Day: August 19, 2009

GOP Ex-Leader Tom DeLay Declares Support for Killing Medicare

Jon Ponder

Republican leaders are sending signals that their real target in killing health-insurance reform is privatizing Medicare, and thus killing it, too.

Just this week, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) described Medicare on “Meet the Press” as “tyranny.” Tonight, on MSBNC’s “Hardball,” another former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, R-Texas, agreed with Armey, saying Medicare must go:

TOM DELAY: I want Medicare to be privatized. It shouldn’t be a government program. It’s the thing that is driving up costs. Not [the need] to have a public option. It’s Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP — the government-run programs — that are running up costs. That’s where the reform ought to be.

There are 44 million million seniors on Medicare right now. Killing the program by privatizing it would bankrupt tens of millions of them and cause self-imposed rationing by millions more who would find themselves choosing between food and medicine or paying the rent and seeking treatment.

That is the Republicans’ Dickensian vision for health-insurance “reform.”

Poll: Huge Majorities of Fox Viewers Duped by GOP Lies about Reform – 75% Believe in ‘Death Panels’

Jon Ponder

Just days after a poll found Fox News to be the least trustworthy among the cable channels, a new poll from NBC News — not teaming this time with Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall St. Journal — finds that around three-quarters of self-identified Fox viewers believe the four big lies being promulgated by the GOP about health-insurance reform:

Results as alarmingly bad as these would cause a panic at a real news organization.
  • 72 percent believe undocumented residents will be covered
  • 79 percent believe they will lead to a government takeover
  • 69 percent believe abortions will be covered
  • 75 percent believe there will be “death panels”

All of these lies have been refuted umpteen times by nonpartisan sources, including FactCheck.org.

Results as alarmingly bad as these would cause a panic at a real news organization. Senior managers’ jobs would be in jeopardy, and the taint of having worked for a news organization so irredeemably incompetent would discredit everyone involved.

But no heads will roll at Fox. In fact, there may be raises — because the real indictment here is that these results expose Fox for what it is really is: a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party and the corporate interests that own it.

The results of these polls are a damning indictment of Fox News any way you slice it.

Is It Right to Quote Jesus Christ in a Press Release?

Buck Banks

miraclehealersebook

And I’m not talking about quoting from the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, but a passage from a “silent dialogue” with God’s son yesterday. In a press release distributed on PRWeb yesterday, an outfit called ACIMI — A Course In Miracles Inc. — Jesus is quoted from an alleged “interview” conducted by Clare Lamanna, who teaches the Course of Miracles.

However, there must have been a breakdown of the Transubstantiational Translator because Jesus’ ancient Hebrew got turned into spiritual gibberish. And while it does follow in the semi-Socratic style Jesus often employed in the Bible, He seems to have developed a habit of referring to Himself in the Third Person. But it must be Jesus. After all, it’s in quote marks:

“What does this mean for you? It means that in remembering Jesus you are remembering God. The whole relationship of the Son to the Father lies in him. His part in the Sonship is also yours, and his completed learning guarantees your own success. Is he still available for help? What did he say about this? Remember his promises, and ask yourself honestly whether it is likely that he will fail to keep them. Can God fail His Son? And can one who is one with God be unlike Him? Who transcends the body has transcended limitation. Would the greatest teacher be unavailable to those who follow him?”

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