Rep. Alan Grayson, the congressman who said the Republican health care plan is for Americans to die quicker, tells Wolf Blitzer and friends what’s up: “Democrats have to have guts. And now we have to have the guts to take the majority that the American people have given us and do something with it.”
A whopping 7.6 earthquake hit the coastal town of Pedang, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, full force on Wednesday, causing survivors to flee in fear of a possible tsunami in its aftermath and leaving thousands more trapped under collapsed buildings.
The folks at Fox News are outraged after seeing a clip of some New Jersey school kids singing President Obama’s praises and have handily spun the story into yet another sign of the Obama administration’s relentless indoctrination of unsuspecting Americans everywhere. Problem is, there’s similar footage to be found of schoolchildren doing the same for George W. Bush.
As this commentary from the vigilant videographers over at Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films outfit points out, Sen. Max Baucus’ health care reform bill definitely would serve the interests of at least some interested parties—namely, the health insurance companies themselves.
Are America’s “culture wars” being backed by the NEA? Will President Obama marshal a shadow army of deft performance artists and elementary school teachers to brainwash Americans into a state of mass compliance as he enacts his Socialist Agenda™? The people at Fox News clearly haven’t seen a lot of bad performance art if they really believe their own racket.
Is the Iranian regime taking a page from North Korea with its recent, potentially provocative displays of missile-launching power? Or are those preplanned exercises (nothing to see here, move along, folks)? Or, as White House press wrangler Robert Gibbs suggests, a little bit of both?
Tony Blankley, the “Right” of “Left, Right & Center,” stuns the panel by declaring global warming a phony issue. The gang also chews over Iran’s nuclear program and debates what should be done about the banks.
Who’s that booming baritone talking about the environment? Al Gore stars in a promotional video developed by Google Earth that shows environment degradation via the popular mapping program, a sort of “climate change simulator” of ice-sheet melting and rising sea levels.
As “The Daily Show” recounts, some conservatives, at least the type who attended last weekend’s Values Voter Summit, officially have an issue with homosexuality (paging former Miss California Carrie Prejean). So Jon Stewart finds former GOP ringleader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay’s sassy cha-cha number on Monday’s “Dancing With the Stars” a bit puzzling.
Those poor, beleaguered health insurance honchos would be totally out to sea without the help of Hollywood’s best and brightest—Jon Hamm, Will Ferrell and Olivia Wilde among them—to launch a dinghy of hope their way in the form of this timely PSA. Down with the public option!
President Obama held forth about the need to move quickly and “together” on the problem of global warming in a speech Tuesday at the United Nations. “Our prosperity, our health and our safety are in jeopardy and the time we have to reverse this tide is running out—and yet we can reverse it,” he said.
The president showed up on the “Late Show With David Letterman” on Monday (if you broadcast it, he will come) and responded to Jimmy Carter’s speculation that racism is to blame for some of the nasty behavior of his detractors.
Hey, you can really learn some interesting and revealing stuff at the Values Voter Summit! Take, for example, this startling declaration made Saturday by Michael Schwartz, Sen. Tom Coburn’s chief of staff, about how all pornography is gay and can make viewers gay ... or at least less attentive to their wives.
This just in from President Obama: Being rude is the easiest way to get airtime. Well, at least that’s his take on the lows to which public discourse has sunk of late, especially concerning the keenly contentious issue that is health care reform.
Truthdig editors Robert Scheer, Peter Scheer and Kasia Anderson give their takes on their picks from the week’s crop of news stories, including the rise of radical rhetoric on the right, Obama’s so-called socialism (for Wall Street) and how to shop for new planets to call our future home.
Russia might be pleased with President Obama’s decision to nix Bush’s missile shield plans, but how about Eastern Europe? Meanwhile, Sen. Max Baucus’ health care reform plan foundered, and Obama made a play to get through to the powers on Wall Street. All this—plus the Glenn Becking of American political discourse—is part of this week’s discussion on “Left, Right & Center.”
Although the Obama administration, in particular Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is maintaining a cautiously positive stance about the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there doesn’t seem to be much progress on that front—which, as Al Jazeera English points out in this report, might have to do with all involved parties driving a hard-line approach.
Although Barack Obama himself apparently disagrees with Jimmy Carter’s assessment that some of the vitriol recently directed at the president is propelled by racism, Carter reiterated and expanded upon his claim during a town hall meeting Wednesday night at Atlanta’s Emory University.
Bill O’Reilly says of the very public option that makes his Foxy friends’ heads explode: “I want that. ... [I]f the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.” Quick, look out your window to see the flying pigs.
If these anti-Obama marchers are to be believed, fascism and socialism are the same thing, abortion caused 9/11 and “Glenn Beck is such a logical thinker.” There’s a whole pile of crazy where that came from.
After an extended vacation, Jon Stewart returned to his “Daily Show” anchor’s desk Monday—and not a moment too soon, as the national epidemic of crazitude hasn’t calmed down since he left, especially when it comes to the subject of health care reform.
You may have caught rapper and megalomaniac Kanye West hijacking the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, but did you see him shout at the president during last Wednesday’s speech to Congress?
Muntadhar al-Zaidi’s simple but powerful gesture of lobbing his shoes at then-President George W. Bush brought him international notoriety, praise, scorn and nine months in prison. Now it looks like the Iraqi journalist is nearing the end of his jail time.
It was a big week in political news, what with the kerfuffle about Obama’s education speech and then the hubbub over ... Obama’s health care speech. Anyone see a pattern? “Left, Right & Center” regulars Robert Scheer, Arianna Huffington and Tony Blankley just might.
Age Trumps Youth in UC Tuition Dispute
