysts. But, man, does it work with the two-digit IQ base that gets its world view from Hate Talk Radio and Fox! Every other imbecile I spoke with at the Alhambra tea party brought it up and most of them were waving around copies of "the bill" that plainly said grandma and grandpa would be killed by ACORN and the SEIU if ObamaCare passes. That's why they keep yelling "Read the bill." How could these stupid congressmen not see that-- in plain black and white. They showed it to me and there it was! I saw it over and over. "Grandma and grandpa will be killed by a panel of ACORN and SEIU experts if ObamaCare passes." It's right in the bill they all carry around with them! Proof and who cares if someone like Howard Dean, who even CNN says should be killed, says Palin's claims are preposterous. He didn't read the bill. And what does he know about medicine anyway?

She made up the term "death panel" and claimed that part of the health care reform bill now working it's way through Congress required that families with children with disabilities, or elderly people who are infirm, could be judged by one of these death panels, which could control their fate and decide if they would die. GOP leadership repeated this outrageous claim across the airwaves on the Sunday morning talk shows. The mainstream media gave this claim credibility simply by repeating it.

My wife and I have practiced medicine for over forty years combined. There is no truth now, nor has there ever been any truth to the idea that the government encourages euthanasia or infanticide.

Our country is in trouble. Claims like these are routinely refuted by people who know better, but they are recirculated because they are sensational, and the MSM purports to take a balanced position without a thoughtful assessment of the facts. Fox News actually has people on in support of these outrageously false claims.

In fact, these kinds of claims are lies. There is no nice way to say it. This kind of stuff is far beyond the usual politicians' tricks of shading words and imputing meanings that aren't there. To quote a famous American who began the process of ending the McCarthy era in the fifties I address the MSM: "At long last, Have you no sense of decency?"

Are you kidding? Sense of decency? The blood sucking scumbags at CNBC directly incited teabaggers to start a riot today for them to film. Sense of decency? How about a vague sense of staying within the ethical and legal limits?

As for Michael Steele... is job is to smear President Obama and get his approval ratings down and cripple his ability to get anything done for America. I want to personally thank Democrats like Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Ann Kirkpatrick (Blue Dog-AZ), Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID) and Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS) for helping Steele do his job and accomplish his goals.



And for all the nuts and teabaggers who would follow Sarah Palin over the cliff of rationality, most Americans have completely soured on her. The freaks who idolize her make a lot of noise, and the media is enchanted by their circus acts and twenty vehicle pile-ups, but a new CNN poll shows that only 39% of Americans have a favorable opinion of her. She's lost 7 point since May.

A 39 percent favorable rating makes it that much tougher for Palin to become president should she decide to run in 2012. Her favorable rating is almost identical to the numbers that former vice president Dan Quayle got just after leaving office in 1993... Quayle formally declared himself a presidential candidate in 1994 but withdrew from the race in 1995.

Chris Matthews Slaps Around Insurance Industry Shill

The "B" is where Blue Dog Adam Schiff is having his town hall tonight at the Alhambra Civic Center Library, 101 S. First Street

What's a poor rich lobbyist and astro-turf specialist to do? I guess Tim Phillips can just spend all his time at Fox News-- where they swallow it whole. Normal folks-- if not the frightened seniors who watch Hannity, Beck, Dobbs and O'Reilly-- are starting to wise up to the Republican tactics of disrupting the rational discussion of health care issues and fear-mongering. An unserious and credibility-deficient Sarah Palin may be trying to get some attention by jumping up and down and yelling "death panels," but, aside from Glenn Beck and a small handful of right-wing misanthropes, no one believes her. Even reactionary Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson, who has to face the voters in 2010, wishes she would just pipe down or go away. Ezra Klein asked Isakson, co-sponsor of the Medicare End-of-Life Act of 2007, about the Insurance Industry shills' and Republican partisan euthanasia distortions:

Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?

In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that's because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia "durable power of attorney," you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you're unable to make those decisions.

This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it's to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It's just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.

How did this become a question of euthanasia?

I have no idea. I understand-- and you have to check this out-- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.

You're saying that this is not a question of government. It's for individuals.

It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.

The policy here as I understand it is that Medicare would cover a counseling session with your doctor on end-of-life options.

Correct. And it's a voluntary deal.

It seems to me we're having trouble conducting an adult conversation about death. We pay a lot of money not to face these questions. We prefer to experience the health-care system as something that just saves you, and if it doesn't, something has gone wrong.

Over the last three-and-a-half decades, this legislation has been passed state-by-state, in part because of the tort issue and in part because of many other things. It's important for an individual to make those determinations while they're of sound mind and body rather than no one making those decisions at all. But this discussion has been going on for three decades.

PoltiFact's Truth-O-Meter rates Palin's bullshit it's highest form of lie-- "Pants on Fire." They say they've "looked at the inflammatory claims that the health care bill encourages euthanasia. It doesn't. There's certainly no 'death board' that determines the worthiness of individuals to receive care. Conservatives might make a case that Palin is justified in fearing that the current reform could one day morph into such a board.

But that's not what Palin said. She said that the Democratic plan will ration care and 'my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care.' Palin's statement sounds more like a science fiction movie (Soylent Green, anyone?) than part of an actual bill before Congress. We rate her statement Pants on Fire!

Don't forget, if you're in the L.A. area today, big town hall shindig in Alhambra. See you there; come early.




UPDATE: And Speaking Of Getting Lou Dobbs Off The Air...

Another equally vicious bigot, just as destructive to the tenor of American politics, is Glenn Beck, about whose advertiser boycott we have been keeping track. Good news today-- really good news. GEICO has pulled its ads off Beck's hateful program, joining Procter & Gamble and several other companies.

Adding to a growing list of advertisers distancing themselves from controversial Fox News personality Glenn Beck, GEICO has pledged to re-direct their advertisements away from Beck's program on the Fox News Channel. The decision by GEICO comes on the heels of announcements made last week that LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson were distancing themselves from Beck after the news host called President Obama a "racist" who "has a deep-seated hatred for white people."

"On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on FOX-TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program," said a spokesperson for GEICO Corporate Communications in an email to ColorOfChange.org.  "As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck's program."