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Limbaugh Caught on Tape Mocking Speech of 12 Year Old Graeme Frost

Jon Ponder

Rush Limbaugh phoned into the Oct. 18, 2007, edition of “Hannity & Colmes” on Fox News to deny charges he’d attacked 12-year-old Graeme Frost, the boy who dared to speak out against Pres. Bush’s veto of the health insurance program for children. But in denying he attacked Graeme, Limbaugh trashed him again. He imitated the boy’s speech, even appeared to mock Graeme’s slight speech impairment (his vocal cords remain slightly paralyzed) — but you be the judge.

The mockery gets underway on the video at the 5:54 minute mark but, depending on your intestinal fortitude, you may not want to miss the ass-kissing Sean Hannity lays on Rush at the start of the tape. Boys, get a room!

Transcript via Newshounds:

LIMBAUGH: No, Alan, that’s an interesting question. I never once attacked this family. I attacked the Democrats for exploiting them. I attacked the Democrats for putting lies into the head of a 12-year old. A 12-year old they send out before microphones and cameras, to sit there and say, [mocking Graeme Frost, age 12, who suffered brain damage in an automobile accident] “I only want health care for the rest of American children like I got and George Bush is against it.”

A 12 year-old can’t write that garbage. The fact of the matter is, Graeme Frost was covered and got the health care he and his sister — both got the health care they needed under the current circumstances of the program. …I never attacked this family. I simply reported what their financial circumstances are. I actually feel sorry for ‘em to be used… I never once attacked — I wouldn’t attack a 12 year-old kid. I feel sorry for the fact that the kid is having words put in his mouth. He’s sent out before the whole country to lie, when he can’t know any better because he’s 12 years old, simply to advance another lie that the Democrats want to put forth.

This is not the first time Limbaugh, who went deaf reportedly because of the mass quantities of OxyContin he consumed, has mocked someone who is disabled. In October 2006, Limbaugh did a takeoff of Michael J. Fox’s loss of motor control as a result of Parkinson’s disease. Fox earned Limbaugh’s derision because he appeared in an ad for Claire McCaskill, a stem cell research supporter who was running for the U.S. Senate in Missouri.

Here’s Keith Olbermann’s take, including video of Limbaugh imitating Fox’s disability and an interview with Michael J. Fox:

Rep. Pete Stark Blasts Bush on Children’s Health Insurance, Iraq War – Hangs Tough Against GOP Onslaught

Jon Ponder

Pete Stark, Democrat of California, speaking on the House floor yesterday:

First of all, I’m just amazed that they can’t figure out — the Republicans are worried that we can’t pay for insuring an additional ten million children. They sure don’t care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you gonna get that money? You gonna tell us lies, like you’re telling us today? Is that how you’re going to fund the war? You don’t have the money to fund the war or children, but you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people, if we could get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President’s amusement.

This bill would provide health care for ten million children and, unlike the President’s own kids, these children can’t see a doctor or receive necessary care. Six million are insured through the Children’s Health Insurance Program and they’ll do better in school, and in life. In California, the President’s veto will cause the legislature to draw up emergency regulations to cut some 800,000 children off the rolls in California and create a waiting list.

I hope my California Republican colleagues will understand that if they don’t vote to override this veto, they are destroying health care for many of our children in California.

In the previous job as an actor, our Governor used to play make-believe and blow things up. Well, [the] President and Republicans in Congress are playing make-believe today with children’s lives. They claim we can’t afford health care. They say the bill will socialize medicine. Tell that to Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley and Ted Stevens, those socialists on the other side of this capitol. The truth is: [The] CHIP program enables states to cover children primarily through private health care plans. But, President Bush’s statements about children’s health shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than his lies about the war in Iraq. The truth is that Bush just likes to blow things up… in Iraq, in the United States, and in Congress.

I urge my colleagues to vote to override his veto. America’s children need and deserve health care, despite the President’s desire to deny it to them.

Stark’s assertion that the troops die in Iraq for Bush’s “amusement” gave Republicans ammunition, and House Minority Leader John Boehner fired back:

[…]

Coulter to Medved: ‘Jews Believe That My Savior, a Jew, Was a Raving Lunatic’

Jon Ponder

On Monday, Ann Coulter went on the radio talkshow of rightwing social critic Michael Medved, who is Jewish, to clarify a statement she’d made on Donny Deutsch’s cable chat show a week or so earlier about her desire as a Christian to have Jews “perfected,” meaning, converted to Christianity:

“Here it is just a straight, plain, non-controversial statement of what all Christians believe. Of course, all Christians want everyone to be a Christian, like all feminists would like everyone to be a feminist.”
— Ann Coulter

COULTER: [Judaism], as I explained — Christians accept the Old Testament. Jews don’t accept the New Testament, so, you know, as long as we’re playing this new sport of “he who is offended first wins,” if anyone’s going to be offended by anyone else’s religion, the Jews believe that my savior, a Jew, was a raving lunatic, and you don’t see me sniffling and crying.

Later in the show, predictably, Coulter starts sniffling and whining, if not actually crying:

COULTER: I’m sorry. I just can’t take this seriously, Michael. I don’t know when Donny Deutsch became the Al Sharpton of the Jews, but I don’t think it’s working.

MEDVED: Well, the problem here is that a lot of the major Jewish organizations —

COULTER: Are lying. But they attack me — I mean, it’s — from what I can tell, it’s all the usual suspects. It’s always the same thing. Actually, the only thing that is different here is usually I have told a joke. It is a satire. Here it is just a straight, plain, non-controversial statement of what all Christians believe. Of course, all Christians want everyone to be a Christian, like all feminists would like everyone to be a feminist, though it’s maybe a little more important to us.

And yes, of course, we accept the Old Testament, which is what I said. And as I say in my current book, if the things I say are so outrageous, why won’t they quote me accurately? I am never quoted accurately and, once again, I’m not being quoted accurately here.

For the record, here is what she said to Deutsch:

[…]

New Gov’t Report: Surge Producing Little Progress in Iraq

Jon Ponder

New York Times:

Attempts by American-led reconstruction teams to forge political reconciliation, foster economic growth and build an effective police force and court system in Iraq have failed to show significant progress in nearly every one of the nation’s provincial regions and in the capital, a federal oversight agency reported on Thursday.

The report, by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, comes as the United States tries to take advantage of a drop in overall violence to create a functioning government here.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general, testified about the report to a House Armed Services subcommittee yesterday.

Poll: 81% Favor Dems’ S-CHIP Expansion – Which the House GOP Killed Today

Jon Ponder

CBS News:

Eight in 10 Americans favor expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, including large majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

And:

[The] poll finds that only about one in five Americans (22 percent) approve of the president’s handling of health care. That’s lower even than his approval rating on Iraq (26 percent).

These new numbers come hot on the heels of the vote today by House Republicans to rubberstamp Bush’s veto of the S-CHIP program.

As we noted earlier, a GOP pol who predicted his colleagues would sustain the veto was incredulous. “I don’t know why our guys are following [Bush] into the sea like lemmings,” he said.

Breaking: Assassination Attempt on Benazir Bhutto

Jon Ponder

Both CNN and MSNBC are reporting that as many as 10 people have been killed by a pair of bombs that exploded in Karachi, Pakistan, during homecoming celebrations for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

The bombs exploded near Bhutto’s motorcade, but she was not injured, according to preliminary reports.

Update: CNN now says it has confirmed that at least 48 people are dead, 60 wounded.

Bush Has Flipflopped On S-CHIP – Opposed It As Governor, Then Took Credit for Its Success, Now Is Trying To Strangle It in Its Crib

Jon Ponder

As governor of Texas, George Bush opposed the S-CHIP program:

Bush doesn’t give a damn about kids. If passing this legislation helped line the pockets of his buddies who running the U.S. healthcare system into the ground, he’d be all for it.

In the 1990’s, then Texas Governor George W. Bush opposed a bi-partisan effort to expand S-CHIP in his state. Despite Texas’ worst-in-the-nation status (then and now) in the percentage of residents without insurance, Bush (then as now) opposed the broadened program on both fiscal and philosophical grounds. As Salon reported in July 2000, Bush tried to limit eligibility to families with incomes at 133 percent of the poverty line, compared to the 200 percent standard adopted in most states (and over Bush’s opposition, in Texas). Bush’s hard line would have kept 200,000 kids off the program’s rolls. As it was, the difficult and cumbersome application process limited sign-ups to only 28,000 of the 500,000 children eligible by mid-2000.

But in 2000, Bush, the presidential candidate, took credit for the program’s success in Texas:

In Bush’s press release it says: “When the CHIPs program was first implemented, Governor Bush embraced it as an opportunity to help deliver health coverage to thousands of uninsured children, and signed legislation providing health insurance for more than 423,000 children.”

Three months ago, Bush’s administration tried to strangle S-CHIP in its crib:

Just two weeks after the House and Senate each approved major expansions of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), the Bush administration announced draconian new eligibility rules that would trim thousands of low income children from the rolls…

As the New York Times described, the White House quietly dispatched a letter at 7:30 PM on Friday evening outlining its new curbs on S-CHIP eligibility. With Congress out of session, Dennis Smith of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations notified states that they must reach 95 percent enrollment of families below 200% of the poverty level before they can expand their programs. Of course, no state currently approach the 95 percent figure today (nationally, almost 30 percent of eligible children remain unenrolled in S-CHIP). Worse still, several states previously received the federal government’s OK to extend their coverage to even higher income levels and more are considering further expansion still…

Last week, of course, he vetoed a Democratic proposal that would have expanded S-CHIP’s coverage to millions more lower income children. Today, the mindless drones in his party in Congress are set to follow him over the cliff again by sustaining his veto.

What this proves — again — is that George W. Bush doesn’t give a damn about middle-class and poor Americans or their children. It’s all politics to him. If passing this legislation helped line the pockets of his buddies who running the U.S. healthcare system into the ground, he’d be all for it.

GOP Lawmaker on S-CHIP: ‘I Don’t Know Why Our Guys Are Following [Bush] into the Sea Like Lemmings’

Jon Ponder

Carpetbagger Report:

“We are not happy, no doubt about it,” the Republicans told Dear Leader’s message-meisters. The main cause of their discontent was the White House attack on the children’s health insurance program.

One GOP lawmaker [asked, rhetorically], “It’s stupid politics. The leadership is putting pressure on Members [to sustain the veto], promising to rebuild the brand. I don’t know why our guys are following [Bush] into the sea like lemmings.”

Maybe out of habit?

Carpetbagger Report also cites reports that Bush’s flying monkeys in the West Wing message shop were unpleasantly surprised when they summoned GOP congress people to the White House for spine-stiffening last week.

“We are not happy, no doubt about it,” the Republicans told Dear Leader’s message-meisters. The main cause of their discontent was the White House attack on the children’s health insurance program.

In another report, a veteran GOP strategist told a reporter:

“It’s just stunning to me … that after seven years of Republicans complaining that the president won’t use his veto, [the White House and Republican Congressional leaders] choose their big showdown to be over children’s health care. Good Lord, it probably polls at 80 percent!”

For an opposing views on GOP lemmings, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review — the newspaper owned by Richard Melon Scaife, the wealthy rightwing ideologue who funded the Arkansas Project that paid people to smear about the Clintons in the 1990s — published an editorial that offers a glimpse into the howling, soul-less darkness of the conservative mind:

The new S-CHIP, should GOP “leaders” convince more lemmings to take the plunge and override a promised presidential veto, will have the perverse effect of encouraging those already with private coverage to opt for “the government plan.”

Even more perverse — the increase is funded by a higher cigarette tax that hits the poor the hardest; the very families that S-CHIP was designed to help will be paying for families that can help themselves.

The S-CHIP 63 should be ashamed. As should be Republican “leaders” promising to make the Socialist-CHIP program veto-proof.

The word this morning is that there won’t be enough lemmings of either stripe to over-ride the president’s veto of the children’s health insurance program when the vote is held later today.

Let’s just hope voters will remember this day when they go to the ballots in November 2008.