John L. Perry called for a “military intervention” of the Obama Administration at NewsMax.com. The article apparently has been removed. It went too far even for NewsMax. Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars quotes some of it:

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the Obama problem. Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.

They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.

They can see that the economy ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.

Media Matters quotes some of it:

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.

[…]

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

Talk away. I have a dreadful cold and am going back to bed.

Gregory Rodriguez has an excellent article at the Los Angeles Times about the nature of conspiracy theories and why people believe them.

The real truth is that, as weird as they are, rumors and conspiracy theories can only thrive in the minds of people who are predisposed to believe them. Successful propagators of fringe theories don’t just send random balloons into the atmosphere. Rather, they tap into the preexisting beliefs and biases of their target audiences.

Plenty of studies have shown that people don’t process information in a neutral way — “biased assimilation” they call it. In other words, rather than our opinions being forged by whatever information we have available, they tend to be constructed by our wants and needs. With all their might, our minds try to reduce cognitive dissonance — that queasy feeling you get when you are confronted by contradictory ideas simultaneously. Therefore, we tend to reject theories and rumors — and facts and truths — that challenge our worldview and embrace those that affirm it.

This is true for all of us, including me. I try to be very cautious when confronted with news stories that fit my world view a little too neatly, although I’m fooled occasionally. Sometimes I have seen others on the Left supporting “facts” that turn out to be unfounded. However, I think most of us on the leftie blogosphere have a healthy enough dose of skepticism about everything that we are not fooled much.

For example, if anything, I see more “Obama is just as bad as Bush” on the Left than “Obama is perfect.” I don’t see anyone saying he’s perfect.

But the other truth is that most of the Right is living in fantasyland. And they’re too far gone, too invested in the fantasies, to be reasoned with. I stopped trying to engage them in conversation years ago. My chief concern, beyond offering comfort and solace to the sane, is to try to reach the not-crazy but not well-informed who don’t know what to think. There must be a few such people out there, somewhere.

It doesn’t help that we can’t get straight information from news media, or that it’s rare for a television or radio “anchor” to attempt to sort fact from fiction. And it certainly doesn’t help that large chunks of what passes for “news media” are entirely given over to generating lies and rumors. Old-media journalists still blame the Internet for the misinformation, but often investigation into the real “story behind the story” is prompted by Web journalists like Josh Marshall. Otherwise, stories like the U.S. Attorney scandal would have slid by entirely unnoticed.

And, unfortunately, sometimes facts do no good.

Ronriguez cites a 2004 study in which people representing a spectrum of political views were shown facts that proved or disproved their beliefs. People whose worldview was contradicted by facts (in this case, righties) rejected the facts and held on to their worldviews even more tightly. This has been my experience with trying to “reason” with wingnuts, which is why I don’t bother.

There’s a saying in Buddhism that your outer reality is a projection of your inner reality, which means that a big chunk of the American public has a pretty twisted inner reality. But what do we make of Richard Cohen (beyond dude — retire already), whose column for today criticizes President Obama for not acting like a president. I’m serious. After eight years of the Oval Office being occupied by animated clown shoes, we once again have a president who is focused on his job. And Cohen now decides that the President needs to be presidential?

From what I can decipher of Cohen’s column, he thinks President Obama is not “presidential” because he didn’t react to the announcement of Iran’s nuclear capabilities with hair-on-fire hysteria. Oh, and he didn’t announce to the world all the steps he might be taking to counter Iran. Cohen compared the Iran announcement to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which it resembles very little, but as I remember none of us knew what was going on between the White House and the Kremlin until some time after that crisis had ended. Like, some things really are state secrets, Dick.

Recently I came across a sentence on some leftie site — I regret I don’t remember who said this — “machismo is not a foreign policy.” Part of the problem is that in a wingnut’s projected reality, bombast and chest thumping equal “strength” while reason and temperate speech are “weakness,” whereas in my book just the opposite is true. Apparently Cohen has gone over to the chest thumpers.

But then we also get this clown, who thinks President Obama is too angry and demanding. And dare I say … too uppity?

It’s all projection, and it’s futile to try to talk people out of their projected realities. I don’t know what to do about that, but there it is.

Before any more people start going bonkers that I’m accusing Dan Riehl of anything, take a breath. I’m just saying one doesn’t rule anything in or out without some firm answers. After all, Riehl is a man, and most serial rapists are men. All I’m doing is looking at any and all possibilities.

I know nothing about Riehl except what’s in his bio. But who knows if Riehl is telling the truth in his bio? If he’s a serial rapist, wouldn’t he be lying? I’m just saying you can’t leave out any possibilities.

Riehl looks at the apparent murder of Bill Sparkman, who was found hanging in a Kentucky cemetery with the word “fed” written on his chest and his census worker’s tag duct taped to his neck. And the first thing that pops into Riehl’s mind is that the murder has something to do with sex, and that Sparkman might have been a child predator. That tells you something. I don’t know what, but something.

One might speculate that Riehl was involved in Sparkman’s murder and is trying to throw off investigators with the sex angle. I have no evidence that connects Riehl to the murder, but it’s important not to rule anything out.

I suppose there’s even a possibility that Riehl is a disguised bug creature from another galaxy, and the Sparkman homicide was part of the initial assault to take over Earth. Having read Riehl’s blog, this would explain a lot. I have no evidence that Riehl is a bug creature, of course, so don’t go bonkers. I’m just saying you can’t rule anything out.

What’s wrong with conservatism, in a nutshell:

[Video no longer available]

In the video, Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) wants to strike language from the Senate Finance Committee’s bill that mandates which which benefits employers are required to cover — for example, maternity care.”I don’t need maternity care,” Kyl said. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) interrupted: “I think your mom probably did.”

Once again, do Republicans not get risk pooling? If the only people who add maternity benefits to their insurance are young couples planning families, their insurance is going to go through the roof. It’s only by spreading the cost out across a big pool that it can possibly be affordable.

These people make me crazy.

One of the most surreal items on the Web today is this interview by Ezra Klein of Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota and member of the infamous “gang of six” holding up the Senate health care reform bill in order to chase some phantom of “bipartisanship.”

What comes across all too painfully is that Conrad has no idea what he’s talking about. Conrad recently read T.R. Reid’s The Healing of America, and this is what he took away from it: Conrad thinks the health care system “in France, Germany, Japan, Belgium and Switzerland, is not government-run. That doesn’t mean there’s no government involvement. But it’s not a government-run system. They have largely private insurance, with employers contributing.”

This is, um, not true. Ezra tries to explain: “In France, for instance, the insurance really is government-run. The vast majority of people are on public insurance, and there’s private supplementary insurance atop that. So too with Japan. They’re not confined to simply subsidizing the poor.”

But Conrad comes back and says “But it’s not government-run. The doctors and hospitals are private. You’re right that in France there’s more of a government involvement beyond providing money for those who can’t afford coverage. There’s a regulatory involvement in terms of what’s required by the plans. But the plans themselves, the mutuals, are not government.”

To this last statement Ezra has supplied a footnote: “The French mutuals provide supplementary private insurance. Basic insurance is provided by a program the French call Social Security.” My understanding is that the French have a public insurance system that covers all citizens with the option of purchasing private supplemental insurance if they want to.

Quoting Steve Benen:

Matt Yglesias noted that in Germany, consumers are required to purchase coverage from one of many non-profit “sickness funds” that are regulated by the government. “It’s true that this meets a technical definition of ‘not government-run.'” Matt explained. “But the extent to which the Germany system isn’t government run doesn’t extend to dealing with any of the concerns of private industry. Which is fine by me, but nothing in Conrad’s talk of co-ops and such has suggested that he’s serious trying to put for-profit health insurance out of business, which is exactly what the German model does.”

I see a whole lot of semantic noise around the term “government-run.” On the one hand, Conrad seems to want to define “government-run” health care as a system like Britain’s, in which doctors in the National Health Service are government employees. However, a system in which tax dollars are paying for citizens’ health care via some kind of government administration, but in which government is not actively involved in managing health care, is not government-run. That’s fine, but for Conrad that definition only applies overseas. As you read on, you see that he defines the proposed public insurance option for the U.S. as “government-run health care.”

And what’s even more stunning is that Conrad seems to have only recently noticed that nations other than Canada and the UK have national health care systems.

Meanwhile, there’s a new New York Times poll in which a majority of respondents “were confused about the health care argument and that Mr. Obama had not done a good job in explaining what he was trying to accomplish.” 46 percent said they didn’t know enough about the President’s health care proposals to support or oppose them. Of the remainder, 30 percent mostly support and 23 percent mostly oppose. I assume the remaining 1 percent don’t know what “health care” is.

However, as Josh Marshall points out, the same poll asked:

“Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan — something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get — that would compete with private health insurance plans?”

Favor 65%
Oppose 26%

Interestingly, according to the poll, support for a public option has jumped 5 points since late August and opposition to it has dropped 8 points.

This suggests to me that a large majority of Americans would favor the President’s proposals if they knew what they were. And yes, President Obama could have been more assertive throughout the summer at pushing back against the insanity spewing from the Right. But I think the larger blame for public confusion has to go to the Right, for its aggressive disinformation campaign, and news media for passively reporting the disinformation.

Whatever the truth turns out to be about the current ACORN scandal, the speed at which Congress moved to de-fund the organization without conducting its own investigation stinks out loud. One strongly expects that an organization catering to wealthy white people that was caught in the same sting would have been treated differently.

John Wellington Ennis writes,

It is vital to assess how this backlash was accepted so quickly in light of videos that were from someone whose films are funded by conservative backers, videos that misrepresented ACORN through editing and not disclosing other failed attempts at their desired response, which may well have been dubbed over, if O’Keefe would dare to release the unedited tapes in their real context to prove otherwise. …

… Is this same adolescent accountability accepted by defense contractors, when Blackwater and its owner Erik Prince are implicated in murder? He just keeps getting contracts.

The Right turned ACORN into the Bogeyman some time back, to the point that the mere mention of the name ACORN sends righties into mouth-foaming, irrational hysteria. I think some of them genuinely believe that ACORN is the only reason their candidates crashed and burned in the last couple of elections.

ACORN is suing the filmmakers and Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart.com for conducting electronic surveillance without their consent, which is a felony under Maryland law. Ben Smith writes, “I’m not sure of the P.R. value of suing without challenging the substance of the videos, but in the short-term, at least, it’s probably good for Breitbart et al.”

Probably, but perhaps ACORN’s real plan is to subpoena those unedited tapes, if they haven’t already been shredded.

Politicians and pundits keep declaring the public option dead, yet it refuses to be buried. The most recent resuscitation is explained in The Hill by Mike Soraghan, under the headline “Pelosi backs away from deal with Blue Dogs.” The headline is misleading, but here’s the story:

Nancy Pelosi had wanted a public option modeled on Medicare, with providers getting reimbursed on a scale pegged to Medicare rates. The Blue Dogs were opposed to tying the public option to Medicare. So she approved a deal negotiated by Rep. Henry Waxman to remove the link to Medicare to secure the Blue Dogs’ support.

However, Soraghan says, Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), who heads the Blue Dogs’ health care task force, now says he won’t support a public option under any circumstances, “essentially withdrawing his support for the deal.”

The headline, however, implies that Pelosi broke the deal, not the Blue Dogs. Reaction from righties (who, as we know, do not read): “Pelosi leaves Blue Dogs to twist in the wind on health care reform.” Another rightie site says Pelosi “double crossed” the Blue Dogs. I guess in Rightie World, “double crossed” means the opposite of what it means in the normal universe.

As dday says, “Ross, secure with his payoff from a pharmacy chain from a couple years back, has nobody to blame but himself.” Also, it’s about time people started to notice who won the last couple of elections. Hint: not conservatives.

Anyway, the result is that the stronger version of the public option has now been restored to the House bill, which is a bit of good news. And an editorial in today’s New York Times reminds us what’s at stake.

Because they whine that no one takes them seriously, I’ve been trying to learn more about what Republicans really, truly propose to do about health care beyond don’t get sick.

Here’s the official Republican explanation of the official Republican health care reform plan, as explained on GOP.gov, the official congressional Republican website. You can find more details on Congressman Roy Blunt’s site. Here’s the outline — the Republican plan —

• Would allow people who purchase insurance on their own to take an “above the line” deduction equal to the cost of an individual’s or family’s insurance premiums.

I assume this is without an income limit, as if your medical expenses are high enough and/or you are poor enough you can do that already. Notice it’s not helping poor folks buy insurance.

• “Provides immediate substantial financial assistance, through new refundable and advanceable tax credits, to low- and modest-income Americans.”

And this would work, how? I looked at H.R. 3400, the Empowering Patients First Act, which I believe is the GOP’s most recent proposal. Section 101 (beginning on page 4) is on tax credits. I can’t decipher it. If any of you want to give it a shot, be my guest.

In any event, is this a plan to set up a government bureaucracy to which people would apply for credits or refunds? And this is supposed to save the taxpayers’ money?

• “Recognizes that many Americans who have not yet hit retirement age but may be changing jobs or have lost a job often face higher health care costs. To help those aged 55 to 64, the plan increases support for pre- and early-retirees with low- and modest-incomes.”

What does that mean, “increases support”? I dimly remember there was talk of this regarding a McCain proposal, but I don’t remember and cannot find details. If you can offer any clues, let me know.

• “The plan allows states, small businesses, associations, and other organizations to band together and offer health insurance at lower costs.”

That’s fine, but by itself it’s like giving people a pile of rocks and telling them to fill the ocean.

• Implements comprehensive medical liability reform that will reduce costly, unnecessary defensive medicine practiced by doctors trying to protect themselves from overzealous trial lawyers.

Enough of this. I give you Mitchell Schnurman, Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram, on the state of “defensive medicine in Texas six years after their last big “tort reform” act that was supposed to solve their health-care crisis:

Roughly half as many malpractice suits are being filed in Texas these days. Liability premiums, which had doubled before reform, have declined more than 30 percent. …

… Healthcare spending has grown faster in Texas than the rest of the country. Patients are paying more for health insurance and medical bills. Doctors do more tests and scans, an indication that so-called defensive medicine hasn’t declined here.

There also hasn’t been more coverage for the uninsured, a top priority in the Obama push. In Texas, 1 in 4 residents has no health coverage, the highest percentage in the nation and well above the national norm.

See, doctors will self-report that they order X amount of texts and procedures because they are afraid of litigation. Much of the estimates about the astronomical costs of “defensive medicine” are based on those self-reports. But in the real world, in every state that has drastically reduced the number of malpractice suits through tort “reform,” we see no reduction in either costs or in the amount of tests or procedures ordered. Relieving them of much of the jeopardy of litigation does not change physicians’ test- or procedure-ordering habits, in other words.

• Provides Medicare and Medicaid with additional authority and resources to stop waste, fraud, and abuse that costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year.

Everybody, including President Obama, wants to wring savings our of Medicare and Medicaid. How much real waste, fraud, etc. exist in this programs, and how realistic it is to get “billions” of savings out of them, I cannot say, but I think I’ll put that investigation off for another post.

• Creates incentives to save now for future and long-term health care needs by improving health savings accounts and flexible spending arrangements as well as creating new tax benefits to offset the cost of long-term care premiums.

In other words, instead of reforming the current system, we’ll use tax credits to support the current system. And health savings accounts are a joke for anyone except the already wealthy.

• “Gives financial help to caregivers who provide in-home care for a loved one.”

That’s it. According to Rep. Blunt, that’s the plan.

I want to go back to H.R. 3400. I don’t have time to wade through the whole thing line by line, but this one part jumped out at me.

SEC. 201. REQUIRING OPERATION OF HIGH-RISK POOL OR OTHER MECHANISM AS CONDITION FOR AVAILABILITY OF TAX CREDIT.

No credit shall be allowed under section 36B of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to health insurance costs of low-income individuals) to the residents of any State unless such State meets the following requirements:

(1) The State must implement a high-risk pool or a reinsurance pool or other risk-adjustment mechanism (as defined in section 211).

(2) Assessments levied by the State for purposes of funding such a pool or mechanism must only be used for funding and administering such pool or mechanism.

(3) Such pool or mechanism must incorporate the application of such tax credit into such pool or mechanism.

Help me out, here — what are the Republicans up to with this? It doesn’t sound good.

I realize that the purpose of HR 3400 was to have a stack of paper to wave at President Obama and call a “Republican health care plan.” I doubt even the Republicans take it seriously as a legislative proposal. But I do think it’s important to underscore the fact that the Republicans, in effect, have no plan.