Newt has constantly denied that he once supported Mitt Romney's health insurance mandate in Massachusetts, but the wayback machine has something else to say about that. Here's a letter written by Newt in April of 2006:

The most exciting development of the past few weeks is what has been happening up in Massachusetts. The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system.

We agree entirely with Governor Romney and Massachusetts legislators that our goal should be 100% insurance coverage for all Americans. Individuals without coverage often do not receive quality medical attention on par with those who do have insurance. We also believe strongly that personal responsibility is vital to creating a 21st Century Intelligent Health System. Individuals who can afford to purchase health insurance and simply choose not to place an unnecessary burden on a system that is on the verge of collapse; these free-riders undermine the entire health system by placing the onus of responsibility on taxpayers.

The Romney plan attempts to bring everyone into the system. The individual mandate requires those who earn enough to afford insurance to purchase coverage, and subsidies will be made available to those individuals who cannot afford insurance on their own. We agree strongly with this principle, but the details are crucial when it comes to the structure of this plan. Under the new bill, Massachusetts residents earning more than 300% of the federal poverty level (approximately $30,000 for an individual) will not be eligible for any subsidies. State House officials had originally promised that there would be new plans available at about $200 a month, but industry experts are now predicting that the cheapest plan will likely cost at least $325 a month. This estimate totals about $4000 per year, or about 1/5 of a $30,000 annual take-home income.

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function vid_placeholder(placeholder_target, vid_link) { placeholder_target.innerHTML = ''; Hunter Thompson has died }

click here for WMP

via Talk Left

Journalist Hunter Thompson fatally shot himself tonight. Aspen Sheriff Bob Braudis, a close friend of Hunter's, has confirmed the sad news. He was found by his son, Juan Thompson. We will update as more information becomes available. Here is Hunter's latest Hey Rube column, dated February 15, 2005.

It ends with this line: So long and Mahalo.

(Code corruption messed up this post)

So I've been following recently the debate that's been going on between Digby and Jamelle Bouie over whether it's really wise to use hyperbole and over-the-top mockery to thrash your political opponents. As you can imagine, I largely side with Digby on this matter and find constructions like this from Bouie to be particularly annoying:

Unlike myself, Moulitsas isn't a journalist, and his job isn't to be an honest broker for ideas; no, it's to rally progressives and score points against conservatives.

Bouie seems to me like the sort of person, to use the phrase of an old acquaintance, who would have been extremely upset that the wicked John Swift would suggest eating all those Irish babies.

Using hyperbole and outlandish mockery to skewer one's political opponents is a wonderful human tradition that extends back centuries. Not only is it a terrific way to blow off steam, but if done smartly it also garners attention by making your opponents convulse into fits of rage. Newt Gingrich understands this better than any other political figure -- he'll say stuff that he knows is outrageous and untrue simply to capture media attention and to push the conversation further to the right. Instead of coming out and saying, "I disapprove of Obama's plan to open up exchanges where people can get government-subsidized health insurance," he says something along the lines of "Barack Hussein Obama's secular socialist machine and its government takeover of health care post a greater threat to the United States than Hitler ever did." While liberals will all shriek and hem and haw about Gingrich's ridiculous rhetoric, the media will report it as, "Liberals deny that Obamacare is worse than the Nazis."

The idea is that you should always be whacking your opponent in the face with something that will force them to respond in a defensive manner. Markos understands this very well which is why his blog has been such a huge success in mobilizing people and money to elect progressive candidates over the past decade. The liberal establishment, best exemplified by Bouie's quote above, thinks that we only need to be "honest brokers for ideas" in order to win over the American public. Sorry but that ain't so.

That said!

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continuing inability of the U.S. military to understand the nature of the Iraqi insurgency, as reported in a New Yorker article, points to "one extraordinary but glaringly simple fact," writes War In Context's Paul Woodward, "America has virtually no friends in Iraq."

DC's Inside Scoop finds that as of today the White House "continues to maintain formal ties" with cash-for-coverage pundit Armstrong Williams. Plus: 'Open Wide and Eat Your Propaganda' and 'No Pundit Left Behind.'

Seeing the Forest's Dave Johnson describes a "conventional wisdom" machine set up by the Right, that in addition to working through conservative media outlets, attempts to influence more mainstream opinion leaders to "reject 'marginalized' information sources," including "Progressive online news sources or blogs." Plus: 'They can dish it out, but...'

New Ohio voter transcripts feed floodtide of doubt about Republican election manipulation!

by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
November 25, 2004

COLUMBUS -- A floodtide of evidence of questionable practices in the 2004 election is mounting fast against Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and Republican Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE) Director Matt Damschroder. New transcriptions of sworn voter testimony, presented below for the first time, confirm growing suspicions of widespread use of rigged machines. Voters experienced hostility from poll workers, refusal of Republican election officials to follow the law, and discriminatory manipulation of voting machine placement, driving significant numbers of Democrats away from the polls.

The Columbus Dispatch, central Ohio's dominant conservative daily newspaper, which endorsed Bush for the presidency, says Damschroder “has faced criticism locally and across the country from groups that contend an already short supply of voting machines were shifted from Democratic precincts in Columbus to Republican areas outside the city.” read on...

West Palm Beach voter controversy already!

Our man Mark in WPB, is reporting that many people are complaining about the electronic voting machine ie: No matter how you vote it is counted for Bush-Cheney

Mark: Many democratic voters are complaining to polling officials because their votes are being counted for Bush-Cheney! People have charged that after having completed all their votes and start the end processing, the final screen is then being counted for Bush-Cheney! It wasn't fixed until a polling official had to step in.

More to come!

Our Future: Conservatism, as we've known it since Ronald Reagan, is failing. Ground down in the desert of Iraq, drowned in the floods of Hurricane Katrina, foreclosed by the housing crisis and poisoned by toys imported from China. Even so, the class war continues, and my class is losing.

Jonathan Turley: Thank you Mr. President! China has embraced American values. They're defending their use of torture by citing the Bush torture program.

Beggars Can Be Choosers: Stocks plunge again as US moves closer to economic apocalypse

Pharyngula: Chris Hedges writes a book, wastes everyone's time.

Rising Hegemon: "My friends, it's all about me"

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Media hold McCain, Obama to different standards...Rebranding torture...What do you believe is the biggest threat facing our democracy? Some might say the appalling spread of false information...MSM looks at blogs...Play Pundit!...Journalist to be executed...Media won't take no for an answer...The propaganda machine Jack Welch built...LA Times owner looks to cash in on ballot proposition...

Daily Kos:

When you go to Las Vegas, you have a lot of choices of where to stay and where to spend your money. You can go high-end, low-end and now, with Sheldon Adelson openly supporting 1,000 years of war in Iraq, you can also go neoconservative-nutjob end.

In 2007, Sheldon Adelson was one of the founders of Freedom's Watch; a right wing political attack machine that is intent on continuing the war in Iraq and with any luck, moving forward and starting another war in Iran.

Thanks to folks who have linked up some pretty amazing stories at Freedom's Watch NewsLadder, we have learned that the chicken hawks at Freedom's Watch have been focus-grouping war with Iran. [..]

Sheldon Adelson has perverted the service of our men and women in uniform and created a front group to promote war. It's run by people who never served, to take advantage of the sacrifice of those who have. His tens of millions of dollars spent will benefit the man who wants war, not just now, but forever, John McCain.

Maybe next time you go to Vegas, you'll consider staying somewhere else - our 150,000 men and women in uniform in Iraq, their families and their children will thank you for it.

To be sure, the real outrage in the scandal surrounding trumped up charges against former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D) are the charges themselves. Local Republican officials, in apparent conjunction with Karl Rove, railroaded a sitting governor because he was a Democrat. It was political corruption at its most pernicious.

But if we also take a moment to consider the Alabama media, the decisions of WHNT, the CBS affiliate in northern Alabama, are almost comical in their ineptitude.

In 1955, when WLBT-TV, the NBC affiliate in Jackson, Miss., did not want to run a network report about racial desegregation, it famously hung up the sign: “Sorry, Cable Trouble.” Audiences in northern Alabama might have suspected the same tactics when WHNT-TV, the CBS affiliate, went dark Sunday evening during a “60 minutes” segment that strongly suggested that Don Siegelman, Alabama’s former Democratic governor, was wrongly convicted of corruption last year.

The report presented new evidence that the charges against Mr. Siegelman may have been concocted by politically motivated Republican prosecutors — and orchestrated by Karl Rove. Unfortunately, WHNT had “technical problems” that prevented it from broadcasting a segment (the problems were resolved in time for the next part of the show) that many residents of Alabama would no doubt have found quite interesting.

After initially blaming the glitch on CBS in New York, the affiliate said it learned “upon investigation,” and following a rebuke from the network, that “the problem was on our end.” It re-broadcast the segment at 10 p.m., pitting it against the Academy Awards on rival ABC, before Daniel Day-Lewis won the best actor Oscar. As public criticism grew, it ran it again at 6 p.m. on Monday.

WHNT’s president and general manager assured viewers that “there was no intent whatsoever to keep anyone from seeing the broadcast.”

No, of course not, it was only the most remarkable set of coincidences in modern broadcast history.

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