I was delighted yesterday when Rep.  Alan Grayson (D) – FL decided to give the Republicans a taste of their own medicine on the House floor.  His tongue-in-cheek speech that the GOP’s health care plan consists of “don’t get sick” and if you do to “die quickly” was intended to drive home the point that the Republicans’ politically motivated opposition to reform will simply perpetuate the problem.

Predictably, the irony-challenged and apparently amnesiac House Republicans seized on Grayson’s remarks (which don’t differ substantively from the pronouncements of Grayson’s Republican colleagues), sanctimoniously demanding an apology and comparing him to Rep. Joe Wilson (R) – SC. I don’t really want to go down that road as it’s already being explored except to ask how many of those Republicans voted against the measure to censure Wilson?

I’m more interested in the liberal reaction to Grayson.

Last night on MSNBC I watched as Keith Olbermann and Ariana Huffington lauded Grayson while tut-tutting Grayson’s use of the word ‘holocaust’. Later Rachel Maddow did the same thing and during her interview with Grayson, she asked him at least three times whether he regretted his use of the word. Not only did this make me angry, it got me thinking.

I don’t contend that Olbermann, Huffington and Maddow are wrong to take exception with Grayson’s use of the word ‘holocaust’. I agree with them that it’s both a distraction and an inaccurate comparison.  But I think that the real distraction is that they feel the need to chide him for it.

Imagine if a Republican had made an identical speech. Would Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh criticize their fellow traveler for an unfortunate choice of words? No. They would circle the wagons and press their point.

Conservatives are better at gut-level communications. They aren’t afraid of their own shadows. Wrong as they are, you have to give them credit for sticking to their guns. They ruthlessly deliver their message to its intended recipients.

Opponents of reform would much rather argue about decorum and the proper usage of ‘holocaust’ than fix the existing system. Olbermann, Huffington and Maddow are simply playing into their hands. In this regard they remind of the so-called Blue dog Democrats. If health reform is defeated or watered down so as to be meaningless it will be the Blue dogs’ fault, not the Republicans.  If Democrats like Grayson who want to take a stand fail to deliver their message, part of the responsibility for that failure will rest with PC-obsessed media liberals who dilute that message with silly nattering over his choice of words.

The Democrats need more Graysons. People who aren’t afraid to call the hypocrites out. Instead of eating their own, the three aforementioned liberals (all of whom I like and respect) need to be driving home Grayson’s point. Health reform is too important to bother with self-defeating arguments over semantics.

The news that al-Qaeda is not enthused about Obama’s victory must have conservatives scratching their knuckle-heads. Obama, you will remember was the candidate whose dangerous naivete would make us more vulnerable to attack. His habit of “palling around with terrorists” was practically an invitation to commit another 9/11.

I think that al-Qaeda is concerned about the incoming Obama administration. Worried that the U.S. will finally have a president who takes terrorism seriously, they have already begun to lash out.

I wonder what that crazy lady, the one who told McCain that she couldn’t trust Obama because “he’s an Arab” thinks about all this. Actually, I bet she doesn’t think anything about it because a) she doesn’t seem to be much of a thinker and b) chances are she doesn’t read the New York Times.

If al-Qaeda’s endorsement of John McCain wasn’t enough to do it, their racists insults against our President-elect should erase these harebrained notions from the public consciousness once and for all.

Yay! The withered, corrupt old felon from Alaska has been defeated. The AP has just called the Alaska Senate race for Mark Begich. Too bad Sarah Palin isn’t going to get the chance to appoint herself.

http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/nation/stevens-loses-alaska-senate-race-248678.html

I’m sick of Bush and Cheney ruining my country. The sooner they’re gone the better. Here’s my evil three step plan to get Obama in the White House now.

Step 1: Dick Cheney resigns.

Step 2: Bush appoints Obama to be Vice-President. Senate confirms overwhelmingly.

Step 3: Bush resigns and Obama succeeds him immediately.

The nation is crying out for leadership. If Bush gives a crap about America and wants to help Obama start digging us out of this hole, he’ll follow this advice rather than spending the next two months pardoning criminals, burrowing his political appointees into federal agencies, rewarding cronies, issuing destructive executive orders and relaxing regulations. I can’t really think of a valid reason for him to remain in office any longer.

This is a little old, but I present it in honor of our 43rd President, who will soon be retard so he can git ta wurk own his lieberry. In a completely twisted sense, I’m going to miss him. Palin 2012!

I still miss her. Molly certainly saw this coming.

AUSTIN, Texas – Do you know how to cure a chicken-killin’ dog? Now, you know you cannot keep a dog that kills chickens, no matter how fine a dog it is otherwise.

Some people think you cannot break a dog that has got in the habit of killin’ chickens, but my friend John Henry always claimed you could. He said the way to do it is to take one of the chickens the dog has killed and wire the thing around the dog’s neck, good and strong. And leave it there until that dead chicken stinks so bad that no other dog or person will even go near that poor beast. Thing’ll smell so bad the dog won’t be able to stand himself. You leave it on there until the last little bit of flesh rots and falls off, and that dog won’t kill chickens again.

The Bush administration is going to be wired around the neck of the American people for four  more years, long enough for the stench to sicken everybody. It should cure the country of electing Republicans.

And at least Democrats won’t have to clean up after him until it is real clear to everyone who made the mess.

In some circles, that will be seen as sour grapes. But in Texas, we’ve been losing elections to the demagogic triad of God, gays and guns long enough to be pretty cynical about how it works out. I’m sure millions of Americans voted for George W. under the honest impression that he stands for moral values – family, patriotism, faith in God. I’m sure it’s the Democrats’ fault that such a silly ruse is allowed to stand. What Bush actually does stand for is nicely summed up by a rather common news story that got stuck on the business pages lately.

In September, Merck & Co., the huge drug manufacturer, pulled Vioxx off the market. Vioxx was a popular pain-killing, anti-arthritis drug, but Merck said it was putting patients’ safety first. A new study from the Federal Drug Administration showed high doses of Vioxx triple the risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death.

From there, the story bifurcates – it takes two directions. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa revealed that the FDA had tried to silence the author of the study, Dr. David Graham, associate director of science in the Office of Drug Safety. Grassley said the FDA first sat on Graham’s study and that then he was “ostracized” and “subjected to veiled threats and intimidation.”

The Wall Street Journal followed the other fork, finding internal memos from Merck showing that company officials may have been aware of the dangers of Vioxx as long ago as 1996, including a memo apparently instructing its sales reps to “dodge” the question when doctors asked about the cardiac record of Vioxx.

In short, we have a toothless regulatory agency in the pocket of the industry it is supposed to patrol. We have an administration-wide contempt for science and plain facts. And the allegation against the folks at Merck is that they were making such enormous profits on a drug that killed people that when they knew or suspected it was killing people, they kept right on selling it. When the information that Merck had known for a long time about Vioxx and heart attacks became public, the company’s stock fell by 9.6 percent.

That’s the system George W. Bush stands for: where a corporation can knowingly kill people for profit and, when it finally comes out, everyone knows the penalties will be so light the company doesn’t even lose a tenth of its worth. Hey, just a little bump in the road.

We sure don’t want any of that terrible, burdensome government regulation to control that kind of behavior, do we? We sure don’t want an FDA that listens to its own scientists and acts promptly, do we? We sure don’t want anyone to sue these monster corporations, do we? I bet if it were possible to compare the odds of an American getting killed by a negligent regulatory agency and rapacious corporate behavior versus an American getting killed by a terrorist, it would turn out we need to be a lot more scared of rank greed and its enablers than we do of terrorists. And that’s not counting what the corps. (pronounced corpse) steal and mess up.

So, fellow progressives, stop thinking about suicide or moving abroad. Want to feel better? Eat a sour grape, then do something immediately, now, today. Figure out what you can do to help rescue the country – join something, send a little money to some group, call somewhere and offer to volunteer, find a politician you like at the local level and start helping him or her to move up.

Think about how you can lend a hand to the amazing myriad efforts that will promptly break out to help the country recover from what it has done to itself. Now is the time. Don’t mourn, organize.

To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2004 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Dear Red States:

We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren’t aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss. We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Finally, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,
Blue States

Did John McCain have a TIA (Transitory Ischemic Attack) on-stage?

The drilla from Waslilla was the recipient of another merciless grilling by the lieberal media today. This time the interrogator was rabid lefty Katie Couric (or should I say Comrade Couric?) Kudos to Sarah Barracuda for standing up to those pinkos who just want to make her look uninformed by ambushing her with trick questions. They will pay when the Palin/McCain administration takes over.

COURIC: You’ve said, quote, “John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business.” Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?

PALIN: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie–that, that’s paramount. That’s more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.

COURIC: But he’s been in Congress for 26 years. He’s been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He’s also known as the maverick though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about–the need to reform government.

COURIC: I’m just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to you.

I think the most patriotic thing Palin can do is to cancel her debate with Joe Biden. Washington needs “fixin’” and “shankin’ up”. We can’t afford to wait until January. We need her in DC NOW!

John McCain and Sarah Palin are telling so many lies about her record that it’s becoming hard to keep up with them. Palin’s compulsive lying about her past as even more pathological than W’s. Here is a handy list.

1. Palin stopped the “bridge to nowhere.”
   No, she didn’t pull the plug until Congress had already cut the funding.
   http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080908/ap_on_el_pr/bridge_to_nowhere_fact_check
   http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/701/
2. Palin was always against the “bridge to nowhere.”
   Not exactly. She was for it before she was against it.
   http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-31-palin-bridge_N.htm
3. Sarah Palin is a fiscal conservative.
   A fiscal conservative does not rack up $20,000,000 in debt for a small town. Nor does she bill the state of Alaska for staying at her own house, eating her own food or for trips to her husband’s snowmobile races
4. Sarah Palin opposed earmarks.
   A mayor who opposes earmarks does not hire a lobbyist to obtain earmarks unless that mayor is a lying hypocrite.
   http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2008/09/04/data-points-sarah-palins-lobbyist.html
5. Palin sold the Governor’s jet on eBay and made a profit.
   No, she listed it on eBay three times but ended up selling it through an aviation broker at a loss.
   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/06/politics/animal/main4422397.shtml
6. Palin fired Governor’s mansion chef.
   No. The chef, Stefani Marnon was reassigned to the Republican state legislature to cook for Palin’s cronies since as Governor, Palin prefers to work in Anchorage or Wasilla instead of travelling to Juneau.
   http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/story/9090479p-9006523c.html
   http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/288561.html
7. Sarah Palin won Miss Congeniality in the 1984 Miss Wasilla pageant.
   Really??? Come on….
   http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/debpeterson/story/23D7A0CF8A2E3A61862574B50011DB30?OpenDocument

Update: 9/16/2008

8. Sarah Palin’s teleprompter failed at the RNC and she had to “wing it” during her acceptance speech.
   “The teleprompter got messed up, I couldn’t follow it, and I just decided I’d just talk to the people in front of me, it was Ohio.” http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/palin-and-the-t.html OK, she gave an effective speech, but why do they have to lie about the teleprompter?
   Is it because GOP voters just enjoy being lied to?