The Teabaggers’ Bill of Rights

I recently received this classy missive from my local Alabama tea party group. It’s attributed to Georgia State Representative Mitchell Kaye – but that’s incorrect, per Snopes, as a quick google pointed out. Snopes.com says it’s from Lewis Napper, who ran for Senate in Mississippi in 2000 as a Libertarian.

Highlights: you don’t have a right to health care, housing, food, and any suggestion that the United States was not founded to be a Judeo-Christian nation is attack on our heritage. Not that it’s surprising, but it’s fabulous to have it all spelled out right here: tea party organizers, attendees, and supporters don’t care about anyone’s well-being but their own. And as evidenced above, it’s more proof that their political ideology has been unchanging and unflaggingly exclusive for decades.

The following has been attributed to State Representative Mitchell Kaye from GA. This guy should run for President one day…

“We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights.”

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone — not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

So shut up with your whining about comparing President Obama to Nazis!

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes .

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we’re just not interested in public health care.

I’ve frequently heard others comment on the “state” of their local public housing subdivisions as proof that some people just don’t “deserve” any form of federal assistance – including the opportunity to choose a public option.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don’t be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don’t be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won’t have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)

I don’t even know if this makes any sense. You don’t have the right to a job, and if you don’t have job, apparently it’s just because you haven’t tried hard enough to get one. Really? What? Are they trying to comment on unemployment benefits? I can’t tell.

ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

Like those idiotic laws you keep trying to pass preventing me from even PURSUING happiness by getting married or even just trying to find jobs in workplaces where I’m protected from discrimination based on my gender or sexual orientation.

ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don’t care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from! (Lastly….)

ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country’s history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!

Yeah. Enjoy.

Netroots Nation 2009 (at Mediaite!)

I’m still recovering from a tiring couple of weeks (what can I say, I don’t get out much) but I did want to share this piece I wrote for Mediaite on this year’s Netroots Nation conference.

I’m pretty stoked to have had the chance to do it, though I think I was a bit of a Debbie Downer. Then again, I’m always a bit of a Debbie Downer, so what can you do?

At Netroots Nation, though, there is a necessary urgency to the proceedings – with the public option in the balance and a number of other liberal issues, including employee free choice and gay rights, appearing to fall by the wayside in the health care debate, the panelists, bloggers, and activists in attendance are seeing their greater notoriety bring them to the frontline of another kind of political fight: defending the agenda they fought to elect officials to enact.

DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas argued being the numerical advantage the Democratic party holds doesn’t change progressive activists’ status as something of an underdog in policy debates. When asked if the mood at Netroots Nation had shifted away from earlier optimism, Moulitsas said, “Optimism? We’ve always been down and out. From day one, our movement has been built on the notion that we’re outside the gates, and that we have to force our way in.”

Barring any last minute emergencies, I’m planning on attending tomorrow’s PACT board meeting in Montgomery – as are many others, to the apparent chagrin of Kay Ivey. I’ll have updates from there, and I’ll have a few more posts on Netroots Nation once I’ve been able to unwind.

In the meantime, here are a few great posts on the conference for the curious:
Left in Alabama: Mooncat brings us a two great write-ups of President Bill Clinton’s opening keynote speech, as well as a post on Darcy Burner’s inspiring closing keynote.
Progressive Electorate: Some lovely photos from Pittsburgh and a thought-provoking post on diversity at the Netroots Nation conference.

Tons of other good posts at DailyKos, Crooks and Liars, and elsewhere — I’ll do my best to have a more comprehensive round-up posted this evening!

Since You Been Gone

Alright, I’m a sucker for Kelly Clarkson. I have been impossibly absent lately, and for that I apologize: in my defense, I am trying to find a job and help my mom out prepping for her upcoming year, get ready for school, and I also attended the Young Democrats of America convention in Chicago, which hopefully I’ll be able to blog about in a day or two. But it might be hard, because on Wednesday I uh, leave for the Netroots Nation convention in Pittsburgh.

Yeah, I’m going. Thanks to Democracy for America, whose scholarship program will pay for my registration and lodging, and to everyone who voted on my Democracy for America application, who helped me feel like I wasn’t going at the effort alone. I am proud and impossibly grateful to have the opportunity, and I look forward to bringing back all the details of the best four days of liberal and progressive conferencing this side of, um, anywhere.

THANK YOU!

Intellectual Laziness: Being An Ass In Your House Isn’t An Arresting Offense

Goal for tomorrow: writing up my experiences at last weekend’s Democracy for America training. Goal for tonight: get through this magic bullet commercial without trying to buy it. I do love me some infomercial-marketed food processors.

Here’s some stuff you should check out.

DAILYKOS: Michael Steele seems to be forgetting which side was doing the meddling in the Terri Schiavo case. By his argument, Republicans are big-government meddling socialists. WE WIN!
CROOKS AND LIARS: Facts are for losers! An excellent post on the bait-and-switch going on in the media regarding the Henry Louis Gates case.
HUFFINGTON POST: Brad from BradBlog.com brings us some updates in the case of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman.
DAILYKOS: CNN is totally cool with Lou Dobbs spouting CNN-debunked birther theories on his show because, as is the case with any network, they have minimal desire to hold their talent accountable or require them to be based in like, reality. In this vein, the Southern Poverty Law Center (more like the Southern Center for Awesome Work Against Crazy Hate Groups, am I right) is demanding CNN take Lou Dobbs off the air.
SHAKESVILLE: Electronic Arts is sponsoring a contest for gamer guys encouraging creepy predatory behavior in order to win a dinner with two women – “sin to win!” Um, skeev-o.
CROOKS AND LIARS: Ohio lawmaker wants to make a man’s permission a requirement for women seeking abortions. As C&L points out, he doesn’t seem concerned about whether the dad is involved with the child’s life if he refuses to give permission for the procedure. Everybody knows protecting children isn’t as fun once they’re out of the womb!

Last but not least, check out the worst 40 panels comic book artist Rob Liefield has ever drawn and fun trading cards featuring celebrity fans of quack science. Plus I just want to know why HuffPo posts blogs from guys like this. I know everyone’s keen on equal time and all, but I feel like that shouldn’t apply to people who don’t really know what they’re talking about. I include crazy antivaxxer David Kirby in that group.

Please enjoy this picture of my dog.

Intellectual Laziness: Great News

The National Republican Congressional Committee released an updated version of their Patriot list – a list whose function is identical to the DCCC’s Frontline list of vulnerable incumbents. They’ve nearly doubled their membership, adding fifteen names for a total of twenty-five. Now here’s the great news: among the vulnerable? Alabama’s Mike Rogers (AL-03) and Minnesota’s Michelle Bachmann (CRAZYTOWN-AL).

What’s it mean? Well, as this excellent DailyKos diarist points out, some of the incumbents listed aren’t in any real danger – the NRCC is likely upping their numbers to get in a few easy wins in 2010. But both Rogers and Bachmann struggled to return to their seats in the last election, and Rogers is especially vulnerable. Progressive Democrat Josh Segall is looking for a rematch – and since he came within points of ousting Rogers in 2008 with little name recognition, fewer funds, and a too-brief campaign, the Republicans are going to need to dump a ton of money into this race to keep it in GOP hands. A number of Democrats (well, DFLers in Minnesota) will likely be gunning for Bachmann’s seat, and since she’s really ramped up the crazy in recent months, it’ll be a hard sell for her as well.

All in all, it’s good news.

To celebrate, please enjoy this picture of my cat.

If You Lose 100 Million Customers, Something’s Wrong With Your Business.

Do people usually read the things they retweet?

Saul Anuzis, one of four other people probably wondering how Michael Steele beat them out for the Republican National Committee chairmanship, tossed that up on twitter earlier this evening in response to the President’s health care oriented presser. The actual title of the Newsmax article is: “Experts: Obama’s ‘Public Option’ Insurance Will Abandon 100 Million Citizens.“

But let me bring your attention to some of the text of the piece.

“Under our proposals,” Obama told the American people during his July 18 weekly radio address, “if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period, end of story.”

Not so, according to a report released Monday by the Lewin Group, a nonpartisan Falls Church, Va., firm that provides consulting services to the healthcare industry. The D.C.-based Heritage Foundation sponsored the study.

The study concludes that, although the government won’t actually order people to leave their private insurance plans, it will induce their employers to do so. The taxpayer subsidies in the public option will tilt the economic scales so much that employers and individuals will abandon the private insurance market by the millions, the Lewin Group study indicates.

So the public plan isn’t abandoning one hundred million people: it’s insuring them. It’s not forcing them out of their coverage: it’s enticing them into another kind of coverage. And nobody’s losing their coverage! The terror here is that the private health care industry will suffer, but honestly, if that many people and that many companies are going to flock to the public plan, the problem is the plans they have presently suck. If government-run health care is as terrifying and horrible as the rightwing claims it is, won’t people just go flocking back to private insurers? Why are people so afraid of competing with a system they find so absolutely abhorrent?

I don’t know if Saul Anuzis or Senator Chuck Grassley or anyone else who parrots this demonstrably ridiculous and biased talking point has actually read any of the claptrap they’re trying to reference, but if they claim they have, they’re either fibbing about reading it or just being willfully disingenuous in their presentation of the information. I hate to break it to them but much like elections, terrible business practices have consequences: people are going to find a new place of business to buy their services from.

Sorry if that pill’s a little hard to swallow.

Quit Lying About Canada.

Go up to Canada and lie about their health care system to their faces or something, I don’t know. In honor of tonight’s Presidential press conference, I encourage you to check out this article debunking popular canards about our great Northern neighbor’s government-sponsored plan.

Here’s my favorite:

10. This all sounds great — but the taxes to cover it are just unaffordable. And besides, isn’t the system in bad financial shape?
False. On one hand, our annual Canadian tax bite runs about 10% higher than our U.S. taxes did. On the other, we’re not paying out the equivalent of two new car payments every month to keep the family insured here. When you balance out the difference, we’re actually money ahead. When you factor in the greatly increased social stability that follows when everybody’s getting their necessary health care, the impact on our quality of life becomes even more signficant.

And True — but only because this is a universal truth that we need to make our peace with. Yes, the provincial plans are always struggling. So is every single publicly-funded health care system in the world, including the VA and Medicare. There’s always tension between what the users of the system want, and what the taxpayers are willing to pay. The balance of power ebbs and flows between them; but no matter where it lies at any given moment, at least one of the pair is always going to be at least somewhat unhappy.

But, as many of us know all too well, there’s also constant tension between what patients want and what private insurers are willing to pay. At least when it’s in government hands, we can demand some accountability. And my experience in Canada has convinced me that this accountability is what makes all the difference between the two systems.

It is true that Canada’s system is not the same as the U.S. system. It’s designed to deliver a somewhat different product, to a population that has somewhat different expectations. But the end result is that the vast majority of Canadians get the vast majority of what they need the vast majority of the time. It’ll be a good day when when Americans can hold their heads high and proudly make that same declaration.

Just quit lying about Canada. What’d they ever do to you?

But She’s FAT. (Or: It Doesn’t Matter and Her Weight’s None of Your Business.)

Via Left in Alabama, ABC News wants you to know what the big To Do is going to be about Alabama’s Dr. Regina Benjamin, Surgeon General nominee: she’s fat.

Well, they haven’t actually been able to get any comment from her office, but Salon and a number of other people have been checking out some photos of Dr. Benjamin on the internet, and she totally looks like she needs to lose a few pounds.

I had kind of had it up to here – here, wherever the top of your head is, but I’m 5′5″ for reference – with the initial pouting about Sotomayor’s diabetes or her appearance, and the woman’s going to be a Supreme Court Justice. I mean beyond the fact that she has Type I diabetes (which doesn’t actually correlate with weight) and obviously understands how she has to take care of herself, it isn’t as if being a Supreme Court Justice requires you to have any great bounty of medical knowledge at your fingertips. Take a look at some of the other charming fellows sitting on the bench. If you’re gunning for looks over qualifications, you might as well throw them all out and drag in the cast of Ally McBeal.

But Dr. Regina Benjamin is a doctor, and a damn awesome doctor at that. If anyone knows how to take care of themselves, it’s probably Dr. Regina Benjamin. Maybe she just understands the overwhelming failure rate of diets. Maybe she just understands that eating habits and physical activity are oftentimes not related to weight – come on, don’t pretend you don’t know at least handful of rail thin friends who can eat what they want and never gain a pound no matter how much they exercise. Or maybe the President picked her because she understands how hard it can be to have access to quality medical care in lower-income, rural areas. Maybe it’s just the oysters and the shrimp she’s paid in when her patients can’t afford anything else. Maybe it’s just nobody’s damn business how much she weighs as long as she’s in good health and capable of doing the stellar job President Obama picked her to do.

The sexism and flat-out fat hatred that requires someone to bemoan the weight of a health care professional they’ve never seen in person and know absolutely nothing about is something that goes on pretty much every day, from Judge Sotomayor to a fat, female-bodied kid like me. What would you rather have in the Surgeon General spot? A good-looking television guy who doesn’t have any problem shaming you about your body, or a more than qualified health care professional who may just understands every body is unique?

To close, I’ll recommend this amazing post from Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose, which is one of many fantastic sites about the fat-positivity/size-positive movement. Just something to keep in mind as people try to ramp up the fatty-hate without even having any idea what the woman’s life is like.

7. Human beings deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Fat people are human beings.

8. Even fat people who are unhealthy still deserve dignity and respect. Still human beings. See how that works?

9. In any case, shaming teh fatties for being “unhealthy” doesn’t fucking help. If shame made people thin, there wouldn’t be a fat person in this country, trust me. I wish I could remember who said this, ’cause it’s one of my favorite quotes of all time: “You cannot hate people for their own good.”

An Open Letter On Health Care.

Last week I wrote a letter to the editor to the Montgomery Advertiser in support of a public option for health care, and today the Montgomery Advertiser published a letter to the editor from another reader responding to me. I just wanted to share, and very briefly dispel some unfortunate misinformation regarding the health care bill recently presented by Congress.

Here’s the letter responding to me:

Kit Kuzma complains that we need more competition than Blue Cross, then claims that we should push for a “public option,” which means no competition at all. The key to improving our health care system is to get the government out of the 50 percent it already controls, not give it 100 percent.

Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are nearly bankrupt. The federal government runs them all. Tell Congress and the states to stop mandating coverages and demand real tort reform.

The current Democratic plan is about having government control another 16 percent of our economy, and the only way it can cost less is to ration care. It also exempts labor unions and Congress and federal employees. Why?

And here’s what I want you to know, in brief.

I would like to submit a brief response to misinformation regarding the public option, recently published in response to my letter in support of the plan.

1. Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are red herrings, and two of these programs actually may see budget cuts (“savings”) in the health care legislation. As far as cost, the Congressional Budget Office says the bill is “deficit neutral,” and most of the newly insured would actually purchase private health coverage.

2. Tort reform is not going to lower the cost of health insurance: malpractice awards are actually less than two percent of health care costs. SOURCE: President Bush’s Congressional Budget Office. That’s the high estimate.

3. The current Democratic plan isn’t about “controlling” anything, is good for small businesses, and doesn’t create a mandate for the public option. SOURCE: Senator Mitch McConnell’s Communications Director.

4. Congress, unions, and strangely enough, churches are included in the House plan on page 8 as part of “employer-funded plans.” Unions aren’t exempt either (page 53). Not sure where this info is coming from, but their reading of the bill is curious.

Even just today I had someone try to convince me that access to emergency rooms – which isn’t, despite what people would love to believe, always actually available – constitutes universal health care coverage in America, despite the fact that patients are still billed for these visits and must deal with the reality of having it on their credit even if hospitals write the debt off (not great for hospitals, either).

The archetype of the Welfare Queen is alive and well, now updated for poor responsible souls who can’t get sCHIP or Medicaid or Medicare even though terrible layabouts wander around soaking up all the government resources. Frankly this is what a lot of terror regarding the public option comes down to: the idea that “those people,” jobless or non-white or whoever those people may be, are going to start stealing all the government’s resources away from good, responsible, hardworking folks.

The fact of the matter is your healthcare provider is probably overcharging you for lackluster benefits, even the employed are being denied health care based on “pre-existing conditions” or for any other number of reasons, and health care providers are often finding excuses not to cover things they ought to be paying for. Good, hard-working responsible folks are frankly getting the shaft from the insurance industry because it’s a business, and not a service.

The Center for American Progress has been producing some excellent fact sheets on individual states and their insurance markets. I encourage you to give the Alabama sheet a good look-over and, if you support major health care reform including a public option, fire off a letter to the editor of your local paper – and hell, send one to your congressperson for good measure.

Health care isn’t a privilege, it’s a right. And no matter what kind of response you think you’ll get, if you agree with that, you ought to defend it on principle.

DFA = Friggin Awesome

Yeah that’s right. I’m pretty exhausted (my brain is full) but I’ll have a write-up and some pictures tomorrow. I had the pleasure of meeting mooncat, countrycat, herding cats, and daddycat from Left in Alabama and Martin of The Progressive Electorate – everyone was very gracious and great fun to be around, and Martin hosted an excellent training on the basics of using social media. It was a lot of fun an I’m very grateful to the folks who tolerated my particular brand of quirkiness all weekend and to everyone who came down. If you can attend a training near your town I absolutely encourage you to do so; it was an incredible experience and I am so glad I went.

More tomorrow!