American Politics XII

[Usotsuki]

Because the state has intervened to increase the value of health benefits compared to cash compensation. $5,000 worth of health benefits competes with the after-tax value of $5,000 of income and that distorts the market.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Shryke,

Glen Beck brings us: The Sounds of Insanity

Seriously, this is INSANITY in sound form.

Be warned, you cannot UNHEAR this.

Just FYI, Beck does that from time to time. His show even has a word for it "GOMP" (get off my phone). He went berzerk because of her statement implying he was in favor of government bailouts. He's railed against the bailouts from the start. The woman didn't know what she was talking about.

[DanteGabriel]

Chris Matthews confronts one of the dipshit Republican Congressmen stoking this "Obama's birth certificate was faked" horseshit:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07...l.php?ref=fpblg

Matthews got the douchebag to say on camera that he does not doubt Obama's native birth. Or, at least, "As far as I know." At one point Matthews reads out Obama's birth certificate to him, and tells him "You are feeding the wacko wing of your party."

[TrackerNeil]

Matthews got the douchebag to say on camera that he does not doubt Obama's native birth. Or, at least, "As far as I know." At one point Matthews reads out Obama's birth certificate to him, and tells him "You are feeding the wacko wing of your party."

Ordinarily I'd think poorly of Chris Matthews over this (or over anything...I hate that yellow-headed prick), but after eight years of "Which terrorist attack do you want us to allow?" I think it's time we liberals struck back. Our new four-legs-good, two-legs-bad chant should be, "Do you think the President of the United States is a natural-born citizen? Yes or no?"

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tracker,

Our new four-legs-good, two-legs-bad chant

Are you saying such chants are good things?

(BTW this conspiracy theory is tinfoil hat stuff.)

[Annelise]

Well well..

This is a big deal: The Senate today voted to halt production of the F-22 stealth fighter plane, and it did so 58-40, a margin much wider than expected.

Not only is this a major victory for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who lobbied strenuously (something he rarely does) to kill this program, and for President Barack Obama, who pledged to veto the defense bill if it contained a nickel for more F-22s. The vote might also mark the beginning of a new phase in defense politics, a scaling-back of the influence that defense contractors have over budgets and policies.

hen again, I might be dreaming. Surely things couldn't be changing quite that much. Could they?

In any case, the blow against the F-22 is a substantial step. Gates has been publicly inveighing against the fighter for more than a year, calling it a Cold War relic, noting that it hasn't been used in any of the wars we've fought lately, and noting that our current stock—187 F-22s, which have cost $60 billion to develop, build, and maintain to date—is more than adequate to handle the extremely narrow and unlikely range of threats for which they might be suitable in the future.

he Air Force brass wanted $4 billion in the fiscal year 2010 budget to build 20 more F-22s. Gates slashed the request to zero. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted, 13-11, to shift $1.7 billion from other programs in order to fund another seven planes. That's the line item that the full Senate excised this afternoon.

The amendment to halt the plane's production was co-sponsored by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain, who has never been an F-22 fan, went so far as to quote at some length President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address, which warned of the "military-industrial complex," though McCain noted that the proper phrase should be the "military-industrial-congressional complex."

http://www.slate.com/id/2223287/

ETA:

In other words, Levin said, "There is no gap." He wondered where Dodd got his information. Dodd replied that it came from the defense contractors. That's where he probably got the whole speech, too.

Chambliss made an even dafter mistake. While arguing that the military needs at least 240 F-22s to maintain its air superiority, he quoted a retired Air Force general as noting that no U.S. soldier has been killed by an enemy aircraft since 1951. Any number of senators must have scratched their heads at that one.

:lol:

[TrackerNeil]

Tracker,

Are you saying such chants are good things?

Oh no, but they are fun things!

[DanteGabriel]

Ordinarily I'd think poorly of Chris Matthews over this (or over anything...I hate that yellow-headed prick), but after eight years of "Which terrorist attack do you want us to allow?" I think it's time we liberals struck back. Our new four-legs-good, two-legs-bad chant should be, "Do you think the President of the United States is a natural-born citizen? Yes or no?"

Yeah, it's tough... Normally I think of Matthews as a blowhard who is part of the problem with political culture in this country. But every so often he drags a particularly witless Servant of Mordor into the light and

. So I guess Tweety has his purpose. I'd happily never see him again, though, if it meant one of his counterparts on Fox went bye-bye too.

[VigoTheCarpathian]

Just FYI, Beck does that from time to time. His show even has a word for it "GOMP" (get off my phone). He went berzerk because of her statement implying he was in favor of government bailouts. He's railed against the bailouts from the start. The woman didn't know what she was talking about.

He ripped off the "yell at callers" bit from Don Geronimo for his radio show. His entire FoxNews schtick hinges on the character of Howard Beale on "Network". He gets people to tune in to watch a man who repeats the same talking points as everyone, but his draw is that he pretends that he is batshit crazy, and might break down at any time.

Glenn Beck is a bizarre moron who steals ideas, and executes them poorly. He's a lazy creation of right-wing outrage-u-tainment, a Frankensteinian lump of shit to mortar between the bricks of the "angry hypocritical drug addicts speaking with the false voice of authority" (O'Reilly/Limbaugh) and the "water-brains who say stupid shit" (Coulter/Fox and Friends).

Tuning into Beck is like watching NASCAR, in that the only reason most people watch is that they are waiting for a wreck to happen (his little staged, fakey bipolar fits). Because of this, if he says anything semi-coherent, people seem to give him much more credit for basically having the same opinion as other, better talking heads. He is brain-damaged cat that manages to make it to the litter box 1 in 20 times: he gets disproportionate recognition for that one time cuz he's "special", even though he's shat all over every other surface in your home.

I guess I don't understand how people can buy the put-on that he is selling: media isn't going to allow someone who is actually that unbalanced in front of a microphone/camera. He's a hack and a charlatan, and everytime I hear a co-worker talk about him, I want to say "How is not insulting to the mentally handicapped people of the world that get your opinion from a man doing his best impression of them on a national level?"

There's some sweet irony to the proposition that in order to be differentiate himself from the rest of the pack, Beck has to appear to be your crazy uncle off of his meds. Rational people usually ignore maniacs shrieking on the streetcorner, and a man pretending to be such a maniac doubly deserves to be ignored.

[Annelise]

The Senate energy and natural resources committee's draft for a new energy bill includes language dedicating large amounts of public money for nuclear power plants. Administration officials seem gung-ho about the technology, and Republicans want 100 new reactors by 2030. How does an energy company decide where to build new facilities?

http://www.slate.com/id/2223291/

So admin officials are supposedly gung-ho but Obama also shut down Yucca Mountain. Um. Have I missed plan B?

[TrackerNeil]

Yeah, it's tough... Normally I think of Matthews as a blowhard who is part of the problem with political culture in this country. But every so often he drags a particularly witless Servant of Mordor into the light and

. So I guess Tweety has his purpose. I'd happily never see him again, though, if it meant one of his counterparts on Fox went bye-bye too.

Heh...thanks, DG. I had forgotten about that little exchange. Kevin James is particularly funny when he just shouts, "Chamberlain was an appeaser! Chamberlain was an appeaser!" without knowing anything about what Chamberlain did or didn't do. And then he goes on to complain that all Clinton did for eight years was talk, when Kevin James himself just talks and talks...

(At risk of thread drift, I'd argue that Chamberlain was not an appeaser and that what he did at Munich was not necessarily foolish, but I don't want to invoke the ire of the mods.)

[Annelise]

(At risk of thread drift, I'd argue that Chamberlain was not an appeaser and that what he did at Munich was not necessarily foolish, but I don't want to invoke the ire of the mods.)

Hell, write it up and start your own thread; I'm sure you'd have takers. :)

[TrackerNeil]

Hell, write it up and start your own thread; I'm sure you'd have takers. :)

No chance. I have not done nearly the amount of reading necessary to defend that position. I am, however, catching up on my reading this summer, so come September it's on!

[VarysTheSpider]

He ripped off the "yell at callers" bit from Don Geronimo for his radio show. His entire FoxNews schtick hinges on the character of Howard Beale on "Network".

I thought a similar thing when I first watched his show. Then after about two minutes I realised just how dirty any comparison is. Beale was raw, he was pure. He challenged power but more importantly, he challenged people, gave them information they didn't have and attempted to give them the opportunity to change how they thought. Beck is just a tool for the same partisan forces he claims he despises.

It's exactly the type of fake, hypocritical, choreographed vacuous crap that would have Beale raking his fucking eyes out. Rather than a means of empowerment it's just a means of control, and about as subversive as a Two Minute Hate. It's such a hideous work of TV that it could be satirical and you'd never know the difference. Unlike Beale, there's no need for anyone to try and put a leash around Beck's neck, he's already humping away like a rabbit on heat.

Must go watch Network again. :love:

[awesome possum]

For the first time in my life I listened to Rush Limbaugh's radio show on the way to work today. Well, about two minutes of it, which was all I could stand.

In those two minutes this massive jackass claimed:

1) Obama is ruining the country instead of trying to help it.

2) Obama has failed to fix the economy because he's stupid.

3) Obama is purposely trying to ruin the country.

4) The public is turning on Obama, and like Bush in his final years Obama will be neutered for the next 3 1/2 years by massive public negative opinion.

5) The reason the public is turning on Obama and rejecting his socialistic, country-hating ideas and ideals is because of Rush Limbaugh and bloggers/radio hosts like him.

People actually listen to this fuckwit? Not just listen, but eat up his special brand of verbal diarrhea and go on to repeat it as intellectual discourse?

I know Limbaugh is a joke. I've seen and heard some of his more notoriously idiotic rants. But unless I caught him at a special time, his rhetoric is always this vile and he's considered a fucking HERO among many Republicans.

Huh?

[Annelise]

I'd guess his appeal is as a never surrender conservative purist. He'll attack republicans as RINOs, too.

[DanteGabriel]

Limbaugh is the magical speaking Id of a lot of unreconstructed primitive dumbfucks out there.

[Joanna vander Poele]

Shryke,

Just FYI, Beck does that from time to time. His show even has a word for it "GOMP" (get off my phone). He went berzerk because of her statement implying he was in favor of government bailouts. He's railed against the bailouts from the start. The woman didn't know what she was talking about.

Glenn Beck has no idea what he's talking about. I wish he, Rush, Bill O'Reilly and the other Fox pundits just duke it in a death-match for once and for all. Winner... the world.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Anti-Nox, Triskele,

I don't believe I said Beck was an expert on Health Care. I doubt very seriously Beck would say he's an expert on health care. My point was limited to saying the caller's attempt to paint Beck as a hypocrite who supports corporate bailouts but not government run health care was a clear indication she knew nothing about Beck or his program given the fact he's spent the last 8 months, or more, railing against corporate bailouts and expansion of the Federal Government.

If you listen to the tape again you'll note that's where he hung up on her and what appears to have set him off. I should have made it clear in my earlier post that she didn't know what she was talking about when she accused Beck of hypocrisy re the bailouts.

[Inigima]

The caller is annoying and doesn't know what she's talking about, no doubt about it. And yes, the "get off my phone" is a standard thing. What's noteworthy about this one is the banshee fucking screech he lets out.