Headlines - Thursday July 26

 

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The GOP dropped its filibuster and let the bill pass, but they still voted against it, which is odd. Perhaps they wanted to deny Democrats the benefit of the the televised drama of a real filibuster.Read the rest of this post...

 

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Chick-Fil-A founder and Christianist bigot Dan Cathy's monetary support for anti-gay-marriage initiatives may have cost him (or, rather, his unfortunate franchisees) business with everyone from the Jim Henson Company to Boston's Mayor Tom Menino. But the most prominent spokesmodels for the Republican Party – Talibangelical Division have stepped forward to put their elevated cholesterol profiles where their hearts are, per Wonkette:

... This infuriates former/current fat person Mike Huckabee so deeply that he is now calling for the creation of Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, on Facebook.

Via Buzzfeed, here's Huckabee's Facebook salvo calling for an "Appreciation Day" of a homophobic fast food company that gives everyone heart attacks and diabetes while making billions of dollars per year. If any corporation ever needed a bold defender in these dark times, it is this fatty chicken company, for its adherence to such "Biblical principles" as gluttony and greed on a mass scale…

Not to be outdone by "Mr. GOP-Godspeak Presidential Candidate 2008", this year's contender for the coveted Opus Dei endorsement jumps in with a Twitter-storm upping the ante:

Rick Santorum & fam marched straight to the front lines of the War on Chick-fil-A today, to stand arms-linked with the fast food chicken diabetes company that hates gay people. But Rick Santorum, you ask, Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day isn't until August 1! You say so yourself! Well, that's no matter. Everyday is Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day in the Santorum household. Except Sundays! That's Jesus Time…

Thank you, Jim Newell, for linking "Chick-fil-A special sauce" and "santorum" in our minds. That's gotta give even the most boldly contrarian hipster-Glibertarian pause in their slacktivist search for a new way to annoy the rest of us that doesn't involve anything more rigorous than stuffing their faces at the mall…

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Mitt Romney really wants to be seen as a credible candidate on foreign policy, but finds himself in sort of the same bind that Barack Obama did in 2008: He hasn't actually done much in terms of foreign policy, so he's hired a bunch of people to help advise him. How about some ambassadors? Ambassadors are probably good, we think, although we haven't read that much Henry James. So of course it makes sense that, to support his tough-guy speech on the eve of his whirlwind visit to his money in overseas accounts, Mittens would release a ponderous statement of support from one of his ambassadors on retainer. The advisor, former Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman, penned a nice boilerplate paragraph about how Romney's Reno speech was all "Reaganesque" and stuff, blah blah no apologies for America and so on, and then the thing closes by echoing Romney's VERY SERIOUS concerns that the Obama administration may have leaked information about the Bin Laden raid and drone attacks, back when everybody on the Right was whining and moaning that Obama wouldn't release any intel about the Bin Laden raid and drone attacks: READ MORE »

 

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No, Obamacare isn't killing granny. It's too busy saving granny $4 billion on prescription drugs.

The Centers for Medicare And Medicaid Services (CMS) released data showing that over 5.2 million seniors and people with disabilities have already saved nearly $4 billion on prescription drugs as a direct result of the Affordable Care Act. The CMS data also showed that over 1 million people with Medicare saved an average of $629 on prescriptions in the "donut hole" coverage gap since the beginning of the year. So far in 2012, Medicare coverage for generic drugs in the coverage gap has risen to 14 percent, saving Medicare beneficiaries a total of $687 million.

Yes, but, death panels!

I'm sure everyone reading this knows someone who has suffered under the donut hole. A donut hole the Republicans have voted to maintain and enlarge.

Under Paul Ryan's Vouchercare, all of your healthcare would be subject to a donut hole after the value of your healthcare coupon runs out.