Have you wondered who started the whole euthanasia talking point going? Where did it originate and why was it put there? Of all the silly things.

It was Republican Johnny Isakson from Georgia who introduced the Soylent Green amendment in the Senate bill because he learned his lessons well from the Terri Schiavo incident. And he's shocked that conservatives have taken his amendment and made a mockery of it.

The most awesome Digby has the story:

Ezra found a semi-sane Republican on the "The Dingoes Want Moy Bayby" controversy. He's Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who turns out to be the guy who put the Soylent Green amendment in the Senate bill:

Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?

What we're talking about in the health care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that's because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia "durable power of attorney," you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you're unable to make those decisions.

This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it's to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It's just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.

How did this become a question of euthanasia?

I have no idea. I understand -- and you have to check this out -- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.

You're saying that this is not a question of government. It's for individuals.

It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you...read on

Keep reading the piece to find out Why is the state of Georgia trying to kill your grandmother? Where will it end?
Why haven't the media interviewed Johnny Isakson dozens of times so the truth can get out to America? Instead, we have crazy people yelling Beckerwocky and shouting down the town halls.

Good job, Ezra, for going to the source. Your pals at the WaPo can learn something.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (851)

PLAYS: (1136)

UPDATE: Nancy Pelosi is joining with me and just spoke out about the August recess:

Nancy Pelosi on staying through August:

Asked at a press conference whether she'd support keeping the House of Representatives in session into the August recess to complete work on health care reform, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was fairly adamant.

"I think 70 percent of the American people would want that," she said. "I want a bill. I have no doubt we have the votes on the floor of the House to pass this legislation," she said.

When I heard Joe Lieberman say on MSNBC that he wanted to wait until after the August recess and take the health care bill home with him during his vacation to read it I knew it was a ball of lies to destroy the legislation and it got me thinking. What if the gang of six and the rest of Congress had to forfeit their vacations in August so they could finish up a health care bill? Could it stop them from making a mockery out of this important legislation and actually get the bill done on time like it should be? That's one of the reasons why I asked President Obama if he would tell Congress to forego their August recess if they try and stall the health care legislation on the Blogger Conference call.

Andrea Mitchell picked up on it and asked Senator Wyden about needing more time. Wyden said he'd give up his vacation to get it done.

Mitchell: Senator, do you think these bills could be done by the August break or should there be more time?

Wyden: I want to stick to the president's time table. The president said, he wanted health coverage legislation passed this year. I think he's right to put his foot to the peddle, I support that. Now the letter that the moderate sent, we don't say anything about delaying the August recess, In fact I'm prepared to stay here all the way through the August recess. I told my wife and my spouse, nothing is more important in my view than fixing health care. You can't get the economy on track unless you fix health care. I'm prepared to put off the August recess.

Mitchell: What did your wife have to say about that?

She wasn't exactly cheering for it, but she said ever since you were co-director of Panthers I've heard you talk about this issue so you ought to stay with it.

Mitchell: OK, support from the home front...

I know Andrea Mitchell thought she was making a joke when she brought up his wife, but this isn't a jokey situation. It's real and it's a crisis and they better do their jobs. America is waiting. And if it means that they work like most of America then so be it.

The media is picking up this question now more and more and hopefully they will ask all the Blue Dogs and conservative Dems if they will forego the August recess and work to get us a bill.

By the way, Paul Krugman debunked the gang of six in his post: The six deadly hypocrites

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (2458)

PLAYS: (12195)

Bill O'Reilly must be feeling a bit sensitive these days about the ongoing mockery of his work over at Comedy Central in the form of Jon Stewart's Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's show, which is essentially a running parody of O'Reilly anyway.

Last night, he even deigned to respond -- first, to Stewart, with smug, self-serving BS, and then to Colbert by attempting comedy. Which, as you can see, might be funny to someone with long-term dementia, but otherwise ... well, Bill, don't quit your day job.

Actually, the self-serving crap was really quite funny:

O'Reilly: Like Mr. Stewart, we like to poke a little fun -- but we're not hateful. Unlike Jon, we give the entire story, because our audience wants that.

That gave me quite a chuckle.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (2735)

PLAYS: (3418)

On this morning's Morning Joe, Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough were all over President Obama for having shaken Hugo Chavez's hand, and worse still, having sat through Daniel Ortega's anti-American tirade:

Buchanan: Barack Obama allowed himself to be disrespected. Now if that's the way he wants to do it personally, that's personal. But he's the President of the United States, and his country was savaged and smeared down there, and he grinned all the way through it.

Later, he continues in the same vein:

Buchanan: But I think he allowed himself to be disrespected. The perception was he was being made a mockery of down there. Chavez was up there putting that stupid anti-American book in his face. He gets lectured for fifty minutes, then he goes over to Morales and tells him how wonderful it is that he's an indigenous -- Morales is an enthno-nationalist. He believes the Spanish and the white people should be put down because they've run things --

Hmmm. I'm not so sure Pat Buchanan is the guy to be complaining about someone else being an ethno-nationalist.

Steve Benen is right: this is just another fake controversy like the DHS-bulletin flap, a hissy fit that lets Republicans avoid talking about actually fixing the nation's problems.

Obama apparently expected the excessive whining, and noted over the weekend the "great differences" he has with Chavez, including the Venezuelan president's "inflammatory" rhetoric and his unhelpful role in Latin America.

"It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States," Obama told reporters. "I don't think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela."

That, of course, doesn't matter. Gingrich & Co. need a new meme, and they settled on this one over the weekend.

What I find odd, though, is the underlying message. Leading Republicans make it sound as if America's stature is so fragile, it is easily weakened by casual courtesies at an international forum. President Obama, in contrast, acts as if America's stature is strong, and can withstand a handshake with a foreign head of state. Since when does the GOP find it useful to promote the idea of American weakness?

DOWNLOAD (25)

PLAY (113)

Senator Obama was in full mockery mode today at his rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Deep down, John McCain knows his economic theories don't work. That's why his campaign said if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose. That's why I keep on talking about the economy. They don't want to talk about the economy. But that's what you want to talk about. That's what affects your lives day in and day out. Now, because he knows his economic theories don't work, he's been spending these last few days calling me every name in the book. Lately he's called me a socialist for wanting to roll back the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can give some tax relief to the middle class. I don't know what's next. By next week he'll be calling me a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Look, that's his choice. That's the kind of campaign he chooses to run. But you have a choice, too.

It would be even funnier if it weren't true. Case in point: Neal Boortz in the digital pages of World Nut Daily, arguing that public schools are brainwashing children into embracing communism. I kid you not.

The students are seated, the bell rings. As fast as you can say the Pledge of Allegiance without the "under God" part, the indoctrination begins. The government teacher steps in front of her virtual hostages and promptly delivers the first raw lesson in the power of government. The students are instructed to bring all of their precious school supplies – their property – to the front of the classroom and put them into a huge box. They are told that the supplies belong to all of the class now, and the teacher will assume the responsibility of distributing the supplies as they are needed.

"Whoaa! Hold on a minute here! These are my supplies. My daddy bought them for me. You can't have them! They're mine!"

Nope. Sorry! They were yours. Now all those supplies belong to – guess who? The government!

Behold the leading lights of the modern "intellectual" conservative movement.