JABbering Stooge

Over at The Grist, David Roberts explains why now-former Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Van Jones is not the scary bogeyman that Glenn Beck makes him out to be. The rest of the piece is a good, serious read, but I could help but laugh at this line:

A while back I lampooned a Glenn Beck segment on Van Jones, who’s an advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. According to Beck, Jones is the man on the inside for a vast cryptosocialist conspiracy involving the Apollo Alliance, Color of Change, the Center for American Progress, George Soros, ACORN, Al Queda, and the Trilateral Commission. Everything that goes bump in Beck’s closet at night.

Back then I still thought the Gomer Pyle meets Father Coughlin shtick was harmless, too clownish to be taken seriously. Ah, those innocent days before the nation was locked in a room with frantic teabaggers.

Thanks, Dave. After Glenn Beck’s high-tech lynching of Van Jones, I needed some levity.

Sidebar: I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Glenn Beck’s petulant revenge fantasy has eerie parallels with Bill O’Reilly’s jihad against Dr. George Tiller. While the scalp claimed by Beck was fortunately metaphorical rather than literal, we’ve already seen how quickly right-wing lunacy can spiral into violence. And it’s just going to get worse the more Obama caves to the lunatic fringe.

I’ve made comments to this effect a couple of times over at JJ’s place, but between this video and all the unhinged bullshit coming from the right lately, I’m just about ready to look for employment north of the 49th parallel.

In the local fishwrap, of all places. The first letter takes on the notion that if you make it impossible to sue incompetent doctors, CIGNA will provide free ponies for everyone:

Tort reform

Re: Aug. 20 letter “Society’s real problem.”

Tort reform is a red herring when it comes to health care costs.

We all know how much tort reform has helped consumers in Texas, California and the 16 other states that have passed strong tort reform laws. My insurance premiums have risen more than 40 percent in the last three years. I now pay more than $4,000 per year and carry a $1,500 deductible. And I have never submitted a single claim.

A study by the American Medical Association based on surveys sent to medical practitioners shows that malpractice premiums as a percentage of overhead was the same in 2000 as it was in 1986. The largest percentage increase of overhead during that time (36 percent) was for nonmedical staffing. Might that be because of the extra people needed to process insurance paperwork?

The second letter uses conservatives’ Free Market Fundamentalism™ against them:

There is no health care market

What conservatives have forgotten in the debate over health care reform is that there is no health care market.

In a market, consumers operate with sufficient information and bargaining power to make effective choices based on marginal benefit. Hospitals and insurers are loath to part with information necessary to make informed choices.

Although 39 states require hospitals to report information on mortality or infections resulting from medical care, this information is difficult to find and not currently available in Texas. And even armed with information, consumers can hardly choose their emergency care provider.

Our choice is whether or not we value the myth of the health care market above the reality of human suffering it causes. The cost of protecting the health care market is inefficiency, a broken economy and, for those unable to receive life-saving care, death.

Heh. Indeed.

JJ, in her own comments section, on Professional Outrage Maven Bill Donohue’s predictable reaction to a recent episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit.

First, the setup:

Does Bill Dohohue have a side other than paranoid?

And now, the punchline:

Alison S — “Paranoid” is his good side. “Psychotic incontinent screaming red rage” is the other side. It’s a toss-up as to which side is dominant.

すごい! (Sugoi!)

DPJ hands historic loss to LDP, takes over government

In an unprecedented political upheaval that could change the way Japan is run, the Democratic Party of Japan seized 308 seats in Sunday’s Lower House election, bouncing the Liberal Democratic Party from power.

The DPJ’s tally far exceeded the 241 seats needed for a single majority and surpassed the 296 seats the LDP won in its landslide victory in the previous Lower House election in 2005.

The LDP did not just lose the election; it was humiliated.

By virtue of this landslide victory, DPJ chief Yukio Hatoyama is set to become Japan’s new Prime Minister. Remember, the right-wing “Liberal Democratic” Party has dominated Japanese politics since the end of the Occupation. For them to be so thoroughly pwned in parliamentary elections is quite a feat.

Time will tell if this is a temporary setback for the LDP or the harbinger of a new age in Japanese politics. But if it is indeed the latter, then that’s just すばらしい (subarashii)!

* The phrase 易姓革命 (ekiseikakumei) refers to the ancient Chinese concept of a dynastic revolution that occurs when the ruling dynasty loses “The Mandate of Heaven.” Seemed rather appropriate, given the circumstances.

Over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Davenoon ably takes apart Bob Owens’ ludicrous claim that the late Sen. Kennedy was really a super double-secret Commie spy of water fluoridation and sapping purity our of essences. But the best part is the opening paragraph:

It comes as little surprise that someone who commemorates treason in defense of slavery would fail to notice the absurdity in accusing Ted Kennedy of conspiring against his country, but that’s one of many reasons that Bob Owens remains a Very Special Blogger.

How true.

Tim F. at Balloon Juice:

Barack Obama stripped millions of Americans of their right to not have a black President.

*snerk* How true.

If you want to get an insight into the origins of the teabaggers and their Town Hall Putsches, you can’t do much better than this column by Stephen Pizzo, who covered the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas (scene of Pat Buchanan’s infamous “Culture War” speech). I have reproduced the full text below the fold.**

We are all Kenyans now!

You can get your Genuine Fake Kenyan Birth Certificate™ here.

* And I don’t mean in the “Scooter” Libby sense.