Sunday Morning Bobblehead Thread
Don Henley- Heart of the Matter
These times are so uncertainThere's a yearning undefined
...People filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age
The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us,
Doesn't keep me warm
Remember my little snark to the producers of This Week a few months ago, over yet another booking of John McCain? Well, I had to do it again this week. Not because of McCain, but the bookings are nearly as egregious:
I'm sure that in the effort to have the show ideologically balanced (for, clearly, every issue is reduced to Democrat vs. Republican on This Week), it has completely escaped the producers' notice that they have booked THREE politicos against health care reform (Coburn, Nelson, Blackburn) to ONE in favor (Wasserman-Schultz).
Curious that ABC's idea of "balance" on an issue with OVERWHELMING public support is to tip the scale against health care reform. Does [your Senior Producer] feel he is serving his viewership well with such skewed bookings?
Sadly, This Week's producer doesn't really want to engage in any further tete a tetes on their skewed sense of balance, but taking a look at this week's schedule, certainly, they're not the only ones guilty. Look, for example, at the hacktacular framing on The Chris Matthews Show. Or the inclusion of Joe "Sucking Media Hole" Lieberman on Meet the Press. Personally, I think I'm gonna focus on the CNN foreign policy shows, rather than pollute my brain with any more of the health care nonsense.
ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.; Reps. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.
CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent; and Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Joe Klein, Norah O'Donnell, Anne Kornblut, David Ignatius. Topics: Obama's Lost the Independents -- What Do They Want Him To Do Differently? Are There Signs of Carteresque Weakness in the Obama Presidency? Meter Questions: Will President Obama Sign a Health Care Reform Bill This Year? YES: 5 NO: 7; Will Delays Over Afghanistan and Health Care Hurt Obama's Image Longterm? YES: 5 No: 7.
CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Carly Fiorina, California Republican who's running for U.S. Senate.
CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - An exclusive interview with Maziar Bahari, the Newsweek reporter who spent 4 months in an Iranian prison. Plus, the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, gives Fareed his only television interview on his trip to Washington.
CNN's "Amanpour" - New Jewish Lobby: A new Jewish American lobbying group is angling itself as an alternative to the well-known pro-Israel AIPAC group. Could this change the way Washington approaches Israel? Afghan Exclusives: Former Afghan Pres. Cand. Ashraf Ghani calls the Afghan gov. a "looting machine," and calls Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar's Interior Ministry "among the most corrupt in the country".
"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Kit Bond, R-Mo., Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Bernadine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health.
So, what's catching your eye this morning?
While last night's healthcare bill will probably be the big topic, I would also note that today is the 46th anniversary of the JFK assassination.
I mention this in light of the "Psalm 109:8" issue.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
I would have done it.
The #1 event and I was 11 at the time.
#2 RFK
"Let's talk dirty to the animals"
I was in Grade 3 and walking home from school when I heard the news from a classmate. I didn't believe it until I got home and saw my mother in tears.
That whole weekend was so very sad and unreal. I will never forget it.
Presidency?
I saw tweety and co. this morning. I wanted to throw my shoe at him. Why are people trying to force the comparison of Obama with Carter. Now I truly liked Carter and much of the good he did was undone by Reagan, but Obama is WAAAY more similar to the Johnson presidency than Carter's. It's their bias against Carter's failure to get re-elected, and their wish to see Obama not get re-elected that I feel drives this comparison.
In some bizarre backwards world where time moves in reverse, Obama=Carter.
You see, in Reagan's first year, when unemployment hit 10%, it was "Carter's fault". But in backwards Bush World, one year into Obama's presidency, 10% unemployment is Obama's fault.
Why? Because Obama and Carter are both Democrats! Don't you get that yet? /snark
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Opinions differ, Farley. Me, I think Obama is making Carter look good.
Johnson cracked the whip on congress. In a Johnson administration, there wouldn't have been a breezy invincible backstabber like Lieberman. The word is, Obama is NOTHING like Johnson--unfortunately, in the case of his campaign-promised health care reform and dedication to saving the U.S. economy so we don't keep bringing the world down with us. He is like Johnson only in his wasteful misuse of American lives on foreign soil and gazillions of dollars on useless war to the detrement of his country. Except that now, the gazillions come from China, and our grandchildren are going to get the bill.
I sure hope Obama doesn't get re-elected. We still have that Hope and Change business to take care of. I just can't get to caring exclusively about the Democratic party and sticking out my tongue at the repuglicans. There's just, I don't know, so much more to it all.
Oh yeah, and welcome aboard to the latest incomprehensible reachout to the extreme minority who lost the election: Dana Perino! I'm absolutely choking on that one. Proves that the lack of change and hope has nothing to do with it being only 10 months into this "new" administration. I say, President Obama has gotten a LOT done!
I've gotta say, that Perino appointment, to as relatively minor a position as it is, really said a lot to me. I've pretty much blown off the whole healthcare, Afghanistan, and economy discussions this past week because of that one decision.
Petty? Perhaps, but if, as they say, you are judged by the company you keep, appointing a master of the babbling spin machine is necessary to get your point across, maybe you don't really have a valid point to make. Shameful.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
...the guests themselves start pointing this out ON AIR to the embarrassment of the hosts?
"You know, it is interesting that with a 60-40 Senate majority and a large House majority and popular and electoral victory of the President, the voices we hear over and over again are those of the minority who are against progress, against fixing the economy, against healthcare for all Americans, against a thoughtful approach to sending soldiers into harm's way. Why is that?"
Cheers,
The Capitalists, the tiny but great minority, the 1%, are the ones in control…
There was a brief push back in the last Great Depression. The Capitalists learned their lesson and they will not allow such a thing to occur again.
In the next Great Depression, coming sooner or later, but not very much later, I suspect, they will not make the same mistakes.
Even though their plundering ways, and the results to the plundered are the same.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
.. will enter the stadium armed only with a whip and a small stool she can carry, sit on, or use for protection. The others will be marshaled together under the studio and will enter the stadium together. The discussion will center on why Americans dont trust the government to run health care. George Stuffinallofus will moderate
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
Learning nothing, Alexander repeats his "Medical ghetto" remark on FnS.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
that watching the Sunday chat fests led to knowledge and understanding. When I lived in Hawaii I would get up at 4am on Sunday to watch C-span morning journal. At some point during the 96 election I realized that the shows had become nothing more than hours of corporate propaganda mixed with GOP talking points. Occasionally they will have on some "sensible liberal" but he or she was never acounter point to the two or three firebreathing Rethugs they had on.
Troops returning home.
Is there hope for Afghanistan.
Chavez drives the bus over the cliff.
Hutu militia leader gets arrested in Germany.
Can she make it work?
Egypt tells Israel.
Afghanistan
Sharia law does it again.
And for all you NFL fans. Today's schedule. Go Niners!
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Bond says that the new standards on breast exam screening is "all about (government) control"... the government coming between women and their doctors.
So says the politician that is coming between women and the doctors of the NIH.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Wallace pushes Specter on "cutting nearly a Trillion dollars out of Medicare over ten years."
Fist off, it's not "Medicare", it's "Medicare Advantage".
Second, when did they become so concerned about protecting Medicare?
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
You could say these unfair bookings are just typical corporate bottom line ratings boosters, but after years of observing the state media on blogs, forums, and web sites we can safely say they have a relentless rw agenda.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. Albert Einstein
According to Kitt Bond, President Obama "dithering" on Afghanistan and saying "he wants an exit strategy", "hurts the morale of our troops" by suggesting we won't "see this through to the end" and "aids the enemy" by telling them that "we don't have the will to see this through to the end."
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Healy: "I'm saying very powerfully, Ignore the new breast screening recommendations. Women will die."
"It may save money, but it won't save lives."
She goes on to dispute Wallace's point that the NIH claims "money wasn't a factor in the policy."
Later claims it is "all part of hidden government rationing in the disguise of healthcare policy."
Fear-mongering at its worst.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
stops at Pine Dunes resort and Golf Club.
"As in other industries hit by the recession, workers in the news and information business have had to adjust to a new reality, one in which weekly rounds of layoffs and the closure of bureaus and entire publications has become the norm. At times, it feels like media workers are playing the unwitting role of victim in The Pit and the Pendulum, helpless as the ax swings closer and closer."
Hume responds to Wallace's question that "China is chastizing us on economic policy and ignoring us on human rights."
Hume says that it is Obama's $10T Debt and Obama's borrowing that puts us at this disadvantage.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
"He bows at the waist and pulled the missile base out of Cz, which the Kremlin almost certainly saw as a sign of weakness. So far, for all his capitulation, he has nothing to show for it."
"The world respects a 'strong' America."
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
"Just Ice"
Hey Twit, the world respected, arguably feared, a strong America for perhaps the first 25 years post-WWII. After watching the failure in Vietnam, leading to today when huge debts are required to live well beyond our means, uh, not so much...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
The conflation of "blocking real health care reform" and "nit-picking the president" sure is getting tiresome. You can't watch or read anything about what we really want in health care reform, and how blue dogs and repugs are blocking and ram-rodding the issue, without remarks mixed right into the middle as to how repugs just want to be mean to Mr. Obama. The one not only has nothing to do with the other as to REAL health care reform, the two are downright EXCLUSIVE of each other. This conflation only serves one interest. Guess whose? (Not ours.)
With little more than six weeks left in 2009, Wall Street has raised nearly $58 billion in new debt for U.S. health care companies, nearly double the amount raised in 2006 and even beating 2007, when investment bankers handled 43 new debt issues for pharmaceutical, biotech, and health care products and services companies.
Gregory tries to get Durbin to lay out just how much he's willing to give up to get HC reform passed, especially "giving up on a Public Option".
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
the biggest beneficiaries are the health care banking teams at firms like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America.
Hutchinson endorses Mitt's "completely privatized healthcare reform (disaster) program" that is bankrupting Mass., over the Democratic plan.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Lieberman says this reform is "a radical departure" from how we did things in the past (to control healthcare costs).
Well... if what we did in the past worked we wouldn't need to try something new, would we Joe?
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Gregory asks KBH if she agrees that Geithner should resign.
She says he is failing at his job, but despite being asked three times, she never answers the question (Gregory ever interrupts her: "It's a simple question. Should he resign?")
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Gregory pushes Krauthammer's contention that the KSM trial is "a show trial" because he'll never go free anyway" on DiFi.
But the point of the trial isn't KSM's "freedom", it's to charge him with "war crimes". He may not go free, but on what charge will he be sentenced?
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Capitol Murder. Conspiracy to commit murder. Being charged with war crimes would put him in a Military trial.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
After ignoring Afghanistan in favor of Iraq for six years, suddenly, Lieberman and KBH are seriously concerned about "winning in Afghanistan".
Welcome to the party. Wish you were here seven years ago.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Coburn, Nelson, Blackburn, an even match, vs. Wasserman Schultz, and I'd prolly agree.
Bob Scheiffer's final comment on FtN points out that it costs $1mil per soldier per week (iirc) in Afghanistan, putting us $1T in debt to the Chinese. "Does that make us any safer?"
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
he could go on Fux live, right before a NASCAR race, with this figure. He'd soon enjoy an upswing in popularity close to that of bush on 9/12.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Guess whose money they're stealing?
Get. Out. Now. The Karzai's are rich enough.
Coburn declares that "Medicare will be broke in three years."
Not true, but if it were, blame the unfunded "Medicare Part-D".
ADDENDUM: Coburn later claims the "Medicare denial rate (to pay claims) is twice that of the private sector."
I'll look into that. Sounds like BS to me.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Hmmm. This is odd.
After much Googling, I'm not finding any non-partisan sources confirming Coburn's contention that "Medicare will go broke in three years." /snark
I *am* finding claims from last July from the GOP that "Medicare wil be broke in six to eight, and Nancy Pelosi said that "Medicare’s solvency had decreased from 2026 to 2019, which is a direct result of the enormous subsidies to HMOs and other privatization provisions in the 2003 Republican Medicare bill", but I'm not finding ANYBODY repeating Coburn's latest "three years to bankruptcy" claim.
Huh. /snark
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
It was just a passing comment, but Conservative nutter Marsha Blackburn told Steph-O she opposed the Senate healthcare reform bill because "it would LEAD TO a government takeover of health care."
That caught my ear because EVERY nutter has been decrying this as "a government takeover of healthcare". Kitt Bond said it, KBH said it twice on TW AND during local ads for her Gubernatorial Campaign, but the truth is they think it will "LEAD TO" a government takeover, not "IS" a takeover. The two are VERY different arguments.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
The Cheney-ette says Obama "needs to remember that we already have troops in Afghanistan", therefore, we need to send more troops into that meat grinder rather than "take his (Obama's) time" carefully considering the pros & cons.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR95xymoxkk
Yeah, not Henley-penned, but...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
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