In an article subtitled Meet the interest groups that will decide the fate of medical insurance he mentions murder by spreadsheet astroturf and HCAN’t.

Nowhere does he mention John Conyers, the 90 cosponsors, the the US Conference of Mayors or any of the broad coalition that has endorsed HR 676.  Read more 

Means Testing, for Medicare

Shorter version of this article, the biggest items in our federal budget are entitlement programs, therefore they must be cut, therefore we need to means test Medicare, which really means turn it into Medicaid. And we should not move to single payer because it lacks transparency. At no time does the author express an interest in providing quality healthcare to all Americans.  Read more 

The New Yorker and Hipster Racism, (what a great phrase, hipster racism, I will have to remember that).

With friends like these

Truly, it is really an offensive cover. It only thinks it is satirical. It reinforces serious lies and does great damage to our public discourse.

To Zoriah.

Not vouching, Ok, I’ll vouch. FDL says he needs our support. I’m happy to give it.

Five Good Questions for Gwen Ifill

Gwen Ifill has made a career out of asking questions.

Now she’s ready to answer yours.

Gwen, the moderator of “Washington Week” and a senior correspondent for “The NewsHour,” is the next participant in “Five Good Questions,” our new feature that allows you to engage directly with key people at PBS.

Want to ask Gwen what it’s like to chat up the nation’s top reporters each Friday night on “Washington Week?” Curious about some of the stories she’s covered for “The NewsHour?” Eager to learn more about her friendship with the late Tim Russert?  Read more 

According to one report Keith Olberman and Gwen Ifill are the top contenders for the new Meet the Press host. Now Ifill is nothing but a public embarrassment. However, if she got the MTP gig, that would open up Washington Week for Robert Parry.  Read more 

Via The Sideshow,

limerick:
In the past I cheered Olbermann’s rants—
Loved his anti-war, anti-Bush stance.
But misogynous bluster
Is all he can muster
In Olbermann’s mirror-romance.

David Broder’s Moonlighting: Post columnist benefits from corporate speaking deals

So it’s surprising to see that Broder, who recently took a buyout, but will continue to write his Post column, appears to be a regular presence these days on the business lecture circuit, and has even spoken to major health care groups. Do a Google search and you’ll see that Broder is represented by a number of speaker’s bureaus, including Grabow, which says it is “your David Broder booking agent for private corporate events.”  Read more 

Broder is identified (in various promotional and other online materials I found) as a featured speaker at events such as these:

So, I have to confess: I can’t find my Muse. Yes, I’m sick and tired over some RL crap that won’t go away, but it’s deeper than that. And I’m not sure exactly why. I keep driving back the little voice, that is so loud and obnoxious sometimes when I’m doing the standard political surfing. She says, “you know you just don’t care about this shit anymore.”

It may come from the horrible primary bullshit that won’t die. It may come from my inability to find affordable health care. It may come from the crushing burden of caring for those for whom no one else will care for, and which my moral values demand that I do. I guess I’m just not sure. Old Timers: is this normal? In the midst of a “hot” political season like we’re having now? All I seem to want to think about is sex with Jewish grrls and my flowers. I feel guilty, lazy, untalented, stoopid, etc.

I think most of you here grok it, even if you express it differently. HRC wasn’t my choice, but I can share with all of you my many fears about what a BHO admin will really mean, bring, create, destroy, etc. Just as I have disdain for his supporters who can’t call- no, I won’t go there. So where should the energy go, or rather, where is it to be found so I can get it back? I crapped out of supporting Harry and Nancy shortly after our Glorious Victory of 06, and I haven’t been sorry about that, those lying fuckwads. These days, my answer to ennui over national politics is “local, local, local.” It’s working, but at the same time, not as satisfying. Anyway, I’m rambling as I’m on the verge of a major migraine and about to go to sleep to fight it off. But I’m wondering, am I alone? So much of what I read on today’s intertubes seems so transient, so fake, so much not of the moment that matters to people who eat food and breathe air. Or, it could just be summer. What do you think?

what the hell is he doing on my TeeVee on CNN telling me that Hillary should concede right now? Toobin knows legal issues like no one else but he has literally no idea about political campaigns. Holy cow.

And anytime I’m hearing discussions about her “tone” in a speech, I get annoyed. Anytime I hear “tone” mentioned at all in any way, I get annoyed. “Tone” discussions are almost always bullshit in my view.

How many times have you sent someone an e-mail that was carefully crafted and they complain about the “tone?” We’ve all had that kind of experience. That sort of argument is almost inherently emotional, not logical or analytical.  Read more 

Tonight’s Tom Ashbrook on a local public channel topic was the primaries in light of race and class. The discussion turned around Obama vs Clinton with respect to race and the lower class. First, guys wake up, race is not black and white only. We have more brown than black now. Second, guys there is the issue of sex also and it is not less important than the other two mentioned issues.

Ms. Newman from the LAT demonstrated again that most journalist are born without an intellect. According to her: Clinton “brings” the white lower class. If she is right, the Obama won California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc. She did however mention women, but accordingly they became an issue only the last month.  Read more 

Death Gap Widens Between Educated and Those Not

WEDNESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) — Being well-educated can lengthen your life span, according to new study.

The research, published in the May 14 issue ofPLoS ONE, shows that the gap in overall death rates between Americans with less than a high school education and college graduates increased rapidly from 1993 to 2001.

The implication here is that less well educated people don’t know how to take care of themselves. This is part of a larger PR drive for “wellness programs” which our corporate misleadership hope will subsitute for action on healthcare.  Read more 

He’s regaining his sanity, get this man more Kool-aid, Stat!:

While the Daily Kos diary in question is specifically arguing that the Cooper plan was great (although that is implied), it does take as its main point that health care reform failed in 1993-1994 because Democrats, specifically Hillary Clinton, weren’t nice enough to conservatives. If only Hillary Clinton had been nicer to conservatives, then we could have had great health care plans like Jim Cooper’s. Hell, Jim Cooper himself says so. And look, David Brooks agrees, so it much be right.  Read more 

Pittsburgh Lesbian

WQED Vote 2008: A Town Hall Meeting and Broadcast with Jim Lehrer to Air Live on Sunday, April 20 at 6pm

Public is invited to be part of studio audience

PITTSBURGH - While Pennsylvania presidential campaigns usually begin in Philadelphia, they don’t end there. What do these candidates know about the Pittsburgh region? What does the public want them to know?  Read more 

skdadl at pogge reminds us that certain parties regularly get away with spinning their regular wrongitude into a larger, more noble narrative of rightness.  And that those who were right never get the credit for it.

Look: the point is that Iggy and company may have been wrong in the observable, normal universe—-what you or I might call "reality"—-but they were wrong in a noble, beautiful way.  The kind of wrongness to which they fell victim is the kind of wrongness that allows one to cover ones eyes with the back of one’s hand, stretch out the other hand, and sigh, "Ah, me!"   Read more 

Via Big Blue, I came across something so Zen and perfect that I just had to post on it. Concerning some Villager I never read and a piece he wrote on BHO:

Number of references Tapper made to himself: 14

Number of references Tapper made to Obama: 16

That’s really it, isn’t it? They can’t understand that it’s not about them. Celebrity is a great evil, and clearly it’s utterly corrupted our press. But the next time you need an excuse to get drunk like a frat boy during pledge week, just count the number of times the Villager you’re reading makes reference to himself, and take a drink for each one.

What astounds me is that I think a lot of them believe that America gives a crap about their lives. Newsflash: we don’t. Bloggers should also take note of how little America could care for Insider Squabbles of the Moment, and the personal relationships relating to them.

Eventually, the courtiers at Versailles got too witty for their own good. Tired of our Villagers and their inability to speak with honesty and self reflection? Try this instead. It’s totally possible to love someone you’ve never met, and to be made a romantic again by a single post…

I HAD WANTED in some way to remember Lt. Ehren Watada, as this anniversary of the Iraq Invasion passed us. Remember him? Yeah. Mad respect for this cat. But the media has drowned out that story, it’s slipped away, they lost it…we’ve moved on to Jeremiah Wright and other pressing matters. Here’s to you, sir. You are one of the heroes of this war to me.
You know who was a real Citizen Journalist? Brad Will. I feel trapped into making cute video cookies with my weekly deadline. I want to haul my ass down to the ruins of Katrina or spend weeks getting next to some hidden or ignored truth that the public needs to know about spend time building a story, building rapport, investigating, planning…and really busting out wild with something that matters. This is jingles and I want to do a concept album. I feel I am chasing snacky, quickly rotating headlines. Hey, don’t get me wrong. It’s a way to pay some bills. And I am proud of winning it. But I long to do some good in the face of all the harm being dropped down on so many out there. And I’m more a part of a corporate entertainment empire now than I am in being a useful eye for the public. That’s how I’m feeling lately, at least.  Read more 

Whiskeyfire notes that Klein is now admitting he was “stupid” to support the invasion and occupation, and gets mean enough to say that “willful blindness” probably played a greater role. To me, this hardly goes far enough.

Let’s role-play. Imagine one day, a bomb falls on your house. Half your family is killed, including all your children and your grandmother. The people who bombed you were complete strangers with whom you’d had no interaction or relation, and they did so for political purposes that had nothing to do with you. If a few years later, Joe walked up to you and said, “gosh, I was stupid to support bombing you!” you would likely punch him in the face, or worse.

It seems as if most Villagers have no imagination nor compassion. They are truly inhumane, and times like this I’m reminded of that. The list of the true reasons for the invasion and the wide support for it at the time is a long one: greed, racism, bloodlust, insecurity, lack of vision, ignorance, arrogance, local/domestic political posturing, greed…

“Stupid” is too kind. It’s disengenuous, it undervalues the true degree of the sin and crime. It’s like a frat boy turning up his hands when the arresting officer comes by to pick him up on the charge of rape, saying, “Sorry, I was drunk” and expecting to get away with it. It’s the ’liberal’ element of the Unity meme. Republicans will always deny they made a mistake and blame someone else, but ’liberals’ like Klein will have the ’good grace’ to admit to some wrongdoing. Minor, of course. Just enough to make them seem different than their Republican co-cronies and apologists and criminals. “Stupid” is like “silly” and “sorry.” It’s unlike “bloodstained” and “warmongering” and “war criminal.”

That’s what Klein really is. And millions are dead, homeless, shredded in mind and body, because of people like him. I don’t forget that. Fuck him. And his “stupidity.”

F*cker Tarlson is the latest victim as the Wingnut Welfare financiers hedge their positions in an increasingly reality-based market.

Who would have known that investing in massive airtime for an annoying, screechy, conservative prick would not garner any kind of significant audience following?

The lefty bloggers could have told you, and they were right about the mortgage thing too. But they don’t wear fancy bow ties on the Teevee so nobody should pay attention to them.

Is the propaganda value of unbearably crappy right-wing pundits worth the expense of propping them up financially?  Read more 

Asking to be attacked by right-wingnuts. She is also guilty of providing Rush Limpballs with an excuse to fall in love with The Mack.

Have folks learned nothing from the past 20 years? The Right Wing will attack any news story, news outlet, journalist, politician or individual citizen they feel is a threat to them. No amount of journalistic or personal integrity will prevent these attacks.  Read more 

This will be a mostly fact-free touchy-feely sort of post, and although the subject is controversial, I want to make it clear that what I’m asking about has nothing to do with the Man himself, and is only about “the market” that is the progressive/liberal political blogosphere. Which, iirc is about 1% of the size of the Harry Potter Fanpr0n blogosphere, but never mind that…

Anyway, Lambert is trying to make me bust a rib, and linked to this post on ways to make trouble and insult people while losing friends and making new ones. It’s one of several I have seen recently. It’s almost like a new market has been born: how to get 0000s of hits on a brand-new website dedicated to hating the #1 Satan on the interwebs.

I don’t care if he “deserves” it or not; I don’t care if the site is “as good as always” or not. I do care about what seems to be a what, exactly? Splitting? Breaking into divergent parts? Feuding? in the progressive blogosphere. Just as there is great difference between what career DNC folk want and are working for in this primary. Interesting, as this is happening at the same time the progblogosphere seems to be dividing itself into GOS and anti-GOS camps. Which is ironic and funny, because just as Lord Satan isn’t responsible for everything that happens in every corner of the progblogosphere, so too will HRC or BHO be unable to affect the great change in the country that supporters claim and expect. Are “we” once again ahead of the curve, and learning that our heroes have feet of clay, and tools have limits, before the rest of America will?

Anyway, I like Markos and I sometimes find good stuff at his site. I’m not really more invested than that, emotionally, whatever. Sigh, once I was invested in the presidential primary process, emotionally, and more; I wonder if the various camps in the GOS Wars will someday be here too- shrugging and saying, “feh.” And perhaps even learning: there’s more to do out there than crow about an interwebular ranking; activism, even.

When party invites become more important than ’the story,’ you’ve lost it. We’ll see how extending the magic blanket of Seriousness to “citizen journalists” corrupts some of our voices:

The National Press Club, a 100-year-old professional club for journalists, aims to recruit new online-media members through a partnership with Helium.com, a hub for citizen journalists. The deal is expected to be announced on Tuesday.  Read more 

Last week, I posted a video of “Sam,” whose first dating video was chosen by Esquire as the worst on the Internet. “Sam” had been nice enough to give Correntewire a shoutout in one of his recent follow-up videos.

We’re in the inconvenient-truth biz around here, so I must ’fess up to a convenient sin of omission.

You heard it here first, folks: Sam’s a fake.

Well, he didn’t start out as a fake. Remember the Thermians in Galaxy Quest, and how they thought the small-screen actors were real? It’s kind of like that.

Except this time, instead of an adorable alien, the guileless one was Esquire.com writer Daniel Murphy, who unwittingly pilloried a fictitious character he found on a movie-promo MySpace page.

I’d feel a little empathy for the self-buffaloed writer, but I’m not sure empathy is his thing. Per Murphy, the kind of woman Sam might meet is “probably fat.” And another of his failed-flirt five is, he says, “doing a rather serviceable impression of a man with a traumatic head injury.”

So how did this misunderstanding-turned-hoax come about? How did a promo clip for a little-known movie become an internet phenomenon viewed over 75,000 times?

Here’s how it happened:  Read more 

Funny. I would have thought it was more. From the Center for Public Integrity, via AP:

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

This is news? Though it is nice to have the numbers:  Read more 

Scroll down to the bottom of the NewsHour’s website and you will see their sponsors: Pacific Life, Chevron, and AT&T.

Keep that in mind whenever you see their FISA coverage. If they deign to cover the FISA debate.