It takes a lot more than money, believe it or not, to keep up a plutocracy. One of those things is fake public opinion perceptions. The days of buying that appear to be numbered, if Rachel Maddow's performance is any indication. Her treatment is worthy of any college course on statistics or social science.
The progressive community has railed for many many years about the pernicious effect of "push polling" -- a poll designed to influence the results that the pollers want to see. But only Rachel can boil it down and slice and dice it like this (with the help of the inestimable and uncompromising Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com):
I have nothing more to say:
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Friday, October 09, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Clinton-Bush: The Next Reagan-Bush
Frank Rich writes tonight in The New York Times a scathing cultural critique of our times. In it, he uses a moniker that jumped out at me: "Clinton-Bush."
When one analyzes the roots of our current fiscal calamity, the roots of the crisis quickly come to bear at the feet of Republican congressmen (yes, men) and the Clinton presidency which signed the seeds of destruction into law: namely, the repeal of the Depression era reforms of the Glass Steagall Act (known as the Gramm Leach Bliley Act) and the horrifically disastrous "Commodities Futures Modernization Act" of 2000.
So here's a minor paragraph from tomorrow's Sunday edition of The Times' Frank Rich column:
When one analyzes the roots of our current fiscal calamity, the roots of the crisis quickly come to bear at the feet of Republican congressmen (yes, men) and the Clinton presidency which signed the seeds of destruction into law: namely, the repeal of the Depression era reforms of the Glass Steagall Act (known as the Gramm Leach Bliley Act) and the horrifically disastrous "Commodities Futures Modernization Act" of 2000.
So here's a minor paragraph from tomorrow's Sunday edition of The Times' Frank Rich column:
United States District Court judge in New York, Jed S. Rakoff, scathingly condemned the Obama Securities and Exchange Commission for letting Bank of America skate away with what Rakoff called an immoral and unjust wrist tap to settle charges that it covered up $3.6 billion paid out in bonuses when it purchased Merrill Lynch. How is this S.E.C. a change from the Clinton-Bush S.E.C. that ignored all the red flags on Bernie Madoff?There's a reason Frank Rich earned his way into the Sunday Times column.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Michael Moore: The Most Feared Film-Maker in America Strikes Again
Michael Moore, the most feared film-maker in America. The trailer for his latest film:
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Hoyer Now Supports Public Option: "With or Without Republicans"
Brett Zongker at the AP (I know, the "Against Progressives" AP!), has an article today featured by Huffington Post stating that at a town hall (can we retire that silly term already people...) that he now supports the Public Option, "with or without Republican support." This is progress we can believe in... for now. To wit:
I presume this means she wants everyone to pay out of pocket for their children to go to private-run schools (why should single people subsidize parents who made an individual choice to have children)? Right lady? And we should all pay out of pocket for private protection services - let them compete - and get rid of municipal police and fire departments, right lady? Surely the private sector can be more efficient and provide better teachers, fire fighters, ambulances, police. Oh, and while we're "getting government out of our business," we should get rid of the Defense Department, right lady? Just replace it with Blackwater and Halliburton, right lady? Then it will all go better and cheaper. Hell we already had as many contractors (mercenaries, ahem...) in Iraq as we had patriotic enlisted troops, so we're almost there.
Oh, and no more NASA, no more spy satellites, and no more satellite TV or GPS. No more control over epidemics -- no more annual flu shots, right lady? It's all government in our business.
And why not have 3 of the same road everywhere you go - we should make road builders compete and only the people who drive on them should pay tolls for those roads. That won't hurt quality much, will it?
A Libertarian - er, Anarchist - paradise.
Because that's what these people really are: anarchists. You want government out of our business? It means there's no government. That's anarchy. That's destruction of the nation. Lady, meet the secessionist klan. You want your country back? No lady you want your country gone.
"If the question is do I plan to vote for a public option with or without Republican support, the answer is yes," Hoyer said.And then, in a "tell" or a "wink" at his enlightened readers, Zongker goes on to -- gasp, almost "report" -- by including a short episode reflective of the deep insights and awareness that these persistent town-hallers (tea-baggers/deathers/birthers/seceders) bring to the table. HILARIOUS. Like someone on Medicare decrying gov'mnt run health care, this time it's her state that has it covered, so why do we need the government? Sheesh. We are not even having the same conversation in this country. Not even in the same room:
A public option would lower insurance premiums for everyone through competition with private insurers, he said. The House, he said, would not pass an alternative calling for nonprofit cooperatives, which has been floated in the Senate.
The first questioner who challenged Hoyer directly, April Burke of Mechanicsville, Md., said her son and daughter in law both had lost their jobs and health insurance but were covered by the state.
"So why should I want to have the government get into my business?" she asked Hoyer.
The congressman said Burke's family would benefit from the health care overhaul being proposed. But she shouted back: "We want government out of our business now."
I presume this means she wants everyone to pay out of pocket for their children to go to private-run schools (why should single people subsidize parents who made an individual choice to have children)? Right lady? And we should all pay out of pocket for private protection services - let them compete - and get rid of municipal police and fire departments, right lady? Surely the private sector can be more efficient and provide better teachers, fire fighters, ambulances, police. Oh, and while we're "getting government out of our business," we should get rid of the Defense Department, right lady? Just replace it with Blackwater and Halliburton, right lady? Then it will all go better and cheaper. Hell we already had as many contractors (mercenaries, ahem...) in Iraq as we had patriotic enlisted troops, so we're almost there.
Oh, and no more NASA, no more spy satellites, and no more satellite TV or GPS. No more control over epidemics -- no more annual flu shots, right lady? It's all government in our business.
And why not have 3 of the same road everywhere you go - we should make road builders compete and only the people who drive on them should pay tolls for those roads. That won't hurt quality much, will it?
A Libertarian - er, Anarchist - paradise.
Because that's what these people really are: anarchists. You want government out of our business? It means there's no government. That's anarchy. That's destruction of the nation. Lady, meet the secessionist klan. You want your country back? No lady you want your country gone.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Hang On To Health Care: Obama's Fall Offensive?
This from comments under Ezra Klein’s Enzi article at WashingtonPost.com (not my comment):
“The Senate Finance Committee should just pass the HELP bill on September 15th on a party line vote. ALL of their work has been worse than useless to this point. Somebody introduce Max Baucus to the concept of sunk costs. He's failed on the biggest stage he'll ever hold. It's better to just start getting over it rather than keep on making the FAIL bigger.”
This would be brilliant. And feasible. The Senate Finance Committee is the most powerful committee on the Hill. Everyone “knows” that all a bill requires is the president and the Senate Finance Committee for success. So everyone “knew” the bright lights would be on that committee. That’s the committee with the “gang of six” from the no-population states where 2 of the 3 Republicans including the ranking member (Grassley & Enzi) have said they’re against any reforms at all now - after negotiating supposedly in good faith into the recess. Really?! That’s what Gibbs was reacting to. Plus now the fundraising letter from Grassley stating he has always opposed reform and calling it “Obamacare.”
This is all today.
Somehow, and this would have been stunningly brilliant strategy if Kennedy was doing this all along, they might have planned to put these stooges at a table and shine the light on them while the other 2 Senate Committees crafting a bill (HELP is one, which Kennedy chaired and Dodd has been assisting, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions) do their work under less scrutiny. The non Finance committees are the ones with the Senators like Dodd, Kennedy, Boxer - you know, from states with PEOPLE…
(Make no mistake, real reforms will prove as popular as the New Deal once they start going in place - it could be the REPUBLICAN’S Waterloo - THEY could lose their party for a decade, and they know it.)
Then, as the Finance Committee implodes as they have done, the commenter is suggesting that by simple majority (on the committee) the Senate Finance Committee should vote to throw out their version and instead adopt the HELP Committee version as their own, and vote that straight out of committee to the floor. (This would mean the same bill comes out of two committees.)
Sure the filibuster is still there, but who in the public is going to be able to follow that jujitsu before it even hits the floor. It would have almost no impact on the public debate but would get the best bill onto the floor. Hell right now the public doesn’t even know there are multiple versions of a bill in the Senate plus the House versions. So it would be a way to throw out the trash of Baucus’s committee (Finance) and put forth the strongest bill possible in terms of reform, then push it through with a 51+ vote majority while exposing Republicans to all moderates and Dems as clear crazy obstructionists (who haven’t put a single idea on the table and are openly “out to get the president”). We saw a flash of this tactic from The White House today in Gibbs’ conference (if I’m describing their tactic).
This could be the great hope in the end. I have to believe that Obama has had plenty of time to campaign on this and plan this, and I have to believe he knows he simply cannot fail and he must get a big win here - and as he’s shown before, it’s only the end result that really matters (as with November 2008). These are really really great signs we’re seeing today. The “offensive” may be under way. I also received an email from a progressive group about to do a big national ad buy to support the Public Option.
Hang on. These ain’t the Clintons we’re dealing with. I hope.
Gulp…
“The Senate Finance Committee should just pass the HELP bill on September 15th on a party line vote. ALL of their work has been worse than useless to this point. Somebody introduce Max Baucus to the concept of sunk costs. He's failed on the biggest stage he'll ever hold. It's better to just start getting over it rather than keep on making the FAIL bigger.”
This would be brilliant. And feasible. The Senate Finance Committee is the most powerful committee on the Hill. Everyone “knows” that all a bill requires is the president and the Senate Finance Committee for success. So everyone “knew” the bright lights would be on that committee. That’s the committee with the “gang of six” from the no-population states where 2 of the 3 Republicans including the ranking member (Grassley & Enzi) have said they’re against any reforms at all now - after negotiating supposedly in good faith into the recess. Really?! That’s what Gibbs was reacting to. Plus now the fundraising letter from Grassley stating he has always opposed reform and calling it “Obamacare.”
This is all today.
Somehow, and this would have been stunningly brilliant strategy if Kennedy was doing this all along, they might have planned to put these stooges at a table and shine the light on them while the other 2 Senate Committees crafting a bill (HELP is one, which Kennedy chaired and Dodd has been assisting, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions) do their work under less scrutiny. The non Finance committees are the ones with the Senators like Dodd, Kennedy, Boxer - you know, from states with PEOPLE…
(Make no mistake, real reforms will prove as popular as the New Deal once they start going in place - it could be the REPUBLICAN’S Waterloo - THEY could lose their party for a decade, and they know it.)
Then, as the Finance Committee implodes as they have done, the commenter is suggesting that by simple majority (on the committee) the Senate Finance Committee should vote to throw out their version and instead adopt the HELP Committee version as their own, and vote that straight out of committee to the floor. (This would mean the same bill comes out of two committees.)
Sure the filibuster is still there, but who in the public is going to be able to follow that jujitsu before it even hits the floor. It would have almost no impact on the public debate but would get the best bill onto the floor. Hell right now the public doesn’t even know there are multiple versions of a bill in the Senate plus the House versions. So it would be a way to throw out the trash of Baucus’s committee (Finance) and put forth the strongest bill possible in terms of reform, then push it through with a 51+ vote majority while exposing Republicans to all moderates and Dems as clear crazy obstructionists (who haven’t put a single idea on the table and are openly “out to get the president”). We saw a flash of this tactic from The White House today in Gibbs’ conference (if I’m describing their tactic).
This could be the great hope in the end. I have to believe that Obama has had plenty of time to campaign on this and plan this, and I have to believe he knows he simply cannot fail and he must get a big win here - and as he’s shown before, it’s only the end result that really matters (as with November 2008). These are really really great signs we’re seeing today. The “offensive” may be under way. I also received an email from a progressive group about to do a big national ad buy to support the Public Option.
Hang on. These ain’t the Clintons we’re dealing with. I hope.
Gulp…
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Rachel Maddow: Pulling Their Pants Down
For my friend Denny.
Rachel Maddow is an angel dancing on the head of the pin that is U.S. politics. She has earned her own show on MSNBC at 9PM ET. She is easily the smartest commentator on television, and not surprisingly, she is an unapologetic progressive. Do you think Glen Beck has her credentials? Do you think Lou Dobbs has her credentials? Rush Limbaugh? The other blow-hard entertainers? Rachel Maddow has serious horsepower under the hood:
Yeah that's right. She competes and sometimes beats LARRY KING in the 9PM time slot. And she's the smartest person in all of politics, actually, except of course the universally praised for his intellect, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, Rep. Barney Frank (and yes, it's purely coincidence that they're both openly gay).
She's a Rhodes Scholar, like Bill Clinton. She has a degree from Stanford. She's a PhD. Dr. Maddow. Yes, Dr. Maddow. And she filets those political creeps every night.
Why do I harp on this and on her in particular? Because she's a phenomenon, every bit as unique as the first black president -- she's the first seriously smart person ever to anchor a nightly program. You think Cronkite is the gold standard? Watch Rachel at 8PM CT on MSNBC.
With that as prelude, my friend, watch how she absolutely slices and dices the obviously coordinated Republican plan to bill health care reform as a "secret plot to kill old people." You heard that crazy caller, like the crazy "birthers," call into the AARP forum today with Pres. Obama and ask about the [brownshirts] people coming into old people's homes and forcing them to decide how they want to die? You want to see who's behind that exactly? You want to see the evidence layed out on a table like a deck of cards in a Vegas casino? Watch Rachel. She latches on and shakes it all out using a full 12 minutes on her show, calling "crazy 'crazy'". She lays it all out for everyone in the media, in NBC news, in Washington D.C. to see; she's done everyone's homework for them. Watch - this is splendorous, and she gives everyone a firm point on which to pivot. This is what's been missing for 40 years:
My response? I laughed out loud hysterically. A "Three's Company" storyline! Ha! LOL! When I saw it watching Rachel, I fell into hysterical laughter. My dog was worried. Why was I in hysterical laughter? Because Rachel just planted a rod for all of Washington and all of political media. She and her staff did the homework. She exposed the crazy liars. She identified them. (And for some reason they're all white and have southern accents: Southern Strategy anyone?) She played the clips of them live. She reached deep into the cesspool of right wing hater talk radio and even the "Internets" to identify the culprits. She did everyone's homework. And she encourages people to copy off her work. Today? This clip and story are the lead story at the MSNBC homepage.
Journalists hate homework. That's why network news is so craptacular. "Journalists" today don't want to work, they just want to take transcripts and "leaked" talking points and repeat them as their own "political insight." Repeating talking points fed to them on "background" by the partisan leaders - revealing their "playbooks" - that's become the bread and butter of main network journalism. Fine. Let them have it.
Meanwhile, watch how earlier this and last week, Maddow led the charge against the alarming level that "the birthers" had been allowed to rise, to the point where Republican congresscritters were afraid to call them out for the stooopid they are. "Calling crazy 'crazy'" is exactly what Republicans are afraid to do, and until the past year, the crazies were not part of the "polite" network coverage of politics in the past. No more. Watch Rachel lay these creeps flat (with the help of online journalist Mike Stark), and then watch what just happened the next day, thanks to Maddows sunshine on a bed of cockroaches.
It's results like this, a result of her dazzling tenacity and incisive wit, that have made Rachel Maddow a force within MSNBC. That means she's a force within NBC. That means she has a voice in that traditional media I'm criticizing. It means that the fix is in - the bullshit that the haters have been pulling for 30+ years is being called out from a little corner on cable at 9PM ET. By Dr. Rachel Maddow. She packages it together, she's the first to do it on any given day, and then her work drives fair-minded commentators and writers for the following day. That's why she's on at nights and not in the mornings. The spin begins at night, not in the morning. In the mornings all news is old news. If Maddow were not an internal force, then how could she get away with knocking down MSNBC's own and her own guest, Pat Buchanan? Where else have you seen such a thorough smack down with succint, cutting analysis that lays out the naked facts full monty?
So you wanna know which way things are blowing? Watch Rachel. Night after night ever since she got her own show, she reliably and regularly uses her acute intellect to pull the pants down on the scumbag haters of the Nixon school trying to pull the craziest of shit these days because... they... simply... have... nothing... left.
In the end, it's the margin in the middle of the electorate, the "gut" voters who really are fair minded but not deeply involved, who steer the future course. And Republicans are still operating in the old environment when they could keep their neanderthal constituents so critical to their power base (I realize that's unfair to neanderthals) under the radar. No more. The jig is up.
This isn't 1968. This isn't 1980. This isn't 1993. This isn't 2003. It's 2009 and finally...... FINALLY.... the media are getting both the talent and the ratings to secure a cutting read of the bullshit that's been going on from Republican haters for 40 freakin years. It's over.
It might take the old Beltway insider game a bit to catch on, but the election of Pres. Obama is all the proof anyone needs to see that the old game is over. Yeah, the election was too close for comfort and Sarah Palin still gets too much time on tee-vee. But at least Palin gets a lot of "crazy person" criticism in that coverage now. Not so thinkable 6 years ago. Not 16 years ago. God knows not 30 and 40 years ago. But now?
Well, just read the polls. Just watch Rachel. If there weren't enough fair-minded concerned citizens out there to make a difference, Dr. Maddow would be peddling her doctoral dissertation in the petty halls of academia, and not laying out her incisive analysis in prime time on NBC cable to an audience that outsizes the venerable Larry King. Out with the old indeed...
This is some of the funniest political satire I've seen in a while, again from Rachel Maddow, who uses humor to cut through the crazies like Limbaugh uses anger, self loathing, and racism.
Want even more evidence of my theory? Here's a story, not just on MSNBC from the *AP* that's running all day and ran last night about Glen Beck on Fox News calling the president "racist." Again, they're "calling crazy 'crazy'".
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32197648/ns/politics-more_politics/
And here's the video:
Birther Rage & Lou Dobbs -- Getting Called Out (They Think They Can Still Get Away With This)
Here's Maddow on the decades old "C-Street" house in Washington DC, a "secret society" for radical Christian congress rats, the place where the John Ensign affair was "handled." Maddow has been on this story night after night, exposing them and causing the members to obfuscate and run and deny. This isn't something that just popped up. No the Ensign affair exposed them, and unlike even 3 years ago, Maddow and others are there *now* to follow the bigger story of what in the world is this seedy "C Street" boys club ("No Girls Allowed" as Pulitzer winning Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post characterized it on air) - what in the world is going on with this? Maddow decried it as something these people's constituents, including NV Sen Ensign's, did not elect them to do: go to Washington and represent the interests of their secret club first instead of the interests of the people who elected them. Calling crazy "crazy."
The C-Street update is preceded by Maddow's update that her calling out of Lou Dobbs' well-known racism has elicited a forceful defensive response from him. Think about that. Maddow has had her own show maybe a year? And Lou Dobbs? Uh, yeah. That's the power Maddow has already accumulated. Then she moves into Sen. Inhofe (R-Crazyland) and C-Street, 2 minutes in. This is from last night's show.
This stuff is just an easy list of the types of things indicative of a turning of the giant ship of the Fourth Estate. Give it some time and keep the faith. The chapter of the last 40 years is done, and the page is turning.
Rachel Maddow is an angel dancing on the head of the pin that is U.S. politics. She has earned her own show on MSNBC at 9PM ET. She is easily the smartest commentator on television, and not surprisingly, she is an unapologetic progressive. Do you think Glen Beck has her credentials? Do you think Lou Dobbs has her credentials? Rush Limbaugh? The other blow-hard entertainers? Rachel Maddow has serious horsepower under the hood:
Maddow received a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University. She earned her doctorate in political science at Oxford University, which she attended on a Rhodes Scholarship. She is currently working on a book on the changing role of the military in U.S. politics, due out next year. She lives in New York City and Massachusetts with her partner, artist Susan Mikula.
Yeah that's right. She competes and sometimes beats LARRY KING in the 9PM time slot. And she's the smartest person in all of politics, actually, except of course the universally praised for his intellect, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, Rep. Barney Frank (and yes, it's purely coincidence that they're both openly gay).
She's a Rhodes Scholar, like Bill Clinton. She has a degree from Stanford. She's a PhD. Dr. Maddow. Yes, Dr. Maddow. And she filets those political creeps every night.
Why do I harp on this and on her in particular? Because she's a phenomenon, every bit as unique as the first black president -- she's the first seriously smart person ever to anchor a nightly program. You think Cronkite is the gold standard? Watch Rachel at 8PM CT on MSNBC.
With that as prelude, my friend, watch how she absolutely slices and dices the obviously coordinated Republican plan to bill health care reform as a "secret plot to kill old people." You heard that crazy caller, like the crazy "birthers," call into the AARP forum today with Pres. Obama and ask about the [brownshirts] people coming into old people's homes and forcing them to decide how they want to die? You want to see who's behind that exactly? You want to see the evidence layed out on a table like a deck of cards in a Vegas casino? Watch Rachel. She latches on and shakes it all out using a full 12 minutes on her show, calling "crazy 'crazy'". She lays it all out for everyone in the media, in NBC news, in Washington D.C. to see; she's done everyone's homework for them. Watch - this is splendorous, and she gives everyone a firm point on which to pivot. This is what's been missing for 40 years:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
My response? I laughed out loud hysterically. A "Three's Company" storyline! Ha! LOL! When I saw it watching Rachel, I fell into hysterical laughter. My dog was worried. Why was I in hysterical laughter? Because Rachel just planted a rod for all of Washington and all of political media. She and her staff did the homework. She exposed the crazy liars. She identified them. (And for some reason they're all white and have southern accents: Southern Strategy anyone?) She played the clips of them live. She reached deep into the cesspool of right wing hater talk radio and even the "Internets" to identify the culprits. She did everyone's homework. And she encourages people to copy off her work. Today? This clip and story are the lead story at the MSNBC homepage.
Journalists hate homework. That's why network news is so craptacular. "Journalists" today don't want to work, they just want to take transcripts and "leaked" talking points and repeat them as their own "political insight." Repeating talking points fed to them on "background" by the partisan leaders - revealing their "playbooks" - that's become the bread and butter of main network journalism. Fine. Let them have it.
Meanwhile, watch how earlier this and last week, Maddow led the charge against the alarming level that "the birthers" had been allowed to rise, to the point where Republican congresscritters were afraid to call them out for the stooopid they are. "Calling crazy 'crazy'" is exactly what Republicans are afraid to do, and until the past year, the crazies were not part of the "polite" network coverage of politics in the past. No more. Watch Rachel lay these creeps flat (with the help of online journalist Mike Stark), and then watch what just happened the next day, thanks to Maddows sunshine on a bed of cockroaches.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
It's results like this, a result of her dazzling tenacity and incisive wit, that have made Rachel Maddow a force within MSNBC. That means she's a force within NBC. That means she has a voice in that traditional media I'm criticizing. It means that the fix is in - the bullshit that the haters have been pulling for 30+ years is being called out from a little corner on cable at 9PM ET. By Dr. Rachel Maddow. She packages it together, she's the first to do it on any given day, and then her work drives fair-minded commentators and writers for the following day. That's why she's on at nights and not in the mornings. The spin begins at night, not in the morning. In the mornings all news is old news. If Maddow were not an internal force, then how could she get away with knocking down MSNBC's own and her own guest, Pat Buchanan? Where else have you seen such a thorough smack down with succint, cutting analysis that lays out the naked facts full monty?
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
So you wanna know which way things are blowing? Watch Rachel. Night after night ever since she got her own show, she reliably and regularly uses her acute intellect to pull the pants down on the scumbag haters of the Nixon school trying to pull the craziest of shit these days because... they... simply... have... nothing... left.
In the end, it's the margin in the middle of the electorate, the "gut" voters who really are fair minded but not deeply involved, who steer the future course. And Republicans are still operating in the old environment when they could keep their neanderthal constituents so critical to their power base (I realize that's unfair to neanderthals) under the radar. No more. The jig is up.
This isn't 1968. This isn't 1980. This isn't 1993. This isn't 2003. It's 2009 and finally...... FINALLY.... the media are getting both the talent and the ratings to secure a cutting read of the bullshit that's been going on from Republican haters for 40 freakin years. It's over.
It might take the old Beltway insider game a bit to catch on, but the election of Pres. Obama is all the proof anyone needs to see that the old game is over. Yeah, the election was too close for comfort and Sarah Palin still gets too much time on tee-vee. But at least Palin gets a lot of "crazy person" criticism in that coverage now. Not so thinkable 6 years ago. Not 16 years ago. God knows not 30 and 40 years ago. But now?
Well, just read the polls. Just watch Rachel. If there weren't enough fair-minded concerned citizens out there to make a difference, Dr. Maddow would be peddling her doctoral dissertation in the petty halls of academia, and not laying out her incisive analysis in prime time on NBC cable to an audience that outsizes the venerable Larry King. Out with the old indeed...
This is some of the funniest political satire I've seen in a while, again from Rachel Maddow, who uses humor to cut through the crazies like Limbaugh uses anger, self loathing, and racism.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Want even more evidence of my theory? Here's a story, not just on MSNBC from the *AP* that's running all day and ran last night about Glen Beck on Fox News calling the president "racist." Again, they're "calling crazy 'crazy'".
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32197648/ns/politics-more_politics/
And here's the video:
Birther Rage & Lou Dobbs -- Getting Called Out (They Think They Can Still Get Away With This)
Here's Maddow on the decades old "C-Street" house in Washington DC, a "secret society" for radical Christian congress rats, the place where the John Ensign affair was "handled." Maddow has been on this story night after night, exposing them and causing the members to obfuscate and run and deny. This isn't something that just popped up. No the Ensign affair exposed them, and unlike even 3 years ago, Maddow and others are there *now* to follow the bigger story of what in the world is this seedy "C Street" boys club ("No Girls Allowed" as Pulitzer winning Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post characterized it on air) - what in the world is going on with this? Maddow decried it as something these people's constituents, including NV Sen Ensign's, did not elect them to do: go to Washington and represent the interests of their secret club first instead of the interests of the people who elected them. Calling crazy "crazy."
The C-Street update is preceded by Maddow's update that her calling out of Lou Dobbs' well-known racism has elicited a forceful defensive response from him. Think about that. Maddow has had her own show maybe a year? And Lou Dobbs? Uh, yeah. That's the power Maddow has already accumulated. Then she moves into Sen. Inhofe (R-Crazyland) and C-Street, 2 minutes in. This is from last night's show.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
This stuff is just an easy list of the types of things indicative of a turning of the giant ship of the Fourth Estate. Give it some time and keep the faith. The chapter of the last 40 years is done, and the page is turning.
The President Needs Republicans? No. He Needs Me.
The DC media are saying that Obama needs to win over "moderates" on health care reform, the so-called "Blue Dogs" and so-called "moderate" Republicans (an oxymoron these days if there ever was one).
Really? Because I think Obama needs to win over ME. Because I'm the guy that made monthly and sometimes weekly contributions to the Obama campaign 2007-2008. I campaigned hard in 2006 and 2008 for candidates who promised long-needed reform. FDR first proposed health care reform in 1932 but backed away when he heard cries of "socialism!" (Socialism! Like Canada! Be very very afraid! Like England! Run! Run for your life!) Yes, the same tired old canard we heard in 1993 that made the Clintons turn tail and run.
No more. I'm standing up. I demand real reform, and I'm the one the president has to win over to keep his job and secure a lasting legacy. I'm the one, and the millions like me. I'm the small business owner creating jobs but can't provide health care to my employees, and I won't hire anyone who doesn't have health care from some place. The result? I can hire married people with spouses who have benefits, I can hire retired people, I can hire young healthy men who can afford individual policies. Everyone else probably cannot *afford* to work for me. Tell me in what country in the world is that fair? Is that a democratic employment market? Is that a free market for employment? No.
The Public Option is already a compromise. That IS the compromise. Most every thinking person that looks at both cost and coverage elements of a solid health care system knows that single payer is the only grand design of a sound solution.
But we are not unreasonable people. We will compromise. Even with The White House, The House, and The Senate, even with 60 Democratic votes in the Senate and an enormous majority in The House, even coming off two wildly successful national elections on which winning candidates campaigned on successful health care reform... EVEN WITH ALL THAT, we will still compromise.
That compromise is the Public Option. We won't even compromise the name at this point. It's done. The compromise is there.
If the Public Option can't get done, then we expect our work winning elections for Democrats for the last four years will bring real reform with something *better* not weaker.
Waterloo indeed. And in this fog, I'm looking around wondering who's really on my side in the end and who's on the other - because some of my opponents appear to be wearing my uniform, and I'm not okay with that.
Really? Because I think Obama needs to win over ME. Because I'm the guy that made monthly and sometimes weekly contributions to the Obama campaign 2007-2008. I campaigned hard in 2006 and 2008 for candidates who promised long-needed reform. FDR first proposed health care reform in 1932 but backed away when he heard cries of "socialism!" (Socialism! Like Canada! Be very very afraid! Like England! Run! Run for your life!) Yes, the same tired old canard we heard in 1993 that made the Clintons turn tail and run.
No more. I'm standing up. I demand real reform, and I'm the one the president has to win over to keep his job and secure a lasting legacy. I'm the one, and the millions like me. I'm the small business owner creating jobs but can't provide health care to my employees, and I won't hire anyone who doesn't have health care from some place. The result? I can hire married people with spouses who have benefits, I can hire retired people, I can hire young healthy men who can afford individual policies. Everyone else probably cannot *afford* to work for me. Tell me in what country in the world is that fair? Is that a democratic employment market? Is that a free market for employment? No.
The Public Option is already a compromise. That IS the compromise. Most every thinking person that looks at both cost and coverage elements of a solid health care system knows that single payer is the only grand design of a sound solution.
But we are not unreasonable people. We will compromise. Even with The White House, The House, and The Senate, even with 60 Democratic votes in the Senate and an enormous majority in The House, even coming off two wildly successful national elections on which winning candidates campaigned on successful health care reform... EVEN WITH ALL THAT, we will still compromise.
That compromise is the Public Option. We won't even compromise the name at this point. It's done. The compromise is there.
If the Public Option can't get done, then we expect our work winning elections for Democrats for the last four years will bring real reform with something *better* not weaker.
Waterloo indeed. And in this fog, I'm looking around wondering who's really on my side in the end and who's on the other - because some of my opponents appear to be wearing my uniform, and I'm not okay with that.
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