[Larger version of image here.]

Red state GOP Congressmen returning home for the August recess will find two epidemics sweeping their districts, crises they seem intent on ignoring. The first is the plague that is the "birther movement," the apparently contagious delusion primarily afflicting Southern Republicans that President Obama was not born in the United States. The second is dismal health care. As it turns out, health care performance is worst in precisely those reddest of states which voted for George W. Bush and John McCain.

While even Karl Rove ridiculed the latest bogus Kenyan birth certificate as "likely a forgery," his red state acolytes remain unconvinced. In a jaw-dropping DailyKos/Research 2000 poll released last week, a stunning 58% of Republicans did not believe (28%) or were unsure (30%) that President Barack Obama was in fact born in the United States. And to be sure, this is a uniquely Southern pathology, a region home to 69% of all birthers and not coincidentally the only part of the country to increase its Republican presidential vote in 2008.

But this disturbing denial of the indisputable truth of Obama's U.S. citizenship is far from the only sign of trouble in red state America. There, the health care systems are in critical condition.

A 2007 Commonwealth Fund report, "Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance," examined states' performance across 32 indicators of health care access, quality, outcomes and hospital use. Topping the list in the chart above were Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Bringing up the rear were the Bush bastions of Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. The 10 worst performing states were all solidly Republican in 2004. (8 voted for McCain in 2008.)

The extremes in health care performance are startling.

Continue reading »

(photo courtesy of Democralypse New)

The ridiculous, fringe Birther conspiracy theory was dealt a big blow Monday, when the House unanimously passed a bill declaring Hawaii the birthplace of President Obama:

It would make some political sense for congressional Democrats to start pressing their Republican colleagues on the Birthers. If Republicans don't reject the conspiracy theories about President Obama's birthplace outright, their opponents can use it to paint them as extremists; if they do reject them, they might have a problem with their base.

Greg Sargent reported Monday that one House Democrat, Hawaii's Neil Abercrombie, was doing just that. Abercrombie, Sargent wrote, "is going to introduce a resolution on the House floor today that seems designed to put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism in a jam .... [The resolution] commemorates the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. But here’s the rub, his spokesman tells me: It describes Hawaii as Barack Obama’s birthplace." Read on...

The bill passed unanimously -- even the nutty Michelle Bachmann voted for it. So, how long will CNN continue to parrot Fox News and right wing clowns like Limbaugh and Beck in perpetuating this right wing myth? I guess as long as it gets ratings...

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (977)

PLAYS: (5350)

I have to say this Birther movement is starting to get on my last nerve. Seriously, what more has to be done to get through their thick, dense skulls that Obama was born in the U.S.? And now, to add "credibility", they trot out G. (apparently for Geezer) Gordon Liddy--a convicted criminal, mind you--to express all the same ridiculous doubts ("That's not a birth certificate--it's a certificate of live birth!") and to assert that the "preponderance" of evidence (which is limited to his grandmother saying he was born in Kenya and the screaming mimis of some very unhinged people) suggests that he is, in fact, an illegal alien, and all the other evidence (the certificate of live birth, the birth announcement in the Honolulu papers, etc., the verification by state officials, the fact that courts have already thrown this ridiculous charge out, the fact that he was certified as a legitimate candidate for POTUS, etc.) entirely dismissable.

Chris Matthews ever-so-gently (perhaps in deference to the feeble appearance of Liddy?) smacks down the insane hate and logic spiraling out of control.

Media Matters looks at the nutwing conspiracists who should be relegated to the outer fringes of the national dialogue being instead mainstreamed by the likes of Lou Dobbs.