Barack and Hillary on 60 Minutes

The President and perhaps the next President were interviewed on CBS' 60 Minutes on Sunday night. Great stuff, and it's just nice to see them on friendly terms going into the future. It can only help them both.

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Grover Norquist is Relevant, Why? And Romney is a Poopyhead

via gifsfln
Grover Norquist was on CBS this morning. In case you don't know who is - and there's not really any reason why you would - he's the guy who strikes fear into the right-wing members of Congress because he makes them sign a pledge to never raise taxes. In the past, if members didn't sign the Norquist Pledge, they might face the ire of angry Tea Party members back home who apparently are as controlled by Grover as the politicians themselves.

It's sick, really. This guy holds no elected office, and is basically a glorified lobbyist. Yet our tax and spend policies have been molded by his tax pledge.

CBS had him on this morning to ask him about whether Boehner should deal with Obama over taxes and the Fiscal Cliff, blah blah, and then Norah O'Donnell asked him about the election, and that brought out Grover's arrested development side - you can't make this up.

Norah O'Donnell: Why didn't people vote Obama out of office?

Norquist: You saw those ads in Ohio saying Romney gave people cancer, for months and months unanswered. You can trash an individual and get them to vote against him. Again - we had an election, there are 30 Republican governors, okay? And they're running campaigns against raising taxes, and in favor of frankly phasing out the income tax in North Carolina, in Kansas, and Oklahoma. Take a look at the states.

O'Donnell: Those are state issues. I mean, Speaker Boehner said clearly--

Norquist: Yeah, the issues are clear.

O'Donnell: Boehner - 'We're willing to accept new revenue under the right conditions.' Would you accept new revenue, and would members who have signed your no-tax pledge be allowed to accept new revenue?

Norquist: Well, of course, the pledge is to the American People, not to me. So they don't need my permission to vote a certain way. They made a commitment to the people in their states. . . .

. . .

Charlie Rose: Seems like to me you're not changing your attitude one bit.

Norquist: Well, we just had an election. And the House of Representatives was elected committed to keeping taxes low. The President was elected on the basis that he was not Romney and that Romney was a poopy-head and you should vote against Romney. And he won by two points, but he didn’t make the case for higher taxes and higher spending. He kind of sounded like the opposite.

O'Donnell: Well, I'm not sure that's what the President called Mitt Romney, Grover.

Mitt's Healthcare Plan ~ Go to the ER

As if we needed any more proof that Mitt is unfit to be President, last night he said on CBS's 60 Minutes that going to the emergency room is the best way to get medical care. Oh, but, you know . . . first have a heart attack from all the years you had untreated high blood pressure without health insurance, and that way you'll get in.

Mitt Romney on 60 Minutes Via Huff Post

Mitt Romney on Sunday suggested that emergency room care suffices as a substitute for the uninsured.

"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance," he said in an interview with Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night. "If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."

Complete Transcripts of Romney and Obama Interviews from CBS News

This also proves that the man knows nothing about how the 47% or the 99% live their lives, with or without insurance. Because guess what - it costs plenty to go to the ER even when you have a good health plan. It is not a safety net. It is not a clinic for the poor. We need both of those, but the ER is not the answer.

And everyone knows that the costs of treating the poor are enough to put most hospitals out of business, so their bills get passed along to everyone else. This especially hurts people in rural areas with 47% populations because hospitals don't want to go there, unless the people are elderly and have Medicare of course, because then they can pay. Oh, wait a minute . . . Romney and Ryan want to get rid of Medicare too.

*silent scream*

I think people should have rallies outside emergency rooms carrying signs that say "Mitt Sent Me."

When I heard about this tonight I actually shook with anger. How callous is he going to be? How low can he go? If he ever had real empathy for people in Massachusetts when he passed Romneycare, has he thrown it all away for a chance to be the darling of the "Screw the Poor" Party? And guess what - most Tea Party members don't want to take Grandma or Junior to the ER either!

Twitter is eviscerating Mitt tonight for that remark, so there's hell to pay:

I bet y'all $10K Mitt Romney has never seen the inside of a large hospital's ER.
— Lisa P. Smith (@lpsrocks) September 24, 2012

Some intrepid reporter needs to ask Mitt Romney if he really believes an ER would treat cancer, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, etc.
— Jason Febery (@JasonFebery) September 24, 2012

So Mitt Romney says people without insurance can get medical care in ER and Clinics. Who pays for that, moron? @mittromney
— Crutnacker (@Crutnacker) September 24, 2012

Thanks to Mitt, kids w/special needs can now get treatment by walking over to the ER. They just need to get hit by a bus on the way #p2 #aca
— Sadistic Statist (@TheXclass) September 24, 2012

By the way, Mitt has etch-a-sketched his previous statements about such treatment:

When asked in a March 2010 interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" whether he believes in universal coverage, Romney said, "Oh, sure."

"Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way," he said.

Paul Ryan Caught in Another Lie by Norah O'Donnell on CBS

Why does he do it? Why does he lie about things that can be easily confirmed with a minimum of research?

From Think Progress

O’DONNELL: Now you’re criticizing the President for those same defense cuts you’re voting for and called a victory.

RYAN: No, no — I have to correct on you this, Norah. I voted for a mechanism that says the sequester will occur if we don’t cut $1.2 trillion in government. … We can get into this nomenclature; I voted for the Budget Control Act. But the Obama Administration proposed $478 billion in defense cuts. We don’t agree with that, our budget rejected that, and then on top of that is another $500 billion in defense cuts in the sequester.

O’DONNELL: Right. A trillion dollars in defense spending, and you voted for it!

RYAN: No, Norah. I voted for the Budget Control Act.

O’DONNELL: That included defense spending!

RYAN: Norah, you’re mistaken.

O’Donnell is, in fact, not mistaken. The Budget Control Act, as passed, included both the roughly $600 billion in “sequestration” cuts that will happen if there’s no compromise on the budget by December as well as the $487 billion of military-supported cuts that will take place regardless. The fact that Ryan may have wished that the bill didn’t contain said defense cuts does not absolve him of the fact that he and 201 other Republicans voted for the bill as-passed.

Obamacare Chaos as Republican Talking Heads Disagree

Health care is a big hot-button issue in light ofthe Supreme Court ruling so surely the Republicans had some agreed-upon talking points ready, right? At the very least, they could all get on board with the idea that the health care mandate is a tax - Obamatax - because at least their own Tea-publican base loves that idea, right? Am I right?

Wrong. They cannot get on the same page. Confusion reigns. They have a few memes like "Repeal and Replace" but beyond that each talking head seems to not know what the others are saying, so they are like a cross between a mythical Chimera with several heads and Dr. Dolittle's Push-Me-Pull-You. If what they babble about seems chaotic, what the public hears is mostly crickets chirping. There is no there there. They got nothin'.

Mythical Chimera = Republicans on Health Care

Mitch McConnell: Diabolically unable to show compassion, but also no plan.

* Repeal and Replace ~ Message Fail ~ Crickets Chirping ~ Empathy Fail *

Via Mother Jones ~ Mitch McConnell on Fox News

WALLACE: One of the keys to "Obama-care" is that it will extend insurance access to 30 million people who are now uninsured. In your replacement, how would you provide universal coverage?

MCCONNELL: Well, first, let me say the single the best thing we could do for the American health care system is to get rid of Obamacare....

WALLACE: But if I may, sir, you've talked about repeal and replace. How would you provide universal coverage?

MCCONNELL: I will get to it in a minute. The first step we need to take is to get rid of what is there....

WALLACE: But respectfully sir, because we are going to run out of time and I just want to ask, what specifically are you going to do to provide universal coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured?


MCCONNELL: That is not the issue....

WALLACE: You don't think the 30 million people that were uninsured is an issue?

MCCONNELL: Let me tell you what we are not going to do....

Cricket Chirping.MP3


Also too . . . Talking Point Chaos - Tax or Penalty, Penalty or Tax

WSJ: Is the Mandate a Tax or a Penalty

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) attacked the new law, saying it amounts to a “middle class tax increase” that’s largely going to affect Americans making less than $120,000 a year.

“It will cost the economy between 800,000 and a million jobs,” Mr. McConnell said on “Fox News Sunday.”

. . . White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew hit back, saying that the new health-care law was a “penalty” that only 1% of the population who can afford insurance, but decide not to purchase it, will pay.

“The law is clear: it’s called a penalty. Second of all, what the Supreme Court ruled was that this law was constitutional,” Mr. Lew said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Everyone who has insurance–everyone who chooses to buy insurance–will not pay it.”

The Romney Campaign Agrees . . . with the White House???

* surrogate confusion *

CHUCK TODD (MSNBC): What you just said is that Governor Romney agrees that it's not a tax. But you guys call it a penalty.

ERIC FEHRNSTROM (TOP ROMNEY AIDE): The governor disagreed with the court. He agreed with the dissent that was written by Justice Scalia which very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax.

TODD: So ... I think we're talking around each other. The governor does not believe the mandate is a tax, that's what you're saying?

FEHRNSTROM: The governor believes that what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court's ruling that the mandate was a tax.

TODD: But he agrees with the president that it is not, that you shouldn't call the tax penalty a tax, you should call it a penalty or a fee or a fine?

FEHRNSTROM: That's correct.

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John Boehner: Unable to explain anything about the Republican health care plan, or which parts they will keep or discard.

* Repeal and Replace ~ Message Fail ~ Empathy Fail ~ It's a Tax! ~ Crickets *



CBS Transcript - Face the Nation, July 1, 2012

NORAH O'DONNELL: But access to affordable health insurance, but you're not saying you would be for a law that would prevent discrimination of those individuals?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: No, we just believe there is a better way to make sure that they have affordable access to quality health insurance.

NORAH O'DONNELL: So when you repeal this, what are you going to replace it with?


REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: I just started pointing out. We're going take a common-sense, step-by-step approach that puts in place the kind of policies that will make our-- our health insurance system more what I call patient-centered and lower cost. The only proposal out there last year that would lower the cost of health insurance came from Republicans. Why? Because we've got policies that really will help bring down the cost of health insurance. It's clear that Obamacare is increasing the cost of health insurance for all Americans and making it virtually impossible for small employers to hire new workers.


Cricket Chirping.MP3

NORAH O'DONNELL: How does it make it hard for small employers to hire more workers?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: Because they're being required to either provide health insurance or pay a fine. Well, I'm sorry, a tax. It's now a tax since the court said it was a tax.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Chief Justice John Roberts said it was a tax.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (overlapping): He-- even though, the President had tried to admit for, you know, over a year that it wasn't a tax and nobody believed it and now we know it. But it-- it's getting in the way of employers hiring new workers. Because of these increased costs of government-run health insurance and the fact that, if they don't, they have to provide a tax, so employers--

~~~*snip*~~~

NORAH O'DONNELL: Why not, then, if you like some of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act, why not work with it rather than ap-- repeal the whole thing.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (overlapping): No, no, no.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Even Mitt Romney said--

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (overlapping): No, this has to be-- this has to be ripped out by its roots. This is government taking over the entire health insurance industry. The American people do not want to go down this path. They do not want the government telling them what kind of insurance policy they have to buy and how much they're going to pay for it and if you don't like it, we're going to tax you. It has to be ripped out and we need to start over, one step at a time.

NORAH O'DONNELL (overlapping): And so you say so-- so-- so to heck with all these provisions like additional preventative care for children, for women--

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (overlapping): All of them. All of-- we can-- we can replace. While we replace this, we can have a common-sense debate about which of these provisions ought to stay and which ought to go.