You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1378)

PLAYS: (2751)

Blue America just produced a new ad that highlights the many payoffs she has received from the health Insurance industry and demands that she starts representing her constituents who unequivocally support the public option. I'm not much of a NASCAR fan, but you can see that the comparison we use in this ad matches her role well.

If you can, please help us to be able to blanket the entire state of Arkansas with this ad, because for a Democratic Senator to filibuster health-care reform is to become an active member of the teabagger/Republican party. She needs to vote for cloture and give Americans the right to an up-or-down vote and to be true to the will of the good people of Arkansas.

Howie Klein writes:

No, as we've been telling you all year, there's only one weak link worth trying to beat into submission: Arkansas' corrupt and reactionary-- don't those two terms always seem to find a way of cuddling up with each other?-- senior senator, Blanche Lincoln. Blue America has run TV spots against Lincoln all summer and fall and she's watched her re-elect numbers dwindle down to a place where if a serious opponent-- i.e., one with big bucks to buy advertising-- jumped into the race, she would lose. She may lose anyway, even though her current opponents would probably do better if they toured together as a carnival show. Yesterday the RNC started trying to push her to vote with Republicans-- as she so often does-- and against health care reform.

This week Blue America and our friends at Donkey on the Edge have a brand new ad for Arkansas voters to look at-- the fourth in our series-- and the message is very different from the Republicans'. By all means, be the first to view it-- and please consider making a contribution of our Campaign for Health Care Choice page so we can run it deep and wide.

If you live in Arkansas and contact Senator Lincoln, please let me know. Contact me at crooksandliars-AT-gmail.com. We need your help and so does America.

The Glenn Beck candidate wouldn't denounce Rush Limbaugh using a bestiality quote against Dede Scozzafava. That's not surprising for a phony teabagger like Hoffman.

Frank Rich had a great article about the NY-23 race on Sunday:

And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the Obama stimulus package. To the right’s Jacobins, that’s cause to send her to the guillotine.

Sure enough, bloggers trashed her as a radical leftist and ditched her for a third-party candidate they deem a “true” conservative, an accountant and businessman named Doug Hoffman. When Gingrich dared endorse Scozzafava anyway — as did other party potentates like John Boehner and Michael Steele — he too was slimed. Mocking Newt’s presumed 2012 presidential ambitions, Michelle Malkin imagined him appointing Al Sharpton as secretary of education and Al Gore as “global warming czar.” She’s quite the wit.

The wrecking crew of Kristol, Fred Thompson, Dick Armey, Michele Bachmann, The Wall Street Journal editorial page and the government-bashing Club for Growth all joined the Hoffman putsch. Then came the big enchilada: a Hoffman endorsement from Palin on her Facebook page. Such is Palin’s clout that Steve Forbes, Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty, the Minnesota governor (and presidential aspirant), promptly fell over one another in their Pavlovian rush to second her motion. They were joined by far-flung Republican congressmen from Kansas, Georgia, Oklahoma and California, not to mention a gaggle of state legislators from Colorado. On Fox News, Beck took up the charge, insinuating that Hoffman’s Republican opponent might be a fan of Karl Marx. Some $3 million has now been dumped into this race by outside groups.

Who exactly is the third-party maverick arousing such ardor? Hoffman doesn’t even live in the district. When he appeared before the editorial board of The Watertown Daily Times 10 days ago, he “showed no grasp” of local issues, as the subsequent editorial put it. Hoffman complained that he should have received the questions in advance — blissfully unaware that they had been asked by the paper in an editorial on the morning of his visit.

Last week it turned out that Hoffman’s prime attribute to the radical right — as a take-no-prisoners fiscal conservative — was bogus. In fact he’s on the finance committee of a hospital that happily helped itself to a $479,000 federal earmark. Then again, without the federal government largess that the tea party crowd so deplores, New York’s 23rd would be a Siberia of joblessness. The biggest local employer is the pork-dependent military base, Fort Drum.

The media is trying to frame today's election as some sort of referendum on President Obama, but NY-23 has voted Republican for decades and decades, so the real battle is between Republicans. If Owens wins, then I'd say conservatives have a real big problem. There will be a circular firing squad among Club for Growth, Limbaugh, Palin, Steele and Gingrich. Newt endorsed the moderate Republican after all, which is not the Fox flavor at the moment.

Last week, Gingrich became one of a small handful of conservatives who endorsed Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R) in her bid to fill Army Secretary John McHugh's now-vacant House seat. As a result, conservative bloggers said Gingrich had eliminated himself from contention for the GOP's presidential nomination in 2012.

And the wingnut bloggers attacked Gingrich over it too.

Right-wing bloggers have recently attacked Newt Gingrich for endorsing Republican Dede Scozzafava over Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the special election to fill Army Secretary John McHugh's (R-NY) vacated congressional seat. On her blog, Michelle Malkin said "no thanks" to the possibility of a Gingrich 2012 presidential run, noting that he is the "most prominent GOP endorser of [the] radical leftist NY-23 congressional candidate," while at RedState.com, Erick Erickson reportedly wrote -- before removing the post -- that Gingrich "stands athwart history and pees on the legacy of 1994."

Hoffman doesn't even live or know anything about the district he's running in, but for teabaggers, that doesn't matter. Knowledge is a liability for the teabagger movement.

CNN's Jim Spellman has been following the teabagger express and he's reporting what bloggers and our readers already know. There is a dark fringe, a radical element that makes up the fabric of the teabagger party who believe in wild conspiracy theories and hate Obama because a black man won the election. They can't handle that Bush isn't in the White House. And wasn't it Bush who said that elections have consequences?

Spellman:...we saw handguns from time to time, but running through this subculture that's developed around these tea parties is a bit of a dark undercurrent. The bulk of the people are for lower taxes and less government control, but there really is an element that's go these kind of outlandish conspiracy theories about death camps and about this take over, people comparing President Obama to Hitler. It really is a sizable...It's not just a couple of people around the edges. One of the big questions will be if this movement go forward while maintaining this kind of element on the edges...

At least Spellman is willing to say the truth instead of trying to put a ribbon on it. This isn't something new. It's been around a long, long time, but before the media gave them a platform they only existed in the radical right militia meetings and dark alleys of the wicked. The media is main streaming them into right our homes. They will continue onward unfortunately for America.

I always ask teabaggers when I run into them, how any federal deficit has hurt them personally? They can't respond to that. They have no answer except to cry "socialism."

Sure, it's much better to have a surplus like Clinton did, but these same deficit hawks were quite happy when the Bush tax cuts came down and the rich got richer and the economy collapsed. But I ask again: How has deficit spending hurt you?

Long term debt is nothing to sneeze at, but when we're talking about reforming health care for America, who really cares if it's $700 billion for 10 years or $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion? (By the way, I love the way the press never tells America what it would cost per year because then the figure doesn't sound so bad. They make it appear that the cost is $700 or 900 billion a year.)

Go ask a teabagger about costs and see what they say. What will it matter in the long run? We can figure out how to pay for it. Even FDR was hampered by these deficit hawks when he brought the country out of the Great Depression, and now these deficit hawks almost put us back into a Depression because they were so deficit crazy.

The deficit hawk is code for keeping the rich---rich. And then finding ways to keep their money pouring in.

Digby has a great post up today about costs:

The Peterson Foundation is ready with the news. They released a report (pdf) on the Kennedy Bill today...

{}

The fact is that if all these benefits were actually realized, the country would be far, far better off, both financially and otherwise. Nobody expects that spending will go down, merely that the growth in spending will be less. Therefore, if the government finds itself having to pay out all that money in health care benefits, this healthier, more prosperous nation can surely afford to levy the necessary taxes to pay for it, right?

I don't give a damn what this is going to cost in 2029. And nobody else should either because these projections are based on bullshit. Nobody can see that far into the future. If we can pay for it now, then we should do it now. And if it costs more down the line, then we will find a way to pay for it. This nonsensical obsession with deficits decades into the future is nothing more than a scam designed to keep the gravy train going for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else.

If these numbers are correct, then the fiscal scolds are going to have to argue that people today have to die so that wealthy people in 2029 don't have to pay higher taxes. It's that simple.

The president is also talking about having a deficit neutral bill, but he's being attacked for it by the usual suspects.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1633)

PLAYS: (12245)

Why is MSNBC even putting people like this on TV? Dr. Nancy was dumbfounded by what this teabagger had to say about Obama's back to school speech and lesson plans in general.

Nancy: Have you changed your mind since hearing the president today?

Teabagger: No I haven't. I thought the speech was OK, we never really had a problem with the content of the speech. It was always about the lesson plans.

Nancy: And what's the problem with the lesson plans, that the idea is to stay in school and do your work and not let adversity keep you down?

Teabagger: Well, actually the lesson plans as they're presented are actually illegal under the protection of People's Rights

Nancy: But what's your problem with the message?

Teabagger: Well like I said, there is no problem with the message it's the lessons plans that encourages students to reveal personal information about themselves by participating in the lessons that the teachers are putting forth for them and that's illegal....

Nancy: But I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. No one asked for personal information as far as I understand and the lesson plans really went along with the bulk of the speech.

Teabagger: When the teachers ask in a questionnaires or they encourage the students to reveal information about their goals that delves into the psyche of the children and under code 34 of the federal regulations that's illegal.

Nancy: You must be kidding me. Do you not want kids to be talking about what they want to be when they grow up?

Yes, when a teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I was a kid I said I wanted to be a cop. OMG, that's blasphemy and illegal and I want to sue P.S. 122 in Astoria. I'm sorry, but isn't Obama's speech the reason this teabagger is on my teevee and not the teachers? I guess sometimes they get confused.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1056)

PLAYS: (2462)

Lis Wiehl tries to explain the Commerce Clause to O'Reilly on The Factor last night because the new talking point of the health care insurance companies...Republicans...FOX News...BillO the teabagger is just that, but he can't handle the truth, dammit. Bill, it's not lawyers that are the problem just because Wiehl interpreted it the way you hate.

It's this idiot op ed by two people that worked for Bush and Reagan that are saying individual mandates are unconstitutional and causing the real "nuts" to go off the deep end. And you can be sure that the rest of the right wing loons will be jumping aboard the crazy train with him.

Wiehl: Article one in the Constitution says the Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce. That is anything that goes from one state to another.

O'Reilly: So what?

Wiehl: Health care itself may be local, your doctor may be in your state but medical supplies come to you the medical equipment, all of the things...

O'Reilly: Why can they make you buy anything?

Wiehl: Because they can regulate interstate commerce. Those things go through interstate, they can force you to...

O'Reilly: OK, I want the audience to know that this is total BS. This is why people hate lawyers, this is nuts. {} The government is saying you have to buy health insurance. You have to do it. I'm saying that's unconstitutional. The federal government doesn't have the power to force an American to buy anything.

The Supreme Court over the years has used this Clause on many, many rulings. We had to buy George W Bush, Bill. Oh, you liked him---never mind. That was a different clause.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (873)

PLAYS: (3905)

Check out this video, via Peter Daou, of one of the protesters outside the Obama town-hall meeting in New Hampshire:

Protester: [Unintelligible] illegals ... we send on the first bus one way back to wherever they came from. We don't need illegals.

Send 'em home on a bus, send 'em home with a bullet in the head the second time.

Nothing like a little eliminationism with your tea, is there?

Then he adds:

Read what Jefferson said about the Tree of Liberty -- it’s coming baby.

As Daou notes: Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Indeed, Tim McVeigh was arrested wearing a T-shirt with that very quotation.

Yep, just another "Patriot" fomenting civil war.

A fellow teabagger then proclaims that Obama is becoming "a dictator," and warns that opposing him will lead to people being imprisoned.

Hoo boy. These people speak volumes about what's happening with these protests. As we noted earlier.

UPDATE: Be sure also to check out the complementary video from the same YouTuber, of a ranting "Patriot" verbally assaulting ACORN volunteers, while his scary-looking militiaman buddy hovers nearby.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (110)

PLAYS: (483)

Rachel Maddow responds to Lou Dobbs calling her a "tea-bagging queen" on his radio show. Obviously the irony of calling a lesbian a tea-bagger, or a queen for that matter has flown right over Dobbs' head.

Hint to Lou Dobbs. If you want to make slurs against gay people, it would make you look less ridiculous if you at least figured out which sex calls themselves "queens" and which one is more likely to engage in "tea-bagging".

The Teabagger King attacked President Obama because he actually shook hands with Hugo Chavez and tried to make into an international ordeal except only his teabagging compatriots bought into his lies. ABC News did a little digging and found this on Newt's own website.

On NBC's "Today" show this morning, Gingrich criticized what he called a "weakness" in the emerging Obama foreign policy, saying that the pictures of Obama and Chavez will be used to demonstrate that Obama is "friends" with an anti-American regime.


Asked specifically about whether there's a value to having a diplomatic relationship with an enemy, like the US did with the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, Gingrich said:

"We didn't rush over, smile and greet Russian dictators. We understood who they were. I'm not against him talking to Chavez. But I think you ought to talk to Chavez in a cold and distant way."

But Gingrich sounded a bit different about the potential political value of laughter when talking about his political idol, Ronald Reagan.

As recounted in a recent interview highlighted on Gingrich's own Web site, Gingrich fondly recalled the way that Reagan shared jokes with Mikhail Gorbachev.


In the interview, Gingrich refers to a favorite picture with himself and the late president: "One of the most memorable [moments] is actually a picture hanging on the wall of my family room. The two of us are on Air Force One. We're both in shirtsleeves. We both have our arms crossed and we're laughing. We're laughing because Reagan has told another joke. Reagan collected jokes, particularly about the Soviet Union."


Gingrich recalled a joke about "the man who tells a reporter, 'I have as much freedom in the Soviet Union as I have in Washington.' The reporter says, 'What do you mean?' He says, 'Well, I can get up in front of the Kremlin and I can say that Ronald Reagan is doing a terrible job. And I can get in front of the White House and say Ronald Reagan is doing a terrible job. See, I'm totally free.' . . . . Reagan told those stories to Gorbachev."

You almost have to admire the lies he's willing to tell just to get his teabagger party all hot and bothered.

Newt Gingrich -- the King of the Teabaggers -- was on NBC's Today Show today slamming President Obamam for shaking hands with Hugo Chavez. In the mind of the Teabagger King, that looks bad.

The importance of the Chavez hand shake is the report you did just now, on the jump in book sales from #54,000 to number 2. Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and being with the President as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he's acceptable, He's a dictatorial figure, he's an anti American figure, but what I find distressing is this administration is opposed to looking for oil off shore, but the President bows to the Saudi King...

It does matter to the world...

He's doing his best to lead the Fox News cult, isn't he? Obama is just so weak on North Korea too. Teabaggers like Newt will stare in the face of history and go blank. The Teabagger King will lie about all things and be strong for his people. Nixon/Brezhnev, Reagan/Gorbachev none of those great Republican presidents ever shook hands with dictators. Nope, that never happened. George Bush never bowed to a Saudi King. Nope, never happened. Poppy Bush never used cash he got from the Saudis to bail out his son over bad business deals. Nope, never.

What crime has President Obama committed? He's trying to restore the image of America overseas to the rest of the world and he's being successful at it. And the Teabagger King can't have that.