After being away for three weeks due to the death of his father, Keith Olbermann was back with a vengeance with a special comment on the Republican's Party's failure to stop health care and their suicide run if they continue to appeal to the fringiest of the fringe.
Welcome back, Keith.
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Over these last few weeks while Congress has been in recess, we've seen some pretty offensive town hall meetings. Birthers and deathers, seniors who rail against a government run health care option but freak at the idea of possible changes to steamline their government run Medicare, and gun-toting 2nd Amendment activists who for some reason show up armed at health care forums have shown us the ugly, misinformed and disinformed underbelly of the Republican voter, uneducated in the ways of the current health care reform battle among many other things.
But I must say that the latest act of RNC Chairman Michael Steele is disgustingly reprehensible. Steele has shown over and over that in his mind, he is right and anyone who disagrees with him is a moron. It's the Emporer's New Clothes Redux. He knows not of what he speaks and proves it every time he opens his mouth. Well, this time, he not only shows his ignorance but his pompous ruthlessness as well....The roots of Steele's unconscionable behavior lie in his own political bankruptcy. The nation faces a health care crisis and has no answer other than telling students, "Everyone in the country needs health care." Lately he has been running commercials telling seniors, "No cuts for Medicare," just two short years after running for senator of Maryland saying that "everything has to be on the table" - including Medicare cuts. As Ron Brownstein wrote in National Journal on Friday, "Steele's pledge this week to 'protect Medicare' might have been more convincing had it not come five months after nearly four-fifths of House Republicans voted to literally end the program as we know it for all Americans younger than 55."It's one thing to be a fraud. That's politics as usual. But to turn your back on a young person whose mother just died of cancer is more than politics as usual. It's shocking.
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Does context mean anything? FUCK, YES! The GOP bandwagon to attack Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor has boiled down to one sentence made in a speech in her 2001 address at the 'Raising the Bar' symposium at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
The quote: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Not only have the right wing operatives taken that quote out of the context in which it was used, they've even parsed it further, usually omitting the ending, "who hasn't lived that life." Pat Buchanan even goes ahead and argues the plight of the white man.
Oh, the white male has had it hard in these United States, haven't they? The affirmative action claim Buchanan makes is based on his interpretation (or lack of) of Sotomayor's ruling in the New Haven firefighter case which, I'm sure if you asked him, he would categorize as being an "activist" ruling not realizing that the basis for the three judge panel's decision was due to past precedent as well as upholding the District Court's decision.Pat Buchanan: "...she thinks "Latina women," because of their life experience, make better judicial decisions than white men, that discrimination against white men to advance people of color is what America is all about..."
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Yeah... sure sounds like a lynch mob to me. Does the KKK have a lobbying firm in Washington, DC? Perhaps the National Rifle Association? I kid, but you get the point. What an insufferable, racist douche, that Tom Tancredo. And you can quote me.The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) – the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States – works to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans. Through its network of nearly 300 affiliated community-based organizations (CBOs), NCLR reaches millions of Hispanics each year in 41 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. To achieve its mission, NCLR conducts applied research, policy analysis, and advocacy, providing a Latino perspective in five key areas – assets/investments, civil rights/immigration, education, employment and economic status, and health. In addition, it provides capacity-building assistance to its Affiliates who work at the state and local level to advance opportunities for individuals and families.
Founded in 1968, NCLR is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization headquartered in Washington, DC. NCLR serves all Hispanic subgroups in all regions of the country and has operations in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Antonio, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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posted by Armadillo Joe
Apparantly, Keith Olbermann thinks that Rush Limbaugh's kidneys are off-limits:
And I would say to Keith that he can get all sanctimonious about a black comedienne saying something mean about the kidneys of a charter member emeritus of the white plutocratic Establishment to, oh I dunno, let's say um... Michael J. Fox:
Sorry, Keith, but the depth and putresence of Rush's œuvre makes every part of that porcine, drug-addled sex tourist's ample anatomy fair game for mocking and derision. If anything said about his shriveled, diseased body parts happens to shock! shock! the sensibilities of the insulated, fatuous media elite of D.C., well hey... live by the sword, die by the sword, motherfuckers.
Fuck Rush Limbaugh and screw you for taking his side in a fight.
A very touching tribute from a son to his mother.
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MSNBC Barely Touches Stewart vs. Cramer
Every time someone uses the phrase,"liberal media," I look for the nearest brick wall on which to pound my head against.
In anticipation for the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer knock-down-drag-out, Cramer took to the airwaves of the morning shows in his defense to attempt to rehabilitate his image and rebut his main critic with a specific message: "A comedian’s attacking me. Wow. He runs a variety show." I remember him saying it at least twice. He appeared on the Today show, got Joe Scarborough to shill for him on Morning Joe, and even pounded dough with Martha Stewart.
After the bloodletting, Joe Scarborough was touting an exclusive interview with Cramer on Morning Joke™ using Twitter.
I even got up at an ungodly hour to watch. No Cramer. Then this.
So much for Jim Cramer taking it like a man. Did he no-show or was he cancelled? Maybe the latter.
..."MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview into their shows today." In fact, the only time it came up on MSNBC was during the White House briefing, when a member of the press corps asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if Pres. Obama watched. Gibbs wasn't sure if the president had, but Gibbs did. "I enjoyed it thoroughly," the Press Secretary said.
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Yes, Rachel Maddow framed the feature of this "Dust Up!" story in regards to what millions were interested in, in comparison to other newsworthy stories... but she mentioned it. She didn't ignore it like the rest of the day of MSNBC programming, from Morning Joke™ to hours of inane coverage of that missing Halleigh girl to even more news of Anna Nicole Smith two years after her death. That's what they talked about. But something that happened to one of their own in the NBC family? Mum's the word."[Obama] didn't get any [Republican] votes in the House of Representatives. As you know, Republicans representatives are like robots. They have to do what their bosses tell them, they can't put into consideration what's best for the country or what's best for their own district. If they do, they'll lose their seat on a committee or they'll lose their future benefits for their district, so they have to vote the way they are told."
I couldn't bear the thought of sitting through another Charles Gibson interview with a Republican shit for brains sitting with his deer in the headlights wife nodding her head in agreement like a couple of old farmer folk chewin' on a piece of straw and staring out at the ranch from their front porch, so I missed the very exciting Bush "I didn't do it - it was like that when I got here" interview.
I did however catch Keith Olbermann and the lowlights.
"The Wall Street decision making was done before I got there. Blame Daddy and Bubba."
"The intelligence was bad on WMD, not my fault. So what if we chose to cherrypick only what fit into our agenda."
I can't wait until I never have to listen to this nimrod again. Just hearing his voice makes me dumber. I start running into walls and tripping over the dog. Suddenly, I become entranced with shiny things and tend to play Ball in a Cup for hours. Please President Bush, stop hurting my brain.
Okay, Joe (if that is your real name) I've had it with you. You've far exceeded your 15 minutes.
When you first came on the scene, I thought it was a bit interesting. Here's this everyman that is obviously a Republican who doesn't know any better and votes against his own best interests. That's cool. There are many other people like you who do. You approached Barack Obama while he was walking in your neighborhood, and although you seemed to show a little less respect than I personally would like to have seen shown to a sitting United States Senator, you got your question across and made your point. You thought Obama would raise your taxes if you made over $250,000 a year after you bought your boss' s plumbing business.
But little did you know how your life would change after your hero, John McCain would invoke your name 21 times in the last presidential debate. Throngs of reporters gathered outside your home to get a little Joe the Plumber (if that is your real profession) wisdom. JOE THE PLUMBER! JOE THE PLUMBER! JOE THE PLUMBER! McCain was giddy with Joe the Plumber mania. He finally had a working class guy at his side he could exploit, and exploit you he did.
Did you not expect anyone to check out your background after your name and face became the new McCain campaign slogan? And then we started finding out the truth about Joe the plumber.
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher asked about Obama's tax plan over $250,000 but only makes $40,000.
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher hadn't made a decision on who he was voting for yet, but wasn't even registered to vote and had donated $100 to the McCain campaign.
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher owes $1,100 in back taxes so what difference is Obama's tax plan going to make if he doesn't pay taxes anyway?
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher DOESN'T HAVE A PLUMBER'S LICENSE!
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher's real name is Sam.
After watching the full video of Obama explaining for over five minutes in great detail how you might even pay less taxes than under McCain's plan with your false 'quarter of a million dollars-buying a business' scenario, all you took out of it was the "spread the wealth" comment that was a tack on at the end of the conversation. And that's all the McCain campaign took out of it too, but we expect that from a campaign, not an honest, hard working guy like you, Joe.
So what happens next? All of a sudden Joe the non licensed plumber is an expert and getting called to appear of Fox News... well I suppose he's as good an expert as anyone else at Fox News. He's given major exposure. He starts campaigning for Sarah Palin even though McCain said it was Obama that had put Joe in the spotlight. He's a hot commodity. So what do you do, Joe? Joe the plumber hires Jim the publicist. Joe the plumber wants to make a country album.
But then the tide starts to turn, doesn't it, Joe? All of a sudden you start getting asked important questions. Questions that you don't know the answers to, McCain policy questions that had you actually been interested in knowing and understanding, might have made you look like less of a fool than you look now. Foreign policy questions you have no clue about, and instead of keeping your mouth shut and saying you don't have enough knowledge to answer, after all you're just a plumber, you agree with someone who says that a vote for Obama equals death to Israel. OOPS! And when you're called on it by a Fox news anchor who somehow had the decency to stick to the facts, you took the Sarah Palin approach - the non answer answer.
Joe, it's time for you to shut the fuck up. You have thrust yourself into the national spotlight. You weren't forced. You were asked and accepted without knowing the consequences. And now your putting yourself out there as being knowledgeable on the issues (when dare I say you might know less than George W. Bush) and agreeing with nutjobs that think Israel would be in danger in an Obama presidency.
You don't know the answers to any of these questions and yet you dare to say that people should go and get the information themselves and make their own decision, but you haven't done it yourself! You want them to have their own opinion while spouting your own uninformed one. Thank Jebus that Shepard Smith was honest and decent enough, even though he works at Fox, to straighten you out and make sure that people viewing knew you are full of shit as he stated Obama's stance on Israel.
I'll leave you with Keith Olbermann's take on Sam the non licensed plumber but before I do, I just want to say one more thing to Joe/Sam:
Joe, I don't know what I'd do if I were in your position. The spotlight can be addictive, the attention you are receiving is probably like nothing most of us will ever experience. But I'm asking you for the sake of the country to shut the fuck up. Stop speaking about things you know nothing of.
Take your own advice, Joe, and really research the issues. Try to understand the complicated policies and plans, figure out what best suits your needs and goals. And after all that, if you want to vote for McCain, then vote for him. But make sure that you're voting for McCain because he speaks to your issues and not against Obama because you've heard he's a radical Muslim Socialist Communist because Sarah Palin said so.
After two years of campaigning, don't you think the guy has been vetted to the point that this would have already come up during the primaries? It's been debunked. Let it go. Stop perpetuating the lies and start thinking about the real concerns, the real problems our country faces, and what you can do as an individual to make the world a better place your future generations.
Your fifteen minutes were up twenty minutes ago, Joe. It's been a fun ride but now it's time to get off.
(H/T HuffPo)
Even Dave Letterman has had enough. David. Fucking. Letterman!
(H/T Cesca)
UPDATE I (7:05am):
Morning Joke - Mike and Joe are OUTRAGED! (especially Mika) that CBS would let the Letterman show air as it did, mocking our war hero. Grow. Up. Assholes.
ADDING - The McCain campaign is in fucking shambles. Either this was campaign advice to try and make political hay out of a supposedly dire situation and disguise it as all "mavericky," or it was McCain's own decision which make his managers look completely incompetent and worthless beyond how they've run the campaign to date. Either way, Letterman's right. This smells like shit.
Now he gets to strut into D.C. a week late and $700 billion short, after an agreement is 95% complete and take credit for something he didn't do.
UPDATE II (9:35pm): The insanity continues. It seems that the McCain camp DID NOT suspend the campaign, has been running adds all over the US and his presence in D.C. probably did more harm than good in getting a deal done... which is probably what he wanted to avoid tomorrow night's debate. What the hell is going on? I've never seen anything this crazy. Reminds me of a conservative version of Bulworth.
And CBS reported that McCain tossed out a proposal that offered "fewer regulations and corporate tax breaks." What a surprise.
This was brewing inside Keith Olbermann since the final day of Republican Convention. I had commented on the politicization and fear mongering of 9/11 at the RNC the next day, but as usual KO does it so much better.
Meanwhile, it seems that White House aides today have been repeating the fact that the US has not been attacked since 9/11, a total of 2,557 days. But as Keith so aptly put it, "Does 'then' not count?" I'd also like to add that I'm guessing they aren't counting the anthrax attacks - but maybe that's because it wasn't done by an Islamic extremist Middle Easterner.
Rachel Maddow was pretty damn good in her inaugural show, but that's to be expected as she has been a very able guest host on Countdown. And I'm glad she stopped Pat "The Living Dead" Buchanan in his tracks when Pat whined about the media attacking Palin's religion (as if that happened) and then trashed Barack Obama's former church in the very next sentence. But hey, IOKIYAR. Great first show and I'm psyched to see more.
Rachel's show can be seen on MSNBC at 9pm weeknights right after Countdown.
Is this what passes for reporting from the Associated Press? Just minutes after Obama's amazing and historic speech that even had Pat Buchanan gushing on MSNBC, an AP hack named Charles Babington wrote this:Barack Obama, whose campaign theme is "change we can believe in," promised Thursday to "spell out exactly what that change would mean."
But instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer. The country saw a candidate confident in his existing campaign formula: tie McCain tightly to President Bush, and remind voters why they are unhappy with the incumbent.
Of course, no candidate can outline every initiative in a 35-minute speech - especially one that also must inspire voters, acknowledge key friends, and toss in some autobiography for the newly-interested. And Obama did touch on nitty-gritty subjects, such as the capital gains tax and biofuel investments.
He said he would "find ways to safely harness nuclear power," a somewhat more receptive phrase than he typically uses for that subject.
But most of his address echoed and amplified the theme that dominated the four-day
Democratic nominating convention here: George Bush.
And it seems that Babington didn't even listen to the speech, opting to critique it (and badly mind you) by reading the advance press release since his 603-word piece was turned in only 26 minutes after the speech was over. Still, the false accusations that it was all-style -no-substance is laughable at best, spine chillingly conspiratorial at worst. Here's Jonathan Singer an MyDD:What a true journalist would do would be to analyze the speech without using the crutch of opposition talking points, without resorting to the easiest "he said, she said" type of stenography. But apparently this is no longer the policy of the Associated Press under Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier -- a man, by the way, who spent months in talks with the McCain campaign about possibly accepting a senior level position. No, what we get out of Fournier's AP is pure and unadulterated talking points that are as non germane as they are simply incorrect.
And Keith Olbermann's reaction after reading the report: Mr. Babington got the length of the speech wrong by at least 7 minutes. And this is analysis that will be printed in many, many newspapers, hundreds of them around the country. It is analysis that strikes me as having born no resemblance to the speech you and I just watch. None whatsoever. And for it to be distributed by the lone national news organization in terms of wire copy to newspapers around the country and websites is a remarkable failure of that news organization.Charles Babington. Find. New. Work.
So, not only does Obama have to fight the Republican Party lies and smears over the next two months, it seems he'll have to fight the press-posing right-wing noise machine as well. Game on, brohim.
(H/T Daily Kos & My DD)
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