It never stops:
This new tea party bears no resemblance to the one that began a year ago as a reaction to the collapse of our financial system and the subsequent bailout. That movement of ragtag and unorganized libertarians, independents and conservatives was something new and unique. An authentic protest movement angered not just by the new President, Barack Obama, who had presided over the bailouts but the president who started the ball rolling and whose incompetence had led to the crisis in the first place, George W. Bush.
Obama hadn’t even been elected when the bank bailout occurred, let alone presided over it.
Zandar
Since when do facts matter? The $12 trillion debt? The bank bailouts? The job losses since December 07? All Obama’s fault.
Obama causes cancer, you know. Read it on the internet.
Kryptik
@Zandar:
Don’t forget that Obama singlehandedly lost us Vietnam. I know because I saw it in a chain email.
El Cid
Well, it was a Democrat Congress, so it was Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank which let ACORN steal trillions of dollars worth of houses when nobody was lookin’ and then forced the American taxpaper to bailout Fannie and Freddie hic gluuuurk…
gnomedad
That explains all those posters at teabagger rallies with W made up as the Joker.
madmommy
And this is the gang who wants to reinstate a civics and literacy test in order to vote. I almost wish they would, because 90% of registered GOP voters would fail miserably.
Because they are Morans.
El Cid
Let’s also not forget that the anger against G. W. Bush Jr. on the Teatard side were that he was too moderate, too friendly to liberals, and too intellectual.
August J. Pollak
Hey, at least she’s using energy-saving analog teleprompters.
Woodbuster
@August J. Pollak: HEY! !
She’s not the only person in this country who uses a Palm!!
Davis X. Machina
Warning, earthlings: You do not mess with someone who’s meaner than Nixon and dumber than Quayle. They’ve already accomplished the impossible once, they may do it again.
Max
I say let Palin keep talking. She’s not making it out of any republican primary.
There were only about 600 people in the room with her last night.
Her star is fading.
General Winfield Stuck
Business is good at the bullshit factory. And not only the wingnut one, though they dominate the market.
And when the bullshit gets called WATB Kit Bonds whines about WH leaks that Undie Bomber is talking up a storm AFTER getting his Miranda rights read to him. Disposing of whinenut cries he should have been tuned up by the CIA first.
A fly in the Wingnut Wurlitzer. Boo fucking hooo!
Wilson Heath
Fixed it.
jeffreyw
Palmaprompter
Zandar
And yet the Right Wing Noise Machine (Palin Defense Force Division) is already out in force saying It’s Good News For Republicans because Obama uses a teleprompter and Sarah’s a “real American.”
Jean
I read a number of the comments following that column. The Tea Party is just beginning! They smell fear! The media will continue to underestimate the power of the movement! etc. etc.
Sarah has shown her hand, hasn’t she?
demo woman
Palin want to bomb Iran. That’s her new campaign pledge.
From think progress
John Cole
@August J. Pollak: On twitter, they are referring to it as the #telepalmer.
PurpleGirl
OT but worthy of comment I think: MoDo has a column today about Harold Ford, Jr. A typical MoDo column which I read only because it was about Ford. Anyway, the first comment on the column came at 9:30 a.m. and they CLOSED comments at #24 at 10:03 a.m. There were 2, maybe 3, comments saying Ford should run. The rest of them were put downs of Ford. And then there are the ones about MoDo (and her editors) who didn’t check when Eleanor Roosevelt died and allowed a claim that ER didn’t support Robert Kennedy for President… a number of years after ER died. Hint to NYTimes: if you want to know why newspapers are dying, why people won’t pay for them… this is why.
Brachiator
Wow! Great stuff. So many lies compacted into a few sentences. The Baby Orwell would be so proud and appalled at the disinformation crammed into this piece.
Authentic? Much of the early tea bagger “movement” was nurtured and orchestrated by Fox News. And as you note, Obama was nowhere near the original bailouts.
And I don’t recall any significant criticism of Bush or the Republicans coming from the tea baggers, let alone any meaningful participation by intellectually or politically consistent independents and libertarians.
Another tidbit from the opinion piece:
Seems to me that Palin understands the tea baggers all too well. They love empty slogans and the fantasy that a swaggering America, without brains, diplomacy, a consistent foreign policy, or even a coherent defense policy, can just tell belligerent nations to STFU. Also, too.
The Unbearable Lightness of Palin was tailor made for the tea baggers.
Davis X. Machina
Callous indifference at home, wanton violence abroad — see she is a mainstream Republican after all
demo woman
@General Winfield Stuck: Bond was upset because it took away his talking point that the undiebomber did not give up useful information. Bond is a fucking liar.
MattF
President McCain was helpless in the face of the Clinton/Carter financial crisis.
valdivia
@jeffreyw:
Palm Pilot.
Kryptik
@demo woman:
She must want another run at a WaPo editorial bad.
Mike in NC
Good one! Is this worthy of calling “Palmgate”? We all know the brain dead media can’t go one week without looking for something to append “-gate” to. I knew imbeciles in high school who’d try to cheat on tests by writing clues and answers on their hands. Funny how they almost always got caught by teachers who were smarter than they were.
ericvsthem
Oh c’mon, what is a “fact” anyway, besides something that has actually occurred or a piece of information presented as having objective reality…
Napoleon
@demo woman:
Right, because Jewish people make up, what, 45% of the population and usually vote and donate to the Republicans.
Chad N Freude
Telepalmter.
Alan
Here’s the Santelli rant that launched the Tea Party grift machine.
General Winfield Stuck
It’s called a Hillbilly Dictionary
aimai
Still, if you read down in the linked article you get to this bit:
Oh, dear! someone just found out about the Easter Bunny. I’m not surprised that left and right have different historical timelines–and that the right believes that Obama took control of the government months before he actually did–but I am kind of surprised that there exist actual true believers who think that the Tea Party movement was some kind of authentic third party, grassroots, cri de coeur of the downtrodden right. I’m touched, actually, reading this. Ronald Reagan is the past? A past the writer isn’t interested in? Do tell!
aimai
Comrade Jake
@August J. Pollak:
Her crib notes are one of the funniest things I’ve seen in awhile. The fact that she made a crack over Obama’s teleprompter in the same speech is just icing on the cake.
Is it possible that she’s dumber than we all thought? Yes, yes it is.
demo woman
@Napoleon: Friends of mine who happen to be Jewish are scared to death of the evangelicals.
Davis X. Machina
Semi OT. True story. I took the subway to HS, and one day watched a classmate at the other end of the car take a ballpoint and write out a declension chart for a Latin noun on the sole of one of his Topsiders, for such is what the jeunesse d’oree wore in those days. Couldn’t miss it — those soles are paper-white.
We get off the train, we walk 1/4 mi. to the school, file into first period Latin, quizzes get handed out, and brain-boy nonchalantly crosses his legs to get at his notes.
I wish I had a picture of the look on his face.
Oh, and Catholic school girls are partial to the inside of a thigh for crib notes, which poses a certain enforcement problem for male teachers, as I can testify from experience.
ajr22
Anyone that needs to write these things on their hand
* “Energy”
* “Budget (cut?)”
* “Tax”
* “Lift American spirits”
Needs to keep Obama’s name out of their mouth. Obama is so much smarter than Palin if you put 1/4 of the knowledge he has into her head it would explode.
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Jake: It begs the question, why not just write stuff down on paper on the lectern where she could just glance down.
But Sarah continues her learning process. That we got pretty good camera shit these days.
Dan Robinson
The article was correct in one regard, in that Palin is trying to ride this train into the White House. I some of the Q & A of a panel, and the Tea Bag organizers are trying to leverage other people’s efforts for their own gain. One question from the audience was along the lines of “I’m disgusted with the parties, how do I become elected so I can do something about it?” The answer from one to the Head Tea Baggers was, “Ask your friends for money, get elected, then give us the credit for inspiring you.” Or words to that effect.
Napoleon
@demo woman:
So am I, and I am not Jewish. Seriously, if you were why would you ever in a million years align yourself with them unless you were 110% certain they would not get within a million miles of actually making any kind of decisions in government, and in reality they do have sway. I can not figure it out.
General Winfield Stuck
I think we can expect a Palinstorm of stoopid now, about how the press are liberal traitors in bed with George Soro’s in the never ending plot to destroy “real America” and are just “makin’ stuff up” again. blah blah bleg.
Comrade Jake
@General Winfield Stuck:
I think this was pretty clearly meant to be used during the Q&A. Some are suggesting she was given the questions beforehand. Still, I don’t know why she felt she wouldn’t be able to remember “Energy, Tax Cuts, and Lifting American Spirits”.
I think the best part is that she scratched out “Budget”. Too complicated I guess.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Max:
That’s the part that kills me. And yet, she’s on the front page of the NYT, and NPR gave her the lead three-four minutes of their Sunday morning hour.
Allan
Since, like Rush Limbaugh, I am a humorist and not a political leader, Sarah Palin has given me permission via her interview with Chris Wallace to call her a Fucking Retard.
This also extends to her other children: Crack, Booger, Jism, and Cooter. All Fucking Retards. They are all incesting, feces-eating cretins.
This is comedy so it’s all good.
b-psycho
There was an actual “Tea Party” before the wingnut version. Was started as a breakaway faction of more radical libertarians dissatisfied with the direction the LP was going, and had nothing whatsoever to do with “conservatives”.
Of course, that’s all moot now, but whatever.
David
How can Republicans pretend that anything other than bailouts and financial system stabilization would have been politically possible for anyone? They should be grateful instead of bitter.
A Mom Anon
What’s hilarious about the Palin/Palm notes thing is that she walked up to that podium and sat a pile of notes on it before she started running her mouth. So,she needed not only her prepared speech,but notes on her hand? Is she 10 yrs old?
Ash
I love that Caribou Barbie wrote “
BudgetTax Cuts” down. Phew! Glad she fixed that! Imagine cutting the budget BEFORE we cut taxes! THE HORROR!lamh31
this might be politically incorrect, and a little rough, but if white America for whatever reason votes for Sarah Palin (or any other teabagger candidate) in 2012, then they deserve what they get! The reason I say “white America” is because if a significant portion of African Americans (or other ethnic minorities,that are aware of the blatant bigotry displayed by these teabaggers) voted for Sarah Palin and her lot, I’ll eat my hat. Hell, I would say that even the smarter GOP’ers
wouldn’t vote for her! But I can actually imagine that a real majority of “angry middle-classed” white America would!
So I say fine, do it ya fools. Ya deserve it. If people are dumb enough to buy the S*&t that Sarah Palin is selling, then fine, and listening to some of the “conservatives” in this country they are buying it, I think they deserve her and her stupidity, and the ridicule of the world that will ensue.
I country deserves better than Sarah “palm reader” Palin
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Jake: I quit watching after about a minute of her speech so didn’t watch Q & A. But why would she need to crib the word “energy”.? Wait, don’t answer that.
Ash
Also, if you missed it, Rahm’s “apology” on SNL last night. Choice quote – “You come after me on facebook? What are you, 14? Grow the fuck up! I will write shit on your wall so obscene it will make your computer cry.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W8LNJ_9KVA
lamh31
things to look forward to under President Palin:
a. the war on Iran, that her handlers tell her needs to happen
b. Oh, and the overthrowing of Roe v Wade, cause the abortion is murder…doncha know (wink…)
c. oh, and let’s forget about any sort of world diplomacy. President Palin will be a laughingstock all around the globe! Let’s just hope that in reaction to the ridicule, President Palin doesn’t become so upset that she decides to bomb France… ya know those Frenchies think too much of themselves…doncha know (wink…)
KCinDC
@Comrade Jake, she (or whoever was writing on her hand — don’t want to make any assumptions) first wrote “budget cuts” and then corrected it to “tax cuts”. See, “conservatives” get them confused because they think they’re both ways to reduce the deficit, even though tax cuts actually do the opposite.
Max
@Ash: So funny.
I liked “I will write things on your wall, so obscene, your computer will cry”.
I like Rahm. Fuck the Jane Hamshers of the left.
Alex S.
I’ll never forgive Obama for Pearl Harbor. It was his home state for christ’s sake!
Brachiator
@lamh31:
Lots of people were stupid enough to buy Dubya the second time around. How’d that work out for the country and the world?
If Palin or someone like her wins the presidency the next time up, it won’t just be because of the dumbth of white conservatives. The Democrats swept the field in 2008 on the promise of change. Now, the worst of them are settling for pushing a tired half-assed agenda, and their own brand of capitulation to special interests.
They can’t save themselves by blandly suggesting, “vote for us because we aren’t a bunch of crazy white people,” while quietly betraying their own principles.
KCinDC
From Twitter:
Also, too:
Ash
@KCinDC: That’s why she wrote it on her LEFT hand, you see. So all those sweating, middle-aged men who fight each other to shake her hand won’t have a detrimental effect.
Rick Taylor
@demo woman
__
__
It is mind blowing that this woman is considered a significant voice in politics, let alone she was put in a position where she might have become Presidend of the United States. Even four years ago, I never dreamed the Republican party would fall this far.
wasabi gasp
At the next Palin event there will be a crowd of waving palms with “Run, Sarah, Run” written on them.
The stupid, you know, it must burn.
demo woman
@A Mom Anon: How’s the pup?
Chad N Freude
@lamh31:
which we will pay for with budgetary supplements and keep the budget properly low.
so that should Bristol get pregnant again she won’t have the choice her mother is so proud that she exercised.
She’ll fit right in with Brown and Sarkozy.And Kim-Jong il.
arguingwithsignposts
I want whatever reality distortion drug they are using, because it’s a lot better than whatever I’ve been on in my life. Even when I was a fundie I didn’t have that much of a distortion field. Clearly, I wasn’t cleared for the good stuff.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Rick Taylor:
Whose actual gov’t experience is having been Richard Nixon’s communications director, forty years ago. The GOP is the psychotic leading the stupid, which as I type it is an apt enough description of Cheney-Bush, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
Rick Taylor
These people deeply crave a genuine nonpartisan populist uprising for fiscal responsibility. There never was such a thing, but they want it so much they project it onto the tea party. I guess this fellow is ahead of the curve for realizing it’s not that, but he still doesn’t realize it never was.
SiubhanDuinne
From Kleinheider’s lament:
Um . . . no. It just feels that way.
BTW, be sure to set your clocks and calendars for next week, when Dick “Dick” Cheney will be the guest on ABC’s “This Week with Someone Other Than George Stephanopoulos.” That’s so nice for him, because he hasn’t been invited to be on any teevee programs for at least a year. I, for one, am very curious to hear whether he has any particular views on the Obama Administration.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
double-checked Wiki and see that Patty Pukes was RR’s comm. director, not Nixon’s, that Al Haig wanted to appoint him ambassador to South Africa in ’75, and that he’s quite crazier than even I thought, just judging by a handful of quotes in Wiki. “I got this from Buchanan.” Sweet Jesus.
lamh31
@Brachiator,
Here’s the thing, when kerry lost and Gore lost some people mentioned low turnout of African Americans, young people, etc. In the case of Obama’s election, the turnout was better.
No matter what, white people are the majority. No candidate can win with only minority votes…there is just not enough of us…period. The winning candidate can have all the minority vote possible, but they also needs a good portion of the majority to win comfortably.
All I’m saying is a Sarah Palin win can be placed squarely ont the hands of the majority (white) population. If she wins, it’s because the majority of white voters voted for palin and against Obama (or voted for a 3rd party). I am a minority, and the people I speak to daily are Obama voters through and through, and baring some catastrophic occurences, they will voter for Obama come 2012. Can the same be said for the majority of white Americans? Right now the CW says no.
I know it far in advance, but I’m saying is don’t blame us for a Palin/GOP win this time!
Max
One final thought on Palin – She’s never had to withstand an oppo attack on her. As vice president, she wasn’t subject to much at all.
Once she’s the lead candidate in the GOP primary, they will tear her apart. We know she hasn’t been vetted, we know she’s fucking nuts and her family is shady. It hasn’t come out yet, because she isn’t running for anything, but you know that Romney, Newt, etc. have the info in their pocket.
She’s not running for anything, she’s just trying to make money.
Bob In Pacifica
Apparently, last night Palin was complaining about those liberals in the Obama administration who gave the crotch bomber the rights to his attorney and his Miranda rights.
From the clips I heard on both the BBC and ABC radio overnight she misstated and misrepresented the Constitution. Why do they play Palin’s lies without comment? Doesn’t anyone at the BBC or ABC have any understanding of law? Or do they let them lie on purpose?
Notorious P.A.T.
“Hmm, should I try to lift America’s spirits or crush them? So hard to remember. Better write them down!”
gnomedad
Actually, it’s a tattoo. It shows her commitment to conservative principles!
demo woman
@Bob In Pacifica: You should know by now that the liberal media only corrects the democratic party members. GEE!!!
Ana Gama
@Bob In Pacifica: The stenographers just take dictation.
Notorious P.A.T.
@lamh31:
As a white guy, I apologize.
scav
“Lifting American Spirits”? Now, there’s a talking point we can look forward to drinking to during her speachifications.
gnomedad
It’s all about tribal dominance. They only use the Constitution as a prop when they think they can.
demo woman
The Washington Post has the PalmGate story. Just in case they remove the clip from the front page, here’s the link.
A poster from the hamptons said
I did respond that was a great idea and while we are at it, we should include grades and SAT scores..
Ash Can
The fact is, to her True Believers, it doesn’t matter in the least what Shakedown Sarah says or does. They see and hear what they want, no more and no less. To them, she quite simply can do no wrong. If she set fire to their houses, stole their cars, and hacked into their bank accounts and cleaned them out, they’d insist that it was all OK because she must have needed the money and needed to get somewhere quickly, and the fire damage was probably their own fault anyway for not being sufficiently gracious hosts to her. She can do and say whatever she wants; they’ll never call her on it. (ETA: See, e.g., that “poster from the hamptons” quote directly above.)
Of course, the plus side of this is that she’s going to remain the gift that keeps on giving. She’ll keep talking in public, to a press that dutifully takes down everything she says, and she’ll keep shaking her marks down for every penny she can get out of them. I for one intend to keep laughing at her antics.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@demo woman:
What the hell? Did someone get his ‘winger spam talking points get cornfused? Are the Birthers become the Diplomers?
scav
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: you don’t write things down Jim, you forget them!
El Cid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I demand to see Harvard’s long-form triple vault graduation certificate.
Max
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think it’s the DittoHeads.
Rush had his “Obama didn’t write his own papers @ Harvard” and “professors changed his grades” rant the other week.
Which was promptly disputed by a Bushie.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/03/limbaugh-obama-law-articles/
Ash
@demo woman: From that WaPo page
jesus fucking christ we are SO close to the wingularity, I can almost feel it’s gravitational pull.
Chyron HR
Yeah, a blank sheet. Oh, wait, here’s something at the bottom:
How can anybody vote for President Obama in 2012? He clearly lacks the executive experience necessary to be President!
Nick
@lamh31:
Obama lost the white vote by 12%- 55%-43%, essentially the same margin Gore lost whites by. No Democrat has won the white vote since LBJ.
lamh31
Oh yeah,
Not for nothing, but this “displaced” New Orleanian just wanted to say:
WHO DAT?!!!! GEAUX SAINTS!!!
(win or lose…)
Sanka
Massive fail.
Obama had no problem voting for TARP less than six weeks before the election in 2008, and has been presiding over it ever since.
Not to mention voting for all of President Bush’s budgets—the budgets he relentlessly tells us were the stuff of idiocy. I don’t recall Senator Obama standing in the Senate chamber
being the party of noyelling about how Bush’s budgets were doomed to failure.It’s amazing. When you’re running for president every other month, it’s easy to use rhetoric to distance yourself from your actual voting record.
But hey. Who cares that Democrats have been running Congress for the better part of four years, and that Obama is now into his second year?
The American people love Democrats doing nothing but screaming “Bush! Bush! Bush!”. It worked out so well for Corzine, Coakley and Deeds.
toujoursdan
Not sure if they played the Tom Tancredo (R-Wingnutistan) clip on U.S. TV but on the CBC they aired a clip of his speech that had more dog whistles in one quote than I could count.
It went something like: “Last November people who can’t even say ‘vote’ because they don’t speak English and people who contribute nothing to America elected a confirmed soci*list ideologue named Barack Hussein Obama.” The stunned look in the CBC reporters was priceless.
AkaDad
I don’t think this is what they meant when they advised Sarah to use hand-written notes.
Ash Can
@Max: Uh-oh. How long before Bradford Berenson
finds a horse head in his bedhas to go to Limbaugh on his knees and plead for forgiveness?The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Sanka: And McCain, Coleman, and Hoffman.
Chyron HR
@Sanka:
If you hate Bush so much, why did you vote for him? Twice, even?
MattR
I think y’all are going down the wrong track with this. Obama went to school in Indonesia from ages 6-10. That was a Muslim school so obviously it did not count so there is no proof that Obama ever completed the first grade.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
RE: Obama’s is a blank sheet. He won’t even verify his education.
This is part of the fringe paranoia that infects many of the tea baggers and others, which is encouraged by Rush Limbaugh and others.
Obama is not only the Manchurian Kenyan stealth candidate, he won’t release his college records, including the mythical “whitey” paper he once wrote demonstrating his racism and allegiance to Marx. Or his papers were all ghostwritten by William Ayers.
Also, too, his grades were doctored because it is obviously unpossible for an African American to be a good student.
And besides, everyone knows that a real American Alaskan white woman is smarter than any black law professor.
It’s all a crock, but the GOP keeps it alive because it feeds the fear and resentment that Republicans are counting on to help them regain power. Fear and anger beats having real ideas and policy.
Martian Buddy
@Dan Robinson:
“I’m going off the rails on a gravy train….”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sanka gets jealous when Atrios says he has the dumbest trools in the innertoobz.
scav
What is this “Controlling Congress” concept that Sanka is so blithely prattling about? And, how did a man without a visible record of existence, especially before 2004, manage to vote for ALL of President Shrubs budgets, some trick dat. To be fair, I think Sanka’s got Massive Fail down though.
Davis X. Machina
You don’t like state flags?
JGabriel
How white were the tea parties?
Mary Curtis @ Politics Daily:
.
WereBear
Just watched it on Youtube. There’s a dozen or so up already.
One fool is saying it was Photoshopped. In the video. Uh huh.
They must have also photoshopped her head dropping down to clearly read the notes.
dmsilev
@demo woman: Someone should point out to these morons that Obama spent more time as a US Senator than Palin did as Governor.
It is true that Palin attended more colleges than Obama did.
-dms
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JGabriel:
Jesus. Just think about that. The hundred journalists covering this six hundred person event were working very hard to make it look like something it wasn’t, to make it look more “centrist”, more acceptable to the center-right “valid concerns/not racists” narrative.
“Liberal media” my white middle-aged flyoverland ass.
eemom
as usual, TBogg is unsurpassed when it comes to Sarah Snark:
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2010/02/07/her-mind-is-empty-but-her-hand-is-full/
The man deserves a Nobel.
cat48
@Sanka:
Boo hoo, Corzine and Deeds lost. We won 2 races that night; one in CA-10 and NY-23, the firebaggers helped in Ny. Both those Reps. voted for the health care bill so it was to our advantage to win the 2 House seats, not the Govs. They are “yes” votes in the House for us. Govs. don’t get a vote.
aimai
NPR had the mewowiest moment I’ve ever heard from them, covering the Palindrome last night. This was the only description offered:
NPR reporter “The largely middle aged, southern crowd, applauded.”
aimai
Oh, that and a glancing reference to the expensive dessert they were eating, and the cost of the ticket.
licensed to kill time
Will no one rid us of this meddlesome Palin Plague? I am so tired of hearing her meaningless drivel. doG damn McCain for all eternity for foisting this vapid woman upon us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@licensed to kill time: Palin’s drivel and palmprompter, Paulson’s devastating WSJ piece, his flip-floppery on DADT. In Realitytown, Old Man McCain has had a very bad week. In Broderville, his status as Wise Elder Statesman remains unaffected.
Was Paulson’s piece mentioned in any of the CW roundtables this week?
lamh31
OT,
But Wait,
I’m confused. I thought Obama was signalling that HCR was gonna be on the backburner.
then why am I receiving emails like this from OFA:
“Pass Health Reform Now.”
“An alarming new study shows that health care costs increased last year at the fastest rate in more than a half century.
Health care spending rose to an estimated $2.5 trillion in 2009, or $8,047 per person — and is now projected to nearly double by 2019. If we don’t act, this growing burden will mean more lost jobs, more families pushed into bankruptcy, and more crushing debt for our nation.
The conclusion is clear: This isn’t a problem we can kick down the road for another decade — or even another year. We need to pass health reform now.
We’re incredibly close. But too many in Washington are now saying that we should delay or give up on reform entirely. So we need to make it crystal clear that Americans understand the stakes for our economy and our lives, and that we want action.
Can you write a letter to the editor of your local paper right now?
In just five minutes of your time, you can tell thousands of readers about this new report on spiraling costs, and why abandoning reform is just not an option.
You can also help by posting this note on Facebook, letting your friends know about the new costs study and asking them to join you in writing a letter to a local paper.
President Obama and many allies in Congress are working hard to finish the job — but we can’t rest until it’s done. Your note will help break through the Washington spin and show members of Congress and the media what local voters really believe. Click here to get started:
http://my.barackobama.com/FinishTheJob
It’s clear that we’re in the fight of our lives to pass real reform. But after a century of trying, the finish line is finally in sight. As President Obama reminded us all in his State of the Union address, we’re fighting for our families and our country — and we don’t quit.
Thanks for making it possible,
Mitch
Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America”
And there was no solicitatin for money either…so this was not a fundraising email.
Ana Gama
@licensed to kill time:
Helluva legacy, Johnny, helluva legacy.
licensed to kill time
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well good. I hope he has a very bad eternity as well.
Kryptik
Warning, guys.
The AP is at it again. Chief Doughnut Caterer Liz Sidoti fellates the Tea party movement while passing it off as legitimate analysis.
OriGuy
Abraham Lincoln wrote the final draft of the Gettysburg Address on his palm. That’s why they’ve never found it! And he was a Republican! Also!
demo woman
@dmsilev: She went to five colleges in order to attain her bachelor’s. The President attended three colleges. So technically she did attend more colleges than the President. lol
eemom
@licensed to kill time:
the fire of a thousand hells for a thousand eternities doesn’t do justice to what that asshole did for the sake of his own craven ambition, the country be damned.
OTOH, she’ll be his “legacy.” The ONLY thing for which the history books may someday credit his vile existence.
So suck on THAT, you soul-selling old fart.
licensed to kill time
@Ana Gama:
“Here lies Maverick, who gave us Sarah, Plain stupid and full of Tall tales.
May his legacy forever be, “This cursed Plague of PalinIdiocracy”
tatertot
OT: I’m sorry, maybe this is common blogosphere knowledge, but I am deeply depressed to find out that Rush Limbaugh’s show is broadcast on Armed Forces Radio. Should this not be regarded as SEDITION??? During the Bush era, were there radio programmes being broadcast on Armed Forces Radio that specifically denigrated the CIC?
Ailuridae
@Sanka:
Not to mention voting for all of President Bush’s budgets—-the budgets he relentlessly tells us were the stuff of idiocy. I don’t recall Senator Obama standing in the Senate chamber being the party of no yelling about how Bush’s budgets were doomed to failure.
You don’t know how Obama voted on Bush’s budgets, do you?
http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=9490&category=10
The most back breaking parts of the Bush budget which rank and file Democrats opposed were the following
The tax cuts and the elimination of the estate tax.
Unfunded wars.
The abomination that is Medicare Part D which may have the distinction of the worst piece of legislation in relation to the budget in US history.
gogol's wife
@eemom:
Fantastic.
Bubblegum Tate
@Brachiator:
Absolutely. She’s pretty fuckin’ far from being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but like any halfway-decent grifter, she knows a crowd of marks when she sees one.
KCinDC
Sarah Palin did not write on her hand. The words (especially “tax cuts”) are a manifestation of Norquistian stigmata indicating that she truly is the Chosen One who will lead the country to a tax-free future.
WereBear
@KCinDC: Brilliant!
Fortunately, my tea had cooled by the time I read that.
Alex S.
Sarah Palin will flame out…it just has to be well-timed, i.e. after winning the republican nomination, before the election.
licensed to kill time
@Brachiator:
I love, love, LOVE ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Palin’. Kudos!
Elie
A segment of our country — largely white, but mostly old paradigm economically and culturally, are having a huge adjustment disorder to the 21st century.
They are angry, terrified and acting out — they may not actually know what they are doing and the severe mental distress has detached them from rationality, cause and effect. They hunger for power and control and need to believe that they can exert both again no matter how outrageous the context for those demands… They are traumatized children — unable to govern themselves and to play any role in our democracy whatsoever…they are essentially sitting in the center of the room babbling and throwing poop, crying or raging. Yes, they are a danger to themselves and others but there are too many to admit anywhere.
What to do?
They will have to exhaust themselves and hopefully that happens before they burn down the house while playing with the matches of their emotions and impulses. I used to think that there were still enough adults in the leadership of this country, forget Democrat or Republican, etc. Not so sure anymore and the prolonged adjustments we face over the next decade will continue to challenge
I think that this administration must know the extent of madness that they and we are all dealing with and that a direct power struggle with it would fail…(even though we would all find it immensely satisfying and reassuring to see control exerted over this insanity). But I believe its going to have to be another kind of process and conceptual approach that uses power and authority quite differently, and that will take a great deal of patience and some time and a lot of luck.
Deep down, we all know this.
WereBear
@Elie: That’s an intriguing concept, no less because it gives voice to my own wonderings about the pace of change.
Is there something, be it genetic strain or residue of childrearing practices, that winds up creating people who cannot handle Today? Maybe they were fine as serfs, being told what to do and breaking out with rowdy parties on the quarters of the year, but simply cannot grasp anything more complex?
Because that’s what some of them remind me of.
kay
Caught in another lie:
“This was like a three- or four-minute phone call,” Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) told POLITICO on Sunday. Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “At no point did he ever talk to me about legal strategies.”
“For this guy to get out there and start saying things like this is irresponsible,” Hoekstra said.
Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, told NBC’s David Gregory: “I explained to them that he was in FBI custody. That Mr. Abdulmutallab was in fact talking, that he was cooperating at that point. They knew that ‘in FBI custody’ means that there’s a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of the magistrate.”
kay
There’s been quite a bit of an outcry after the fact,” Brennan said. “I’m just very concerned, on behalf of counterterrorism professionals throughout our government, that politicians continue to make this a political football, and are using it for whatever political or partisan purposes. … I think those counterterrorism professionals deserve the support of our Congress. And rather than second-guessing what they’re doing on the ground, with a 500-mile screwdriver from Washington to Detroit, I think they have to have confidence in the knowledge and the experience of these counterterrorism professionals.”
I think this was in response to Senator Collins, who had to be told that the FBI are part of counter-terrorism intelligence gathering.
I was not aware Collins was stupid, but now I am.
Sly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
600 insane people spouting insane shit is sexier than
4041 assholes demonstrating on a daily basis that one chamber of congress can no longer function as an institution. Ask most people what they think about cloture rules and their eyes will glaze over.Palin gets a response. That’s all that matters.
Elie
@WereBear:
I think that our economy and political system has been failing for a while and the people most impacted by the rate of fall — the less educated and culturally isolated whites, have been the most egregiously manipulated by the conservatives. Perhaps their increasing hysteria is because before, they could always pull off running things by beating the fear and hate card loudly enough to motivate their masses to “take over” at election time. Clearly, they are doing that now because they can see that the demographics in the US are not working in their favor anymore and culturally and educationally, they can’t jump in the thick of what they have rebuffed… when they could have gone along with inclusiveness and making the US a big diverse community, they went along with divide and conquer. If you are always the conquerer, that feels fine, even if paranthetically you are an undereducated person with little job prospects — which is why Palin and so many of the Republicans are so attractive to them — why W was too — see they are stupid just like us and they run things, so we can too! They detach the reality that they don’t run things well and they might explode the country’s economy and political system, but their hunger for control exceeds the need for competence and even stability.
I believe if we get into a power struggle with them, we just reinforce the same old game — . That said, I too lust for feeling some sense of stability and control of our side over events — though I realize its just not going to happen.
Obama is going to continue to have a tough Presidency, as I think kay actually commented a few days ago. This period of change will be longer than his Presidency I believe, whether one or two terms.
Great article if you are interested in Esquire which really made me think long and deep about this presidency and our country right now by Tom Junot.
http://www.esquire.com/features/people-who-matter-2010/barack-obama-father-0210
LuciaMia
But should we worry? Chances are she’ll quit halfway thru her term, when even she realizes she’s in open water and no ships in sight. So what we really need to be concerned about is who her Vice will be.
Oh, and re: Palmgate. You know Sarah would have tattooed her speech on the foreheads of the front row attendees, rather than be seen using a teleprompter.
Dannie22
@Elie. I agree with your posts and I thank you for writing them. Well done.
Brachiator
@Elie:
Very interesting. The thing is, Bush/Cheney promised them endless power and control, but couldn’t deliver. The entire appeal of the GOP is based on the empty promise of power and control.
But on top of this is the absolute inability of tea baggers and their sympathizers to accept a black president. By the way, a variation of this would have erupted had Hillary Clinton been elected the first female president.
This racial anxiety found its sweet spot in the continued refusal of the lunatic fringe to accept the fact that Obama is American born, and is continually reinforced by Palin, Rush Limbaugh and the mainstream GOP by the constant contrast of “real Americans” (scared white people) and their real American common sense Main Street Christian values vs the Marxist soci a list elitist secret Muslim un American policies of Obama and the Democrats. Even when Obama says or does exactly the same thing that Dubya said or did in a similar circumstance, it gets filtered by conservatives into something sinister.
For hard core tea baggers and wingnuts, their fear is all they have. They will not give it up, even if Obama brought permanent peace and prosperity. And the GOP will continue to exploit this fear and anxiety because it is their only path to regaining power.
Worse, too many Democrats refuse to deal directly with this fear and anxiety, wanting to be polite, or spiritual, or analytical, or something.
WereBear
@Elie: Thanks, Elie. That was a fascinating article! Made some excellent points.
WaterGirl
@Elie:
Thanks for recommending the article. I found the sculptures really creepy, but the article itself was quite illuminating.
@WereBear:
Thanks for commenting on the article. I had passed it by the first time and only went to read it based on your comment.
Mike G
Unfortunately, they have been so conditioned to think a certain way that they attack the people who might help them while siding with the people who have exploited them.
The Repigs will gin up some new cultural distraction shiny object and they’ll go back to being easily-led sheep, happily voting to economically roger themselves again and again.
Shorter teabaggers:
“Now that there’s a black man in the White House, I’m suddenly outraged by all the things I supported or didn’t care about when Bush was in office.”
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Davis X. Machina: In the modern age, a clever way to cheat on tests can be found here. Although it’s probably easier to just study.
To Hayek With You
Bush is rather beside the point. Just to give an analogy of what we face…
What would happen if some guy named Uncle Sam were to walk into a casino and guarantee that all of the gamblers would be reimbursed for their losses while getting to keep their winnings? The rational course of action would be to keep betting until you win big. If you lost then you would just have to wait for reimbursement at which point you would get to do it all over again. If you couldn’t wait then you could sell your losses (which now have value due to crazy Uncle’s guarantee) at some percentage of loss and start all over again. These bills coming due is in a nutshell what caused the recent crash. The chits that were sold are better known as mortgage backed securities or derivatives and the bets were loans to low income individuals.
All of this was foreseeable to anyone with even a basic understanding of economics. The government in effect tried to make debt an asset instead of a liability and the results were perfectly predictable. The architects of this plan created a market for risky loans out of whole cloth. They made no bones about this and stated explicitly that this was their intention. Even Clinton to his credit admits as much. The government pushed banks and lending agencies to make bad bets that they wouldn’t have made otherwise and insulated them from the consequences. If they didn’t make enough bad bets or if the bets weren’t high risk enough then they would be threatened and punished. In fact a certain percentage of bad bets were required and this percentage increased over time. At the same time interest rates were forced down to make it possible for the bubble to inflate even further and to put off the day of reckoning until the maiximum damage would be done when it burst.
This had nothing to do with the free market since such conditions never exist in a free market. Risk is tied to reward in a free and therefore rational market. It had nothing to do with the principles of limited government that the country is based upon and it had nothing to do with Bush. But it had everything to do with socialism and social engineering of the sort that always ends in tragedy.
Bush, the idiot, saw this coming and warned Congress of it repeatedly. The geniuses in Congress responded by saying that they were willing to roll the dice that no private citizen would have rolled if left to their own devices. We see how that worked out. This is always what happens when you allow the government to gamble with other people’s money.
So now Obama is asking us to double down on stupid by putting the government in charge of other essential areas of the economy and by allowing it to further de-link incentives from results in additional markets such as health care, auto manufacturing and energy production. All of this while Fannie and Freddie are still allowed to exist and all of this while the government funds another round of mortgage roulette by attempting to re-inflate the housing bubble.
Rational people are of course livid. In fact we are almost to the point of open rebellion. We have strayed far enough from what is allowed under our Constitution that the ruling class is on the verge of losing the consent of the governed.
George Washington did not believe the Constitution even allowed a pension to be provided to the Continental Army. And now we have come to the point where the government thinks it is allowed to confiscate the wealth of one generation to give it to another as with the grand ponzi scheme that is Social Security, or to make one man pay for another’s mortgage, or health care, or any other damned thing needed to buy a vote from the economically illiterate.
It is of course madness and can only end as we have recently seen. We are staring into the abyss and the Tea Party is just one of the forces trying to drag us back from the edge. For Christ’s sake even Lech Walensa has come to our country to warn us off the path of tyranny and self-destruction we are pursuing and the Chinese are openly laughing at the naivete of our president’s economic advisers. How bad must things be when even communists think you have gone too far left?
I don’t expect Obama to understand any of this. Not only because he is intellectually incapable of it but because he is wholly ignorant of anything to do with the US or its foundational principles. He is American by birth only. His understanding of the country is shallow. He has an almost cargo cult like understanding of America and of economics. He is familiar with the forms but not the function of the country because he has surrounded himself with anti-Americans and Marxists during his formative years and he has never done an honest day’s work in his life. He does not understand the value of it. He does not believe in any of the things that make America distinct and great. In fact he and his wife are ashamed of those things.
So the American people are left to take matters into their own hands. States are inoculating themselves by passing preemptive laws to void provisions in the proposed health care bill before it is even passed and people are peacefully assembling in the streets. In the advent of continued intransigence on the part of our representatives secession is being openly discussed as an alternative to civil disobedience, or even civil war as people decide whether to fight, or flee, or protest… and everyone just hopes we survive without too much damage being done until the next election cycle.
Elie in post #123 is purblind enough to think all of this is just a problem with adjusting to the 21st century as if people now have some special wisdom that eluded past generations or as if any set of principles would have sufficed to have made America that it once was and can be again. No Elie what you are seeing is the desire not to return to the serfdom of the middle ages where you are only allowed to keep what little the king does not demand of you, or the slavery of the 1860’s where some guy in a big white house on the hill makes decisions for everyone else on the plantation. The US Constitution was a great leap forward for mankind and its framers were infinitely wiser than our leaders today. It was intended to protect us from people like Obama and the current Congress… and Elie. Those of you who want to give away the liberties it grants in return for being bribed with your own money are fools and are not worthy of the sacrifices made by those who have built the Republic whose freedoms and prosperity you enjoy.
Elie
@Brachiator:
“This racial anxiety found its sweet spot in the continued refusal of the lunatic fringe to accept the fact that Obama is American born, and is continually reinforced by Palin, Rush Limbaugh and the mainstream GOP by the constant contrast of “real Americans” (scared white people) and their real American common sense Main Street Christian values vs the Marxist soci a list elitist secret Muslim un American policies of Obama and the Democrats. Even when Obama says or does exactly the same thing that Dubya said or did in a similar circumstance, it gets filtered by conservatives into something sinister.”
Its not rational — yes, its partially racial but I think its more, I am going to scream and cry and yell crazy shit because I am angry and scared and facts don’t matter — the only reality that matters is my fear and anxiety and what you are really hearing when I scream about Marxists (what are those by the way) or anything else is that someone just gave me some labels to throw around in my rant. You cannot rationalize with them — they are on a pre-conscious level and it does no good. Manage their rage somehow, we must find a way, but talk them into good sense, no, I dont think so. They must always be handled however with as little emotion as possible — almost blandly. They NEED the emotion to fuel their engine and without it, they have to sustain on their own — its a lot of work over time and that is our hope — letting them run it out. Maybe.
Elie
@WereBear: @WaterGirl:
Yeah — I ran onto it while getting my hair done day before yesterday and was totally engaged with his premise — the change Obama represents to the exercise of authority and power… it was pretty Wow to me…
Now, I have to think about how to apply it for those of us interested in getting things done during the era of the orks and Mordor. ;-)