Tom Coburn is at it again.
Speaking to reporters last night, the Senate’s top obstructionist, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), said that he would attempt to slow down progress on health care reform by insisting that the 1,000-page-plus health care reform bill be read aloud on the Senate floor. “The American people are going to get to hear this bill read, period,” said Coburn, adding that “he would also block other legislative shortcuts” in an effort to delay the bill, such as requiring “the Senate to use up the entire 30-hour debate period called for after a filibuster has been broken.” According to Roll Call, “earlier this month, Republican leadership aides said Coburn was unlikely to make such a move without the blessing of GOP leaders.”
Inserted from <Think Progress>
This is just a GOP delay while thousands of Americans keep dying from the lack of health care. Perhaps this GOP scum should remember the Hippocratic oath he took when he graduated from medical school.
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
Inserted from <PBS>
The top graphic is a Hippocrates. The bottom is a hypocrite. There is no resemblance between Coburn’s oath and his behavior trying to prevent the neediest Americans from having access to health care. One of the biggest opponents of health care reform is Supply Side Jesus, not the real Jesus who practiced love, tolerance and care for those in need, but the Republican/Religious Right Jesus who practices hate, fear, and greed. In the opposition to health care reform many roads meet at C Street. There’s some good news there.
Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house’s owners to avoid paying property taxes.
Previously, the house — despite being home to numerous lawmakers — had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building’s owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.
Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation…
Inserted from <TPM>
If they are a church, as they claim, all their political activity has been a violation of the separation clause, so they should lose all tax exemption and have to pay back taxes, with interest and penalties for all the years they have been proselytizing politicians.
Rachel Maddow did a beautiful job of tying it all together.
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The CBO is about to release its estimate of the latest Senate bill. As soon as you get that news, camp on your phones please. We need to get this passed.
15 Responses to “Supply Side Jesus Opposes Health Care Reform”
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The process is the process as it has evolved. If Reid allows them to set the game in motion and does nothing to obstruct their obstruction then so be it, either way the filibuster will be broken and the final 30 hours of debate will be happen then the votes taken or not.
In the mean another thousand will die without proper care and their souls demise rest on that ignoble house of whores.
ALL churches who make ANY political statement or or who try to dictate or sway anything that concerns secular reality should be denied tax exempt status.
Taxing them would give them the right to voice secular opinion.
When I read about organizations like "The Family" and the goings on at it's C Street house, I shiver a little. They really have infiltrated Congress with their particular brand of religion, very Taliban-ish in its tolerance levels.
Coburn says he wants the American people to hear the entire bill. He knows having it read in the Senate wouldn't achieve that objective, so I must conclude he's being dishonest.
Re: Supply Side Jesus and "real" Jesus, I'd say a YouTube video I recently found sums up my perspective on that matter.
Tom I'm waiting for this to all be over, I'm just plain tired of it! As for Rachel and her investigative juices, she's friggin awesome! I have the video up of last nights show with Frank Schaeffer, come by all who missed it!
John Moschitta Jr. should be brought in to read the bill!
When will people realize that the GOP is actively standing in the way of progress. They cry for bipartisanship, but then refuse to cooperate, with the goal of making them look like the victim…
The fact that Coburn is a doctor and hasn't starved to death from lack of patients is disturbing.
I really DITTO walking man! Good aggregate TC! I agree with your 'supply side' presents. Right on with reminding us all to keep ringing the phones and emailing! TC, you're right…Coburn is no kind of doc. He's whore for the insurance companies. + C St. is getting it's due on spyglass inspections & political scrutiny. Maddow's savvy scooping up of Jeff Sharlet for a tv audience started a real stampede on the C Street group. On Sharlet too.
Stimpson – the vid is funny as hell.
Let Coburn read the bill. It will be the first time he read anything instead of waiting for the latest one liners and talking points from his masters.
On the Jesus subject: I've been in my own ongoing struggle with big government to get tax exempt status for myself since going with the "Jesus with a gun" profile picture. I can emapthize with the struggles of the C Streeters.
Good luck with that tax fight, Truth. I've been trying to convince the Canadian government that a faith revolving around my penis as an object of worship (for women only) should indeed qualify for tax-exempt status.
You would have accomplished that by now if all you Canadians weren't spending so much time in the USA getting health care Stimpson.
ROTFL, Truth!
Yeah, you're right. Just yesterday, I spent hours driving a group of neighbours to North Dakota and back for tonsilectomies. Don't tell Kent Conrad.
What is it about Oklahoma Republicans anyway?
Mark, I fully agree. While I mention my volunteer work in my political blogging, I never use my volunteer position to further my political ends, because I respect the 503(c)(3) rules. I wish the right would do so as well.
Holte, American Taliban describes the rabid religious right quite well.
Stimson, I liked your video, and I respect your view, although I disagree. Unlike the religious right, I don't make the false claim that God tells me what to believe. I believe by choice, but I honor beliefs that disagree, except for beliefs that are intolerant of others.
Sue, I'm sick of it too. But part of the right's strategy is to wear us down. We must not allow that.
Kevin, that's an excellent analysis. Instead, I think the plan to actually make the Repigs sit through the reading.
Randal, why do you think he entered politics?
Thanks, Gwen. We're on the same page.
Truth, if Coburn read the bill, he would not finish in time for the 2010 election. Are you a bona fide religion?
Stimson, what if our gay readers insist on their right to worship as well?
Libhom, they do seem a particularly hateful group.
Actually, Jesus did tell one man how to fund health care for those less fortunate in his tale of the Good samaritan. Here it is from the Gospel of Luke in the NIV. The numbers are the verses.
30 In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' 36 "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" 37 The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
So, Jesus told the man to use his own money, not OPM (sounds like opium, is equally addicting, stands for other-people's money), to care for the unfortunate fellow. The priest and the Levite left the man perhaps hoping someone from the government would come by and see to his health care.
Ned, the money we pay in taxes is our own money.