Just when you think he can't get any more insane and stupid, Glenn Beck manages to pluck yet another feather from the plumage:

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Oy.

Besides the conundrum of how it is that someone this clearly insane is given multiple national platforms to rant and rave as lucidly as the crazy homeless guy downtown, I really can't believe that we're now getting to the point that we're likening health care reform (something the majority of the country wants, mind you) to forced rape of a minor.

We had visitors from Denmark staying with us just recently, and they were just dumbfounded by the asinine and completely fact-free crap that passes for news coverage here, especially when it comes to health reform. From a country where universal health care is a given, listening to the fear-mongering on Fox News and other news channels I'm forced to watch for C&L made them wonder about the collective IQ of American citizens. Sadly, I was hard-pressed to defend us in the face of such loonies like Beck.

I take solace in the thought that when my children are my age, we will likely have fought mightily and won universal single payer health care for all Americans (because it really is the only thing that makes sense) and they'll look back at old tape of Glenn Beck and say, "Sheesh, no wonder it was such a battle, look at this idiocy," and shake their heads ruefully at the frightened, non-thinking people that watched him.

Runnin' Scared: Hoffman concedes in NY 23, but the Tea Baggers are still eager to burn down the GOP pup tent

darrel plant: Populist campaigns are a barometer of how difficult the times are, and if you think things are bad now, wait until you hear a politician comparing himself (or herself) to Huey Long.

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his vorpal sword: The Secret Masters: Freedom Works and their Oregon franchises

AlterNet: Meet the 28 (male) anti-choice Dems who are stalling health care reform

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: The Daily Censored, Unemployed and Trying, The Immoral Minority, Mark Of The Beast

Okay, maybe requiring minimum IQs as a standard to run for national office is a bit harsh, but can we at least insist that politicians prove that they are actually human and not some mindless automaton programmed with talking points?

(In the past,) Foxx has claimed Democratic reforms would mean seniors are “put to death by their government,” that health reform is a “distraction,” and that “there are no Americans who don’t have health care.” She was at it again today on the House floor, arguing that health reform is a greater threat to our country than “any terrorist right now in any country”:

Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened. … I share that fear, and I believe they should be fearful. And I believe the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room — this very room — and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.

Normally, this is where my head makes a very loud thunk against my desk at the stupidity, but instead I just find myself really angry at this illogical fear mongering and ugliness. But what can you expect from a politician ugly enough to call Matthew Shepard's murder "a hoax"?. Obviously her lip service towards valuing life doesn't really mean any living people.

Rep. Foxx, the lives of those 44,000 Americans who die needlessly every year because they do not have insurance is blood on your hands.

As always, the devil is in the details. But it sounds like Congress is punting to the states on more than the public option - and since our states are smaller and our local officials more amenable to bribery contributors, this could be a real disaster. Let's wait and see what's in the final bill, but in the meantime, we'll have to keep a close eye on things:

The debate over whether to let states opt out of any government-run health insurance plan overlooks a key facet of the health-care measures being assembled in Congress: When Washington is done, the shape of any new health-care system is likely to be finalized in Lansing and Boise and Baton Rouge.

Besides the opt-out choice, proposed last week by Senate leaders, health-care legislation being drafted on Capitol Hill would delegate to state officials a multitude of momentous decisions, from what benefits are offered to low-income families to what hurdles to put in front of private insurance companies before they can raise premiums.

"The fact is that state programs are going to look different," said Judith Solomon, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. "Where some people might be expecting national health reform, we're facing the real possibility that what you get is going to depend heavily on where you live."

The prospect of state control over the new system holds both promise and peril, said Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has advised Democrats on health reform. "The plus side is that states are uniquely positioned to reflect the tastes of their residents and market conditions. Plus, we can really learn from the different approaches states take," he said. The downside "is that states can screw up and not meet . . . minimum standards."

Oy. I'm betting on the downside.

The health-care package unveiled by House leaders Thursday comes closer to national reform, health policy experts said. It would create a national marketplace where those who lack insurance could shop for policies, including a plan designed and administered by federal health officials. States would play a supporting role, helping to design the largest expansion of Medicaid in 40 years and to develop high-risk insurance pools for people in immediate need of coverage.

The package under development in the Senate is a different story. A bill approved by the Finance Committee would leave virtually every major decision to state officials.

Rather than create a central marketplace for insurance, that measure would permit each state to establish its own "exchange" and decide which insurers have access to that market. States could let low-income families shop the exchanges or offer them some other kind of coverage, such as policies already offered to state employees. Under a provision authored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), states could even bypass the exchange mechanism and try to expand coverage in other ways.

The Finance Committee bill did not include a government insurance option; Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last week that he would add one before bringing a package to the Senate floor. But to appease Democratic moderates wary of a big new program, the availability of the public option, too, would be subject to state discretion.

Reid's opt-out plan is opposed by Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), the only Republican to support the Democratic-led reform effort. Snowe is pushing for a "trigger," which would create a public plan only in states where private insurers failed to offer policies that were broadly affordable.

Given that the Senate presents the larger political hurdle to passing legislation, political analysts expect its state-choice approach to prevail. That means that a White House signing ceremony for a health-reform bill could become a prelude to 50 state legislative battles over how to expand Medicaid, how to set up the exchanges and how to enforce new insurance regulations, as well as whether to give state residents access to a public plan.

Looks like we're going to see a push to open the public option. Get on the phones and let your congress creatures know you're behind it:

Sen. Ron Wyden has doubts about the scope of the public option plan announced Monday.

"I agree with Senator Reid that health reform should give Americans more options. Now, I want to work with him to ensure that all Americans can choose those options," Wyden said. "The bottom line is that the public option can’t really hold private insurers accountable if it is only competing for 10 percent of the insurance market, because private insurance companies aren’t going to change their business practices if 90 percent of their customers can’t take their business elsewhere.

"Real reform means empowering Americans to choose insurance that works well for them and their family, while rejecting plans that don’t. Including a public option is a step in the right direction, now let’s remove the firewalls in this bill that prevent Americans from choosing it," Wyden said in a statement.

[...][Jeff] Merkley, for example, said he would be unhappy if more Americans weren't able to select the so-called public option. As a member of one of the committees that wrote a health care bill, Merkley actively supported a government-option as the best way to maintain costs and provide greater choice. Merkley said in an interview Monday that he would press for any public option to be broadly available along the lines of an amendment he successfully offered in July when the bill was in committee.

Merkley's amendment is designed to give small businesses access to newly created health insurance exchanges that, in theory, breed competition by pooling the number of customers in a specific region. Merkley estimated that his amendment would allow nearly 25,000 more businesses – employing 485,000 workers – to enter the exchanges and 32 million people nationwide.
...

That amendment would increase the size of small businesses eligible for enter the national exchange that includes a public options. He also supports giving states the right expand the size of eligible businesses even more.

"What sense does it make to keep companies from going into the exchange?" he said.

As expected, Dems are pushing hard for something to show the voters. Too bad they didn't just drop the Medicare age, but oh well:

Democrats are pushing Senate leaders and the White House to speed up key benefits in the health reform bill to 2010, eager to give the party something to show taxpayers for their $900 billion investment in an election year.

The most significant changes to the health care system wouldn’t kick in until 2013 — two election cycles away. With Republicans expected to make next year a referendum on health care reform, Democrats are quietly lobbying to push up the effective dates on popular programs, so they'll have something to run on in the congressional midterm elections.

Democrats are anxious to mix the good with the bad since some of the pain would be phased in early, including more than $100 billion in industry fees that critics say could be passed on to consumers.

“We want to be able, within the cost framework and the implementation framework, to have as much start as early as possible, even though we know all of it can’t,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), a Finance Committee member who is working with other senators on the effort. “And the White House wants to have as much as possible to start.”

Under the Democratic wish list, senior citizens would receive discounts on brand-name drugs next year. Small businesses that provide insurance would see tax credits. And a $5 billion high-risk pool would cover people with preexisting conditions.

Democratic strategists expect the 2010 election to present a stark contrast between the parties, particularly if the health care bill receives minimal Republicans support. The front-load strategy could help blunt GOP attacks on the bill as a toxic mix of higher taxes, rising premiums and cuts to Medicare.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has released their own version of the AHIP propaganda report.

By releasing a transparently hyperbolic and self-serving study on the effects of health reform, the insurance industry appears to have blundered in a big way. They discredited themselves in the eyes of the media elite, alienated potentially sympathetic members of Congress, and rallied Democrats around a common foe.

So what are they doing now? They seem to be trying the same stunt again, with a brand new study. It's not as deceptive as the last one. But it's not going to win any points for intellectual honesty, either.

This time the study's sponsor is the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), rather than America's Health Insurance Programs. The hired gun accounting firm is Oliver Wyman, instead of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. But the message is the same as before: Pass reform, as currently envisioned, and insurance premiums will go way up...read on

Cohn thinks this report is slightly better than the last one, but they both end the same. If we implement health care reform they promise to raise your rates. Why isn't the media reporting this? They are threatening American lives and families and this should not be tolerated.

Digby also catches this and is not a happy camper about it either.

Can someone please explain to me why this isn't a blatant threat? Nice little health care system you have here. Be a shame if anything happened to it.

In a normal country, this kind of corporate threat, in which they openly say that unless they get their way, they will raise premiums sky high and make everyone suffer, would be considered criminal. After all, premium pricing is entirely in their hands --- and that's why we are in the terrible situation we are in today.

This is f*&king criminal. I'm sitting here and having a nice dream. I see Harry Reid acting like a real majority leader telling Congress that this is unacceptable. And then he fades to black and I'm transported to the House of Representatives. They are spending the day rebuking these reports for the phonies that they are and they pass legislation that makes it a criminal offense with a maximum of up to three years in jail for any lobby-bastards who put out bogus reports that are circulated to intimidate Americans. Now this is a fantasy I know, but they do spend hours of time making dedications of parks to the rich and famous people and in my fantasy they spend a couple of hours and threaten all groups that actively work to undermine legislation with lies.
And Alan Grayson leads the charge.

By the way, PricewaterhouseCoopers took so much heat for their frakked up AHIP report that they issued this statement.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the authors of AHIP's report, put out a statement last night that basically said, "Hey, we weren't paid to evaluate the effects of the entire bill, but rather a small slice of it." The statement only seems to reinforce critics' view that the report is skewed precisely because it doesn't take into account the totality of reform. PwC's report estimates that insurance premiums will rise faster under the proposed reforms than under the current system.

The last, and key, line from the statement: "If other provisions in health care reform are successful in lowering costs over the long term, those improvements would offset some of the impacts we have estimated.”

In other words, PwC is saying if reform's cost containment measures work, their estimate could be wrong.

So they are admitting that AHIP were liars. Nice.

I can't help wondering: Do you suppose Obama actually believed the insurance industry was on his side? I can't tell if they're really surprised or just pretending. But I don't think anyone here was all that shocked by these developments:

As the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday approved a 10-year, $829 billion bill to remake the health-care system, Obama's top advisers and the insurers moved into a more intense stage of conflict.

"The insurance industry has decided to lead the charge against health reform, and everyone recognizes their motives: profits," said White House deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer. "We are going to make sure they can't sink this effort at the last minute."

Pfeiffer castigated the industry for releasing a report Monday that concluded that the finance panel's bill would increase costs for consumers. "They made themselves a very good foil," he said.

The insurers, however, showed no sign of being chastened. America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, opened a fresh line of attack with a multistate advertising campaign warning that senior citizens enrolled in private Medicare plans could lose benefits under the legislation.

"Is it right to ask 10 million seniors on Medicare Advantage for more than their fair share?" the television spot asks. "Congress is proposing $100 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says many seniors will see cuts in benefits."

The Finance Committee's bill would reduce spending on the plans AHIP cites by $113 billion over the next decade, which could mean reduced insurer profits, higher co-payments by beneficiaries or fewer extra benefits such as eyeglasses and gym memberships.

"We want to begin to build an awareness of the potential implications to seniors," said AHIP President Karen Ignagni.

She declined to say how much money would be spent on the commercials airing in six states, but one advertising analyst said the industry has enough cash to pose a serious threat. "They can spend whatever they feel they need to influence this," said Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group. "Seniors are a very important group politically."

The insurance sector and health maintenance organizations spent more than $116 million on lobbying in the first six months of this year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

So in a bit of attempted last-minute blackmail, AHIP pulls a suspicious-looking rabbit from their hat. They're worried about families' costs? All the more reason to approve a strong public option!

After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.

The critique, coming one day before a critical Senate committee vote on the legislation, sparked a sharp response from the Obama administration. It also signaled an end to the fragile detente between two central players in this year's health-care reform drama.

Industry officials said they intend to circulate the report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers on Capitol Hill and promote it in new advertisements. That could complicate Democratic hopes for action on the legislation this week.

Administration officials, who spent much of the spring and summer wooing the insurers, questioned the timing and authorship of the report, which was paid for by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an industry trade group.

"Those guys specialize in tax shelters," said Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform. "Clearly this is not their area of expertise."

Yes, not only is it not their area of expertise, the brand carries with them a history of conflicts of interest and even fraud. As recently as 2007, PwC paid $225 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by shareholders of Tyco International Ltd. over a multibillion-dollar accounting fraud.

It seems to me that AHIP is very, very unhappy about the relatively minor changes in the Baucus bill that give the insurance industry slightly less of a stranglehold on the process via the insurance mandate. I mean, how dare we include a hardship exemption?

Now let's watch Democrats spend all day defending the crappy Baucus bill as if it were the tablets Moses brought down from the mountaintop.

As I discussed last week, members of Congress not only have great health insurance, they also have access to the superb on-site Office of the Attending Physician for themselves and their family for a mere pittance. So of course they don't understand!

I think Nick Kristof makes a fine suggestion here and we should ask Congress to do it to show they're working in good faith:

Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.

It may be that the lulling effect of having very fine health insurance leaves members of Congress insensitive to the dysfunction of our existing insurance system. So what better way to attune our leaders to the needs of their constituents than to put them in the same position?

About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.

Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.

Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.

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Rachel Maddow highlighted our Blue America ad which calls out Blanche Lincoln over her stance on the public option.

A Bad Day to Oppose Health Reform

Rachel Maddow: And of course there has been a barrage of ads taken out by progressive groups targeting conservative and potentially vulnerable Democrats like Senator Blanche Lincoln and Congressman Mike Ross both of Arkansas both of who have said they oppose a public health insurance option. A brand new ad produced by the political action committee Blue America just started running last night.

...Ad: We can barely pay our bills and Blanche Lincoln is worried about the insurance companies?...

Maddow: This is what a full court press for health reform looks like. And the terrible, no good, very bad day for the anti-health reform forces today is what it looks when a full court press is working.

There is a full-court press going on and I want to thank the blogosphere for not sitting back and letting Conservadems dictate the terms of the debate.

Digby writes:

We don't know what Lincoln's going to do. She, along with Conrad and Baucus, are the only Democrats to vote against all forms of the PO in the Finance Committee. It's hard to imagine that she's going to vote for a plan that contains one on the floor. But there is no reason that she shouldn't allow her party to have an up or down vote even if she votes no in the end. It's all about cloture at this point and we need to keep the pressure on.

Cloture, cloture cloture.

And as Howie points out, even the very shaky Rasmussen polling outfit shows she's in big trouble now:

...it's still worth noting that they are another firm, even if a compromised one, showing that Blanche Lincoln is likely to be looking for a new line of work next year.

Arkansas' Blanche Lambert Lincoln trails all four of her leading Republican challengers in the first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey in the state.

Lincoln fails to get 50% of the vote in any of the match-ups, and any incumbent who falls short of that level is considered vulnerable.

And don't forget to chip in a few bucks if you can, so we can run more ads against anybody who opposes the public option.

(h/t Heather at Video Cafe for making the video clip.)

As a Californian, one of the enduring takeaways of the Schwarzenegger era is just how much latitude he is given on the national level as some kind of transformative post-partisan leader, when those same reporters know that California is crumbling into dust under, and in many cases because of, his leadership. We witnessed this again today as national media types heaped praise on the Governor issuing a letter about the Obama health care reform plan:

“As Governor, I have made significant efforts to advance health reform in California. As the Obama Administration was launching the current debate on health care reform, I hosted a bipartisan forum in our state because I believe in the vital importance of this issue, and that it should be addressed through bipartisan cooperation.

“Our principal goals, slowing the growth in costs, enhancing the quality of care delivered, improving the lives of individuals, and helping to ensure a strong economic recovery, are the same goals that the president is trying to achieve. I appreciate his partnership with the states and encourage our colleagues on both sides of the political aisle at the national level to move forward and accomplish these vital goals for the American people.”

I love the phrase "significant efforts," by the way. Others might call them "failed efforts," but YMMV.

But this "praise" for health care reform is just a piece of paper. One would think that the national media would seek to know the actions of the Governor on health care - one would be wrong, but one would still think that. And it would take about 10 seconds of Googling to figure out that the Governor has vetoed key elements of the legislation working through Congress. Last year he vetoed AB1945, which would have banned rescission, the insurance industry practice of dumping sick customers for technical violations on their applications like typos the moment that they try to use their policies for treatment. He vetoed SB840, the universal health care bill, on multiple occasions in the past. He vetoed SB1440, which would have mandated that insurance companies spend 85% of premiums on medical care. He vetoed SB973, which would have created a public insurance option by linking local and regional measures. He vetoed AB2, expanding the state's high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions.

He basically has vetoed many of the same provisions to be found in the current health care bill. And he is threatening to veto every bill on his desk this year, including another bill to ban rescissions so that customers who have paid insurance premiums for years aren't left to die when they want to use their policies. Anthony Wright notes some of the other bills:

* AB 119 (Jones): GENDER RATING, to prohibit insurers from charging different premium rates based on gender.

* AB 2 (De La Torre): INDEPENDENT REVIEW, to create an independent review process when an insurer wishes to rescind a consumer's health policy, create new standards and requirements for medical underwriting, and requires state review before plan approval. Also raises the standard in existing law so that coverage can only be rescinded if a consumer willfully misrepresents his health history.

* AB 98 (De La Torre): MATERNITY COVERAGE, to require all individual insurance policies to cover maternity services.

* AB 244 (Beall): MENTAL HEALTH PARITY, to require most health plans to provide coverage for all diagnosable mental illnesses.

Dan Walters, one of the few pundits left in the state, calls these bills "nothing of cosmic importance". Well sure, he's not going to have a kid, and women are charged more than men by insurance companies anyway! To an entitled white man with a good-paying job, he doesn't have to worry about losing his policy or not getting comprehensive medical coverage. But to a woman who can't afford to lose her job to have a baby, or someone with a mental health problem who can't get relief for his suffering, or someone with an individual policy living constantly in fear that his or her insurance will get revoked precisely when they need it, these are issues of "cosmic importance." Anyone saying otherwise is ignorant.

And yet the Governor will have no problem holding these bills, and these people, hostage. His buddies at the Chamber of Commerce probably don't want him to sign them at all. So he writes a pretty letter supporting health care reform, while denying the very same measures to his own constituents. And national media types call him a "bold leader."

I had to make a less compelling but similar choice several years ago, when one of my cousins, who also had PKD, asked us all to get tested for possible transplant donation. I was out of work and uninsured, and I knew if I had any complications, I couldn't afford treatment. Even though I felt really bad about it, I didn't get tested.

Isn't it horrible that we're making moral decisions on such immoral grounds? The more I see of the disgusting horse-trading going on over the public option, the more convinced I become that a national (and probably single-payer) health care system is our only sane option.

Nick Kristof:

So what would you do if your mom or dad, or perhaps your sister or brother, needed a kidney donation and you were the one best positioned to donate?

Most of us would worry a little and then step forward. But not so fast. Because of our dysfunctional health insurance system, a disgrace that nearly half of all members of Congress seem determined to cling to, stepping up to save a loved one can ruin your own chance of ever getting health insurance.

That wrenching trade-off is another reminder of the moral bankruptcy of our existing insurance system. It’s one more reason to pass robust reform this year.

Over the last week I’ve been speaking to David Waddington, a 58-year-old wine retailer in Dallas, along with his wife and two sons. I’d love to know what the opponents of health reform think families like this should do.

Mr. Waddington has polycystic kidney disease, or PKD, a genetic disorder that leads to kidney failure. First he lost one kidney, and then the other. A year ago, he was on dialysis and desperately needed a new kidney. Doctors explained that the best match — the one least likely to be rejected — would perhaps come from Travis or Michael, his two sons, then ages 29 and 27.

Travis and Michael each had a 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD. And if pre-donation testing revealed that one of them had the disorder, that brother might never be able to get health insurance. As a result, their doctors had advised not getting tested. After all, new research suggests that lack of insurance increases a working-age person’s risk of dying in any given year by 40 percent.

“At the time David needed a transplant, the people closest to him couldn’t even offer a lifesaving donation — for insurance reasons,” said Mr. Waddington’s wife, Susan.

Travis, who is living in New York and working toward a math doctorate, is anguished at having to weigh insurance obstacles against the chance to save his dad.

“Can you put a price on your father’s life?” he asked. “My brother and I talked it over privately, and agreed that we should both go ahead and get tested anyway. It seemed like the only course of action. We presented our plan to our parents, and of course Mom immediately shot it down, with Dad firmly behind her.

“We had to respect their right to want to protect us. But it was enraging to be in that situation, and to be completely impotent to do anything to help. I told myself a number of times that we would reconsider the issue of testing if Dad’s dialysis stopped working before he got a transplant.”

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Soon we'll find out if the Senate is really going to buck President Obama on the deal he cut with Big Pharma. I wonder how serious this is:

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, a member of Democratic leadership, isn't a party to that bargain. "Senator Dorgan intends to offer an amendment to the health reform bill and his expectation is that it will be one of the first amendments considered," his spokesman Justin Kitsch told HuffPost in an e-mail. "Prescription drug importation is an immediate way to put downward pressure on health care costs. It has bipartisan support, and has been endorsed by groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses and AARP."

U.S. patients pay far more than the rest of the world for prescription drugs. The Canadian government keeps prices down by using its purchasing power to negotiate for lower rates. Dorgan wants American consumers in on the deal.

A bill to allow re-importation -- S. 1232 - has 30 cosponsors, several Republicans among them, including Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, John Thune (S.D.) and David Vitter (La.).

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would result in $50 billion in direct savings over the next decade, with $10.6 billion of that being savings to the federal government.

[...] The amendment threatens to blow up the deal Baucus and the White House cut with the drug makers. According to the deal, re-importation would not be part of comprehensive health care reform. And if the measure does save $50 billion, that will come from Big Pharma revenue and take it above the $80 billion in cuts it agreed to over ten years. It puts Congress on a collision course with its trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

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Rachel Maddow breaks down who is behind the smears against ACORN and why, and how dishonest the reporting has been by the right wing media on the topic.

MADDOW: It may seem like the only thing happening in Congress these days is the never-ending fight over and of health reform. But if you happen to be watching the House floor at 3:00 this afternoon, this is what you would have seen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE KING ®, IOWA: Who has consistently called for the clean-

up of the corrupt ACORN, the criminal enterprise ACORN and all of their affiliates? It‘s been people on the Republican side of the aisle that have done that. This is the star of ACORN. He is—he is the lead chief organizer. He is the—he is the person who told the people at ACORN, “I will invite you into the—and we will be setting the agenda for America,” even before he is inaugurated as president of the United States. This is the man who worked for ACORN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: This is the star of ACORN!

That was paranoid Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa, today, railing against the community organizing group ACORN, and falsely accusing President Obama of being ACORN‘s lead chief organizer. This sort of animus toward ACORN is something that‘s been percolating on the right for a really long time, but it‘s broken open recently as even Democrats in Congress have decided to go along with efforts to defund and demonize ACORN, and some Republican governors have even enthusiastically defunded ACORN as well, despite the fact that those governors didn‘t fund them in the first place.

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