DOWNLOADS: (1020)

PLAYS: (1000)

Embed

Among the many illogical disconnects that have accompanied Glenn Beck's eliminationist jihad against progressives, none has been more glaring than Beck's seeming embrace of progressive civil-rights leaders like Martin Luther King.

That contradiction was simply glaring on Beck's show yesterday, when he started out by reminding everyone of the ground rules of his program's running thesis:

Beck: The enemy is not the Republicans. It's not the Democrats. It's not the President. It's not! It's the distortion of the truth, that's the enemy. That somehow or another, Big Government is good. That's not true! The Founders have been proven right, over and over and over again. When the government gets too big or out of control, it always ends the same way. And it's not a happy ending.

We're putting a documentary out called, "Progressivism: America's Cancer." It is an in-depth look at how progressives threw America way off track around the turn of the century.

For a sample of just how accurate this documentary will be, Beck then explained how exemplary those pro-gun protesters were outside the Capitol, and wasn't it remarkable how there wasn't even a pistol-whipping? But he couldn't even get this right: Beck proclaimed they had "loaded guns!" outside the Capitol, but that's not accurate: The people carrying guns had to protest outside D.C., in Virginia:

In the nation's capital, where possession of guns is strictly regulated, they came carrying only signs and handbills, which one man had thrust into an empty holster.

Beck then went on a rant contending that Bill Clinton was to blame for Oklahoma City because he had so angered right-wing nutcases like tim McVeigh that of course he was bound to go off sooner or later. (Sorta aligns with Beck's theory that if Tea Party violence erupts, it will have been deliberately provoked by Obama and Co.)

Ah, but because they have weathered this awful media storm of being accused of being unhinged xenophobes, the Tea Party folks therefore deserve to be compared to the gallant Civil Rights marchers of the 1960s, at least on Planet GlennBeckia -- because they used to say things just like that about Martin Luther King!

Beck: America Tea Party goers, you are in good company. Standing up against the government -- a government that you feel is grabbing too much power or is out of control. If you do it peacefully, you are in good company. And so far, that's the only evidence they have. Peace.

In a finishing touch, the "Speak Boldly" promotional segment then featured footage from the 1960s Civil Rights marches.

Ironically, it was just a couple of weeks ago that Glenn Beck was chiding John Lewis -- one of the most important figures of the Civil Rights era -- for having dared to walk through the crowd of anti-health-care Tea Partiers "because they wanted to compare themselves to the civil rights activists. How dare you!" he cried.

Even more ironic is a simple fact that seems to have eluded Beck's attention: Civil Rights always have been a progressive cause. And Martin Luther King was a major progressive figure. As we explained:

Continue reading »

First there was Dr. Cassell firing patients. Then there's "dermdoc" bragging on a message board that he has just laid off his first Obama-voting employee. From CBS News' Political Hotsheet:

Last Friday, someone going by the name "dermdoc" posted a thread on a message board for Texas A&M students and alumni with this topic: "Laid off my first Obama voting employee today."

"Our reimbursement rates are spiraling downward, taxes are projected to go up with Obamacare, so I did it," the person wrote. He later added: "I made this decision because I can."

"It is kind of interesting watching their face as you explain to them the economic consequences of the policies of the guy they voted for," wrote dermdoc.

The original message board thread has now been removed, but that didn't deter "dermdoc" from expanding on his original thesis.

"Elections have consequences," wrote dermdoc. "If you vote for someone who raises my taxes and lowers my income, you pay the cost."

"My office manager and med business guru have calculated that this is just the beginning. Tax rates are going to go through the roof with additional Obamacare taxes AND the expiration of the Bush tax cuts," he added. "And most analysts think reimbursement rates for docs will go down about 20-25% the next 2 years, and that is BEFORE Obamacare really kicks in."

(h/t Mugsy)

Before I go sideways ballistic on this guy, I'll try and sort out fact from fiction, just a bit.

Reimbursement Rates for doctors

Reimbursement rates for doctors are part of the famous "docfix" package that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is holding hostage along with an extension on unemployment benefits. The House passed the docfix last year, but the Senate is a bit slower on the uptake, largely due to the political obstructions placed on the pathway by the likes of Senator Coburn and his cohorts.

From the name "dermdoc", it can be inferred he is a specialist, probably a dermatologist. Specialists are a bit piqued about the health reform bill because it allows for a bonus to primary care providers, to encourage incentives for more to either return to or enter the field.

As insurance companies took over more health management authority, it was far more lucrative for doctors to skip primary care entirely and jump into a specialty. Medicare and insurance reimbursement rates have always been far in excess of what they pay primary care physicians. There are two consequences to this. First, the number of primary care physicians dropped drastically; and second, health care costs careened out of control as specialists tended to order state-of-the-art testing and treatments.

One of the centerpieces of the health care reform bill is to put primary care providers back in the center of the health care picture. This is good for us and it's good for reducing costs, because most conditions don't require a specialist, and having a primary doctor who knows you, your family, and your specific circumstances means there's a history they can draw upon to make decisions about treatments. This doesn't mean specialists aren't necessary. They are, but not always as a first-line option.

Consequently, specialists are a bit annoyed at the prospect of losing their monopoly over different parts of your body to a more holistic approach.

Beyond that, isn't it time that doctors considered the cost-saving measures in the law? After all, streamlining claims procedures, Medicare codes, implementing electronic health records, and standardizing it all is also part of "Obamacare". Doesn't it make sense that if they save money on these aspects of providing care, it will flow through to them?

dermdoc's real issue: The Bush tax cuts expire 12/31/2010

Make no mistake. When the Bush tax cuts expire, there will be screams from many different corners of the country. All the high rollers will (gasp!) have to pay a reasonable income tax for the privilege of keeping 75 cents on every dollar or so. Pardon me if I don't bend over weeping for those earning in excess of $300,000 when they have to pay extra taxes. That Medicare tax increase for "Obamacare"? An extra $900 or so. Big Frickin' Deal.

And check this comment on the same thread:

But race didn't have anything to do with this doctor's feelings toward Obama, his employee, or the health care bill, did it? None whatsoever. Sure thing.

My personal message to whining doctors

Get over yourselves. It's law, it's staying law, and you're going to make a boatload of money one way or the other so you can fund your racist conservative teabagging buddies in the Southern states. If it's so repugnant to you to practice medicine for the welfare of patients instead of the welfare of your checkbook, get out of the medical profession, get out of the way, and let someone who gives a damn step in your place.

And pass your 35% tax credit for insuring those employees over this way, would you? The most absurd part of this doctor's rant is that he either doesn't give his employees health insurance, in which case he's part of the problem, or he does. If he does, and his practice has less than 25 employees he's entitled to a 35% tax credit on what he pays to cover them. A dollar-for-dollar tax reduction on cost of benefits for employees that he didn't have last year.

In the end, all politics is local, and what dermdoc did was retaliate out of political pique at an employee who now will drive his tax bill up by claiming unemployment benefits. Good job there, dermdoc. Mighty compassionate of you, but not very fiscally responsible.

UPDATE (Nicole): Apparently unused to the wild and wooly world of the blogosphere and the unvarnished criticisms that go with it, "dermdoc" has denied any layoffs and slams the media for not doing any actually confirming before running the story (h/t Scott):

there was no layoff of anyone at my office.

Any of you reddit dweebs can check my employment records or call my office on Monday.

IT WAS ALL A TROLL!

I was merely making a hypothetical because of frustration with decreased reimbursements and future increased taxes.

It is really hard to believe that simply by posting a topic on the internet that I could make newspapers, several national talk radio talk shows-WITHOUT ANY VERIFICATION.

Whatever. What has the US become when you have entire web sites of people sitting around just waiting to screw with people and their families without even checking out the source.

Granted, all of this is my fault but any "Ag" who would screw with other Ags or this website because of one unverified post needs to seriously check out their life.

All you lefties can call off the preemptive strikes on me or my family, my wife actually was the one who made me do this because she feared for our safety.

I am done.

Guess dermdoc should consider himself lucky that his story wasn't one that Drudge, Malkin or Breitbart would have a problem with. If he thought lefties were harsh on him, can you imagine what those readers would have said?

DOWNLOADS: (2717)

PLAYS: (5485)

Embed

We felt a sense of dread last November when Glenn Beck announced his "100-year plan" for America:

Beck then describes "The Plan," which he says is analogical to "lifeboats" on the Titanic: He says he's assembling a team of "experts" to help him shape a movement that will produce GlennBeckian electoral victories in 2010. (Obviously, that NY-23 experiment didn't turn out so hot.) These experts are being hired to work on policy areas such as the economy, the environment, national security, etc.

Beck: And what I've done, is I've found two really smart people in each category, two really -- oh, they just have all kinds of experience. And then I have coupled them with one rebel -- one radical. I hear that's popular to be a radical now.

But these radicals are not the radicals wearing the Che T-shirts. These radicals are the ones wearing the Jefferson T-shirts!

Beck had already displayed a propensity to traduce history in order to push his thesis that the progressive movement is the Enemy of America, which recently reached full flower in his pseudo-documentary based on Jonah Goldberg's pseudo-history portraying progressives as the font of all the great genocides of the past century.

Will Bunch reports that this fondness for fake history is about to extend to church-state separation issues -- and will tread into territory long hold by far-right extremists.

Bunch reports that Beck has released the first concrete details about Beck's "experts" for "The Plan":

It is an eight hour event. You and I on stage with three different experts. David Barton is going to be the first one and we're going to talk about the meaning of faith in America. All the lies that you have been told, that this isn't a nation of faith, that religion played no role. I'm you will be stunned when you learn and see the real history that is no longer taught.

As Bunch notes:

The real reason that history "is no longer taught" is because...it's bogus.

As Will explains:

Barton is the founder of a Texas-based group called the WallBuilders, a foundation devoted to proving that the roots of the United States and its Constitution are not based on the separation of church of state -- as is widely believed and widely taught -- but as country built upon a bedrock of Christianity. That is also the premise of a widely circulated book that Barton published in the 1990s called "The Myth of Separation" -- a book that was eventually re-written and issued under a different name because it was larded with bad information, some of which nevertheless became gospel on conservative talk radio. As noted in the 2006 Texas Monthly article (via Nexis):

In 1995 the historian Robert Alley attempted to trace the provenance of a quote that Rush Limbaugh had mistakenly attributed to James Madison, in which Madison purportedly called the Ten Commandments the foundation of American civilization. All roads led to David Barton, whose The Myth of Separation attributed the following quote to Madison: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." Barton cited two sources for the quote: a 1939 book by Harold K. Lane called Liberty! Cry Liberty! and Frederick Nyneyer's 1958 book First Principles in Morality and Economics: Neighborly Love and Ricardo's Law of Association. Alley couldn't find the quote anywhere in Nyneyer's book, however, and eventually concluded that Barton had pulled it from an article in a journal with the unlikely title Progressive Calvinism, which, in turn, had attributed it to something called the "1958 calendar of Spiritual Mobilization." In any case, Alley reported, the editors of Madison's papers were unable to find anything in his writings that was even remotely similar. "In addition," they added, "the idea is inconsistent with everything we know about Madison's views on religion and government, which he expressed time and time again in public and in private."

Barton previously appeared on Fox News' show hosted by Mike Huckabee, to promote the same nonsense. And as we noted then:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1312)

PLAYS: (3695)

Embed

Steven Hayward asked a key question this weekend: "Is Conservatism Brain Dead?" The key paragraph was this:

About the only recent successful title that harkens back to the older intellectual style is Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism," which argues that modern liberalism has much more in common with European fascism than conservatism has ever had. But because it deployed the incendiary f-word, the book was perceived as a mood-of-the-moment populist work, even though I predict that it will have a long shelf life as a serious work. Had Goldberg called the book "Aspects of Illiberal Policymaking: 1914 to the Present," it might have been received differently by its critics. And sold about 200 copies.

There's one little problem with this: The entire thesis of Goldberg's book is a fraud. Goldberg not only deployed the F-word, he built the entire book on a false, historically untenable, claim: that "fascism, properly understood," is not a right-wing phenomenon but a left-wing one.

Indeed, the spread of Goldberg's thesis into conventional wisdom on the right is one of the main drivers in the transformation of conservatism into a pack of mouth-foaming pseudo-populists:

One of the most persistent components of this is the right's ardent embrace of the fraudulent thesis of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism -- to wit, that "properly understood, fascism is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left." The embrace of this fraud as somehow truthful has produced those teabaggers' signs bearing swastikas (suggesting that health-care reform is fascist) and signs showing Barack Obama as Hitler and, moreover, the claims that Obama is marching the nation down the road to fascism.

It's been particularly embraced by movement conservatives in their efforts to whitewash from public view the existence of right-wing extremists among their ranks.

The impact of this embrace on our national discourse has been deeper than probably anyone suspected when the book was first published last year. Not only is Goldberg's thesis now taken as an article of faith by such right-wing talkers as Rush Limbaugh (who probably helped inspire Goldberg's thesis in any event), Glenn Beck, Michael Savage,, but also among the teabagging protesters whose ranks are increasingly filled by real right-wing extremists.

What's most noteworthy, perhaps, is that Goldberg's thesis is being used to attack anyone who points out the frequently violent and intimidating behavior of these extremists. It's not the right-wing protesters carrying open weapons, Obama=Hitler signs, and openly disrupting the discussion of health-care reform at town-hall sessions who are behaving like Brownshirts, they insist -- it's the liberals who show enough nerve to stand up to them!

You can trace a lot of the popularization of Goldberg's thesis to Beck's open promotion of it, as in the video above from earlier this year. And when you're talking about brain-dead conservatives, Beck is safely Subject No. 1.

Oddly enough, though, Hayward then goes on to suggest that perhaps Beck himself is the chief hope for ending conservatism's intellectual drought. Oy.

If Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Beck are the leading intellectual lights of this generation of conservatives, there can be no other answer to Hayward's question than an affirmative one.

[H/t to Mitch.]

American Street: Our public discourse is so broken, so dysfunctional, that privileged people worth millions can describe someone with a background like Obama's, as elitist, and be taken seriously.

Emptywheel: John 'Torture' Yoo and academic freedom.

MoJo Blog: Cops and former Secret Service agents ran black ops on Greenpeace and other progressive groups.

Roger Ailes: The Senate Gay-Straight Alliance Club

Politics in the Zeros : Dr. Greenspan's amazing invisible thesis

Mark Of The Beast: Don't Sugarcoat It award-winner for today...

Mike's Blog Round Up

Air America Radio: Today on the show, State of Belief, Rev. Welton Gaddy exposes the coordinated effort to undermine mainline Protestantism -- and render America's largest denominations incapable of standing up to right wing politics.

The Poor Man Institute: Universities need to start opening departments of wingnuttery, where you can write your PhD thesis (IN ALL CAPS!!) about how slavery never, ever, ever happened.

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying: George W. Bush's tortured defense of Cartoon Roundup