The Lewin Group: Repub's Favorite Stink Tank

Well, they're only partly wrong. When any Senator or Congressman votes against health care with a public option, I'm 100% in favor of denying him his sweet government health care plan and putting him on an ice floe to die (or be eaten by a polar bear -- he probably voted against the climate change bill too).

I would prefer to set them loose on an ice floe. The polar bear has enough problems. No sense in saddling the noble Great Bear of the North with acid reflux, goiters, terminal flatulence and explosive diarrhea (all known side effects from dining on law-makers).

I agree with Kris on this one.

And thanks for posting this, Ruth.

Me too, Sandy. And it was my pleasure.

Thank you for getting this info out there! Actually, I think I heard it on The Colbert Report the other night.

Someone has to do their thinking for them. It makes sense to apply market principles to ideas in this way. Hire smart people to rationalize your point of view. :)

Best government money can buy.

"independent, nonpartisan" my butt! The politicians also call them the "experts". Ya right, experts at pulling the wool over our eyes. The Ed Show did a feature on the Lewin group, and produced about 50 soundbites of politicians quoting the Lewin group. I like your term "Stink Tank", because that is what most, if not all, of them are.

Sickening

No wonder most members of Congress are opposed to The Fair Elections Now Act.

Wouldn't want to upset the status quo of allowing your corporate donors to tell you how to think.

You know what it takes to be an expert? In most cases, just calling yourself an expert. That's it. For example, as of this moment, I am an expert on being a smart ass.

And I couldn't be happier.

It also makes you an "expert" if you are from elsewhere. Down in Pittsburgh, I could be an expert on something I know nothing about here in Binghamton.

Well sure...you'd be an expert on Binghamton.

About which I know nothing...

But you know a helluva lot more about it than the average Pittsburgher. Ergo, you're an expert.

Well I happen to know that the town was named after Joe Flynn's character on McHales Navy. You know, ol' Lead Bottom, Captain Wallace B. Binghamton.

Or maybe not. But it sounds good so I am going with that.

Yep. And Rochester was named after Jack Benny's butler.

But, that's not what I said, Dame Ruth:

I actually know something about Binghamton, and thus by leaving here I become an expert about it anywhere else -- that works.

What I was saying was that simply by not being from Pittsburgh, I can go there and claim to be an expert on something about which I know nothing. People would believe I'm an expert because they would imagine that's the only reason I was invited to hold forth on the topic.

Ah, now I see your point, Danni. You hadn't mentioned an imaginary speaking engagement in Pittsburgh, leading to my misunderstanding of your original statement. But you must admit you'd have to know something about whatever topic you were covering, or you'd be out of conversation pretty fast. Of course, if you were discussing Binghamton, your expertise would be genuine, so we've come full circle. Your turn.

Honestly? If I went to Pittsburgh to give a presentation on Binghamton, I'm betting I could put the audience to sleep *long* before I exhausted my actual knowledge of the place -- the sum total of which is "This used to be THE place in NYS, outside of NYC, where landing a job meant lifelong security, a good standard of living, and a comfortable retirement, and now that's no longer the case."
The presentation would be a reiteration of the same "we shipped our opportunity overseas" story heard in every major city of the U.S.

All of which is embarrassingly off-topic, but I'm happy if the continuing thread boosts your point take.

"Rochester was named after Jack Benny's butler"

It wasn't? I suppose Binghamton wasn't named after Harry L. Crosby either.

You win! I can only hope to be that inspired, Kappy.

What bothers me most about the lies that are being spread about healthcare "rationing" and the like is that the media are treating the lies as being exactly equivalent to the truth, without the slightest bit of investigative journalism to sort it out. Like Bush saying we should 'teach the controversy' about evolution vs. intelligent design. There is no controversy! There is only a set of facts, and the rest is smoke and obfuscation. The same applies to the fake "controversy" over Obama's birth certificate that CNN says it is allowing jerkface Lou Dobbs to "report." In fact, Dobbs is not "reporting" on this...he is spreading lies about it!
The media have become spreaders of lies because they have abandoned their role as journalists. The fourth estate has never been this craven before. Very sad.

I've said it before and I'll say it as often as necessary, to point out the basic flaw in the whole "health" system: INSURANCE COMPANIES SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN MEDICINE!! I want us to go back to the sensible system wherein my health is a matter between myself and my doctor: he cures my ailments and I pay him for his services. Why is it necessary to give my money to some accountant who will take most of it, then give some to my doctor if he and I meet the requirements set out by the odds-makers who run the system? How is it possible that we have handed our very lives over to companies whose only purpose is to make money?

I'd like to see every family who has been trapped into handing over larger and larger percentages of its income every year to just stop paying premiums. Consumers have brought down companies through boycotts for years. How about organizing a strike against the bookmakers who masquerade as "health care providers"? LET'S BRING THE BASTARDS DOWN!! Let's stop paying them and go back to giving our money to the health care professionals who are earning it!

Watch out, Blue Cross. The villagers are approaching with pitchforks and torches and we're going to take the monster out!!