The poll asked the following,

Do you think the health care reform plan being considered by President Obama and Congress creates "death panels" which have the authority to subjectively determine whether or not a gravely ill or injured person should receive health care based on their "level of productivity in society"?

43% don't believe this, which we guess is encouraging. But 26% do (interestingly, about the same percentage who believe Obama isn't a real American citizen). And 31% aren't sure, meaning a majority — 57% — of Republicans can't say for sure whether our President plans to hold their parents and children up to Nazi-style productivity standards before allowing them to waste away. Of course, what we have now is a system where the sick and injured often can't get coverage, but those who deal in "death panel" fear-mongering don't have much regard for the facts, or for people who can't afford health insurance. In today's Washington Post, Richard Cohen compares Sarah Palin, major proponent of "death panel" lunacy, with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. "With Palin," he writes, "the subject is health care, which in many ways is the Red Menace of our day and lends itself to a kind of political pornography." He continues,

The most depressing aspects of McCarthy's career were not just the excesses of the man himself but the refusal of others — mainly his fellow Republicans — to either rein him in or defend his victims. Now we are seeing something similar with Palin. Say what you will about any of the health-care proposals, not one of them suggests a "death panel" empowered to withhold medical services from the aged or those with disabilities. [...] Yet, you can beat the bushes to a fine powder and find only two Republicans of note — Sens. Johnny Isakson and Lisa Murkowski — who had the courage or the decency to tell Palin that she doesn't know what she's talking about. Certainly, this was not the case with Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who in fact virtually seconded Palin's charge. This is not just because Gingrich himself can be casual with the facts but also because his urge to be politically expedient often overwhelms his convictions.

Cohen calls out not just Gingrich, but also Sens. Charles Grassley and John McCain, both of whom have failed to challenge her obviously false rhetoric. It may be true that, as Cohen says, Palin "rarely knows her facts" — but not every Republican in Congress is so blind to basic truth, and their failure to criticize her ridiculous assertions likely has more to do with what is "politically expedient" than with what is right. Sadly, Palin and her ilk have been successful, killing not only harmless and optional end-of-life counseling, but now the public option as well.

Despite his influence over the culture of 1950s America, Sen. McCarthy's "career was mercifully short," reminds Cohen. Perhaps the same will be true of Palin, whose approval rating has dropped from 57% when she joined the McCain campaign to 39% now. Unfortunately, crazy abhors a vacuum, and there will be more to rush in and fill her place. Like Michele Bachmann (pictured, right behind Palin), who previously informed us of liberal "reeducation camps" for young people and internment camps based on US Census data. In a disturbing McCarthyite parallel, she also called for a media investigation into anti-Americanism in Congress, and she shares enough awesome traits with our favorite lipsticked pit bull that one Minnesota State Senator called Palin "Alaska's Michele Bachmann." Bachmann says she'll run for President — if God tells her to. Specifically, she says,

If I felt that's what the Lord was calling me to do, I would do it. When I have sensed that the Lord is calling me to do something, I've said yes to it. But I will not seek a higher office if God is not calling me to do it. That's really my standard.

If I am called to serve in that realm I would serve but if I am not called, I wouldn't do it.

Apparently the Lord has repeatedly called her to mislead her constituents with baseless accusations against the government. Let's hope He keeps quiet about the Presidency.

Michele Bachmann: Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen [La Figa]
Palin's Red Menace [Washington Post]
Exclusive: New Poll Finds Majority Of Republicans Either Believes Or Isn't Sure About "Death Panel" Claim [The Plum Line]
This Is Reform? [NYT]
Bachmann Election Challenger: Sarah Palin Was Alaska's Michele Bachmann [Huffington Post]
Birthers And Deathers — The Same People? [Talking Points Memo]

Earlier: Palin "Wins", Or, The Power Of Misinformation On Health Care Reform
Sarah Palin Claims "Death Panels" Will Kill Son; Gingrich Agrees

• You can also buy a book that allows you to put your dick in a hole, if you have one, since some men have the need to make everything about their dicks. • The Wall Street Journal investigates the pink taxi service launched in Beirut in March, which provides a safe mode of transportation for women. Many Muslim women, who are barred from riding in cars with men other than their husbands or relatives, find the service especially helpful. • Mazen Abdul Jawad was arrested in Saudi Arabia earlier this month for bragging about his sex life on the Lebanese television show "Red Lines." He reportedly discussed his enjoyment of sex and how he lost his virginity at age 14. According to a Saudi daily newspaper, Abdul Jawad has issued a public apology about his behavior. • Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the FDIC, on her side career as a writer: "I discovered children's picture books when I had children and began reading to them. I loved the combination of the written word and a visual depiction... That gave me the idea to write children's books that would educate children about finance. I thought it could be a powerful way to convey information to children, and that parents would pick it up, too." • Nearly 71 percent of cats live in multiple cat households, so there are a lot of people unhappy with the "crazy cat lady" moniker. • Chief justice Abdul-Raoul Halabi of Gaza said on Monday that he plans on instituting a ban on female lawyers who do not dress in accordance with Islamic law when the court returns from summer recess in September. Women will be required to wear a headscarf and a long, dark colored cloak in order to appear in court. • The Hindustan Times reports on the sad truth of child marriages in India. Despite the 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriages Act, almost every child in the village of Kachoulia is "married," usually to a much older husband. • An Amnesty International report shows that the recent full ban on abortion in Nicaragua is causing women and girls to kill themselves, be deprived of treatment for cancer and AIDS and carry unwanted children to term — even their own half-siblings. The government and Catholic Church continues not to care. • According to a recent study released by the nonprofit Catalyst, 75% of women of color working in U.S. law firms are likely to leave their jobs within the next five years because of job dissatisfaction that results from the the unique barriers minority groups face. The Chicago Sun Times put it a slightly different way: "75% bail within 5 years due to barriers." • Crazy Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann thinks that Obama's health reform plans are just an effort to make us more like Cuba. Yes, Michelle Bachmann thinks: she doesn't do so with any insight or logic. • Crazy Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe's spokesman says "His focus is on issues" rather than the comments he made legitimizing the Obama birther nonsense. • White American Congressman Thaddeus McCotter wants to get Congress to make the President apologize to the white cop that arrested Henry Louis Gates inside his Harvard home. Earlier this year, Congress apologized for slavery 146 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. • A baby bit Al Franken and there's a picture. • Researchers from the University of Chicago and John Hopkins University found that divorce and widowhood have a lasting detrimental impact on health. This may be due in part to increased stress over shared child care, and the decreased income of a single-parent household. •

• Hillary Clinton (and Joe Biden) wants President Obama to talk tough on Iran, sympathetic on the opposition. The Secretary of State is also currently recuperating from a fractured elbow, which will require surgery in a few weeks. [Plum Line, CNN]

• Thing is, the Administration is struggling to balance calls to support the Iranian protesters with keeping open an avenue for engagement on nuclear issues with the Ayatollah. [Washington Post]
• The Guardian Council, which backed Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, has offered to meet with Mir Hossein Mousavi and the other, failed Presidential candidates. [NY Times]
• In the meantime, Iranian security forces are rounding up everyone who knows or supports Mousavi and tossing them in jail. [London Times]
• Iran's Interior Ministry has ordered an investigation into the Basji militia's and military's attack on Tehran University that left students dead and injured. [Wall Street Journal]
• Increasingly jealous of all the attention Iran is getting, Kim Jong Il has threatened to launch a missile towards Hawai'i. (Because attacking the Pacific archipelago worked out so well for the Japanese in the 40s!) [CBS News]
• Senator John "Fuckmaster Flex" Ensign has resigned from his Senate leadership position, because you can't have sex with a woman and be a leader in the GOP. Just ask Mitch McConnell! [Associated Press]
• Michelle Bachmann is refusing to participate in the United States Census because she's afraid it will steal her soul. [ThinkProgress]
• Former President George W. Bush has emerged from his gated Texas community, saying that he believes the best way to fix the poor economy is for Americans to spend more money. [Washington Times]

• This week's New York Times Magazine cover story on Obama's first hundred days doesn't look exceptionally celebratory. It looks more like, "This is what 100 days as President will do to you." [NY Times]

• Washington continues to buzz about Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter's party-switch, which even the White House didn't learn about until yesterday morning despite Joe Biden's efforts to get him to do it. [Washington Post]
• But in 2001, Specter blasted then-Senator Jim Jeffords for his party-switching; he even tried to make it illegal. [LA Times]
• Michael Steele's pissed off about the Specter switch because he was going to back Specter in the primary...which is probably partly what Specter was worried about. [Politico]
• Rush Limbuagh wants John and Meghan McCain to switch parties now, too. [Huffington Post]
• Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine thinks assholes like Limbaugh are part of why the party is losing voters in droves and Senators in dribs and drabs. [NY Times]
• Specter's desertion means that Norm Coleman shall never surrender his fight to have the courts declare him the winner of the Minnesota Senate Race. [Politico]
• Speaking of Minnesota, Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann thinks that the outbreak of swine flu is either a Democratic conspiracy, the result of God hating Democratic Presidents or poor management by Democrats. [ThinkProgress]
• Less insanity regarding American health: The Senate finally approved the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, despite Republican opposition to the fact that a pro-choice President picked a pro-choice nominee for the gig. [Reuters]
• Keith Olbermann, like much of America, would really, really like to see Sean Hannity waterboarded. [USA Today]
• However, no one wants to see former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich take Moonlight Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof's offer of an apprenticeship. [PR Newswire]
• And, apparently, Pat Buchanan likened a Nazi war criminal to Jesus; in Pat's world, killing 29,000 of his fellow Jews is What Jesus Would Do. [Huffington Post]

• Barack Obama had a meeting and a bunch of potheads showed up. Somebody told them there would be brownies. [NY Times]

• Then the Republicans held a meeting to talk about their alternative budget and a bunch of people expecting numbers showed up and there were neither numbers OR pot brownies because the Republicans ate 'em. Jason Linkins calls that "happy hour at the Chuckle Hut." [Huffington Post]
• Then Robert Gibbs went all Jon Stewart on them, harshing their mellow. [Washington Post]
• And then Michelle Bachmann introduced a bill to prevent the establishment of a world currency and everyone got really pissed that the Republican leadership had bogarted all the weed. [CBS News]
• Lacking in mind-altering substances, John McCain finally admitted everyone voted for Sarah Palin instead of him. [Washington Independent]
• His former lead staffer Steve Schmidt came out for gay marriage but not in that way, and McCain turned to the bottle and some old Vicodin he found. [Huffington Post]
• Sarah Palin sought to blunt Republican criticism of her plan to reject one-third of the federal stimulus money by not showing up to a meeting with Republican legislators. [Politico]
• New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand prefers straight nicotine to weed by, like, a lot. [NY Times]
• Papa's got a brand-new Afghanistan strategy that includes Pakistan and doesn't make your heroin any cheaper, so stick to weed. [NY Times]

• The California Supreme Court this afternoon granted a hearing to the Prop 8 opponents' challenge to the ballot measure that eliminated same sex marriage rights in the state. It did not, however, issue a stay that would have allowed same sex marriages to continue. [Equality California, California Supreme Court (pdf)]
• Missouri finally finished counting its votes and has narrowly gone for McCain. Obama still gets to be President, though. [Politico]
• A judge has ruled that Al Franken's campaign is entitled to written reasons why certain absentee ballots were rejected, which is expected to help his efforts to oust Norm Coleman. I'd bet the voters whose votes were rejected would like to know that sort of thing, too. [Politico]
• But the Dow fell again, so we're all pretty well screwed for now no matter what. [Huffington Post]

• Not as screwed as the automakers, who aren't going to get their piece of the bailout pie, a quest that was not helped by Mitt Romney— the primary candidate who won Michigan by kissing their asses earlier this year — saying that they should be allowed to go bankrupt. [NY Times, NY Times]
• And the auto industry's favorite Democrat, Michigan Congressman John Dingell — who has been chairing the Commerce Committee to their benefit for 2 years — lost a preliminary vote to keep his Committee chairmanship to upstart Congressman Henry Waxman. So it's really been a shitty week for them so far. [Politico]
• But they are definitely not as screwed as Republican crackpot John Ziegler, who decided to give an interview about his crappy new poll that says all Obama voters are poorly informed to Jezebel Crush Object Nate Silver and ended up, in the face of Silver's superior brain, telling him, "Go fuck yourself." Don't mess with our man, John Ziegler. [FiveThirtyEight]
• In a fit of crazy, Michelle Bachmann blithely declared that she never said that thing about investigating Congress members for being un-American that everyone heard her say. [Politico]
• Even crazier is Joe the Motherfucking Plumber, who has an enormous crush on Sarah Palin. Hustler, are you listening? [Huffington Post]
• Nearly two weeks after it was first reported, Obama's people have confirmed that strategist David Axelrod will join his Administration as a senior adviser along with Greg Craig as White House counsel. [Reuters]
• Dick Cheney has been indicted — along with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — on state charges in Texas that his financial interests in Vanguard Group (which runs some prisons there) are tantamount to participating in that company's abuse of power. Don't get your hopes up: prosecutor Juan Guerra "has a history of launching eccentric court and political battles," as though that needed to be said. [The Telegraph]
• Republican Senator Arlen Specter announced today that he plans to fuck with presumed Obama AG nominee Eric Holder about his role in the Marc Rich pardon at the end of the Clinton Administration, as though any of his constituents care. Apparently, Specter is fully prepared to hop on the train to Crazy Partisan Town with the rest of the Republican Party and ignore his many years as a moderate that have helped him get reelected. [Politico]

• Not that it's surprising, but the 43 economists of the Economists' Policy Group on Women's Issues graded John McCain and Barack Obama on 10 issues of importance to women and Obama came out ahead. McCain got an "F" because the group was concerned that his positions would do harm to women. [US News & World Report]
• They probably didn't take into account, though, that the highest paid person on McCain's staff in October was a woman. She's, um, the woman that does Sarah Palin's make-up, and she got $22,800 for the first two weeks of work. [Huffington Post]
• Once upon a time before Ahmadenijad or Chavez came to power, McCain was casting votes in Congress to get the Reagan administration to sit down with an Mozambique group designated as a terrorist organization without preconditions. [Huffington Post]
• And long before Obama met Bill Ayers, McCain was palling around with Chilean dictator and human rights violator extraordinaire Augusto Pinochet and his pals. [Huffington Post]

• Speaking of domestic terrorists, people that bomb abortion clinics and assassinate doctors aren't, in Palin's Weltanschauung. For some reason, that sounded right-er in German. [Firedoglake]
• For those people keeping track of these sorts of things, Palin announced today that the McCain-Palin Administration would except disability programs from its spending freeze. So far, they're exempting defense spending, homeland security spending, veterans programs, science programs and disability programs. Kinda makes you wonder what they are actually going to reduce spending on. [Washington Post]
• Tom Ridge thinks that maybe John McCain would be doing better in Pennsylvania if he'd picked Tom Ridge as VP, but he totally supports Sarah Palin. Tom Ridge: not as blindingly stupid as one would assume if one watched his performance at Homeland Security Secretary. [CNN]
• In a stellar end of the week for the campaign, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Massachusetts Governor (and Republican) William Weld, former Minnesota Republican Governor Arne Carlson and current McCain adviser Charles Fried announced they were all voting for Obama. But they just did it because they're bla... Oh, wait, they're all white. I'm sure Rush Limbaugh will find another reason. [Christian Science Monitor, Talking Points Memo]
• The Republican Party in New Mexico has hired a private investigator to go around and harass elderly Latino voters and try to intimidate them from voting by threatening those completely legal citizens with deportation. [TPM Muckraker]
• In further Republican stupidity and assholery, noted asshole Michelle Bachmann has taped an ad apologizing for calling for the media to investigate anti-Americanism in Congress. Left out of the advertisement is the text of the legislation she'll introduce if re-elected to force Congress to conduct the investigation. [Politico]
• And Joe the Motherfucking Plumber is going to run for Congress in 2010, like anyone will give a fuck about him on November 5th. [The Hill]

• Remember how Sarah Palin sold the governor's plane to save money? Well, to make up for it, she insisted on using the Public Safety Department's plane (the one for police missions and search and rescue) and used to get pissy when she couldn't just use it. As it was, she accounted for 20 percent of its time. [MSNBC]
• By the way, her personal shopper is also the guy behind the Obama-Ayers robocalls she supposedly hates, and her vocal coach was expensed as a "Get Out The Vote" effort by the campaign. Is there anything she won't try to pull? [Huffington Post, Politico]
• Radar is shopping a new movie idea to help turn out Jewish voters for McCain: Woody Palin. Dick jokes welcome. [Radar]
• Speaking of dicks, McCain foreign policy hacks Jim Woolsey and Randy Scheunemann want you to believe that when al Qaeda operatives say they want McCain to win, they're trying to fool you, but when other terrorists support Obama, you should vote against terrorists. Up is the new down, people. [Washington Independent]

• If you thought McCain wouldn't just casually drop the word "cunt" in front of a crowd, watch as he does it on stage. Even Cindy takes a step back, because that's what she usually does when he yells the word "cunt." [YouTube]
• Speaking of, Michelle Bachmann is trying to use her Hardball appearance to raise money, possible because the RNC is pulling their money out of her race in the wake of her comments that liberals should be investigated for their un-American views. [Politico, Huffington Post]
• And Ellen DeGeneres is not a fan of Sarah Palin's idea of getting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage or pretty much anything else Sarah Palin thinks about all the gay people she tolerates. Who is, really? [Huffington Post]

Bachmann finally realized that maybe calling for a new era of McCarthyism in which one demonizes one's political opponents and calsl them traitors and un-American (where might she have gotten that idea?) doesn't play well with more than just lefties who hate America. But instead of apologizing, she just blames it all on other people.

Despite the way the blogs and the Democratic Party are spinning it, I never called all liberals anti-American, I never questioned Barack Obama’s patriotism, and I never asked for some House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt into my colleagues in Congress.

We can go back to the tape, but she called his views and associations un-American, implied strongly that all liberals are anti-American (some more than others) and, indeed, called for an "exposé" into which of her Congressional colleagues held un-American views. It's on tape, which that means people can see her doing it over and over again, if they want to.

She then goes onto say, with little sense of irony after having used her column space to bash Obama for Wright and Ayers:

But when you can’t win on the issues, you steal the election with a couple of lies and $1 million worth of mud. And the media reports and Democrat responses to my interview on “Hardball” have been echoing the outright lies of the liberal blogs. Is it really any wonder people are so cynical about politics?

I can't speak for Real Americans, since I apparently stopped being one when I moved away from the small, rural town I grew up in because there were no actual jobs there, but I'm cynical about politics because I watch politicians like her say one thing, bullshit that they didn't say it and then watch people swallow that bullshit like it's actual ambrosia because they all share a political party with one another and hatred and contempt for the people who don't. But that's just me.

Bachmann's also completely unironically mad that most of the money for El Tinklenberg is coming from outside the district and outside of Minnesota in the wake of her crazy comments — despite the fact that she was elected in 2006 using money from outside the district and outside of Minnesota. That lack of self-awareness among politicians is another thing that makes me cynical about politics, just for the record.

In a small silver lining, the $800,000 that Tinklenberg raised from people who think it's a little beyond the pale for a sitting Congresswoman to question the Americanism of every single person that disagrees with her politically has enabled him to buy his first television ad of the entire cycle. No, he's not using it to re-run the Bachmann interview — luckily, the more she talks about it and tries to defend it, the more the real media will do it for him.

Michele Bachmann Channels McCarthy: Obama "Very Anti-American," Congressional Witch Hunt Needed [Huffington Post]
Uproar Over Bachmann's Comments "No Longer Partisan," Says Challenger [Huffington Post]
'I Never Called All Liberals Anti-American' [Politico]
The Bachmann Effect [Politico]

• McCain and his staff have smartly given up trying to win an electoral mandate and are pursuing a "narrow-victory strategy." What that means is that they have no intention of doing anything other than personally attacking Obama for the next 18 days in order to freak people out that they can squeak out an Electoral College victory rather than a popular one. You know, like in 2000. [NY Times]
• Which is probably why Sarah Palin is flouncing around telling people that they prefer the "real America" which everyone who isn't voting for John McCain isn't a part of. [Huffington Post]
• If that wasn't clear enough for you, Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann called for an investigation into the un-American activities of all self-professed liberals. [Think Progress]

• And a Palin supporter beat up a reporter at a rally for having the audacity to report that there were protesters around outside. "Real" America FTW. [News & Record]
• The United State Supreme Court effectively stopped the Ohio GOP's efforts to throw 200,000 voters off the rolls before election day. [Huffington Post]
• Conservative talk show host Lee Rodgers thinks that "many of the women who are professed leaders of the feminist movement in this country, and they're a bunch of hags. They couldn't get laid in a men's prison, let's be honest about it." How long do we think it's been since Lee Rodgers got laid? I mean, without paying for it, obviously, that doesn't count. [Media Matters]
• Oh, and French President Nicky Sarkozy is suggesting that it may be time to renegotiate Bretton Woods. Sarah Palin said, "Ooh, I'd bet Todd would be a good logger" and all of France simultaneously smacked their foreheads and went to church to pray for an Obama win. [Washington Post]

Fox News Blames Black People For Financial Meltdown [YouTube]

When All Else Fails, Blame The Negores [Ta-Nehisi Coates — The Atlantic]