enlarge

Credit: Washington Post

For two decades, Republican opponents of health care reform have turned to a tried if untrue talking point. In 1994, GOP strategist Bill Kristol warned that "the Clinton Plan is damaging to the quality of American medicine and to the relationship between the patient and the doctor." Twelve years later, President George W. Bush proclaimed, "Ours is a party that understands the best health care system is when the doctor-patient relationship is central to decision-making." Then in 2009, GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz told Republican obstructionists in Congress to "call for the 'protection of the personalized doctor-patient relationship.'"

Now with their ever-more aggressive nationwide crusade against Americans' reproductive rights, Republicans are determined to undermine the very doctor-patient relationship they pretend to cherish. Across the country, GOP anti-choice leaders are requiring procedures women don't need and their physicians don't want. And now in states like Arizona and Kansas, Republicans seeking to prevent abortion services are demanding doctors lie about them.

This week, the Arizona Senate voted 29 to 9 for a "wrongful birth bill" that would shield physicians from malpractice claims if they withhold vital information from their patients. As the AP explained:

Those are lawsuits that can arise if physicians don't inform pregnant women of prenatal problems that could lead to the decision to have an abortion.

But if Arizona Republicans want their state to join 9 others in encouraging that sin of omission, in Kansas anti-choice GOP legislators want doctors to participate in a sin of commission.

There, Governor Sam Brownback and his GOP allies don't merely want to raise taxes on women seeking abortions, even in cases involving sexual assault or a life-threatening pregnancy. Now, Republican legislators want state law to require that physicians mislead their patients about the non-existent link between abortion and breast cancer:

Kansas state lawmakers heard testimony this week saying there is a link between abortion and breast cancer. The testimony in front of the committee on Federal and state affairs came from Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, an oncologist specializing in breast cancer. The committee did not hear any other testimony before drafting H.B. 2598.

That link has been firmly rejected by organizations including the American Cancer Association and the National Cancer Institute, which concluded that "abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer." (Nonetheless, the Bush administration repeatedly claimed otherwise on federal government web sites aimed at teenagers and pregnant women. As a 2006 Congressional investigation found, 20 of 23 federally-funded "pregnancy resource centers"—facilities often affiliated with antiabortion religious groups—incorrectly told women "that abortion results in an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility and deep psychological trauma.")

But Republican governors and state legislatures aren't just requiring doctors to lie to their patients about real birth defects, bogus cancer risks and unproven claims about "fetal pain." (In Idaho, Jennie Linn McCormack was briefly charged with having an illegal abortion under that state's fetal pain law barring the procedure after 20 weeks.) Now, Texas, Virginia, Alabama, and other states are demanding that women seeking abortions undergo and pay for medically unnecessary ultra-sound tests their physicians oppose.

Continue reading »

Sorry for the picture, but you'll understand later in the post.

UPDATE: Pezzi is the King of the Internet!

When I did a panel with Breitbart, he got off on yelling the word "racist" over and over again because he felt that would weaken the meaning behind the word. Conservatives just hate being called racists for some reason. Hmmmmm, wonder why. Breitbart, after all, has only spent most of his time and resources attacking organizations that benefit African Americans and poor people -- all so he can prove that the real racists in post-racial America are black and brown people. Instead of waving the 'Bloody Shirt,' he should just be upfront about his loathing of nonwhites. You can read more about this in Chapter 4 of our book, Over The Cliff.

Breitbart's latest hire, Kevin Pezzi, represents what this man is all about. You know the old cliche, Be all that you can be? Well, he's everything a wingnut could be. And he's even cured cancer!

(corrected) Ben Dimiero & Eric Hananoki: Meet Breitbart's Sherrod writer: Racist sexual "expert" and inventor (who cured cancer)

In two posts on Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment website, Dr. Kevin Pezzi smears Shirley Sherrod as a racist, claiming that "if someone deserves to be put on a pedestal for overcoming racism, it isn't Sherrod." The racism criticism is ironic coming from Pezzi, who has repeatedly used racial epithets like "Japs" and "Chinks," and claimed Native and African Americans should have been grateful for their subjugation by whites.

Pezzi, who says that "Breitbart asked me to write for BigGovernment.com," has a peculiar self-described history. Pezzi claims to be responsible for "over 850 inventions" and schemes such as a "magic bullet" for cancer, a "robotic chef," and sexual inventions like "penile enlargement techniques" and "ways to tighten the vagina" (because "men like women with tight vaginas"). Pezzi has started multiple websites, from term paper helpers to a sexual help site that answers "your questions about sexual attraction, pleasure, performance, and libido" (Pezzi is qualified to do so because "No doctor in the world knows more about sexual pleasure than I do").

Pezzi also claims to have "beaten Bill Gates" on a math aptitude test, turned down a blind date with Katie Couric, and says he's "bigger than some porno stars."...read on

Read all about him in Eric's post, it's almost unbelievable. And for the kicker, he's a major league sock puppet to boot.

Continue reading »

Libs are salivating that Karl Rove might go down. But hasn't the worst cancer already spread?

I know it's an awfully long title, but check out this column by Mark Morford in SFGate. There's really nothing more to add.

DOWNLOADS: (831)

PLAYS: (2720)

Embed

I'm sure most of you will find it heartbreaking that "nobody in the media even cares" that Glenn Beck has been jumping up and down with a conspiracy theory about radicals plotting to destroy America in a "coming insurrection" being aided and abetted by Obama and the eeeeevil "progressives." Glenn seemed mighty distraught about it last night.

Let's all join hands and say: "Awwwwwwww. Poor Glenn."

Anyway, the main thing I've noticed is that Beck's show is just getting BORING. The chalkboard schtick is getting old and it's now just dry and confusing (not to mention confused). He needs to come up with something new, like blowing stuff up or something. That would be more interesting.

Because, you know, his ratings are completely in the tank these days. According to Business Insider, "Glenn Beck's total number of viewers are down by almost 30%, from 2.9 million in January to 2.1 million in April."

Beck, meanwhile, blames the weather. What, it's not caused by the progressive cancer destroying America?

Ultra-conservative Paul Ryan and Glenn Beck put their little heads together for a few minutes to let Beck's listeners know that "progressivism is a cancer" that desperately needs to be "flushed out."

About halfway through their powwow, Ryan starts rambling about how the German intellectuals in Wisconsin where he grew up were the genesis of Progressivism and so he understands just how evil it truly is, and how it "threatens the American ideal."

Paul Ryan is a Congressman who makes my teeth grind when he doesn't even try. While he smiles and plays the fresh-faced eager-beaver Alex P. Keaton type lawmaker, he's really just as deep in the tank of the teabaggers and Birchers as any I've ever seen. He champions driving a stake through Medicare, ending Social Security, and handing out undervalued vouchers so Americans can reduce the cost of health care.

Paul Ryan is driven by the almighty dollar and little else, but he's very, very good at what he does. His almost-casual mention of "German intellectuals" in his argument about why progressives threaten the American ideal has Lee Atwater snickering somewhere in hell, I'm sure.

As my friend David Badash says, cancer is cancer. Not progressivism.

(h/t StopBeck)

Watch CBS News Videos Online

I'm no fan of Bart Stupak (D-MI), but there's no way any Representative should be threatened the way he was. These are messages left on his voice mail, left by supposed Christians and supporters of "life".

CBS News reports:

"Congressman Stupak, you baby-killing mother f***er... I hope you bleed out your a**, got cancer and die, you mother f***er," one man says in a message to Stupak.

"There are millions of people across the country who wish you ill," a woman says in a voicemail, "and all of those thoughts that are projected on you will materialize into something that's not very good for you."

CBS News also obtained copies of faxes sent to Stupak, which include racial epithets used in reference to President Obama and show pictures of nooses with Stupak's name.

I think Stupak's injection of the abortion issue into the debate was a low-life thing to do. I support his primary challenger, Connie Saltonstall. Still, listen to the dripping hatred in these people's voices, the implied threat of their words. There is no place for this in our politics, even against those who play games with wedge issues and bow to Catholic bishops.

The thing is, in this country we elect people. We get to vote every couple of years or so. Violence is for dictatorships, not democracies. Like it or not, they're not going to turn the US into Teabagistan, no matter how hard they wish it, or how nasty they get.

Does Senator Jim Bunning always make an ass of himself? The hate and vitriol that comes from the right has been non-stop and offensive.

A year after surgery for pancreatic cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told an audience last week that she is feeling well -- and then took a dig at the senator who had claimed after her surgery that she would only have nine months to live.

"I am pleased to report that, contrary to Sen. Bunning's prediction, I am alive and in good health," she said.

Jim Bunning, R-Ky., made the comments during a private fundraiser on Feb. 21, 2009, when he described Ginsburg's cancer as "bad cancer -- the kind that you don't get better from."

He later apologized in a statement in which he misspelled the Justice's name. "I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsberg," Bunning then said.

Good for Judge Ginsburg not to back down to a republican bully.

And she also took a shot at Liz Cheney for attacking the loyalty of lawyers who represent terrorists.

Ginsburg also weighed in on the recent controversy, fueled by Liz Cheney, questioning the loyalty of U.S. lawyers representing accused terrorists.

Cheney, heading the group Keep America Safe, has criticized President Obama for naming nine lawyers to posts at the Department of Justice after the lawyers had provided legal assistance prior to their government service to Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Ginsburg said she was "unsettled, indeed alarmed" by such criticism. "One of the nine was a former law clerk of mine, a young man of great intelligence, integrity and devotion to the ideals that make the U.S.A. a great nation," she said.

Ginsburg went on to praise lawyers who serve on a pro bono basis even for clients who might be unpopular.

"To that expression of the true America Way, one can only say Amen," she said.

By the way, he only controversy is that Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol attacked the loyalty and ethics of our own legal profession and the lawyers that work there.

I really don't know what's going on with Eric Massa, but I'm concerned about him. In the space of less than two weeks, we hear news that he's will not seek re-election because of a recurrence of cancer, then we hear that he's under the cloud of an ethics investigation for sexual harassment (which he at the time termed for "salty language"). Then he decides to resign altogether from the House, claiming he's being pushed out by his fellow Democrats because of his vote on the health care reform, most notably in a odd (and naked) confrontation with Rahm Emanuel.

I don't really want to get into the prurient details of the ethics investigation or the allegations that came out today. I don't really care about Massa's sexuality one way or the other. He's sponsored no anti-gay legislation; in fact, he's been at the forefront of repealing DADT. So as far as I'm concerned, there's no hypocrisy there, as there is with Roy Ashburn. Howie Klein has written an account on both politicians, putting it into the context of his own experiences, and I don't think I could state it better.

But what I am concerned about is that Massa--clearly reeling and hurting and lashing out--has agreed to appear for the whole hour on Glenn Beck to condemn the Democratic Party.

I'm not sure if Massa is aware of how much disdain Glenn Beck holds him in, comparing him to a terrorist this morning:

And Beck isn't the only one:

Conservatives are already turning on Massa in advance of the Beck interview. Michelle Malkin trashed Beck on his own radio show Tuesday for asking Massa on, while Rush Limbaugh dismissed Massa as a no-name "kook" on his broadcast Tuesday, warning, "Anybody who embraces this guy is going to get caught."

Best wishes for a full recovery to Sen. Lautenberg:

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) has cancer and will begin receiving chemotherapy to treat it, his office announced Friday.

"After several days of hospitalization and testing, Senator Lautenberg's doctors have diagnosed that he has a B-Cell Lymphoma of the stomach," his office said in a statement. "This is a curable tumor, and will require treatment over the next few months."

Lautenberg's treatment means he will not be on hand Monday for a key procedural vote on the Senate, on Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) $15 billion jobs bill, Lautenberg's office confirmed.

B-cell lymphoma is more commonly known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer that starts in the body's lymphatic system, according to the American Cancer Society.

[...] Lautenberg was hospitalized Monday after falling in his Cliffside Park, N.J., home, and underwent surgery Tuesday for what was thought then to be a bleeding ulcer. At 86, Lautenberg is the second-oldest senator currently serving, behind only Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).

(graphic via DetNews.com)

My good friend Doug Fieger, lead singer of The Knack just died this morning from a long bout against cancer.

Doug Fieger, the lead singer of the rock band The Knack, has died after a battle with cancer, his brother, the prominent Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger, confirmed today.

He was 57.

Fieger sang lead vocals on the 1979 hit "My Sharona," which held the No. 1 spot for six weeks.

I was lucky enough to play with him a few times over the years, mostly for fun and even then he was very serious about his music. Doug was a great man who helped a lot of people in his life. He put up an incredible struggle that came to an end around 6am this morning.

I'm sure there will be more details released on the band's website so if you are a fan---tune in.

He will be sorely, sorely missed. My heart goes out to his family.

Farewell, my friend.