On Tuesday, frothing at the mouth Tea Party faithful will protest health care reform legislation by descending on the Senate and holding a "die-in." But while the Tea Baggers will feign dropping dead to dramatize their opposition to health care reform they wrongly believe will leading to rationing, they seem blissfully unconcerned about the thousands of Americans who actually die each year due to lack of insurance.

As TPM reported:

Tea Party organizer Mark Meckler writes on his site: "The intention is to go inside the Senate offices and hallways, and play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities. As the day goes on some of us will pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor."

Of course, in the American health care system as it actually is, estimates of the yearly body count from private health insurance range as high as 45,000.

Back in September, a study by Harvard Medical School found that almost 45,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. To translate that into a metric even Tea Baggers can understand, that annual death toll exceeds the number of U.S. military personnel killed during the entire Korean War.

Even using more conservative models, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein noted, the $900 billion Democratic health care plan could save 150,000 American lives over a 10-year span. (Again, translated into Tea Bagese, that's more than was lost by the United States armed forces during World War I.) As Klein describes the " 150,000-life health-care bill":

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It's like deja vu all over again. Despite the fact that we know the causes of deficits are more important than the actual deficits, despite the fact that most top economists are calling for more economic stimulus and jobs programs, the New York Times has raised the anti-deficit banner in much the same way they did the "weapons of mass destruction" rationale for invading Iraq. (And look how well that all turned out!) This, of course, from the same paper who looked away while Bush trashed the economy.

And now our anti-deficit president's going to do another symbolic tour - in Allentown, of all places. Too, too ironic!

WASHINGTON — As Democrats renew their push to create jobs, they are at odds over the timing, cost and scope of additional measures, with the White House’s concern about high budget deficits pitted against the eagerness of many in Congress to spur hiring before next year’s elections.

After months in which his focus has been on a health care overhaul and foreign policy issues, President Obama will pivot later this week to the economy, convening a White House forum on Thursday to discuss ideas for job creation and then traveling to Allentown, Pa., for his first stop on a “Main Street Tour.”

Congressional Democrats return from a holiday break intent on packaging new proposals for tax incentives and construction projects to promote employment, with the House, where every member is up for re-election next year, on a much faster track than the Senate or the White House.

While the political rationale for additional government action is clear, it is an open question whether it would have any substantial economic effect. Still, the impetus for the activity will be underscored on Friday when the government releases figures for job losses and the unemployment rate for November.

With joblessness, which stood at 10.2 percent in October, likely to remain high through 2010 even as the economy recovers, the stage is set for what could be a yearlong tussle between deficit reduction and government incentives for job creation, and between the politics of Wall Street and Main Street.

An "open question" on whether it would have "any substantial economic effect"? Gee, you'd think a New York Times reporter would read Paul Krugman at least once in a while.

Talk about extreme makeovers! No, I'm not making this up. It'll be a lot of fun to watch the right-wing exploding heads:

Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, pondering a future in politics, is trying to wipe away his image as an enemy of Latino immigrants by positioning himself as a champion of that fast-growing ethnic bloc.

Mr. Dobbs, who left the network last week, has said in recent days that he is considering a third-party run for a New Jersey Senate seat in 2012, or possibly for president. Polls show voters unhappy with both parties, and strategists believe Mr. Dobbs could tap populist anger over economy issues just as Ross Perot did in the 1990s.

First, though, Mr. Dobbs is working to repair what a spokesman conceded is a glaring flaw: His reputation for antipathy toward Latino immigrants. In a little-noticed interview Friday, Mr. Dobbs told Spanish-language network Telemundo he now supports a plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers, a stance he long lambasted as an unfair "amnesty."

"Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together," he said in a live interview with Telemundo's Maria Celeste. "I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest."

Mr. Dobbs twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that "we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions."

Mr. Dobbs couldn't be reached Tuesday. Spokesman Bob Dilenschneider said Mr. Dobbs draws a distinction between illegal immigrants who have committed crimes since arriving in the U.S. and those who are "living upright, positive and constructive lives" who should be "integrated" into society. He said Mr. Dobbs recognizes the political importance of Latinos and is "smoothing the water and clearing the air."

Boy, some political consultants are really going to earn their pay on this one!

You know, the Catholic Church certainly gets to enforce whatever rules they make - but this wouldn't bother me so much if they were consistent. After all, when was the last time a bishop singled out someone for supporting what the Church itself labeled an "unjust war" or for voting in support of the death penalty?

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family.

"The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him "that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I've taken as a public official," particularly on abortion.

Now I am probably not telling you anything new in this title, but when I saw this op-ed by William Kristol in his Weekly Standard magazine (hat tip to Matt Y), I just suddenly got this pounding headache and resulting furious reaction.

In areas where policies are still being debated--in foreign policy in particular--conservatives need to keep urging Obama to do the right thing. We are disgusted with Obama's irresoluteness on Afghanistan. But we continue to urge that he side with the experienced military leaders he's been fortunate to inherit against the second-guessing of political hacks (and of failed ex-generals turned political hacks). We conservatives want American soldiers to win wars, American interests to prevail, and American principles to flourish. We want the bad guys to lose. We're happy to work with President Obama to defeat them--and we only wish he shared our clarity and urgency about accomplishing that task.

That is to say, Obama should only listen to active duty generals like Petraus (USCENTCOM), Odierno (Iraq), and McChrystal (Afghanistan), not "failed ex-generals turned political hacks" such as former generals Karl Eikenberry (US Ambassador to Afghanistan) and James Jones (National Security Advisor). The latter have, of course, counseled caution before engaging deeper into Afghanistan. To be more specific, the Republican political line seems to be "yeah, we always do what our generals tell us to do - so long as their statements support indefinitely continuing the wars in the Middle East." What a ridiculous little man he is.

As far as Kristol's other statement - he wants American soldiers to win wars and American interests to prevail - I really want to haul back and punch him hard in the stomach. If you cared one iota about the American soldier, you slime, you base villain, you would have been pestering the CheneyBush administration as to its inability to put adequate numbers of American troops into Iraq and Afghanistan and its refusal to grow the military force to the numbers required for a long post-war occupation. Now we have military families breaking up, military suicide rates going ever upward, promotions for any officer with a pulse, military modernization programs on hold because of mounting operational costs, and a trillion-dollar bill that was never adequately planned for,largely due to the CheneyBush administration's inability to close the deal after eight years of continued combat.

You clearly have no respect for the American soldier or for American interests. In fact, if you were working directly against the American soldier and American interests, you could not be doing a better job.

So according to the Times, the pharmaceutical companies are jacking up their prices high enough to cancel out the savings they promised Obama for the health care bill. Why am I not surprised?

What does it take for Democrats to understand how this works, anyway?

And in other healthcare reform news, the Washington Post reports what the usual suspects are up to:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama's health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation's economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.

The e-mail, written by the Chamber's senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a "respected economist" to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.

Step two, according to the e-mail, appears to assume the outcome of the economic review: "The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document."

Well, of course it's assuming the outcome! They're paying someone good cash money to produce the outcome they want!

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What a week. We've already seen Blue Dogs take women to the back of the bus (or was it the alley?) with Stupak's impressively Stupid Amendment. Now we're hearing that those who supposedly worry about "too much spending" when it comes to health care--you know, the meatloaf-brains who rejected the public option, which would create competition and actually bring down costs--are now blathering on about embracing "tort reform."

Because you'd really want to take away the rights of victims in a democracy to lower the health care costs by...wait for it...wait for it... ".5%" (according to the CBO).

All you really need to know is that Blue Dogs/GOPers (is there any difference?) are those in favor of this counterproductive course of action, yet if you do indeed need more, watch the heart wrenching videos recounting the tragic results of medical malpractice. To learn more about the 98,000 lives lost due to medical error each year--or 268 every day--go to 98,000 reasons, a website set up by the American Association for Justice. Once there send a message to your Senator: Remind them you won't have your rights further stripped away so they can scarf down more caviar with their contributors at Big Insurance.

More videos below the fold:

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Everything, they say, is bigger in the Texas. So it is with the failure of the health care system. Leading the nation with a jaw-dropping 25% of its residents uninsured, Texas ranked 46th in the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 scorecard of state health care performance. All of which makes Friday's op-ed by Newt Gingrich and Governor Rick Perry touting the mess in Texas all the more puzzling.

Just two days after the CBO dismissed a House Republican plan that would barely dent the rolls of the uninsured, Perry and Gingrich blasted Democratic health care reform in a Washington Post screed titled, "Let States Lead the Way." Besides dredging up Newt's worn out 1990's vintage talking points on unfunded mandates, the duo insist it is the Lone Star State which should be at the front of that vanguard:

Texas, for example, has adopted approaches to controlling health-care costs while improving choice, advancing quality of care and expanding coverage. Consider the successful 2003 tort reform. Fewer frivolous lawsuits have attracted record numbers of doctors to the state as medical malpractice insurance premiums dropped by half. Christus Health, a large Catholic nonprofit system with a significant presence in Texas, spent about $100 million on liability defense payments in 2003. Last year, Christus spent $2.3 million on such payments. Much of that savings has gone into expanding health-care services in low-income neighborhoods.

As the Post's Erza Klein asks, "how's that working out?"

The answer, of course, is quite poorly. While from 2007 to 2009 Texas nudged its way from a horrific 48th to a merely miserable 46th in the Commonwealth Fund rankings, the health care system there remains an ongoing calamity for its residents. Among the poster children for the failure of red state health care, Perry's state brought up the rear across the five indicators measured. When it comes to health care access and equity, Texas is dead last. (See table above.)

While it is predictable that Republicans Gingrich and Perry cite Texas' draconian tort reform law as an example for the nation, the data is far from clear as to its benefits in actually reducing malpractice premiums, lowering costs and attracting physicians to the underserved state.

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Back in 2003, Republican leaders praised the AARP for its support of President Bush's unfunded and deeply flawed Medicare prescription benefit. But now that the 40 million member organization has endorsed the House Democrats' health care reform bill, the GOP is declaring war on its one-time ally. Helping lead the attack is an array of industry-funded front groups and their reactionary has-been spokesmen like Pat Boone.

Last week, Republican Congressmen Dave Reichert (R-WA) and Mike Pence (R-IN) implied the nation's leading organization for seniors was in for the ACORN treatment from the GOP and its media allies. Despite the thorough debunking of right-wing claims that Democratic health care reform proposals would slash Medicare benefits for46 million American elderly:

Pence and Reichert suggested that support was the result of corruption inside the AARP and not based on the interests of its membership.

"What you've got here is a backroom deal," Pence said of reform measures expected to be introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this afternoon. "Democrats are protecting the salaries of the heads of groups like AARP while cutting Medicare"...

The GOP is using more than just rhetoric to go after the group. Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) claims to have launched an investigation into AARP in his home state. Reichert says his "ongoing" investigation focuses on whether AARP should be classified as an insurance company because of its revenue from royalties the group gets from licensing its brand for insurance products.

Sounding the clarion call for conservatives is aging singer turned World Net Daily regular Pat Boone. Boone, who in recent months branded Barack Obama a "president without a country" who is "waterboarding America" over "socialistic health care and a host of other ultraliberal causes," is also the celebrity mouthpiece for the 60 Plus Association.

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Back in September, a study by Harvard Medical School found that over 44,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, in a complete reversal of both logic and the truth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that it is the availability of a public insurance option which could prove fatal. Of course, McConnell's announcement that the public option "may cost you your life" should come as no surprise. After all, in July he echoed George W. Bush and Tom Delay in declaring that thanks to the emergency room, Americans "don't go without health care."

Mitch McConnell's latest fear-mongering came during an appearance on Dennis Miller's radio show. Blasting the "opt-out" version of the public option in the Senate bill, the Senator from the state ranked 45th in health care performance insisted access to coverage could be deadly:

MCCONNELL: Well, it doesn't make any difference frankly whether you opt-in or you opt-out, it's still a government plan. You know, Medicaid, the program for the poor now, states can opt-out of that, but none of them have. I think if you have any kind of government insurance program, you're going to be stuck with it and it will lead us in the direction of the European style, you know, sort of British-style, single payer, government run system. And those systems are known for delays, denial of care and, you know, if your particular malady doesn't fit the government regulation, you don't get the medication.

MILLER: Right.

MCCONNELL: And it may cost you your life. I mean, we don't want to go down that path.

While he has generally left the myth-making about "death panels" and "pulling the plug on grandma" to Sarah Palin, Chuck Grassley and other tall tale tellers in the GOP, Senator McConnell has otherwise been fabricator-in-chief when it comes to Republican talking points on health care.

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In recent days, Republican leaders have scored a series of political victories in their eternal quest for tort reform. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that an onerous package of malpractice curbs he championed could save the government an estimated $54 billion over 10 years. That came on the heels of President Obama's latest offer to support limited tort reform as an olive branch to recalcitrant Republicans balking at his health care proposals, including funding for a $25 million pilot program.

But largely overlooked in the heated discussions of damage award caps, special health courts, expert panels and national compensation schedules is the inescapable truth that the medical malpractice system has only a negligible impact on overall American health care costs. Republican horror stories of a torrent of baseless malpractice suits producing "jackpot justice" that fuels rising premiums for physicians and patients alike while driving doctors from practice simply don't comport with reality. The overstated, overblown, over the top and often outright false GOP claims suggest that the Republicans' real target is not the flawed American malpractice system, but instead the nation's trial lawyers whose campaign contributions help bankroll the Democratic Party.

Here, then, is a look at Republican Malpractice Myths:

1. An Explosion of Malpractice Litigation
2. A System Plagued by Frivolous Lawsuits
3. Rising Damage Awards Key to Higher Malpractice Premiums
4. Rising Malpractice Insurance Rates Driving Doctors from Practice
5. Medical Malpractice Reform Would Save U.S. $200 Billion Annually
6. Defensive Medicine Costs $200 Billion a Year

For the details and data behind each, continue reading.

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Among the most pernicious and blatantly false Republican talking points designed to obstruct health care reform is the fear-mongering claim that Democratic proposals will lead to "rationing." Of course, with almost 50 million uninsured and another 25 million underinsured, Mitch McConnell's dystopian future of a system which "denies, delays, or rations health care" is already today's nightmare for millions of Americans. But as it turns out, recent studies show that the market failure that is the crumbling U.S. health care system is producing a another, often hidden crisis: self-rationing.

As McClatchy reported last week, a new Consumers Union survey revealed that due to skyrocketing costs and reductions in coverage, Americans are forced to deny themselves needed medical treatment. Among the findings of CU's poll of a 1,002 respondents:

In the new poll 59 percent said that the cost of their health care had increased more than their other expenses over the past two years. Fifty-one percent said they had faced difficult health care choices in the past year. The most common responses were putting off a doctor visit because of cost (28 percent), not being unable to afford medical bills or medication (25 percent), and putting off a medical procedure because of cost (22 percent).

Twenty-eight percent said they had lost or experienced cutbacks in their health care coverage in the past year. The greatest concerns about health care expressed by respondents were a major financial loss or setback from medical cost due to an illness or accident (73 percent), not being able to afford health care in the future (73 percent), necessary care being denied or rationed by health insurance companies (73 percent), and the prospect of rising costs forcing them to choose between health care and other necessities (64 percent).

Those dismal results echoed the shocking revelations from an April 2009 Thomson Reuters survey.

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Did you know in 1972, a government-run national health care program was established through Medicare to take care of Americans who had end-stage renal disease, even paying for transplants? And did you know Republicans supported it?

I was astounded, reading Jennifer Nix's "I Love My Socialist Kidney" in Salon. Nix concludes:

As I watch the cable news loops of all the vicious language and wild-eyed imagery aimed at killing healthcare reform, I can't help but be amazed that Medicare ESRD was ever passed. I wonder how so many Americans today can be made to believe that healthcare is "anti-Constitutional" or that a fascist/socialist (and, let's not forget, African) Obama wants to kill their grannies, but I am awestruck by the headstrong self-destruction of the Republican Party. There is no clearer proof of GOP decay than comparing the Republican leadership of the 1970s with those controlling the party today.

Republicans in the 1970s were on the side of healthcare for all Americans. In a message to Congress on Feb. 18, 1971, Nixon himself proposed the National Health Insurance Partnership Act. This was a moment in our history when most Americans believed some form of all-inclusive, national health insurance would soon be a reality. Republicans and Democrats alike were working hard to find the best way to make it happen. In 1972, a generation of pragmatic and compassionate Republicans voted in large numbers to help pass the Medicare ESRD Act. It was seen by legislators as a test case, to be followed by government insurance programs -- be they catastrophic or comprehensive -- for other diagnoses.

This never happened, of course, and right up until our summer of angry town halls, Medicare ESRD has remained what former Senate Finance Committee staffer James Mongan called "the last train out of the station for national health insurance."

Today's Republican leadership follows the lead of hate-speech blowhards and injects vitriol and proven lies into our national discourse, instead of engaging in honest negotiations over the best way to bring healthcare to all Americans. They are ginned up for an Obama defeat, by any means necessary -- good policy and the American people be damned.

If we don't get healthcare reform this time around, I have to wonder what will become of the programs caught in the middle, like Medicare ESRD. It's unknown at this point whether I'll need another transplant or long-term dialysis at some point, but it's highly likely. The bottom line is treatments for ESRD are expensive and ongoing. With this diagnosis, it's either dialysis or, if transplanted, expensive immuno-suppressant drugs for the rest of one's life. But because I have this benefit, when my fellow citizens with, say, cancer do not, it's hard not to feel some guilt.

This nation must face difficult questions. Will this society continue to be willing to bear the costs of an entitlement program for ESRD patients, as the market has proved that it will not if left to its own devices? Should we simply let ESRD patients die? Or do we believe that as a society, certain of us will develop catastrophic illnesses and that we all deserve health security? Is this "charity," as a conservative friend of mine suggests, or a society sharing the risk that any one of us could face illness and financial ruin tomorrow? Should the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" be interpreted literally? If so, shouldn't guaranteed healthcare be the right of every U.S. citizen? If the answer to that question is yes, shouldn't all of us -- Democrats, Republicans and Independents -- be working together to find the most effective and cost-efficient system for its delivery?

It remains to be seen whether Congress will pass healthcare reform this year. Like many before it, this effort may not succeed, and we'll remain, as Obama has said, "the only advanced democracy on earth -- the only wealthy nation -- that allows such hardships for millions of its people."

For now, I'm just grateful there was a time when Congress felt the moral imperative to provide a public health insurance option that allowed both my father and me to live.

Imagine that. As I thought, "independent" ACORN filmmaker James O'Keefe has a right-wing sugar daddy - Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal. Via the Village Voice:

James O'Keefe, the activist filmmaker who achieved sudden fame for a series of undercover videos recording ACORN workers, has repeatedly said that he is "absolutely independent" and received no outside funding to make his films.

But the Voice has learned that O'Keefe, in fact, has had heavyweight conservative backers who funded the young filmmaker as recently as a few months before his ACORN films were made.

The ACORN videos are actually just the latest of several films O'Keefe has produced and uploaded to YouTube. An earlier film posted in February, "Taxpayers Clearing House" featured nonwhite, working class people being duped by O'Keefe, who led them to believe they had won money in a sweepstakes.

That video was produced with the help of a grant -- said to be about $30,000 [Thiel's spokesman says closer to $10,000 -- see update] -- from Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook -- an investment which made him a billionaire. Thiel is one of Silicon Valley's more interesting figures: a gay man (according to Gawker's "Valleywag") who has railed against the evils of "multiculturalism." He lives in San Francisco and today runs a hedge fund.

O'Keefe is now well known as the young man who dressed up as a pimp with a colleague, Townhall.com blogger Hannah Giles, who was dressed like a prostitute. The pair traveled around the country, seeking advice from ACORN workers about how to hide prostitution money for tax purposes. At five of the offices they visited, ACORN workers gave such advice while O'Keefe's hidden camera was rolling. The videos have cost ACORN the support of Congress, the U.S. Census and the White House, and the organization stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in government grants.

O'Keefe, meanwhile, has repeatedly claimed to be financially independent. In an interview with the New York Post shortly after the ACORN videos hit the Internet, O'Keefe claimed to be "absolutely independent." Giles said she had "drained my entire savings" to spend the summer making the undercover videos. O'Keefe estimated his budget at $1,300, and said that Giles had paid for her own plane ticket to California. The couple said they lived off of Power Bars and Subway sandwiches for two months.

But O'Keefe turns out to have a substantial history of being funded by conservative figures.

In February, a video called "Taxpayers Clearing House" was posted to YouTube. In it, O'Keefe and others drive around in a van with a logo on the side that looks like the "Publishers Clearing House" vehicle known for showing up and surprising sweepstakes winners with oversized checks. In O'Keefe's video, working class Blacks are shown jumping up and down in excitement - until they learn that O'Keefe is actually delivering a bill for $28,000, their share of the federal banks bailout.

O'Keefe told a friend, Liz Farkas, that he had approached Thiel with the idea for the video, and had walked away with "approximately $30,000" to produce it.

Farkas told the New York Times this week that she and O'Keefe, who met at Rutgers University, clashed over publishing incomplete transcripts from another sting involving an abortion provider.

Through a representative, Peter Thiel confirmed that he had funded "Taxpayers Clearing House" through a "small-government group," but denied having any involvement with the ACORN videos. The representative says Thiel first learned of the new O'Keefe videos after they hit the Internet, and having "watched them on YouTube...he shares the view that taxpayer money should not promote human trafficking."

Paul Krugman says that the main Republican strategy to fight climate change legislation will be to attack it as hurting the economy:

By 2050, when the emissions limit would be much tighter, the burden would rise to 1.2 percent of income. But the budget office also predicts that real G.D.P. will be about two-and-a-half times larger in 2050 than it is today, so that G.D.P. per person will rise by about 80 percent. The cost of climate protection would barely make a dent in that growth. And all of this, of course, ignores the benefits of limiting global warming.

So where do the apocalyptic warnings about the cost of climate-change policy come from?

Are the opponents of cap-and-trade relying on different studies that reach fundamentally different conclusions? No, not really. It’s true that last spring the Heritage Foundation put out a report claiming that Waxman-Markey would lead to huge job losses, but the study seems to have been so obviously absurd that I’ve hardly seen anyone cite it.

Instead, the campaign against saving the planet rests mainly on lies.

Thus, last week Glenn Beck — who seems to be challenging Rush Limbaugh for the role of de facto leader of the G.O.P. — informed his audience of a “buried” Obama administration study showing that Waxman-Markey would actually cost the average family $1,787 per year. Needless to say, no such study exists.

But we shouldn’t be too hard on Mr. Beck. Similar — and similarly false — claims about the cost of Waxman-Markey have been circulated by many supposed experts.

A year ago I would have been shocked by this behavior. But as we’ve already seen in the health care debate, the polarization of our political discourse has forced self-proclaimed “centrists” to choose sides — and many of them have apparently decided that partisan opposition to President Obama trumps any concerns about intellectual honesty.

So here’s the bottom line: The claim that climate legislation will kill the economy deserves the same disdain as the claim that global warming is a hoax. The truth about the economics of climate change is that it’s relatively easy being green.