They're Lying About Obama's Plan, Even Though They Are Telling The Truth About His Goals

Matt Yglesias is overcome by honesty as he takes in the health care debate:

A disheartened Ezra Klein looks at a WSJ/NBC poll showing that people have lots of false beliefs about the president’s health care agenda and offers the following chart:

I will summarize the chart - roughly 50% to 55% of respondents think health care reform is likely to mean coverage for illegal aliens, a government takeover of the health care system, and taxpayer-funded abortions.  45% think that it will allow government to make decisions about when to stop providing medical care to the elderly.

Here is the question (p. 5 of 6):

Let me read you a number of criticisms that town hall protesters have made about the proposed health care plan. For each one, please tell me whether this seems to you to be likely to happen or unlikely to happen.

Let's note, they are not asking about the specific plan passed by the House, or the emanations and vibrations from the Senate - they are asking respondents to take a guess as to what "reform" will mean.  One might even argue that the question is sufficiently open to be interpreted as inquiring what reform will mean both now and over time.

Here is Matt's take:

My first thought is “reform opponents are lying like crazy and it’s working.” My second thought is that three out of these four things would actually be a good idea.  [He spares grandma - TM]

That's it - opponents are lying because they are describing what a liberal President and his liberal base hope to accomplish over time with health care reform.

As to a government takeover of health care, Obamna favored single-payer in 2003 and in 2007, although he bowed to reality in 2007 and described a long transition to get there.  Is fear that government takeover is an Obama goal so unrealistic?

On coverage for illegals, Obama's answer is a firm "No but yes":

Asked by CBS News' Katie Couric in an exclusive interview whether illegal immigrants should be covered under a new health care plan, President Obama responded simply, "no." But he said there may need to be an exception to that policy for children.

"First of all, I'd like to create a situation where we're dealing with illegal immigration, so that we don't have illegal immigrants," he said. "And we've got legal residents or citizens who are eligible for the plan. And I want a comprehensive immigration plan that creates a pathway to achieve that."

"The one exception that I think has to be discussed is how are we treating children," he continued. "Partly because if you've got children who may be here illegally but are still in playgrounds or at schools, and potentially are passing on illnesses and communicable diseases, that aren't getting vaccinated, that I think is a situation where you may have to make an exception."

Further complicating the picture is that many illegals have employer based coverage through their (illegal-held) jobs.  If such an employer drops the company plan and transitions the employees to the public option, will the illegals be denied coverage by flinty Democrats?  Will Obama really pass up this chance to Hispander?  One might reasonably doubt it.

And since we don't have a current legislative proposal to evaluate and can only rely on our own guesses about subsequent tweakings of this round of reform, I am hazy as to why critics are "lying" when expressing their fear that eventually a liberal President backed by a Democratic House and Senate will get what he wants.

MY BAD:  Matt was echoing Obama conference call in which The One pounded on these points:

In a conference call with liberal and progressive religious leaders Wednesday afternoon, President Obama railed against those who were “bearing false witness” in the debate over health care reform.

“I know there's been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness, but I want everyone to know what health insurance reform is all about,” the president said.

...

The president said the bill would not provide health insurance for illegal immigrants, or as he called them, “illegal aliens.” “That's not true. There's a specific provision in the bill that does not provide health insurance for those individuals.”

“You've heard that this is a government takeover of health care,” the president said. “That's not true. You've heard that this is all going to…mean government funding of abortion.  Not true.”

If it doesn't mean a government takeover and coverage of illegals it won't be because Obama didn't want those things.

Comments

[Lesley]

The Michelle Antoinette Diaries: The Couture of Corruption

WELL, am I ever sick and tired of this health care jazz. And what's the deal with that stupid Barack, opening up his big, fat mouth about his granny and her costly and needless hip surgery before she kicked the bucket? My mom now REFUSES to speak to him and gives him the evil eye whenever he walks into the room. She's been pestering the White House chef for a live chicken and has been spending a lot of time with this bug-eyed dude from Haiti. I keep trying to calm her down by telling her, "Geez Mom, what do you expect of a typical half white boy?"

And then that idiot I married decided it would play well with the press that I chill with my posse outside the gates of the WH and hawk produce at the Obama Family Human Waste Dump & Farmer's Market. Yeah, I can just hear those ignorant crackers cracking their jokes: "Hey Michelle! How's that forty acres and a mule working out for ya?" I keep asking Barack: How could you possibly think this would be good for my image as an international fashion & beauty icon? Posh Spice wouldn't be caught dead selling vegetables!!!! Oh! And those sneaky Clintons! All the time THEY KNEW that our perfect PR photo op garden was a ticking crap bomb and they didn't say a word! Well, we got Hillary back but good. Barack's been sending her to every Third World shit hole he can think of. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when that over-stuffed pantsuit is forced to diplomatically partake of goat eyeball in Tanzania. I hope that bloated toad publicly gacks on television just like George Bush Sr. did in Japan! Yeah, she'll think twice about running against Barack in 2012! Fat chance Fatty Arbuckle-ette will do that. With that seriously constipated look she perpetually sports, Tankles will be lucky to be a laxative spokesmodel by the time we're done with her.

Last week, I took the girls to Spike Manischewitz's ( or whatever the hell his name is) DC burger hut. Yeah, so what if the little people were annoyed by having their cell phones confiscated. When I was hanging with my new BFF QE2 at Buck House, she gave me some terrific advice. She said, "Michelle, dear, Royalty never allows themselves to be photographed while hoarking down their chow. Its embarrassing to see oneself in the tabloids photographed with an open mouth crammed full of Funyuns. I think a word to the wise should be sufficient." She said all this with the cutest British accent. She sounded just like Posh Spice!!!! Anyway, a word to the wise WAS sufficient for me! My Secret Service goons have been ordered to smash anyone daring to photograph me while eating in the head with a shovel (esp. for Bgates - ed). Oh, and the other bit of advice my new BFF QE2 gave me, "And for God's Sake! Don't do a Britanny! Keep your legs together when exiting an automobile and always remember to wear panties." That was the kewlest opening for me to tell her all about Spanx. At first she acted kinda surprised and said, "I had no idea you knew Max Mosley." I just smiled and pretended like I had a clue what the hell she was talking about, but in the end, suffice to say, we like totally bonded over foundation garments. Its a chick thing.

Well, that's about it for today. I've gotta put on my face cream and find my hair net.

EM 24/7 For PUK, especially the Mosley bit.

[Jim Ryan]

Heh.

[jean]

LOL Lesley will you get to why M buys all her slacks a size too small?

[sbw]

"Wee weed up" might mean "full of piss" and/or "vinegar"... the balsamic for the arugula and the former because the One is always frustrated that others are causing him to fail... never O, himself.

Then again the "weed" might be not arugula but the sweet-smelling brownie additive that sustained him through college and fogged his synapses enough that his mentors found him gullible.

[clarice]

Great job, Lesley. Great!!!

[Jim Ryan]

Krauthammer and many others would feel shame if they supported Sarah Palin. One supports the intellectual with the right pedigree, or the dour-faced, hard-nosed pol, or the man with the military background, or the woman with elbows who rarely smiles (a Hutchison a Thatcher), or the wonkish, long-time insider. One shows some support for Reagan - never full-throated but only with apologetic mannerisms and inflections of speech indicating a reluctance and an acknowledgement of Reagan's likely stupidity.

But one would never show support for Palin (aside from damning faint praise, as in Krauthammer's "I've got nothing against her"). She is sunny. She is not an intellectual. She is not a wonkish insider. Etc. To show support for her would be to take a stand as a sort of shallow, naive, overly optimistic fool in the circles of people that matter. It would bring shame upon oneself.

Of course, this stance means that one must twist oneself into a pretzel at times, as Krauthammer does in today's article. It might also lead one to make gaffes, as when Bainbridge said the other day that Palin was "crazy" and categorized her amongst the "black-helicopter" crowd.

This is not to say that there are not plenty of conservatives who don't support Palin and for more respectable reasons than shame. There are, and that's fine. But there are loads who are in cognitive dissonance and it shows.

[Porchlight]

"I had no idea you knew Max Mosley."

LOL Lesley - brilliant!

[sbw]

Lesley, outsiders deserve to giggle, too. And they deserve the continuity of the entire journal.

Why not compile a list of links and see if TOTUS would list them on a sidebar link as something he reads around the White House when he is idle because the Won has wandered off the reservation without him.

[Waybak Machine]

Yglesias;

"Joe Klein writes about the rise of the crazy party:

How can you sustain a democracy if one of the two major political parties has been overrun by nihilists? And another question: How can you maintain the illusion of journalistic impartiality when one of the political parties has jumped the shark?

He says it didn’t always used to be this way:

An argument can be made that this is nothing new. Dwight Eisenhower tiptoed around Joe McCarthy. Obama reminded an audience in Colorado that opponents of Social Security in the 1930s “said that everybody was going to have to wear dog tags and that this was a plot for the government to keep track of everybody … These struggles have always boiled down to a contest between hope and fear.” True enough. There was McCarthyism in the 1950s, the John Birch Society in the 1960s. But there was a difference in those times: the crazies were a faction — often a powerful faction — of the Republican Party, but they didn’t run it. The neofascist Father Coughlin had a huge radio audience in the 1930s, but he didn’t have the power to control and silence the elected leaders of the party that Limbaugh — who, if not the party’s leader, is certainly the most powerful Republican extant — does now. Until recently, the Republican Party contained a strong moderate wing. It was a Republican, the lawyer Joseph Welch, who delivered the coup de grâce to Senator McCarthy when he said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

This is all true, but I think it’s a rather rose-tinted way of looking at the past. Consider that back in 1955 a prominent American politician declared that “On May 17, 1954, the Constitution of the United States was destroyed because of the Supreme Court’s decision.” The decision in question was Brown v. Board of Education and he went on to urge people to break the law, arguing that “You are not obliged to obey the decisions of any court which are plainly fraudulent.” Ten days after the Brown ruling he testified thusly before the senate:

"The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination… Mr. President, it is the law of nature, it is the law of God, that every race has both the right and the duty to perpetuate itself. All free men have the right to associate exclusively with members of their own race, free from governmental interference, if they so desire."

He told Lyndon Johnson that the murder of Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman was a “publicity stunt” that didn’t warrant further investigation. He told Jewish Senator Jacob Javits “I don’t like you — or your kind.” He used his position on as head of the Internal Security Subcommittee to harass civil rights proponents under guise of seeking out communist subversion. And in 1956 he became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee giving him jurisdiction over all Civil Rights Legislation.

The Senator in question was James Eastland of Mississippi and he was a good deal crazier and more repugnant than anyone currently serving in the Congress. But he was a Democrat. Just as there used to be a fair number of moderately progressive Republicans in Congress there used to be a sizable block of rabid white supremacists who operated with utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law inside the Democratic Party. This created structural conditions for a good deal of bipartisanship, but it wasn’t actually less deranged than present-day conditions. And note that Eastland persisted in the Senate, albeit in somewhat mellowed form, all the way until 1978!

Another moral of the story is that Eastland’s chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee obviously made passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 impossible. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and President Lyndon Johnson dealt with this by just . . . not letting the bill get bottled up in committee and bringing it to the floor instead. The sky didn’t fall! Leading politicians decided that justice was more important that the dead hand of Senate procedure and they brought the bill to the floor where it was voted on"

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/08/crazy-politicians-through-history.php

They might be called 'Regressives', but that implies movement. They just stay the same.

Discuss.

[Porchlight]

I think the editors of WSJ have been reading bgates:

WSJ: Obama Contradicts Himself On Health Care

[Rob Crawford]

One question is why, with income inequality reaching unprecedented levels, we shouldn’t act to redress that inequity in our health care system?

Who gives a rat's ass about "income inequality"? Somebody provides a service that others find more valuable than the service you provide -- so?

[pagar]

If I have not lost my mind, I saw a comment somewhere that there was to be forum yesterday on William Ayers and how he became a professor at a major University etc? Now I can't find any thing. Anyone else remember anything like that?

[the bishop]

Clearly, sbw, the TOTUS hasn't commented on the latest utterance, it was being debugged at the time, that's a good excuse as any.

I didn't catch onto Bainbridge, until last night, he was been taken to task rather strongly, so he closed the blog, which is his right, although appealing to Noonan, Buckley & Parker as authority doesn't really
constitute an argument.

[Parking Lot]

WEE-WEE
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wee-wee

Urine; a free variant form of pee-pee. Used almost exclusively by children and people speaking to or imitating children; The penis; a free variant form of pee-pee. Used almost exclusively by children and people speaking to or imitating children; to urinate

[Chimpy Nuts]

Ridge in 2008

Asked by Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times if politics ever influenced decisions on threat warnings, he volunteered to take a lie-detector test. “Wire me up,” Mr. Ridge said, according to Mr. Lichtblau’s book, “Bush’s Law.” “Not a chance. Politics played no part.”

oops!

[Jim Ryan]

Who gives a rat's ass about "income inequality"?

Bingo.

There is a duty of charity to help decent people who fall into dire straits. There is no duty to achieve economic equality. As has been demonstrated over and over again in the last 100 years, economic equality is inconsistent with rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.

[Rob Crawford]

Discuss.

Why? It's a load of crap.

[jean]

Sorry to correct you ,but isn't it a load of wee-weed?

[Jim Ryan]

This Ridge, either he's a liar who wants a couple of million in book sales or he was too cowardly to warn us at the time that the Bush administration was playing politics with our national security. If it's the latter, then so be it. But there is no third possibility.

[Waybak Machine]

"too cowardly to warn us at the time that the Bush administration was playing politics with our national security"

Statements like that won't win you any friends here. They assiduously stifle such thoughts, as they arise, so they can continue their 'insider' status.

[Extraneus]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall when that over-stuffed pantsuit is forced to diplomatically partake of goat eyeball in Tanzania.

Ha!

[daddy]

Bgates,

I still have 500 comments to read just to catch up, but yours yesterday on this link at 6:00 was outstanding.
　　My partner this trip was in stitches. It is wonderful for me to observe folks who know nothing about JOM to read over my shoulder and see what I`m giggling about. Follow everyone`s advice please and go to AT and post for a wider audience. Great stuff everybody!

[the bishop]

Really what insider status is that, malaprop
spell checker, considering there had been one plot to blow up Macy's foiled that year, the August revelations ;re Dhiren Birot, the Madrid train bombings, right before the elections in Spain, the London underground bombings the following summer.

Yes, the Democrats empowered slimy weasels like Eastland and Barnett, in fact gave them carte blanche over seating their delegation at the '64 convention, but what
does that have to do with taking over 1/6
of the economy

[Waybak Machine]

"what
does that have to do with taking over 1/6
of the economy"

'It's sooooo scary'

[Waybak Machine]

I love the ACLU, outing real covert CIA agents to terrorists.

Washington Post;

The Justice Department recently questioned military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay about whether photographs of CIA personnel, including covert officers, were unlawfully provided to detainees charged with organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
This Story

*
Detainees Shown CIA Officers' Photos
*
Detainee Plan Draws Fear, Opposition
*
Blackwater Disclosure Adds to CIA Worries
*
Full Coverage: Inside the CIA Interrogation Debate

View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story

Investigators are looking into allegations that laws protecting classified information were breached when three lawyers showed their clients the photographs, the sources said. The lawyers were apparently attempting to identify CIA officers and contractors involved in the agency's interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects in facilities outside the United States, where the agency employed harsh techniques.

If detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are tried, either in federal court or by a military commission, defense lawyers are expected to attempt to call CIA personnel to testify.

The photos were taken by researchers hired by the John Adams Project, a joint effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to support military counsel at Guantanamo Bay, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry. It was unclear whether the Justice Department is also examining those organizations.

Both groups have long said that they will zealously investigate the CIA's interrogation program at "black sites" worldwide as part of the defense of their clients. But government investigators are now looking into whether the defense team went too far by allegedly showing the detainees the photos of CIA officers, in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082004295.html

The ACLU are true patriots, willing to spy on Americans in the privacy of their own homes so that they can provide terrorists with accurate intel.

[Waybak Machine]

CHARLES HURT, BUREAU CHIEF, AP;

Repeatedly invoking the Bible, President Obama yesterday told religious leaders that health-care critics are "bearing false witness" against his plan.

The fire-and-brimstone president declared holy war in a telephone call with thousands of religious leaders around the country as he sought to breathe life into his plan for a system overhaul.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08202009/news/nationalnews/holy_o_turns_faith_healer_185446.htm

Finally, the Theocracy has arrived!

[Waybak Machine]

Regressives are not only scare-mongers but as the false colors above indicate, liars.

[Waybak Machine]

My son serving in Iraq just called to confirm that they are indeed liars.

[Ignatz]

--Yglesias;--

Cleo used to cut and paste the occasional fact or statistic, no matter how irrelevant or self defeating. Now he just gives us more of the numbskull Yglesias' opinion, usually in a thread discussing the latest idiocy by Yglesias.
About as convincing as Trump's opinion on hair.

[Waybak Machine]

And the crocodile tears about your dead mum?

[Jane]

Who gives a rat's ass about "income inequality"?

Liberal. Dick brings it up all the time and it makes me cringe. It's as if he is jealous.

Amy's explanation - (which I found enlightening because I never thought of it this way):

Liberals think there is a finite pie and they have to get their share even if it means taking it from someone who earned it.

COnservatives think there is an infinite pie, so they are happy when anyone makes money, because it simply underscores their own opportunity.

[PeterUK]

Hi Septic,you aren't quite Waybak enough,try the faraway machine.

[Waybak Machine]

"infinite pie"

We just want a little piece of your infinite pie.

[Waybak Machine]

Actually I miss my son's pie. Since he hit puberty and started liking girls I've been very lonely.

[PeterUK]

"We just want a little piece of your infinite pie."

Ask Ted to leave you some in his will.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

It was a Republican, the lawyer Joseph Welch, who delivered the coup de grâce to Senator McCarthy when he said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

That is probably the single phoniest famous line in American political history. And since Stanton Evans published Blacklisted by History, there is no excuse for retelling the myth.

The fact is that Joseph Welch was a loon, who was losing, big time, for his client (the Pentagon) in the Army McCarthy Hearings. He was reduced to playground badgering of Roy Cohn that would have been embarrassing to a 4th grader. Here's what led up to the famous phoniness:

Mr. WELCH. You can’t go too far revealing Communists, Mr. Cohn. Reel off the cities for us.

Mr. COHN. Schenectady, N.Y.; Syracuse, N.Y.; Rome, N.Y.; Quincy, Mass.; Fitchburg, Mass.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Dunkirk, N.Y.; another at Buffalo, N.Y.; Cambridge, Mass.; New Bedford, Mass.; Boston, Mass.; Quincy, Mass.; Lynn, Mass.; Pittsfield Mass.; Boston, Mass.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Cohn, you not only frighten me, you make me ashamed when there are so many in Massachusetts. [Laughter.] This is not a laughing matter, believe me. Are you alarmed at that situation, Mr. Cohn?

Mr. COHN. Yes, sir; I am.

Mr. WELCH. Nothing could be more alarming, could it?

Mr. COHN. It certainly is a very alarming thing.

Mr. WELCH. Will you not, before the sun goes down, give those names to the FBI and at least have those men put under surveillance.

Mr. COHN. Mr. Welch, the FBI—

Senator MCCARTHY. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. WELCH. That is a fair question.

Senator MCCARTHY. Mr. Chairman, let’s not be ridiculous. Mr. Welch knows, as I have told him a dozen times, that the FBI has all of this information. The defense plants have the information. The only thing we can do is to try and publicly expose these individuals and hope that they will be gotten rid of. And you know that, Mr. Welch.

Mr. WELCH. I do not know that. . . .

Cannot the FBI put these 130 men under surveillance before sundown tomorrow?

Mr. COHN. Sir, if there is need for surveillance in the case of espionage or anything like that, I can well assure you that Mr. John Edgar Hoover and his men know a lot better than I, and I quite respectfully suggest, sir, than probably a lot of us, just who should be put under surveillance. I do not propose to tell the FBI how to run its shop. It does it very well.

Mr. WELCH. And they do it, don’t they, Mr. Cohn?

Mr. COHN. When the need arises, of course.

Mr. WELCH. And will you tell them tonight, Mr. Cohn, that here is a case where the need has arisen, so that it can be done by sundown tomorrow night?

Mr. COHN. No, sir; there is no need for my telling the FBI what to do about this or anything else. . . .

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Cohn, tell me once more: Every time you learn of a Communist or a spy anywhere, is it your policy to get them out as fast as possible?

Mr. COHN. Surely, we want them out as fast as possible, sir.

Mr. WELCH. And whenever you learn of one from now on, Mr. Cohn, I beg of you, will you tell somebody about them quick?

Mr. COHN. Mr. Welch, with great respect, I work for the committee here. They know how we go about handling situations of Communist infiltration and failure to act on FBI information about Communist infiltration. If they are displeased with the speed with which I and the group of men who work with me proceed, if they are displeased with the order in which we move, I am sure they will give me appropriate instructions along those lines, and I will follow any which they give me.

Mr. WELCH. May I add my small voice, sir, and say whenever you know about a subversive or a Communist spy, please hurry. Will you remember those words?

At this point McCarthy finally has had enough, and interrupts to turn the tables...

TO BE CONTINUED

[Chimpy Nuts]

make your own pie

[clarice]

I think that CIA outing story is interesting, too. If I have time I plan to write it up though I am pressed for it.

As for Ridge:"Asked by Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times if politics ever influenced decisions on threat warnings, he volunteered to take a lie-detector test. “Wire me up,” Mr. Ridge said, according to Mr. Lichtblau’s book, “Bush’s Law.” “Not a chance. Politics played no part.”
I don't think this is inconsistent with what he said yesterday. That is, yesterday he said some people in the Administration(I believe Ashcroft and Rumsfeld) urged him to raise the threat level before the election but he refused to. That is, he did not allow political considerations to play a role in that decision.

I'd add that my guess is that Ashcroft and Rumsfeld's motivations were not partisan but were based on the Spanish experience whereas Ridge determined to act only on actual intel that something was likely to occur that threatenee national security.

[Waybak Machine]

There were never any communists, you bedwetting wingnuts!

[Waybak Machine]

Did Maggie make good pie?

[Waybak Machine]

I would kill for some of Barack's chocolate cake. Especially the cream filling!!!

[Waybak Machine]

steak and kidney, I mean. Did she make them with 'bangers'?

[Waybak Machine]

Mmmmmmm... Obama... bangers... mmmmmm

[Waybak Machine]

If you rethuglicans won't discuss my Journolist spam, I might as well punish you with my insults and fantasies!

[Waybak Machine]

Stating to reminisce? Them mammaries, I mean memories.

[Waybak Machine]

Has anyone seen my seroquel?

[Waybak Machine]

just get your son to send you some

[Waybak Machine]

"I might as well punish you with my insults and fantasies!"

I'm punishing you with your own fantasies?

[Waybak Machine]

If you don't stop imitating me then no one here will take me seriously anymore!!!

STOP ITT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gmax]

Actually, while its not fashionable to call yourself one, when you advocate for centralized control of the economy and income equalization you have already locked arms with Marx in spirit. And with the whole Fairness Doctrine and calling Americans using their first Amendment rights "UNAmerican" and similar likeminded policies to shut down dissent, you have locked arms with either Stalin or Hitler, take your pick. Socialist or National Socialist, they all seem to be the same as Progressive today.

[Waybak Machine]

The only one who take you seriously is Clarice. Wait a minute, is she your stateside Maggie?

[Marc Ambinder]

"Socialist or National Socialist, they all seem to be the same as Progressive today."

That's just too scary!!!!

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Continuing from the previous post, McCarthy references something he read in the NY Times only a few weeks earlier:

Senator MCCARTHY. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. COHN. ....

Senator MCCARTHY. Mr. Chairman, in view of that question—

Senator MUNDT. Have you a point of order?

Senator MCCARTHY. Not exactly, Mr. Chairman, but in view of Mr. Welch’s request that the information be given once we know of anyone who might be performing any work for the Communist Party, I think we should tell him that he has in his law firm a young man named Fisher whom he recommended, incidentally, to do work on this committee, who has been for a number of years a member of an organization which was named, oh, years and years ago, as the legal bulwark of the Communist Party, an organization which always swings to the defense of anyone who dares to expose Communists. I certainly assume that Mr. Welch did not know of this young man at the time he recommended him as the assistant counsel for this committee, but he has such terror and such a great desire to know where anyone is located who may be serving the Communist cause, Mr. Welch, that I thought we should just call to your attention the fact that your Mr. Fisher, who is still in your law firm today, whom you asked to have down here looking over the secret and classified material, is a member of an organization, not named by me but named by various committees, named by the Attorney General, as I recall, and I think I quote this verbatim, as “the legal bulwark of the Communist Party.” He belonged to that for a sizable number of years, according to his own admission, and he belonged to it long after it had been exposed as the legal arm of the Communist Party.

Knowing that, Mr. Welch, I just felt that I had a duty to respond to your urgent request that before sundown, when we know of anyone serving the Communist cause, we let the agency know. We are now letting you know that your man did belong to this organization for, either 3 or 4 years, belonged to it long after he was out of law school.

I don’t think you can find anyplace, anywhere, an organization which has done more to defend Communists—I am again quoting the report—to defend Communists, to defend espionage agents, and to aid the Communist cause, than the man whom you originally wanted down here at your right hand instead of Mr. St. Clair.

I have hesitated bringing that up, but I have been rather bored with your phony requests to Mr. Cohn here that he personally get every Communist out of government before sundown. Therefore, we will give you information about the young man in your own organization.

Welch is trapped, and he knows it:

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman.

Senator MUNDT. Mr. Welch, the Chair should say he has no recognition or no memory of Mr. Welch’s recommending either Mr. Fisher or anybody else as counsel for this committee.

I will recognize Mr. Welch.

Senator MCCARTHY. Mr. Chairman, I will give you the [NY Times] news story on that.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, under these circumstances I must have something approaching a personal privilege.

Senator MUNDT. You may have it, sir. It will not be taken out of your time.

Mr. WELCH. Senator McCarthy, I did not know—Senator, sometimes you say “May I have your attention?”

Senator MCCARTHY. I am listening to you. I can listen with one ear.

Mr. WELCH. This time I want you to listen with both.

Senator MCCARTHY. Yes.

Mr. WELCH. Senator McCarthy, I think until this moment—

Senator MCCARTHY. Jim, will you get the news story to the effect that this man belonged to this Communist-front organization? Will you get the citations showing that this was the legal arm of the Communist Party, and the length of time that he belonged, and the fact that he was recommended by Mr. Welch? I think that should be in the record.

Mr. WELCH. You won’t need anything in the record when I have finished telling you this.

Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us.

When I decided to work for this committee I asked Jim St. Clair, who sits on my right, to be my first assistant. I said to Jim, “Pick somebody in the firm who works under you that you would like.” He chose Fred Fisher and they came down on an afternoon plane. That night, when he had taken a little stab at trying to see what the case was about, Fred Fisher and Jim St. Clair and I went to dinner together. I then said to these two young men, “Boys, I don’t know anything about you except I have always liked you, but if there is anything funny in the life of either one of you that would hurt anybody in this case you speak up quick.”

Fred Fisher said, “Mr. Welch, when I was in law school and for a period of months after, I belonged to the Lawyers Guild,” as you have suggested, Senator. He went on to say, “I am secretary of the Young Republicans League in Newton with the son of Massachusetts' Governor, and I have the respect and admiration of the 25 lawyers or so in Hale & Dorr.”

I said, “Fred, I just don’t think I am going to ask you to work on the case. If I do, one of these days that will come out and go over national television and it will just hurt like the dickens.”

So, Senator, I asked him to go back to Boston.

So, Senator, I asked him to go back to Boston.

Little did I dream you could be so reckless and cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale & Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale & Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I will do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.

Senator MCCARTHY. Mr. Chairman.

Senator MUNDT. Senator McCarthy?

Senator MCCARTHY. May I say that Mr. Welch talks about this being cruel and reckless. He was just baiting; he has been baiting Mr. Cohn here for hours, requesting that Mr. Cohn, before sundown, get out of any department of Government anyone who is serving the Communist cause.

I just give this man’s record, and I want to say, Mr. Welch, that it has been labeled long before he became a member, as early as 1944—

The news article McCarthy is attempting to put in the record was an interview Joseph Welch himself gave to the NY Times explaining why he dismissed Fred Fisher from his legal team and sent him back to Boston to work; he'd discovered Fisher's membership in the National Lawyer's Guild, a notorious communist front group.

Yes, Welch is accusing McCarthy of having no decency for referencing Welch's own outing of his colleague in the NY Times.

[Waybak Machine]

Communists did not exist you bedwetting reichwinger!!!! Reagan the liar made them all up.

[PeterUK]

I,m not a communist,I just want a share of what you have got.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

I have the need you have the ability to give.

[Waybak Machine]

Thanks Patrick.

Now, what is your point?

[Waybak Machine]

More to the point,what's my point,or to be more precise,what is the point of me?

[Waybak Machine]

I miss my son's "point"

[Waybak Machine]

My son was cruel.He said the heat, the flies the dust,the risk of being killed,torture or raped by the Taleban was better than staying at home with me!

[Waybak Machine]

I come here to try to have a reasonable discussion about the latest Journolist blast email from Yglesias explaining you're all lunatics, and you just refuse to take me seriously.

I hate you wingerz!!!!!!!!!11!

[Waybak Machine]

Yglesias looks so much like my son.

[Waybak Machine]

If he wasn't real, he could even pass as my boy.

[Extraneus]

She's not going away.

Sarah Palin: No Health Care Reform Without Legal Reform

[Waybak Machine]

Did I show a picture of my son? I had two, but I swapped one for a goat.

[daddy]

Pofarmer,

Saw you had the eye dilation tests and am still a few hundred comments short of catching up, but just for sick humor, any Air Line pilot in the world knows that to pass the 20/20 eye test and not have to haul around a clunky pair of glasses is simply to read line I think 11, "D E F P O T E C". Heck, my vision is so good that now I can read it with both my eye`s shut! Hope it stays the same under Obamacare.

Now that you are all sufficiently scared to death, back to healthcare.

[Rob Crawford]

Lordy, the troll sure is banging away on his highchair.

Rage, rage, rage. It's all you know how to do, anyway.

[Waybak Machine]

"Lordy, the troll sure is banging away on his highchair."

It's not a high chair it's a goat.

[centralcal]

lol, daddy!

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Thanks Patrick.

Now, what is your point?

To find out if you are capable of reading and digesting historical fact. The answer is pretty clear; you aren't.

[Barbara]

Somebody didn't take her/his meds today.

[Pofarmer]

Picked this up on an Ag Forum. I obviously can't verify it, but, I have no doubt it's reliable.

By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on.

On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his healthcare and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release ANY details other than the date.

On about Tuesday Bill found out that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at the airport. (This is only because Bill knows EVERYONE at the airport) Our airport is actually located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a very remote location. Nothing is around there. They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar. You could not pick a more remote location, and you can not get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public.

FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking. (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be SHIPPED IN!! $$$$$

During the week, cargo by the TONS was being shipped in constantly. Airport employees could not believe how it just kept coming. Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession. $$$$$

Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th, they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday.

Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a Local printing shop per White House request. Hmmmm......900 tickets just DISAPPEARED.

This same morning someone called into the radio from the local UPS branch and said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation!!! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just think...with all of the traveling the White House is doing. $$$$$ One can only imagine what else we are paying for.

On Friday Bill and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd.

The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts. Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with them.....professing abortion rights with their T-shirts and preprinted signs. (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to protest in ANOTHER area)

Those against healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man.

So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been driving through. He found out about the occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and came to protest.

If you are wondering about the press.....Well, all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings FAR away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds.
We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho . Speaking of the local media...they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned into the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want anyone to have to think off the top of their head.

It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes........the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors...EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!!

I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America , more like the USSR !! I was physically nauseous. Bill and I have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country. America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again!! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC . Scary!!

[Melinda Romanoff]

The latest @ ZH

Not good.

[Pofarmer]

Hey Daddy.

My problem is that I actually want to SEE!!!

I've got a right eye that was a lazy eye. Corrected I'm about 20/50 or so. Problem is, I'm right handed, and right eye dominant, and I've got a hunting trip to Montana coming up in October, and I was hoping to get this thing fixed up in time for that. Looks like it's not to be, though, at least not before that trip.

[bad]

Melinda, you're scaring the wee-weed out of me.

[glasater]

Pofarmer--

It's just amazing your post on Zero's Bozeman visit. I had received that same email message early this AM from a very reliable source.

So glad you posted it here 'cause I was tempted to do that very same thing.

Thanks!!

[Elliott]

Lesley, that was very amusing. Very nicely done on the British components. So, what's in there about the first lady of France?

[glasater]

Melinda--Thanks so much for your links. What an education!

We've taken a small position in wheat perhaps in anticipation of inflation and that has certainly gone into the tank. Should of been thinking of the deflation aspects that are going on right now.

The article in the link at ZH regarding Germany was enlightening.
My understanding is that Eastern Europe was on the up-swing economically and I don't see how EE can do very well if Germany has problems.

The talk yesterday was the new currency popular play was in the Turkish lira.
Any of your thoughts there would be most interesting.

[Elliott]

Ann, I haven't watched yet. Maybe it will be good that my expectations are now lowered.

[Melinda Romanoff]

It's the whole global economy that's contracted anywhere from 25 to 30%. Believe it or not, the US is still in better shape than anyone, except Canada, to weather the coming storm.

Rosie's advice is still the best I've read, if anyone needs the link, I'll re-post it now LUN.

[glasater]

Thanks again Melinda.....:)

[bad to the bone]

Ann, the picture you posted last night of MO's tight jeans features something my kids and their friends refer to as a "camel toe."

[PD]

"We just want a little piece of your infinite pie."

In other words, you want what belongs to someone else.

President Wee-Wee can counsel you on which commandment that violates.