Last night, President Joe Biden returned to his earlier claim that his political opponents are fascists seeking to establish authoritarianism in the United States. While the hellish red background is gone from his controversial Philadelphia address, the message remains: a vote for the GOP is a vote for tyranny. Despite polls showing citizens view the President as inciting political unrest and potential violence with such attacks, the theme was quickly picked up and magnified in the media. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss actually suggested on MSNBC that we could be just days away from an authoritarian hellscape if the GOP prevails in midterm elections — raising the specter of our children being taken away and killed.
If you thought that the election was being decided on the top polling issues of the economy, crime, and classic kitchen table issues, think again.
On MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes,” Beschloss went all in on the “democracy-or-death pitch” before the midterms:
“[S]ix nights from now, we could all be discussing violence all over this country. There’s signs that may happen, may God forbid, that losers will be declared winners by fraudulent election officers, or secretary of state candidates, or governors, or state legislatures…
We could be six days away from losing our rule of law, and losing a situation where we have elections that we all can rely on. You know, those are the foundation stones of a democracy…
Joe Biden is saying the same thing tonight, and a historian 50 years from now – if historians are allowed to write in this country and if they are still free publishing houses and a free press – which I’m not certain of – but if that is true, a historian will say what was at stake tonight and this week was the fact whether we will be a democracy in the future, whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed.”
So much for gas prices. The choice is now voting Democratic or lining up your children in front of a firing squad. (Strangely, it will only be our children and not adults targeted by the roaming GOP goon squads). However, it will all be “off-the-books.” After all, Beschloss warned Hayes, “we both write history, you and I” and he is not certain that “historians [will be] allowed to write in this country” if Republicans gain a majority in Congress.
In other words, there may be no history books, no living children, and no democracy, but feel free to vote your pocketbook, America.
At the same time, Democrats and the J6 Committee are pursuing those who engaged in similar inflammatory rhetoric leading up to the January 6th riot. The airways are also now filled with warnings from leaders such as Hillary Clinton that the midterm elections are about to be “stolen.” Likewise, many are campaigning to ban books by figures like Justice Barrett in the name of protecting free speech.
The alarm raised over many of these GOP candidates is particularly ironic since Democrats spent millions to support the most conservative candidates in Republican primaries. Those candidates (now denounced as election deniers) prevailed in their primaries with Democratic campaign support and could now win in states like New Hampshire.
It is all perfectly Orwellian, but it is not particularly effective. With the over-the-top rhetoric and open bias in the media, the public is tuning out many in the press (which is at record lows in trust). This is becoming a type of primal scream session among friends, cathartic but confined.
President Biden was widely criticized for his Philadelphia speech, but he and others are now doubling down on this type of reckless rhetoric. The likely effect will be to incite further violence and to give license to the most unhinged in our society.
The invoking of the word, “democracy” has created so much use and abuse, i.e., Joe Biden, et al, warning of “threats to our democracy” even though technically, we are a Constitutional Republic. The merging of the two is a linguistically-political tactic.
In my mind, Republicans/conservatives employ the term “democracy” to mean, inter alia:
Individual libertarian rights
State vs. federal control of those rights, if they are not contrary to the Constitution’s express federalism
The right to vote for all citizens
The right to peacefully express opposing views, beliefs, opinions
Whereas, Democrats/leftists employ the term “democracy” to mean:
Suppression of libertarian rights that conflict with the loudest voices/group view/squeaky wheels
Federal control of rights
The right to vote extended to NON-citizens
Censorship, suppression, and prosecution of opposing views, beliefs, opinions
Lin,
Well said.
I would add to the right to vote for all citizens election integrity with voter ID or some kind of voter ID for mail in ballots, and make longer jail sentences/fines for ballot harvesting.
“ Whereas, Democrats/leftists employ the term “democracy” to mean:
Suppression of libertarian rights that conflict with the loudest voices/group view/squeaky wheels
Federal control of rights
The right to vote extended to NON-citizens
Censorship, suppression, and prosecution of opposing views, beliefs, opinions”
Lin, that’s the most unadultered example of pure BS. I thought you were opposed to gaslighting. None of what you said is true.
Conservatives have been suppressing and prosecuting opposing views and beliefs. Same sex marriage, their quest for equal rights, prosecuting them for who they are. Suppressing CRT, and LGBTQ points of view and their beliefs and opinions. All in the name of “patriotism”and “traditional American values”. Don’t pretend the right has not invoked or used such terms to justify their own transgressions.
How things look to a retired Political Scientist: Trump said some of his closest allies proved enemies. But Trump’s experience was a Sunday summer picnic when compared with that of Old Karl Marx. China, Central Banks and major international corporations — military-industrial corporations in the lead — are waging an all out war to destroy the economies of every country and put “Communist” China in control via the U.N.. While Marx described China’s: “Let the Government take care of everyone” system: ‘State Capitalism in its final hour, engaged in self-destructing; contending a government would not exist in a Socialist nation; that 10 or 12 people, democratically chosen and subject to immediate recall, would carry out the people’s will. China and the Globalists seem to be proving daily that Marx got the fundamentals right. Unfortunately, it’s beginning to look like the Globalists are preparing to take most of humanity down with them!
There was a time when Michael Beschloss was respected as an historian just as Lawrence Tribe was respected as a Constitutional scholar. The election of President Trump either sent these progressives off the rails or they already were off the rails and felt emboldened to make public their lunacy. Clearly something happened to lead them to make these delusional claims. As to Biden, I attribute it to his senility and willingness to read from a teleprompter everything put in front of him. But his staff? Democrat leaders? Media? That’s another story. The fact is these same people were supporters of the BLM criminal conspiracy, who turned a blind eye to mindless, deadly “mostly peaceful” rioting of Antifa, and the seditious invasion and takeover of city blocks in Portland, something they allowed to be called the “summer of love.” This says to me that their judgment has been cloudy to the point of worthlessness for some years now.
Maybe, in the simplest of terms, Trump revealed their chicanery.
Turley as always seems to only recognize “divisive” rhetoric and “violent” speeches when it comes to democrats, but completely ignores the exact same or worse from republicans. Trump has been doing what he accuses Biden of all the time and yet you never hear a peep from Turley being concerned. He even ignores the fact that it’s free speech and all that jazz that he supposedly believes in.
Trump supporters running for office are promising to make sure only republicans will win and keep on winning. When they control how elections are run they can make sure that ONLY republicans will win in the future. They will make sure the elections are rigged in their favor. Any loss will automatically be deemed because of fraud because republicans are always supposed to win. That is not even satire. It’s what they really promise to do.
but will they kill your children? That’s what we’re talking about.
If you want to see how extreme the Republican Party has gotten under Trump consider that two of Trump’s major enemies right now are Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell. The major sin they committed in the eyes of Trump and a lot of his followers is that they refused to play along and declare Trump the winner of the last election which he clearly lost. Trump even cheered on chants of “Hang Mike Pence.”
So yeah, other Republicans are not going to make the same mistake Pence and McConnell made and stand up for democracy if Trump loses again. Many, many of them have made that clear in their election campaigns. All you have to do is listen to what they say.
And yes, if Pence and McConnell can become enemies in Trump land then certainly any Democrat could be tot.
Absolutely – Trump is so evil that he worked hard to defeat the republicans that opposed him and elect republicans that support him.
As you have not figured this out – Democrats are actually correct – the 2022 election is about Trump. In so many ways.
On the GOP side it is about will Trump extent to absolute dominance of the GOP.
Anything short of a GOP midterm disaster cements Trump’s control of the GOP into the future.
From the current look – you can expect a very openly MAGA country in a few days and a massively influential Trump.
And yes, Pence and McConnell will pay a price – a POLITICAL price.
The election is also a referendum on whether Biden’s ultra MAGA scare tactics work – so far massive failure.
Republicans will take over the house, the senate, many state governorship and legislatures.
There will with certainty be LOTS of investigations.
But democracy is not at stake, the world will not end, The dreams of progressives will end.
The country will be better for it.
Democrats have cried “Wolf, Wolf, Wolf” – in a week – the Wolf will be here.
And once again left wing nut hysteria will prove meaningless.
The consequences of this election will be paid for POLITICALLY by the far left.
Ordinary people will benefit.
Or put differently to those on the left – “You can not fool all the people all the time”
Do you really think Trump is losing in 2024 ? Unless he has a stroke like Fetterman or is otherwise incapacitated – and he is old enough that is possible, he is a shoe in.
There are limits to the scale of Fraud that democrats can succeed at.
In 2024 – if we are lucky we will be starting to recover from the recession we are headed into.
A recession that democrats will be blamed for.
We will have 2 more years of Biden making an increasing fool of himself as president.
Right now it looks like Republican governors will pick up every single swing state that Biden “won” except Pennsylvania.
You can expect the 2024 Election to be lawful and with minimal fraud.
And people will have 8 years of Obama and 4 years of Biden to contrast with 4 years of Trump.
That is not going to be a difficult choice.
But most importantly – the red wave in 2022 will not be the end of democracy as we know it.
The fear mongering of the left will have once again proven fear of loss of power, not real concern for democracy.
The one thing the Dems are really, really good at is projection.
Putin’s enemies are being arrested and killed. Some are falling out of windows. Some are being poisoned. Dissent is criminalized and there is no free press.
This country has one party with a lot of wannabe Putins. Some other countries have had that too.
Yes, it could happen here. And we have a bunch of candidates who are not shy about saying they will be on the front lines of this repression and will make sure Republicans are never declared the losers of an election again no matter what the vote tally. Anyone who followed the 1/6 hearings know Trump tried to do this last time and just did not have enough people in the right places to go along with him to pull it off.
Joe Biden is a dangerous demagogue.
Children arrested and maybe even killed??? WTH does that even mean? Beschloss is a delusional lunatic nutjob –as are ALL the mouthpieces on MSNBC. Dangerous people.
“We could be six days away from losing our rule of law,”
Does he live on a different planet than the rest of us?? Geez…
What happens when in a week the only thing that changes is the power of the far left ?
Who is going to tell the emperor that he is naked ?
“We could be six days away from losing our rule of law . . .”
Such absurdities always have a purpose. That toxic one is a call to arms to the instigators of the “summer of love.” In the name, of course, of fighting “fascism.”
If there’s violence, again, the finger they’ll be pointing at the Right will have blood dripping down it.
When will Joe Biden answer the question: will YOU accept the results of the election and the will of the people? Will Pelosi? Will Schumer? Will your corrupt fake news, state-controlled media accept the results?
We know the answer.
1) Biden will never be asked the question. 2) They will “count” votes until they have exhausted all possible opportunities to “steal the election.” 3) Democrat party has *never accepted the results of elections when Republicans win.
Biden regime and their media lapdogs ARE colluding with private companies to censor and silence our First Amendment rights. This is fascism.
Democrats ARE the fascists, they ARE the authoritarians stripping us of our rights and freedoms while the complicit media aid and abet them.
Demos are the fascists? Wow, take the tin foil off your head. Which party is banning books and demonizing teachers and librarians? I’m pretty sure it is the Repos. Which elected leader said to fight like hell on January 6, 2021? and then did not show up for the fight? and then did not show up for the transfer of power? Gee, that would be the orange god that the “christians” bowed down to at CPAC. Which party is preventing kids from getting care so they don’t kill themselves over gender identity issues? Oh yea, the Repos don’t believe that there is anything other than an XX or XY human being. Sheeeeeesh. take the tin foil off your heads and learn some science and understand that facts do not depend on your belief. Facts are facts, whether you believe it or not. And your belief in something does not make it true.
Which party is banning books and demonizing teachers and librarians?
Keeping pornography out of libraries is a universally accepted position. If you can’t read the book and show the pictures at a school board meeting…its pornography
“And your belief in something does not make it true.”
Uh, yeah it does. What you believe is true for you. Isn’t that what Oprah and her pals spout on about? My truth. MY truth, not THE truth. Let me speak MY truth. That is the shifting sand they stand on.
It’s like this:
Medical Experts say the Covid vaccine is ‘safe and effective’ for you and your children. If you believe this, then it is true for you.
Election Experts say elections in the US are ‘safe and secure’ and there is no election fraud. If you believe this, then it is true for you.
If you do not believe it (because it is propaganda garbage nonsense) then that is true for you.
There are no ‘facts’ involved. In regard to Covid vaccines, there is no ‘science’ involved. It is pure ‘belief’ in one statement or the other.
“Sheeeeeesh…..take the tin foil off your heads….your belief in something does not make it true.”
An example:
Election experts say the US elections are ‘safe and secure’….
If you believe this, then it is true for you.
Medical experts say the Covid vaccines are ‘safe and effective’ for you and your children…
If you believe this, then it is true for you.
There are no ‘facts’ involved. In the case of Covid vaccines, there is no ‘science’ involved.
I do not believe either statement. Neither are true for me.
Or, if you try to talk about what is being taught or shown on a local TV news outlet and the producer says they cannot air that kind of material, it would be in violation of FCC rules, that is pornography.
Parents should have say in what is being taught to their children.
Science fact: If you are born XX you are biologically a female.
If you are born XY you are biologically male.
You want to identify as whatever, have at it. Dont expect as a biological male to compete in women’s sports.
Dont try to teach or tell my kids at the age of 6 they might be something different. Try to get my kids to take puberty blockers, hormones, mutilation surgeries with out my knowledge? We might have a serious problem.
At the age of 18, you want to change your sex, have at it.
You want to identify as a cat, have at it. Dont expect me to feed into your delusions.
You want to insist your pronouns is whatever, have at it. I will ignore you, you ignore me, and we will get along just fine.
“Demos are the fascists? Wow, take the tin foil off your head.”
Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state – Mussolini’s defintion of fascist – sure sounds like the left.
“Which party is banning books and demonizing teachers and librarians?”
Is there a single “banned book” that you can not buy on Amazon ? or at any bookstore ?
No one is banning books. This argument is stupid. Is there anyone here that thinks elementary school library’s should have copies of Hustler ?
As to teachers – Yup. Substantial portions of teachers have F’d up over the past several years.
The average school student has fallen a FULL grade behind. That is a failure of our school system.
That is a failure of teachers and teachers unions who refused to go back to work when everyone we well past understanding it was safe to do so.
Teachers OWN the mess they made of our kids education.
And today – instead of trying to figure out how to recover from the mess they made – these teachers you seem to think we all owe something to are busy trying to sexualize young students.
What brain dead idiot thinks the gender unicorn is more important than reading, writing and arithmatic right now ?
What braid dead idiot thinks that indoctrinating students regarding CRT is more important than making them fit to hold a job ?
“Which party is preventing kids from getting care so they don’t kill themselves over gender identity issues?”
Which party has driven the idiocy that has caused rates of anxiety, depression and suicide – in teens, but also adults to spike ?
“Oh yea, the Repos don’t believe that there is anything other than an XX or XY human being.”
It is called SCIENCE.
“Sheeeeeesh. take the tin foil off your heads and learn some science and understand that facts do not depend on your belief. Facts are facts, whether you believe it or not. And your belief in something does not make it true.”
Absolutely correct. So what are the FACTS ?
Is there a gene for homosexuality ? for Transsexulatiy ?
Science derives from Facts. As an adult – if you wish to make your own choices – so long as the consequences of those choices are YOURS and not to others. Go ahead.
I beleive that some people are gay – history – NOT SCIENCE confirms that. There is no scientific test for gay.
Homosexulatity as anything beyond a choice is today just a beleif. And Beleif is NOT SCIENCE.
I beleive that a much smaller portion of people are trans. History suggests that – though there are still issues because every person who emphasizes the characteristics of the opposite sex is not inherently trans. In fact FEW appear to be.
Regardless, we have no objective test for Trans. It is a belief, if it not science.
Maybe you will be the expert who will develop the biological test for homosexuality or transexuality.
Maybe in a decade there will be real SCIENCE.
But there is not now. Todate the evidence is these are choices.
Choices adults are free to make. Not children.
The damage to children if the right is incorrect is less than if you are.
I would note that transitioning has no long term effect on suicide rates or mental health.
There is excellent evidence that a significant portion of “gender dysphoria” is just a symptom of more traditional mental health problem like anxiety and depression.
“Demos are the fascists? Wow, take the tin foil off your head.”
Yes, Demos are the fascists. Dems are the authoritarians acting as ‘rulers’ not our elected representatives.
Democrats are not the “protectors” of our Constitutional Republic. They never were, they certainly are not today.
Anonymous asks which party is banning books on the same day that Turley’s other column is about the left trying to ban a book by Amy Coney Barrett. Hey Anonymous, we want to ban books on oral sex in the first grade and you want to ban books by a sitting Justice. You really are dumb.
Anyone who thinks it is okay to sexualize children are sick.
School board in Deerfield MI got an unexpected turn out of Muslim parents who were against wokeism in their schools.
Mess with some people’s kids, just might go badly.
Democrats in power, right now, in the current Biden government, are COORDINATING with private media companies to DIRECT that CRITICS of the government be silenced. They are USING PRIVATE COMPANIES to CENSOR SPEECH.
THIS IS FASCISM in ACTION.
Children of people being taken asylum have already been taken away under Trump. In Russia, children of Ukrainians in areas Putin is trying to turn into Russia are already being taken away, and Ukrainian history is being destroyed in favor of Putin’s preferred version of history. On a smaller scale, DeSantis is trying to change what is taught in schools to whitewash history. Look at countries like Hungary and you can see it can happen in the Western World.
And yes, Republicans are running all sorts of election deniers as Secretaries of State who are proudly declaring they will steal the next election for Republicans if necessary; and indeed they won the Republican primaries precisely because they announced this.
This would have been a stunning situation just a few years ago, but Turley and his “nothing to see here” and false equivalence have helped normalize it.
Wow! What a slanted view of the world.
I’m confident you won’t read this, but I’ll address a few of your points in the same manner you made them, unsourced and pseudonymously.
“Children of people being taken asylum have already been taken away under Trump.”
You meant “given asylum,” not taken, and yes, Trump did that just as Obama did before him.
“In Russia, children of Ukrainians in areas Putin is trying to turn into Russia are already being taken away, and Ukrainian history is being destroyed in favor of Putin’s preferred version of history.”
Accurate, and so are Ukrainian adults, and Russian adults for that matter. War is terrible and I don’t want Americans added to the list. This is also completely irrelevant to domestic politics, both parties are warmongers.
“On a smaller scale, DeSantis is trying to change what is taught in schools to whitewash history.”
Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Prove that DeSantis’s goal is white washing history, rather than his stated aims, and we can have a discussion.
“Look at countries like Hungary and you can see it can happen in the Western World.”
Fearmongering, but lazy.
“And yes, Republicans are running all sorts of election deniers as Secretaries of State who are proudly declaring they will steal the next election for Republicans if necessary; and indeed they won the Republican primaries precisely because they announced this.”
Yeah, really strange that massive amounts of Democratic party donations would end up funneled into the coffers of the most extreme, most dangerous candidates in the GOP, isn’t it? It’s almost as if the Democratic leadership doesn’t actually believe this rhetoric, and is playing political games.
“This would have been a stunning situation just a few years ago, but Turley and his “nothing to see here” and false equivalence have helped normalize it.”
And so would the notion that almost the entirety of traditional media would openly support one side of politics, or the notion that Politico would stoop to reciting talking points in the comment section of somebody else’s article, yet here we are. Unless, of course, this undergraduate intern level screed is actually a joke, and someone is merely pretending to be Politico, in which case well played, trickster, you captured their style perfectly.
@Politico
😂😂😂 Again I say you know something is spot on when the trolls you’ve never seen and never will again pop up. Deflect! Deflect with all your might! It’s a tale as old as (internet) time. Every time. It isn’t about Republicans, it’s about Democrats and *literally anybody else that is opposed to them*. Apparently to modern Dems there is only the American Democratic Party. Fall in line with that party or be destroyed.
James: These pop-ups have no faith in their arguments and say what they wish because they know they will be using another alias shortly. If they have no faith in their own arguments, so why should anyone have faith in them. Some of them come from well-known posters who have ruined their prior alias. They are ignorant and cowards. There is generally very little if any data attached to what they say.
@ S. Meyer
I know. If I pulled out a variety of sex toys in the middle of a playground, you know these people would run away screaming. There is no connection to reality, and no compassion for other people. Our modern Dem party is a farce. To them it’s all an intellectual exercise, they do not rub elbows with anyone but their own kin, and that is what makes the rest hilarious.
“Our modoern Dem party is a farce. To them it’s all an intellectual exercise, they do not rub elbows with anyone but their own kin, and that is what makes the rest hilarious.”
Hilarious but also stupid. These people wish to tear down a great country and destroy the lives of billions. They do this without knowing what they are talking about. Listen to Svelaz who gets everything wrong, draws conflicting conclusions, and thinks he is a genius. Any other person with an IQ of 80 that was the least bit introspective would be hiding their stupidity and trying to learn. Not Svelaz. He’s a low intellectual nudist.
@S. Meyers
Can’t disagree. It would be hilarious if they weren’t so serious. There is no point in taking any leftist ranting seriously. This stuff doesn’t touch them. Same was true about the recession in 2008. Nothing changed for them. They are the progenitors of modern leftists, (white) trust fund babies, nearly the lot of them. There is a large (bit not a majority by any means) class of people in this country thoroughly insulated by their wealth, almost exclusively Democrats, and they presume to dictate our behavior. They can go to hell. Heaven help them when the chips fall, which they will, one way or another.
Children of people being taken asylum have already been taken away under Trump. President Trump is obligated to follow the law. Those children were handled exactly as the law requires.
“[O]ur children will be arrested and conceivably killed.”
Fears about killing are a bit hysterical.
I prefer the pillory — until they repent. Or the rack — if they’re too short.
What scares me is that the principle of projection has been such a reliable heuristic to know what the Democrats are up to. They incessantly accuse others of what they are doing.
@ Shsjsgska
All of it scares me. We truly haven’t seen this in the West at this level since the 1930s. The Dems are everything you describe and then some.
Shsjsgska, and James,
Right?
This level of fearmongering is unreal. From the MSNBC meltdown, the two Biden speeches, to H Clinton’s dangerous rhetoric on the Joy Reid show recently.
Oh, note how MSM is running on the Pelosi attack, but how much did they highlight NY gov candidate Zeldin getting attacked at a rally with a knife? Just recently Republican New Hampshire Senate candidate Don Bolduc dodged a punch while he was about to take the stage at a rally. Some other GOP candidate (dont recall whom), someone threw a power tool battery at his wife’s head.
Upstate Farmer: You are correct. -And let’s add the baseball game where Republican House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and three others were SHOT (Scalise critically) vs. coverage of House Majority Leader Pelosi’s spouse.
The MEDIA grossly fail to emphasize that David DePape appears mentally impaired, whereas the baseball game shooter was apparently quite sane but possessed by a hatred for Republicans, e.g., “Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old unemployed home inspector, had been angry with [the election of] President Donald Trump, and police have said he deliberately targeted Republicans the morning of June 14. (https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-steve-scalise-shooting-20171006-story.html)
I note that DePape had a list on him that named several other targets, ostensibly a professor and state/federal politicians.
The media is not revealing whether those “targets” belonged to one or both political parties, since DePape was previously known for his liberal/leftist activism?
Lin,
David DePape, that guy is a hot mess from the word go. Disappears for a year, comes back and thinks he is Jesus? He has serious mental health problems and is in need of serious help. I hope he gets it.
Now, the San Fran DA has announced she will not release the body cam footage and the 911 tapes. I honestly do not know what to think about the whole thing without seeing more evidence, but it appears the public will never know.
Have to shrug if off to another one of those rich powerful people get special treatment while the rest of us dont.
When information is withheld by the powerful, it means the information is detrimental. If it weren’t they would release the information themselves and smile.
@UpstateFarmer
i guess the only thing scarier to me is that, and perhaps i think this incorrectly, it doesn’t seem to perk anyone’s ears. At this point, none of this is a joke or a meme. For Pete’s sake: *wake up*, America.
@UpstateFarmer
It is unreal. As in, ‘This is difficult to comprehend in the United States of America’ unreal. I knew there would be hyperbole from the left; this is off the charts. Sorry, but non-Dems are human beings. That no longer seems to be a consideration for modern Democrats. That is something that goes beyond elections but is still bound to them – do not vote for these Dem fascists.
I don’t have the words. Our Democrats have so jumped the shark, it’s madness. If we don’t vote them out now, we may never be free again, 2020 was just a preview. I never imagined the shivers Obama gave us would reverberate into this. Vote your little hearts out.
James,
“ I don’t have the words. Our Democrats have so jumped the shark, it’s madness. If we don’t vote them out now, we may never be free again, 2020 was just a preview. I never imagined the shivers Obama gave us would reverberate into this. Vote your little hearts out.”
Why are you so surprised? Are you really that oblivious?
Trump supporters, republicans, and conservatives have been spewing that kind of doom and gloom rhetoric for decades. The irony here is that it is these folks who have been riling themselves up endlessly over “leftist” tyranny or “wokism” or anything that THEY have been complaining about in the exact same doom and gloom rhetoric.
Democrats and some of the more concerned members are correctly making assumptions based on the very same rhetoric republicans have been spewing for years about “takeovers” and “indoctrination” and whatever fear mongering slogan of the day or week are on their social circles and twitter or facebook thread.
There IS a legitimate problem of low information voters who have been thoroughly brainwashed by the constant stream of conspiracy theories and outright BS. It IS going to be an issue eventually and a lot of people will come to realize too late that they’ve been taken for a ride because exploiting their gullibility is what the republicans excel at.
Tell us on the doll where Joe Biden touched you.
@Svelaz
Your pants are fiery, but peaceful. Never mind the broken windows, blood, concussions, lost livelihoods, or piles of ash. Which apparently includes your pants. Don’t go out in public like that, people will start handing you their spare change.
The smell of desperation is so pungent. This could have been a farcical scene from a movie such as Dr. Strangelove only know the unhinged,paranoid, fanatics are screaching from the left. if it wasn’t so scary it would be funny.
Alma Carman,
Dr. Strangelove. It does read like something Peter Sellers would come up with.
It would be funny if people did not actually believe it.
And that is the tragi part. IF, if the adults would be able to regain control of this nation, just what do we do with millions of disfunctional, delusional, mis-educated human flotsam except allow them to age out in some passive neutral space where they can do no harm. I know that sounds rather odd, but, really, just how do you keep them from destroying the nation on a series of temper tantrums and nihilistic rage?
“[H]ow do you keep them from destroying the nation on a series of temper tantrums and nihilistic rage?”
Short-term: Fund and unleash the police. And stop demoralizing them.
Long-term: Defund the universities and demoralize the academics peddling those toxic ideas.
To add to the “desperation is so pungent,” actor Jason Bateman is urging Biden to use the nations Emergency Broadcasting system to urge people to vote Dem.
The View’s Joy Behar attempted to gaslight American’s claiming crime has gone down under the Biden admin, saying, “I looked it up, murders in major cities have fallen by 4% so far in 2022, compared with the same period a year ago. So crime is not on the rise, it’s actually going down under Joe Biden.”
However, the data from Axios does show the murder rates have fallen, but violent crime overall has gone up by 4.2% Jan-Jun 2022.
I expect more of this kind of . . . desperation, in the coming days.
I also expect more of the MSNBC like fearmongering rhetoric, and some of it to get even more outlandish.
What else would you expect coming from the mouth of PBS’s resident “historian”? He is as much of a historian as Goebbels was a journalist!
Except Republicans are actually quite horrible. They do not believe in the concept of free and fair elections. They engage in racial gerrymandering. They openly support political violence. They are just fine with women dying in pregnancy. They want to establish a white nationalist Christian theocracy.
@Sammy
It must be hard for you to type with your pants on fire like that. I couldn’t do it.
James, Sammy is not wrong here. It’s funny when these facts are pointed out how uncomfortable republicans get because it is true. It’s easier to avoid acknowledging it than to admit some of it is true. Reality has funny way of showing those claims to be true no matter how far into denial one gets.
We already have Republicans promising that republicans will always win. If they lose it’s because of fraud.
It’s funny when these facts are pointed out
Go ahead. Pick one, cite specifics and present your position.
All of Sammy post is a lie,
Iowan2, it’s no use providing you with any facts or figures. Like I’ve said in another post. No amount of evidence, proof, or examples will convince you and that is the problem. It becomes a huge waste of time. The easiest way to do this is if YOU find out for yourself or actually do some research beyond the information silo you reside in. Only YOU can be convinced when YOU decide to go beyond your biases and petty politics. Otherwise this just becomes a stupid game of who can be the most in denial or ignorance. Good luck.
Great examples of Orwellian rhetoric. That was your intention, correct?
— PA Dems (at least) rigged the 2020 election in that state
— Dems invented racial gerrymandering (and the worst racially gerrymandered districts in the country remain Massachusetts 7th and 8th (politically gerrymandered too so that Boston gets two Congresspeople when its population only deserves two thirds of one)
— Dems tried to burn down churches in DC and court houses in Portland and tried to kill Congresspeople in suburban DC
— And the leading Republicans are ethnically Indian, Italian, Mormon and a host of other diverse groups and the white Anglo Democrat president gets his Pope to bless him once a month
Sammy is an idiot.
Is it difficult to breathe with your head that far up your own ass, or does being drunk on the blue Kool-Aid help?
Tropical Punch flavor, not blue. I am not a savage.
It’s definitely Orwellian but I would not bet that it is not effective. The left has become rabid. I follow closely and therefore see the left’s lies about Medicare primarily through this Orwellian lens but I think it likely that the same is true on every important issue.
In Medicare, everything the left says is absolutely the opposite of the facts:
— Medicare is “going to be privatized” if the GOP wins. In fact, Medicare has ALWAYS been run by private companies. LBJ could not have passed it without promising that.
— Medicare is solvent. In fact, Medicare Part A runs out of enough money to fully pay its bills to hospitals and SNFs in 3-4 years (Part B is always solvent because it just takes what it needs from the Treasury… of course that assumes the Treasury is always solvent)
— Medicare Advantage is a give away to for profit insurance companies. In fact, public Part C Medicare health plans (of which Medicare Advantage is the most popular form) is mostly sponsored by non profit integrated health delivery systems and other non profit charities with no insurance companies involved, unlike with Parts A and B which are entirely run by five for profit insurance companies (but there is no rule against for profit insurers sponsoring the Part C plans too as long as they follow the same rules as the charities)
— and the greatest leftist Orwellian statement of all about Medicare: Original Medicare is great single payer healthcare financial protection and we should give it “to All.” In fact, in practice there are five payers and Original Medicare is so bad that 99.9% of the people on it have to go out and find one, two, three, up to six additional forms of financial protection to actually be protected
And yet because the left’s Orwellian lies about Medicare are constantly repeated by the media and politicians over and over and over, the effect is people believe them. The same effect could carry the left over the finish line next week (or — you know — whenever they finish cutting the votes in three or four weeks)
Freudian thing in that last sentence which should have said “(or — you know — whenever they finish COUNTING the votes in three or four weeks).” But cutting works too if they don’t like what some of the ballots say
Informative. Where would one find supporting documentation to conduct a side-by-side comparison.
If that is addressed to me, safeside824, what do you want to compare side by side? If you are referring to Medicare there are about five major combinations that have to be compared:
— A few percent are on A and B only
— About half of us are on A, B and C combined
— About 5% are on A only with private insurance typically from a former employer (typically this is a Federal government retiree)
— About 30% are ib A, B and private insurance from a former employer that requires B or private insurance bought individually (called Medigap); the percent in this category almost always add Part D
— About 10% are on A, B, D and Medicaid
It was. Brevity is sometimes my enemy. Two-fold purpose…view the source of your information in order to reach an independent informed conclusion (not that you would spin the data) vis a vis left vs. right; and since I become Medicare eligible in a few years might as well get started on the research before I get locked into something that is going to suuuuuck. I do not trust Jimmy JJ Walker or Joe Nameth. Hope that clarified it.
Safeside, Medicare itself puts out a booklet “Medicare and You, xxxx” (with the xxxx’s being the year) that is a good starting point. You can look at the 2023 version online to begin to educate yourself but you’ll need the correct year version when you actually decide to join. The biggest things most people don’t realize other than that there are actually the five different main combos I listed (and additional options within those five) are that
— Medicare is different in every county in the country
— Medicare has no family plan (if there is a spouse involved, he or she needs to choose based on his or her health and finances and might need one of the combos with different options entirely different than you)
If you have been making healthcare cost financial protection decisions at a large employer or through state Marketplace exchanges over the last xx years, you will not find it too daunting except you’ll discover that the base Part A and base Part B (called together Original Medicare) are really 1950s Blue Cross and 1940s Blue Shield respectively. If you’re almost 80, like me you find that funny since I was just starting working in 1966 when they disappeared. If instead you are around 60, you will just say “WTF is this?”
Safeside, separately I see that an S Meyer answered your question without knowing that you did not care about any of the things he or she mentioned. That is good because almost everything he or she wrote is a total fabrication
Really? Can you tell me what I fabricated? Do you know who Mark Litow is? Are you familiar with Medicare’s actions in areas dense with seniors? Have you followed the AMA suits against Medicare? Did you ever see the GAO report on HMO profit?
There is a lot more to Medicare than the Medicare booklet and signing people up.
It appears Safeside is not looking to know about Medicare but what Medicare has to offer him. That depends on a lot of things including where he lives and the systems that exist in his location.
Were you promoting HMO’s?
Safeside, I also noted that you asked about left-right issues. There were some at the time Clinton’s Part C — “invented” by two Ted Kennedy staffers — and Part D-* proposals were enacted (1997 and 2003-* respectively) and subsequently over much needed reforms (e.g., Simpson-Bowles, Wyden-Ryan) that were never enacted but given the subsequent overwhelming popularity of both programs (C especially; D more by default since there was no alternative to compare it against), there is now overwhelming bipartisan support for Part C, with Congresspeople from far lefty Katherine Clark of Massachusetts to the far right Gaetz of FL and over 398 others out of 535 signed up as “Champions” and Supporters (https://bettermedicarealliance.org/congressional-champions-2022/).
The 100 or so not signed up are the far left supporters for so-called Medicare for All which is really Medicaid for All but Bernie Sanders is too smart a politician to call it that.
_____________
*Part D was finally enacted under Bush II but it was pretty much based on Clinton’s 2000 proposal in all major aspects, the most important of which was not letting the $1200 toilet seat guys negotiate drug prices
Safeside, I assume you are asking for a financial comparison, which includes other information. Understand, Medicare price fixes the cost of medicine and provides lots of regulations. It failed to control prices. Being overly expensive, it has wasted lots of money and contributed to churning. This is not advantageous to the patient, the taxpayer, or the physician who wants to provide the best care.
Medicare is a federal bureaucracy, and at least in the past, and violated laws without significant penalty. One can learn about the latter in the major court cases brought against Medicare.
Part C permitted HMOs to earn multiples of what the government permitted. Too late, the GAO ran the numbers and showed that HMOs were vastly overpaid.
Part D did not put a ceiling on drugs. It put a floor on how low the prices could go. Some referred to part D as the Merck rehabilitation plan.
Look for a paper by Mark Litow. He is an expert and open minds can rid themselves of a lot of nonsense when it comes to Medicare. He is an actuary who has studied the numbers.
Total nonsense Meyer.
1. Yes Medicare is a federal bureaucracy but it is actually not that large because all Parts of Medicare — A, B, C and D — are run by or sponsored by private companies under contract to the bureaucracy, which has only a relatively small core staff (maybe 3000 people in Baltimore last time I looked)
2. I have no idea what you are talking about vis a vis many lawsuits. I am a CMS trained and certified expert and have never heard of any thing I would consider “major court cases” (Brown, Dobbs, Marbury, NRF, Plessey, etc. are “major court cases.”
3. In the 25 years of existence, people on public Part C (what you call HMO although there are many other forms of Part C) have cost the same per capita as people not on Part C. There are no multiples or any Part C sponsors vastly overpaid. Some years one type of beneficiary costs a percent or two more and a few years later the ratio reverses. The law intends them to balance but it can never happen perfectly because year 2’s Part C per capita number in a given county is based on year 0’s spending on fee for service Medicare Parts A and B in the same county
4. Your comment on Part D is jibberish. It pretty much works the way President Clinton designed it (except that Biden just screwed it up but his changes don’t take effect for three or four more years and hopefully will be reversed)
5. Milliman has done a lot of good research on Medicare but actuaries don’t really mean much to Medicare since it is NOT insurance.
Dennis, you should be careful when you say total nonsense to a person you don’t know. You sound silly.
“1. Yes Medicare is a federal bureaucracy but it is actually not that large because all Parts of Medicare — A, B, C and D — are run by or sponsored by private companies under contract to the bureaucracy, which has only a relatively small core staff (maybe 3000 people in Baltimore last time I looked)”
This depend on what you consider small. 3000 people in only Baltimore is not small. Its budget, I believe, is the second largest portion of the federal budget. Maybe the third with our increase in interest on the debt. The private companies that run Medicare are very limited in what they can do. They are almost totally controlled by the federal Medicare bureaucracy. It is single payer for almost the entire senior population of the country and almost every doctor and hospital. Its spending is immense. You can look it up yourself. It also affects most of the rest of the healthcare economy to a great extent.
If you wish to call it small, I think you are being silly.
“2. I have no idea what you are talking about vis a vis many lawsuits. I am a CMS trained and certified expert and have never heard of any thing I would consider “major court cases” (Brown, Dobbs, Marbury, NRF, Plessey, etc. are “major court cases.””
You only know what you were told. Medicare regulations in the past were quite different. The change occurred because of suits against Medicare. Medicare lost many of those suits so policies evolved. If you dealt with Medicare and understood more than the booklet, how can you not have some knowledge of the problems? The suits were not suits that involved the entire nation. They were limited to healthcare issues. Originally, Medicare was the prosecutor, judge and jury. When that fell many suits based on shameful activities by Medicare were also litigated.
“3. In the 25 years of existence, people on public Part C (what you call HMO although there are many other forms of Part C) have cost the same per capita as people not on Part C. There are no multiples or any Part C sponsors vastly overpaid. Some years one type of beneficiary costs a percent or two more and a few years later the ratio reverses. The law intends them to balance but it can never happen perfectly because year 2’s Part C per capita number in a given county is based on year 0’s spending on fee for service Medicare Parts A and B in the same county”
There are multiple forms to Part C, but unless one is involved in those forms one generally only knows about HMO’s. I don’t think there is a need to deal with the many varieties.
“There are no multiples or any Part C sponsors vastly overpaid.”
I cannot say for today as my knowledge is based on what happened from Medicare’s beginnings up to about 20 years ago and then that knowledge and interest lessened.
The GAO reported HMO’s made multiples of what was intended initially. HMO’s profited in shameful ways some of them illegal and many of then causing suits. You should know about these things. Denial of service was the big one.
You are providing numbers that you do not understand and do not provide an accurate picture of what was going on.
“4. Your comment on Part D is jibberish. It pretty much works the way President Clinton designed it (except that Biden just screwed it up but his changes don’t take effect for three or four more years and hopefully will be reversed)”
All your statement means is you didn’t now what was going on at the time and your understanding of economics is lacking. If you paid attention at the time you would have seen comments such as I made. At the time of passage Merck’s pipeline was drying up. The major companies were providing brand name drugs for free or $15. Most of that ceased as Part D supposedly covered the costs and the patients getting these subsidies were hurt because their costs rose. What we saw was a floor on those drug prices paid for by the American public. Instead of using less expensive generics people started to use the newest and most expensive drugs on the market.
“5. Milliman has done a lot of good research on Medicare but actuaries don’t really mean much to Medicare since it is NOT insurance.”
Mark Litow compared costs between the privately insured and Medicare. Much of the hype about how well Medicare did, that you might have believed, went down the drain. I didn’t bring Litow’s name up as part of a debate as to what Medicare is, I brought it up because he provided exceptionally important information. not in Medicare’s manual or government promotions.
You should be careful in believing your knowledge is more than it is.
Meyer, you added another dozen errors in your five responses but also admitted that your information base is more than 20 years old. I’m pretty comfortable calling 20-yeari-plus-old unsourced opinions based on hot air “total nonsense.”
You were at the height of your career during the times I am most familiar with. I keep an eye on healthcare events but don’t carefully follow them nor do I have any further dealings that afforded me the inside look. You claim I made “another dozen errors in your five responses”, but do you mention what any of those errors were? Are you intent on proving yourself a liar? When I mentioned Mark Litow’s name that should have alerted you that I had at least a modicum of knowledge on the subject.
Let’s see what you think is wrong.
What happened after Medicare Part D? Do you know? Have you looked at the prices for pharmaceuticals? Are all the needed drugs covered fully by all Medicare Part D plans? Did you know about Merck’s problems? Did you know how many poor people received brand named drugs? Apparently not.
Do you deny the GAO report that I spoke about? Did you ever hear about it? Apparently not.
Do you know how HMOs abused the public or the suits HMOs lost that changed the way they did business? Did you recognize that HMOs were selecting patients? Did you know doctors with large Medicare populations would promote the healthy to HMOs from which they got a large profit without much work? Did you realize that the sicker Medicare patients had higher charges to Medicare, increasing the physician’s earnings? Who benefitted? The HMOs and the physicians. Who paid for this? The public despite your calculations of how much profit the HMOs supposedly made. Do you understand how numbers are manipulated? Apparently not.
If you were such an expert on Medicare, how come you didn’t know about the suits that altered Medicare policy? Do you know how many physicians were falsely accused of fraud by Medicare and forced to settle? Do you know how much it cost for a physician to fight Medicare? Apparently not.
To you Medicare is small, but what is small is your attitude. When you are faced with facts that can be proven true, do you do any research? No. Instead, you insult for no reason at all. You are small because someone who enters your bailiwick knowing more than you on the topics he mentions is suddenly an enemy that you have to call a liar. That is being small.
What was your job, selling HMOs? Secondary insurance coverage?
In case you don’t know, insurance doesn’t enrich the pool. It costs the pool a lot of money. The purpose of insurance is to reduce the risk of catastrophic costs. It was the attempt to cover all risks, that caused prices to spiral.