The Velvet StraitJacket

Jon Stewart is (rightfully) pissed and what better way to vent that anger than to use his comedic talent and a  few victims of the Republican hostage-taking machine currently controlling the Congress and have an ‘adult conversation’ on just how partisan and utterly selfish this crop of Republicans are. The best part about this? We, as a country, get to look forward to the fact that these assholes will be in complete control come January. God save us all….

Here are two clips from last nights “The Daily Show”. I encourage everyone to watch them… or if you’ve already seen them, watch again. If this issue doesn’t tell you what kind of people were just given majorities and ‘the American people’s voice’, then you’re part of the problem. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior by the GOP, nothing justifies their borg-like position that we must give hedge-fund managers making a billion dollars a year a tax break before we can give the 1st responders to 9/11 health care. There is nothing that can explain this one away.

This is who you elected folks, if I didn’t have to live here with you I’d be happy to watch you wither away in the gutter-shit you’ve dumped upon this country. Too bad for me though that I didn’t make a billion dollars last year during the worst economy since the depression, so my feelings don’t really count do they?

Daily Show: Worst Responders
Senate Republicans filibuster the Zadroga bill but pass tax cuts for the wealthy.

I never thought I would say this, but Thank You Al Jazeera for being the only news channel to thoroughly expose this atrocity committed by the Congressional Republicans. The irony of this  is not lost on anyone.

I would hope that some of the Republicans who have chosen the CEO’s and derivative-kings of Wall Street who destroyed the economy and are now attempting (successfully) to control the government … over the sides of the other 98% of this country, would be forced to sit and watch this next part of Stewart’s anger, but even if they did I really don’t think they would get it. To them, the real tragedy here is a 3% tax increase on people who make millions and billions of dollars and that is where we should all focus our attention. We can’t let these poor ultra-wealthy persons suffer anymore than they have already. These 1st responders should really know their place in this country and that place is to sacrifice their selves to save the market experts so those same experts can invest the 401k’s and pensions of those 1st responders in high-risk markets and then bet against the success of that market, thus insuring it’s failure and the total loss of those risked funds.

Know your place bitch! Learn it,live it… love it because you can’t stop us now!

But hey, on the bright side.. atleast we finally know what they mean by “We want our country back”, what they mean is their country Circa 1400 Britain when monarchies ruled and the rest of us lived to serve them.

Two articles on Politico.com should wake liberals up to the disaster that’s headed their way. Unfortunately, not only will the liberals ignore the implications, at this point, even if they did hone in on the theme of the two pieces there simply isn’t anything to be done about it. At least not until Independents get the funk out of their system and start paying attention to reality. Until then, there really isn’t any hope for substantial progress in the next  decade or so.

The Fox primary: complicated, contractual

These candidates  want a friendly media that only asks questions they want to be asked and report the news the way the candidate wants it reported.

I should stop here. Liberals, you’re smart enough to see what’s going on. Independent, you’re jaded and pissed and I get that, but don’t you see it? Non-tea party Republicans? You’re who I am addressing right now. Is this the environment  you wish to cultivate in this country? A News channel employee, elected to President, who will run a State-run media where the candidate/elected officials gives the news they want you to know and that is what is reported, unquestioned? Where only friendly, candidate/elected official hand-picked questions are asked and then disseminated to the public how the candidate/elected officials wants? This is your revenge for outing the people who compromised a CIA spy working undercover on WMD’s for their political gain? This is your retribution because someone dared to bring up that torture is against the law? This is your pay back for holding a president and his administration accountable when they said we needed to start a war with a country who had done nothing to us? While that reason never actually panned out? A state-run media is your answer as to how you take over this country?

Well,  it seems like you’ve found the right path. Which brings me to the second story.

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Poor Breitbart.. he’s drowning  and can’t seem to remember which story he’s telling to who..

On Hannity the other night he had this to say

BREITBART: The reason why Shirley Sherrod is the story right now, not the NAACP, is because the White House which stands by the firing or the forced resignation — harassment as she said — they made the story about Shirley. They threw her under the bus.

I have not asked that she get fired. I’ve not asked for an investigation into her. The whole point was to show that the — for the NAACP to spend five days on national TV saying that the Tea Party is racist without any evidence when we can prove that the central argument didn’t happen and the mainstream media won’t play it — for them to talk about racism they should not be throwing stones in glass houses.

That’s right! He didn’t ask that she be investigated…

Umm, ok… Well see. Yeah .. he did, but he didn’t mean it.

Look, why are we surprised? It’s Fox News and Andrew Breitbart and like Paul Krugman of the New York Times, said yesterday…

When the right-wing noise machine starts promoting another alleged scandal, you shouldn’t suspect that it’s fake — you should presume that it’s fake, until further evidence becomes available.

Mr. Krugman, even with evidence.. you still can’t believe them. Because now, Fox is denying even doing the story..

On the July 20, 2010, edition of “Special Report With Bret Baier. Baier had this to say

The family has spoken out today about that. Fox News didn’t even do this story. We have didn’t do it on “Special Report.” We posted it online. It’s an amazing turn of events here.

Well, yes.. it is an amazing turn of events.

JUAN WILLIAMS, NEWS ANALYST, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO…The NAACP, I will give them credit,they were snookered, and they acted rationally and –

BAIER: Not by Fox News.

No, the NAACP weren’t snookered at all by Fox news because Fox news didn’t even do the story, they just posted in online that’s all.

~”Wow!” O’Reilly said after the clip aired. “That is simply unacceptable, and Ms. Sherrod must resign. The federal government cannot have skin color deciding any assistance.”

~Fox’s Sean Hannity aired the same short snippet of Sherrod’s speech shortly afterward.

“This was at an NAACP dinner, and this was racist,” Hannity said.

~By Tuesday morning, “Fox & Friends” headlined the story “Racism Caught on Tape.”

Commentator Laura Ingraham talked about “people who have burrowed their way into the Obama administration with radical outlooks, a radical agenda and, in this case, a racist sentiment. How many more like Ms. Sherrod exist in the Obama administration who weren’t so stupid as she was to actually explicitly state her views on the issue of race?”

Wow is right Mr. O’reilly! Wow, I can’t believe someone on your network is actually trying to pretend you guys never talked about this story.

Of course before  everything  came out the mega-hit Right-Wing Media was patting themselves and Breitbart on the back .. For breaking this story on the racist movement going on in the Obama administration. But once it started to crumble upon itself, Fox made sure to ignore the past few hours they had spent calling this woman everything they could call her and their morning show came out with this gem

“They may have acted without knowing the whole story,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said

That takes pretty big balls to admit that! Bravo Brian Kilmeade for standing up and admitting it!

Oh wait, I’m sorry I didn’t use the entire comment in context did I?.. I guess I should since like Brietbart’s claimed on his Sharrod blog “Context is everything”

So the Kilmeade statement was…

“They may have acted without knowing the whole story,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said of the administration.

Yeah, it kinda changes the meaning a little doesn’t it? huh, who would have ever thought that could happen? Not that I should have ever believed anyone from Fox News could take the blame for something they did without either blaming someone else for doing it to them, or somehow turning the whole the issue into Obama’s fault the way Fox and Friends just did. The rush to judgment wasn’t anyone’s fault except the Presidents. It didn’t matter that the Media Research Center President Brent Bozell demanded that the media cover the explosive video footage of an NAACP banquet speaker admitting her racist views

The liberal media are deliberately spiking the shocking video that reveals an NAACP banquet speaker admitting her racist views and actions. We’ve waited a full 24 hours to see if any coverage of this exposé would surface. So far, nothing but crickets. The ABC, CBS and NBC evening and morning ‘news’ shows have all failed to even mention the damning video admission that is dripping with disdain for white people and that caused the official to tender her resignation.

Worse yet, it comes from the NAACP, the same organization that has feverishly accused the Tea Parties of racism. The thoroughly untrue accusation against the Tea Parties has been propped up and propelled by the incessant reporting of these same networks. Yet they decide to thwart this story about the NAACP.

The only thing more newsworthy than the charges of racism are the hypocritical charges of racism. The media must report this scandal.

That’s right, the Liberal Media has waited all of 24 hours to comment on this story, it must be that they are hiding it. It’s just more proof of the ‘other media’s’ effort to hide the racism in this government! It doesn’t matter that just a mere hours after this demand from the President of Media Research Center the entire story started to crumble and change because the Liberal media, that ‘other media’, actually did what it’s supposed to do and confirm the story!

SANCHEZ: We, by the way, chose not to do the story yesterday, even though we had the story, reason being we thought it was important to try and contact her first, double-down on sources, and try and get a complete perspective for the sake of context

Damnit! They should have been covering it like the Right-Wing Media had covered it, without any confirmation,investigation, or statements from those they were accusing!

Today of course the story is President Obama jumped to a conclusion without investigating, not that the President foolishly believed there was some semblance of journalistic integrity in the Right-wing media so that when they force a story upon the public, it resembles the truth in some small way and is not just the fabrication of unstable blogger and race-baiting network. You see, it’s really the Presidents fault and the NAACP’s fault for believing Fox and Breitbart!

“What was the big hurry for them to condemn her in the first place? .-Steve Doocy Fox & Friends

Did you catch that? It’s the President and NAACP fault for believing Breitbart and Fox News and being in such a hurry, and the Liberal MSM is too slow in reporting on Fox and Breitbart’s scoop so they must be hiding it. It’s like watching Sibyl.

After all of this, it’s hard to pick out one thing that is the most shocking, but I think I have found it. To me, the most striking about all of this is the admission made by Laura Ingraham on Fox and Friends.  While parts of her comment can be found all over the ‘tubes’ (and even in this blog), it’s the 1st part that stuns me and surprises me that not a single journalist as picked it up and run with it to nail down exactly what it is she meant.

..”Now this [Sharrod video] emerges  and pretty much confirming what many of us thought about people who’ve burrowed their way in the Obama administration with radical outlooks, a radical agenda, and in this case, a racist sentiment expressed clearly by her.”

…. it confirmed what many of them thought anyway. Many of who? Whites? Republicans? Tea-party members? Who is this ‘many’? The significance of that statement has been over-looked in all the hoopla, but it is the very essence of every single problem we face today. Ingraham, Fox news,Breitbart, the Tea party… many of them think President Obama and/or people in his administration are racists and they don’t need confirmation of this because they think it anyway but  they’d like video proof just so they can stand up and say “see, we knew it. I never liked this guy because I just knew it and now.. I’m vindicated”

The problem is, the longer they go without that proof to make them feel at ease with their hate, the more they twitch and are apt to do the irrational. The Shirley Sharrod video wasn’t the end, just like the Acorn edits and the Van Jones smear there will be more things to come, more false accusations, made up and heavily edited video.  After each incident, there might be an apology, like Breitbart did with part of his Acorn fabrication and like many have done with this new issue, but each and every time there will be hundreds, if not thousands of viewers and listeners out there that after hearing the erroneous accusation and then the pull-backs and apologies,  just know there is racism in this administration anyway… they just haven’t gotten the right proof yet. It will never dawn on these people that there isn’t any proof because there isn’t anything there, to them it’s just hidden by the ‘other media’. Many of them already know it’s there.. now they just need to find it, and if the Republican’s get elected they promise to investigate Shirley Sharrod to find it.. Look out Shirley, the wrath of those who have egg on their face is coming for you!

What  these guys have confirmed to many of us is that even if they never find it on their own in a legitimate manner, they’ll just make it up. Because there are people in the Tea-Party and Ring-Wing Media who’ve burrowed their way in and they have  radical outlooks, a radical agenda, and in many cases are simply un-hooded racist spreading their hatred one news story at a time. But hey, it’s not their fault, it’s President Obama’s.

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Like I said in the blog,  ‘When does 2+2=4 become debatable? When it’s politics, stupid!” ,  Fox News adds 2+2 and comes up with 7. As if that wasn’t bad enough they get people to believe them instead truth and facts. They even pull the ‘Hey, we’ve researched’ it card to back up whatever claim they are making. Obviously if they’ve researched it and they are this adamant that their information is correct, then they should be believed… right?

Wrong.

O’Reilly lies to Coburn:

‘Nobody’s ever said’ at Fox you’ll go to jail if you don’t buy health insurance. Oh yes they have.

After Senator Coburn told a town hall meeting not to believe what they hear on Fox News, Bill-O decided he was going to take it upon himself to research his station and find out just when it was that anyone on Fox News said that under “ObamaCare” you would go to jail if you didn’t get health insurance.

O’Reilly: Well, tell me, what — because it doesn’t happen here.

And we researched to find out if anybody on Fox News

had ever said you’re going to jail if you don’t buy health insurance.

Nobody’s ever said it.

Well there you go, that solves it. This rumor was nothing more than another attempt of the “Lame stream media” to attack the honest hardworking fact checkers at Fox News, they researched this problem and found it to be an utterly false accusation.

except..

Beck: But if you don’t play by their new rules on health care, oooh, here’s a new little twist. Have you heard this? You’re going to be looking at a fun little stint in jail.

and

… But if you don’t play ball with them now, if you don’t get into their government health care, there will be jail time. And that of course was

Glenn Beck told his audience on Nov. 12, 2009 that they would go to jail. The next day on O’reilly’s own show, Beck was a a guest and repeated the same claim.

BECK: You know, this is the first time in history in our country where, just to be a citizen, just to not go to jail, you have to buy something.

This doesn’t include the Hannity shows and guests he’s had on who echoed same statements.

Sean Hannity tells viewers,

“Penalties for people who don’t get

government-mandated health insurance,

uh, jail time, a possibility?”

November 10, 2009:

If you just happen to be walking by the TV and the sound was off, you still got the news from Fox when they said at the bottom of the screen “Comply or go to jail.”

In a strange twist, a member of the Fox News team admits this was a falsehood spread by Fox News. Neil Cavuto has owned up to the myth Sen. Coburn was talking about.

“I’ve
researched this, and a
number of Fox
personalities had made that comment.”

Cavuto mentioned this fact the day after the O’reilly/Coburn interview, and even then O’reilly again went on his and insisted that  Sen. Coburn “didn’t really have his facts in line,” when it came to saying Fox News perpetuated the jail time myth.

2+2=7

If you are a viewer of Fox News of course you see that this is all just Lame Stream Media attack and spin, how in the hell could you see anything else? To you, Fox is just trying to keep the record straight and they are really having a hard time being the only name in news to give the “fair” and the “balanced”. The problem is, Fox news operates in another reality where they make up the facts and the research to back them up.  This is not the same as MSNBC spending night after night attacking Sarah Palin for using RNC donations for her clothes, her not returning the money for the ‘bridge to no where’ but spending it instead, or  her pimping for the Tea-Party Express which turns out not to be a grass-roots movement but a Republican Political Action Committee movement made up to fool real tea-party members into donating more money. All of that is real, researched truth,  which is the opposite of what you get when you turn to Fox News.

Look, if people want to believe in leprechauns and unicorns they can, there is nothing wrong with that. Thought and fantasy are still free in this world even if saying them out loud isn’t in some places. But for a “News” network to be considered ‘fair’ or ‘balanced’ or ‘trusted’ or hell, ‘news’ they have to follow the same rules as the others. If they want to only report on the other sides scandals and misdeeds to make them out to be the party not to be trusted, so be it! If they want to only report on their sides altruistic ideals and actions to make them seem like better party ok. They can’t claim ‘fair’ or ‘balanced’ but ok, have at it. But they cannot just make stuff up and repeatedly get away with it.  Not if their goal is News. If their goal is money, your money..as much of it as they can get, then hell Bat Boy journalism for everyone ! But stop labeling the product incorrectly.

This network has pretty much reduced themselves to, “Bat boy journalism” yet they demand to be treated like real journalism and will cry like scorned little girls the minute they aren’t taken as seriously as a Walter Cronkite-like news organization. Unfortunately for those of us who chose not to believe in unicorns and Bat Boy, we are forced to defend that which is slanted, but true because that slanted journalism is the excuse for the fake or made up journalism. The problem then becomes that we inspire more slant instead of more neutral.

If we didn’t have to live through the consequences of Bat Boy journalism and the voting populists I’d say let them have their sensational stories because like any Jerry Springer episode, they can be good for a laugh.  It’s when we would have to suffer through the choices of the ‘believers’ that we get not just Jerry Springer on TV, but Jerry Springer in the White House that it becomes a detriment to all.

I’m not knocking Springer, but I don’t want this country governed by those who believe his show is on the same level of journalism as a slanted, but accurate,  Rachael Maddow.

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There was another interesting conversation on muchedumbre.com the other day. It started when a poster accidentally slipped into the politikal section, a section usually avoided by most because it’s a cesspool of insults,misinformation and retardation (which I say with love in my heart since I am swimming around in that cesspool with the rest of them). Upon realizing his error, he looked around and said..

“Yeah, I don’t understand how to play here yet.”

This was met with the humorous , yet essential, advice of…

You have to throw in the occassional [sic] Fuck Off! and then I think you’ll have it..

Anyone who is part of a community like ours, may  find the words crude, but they know the advice is integral.  It doesn’t matter how civil a debate starts, when two opposing figures meet, if one is bound by political party doctrine to ‘deny at all cost’, to live the motto of ‘just say Hell No!’ it doesn’t matter if the other figure is is bound by the same codes as Tibetan Monks, there’s going to eventually be a ‘fuck you’ thrown into the debate.

It was this ‘field guide’ that brought about an insightful reply from Chuck, and I put it here because of the debate it produced. It is probably the most childish,ridiculous and asinine  debate ever held by adults, but once again.. when the party of ‘Hell NO!” meets anyone saying “uh, yes”  intelligence, logic, and reason is soon lost as you will soon see.

Quote from: uselesslegs on March 31, 2010, 02:40:42 PM

Maybe I can explain it a little bit with some other happenings around the U.S.  Though they may seem very direct and to the point and not as “left to interpretation”…well…let’s start.

Item One.

Recently Scott Brown, newly elected Senator from Mass, has said and suggested that MSNBC host Rachael Maddow is going to run against him during reelections.  Through sources on his end, he’s said that she’s “secretly” gathering up steam and will file and run.  Maddow has stated on her show she is not running, has no intention of it.

End of story right?  Nopey.

Scott Brown was asked on a radio show, following Maddow’s statement,  what he thought of her statement that she wasn’t going to run.  He replied, without ever saying, “well, I guess that changes things, har har”, and instead replied, “mumble mumble….bring it on.”  Implying that he still believed she was indeed going to run and that he was ready for her.

Next Maddow, with her own money, took out a front page ad (in the area of interests) newspaper calling Scott Brown a liar and that she was definitely, emphatically, not running.  She had/has no desire to run and that this was getting silly and to quit saying or implying she was running and using her name to collect campaign donations from individuals, with a lie.

His reply?  He said her front page newspaper statement looked like it came straight from one of the writers at the DNC and that he thought Maddow would make an interesting candidate.  Thus never admitting that he (Mr. Brown) was in error and making sure to twice “imply” through his choice of words, that Ms. Maddow was and STILL IS a candidate.

Item two.

Nine members of a Michigan Militia group were arrested and charged with plotting to kill a law enforcement officer and then many others with homemade bombs, in hopes of starting an uprising against the Government…oh and to battle with the anti-christ.

You would think across the Blogosphere and forums alike, we’d see the individuals involved being denounced…but not so fast mister fancy pants…they’re being defended.  Not by seemingly other milita groups or like minded individuals…but rather…by individuals who are making sure to note that anything this current Government/Administration does is to be suspect and dubious.

You’d think something like this would be pretty cut and dry.  Wanna kill law enforcement officers, check.  Wanna kill many more people with homemade bombs, check.  Wanna be prepared and kill the anti-christ, check.  What is our governments REAL agenda here, che…what?

What you will find, in your journey here, will be two sides to the same coin, almost constantly at odds.  Oft times from political stances.  Oft times from personal interpretations…or both.

It’s the only place in the universe where 2+2 is debatable.

Welcome aboard, you poor fucker.

More than just being explanatory of today’s political world and how truth is ignored for rhetoric and whatever can incite the masses against any opposition, one part of that sticks out as so true it’s scary.

It’s the only place in the universe where 2+2 is debatable.

You would think adults all across the political spectrum could agree on that elementary concept, but they don’t. Because one side of the political spectrum has made it their goal for at least 4 years, to oppose anything coming from the current administration, 2+2 does not equal 4 if this administration or anyone speaking in favor of this administration is the one saying it. The Maddow/Brown debate is a perfect instances in a long, long list of other equally amazing 2+2 does not equal 4 examples. The fact that Ms. Maddow has said on her show, said in interviews, taken out a full page add to alert the world of the simple fact that unequivocally and emphatically she is not running against Scott Brown doesn’t matter to the party of “Hell NO!” because to them, 2+2 is not 4 and it is Scott Brown’s 2+2=3 equation that is the fundamental truth here.

The argument that this ‘2+2=4′ statement caused, ended up twisting logic until it no longer resembled its former self.  Some where along the way ‘fact’ became, and  is now, interchangeable with opinion,rumor and gossip.

Here’s an example

Keith Olbermann is biased and does slant opinions against the Right. But that does not mean he is making the news up and reporting his ‘rumor’ as fact. He may not focus on an issue like when a Democrat is caught having an affair with his mistress but he will spend 1/2 his show telling you about a Republican getting caught having an affair with his chief of staffs wife. Slanted, yes! but it is still based on the fact that the Republican did sleep with his chief of staffs wife. That nugget is truthful and not an opinion to be batted around until it becomes a truth in the eyes of the viewers[insert Obama not of US birth] .  Keith Olbermann, no matter how biased he is, is still telling you the truth when he’s telling you the Republican slept with his COS wife.

2+2=4

This goes unnoticed because those who want to de-legitimize everything even remotely ‘Left’, stick to their guns with the idea that since Olbermann is truthful in his bias , then so is Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck who made the opinionated allegation, without a basis in fact, that this President was an white-hating racist, is telling the truth and is delivering a fact because Olbermann reported more on the Republican than he did the Democrat. What’s worse, Beck has spent so much time repeating this concept that it’s believed by 31% of those polled. They can’t differentiate the difference in a “liberal news show’ talking more about a factual Republican scandal is not on the same untruthful level as another show presenting their opinions as facts until they become believed as the almighty truth. It is a ‘tit for tat’ that they just don’t get. Sure the Liberals and Democrats opposed George Bush, but when you look at why it’s not like they were wrong for opposing him. The US just does not torture or we just don’t preemptively  invade countries.. These are real,honest,valid and acceptable differences to have. Not liking the amount of time President Obama uses a teleprompter is just as valid of a complaint, saying he is therefore  unable to run the country, is not!

And yet, like everything else, that statement is somehow debatable…

So, back to my fundamental question, what is the arguement [sic] to believe 1 biased source but not another?

Fox news,most of the GOP,Sarah Palin and followers,Tea-party members along with the most if not all of the rest of the people trying to de-legitimize the other side of the aisle, have decided that their opinions and allegations are just as reliable as being truthful as actual facts given by an ‘enemy source’ whether that be MSNBC,Jon Stewart,President Obama,any Democrat leader or any left-leaning person out there.
When anyone tries to point this inaccuracy out, either they really can’t understand the concept that opinion is not fact and fact is not fiction if it’s told by liberal, or they just don’t care because their hate knows no bounds. Either way  they revert back to the concept of

You deem you are the ultimate say so on who is saying 1+1 = 2. And, incidentally enough, all the people you like get it right, and all the people you don’t like don’t get it right.

You are trying to process all this inside your own bias.

Your main problem, is you refuse to believe the bias of the broadcasters

Only when you understand that can you even begin to answer my question: How can we believe the truth when it comes from a biased source?

In order for me to understand, I need to believe Glenn Becks opinion that Obama is a white-hating racist.. when I accept this as truth, then I can see that  fact given by a biased reporter and opinion given by Fox News are the same thing.

2+2 =4 is now debatable and depending on where you ‘lean’ is what your answer is. Keith Olbermann, because he is biased and gives more time to Republican scandals, is not factually correct when he tells you the answer is 4 unless you also recognize that Glenn Beck telling you the answer is 3 is also correct because they are both biased. So either both are to be believed or neither are.

I told you this was going to be childish,ridiculous and asinine.

This argument of ’slant and bias’ not affecting the actual truth is a fair point though.  You can have a conservative explain  a factual event and a liberal  explain  the same event and while the reasoning behind the event may be slanted and bias, that doesn’t change the facts of the event.  2 maybe a sissy-boy who liked to play with dolls growing up to the conservatives or 2 might have been a devoted pet-lover with a deep seeded love for parrots, but when added together 2 +2 is still going to equal 4.

It’s not that I am deeming only those I agree with as being ‘factual’ or that I disbelieve the other broadcasters, say Fox News, because of their bias.  It’s just that I deem those reporting  actual truths as being better than those reporting opinion as truth and that is the slight, but albeit glaring difference here.

Fox News is in the habit of reporting an opinion in a way that by the end of the day you can barely distinguish where opinion stops and fact starts and thus the opinion they started off with becomes as commonly accepted as the factual concept of gravity. For example, remember the ‘Czars’ Fox News went apoplectic on?

Obama’s Czars Spark Concerns Among Some Lawmakers

Although former U.S. attorney Alan Bersin and the late Russian ruler Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov appear to have nothing in common, thanks to President Obama, they now share a title.

The slant of the headline and first paragraph, makes it seem like the 1st time a head of a department was ever called ‘Czar’ was under President Obama.  Then there is the slant of the story itself

Czardom does not sit well with Sen. Robert Byrd. Though slowed by age, the West Virginia Democrat remains vigorous in his defense of the powers ceded to the Congress by the Constitution. He said he believes czars are a slick way of governing without having to answer to Congress.

There is no constitutional requirement that czars undergo those pesky Senate confirmation hearings.

Yes, those ‘pesky’ Senate confirmations.

If you watched Fox News during this “Fox News made up conspiracy” you would have thought Red Dawn was no longer fiction and we had been invaded by Russians, and with good reason! Glenn Beck let us know that President Obama, just a few short months into his 1st year, had 19 Czars and counting, compared to only 4 Czars in all of George Bush’s time. A month later, Greta Van Susteren  let us know that number had climbed to 30, she also raised the number of George Bush’s number of Czars from Beck’s 4 to 12. Who wouldn’t look at that and wonder, after being told how Communist President Obama was, what the hell was going on. The problem is, by most counts George Bush has 36 Czars filled by 46 different people. That’s a grand difference than Beck’s 4 and Greta’s 12. But this bad information was propagated day and night throughout the Fox News  “Fair and Balanced” 24 hour rotations.

If you had listened to Fox and Friends during the run up to the election,  you would have heard how then Senator Obama had tired of being asked whether or not he was Muslim and had said “Enough already. There’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, but I have been a Christian for two decades now. Enough!”

When in fact, what he said was that he had been a Christian his entire life.

Does anyone remember the ‘indoctrinating our youth’ hoopla made up by Fox News?

Critics Decry Obama’s ‘Indoctrination’ Plan for Students

Which of course led to Fox’s next big question

“Will You Keep Your Kids Home the Day Obama Speaks to Schools?”

That was answered with a “yes, yes we will”. But why wouldn’t they, here is a former Muslim, who is turning this country communist, all you have to do is look at his ‘Czar’ list to see that… This “Unprecedented’…  ‘First time ever’ talk to school children is something all parents should fear.

Except it was not ‘unprecedented’. It was not the first time it’s been done, Republican Presidents have done it before.

What about this symbol?

Missile Defense Agency's Web site features a new red,white and blue logo-described as 'scarily' similar to Obama's campaign logo, as well as the symbol of Islam

Fox didn’t let the fact that this symbol was chosen more than 3 years ago interfere with informing you of how Islam was coming for America, while Rachael Maddow spent her time thoroughly de-bunking this myth before it could make it into another Fox-made rumor turned into fact. Unfortunately it made it’s way throughout the blog-sphere anyway, even with the original blogger retracting his accusation .

At 2200 words I realize that I could spend ten times that amount just on examples of this idea  that Fox News takes rumor and allegation and reports them like they are fact until they become unquestionable fact, but those who would read it all already agree and those who don’t agree wouldn’t care if I spent 1 million words and 10 times a many examples.

Those of us who do agree  don’t just ‘deem worthy’ those who are speaking for our political side, we deem worthy those who speak the truth instead of made up rumors. That is the difference,  we chose to believe the ones who tell us 2+2=4,  because  they’re telling us fact. We chose them over those telling us 2+2=7 because they don’t like the ‘lame stream media’, liberals and this President saying otherwise.

You don’t have to take my opinion that Fox news has a problem with facts. (R) James Coburn echoed the same sentiment the other day. At a town hall meeting he said..

Sen. Coburn: “I want to tell you, I do a lot or reading every say and I”m disturbed that we get things like what this lady said [a women had questioned him on people being jailed for not having healthcare, which he flatly denied and said it made good TV on Fox to say this, but it just wasn't true] and others have said on other issues that are so disconnected from what I know to the facts. And that comes from somebody who has an agenda that’s other than the best interest of our country. And so please balance and be careful

He implored people to not to be biased by Fox news.

And what we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what’s going on and make the determination yourself. So, don’t catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody’s no good.

David Frum, he’s a pretty big deal in the land of conservatives, said a few weeks ago,

Frum: “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox.”

He was called into the bosses office the next morning and fired, but he says it wasn’t because of what he said.  Frum also posted a blog saying…

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.

Just the other day, Frum said

“Fox, like [Rush] Limbaugh has been pushing the Republicans to the margins, making people angry,…”

The agenda for Fox News is not the agenda of the United States, but the viewers have been lead by Fox news and others like them to believe that it is. Fox News is the business to get ratings which equals money, to do this they must stand out above all the other news programs, to do that they have to have a ’shtick’ and they do. They ask a question or comment a rumor, they revert back to that ‘rumor’  throughout the day until the opposition is asked about said rumor, and their denial of the rumor is aired, and that’s when the rumor turns into fact.

Example

“I heard the Seth Nobody liked to play with dolls when he was a little boy” a commentator on the early morning says.

“Is that so?” says the co-host? “Well Bob, drop that doll and tell us what the weather’s like outside”

Later in the day, on another gossip labeled “News”  show on the same network this rumor pops up again,

“I don’t know where I heard this, but you know Seth Nobody played with barbies as a boy”

to which the co-host replies

“Well that would explain why he dresses so good.”

Before 24 hour news, that might go on for a day or so.. but now, it only takes hours until  you will get a “journalist” from the same network asking someone in charge, or even another reporter on his show.. “People are saying Seth played with girls dolls as a child, do you think he should really be in charge of the more manly dolls like GI Joe?”

Now that this ‘rumor’ is gaining interest, because we all like the salacious more than the mundane.. other, more reputable news outlet being to report,

“Today Seth Nobody denied he liked to play with dolls as a child”

and viola.. Seth, who supported single payer insurance, started off his morning as a normal guy with just a different political view; but by the end of the day he became a ratings horse for a money and political power-hungry gossip labeled “News” network. Poor Seth is now a freak who played with dolls. This is planted and replanted throughout the cycle until it spreads through the viewers and becomes  a known fact to them.Normal, upstanding liberal political leader Seth is just a queer-bait who cross-dresses at night when he’s home alone. You don’t want to vote with him do you?

You can see this process in action here..

Ignoring all the other examples in this interview, when the interviewer gets to the question about VP Biden’s comment of how the US will be tested under OBama, look at the bias that brings an utter falsehood into the world of facts as we know them today…

“..are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done and that America’s days as the world’s leading power are over?”

Well, no.. no he isn’t. That’s just your biased making things up and unfortunately getting too many people to believe you.

Of course we go back to the other ‘fear’ rumor which has made into a ‘fact’ that too many in this country believe as God’s honest truth.. Socialism

“What do you say to the people who say Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden?”

The only people who were saying that was that interviewer, Fox News who wants rating and candidates who want power. It started as a fear technique to scare people out of voting for him, then it was passed around by the gossiping hens on Fox News, then their ‘journalists’ reported that all important  “People are asking….” it became not just news, but fact. William Randolph Hearst did this and it worked to make him rich just like it’s making Murdoch,Beck,Palin, Hannity and many others filthy stinking rich. Don’t believe me? Do you know what Rush Limbaugh gets for telling you these things?$400 million dollars!

Nah, he has no motive to make his show more interesting and keep his numbers up.

How about if they tell you themselves it’s all about the money, and controversy means cash.. would that change anyone’s perspective that they aren’t hearing truths, but what will make the person speaking more money?

With a deadpan, Beck insists that he is not political: “I could give a flying crap about the political process.” Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage. “We’re an entertainment company,” Beck says. He has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth.

They are an ‘entertainment company’, and yet they’ve been able to convince most of the viewing population that they are the most trusted name in news. How is that even possible? Their goal is new entertainment and ratings.

As I said a few hundred words ago, I could go on and on, I could provide 1000’s of examples.. but those who would read it all already agree and those who don’t agree wouldn’t care if I spent 1 million words and 10 times a many examples, but in my quest.. I found an interesting ‘beginning’. Yes, the seeds were already there.. one only had to follow the 2008 campaign trail to see it, but something about this struck me like an “AHA! Here is where it really started to become true!” Because I think that up until that point, even with those at the town-meetings believing the rhetoric, it was still mainly a rumor. Until this broadcast sealed the rumor as truth forever. I found it on a blog called JOTMAN.COM. On this is site ‘Jotman’  has 3 videos shot the night of President Obama’s election win. One video is actually from Fox news the following morning showing a crowd of people at the gates of the White House, the broadcaster comments that they are probably drunk, her opinion of course,  and then she draws your attention to the flag someone in the crowd raises, it is the Russian  Communist flag. The Broadcaster is of course curious and wants this watched because ‘what does it mean?”, is it a sign?, do we need to fear this newly elected President or something just as ridiculous.

The second video is reportedly shot from inside the White House that same night, it’s the same crowd cheering at the gates, the man in the video sees the cheering and the flag and he is scared. As he says these  are  people coming out for Obama and cheering the fact that this country is going to change.. he just can’t believe what he is seeing. There is pushing and shoving, look there is the communist flag again, and torches! they’re all over the place it’s so ominous … it’s chaos!

Until you watch the video from the street.

The third video shows the crowd laughing,cheering,smiling and yes.. Chanting.

For the land of  the free….. and the home of the… Braaaaavvveeee!!!

Not to mention USA!USA!USA!USA!USA!

The horror!

Yes, there is the commie flag.. but instead of asking what the flag meant Fox News decided it meant communism was here and they must fight it every step of the way. Fox news knew that morning, like the mornings after every election there was bound to be some pretty pissed off people and they were going to stir up that emotion and bank it. That story was the perfect one to drop the ‘Hearst’ seed and watch it grow. It was  visual proof and with just the right question put to it, maybe another mention of it later, until finally reporting on as a fact in the later broadcasts, President Obama becomes an elected Communist .There was no need for anyone to hear the crowd, the silent view of it  with the added speculation would serve quit nicely. Those watching Fox that segment wouldn’t hear the glee and love for their country coming from that crowd, instead they would see a possibly drunken presence cheering the fact that communism has now come to America when she elected an Communist, Marxist, Socialist the night before. Before long Glen Beck would confirm their other fear, the fear that this  new president also hated white people.

We’ll never know what the flag meant one way or the other, we have video of the overwhelming happiness and pride in the country though, so to me it reinforces the rules of any political debate and that is  …It doesn’t matter how civil a debate starts, when two opposing figures meet no matter if the figures are bound by the same codes as Tibetan Monks there is going to eventually be a ‘fuck you’ thrown into the debate and to me, this was just a big Fuck you along with a cheerful  goodbye to the despotic  way the country was run for 8 very long years!

Of course this all just my opinion, not a fact and it’s because I know the difference that I deem others who also know the difference to be more worthy of my trust that those who don’t.

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After reading Fox News version of Natoma Canfield ’s plight and after getting over my disgust at the flippant skew of their story,I decided to see just what kind of people Fox news is playing to. I was sure those commenting on the piece would be as appalled as I was after reading that article tripe because who wouldn’t be? This idea that she ‘may’ get financial help for the treatment and that somehow negates her ordeal was so outrageous that even the truly heartless,mindless,GOP sycophant must be taken aback.

Oh how I was wrong.

Before  we get to the truly ugly part of our society, the part that feeds on Fox News and GOP rhetoric..Remember where this started. Natoma wrote a letter to the President explaining her situation to him, she had had insurance and had paid it’s high premiums. She explained that last year she paid “$6075.24 in premiums, $2415.26 for medical care, $225 in co-pays and $1500 for prescriptions.” For all of this, her insurance company paid out a staggering $935 to her benefit. What a wonderful return she pays over $10,000 and the insurance gives her $935. I can’t imagine anyone looking at that and saying “A yup, seems right to me”.. but, they do.

When Anthem sent Natoma a letter letting her know that after being with this company for 11 years,  in 2010, her policy would be increased over 40% to $8496.24.

Natoma had to let the insurance go.

$8500 a year,  that’s over $700 a month… for health insurance. Is this normal and satisfactory to people? Are there a lot of us out there who could afford coverage for one person  for the great cost of $177 a week?

When did this become the normal part of American life, so normal that people across the country are not outrage just at that? $177 a week.. not for food,shelter,utilities.. but health insurance on one person? What she if had to cover a family of four?

That is where Fox picks up her story and where this blogs begins. Natoma said in her letter that she was afraid to think about where she would get the money to pay her bills now that she didn’t have healthcare. A perfectly reasonable fear, a fear that even people with insurance might have just because of the emotions  and costs involved. But to Foxnews and those who champion them, this is the pit of waste they decided to swim in. Instead of going after Anthem, they set their sights on Natoma’s fears.

Natoma Canfield, the cancer-stricken woman who has become a centerpiece of President Obama’s push for health care reform, will not lose her home over her medical bills and will probably qualify for financial aid, a top official at the Cleveland medical center treating her told FoxNews.com.

Sure, Natoma might qualify for aid… might. So there you go people, nothing to see here.. move along.

Of course  gold coins might fall out of her ears tomorrow too, but that doesn’t negate another in a long,long list of examples of an insurance company profiting on the health of Americans.

Natoma could possibly be healed by a local voodoo priest laying hands upon her, that doesn’t change the fact that insurance companies have gotten out of control when it comes to their profit margin.

If this ‘probability’ stopped there, then maybe it could be seen as a ‘feel good’ piece. Ya know, a “Thank God, she has one last thing to worry about in this time of need” maybe it would be ok. But it didn’t and as the comments show, it produced the exact feeling FoxNews hoped and always hopes to provoke in people. Of course “feeling” is a loose translation of the word as you’ll see.

Before that though, there seems to be this running theme everywhere of “Well they can just get medicaid” in one breath and “We don’t need government healthcare paid for by tax-payers” in the other.  A “everyone has insurance because they can just use the ER” repetitiveness that somehow excuses the point of having to use the ER like a primary care doctor instead of a.. ya know.. emergency room. Here’s my question, who is paying for that cost when people who don’t have insurance use the ER?   Who do people think is paying for Medicaid ?  The Fairy-Medical-Mother? Do the people wiping drool off their chin from all their blathering about tax-payer government health care not understand that the medicaid they are telling Natoma to get is tax-payer paid for government healthcare?

I don’t think they do.

While we’re playing in the realm of pretend, what if she paid the extortion to her insurance company and they dropped her after she was diagnosed with leukemia? There is an equal, if not better, chance that  would have happened as there is a chance that she ‘might‘ or will ‘probably’ get medicaid or some kind of charity to pay her bill. Had she been dropped,  then what? Who cares because she could have gone on tax-payer government healthcare, but  as long as she doesn’t pay for her own government healthcare it’s ok?

The idea that anyone could say “Hey  you know what? I think you should pay out $10,000 a year, get $900 paid back and next year pay 40% more and get back less.. “ Is pretty much the stupidest thing I think I’ve ever heard. But it seems to be the common thread these days.  She is after all only a house-cleaner, it’s not like she own AIG or anything important like that.

The idea that anyone would champion a system  that says “Look, be happy.. after all those years of paying into this product and getting no return, now you can go on charity so quit your bitching” is not only the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard but probably the most callous. I can only hope that  Karma X3 finds the people saying this with some event that forces them to seek help from a ‘charity’. I just hope they don’t meet people like themselves at those charities who tell  them to go find help somewhere else. Or worse, tell them they’ve helped too many this month so maybe come back next month and see if they can get some help.

We’re the best country on the planet,  the only SuperPower, the beacon of all and the best we can do is.. “She might get charity to help pay for her illness and she probably won’t lose her house”?

As if that’s even a concern, after reading what the Foxnewies GOP sycophants  think.. she really deserves the loss of her home because she should have paid the insurance company their extortion fee and her mortgage and just stopped eating and watching TV, the lazy bitch.

That’s right, she made a choice folks. She should have paid her insurance instead of her mortgage and really.. she has a TV right? She chose to pay them, so there you go! She deserves everything she gets!  The stupid woman should learn to prioritize, doesn’t she know that the American Dream isn’t to grow up, work hard and buy a house. No! It’s grow up, work hard, pay your insurance even when they’re raping you.

It’s truly disgusting the level of bottom-feeder that the GOP and FoxNews has succeeding in producing. If that comment was the only one like it I would attribute it to a mutant strain of GOP, unfortunately… it’s not

How can that poor insurance company be at fault? All they did was continue to raise her rates to the point where she had to decide between them and her mortgage, shheesh.. it’s her fault for not just doubling her deductible, I mean she only paid out $10,000 in costs last year! Hello! Anthem gave her $900 worth coverage for it, what does she want.. more?

It’s gross isn’t it? I just wish that was it…

As a physician, I recommend we all just not pay our bills.. no one loses their house, no one cares that it’s on your credit and all those non-paid bills really have no affect on the system because the Fairy-Medical-Mother bibbity,bobbity,boos them away.

Are you out of your fucking mind? The solution to “paid for by everyone, shared by everyone’ Universal Health care is? We just don’t pay our bills when we incur them because it’s not like anyone has to pay for it anyway.

Fuck me! Someone shoot me if I get this stupid!

That’s right, why do all Americans have to suffer for the plight of a few..

We don’t need to end slavery, why do all Americans have to suffer for the plight of a few?

We don’t need to desegregate, I mean why do all Americans have to suffer for the plight of a few?

We don’t need to let woman vote and have a right to equal and fair treatment, why do all Americans have to suffer for the plight of a few

There are other ways than following the Progressives like Franklin, Washington, Adams, or Jefferson! We’re Americans, why do we all have to suffer for a few? Jesus! Everyone gets treatment anyway, whether they have the money or not and the great Fairy-Medical-Mother pays for it!

It just keeps getting better doesn’t it?

Do you think if someone explained that the ‘charity’ and the ‘medicaid’ might only kick in when the disease has reached catastrophic levels  and had the person had coverage before it got that bad, it might have only cost the tax payers and charity houses a few hundred dollars instead of a few million, they’d understand?

Yeah, I don’t think so either.

That floozy-trash was Natoma’s sister. John Boehner was right though, the GOP is doing everything they can to stop health reform.

I don’t know about you, but after reading the stirrings from the FoxNewies- GOP sycophants I feel unclean. More than that though, I feel frightened that one day a candidate that holds these peoples beliefs as his/her own could one day rule this country. God help us when that day comes.

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JohnD from  www.armedrobbery.blogspot.com/ left this comment on my blog the other day..

Interesting post, EKG. It’s nice to see the left has found a new target for its vitriol now that George W. Bush is out of the picture.

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

-Eric Hoffer, THE TRUE BELIEVER (1951)

I’m sure Palin-bashing is a pleasant distraction from President Obama’s serial failures. At the very least, hatred for her has provided the faithful with a rallying point.

I ignored his glossing over of President Obama being a target of vitriol himself and  asked him to enumerate Obama’s ’serial failures’.  His reply was

Failure to get his health care bill and Waxman/Markey passed, even with total Democratic control of Congress; extraordinarily high unemployment rates; a rapidly rising deficit (over and above what was “inherited”); failure to close Guantanamo; take your pick. You can throw in failure to secure the Olympics for Chicago and declining poll numbers too.

as I started to answer him, I realized that these questions and answers deserve more space than the comments section of another blog-post. So I decided to answer them here….

First off, John.. I don’t know you. I don’t know if you are an extreme right winger, I don’t know if you are unbend-able in your opinions, I don’t know if you tow the party line no matter where it takes you. I know you are a friend of Mike’s, but I don’t know if you are as obstinately against looking at things from another perspective as he is or not. Because of this… uncertainty, I am answering with the assumption that you can see a different way of viewing things if shown, or explained.. I’m assuming that you are moderate and not hard-extreme like Mike.

No one likes to be blamed and no one likes their party to be blamed… but no one likes the other party to actually be at fault and share none of the blame and instead pile it all on one side. Of course I am going to place blame with the GOP on many issues, what I will wait to see from your reply to this is if you can see why I would blame them.. maybe not that you agree that they are to blame for alot of it, but maybe..hopefully.. you will admit that they do share, alot, in what is going on today. This is not a ‘well he did it first’ kind of blame. I believe I am laying out a valid argument. I hope to get more than “well you did it first” or the condescending  “LOL” and  “eyerolls” from you in your reply.

Now, on with the blog.

I agree with you John, it is Obama’s failure that Health reform has stagnated. He took it on faith that when Grassley, Snowe and other (R) said they were willing to work on a bi-partisan  solution,they meant it. The rest of us were hearing Grassley call it a ‘death panel’ and how people should fear Obama’s health reform and how he’d never vote for it when he was home on the weekends, but the ‘bubble’ Obama lives in, the same that all Presidents live in, prevented him from hearing that “weekend, rally the base” talk.

I don’t think it was until Lieberman’s extreme, blatant and almost joyful bragging of this ‘partisan ‘obstruction’ that Obama finally wised up. When Lieberman, who just a few years ago ran on his “medcare for 55″ policy and was saying everywhere he could that this was the only solution he would support…immediately turned against it because, as he  said,  ‘well since liberals like my plan, I’m against it now’,  I think the President started seeing what he was up against, and what he was up against was illogical and unreasonable opposition. Do you atleast agree that Lieberman’s flip on his own idea and the reason he gave, prove this illogical and unreasonable position?

Even if you don’t think it was illogical or unreasonable, how can you fault President Obama for not getting things done in that kind of atmosphere? We aren’t talking about anything rational that can be explained or even expected. Republicans  and that includes Lieberman(I), were turning on their own plans, things they had campaigned on, the second after President Obama said “Hey, you know what.. your way does sound better so let’s include it”

Rising deficit

On Jan. 7, 2009, two weeks before Obama took office, the CBO reported the deficit was projected to be $1.2 trillion

At least  you gave blame to Bush for the 1.2 trillion of it..

The CBO – which provides the official estimates of the budgetary impact of legislation and events such as wars and recessions – cites the housing market collapse and the financial market turmoil as the main culprits for the shortfall. The federal government has tried to combat the crisis by so far committing $7.2 trillion in investments and loans primarily to financial institutions.

The current recession “will probably be the longest and the deepest since World War II,” the CBO said. The economic deterioration since September, which was the last time CBO made deficit projections, is the biggest contributor to a sharp decline in tax revenue projections. The CBO expects tax revenue in 2009 to fall by $166 billion, or 6.6%, from the previous year’s collection.

That revenue decline, in turn, is the biggest reason for the worsening outlook over the next decade, said Diane Lim Rogers, chief economist at the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group. “The revenue effect is huge.”

and Obama does own his own share.. But we know that he does not ‘own’ the entire  problem. Why is it then that he is saddled with it? Where was this outcry of ‘budget deficits’ going back 3 years and more? How is this President Obama’s doing? He added to what was there yes, but what was the alternative when he stepped into the Oval on day one? You and I along with McCain and so so many others, know that had he won, McCain would have had to do the same exact things Obama did and would have had the same exact deficit today.. This really isn’t an Obama issue.. we all know this but since it’s going on under his watch-he gets the blame..Ok fine, but then we do have to put blame on the person who did create it.  No, this isn’t a “he did it so I can to” this is a ‘I really had nothing to do with all of it, so stop blaming it all on me argument and that is based in reality, not GOP partisan amnesia and fantasy.

When Obama stepped into office he had to deal with 2 unpaid wars, unpaid tax cuts, a wall street collapse, a housing market collapse, an infrastructure that had been neglected for 10 years. The Bush budget deficit projections never included the war price, when Obama put it into his, like it should have been done in the 1st place.. it didn’t help his numbers at all, but atleast it was honest. Unlike those who are supposed to give us ‘fair and balanced’ news..

During the April 3 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, on-screen text repeatedly falsely claimed that President Obama’s $3.6 trillion fiscal year 2010 budget is “4x bigger than Bush’s costliest plan.” However, President Bush submitted a $3.1 trillion budget for FY 2009. For FY 2008, Bush submitted a $2.9 trillion budget.

**Link to screen shot**

But Obama deserves the blame for all this hiding, collapse and the unpaid bills that all came due just a few short days before he came into office? Which turned out to be more than anyone.. anyone ever expected as more came to light in the coming days after his inauguration? If you truly feel this blames lays on President Obama’s lap, can you explain how you came to that decision?

High unemployment

Yes.. there is.. but you can’t look at 700,000 jobs lost per month when he got there to 11,000 in December 2009 and call that a failure.. and you can’t look at the numbers we were at, are still at now and expect it to change the next day.. or even the next year, not if you’re also not going to allow a larger stimulus bill/recovery act. So Obama was wrong on his optimism those 1st days that the unemployment numbers wouldn’t rise past a certain level, fine. But is he to blame that the numbers rose to that level or just to blame for not realizing just how bad things were a split second after he got there?

Is it the loss of jobs you blame him for or the bad prediction on jobs lost?

Like it, love it, hate it… when no one else is spending any money… the government has to. For the Government to also stop spending money is a catastrophe on a scale that we’ve never seen before. When no one, banks, businesses,people on the street are spending anything.. the government has to. It has to beg,borrow and yes, steal to spend money in order to get people spending money spending again. McCain,Romney,Huckabee.. Reagan.. all would have had no choice, given the exact same circumstance,  but to do the same. Or they would have watched while the country crumbled into oblivion the way Nero did. The ones like Mike, who argue that no, the government shouldn’t have spent a penny, can’t prove that their way would have been the right way or that we’d be any better off. They can’t prove it because there isn’t a time machine to take us back. So to me this argument is one of pure partisan fantasy. It cannot be proven and yet the GOP swears their way was the correct way. What’s worse is, they make 1/2 the country believe in this unprovable feary-tale. This is where the ‘faith’ and almost ‘religious like’ belief comes into play and it is the cornerstone of a lot of the GOP’s argument..

You can’t prove God doesn’t exist therefore he must be real.

They can’t prove no stimulus or Tarp would have worked better, therefore it must be true.

I call bullshit on both accounts… You want me to believe we shouldn’t have spent the money on the banks and on the recovery act, then prove it to me. Prove to me that not spending it would have worked better, that we would be in a better place, telling me  you are right only because you say so doesn’t work, I am not a believer in your religion I need more proof than that.

By the way, John.. Most of the “YOU” I use are not directed at YOU.. it is a general term used when speaking. I  hope you understand that.

Continuing on..

Failure to secure the Olympics?

Are you kidding? 1/2 the country didn’t want the Olympics

Forty-three percent (43%) of Americans say it’s a bad idea for President Obama to go overseas at this time to help Chicago make its final presentation to the International Olympic Committee

John Boehner blasted the President for trying to get them

“Listen I think it’s a great idea to promote Chicago but he’s the president of the United States, not the mayor of Chicago,” Boehner said. “And the problems we have here at home affect all Americans and that’s where his attention ought to be.”

and every night they were rewarded with their opinions by the likes of the GOP and Fox news telling them how bad it would crush us, how much money it would take, how horrible it would be. How dangerous Chicago is

Yes, Fox news is a factor when they have the massive viewer ratings they have, add them into Rush’s 20 million people a week rating and all of them chiming in on the evil that is the Olympics and why would we get it over a country literally begging to have to it because they want it?

But ok, Obama didn’t get the Olympics… that’s a failure on his part. But is that really something to hold against him? out of everything… is that an issue that truly pisses you off and just sticks in your craw?

Gitmo.

I’ve thought about this. Was Obama the naive one to think he could wave his ‘magic negro’ wand and close Gitmo? Or were we the naive ones to think he could wave his ‘magic negro’ wand and close Gitmo? I think it was both. I think a lot of us listened to his speeches and felt the inspiration and hope in that new era he talked about bringing. I think those of us who didn’t roll our eyes and didn’t decide that election night to do everything we possibly could to make his life hell and oppose everything.. everything he tried, actually believed this was the guy to change Rome back into the days of it’s purity,prosperity,glory and power. We (wrongly) assumed that Washington was also sick on the status quo, that Washington wanted to move on to a better place. That the country didn’t care if it was a Republican or Democrat, man or woman, black or white in office, we just wanted hope and change and not more of the same thing we had had for so long. We were all naive.

President Obama owns the failure to close Gitmo, but he doesn’t have sole ownership. Jesus, trust me I know it’s like a broken record to say the GOP also owns this since they stood in the way and did everything in the power to make sure 1/2 the country was against closing Gitmo and bringing the detainees here..but it is the truth. Through fear mongering and out right lies, GOP congressmen,governors,speakers,pundits went out to their communities , viewers, listeners and said “No way! Not in my yard, these guys are dangerous,these guys can’t be held in our prisons, these guys are super-powers that can only be controlled in Cuba” and we both know, hell we all know this is factually untrue. We are holding terrorists right now on our soil, we are holding terrorist right now in our prisons, we have been holding them for years. We are holding people who are worse! We, as Americans, have some of the most dangerous criminals in the world in our prisons right now. We have brain-eaters,baby-rapers,kidnappers,tortures,sex-slave traffickers ,abusers,bombers,pyromaniacs,serial killers, mass murders.. and we have extremely smart and devious   criminals like Madoff, Abramoff and hunderds of others. But somehow we’re ill equip to incarcerate men who have probably never had running water until they got to our prision camp?

That’s the most bogus of all feary-tales ever told. This idea that America is too weak, too incompetent and unable to imprison anyone is incredulous. If this is your belief, that we are just unable to rise to meet this ‘danger’ can you explain your reasoning to me, explain it without “Because they should be in a military tribunal”

All of this leads to a drop in polls.  You’ve seen the link to the numbers of Fox and just Rush, that doesn’t include Beck and all the other conservative radio. When  they are all, from top to bottom on the same line in the play book, all condemning,ridiculing, mocking, lying,inflating.. all giving out the worst of the wosrt bias,slanted partsian spin.. add that in with an entire section of Congress that doesn’t just stand in the way, but also makes up feary-tales and they believe it, polls are going to decline. How could they not?

And what about that anyway. Isn’t it normal for Presidential numbers to come back down to a reasonable level?

The other day I was reading the comments on a reputable news sources story about this Baradar capture, 75% of them were things like “Well, now that we can’t waterboard the guy the CIA will never get anything out him, Thanks Obama for ruining this country once again!” If the only tool in the CIA arsenal is waterboarding… then we really are fucked. Because it’s the opinion that begs the conclusion that the CIA has always and only water-boarded prisoners to get information and it was just the 2-3 years that they were legally allowed to that the were able to function at full capacity in the light of day. The point I’m making is, somehow people  think that CIA  doesn’t know how to get information from anyone without waterboarding them? Is this not the most insane thing you’ve ever seen? Why is this?Where did they get the idea that this was the only tool the CIA had? If  you can truthfully answer that, they you should be able to understand most, if not all of what it is I’m trying to show you.

Who is to blame for this? Not Obama.. but it is what he must fight against. The problem is you cannot argue with someone with that mindset. Their belief is again, religous like.. and cannot be changed,altered or enlightened.

Finally, I saved the best for last… “even with the democrats in control of congress”.. This is the most used response that I  see for pretty much everything. This idea that just because the Democrats had a filibuster  proof margine and didn’t use and some how it’s their fault is ridiculous . Listen, I’m going to tell you a secret that could get my liberal-card revoked ( )  unlike the GOP, there are different levels of (D). We don’t all think with one brain, we don’t all follow the leader like a flock of birds, that is what makes us ‘liberal’ or the favorite slam of the GOP, ‘radical’ . We think for ourselves and decide accordingly and not according to party/leader doctrine. We are just not that  ‘religious-like’ in our faith and the following of party ‘dogma’. There are Democrats who don’t believe in abortion, there are some like me who believe in the death penalty and guns rights. To condem anyone.. any party  for not just towing the party-line is asinine  and to blindly follow the party-line used to be a bad thing.. but today, with the entire GOP saying “You can’t even get your party to all vote the same way and use that fillibuster proof majority” is so exquisitely  sad, but still not as sad  wanting and forcing any one party to act that way. I just can’t believe anyone, anywhere would want and encourage people to just blindly vote all (D) or all (R) depending on their party and then ridcule and condem anyone when they didn’t.

Besides any of that, this isn’t a one party system, the other side is supposed to help govern also!

This excuse…“Hey, you guys control congress.. it’s not our fault” and those using it are right though, the problem is the next thing they say to their audience,readers,constituents… and the next thing is invariably

“The Democrats need to listen to the country and work bi-partisanly”

In one hand there is a dare to use the majority, in the other.. a crying to all who will listen that if we don’t do something…have rallies, write letters, send in campaign money.. the Democrats will use their majority. It’s insane! They are literally damned  for not using it by the GOP and some of their own and damned  if the think about using it.

So John, what would you have them do? Which ‘evil’ do the Democrats pick?  Do they follow in the last administrations path and issue Executive Orders, recess appointements, signing statements and push through everything the President says to push through no matter the consequence and just hope that the GOP won’t cry about it too much? Do they forget their own values and beliefs and just vote (D) all the way down the ballot like the GOP does and is encouraging, or really, daring them to do? What is your solution to this? When one party refuses to even come to the table don’t they force the other party to act as a single mind? Force the other party to do it all on their own, with their own philosophies?

Maybe the GOP is comfortable using a single-mind, but this is not and has never been the “Democratic” (party or poltical system.) way..

The GOP has blanketed the world with this falsehood that they want bi-partsanship on every issue, and yet just last week when invited to a health care summit, an ‘exachange of ideas’.. quite a few high ranking GOP’ers said they might be willing to come to the table…. just come to the table now, not vote a certain way or concede a certain point,  but they might show up to the President’s bipartisan effort for health reform meeting but only if the  Democrats dropped their health reform idea and adopted the GOP version. Eric Cantor flat out said that the “only way to bipartisan cooperation is if the Democrats fully embrace the GOP plan!” What? How is that bipartisan? How is that anything other than a great big “Screw you, It’s my way or no way and that’s the only bipartisan I agree with.. do it yourself if you don’t like it! Just remember I will blame you for doing it yourself if you do”

You cannot, as the losing party give that kind of demand.. that kind of close-fist demand.. and then claim you are the bipartisan party, yet they do, and no one calls them on it.  So I ask you once again, is this really an OBama failure and where is any ire at the party that is actually holding bipartsianship hostage?

To me President Obama failures are..

He has moved away from a public option. He promised me a public option and I believed him. He has let the message on this and so many other issues get away from him. He had the advantage and he expected to find ‘Statesmen’  and ‘Adults’ in congress who wouldn’t bastardize everything they could to score a political point and while he’s finally decided to come out swingng and get the truth out.. he’s wasted vaulable time and his ‘capitol’ in the interim.

I see it as a failure that he is still giving contracts to the likes of Blackwater and doing it even though we know they are the evil of all evil. Why do we need to privately fund any war with a bunch of mercenaries? Why do we need them for private security? Why can’t we use the money and build up our military and pay our troops more? Atleast they have rules,laws and codes they must follow. Blackwater and the likes do things with our money and in our names that I do not think the majoirty of us want done in our name. I do not agree at all with their continued government funding. Bring the military back to do the jobs in our name with the honor and integrity that they will bring with them.

I see President  Obama’s lack of authority with Wall Street as another failure. He needs to force those CEO’s to either get their sweet-ass to the proverbial ‘come to Jesus’ meeting.. or risk immediate stripping of the ‘handout, even if that means selling off part of the company to get back the money given to them. I don’t know who these people think they are, but when the President of the United States tells you to come to a meeting.. your sorry ‘hand-out-taking’ ass better get there before the ink is dry on the invitations. I don’t care if it was ‘foggy’ or not, take the damn train.

I don’t care about GOP crying that “OBama hates capitalism .. Obama is an enemy to buisness” because it’s  a load of crap, what we had leading up to this meltdown was not capitalism .. it was rape pure and simple. It’s time Obama starts acting like the President he is and do something about these guys.

And finally.. He has failed at installing a new way of doing it, he has failed at starting a new era of bi-partsianship.  He hasn’t failed for the lack of trying, he’s failed for the lack of realism. He believed he could change the climate of hate that is the US congress. Not a single congressman from either house or either party can say or do anything without checking a poll 1st. They are not there to govern like Obama is, they are there for the power and the paycheck. It is President Obama’s failure to not see this that irks me the most. It is his failure to not see that, no matter which way he goes the entire Right side will be against him as proven time and time again, even by adopting their own policies.. they will go against him. They will and have cut off their noses to spite their face.

President Obama is already lambasted as a socialist even when he’s cut taxes and wasn’t the one to create the largest ’socialist program’ in a generation or more. Well,  if they are going to call him one anyway, then why not use that and go more radical on his ideas. We just proved a lot of the country is pro-radical change, even our supreme court is. So it is a failure on Obama’s part not to use the gift he’s been given by the Right. He will be slaughtered and lied about by them no matter what he does.. so he might as well do as he wants.

John, thank you for your comments.. I hope I have addressed them in a way that maybe didn’t change your mind.. but atleast gave you a different point of view and a way to look at it

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President Obama, you were not given the Oval office and the Congress solely for the purpose of trying to appease or make friends with the party that shut out an entire political section of the country for 8 years. It’s time to start acting like the majority elected you to act.

Yes we can!

You were elected and given the keys to your success because you promised us change during your campaign. You were given a friendly congress because we knew the losing party would do everything in their power to discredit and demonize you. To prevent the loss of any political capital, you were given massive support, money, votes and Congress… so what are you waiting for? Use the tools you’ve been given already! You have tried and failed at extending your hand across the aisle and now it is time to give them the finger. This failure, like the disastrous condition of every aspect of the government, foreign and domestic, is not your fault. You were given a ‘Handy-man’s special’ and while you’ve made some improvement just by being there, you have a long way to go before this country is back up to ‘code’

Mr. Obama, you expected to come into Washington and work with adults, only to find nothing but spoiled children running through the aisles.  Every day you spend trying to bring your opponents into your circle, they are spending theirs  eating your political capital  like a fat girl eating chocolate flavored bacon-bits.

Change you can believe in!

Had the Holocaust Museum shooter been Muslim, your presidency would have been over. You would have not only been the country’s 1st black president, but after weeks of allowing Dick Cheney to call you every form of dangerous and venting about  your lack in the ability to keep us safe, you would have become the country’s fastest Lame Duck President ever.You have let this kind of abuse go on for too long and now you are seeing a drop in your poll numbers.

I understand your strategy of letting them become the party of “NO”. I understand that the more ‘right’ they go the more ‘centered’  you look and the more Independent voters you pick up.  But what I don’t understand is this need for all ‘political correctness’( so to speak) in the face of such outrageousness.

“It may include groups and individuals

that are dedicated to a single-issue,

such as opposition to abortion or immigration,”

the warning says.”

A few weeks ago your Head of Homeland Security had to  apologize for a report that said ‘right-wing extremists’ were on the rise and their chatter was reaching higher levels.   The GOP went apoplectic in its anger over such extreme “Liberal MSM-type” spin and accusations. Even some Democrats screamed about being ‘dumbfounded’ by this report. Michael Steele of the R.N.C told Fox news

“This is the height of insult here,I mean to segment out Americans who dissent from this administration, to segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration, and labeling them as terrorists and then to call into question the service of the men and women who are right now standing on that wall defending our freedom and linking them to terrorism while you refuse to call the terrorists — the real terrorists — terrorists, to me it’s the height of insult.”

In the height of irony, not “insults” as Mr. Steele put it, this report that the GOP went into seizures over, warned  that

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority

Since that report and the GOP’s temper tantrum over it, we’ve seen not one, but  two atrocious acts that we were warned about. While the party of “NO” has a record in ignoring threats and warnings when given to them,  that doesn’t mean you, Mr. President, should have your people apologize to them for being right.

Doctor Tiller was murdered in a sanctuary, his place of worship by exactly the person the report warned against. A week later, James Von Brunn, who was a Navy officer during World War II and after leaving his notebook with a list of places he planned to hit and a statement saying “You want my weapons – this is how you’ll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews,” decided to shoot anyone in his way.

I know saying “We told you so” is not the politically savy thing to do, but had Mr. Brunn been of Arab decent, how fast do  you think Dick Cheney would have been on Fox news saying exactly that?

Misters Brunn and Roeder, Dr. Tiller’s murderer, are not the first extremists to meltdown since you took took office. As I’ve blogged about before, another unstable radical believed in the same insane,violent and dangerous rhetoric of the Right when they said you were going take  away his guns. So he went out and murdered 3 police officers.

“Friends said 23 year-old Richard Poplawski feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.”

Mr. President, it’s time to put an end to this trying to reach across the aisle.  As PAUL KRUGMAN of the New York times says; There is an ‘upsurge of right-wing extremism’ that is being “fed by the conservative media and political establishment.” Your ideal world in which Republican and Democrats can live in harmony is a wishful Utopia that will not exist until a generation has passed from the extreme partisanship the Bush Administration spread throughout this country.

There are some of course, like Shep Smith on the FNC channel, who see this hate and are fearful of the level in which it is being amped up to.

But just as fast as he can bring attention to this hate and anger, others paint over it by saying Smith is ‘”whining and moaning and complaining about emails”, while making it about themself and in then  justifing  the hate they and others  spread throughout this country. You cannot reach out to these types of people. Their motives are clear, with blood on their hands from their ‘hate speech’ they only speak louder,harder, angrier. They put their hands up and say “Wasn’t me” like they haven’t been the one rattling the cages of most extreme of their extremists. They are spoiled and dangerous children who cannot be appeased by rational thought and/or actions. These are not the moderate GOP persons you want in your circle. Even those people see what is being done and are appalled by it, but they cannot stop it because they understand this ‘hate’ will spread to them next.

“If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican,

I’d go with Rush Limbaugh.

I admire your tenacity in continuously  trying  to bridge the partisan gap in the face of such mounting and dangerous rhetoric, but there comes a time when it’s OK to use the popularity you’ve been given. You promised change, you have been given all the tools necessary to bring about this change, you do not need 100% cooperation when 51% wins the race. We who you convinced to  stand behind you, who believed in you and voted for you are still standing here waiting to support you. We are waiting for you to remember what you promised us…. Yes we can Mr. President… Yes we can.

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