Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death has been getting some blogosphere air recently. As Postman observed, Orwell prophesied a totalitarian regime waging war on its own populace. Huxley envisioned a world where progress suffocated beneath the weight of banality and indifference.
It appears we got the worst of both visions. Our primary source of information, television, eviscerates brain function, substituting meaningful dialog with trivial tripe. Big Brother, in cooperation with self-serving business interests, watches our every move with illegal wiretaps, credit checks, and a growing host of technological gadgets. At the same time, the government encourages the general populace to indulge in the various products from the Big Pharma, despite the existence of superior natural alternatives.
Perry made a jackass of himself once again by talking about the non-existent notion of secession. Former bug guy, crook and now Mr. Dancing Pants Tom Delay stepped up to defend his soul mate in funny farm jackassery.
All hat no head indeed.
This video clip covers three of the biggest right wing lunatics on the planet.
I'd like to remind Mr. Big Government Hating Dancing Pants that his ol' nearby neighborhood, Houston, now boasts the highest number of teenage Moms under 15.
I bet Jackass the Governor is so very pleased to know that the right wing abstinence program is a resounding success.
Mr. Dancing Pants and his jackass buddy might also be proud to know that under their watch Texas killed(s) innocent prisoners.
Today Republicans are running around the country like a bunch of chickens with their heads chopped off. They are screaming and raving about socialism and death panels. They are yelling about taking their country back. The GOP is distributing scary flyers to fearful seniors and it is holding ginned up fear fests at town hall meetings at which some are showing up with guns, including assault rifles, as readers will see below. Republican leader Rush Limbaugh and other propagandists for the RNC are frantically hurling barrels of gasoline on the orchestrated red hot fires of fear, mayhem and panic.
THE SOCIALISTS ARE COMING. THE SOCIALIST ARE COMING. THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE AWAY MEDICARE AND KILL YOUR GRANNY! THEY TOOK AWAY OUR COUNTRY!
As MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out to TX-7 U.S. Rep Culberson, Medicare is evil doing socialism to its very core. O'Donnell reminded Culberson that Medicare had been imported from Germany and was a creation of Bismark.
O'Donnell asked Culberson if he was against Medicare given the fact that it is socialism at its very finest. Culberson did not like the question, or simply did not know the facts and responded by throwing a hissy fit on national TV.
Yesterday I posted a video clip of a former physician/death decider for Humana and Blue Cross/Blue Shield who had testified at a Congressional hearing in 1996. Dr. Peeno admitted that she had made decisions in favor of the profit margins that resulted in the deaths of patients.
Thirteen years later, after the Republicans and health care lobbyists devastated all hopes and efforts at any kind of healthcare reform, the death panels remain in full force today. I suppose this is the reason Sarah Palin suddenly ratcheted down her rhetoric about them. Someone in the GOP likely reminded Ms. Clueless that um, er, silly, silly woman, the insurance companies are knowingly killing off patients. Don't bring attention to it for crying out loud!
Poor, poor short-sighted, seriously uninformed Sarah. That woman does not know when to quit. This time she let the real death panel genie out of its hole in hell.
It was so very naive and silly of me to suggest that the GOP should step up and take responsibility, as any adult would do, by calling a halt to the brown shirt shout downs at town hall meetings on healthcare reform.
Silly, silly me. That won't happen. Never. Ever. Even if hell freezes over and the entire country is in the throes of death, the answer remains to be no, never, in your dreams, not even if hell freezes over.
Despite GOP cries for freedom, its flag waving, its prominence of lapel wearing flag pins, its highly orchestrated scenarios of patriotism and noble words about freedom, the GOP's behavior has nothing to do with any of the principles mentioned above.
Actions speak louder than words. Shouting down and shutting out the questions and opinions that fellow Americans want to ask and share with their elected representative is:
anti-democratic,
anti-patriotic and
anti-American.
When political rhetoric goes over the top, inaction by a party's leadership is the same as blind acquiescence.
According to former right wing Republican and evangelical Christian leader, Frank Schaeffer, the GOP, its conservative pundits and the self-serving corporate sharks in the healthcare industry know no bounds in pulling off what is best for them.
For right wing Republicans, conservative pundits, the corporate sharks and their now enabled fruit loop nut jobs, it is a fight to the death.
There are many ways in which the health care titans and their tools in the Republican Party manipulate and play upon the ignorance and fears of senior citizens and under-educated Americans. Most of its targeted base is the most vulnerable. It is older folks who are sadly, the easiest prey for utterly evil sharks and profiteers. Next up are under-educated and low information Americans. These groups provide a solid anchor in the crumbling GOP base and these supporters also happen to be Rush Limbaugh's frequent listeners.
But there is a third group and this is the one that is the most sinister and dangerous. They are not old folks who are fearful about losing their Medicare benefits. They are not the folks who are honestly confused about what health care reform will mean for them. As Paul Krugman wrote in his article The Town Hall Mob today.
Now, people who don't know that Medicare is a government program probably aren't reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they're probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they've heard about what he's doing, than to who he is.
That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that's behind the "birther" movement, which denies Mr. Obama's citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don't know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn't be surprising if it's a substantial fraction.
And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers.
Does this sound familiar? It should: it's a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.
Indeed, this is the group of folks who despise President Obama and everything he stands for. They are the ones who attended Palin's hate fests in droves. They are the ones who screamed "Kill Him!" and "Arab!" at Palin's potential lynch mob scenes. These very same sick and twisted cretins listen to every hateful word spewed from the mouths of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other hate mongers on the right.
The crazed racists made their forceful presence known at a town hall in Tampa yesterday.
Ok folks, I've had it. I am so over Republican double-talk, double standards and not so thinly veiled racism, sexism and anti-intellectualism. I am completely fed up with the Republican raking of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor over the coals for ridiculous non-existent nonsense.
First of all I would like to point out at least one level of hypocrisy and double standard where Sotomayor's Republican naysayers are concerned.
Sonia Sotomayor's academic credentials are not only impeccable they are extraordinary. She is clearly brilliant. Her judicial record speaks for itself. Three Presidents, including George Bush, nominated Ms. Sotomayor to federal benches. All of her confirmation hearings received wide bi-partisan support. So what is the Republican's real problem with Ms. Sotomayor now?
Important news that is fit to print, some of which one will rarely, if ever, see printed in the mainstream press.
A blast from the past: The 2008 Presidential Campaign
Apparently there was a big rift between John McCain and Sarah Palin. His staff knew Palin was not up to the task for which she had been chosen but alas, the campaign staff worked 24/7 for a successful outcome for the Republican Party.
Let the country be damned. So much for putting one's country first.
Had John McCain won and subsequently passed away, we'd be stuck with a President 20 times worse, even more incurious, dumber and consequently more dangerous than W. We'd likely be at war with the rest of the planet and they'd be drill, baby drilling in all of our backyards in Alaska, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and anywhere else where oil might be found. There would also be monthly book burnings and political Rovian witch hunts 24/7/365.
One McCain staffer and friend apparently called Palin a
As we all know, an anti-abortion extremist gunned down and murdered Dr. George Tiller in his church where he served as an usher and his wife sang in the choir. This was the second attempt on the physician's life. In 1993 Dr. Tiller had been wounded by anti-abortion extremists in an unsuccessful assassination attempt. During that same year, Dr. David Gunn was murdered by anti-abortionists in Pensacola.
Records reveal that Tiller's murder suspect has a criminal record and a history of anti-abortion postings on friendly web sites. Apparently the suspect also spends a lot of time at a home known for its strange gatherings.
Neighbors said they've seen a similar car at the house in Merriam. They describe the ongoings at the house as strange. They said it's a revolving door of men coming and staying there and describe what appear to be religious gatherings.
Dr. Tiller has been a target of the right for some time as he was one of the few doctors in the country who would perform late term abortions. A number of right wing TV and radio talk show hosts have made a practice of demonizing Dr. Tiller in an attempt to whip the religious right into frenzy. This time the hate talkers hit the jackpot.
Bill O'Reilly of FOX "News" is one of those who led the charge against Dr. Tiller.
Jed Lewison over at Daily Kos captured the video clip below in which Bill O'Reilly called Dr. Tiller:
Well, you just knew it was gonna happen sooner or later, but now John Cornyn has mouthed off against the spokesheads of the Republican Party, Rush and Newt.
I'm not so sure it'll be soon-he is at home here in Texas after all, and though he doesn't face re-election himself sigh for another few years.
This is, after all, the same man who praised Alberto Gonzales immigrant story when faced with concerns about his fitness to be Atty General.
He's not gonna wanna reverse on that, and I think he still imagines he's in good position to raise his national profile. So I think the wingnuts will have this drum to beat for a while before he apologizes for "misspeaking".
Heaven help us. The good old boys have been throwing endless hissy fits and temper tantrums on cable TV since yesterday. President Barack Obama had the nerve to appoint a Latina, Sonia Sotomayor, to fill retiring David Souter's seat on the Supreme Court. The appointment has apparently whipped the Party of Rush and Dick into a carnival like frenzy.
Rush is ballistic. Karl Rove babbles psycho nonsense about Ms. Sotomayor's intelligence. Pat Buchanan is apoplectic and Newt has been screaming "Racist!" for nearly twenty four hours.
According to the some of the renowned Viet Nam War draft evaders and right wing war hawks
Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, Bill Blunt, Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Phil Gramm, John Cornyn, Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage
Nancy Pelosi personally ordered the CIA to find a link between Iraq and Al-Qaida. The GOP sissy boys also insist that when no links between the two evil doers could be found, Nancy the D Girl unilaterally ordered heinous torture to bring about the results the sissy boy cowards needed to gin up their war on Iraq.
Hats off to Ed Shultz of MSNBC for calling the Sissy Boys out for their psycho babble.
Lately we have been hearing a lot of squawking and screeching emanating from the conservative right wing about a revolution.
This is rather perplexing given that we recently had an election in which the elected President won rather substantially without the need for voter caging, voter suppression, election fraud, recounts, recount shut downs, lawsuits and the Supreme Court. Nor was it necessary to bring in the likes of a Swift Boat attack machine and a corrupted Secretary of State (R-OH) to deliver a win in a razor thin, close election.
And despite all of the problems we face in these dire and stressful times the President's approval ratings remain in the 60's. Today it is at 67%. Today an ABC/Washington Post poll also reveals 65% trust President Obama to handle relations with Muslim nations.
So, what is the problem? Why is a revolution necessary now?
According to Media Matters, despite the attempts by some in mainstream media to pin our economic woes and recession on President Obama, recent polls show that 80% of Americans blame our current financial misery on the banks, Wall Street and the Bush Administration.
That would be eight in ten Americans.
We the eight in ten people are obviously light years ahead of the media's water carriers for a failed Republican agenda. Our opinion of the spewers of Republican lies and misinformation?
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.
to tax $165 million of the billions of U.S. bail out funds doled out to AIG.
U.S. Taxpayers now own 80% of AIG.
AIG used $165 million of our taxpayer dollars to fund rather generous bonus packages for its executives.
In an attempt to recoup the misused bailout money, a 90% tax penalty on the AIG bonus packages passed in the U.S. Congress today with a vote of 328 for, 93 against.
Uh Oh. Boss Rush won't be happy with his 87 Republicans who voted yes to increased taxes and socialism.
The other 50% of U.S. House Republicans voted YES to the continual plunder, pillage and robbery of our U.S tax dollars by corporate fat cats and lobbyists.
Boss Rush will be very, very happy with his 85 Republican soul mates who voted for the right of corporations to perpetully rape and pillage our national treasury. After all, the Boss is a rather substantial fat cat himself in terms of both his personal wealth and physical appearance.
Meet the faces of the conservative corporate protectors whose ideology supports free, unregulated and unfettered rights for corporations to rob taxpayers blind.
Markos Moulitsas ("Kos") founder of Daily Kos recently observed that his two year old daughter had reached a Republican stage in her development because the majority her vocabulary consisted of two words: "NO!" and "MINE!"
Indeed. At least Markos understands that his two year old will grow out of her stubborn and selfish phase.
But those of us who live in Republican run states do not have the luxury of believing in or hoping for the evolution of maturity where our childlike NO! and MINE! lawmakers are concerned.
According to a source cited over at Daily Kos Kay Bailey Hutchison will not give up her U.S. Senate seat while running for governor.
Please pour yourselves a little glass of your preferred beverage of relaxation, get out the popcorn, if you like, sit back and enjoy the show.
First, the ground rules: Jackass awards are not exclusive to the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh or propagandists for right wing and conservative thought. A jackass is viewed as one who is either arrogant or stupid enough to believe he/she can get away with fooling, lying to and/or willfully misleading others. In other words, any person who holds a position of influence whether one is a politician, elected official, community, or business leader, and this includes all media pundits, anchors and spokespersons for all of the above, who arrogantly or stupidly insults the intelligence of those they do, or hope to influence, is a jackass.
A jackass is also one who refuses to accept or lies about certain realities such as:
The simplest explanation for why America's reality got so distorted is the economic imbalance that Barack Obama now wants to remedy with policies that his critics deride as "socialist" ("fascist" can't be far behind): the obscene widening of income inequality between the very rich and everyone else since the 1970s. "There is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few," the president said in his budget message. He was calling for fundamental fairness, not class warfare. America hasn't seen such gaping inequality since the Gilded Age and 1920s boom that preceded the Great Depression.
This inequity was compounded by Bush tax policy and by lawmakers and regulators of both parties who enabled and protected the banking scam artists who fled with their bonuses and left us holding the toxic remains. The fantasy of easy money at the top of the economic pyramid trickled down to the masses, who piled up debt by leveraging their homes much as their '20s predecessors once floated stock purchases "on margin." Our culture, meanwhile, painted halos over celebrity C.E.O.'s, turning the fundamentalist gospel of the market into a national religion that further accelerated the country's wholesale flight from reality.
Finally, a jackass is one who wants to revert to the same old failed and stupid policies that got us into this economic meltdown in the first place.
Striking a deal estimated to be worth $400 million through 2016, the conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has renewed his contract with Clear Channel Communications and its syndication subsidiary Premiere Radio Networks.
In the interview, Mr. Limbaugh said the new contract would pay him about $38 million a year for eight years. He also said he would receive a $100 million signing bonus.
"First and foremost I'm a businessman," Mr. Limbaugh told Zev Chafets, the writer of the magazine profile. "My first goal is to attract the largest possible audience so I can charge confiscatory ad rates. I happen to have great entertainment skills, but that enables me to sell airtime."
Excuse me while I wipe the milk that I just came out of my nose while I was laughing so hard. This contract is till 2016, you do the math!!! What are they saying??? Obama in for 2 terms? That would be my guess. Looks like Rush is coming out of the woodwork to do his bidding...again. Guess he's laughing all the way to the bank, I just wonder if he will spend a little of that on Oxycotton...again!!!
"To achieve your best, get in over your head and rise to the top." - Dr. Richard Tapia Professor of Computational Mathematics, Rice University
