America is Black, White and Red all over.

Civility and proper debate? Booooring.

A no-holds-barred shoutfest that is just a couple steel chairs short of a WWE match? Now *that’s* entertainment.

Seriously, media executives take “Viewers Are Morons” to new heights.

At my place of employment, most of my co-workers are conservative, and they are busy decrying “socialist” healthcare as if there is nothing wrong with the current system. I keep pointing out the facts (with their well-known liberal bias) that the cost of healthcare is out of control and a front-page story on the latest dead-tree edition of the Dallas Business Journal (not exactly a ‘liberal rag’!) was about what medical costs are doing to the profitability of private companies. The story noted that for many companies, health care benefits were their second largest expense, right behind salaries and wages. So I’ve been hammering on the point that our current healthcare system is too costly and is hurting the businesses that are actually providing healthcare benefits to their employees. I even sent a letter to my local Congresscritter, noting that TriCare and the VA are both single-payer systems and emphasizing the need for reform to help business, but I live in the TX-24 district so that was pretty much a waste of time. Still, I do engage my R friends in a respectful manner, and at the least it seems to get them out of parroting teh stoopid talking points coming from right wing radio and the other usual sources.

…they are busy decrying “socialist”…

Have you asked if they want Medicare repealed? Social Security? VA Hospitals?

Actually I have. The usual response is something along the lines of “I don’t object to people who have worked all their lives or served in the military having access to healthcare, but I don’t want to give anything more to people who refuse to get a job and work, blah, blah, blah …” So we’re back to the mythical Reagan welfare queens and such … it doesn’t usually take the conversation in a productive direction, once the “socialism” meme has been dispatched. So I go back to my own experiences with healthcare and the lack thereof … how I had no insurance all through graduate school (but was fortunate to remain relatively healthy through those very lean years) and I tell the story of a couple I knew in graduate school (uninsured, like me) who were both hurt quite badly in an automobile accident and what that cost them. And I talk about denial of care by private, for-profit insurance companies and I ask who has more motive to deny care, the guy working to protect his profits in the private insurance industry, or a ‘government bureaucrat’ tasked with ensuring that people get the care to which they are entitled (as in medicare or at the VA). That’s pretty effective.

But we need to subsidize the newspapers because who else will catapult the propaganda into our laps? It’s important that the Wash Post and the NYTimes are around to make sure that Al Gore is labeled a fool and a liar and that George W. Bush is the dry drunk you want to have a beer with.

CNBC approached Tea Party activists, looking for angry protest events that would make good television, according to a leaked email from a Tea Party discussion group. And one Tea Bagger responded by flagging an upcoming event that, he said, “should be a riot … literally.”

So we know the Tea Baggers are guaranteeing action “should be a riot … literally.” can’t be interpreted any other way as yes there will be violence so if CNBC does not inform the police ahead of time.
Well then the media caused the violence the tea baggers want cameras the media wanted action the tea baggers promised violence.
Journalistic Ethics OxyMORON.

roads, bridges, the armed services, the fire depts, the police?

A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized by disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence, vandalism or other crime. While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are typically chaotic and exhibit herd behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot

What part of Promoting Violence doesn’t CNBC get?

I actually had a libertarian argue that police departments should be privatized and funded solely by donations.

I think if she had suddenly sprouted a second head and started singing opera, I would have been less surprised.

If human vocal chords were employed by some orifice OTHER than the mouth, would opera be MORE or LESS popular than it is today?

Like good ole Black Water. They showed up in New Orleans before the f’ing hurricane.

Libertarians tend to be “true believers,” which results in some truly bizarre and extreme opinions, that bear no relations to reality or evidence. They are so enamored of “markets” that they never stop to ask themselves whether a real “market” exists.

OMG. You mean, anal chords? Dude, what are you smoking?
Thanks for the Peach Cobbler last night. My machine crashed, and by the time I got it working again, well you know…

And they hold the belief that if we just got government off of the backs of corporations, there would be candy and gumdrops and bunnies that poop rainbows for everyone.

There’s “true believer” and then there’s “clinically insane”…

..Bread and circuses for modern times.

True believers and insane are a difference without a distinction.

Looked good, dint it? Virtual desserts are okay but I’m about to indulge in some real world strawberry shortcake.

Q. What’s the difference between a Negro President, a Jew and a SocialistLiberalIslamoFascistNaziCommunistGayAbortionist?
A. Also.

I’m digging into a barbequed hamburger at the moment. I just happen to have strawberry cheesecake ice cream for later tho. If I’m able to stay awake. Worked today. Tired.

I don’t get it.

I spent a few minutes oogling high-quality cheesecakes when I went shopping earlier. It took a lot of self-control but I managed to resist temptation… which is why I deserve strawberry shortcake.

You deserve what EVER you want, you sweetie.

(((demi)))

Watching From Here To Eternity. Montgomery Clift. (fainting)

Frank Sinatra, not so much. Burt Lancaster, oh, yeah. Such a casual confidence. Wish we had some of that these days.

Poor Monty. Liz Taylor’s friends seem to have such rotten luck.

Seems so. I never met her, though. Prolly a good thing. Ha.
They just had the Burt/Deborah rolling in the surf scene. Wow. I was named for her.

For all of the hissy-fits over government spending orchestrated by Tea Baggers and the like (and covered by the tabloid media), let’s not forget what we’ve seen from the last two presidents: an orgy of spending – from wars to bailouts to stimulus packages – big spending has had little trouble getting enacted. So what, exactly, are we worried about?

we (they) are worried about the black dude in office and backdoor reparations in the form of free health care. You know-sane shit.

If you have twitter send this to Rachel Maddow now so she will gety many of these before she appears on Meet The Press later this morning.

@maddow Tell Dick Armey that RW killers Terry Nichols & killer of Tiller get free singlepayer healthcare, so why not law abiding citizens?

In the meantime

The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now have a larger share of total income than they ever have in records going back nearly a century — an even larger amount than during the Roaring Twenties, the last time the US saw such similar disparities in wealth.

[…]

But an updated study (PDF) from University of California-Berkeley economist Emanuel Saez shows that, in 2007, the wealth disparity grew to its highest number on record, based on US tax data going back to 1917.

According to Saez’s study, which Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman drew attention to at his New York Times blog, the top 10 percent of earners in America now receive nearly 50 percent of all the income earned in the United States, a higher percentage than they did during the 1920s.

And they say that us DFH are the idealistic, naive ones. Gr….I think I much dislike the glibertarians ever more than I do the GOP.

Market? What free market? The one we just fucking bailed out in a socialized (to quote the newest conservative idiot hero) manner? That was hardly free–for us, anyway.

If these teabaggers are going to riot I hope the police roll out the water canons,that would be some great visuals.

Conservatives have become adept at playing the media for suckers, getting inside the heads of editors and reporters, haunting them with the thought that maybe they are out-of-touch cosmopolitans

This may be true for the NYT and a few other outlets with at least the illusion of owing a duty to democracy, but CNBC is just looking for a way to compete with Jon & Kate.

Fire hoses and police dogs are always the appropriate response to public disorder, at least when the offenders are of a dusky hue and/or leftist persuasion.

Libertarians are all certifiably insane and occupy a delusional fantasy world. There are no truly “free markets.” All functional markets operate within a strong regulatory framework, which is what allows them to operate at all. The closest we have to truly free markets, of the type fantasized by libertarians are black markets. Imagine, if you will, Wal-Mart run by the Crips or Bloods. Oh wait ….

If no regulation/government is good, then why don’t the libertarians all move to that Randian paradise known as Somalia?

Obama gives in to America’s fuckingest assholes.

Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama’s administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

Uneasy public. BULLSHIT. A handful of gun-toting lying sociopaths showing up at town halls don’t represent the public.

Someone needs to remind Obama he has the house and the senate.

Hope and change can’t be realized without courage or did he really think he could do this job and not have to contend with the ugly fungus that is the GOP?

…the top 10 percent of earners in America now receive nearly 50 percent of all the income earned in the United States, a higher percentage than they did during the 1920s.

Unfortunately, the main response to a stat like that seems to be, “How can I get me some of that?”

This is not what I worked phone banks, went door-to-door, and donated money to the campaign for. I won’t bust my ass like that again – not when it turns out not to make a damned bit of difference to the things that really count. The people who actually call the shots in this country will continue to do so no matter who is elected.

This, of course, should say, even more, but it makes a weird kind of sense the first way I typed it.

I am heartbroken over the newest development re: WH reportedly ready to give up on the public option, but I am holding back to see if it’s indeed true or if it’s more media spin. I am hoping it’s the latter.

DrDick, I know you are right. I just don’t understand how anyone can be that stupid and/or gullible past the age of eighteen.

Hey, look at me. I’m an existential terrorist. Cosmopolitan no less. Wingnuts and their media stooges, why I oughta…

I think their mamas dropped them on their heads as infants. From a thirt floor window. Repeatedly.

The Whitehouse refuted news reports on Sunday.

Speaking to CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs emphasized that President Barack Obama still supports having a “public option” for health care, which the White House believes will introduce additional competition and lower prices in the insurance market.

The statement runs contrary to claims by other officials and reports circulating other media on Sunday.

Unfortunately, Republicans picked up mixed messages from a couple of Democrats, turned it into Obama’s changed his mind and the media – being the lazy shits they are – ran with it. As per…

Heath and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, speaking to CNN’s John King on Sunday, said the public option is not “essential” and that consumer choice, market competition and reform of private health insurance regulations should be the focus of the debate.

Later Sunday, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told Fox News anchor Chris Wallace that the U.S. Senate will not allow a public option, adding his belief that, “to continue to chase that rabbit is just a wasted effort.”

The comments led the Associated Press and right-wing news aggregator Matt Drudge to report the White House has given up on supporting a public option.

“If lt bleeds, it leads” is killing us all…
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that cable news when given the options of becoming deeper and more thorough or becoming shallow and sensationalistic chose the latter. It is surprising that cable news journos lack either the integrity or the common sense to call out the nutjobs, frauds and phonies on the right. Instead of saying something like, “Good God, you ran the country into the ground and you were wrong on every single thing!” when interviewing, say, Gingrich, of Cantor or Boehner or McCain, they instead nod sagely and act as though the garbage spewing from these cretins’ mouths should be given just as much weight as the ideas of any sane politician.
In other news, Michael Jackson remains dead.

Perusing Raw Story this morning, I see they’re about to release a story about crazier than a bed bug Ted Nugent. Can’t wait to see what the idiot is up to. Maybe he shot himself with one of his machine guns. Crossing fingers.

I’ll believe in a robust, viable, public option on the very day that it becomes reality.

Dennis, Americans need to flood the Whitehouse with messages supporting the public option. If the majority of Americans want public health care, now is the time to show up and say so.

DailyKos yesterday told liberals who were angry with Obama for backing down to shut the fuck up.

The tune has since changed in light of the fact that the Obama administration is pouring weaker tea by the minute.

There are serious people, people who really know this stuff that are ambivalent about public option. They like the plan as Sebelius outlined better.
The reasoning is a public option could and would be filleted by the next gooper outlaw with a congressional posse. The above Sebelius thingy would be really hard to mess with. Makes one wonder on how good these guys really are if that was the plan all along. Food for thought.