signed a proclamation endorsing and approving end of life counseling--the very subject of her crass and politically dishonest "Death Panels" claim:
State of Alaska > Governor > Proclamations >
Proclamations Archive Healthcare Decisions Day
WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. WHEREAS, in Alaska, Alaska Statute 13.52 provides the specifics of the advance directives law and offers a model form for patient use.
WHEREAS, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of people in Alaska have executed an advance directive. Moreover, it is estimated that less than 50 percent of severely or terminally ill patients have an advance directive.
WHEREAS, it is likely that a significant reason for these low percentages is that there is both a lack of knowledge and considerable confusion in the public about Advance Directives.
WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.
WHEREAS, the Foundation for End of Life Care in Juneau, Alaska, and other organizations throughout the United States have endorsed this event and are committed to educating the public about the importance of discussing healthcare choices and executing advance directives.
WHEREAS, as a result of April 16, 2008, being recognized as Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, more citizens will have conversations about their healthcare decisions; more citizens will execute advance directives to make their wishes known; and fewer families and healthcare providers will have to struggle with making difficult healthcare decisions in the absence of guidance from the patient.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the state of Alaska, do hereby proclaim April 16, 2008, as:
Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.
UPDATE:
From Paul Krugman's column in the NYTimes:
"...the charge that’s gaining the most traction is the claim that health care reform will create “death panels” (in Sarah Palin’s words) that will shuffle the elderly and others off to an early grave. It’s a complete fabrication, of course. The provision requiring that Medicare pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling was introduced by Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican — yes, Republican — of Georgia, who says that it’s “nuts” to claim that it has anything to do with euthanasia.
And not long ago, some of the most enthusiastic peddlers of the euthanasia smear, including Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, and Mrs. Palin herself, were all for “advance directives” for medical care in the event that you are incapacitated or comatose. That’s exactly what was being proposed — and has now, in the face of all the hysteria, been dropped from the bill."
Yes, a provision in the health care bill that a Republican wrote, and that the dishonest ex-part-time governor of Alaska actually endorsed has been dropped from the health care bill.
We live in hysterial, illogical times, led by yawping, cynical, empty-headed people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin, whose followers eagerly and unquestioningly believe them.
Good luck with that, America
31 comments:
IAR,
The conservative blogs, as I have seen for myself, are doing a bang-up job of slamming Mr. Obama. And they have been doing so since the day he took the oath of office.
Why would I, a liberal do so?
And why do you come here and whine about how I should run my blog?
You, IAR, make no sense.
who are these guys who come to your blog and complain about what you post? haven't they read the stuff that's written against Obama on the conservative blogs. and notice what IAR writes about the president
"freakazoid of an Obamimation?"
Brilliant.
IAR, Shaw practices the ideal of, "If you can't say anything nice about a liberal or progessive, don't say anything at all."
She's very consistent about this. It is called "Progressive Eruptions," after all. But she will argue with you, as long as you're respectful.
IAR must be trying to increase her number of followers. She jumped me also Shaw. Her moniker is a perfect oxymoron.
Oh Gordon! Please link to something in APGFI where you're saying something positive about Mr. Obama.
MORE ON TOPIC! AHEM!
Shouldn't elected officials at least try to remember what they have supported in the past before trying to use the exact opposite stance to foster fear and hate?
This whole health care boondoggle has got me shaking my head in disgust at the sheer stupidity.
rockynyc wondered:
MORE ON TOPIC! AHEM!
'Shouldn't elected officials at least try to remember what they have supported in the past before trying to use the exact opposite stance to foster fear and hate?'
Actually, no.
Republicans in the mid-20th to early 21st century EXIST to foster fear and hate. It's what they do. An endless list of examples over the past 30 years (roughly my voting span) clearly indicate they can't govern. The one thing they can do is whip their predictable base into a froth of non-thought, righteous indignation and frenzied anger at the issue du jour.
Some things never change.
Recommended reading:
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
by Rick Perlstein
Shaw: I should think even you, as I'm sure Sara Palin did, understand that there's a humongous difference between the government issuing a toothless proclamation encouraging people to do something on their own and a mandate of the same thing by an overreaching government body that also happens to have to cut costs.
101: I'd suggest leaving the oxy off that word when talking about the runon girl, IAR.
Gordon: Quite true. If a liberal does something that Shaw claims a conservative did and is bad, she will rarely if ever condemn the liberal for doing it.
Arthur said: "Republicans in the mid-20th to early 21st century EXIST to foster fear and hate."
You can easily switch Republicans with Democrats in that sentence. Dems do this no less. The hate and fear based campaign against McCain and Palin. The Democrats' phone campaign in 2000 in which they claimed that President Bush would burn black churches.
Thanks dmarks.
Just having you chirp right in with your mantra 'they both do the same' is all the support my remarks require. You can indeed 'easily switch...' I certainly can't. It would be incorrect.
In a tiny way it's like being on Nixon's 'enemies list'. Any self-respecting Liberal/Progressive would appreciate the gesture.
PatrickM-
The 'toothless proclamation' refers to an Alaska State Statute which is a similar law to what likely will come out of Congress as part of the President's health care reform initiative.
Sorry. There won't be any 'death panels'.
I wonder if that dimwit had any idea what she was signing.
The rightist trolls here seem determined to make Republicans look like ill informed imbeciles.
Arthur: You can easily switch both sides around on many, but not all issues. The "hate and fear" one is clearly an example of one where it works.
Hate and fear still work. Damn shame but it's true. One of my guys lost last election because we went positive and stressed experience. The opponent mislead and stressed fear of non existent taxes. I hope to be retired from that but I relearned a valuble lesson. Losing an election because you took the high road doesn't help you sleep any better. I'd just as soon sleep with the sweet REM's of victory.
Shaw: You ask, I provide.
If Sarah was herself 'death panelling' baby Trig, it's pro-life, then?
Fearmongering has its downfalls.
Yawn.
The more things change...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081401495.html
One of the greatest reactionary hits of them all:
"I have here in my hand a list of 205 (0r 57) —a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."
Gordon,
You provided a link to a post that praised Obama for his continuation of Bush's policies?
LOL!
Sorry, I Am Always Right, you won't be allowed to post, delete, and run.
This is the first post of this thread that "I Am Always Right" posted then deleted:
ImAlwaysRight has left a new comment on your post "EX-PART TIME GOVERNOR AND HYPOCRITE, SARAH PALIN":
It's always about slamming the republicans isn't it.
How about slamming your Wonderful freakazoid of an Obamimation for a change. Can he never do anything wrong?
Well, time are a changing.
Posted by ImAlwaysRight to Progressive Eruptions at August 14, 2009 11:47 AM
Patrick,
It was an OPTION. You've bought into the lies. I'm sorry about that.
Shaw, you asked for a link where I said something positive about Obama. I supplied it.
Should I praise Obama for using crisis mongering to dispense billions to his political cronies? Should I give thanks for his ratcheting up deficits by an order of magnitude? Should I laud his sucking up to anti-American dictators and tyrants while disdaining our democratic allies? Does he deserve encomiums for abandoning every promise he made about openness, transparency and working to heal the political divide?
Well, I can manage a bit of praise: He has done an excellent job of showing Americans what a progressive future would be like.
Gordon,
You need to calm down and be a bit more rational.
Go to PolitiFact, and you can follow Mr. Obama's record to date on the promises he's made, kept, and is working on.
Your description of the president as some sort of apocalyptic monster is over the top and, of course, rightwing rhetoric.
Mr. Obama is as American as you are, loves his country as much as you and your hysterical fellow travelers, [possibly MORE, since he actually endangered his and his family's lives by becoming the leader of this country and the free world].
Much of your harangue has a lot to do with your and other rightwingers absolute rage at the fact that a liberal got elected, and that he and his Congress are going to implement their programs.
For some unfathomable reason, you and your friends believe only conservatives have that right.
Politics is a game, but apparently you and the conservatives believe only your side has the right to play it.
I'm reading Julia Child's memoire "My Life in France," on which the film "Julie and Julia" is based.
In it, she recounts the McCarthy years and how the Republicans believed anything and everything a Democrat did was anti-American and absolute ruin for this country.
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"
You've got to understand that people like me have the right to be represented in the White House once in a while.
The GOP has been in charge of the WH 28 out of the last 40 years, and of the last 8 years, had complete political control for 6 of those years. And that's what Mr. Obama inherited.
It's nice to be able to ignore those facts and blame the Coming Armegeddon on only the Democrats and Mr. Obama.
It's also insane.
Dowd writes:
Painting the Giacometti-esque Emanuel as a creepy Dr. Death, Palin attacked him on her Facebook page a week ago, complaining that his “Orwellian thinking” could lead to a “death panel” with bureaucrats deciding whether to pull the plug on less hardy Americans.
Never mind that Palin herself had endorsed some of the same end-of-life counseling she now depicts as putting Grandma down.
As the Democratic National Committee pointed out, Palin put out a 2008 proclamation for Healthcare Decisions Day “to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care ... and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions.”
Consistency was long ago sent to a death panel in Palin world.
Sensing traction, she took more shots against Dr. Emanuel, quoting the bioethicist’s past writing that some medical services might not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. ... An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”
“Dr. Emanuel,” she wrote ominously, “has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which ‘produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.’ ”
She crowed that she had him on the run, and the White House felt that the doctor, who was being portrayed as a proponent of euthanasia, needed to get out there and explain his opposition to euthanasia. So he interrupted his hiking vacation in the Italian Alps to give a raft of phone interviews saying he was taken out of context and calling Palin’s charges “completely off the wall.”
But, much to Sarah’s delight, he also conceded to The Washington Times that his “thinking has evolved” on the “very vexing” issue of deciding who gets treatment and who doesn’t.
“When I began working in the health policy area about 20 years ago ... I thought we would definitely have to ration care, that there was a need to make a decision and deny people care,” he told the paper, adding that he now feels that if we get rid of expensive “unnecessary care” that “we would have absolutely no reason to even consider rationing except in a few cases.”
A few cases? Sounds like another Facebook entry for Sarah.
The funny thing is, Shaw, I actually read history, not just pop history. I'm sure Julia Child's anecdotes are interesting, and I honor her work in the war.
But it turns out there actually were commununists in the State department. We know that from people like Ron Radosh, who rejected the ideology in which he was brought up. We also know it from the files of the KGB which were released after the fall of the Soviet Union. Or read Carl Bernstein's autobiography, where his parents beg him not to write about the period; because his parents, among others, were working to overthrow the government of the U.S.
And as for what the Republicans thought about Democrats during this period: During that time, Democrats were as serious as Republicans about the national security of the United States. There wasn't a hair's breadth of distance between the anti-communist policies of elected official of either party. Your contention that Republicans thought that everything Democrats did was anti-American is not backed up by facts or contemporary accounts.
Now if you tell me that if Barack Obama had said that he would triple the deficit in his first year, and do more deficit spending than all the presidents before him combined , would he have won? If he had said he would reject Israel and support the Palestinians, would he have won? If, instead of promising to read every line, and post all bills for five days before signing, he would sign bills that no one had read, would he have been elected?
If he had promised to shut the Republicans out of the process of creating major legislation, would he have won?
Either he lied, or decided that his promises weren't worth keeping. Why do you defend this?
Gordon,
I understand your rebuttal, but you yourself use broad, over-the-top generalizations and comparisons when you liken Mr. Obama to Mussolini.
It wouldn't be difficult to do the same to any president, would it. Somewhere, somehow we could find something any US president has done to earn that comparison.
And yet you find my broad statement about McCarthyism uninformed, based on "pop" history.
You also conveniently forget how this country came to the financial situation it is now in. It didn't happen in a vacuum. And Mr. Obama didn't "bring it on."
You don't like the way he's handling the gigantic problems he was left with?
I didn't like the way Mr. Bush plunged us into war in Iraq!
Conservatives justify that misbegotten adventure and don't see how anyone could NOT have supported the president.
And yet when a Democrat is in the WH and running things as HE and his Congress HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE CHANCE TO DO BY THE AMERICAN VOTERS, you won't have any of it and have found Marxism, Socialism, Fascism creeping into everyone's bed.
I asked you to examine the possibility that perhaps this is because you and other conservatives believe that only the Right has the right to be in the WH, and only you and your fellow believers know what's right for America.
I have news for you. You're one half [probably less, because there are a lot of independents] of the voting public. You and your conservatives had 8 years of promoting your vision for America.
The American people said NO! to you guys in November, and you guys can't deal with it.
That, I believe, is what this is all about.
No one, not you nor I, has all the solutions for all the problems this country faces. And we'll never solve any of them while Democrats and Republicans continue to scream at each other and accuse each of of RUINING THE COUNTRY!
Defecits, for our friends on the right, Are like pulling a shiny, clean car out of the garage on Saturday night.
To be used only on special occasions. Or, in this case, to make political hay by winding up the base to kill health care reform & prepare for the 2010 elections. On a day to day basis budget defecits are no big deal.
If the mattered even a fraction of what the right claims they would have hollered when George put his 'excellent' Iraq adventure on our credit card.
He didn't. They don't.
Poor old Tail Gunner Joe. Misunderstood. Ahead of his time.
Thanks for the chuckle Gordon.
Frank The Thinking Man, has left a new comment on your post "EX-PART TIME GOVERNOR AND HYPOCRITE, SARAH PALIN":
libhom said...
I wonder if that dimwit had any idea what she was signing.
The rightist trolls here seem determined to make Republicans look like ill informed imbeciles.
That's your opinion, but the fact remains...
that less and less republicans are returning to this horrific blog.. We are leaving enough rope for imbeciles like YOU to do what you will inevitably do ..
Have a good day.
Speaking of "imbeciles" Frank.
How cowardly of you to post, delete, and run.
BTW, I actually have conservatives with brains and manners who come here and post.
I don't need you or your nasty friends who attack me for having the audacity to have my own blog with my own point of view.
Shaw,
I didn't bring up the Obama/Mussolini comparison in this discussion.
I'd certainly agree with you that Republicans make up less than half of the country. I think, and polls tend to show, that those who ascribe conservative views tend to make up more than half, but many are independents who don't always vote that way.
I'd also disagree that "conservatives" don't see how anyone could not have supported President Bush vis-a-vis Iraq. 73 percent of Americans supported the invasion, remember; it wasn't until after 2005 that Bush's support on the war dropped below 50 percent.
Yet there were conservatives who opposed that action from the start. I also never heard anyone of significance say or write that those who didn't support the president weren't patriotic. Certainly no one in the administration ever said that.
I thought that conservatives in particular, and Republicans in general, handled the loss of the White House pretty well. There were quite a few exhortations from the right to give the new guy a chance.
But a number of actions by the new administration rang alarm bells very quickly. Subsequent actions haven't dampened that sense of alarm.
We're the loyal opposition. We have the right, and the obligation, to oppose policies we think are bad for the country. Nor is it wrong, or unpatriotic, to point out when the administration is operating in ways in which, had Bush done so, you yourself would have screamed bloody murder.
You're a decent gal with a brain, and I'm appreciative of your willingness to engage on the issues. Just because I think you're wrong doesn't mean I can't appreciate your other good qualities, not the least of which are the boots (and what fills them).
And just who are these conservatives with brains and manners? Speak up, and I'll help you run them off straightaway!
Can't have folks like that speaking for us, no siree.
Arthurstone,
If you go back and read what I wrote, you'll discover that I didn't defend McCarthy. I merely stated that he was right when he said there were communists in the State department.
A national figure using fake documents to make political attacks on national television--why that would be awful, wouldn't it? And it would be bad also, for someone to say that well, the documents were probably fake, but were accurate nonetheless, unless that person had other evidence to back it up.
Unfortunately, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes didn't have any other evidence. The evidence, in fact, pointed the other way. Sic semper media!
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