Losing Cause

A solid majority of everybody hates the Paul Ryan Republican Medicare-killing plan, according to a new CNN poll:

The poll indicates that 58 percent of the public opposes the Republican plan on Medicare, with 35 percent saying they support the proposal.

Ryan's sorry voucher plan was designed to pander, by making it affect only those age 55 or under. However, if the GOP thought that meant they'd keep the seniors in their camp, they may have actually helped push them into the Democratic column for 2012:

"Half of those we questioned say that the country would be worse off under the GOP Medicare proposals and 56 percent think that GOP plan would be bad for the elderly," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Opposition is highest among senior citizens, at 74 percent, suggesting that seniors are most worried about changes to Medicare even if those changes are presented as ones that would not affect existing Medicare recipients."

That means even the people you'd most expect to be for Ryan's Ayn Rand dream date -- those on the Right -- are against it as well:

"A majority of all demographic groups don't favor the GOP Medicare proposals," Holland adds. "That includes conservatives - 54 percent of them don't like the plan. As a result, rank-and-file Republicans are split right down the middle, with 48 percent favoring the GOP plan and 50 percent opposed."

Ryan's been lying about the healthcare reform passed last year, saying it "kills Medicare as we know it," which I thought would even be beneath him. I guess not -- he's that desperate for his plan to somehow be accepted as "bold" and "smart" when it is merely another gussied up attempt by GOoPers to dismantle New Deal and Great Society advances in order to better allow the wealthy to keep all the money in America for themselves.

But thank you, Lyin' Ryan, for -- even better! -- helping to bolster public support for the Affordable Care Act, i.e. health insurance reform, or what the GOP disparages as "Obamacare" -- a phrase they may come to regret as it becomes more popular in implementation:

But the most surprising numbers -- and possibly the best one for Obama -- are the results showing that political messaging against the Ryan budget may actually increase the numbers who support the Obama's health care law. The legislation is enemy number one for Republicans heading into 2012, who hope to use continuing wariness about the bill to attack the president and Democrats this fall.

Meanwhile, the Republican Presidential candidates continue to act like lemmings, including the supposed smart, moderate one:

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who took his first steps into the Republican presidential field as a moderate, has over the past month turned himself into something far from the center when it comes to Medicare. From throwing Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) more love than anyone to grabbing onto Ryan's Medicare-destroying budget with both hands, Huntsman's separating himself from the pack: No one running for president, it seems, is more excited about the Republican budget plan than him.

In an op-ed published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, Huntsman calls Ryan's plan an "honest attempt to save Medicare" and he calls on critics to put up their own plan or shut up about the GOP's. But that's among the more subtle love he's thrown Ryan and his budget in the recent past -- on Tuesday, Huntsman called Ryan one of the two Republicans alive he admires most.

My own conviction is that anyone who follows the "teachings" of crank Ayn Rand, like avowed devotee Paul Ryan, should not be allowed near a position of governmental responsibility.

After all, the most disastrous Fed Chairman of all time, Alan Greenspan, was one of her personal acolytes.

The Fascist Syrian Government

Andrew Sullivan has the brutal post on the torture, genital mutilation and murder under arrest of a thirteen year-old boy by Syrian authorities, with the video of his corpse being returned to his parents. I don't even want to embed here. Too awful.

This Assad was supposedly the good-guy doctor trained in the West, not his brutal old man. Well, unless he's a puppet, he's still in charge, and he now deserves the meathook for his deeds.

On top of all the slaughter of protesting civilians, this boy, Hamza al-Khateeb, is now a cause. Stupid, evil dictators. I guess I haven't paid all that much attention due to my feelings about Syria in relation to Israel as well as its collaboration with the current Iranian regime. But these are the people speaking, Arab Spring, repressive edition.

Fascism means deputizing the most sadistic and base to strike terror into the populace. It never lasts forever, but it can be on so many lifetimes, taken.

The President of Yemen is reneging on his promise to step away as well, returning to death as his political tactic.

Hook 'em.

Silly Elephants

Silly elephants, thinking you could dismantle Medicare with your Paul Ryan 1890's era budget. And now it appears you have tied your own leg to an anchor:

Republicans are going to have plenty of questions about their plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program tomorrow morning after Democrats romped to an improbable victory in a special election focused almost entirely on the issue.

Democrat Kathy Hochul lead 48-43 with over 83% of the votes counted and her victory looks to be a strong one -- the Associated Press called the race within an hour of the polls closing. Corwin underperformed in key GOP counties while Hochul's margins in Democratic areas were in line with the party's high water mark in the district from 2006, a wave year that swept the Republicans out of the majority in the House and Senate. The district is normally a safe seat for Republicans and few considered it vulnerable when Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY) resigned over topless photos he posted in a Craigslist personal.

Hochul's message focused relentlessly on the Paul Ryan budget, which she highlighted in ads, public statements, and debates at every opportunity. Her attacks on its cuts to Medicare benefits and its tax cuts for the wealthy proved impossible for Corwin to overcome, who tried her best to defend the GOP budget cuts before eventually giving in and falsely accusing Hochul of seeking similar cuts while muddying her own position on the plan.

And per excellent new DNC chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL):

"Tonight's result has far-reaching consequences beyond New York," she said. "It demonstrates that Republicans and Independent voters, along with Democrats, will reject extreme policies like ending Medicare that even Newt Gingrich called radical."

Yummy. And how about Obama's decision to bail out Detroit car companies in the wake of the Great Bush-GOP Crash of '08?:

And with Chrysler completing its repayment of $7.6 billion in federal loans six years early, Democrats say the Republicans running for president -- all of whom slammed the bailout program, they say -- have found themselves on the wrong side on what has turned out to be a successful jobs program.

"Midwestern families would have been left out in the cold: no job, no income, no industry" if Republican bailout foes had their way, Granholm said. "And these voters are not going to forget it."

The Democrats on the call had a field day reminiscing about Mitt Romney's 2008 New York Times op-ed, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," in which the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination said American automakers would be on a "suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses" if a bailout plan went ahead.

Meanwhile, as his enemies prepare their circular firing squad, the President dines as the very welcome guest of royalty:



Love Barack and the Queen. They seem to enjoy partying together.

Image her relief after his boorish predecessor.