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(Blossom Toes - They were ever so clean)

Back to 1967 tonight - the unsung heroes of the Psychedelic era, Blossom Toes. A great band whose members went off and joined other groups after their split up in 1970. Resurrecting somewhat slightly as B.B. Blunder in the early 70s for one album and then splintering off into other bands again and solo careers.

It's a wonder Blossom Toes weren't more popular or even issued in the States. But it's one of the many mysteries and perplexities of the music business that turns obscure clumps of vinyl into solid gold and mythical legends out of a bunch of guys who were good at what they did and had a lot of talent.

This track, You is off their first lp "We Are Ever So Clean", recorded for Giorgio Gomelski's Marmalade Records in 1967.

1967 continues to be an interesting year.

From the always amazing Andy Cobb. Open thread below...

I first heard Ultimate Fakebook in 1998 when my teenage band opened for them at New York's Coney Island High and they unleashed a ferocious set of fun, high-energy pop to the fifteen of us who happened to be in the room.

Soon after, the band from the Little Apple (Manhattan, KS) was picked up in the late-nineties indie-rock gold rush by Epic Records and then subsequently put through the early-2000's indie-band-on-major-label wringer of low prioritization and delayed album releases. Not one to be kept down, UFB released Open Up and Say Awesome on the small but influential Louisville label Initial Records in 2002, before calling it quits in '03.

This band will probably go down in history as an also-ran in Weezer-world, but their midwestern charm, clever and endearing lyrics, and the lack of transparent deliberateness that has poisoned Rivers Cuomo's outfit for the past 10 years should earn them a much bigger plaque in the power-pop pantheon. A man can dream...

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How many politicians would walk onto a set of a TV show out of the blue and eviscerate the entire pundit panel? Alan Grayson strolled out onto the stage of CNN's The Situation Room and took on their crew including Blitzer, Carville, Johns and that whack job Alex Castellanos over his remarks about the non-existent GOP health care. He started by saying "they have no plan!" and by not having a plan, they are hurting Americans. Blitzer was so shocked that Grayson actually said something nobody in the media wants to talk about.

Grayson: They just want to stop everything.

Blitzer: Has any Democratic leader asked you to apologize to the republicans.

Grayson: No and you know why? Because I'm saying what everyone else has been thinking, but no one else has been saying.

Blitzer: And so you have no intention of apologizing?

Grayson: Of course not. Apologize? I'm not the one who should be apologizing, they should be apologize to America.

Johns: Wasn't it over the top though? I mean won't you at least admit that?

Grayson: Well, Look I'm 6, 4 so it takes a lot to get over my head.

Castellanos: I'm a republican congressman and I have a question. Which particular Americans do you think I'd like to die? Can you name some?

Listen, Do you want to make sure that people have affordable universal comprehensive health care in this country, do you?

Castellanos:: Yes

Now what have you done about it?

Castellanos: Republicans have a very different approach than the democrats do but it's very concrete. Instead of a big government gamble...

Oh, please...That's amorphous nonsense

Do you really think that Tort reform is going to take care of 47 million people not having....

Borger tries to talk, but Alex cuts her off...

Shopping across state lines..

Oh and you really think that's going to solve

Letting individuals have the same advantages of buying insurances that business have

Grayson: You know, that's just helping the people who give republicans money...Let's concentrate on helping this country, saving lives and saving money and not the usual cliches.

--

Grayson: These are foot dragging, knuckle dragging neanderthals who think they can dictate policy to America by being stubborn and I think the time is over. We had an election, that's it. Now we have to move ahead in just the way the president wants us to.

I couldn't write the entire transcript, but Gloria Borger was so worried that Alan was not being civil to the poor, weak republicans and they would object. He comes right back at her, telling Borger that we are stalled and nothing is happening and he's getting us back on track while people are dying. 44,000 a year are dying; 4000 a month. And these nattering nabobs of negativism are blocking every single thing that we try to do.

And the blogosphere is chiming in and letting the congressman know that we support him.

Johns tries to say he acted like Joe Wilson and he said that he didn't insult the president in front of 40 million people. The panel said that he insulted every republican and he said that republicans are insulting every American during this health care debate.

You want to know what you can do? Here are some ideas from an interview yesterday on Democracy Now!:

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Kevin, let’s start with you. What exactly are you launching today, this campaign of civil disobedience?

KEVIN ZEESE: Well, it’s three groups that are launching it. ProsperityAgenda.us, which is trying to democratize the economy in the way that Michael Moore is starting to get a debate going about, we see healthcare as critical to people getting control over their lives. And a single-payer system is the only way to do it. Healthcare-NOW!, which is the leading grassroots advocacy group for single payer that is joining us. And the Center for the Working Poor in Los Angeles works on issues of low-wage workers.

And the basic thrust of this is, is to highlight the denial of healthcare by the insurance industry. Doctors and patients reach an agreement on what they want, what kind of healthcare is appropriate, and too often healthcare insurance companies say, “No, we’re not going to pay for that.” In fact, there was a report put out by one of the really excellent organizations in this effort, California Nurses Association, that showed that 20 percent of the time when people have agreed on healthcare, the insurance companies say no. Twenty percent of the time. One company was 40 percent of the time. So this is a serious problem. In fact, Michael Moore, when he did Sicko, had 25,000 people write him and say that they were being denied healthcare. So the goal is to say, “Get these people healthcare.”

We’re going to go—and if people who are denied healthcare want to have the community support them, they should contact us at mobilizeforhealthcare.org, and we will bring people together to go to the insurance company and say to the insurance company, “Provide this person with healthcare.” These are life and death decisions, and their profits should not be coming before patients.

But the overlying message of this is that the healthcare—health insurance industry should not be seen as a solution to our healthcare crisis. They are the cancer of the healthcare crisis. We need a single-payer system. And the band-aid, putting over the cancer, that President Obama and the Democrats are pursuing in Washington is not going to make the situation better. In fact, it’s going to make it worse, because they’re going to empower these insurance companies with hundreds of billions of dollars in annual new revenue by having working people, who can’t even afford to put food on the table in too many kinds, forced to buy private insurance that’s overpriced and a pretty lousy product. It’s amazing that we’re seeing the government forcing people to buy insurance, when the insurance industry is the cause of so much of the problems that we’re facing here.

So, people who want to get involved in this, we’re looking for people to sign up to protest, mobilizeforhealthcare.org, and come there and sign up, whether you’re a patient, whether you’re—want to get involved in this. We’ve had hundreds of people sign up already, and we want hundreds and hundreds more, because this is going to be a national campaign.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: So you’re calling for people to stage sit-ins at the offices of private insurers?

KEVIN ZEESE: Well, the first thing we want people to do is to go to the insurance and make a demand: stop the denials. If they refuse a demand, we say we’re staying until you make that—make that promise, and that we’ll stay—I mean, sit-in, and stay until that demand is met. If it’s not met, we stay. We’re not seeking to get arrested, but if that’s what happens, then the insurance companies have to choose: are you going to arrest people for your profits, or are you going to provide healthcare, like you’re supposed to be doing?

How can they say with a straight face, while we’re about to give them hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue and working people’s income, how can they say with a straight face they’re going to deny healthcare? It’s going to demonstrate that these corporations are not the solution.

Single payer is the solution. And so, please, get involved, mobilizeforhealthcare.org. Get involved, get active. We need the people to rise up and say, no, we don’t want this forced insurance company solution that the Obama administration and the Democrats are pushing down the people’s throats.

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Rachel Maddow and Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss the GOP's hypocrisy when now claiming to be the great champions of Medicare after years of railing against it.

MADDOW: Belated salvo in the scare the bejesus out of elderly voters so they‘ll put you back in power regardless of whether you‘re telling the truth war is an editorial in the conservative newspaper, “The Washington Times,” and it screams “Death Panels by Proxy”—ostensibly argues that the so-called Baucus bill on health reform encourages doctors to withhold health care from Medicare patients. Health care reform is a secret plot to kill people on Medicare.

This is now become an ongoing strategic conundrum. How do you plan to win an argument with opponents who are undeterred by being disproven? Undeterred by the facts, when you don‘t even believe that they believe what they‘re arguing anymore?

It‘s not even just the “death panels” nonsense now. Take Medicare itself, a program Republicans have railed against since before President Johnson signed it into law in 1965. They railed against it since then until—well, until now.

Now, in the Senate Finance Committee, Republicans are trying to portray themselves as the champions of Medicare. They‘re fighting hard to kill any bill that contains any cuts in Medicare, even though people who support Medicare like, say, the AARP, say those cuts won‘t affect care.

Republicans defending Medicare. What would Ronald Reagan say? These guys do remember Ronald Reagan, don‘t they?

Here‘s what he did say about Medicare when it was just a twinkle in some socialist, fascist, freedom-hating, community-organizing Democrat‘s eye.

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When in doubt, I turn to Chris Bowers. He didn't disappoint me - he had ready a step-by-step explanation of what needs to happen to get the public option in the bill sent to the Senate floor:

The bad news is that we learned today that the Senate Finance Committee will not report a public option in its version of health care reform. The good news is that we also learned today that there are 51 votes in favor of Schumer's public option. Here is how we get to 51:

1. Take the 47 "yes" votes from the Washington Independent public option scorecard.
2. Add Bill Nelson and Tom Carper, who both voted for Schumer's public option today;
3. Add Claire McCaskill (who voted for Kennedy's HELP public option back in May);
4. Add Joe Biden

Arguably, proving that there are 51 votes in favor of Schumer's public option is the bigger news. This is because everyone knew the public option would be defeated in committee, but claims that there were 51 votes in favor of a trigger-less public option were pretty much all based on a post I wrote two weeks ago.

Because Democrats are not going to pursue reconciliation for the public option (see why here), the next step in the process does not actually involve Kent Conrad's Budget Committee, as I had previously reported. Instead, a source on the Hill confirms to me that the Senate HELP and Senate Finance committees will be merged by an informal, behind the scenes process involving the four major players in the Senate: Tom Harkin (Chair of HELP), Max Baucus (Chair of Finance), Harry Reid (Majority Leader), and the White House. Together, these four will meet and decide what sort of bill to send to the Senate floor.

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Alan Grayson hit back today at the Republicans who said he should apologize for his biting attack against them. He got honest about the Republican plan for health care reform: "Don't get sick. That's right, don't get sick." That has them screaming.

Well, how quickly they forget what they've been saying about Obamacare. Stuff like the phony death panels and let's kill Grandma. That kind of stuff. Here's what Grayson had to say in response to the whining.

Grayson: Last night here in this chamber I gave a speech. I’m not going to recount every single thing that I said, but I will point out that immediately after that speech, several Republicans asked me to apologize. Well, I would like to apologize. I would like to apologize to the dead. And here’s why. According to this study, “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults” which was published two weeks ago, 44,789 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance. That’s right, 44,789 Americans die every year, according to this Harvard study called “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults.” You can see it by going to our website, grayson.house.gov. That is more than ten times the number of Americans who have died in the war in Iraq.

It’s more than ten times the number of Americans who died in 9/11. But that was just once: this is every single year. That’s right: every single year. Take a look at this. Read it and weep. And I mean that – read it and weep because of all these Americans who are dying because they don’t have health insurance.

Now I think we should do something about that, and the Democratic health care plan does do something about that. It makes health care affordable for those who can’t afford insurance, and it saves these peoples’ lives. Let’s remember that we should care about people even after they’re born. So I call upon the Democratic members of the House, I call upon the Republican members of the House, I call upon all of us to do our jobs for the sake of America – for the sake of those dying people and their families. I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.

Wow, simply amazing. The attacks are coming fast and furious on Grayson...

Ryan Grim writes this for Huffington Post: Despite Outrage, Many House Republicans Have Said Dem Health Care Will Kill People

By contrast, charges that the opposition's health care plan will kill people have been about as common on the House floor lately as resolutions naming post offices.

Take Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.), who said in July: "Last week, Democrats released a health care bill which essentially said to America's seniors: drop dead."

Or Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), a doctor, who reviewed the public health insurance option in July and diagnosed that it is "gonna kill people."

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), not one to pull punches, suggested on the House floor that Congress "make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."

July was a busy time for House floor death sentences. Also that month, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), noted: "One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine...I would hate to think that among five women, one of 'em is gonna die because we go to socialized care."

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) had a similar assessment. "They're going to save money by rationing care, getting you in a long line. Places like Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe. People die when they're in line," he said on the House floor in July.

So far, none of the members of Congress who made such charges have apologized.

The Republicans had eight years of uninterrupted rule to overhaul our health-care system and did nothing except help the rich and start wars. And now, when the chance finally comes for them to step up and help American families, they just say no.

Don't forget to Get Grayson's Back.

UPDATE: Mike Stark says: I interview Republican Leaders: clutching pearls, fainting spells and cowardice

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September 30, 2009 C-SPAN

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CNN's John Roberts challenged GOP pollster Frank Luntz for his role in using "charged language" and fomenting right-wing anger at health care reform.

Heather: This was a typical softball interview from John Roberts where he didn't hit Luntz the way I would have if given the chance to ask him how he feels about selling his soul for a buck and giving the Republicans their talking points on the health care debate. That said, I think Roberts is the first person I've seen in the MSM to actually ask the man if he should feel any responsibility for whipping up the anger at these town halls. You would never see that question asked of Luntz over at ClusterFox that he loves to call home. It's a question that should be asked of him with some real follow up more often.

ROBERTS: From town halls to tea parties, a lot of people across the country are really ticked off. Last week in our special series "Mad as Hell," we looked at the sources and potential solutions for all of that national anger.

Our next guest has advised the Republican Party and other clients on hot-button issues like health care, issues that so many Americans are riled up about. Frank Luntz is a pollster, communications expert and author of the new book, "What Americans Really Want, Really."

Frank joins us now with some new insight on the outrage. Insight on the outrage. Good play on words there. So people in America, are they really angrier than they ever have been?

LUNTZ: They are, 72 percent of Americans define themselves - we took a survey - of 6,400 people. That's five times the typical CNN media poll. Seventy- two percent of Americans are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.

ROBERTS: Seventy-two percent.

LUNTZ: And they're mad at politics because they think there's no accountability in Washington. They're mad at business because they think that their employers don't respect them. And they're mad at Hollywood for the coarseness of the culture. So you've got all three things going on at the same time, and they don't find a solution to it.

ROBERTS: Let me quote from your book here because you say, "It's not necessarily what's so important is not necessarily that Americans are mad as hell. What matters more is that they're not going to take it anymore. Americans have hit a tipping point with Washington, and moreover, its political parties."

So we're at this tipping point. What does that mean for the country? You gave us kind of the background of what people are mad at. Why are they add at all of this, and what is this tipping point?

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