Made for each other: Glenn Beck and Rand Paul agree on "death panels"

A meeting of the minds? Glenn Beck and Rand Paul agree: you don't have to call 'em "death panels", but that's what they are.

It seems to me that Beck comes very close to endorsing Paul's senatorial candidacy here.

from David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars: Beck has a happy fearmongering session on 'death panels' with Rand Paul

DOWNLOADS: (653)

PLAYS: (2017)

Glenn Beck is becoming the model for the Intentionally Obtuse bloc of America's right wing nutcases: At the very moment when it's becoming virtually unanimous -- even on Fox News -- that all this talk about "death panels" is the biggest load of hooey since black helicopters, he host a segment on his Fox News show with Ron Paul's son, Rand, proclaiming the threat of government-sponsored euthanasia real, real, real.

Of course, it came with a Beckerwockian caveat:

Beck: Tell me about – am I wrong in saying, without any inflammatory speech here, don’t call them “death panels”, just let’s call them what they are – you have a certain amount of money, you have a certain amount of people, you can’t -- they don’t -- you can’t give everything to everybody, isn’t it inevitable that you have to make tough choices?

Paul: Well, you know, the president says he isn’t going to pull the plug on grandma, but what I think he really means is, he’s not going to put the plug in in the first place, because you have to decide, some committee’s going to have to decide, what is the cost-benefit analysis for grandma? Grandma is not just your grandmother, she's a statistic, we have to decide, what is the cost to society to keep her alive? And I think she won't get plugged in. Her ventilator won't be plugged in if she's 92 years old, because society may say we don't have the money to do that.

Sounds like someone has been watching Soylent Green...

Glenn Beck must go.

Glenn Beck's opposition to health care reform, which started as a campaign of deceptive fear-mongering, has descended into an insane attempt to grossly distort the history of the Holocaust and spread an anti-liberal libel. In one shocking hour, of which the following is a highlights reel, he implicated as Nazi fellow-travelers the Progressive movement, environmentalists, Democratic presidents, and a range of individuals whom he considers liberal. He literally blamed them for the Holocaust, then stated unequivocally that liberals intend to put Nazi eugenics policies into place in the United States.

This extremist propagandizing clearly puts Glenn Beck beyond the pale of rational political discourse. Fox News simply must remove him from the air and apologize for broadcasting this.

from progressnotcongress.org: Glenn Beck's show on August 11, 2009 condensed into 10 minutes

Republican Disorderly Conduct

Here's video of one of the many town hall riots organized by the Republicans. These protests, which only target Democrats, are designed to both shut down the meetings and create videos which create the illusion of a grassroots Republican mass-movement rising up to oppose health care reform.




Go to about 2:02 of this video. There's a guy carrying a sign with two SS
lightning bolt symbols (Sig runes). I believe the sign reads "SStop SSocialized Medicine", with the runes starting the first two words.

Have the Republicans really sunk to this level? Amazing. I was going to call this post "Thug Life" until I found out that Rachel Maddow beat me to the punch.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I wonder how many of those participating in this organized campaign of chaos favored arresting Henry Louis Gates for disorderly conduct for speaking in his own home, while they incite riots at public meetings with congressional representatives.

Starting with Think Progress (here), several media outlets have debunked this campaign's claims of being a grass roots movement. They've got the memos which plan in great detail these disruptions of public meetings with our representatives. For starters, check out BradBlog here, and Talking Points Memo here and here.

Here's some more video of a Republican planned town hall disruption, with one activist waving a bible while shouting "the only truth", and another (an elderly woman) with a bumper sticker on her forehead.



Meanwhile, Republican pundit Michelle Malkin used her appearance on ABC's This Week last Sunday to both push the line that this movement was completely grass roots and state with certainty that it would disrupt many more such meetings in August.

It seems that all's fair when the GOP gets desperate.

UPDATE August 4, 2009 10:45 pm

Check out this video of Republican activists ambushing Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut from the blog My Left Nutmeg. That blog found that the hooliganism was sanctioned and facilitated by the state GOP. (Read here.) Especially noteworthy in this planned chaos is the guy who refers to Sen. Dodd's cancer which was diagnosed just last week. The guy shouts out

"How come we don't just give Chris Dodd painkillers? Like a handful of them at a time! He can wash it down with Ted Kennedy's whiskey...!"

Nice.

UPDATE August 5, 2009 9:45 am

Followers of extremist cult leader Lyndon LaRouche are taking part in these demonstrations as well. (Read here.) That piece by Josh Marshall of TPM also cites the case of a protester apparently objecting to all medical research by shouting out that the congressman discussing it was a "Doctor Mengele". Offended yet?

UPDATE August 6, 2009 4:00 pm

Don't bother writing me to say that this isn't a Republican thing. Yes, there are Libertarians, LaRouchies, Ronpaulians. But this thing is a product of Republican PR organizations. Watch this:

Howard Dean to be HHS Secretary?

A great idea.

Sen. Harkin Backs Dean For HHS Secretary

The idea of nominating Howard Dean to head up the Department of Health and Human Services has the backing of at least one prominent national Democrat.

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who endorsed Dean's presidential campaign in 2004 and is rumored to be in the HHS running himself, applauded the idea of the former DNC header taking over the cabinet post vacated by Tom Daschle.

"I think that would be a very good move," Harkin told the Huffington Post. "He brings all the background and experience. He's very strong on prevention and wellness, which I'm very strong on. I think he'd make an outstanding secretary of HHS."

Asked if he had spoken to White House on the matter, Harkin demurred: "I'm not going to get into that," he said after a pause.

Dean's hopes of taking over HHS -- he would, those who know him say, take the job if offered -- is, at this point, not a campaign. The former Vermont Governor has and will remain mum on the notion because, as he himself admitted, the surest way to not be chosen is to actively pine for a post. In progressive circles, however, supporters of Dean insist that he is best suited for the job, having managed health care in Vermont and served as a doctor himself.

Whether this endorsement helps or hurts is a topic of debate. The conventional wisdom seems to be that Dean's frosty relationship with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel will be the main impediment to his ending up at HHS. Others are concerned that a major netroots movement to appoint Dean will actually turn the White House off the notion. They don't want it to seem like they are "bending to the demands of the left," as one Democrat put it -- not because they aren't concerned with progressive priorities, but because the choice will be criticized as an effort in political pacification.

I'm frankly skeptical that the pragmatist Emanuel would put dislike of Dean ahead of what's in the interest of furthering the Obama administration's agenda.  The idea that Emanuel's personal conflict with Dean, stemming from their conflicting strategies in the 2006 Congressional race, might sidetrack a good nomination makes no sense.   If that angle of the story is true, and if the Obama administration wants to preach bipartisanship, they might start by putting an end to counterproductive grudges within the Democratic Party.

More serious an impediment to Dean's nomination to HHS might be concern that it would be spun as a move to the left by the Republicans and the news media.  I can just hear the Fox News crowd screaming "socialism" with wild-eyed expressions, and the CNN commentators thoughtfully intoning "partisanship".   Obama shows signs of wanting to placate the right and their media sounding board with centrist nominations and talk of compromise.  I don't know how Dean would fit into that strategy, but, frankly, that strategy is being overused.  Dean is hardly a leftist, although he, like Obama, is sometimes portrayed as such.  President Obama should choose the person best able to establish, articulate and implement the best policy.  If the Republicans choose to attack Dean without concern for the real world implications, let their strategy be exhibit one in President Obama's argument against partisanship and for pragmatism.  It's time to ask for bipartisanship to be reciprocated.