This is a pretty potent combination of chutzpah and nonsense:
Obama, though, has shown some willingness to budge on the inclusion of a government-run insurance plan. But Republicans like Alexander are expressing concern that Democrats will ultimately throw up their hands in the effort to seek a bipartisan compromise and tap their majorities.
“Thumbing their nose at the American people by ramming through a partisan bill would be the same thing as going to war without asking Congress’ permission,” he said. “You might technically be able to do it, but you’d pay a terrible price in the next election.”
Let’s see if we can all follow along at home. According to Lamar Alexander, if both houses of Congress, filled with Representatives and Senators elected by the people, pass a bill and the President, also elected by the people in a landslide, then signs it, it is exactly the same as if both houses have no say whatsoever. Also, one is a war. The other is a health care bill. Additionally, even his follow-up is nonsense, because the Republicans GAINED seats in 2004.
I know it is hard to keep up with all of the nonsense, but at what point are journalists going to look at one of these clowns when they say something like this and ask them, point blank- “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Now of course, this was on Fox News, so of course no one would challenge him there. But they say shit like this all the time and John King and the rest of these idiots treat them like they are serious.
I just can’t keep up with all the nonsense and bullshit they peddle.
clone12
I am flabbergasted
Comrade Jake
I think there’s simply a pretty big chasm between the general knowledge of those of us who follow politics (for whom it’s clear the GOP has zero interest in working on heatlh care reform) and the general public, who think that Republicans and Democrats working together in some vague sense is a good thing.
I’m way past the point of expecting the media to do their job and inform the public. They seem to think their job is to allow each side equal time to present their case, because the appearance of an equal fight is more entertaining than reality.
Davis X. Machina
On the tombstone of the Republic will be the epitaph “Killed By A Story Arc”.
BR
Meanwhile, Grassley personally fundraises on opposition to Obama and health care reform.
Maybe it’s time for the media cycle to change and start reporting on Grassley as a true opponent of health care reform.
Sloth
Sounds like a dare. Let’s take it.
robertdsc
If only the Dems would attack hard on this. But that wouldn’t be bipartisan enough and would make David Broder cry.
Leelee for Obama
@Davis X. Machina:
kth
So, the Republican party counts as a branch of government now?
Comrade Jake
Somewhat unrelated, but I’m not sure Olbermann seeking help to take out Beck will end well.
MikeJ
Executive, legislative, judicial, Dick Cheney, the Republicans.
Comrade Jake
I know people think the Dems are wusses for wanting to work with the GOP on healthcare, and that’s certainly possible. It just seems more likely to me that some of these same Dems simply aren’t interested in reform. Trying to “work in a bipartisan fashion” is, in this case, an effective means of maintaining the status quo.
Rommie
Just another threat that “bad things” will happen if the Democrats assert their majority of votes in Congress.
Otherwise known as the “Yeah, we’re willing to go there” defense that has been successful so far in the derailing department.
General Winfield Stuck
Hell, you dweebs just don’t know how to do RW Patriotic Math. You see, having a 40 percent minority isn’t really that, when you count all the flags, Old Glory lapel pins, and “America First” thoughts of that 40 percent, compared to the 60 percent majority with their Marxist Worry Beads and, and and – light gray Hue of Freedom factor. Hue never heard of the Hue of Freedom factor, then you need to up yer RW Talk Radio listening hours and tune in to the Doom Room at night.
Ram that thru your pinko nose rings.
**Just tryin’ to speak in Beck tongues. How my doin’?
Max
Even the school speech nonsense was too much for John King, the republican’s BFF.
He actually pushed back a little on T-Paw’s hypocracy.
youtube.com/watch?v=nfHcT1XUYnM
ronin122
@Comrade Jake: Maybe not, but it shall be interesting to watch (likely as a car crash). Unfortunately it does give Glenn another reason to go on further diatribes, and that can either be entertaining or painful, and the outcome is far from deterministic.
Mike G
Absolute thermonuclear hypocrisy for anyone who remmebers how Tom DeLay ran the House, with legislation written by committees that including no Dems at all, then rammed through with Abramoff bribes and bullying and illegal procedures, designed to include as few Dem votes as possible to pass.
But then, Lamar Alexandar has always been the candidate for Tennesseeans so stupid they would vote for a fucking shirt.
parksideq
The problem with creating your own reality is that everyone else that sees it scratches their heads and says “WTF mate?”
Next, they’ll want the government to keep their hands off Medicare. Oh wait…
BR
Max:
That was a super weak pushback from John King. You know what would have been pushback? “Gov. Pawlenty – President Reagan spoke to schoolchildren and talked about the importance of tax cuts – a political message – while President Obama plans to speak about the importance of staying in school. Why was it ok for Reagan to deliver a political message while it isn’t ok for Obama do deliver even a non political one?”
SGEW
You can always stop trying to keep up, you know. You can.
scarshapedstar
Simple answers to simple questions:
Never.
[/Atrios]
gnomedad
Actually, it’s the same thing as Hitler invading Poland, but Alexander didn’t want to upset Pat Buchanan.
Jay in Oregon
@SGEW:
I’m getting to that point.
I realize that there are grave issues facing this country, but this parade of inanity has GOT. TO. STOP. The mainstream media has dug its grave by catering to the lunatic right; I honestly believe it’s beginning to affect my emotional health to keep up with it via the blogs.
demkat620
Let me ask you a question John; what do you think will happen if they get back in to power in 2010 0r 2012?
I know it will make 1994 seem like a cakewalk. They are harder now and more convinced than ever of their righteousness.
What do you think will happen?
Laura W
@SGEW:
I think you’ll have better luck with your “Ban BOB For Life” campaign.
@demkat620: Vancouver and Victoria are very pretty. Can’t stop thinking about them tonight, oddly enough.
Tropical Fats
The really disheartening thing is not even that what they’re doing works. The really disheartening thing is why it works. It works because the average American is stupid, ignorant, and easily distracted. And that means that we’re really doomed, because there is no cure for stupid.
demkat620
@Laura W: Yeah, they are but way too cold for me. St Lucia or St Maarten or the Bahamas look pretty sweet.
ironranger
If President Obama said the sky is blue, it would be partisan & political. Probably socialist, also.
General Winfield Stuck
This is the thing that makes it hard to ignore, and I don’t want to pick a fight SGEW, honest. But this crazy nonsense is being stove piped directly into the MSM ratings factory. They even seem to be hungry for it, and the wingers are more than happy to oblige with the good/bad stuff. It’s just hard to ignore that unless you blow up the teevee, quit reading papers and the tubes, and just sit around in ignorant bliss.
And when you turn it over, it is the wingnuts driving it from both ends of supply and demand. Fox happily airs it to feed their ravenous nutters the red meat crazy they crave, and they watch nothing else, and that keeps Fox’s ratings up and steady. And the money people at CNN and MSNBC sit around scratching their heads at what to do, and invariably try and jump on the Fox profit wagon and we get Limbaugh, or Beck or any number of nutbug righties scratching their asses and everyone knows about it in minutes, or hours. It’s a sick self feeding loop and the reason I don’t watch Fox News (mainly cause I don’t subscribe thru Dish) and only watch CNN on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and then not much.
MSNBC is thankfully trying to act as a counterbalance to Fox with a mostly liberal lineup at night, and they do try and debunk the loonacy. Maybe they shouldn’t, I don’t know, and agree it’s debatable.
Laura W
@demkat620: Oh. I’m always hot and sweat a lot. But we’ll write, ‘kay?
srv
heh:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg
h/t reddit
demkat620
@Laura W: ‘mkay!
@General Winfield Stuck: And see, this is where I start to wonder if there is anything that will stop the train we are on right now. People who are supposedly responsible are feeding this and there are times when I really think that any bloodshed will only excite them more.
JK
@Laura W:
As a fellow Joni Mitchell fan, we have a new reason to hate Glenn Beck. A few nights ago, this raving, drooling, bedwetting loon insulted Joni and mocked her greatest song Big Yellow Taxi
Glenn Beck Praises DDT, Bashes Van Jones, Joni Mitchell and Environmentalists
huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/04/glenn-beck-praises-ddt-ba_n_277449.html
geg6
I, personally, took the day off from the MSM. I made roasted chicken in preparation for soaking it in my bbq sauce and grilling it tomorrow at the family Labor Day picnic. I also made my mom’s famous potato salad and European cucumbers and onions in sour cream. My John picked up some fresh corn from a farmer while he was in Titusville yesterday and one sister is making a green salad and a fruit salad. Oldest sister is providing her strawberry and pineapple frozen custard and the lovely yard and pool. I recommend this to everyone here at BJ. It will work wonders on the blood pressure.
JK
OT
Glenn Beck’s Next Target: Cass Sunstein
washingtonindependent.com/57912/glenn-becks-next-target-cass-sunstein
Mike P
@Davis X. Machina: Win
Tonal Crow
1. Passing a bill = “asking Congress’ [sic] permission”;
2. When Bush proposed doing it (and then when he actually did it by artfully lying about the danger posed by Saddam), the said that going to war without asking Congress’s permission was a good thing. Now they’re saying that it’s a bad thing. So, they were for it before they were against it?
3. Despite its complete incoherence, this kind of rhetoric convinces people to support the GOP. How do we fix that?
4. I still no can haz edit button? I nice kitty, no scratch. Mrrr?
General Winfield Stuck
@JK:
Well, that’s the last straw, picking on Joni is tantamount to kicking sand in an angels face. I want to challenge Beck to a duel. The little ferret face weasel.
JK
The Republican Party more closely resembles a religious cult than a political party.
Lamar Alexander is supposedly one of the more rational Republicans in Congress. Yet, even he now comes across as just another brain dead Cool Aid drinker.
Mike P
I think I’ve mentioned this book before, but I think the esteemed hosts and commentors on this site would really enjoy Farhad Manjoo’s True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. It’s one of the best books I’ve come across the actually explains why our media is so effed up and why it often seems like there are multiple versions of reality floating around (Manjoo’s conclusion is that, because of how we consume our media, there actually are multiple versions of reality floating around).
In any case, if you want to get a handle on this and see just how this type of thing works, check it out.
JK
@General Winfield Stuck:
Agreed. Accusing Obama of being a socialist or a fascist is one thing, but by criticizing Joni Mitchell and ridiculing one of the greatest folk rock songs ever – Big Yellow Taxi, Glenn Beck has crossed the rubicon.
r€nato
@gnomedad:
we have a winner. I knew somehow Hitler was missing, and you hit the nail on the head.
Mike P
@JK: Jesus H Fucking Christ. That headline made my eyes bleed.
General Winfield Stuck
For anyone interested, Max Blumenthal has a fairly chilling expose on Palin and her evangelical wingnut roots.
JK
John,
Comment #39 contains just a single link, but bears the message “Your comment is awaiting Moderation”. I thought this message only appeared if you had 3 or more links in a comment. Is there a logical explanation for this?
Ann B. Nonymous
Every year that passes, the fewer of them there are. How many thirty-year-olds watch Glen Beck? How many listen to Limbaugh?
They’re mostly aging white guys you can tell have a little problem with the F-A-R-T-S. Most of them aren’t too bright. Most of them think they’re God’s gift to IQ. They’re not too educated. Most of them only know people like themselves. Look at the advertisers on their shows. It tells you exactly their demographic appeal.
They don’t have the Republican Party Reptile magnet to draw in people under 40. They don’t have the intellectual firepower to draw in people with a college degree. If you’re not white, don’t bother. If your last name ends in a ‘Z’ and you aren’t an older Cuban, don’t bother. If you’re serious about being a mainline Protestant, don’t bother. If you’re Catholic or Mormon or Jewish, welcome to Stepan Fetchit status. Non-Christians, agnostics, and atheists, well, bless their hearts! which is evangelical moon talk for “burn in the lake of fire, heathen”.
Ask yourself: what will make these people come back in a way that voters will support them. Not a spite vote, support. The lure of pizza made by a brain damaged troll on the Internet?
Every year, there are fewer of them. They aren’t the healthiest bunch of people in the world, either. If you keep the light on, they’ll fade to insignificance in a decade outside the South. Record, document, and humiliate.
JK
@Mike P:
For rational sentient humans, facts are stubborn things.
For wingnuts, facts are stupid things.
shoutingattherain
@Jay in Oregon:
After 8 years of this bullshit with Bush, welcome to my world.
Laura W
@General Winfield Stuck:
@JK:
Well, this holds the record now for most often-linked song in my non-illustrious BJ music non-career, but you know…sometimes you
can’t improve on perfection.
The Grand Panjandrum
John’s old buddy Jane Hamsher has a provocative, must read post about liberal organizations, Obama and Van Jones:
Bitch about the crazy ass wingers all you. But where the fuck are the Democrats and all the “liberal” organizations? Hamsher’s is correct. They have gotten too cozy on K-Street.
General Winfield Stuck
@Laura W:
She’s still got it!
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
“Somewhat unrelated, but I’m not sure Olbermann seeking help to take out Beck will end well.”
According to his Wikipedia entry he is an admitted recovering substance abuser. My guess is he’s somewhat untouchable, in that anything you dig up on him can be waved off as old news. Now, if you can find some episode of non-normative or illegal sexual behavior from the recent past that might be another story. So if a 19 year old male wants to step forward and claim to have done S&M with Beck three years ago, that might be a starter.
Bob In Pacifica
Not to get technical but I don’t think that Congress has declared war since Pearl Harbor.
Rick Taylor
No bill can truly be called bipartisan until it is supported both by a majority of Democrats and a majority of Republicans. Well alright, the Democrats are optional.
Libertini
@geg6: You made me hungry; am I invited?
Sloth
You forgot the most important party, the lobbyists.
ominira
@Mike P: Is there a book for those of us that want to destroy the post-fact society? I realize that facts have a liberal bias (to paraphrase Colbert), but at some point even wingnuts have to realize that to live free of facts is to die slowly. I wonder, before the Roman empire fell, did all the sane people emigrate?
arguingwithsignposts
@Rick Taylor:
I am reminded of the late great one:
Jay in Oregon
@shoutingattherain:
Well, ya know, it was supposed to be that the adults were back in charge once we got the scary black President. Why bother with winning elections when you can pontificate and stomp your feet and get your way anyway?
You hear me, Mr. President? These people are not interested in negotiating in good faith, or in being bipartisan. They do not give one damn about the good of the country and only care about making the first black President’s term an abject failure, as a lesson to the rest of us.
I appreciate that you gave it a shot — the notion that you were an idealist was one of the things that got you into the White House — but it’s time to stop.
kelly
hey dickshit, a bi-partisan group of Congressmen DID sign off on the Iraq War. So what is your fucking point about the GOP gaining seats in 2004? In one case, a president lined up bipartisan support for a huge undertaking, the Iraq War. In the latter-day case, the public and the opposition are over-whelmingly against the president’s government take-over of another huge slice of the economy and our personal freedom, yet the president is talking about passing it anyway, WITHOUT bi-partisan support.
Actually, I hope he does. The Dems will face a bloodbath in ’10, Reid, Boxer, Specter, Dodd, all the favs will be out, and lose the House as well, goodbye Pelosi. I wish to the Goddess he would do it.
jl
I saw a poll last week where 55% of the public supported a public option.
This is lower number than other recent late August polls, perhaps because in this poll the phrase ‘public option’ was described as a public insurance and healthcare program administered by the government.
I would say that description was misleading, since exactly what the government would administer (the insurance plan, or healthcare?) was vague. It may have left the impression that the government would be administering the healthcare itself (via death panels, one might suppose) rather than administering an insurance program with a defined benefits package.
But 55% still supported it.
So, even at the end of the summer after all the lies, between 55% and 70% of the public still support a public option. So… exactly how is this ‘thumbing their nose’ at the American people. Sounds like enough want to join such a plan to make it work, and a clear majority want the option.
And thanks to commenter above for heads up that Beck is bashing environmentalists for ‘banning’ DDT and killing people from malaria.
That is just HORRIBLE. Except that DDT is not banned for malaria control anywhere in the world where there is still malaria. It is one of the standard malaria control techniques approved by the World Health Organization and over a doxen countries still use it.
DDT and other sprays directed at the mosquitos themselves work best and quickest by driving the mosquitos away, not by killing them. So, DDT, like malathion and other poisons, is like using a cannon to kill a fly. But mosquitos build up resistance to most agents, so if you use one agent too long, it takes more to kill, or drive away, the bugs.
DDT is in rotation with other sprays to keep their effectiveness up, and WHO has quidelines for testing for resistance to various sprays, and using the best one to maintain a good arsenal of agents without creating too much resistance among the local mosquito population. So, any data you hear about ups or downs in DDT use to control malaria has more to do wtih these guidelines than the satainic efforts of Joni Mitchell to kill people just because she is an evildoer who hates humankind.
The best control measure would be a good sanitation and good housing. For most malaria bearing mosquitos, just a small healthy patch for human settlement and protective band of a few hundred yards is all you need. That is why there is no, or very little, malaria in Europe anymore. Mosquitos have not developed resistance to that control measure.
So, they just make up stuff. Why no response from other networks? Maybe Jenna will be on the beat, she will be covering education, and she could wrangle this in one of her stories.
Conrads Ghost
This is an outright challenge; only a fool would dodge it. Is it war-uh? Then by the stones of Jehovah let it be so! “You, suh, are a panty-waist pig lover of the first orduh! Which brings me to your mother….(by the way, tell her I said hi!). Let the fire and brimstone rain! Mistuh Alexanduh, you-all have teched mah soul, and set it on fie-yuh! I will see you, and your misbegotten spawn, on the fields of Potomac, suh. May the best man win. v
Conrads Ghost
“V” for Victory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike G
They’re mostly aging white guys you can tell have a little problem with the F-A-R-T-S. Most of them aren’t too bright. Most of them think they’re God’s gift to IQ. They’re not too educated. Most of them only know people like themselves.
They sound like the demographic who were deeply impressed with Lee Iacocca’s jingoistic, bombastic TV ads in the early 80s (probably their dads at the time). Chrysler had an unofficial nickname for them, never used in public — P.O.D.S., Poor Old Dumb Shits.
jl
Suddenly remembered that a mosquito control expert told me diesel exhaust works like magic, since mosquitos seem to hate it. He said if you need to control a small area quick and don’t want to bother with official mosquito control bureaucracy, you just set up a bunch of diesel generators and fire them up.
He said the last time he saw this was for a VIP festival out in some scenic boondocks. They just cleared the area with diesel generators, in tight circle first then moved out to surround the area. Said there was still enough diesel smell to ruin his appetite, but none of the locals seemed to mind.
scarshapedstar
I have a Mosquito Magnet, works like a charm, sucks up a ball of mosquitoes the size of my fist every couple days. Don’t move to south Louisiana without one.
TenguPhule
Can we get one that attracts Republicans.
Oh, and 5 tons of wet cement.
Balconesfault
@Ann B. Nonymous:
Which, tied together with Beck attacking Joanie … reminds me of one of my pet theories.
The 50/60 something white males who make up Beck’s target demography were part of the “Woodstock Generation”. And I’ve long believed that for a lot of the guys of that time, it wasn’t a real embrace of liberalism … but just a mixture of free sex and drugs and pants wetting fear of the draft that pulled them into the counterculture … and once the draft was gone and they settled in suburbia and they started having some incomes that could be taxed, they quickly became part of the “Reagan Revolution”. And going from Reagan to Beck really isn’t much of a stretch.
My other pet theory is that these schmucks were probably some of the most willing footsoldiers when it came time to actually spit on a soldier or blow something up. Because following some radical leader inciting violence appeals to them, whether the radical is Brian Flanagan or Dick Cheney.
WereBear
In what passes for the Republican brain, they know this.
It’s not just that, due to the strides taken by previous generations, people are becoming less and less racist. This “Fox cohort” is also one who grew up with stronger controls over airing batshit viewpoints. They believe what they see on TV when it has the format of a news show; no matter how ridiculous it is.
The newer generations are far more immune to such authoritarian trappings.
Eric U.
Let’s not forget that due to the inequitable distribution of Senators, the Democratic Senators have a significantly larger portion of the nation’s population as constituents. When the Republicans were last in charge of the Senate, 55% of the population was represented by Democrats. It would be interesting to see what that percentage is now.
Leelee for Obama
@Eric U.: This, along with the 3/5 rule for Congressional Representation, were the ugly pillars of the Birth of the Nation. It was, supposedly, meant to protect the less-populated states, and ended up, like the Electoral College, giving lots of small-minded people more power than they should have. Sad, but factual.
Wile E. Quixote
@General Winfield Stuck
I’m telling you, we need to have journalist season. Reasonable bag limits, no inhuman traps or baiting and a scientific strategy developed by wildlife biologists to thin their herds so they don’t overrun the environment.
Wile E. Quixote
@Eric U.
Two solutions for this. One is to create more states. I’d love to see the NYC area become its own state and I don’t know why more New Yorkers haven’t pushed for it since the rest of NY state is a huge economic drag (typical rural Republicans, we want to keep our tax money and we want to keep the tax money raised in urban areas as well). That’s a hard solution although having urban areas divorce themselves from rural areas and letting rural Republicans starve and die in their own filth is appealing.
A solution in the house would be to enact the Wyoming Rule, which would expand the house to 569 members, most of whom would be in blue states. It wouldn’t do anything to change the Senate directly, but it would heighten the disparity and get people to start wondering why a shithole like Wyoming, which should be thrown out of the union for inflicting Dick Cheney on us, gets the same representation in the Senate as California.