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Rachel Maddow and Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss the GOP's hypocrisy when now claiming to be the great champions of Medicare after years of railing against it.

MADDOW: Belated salvo in the scare the bejesus out of elderly voters so they‘ll put you back in power regardless of whether you‘re telling the truth war is an editorial in the conservative newspaper, “The Washington Times,” and it screams “Death Panels by Proxy”—ostensibly argues that the so-called Baucus bill on health reform encourages doctors to withhold health care from Medicare patients. Health care reform is a secret plot to kill people on Medicare.

This is now become an ongoing strategic conundrum. How do you plan to win an argument with opponents who are undeterred by being disproven? Undeterred by the facts, when you don‘t even believe that they believe what they‘re arguing anymore?

It‘s not even just the “death panels” nonsense now. Take Medicare itself, a program Republicans have railed against since before President Johnson signed it into law in 1965. They railed against it since then until—well, until now.

Now, in the Senate Finance Committee, Republicans are trying to portray themselves as the champions of Medicare. They‘re fighting hard to kill any bill that contains any cuts in Medicare, even though people who support Medicare like, say, the AARP, say those cuts won‘t affect care.

Republicans defending Medicare. What would Ronald Reagan say? These guys do remember Ronald Reagan, don‘t they?

Here‘s what he did say about Medicare when it was just a twinkle in some socialist, fascist, freedom-hating, community-organizing Democrat‘s eye.

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September 30, 2009 C-SPAN

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CNN's John Roberts challenged GOP pollster Frank Luntz for his role in using "charged language" and fomenting right-wing anger at health care reform.

Heather: This was a typical softball interview from John Roberts where he didn't hit Luntz the way I would have if given the chance to ask him how he feels about selling his soul for a buck and giving the Republicans their talking points on the health care debate. That said, I think Roberts is the first person I've seen in the MSM to actually ask the man if he should feel any responsibility for whipping up the anger at these town halls. You would never see that question asked of Luntz over at ClusterFox that he loves to call home. It's a question that should be asked of him with some real follow up more often.

ROBERTS: From town halls to tea parties, a lot of people across the country are really ticked off. Last week in our special series "Mad as Hell," we looked at the sources and potential solutions for all of that national anger.

Our next guest has advised the Republican Party and other clients on hot-button issues like health care, issues that so many Americans are riled up about. Frank Luntz is a pollster, communications expert and author of the new book, "What Americans Really Want, Really."

Frank joins us now with some new insight on the outrage. Insight on the outrage. Good play on words there. So people in America, are they really angrier than they ever have been?

LUNTZ: They are, 72 percent of Americans define themselves - we took a survey - of 6,400 people. That's five times the typical CNN media poll. Seventy- two percent of Americans are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.

ROBERTS: Seventy-two percent.

LUNTZ: And they're mad at politics because they think there's no accountability in Washington. They're mad at business because they think that their employers don't respect them. And they're mad at Hollywood for the coarseness of the culture. So you've got all three things going on at the same time, and they don't find a solution to it.

ROBERTS: Let me quote from your book here because you say, "It's not necessarily what's so important is not necessarily that Americans are mad as hell. What matters more is that they're not going to take it anymore. Americans have hit a tipping point with Washington, and moreover, its political parties."

So we're at this tipping point. What does that mean for the country? You gave us kind of the background of what people are mad at. Why are they add at all of this, and what is this tipping point?

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From The Colbert Report:

Republicans and Democrats should march in pride parades and proudly announce their relationship with lobbyists.

From The Daily Show:

Sean Hannity blames the drought affecting California farmers on the government and a tiny fish.

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David Gergen apparently thinks that 30% the insurance companies are taking to move our money around is just a "secondary issue" when it comes to what's in the bill making its way through the Senate right now. He then goes on to say it's not real reform and talks about how expensive Romney-care is in Massachusetts. I don't know how anyone could square those two statements. I don't think it's any big mystery why the public option is needed. To keep costs down. I'll refer back to Howard Dean on this one:

Dean: If you're not going to have a public option, then don't call it health reform. Strip all the money out of the bill and just do something we did here in Vermont about fifteen years ago, guaranteed issue and community rating. Require insurance companies to insure everybody. Stop them from kicking people off and don't let them charge huge amounts of money for sicker patients.

That's not health reform. It's insurance reform. You won't do much for the uninsured but you will make the health insurance market work better for the people it does work for. And you know, that's an incremental step and I wouldn't want to throw that out, but I'd strip the money out of the bill because this is going to be and expensive bill and if you're not going to get reform then you shouldn't bother with the expense.

Gergen thinks we should give the money to the insurance companies, and then come back and try to fix it later. Bad idea.

Transcript below the fold.

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From Democracy Now--Fmr. UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Warns Against “Politically Motivated Hype” on Iran Nuke Program:

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins us to discuss what he calls “politically motivated hype” over Iran’s nuclear program. The Obama administration has warned of sanctions unless Iran allows inspections of a newly disclosed nuclear site. Iran insists the site has been used for peaceful purposes. The row comes just after Iran’s test-firing of medium- and long-range missiles and before Iranian officials are due to hold talks with the US and five other nations in Geneva.

Full transcript at Democracy Now's site.

It's a very simple plan. Here it is. The Republican health care plan for America: Don't get sick. That's right, don't get sick. If you have insurance, don't get sick. If you don't have insurance, don't get sick. If you're sick, don't get sick.

...but it's not quite a foolproof plan so the backup plan in case you do get sick

If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly. That's right. The Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick.

Naturally Republicans like the noxious Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) took exception to these type of tactics being employed against Republicans, the same over-the-top kind of stuff they employ on a daily basis, calling on Grayson to apologize. Unlike many other Democrats he has not. Good for him.

UPDATE: The wingnuts are furious at Grayson for these remarks, and are already ginning up a campaign to target him for electoral defeat. Patrick McHenry tweets: "Will Pelosi hold vote to reprimand #Grayson?"

UPDATE:

Alan Grayson is also part of Blue America's "No Means No! Afghanistan project ao please--- throw him some jack.

UPDATE II

We've set up a new act blue page for Alan Grayson called: Getting Grayson's Back

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Rick Sanchez who's show is generally a mixed bag between trying to act like an actual journalist and just the usual CNN hackery, did something I don't see enough of on CNN, or any of the cable "news" networks for that matter, when interviewing Rep. Anthony Weiner. He asked him about the money flowing from the health care industry into the campaign coffers of politicians.

I'm sorry the conversation didn't lead to a discussion about public financing of political campaigns, which would put a stop to politicians feeling the need to chase after money from wherever they can get it to continue being re-elected. If our system of legalized bribery doesn’t change, I don’t see things getting any better for the average citizen out there any time soon.

SANCHEZ: I don't know what to say.

It appears that you, as a Democrat, as a guy who likes this public option, who likes getting the government involved in this thing, you're losing. And it may be because you began five yards behind the finish line. I mean, didn't you give the health insurance companies a huge big start by beginning the debate with universal health care off the table and the public as something we might do, but we really don't want to do it?

WEINER: Well, one thing for sure is, everything the health insurance industry has asked for in the Finance Committee up to now, they have gotten. It's a good playing field for them. We in the House are going to keep pushing for a public option. And frankly the president, who's our cleanup hitter, ultimately I believe is going to wind up mediating this dispute, and he says he wants a public option.

But you're exactly right. The real easy answer here is Medicare for all Americans. We give it to people who are 65. Why not 55? Why not 45? Why not do it? It's a low-overhead program. Sure, it has a financing problem, but so does all insurance at this point.

But at least we know it has very low overhead. We're not putting any into profits or advertising. So, that really was the smart place to start. We didn't. But we are going to try to get closer to that in the final product.

SANCHEZ: Let me just be real blunt with you real quick.

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Jon Stewart takes the GOP hypocrites to task for wanting ACORN investigated while defending the likes of Karl Rove and refusing to investigate torture, and for freaking out over a video of school children praising President Obama.