Not only are Republicans courting teabaggers, so is the conservative media.
Hartland Township resident and teabagger Wes Nakagiri was featured today in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus for the second time in just four months. Apparently, the small fringe extremists known as teabaggers are getting free media by continuing to change the name of their groups and come up with news ones. They are following the framing used by the Bush Administration by naming them the exact opposite of what they really do.
The paper is promoting two “tea parties” this week, and Nakagiri is quoted extensively. I guess the good news is that the paper found someone else as a source besides media hog and extremist Howell School Board member Wendy Day for a change. You will recall that right after Christmas Nakagiri’s rightwing blog was featured in an article.
“RetakeOurGov will meet at the Cromaine District Library in Hartland Township to address concerns about the national health-care legislation,” and “The new Brighton Tea Party organization is trying to form a rally at the gazebo at Mill Pond in Brighton on April 15, the due date for federal income taxes.”
How ironic. The teabaggers are anti-government and anti-tax, but they are choosing to meet at places paid for by taxpayers. I always wonder who has their government and country when I hear teabaggers say they want their country back, and then I remember the racism I have seen at the fake, corporate Astroturf “tea parties” and then I remember who they want it back from.
Judy Daubenmier, Chair of the Livingston County Democratic Party framed what the debate over health insurance reform is really about. Daubenmier “said she wondered why "tea party" members would want to change a health-care-reform plan that forces insurance companies to provide coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, or what's wrong with Medicare recipients being relieved from what was a "doughnut hole" in prescription- drug coverage — under Part D, a gap in coverage the left patients solely responsible for drug costs between initial coverage and when catastrophic coverage began.”
What is rally laughable in the article is the spin on the teabaggers by the chair of the Livingston County Republican Party. He is still trying to make the claim that the teabaggers and the Republican Party are not one in the same. They are.
“Livingston County Republican Party Chairman Mike Murphy said the Republican Party has its own mission — to elect and retain elected Republicans — and that the organization has not taken a position for or against the recent "tea party" movement.”
I guess if you’re going to tell a lie, you might as well go big. The Livingston County GOP has promoted the “tea parties” on its web site, and numerous Republican politicians have spoken and appeared at these Astroturf events started by Washington, D.C. lobbying firms, including local Republican politicians from Mike Rogers to Bill Rogers.
With all the free publicity these groups have been given, the health insurance lobby can spend the $1.4 million a day it’s spending to kill health insurance reform to allow insurance companies to continue to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions to spend it on something else.
If the teabaggers ever decided to form a third party, Republican support for the teabaggers would melt like snow in July.
4 comments:
It's more than fun to watch you go spastic over the Tea Party's. You seem to be obsessed with us. I wonder if I look back at your last twenty posts on your blog, how many of them would mention the Tea Party.
A poll that was reported this morning seems to debunk your claim that the Tea Party is only a fringe group of Conservative Republicans. The poll of voters found that 57% are Republican. 28% are Independents and 13% are Democrats.
That's over 40% that are not Conservative Republicans.
As a member of the Tea Party, I can tell you that "taking our country back" means to take it back from the extreme left wing that has taken over government. This is easily pointed out using the so called health care reform bill votes. All that voted for the bill were Democrats. The no vote was bi-partisan. The yes votes were partisan.
You are wrong in claiming that the Tea Party is against children being declined due to pre-existing conditions. What we are actually for is it being paid for responsibly.
Health Care Reform is not free. Nothing is free. Someone has to pay. By including children with pre-existing conditions, costs will increase to the health care bill. Insurance companies don't deny coverage just because they hate young children that are ill. They deny it because they can't afford it.
There are actuarial table, and mortality tables. By not denying coverage to those that are already ill the insurance company is taking on an exhorbitant expense that they can't pay for unless they raise the premiums for that child, or even an adult. If they don't increase the premiums for that already ill person, then they must increase the premiums for everyone else to help pay for that person with a pre-existing condition.
Do you expect doctors to just provide the care for these already ill people out of the goodness of their heart? Do you expect them to use the MRI machines and eat the cost themselves? Do you expect them to supply the medication for free? Someone has to pay for that medication. It's not free.
The machines must be paid for. The labor must be paid for. Everything has a cost to it.
Raising premiums has pissed off many people, and that was before pre-existing conditions were covered. Add those to the mix and the costs go up.
Democrats want to put the burden on the rich. Why? They didn't create the child with the pre-existing condition. They just happen to earn more money than others and you want to penalize them for their hard work.
There are currently 40% of the people in this country that don't pay taxes. Yet you want the rich to pay their "fair share". Why not make those that aren't paying taxes pay their fair share? The lowest tax bracket until December 31 is 10%. Someone making $10,000 per year doesn't pay taxes. Yet, they could pay 10% of that to the taxes. That would be an additional $1,000 that would be paid by those that don't pay taxes.
There is a solution to pre-existing conditions, but the current plan now in effect since the Democrats voted for it, is not the answer.
Then there are the adults. If they don't get coverage, they'll pay a fine. What's the benefit of them getting insurance now? They're better off paying the fine and then the day they get sick, they can take out insurance and due to this new law, they will HAVE to be covered.
This is a government that has social security, which will now be paying more out than they are taking in, THIS YEAR rather than in 2017 as was projected in the past. THis is a government that will be paying out more than they take in from Medicare this year. They have failed with Medicare and Social Security. The post office is now begging for five day work weeks rather than 6 because they can't afford it. The government runs the post office. There's just three examples of government failing. Need another? How about the H1N1 virus. They are now looking at throwing away millions of the serum for vaccinations that have gone unused. Billions of dollars wasted there. And you trust government to run health care? I know, you do. But most Americans don't.
Even when the health care debate started over a year ago, in the list of priorities health care was at the bottom of the list.
The Tea Party's are about less government intrusion which has come about in the past 18 months. Less taxing, less spending and less government intrusion into our lives. If you disagree, that's fine. But mischaracterizing what the tea party movement is all about, is not a viable argument for your position unless you too are willing to dismiss millions of Americans and their concerns.
First, anonymous, I have never “gone spastic” over anything. But perhaps you’re right, this fringe group of racist extremists are getting too much attention. But I like pointing out Republican hypocrisy. You have my permission to see how many of my last 20 posts have been about tebaggers, but considering how important health insurance reform is, I’m guessing it’s a lot.
Like I said, this is a partisan Republican group, and if it’s not, then why not form a third party?
There is no extreme left wing in this country, and, again, no Republicans voted for the bill because they made it very clear their mission was not to reform the much needed health insurance system, but to defeat the President t at any cost. His Waterloo, remember?
I am correct in pointing out that teabaggers support children being denied access to health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. First, anonymous, we are not talking about health care reform, we’re talking about health care insurance reform, and we are already paying big time. Care in the ER is killing the economy. Insurance companies make money by denying health care to those who have paid for it, and judging by the huge profits they are making, they are denying lots of care.
Democrats want to put the burden on the rich. Why? Because they are not paying their fair share. What makes you think the rich are getting rich by hard work? A recent study by the non-profit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) called, “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States” concluded that by an overwhelming margin, most states tax their middle- and low-income families far more heavily than the wealthy.
http://liberalmedianot.blogspot.com/2009/11/report-confirms-state-budget-is.html
The benefit of getting insurance now is that a minor problem that can be taken care of in a routine doctor visit will not turn into death or an ER visit costing a $100,000.
Ah, more Republican talking points that I have debunked. Health insurance reform has always been a high priority, and the debate has gone on for much more than just the past year.
The teabaggers are just a fringe group pushed by the anti-government zealots that only seem to pop up when Democrat is in the White House. The fact is there was more government intrusion, more spending and tax cuts for only the richest 1 percent under Bush. Where were the teabaggers then?
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