Month: August 2009
Now You Can Sleep with Marilyn Monroe – Forever
The crypt above the tomb of Marilyn Monroe was put up for sale on eBay last week. Bidding started at $500,000 and had risen to $4.5 million by Tuesday.
If you happen to have an extra $5 million or so lying around, it might not be too late. You could spend eternity resting on top of the movie goddess.
Quote du Jour
If she had a political strategy in mind, I would think she would have an organized sequence of writings and thoughts to pass on. These appear to be more spur of the moment — reacting to issues of the day rather than embodying any broad political strategy.
— GOP fundraiser Fred Malek, quoted by CBS News, on Sarah Palin’s Facebook postings.
Bidding Starts for Nude Video Session with Levi Johnston
On Monday, we noted that Levi Johnston, the grandbaby-daddy of Facebook blogger Sarah Palin, told an interviewer that he would be open to posing nude but “it depends on the money, man … It’s gotta be right for that.”
Well, the first publicly announced offer is in, and, while it sounds intriguing, it’s probably an on-camera sex act too far for Levi. And even if not, his advisers will likely suggest he reject it or at least encourage the bidders to sharpen their pencil quite a bit.
The offer comes from Bait & Tackle, a wryly named gay porn company in Las Vegas that produces the website StraightCollegeMen.com. They have taken the peremptory step of launching a new site called LeviNaked.com (SFW), where they posted their offer to Johnston in an open letter:
GOP Ex-Leader Tom DeLay Declares Support for Killing Medicare
Republican leaders are sending signals that their real target in killing health-insurance reform is privatizing Medicare, and thus killing it, too.
Just this week, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) described Medicare on “Meet the Press” as “tyranny.” Tonight, on MSBNC’s “Hardball,” another former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, R-Texas, agreed with Armey, saying Medicare must go:
TOM DELAY: I want Medicare to be privatized. It shouldn’t be a government program. It’s the thing that is driving up costs. Not [the need] to have a public option. It’s Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP — the government-run programs — that are running up costs. That’s where the reform ought to be.
There are 44 million million seniors on Medicare right now. Killing the program by privatizing it would bankrupt tens of millions of them and cause self-imposed rationing by millions more who would find themselves choosing between food and medicine or paying the rent and seeking treatment.
That is the Republicans’ Dickensian vision for health-insurance “reform.”
Poll: Huge Majorities of Fox Viewers Duped by GOP Lies about Reform – 75% Believe in ‘Death Panels’
Just days after a poll found Fox News to be the least trustworthy among the cable channels, a new poll from NBC News — not teaming this time with Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall St. Journal — finds that around three-quarters of self-identified Fox viewers believe the four big lies being promulgated by the GOP about health-insurance reform:
Results as alarmingly bad as these would cause a panic at a real news organization.
- 72 percent believe undocumented residents will be covered
- 79 percent believe they will lead to a government takeover
- 69 percent believe abortions will be covered
- 75 percent believe there will be “death panels”
All of these lies have been refuted umpteen times by nonpartisan sources, including FactCheck.org.
Results as alarmingly bad as these would cause a panic at a real news organization. Senior managers’ jobs would be in jeopardy, and the taint of having worked for a news organization so irredeemably incompetent would discredit everyone involved.
But no heads will roll at Fox. In fact, there may be raises — because the real indictment here is that these results expose Fox for what it is really is: a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party and the corporate interests that own it.
The results of these polls are a damning indictment of Fox News any way you slice it.
Is It Right to Quote Jesus Christ in a Press Release?
And I’m not talking about quoting from the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, but a passage from a “silent dialogue” with God’s son yesterday. In a press release distributed on PRWeb yesterday, an outfit called ACIMI — A Course In Miracles Inc. — Jesus is quoted from an alleged “interview” conducted by Clare Lamanna, who teaches the Course of Miracles.
However, there must have been a breakdown of the Transubstantiational Translator because Jesus’ ancient Hebrew got turned into spiritual gibberish. And while it does follow in the semi-Socratic style Jesus often employed in the Bible, He seems to have developed a habit of referring to Himself in the Third Person. But it must be Jesus. After all, it’s in quote marks:
“What does this mean for you? It means that in remembering Jesus you are remembering God. The whole relationship of the Son to the Father lies in him. His part in the Sonship is also yours, and his completed learning guarantees your own success. Is he still available for help? What did he say about this? Remember his promises, and ask yourself honestly whether it is likely that he will fail to keep them. Can God fail His Son? And can one who is one with God be unlike Him? Who transcends the body has transcended limitation. Would the greatest teacher be unavailable to those who follow him?”
Listen to Reagan Shilling for the AMA in 1961, Attacking Medicare As ‘Socialized Medicine’
Here’s more evidence that Republicans have always hated Medicare. Ronald Reagan recorded this nasty propaganda screed in 1961 when he was an out-of-work B-actor working as a shill for the American Medical Association. The AMA opposed a bill in Congress (and that had the support of Pres. John Kennedy) that would have provided medical care for seniors — later known as Medicare — because they viewed it as a step toward “universal coverage,” which they saw as a threat to their fee structures.
“One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
– Reagan in 1961
– Reagan in 1961
The AMA’s distaff organization became so concerned that they put together the propganda exercise with Reagan:
Enter the Woman’s [sic] Auxiliary of the AMA an organization composed primarily of the wives of member physicians. In an essay titled “Operation CoffeeCup: Ronald Reagan’s Effort to Prevent the Enactment of Medicare,” Larry DeWitt, a public historian for the Social Security Administration, describes how the Woman’s Auxiliary was asked to launch a special high-priority initiative under the title of WHAM, Women Help American Medicine in 1961.
“The avowed aim of WHAM was bluntly stated,” DeWitt reports: “This campaign is aimed at the defeat of the King-Anderson [Medicare] bill of the 87th Congress, a bill which would provide a system of socialized medicine for our senior citizens and seriously curtail the quality of medical care in the United States.”
It’s interesting to note that, in addition to fearmongering, Republicans were astroturfing even then:
… Operation CoffeeCup arranged a series of coffee-klatches hosted by the members of the Woman’s Auxiliary. “The Auxiliary members were instructed to downplay the purpose of the get-togethers,” DeWitt explains, “depicting them as sort of spontaneous neighborhood events: “Drop a note — just say ‘Come for coffee at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. I want to play the Ronald Reagan record for you.'”
The last line of Reagan’s diatribe is the money shot: “One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
He couldn’t have been more incorrect about Medicare, of course. It’s one of the most popular government programs in operation today.
Transcript:
Poll: Fox News Seen As Least Trustworthy, Viewership Mostly Old Southern Republicans
Fox News is indisputably the most popular cable news channel. And yet in 13 years, Fox has never broken a story. That’s okay, because it is not in the news business. It is in the news-shaping business. Its programming is an admixture of right-wing propaganda and fear-porn for feeble-minded paranoiacs, served up by spokesmodels who have no clue what they are reading.
On a related note, Wal-Mart has joined 19 other big advertising in boycotting Fox News’ Glenn Beck in response to Beck calling Obama a “racist” who hates the white culture.
And, yes, it sells like hotcakes.
A new poll from DailyKos/Research 2000 finds that while almost all normal Americans see through this ruse, Fox depends almost exclusively on middle-aged and older Southern Republicans for its success.
Here’s Kos’ analysis:
Republicans watch Fox News and nothing else, Democrats split between MSNBC and CNN, and Independents watch nothing. MSNBC, in particular, depends on Democrats for the vast majority of its audience. One would think they’d realize this and get rid of Joe Scarborough to boost its morning ratings.
The South, unlike the rest of the country, appears to have their TV dials stuck on “FOX NEWS”. Except for the youth, that is. 82 percent of 18-29-year-old respondents never watched FNC.
When asked to rate the trustworthiness of the channels, Fox was called trustworthy by just 35 percent and untrustworthy by 41 percent. Among Southerners, 46 percent found Fox to be reliable, while only 25 percent did not. In the Northeast, 27 percent found Fox to be credible, while 55 percent did not. In the Midwest, the finding was 33 percent reliable, 46 percent unreliable; and in the West it was 33 percent vs 43 percent.
As Kos put it, “Republicans (and the South) obviously think [Fox is] the word of god, while Democrats think it’s shit.” (As if more evidence of the effectiveness of Fox’ brainwashing were needed, only 6 percent of Republicans found MSNBC to be credible.)
