Bachmann Calls For Health Care Protest Rally In DC Next Week: ‘We’re Going To Have A Big Party’
Bachmann Calls For Health Care Protest Rally In DC Next Week: ‘We’re Going To Have A Big Party’
In an interview with the Washington News Observer, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) revealed that, next week in Washington, D.C., the right wing is trying to galvanize yet another mass protest rally against health reform.
Following in the spirit of the “tea party” protests in April and the Glenn Beck-inspired 9/12 rally, Bachmann announced, “We’re going to have a ‘house call’ and a big party out on the National Mall [next week], and we’re going to tell Congress what they can do with their health care bill.”
Fashioning herself as the leader of this mass protest, Bachmann exhorted everyone to “get off the couch, get in your car, get a van together, get a bus together, but get here! We’re going to have a ‘house call’ next week, and we need every American to be here.” She then issued this dire warning (infused with pop culture references):
The American people realize this is it. Just like that brand new Michael Jackson movie came out, ‘This Is It.’ This is it for freedom. If you believe in liberty, and if you’re rejecting tyranny, this is it. Dr. Mark Levin wrote a seminal book that really swept this country called Liberty and Tyranny. And that’s what this debate is about next week. Liberty and tyranny.
Watch it:
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GOP establishment-backed candidate Dede Scozzafava withdraws from NY-23 special election.
GOP establishment-backed candidate Dede Scozzafava withdraws from NY-23 special election.
In recent weeks, the special congressional election in New York’s 23 district has been heating up, with “big tent” and “establishment” Republicans — such as Newt Gingrich, the RNC, and the NRCC — backing Dede Scozzafava, and “purist” Republicans — such as Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, and Bill Kristol — backing Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Scozzafava had been “under siege” from these conservatives “because she supported gay rights and abortion rights and was considered too liberal on various fiscal issues.” Today — just three days before the election — Scozzafava has announced that she’s withdrawing because polling shows her too far behind to win:
“Today, I again seek to act for the good of our community,” Ms. Scozzafava wrote in a letter to friends and supporters. “It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so. I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my party will emerge stronger and our district and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for generations.
Scozzafava has not yet thrown her support behind either Hoffman or Democratic candidate Bill Owens, and her name will remain on the ballot. Gingrich recently slammed his fellow conservatives for the “precedent” they’re setting, saying, “So I say to my many conservative friends who suddenly decided that whether they’re from Minnesota or Alaska or Texas, they know more than the upstate New York Republicans? I don’t think so. And I don’t think it’s a good precedent.”
Lieberman on his willingness to derail health care reform: ‘I feel relevant.’
Lieberman on his willingness to derail health care reform: ‘I feel relevant.’
After he announced his willingness to filibuster health care reform that includes a public option, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) defended his position by arguing that if the public option paid lower reimbursement rates than private insurers, medical providers would shift costs to Americans with private coverage. He also called the proposed plan “a new entitlement program.” As ThinkProgress and others have pointed out, Lieberman either doesn’t understand the details of the public option proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) or he is misrepresenting them. But in a conference call with Connecticut reporters yesterday, Lieberman claimed that it is the more than 60 percent of state residents that back a government-run insurance option that are confused:
What about the more than 60 percent of state residents that back a government-run insurance option, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last month?
Some of those respondents are confused about what such a plan entails, Lieberman said. And he added, “you can’t make a decision like this based on polling,” he said. Ultimately, he he said he has to do “what I think is right and hope in the end the people of Connecticut will respect me for that.”
Describing how his openness to derailing reform affected his role in the health care debate, Lieberman told the reporters, “I feel relevant.”
Gorbachev: Bush once told me that ‘blockheads and dummies’ were supporting the ‘extreme’ Reagan.
Gorbachev: Bush once told me that ‘blockheads and dummies’ were supporting the ‘extreme’ Reagan.
During a recent interview with The Nation editors Katrina vanden Heuvel and her husband Stephan Cohen, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev credited President Reagan for helping end the Cold War, but he argued that instituting democratic reforms in his country was the true catalyst. “Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended,” he said. Gorbachev later described a private conversation he had with then Vice President Bush about Reagan:
By the way, in 1987, after my first visit to the United States, Vice President Bush accompanied me to the airport, and told me: “Reagan is a conservative. An extreme conservative. All the blockheads and dummies are for him, and when he says that something is necessary, they trust him. But if some Democrat had proposed what Reagan did, with you, they might not have trusted him.”
When asked what lessons he learned “that President Obama should heed in making his decisions about Afghanistan,” Gorbachev – who ended the Soviet Union’s 10 year war there in 1989 — replied, “One was that problems there could not be solved with the use of force. Such attempts inside someone else’s country end badly.”
Rep. Markey Warns About Right-Wing Misinformation: Net Neutrality May Be The Next ‘Death Panels’
Rep. Markey Warns About Right-Wing Misinformation: Net Neutrality May Be The Next ‘Death Panels’
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission voted to move forward with regulations to preserve the open architecture of the Internet. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is trying to make our current system’s “net neutrality” official by ensuring that broadband providers “cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications” and are “transparent about their network management practices.” That same day, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced legislation to block the FCC, inexplicably arguing that preserving net neutrality would be a “government takeover of the Internet.”
Yesterday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) held a conference call with bloggers to discuss net neutrality. He and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) have introduced legislation — which currently has seven co-sponsors — to “establish overarching national broadband policy and ensures an open and consumer oriented Internet.” Markey stressed the importance of fighting “misinformation,” invoking death panels and the other red herrings the right wing slung into this summer’s health care debate:
As you all know, a lot is being written and said about what open Internet requirements would mean for broadband investment innovation and consumers. [...]
It’s almost as though some people want to have their own equivalent of “death panels” that we had in the health care debate back in August. That was a red herring that took us off the main point of providing health care to everyone, for a month or six weeks. Now we’ve got that straightened out, but we have to battle hard to make sure the misinformation is responded and responded to in a very brief period of time.
Watch it:
Fox News host Glenn Beck has been fear-mongering on net neutrality for weeks, saying that the Obama administration is trying to shut down freedom of speech. “You have a freedom of speech or the government,” said Beck last week. “You can’t really have both.” He’s been getting his talking points from Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity, who also fueled Beck’s campaign against former Obama adviser Van Jones. Some telecom companies — which, along with the cable industry, is driving opposition to an open Internet — have begun astroturfing efforts as well.
The telecom and cable industries are the ones interested in controlling access to information on the Internet. What the FCC’s regulations on net neutrality would do are ensure that the Internet remains an open, non-discriminatory marketplace of ideas, rather than a pay-for-play system where broadband providers could make certain companies’ sites run faster if they’re willing to dole out large sums of money.
Net neutrality is essential to free speech, which both the Christian Coalition and the Gun Owners of America have acknowledged. From a 2008 testimony by Michele Combs, the Christian Coalition’s vice president of communications:
Consequently, the reason the Christian Coalition supports Net Neutrality is simple. We believe that organizations such as the Christian Coalition should be able to continue to use the Internet to communicate with our members and with a worldwide audience without a phone or cable company snooping in on our communications and deciding whether to allow a particular communication to proceed, slow it down, or offer to speed it up if the author pays extra to be on the “fast lane.”
Free Press has put together a report here debunking some of the myths on net neutrality, and our Progress Report today has more information.
Right Wing Falsely Asserts Right Wing Boogeymen Bill Ayers And Jeremiah Wright Visited The White House
Right Wing Falsely Asserts Right Wing Boogeymen Bill Ayers And Jeremiah Wright Visited The White House
Early this evening, the White House voluntarily released nearly 500 visitor records of “individuals visiting the executive mansion between Inauguration Day and the end of July.” The easily-searchable list includes some famous names like Michael Jordan, Michael Moore, William Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright. Of course, the mere suggestion of Ayers and Wright has sent the right wing into a tizzy.
The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb:
The Weekly Standard’s Mary Katharine Ham:
The Washington Times’ Amanda Carpenter:
Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey:
But as the original post by White House ethics counselor Norm Eisen makes clear, the “William Ayers” and “Jeremiah Wright” on the list are actually different individuals who merely share the same name:
Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few “false positives” – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else. In September, requests were submitted for the names of some famous or controversial figures (for example Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly (”R. Kelly”), and Malik Shabazz). The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.
Mainstream news outlets have reported this fact accurately. But for the right wing, the story was simply too good to be fact-checked.
Kristol Says He Helped Congressional GOP Formulate ‘The Best Arguments Against’ Health Care Reform
Kristol Says He Helped Congressional GOP Formulate ‘The Best Arguments Against’ Health Care Reform
In Dec. 1993, Bill Kristol, a current Fox News contributor and the editor of the Weekly Standard, issued a now-infamous memo to Republican leaders, arguing that they should “defeat” President Clinton’s health care reform plan “outright” instead of negotiating a compromise. In later memos, Kristol counseled that Republicans should oppose reform “sight unseen” because “there is no health care crisis.” Kristol’s advice “animated” Republicans, who concluded “that all-out opposition to the Clinton plan” was “in their best political interest.”
Throughout this year’s debate over health care reform, Kristol has played a similar role, arguing in the media that Republicans should “kill” reform instead of trying to be “constructive.” In an interview on the Washington Times’ America’s Morning News radio show yesterday, Kristol revealed that he had met with some congressional Republicans on Wednesday night to devise strategy for defeating reform:
KRISTOL: Next week will really be a first crescendo in the big health care debate. And this dinner I was at last night was some Republican members, Senate and House, some staffers, some outside people, trying to think about how to, the best arguments against it and where the politics of this lies. She is really going for it. And I think the issue is Medicare. I mean this will be the largest package of Medicare cuts I think the Congress will ever have passed.
Later in the interview, Kristol distilled the conclusions from the strategy session with congressional Republicans, saying that citizens “need to go see their congressman and say ‘do not vote for this until either we have a chance to read it more carefully, but really more importantly just don’t vote for it because it’s going to cut my Medicare and raise my taxes.’” He echoes the same attack line in his Weekly Standard column today: “There will be no Republican votes for the Pelosi Plan of tax hikes and Medicare cuts. Will there be enough Democratic resistors so the bill is either withdrawn or defeated?.” Listen here:
For the past month, Fox has been claiming that it is not actually a “communications arm” for the Republicans. What do they think about one of their regular contributors advising Republicans on strategy behind closed doors? Will they disclose Kristol’s advisory role when he appears on the air?
Lieberman in 1994: Filibuster is ‘unfair’ and it isn’t ‘right’ to use it to obstruct major legislation.
Lieberman in 1994: Filibuster is ‘unfair’ and it isn’t ‘right’ to use it to obstruct major legislation.
In recent days, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has raised the ire of health care advocates by threatening to filibuster Senate health care legislation unless the public option is removed from it, a move that was a boon to the stock prices of major health insurance companies. Lieberman was singing a different tune in 1994, however. At that time Lieberman, a freshman senator, was working with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) to introduce legislation that would drastically weaken the power of the filiibuster. HuffPost’s Sam Stein recalls that the Connecticut senator said it was “unfair” to use the filibuster to threaten major legislation and argued it isn’t “right” to use it to obstruct progress:
“The whole process of individual senators being able to hold up legislation, which in a sense is an extension of the filibuster because the hold has been understood in one way to be a threat to filibuster — it’s just unfair.”
“I’m very proud to be standing here with Tom [Harkin] as two Democrats saying that we’re going to begin this fight, because we’ve just been stung by the filibuster for a period of years, and even though the tables have now turned, it doesn’t make it right for us to use this instrument that we so vilified.”
Maryland NAACP protests city’s Halloween ‘lynching’ display.
Maryland NAACP protests city’s Halloween ‘lynching’ display.
The Parks and Recreation Department of the city of Frederick, MD recently decided to hang three dummies from a tree as part of its Halloween program. The dummies’ “overstuffed shirts, blue jeans and white, faceless heads” sparked concern from Frederick residents who complained that “the figures evoke images of lynchings.” According to one resident:
“It instantly reminded me of the pictures of the lynchings that happened in the ’20s and ’30s in the United States,” he said. “I found it very offensive as a white person.”
Guy Djoken, president of the Frederick County chapter of the NAACP, said “people are angry” about the display, noting that it’s a problem that they are “hanging on city property.” Djoken said he sent the mayor of Frederick, William Holtzinger, an email asking for their “immediate removal.” See Djoken’s comments here:
Colbert signs petition to ‘Close Gitmo Now.’
Colbert signs petition to ‘Close Gitmo Now.’
Last week, a group of international musicians that includes Trent Reznor, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, and others joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo and filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking to declassify all secret government records pertaining to how music was used in detainee interrogations in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Last night, Roseanne Cash promoted the cause on The Colbert Report, where she successfully got the host to sign a petition calling for the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Watch it:
Americans trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on health care.
Americans trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on health care.
A Gallup Poll out this week shows that 55 percent of Americans trust President Obama “when it comes to making changes in the health care system.” While 48 percent said they trusted Democrats in Congress on health care, only 37 percent trust the Republicans:
Matt Yglesias observes that “this sort of result tends not to support the idea that breaking with congressional Democrats to join congressional Republicans in a filibuster of Obama’s signature health initiatives would be a political winner.”
Daily Show Heckled, Attacked For Airing Interview With Leader Of Palestinian Nonviolent Democratic Movement
Daily Show Heckled, Attacked For Airing Interview With Leader Of Palestinian Nonviolent Democratic Movement
This past Wednesday, The Daily Show aired an interview with Anna Baltzer, a Jewish American peace activist and author of Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories, and Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a leading figure in the Palestinian democratic and nonviolent movement for peace.
At the beginning of the interview, Barghouti told Stewart that he thinks the “Jewish people have been in the avante garde of struggling for justice…and democracy,” and concluded that it was “natural” for Palestinians like himself and Jewish activitists like Baltzer to work together for a just resolution of the conflict.
Barghouti explained his experience as a Palestinian growing up under occupation. “It’s Palestinians who have been subjected to the longest occupation in modern history and a system of segregation that is totally unjust,” he said. This prompted a heckler from the crowd to yell, “Liar!” — the first heckling in The Daily Show’s 11-year existence. Stewart responded by joking, “Apparently Joe Wilson is with us tonight.” Watch it:
Following their joint appearance, Baltzer revealed in an open letter that “the show was overwhelmed with angry emails and phone calls prior to the appearance, and up until the last minute it seemed like they might cancel. … The entire staff were very nervous and may come to regret the monumental decision (and not make it again) as they will surely be inundated now that the show has aired.”
While some may feel that views like those of Barghouti should not be aired, the truth is Barghouti represents a Palestinian voice for nonviolence and democracy that is valuable to voice on U.S. airwaves. Despite the suffering he has endured living under occupation — he has been imprisoned and beaten several times for taking part in demonstrations and sit-ins — he has been a leading voice for nonviolent resistance and democratic reform, crafting his philosophy after that of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Barghouti’s many accomplishments include founding a leading health relief NGO, removing anti-Semitic programs from the Palestinian airwaves, and running as an independent presidential candidate offering a “democratic and independent ‘third way’ for the large majority of silent and unrepresented Palestinian voters, who favour neither the autocracy and corruption of the governing Fatah party, nor the fundamentalism of Hamas.”
Baltzer is urging viewers who appreciate Stewart’s fortitude in bringing them on to thank him and the producers of The Daily Show by using the show’s contact form here.
Fox and Friends laugh about heckler telling Nancy Pelosi to ‘burn in hell.’
Fox and Friends laugh about heckler telling Nancy Pelosi to ‘burn in hell.’
Earlier this week, extreme anti-choice activist Randall Terry launched a contest to encourage people to make videos burning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in effigy. “Who Can make the best ‘Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid BURN IN HELL!‘ video?” said Terry’s press release. At the Democratic rally yesterday announcing the House’s health care reform bill, a heckler called out, “Nancy Pelosi, you’ll burn in hell for this.” Apparently, this violent rhetoric and claims of damnation was funny to the folks at Fox and Friends, who laughingly re-enacted the heckling on their show this morning. Watch it:
Previously on Fox News, Glenn Beck joked about putting poison in Pelosi’s wine.
Pat Robertson on hate crimes bill: ‘The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians.’
Pat Robertson on hate crimes bill: ‘The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians.’
Yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network, televangelist Pat Robertson aired a segment slamming President Obama for signing the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. Extending hate crimes protection to the gay and transgendered community, Robertson argued, was a targeted attack on homophobic Christians like himself. Robertson said the new law is the latest example of a “noose” tightening around “the necks of Christians.” Later in the segment, he implied Democrats in Congress were “opposed to many of the fundamental Christian beliefs”:
PAT ROBERTSON: The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues. And it all was embodied in something called the Hate crimes bill that President Obama said was a major victory for America. I’m not sure if America was the beneficiary. [...] We have voted into office a group of people who are opposed to many of the fundamental Christian beliefs of our nation. And they hold to radical ideology, and they are beginning put people sharing their points of view into high office. And not only that, they not only have control of both houses of Congress.
Watch it:
Robertson, who has a long history of preaching vitriolic homophobia, declared earlier this year that gay marriage would lead to a “legalization of polygamy, bestiality, child molestation and pedophilia.”
Lieberman plans to campaign for Republicans in 2010.
Lieberman plans to campaign for Republicans in 2010.
After joining with Republicans this week in a promise to filibuster health reform if a public option is included, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) tells ABC News that he plans on campaigning for some GOP candidates in the 2010 elections:
I probably will support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the elections in 2010. I’m going to call them as I see them.
There’s a hard core of partisan, passionate, hardcore Republicans. There’s a hard core of partisan Democrats on the other side. And in between is the larger group, which is people who really want to see the right thing done, or want something good done for this country and them — and that means, sometimes, the better choice is somebody who’s not a Democrat.
Lieberman also said it remains an “open question” whether he will seek the Democratic nomination when he runs for re-election in 2012. Last month, Lieberman also joked that he may run as a Republican. In September 2008, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter — who was then still a member of the GOP — ironically said that Lieberman was “practically” voting as a Republican already and should just switch parties.
ThinkFast: October 30, 2009
ThinkFast: October 30, 2009
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (TX) said yesterday that the GOP would “welcome” Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman into its ranks. Hoffman is slated to face off with Republican Dede Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens in a special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district next week.
In a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform Summit on Wednesday, former Florida governor Jeb Bush claimed that “President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism.” “That’ll make the news,” added Bush after he uttered his criticism of Obama in response to a question from the audience.
Iran told the IAEA yesterday that it will reject a plan to send its stockpile of low enriched uranium to Russia to be processed and then returned for use in a reactor in Tehran. The decision came only “hours after Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, insisted that ‘we are ready to cooperate‘ with the West.”
According to a report that “appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network,” House ethics investigators “have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling.” Committee chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said “no inference should be made as to any member.”
A report released by the Obama administration today says that “the largest stimulus program in the nation’s history has created or saved at least 650,000 state and local jobs.” The White House says that “the actual number of jobs created so far is likely closer to 1 million, since its report on stimulus job creation only focused on $150 billion of the $339 billion” spent so far.
Santorum On Resourcing Afghanistan War: ‘That Was Not Done By The Prior Administration’
Santorum On Resourcing Afghanistan War: ‘That Was Not Done By The Prior Administration’
Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney attacked President Obama, saying he is “afraid to make a decision” on the war in Afghanistan and that he’s “dithering.” A number of conservatives, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and columnist George Will, disagreed with Cheney’s language. “I would never want to call my president ‘dithering,’” Hatch said.
But many on the right have failed to mention the more substantive point, namely that Cheney and the Bush administration itself “dithered” on Afghanistan and diverted valuable resources to invade Iraq. But last night on Fox News, former Republican senator Rick Santorum stepped up to the plate:
SANTORUM: My sense is that we have an obligation to support our generals in the field, to give them the resources they need to accomplish the mission. That was not done by the prior administration. Let’s be very clear about that. They put their own political imprint on the Afghan strategy.
Watch it:
Of course, Santorum is right. In 2008, Gen. David McKiernan, then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, asked the Bush administration for more troops, a request that was denied.
Indeed, as McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay — one of the few Washington journalists whose reporting matched the facts in the run-up to the Iraq war — asked of Cheney’s recent attacks: “Do we smell a campaign of historic revisionism by those widely seen as primarily responsible for the disaster in Afghanistan that has prompted Army Gen. Stanley A. McCrystal’s request for up to 80,000 more soldiers?”:
As late as December 2005, despite official warnings about the Taliban resurgence and a lack of U.S. resources for critical reconstruction programs, the Bush administration planned to reduce the 19,000 U.S. troops then in Afghanistan by 2,500 soldiers in order to bolster hard-pressed U.S. forces in Iraq.
And even after seven years of war _ and the deaths of 630 U.S. service members, more than 400 other coalition soldiers and thousands of Afghans _ the Bush administration lacked strategies for dealing with the al Qaida and Taliban safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where it backed a military dictatorship, or building Afghan security forces, according to the Government Accountability Office.
It’s nice to see Santorum recognize reality.
Inslee slams SuperFreakonomics for ‘absolute deception’ on climate science.
Inslee slams SuperFreakonomics for ‘absolute deception’ on climate science.
During today’s forged letter investigation hearing in the House, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) rebuked the authors of SuperFreakonomics for participating in a “continuing effort to deceive the American public” on the science of climate change. Inslee condemned the coal industry’s effort to “hoodwink, defraud, and deceive the American public now to cover up the toxicity to the world environment” of global warming pollution. Inslee then pivoted to authors Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, criticizing them for “absolute deception” in their work on global warming:
The second thing I want to note is this is not the only continuing effort to deceive the American public. I want to note a book called Freakonomics, or SuperFreakonomics, that some authors wrote, that basically said or asserted we don’t have to control CO2, we’ll just pump sulfur dioxide up into the atmosphere and that will solve the problem. They purported to quote a scientist named Ken Caldeira from Stanford who’s one of the predominant researchers in ocean acidification to suggest that Dr. Caldeira didn’t think we should control CO2. Which is an absolute deception. Dr. Caldeira I’ve spoken to personally. He’s told me we have to solve ocean acidification. You can’t solve ocean acidification without controlling CO2 and yet people are still trying to write books to deceive the American public. And we ought to blow the whistle on them, we’re blowing the whistle on one today, we’ll continue to do it, because ultimately science is going to triumph in this discussion.
Watch it:
Levitt and Dubner’s promotion of geoengineering as a “cheap and simple” alternative to carbon mitigation is in direct opposition to the views of Dr. Ken Caldeira and the world’s scientific community. Although Caldeira objected to the chapter and has since repeatedly said he was misrepresented in multiple ways, the SuperFreakonomics authors have continued their deception, joining the billion-dollar effort by fossil-fuel companies and the radical right to thwart action on climate change.
Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.
New Jersey Police: Reports Like Lou Dobbs’ ‘Not At All Uncommon’ During Hunting Season
New Jersey Police: Reports Like Lou Dobbs’ ‘Not At All Uncommon’ During Hunting Season
Several media sources have reported that shots were fired at the residence of CNN’s Lou Dobbs. While Dobbs and his anti-immigrant supporters were quick to jump to conclusions about the motive of the shooting, Sgt. Stephen Jones confirmed to ThinkProgress this morning that the New Jersey State Police are stilling “looking at all the possibilities” and that a hunting-related accident has not been ruled out.
Sgt. Jones, a spokesperson for the New Jersey State Police, confirmed that a bullet was found which struck the siding of Dobbs’ house. However, he pointed out that Dobbs’ residence is located in a “very rural” area. “With hunting season starting up,” such incidents are “not at all uncommon,” Jones told us.
Nonetheless, anti-immigrant groups are already claiming that “the lies and hate coming from these radical pro-illegal alien groups is now manifesting in the form of gunfire.” Dobbs was quick to start pointing fingers at Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera and “ethnocentric interest groups” for “creating an atmosphere” that led to a shot being fired at his house:
I’m thinking about these lies, that I wasn’t going to respond to — but Geraldo now has just pushed it over. I gotta tell you the lies of the ethnocentric interest groups like LULAC, La Raza, MALDEF, America’s Voice — funded basically by George Soros — all attacking me because as they put it, or as Geraldo put it I’m the only thing standing between those open borders and unconditional amnesty for illegal immigrants. So they want to destroy me and they’re taking their best shot at it believe me…They’ve created an atmosphere and they’ve been unrelenting in their propaganda.
It’s became a part of a way of life: the anger, the hate, the vitriol. But it’s taken a different tone. They threaten my wife. They’ve now fired a shot at my house…My wife and I have now been shot at, my driver, my house has been shot and hit…I’m not in the mood to put up with little fools like Geraldo Rivera.
Listen:
The New Jersey State Police’s investigation has not progressed to the point where it can confirm or deny Dobbs’ allegations. However, considering the fact that Dobbs has “repeatedly amplified the falsehood that undocumented immigrants are disproportionately violent,” it’s no surprise that he immediately connected the incident at his home to the immigration debate.
A report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund revealed a close correlation between the “shrill anti-immigration reform commentaries” of Dobbs and other media personalities and a growing number of hate crimes against Latinos and “perceived immigrants.”
McConnell: The Public Option ‘May Cost You Your Life’
McConnell: The Public Option ‘May Cost You Your Life’
For months now, conservatives have been scare-mongering about health care reform with outrageous claims that it would lead to “death panels” that could “pull the plug on grandma.” In Congress, some Republican backbenchers have claimed that Americans will die if health care reform passes Congress. “We’ve been battling this socialist health care, the nationalization of health care, that is going to absolutely kill senior citizens,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ radio show. “They’ll put them on lists and force them to die early.”
Now, the scaremongering has been embraced by the congressional GOP’s leadership. In an interview on Dennis Miller’s radio show yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that the public option “may cost you your life”:
MCCONNELL: Well, it doesn’t make any difference frankly whether you opt-in or you opt-out, it’s still a government plan. You know, Medicaid, the program for the poor now, states can opt-out of that, but none of them have. I think if you have any kind of government insurance program, you’re going to be stuck with it and it will lead us in the direction of the European style, you know, sort of British-style, single payer, government run system. And those systems are known for delays, denial of care and, you know, if your particular malady doesn’t fit the government regulation, you don’t get the medication.
MILLER: Right.
MCCONNELL: And it may cost you your life. I mean, we don’t want to go down that path.
Listen here:
In his efforts to derail health care reform, McConnell has regularly fear-mongered about the British and Canadian health care systems, claiming that a public option would look just like them. Unsurprisingly, McConnell has gotten his facts wrong when he’s described other health care systems.
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