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Before the election, Rep. Kevin McCarthy said that electing Mitt Romney would mean that Republicans have a mandate to overhaul Medicare: House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy: Election is ‘Mandate’ to Overhaul Medicare:

House Republican Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) says electing Mitt Romney this fall means Republicans have a ‘mandate’ to overhaul Medicare. As McCarthy put it, “If there’s a mandate going through this election, it’s to save Medicare.” As I put it: When Republicans say “save Medicare” they mean end Medicare as we know it. They would keep a government program called Medicare but it would not be the Medicare that has existed for almost half a century. The Republican plan for Medicare is to turn it into a program designed to shortchange seniors while increasing profits for private insurance companies.

We have a single payer health care insurance program that works very well for senior citizens. We don’t need to hand Medicare over to private insurance. Republicans can continue to blame Democrats for doing nothing to “save Medicare” but Republicans are the “kill Medicare” party and they have been for decades.

If what he said on this Sunday's Meet the Press is any indication, McCarthy hasn't seemed to figure out that they lost. And we've already explained here why this trial balloon put out there by the administration, where it seems they've forgotten who won as well, is a really bad idea that needs to be pushed back against forcefully. As everyone explained, even partially privatizing Medicare is not going to "save" the program. It just makes the cost of health care coverage more expensive for seniors.

I was glad to see Sen. Dick Durbin say raising the age is off the table during this interview, but I wasn't thrilled about him offering up means testing. Digby has more on that here: Hot Air Trial Ballooning:

I have a sneaking feeling that Durbin is throwing up a smokescreen there (or he's been smoking some of that special Alan Simpson sensimilla.) He must know that the argument is that Obamacare will pick up the slack if they decide to raise the Medicare age. If he doesn't then he needs to find another line of work.

Even Mitt Romney's health care advisor, Avik Roy from the Manhattan Institute, knows that. Here's what he said on Up with Chris Hayes this morning (with Steve Kornacki subbing for Chris)

"I have to respond to this interesting hyperbole about Medicare death sentence. If you raise the retirement age for Medicare, we have the Affordable Care Act as the backstop. Everybody under 400% poverty level is still covered with the affordable care act in place. So what we are really talking about is means testing Medicare by raising the retirement age. People who are upper income, above 400% of the poverty level won't be subsidized if they're younger retirees. It's where entitlement reform should go, to expand it into the retiree population."

(Kornacki pointed out that ACA is being challenged so it's not exactly a backstop at this point, but he let the topic drop in favor of more masturbation over tax rates.)

It sounds as if Roy and Jonathan Chait may have found the bipartisan sweet spot for Obamacare. Privatize Medicare! Now that really is a Grand Bargain.

Before everyone gets into another tizzy about how shrill and unreasonable I'm being for taking this rumor seriously, let's have a little discussion of what a "trial balloon" is. It is, simply, a rumor that's purposefully spread during a negotiation in order to gauge the reaction. Therefore, it is important to react, not act all glib and self-assured that it could never happen. They want to know if you think this is a good idea, so if you don't you should say so. And you should say it in a shrill enough fashion that they know it's a very big deal, if you think it's a very big deal.

Transcript below the fold.

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After Anderson Cooper took his audience through some of Mitt Romney's revolving positions on the issue of abortion and access to contraception and the fact that there are some recent polls again showing that Mitt Romney is having trouble with women voters in swing states, Romney surrogate Bay Buchanan tied herself in knots trying to explain and defend Willard's flip flopping on the issue.

As much as I really detest Buchanan for her demeanor and just being really mean, nasty and aggressive with anyone unfortunate enough to appear on the air at the same time she does, I have to say, I don't envy her or any of the rest of the right wing pundits out there who have the unenviable task of trying to explain to the voters why Romney has had every position imaginable on the abortion issue and how women are not supposed to worry about who he might appoint to the Supreme Court.

Neera Tanden did pretty well holding her own with her, even though Buchanan did her best to bully her way through the interview and filibuster as much as Cooper would let her get away with it. The fact of the matter is that Mitt Romney has said he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which means rolling back the contraceptive coverage along with a lot of other benefits that everyone is now receiving. He has said he wants to appoint judges who would reverse Roe v. Wade. And Romney has proven during this primary process that he's beholden to the right wing of his party and he's not going to buck their will with what he's willing to either sign or veto if we're unfortunate enough to have him elected as president.

It's also a shame no one called Buchanan out when she tried to claim that making insurance companies pay for birth control is not having the "government" pay for contraception. That's a lie they're allowed to get away with way too often with no rebuttal. As Tanden did manage to point out on the issue, you don't really have access to something if you can't afford either the doctors' appointments or the prescriptions, and that's exactly what would happen under the policies Romney now claims he supports.

And Buchanan's lame defense that birth control has "been out there since the 1950s" is utterly ridiculous and meaningless. If it's only "out there" for the wealthy and upper middle class and not the poor, that doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot for a good part of the population that would also like to have some control over their own reproductive health.

Transcript below the fold.

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Love him or hate him, there's one thing I think everyone can agree on when it comes to former President Bill Clinton and that is the fact that the man knows how to give a speech and his long, but extremely informative speech tonight at the 2012 Democratic National Convention was no exception. I think Bill Clinton just gave the best explanation I've seen from anyone yet, taking apart all of the lies we've been hearing from Republicans about "Obamacare."

Clinton veered wildly off script this Wednesday evening and some of that was during the portion of his speech embedded above, where he said this: Bill Clinton Takes On Paul Ryan’s Medicare Lies: ‘It Takes Some Brass’:

Bill Clinton singlehandedly dismantled the Romney-Ryan campaign narrative that President Obama is trying to put an end to Medicare at the Democratic Convention Wednesday night, pointing out that it is in fact the Romney-Ryan proposal for Medicare that would permanently change the program to a depreciating voucher system. “It takes some brass,” Clinton said, “to attack a guy for doing what you did”:

First, Both Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan attacked the President for allegedly robbing medicare of $716 billion. But it is not true.[...]

So, President Obama and the Democrats did not weaken Medicare. They strengthened Medicare. When Congressman Ryan looked into that TV camera and attacked President Obama’s Medicare savings as “the biggest, coldest power play,” I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Key cuts that $716 billion is exactly to the dollar the same amount of medicare savings that he had in his own budget. It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.

That's gonna' leave a mark. I can't wait to see Reince and his "rapid response team" try to spin themselves into knots rebutting the Clinton tonight.

Clinton's full prepared remarks from the clip above below the fold.

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From this Monday evening's The Rachel Maddow Show, guest host Ezra Klein does a recap of the column he wrote earlier that same day, debunking the right wing's latest talking point that the Affordable Care Act is “the largest tax increase in the history of the world.”

No, ‘Obamacare’ isn’t ‘the largest tax increase in the history of the world’ (in one chart):

Since the Supreme Court decision, Republicans have been calling the Affordable Care Act “the largest tax increase in the history of the world.” Politifact rates this false. Kevin Drum’s got a table of the 15 significant tax increases since 1950, and the Affordable Care Act, which amounts to a tax increase of 0.49 percent of GDP, comes in 10th. Austin Frakt took Drum’s table and made a chart: [...]

So no, the Affordable Care Act isn’t the “biggest tax hike in history.” It’s not even the biggest tax hike in the past 60 years. Or 50 years. Or 30 years. Or 20 years.

But it does include a number of tax hikes. The individual mandate, however, isn’t one of the big ones. It’s only expected to raise $27 billion during the next decade. The largest tax increase in the law is on high earners, who will see their Medicare payroll taxes increase by 0.9 percentage point and who will also pay a slightly higher rate on investment income. That raises more than $200 billion. There’s also the tax on unusually expensive health insurance plans, which raises $30 billion in the first decade, and much more in the second. There’s a $60 billion tax on insurance companies. You can find the whole list here.

And as Derek Thompson at The Atlantic rightfully pointed out: 2 of the Last 3 GOP Presidents Signed Larger Tax Increases Than Obamacare.

And as Klein noted in the clip above, President Obama has also cut taxes as he did in the stimulus, by extending the Bush tax cuts for two years and as he's promising to do with extending most of the Bush tax cuts for the lower and middle class permanently. None of those facts seem to matter to Republicans much, who are just desperate to paint Democrats as tax and spend liberals and make paying taxes of any sort a dirty word rather than all of our duty to make sure our government functions and that we protect the most vulnerable in our society and our society and democracy as a whole.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm really just exhausted from watching and listening to this Libertarian wing and bunch of extremists that have taken over the Republican Party and the media's unwillingness to call them out as the dangerous ideologues that they are. Klein did a good job of calling out their lies and the fact that they want to demagogue the issue of paying taxes here. Sadly segments like this one have been the exception when it comes to Republicans and their reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act. For the most part they've been aided and abetted by our corporate media, and not just Fox.

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Ed Schultz called out Scott Brown's hypocrisy for being more than happy to take advantage or the provision on the Affordable Care Act which allows his daughter to remain insured, but he's not so worried about whether other Americans might have the same benefit.

Scott Brown Benefits From Obamacare, Despite Supporting Its Repeal:

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) ran as the 41st vote against President Obama’s health care reform bill in a special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and voted three times to repeal the law and take way health care coverage from the 30 million Americans who will benefit from the law by 2014 and the millions who are already taking advantage of its provisions.

But yesterday, this Tea Party champion and great opponent of Obamacare admitted something astonishing: his 23 year old daughter is one of the 2.5 million young Americans who are benefiting from a regulation that allows young people to stay on their parents’ health care plan until age 26:

“Of course I do,’’ the Massachusetts Republican told the Globe. Brown is insuring his daughter Ayla, a professional singer who is 23 years old, under a widely popular provision of the law requiring that family plans cover children up to age 26.

Brown said the extended use of his congressional coverage is not inconsistent with his criticism of the federal law, enacted over his objection after he won a special election in 2010, because the same coverage could be required by individual states.

His opponent Elizabeth Warren did not waste any time responding to Brown's hypocrisy -- Elizabeth Warren Slams Scott Brown For Having It Both Ways On Health Care (VIDEO):

Massachussetts Senate Dem hopeful Elizabeth Warren sounded off Tuesday against Scott Brown for availing his family of a key “Obamacare” benefit, while simultaneously campaigning to repeal the law.

“Scott Brown campaigned against health care reform and when he got the Senate he voted to block health care reform. We just learned today back in Mass that he is using that same health care reform act to make sure that his adult daughter gets covered on his health insurance policy, at the same moment he wants to repeal it for everyone else,” she said. “This is wrong.”

Elizabeth Warren is a Blue America candidate. You can support her at our Act Blue page here.

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Just when I thought anyone over at Fox could not manage to out do Bill O'Reilly with being more ridiculous with their flame throwing towards Sandra Fluke and her testimony before a Democratic forum that Darrell Issa refused to allow during the House's actual hearing on the contraceptives mandate in the Affordable Care Act, Megyn Kelly manages to one up him with the stupidity.

The gist of the argument here from Kelly and guest Lars Larson is that heaven forbid anyone who attends a university that will eventually earn as high of a salary as Sandra Fluke might possibly be making after she graduates and who can afford to pay her tuition, should have a right to bitch if they're discriminated against with their health care coverage for claims of religious reasons that don't even make an ounce of sense economically for that insurance provider.

Par for the course, it's really obvious that the pundits over at Fox are all reading off of the same playbook and repeating the same talking points. Megyn Kelly might not be the bully that Bill O'Reilly is when she does segments like this, but it doesn't make her any less of a tool for Fox that is obviously just looking out for the interests of the Republican Party and repeating their talking points ad nauseum.

When I watched this segment from Rachel Maddow's show this Friday evening, I was left wondering if she had read either of these two posts before her show because they hit on all the same points.

From Mother Jones -- Dear Rush Limbaugh: Birth Control Doesn't Work Like Viagra:

Once you wade through the bile and the realization that the country's most popular conservative radio host has devoted hours on his show to attempting to bully a woman into silence for her views on birth control, it becomes clear that Limbaugh, a man over sixty who is now on his fourth marriage, does not seem to understand how birth control works. On Wednesday and Thursday, Limbaugh repeatedly suggested that the amount of sex a woman has is related to the amount of birth control she needs to take, as though women take birth control pills every day they have sex. This is how say, Viagra, the erectile dysfunction medication works. Aside from the morning after pill*, when and how much sex you have is unrelated to the amount of birth control you need.

Limbaugh is a figure of almost religious stature among conservatives—for Republican elected officials, criticizing him is particularly dangerous—so Republican lawmakers have largey remained mum on the Limbaugh's despicable tirades. Some conservatives have tried to defend Limbaugh, however, arguing that his analogy, while crude, gets to a legitimate concern over whether religious organizations and insurance companies should have to "finance" someone else's "sex life."

The trouble with this analogy is that insurance companies already "subsidize" men's sex lives, by covering erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra. That insurance companies were already covering those drugs was part of the reason why the Employment Equal Opportunity Commission ruled in 2000 that insurance companies providing prescription coverage could not exempt birth control. It's almost surreal to have to point out that regulating pregnancy is a legitimate medical need. Read on...

And Digby's place -- Rush Limbaugh Has No Idea How Birth Control Works:

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Chris Matthews just couldn't seem to make it through another segment talking about the Republican's recent overreach with their assault on women's access to affordable contraceptives without bringing on the Catholic bishops favorite water carrier, Melinda Henneberger.

Henneberger's recent piece at The Washington Post attempts to blame Democrats for ginning up the recent debate purely for political and fundraising purposes as though the backlash against the actions of the Catholic bishops and some of the recent statements from presidential candidate Rick Santorum, or the invasive transvaginal ultrasound bill that it appears Virginia Bob McDonnell has now backed off of, was not real or sincere.

Thankfully Salon's Joan Walsh was there to push back at Henneberger's assertions and I'll just lead readers over to her column where she has more on the interview above -- Did crafty Dems make contraception a campaign issue? :

First Rush Limbaugh, now the Washington Post women's blog, claim the GOP was set up by its enemies on birth control

Did you know the GOP doesn’t want to be talking about contraception? That it’s an issue ginned up by opportunistic Democrats? Rush Limbaugh made that case last week (while also insisting Republicans would win an election decided on culture war issues, so I’m not sure what his problem was.) But Wednesday it made its way to the Washington Post’s women’s blog, in a piece by Melinda Henneberger headlined: “It’s Democrats who are putting focus on birth control.”

Now, Henneberger is not a Republican. She’s a sorta-liberal, a veteran of the New York Times, Huffington Post, Slate and Politics Daily, who too often gives Republicans the benefit of the doubt, particularly when it comes to reproductive health issues. She emerged as a leading voice criticizing President Obama’s decision to require all employers, even religiously affiliated ones (though not churches) to provide contraception coverage in health insurance policies. You know my stand on that. But her questionable views on the politics of birth control got my attention a few weeks earlier, when she carried water for Rick Santorum and let him whine in an interview that Salon’s Irin Carmon had been unfair to him in her piece “Rick Santorum is coming for your birth control.”

Much more there where Walsh takes Henneberger's arguments apart, so go read the rest.

Transcript below the fold.

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Jon Stewart took a whack the previous night at the hypocritical Catholic bishops and the Republicans who are running straight off a cliff with their opposition to the HHS mandate that will require contraceptives to be covered at no cost by insurance companies, and this Tuesday, it was Stephen Colbert's turn.

COLBERT: Folks, I have often warned you that President Obama is an anti-religious zealot, which is surprising, since he is also a devout secret Muslim. Now he is launching a vengeful crusade against the Catholic Church, which is especially hurtful, since vengeful crusades... kind of our thing. […]

I say if Jesus wanted everyone to have insurance, he'd have been crucified on a Blue Cross Blue Shield. […]

The Catholic bishops are especially angry, because paying for contraception contradicts a belief those bishops hold dear; that Catholics don't use birth control. Which isn't easy because 98 percent of Catholic women use birth control. The other 2 percent, are nuns. […]

Now, some in the liberal complain-o-sphere are saying if you take tax payer money, you have to follow taxpayer rules. And yes, the church accepts a little federal money here and there. In 2010 Catholic charities received $2.9 billion. But that's only 62 percent of their total revenue. After taxes, that's still 62 percent because they don't pay taxes.

And while that money came from all of the taxpayers, most of whom aren't Catholic, once the bishops lay their hands upon that secular cash, it is transubstantiated into bishop bucks, the cash flow of Christ. Which means the money now holds the beliefs of the Catholic hierarchy and can be spent only on items approved at the highest levels, like massive legal settlements.

The Republicans and Rick Santorum got their turn in the box next.

Once again, it's the comedians putting the Villagers in the media to shame with making a mockery of the blatant hypocrisy they'd rather carry water for than call out.

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We got treated to round two of this Sunday's Meet the Press with the return of Peggy Noonan, E.J. Dionne and Joe Scarborough carrying more water for the Catholic bishops and their attacks on the new health care mandate on this Monday's Morning Joe. I don't agree with Scarborough about much of anything, but even he realizes that if this debate ends up being about contraception and not religious freedom, Republicans are going to lose that fight and he warned House Republicans not to push it too far in going after the new mandate.

Cue Peggy Noonan and another round of pearl clutching.

NOONAN: Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that at this point of this struggle, the White House and the National Abortion Action Rights League, and Planned Parenthood have decided that mischievously and for political gain they will put this whole issue and imbroglio forward as simply a disagreement on contraception? The Catholic Church is trying to take your contraception away from you? Those bad men are trying to mess up with your contraception?

Well that is not what this issue is about. It is not what the struggle and the imbroglio has been about. But I think you are suggesting, tell me if I'm wrong, that the administration for political reasons is going to muck up the waters in that way.

After Scarborough and Dionne pointed out that a lot of the Catholic institutions thought the President's compromise was perfectly reasonable with Dionne explaining that the insurance companies are not going to incur any additional costs because paying for contraceptive coverage actually saves money compared to the costs when women become pregnant, their arguments fell on deaf ears with Noonan.

NOONAN: Well, I'm talking the reality of it and they're going to pass it on to us too.

Completely tone deaf. Republicans have absolutely nothing to run on this year, so they're hoping to turn this into their big wedge issue to get their base riled up in the hopes they turn out at the polls. I'll repeat what I've already said about this, which is good luck with that. There are only so many Noonans and Bachmanns and Palins out there who are willing to throw their fellow females under the bus and then there are the other ninety some percent of us who know this is about reproductive rights and fairness and women having control over their own bodies.

You know, I'd really love to see someone ask Peggy Noonan if she's ever used birth control herself or not. She's a divorcee with one child. If she's so deeply concerned about the Catholic bishops having the right to impose their will on the women among their ranks, does she even follow their teachings? And for that matter, what does she think about the Catholic Church's views on divorce? I'm sure it will be a cold day in hell before one of her fellow Villagers ever asks her about either on the air.

I've really just had it up to here listening to these bloviating hypocrites pretending to take the moral high ground and feigning indignation over this issue and Noonan's been one of the worst offenders.