I'm really sad this morning. It took our FUBARed health insurance system to finally push immense talent Vic Chesnutt over the cliff of despair this week. He needed kidney surgery and faced losing his home to pay for it. A songwriting hero to people like Kristin Hersh, Michael Stipe and Patti Smith, the Athens, Georgia performer took an overdose and spent his last few days in a coma.

In a "Fresh Air" interview a few weeks ago, he talked about the impossible economic demands he faced, despite help from Sweet Relief, the musicians' health care fund. "I don't want to die," he told Terry Gross.

Imagine how many other talents are falling by the wayside, unable to deal with the constant assaults on their dignity. It's just not right:

Vic Chesnutt, a singer-songwriter of spare, idiosyncratic folk songs tinged with melancholy, died Christmas Day in Athens, Ga., after taking an overdose of prescription muscle relaxants, a family spokesman said. He was 45.

Chesnutt had been admitted to Athens Regional Medical Center on Wednesday and died surrounded by “devastated” friends and family, according to Jem Cohen, a filmmaker and friend who produced Chesnutt's 2007 album "North Star Deserter."

"This is not a story of a rock star being on heroin or even drinking themselves down," Cohen said Friday in an interview with The Times. "The real story here is about someone who struggled against amazingly difficult odds for many years and managed to transcend those odds with almost unparalleled productivity and creativity and power in his work."

Paralyzed after a 1983 single-car accident when he was driving drunk at age 18, Chesnutt had limited use of his arms and hands but nonetheless carved out a career as a songwriter, singer and guitarist. He was discovered in the late-1980s by REM frontman Michael Stipe, who championed his early recordings, and he gained the respect of music critics and fellow musicians who were struck by his darkly humorous songs.

Chesnutt tackled death and mortality head-on in his lyrics, as in "It Is What It Is," from his new album "At the Cut."

"I don't worship anything, not gods that don't exist / I love my ancestors, but not ritually / I don't need stone altars to hedge my bet against the looming blackness / that is what it is."

In recent interviews he contemplated the challenges he faced as a wheelchair-using paraplegic with inadequate health insurance and mounting medical bills.

"I'm not too eloquent talking about these things," Chesnutt told The Times earlier this month. "I was making payments, but I can't anymore and I really have no idea what I'm going to do. It seems absurd they can charge this much. When I think about all this, it gets me so furious. I could die tomorrow because of other operations I need that I can't afford."

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From C-SPAN's Dec. 7 airing of Politics in 2010, a panel discussion hosted by The Economist, Eric Cantor cites job creation as one of the key issues which will determine the outcome of the 2010 midterm election. Besides that being glaringly obvious Cantor cites the GOP's job creation plan he talked about at the Heritage Foundation the previous week. Looks like the same thing they did for eight years under George Bush to me and we know how well that worked out.

So this could be an important break in this impasse - assuming the Vatican doesn't get involved, that is. Completely aside from the still-stunning concept that some theologies are enshrined in legislation controlling women, that is:

WASHINGTON — In an apparent split with Roman Catholic bishops over the abortion-financing provisions of the proposed health care overhaul, the nation’s Catholic hospitals have signaled that they back the Senate’s compromise on the issue, raising hopes of breaking an impasse in Congress and stirring controversy within the church.

The Senate bill, approved Thursday morning, allows any state to bar the use of federal subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion and requires insurers in other states to divide subsidy money into separate accounts so that only dollars from private premiums would be used to pay for abortions.

Just days before the bill passed, the Catholic Health Association, which represents hundreds of Catholic hospitals across the country, said in a statement that it was “encouraged” and “increasingly confident” that such a compromise “can achieve the objective of no federal funding for abortion.” An umbrella group for nuns followed its lead.

The same day, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops called the proposed compromise “morally unacceptable.”

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Seems that Sarah Palin isn't the only right-winger out there trying to convince the world that the "death panels" actually exist. Indeed, as Media Matters notes, there's a whole bandwidth of wingnuts out there trying to revive the notion.

One of these is the Troll Who Lives Under the Bridge And Sucks Your Toes, aka Dick Morris, who was on The O'Reilly Factor earlier this week with fill-in host Monica Crowley:

Morris: Look, Monica, it's one thing to load a big bill with pork. That's what the stimulus package was. But to load a health-care bill, where Americans are seriously worried that this is gonna destroy the health care their parents get, that this is gonna lead to government-imposed euthanasia, where they'll say, 'No, you can't have this annual mammogram, because I know it might save your life, but it costs too much.' 'No, you can't have this drug for colon cancer, because the drug we're going to let you take isn't as good as this one, but we can't afford it.' When we come to those kind of euthanasia-like decisions, to learn that the reason the Senate approved this was some little bitty payoff that went on to some insurance company that gave you a campaign contribution -- that kind of tawdry stuff for this kind of magnitude of deformity on the system is enough to drive people crazy -- me included.

I've always said that anyone who takes Dick Morris's advice deserves everything they get, because the man is such a font of misinformation. That includes a lot of intentional disinformation, promoting provably false "facts" that unhinge the people who absorb this crap. As we can see.

James Cameron eat your heart out. Click here for the original poster.

Lots of us will be off to see Avatar this weekend; let's make this a movie thread. Which movies of the past year (or decade) are most memorable for you? [Paste Magazine has a list of their top 50 with trailers.]

Please keep spoilers from movies being released this week out of the thread. Thanks.

And it's an open thread...

So we continue to prop up the housing market, probably because it provides the only positive economic news lately. Is this good for the long-term economy? I dunno, I guess it depends on how talented you are at pretending:

The Obama administration pledged Thursday to provide unlimited financial assistance to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an eleventh-hour move that allows the government to exceed the current $400 billion cap on emergency aid without seeking permission from a bailout-weary Congress.

The Christmas Eve announcement by the Treasury Department means that it can continue to run the companies, which were seized last year, as arms of the government for the rest of President Obama's current term.

But even as the administration was making this open-ended financial commitment, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac disclosed that they had received approval from their federal regulator to pay $42 million in Wall Street-style compensation packages to 12 top executives for 2009.

The compensation packages, including up to $6 million each to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's chief executives, come amid an ongoing public debate about lavish payments to executives at banks and other financial firms that have received taxpayer aid. But while many firms on Wall Street have repaid the assistance, there is no prospect that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will do so.

The administration faced a congressionally mandated deadline of Dec. 31 to increase the amount of aid it could provide to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together have already received $111 billion in assistance.

Treasury said Thursday that its decision did not mean the firms would need $200 billion or more apiece, but that it instead was seeking to assure markets that the government would stand behind the companies. In a statement, Treasury said the move "should leave no uncertainty about the Treasury's commitment to support these firms as they continue to play a vital role in the housing market during this current crisis."

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TPM caught this clip from back in April with a prank call to David Brooks on Washington Journal and think it's the same man who called Sen. John Barrasso this week and claimed he was a teabagger who was afraid his prayers for Sen. Robert Byrd to die before the health care bill vote had backfired and something happened to Sen. James Inhofe instead. The above clip is from Washington Journal Dec. 22, 2009. Here's the clip from TPM with the call to David Brooks.

I think I found another clip with the same man. I knew that voice sounded familiar. Although this call was from Florida, I think it's the same person. I think I've heard him on there a few other times but haven't found any of the other clips. This is from March 29, 2009--Bill Kristol Doesn't Think He Owes Anyone An Apology For Hyping WMD Lies on Iraq.

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Listen to all three and let me know if you think it's the same man.

Five years later, the people hit by the Boxing Day tsunami are still struggling to recover:

Countries across the Indian Ocean are marking the fifth anniversary of the catastrophic tsunami that killed almost 250,000 people.

In Indonesia's Aceh province, where 170,000 died, thousands held prayers in public mosques and private homes.

On Thai beaches, Buddhist monks chanted prayers as mourners held pictures of loved ones lost five years ago.

Hundreds of tourists also returned to Phuket island to mark one of the worst natural disasters of modern times.

A moment of silence was observed on Phuket's popular Patong Beach marking the time the tsunami struck.

German survivor Ruschitschka Adolf, 73, and his wife Katherina waded into the turquoise seawater to lay white roses as a tribute to the dead.

"We [still] come and stay here because we are alive," Mr Adolf told Reuters news agency.

Other ceremonies were expected in the 14 countries hit by the massive wave.

In the meantime, agencies from around the world are still trying to rebuild in a place where all the boundaries have disappeared.

From Media Matters--Glenn Beck: Media Matters' 2009 Misinformer of the Year:

Glenn Beck's well of ridiculous was deep and poisonous before he launched his Fox News show, but the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States -- and the permissive cheerleading of his Fox News honchos -- uncorked the former Morning Zoo shock jock's unique brand of vitriol, stage theatrics, and hyperbolic fright, making him an easy choice for Media Matters' 2009 Misinformer of the Year.

When he wasn't calling the president a racist, portraying progressive leaders as vampires who can only be stopped by "driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers," or pushing the legitimacy of seceding from the country, Beck obsessively compared Democrats in Washington to Nazis and fascists and "the early days of Adolf Hitler." He wondered, "Is this where we're headed," while showing images of Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin; decoded the secret language of Marxists; and compared the government to "heroin pushers" who were "using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state."

Like his predecessor, Beck spat on scruples, frequently announcing his goal to get administration officials fired. He increasingly acted not as a media figure, but as the head of a political movement, while helping to bring fringe conspiracies of a one-world government into the national discourse.

And he all too frequently helped to set the mainstream media's agenda.

Continue reading...

Crooks and Liars has done our fair share of covering Beck's insanity as well if you've got the stomach for it. Hats off to Dave for managing to stomach him night after night for the better part of our coverage, and to the folks at the invaluable Media Matters who not only monitor his television show, but his radio show.

I'm reminded of Al Franken talking about the interns he hired to help him research his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and that they were complaining to him that having to watch Fox was making them physically ill and Jon Stewart watching Sean Hannity and waiting for him to apologize for his show's "mistake" airing the wrong protest footage and saying it wasn't worth it to have to sit through the entire show to finally see the apology at the end of it. Franken interns and Jon Stewart -- any of us that monitor Fox News and especially Glenn Beck can definitely relate.

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I watched this last Sunday on Reliable Sources and saved the clip because there was a lot going on during the week. Howard Kurtz' segment was how skeptical the press was over how successful President Obama's climate talks in Copenhagen were. The Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti makes a fool of himself with this statement about President Obama and the press:

CONTINETTI: Well, I think the puncturing began earlier in the summer with the Nobel Prize announcement and the failure to win the Olympics. And, for me, that's the turning point. That's when the press started to actually start criticizing the Obama administration, not giving it always a free pass.

With this agreement, basically it's an agreement to one day reach an agreement. So it should be taken with the appropriate skepticism.

Conservatives are just not very serious people. They attacked a sitting president for winning a worldwide award and openly cheered when the Olympic committee didn't award Chicago the bid. If anything, their behavior started to turn average American families against conservatives. And Continetti's idiotic view that the press turned on Obama because he lost the Olympic bid is ... how should we say ... ridiculous.

He wasn't called on his lunacy either, which is a systemic problem in TV news. Conservatives are always allowed to spew off nonsense and are never corrected.

(h/t CSPANjunkie)

Full transcript via CNN:

KURTZ: Just in time for the evening news on Friday, President Obama salvaged the climate talks in Copenhagen with an 11th-hour agreement he trumpeted as significant and unprecedented. But the international deal was nonbinding, totally voluntary, and the emissions targets fell short of what the conference's goals were.

So, are the media buying the White House spin that this was some kind of breakthrough?

Continue reading »

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So far no reports of the President clearing brush or reading My Pet Goat before reacting to this. From CBS News--Passenger Lights Explosive on Delta Flight:

A Northwest Airlines passenger landing in Detroit on Friday tried to blow up the flight but the explosive device failed, two U.S. national security officials said.

The passenger, who was traveling on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam was being questioned Friday evening, according to one of the officials, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

The motive of the Christmas Day attack was not immediately clear.

"He appears to have had some kind of incendiary device he tried to ignite," said one of the U.S. officials.

A senior law enforcement source speaking to CBS News has identified the suspect as Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23.

As the plane was on final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the suspect lit and set off what were at first described as fireworks or firecrackers but may have been another type of explosive.

The explosive material was apparently taped to the man's leg and lit the lower part of his body. He was immediately subdued and restrained and was later transported to a hospital burn unit.

Two other people suffered minor injuries.

Continue reading...

If this was an attempted terrorist attack, it sure wasn't very sophisticated. Thankfully it sounds like he was the only one harmed very badly. I feel for all of the people trying to fly with this going on. It's going to make the lines worse than ever. I'm sure we'll have more on this later as we learn more.

at-Largely: No-fly list fail, Wingnuttia wets pants ignore home-grown threats. Wonder what kind of dumbassery awaits me when I attempt to board an international flight next Monday?

PERRspectives: Lumps of coal for pathological press corpse

Welcome Back to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Year

Talk To Action: Religious Right tells America to celebrate Christmas its way or get out

Where’s the Outrage?: Grab Bag...

Kiko's House: Gone in 2009, but not forgotten

Marge Gunderson talks to the murderer Gaear Grimsrud in Fargo. Open thread below.

A hit for Elvis Costello, but this slow acoustic version by the dude who wrote the song? Magic. Merry Christmas.

Cenk Uygur highlights this excellent article from Truthdig--Michele Bachmann: Welfare Queen:

Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government “handout” as socialism. What her followers probably don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.

And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.

Bachmann, of Minnesota, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the so-called tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama’s attempted socialist takeover of America, saying presidential policy is “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom.”

But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.

However, Bachmann doesn’t think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be “rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.” That’s right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible.

Continue reading...

Here's Grassley getting asked about his welfare checks.