Thursday morning I went to a town hall meeting in Topeka, Kansas, to watch Todd Tiahrt try to kick off his run to take over Sam Brownback's seat in the Senate. In retrospect, the time he chose for the meeting seems a little cynical. 8:30am. Everyone I know is either asleep or at work at 8:30am. As a result, the only people who weren't incredibly old or clearly too addled in the head to hold a job were myself and the journalists covering this meeting of the weakminded.
Tiahrt, of course, is the king of the weakminded. For those of you not familiar with the congressman from the fourth district of Kansas, a few highlights:
Most recently he was in the news for saying that, had abortion been legal at the time of their births, Barack Obama and Clarence Thomas would have both been aborted. He's also mentioned by name in Jeff Sharlet's book The Family, which I'll quote after the jump.
[Tiahrt] wanted to know the best way "for the Christian to win the race with the Muslim." The Muslim, he said, has too many babies, while Americans kill too many of theirs.
Coe agreed that too many Muslim babies could be a problem. But he was more concerned that Tiahrt’s focus on labels like Muslim and Christian might get in the way of the congressman’s prayers...We gotta take Jesus out of the religious wrapping."
"All right, how do we do that?" Tiahrt asked.
"A covenant," Doug Coe answered. The congressman half smiled, as if caught between confessing his ignorance and pretending he knew what Doug Coe was talking about. "Like the Mafia," Coe clarified. "Look at the strength of their bonds." He made a fist and held it before Tiahrt’s face. Tiahrt nodded, squinting. "See, for them it’s honor," Coe said. "For us, it’s Jesus."
Doug Coe listed other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their "brothers": "Look at Hitler," he said. "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, bin Laden."
He's known for the Tiahrt Amendment, designed to make it more difficult for law enforcement to track illegal weapons. Additionally, he's well known in Kansas political circles to be an idiot.
You would think such a biography of fail would cause a ridiculously stupid man to be satisfied with being a member of the House of Representatives. You would be wrong. With fellow religious totalitarian Sam Brownback vacating his Senate seat to more actively screw up his home state from the governor's mansion, Tiahrt thinks he's just the man to step in. So he's embarked on a listening tour of Kansas. Today, the Topeka Public Library.
Four hundred incredibly old people showed up to the town hall meeting, all with various amounts of misinformation about the health care bill. Most of them were concerned that this bill was specifically targeted at killing them, and I must admit at times during the town hall the idea appealed to me. For the most part it was boilerplate right wing talking points, albeit delivered in a particularly stupid way. A few things I heard, however, were new. For instance, he started off by saying "There's a lot of information available, and a lot of disinformation available, and I'd like to get some of the facts sorted out if we possibly can." Of course, we couldn't, but it was nice of him to at least pretend that was his goal. And for the next hour and a half, I entered a twilight zone of lies presented as facts, facts booed and ridiculed, and people complaining about "wetbacks." I am not kidding about that last thing.
"In this bill, they're gonna set up a committee to determine what every doctor in America will make. They will set that so every doctor will make the same...and if you think about it, many students who become physicians leave school with more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in student debt. It's estimated that their salary will be somewhere in the range of eighty-five to ninety-five thousand dollars. I don't know how they'll be able to start a business, buy a home, and pay off their student debt of more than a quarter million dollars, so that's a concern."
There are no words. So let's move ahead to boilerplate wingnuttery with gratuitous Oregon-bashing:
This bill requires that every American that gets health care through the government completely give the government access to their finances, immediately, if not...it says...immediately if not near term. I don't want to give the government direct access to your bank account. That's in here. So they will directly withdraw from your account, your bank account, money for health care you receive -- you won't write a check, you won't give them permission, you just take it. So I won't compromise on that. I won't compromise on this end of life counseling, because I know there are states like Oregon who are going to tell their seniors '...and you can take the blue pill.' And that concerns me because I believe that life is one of our fundamental rights, and
drowned out by idiots applauding
That's my view. I don't want people in Oregon or in Kansas or anywhere in the United States having to sit through counseling every five years where they're reminded, you know, you're getting ready...it's getting expensive to take care of you, and here's some options to cut down on the costs."
So, apparently in Oregon, once you hit 65, they either give you Viagra or the pill that makes you forget that Oregon is just a computer simulation of a state. Also he fails to understand the difference between "I can choose to do automatic bill payment with my public health insurance just like I do with my phone and my electricity" and "The government is going to steal my money and give it to the Chinese."
Later, we learned that our assumption that the reason Obama won and the Democrats expanded their majority in 2008 was because of record turnout, particularly among young people, was wrong:
"In reference to socialized medicine being the camel's nose under the tent, I think that's a question we have to ask. You know, elections have consequences, and we did--last fall, a lot of people stayed home, a lot of people were upset with the economy and President Bush and the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan, and they simply stayed home, and now we're living with the results of that.
The only possible response here is "Bu-wha?"
The next question after that wasn't a question, but rather a woman rebuking Tiahrt for not starting the proceedings with a prayer. Then he talked some more about the end of life counseling. He saw fear in these people's eyes and was determined to exploit it.
Tiahrt then mentioned tort reform as something that would help reduce costs (despite the fact that it hasn't anywhere else). Then a man stood up and said that he was on dialysis nine hours a day and was incensed that Obama's health care plan wanted to let him die. Tiahrt used that moment to talk about the czars (omg there's thirty-four of them!)
"If you look at the philosophy of these czars, they put a low value on human life. Um, and I think that's a true statement. I think there is a valid concern with the economy, and the people who are challenged in their health today to see us moving towards a system that's going to have limited capability, because that will lead to rationing, and that will lead to tough decisions. And when will the federal government just decide to cut off funding like they do in other countries that have single-payer?"
:facepalm: Actually, I was doing a lot of the facepalm. And the banging my head against the wall. And eventually just glaring coldly at this idiot who thinks he's a good candidate for United States Senator when no sane person should trust him to walk their dog. He talked about why private insurance was really more efficient than medicare and why the numbers were wrong (apparently insurance takes care of all their own paperwork, while Medicare dumps that onto doctors). Then came my favorite part of any Republican town hall meeting: The crazy lady. Usually they're asking questions about Obama's birthplace or racial heritage. This one was so much better.
Crazy Lady: "I am only forty-eight years old. I have in my past, I was on the system, and through the system I learned that the Mexicans, the, what some of my friends, my Mexican friends, they call them wetbacks, they don't like them here in the United States for the simple fact that they send half of their paycheck wherever they work at back to Mexico. Why don't you get more of the people that are on the system, because I have been off of the system for fifteen years now. I have a very very low income job. There are some people here at this sitting conference right now, they know where I work at. They know I go out and I hustle my little snow cone and popcorn machine on the weekends. They know I have a very low income job. Why don't you folks do something about the Mexicans that are illegal in this country? Why don't you do something about the people that are younger than me, I'm saying about twenty-five years old, and I do know some of these people that are on the system that are a lot heavier than me and all they do is draw off the system and insurance and et cetera and don't work at all. Do you realize that if you get these people off like the Mexicans off of there and have the more money that they--we provide for them to live here in America and have them quit standing in Mexico, don't you realize that would lower the income of cost of living and also the insurance?"
Tiahrt: "Uh, your question is, that don't, doesn't, uh, I think me specifically and congress in general know that if we would limit the number of illegal immigrants here drawing on our services that would be less money, and would we have people who are twenty-five years or younger that aren't working, that are out to work, is that an accurate statement?"
Crazy Lady: "Yes."
Yup, she said "wetbacks." I'm not sure what system she's talking about, but apparently if you got all the Mexicans and young'uns off of it, then everything would be fine. With Mexico properly put in its place, Todd decided it was an appropriate time to tell a story about a Canadian immigrant he met in El Dorado yesterday, which sounded vaguely familiar to a story I've heard from a lot of different congressmen.
"We have a way of people coming to this country as legal immigrants. I just met one yesterday in El Dorado. He came here from Canada. It took him five years to go through the process, we do need to reform the process. But he came with an interesting perspect on health care. He said he'd been in America for five years, became a citizen. Before he came, he lost a wife to cancer in Canada. He said when she was--when they told her that she had cancer, uh, she was couldn't see a physician for the cancer the onocologist (sic) for a significant amount of time if I recall correctly it was over nine months. By the time she got to an onocologist (sic) it had advanced so far that he ended up losing her. He then moves to America, finds out he has prostate cancer, and within a week he's had treatment, he's had an operation, and he's back home. And he says 'I'm perfectly healthy today. So,' he says, 'you think a single-payer system is going to answer your needs, then think again.'"
I'm always amazed how every Republican congressman seems to meet a Canadian once a week who has a loved one who has died due to their ineffective health care system. You'd think if it was so lousy fewer than 91% of them would think their system is better than ours. Of course, the fact that he decided to move from Canada to El Dorado, Kansas should tell you all you need to know about this alleged Canadian.
Tiahrt then went into an incredibly simplified, incredibly dull, and incredibly wrong lecture about economics and how this health care plan was going to cause Argentina-style inflation (I thought it was odd that he used laissez faire-era Argentina as his model). Having tackled lies and damn lies, Tiahrt moved on to statistics:
"If you look at history in America, you'll see that during the 1930s when we borrowed money and spent it on government programs, we never saw unemployment get below double digits. So, borrowing money and spending it hasn't worked in American history."
Yes, that is me sighing at the end of that. Keep in mind that these are the most interesting bits and this was a little past the one hour mark. Anyway, in 1937, when the New Deal was in full swing, the unemployment rate was at 14%, down from 24.9% when Roosevelt took over in 1933. The following year, once the Republicans had forced Roosevelt to try to balance the budget, unemployment went back up to 19%. And, of course, the infrastructure spending made total war in WWII possible and led to the boom that lasted from the end of the war until the bill came due for Vietnam.
Tiahrt: "In the green shirt in the second row, here. You, sir. Gray shirt, I'm sorry."
GS: Okay, thank you.
Me: Looks like tan to me.
GS: I'm Gary Sullivan from Topeka. President 'Bama, Kathleen Sebelius, our former governor called people like us anti-American for dissenting what she did. Now what really upsets me is that I haven't heard any rebuttal from the Republican side or the rest of the house up there or the senate. Do they look like they're un-American?
TT: Not to me. Anyway, the question is, I mean, what your statement is...
GS: Well, my main question is this: If this bill passes, what else is gonna happen to my freedom and the freedom of these people here?
(applause. God knows why)
Me: Six years ago y'all were calling people me un-American for opposing the war.
Woman: Huh?
Me: Said six years ago I was getting called un-America for opposing the war.
Woman: Yup.
TT: People who have dissented against this legislation and have come to meetings just like this have been referred to as un-American. And does this crowd look un-American to me? The question is...this crowd does not look un-American to me. There's some people here who've been to at least three of my town hall meetings. They know that I've taken views from both sides. I consider this a very important part of the process, of hearing dissenting views as well as supporting views of any legislation. That's not un-American, in fact, that's very American.
Some guy: Absolutely!
TT: And for them to criticize their adversaries and diminish their responses or their statements or their desires I think is an un-American act.
So...the President of the United States and the Director of Health and Human services are un-American. Because they called people like this guy un-American. Which they, of course, didn't. I made the point to someone nearby that people who protested the war six years ago were called un-American, and they agreed, but I couldn't tell didn't care if they agreed that they were called un-American or that they were.
The local CBS affiliate was the only one covering this, and since I was the only one asking a question that didn't have to do with death panels or Mexicans, they showed my short interview on both the 5 o'clock and 6 o'clock news. One video is here, but since Topeka apparently lives in 1997 there's no way for me to download it or embed it. If you know how, let me know. h/t to Scarce for giving me the link to the actual video (I come in at 1:17):
What I saw there was sadly predictable. Most of these people were honest folk who have a lot of real rage, but they've been lied to so much they don't know where to direct it. And instead of explaining what's happening, Congressman Tiahrt chose to capitalize on their fears in the hope that these people will vote for him over his reasonably sane opponent in the Republican primary next year.