I just watched a Sharron Angle tv advertisement. Debunk this?

[Mosier]

Printed in block letters on the screen were the words "Harry Reid voted to use taxpayer dollars to give Viagra to convicted child molesters and sex offenders."

What in the world is she talking about?

[wevets]

Probably from Medicaid covering Viagra - which apparently has been used by prisoners.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7946129/

[asterion]

More likely one of the Republican amendments to the health care bill. In particular, the one proposed by Tom Coburn during the final votes to pass the changes the House made to the Senate bill by using reconciliation.

[gonzomax]

You are listening to Angle? Why?

[DanBlather]

You are listening to Angle? Why?She's acute.

[elucidator]

Obtuse.

[Snowboarder Bo]

I note that no one has actually tried to debunk Angle's ad yet. No problem, I can do it, and I can do it with an article already linked to in the thread (by wevets):

According to [N.Y. State Comptroller Alan] Hevesi, the problem is an unintended consequence of a 1998 directive from federal officials telling states that Medicaid prescription programs must include Viagra.

"Federal officials". Not something that happened as a result of a Senate vote. Sharron Angle is lying (again).

[Ravenman]

No, that's not accurate.

Let's rewind to early this year. The Senate had passed the health care bill, which the House sought changes to. However, the only way to pass the health care bill and make various changes was for the House to pass the Senate-passed bill, and then propose a separate bill with a package of changes.

The House passed the health care bill and a separate bill with those changes. The bill with the changes then went to the Senate, where it could either be approved in toto, or amended and sent back to the House for further votes.

In a last-ditch effort to derail health care reform, the Republicans in the Senate proposed dozens of amendments on a wide variety of topics: everything from prohibiting Viagra for child molesters, to guaranteeing that veterans would continue to get health care from the VA, to insuring there would be a referendum in DC on the question of gay marriage, to cutting taxes on families, to increase funding for breast cancer screenings, to guaranteeing veterans couldn't be denied their Second Amendment rights -- in short, any damned idea that would be hard to vote against.

Democrats in the Senate, fearful that adopting any amendments could blow up the effort to get the health care bill finally passed, voted against ALL these amendments - about 40 of them.

Yes, it is a fact that Reid voted against an amendment to ban coverage for Viagra for child molesters. He would have voted against a resolution calling Hitler a bad man, because all those amendments were intended for nothing else than to sink the health care reform bill.

ETA: I should say it is highly misleading to say that Reid voted FOR giving Viagra to child molesters. He voted against an amendment that would have banned that, but this is straight-out liar, liar, pants on fire to think that Reid actually supports giving the little blue pill to the Chesters of the world. I mean, seriously, get real.

Further reading: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/04/more-malarkey-about-health-care/index.html

[Leaper]

Obtuse.

Is that right?

[gonzomax]

Obtuse.

Is that right?
She is not a right Angle. She is a wrong angle.

[NDP]

Just out of curiosity, is Angle still running away from reporters? Nevada Dopers, can you update me on this?

[wevets]

ETA: I should say it is highly misleading to say that Reid voted FOR giving Viagra to child molesters. He voted against an amendment that would have banned that, but this is straight-out liar, liar, pants on fire to think that Reid actually supports giving the little blue pill to the Chesters of the world. I mean, seriously, get real.

Further reading: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/04/more-malarkey-about-health-care/index.html


Thanks for the correction - my earlier post was a guess based on vaguely-remembered scandal about medicaid from years ago, and I hoped someone who knew more about it would come along, which has happened. :)

I would imagine that most Nevadans are smart enough to know that Reid would never vote for such an expenditure - even if he were evil, wouldn't he know better than to vote for such an idiotic bill? I wonder if that ad would actually have much of an effect, since the independents are the ones who need to be convinced, not the die-hard conservatives, who are unlikely to vote for Reid even if they note the implausibility of the ad.

[El_Kabong]

I would imagine that most Nevadans are smart enough to know that Reid would never vote for such an expenditure - even if he were evil, wouldn't he know better than to vote for such an idiotic bill?

Well, I'm not entirely confident of that. After all, a couple of common recent memes in politics have been that elected officials don't read the bills they vote on, and the the recent health care bill was too lengthy for anyone to have read completely. I could see some of your less-informed voters falling for that.

Nevertheless, even if I didn't already think that Angle was an unqualified crackpot, the quoted ad is such a disgusting presumption of voter idiocy that if I were a Nevada resident, I think I'd have to cast my ballot for Reid just on general principles.

[WhyNot]

Just to pipe up from a medical angle, Viagra isn't simply an erectile dysfunction drug. It's also a cardiac drug (and was that first). I would be appalled if we kept a good medicine for a heart condition away from a prisoner with a bad ticker simply because it's also used to give other people erections.

So even if this guy did vote to make Viagra available to prison populations, or against taking Viagra away from prison populations, simply on a medical level, I'd have to support that. The spin from the opposition is reprehensible.

[elucidator]

When erections are outlawed, only outlaws will have erections.

[Do Not Taunt]

You are listening to Angle? Why?She's acute.You're getting your crazy tea people mixed up. It's Christine O'Donnell who's a cute.

[elucidator]

Its like her mind is a demolition derby, where all the cars back off three hundred yards and floor it, meeting at a given center at 200 mph is a merged mess of chassis, tranny, wheels and gears. She's a wreck tangle.

[Chronos]

...meeting at a given center at 200 mph is a merged mess of chassis, tranny, wheels and gears.Wait, she's a tranny?

[gonzomax]

She came out today and reversed almost all her previous positions. Suddenly there is no problem with Social Security. It does not need to be privatized after all. Now I am convinced. She will not eliminate the V.A. Unemployment benefits should not be eliminated. By George, i think she's got it.

[bengangmo]

You are listening to Angle? Why?


Its just a reflex

[Skammer]

You are listening to Angle? Why?


Its just a reflex
You're too complementary.

[cosmosdan]

When erections are outlawed, only outlaws will have erections.

that's the funniest think I've read in some time.

[cosmosdan]

ETA: I should say it is highly misleading to say that Reid voted FOR giving Viagra to child molesters. He voted against an amendment that would have banned that, but this is straight-out liar, liar, pants on fire to think that Reid actually supports giving the little blue pill to the Chesters of the world. I mean, seriously, get real.

Further reading: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/04/more-malarkey-about-health-care/index.html

Yeah, it's kinda on the total bullshit side of misleading.

The amendment was never meant to add anything useful to the bill. The chances that ED drugs for sex offenders would actually be paid for by tax payers is small. The add is on the outright lie side of spin, similar to Grayson's unfortunate choice in the Taliban Dan add.

[Una Persson]

Can someone explain using only factual answers how if the Democrats had simply just voted on and approved the amendment denying Viagara for child molesters, that would have "killed health care reform?" I don't buy the "it could have blown up" excuse - if the Republicans voted for it, and the Democrats then all voted for it...how does that stop the bill? By my understanding, it has no actual impact on the bill as a whole.

[Simplicio]

Can someone explain using only factual answers how if the Democrats had simply just voted on and approved the amendment denying Viagara for child molesters, that would have "killed health care reform?" I don't buy the "it could have blown up" excuse - if the Republicans voted for it, and the Democrats then all voted for it...how does that stop the bill? By my understanding, it has no actual impact on the bill as a whole.

IIRC, accepting amendments would've sent the reconciliation bill back to the House. The bill had already passed there with thin margins, and part of the deal for getting it through was that the Senate would pass the Reconciliation bill as it was.

Its wrong to say it would've "blown up" health care, as the ACA had already passed. But it would've killed the Reconciliation bill, which expanded the ACA, and pissed of House Dems.

[Mosier]

Can someone explain using only factual answers how if the Democrats had simply just voted on and approved the amendment denying Viagara for child molesters, that would have "killed health care reform?" I don't buy the "it could have blown up" excuse - if the Republicans voted for it, and the Democrats then all voted for it...how does that stop the bill? By my understanding, it has no actual impact on the bill as a whole.

It's my understanding that Republicans gained a seat in the Senate in between the time when the bill was originally passed, and when the "bill killing" amendments were proposed. That one seat the Republicans gained broke the filibuster proof majority, meaning that if the bill actually had to be voted on again it would not have passed. Adding the amendment would have killed the bill, because it would have caused an additional vote which the Democrats no longer had the majority to overcome.

[Una Persson]

I guess that makes sense, if that's what happened.

[Ravenman]

I don't buy the "it could have blown up" excuse - if the Republicans voted for it, and the Democrats then all voted for it...how does that stop the bill? By my understanding, it has no actual impact on the bill as a whole.What the Republicans were really doing was a "camel's nose in the tent" strategy.

They offered literally dozens of amendments on a huge range of subjects. The basis of the strategy was that if Republicans could peel off several Democratic votes for an obviously acceptable amendment, then it would be harder for those Democrats to vote against other amendments that were hard to vote against.

For example, if a Democratic Senator voted to ban Viagra, why couldn't they vote to uphold the Second Amendment? If they voted to uphold the Second Amendment, why couldn't they vote for more breast cancer screenings? At least if Democratic Senators voted against everything, they could say they opposed BS Republican political amendments -- it gets harder to explain why a Senator might vote for some but not others.

At some point, it was hoped that an amendment would be passed by the Senate that would not be acceptable to a small number of Democrats in the House. That would cause the small number of House Democrats to switch their vote from supporting the reconciliation (aka the "changes" bill) to opposing it, causing it to fail.

So, what would Republicans gain since the House already passed the health care reform bill, and this was just changes to it? Literally, the main point was to sour relations between the House and the Senate, to get Democrats on either side of Capitol Hill angry at each other for not being able to hold up their side of the bargain on how to get health care reform passed. It was nothing more than a scorched earth policy by Republicans, who were upset that they were outmaneuvered on procedural grounds by Dems to get HCR passed in an.. unusual way.

[Simplicio]

For example, if a Democratic Senator voted to ban Viagra, why couldn't they vote to uphold the Second Amendment? If they voted to uphold the Second Amendment, why couldn't they vote for more breast cancer screenings? At least if Democratic Senators voted against everything, they could say they opposed BS Republican political amendments -- it gets harder to explain why a Senator might vote for some but not others.

I don't think that's true. Any amendment would've sent the bill back to the House, reneging on the Senates pledge to House Dems. There wasn't any need to "trick" Senate Dems into voting for a particular amendment House Dems might not like, even the most innocuous amendment would've worked.

The whole thing was theater in any case, there wasn't really any chance the Dems would vote yes on the amendments (and even if one or two did, that wasn't enough to actually add the amendment). The point was for the GOP to get a bunch of votes on record that they could use against the Dems in the mid-terms, as Angle is now doing. Reid had actually given the GOP time to add such amendments knowing this would happen in return for the Republicans not using other procedural manuvers to further delay the Reconciliation vote.

[Captain Midnight]

A little off topic, but I truly dilike when someone takes a common name and purposely misspells it. Sharon is spelled with one r. Sharon. When parents do this, the kid all their life will have to tell people that there is an extra r in the name and/or they are misspelling the name with letter and postcards with the extra r somewhat sandwhiched in.

[SmartAlecCat]

A little off topic, but I truly dilike when someone takes a common name and purposely misspells it. Sharon is spelled with one r. Sharon. When parents do this, the kid all their life will have to tell people that there is an extra r in the name and/or they are misspelling the name with letter and postcards with the extra r somewhat sandwhiched in.

In this age of google, having a unique name is a benefit.

(As someone with a unique name... I'm very easy to google.)

[Cisco]

What the Republicans were really doing was a "camel's nose in the tent" strategy.
Ah yes, the camel's nose in the tent. From the same playbook as the glass-bottom boat, the hot Carl, the southern trespass, the Houdini, the blumpkin, the dog in a bathtub, and the cajun hot stick.

[Ludovic]

They'd try the Dirty Sanchez, but he got stopped by a cop in Arizona.