Bill Moyers takedown of tea party organizer Dick Armey

In the latest episode of Bill Moyers' Journal, Moyers goes after FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey -- one of the key figures using large industry donations to fund "Tea Party" rallies around the country, such as the the 9/12 march in Washington DC last week.

"Here's the catch," Moyers says after showing video clips with protesters decrying "the lies" coming from the Obama administration. "Something these marchers who came to Washington at Armey's urging could hardly be expected to know. For most of his adult life, their leader has benefited from just the kind of government tax-supported health care he's fighting to keep them from having too."

It's a fascinating run down of Armey's adult life working in universities and for the government, made comfortable and secure by state-funded health care -- "the Cadillac of coverage."

"Dick Armey is the epitome of those people with power and privilege who are insured against the vicissitudes of life and want no government assistance for any suffering except their own," Moyers says.

Faux News flaunts it's bias, lies, and is called out

Fox News ran a full page newspaper ad in the Washington Post Friday calling out the other networks for not covering the 9/12 protest story last weekend.

Problem is, the accusation is not true.

(Jason Linkins)
The facts are these: It took me all of 30 seconds to open up TVEyes and search CNN and MSNBC for Tea Party coverage on Saturday, September 12. Here are the facts. By my rough count, on September 12, CNN ran no less than 14 reports on the Tea Party rally, beginning at approximately 7:00 a.m. During the same time period, MSNBC offered viewers four reports on the Tea Parties.

Again, all of this takes mere seconds to look up. So it's hard to understand why Fox has an ad wondering "How did, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN miss this story?" Unless by "miss," they meant to say: "not spend several hours fellating."

CNN's Rick Sanchez calls out Fox News on air:

How could THIS be considered racist?

(Luke Russert)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), a lightning rod for conservatives herself, grew emotional today at her weekly press conference when fielding a question regarding the increasingly hostile political climate that seems to be engulfing the country these days.

Pelosi, visibly choked-up and teary-eyed, softly said, "The balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance. … I have some concerns about some of the language being used, because I saw this myself in the late 70s in San Francisco; this kind of rhetoric was very frightening, and it created a climate where violence took place. I wish that we could all curb our enthusiasm in the statements that we make and understand that some of the ears that it's falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume."

She continued, "Again our country is based on people being able to say what they believe, but I also believe they must take responsibility for any incitement they may cause."

And therein lies the point: I don't believe that anyone is suggesting that the teabaggers don't have the right to say these things. But they have to accept that many, many other Americans also have the right to speak freely and call them racists for doing so. And in a bigger sense, they have the responsibility to understand that their 'political commentary' carries great weight with some less stable members of our society and that they are responsible for the end results of their actions.

I also say this: if this invective leads to an attempt on the life of President Obama, God help them. Then you WILL see an uprising in this country, but it will be from the left, and the right will pay heavily - and not just electorally - for their tacit encouragement of this.

45K deaths a year from lack of health insurance; GOP rep mocks those losing it; O'Reilly backs public option

(Reuters)
Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey (Georgia), at one point during his long speech railing against health care reform on the floor of the House, found the idea amusing that 14,000 Americans losing their health insurance every day constituted some kind of health care crisis:

14,000 people are losing their health insurance every day NOT because of the cost of health insurance [laughs], they're losing it because they lost their job!

I had to watch this 3 times before I believed what I was hearing. But it's true, Bill O'Reilly backs the public option. Really. No kidding.

(Huff Post)
O'REILLY: The public option now is done. We discussed this, it's not going to happen. But you say that this little marketplace that they're going to set up, whereby the federal government would subsidize insurance for some Americans, that is, in your opinion, a public option?

OWCHARENKO: Well, it has massive new federal regulation. So you don't necessarily need a public option if the federal government is going to control and regulate the type of health insurance that Americans can buy.

O'REILLY: But you know, I want that, Ms. Owcharenko. I want that. I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don't like their health insurance, if it's too expensive, they can't afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.

VIDEO: Obama calls Kanye a "jackass"

Just a reminder to the wingnuts, your Nubian president apparently doesn't hate white culture as much as you might suggest, as shown by this unscripted moment where he disses one of the biggest black celebrities in the world in favor of a white teenager.

Just sayin'.

Wingnuts complain about lack of socialist government trains

The wingnuts and teabaggers want government OUT of every aspect of their lives. Except when they need it. Like taking socialist trains to a gathering to protest socialist government involvement in their lives.

Cesca makes a great observation: when a public option passes, it's likely that self-identifying conservatives will actually be a lerger percentage of those who sign up for it.

Douchebaggery at it's finest.

The sheer audacity of their moronic self-contradiction is hilarious. Wingnut tea baggers are griping about why more of them couldn't ride the DC Metrorail -- a government-run and therefore "socialist" mass transit system.

And the Republican congressman who's making the biggest stink about it actually voted against $150 million in funding to improve the Metro. Seriously.

One of the many reasons why I can't wait for the public option is because I'm dying to see how many Republicans sign up. My hunch is that out of everyone using the public option, 45-50 percent will be self-described conservatives and/or registered Republicans.

Carter, Limbaugh and the nexus of racism and wingnuttery

For the last 3 months, discussing wingnut politics with friends (some of whom are wingnuts), I've asked "Why don't they just come out and say it? Why don't they just call him a ni**er and get it over with? I know they want to."

All of this 'I want my America back' nonsense.... back from what? This obviously doesn't include everyone who disagrees with Obama. There is lots of room to disagree. But this paranoid, I'm-bringin'-a-gun, birther, Muslim, socialist, Nazi, Hitler crap - that's all code word.

It's because he's black.

So imagine how thrilled I was to hear a Southerner, raised under segregation to become President, echo my feelings.

"There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president"

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he is African-American," Carter told NBC’s Brian Williams in an interview Tuesday.

The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders. He repeated his sentiments at a town hall held later at his presidential center in Atlanta.

"Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," he said. "It's deeper than that."

Now comes Rush Limbaugh, echoing Matt Drudge, trying to race-bait using a fight on a school bus

You put your kids on a school bus you expect safety but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering 'yeah, right on, right on, right on.' Of course everybody said the white kid deserved it - he was born a racist, he's white.

Can we really dismiss Carter out-of-hand?

Sure, Rush is an opportunist. He'll do anything for attention. But the people he caters to really believe this stuff. So when you hear the radical right dismiss this connection, pay attention to what they're consuming every day.

The 9/12'ers

God bless 'em, every crazy one of them.

Recovery? What recovery?

New poll numbers

Bad news from CNN, wingnuts

Asked about approval of the president's work on specific issues:
54% approve of his handling of the economy (up five points since August);
58% approve of his handling of foreign affairs (up four points since August);
51% approve of his handling of health care policy (up seven points since August);
52% approve of his handling of taxes (up seven points since August);
46% approve of his handling of the deficit (up 10 points since August).

In the CNN poll taken two weeks ago, a narrow majority opposed the president's health care reform plan. In the new poll, a narrow majority favor the plan, giving it the most support since June.

Moreover, a 61% majority believe Republicans are "being obstructionist for mostly political reasons" in the reform debate, and 85% found Joe Wilson's outburst "inappropriate."

10 lessons for teabaggers

10 Lessons for Tea Baggers, by Jon Perr click here for citations:

1. President Obama Cut Your Taxes
2. The Stimulus is Working
3. First Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt...
4. ...Then George W. Bush Doubled It Again
5. Republican States Have the Worst Health Care
6. Medicare is a Government Program
7. Barack Obama is Not a Muslim
8. Barack Obama was Born in the United States
9. 70,000 Does Not Equal 2,000,000
10. The Economy Almost Always Does Better Under Democrats

Baucus' bipartisan plan: both sides hate it

Max Baucus' healthcare plan, 6 weeks in the making, has arrived and achieved bipartisan plan. Republicans hate it: the Gang of Six is now a Gang of Three as the three Republicans on the Finance Committee refused to appear or endorse the bill. And Democrats hate it: it bypasses a public option and contains massive giveaways to Baucus' overlords in the drug industry.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) was disappointed by the Baucus bill, calling it "health care reform in name only."

"My goals for health care reform include a strong public option, long-term care reform and reform of the Medicare reimbursement system that has disadvantaged Wisconsin for far too long," he said. "I am disappointed that the Finance Committee bill, as written, comes up short on all three fronts. I hope my colleagues on the Finance Committee will change the bill to ensure it is not just health care reform in name only."

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) also said he was unsure he could support a Baucus-like bill on the Senate floor. "To me, it's got to have a public option. This is giving too much to the insurance industry to start off, and you don't negotiate that way," he said.

"If I vote for a bill without a public option it has to have very strong language in other places, and I think Baucus probably falls short on that."

In place of a public option to increase competition and keep costs down, Baucus proposes co-ops, of which the Congressional Budget Office says:

The agency also said the proposal by Baucus, a Montana Democrat, to use insurance cooperatives, rather than a government-run plan, to provide competition to private insurers would ‘seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country.”

Bottom line: the Baucus Plan is awful. The question now is: can Obama get a good bill out of the Senate?