Combat television on MSNBC

In the past week, there have been several interesting sparring matches on MSNBC as it seems that liberals are trying to grow a set of balls.

First was Joe Scarborough and Max Bluementhal. Blumenthal's book Republican Gomorrah argues that the Republican party has been hijacked by right-wing evangelical Christians. Scarborough began pressing Blumenthal on why he feels that evangelical Christians have no right to participate in politics, but the conversation quickly shifted to a discussion on extremism.

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Then there's the Dylan Ratigan/Betsy McCaughey feud. Betsy McCaughey is a liar (famously exposed by Jon Stewart over the summer) whom the media keep inviting on their programs to continue to lie about health care. And so, today she ended up on Dylan Ratigan's Morning Meeting with Representative Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). There was a brief, mad moment where I thought that this might end well, but it didn't.

The tactics McCaughey deploys in situations like this are a heavy-duty pretense that she supports health care reform, the Palin-esque answer-a-question-with-an-answer-to-a-question-of-her-liking technique, the ability to quickly provide information and opinion that's completely beside the point, et cetera. Unfortunately, Ratigan wanted to have a discussion on health care competition and cost containment, and that didn't dovetail too well with what McCaughey prefers to do in such a debate: set aside all substantive issues so that she can fearmonger about seniors being killed by the government.

And so, McCaughey unleashed her SENIOR CITIZEN HEALTH CARE APOCALYPSE nonsense, accusing Weiner of being ignorant and telling Ratigan that he wasn't a "fair moderator," to which Ratigan replied, "Well, you're not a fair answerer." Ratigan gamely attempted to get McCaughey to reconcile how she'd continue to provide the current level of unsustainable funding to Medicare without updating the system to address its inefficiencies, to no avail.

McCAUGHEY: This will go down in history as one of the most browbeating interviews in television history.

RATIGAN: I hope that it does, and maybe you'll learn to go on television to answer questions as opposed to casting accusations.

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Gun-toting soccer mom dead in murder-suicide

Draw what conclusions you will. There are many to work with. Starting with 'live by the sword...'.

MSNBC
A soccer mom who gained national attention when she openly carried a loaded gun to her 5-year-old daughter's game was shot dead Wednesday along with her husband in what appeared to be a murder-suicide, police said.

Meleanie Hain and Scott Hain were pronounced dead Wednesday night at their home in Lebanon, a small city about 80 miles west of Philadelphia.

The couple's three children were home at the time but weren't hurt, police said. They were taken to stay with friends and relatives.

Meleanie Hain made headlines after she attended a children's soccer game in a park on Sept. 11, 2008, with a handgun in plain view holstered on her hip, upsetting other parents.

The county sheriff, Michael DeLeo, revoked her gun-carrying permit nine days later.

Hain successfully appealed the permit revocation, although the judge who restored the permit questioned her judgment and said she had "scared the devil" out of other people at the game.

Temple of the Dog reunite 10/6/09

Lots of music this week.

Chris Cornell joined Pearl Jam Tuesday night in L.A.. PJ features original Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron to complete the original lineup that cut the Temple Of The Dog album. Here they are performing Hunger Strike (link to vids from the whole show here).



During the final encore, Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell walked on stage, took Mike McCready's guitar and played the outro solo from Alive note-for-note.

Them Crooked Vultures

Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters). RAWK!

Nobody Loves Me And Neither Do I


Daffodils

Scarborough decries Rush cheering U.S. Olympics loss

Referencing voters who see Limbaugh cheering Olympic bid defeat

Middle Americans that swing elections see that and say 'My God, the Republicans have gone off the deep-end'.

Joe Scarborough

Recovery Bill #2?

(Bob Cesca)
This chart might be the best pitch for more jobs-oriented spending:


Here's the decision the president will have to make regarding unemployment. Does he continue to let the recovery happen steadily on its present course and risk losing everything because of continued long-term (but slowing) unemployment? Or does he push for a second recovery bill that would surely create more jobs, while also begging a negative reaction from the wingnuts (Tyranny!) and deficit hawks (Generational theft!)?

Reich and Krugman are naturally pushing for number two as well.

Sarah Palin thinks this is a documentary

Finally, an explanation of how the devil interferes with creationism: the "Satan being a dick" theory.

Krugman: GOP has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old

(NYT) Paul Krugman
There was what President Obama likes to call a teachable moment last week, when the International Olympic Committee rejected Chicago’s bid to be host of the 2016 Summer Games.

Leave your questions about the economy for the columnist on his blog. He will be answering a selection of them in the coming days.

“Cheers erupted” at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, according to a blog post by a member of the magazine’s staff, with the headline “Obama loses! Obama loses!” Rush Limbaugh declared himself “gleeful.” “World Rejects Obama,” gloated the Drudge Report. And so on.

So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.

To be sure, while celebrating America’s rebuff by the Olympic Committee was puerile, it didn’t do any real harm. But the same principle of spite has determined Republican positions on more serious matters, with potentially serious consequences — in particular, in the debate over health care reform.

Now, it’s understandable that many Republicans oppose Democratic plans to extend insurance coverage — just as most Democrats opposed President Bush’s attempt to convert Social Security into a sort of giant 401(k). The two parties do, after all, have different philosophies about the appropriate role of government.

But the tactics of the two parties have been different. In 2005, when Democrats campaigned against Social Security privatization, their arguments were consistent with their underlying ideology: they argued that replacing guaranteed benefits with private accounts would expose retirees to too much risk.

The Republican campaign against health care reform, by contrast, has shown no such consistency. For the main G.O.P. line of attack is the claim — based mainly on lies about death panels and so on — that reform will undermine Medicare. And this line of attack is utterly at odds both with the party’s traditions and with what conservatives claim to believe.

Think about just how bizarre it is for Republicans to position themselves as the defenders of unrestricted Medicare spending. First of all, the modern G.O.P. considers itself the party of Ronald Reagan — and Reagan was a fierce opponent of Medicare’s creation, warning that it would destroy American freedom. (Honest.) In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich tried to force drastic cuts in Medicare financing. And in recent years, Republicans have repeatedly decried the growth in entitlement spending — growth that is largely driven by rising health care costs.

But the Obama administration’s plan to expand coverage relies in part on savings from Medicare. And since the G.O.P. opposes anything that might be good for Mr. Obama, it has become the passionate defender of ineffective medical procedures and overpayments to insurance companies.

How did one of our great political parties become so ruthless, so willing to embrace scorched-earth tactics even if so doing undermines the ability of any future administration to govern?

The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern.

Anyone surprised by the venomous, over-the-top opposition to Mr. Obama must have forgotten the Clinton years. Remember when Rush Limbaugh suggested that Hillary Clinton was a party to murder? When Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those Medicare cuts? And let’s not even talk about the impeachment saga.

The only difference now is that the G.O.P. is in a weaker position, having lost control not just of Congress but, to a large extent, of the terms of debate. The public no longer buys conservative ideology the way it used to; the old attacks on Big Government and paeans to the magic of the marketplace have lost their resonance. Yet conservatives retain their belief that they, and only they, should govern.

The result has been a cynical, ends-justify-the-means approach. Hastening the day when the rightful governing party returns to power is all that matters, so the G.O.P. will seize any club at hand with which to beat the current administration.

It’s an ugly picture. But it’s the truth. And it’s a truth anyone trying to find solutions to America’s real problems has to understand.

Oh irony, you magnificent bastard!

By BCAB Chief Ironies Delighter-Inner Elvis Hussein Dingeldein.

I’m no kind of religious person. I think The Bible® is HIGH-larious family fun, if you live in the Third Century and list “punching women in the uterus” and “the stonings” as favorite hobbies. And I loathe nothing more than Teabagging Christian Wingnuts trying to force their bullshit Hobbit stories on us Nones, the ones who like our Democracy Jesus™-free the way The Founders explicitly set us up by Oh-So-Purposefully nixing the words “God” and “Jesus” from the Constitution.

Having said that, I’ll get down on my knees and start praying to any Angry Magical Cloud-Lord who will listen if this actually pans out when McDonald v City of Chicago hits a Supreme Court near you:

A finding that the Second Amendment protects individuals’ right to own a gun could therefore have the unexpected outcome of also providing more solid ground for recognition of the right to abortion, to sexual privacy, to gay marriage, and to a wide variety of other rights that conservative justices on the court and “originalist” constitutional scholars have long opposed.

Oh, please Flying Spaghetti Monster! Oh, I beseech thee, Freakishly Disneyesque Indian Elephant God! Let me rub thy fat, fat belly with oils, Buddha You Fat Bastard! I shall tithe what little I have left after paying for healthcare and two bullshit wars, O Mangar-kunjer-kunja, whatever the fuck you were! Just let this be so!

Honestly, I will have an ironygasm and take a month off from work to do nothing but drive around Republican neighborhoods pointing and laughing and possibly waving my genitals at AARP members if this happens. Finally a SCOTUS case we can all believe in, as long as it swings our way. With our Activist Judges and whatnot.

Update: Redmond and I are discussing the social consequences of this conundrum, and he points out that while we get our Gay Marryings and Abortitudes, the Right gets more unfettered gun-totage. So we should expect more gay couples being shot at during their wedding festivities and abortion doctors might want to invest in Kevlar underpants.

Update II: The Sequel : Abortion doctors may just want to go ahead and invest in that Kevlar underpants now, really.

Jeebus v. Capitalism

(BCGDAB)
Michael Moore has written an open letter to churchgoers on this holiest of days, and it's refreshing to see someone square in the public eye finally address the almost impossible task of reconciling the current state of capitalism and Christianity:

It doesn't seem you can call yourself a Capitalist AND a Christian -- because you cannot love your money AND love your neighbor when you are denying your neighbor the ability to see a doctor just so you can have a better bottom line. That's called "immoral" -- and you are committing a sin when you benefit at the expense of others.

It's a poignant commentary on the intellectual bankruptcy of Christianity that churches (Edit: With exceptions. - R.) aren't getting behind healthcare reform. I'm pretty sure Jesus spent most of his fictional time tending to the sick and absolutely none of it proselytizing about the awesomeness of naked short selling or decrying corporate taxes. I believe his exact words were "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's" which simply translates to "Pay your taxes, bitches."

The return of Alice In Chains

Live on Jimmy Kimmel

Check My Brain:


Would?:

Ezra Klein: 2010 Mid-terms

Ezra Klein doesn't think it's 1994 all over again.

Politics is generally viewed as a zero-sum game: When one party gains, the other loses. But Republicans have pursued a strategy turning politics into a negative-sum game: Both parties lose. They have effectively harmed the Democrats' agenda but done so at great cost to their own favorability numbers.