Sadly, No!

. . . I see your yodeling Swedish drag queen and raise you by an androgynous punk mannequin imitator now turned evangelical pastor in Hawaii.

This is laughably unsurprising:

WSJ/NBC News Poll: Tea Party Tops Democrats and Republicans

The loosely organized group made of up mostly conservative activists and independent voters that’s come to be known as the Tea Party movement currently boasts higher favorability ratings than either the Democratic or Republican Parties, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll coming out later today.

More than four in 10, 41%, of respondents said they had a very or somewhat favorable view of the Tea Party movement, while 24% said they had a somewhat or very negative view of the group. The Tea Party movement gained notoriety over the summer following a series of protests in Washington, D.C. and other cities over government spending and other U.S. economic policies.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, which controls both the White House and Congress, has a 35% positive rating compared with a 45% negative rating.

The Republican Party identifies closest to the Tea Party movement’s ideology, but the group has also caused splits within the GOP. Republicans currently hold a 28% favorability rating compared with a 43% negative one.

And why is this not surprising? Because of stuff like this:

President Obama and the Senate leadership can’t whip up the votes necessary to pass a public option or even a Medicare buy-in compromise, but they didn’t have any trouble persuading 30 Democrats to vote against prescription drug reimportation Tuesday night — thus preserving the deal cut between the Senate Finance Committee, the White House and Big Pharma.

So I’ve been thinking about this, and I’ve come to the conclusion that America just ain’t governable anymore. Corporate interests continuously override the public good and it doesn’t make a difference which damn party you vote for.

Sorry to be such a downer, but I cannot believe how much the Democrats have failed at governing. Even by my already-low standards this has been a thorough disaster.

UPDATE: Climbing back from the ledge a bit, I’m still actually on the fence over whether this bill is worth killing or not. On the one hand, it basically makes the uninsured serfs to the insurance industry. That sucks, it’s disgusting and it’s immoral. But on the other hand, I read stuff like from this guy…

My wife has a terminal illness and we can’t get insurance outside a pool from my employer, which is not the greatest. People like you are about to ruin the chance to improve health care for the foreseeable future. You are making the perfect the enemy of the good.

…and I have a really, really tough time arguing that we should kill the bill.

But then, as Atrios notes, there are the politics:

I feel like those more supportive of this bill are attacking anti-mandate strawmen. The reason for thinking that without a public option or similar mandates are going to be a disaster is that without competition or sufficient affordability (due to not quite generous enough subsidies), you’re forcing people to buy shitty insurance that they can’t afford.

If the Senate bill passes as is, lots of people are likely to hate it and it will lead to the GOP (or the Tea Party!) taking back the government and working to repeal the bill. And how much better off will people like the woman mentioned above with terminal illness actually be?

But then I think of it this way: once the principle of universality is established — and for all its faults, the Senate bill would establish universality for American citizens — then it’s going to be very hard to take away. Once it’s passed the GOP will never be able to pass legislation that will take away health insurance from 30 million people. Really, if they tried they wouldn’t leave office alive.

So I’m leaning right now toward, “pass the piece of shit and add to the subsidies through reconciliation with the goal of adding a public option through reconciliation further down the road.”

What say you all?

Above: Not-distortions are unattacking

Matt Cover, CNS News:
FCC Official Says He’s Not Carrying Out ‘Secret Plot Funded by George Soros to Get Rid of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck’

• FCC chief diversity officer Mark Lloyd accuses a “right wing smear campaign” of distorting his words. Yet in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, Lloyd reveals an association with Lucifer, Father of Lies.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

With health care reform in crisis, you can bet Rahm Emanuel is out there putting pressure on senators to get the current shitpile passed. Let’s listen in on a call …

[phone rings]

Senator: Hello?

Emanuel: Fuck you.

Senator: Oh, hi Rahm.

Emanuel: Can we fucking count on you to be a stand-up motherfucker, and get this fucking health care cocksucker fucked right in the fucking fuckhole next week?

Senator: Rahm, it’s tough now. It’s such a different bill than what we started with …

Emanuel: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK …

Senator: Listen, I haven’t made a final decision yet …

Emanuel: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK …

Senator: You know, Howard Dean made quite a stir with his appearance on Olbermann tonight …

Emanuel: FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK …

Senator: Jeez, I know, I know … look, tell your boss I’m going to go along!

Emanuel: Cocksucker! Fucking motherfucker.

Senator: Well, thank you, Rahm, they’re all fine. And you give my best to Amy and the kids as well.

This sort of comment is something I hear a lot from friends in Europe and elsewhere:

Where i come from, The Netherlands, which is far from perfect, i pay 125 Euro’s for full coverage. Dentists and pre-existing conditions included. I can have a television at my bed and a minibar if i want to, but that’ll cost me extra. We have 6 or 7 big insurance companies here who facilitate this and who are bound by government rules on maximum charges and minimum coverage. It works fine, there’s no deficit created and everybody is fully covered. Besides that there’s a government subsidy for everyone who doesn’t earn enough to pay for the premiums.

We’re a democracy, with politicians, which are to some degree polarized into left and right, but everybody agrees we need good healthcare. If our people are denied that, we go out onto the streets and make known that we disagree.

It’s that simple.

It is that simple and that’s what drives me insane.

The United States has, bar none, the stupidest and cruelest health care system in the entire developed world. We pay out the ass for health care expenses and leave tens of millions of people uninsured. Paying more for worse outcomes is the very definition of inefficiency, but that’s the system we have. In fact, our system is so bad that even its glibertarian defenders sneak off when no one’s looking to get affordable health care in France.

I don’t get it. Why do we put up with paying tons of money for crappier health care? Why are other countries’ health care systems relentlessly demonized when they’re demonstrably and empirically better than ours? And most importantly, how can we have a set of political leaders who insist on removing any and all bits of reform that might actually prove popular with the average voter?

Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post:
Anti-climate change, anti-human

• Thcuse me, Miss Wady. A child named America tugged on my skirt. Ath a wiberal, awe you contherned at the hate-cwazed wiberal campaign to eck… eckTHTIRminate humanity? “Finish your homework in safety, dear heart,” I replied, striding upstage. “For show me a movement that says phooey on hope,” I quavered, “And I will stand up for the tomorrow that dances in our children’s hearts.”

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

I wish I were allowed to ask a question at the daily White House press pool. Because if I were, here’s what I’d ask Robert Gibbs:

“Dude, both Joe Lieberman and the banksters just pissed in your boss’s face. Doesn’t that, like, bother him?”

For someone who’s such an alleged narcissist, Obama sure does let himself get pushed around a lot. I never expected the guy to be a liberal hero but I did at least expect him to have some pride and self-respect. Now when Holy Joe Loserman and the banksters yell “CAVE!” Obama’s response seems to be, “Under how much rubble, sir?”

UPDATE: I… sigh… sigh… sigh…

Biden On Lieberman: ‘I’m Confident Joe Is Going To See The Light’

Vice President Joe Biden says he’s confident Sen. Joe Lieberman will come around, but says everyone is engaging in “gamesmanship” to get the maximum leverage from the bill.

Today Biden appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” defending his old Senate colleague as “a great guy.”

But Biden said “honest to god” he doesn’t know what is up with Lieberman (I-CT), whose opposition to elements of the health care bill has put Democrats in a major jam. But he added he learned from his own senate service, “never question another man’s motive, question his judgment.”

[…]

Former Congressman Joe Scarborough noted that Lieberman has flip-flopped on health care, and Biden laughed, “If we held flip flops against everybody in the Congress we probably wouldn’t have many people there.”

We’ve now reached the point where Joe Scarborough is more willing to take a tough line on Lieberman than the vice president of the United States.

And look, I don’t question Lieberman’s motivation either. That’s because I know his motivation. And it’s about petty revenge. How is it that I see this and allegedly smarter folks do not?

Grant Wood: West Virginia Gothic (1930)
(oil on beaverboard)

This is stupid, even for Don Jim Bob Surber:

Earlier today, I post[sic] on Al Gore’s goofball prediction that the Arctic will be ice-free by 2014 (not that an ice-free Arctic Ocean would be so bad — an ice-free Mediterranean seems to be working out).

I suppose if Don Jim Bob heard a prediction that global warming would cause sea levels to rise, his inevitable retort would be:

Not that ocean-front property in Indianapolis would be so bad — an ocean-front Miami seems to be working out.

The editors at the Charleston Daily Meth Mail responsible for keeping an eye on Surber have obviously succumbed to the excess consumption of West Virginia’s most important domestic product and are simply letting Jim Don Bob run amok.

Jon Chait — who still owes the entire world an apology for supporting Joe Loserman back in 2006 when it was obvious to all involved that he’d lost whatever credibility he’d previously had as a Democrat — gives it the old college try and attempts to defend Loserman from charges of dishonesty. How does he do so, you ask? By claiming the poor Joe is just too principled and stupid to actually know what he’s talking about:

Understanding Joe Lieberman

I also think liberals, myself included, might be driving ourselves a little nuts trying to divine Lieberman’s motives. He keeps flip-flopping and explaining his shifts by making demonstrably false claims. What’s his game? Why does he keep saying these wrong, uninformed things?

I think one answer here is that Lieberman isn’t actually all that smart. He speaks, and seems to think, exclusively in terms of generalities and broad statements of principle. But there’s little evidence that he’s a sharp or clear thinker, and certainly no evidence that he knows or cares about the details of health care reform.

[…]

I suspect that Lieberman is the beneficiary, or possibly the victim, of a cultural stereotype that Jews are smart and good with numbers. Trust me, it’s not true. If Senator Smith from Idaho was angering Democrats by spewing uninformed platitudes, most liberals would deride him as an idiot. With Lieberman, we all suspect it’s part of a plan. I think he just has no idea what he’s talking about and doesn’t care to learn.

Uh, well, OK. I admit that Joe’s not the brightest senator I’ve ever seen. But at the same time, he’s pretty obviously trying to shaft over Democrats and kill health care reform outright. Yesterday Lieberman rejected a policy compromise on Medicare expansion that was actually less progressive than something he supported as recently as September. Greg Sargent, being the good gumshoe that he is, has obtained the damning video:

Now there’s dumb and then there’s duuuuu-huuuuu-huuuuuuumb. And while I’m more than willing to concede that Joe’s not that bright, he’s never struck me as the sort of person to inadvertently oppose a policy that he once supported a mere three months before. That’s a level of dumb that forces you to be fed with rubber safety forks and I’m pretty sure Joe isn’t that freaking stupid.

Matt Welch acknowledges the obvious here — that the French do health care a lot better than the U-S-of-A:

Why I Prefer French Health Care

[…]

For a dozen years now I’ve led a dual life, spending more than 90 percent of my time and money in the U.S. while receiving 90 percent of my health care in my wife’s native France. On a personal level the comparison is no contest: I’ll take the French experience any day. ObamaCare opponents often warn that a new system will lead to long waiting times, mountains of paperwork, and less choice among doctors. Yet on all three of those counts the French system is significantly better, not worse, than what the U.S. has now.

No shit. So why would you oppose implementing something like it here in the United States? I mean, shorter waiting lines, less paperwork, more doctor choice… what’s not to love?

What’s more, none of these anecdotes scratches the surface of France’s chief advantage, and the main reason socialized medicine remains a perennial temptation in this country: In France, you are covered, period. It doesn’t depend on your job, it doesn’t depend on a health maintenance organization, and it doesn’t depend on whether you filled out the paperwork right. Those who (like me) oppose ObamaCare, need to understand (also like me, unfortunately) what it’s like to be serially rejected by insurance companies even though you’re perfectly healthy. It’s an enraging, anxiety-inducing, indelible experience, one that both softens the intellectual ground for increased government intervention and produces active resentment toward anyone who argues that the U.S. has “the best health care in the world.”

Again: Duh. France has a demonstrably better health care system than the United States. It isn’t even close. There are no medical bankruptcies, there are no people denied treatment because they lack insurance and French doctors are vastly less likely to be sued for malpractice than in our crazy system. Oh, and they also have a higher life expectancy than we do and they pay less per capita for health care. Really, Matt, you’re making the case for universal health care coverage better than a lot of liberals I read. So what’s the problem? Wait, here comes the tell:

We know, too, that France’s low retail costs are subsidized by punitively high tax rates that will have to increase unless benefits are cut. If you are rich and sick (or a healthy doctor), you’re likely better off here. […]

I’ve now reached the age where I will better appreciate the premium skill level of American doctors and their high-quality equipment and techniques. And in a very real way my family has voted with its feet when it comes to choosing between the two countries. One of France’s worst problems is the rigidity and expense that comes with an extensive welfare state.

Ah-ha! So Welch is sympathetic to low-income people who are struggling to get health insurance, but he still opposes instituting a French-like system here because… well, because he’s got his now and he doesn’t want to pay higher taxes! I’ve been sympathetic to libertarian arguments about individual liberty in the past. But when they devolve into simple chants of “ME-ME-ME-ME-ME-ME-ME,” I lose that sympathy pretty quickly, especially when the person making the “ME-ME-ME” argument actually acknowledges that another system is actually better on the merits for most people.

To demonstrate this absurdity, let’s take Welch’s position and apply it to another public good. Say, firefighting:

For a dozen years now I’ve led a dual life, spending more than 90 percent of my time and money in the U.S. while only owning actual property in my wife’s native France. On a personal level the comparison is no contest: I’ll take the French experience of publicly-funded fire departments any day. Fire department opponents often warn that a new system will lead to long waiting times for fire relief, mountains of paperwork, and less choice among fire fighters. Yet on all three of those counts the French system is significantly better, not worse, than what the U.S. has now.

The main reason socialized fire fighting remains a perennial temptation in this country is that in France, your house fire gets put out, period. It doesn’t depend on your job, it doesn’t depend on you fire insurance plan, and it doesn’t depend on whether you filled out the paperwork right. Those who (like me) oppose Obama’s commie plan to fund public fire fighters, need to understand (also like me, unfortunately) what it’s like to watch your house burn to the ground because you don’t have the cash to pay a private fire fighting firm. It’s an enraging, anxiety-inducing, indelible experience, one that both softens the intellectual ground for increased government intervention and produces active resentment toward anyone who argues that the U.S. has “the best fire fighting in the world.”

But we know, too, that France’s low fire fighting costs are subsidized by punitively high tax rates that will have to increase unless benefits are cut. If you are rich and your 75-room mansion is burning down, you’re likely better off here. I’ve now reached the age where I will better appreciate the premium skill level of American fire fighters and their high-quality hoses and techniques.

And the proper response is, “Dude, stop being a cheap cobag and pay taxes to help put out your neighbor’s fire.” The same should go for health care.