RELATED: Soledad O’Brien: Planned Parenthood And Komen Foundation Are ‘Cat Fighting’

Liz Cheney argued they completely mishandled the situation, stating that from the conservative viewpoint, it was outrageous to think that money given by pro-life women to a cancer foundation may end up in the hands of an institution that performs abortions. She tried to bring up the Obama administration’s decision to pressure religious institutions to provide contraception services, but Wallace was saving that for a separate discussion and made her stop talking about it before moving on.

Wallace laid out the facts, namely that only 3 percent of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions, and it was responsible for millions of breast exams over the past year. Liz Marlantes thought this “was a case of bad PR,” and the Komen Foundation did a bad job trying to justify their actions in the initial withdrawal and then the subsequent reversal.

What interested Wallace was the effect social media had in pressuring the Komen Foundation both times, and given how powerfully social media was utilized to launch widespread opposition to SOPA, Wallace asked how big a player social media has been in the world of politics. Bill Kristol acknowledged its power, and noted in the world we live in, people don’t have to just care about the economy because of how important an issue it is, they can care about multiple issues like internet freedom and health care services for women as well.

RELATED: Megyn Kelly Panel Battles Over Whether Planned Parenthood’s Commitment To Cancer Is A ‘Hoax’

Kristol and Juan Williams brought up the “culture war” aspect of this debate, noting how the Obama administration’s contraception mandate could have an effect on the number of Catholics who end up voting for the president in the fall.

Watch the video below, courtesy of Fox News:

RELATED: Ron Paul Defends Mitt Romney To Piers Morgan, Says He Isn’t ‘Cold And Heartless’

“The last time I dined in this restaurant I was with Sylvester Stallone,” Morgan told him, “and the parallel to me is clear: you are the Rocky Balboa of this campaign. How do you feel about that analogy?” Rep. Paul looked stunned for a bit and replied, “I have no idea how to respond to that. I hope that is very positive, it sounds like it could be!” Morgan did explain himself though– that Rep. Paul was the underdog in the race, that he was steadfast, and his beliefs never wavered.

But on that note, Morgan also asked whether it was possible that that, too, was a bad thing: “if you never change your mind about anything, is that in itself healthy?” Rep. Paul noted that he did not see himself as bullheaded about his commitment to his ideas, and that while did the concept of liberty did not change, “you can refine it.” Morgan noted all his young supporters, and gave some of the credit for those to him, but also considered Rep. Paul “very energetic,” and asked for some health tips. Rep. Paul then became Dr. Paul again for a bit, and described his morning routine when not running for president, which involves a lot of bike riding and good eating (“no white things– sugar and the like”). “But I think my parents had a lot to do with my good health,” he noted.

The conversation then lead to a discussion of health insurance and American work ethic. Rep. Paul repeated that Americans could not be “depending on the government– they’re not there, they’re bankrupt.” Morgan countered that he found something somewhat callous about the idea that “if you can’t afford insurance, you’ve got to fend for yourself.” “It’s a lot more compassionate than the way it might sound,” Rep. Paul noted, adding that “if you see the extent of total socialism, it’s not very compassionate at all.” He concluded that the philosophy behind that is “you can’t use violence to get what you want, but you can’t use the government to use violence, either.”

The interview via CNN below:

Much of Santorum’s rhetoric in this clip is comprised of familiar talking points, but they’re delivered so ineptly that they expose the cold, dead heart at the center of Republican positions on health care.

Santorum opens up with the familiar, false idea that the insurance company-friendly Affordable Care Act amounts to government-run health care, and says “they’re trying to get rid of Health Savings Accounts” because “they don’t trust you, that you can provide for yourself.”

Health Savings Accounts are simply a vehicle to allow insurance companies to sell junk policies that don’t cover anything, and that force people to ration their own care by cost. When they were introduced, I was a health insurance consultant, and my company pushed HSA plans hard, because they were easier to sell. While the premiums were about half that of traditional plans, the HSA plans were extremely profitable because the company paid out far less in claims. That advantage is compounded by the fact that sick or at-risk patients aren’t likely to enroll in those plans, further reducing the cost to insurance companies.

Santorum followed this by saying, exasperatedly, “No, we have to have something for everybody! We can’t have people having access to better health care…”

He stopped then, realizing that he’d given away the game, before editing himself to say “health insurance than other people. No! It all has to be the same! Is that American? Equality of result? Is that what built the greatest country in the history of the world? No. That’s what’s destroying most of the countries in the world.”

That slip is all-important, because in matters of life and death, equality of result is supremely American. When someone’s house catches fire, anyone’s house, we expect that fire to be put out. When a person is being assaulted, we expect the police to come to their aid. That’s the American way.

There’s nothing to prevent the more well-off to hire extra security at their own expense, or elaborate sprinkler systems, but everyone expects that they won’t be left to die. Unequal health insurance is fine; unequal health care is not. Unfortunately, one contributes to the other, and the Affordable Care Act, while better than the status quo, is still a half-measure. It’s true that the law requires emergency treatment at the Emergency Room, but waiting for acute symptoms isn’t health care, it’s sick care, and it’s sick.

The Republicans have made repealing Obamacare a focal point of their campaigns this year, and that could be a huge miscalculation. It is far from a sure thing that Americans will become nostalgic for the days when insurance companies could deny them care over a preexisting condition, or that they want to live in a country that makes people pay for losing a job with their health, or even their lives. People don’t die because somebody else had access to health care, they die because they don’t.

Here’s the clip, from CNN:

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Last week, I explained some of the reasons Politifact was off-base in even considering the Democrats’ claim a “lie,” let alone the “Lie of the Year.” The Paul Ryan budget plan, as Politifact happily acknowledges, changes Medicare from a defined benefit plan into a voucher program. With or without the qualifier “as we know it,” it is a subjective judgment whether it is entirely fair to call such a change the “end” of Medicare. As many others have also noted, Politifact doesn’t come close to meeting the burden of calling it a “lie.”

RELATED: Thom Hartmann Torches Politifact For Nominating ‘Mediscare’ As ‘Lie Of The Year’

The fact that the Ryan plan doubles the amount seniors will pay for health care is almost beside the point. Once you uncouple Medicare recipients from their benefits, you have ended Medicare, and placed them at the whim of insurance companies. No matter how good the vouchers are (which is not very), you have declared open season on the benefits those dollars will buy, and the services insurance companies will choose to approve or deny.

Even if you grant all of Politifact’s subjective judgments about this claim, even they acknowledge that “at times, Democrats and liberal groups were careful to characterize the Republican plan more accurately,” which calls into question whether they should have zeroed in on the ads they found so troublesome. If most Democrats were careful to qualify their statements, why not fact-check those claims? Without any evidence to support this, Politifact alleges that “more often, Democrats and liberals overreached.”

That’s not how I remember it. I could be wrong, but every Democrat I saw on TV talking about the Ryan plan did say “ends Medicare as we know it,” or some variation. I don’t expect anyone to take my word for it, but then, neither should we take Politifact’s word for it that ”more often, Democrats and liberals overreached.”

I can’t read minds, but if I had to guess, I’d say that this selection provided Politifact with an irresistible opportunity to prove its own “fairness” by “balancing” the site’s two previous Lies of the Year, both of which were Republican lies about health care. It’s a great narrative for a site whose credibility depends on the illusion that they’re impartial arbiters of truth, especially with “fact-checking” losing much of its luster over dubious rulings. That is not to say that “fact-checking” doesn’t have its place, but even Pulitzer-winning fact-checkers need to be evaluated on the merits.

RELATED: Rachel Maddow and Politifact Are Giving Me a Frakking Headache

In explaining his site’s ruling on this morning’s The Early Show, Politifact editor Bill Adair engaged in some pretty sick propagandizing for the Ryan plan, repeatedly insisting that it “protected” Medicare for those now 55 and older. Only in Bill Adair’s mind and on The Sopranos do you get credit for “protecting” something from your own assault on it.

But right in the midst of his backstopping of Politifact’s awful decision, Adair told an unmitigated, verifiable lie. He said the Ryan plan was trying to “change the plan and save money for people who were younger,” an assertion that’s belied by…Politifact.com:

Another problem with the ad is that it claims that participants would have to find $12,500 to pay for Medicare. That number is based on statistics compiled by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The ad doesn’t mention, though, that the number includes money that would go to Medicare in any case. The CBO estimates beneficiaries would contribute about $6,150 in premiums in 2022 if the program isn’t changed at all. So the extra money seniors need to pay under the Republican proposal is more like $6,350.

I’m no mathematician, but making people pay double isn’t the same as “saving money” for them, is it? Maybe we can put that in the running for next year’s “Lie Of The Year,” but in the meantime, somebody get that man a trouser extinguisher.

Here’s Adair’s Early Show appearance, from CBS News:

RELATED: Chris Matthews Asks Panel If Voters Resent Or Admire Mitt Romney For His Wealth And Business Experience

Perry continued to insist that Romney has, in the past, supported the individual mandate in a book he wrote years ago. Wallace asked Perry the difference between his support of a mandatory HPV vaccine and an individual health care mandate, to which Perry responded that there was an “opt-out” system embedded into his executive order and admitted the Texas legislature told him he had gone too far.

Watch the video below, courtesy of Fox News:

Baier began by referencing Romney’s book, which had a line about the health care mandate (“We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country.”) removed in its paperback version, and Romney’s insistence that his Romneycare law is not the same as Obamacare.

“Do you still support the idea of a mandate? Do you believe that that was the right thing for Massachusetts? Do you think a mandate, mandating people to buy insurance is the right tool?” Baier asked.

A clearly frustrated Romney replied, with a strained laugh, “Bret, I don’t know how many hundred times I’ve said this, too — this is an unusual interview. All right, let’s do it again.”

Romney reminded Baier of all the times he has said that his plan was only a good idea at the state level, at which point Baier, to his credit, reminded the candidate of what that other Romney guy has been saying. “Governor, you did say, on camera and other places, that at times you thought it would be a model for the nation.”

“You’re wrong, Bret,” Romney shot back.

“No, there’s tape,” Baier replied.

Perhaps a bit rattled, Romney urged Baier to continue to “read the tape,” insisting that his position on the individual mandate has always been “for each state to be able to look at it.”

Unfortunately, Baier didn’t produce any tape for Romney to “read,” but we’ve got some that might have come in handy last night. In a 2009 Meet The Press appearance, Romney endorsed the Healthy Americans Act, also known as the Wyden-Bennett bill, which would have “establish(ed) Healthy Americans Private Insurance Plans (HAPIs) and require those who do not already have health insurance coverage, and who do not oppose health insurance on religious grounds, to enroll themselves and their children in a HAPI.”

Here’s what Romney said then: (emphasis mine, h/t Ezra Klein)

…the right way to proceed is to reform health care. That we can do, as we did it in Massachusetts, as Wyden-Bennett is proposing doing it at the national level. We can do it for the nation, we can get everybody insured, we can get the cost of health care down, but we don’t have to have government insurance and government running health care to get that done.

Your witness, Mr. Baier.

As sorry as I feel for the Romney Dangerfield of the Republican field, I feel even worse for the voters he can’t seem to get no respect from. How is it that a group of people who hate Obamacare so much have now ended up having to choose between the Wright Brothers of the individual mandate? In case you missed it, Romney made it fly, but he credits Newt Gingrich for the blueprints.

Here’s the health care portion of Bret Baier’s interview with Mitt Romney, from Fox News:

Maddow took a few minutes to focus on Gingrich’s campaign earlier in the season, and specifically his inability to register the website ExploreNewt2012.com. Whoever owns the site has been redirecting the page to various websites connected to Gingrich, including Tiffany’s and (as of this posting) Freddie Mac. Maddow used this opportunity as a springboard to bring up Gingrich’s ties to the mortgage firm and how they paid the Republican candidate over $1.6 million. Gingrich tried to explain he was given the money as part of his work as a “housing historian” for the firm.

RELATED: Newt Gingrich Defends His Post-Congressional Lobbying Gig With Freddie Mac

However odd the justification may be, Maddow believes it to be “as legitimate as it gets in Newt Gingrich’s world.” She went through a whole list of Gingrich’s more questionable endeavors, like the letter he sent out to his “2010 Champions of Medicine” and invited them to attend a ceremony with him, all for the paltry sum of $5000. Or, perhaps, the Dallas strip club he bestowed an entrepreneur of the year award to in exchange for a $5000 sum as well. In fairness to Gingrich, he ended up revoking the award the returning the money, but given all these different examples of Gingrich taking money, Maddow could only reach one conclusion.

“This is the ka-ching that makes Newt Gingrich go. He is a Nigerian prince e-mail, send-me-your-bank-details guy. He does e-mail spam, fax spam, direct mail, sucker list, bottom-feeding, prey-on-the-gullible financial scams.”

The reason this strategy works for Gingrich, Maddow argued, is that because Newt is selling himself or the opportunity for people to see him or win a signed gavel. And it’s not just average people. Gingrich collected millions of dollars from the health care sector in exchange for “special access to the former House speaker.” The Chamber of Commerce paid Gingrich as a consultant, and all he had to do to earn the money was “attend dinner or lunch with Chamber officials every few months.”

RELATED: Barney Frank: Newt Gingrich Made Millions By Influencing Public Policy

Maddow finally took the media to task for focusing more on Gingrich’s policy flip-flops than looking at the whole picture, what she deems the real scandal behind Gingrich’s political life.

“Newt Gingrich… is a scam! Newt Gingrich’s profession since he got kicked out of Congress under a cloud of ethics charges related to fundraising, his full-time profession has been selling access to himself as someone who is influential because of his time as a public servant. He has been marketing the Speakership of the House for his own private financial gain to anybody who will pay him. Anybody he can scam money out of, even if he has to do it by fax with fake handwriting. For decades he has been doing this, this is why he is now a zillionaire.”

Watch the video below, courtesy of MSNBC:

This will probably work well in a GOP primary, but the eventual nominee will run into trouble with this in a general election, because one of the most popular provisions in Obama’s health care reform law, the one that prevents insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition, depends on the individual mandate.

As White House Press Secretary Jay Carney recently noted, though, the individual mandate isn’t some crazy liberal idea. At a recent briefing, Carney quoted Mitt Romney’s defense of Romneycare, and the conservative origins of the individual mandate:

The idea for a health care plan in Massachusetts was not mine alone. The Heritage Foundation, a great conservative think tank, helped on that. I’m told Newt Gingrich, one of the very first people who came up with the idea of an individual mandate, did that years and years ago. It was seen as a conservative idea to say, you know what? People have a responsibility for caring for themselves if they can. We’ll help people who can’t care for themselves, but if you can care for yourself, you gotta take care of yourself and pay your own bills.

Romney also defended the mandate as a way to stop ER freeloaders, during a GOP debate in 2008:

With regards to my health care plan, let me describe what is the ultimate conservative approach. In this country, you have today about 47 million people that don’t have health insurance. We went out and tried to find out why they don’t. We found out that about half of them could afford to buy insurance if it were reasonably priced. They could afford to buy it, but they weren’t buying it. it? If we get sick, we can go to the hospital and get care for free.“ And we said: what? If somebody could afford insurance, they should either buy the insurance or pay their own way. They don’t have to buy insurance if they don’t want to, but pay their own way. But they shouldn’t be allowed to just show up at the hospital and say, somebody else should pay for me. So we said: No more free riders. It was like bringing “workfare” to welfare. We said: If you can afford insurance, then either have the insurance or get a health savings account. Pay your own way, but no more free ride. That was what the mandate did.

Romney’s right, of course. The individual mandate is an idea that only a conservative could love, tantamount to fighting hunger by making it illegal not to buy food. It was the conservative answer to Medicare for All. In fact, no less a conservative icon that Dana Loesch, CNN contributor and editor-in-chief of Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism, praised Romney’s 2008 debate response as “an exercise in conservatism.”

Instead of running away from his record, Mitt Romney ought to push Perry to offer his plan to deal with uninsured people with preexisting conditions. The alternatives, let ‘em die or let ‘em eat  cake that the government helps pay for, might not sound so good to a lot of conservatives.

Many have argued that the Cuban health care system is somewhat of a marvel compared to the rest of the island’s industries– not the least due to the fact that the government made a very public push to make doctors its greatest export. This has led to both strong criticism from those that perceive it as a distraction from the goings-on otherwise on the island, or see it as a ploy for the nation to ingratiate itself internationally with nation’s that simply cannot afford good medical education. On the other hand, those who praise it cite numbers (mostly from the Cuban government) that show the average life of a Cuban to be, at least on paper, more disease-free than many in the Western world. To this end, Dr. Gupta traveled to the island to take a look himself and try to speak to as many people on the ground there as he could.

Journalistic missions like these, even if explicitly avoiding the political situation on the island, nevertheless touch on an emotional, political wound that hasn’t stopped bleeding for more than half a century. The relationship between Cuba, the Cuban exile community, and the American mainstream media is a tenuous one, and as a member of the Cuban exile community, this topic is particular is personally difficult for me. I grew up with an acute understanding of the systematic physical and psychological destruction the regime is to blame for– it is plain to see every day in the faces of our loved ones, and the former prisoners of conscience in our communities who huddle in cafes to reminisce about the time they served in brutally inhumane conditions for having complimented America once, or written a defiant essay, or even worn their hair long or listened to “yanqui” music. The pain is inked in the headlines of our media that dare publish stories of families of political prisoners being beaten and scorned on the streets.

In this context– and in the context of the mainstream media’s history with the communist dictatorship (from Herbert Matthews to 1990s Lou Dobbs to Michael Moore to Oliver Stone)– justifying a look at the health care system at face value is about as acceptable as an in-depth report on Mussolini-era Italy’s efficient train system. Regime sympathizers have used it as a smokescreen to shield eyes from the atrocities of the regime, and thus the distrust in the community is very high when such analyses come to the fore. But in the post-USSR, post-internet world, in a world where the demand for Happy Meals and iPods has proven a far more powerful political motivator than the temptations of abstract fundamental human rights, opening governments requires shining spotlights and exchanging culture. Even apolitical reports like Dr. Gupta’s force the regime to exhibit a candor with which it is unfamiliar, and serve to remind the world of the inconvenient fact that Cuban people, so many decades later, still live under the yoke of the Revolution’s dilapidated, rabid haughtiness.

With this heavy in mind, I spoke to Dr. Gupta earlier this week from Havana–who, as you will read, came into the experience acutely aware of the nature of the government, no agenda and plenty of curiosity. I found in him a refusal to subscribe to the Oliver Stone/Michael Moore school of willful blindness, admitting there were breathtaking elements to the island while acknowledging the scattering of asterisks and conjectures surrounding the statistics of the health care system, and the inability of journalists to paint a full picture.

On the next few pages, Dr. Gupta gives his first impressions of the island, his thoughts on the health care system as he has seen it, and gives a closer look at the story behind swimmer Diana Nyad’s quest to swim from Cuba to Florida. The look at the Cuban health care system is part of an episode of his program Sanjay Gupta, MD, airing Saturdays at 7:30 AM, while the documentary on Nyad is still in production.

NEXT: Landing On Embargoed Territory

The topic of government mandated health care for women has brought the issue back into debate in the last few days, primarily championed by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, or “Papa Bear,” as he is affectionately referred to by Colbert. In fact, just last night, O’Reilly and FBN’s Lou Dobbs discussed this very subject in a manner that would likely have ended up on the Colbert segment had the timing worked out. O’Reilly believes that this sort of mandate “spooks investors” which he earnestly addressed in his Talking Points segment last night as well.

At issue is role of the federal government creating regulations that help create a healthier and happier populace, or if this is the sort of issue that should be solely left to private companies and “free marketeers.” It doesn’t really matter to Colbert, who went on agree with Rep. Steve King (R-IA) that this is a disastrous plan, stating that since free birth control will clearly wipe out the human race, America’s insurance companies should only cover necessary medical expenses. Like boner pills.

Watch the clip below, courtesy of Comedy Central:

News of the apology comes from Roll Call, quoting Rep. West directly. Rep. West didn’t elaborate, and Rep. Wasserman-Schultz has yet to comment on the apology, though the apologize may come to some as a surprise after Rep. West’s spokesperson stood by the comments immediately after they went public. Rep. Wasserman-Schultz publicist did comment directly as to the original statement, however, stating that “the truth hurts” and noting that Rep. West is from a neighboring district to Wasserman-Schultz’s and should know better. The apology, of course, does not erase the email– nor whatever powers of persuasion it may have had over potential donors– but is at least a first step to mending the verbal wounds.

Update: Or not? Roll Call has updated the post to reflect the fact that, as soon as it went up, both parties began denying the report:

Wasserman Schultz aides said there had been no apology, and West’s office adamantly denied the report and demanded a retraction. [...]

West said, “I just apologized,” when asked by a Huffington Post reporter about the situation in the Speaker’s Lobby before votes Wednesday afternoon, according to a tape of the conversation.

The Huffington Post reporter repeated the question later, asking about it in the context of a group of female lawmakers preparing to hold a news conference to condemn him. The Members planned to call on the leadership of both parties to rebuke West. In response to the question, West reiterated that he had apologized before walking into the House chamber.

But West spokeswoman Angela Sachitano doubled down, saying it was Wasserman Schultz who should do the apologizing. Sachitano strenuously denied that West had apologized to Wasserman Schultz and even denied what he’d told Huffington Post.

“In fact, we’re waiting on an apology from her,” Sachitano said.

The Congresswoman also told Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room today that she did not, in fact, receive an apology:

I have not received an apology. I haven’t received a phone call. I know he has my e-mail, I haven’t got an apology on my e-mail nor on my fax machine in my district office or my congressional office in the Capitol or at the Democratic National Committee.

The video via CNN below:

Colorado’s 9 News has the incredible story:

“Verone says he came to the decision to rob the RBC Bank on Thursday of last week. He had no gun but handed the teller a rather unusual note.

‘The note said this is a bank robbery. please only give me one dollar,’ Verone said.

Then he did the strangest thing of all.

‘I started to walk away from the teller then I went back and said, ‘I’ll be sitting right over there in the chair waiting for the police,’ he said.”

And don’t think Verone did this without giving it some thought. He knows how much time he’s looking to get (he’s thinking about three years) and he knows what he wants to do when he gets out (he’ll be old enough for social security and wants to get a Myrtle Beach condo). The only problem is, he may not have gamed the system as well as he thought. Since he didn’t bring a gun with him, the police have only charged him with larceny, not bank robbery. Therefore, he may not get the jail time he wants.

So, is Verone a clever hero who should be celebrated for his courage or a lazy thief stealing from taxpayers? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure Jim Carrey will play him in the eventual movie.

Watch a news report from 9 News below:

(h/t Kirk Larsen)

Yesterday, in anticipation of today’s presidential announcement by Mitt Romney, Western Representation PAC announced it would be launching StopRomney.org, a movement for conservatives opposed to the former Massachusetts governor’s 2012 candidacy.

The group’s official description:

Conservatives in America deserve to feel passionately about their Presidential nominee, and Mitt Romney would NOT be that candidate!

On issues from gun rights to gay rights, abortion to immigration, and even from healthcare to whether or not to wear a tie, Romney has changed his position whenever it seems politically expedient.

This country faces challenging times, and we need a President who will say what he means and do what’s best for the country, not someone who will say what he thinks we want to hear and do what he thinks is best for his political career.

We need real leadership. We need to Stop Romney!

The PAC is chaired by Joe Miller, who you’ll remember lost to Lisa Murkowski in last year’s contentious Alaska Senate race. In WesternPAC’s official press release, Miller says that Tea Party voters want a “consistent constitutional conservative” to support, and Romney “has flipped more than John Kerry flopped.”

WesternPAC Executive Director Bryan Shroyer clarifies that the PAC has not officially thrown its weight behind any of the candidates yet:

“As of right now, we’re not making an endorsement on who should be the Republican nominee… We just know that if Mitt Romney wins the nomination, we’ll be looking at a repeat of Bob Dole’s feckless 1996 campaign and a landslide defeat.”

Romney was slightly upstaged in New Hampshire today (though not intentionally so) by Sarah Palin on her One Nation bus tour. Palin indirectly criticized Romney’s previous positions on health care when she made it clear she did not see any difference between federal and state mandates, as Romney has argued in the past.

“It’s tough for a lot of us independent Americans to accept [the mandate] because we have great faith in the private sector and our own families and our own business men and women making decisions for ourselves, not any level of government telling us what to do.”

The Stop Romney Facebook page was much more direct in criticizing Romney’s health care position earlier today.

Romney’s call for a complete repeal of ObamaCare rings hollow, considering it’s based in large part on RomneyCare…

Right now, the StopRomney.org URL redirects to the Facebook page, but it is expected that as the months progress, the group will build up a real website and garner more support from hardline conservatives who don’t want a candidate with a history of switching positions on the issues most important to primary voters.

While the piece seems to attempt to attack both sides equally for partisan hackery, it seems to give the benefit of the doubt to Republicans. Rep. Paul Ryan‘s budget proposal, they note, “is wanting in many ways” and “contains far too much risk of harming the most vulnerable.” It is a critique not foreign to the Post about the plan, though the following conclusion about the way Republicans have come about proposing the plan does ring somewhat new, and make the Republican plan, albeit flawed in their estimation, valuable for being earnest.

But while they seem uncomfortable with the plan, the editorial writers give it credit for being “honest enough,” then turning the tables on the Democrats, lamenting that, while ideally “we’d have a debate about the relative merits of these proposals,” Republicans use inflamed rhetoric and Democrats are stating things that are merely “false, inflammatory and, as we said, useful — for winning elections, that is. When it comes to solving the government’s most pressing problem, it threatens to set things back.”

The question, of course, seems to be which elections the health care rhetoric is trying to impact. It seems a bit early for microissues to take the fore in the 2012 elections, and with the capture of Osama bin Laden, Democrats have also been emphasizing their foreign policy acumen over domestic policy (and given the current economic climate, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out why). And it seems to be backfiring, at least with the Beltway media that is still following the health care debate, and is too jaded to be afraid for their benefits anymore.

The actual question, the final of the night, was phrased like this; “If you had to do anything differently during your first four years, what would it be?” Obama got around the trick part of the question and pointed out that he’s only actually been in office two and a half years (Ah, I see you do know how to keep track of time. Well done, sir.”) and then got down to business.

“You know, there are all sorts of day to day issues where I say to myself, ‘Ah, I didn’t say that right,’ or ‘I didn’t explain this clearly enough,’ or ‘Maybe if I had sequenced this plan first as opposed to that one, maybe it would have gotten done quicker.’ Health care, obviously, was a huge battle. … We wouldn’t have gotten it done if it hadn’t been for great work in Congress. But I do think that it was so complicated that, at a certain point, people started thinking ‘This is typical Washington bickering’ and I ask myself sometimes if there was a way we could have gotten it done more quickly and in a way that the American people wouldn’t have been so frustrated by.”

Obama then smoothly transitioned from things he has done to things he has to do, talking till the end of the Town Hall about the many ways he wants to spend the rest of his term and whatever (cough second term cough).

Man, I bet this guy is awesome at job interviews.

Check out the clip from C-Span below:

Schultz cited several sites that identified the debate between Steele and himself as loud, not particularly annoyed but not particularly pleased, either. “How can you not get cranked up if you believe in the institutions that make this country great?” he asked, before showing the clip he claimed most websites missed– that of Steele admitting he was not sure how the current health care system would take care of a certain portion of the elderly without the policies implemented by last year’s universal health care bill. “What do you say we just wing it with this health care thing?” Schultz mocked. He added, “I don’t care what any website has to say,” and advised his viewers that, as liberals, they should be unafraid of the “shouty” characterization. He also teased that Steele had scheduled an appearance on the program on Thursday, and concluded an extensive assessment of the health care system as it stands in anticipation of the debate with a message: “We as liberals in this country have to realize that it’s not hard to stand up to the Michael Steeles of the world.”

The segment via MSNBC below:

Although he voted for the bill – or, as he phrased it, he voted to “try and accomplish the things that were good in the bill, and then hope to change those things that were either absent or needed to be corrected in the bill” – he admits he has some qualms with it, particularly with the notion that it will keep health care costs down:

The real issue that was not addressed, Laura, that you’ve raised now, and I think appropriately, is the cost, the cost to both the government and to your listeners. We need to take steps now to get the costs of health care under control. That was not dealt with really in an aggressive way in this legislation. I think it now needs to be.

Have a listen to the segment, courtesy The Laura Ingraham Show:

The nut of Weiner’s argument is that many GOP House members have openly opposed President Obama‘s health care reform under grounds that the U.S. government should not be in the position of acting as a health care provider. As such, last night, the Republicans put forth an amendment aimed at defunding what is derisively referred to as “Obamacare.”

Enter Representative Weiner (D-NY), who notes the considerable irony that many of the elected congressional representatives enjoy terrific health care that is….government funded. The simple question he asks is this: if a GOP rep is so opposed to Government supported health care, should he or she not first decline said coverage on principle?

Watch the clip below, courtesy of CSPAN.

(H/T Crooks and Liars)

Maddow opens up a segment entitled “idiocracy” about her rival network with a disclaimer: this has nothing to do with ratings. Except it has everything to do with ratings– not hers– but the fact that Fox News’ are so high that their broadcasts have the effect of significantly altering the political discourse on a national scale. Maddow put it slightly blunter than that, referring specifically to the “death panel” debate:

“Our politics are now stupid. Our politics are now partially organized around a thing that is a lie because Fox said it a lot. We are consigned as a country to have stupid nonsense about something that is not health reform instead of fighting about what health reform actually is because of the influence of Fox.”

Then she went after, Glenn Beck‘s recent talk attempting to explain the situation in Egypt, much talk that involves the radical left, Muslim extremists, and the creation of a caliphate run under the iron fist of fundamentalism. Maddow at least acknowledges that Beck’s theories are well listened-to and will be repeated ad nauseum before resolution comes to Egypt, but that’s precisely what she fears: “Can you imagine how stupid our debates are going to be on foreign policy in this country for the next few months after Fox spent the entire week of the Egyptian revolution broadcasting these conspiracy theories?” she asked herself, rhetorically.

Maddow is later joined by the soothing presence of The Nation’s Chris Hayes, who tries to rationalize Beck’s theories to Maddow, but the closest he can come to explaining the way the logic works is that it’s like “making a smoothie out of everything in your cabinet.”

Last night’s segment via MSNBC below:

Limbaugh compared the situation to Watergate and asked how people would have reacted if Nixon had ignored the Judiciary. He proposed that “the Liberals would have gone nuts about it.”

“So, is Obama going to uphold the law and comply with the Constitution or not? Whatever a court does down the road is beside the point. The ruling of the day is the law is unconstitutional. It has been voided. The regime must legally deal with this. And, if they ask for a stay, then they are acknowledging the ruling and admitting that they understand it. It doesn’t matter that it might be overturned later. The law of the land is that it’s unconstitutional. We have three branches. The Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary. The Executive can’t tell the Legislative or the Judiciary what to do. This bunch thinks they can.”

After making his “lawless” comment, Limbaugh imitated Liberal callers (the “new castrati”) asking if he really meant it. Yes, he said. Yes he does.

Check out the audio below:

Speaking on Fox & Friends, Wallace said he supported Congress getting back to work now after the post-tragedy reprieve (something he also felt was “appropriate”) since there is a lot to work on, like health care:

“The point is, these are big issues. This is something that an awful lot of people care about, repealing the Obama health care plan. A lot of people care about it the other way, trying to preserve it. But you don’t have to call the other side ‘socialists’ or ‘fascists’ or whatever. Maybe we can agree or disagree more agreeably.”

However, Wallace is also a realist. He pointed to the response to 9/11 and how America truly did feel united afterwards and, yet, were right back to screaming at each other before long. He compared it to a New Years Resolution.

But this is still big news. Actually talking about the pros and cons of the law instead of just calling each other names and questioning everyone’s love for America/sick people? That’s a novel idea and huge for the optimists out there. Of course, I’m a pessimist so I realize that this just means we’re all gonna have to read the damn thing now.

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

In case you were living under a rock from 2009 to 2010, the “government takeover” line was used by Republicans to describe the health care bill.  Unfortunately, rather than digging deeper into the connotative meaning and the widespread angst that Democratic proposals produced, PolitiFact fails the American people in its analysis.  According to PolitiFact,

By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the “public option” concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.

While this may be true, this is an oversimplification to say the least.  Obama and the Democrats were forced to “sand down” the legislation as a result of public outrage and Republican dissatisfaction with their attempt to overtake the healthcare system.  It’s not as though the liberal establishment willingly pared down the initial proposals; Democrats had no choice but to adapt to the public’s reaction.  It’s interesting that PolitiFact calls “government takeover of health care” the lie of the year when it’s impossible to deny that the entire premise of the Democratic plan was for the fed to become a direct service provider.

Looking back at Barack Obama’s own words, one can easily see big government philosophy at play.  When speaking to an SEIU audience in 2007, Obama said,

“My commitment is to make sure that we have universal healthcare for all Americans by the end of my first term as President…I would hope that we could set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort. But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process.”

If this doesn’t constitute intent to take over the entire system, I’m not sure what does.  After all, the Democratic push for federally-run health care has been at the forefront of leftist agendas for the past two decades.  Unfortunately, PolitiFact contends that Republicans purposefully lied to the American people, stating that they “…didn’t let facts get in the way of a great punchline.”  Perhaps PolitiFact should consider the notion that the facts drove the discourse.

The editors and researchers over at PolitiFact contend that the “government takeover” line “…played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections”.  This contention is lethargic at best, as it conveniently overlooks the overarching philosophy at play.

I’d argue that the Democrats’ own railing on about the need for government-run health care was enough to scare voters into rejecting leftist philosophy.  In its final form, the health care bill was certainly “sanded down”.  But one could argue that it’s the original provisions and the entire process that put a sour taste in the mouths of voters who, prior to Obama’s historic win, were craving change, not governmental co-opting of nearly every sector.

The November elections had little to do with the governmental takeover line and everything to do with a dislike for liberal policy.  Even though the Democrats dropped the public option in March 2010, Americans were well aware of their true intentions – and they carried this awareness to the polls.

Even in the final bill, there are a plethora of elements that constitute unprecedented government involvement in the system.  Despite legitimate concern over these tenants, PolitiFact draws some less-than-adequate comparisons in an effort to drum up support for its lie of the year.  According to PolitiFact,

Consider some analogies about strict government regulation. The Federal Aviation Administration imposes detailed rules on airlines. State laws require drivers to have car insurance. Regulators tell electric utilities what they can charge. Yet that heavy regulation is not described as a government takeover.

Fair enough, but airlines and electric companies differ from individuals.  Where in the Constitution can one find support for requiring American citizens to purchase a product or service (let alone face a fine for not doing so)?  The answer: Nowhere.  The state car insurance example is weak, because states – not the federal government – make their own requirements (and the rules differ per state).

On a final note: If new rules or regulations, absent a “public option” are so constricting or change the landscape so much so that the system, itself, is greatly impacted, one could easily contend that the government has overtaken the system.  If a rowdy guest interrupts a birthday celebration by throwing expletives around and taking the focus away from the birthday boy or gal, one would say that he or she co-opted the party.  The health care legislation actually creates a scenario in which companies are discouraged from providing coverage, with individuals facing a fine should they choose not to opt in (and the bill barely does anything to address cost).  I’m pretty sure those disruptions, alone, constitute a control of sorts.

In the end, PolitiFact was likely well intentioned, but failed to think these elements through.  Their coverage showcases an inherent inclination toward Democratic ideals.  It’s fair to say that the GOP exaggerated slightly, but calling the party out for full-throttle political lies extends beyond insanity and into the realm of “liberal media bias”.

“Republicans have been much better at branding names for acts,” Colmes pointed out, using the PATRIOT Act as an example. “Oh, if you’re against that, you can’t be a patriot!” He suggested that Democrats need a Frank Luntz on their side and that they should start coming up with acronyms first and figure out the definitions later like John Chafee (accidentally confused with his son Lincoln) did with the HEART Act. Colmes tried that with his own name but only got as far as “Conservatives Only Live…”

Obviously names are important and the Democrats may have already lost this war thanks to the prevalence of “Obamacare.” Certainly PPACA isn’t going to beat that in the catchiness category. Maybe Colmes is right and Conservatives just use the power of words better. For instance, check out the subtle implications of the chyron reading “DEMS SCRAMBLING TO RENAME NEW HEALTH CARE LAW” which sat on the bottom of the screen during most of the entire segment.

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

You may be wondering why that line is the PolitiFact Lie of the Year, especially since it’s not even a complete sentence. As they explain it:

PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections.

They went on to note that their readers, too, selected “a government takeover of health care” as 2010′s top lie. They also made sure to say that their selection isn’t a statement or judgement. “The phrase is simply not true,” they wrote, before listing some of the claim’s inaccuracies:

• Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies.

• Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up “exchanges” where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don’t have it.

• The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors.

• The law does not include the public option, a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers.

• The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine.

Yet, as proven by numerous Tea Party rallies (and even more Tea Party signs), those bulleted points made quite an impression on the electorate, whose midterm votes helped change the composition of Congress. You can read the rest of PolitiFact’s exhaustive dossier on the phrase over here.

But according to former President Jimmy Carter, Kennedy himself is to blame for Americans’ lack of coverage. In a new interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, Carter claims that Kennedy deliberately blocked health care legislation the then-President proposed in the late ’70s.

“The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed,” he says. “It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill.”

Carter and Kennedy were political rivals; Stahl even calls Kennedy Carter’s “nemesis.” In the diary he kept while in the White House—which Carter has adapted into a new book that’s being released on Monday—Carter made frequent, disparaging mentions of Kennedy, writing sentences like this one: “Kennedy, continuing his irresponsible and abusing attitude, immediately condemned our health plan. He couldn’t get five votes for his plan.”

Carter believes Kennedy shot down his health care bill simply out of spite: “He did not want to see me have a major success in that realm,” he tells Stahl.

The full interview will air on CBS this Sunday, September 19, at 7pm. In it, Carter also discusses his energy conservation program—”Unfortunately, now we’re probably importing 12 million barrels a day, since part of my energy policies were abandoned,” he says—and the mistakes he made as president.

The connection in question were posts on the website of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (which published the journal in which Dorin’s original claims were written and which is linked to on Dorin’s site as one of two sponsors) which purport that President Obama used hypnotic mind tricks during his speeches in the 2008 campaign (gee, why hasn’t he used any of those recently?). Kelly then read from this article, entitled “Oratory- or hypnotic induction:”

“In his Denver acceptance speech, Obama used the phrases ‘that’s why I stand here tonight,’ ‘now is the time,’ and “this moment” 14 times. Paces are connected to the lead by words such as ‘and,’ ‘as,’ ‘because,’ or ‘that is why.’ For example, ‘we need change’ (who could disagree?)…and…that is why I will be your next President.’

Techniques of trance induction include extra slow speech, rhythm, tonalities, vagueness, visual imagery, metaphor, and raising of emotion. Hypnotists often have patients count. In a speech after the primaries closed, Obama said: ‘Sixteen months have passed (paused)…Thousands (pause) of miles…(pause)…Millions of voices….’

Hypnotists call this a distraction technique: sending the dominant hemisphere on an assignment involving linguistic processes, thus opening the nondominant hemisphere to suggestion.”

A flustered Dorin quickly explained that bringing up “some article that someone wrote” is distracting from the message. Kelly, however, made sure he admitted he didn’t believe the content in the piece before letting him continue. It was an impressive showing from Kelly who let Dorin get out his points before using some solid reporting to show why he and his organization’s claims should be taken with at least a couple grains of salt. The interview was fascinating and one might even say (ugh) “hypnotizing” to watch.

Though Springer was there to plug his new dating show on the Game Show Network, Hannity went straight for the ambush and targeted Springer’s continued support for President Obama.  When Springer emerged from that unscathed, Hannity switched the subject to health care, to which Springer was weirdly prepared — having said he regularly reads articles on the subject.

As the interview goes on, Hannity gets more animated — while Springer periodically puts on his calm “I’m listening” face that fans of trashy TV know and love.

In spite of Hannity making fun of Springer’s show format and saying he’s lost his mind, the interview ends with Springer offering his friendship and a peace sign.  …which Hannity classily returns in a sarcastic manner.

Click below to watch the clip from Fox News’ Hannity:

HealthCare.gov is the new media wing of health care reform, which helps individuals figure out how to get insured either from a private company or from the government. Newlywed Obama, for example, is given four options of insurance, though he only lists allowed the private work option or the independent private insurance options in the area. He chooses the independent private insurance option and explains how to evaluate each choice.

He also goes through the steps of finding personalized insurance options if already suffering a pre-existing condition, which has its own special category on the website. The video doubles as instructional and promotional, as it describes a number of independent stories of people who will now have health care under the new law.

The tutorial video below:



[h/t Wonkette]

Most of Beck’s disapproval this time around is for Gibbs. Berwick, despite his position at the center of the story, seems to be to Beck an almost dispensible figure in the long line of questionable Obama administration appointments– “another Van Jones.” Gibbs, however, was effectively dodging, ridiculing, and bullfighting the media out of honing in on Berwick’s “solid anti-capitalist ideology.” Beck mocks Gibbs’ “secret comment book” remark– “there’s this thing called the television”– and argues that “the fact that Congressman Ryan said something similar doesn’t make it ok.” Lucas had answered in the affirmative when Gibbs asked him whether a quote by Rep. Paul Ryan was by Berwick.

To prove that Gibbs’ tactic was working and the media was not focusing on the Berwick story, Beck cited this quote from our article on the exchange with Lucas:

“The lesson? Robert Gibbs won’t entertain baseless questions from reporters who haven’t done their homework. And when he does, he makes enough of an example out of them to keep the rest of the Press Corps on their toes.”

Beck argues that this is symptomatic of the entire media’s aversion to taking “the ever-glib Gibbs” to task for deflecting questions, and, given that Berwick did make questionable comments about redistribution of wealth, calling Lucas’ question “baseless” and saying Lucas hadn’t done his homework was not entirely fair.

Well, first thing’s first: thanks for reading, Glenn! We will gladly assume the perils of counting Glenn Beck among your readers (they aren’t much different from the perils of counting Mediaite among your viewers).

Now to the heart of the matter. He has a fair point inasmuch as Lucas’ first question was about comments that were well-documented. But honest mistake or not, indicating that a quote by one person is actually by another– in the kind of rapid-fire political battle that Lucas initiated with Gibbs? It’s an instant game-over. It shows that, at the very least, Lucas hadn’t thought critically enough about Berwick’s quote not to confuse it with something a Republican congressman had said.

This, of course, is an entirely separate issue from the appropriateness of Berwick’s beliefs, which Beck perceives as without a doubt lacking, and whether Gibbs is a “smug, condescending jerk” (which, to his credit, Beck notes is a title many have handed to him during his time in the limelight). We’ll leave both of those conclusions up to you.

Video from today’s entertaining Glenn Beck below:

The video’s release is meant to coincide with the government mailing out the first batch of Medicare rebate checks to senior citizens next week. That said, the GOP introduced it’s official “repeal and replace” legislation in the House two full weeks ago. (Republicans, you’ll recall, have threatened to repeal health care reform practically from the moment it passed in the House.) The new DNC ad is so obviously a rebuttal against GOP efforts that you might wonder why the ad wasn’t released sooner, unless it’s perhaps meant to distract the media form the continuing Gulf crisis and President Obama’s emotional capabilities.

Check out the ad: