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?
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.
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-partymembers 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.
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.
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.
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!”
“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.
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
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,
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.
“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.
I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. It’s not that I would call the person telling me about it a liar, but I would assume they were mistaken. Lil Mike and I have had many disagreements but up until the last few months he’s always been a relatively rational person. So even when I was told about this remark he made on the MucheDumbre forum, I still didn’t believe it because even he isn’t that… backwards.
I was… wrong.
I know that Mike doesn’t speak for all Republicans, but he does tow whatever current talking point the rest of them are towing religiously. Even still, the other day when I 1st saw this theory in the comments section on a leftie blog reporting the news, I didn’t give it much thought because what intelligent,logical, and rational person would actually come out and say that since it wasn’t on TV, they just wouldn’t believe it? I mean the news told me it was windy outside, but they didn’t show me video.. so I’m going to call shenanigans! Jesus didn’t walk the earth because there is no video to prove it! Dinosaurs never existed because no one caught one on film. You see why this is such a retarded concept?
Now, I am not just addressing Mike in this post even though I am using a lot of singular pronouns, I’m not just talking to him.. (yes, Mike forces me to make this disclaimer now when addressing him)
Lil MIke
I’ve waited a couple of days to comment on this because I wanted to see what evidence turned up on, but so far, nothing.
So in the matter of Rep. Cleaver being spit on, I call shennanigans.
In the matter of Rep. Lewis being called the “N” word, I again call shennanigans.
I’ve scoured YouTube and I’ve seen various news coverage of the walk between buildings in question, and I didn’t hear anyone use that language. The walk was so heavily filmed by so many sources that it strains incredulity that not a single flip or phone camera didn’t catch it, let alone the network news cameras that filmed it. Rep. Jackson actually filmed it with his flip camera, so where is his footage? And no witnesses. Maybe Jackson has it on his flip and is just waiting for the right time to release it, but until then, it sounds like a political trick.
In the matter of Rep. Frank being called a faggot, there seems to be enough witnesses to confirm it, so even though there is no footage of it, I buy the story.
Interestingly though, several people near the person who called him that called him out on it. So that’s positive.
Since you didn’t see it on the ‘telegraph with moving picture-box’.. it can’t be true?
In my best Bill Maher.. “Really?
Of course it’s shenanigans that someone would call black man “nigger” in this country. No one would ever do such a thing, of course they’d call a homosexual a “faggot”, but those kind of people draw the line when it comes to using the ‘n’ word..
Is this how far you’ll stoop to ignore reality? You now have to see it on the picture box..?
Your reality must be interesting if you need the television to prove things to you. As for the spitting that you ‘ scoured YouTube’ for… it took about 15 seconds to find..
The incident shenanigan is at about 1:20.. you can see his head jerk back, you can see him swat his hand and after he walks away you can see him wiping his face some more. Now I know, John Madden isn’t there to show you a frame by frame but…
wait, what am I thinking, you don’t watch videos that are posted do you?
I know, you don’t believe it unless it’s on TV, but you and your people have lost their fucking minds
Really? Browning can stop it? Well we know who Palin is talking to with her tweet don’t we?
and her map of targets.. ya know the one with the cross-hairs
Means nothing.
Hopefully someone gets the assassination on video so you can watch the TV and see it for yourself since that’s what you base your beliefs on now.
Hey, don’t worry the GOP is right there egging it all on with “don’t tread on me’ banners draped off the balcony of the House.. They’re right there in the loop of all of this, I’m sure you oozing pride aren’t you? One can only assume that you and they have you fingers crossed that Palin’s target finds it mark.
Of course you hope it’s not caught on camera so you can deny it too..
”
Feet from the Capitol, protesters roar when GOP members fly a "Don't Tread on Me" flag from the House balcony"
I know that this next incident wasn’t on television, so it must be made up too.
One vulnerable Democrat in the post-health care reform era is Representative Tom Perriello (D-Va.), whose support for reform has brought him continual criticism. This week, one self-styled “Tea Party organizer” posted what he thought was Perriello’s home address, encouraging people to harass the lawmaker at home. The address ended up being the home of Perriello’s brother’s family, but the activist, Mike Troxel, took it in stride, saying, “I was a journalism major in college, so I have every reason to believe my research is accurate.” Laugh if you want, but this is precisely how the “journalism” works, circa 2010. This isn’t the first time Perriello critics have struggled with geography: back in December, Tea Partiers got all bent out of shape when they discovered that Perriello’s Charlotteville office wasn’t conveniently located in a way that facilitated their whining.
Since there wasn’t an explosion, it must be fake..
and the Stupak threats?
“Congressman Stupak, you baby-killing mother fucker… I hope you bleed out your ass, got cancer and die, you mother fucker,”
and
“There are millions of people across the country who wish you ill,and all of those thoughts that are projected on you will materialize into something that’s not very good for you.
But sadly, since it wasn’t a video tape on youtube it was probably just Stupak calling himself. By the way, what is the GOP’s fascination with male asses?
Nevermind.
Hell, this doesn’t mean anything either
and since a militia leader called for broken windows..
And on Monday, a former Alabama militia leader took credit for instigating the actions.
and got them, that tweet above should just be ignored because really, who would listen to such a thing? Sir-Han Sir-Han only listened to voices in his head, and Hinkley only did it to make Jodi Foster see him..
I mean really..
who would listen to such a thing?
I guess when the tea baggers meet in Washington on such an innocuous day as April 19 for their BRING YOUR GUNS rally it doesn’t mean anything,because that date doesn’t mean anything and they’re just bringing their loaded guns. It’s not like the anger we see in the spitting video will still be boiling. It’s not like any of the examples in this blog would ever egg someone on..
Of course you’ll just ignore it no matter what.. But let’s just hope the secret service doesn’t
19 April 2010:
Bring Your Sidearms and Longarms
To The Banks of the Potomac Pistol loaded,
openly carried. Rifle unloaded, slung to rear.
Bandoleer of magazines containing ammo.
We know the GOP would have allowed an armed protest of the war right? Especially an armed protest after all the death threats and assignations promises that you’ve decided are shenanigans and will just ignore..
I don’t really know who you are anymore, then again, maybe I never did. You keep saying you’ve never changed and are the same person you have always been, maybe I just never saw how reactionary and dangerously flippant you are until now.
Have you ever wondered what kind of people Republicans are ? I have often wondered what makes them so different from a liberal Democrat. I have especially wondered how some people, notably the gays , can fall in line with a party that doesn’t believe they have the right to exist. To me it’s like a black man joining the KKK, of course the KKK will take his money and take his vote if it furthers their agenda.. but they also want him wiped from existence in their world and would gladly do such a thing if they could.
Those kinds of questions are probably left to a psychiatrist couch. They probably have something to do with a need, going back to high school, to be accepted by what they perceive to be the ‘cool kids’. Why those who are fiscally conservative (and that’s the only reason they are a Republican) can’t just be a Blue-Dog Democrat is beyond me. So those are questions that just have to remain unanswered. The one we can now answer though is more general, more encompassing.
What kind of people are Republicans and what kind of people donate to Republicans? Well, thanks to the Republican National Committee…we have a list.
stef's diary :: :: Daily Kos
They are people driven by fear, they have extreme negative feelings, hate if you will, against the administration, they are weak and cave into peer pressure, they are brown-nosers who want access, they are ego-driven and most of all they are reactionary.
Ouch. I don’t care who you are, that has to hurt. Then again, most Republicans are probably so ego-driven that they don’t realize that they are in this list, to them this is a list of those ‘other’ Republicans.
I’d ask Mike where he fell in this list that his party has said he is a part of, but he’s so far into the kool-aid that even hearing what his religious leaders really think of him doesn’t matter. Even though this is what his own party thinks of him and the other members, he, like the others who are either driven by.. well pick something from the list.. to turn their backs… Thou shalt have no other God beside the GOP and all.
On a happier note, we know what will be the issues for the coming up elections. Fear and we even know what kind.
stef's diary :: :: Daily Kos
and we got a sneak peek at the signs we can look forward to.
stef's diary :: :: Daily Kos
Fear of Socialism, huh.. that’s original
What’s sad is that there isn’t a single policy issue in the 72 pages of motivational material laid out by the RNC. But even that is not as sad as not a single Republican noticing that. They are running on hate, peer pressure and reactionary impulses of the easily frightened, what do they need policy for?
The worst part of all is a party that thinks this of it’s members. Why would anyone stand with a group that thinks so little and so negatively of it’s own people?
While others are probably enjoying this issue for their own reasons, I find it insulting and frankly unconscionable, but after seeing everything we have seen since a black man took office.. I can’t deny that in many case the Republicans nailed it. That doesn’t mean I think all of their donors and supporters are like this, not like they obviously do, but you can’t watch Hannity or Beck, listen to Rush or Beck.. support Palin or Bachman and not have a few of those things on the RNC list in your make up. The fact that this kind of ‘Faux news’ and ‘rhetoric’ is so popular only shows the amount of reactionary, ego-driven, easily scared people that have become a part of the Republican party.
One thing is for sure, those must be some damn nice “tchochkes” they give out to donors to make people ignore what their party thinks of them.
“Rob Bickhart, the Republican National Committee official behind the embarrassing fundraising presentation reported this week by POLITICO, has been paid at least $370,000 since last June by the RNC in salary and consulting fees
wow..he “makes more than the President of the United States” and as if that wasn’t enough..
Between Bickhart’s salary – he is on pace to earn a little more than $196,000 annually – and his consulting fees – which tallied $240,000 in the second half of last year alone – it appears Bickhart could receive north of $500,000 per year from the RNC
That’s a lot of money given to someone who was only able to come up with a ‘fear’ campaign geared towards the ego-driven, reactionaries.
Here’s a question, I expect Mike and some other Republucans to believe him, but do we really believe that Michael Steele didn’t know how his very own “finance director” was planning to “urge top donors and fundraisers to use “fear” of President Barack Obama to raise cash”? Whilelabeling party-members that way? Isn’t one of Steele’s job fundraiser? If so, would he really not know how the RNC was going to do that? I don’t know that I buy that.
Not that Steele will lose his job, they need him as the scapegoat if they don’t take back the House and Senate like they have predicted. I do wonder how being labeled these horrible things by their own party will affect fund-raising and thus their ability to finance the type of “fear” campaigns they plan on running.
“It’s clear that the American people want health insurance reform. They aren’t interested in Democratic ideas or Republican ideas. They’re interested in the best ideas to reduce costs, guarantee choices and ensure the highest quality care.
They’re interested in ideas that will put them back in control of their own health care.
Throughout the debate on health insurance reform, Republican concepts and proposals have been included in legislation. In fact, hundreds of Republican amendments were adopted during the committee mark-up process. As a result, both the Senate and the House passed key Republican proposals that are incorporated into the President’s Proposal.”
“Of the 788 amendments filed,67 came from Democrats and 721 from Republicans. (That disparity drew jeers that Republicans were trying to slow things down. Another explanation may be that they offered so many so they could later claim—as they are now, in fact, claiming—that most of their suggestions went unheeded.) Only 197 amendments were passed in the end—36 from Democrats and 161 from Republicans. And of those 161 GOP amendments, Senate Republicans classify 29 as substantive and 132 as technical.”
of course they still voted no..
Why is the only way to bipartisan cooperation is if the Democrats fully embrace the GOP plan? Shouldn’t the losing party be happy to get a seat at the table.. a seat that gives them almost half of everything they want? Is a bill with 49% (R) input and 51%(D) input not bipartisan enough when the country elected the (D) to decide the majority?
I simply don’t get how the GOP can get away with lying that there’s been no effort to include them. But,even more than that, I can’t understand this demand that they should have their way in total if the country is to see any bipartisanship come out of congress. Is it the prefix ‘Bi’ that throws them? Do they think if they do anything ‘Bi” then they are supporting the homo’s? (disclosure, I love the ‘mo’s.. and this one will back me up on that).
What?
Can you come up with a better reason why the GOP is so anti ‘BI-partisanship” even going so far as to deny it exists when the bipartisan components are so flamboyantly displayed?
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”
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.
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.
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
“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
Washington (CNN) — Senior Obama administration officials revealed late Tuesday they’ve secretly gained the cooperation of family members of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to help get the Christmas Day airline bomb suspect talking.
The cooperation effort has led to actionable intelligence that could help prevent terror attempts on U.S. soil, the senior officials said.
No torture, no waterboard,no stress positions,no violation of human rights or our own laws… and he’s actually talking and without a military tribunal to boot!
The senior administration officials said that since AbdulMutallab began talking to investigation again last week, he has been cooperating on a daily basis. The officials added the information gained from the interrogations has been disseminated throughout the intelligence community.
One of the senior Obama officials, who bluntly said the Republican attacks have “frustrated the hell out of me,” asserted that gaining the trust of the family was the best way to handle the case and helped the administration gain valuable intelligence from the suspect, who is believed to have ties to an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.
“It could be used to disrupt other attacks,” one of the senior Obama officials said of the intelligence gleaned from AbdulMutallab in the interrogations, who added the president has been getting regular updates on what the suspect has been revealing.
The Republican response so far is to complain that President Obama has wasted these 6 weeks, but let’s have some truth for once shall we…
The operations, approved by President Obama and begun six weeks ago, involve several dozen troops from the U.S. military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. The American advisers do not take part in raids in Yemen, but help plan missions, develop tactics and provide weapons and munitions. Highly sensitive intelligence is being shared with the Yemeni forces, including electronic and video surveillance, as well as three-dimensional terrain maps and detailed analysis of the al-Qaeda network.
I know some were worried about AbdulMutallab being mirandized and like John McCain, were trying to attack for Eric Holder for his decision and I guess prosecute him for treason(ok, not the treason part-or are they) but it looks like they can put those feary-tales to bed.
“It is also my understanding that Mr. Abdulmutallab has provided valuable information. Is that correct?” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein asked.
Now this is something I also found to be of interest
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, politicians and the courts have wrangled with the thorny question of how to treat suspected terrorists. The Supreme Court has not weighed in on whether the government has the right to hold a civilian as a military prisoner, and both times it appeared the court would get the chance to decide, President George W. Bush opted instead to bring the cases in civilian criminal courts
George Bush was hard on terror; he, Dick Cheney and those like them are the only ones who can keep us safe. President Obama, following their plan makes us look weak to our enemies though and thus makes us more vulnerable to attacks. How does that work?
The fact is we have a 100% success rate in trying terrorists in civilian court and as far as I know the only ones walking around and back to their old tricks, are walking around because Dick Cheney releasedthem! We’ve killed or captured more terrorist leaders under Obama’s 1st year than we did in the last year of Bush. We’ve had more ‘drone-launched missile strikes’ in President Obama’s 1st year than in Bush’s last 3 years. We are spending more money to “expand secretive Special Operations units, deploy more unmanned aerial drones” , but somehow it’s not good enough because President OBama doesn’t torture, because he doesn’t throw everyone into a military tribunal, because he treats people as the laws this country was founded on tell him to treat people, so he is still weak on terrorism. If anything, the increased drones attacks,increased terrorist casualties, successful interrogation of a terrorist should prove that not only is he not weak on terrorism, but that he’s doing something pretty right.
Alas… like the elusive Osama Bin Laden tape that surfaces only after some major event has happened, I expect a carefully worded press release from the most elusive of all creatures, Dick Cheney. Fox news and the conservative blogosphere need something to come after Mr. Obama on since he ate them for lunch at the GOP retreat last week, coupled with this new information on the lack of torturing actually working and Cheney is probably being roused from his slumber now.
I don’t expect anyone from the right to commend the President for a job well done,that would be ridiculous and let’s face it, the halfhearted attempt would come out more condescending than anything else. The GOP for all it’s glory has painted themselves into a corner. In their quest to dismiss this President, they have painted him as a weak, incompetent, unintelligent, lying, dangerous,socialistic,Nazi-like, thief looking to steal your money to give it to the poor and your guns to give them to the Muslims. I’m sure there is something to nit-pick about and if not, they can take a page out of a GOP strategists memo and just lie, but I thought this was a pretty good job of getting the guy to talk without having to drown him 1st.
Freshman Republican Lynn Jenkins said: “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope. I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.”
She then went on to name a fistful of white Republicans. I mean.. really?
Today,I came across a blog and while I agree that what Congresswoman Jenkins said is no great crime I disagree with the bloggers reason and that of the Congresswoman on why it’s not a big deal.
Ms Tucker cuts the Congresswoman some slack because she doesn’t believe the Congresswoman understood the racial undertones of the phrase. This is also the Congresswoman’s excuse, she didn’t know what she was saying and what it meant.
I agree with this, I do not think Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins knew about the black heavy weight boxer from the early part of the 1900’s named Jack Johnson who was unstoppable, and thus had boxing enthusiasts looking for the “Great White Hope” to beat him. There is no doubt in my mind that this congresswoman was oblivious to the origin of reference she was quoting. But you can’t tell me she didn’t know what she was saying,if only because she used it correctly. No, she didn’t know the origin of the phrase, but that doesn’t excuse what she said.
I do not believe she just chose her words wrong. Because in order for me to believe that.. I would have to believe that Congresswoman Jenkins didn’t realize that the President was black when she was saying the Republicans need a “White” Hope to beat him.. It’s possible she didn’t know I guess, maybe they don’t get the news out there in Kansas?
Regardless, it really isn’t a crime and just like we let off Mayor Dean Grose off the hook for his email because there was no great crime there either.. (he.. uh.. he didn’t know that picture of a watermelon patch outside the White House could be seen as racist.. because he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people liked watermelons) … we will let Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins off the hook. We will give her, Mayor Grose, the Tennessee Republican legislative aidewho sent the email of all the President’s pictures with President Obama’s just a black box and some eyes, to the ‘wrong people’ (we won’t ask her who the ‘right’ people were) and even the GOP activist and former chairman of his state’s elections commission, Rusty DePass who said when he heard there was a gorilla on the loose that it was probably one of Michelle Obama’s ancestors … we will give them all the benefit of the doubt that they aren’t really racist for what they said or did. No, they’re not racists.. they’re just fucking idiots and that’s why it’s no great crime. We can’t control the idiots in our society, if we could Glenn Beck would be living on a retard farm weaving baskets instead of infecting other idiots with his stupidity. Stupid isn’t illegal (there’s a Sara Palin joke in there somewhere) so the only thing we can do is let them feel our stare, our stare that says.. “You know what you meant,and more importantly we know what you meant. But instead of getting to actually stand behind it, now we’re going to make you prove you’re a fucking idiot by saying … ‘I didn’t know’ and then we’re going to laugh at how stupid you really are.”
sorry, 900 billion… like any of us really know the difference…
So, is Obama simply repeating the mistakes of Bush II by selling important things to the American people with fear?
fear here, fear now.. we must stop it.
Well, we must stop it when it is President Obama doing the mongering, when it is a Democrat’s agenda, when it is an issue that 70% of the country’s population want.
We are being led to believe that the ‘fear’ the President it ‘mongering’ on the rise of insurance prices, the crippling effect that the uninsured have on the medical system, and the eventual crash of medicare/medicaid is just fanciful and over-the-top unnecessary rhetoric. But this isn’t about the country, this isn’t about helping the 70% majority get what they are begging for,the Republican’s only goal here is to stop Obama by ending his hope of healthcare for everyone. The idea behind stopping the healthcare reform the President is asking for is that it will bring his popularity down enough for Republicans to hope for a chance to win a majority of congressional elections is 2010. This isn’t about you or me to the Republicans, this is about beating Obama and winning congressional seats. Just ask Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). He isn’t afraid to admit the Republican agenda.
“When you tell people that the mortality rate in Canada is 25% higher for breast cancer, 18% higher for prostate cancer, you know, they say why in the world would we emulate a system like that?”
Of course they are telling them a lie, because that is not the system we are trying to emulate.. but what good is a little truth when your goal is fear. Why bother with the truth when the the mortality rate for mortality is 3% higher in the United States than Canada? Because then, you lose your argument all together.
This idea of pretending that our healthcare system would suffer or the bonus-cuts the poor and destitute health insurance CEO’s would have to endure are not the issue, is ridiculous. The issue is to do what it takes to win at all costs.
“I just hope the President keeps talking about it, keeps trying to rush it through. We can stall it. And that’s going to be a huge gain for those of us who want to turn this thing over in the 2010 election.”-Sen. James Inhofe
The majority of us who support a public plan and are willing to pay for it, are sadly not as important as those who donate millions to coffers of our elected officials both Democrat and Republican. Oddly enough, the ones taking the most money from Phamra and Big Insurance are the one blocking reform by calling for bi-partisanship. Which in this case means a bill so watered down and useless that it will do more harm than good. And yet to call them on this, to explain the immediate need for reform, to try and give a democracy what it’s demanding.. is to be out there ‘fear mongering’ and scaring the public and this just isn’t to be born!
We had to wire-tap our own citizens for fear that the terrorists were making covert plans over the wires.
We had to torture subjects who were captured for fear that they might know something. In order to do that though, we had to change the wording of strict Geneva convention guidelines to change these POW’s into ‘enemy combatant’ for fear that the laws may protect them.
We had to detain combatants in secret holding facilities all over the world for fear that they would escape or worse, join together and become a ’super-terrorist cell’.
We could not try these combatants in our own courts on our own soil for fear that they would get off and be released into the population and begin collaborating with one another on another attack.
We could not house these combatants in our own maximum security prison system for fear that they may do what no one else has done, and escape.. or for fear that they would join in with the other extremely dangerous inmates housed with them and created new terrorists networks.
We were even told to vote for the Republicans because they tried to make us fear that they were the only one capable of keeping us safe in these uncertain times.
It’s telling that when these issue were brought up and the fear mongering was pointed at as an unnecessary tactic, he reply from the same people complaining about the supposed fear mongering President Obama is spreading, was
“So the Prez tells you stuff that you don’t like and don’t want to hear, and for his trouble of actually treating you like an adult and not sugar coating it, you call it “fear mongering.”
or
It’s legitimate and warrants some extra consideration.“
That’s almost as “fair” as the people deciding the fate of the health reform being recipients of millions of dollars from the insurance companies… but not quite.
The scary idea that some Republicans are trying to make into some kind of truth, that once this reform is enacted, our elderly will be put out to pasture, is some of the most ridiculous and preposterous yet to be voiced in this debate. In country where a doctor is criminally punished for aiding terminal patients with only hours to live in excruciating pain, it’s asinine to believe that we would all of a sudden kill off an entire segment of our population. But fear is what the Republicans peddle to get their way, even if their way goes against what 72% of the population and 50% of their constituents are asking for.
The scariest part of all.. is that we and the Democrats in Congress will let them get away with it.
The only thing there is to fear here is the money Republicans and some Democrats will lose from the Health sector if they don’t get out and pimp for them now.
Oh…and to the Republicans who complain that bureaucrats should not be involved in the decisions between a doctor and patient, first I ask, is the 17 year old high school student working after school and weekends at the insurance call center denying the care your physician is asking for now, doing that job any better?.. and then I say to those crying a whoa is me over politicians not being a deciding factor in the doctor/patient conversation.. Thank You for joining the ‘Pro-choice’ movement, the ‘Pro-medicinal marijuana’ movement and the ‘pro-assisted suicide’ movement, can we count on your support in 2010?
This whole Sarah Palin thing irks the hell out of me and not for the reasons you would think. All of a sudden I find myself feeling sorry for her and the attention paid to her over the last few months and it bothers the hell of out of me to feel sorry for the woman…
I do not blame the MSM or Dave Letterman though for the attention paid to her though… I blame Bush..
huh?
oops, sorry.. after 8 years it’s just a force of habit!
But seriously, I blame John McCain and Sarah Palin’s hubris.
I cannot for the life of me fathom the thought process that went through John McCain’s heads and ended up producing the statement “I choose Sarah Palin as my Vice Presidential running mate”… and the thoughts that must have gone through his head saying “..and no body will question who she is, where she comes from,her political history,her family dirt,her sanity..or mine, because she just so darn pretty”
On what planet did either of them really think an absolute 100% no name… could run, with an amazing chance at success at becoming the 1st woman Vice President.. and not a single person in the world wouldn’t say.. “Hey, who’s the new girl?”
Mike was right when he said“The amount of poor and incorrect information on this woman is frankly incredible.” Of course he’s talking about me, Howie and the MSM for this.. but it was not us who thrust this already, damaged flower onto the open market and demanded that she be accepted as leader of our country in the event of a Presidential disaster all because she and John McCain said so. As if that wasn’t enough, then she opened her mouth and we truly had reasons to fear.
But, were we ‘unfair’ to her.. or were her expectation of unconditional acceptance to blame for the eventual melt-down. .. yeah, I don’t care what planet your from.. No one term govenor of an extremely large state, who ran for VP and almost won, can decide to quit their office with 2 years left in her term.. and not be seen as the antithesis of a leader on a Presidential scale. When stared down by what she calls an unfair Mainstream media, she blinked.. and blinked hard. What happens during the next cuban missle crisis while she’s President? So yes, it was a melt down.
But are we to blame or does she have a major stake in that arena?
In a campaign where even the Democratic leader’s birth certificate and religion was being eviscerated on television,blogs,papers ,pundits and me all across the land on and hourly basis.. What gave Palin or McCain the idea that she could be launched on the Presidential landscape 6 weeks before the election.. and no one would want to know who the fuck she was? Oh My God, Sotomayor’s entire adult life going back decades are being vetted before we can even have the debate as to whether we should appoint her to the Supreme Court, but we were just supposed to say “Oh, Sarah Palin.. yeah, Ok.. sure-we don’t really need to know jack-shit about the person who will be a heartbeat away from the Presidency”
No, I do not find the MSM as the culprit for all her troubles.. In fact, I think the MSM should be awarded a medal for weeding out a person who was not only unprepared for the spot-light.. but also exquisitely unprepared for the pressure that would come with the office she was asking to be trusted with. Had she actually been elected.. well, that’s a nightmare that I am glad I don’t have to witness…
Sarah Palin only has Sarah Palin and John McCain to blame for her larger than life launch onto the full court world press to her eventually crashing and burning. It was not a pretty launch on to the political field to begin with and it was bound to be an even uglier crash.
The Mainstream media did it’s job this time.. they did it at an breakneck pace to be sure.. but only because they were forced to by two people who thought they could sneak an incompetent by because maybe this country wasn’t as ready for a black man named Hussein as their opponents thought.
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.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=76eea862-3ec4-4869-bed5-8c2753ac6df8)
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