Sarah is once again forced to think and bad things come from it.

Here is the video courtesy of Media Matters:

Palin said called the deem and pass process made up, and said, “This is scary place for America to be right now, Sean. Everything that our leaders in D.C. are doing right now with this Obamacare this government takeover of healthcare goes against the will of the people. We’ve learned through America’s history that the government that governs least governs best, and that all political power is inherent in the people. Government originates just from the will of the people. It’s implemented according to the will of the people…The process that Pelosi is pushing right now is unconstitutional. This bill will not have been passed by both houses in Congress, and that’s unconstitutional. It’s cut and dry. It’s white and black. It’s quite clear to most Americans that this isn’t right, and not only again does it go against the will of the people, but it goes against our own constitution. What? Is the Constitution not worth the paper the paper it is written on then?”

Poor Sarah, she is so far in over her head on this one, that all she could do is repeat the talking points. The problem is that FNC’s Carl Cameron admitted yesterday that deeming has been around for centuries. There is nothing unconstitutional about it. In fact when Republicans were in power from 1995-2006 they used deeming to pass up to 42% of their rules, so according to Sarah’s logic, her own party is a serial violator of the Constitution.

Hannity and Palin don’t seem to understand that the bill that will be deemed is not the one that the president is going to sign. It is a legislative technique that will be used so that the House can move forward in the debate. The bill that will deemed is the Senate bill, so that in fact both bills will match and will have been passed by both congressional bodies. This maneuver is as old as the hills, so the right wing outrage is a complete fabrication. Where was Palin’s outrage when the Republicans use deeming to pass a toothless ethics and lobbying bill in 2006? Come to think of it, ethical behavior has always been a foreign concept to Palin, anyway.

It is mind blogging that anyone would want a politically retarded individual such as Sarah Palin to be president. If it wasn’t for talking points, Palin would have nothing to say at all. She brought her populist rage to the table tonight on Fox, except that facts did not match her claims, but Palin has never let the facts get in the way of her television time, so keep on talking Sarah, you are playing the female fool that Rupert Murdoch is paying you so handsomely to be to perfection.

Baier was no match for Obama

Here is the video:

Baier came right out the gate with the Fox News anti-healthcare stance by asking about the Slaughter Solution. Obama answered, “What I can tell you is that the vote that’s taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform. And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform. And I don’t think we should pretend otherwise. Bret, let me finish. If they don’t, if they vote against, then they’re going to be voting against health care reform and they’re going to be voting in favor of the status quo. So Washington gets very concerned about these procedural issues in Congress. This is always an issue that’s — whether Republicans are in charge or Democrats in charge — when Republicans are in charge, Democrats constantly complain that the majority was not giving them an opportunity, et cetera. What the American people care about is the fact that their premiums are going up 25, 40, 60 percent, and I’m going to do something about it.”

Baier pressed the president for an answer on the Slaughter Solution, and Obama said, “What I’m saying is whatever they end up voting on — and I hope it’s going to be sometime this week — that it is going to be a vote for or against my health care proposal. That’s what matters. That’s what ultimately people are going to judge this on. If people don’t believe in health care reform — and I think there are definitely a lot of people who are worried about whether or not these changes are, in some fashion, going to affect them adversely. And I think those are legitimate concerns on the substance — then somebody who votes for this bill, they’re going to be judged at the polls. And the same is going to be true if they vote against it.”

The host then shifted gears and read some anti-healthcare emails from Fox News viewers. Obama countered with, “I’ve got the exact same e-mails, that I could show you, that talk about why haven’t we done something to make sure that I, a small business person, am getting as good a deal as members of Congress are getting, and don’t have my insurance rates jacked up 40 percent? Why is it that I, a mother with a child with a preexisting condition, still can’t get insurance? So the issue that I’m concerned about is whether not we’re fixing a broken system.

Baier later brought up the GOP talking point that Obama is transforming one sixth of the American economy, but the president rebutted this claim, “Now, you keep on repeating the notion that it’s one-sixth of the economy. Yes, it’s one-sixth of the economy, but we’re not transforming one-sixth of the economy all in one fell swoop. What we’re saying is is that for the vast majority of people who have health care, they’re going to be able to keep it. But what we are saying is that we should have some basic protections from insurance company abuses and that in order for us to do that, we are going to have to make some changes in the status quo that we’ve been debating for a year.”

It went on and on with the overmatched Fox Newser trying desperately to make Obama look like the dictator/raging socialist that his network portrays him as, while Obama kept chugging along and selling healthcare reform. Obama excels in these kinds of situations. Unlike George W. Bush, he thrives off of a hostile audience. Why haven’t the Republicans realized that they are playing right into President Obama’s hands? Fox News provided Obama with the perfect sounding board to bring healthcare home successfully. You would think that at some point the GOP and Fox News would realize that they are helping Obama every time that they feebly challenge him.

Domestic Violence Victim DENIED Healthcare Coverage

Let’s say you were going to cast a Republican Clown Show of Hypocrites who ran on “Family Values” whilst cheating on their wives and voting against women’s rights at every turn.

Let’s imagine this is the most ridiculous Clown Show ever… so bad that these Republican Clowns actually voted against protecting battered women from being cut off from health insurance access. Yes, let’s pretend that they actually voted to ensure that in nine states, health insurance companies could tell a woman who has been battered (the mere fact that this still goes on should be shameful to these “family values” men, but I digress) that she has (drum roll please):

A pre-existing condition.

She has been battered, and thus is not eligible for health insurance. She is “high risk”.

So, somehow in this scenario, the woman is not only subjected to sub-human treatment, but also then denied health insurance because of the actions of some “man” she had the bad luck to say hello to one fateful day. The man who beat her is not deemed “high risk” or denied access to health insurance, and yet, he is the one raising the costs of health care.

Gosh, that sounds like the America I know and love. How ‘bout you?

You can’t make this stuff up. It did really happen and it is currently legal in (now) 8 states to deny a woman health insurance due to her being the victim of domestic violence (I’m sure this has done wonders for reporting of incidents and women seeking medical care after being battered).

Ten Republican senators voted against the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act of 2006, an act that would have “forced insurance companies to stop ignoring state laws that provided protection for victims of domestic violence, specifically when it came to denying them insurance coverage.”

These are the same Republican Clowns now fighting against health care reform, which would protect battered women from being denied coverage from insurance companies for having been abused in the past. These guys stand for insurance company dollars, not family values.

They would let the battered mother of a family of five go without healthcare (if she is denied, who takes care of her kids?) in order to give the insurance companies another way to cheat the system.

Roll call: Alexander, Burr, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Gregg. Hatch, Isakson, Roberts and Sessions.

Alexander: He just called the push for Health Care Reform “Most Brazen Act of Political Arrogance” Since Watergate Scandal. Yes, because helping people get healthcare coverage is scandalous, and allowing women who have the temerity to be beaten by their intimate partner in this “free” land of ours access to health insurance is just OUTRAGEOUS! Yes, Lamar, it’s a “kamikaze mission” for Democrats to want to help the people.  God only knows what Jesus is thinking now as he looks down on these crazy Democrats who think women are entitled to health care even if the man they are involved with is a complete and total tool of the highest order.

Burr: He’s the guy sitting passively in his office while Rome burns. He’s a failure of a patriarch, and that’s the kind of scandal one just doesn’t get over if one is a Republican. It’s OK to cheat, lie, steal, and kill. But do not, for the love of god, be impotent. So, Burr isn’t going to help protect battered women. He leaves that to the real men in the Democratic Party.

Ensign: He’s too busy cheating on his wife and buying his lover’s husband off with his parents’ money or some such oddity to bother with women’s rights. Anyway, he’s super busy with his ethics scandal so please do not pester him with piddling details about women’s health care rights and the like. Be pro-active and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps by marrying his girlfriend. You will never need to work again, let alone worry about health insurance. See, ladies? With the Republicans, if you put out and give in, you’ll get along.

Enzi: Remember when Enzi broke our hearts with his compassion during a CQ interview? “If you have no insurance, it doesn’t matter what services are mandated by the state.”

We’ve hit Frist now. Having to talk about Abramoff again is just too much. Let’s cut to the chase.

The Republican philosophy: Jesus was all for the further abuse of battered women. It’s in the bible, people. Look it up. Right under the section where Jesus describes how fiscal conservatism equates holy status only when used to implement social Darwinism by science deniers.

For all of the women in the house, the Republican Clown who hit on you by telling you how great you would look in his car while he talked over you? THAT guy is now creating laws that impact your access to healthcare.

The GOP mantra is to do anything, no matter how morally repugnant, to justify insurance corporations’ profits.

The Healthcare Reform Act that President Obama and the Democrats want to pass this week would put an end to this brutal, family-harming, uncivilized practice.

But what can you expect from godless heathens who pal around with terrorists?

The Huffington Post Needs to do more homework.

The Huffington Post piece claimed that Obama’s record on openness is worse than George W. Bush’s because, “Major agencies cited the exemption at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, up from 47,395 times during President George W. Bush’s final full budget year, according to annual reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.” The piece stuck to the overall numbers without looking deeper. The problem is that this is not even close to the whole story.

According to a recent audit, many of the largest agencies aren’t following President Obama’s order, “The departments of State, Transportation and the Treasury, along with NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office granted full or partial releases to fewer requests and completely denied more requests than the year before.” Overall 35 of 90 agencies audited by The National Security Archive said that they had not even put Obama’s new order into action.

The upside of the new order is that the Obama administration has made progress in cleaning up the Department of Justice, which increased the number of information requests granted and decreased the number of total denials. Justice as many of you will remember was a hotspot for the political schemes of the Bush administration. Overall, nineteen other agencies besides Justice had processed increased information requests.

President Obama is confronting the problem of bureaucratic inertia. 35 of 90 agencies audited disclosed they have not implemented Obama’s new FOIA order. Since career civil servants outlast presidents, they tend to drag their feet, or even worse, ignore orders that they don’t want to follow. I will say that Obama has tried to make the government more open and accountable, and his administration has done a great job cleaning up the mess in the Department of Justice that was the Bush years, but it is laughably delusional for anyone to believe that Obama could fix the transparency issues in the entire United States government in one year.

The HuffPo piece makes it sound like Obama has failed to add openness and transparency to our system. In fact, they use some cherry picked numbers to make it seem like things have gotten worse. The reality of the situation is that Obama is doing battle with the mammoth bureaucracy of the United States government. In some areas he is experiencing success, while in others he is not. It is not as cut and dry as The Huffington Post piece makes it seem. Unlike Bush, Obama is trying to promote openness in our government, and for this he deserves to be praised, not attacked in a poorly researched quest for conservative readers. The readers of The readers of The Huffington Post deserve better than a piece that relies on the AP for all of it’s data.

The brewing battle between the journalists and the political commentators at Fox News took a new turn today as Hill reporter Carl Cameron refuted the right wing, including FNC’s own Glenn Beck’s attack, on the so called Slaughter Solution as an unprecedented move to pass healthcare reform. Cameron said, “Deeming has been used literally for centuries, and it is legislative language that says look we are going to consider this already done.”

FNC's Cameron refutes Beck's claims with facts

The Slaughter Solution is a proposal by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) to use deeming to advance the healthcare reform bill through the House. In essence, it would help the bill clear a legislative hurdle by passing a rule approving debate on the second Senate bill. After the rule is passed, the first bill will be considered agreed upon. On Monday, Slaughter pointed out that this procedure has been used in the House since 1933, and she was backed up today on Fox News.

Here is the video courtesy of Media Matters:

While the right wing has been trying to portray the Slaughter Solution as unprecedented in American history, on FNC’s America’s Newsroom today, Carl Cameron said, “Deeming has been used literally for centuries, and it is legislative language that says look, we are going to consider this done so that we can move on to the next thing. As a political matter and as a historical matter, one can see how Democrats who vote for the reconciliation package will still have to answer to their voters who understand that healthcare is included in it.”

Here is Beck claiming that deeming is a new idea:

The Republican position is rife with hypocrisy on this issue as when they were the majority in the House they set new records for the use of deeming. According to a 2006 column in Roll Call by Don Wolfensberger, “
When Republicans took power in 1995, they soon lost their aversion to self-executing rules (deeming) and proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) there were 40, 42 and 30 self-executing rules in the 106th, 107th and 108th Congresses (22 percent, 37 percent and 22 percent, respectively). Thus far in the 109th Congress, self-executing rules make up about 16 percent of all rules.”

Howard Kurtz had a piece in yesterday’s Washington Post about how Glenn Beck is dividing Fox News, and the journalists at the network are growing concerned that Beck is redefining them. I think what we saw out Cameron was a moment of journalism that was not in tow with the right wing media/Glenn Beck line. It will be interesting to see what direction Fox News goes in, but my guess is that they will follow the money. Entertainment and propaganda will take center stage, as rare moments of journalism will be few and far between.