Month: September 2009

Ad Boycott – And Audience Share – Grow in Wake of Glenn Beck’s Racist Smear of President

Jon Ponder

On Wednesday, 11 more companies — including Mercedes-Benz, Capital One, HSBC and Discover — announced they were joining the boycott of Glenn Beck’s show on the Fox channel.

This brings the number of companies in the ad ban to nearly 60, according to James Rucker, executive director of ColorOfChange.org, the organization behind the sponsor protest. The list includes Applebee’s, Bank of America, Bell & Howell, Best Buy, CVS, DirecTv, General Mills, GMAC Financial Services, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Regions Financial Corporation, SAM (Store and Move), Travelers Insurance, Travelocity, Vonage and Wal-Mart.

The controversy began in July, when Beck appeared on Fox’s morning bobblehead show and said this:

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Really? Did Anyone Not Know Republicans are Assholes? Really? Because I Thought That Was Irrefutable – Really.

Trish

All the feigned umbrage in the world doesn’t change the fact that Van Jones, the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, is correct. The reason Republicans had more success under Tom DeLay and Mitch McConnell then we’ve had under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi is…well, like he said. Although I’m not a huge fan of our top two people either…

Fla. GOP Chair Accuses Obama of Indoctrinating School Kids with Socialism

Buck Banks

In yet another one of his quote-marked, not-proof-read, bombastic “press releases,” Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer lashed out at President Obama for a speech he is planning to give Sept. 8. The nationwide address, the first ever aimed directly at American schoolchildren by a U.S. president, sounds pretty dang bad, according to Greer:

Democrats have no problem going against the majority of American people and usurping the rights of parents by sending Pied Piper Obama into the American classroom.

“As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology. The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.

“While I support educating our children to respect both the office of the American President and the value of community service, I do not support using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda. The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President’s agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President’s initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates.

“Public schools can’t teach children to speak out in support of the sanctity of human life or traditional marriage. President Obama and the Democrats wouldn’t dream of allowing prayer in school. Christmas Parties are now Holiday Parties. But, the Democrats have no problem going against the majority of American people and usurping the rights of parents by sending Pied Piper Obama into the American classroom.

The Democrats have clearly lost the battle to maintain control of the message this summer, so now that school is back in session, President Obama has turned to American’s children to spread his liberal lies, indoctrinating American’s youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves.”

I’ll say this for Greer — that Pied Piper line is a classic!

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Six Health Care Lobbyists for Every Member of Both Houses of Congress

Trish

We can debate grassroots versus astroturf in the health care reform shouting match, but some numbers published recently at Bloomberg should give everyone pause. There are:

…six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

These groups spent $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group, more than any other industry. They spent $241.4 million during the same period of 2008. Drugmakers alone spent $134.5 million, 64 percent more than the next biggest spenders, oil and gas companies.

“Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for K Street,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based watchdog group, referring to the street in the capital where many lobbying firms have offices.

Florida Republican Leaves Party in Protest

Trish
Not even a sea breeze can disturb the governor’s mane.

No one except George LeMieux seemed happy when Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) appointed LeMieux to fill the Senate seat previously occupied (in the literal sense only) by Sen. Mel Martinez. Charlie picked his long-time friend and former campaign manager to wait out the end of Martinez’s term until Crist can win the 2010 election for that office. As I stated when the selection was revealed, the Democratic response would be predictable. It was.

I figured the real fireworks would be on the Republican side, but even I am surprised at the latest announcement. You can almost smell the spent gunpowder from Lake County, where Ed Havill, the Republican property appraiser (in Florida, this is a constitutional officer’s position), is withdrawing from his party in disgust.

Havill: ‘Within five minutes of the governor’s announcement, I removed my voter registration from the Republican Party’

George LeMieux’s appointment by Gov. Charlie Crist to the U.S. Senate was the final straw that broke this Republican officeholder’s back.

Within five minutes of the governor’s announcement, I removed my voter registration from the Republican Party. I am no longer affiliated with any political party.

…By choosing his 2006 political campaign manager, George LeMieux, the governor decisively demonstrated two things:

He is only interested in what’s best for Charlie Crist, and he has utter contempt for what’s best for Floridians.

Havill also cites recent revelations about another Crist appointment, Jim Greer, the linguistically-challenged and bombastic head of the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF).

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Olbermann Nails Glenn Beck for Misspelling O.L.I.G.A.R.C.H.

Jon Ponder

Hilarious and yet deeply horrifying. Glenn Beck makes a spectacular spelling error while using a chalk board to explain to his feeble-minded viewers that Obama and liberals have a secret plan to overturn the republic and install an oligarchy in its place. In his demonstration, Beck misspells “oligarch” by leaving out the letter “c.”

Beck is projecting, of course. Oligarchies are by definition right-wing autocracies in which a tiny elite cadre imposes authoritarian control on a small middle class and a vast impoverished underclass. Examples include the Mexican government today, the Confederate States of America during the (first) Civil War and imperial Rome.

It’s horrifying that Beck has any credibility at all, and that what credibility he does have is among misguided Tea Baggers, Birthers and Deathers who have been duped into arming themselves for a second Civil War — to water the tree of liberty with blood — for no other reason than to protect the trillions in profits of health-insurance megacorps.

Thanks to FWA, our man in Savannah, for the tip.

Transcript follows:

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Survey USA: 77% Favor Public Option in Health-Insurance Reform

Jon Ponder

SurveyUSA conducted a poll on health-insurance reform, basing its questions word-for-word on questions in the three most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls. (The Wall Street Journal is, of course, owned by the same company that owns Fox News.)

Question 2: In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance–extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?

Results:
58 percent: Extremely important
19 percent: Quite important
 7 percent: Not that important
15 percent: Not at all important
 1 percent: Not sure

What this means is that, while the GOP disinformation campaign is playing front and center on cable news, the lies at its foundation are not fooling normal Americans.

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