Bill Maher, 1st Panel Discussion

This is the 1st discussion group panel, from Bill Maher's show last night. Tweety, Fran Townshend, former DHS (clueless) under shrub, and the President of the NAACP, Benjamin Todd Jealous, are the panel and finally, FINALLY, someone calls out and speaks the truth, that right wing hate talk radio is generating some of the violence we are seeing.

I may post more later, if they are worthy, Bob Cesca said last night some of these weren't worth watching.

Watch:

President's Weekly Address June 13, 2009

Weekly Address: Health Care Reform as the Key to Our Fiscal Future

The President has a plan to pay for Health Care and he would like to explain it to you.

Part of the plan is to cut costs and over payments from Medicaid and Medicare and driving down costs contributing to government's health care expenditures across the board.

Read a full fact sheet on the details

Was Ronald Reagan an Even Worse President Than George W. Bush?

Listening to Morning Joe hawk his book, hearing Newt Gingrich sound bites from last night, Sarah Palin from her introduction speech which borrowed copiously from the Newtster, (and of course the introduction was of none other than the son of Ronald Reagan, Michael,) you would think Ronnie was still alive and running for President again.

The myth that is Ronald Reagan is one that drives me crazy. I lived through the years of Reagan and I truly don't remember him being all that wonderful. There were tax increases, inflation, poverty, higher defense spending, and lots of shady dealings.

Robert Parry has a great piece up at AlterNet about this very thing. I was reading it yesterday and was struck by how he systematically destroys the myth that is Ronald Reagan.

I tried to listen to the President Friday in Germany when he went to Buchenwald and everyone kept wanting to compare him to Reagan. I wanted to throw something at the TeeVee or something. What is it that makes these idiots want to compare Pres. Obama to a former occupant of the White House?

But, getting back to Parry's article. It is pretty lengthy, but it is worth the read I think. Some of the highlights are:

When it came to cutting back on America's energy use, Reagan's message could be boiled down to the old reggae lyric, "Don't worry, be happy." Rather than pressing Detroit to build smaller, fuel-efficient cars, Reagan made clear that the auto industry could manufacture gas-guzzlers without much nagging from Washington.

The same with the environment. Reagan intentionally staffed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department with officials who were hostile toward regulation aimed at protecting the environment. George W. Bush didn't invent Republican hostility toward scientific warnings of environmental calamities; he was just picking up where Reagan left off.

Reagan pushed for deregulation of industries, including banking; he slashed income taxes for the wealthiest Americans in an experiment known as "supply side" economics, which held falsely that cutting rates for the rich would increase revenues and eliminate the federal deficit.

Over the years, "supply side" would evolve into a secular religion for many on the Right, but Reagan's budget director David Stockman once blurted out the truth, that it would lead to red ink "as far as the eye could see."

Then he takes on the "cold war" myth and the role Reagan played in it.

However, a strong case can be made that the Cold War was won well before Reagan arrived in the White House. Indeed, in the 1970s, it was a common perception in the U.S. intelligence community that the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was winding down, in large part because the Soviet economic model had failed in the technological race with the West.

-snip-

Though the Afghan covert operation originated with Cold Warriors in the Carter administration, especially national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, the war was dramatically ramped up under Reagan, who traded U.S. acquiescence toward Pakistan's nuclear bomb for its help in shipping sophisticated weapons to the Afghan jihadists (including a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden).

While Reagan's acolytes cite the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan as decisive in "winning the Cold War," the counter-argument is that Moscow was already in disarray – and while failure in Afghanistan may have sped the Soviet Union's final collapse – it also created twin dangers for the future of the world: the rise of al-Qaeda terrorism and the nuclear bomb in the hands of Pakistan's unstable Islamic Republic.

Trade-offs elsewhere in the world also damaged long-term U.S. interests. In Latin America, for instance, Reagan's brutal strategy of arming right-wing militaries to crush peasant, student and labor uprisings left the region with a legacy of anti-Americanism that is now resurfacing in the emergence of populist leftist governments.

In Nicaragua, for instance, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega (whom Reagan once denounced as a "dictator in designer glasses") is now back in power. In El Salvador, the leftist FMLN won the latest elections. Indeed, across the region, hostility to Washington is now the rule, creating openings for China, Iran, Cuba and other American rivals.

And now comes the neo-cons and the "librul media" creation we all hear so much about. Yes, Reagan had a hand in that too.

In the early 1980s, Reagan also credentialed a young generation of neocon intellectuals, who pioneered a concept called "perception management," the shaping of how Americans saw, understood and were frightened by threats from abroad.

Many honest reporters saw their careers damaged when they resisted the lies and distortions of the Reagan administration. Likewise, U.S. intelligence analysts were purged when they refused to bend to the propaganda demands from above.

To marginalize dissent, Reagan and his subordinates stoked anger toward anyone who challenged the era's feel-good optimism. Skeptics were not just honorable critics, they were un-American defeatists or – in Jeane Kirkpatrick's memorable attack line – they would "blame America first."

Under Reagan, a right-wing infrastructure also took shape, linking media outlets (magazines, newspapers, books, etc.) with well-financed think tanks that churned out endless op-eds and research papers. Plus, there were attack groups that went after mainstream journalists who dared disclose information that poked holes in Reagan's propaganda themes.

As you can see, Parry pulls no punches and he is literally destroying the myth that is Reagan.. But, it needs to be done. This has gone on so long, people have believed this and bought into this for the last 20 years and it is so wrong.

Now we are going to talk about the economy under Reagan. This is another issue that we hear a lot about. How wonderful it was. Well, I guess that depends on which side of the spectrum you were on.

While he played the role of the nation's kindly grandfather, his operatives divided the American people, using "wedge issues" to deepen grievances especially of white men who were encouraged to see themselves as victims of "reverse discrimination" and "political correctness."

Yet even as working-class white men were rallying to the Republican banner (as so-called "Reagan Democrats"), their economic interests were being savaged. Unions were broken and marginalized; "free trade" policies shipped manufacturing jobs abroad; old neighborhoods were decaying; drug use among the young was soaring.

Meanwhile, unprecedented greed was unleashed on Wall Street, fraying old-fashioned bonds between company owners and employees.

Before Reagan, corporate CEOs earned less than 50 times the salary of an average worker. By the end of the Reagan-Bush-I administrations in 1993, the average CEO salary was more than 100 times that of a typical worker. (At the end of the Bush-II administration, that CEO-salary figure was more than 250 times that of an average worker.)

Many other trends set during the Reagan era continued to corrode the U.S. political process in the years after Reagan left office. After 9/11, for instance, the neocons reemerged as a dominant force, reprising their "perception management" tactics, depicting the "war on terror" – like the last days of the Cold War – as a terrifying conflict between good and evil.

The hyping of the Islamic threat mirrored the neocons' exaggerated depiction of the Soviet menace in the 1980s – and again the propaganda strategy worked. Many Americans let their emotions run wild, from the hunger for revenge after 9/11 to the war fever over invading Iraq.

Arguably, the descent into this dark fantasyland – that Ronald Reagan began in the early 1980s – reached its nadir in the flag-waving early days of the Iraq War. Only gradually did reality begin to reassert itself as the death toll mounted in Iraq and the Katrina disaster reminded Americans why they needed an effective government.

Still, the disasters – set in motion by Ronald Reagan – continued to roll in. Bush's Reagan-esque tax cuts for the rich blew another huge hole in the federal budget and the Reagan-esque anti-regulatory fervor led to a massive financial meltdown that threw the nation into economic chaos.

Love Reagan; Hate Bush

Ironically, George W. Bush has come in for savage criticism, but the Republican leader who inspired Bush's presidency – Ronald Reagan – remained an honored figure, his name attached to scores of national landmarks including Washington's National Airport.

Even leading Democrats genuflect to Reagan. Early in Campaign 2008, when Barack Obama was positioning himself as a bipartisan political figure who could appeal to Republicans, he bowed to the Reagan mystique, hailing the GOP icon as a leader who "changed the trajectory of America."

Though Obama's chief point was that Reagan in 1980 "put us on a fundamentally different path" – a point which may be historically undeniable – Obama went further, justifying Reagan's course correction because of "all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasn't much sense of accountability."

While Obama later clarified his point to say he didn't mean to endorse Reagan's conservative policies Obama seemed to suggest that Reagan's 1980 election administered a needed dose of accountability to the United States when Reagan actually did the opposite. Reagan's presidency represented a dangerous escape from accountability – and reality.

As I said this is a long but great story. I tried to get the biggest and best points out here. However you can read the rest I didn't put in if you want. I didn't leave out much.

Robert Parry is a great writer. He writes at Consortium News and I have mentioned the site before. I think it was Broadway Carl who pointed me in their direction first. He makes no apologies and calls it like he sees it.

I would love to see your responses and hear your opinions. Let me know what you think.

Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando

Yes, the location has now been revealed. Stephen Colbert is in Iraq and will be there all this week. The first of 4 shows will be on tonight.

The NY Times and USA Today both have articles about the show and reveal some details.

From USA Today, comes this:

Apparently, all it took for victory in Iraq was a visit by late-night funnyman Stephen Colbert.
"By the power vested in me by basic cable, I officially declare we have won the Iraq war!" the mock pundit joked before a cheering crowd of about 300 U.S. servicemembers who gathered here on Sunday for a taping of his TV show, The Colbert Report.

Colbert, who has been raising money for charitable organizations that support U.S. troops, had been trumpeting his plan to tape his show before U.S. servicemembers in an undisclosed location. Taking heed of Defense Department security precautions, Colbert would only say in recent shows that, where he was going, "there will be sand and people that wish we would leave."

Before the show, some soldiers wondered whether Colbert, whose TV persona pokes fun at conservative punditry, would dial it down for a military audience.

No way. "He went totally all out," said 1st Lt. Virginia Brickner, 29, of Van Wert, Ohio.

The man who invented the word "truthiness" joked that Iraq must be a pretty nice place, considering many of the servicemembers in the audience "keep coming again, again and again."

"The good news is you have enough frequent flier miles for a trip to Afghanistan," Colbert told the troops, who responded with hearty laughter.

He has been talking this up for weeks, and until clueless Palin said she had taped a message for him to deliver no one really had a clue where he might be going.

Then NY Times also brings up some points and has this to say about the show that were quite funny and interesting:

It was Sunday night in Baghdad, and President Obama was ordering Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of the American troops here, to shave Stephen Colbert’s head. (Not to give everything away, but the general is not as brutal with an electric razor as one would expect a bald man to be; Mr. Colbert’s hairdresser, on the other hand, has a merciless streak.)

Into this comes Mr. Colbert. He is taping four episodes of “The Colbert Report,” the Comedy Central show featuring his egotistical, fake-macho, nationalist blowhard alter ego, in Baghdad this week. It’s the first time in the history of the U.S.O. that a full-length nonnews show has been filmed, edited and broadcast from a combat zone.

The week of shows, taped a day or two before they are broadcast, is called “Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando,” and it has a pretty fancy guest list (in addition to General Odierno, and the president, whose appearance was taped ahead) that includes Iraq’s deputy prime minister. But there is also something kind of meta about the whole thing. Mr. Colbert’s entire career is based on being gleefully insincere, a man who literally wraps himself in the flag to the screaming of majestic computer-generated eagles.

-snip-

So it was easy to wonder if, given the setting, he would be a little less mock Bill O’Reilly and a bit more risk-free Rich Little.

Any doubt was dispersed the minute Mr. Colbert ran out onstage wearing a business suit made of Army camouflage and, shortly afterward, declared himself the only person man enough finally to declare victory in Iraq. (General Odierno, whom Mr. Colbert compared to Shrek, diplomatically talked that declaration down.)

-snip-

“Think of certain reporters who lose themselves in their own self-importance and accidentally give away troop movements and get kicked out of the country,” he said in a not particularly oblique reference to Geraldo Rivera.

“The best way I can show gratitude is to do my show the best I can and make them laugh,” he said. “If I tried to tailor my material to people in the Army, there’d be two things. A, that’d be patronizing. And B, I’d be wrong.”

But then I think this is the most important part of the article and it should shame every reporter, every pundit, and even most of us.

Shortly after the inauguration, though, he began talking to a fellow board member at Donorschoose about the troops in Iraq.

There was a general feeling among soldiers there, the board member said, that Americans had largely tuned the war out, that the economy had vacuumed up all the attention even though there are around 135,000 troops still here and still doing dangerous work.

“There’s a thesis statement there, which is something for my character to hang on to,” he said. “My character thinks the war is over because he doesn’t hear about it anymore. He’s like a child. A ball rolls behind the couch and he thinks it’s gone forever.”
Soldiers here are all too aware of America’s attention span about this war, several of them at the taping said. So the visit of Mr. Colbert, postmodern or not, was an unexpectedly high-caliber event among the recent string of retired baseball managers (Tommy Lasorda actually), wrestlers, cheerleaders and actors whose names require a little Googling.

“I’m surprised that anybody comes here,” said 27-year-old Lt. Travis Klempan of the Navy, from Lafayette, Colo. “I mean we had the guy from the Allstate commercial. It’s like: that’s nice.”

-snip-

For all of Mr. Colbert’s exaggerations, there are extremes to life in Baghdad that are difficult to caricature. The set of the show here, with a desk made of sandbags painted as an American flag and a backdrop depicting soaring jets, rolling tanks and the ubiquitous porta-potties, pales in tackiness compared to the ceiling it is sitting under: the palace’s blinding pastel gaudiness is unmatched.

The troops didn’t seem to care much about the meta-ness of Mr. Colbert’s visit, nor were they uneasy about his political shtick as they laughed at the gags about clearing Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and last year’s shoe-throwing incident involving the man who was then their commander in chief as much as at Mr. Colbert’s self-deprecating jokes about his lack of fortitude.

“I know his persona is all pro-American,” Lieutenant Klempan said, trying to explain the math of Stephen Colbert and “Stephen Colbert” and which one of them had come for what reason. Finally he gave up.

“I’m glad either one of them showed up,” he said.

I can't wait to see it.. I think this will be the best shows Colbert will ever do and I for one think the historical nature of it is also something we have to think about.

We have forgotten this war. We have forgotten the men and women who are fighting, not we, so much as the press, the media, you seldom hear about it. Unless it is something terribly bad. Something the right can do to try to slam Pres. Obama, or something the left can use to slam former Pres. Bush.

Other than that, no one talks about the war in Iraq. We still have a large military presence in Iraq, yes, Pres. Obama is bringing them home, just as he promised, maybe it is a little slower than some wanted, but he did say he would listen to the commanders and do it as they thought was the best.

It has to be that way, he has always said he, Pres. Obama, wanted to be as careful coming out as we were careless going in. That's the key phrase right there. Because we, as a country, were careless going in.

Watch, Colbert this week, remember the troops, remember we still have a war in Iraq.

America, Christian Nation? Yes or No?

We have been told for years that America is a Christian Nation, that we were established as such and will always be one. This last week, the wing nuts went crazy because they twisted the words of President Obama and said he called us a Muslim Country.

That's not what he said. He actually said we were a nation of many different religions, including Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and many others including no religion.

We have always been based and were founded due to the Freedom of Religion, not because of Religion. The so called Founding Fathers, and Mothers, came here trying to get away from oppressive religious restrictions and settled here with the freedom to seek the way to the God of their choice, not the God of the King of England.

Here is a blog posting I found this morning that shows the history of this far better than I could ever say it. It is by Eric Grant and he does an excellent job laying it out.

Eric Grant
JUN 06
America Has Never Been a Christian Nation
Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Randall Terry would all like you to believe the United States was founded as, and continues to be, a Christian nation. They would like you to believe the rights we enjoy as Americans were granted by their god and only their god. These radical neoconservatives forget that freedom from religious oppression is one of the founding principles which led to the formation of the United States of America. And there are a few key moments in history they would rather you forget:

In 1657 a group of early Americans signed a petition requesting the lifting of a ban on Quaker worship. The Flushing Remonstrance, as it is known, was the basis for the Constitution’s provision on freedom from religion in the Bill of Rights.

In 1788, James Madison writes in Federalist No. 51: “In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as for religious rights.”

Article Six of the Constitution states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

The First Amenedment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”

The Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the Senate and signed by President John Adams in 1797, states in Article 11: “…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;”

The doctrine of separation of church state, which can be attributed to Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court numerous times in favor of this principle.
Those radical conservatives who follow a “you’re with us or against us” mentality are no different than those radical Islamists who flew jets into buildings and murdered 2,974 people on September 11, 2001. Those same so-called patriots who claim to cherish the Constitution and our founding principles are the same ones who want to destroy everything America stands for: freedom, diversity and equality under the law. If the folks who worship Fox News had their way, we’d be living in the dark ages and reduced to nothing more than mindless subjects of a Christian theocracy. Thankfully a renewed sense of real patriotism in America will prevent that nightmare from becoming reality.

As you see, he has a great post about it. Again, America was founded on the principle of Freedom FROM Religion, not on the Christianity of Newt, Sarah, Huckabee, Reagan or anyone else who tries to tell us how to believe or what to believe.

The Religious Right would like to make people think they have the privilege to run the country as they see fit. I beg to differ, and History, when you know it, backs me up, not them.

Bill Maher June 5, 2009

I normally post the New Rules.. but tonight I am posting the Opening and the first segment. I know, different.. the New Rules were okay, but these were far better in my opinion.

Here is the opening segment.. He really takes on a lot from the criticisms leveled at the President and the First Lady to the President's Speech in Cairo. From the Republican's to Rush Limbaugh. Watch and see:



Then he welcomes his first guest tonight via satellite, Richard Haass, Council of Foreign Relations. I really like Richard. He has great insight into the Middle East and Asia and usually has some positive things to say. He has always been knowledgeable about World Affairs and isn't a NeoCon as so many are who usually speak on these matters.



He also had Matt Miller, who worked in the Clinton White House who spoke very positively about the Health Care and reassured everyone that it is going to happen, and said that the "Public Option" that Pres. Obama keeps talking about is the same thing as Single Payer it is just a different name, because Single Payer was getting a bad name.

Jeremy Scahill, who really had a lot to say about Dr. Tiller's assassination and the complicity of the hate speech from the right wingers, including radio and tee vee hosts. Bill didn't like that...lol However D.L. Hughley came on and said Jeremy was correct and that people did need to watch what they said, even though they had Freedom of Speech they did need to remember their words had weight behind them.

And there was, Paula Froelich, New York Post writer, and author of the book, Mercury in Retrograde . All in all it was a good show. Well worth looking for if you can't watch it on the tee vee machine.

There were lots of things talked about. Jeremy had lots of information to impart. Of course some of his info was disputed, but that's normal.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.

President's Weekly Address

Our President may be overseas and he may be visiting the pyramids and seeing the sites in Paris and Germany, but he hasn't forgotten us here and the health care struggle we are facing.

That is the focus of his address this week. Trying to fix our crisis in health care. And it is a crisis. We have nearly 50 million people without insurance in this country. That's the best guess of anyone. But that's not the worst problem. There was a new study that stated 62% of all Bankruptcy's from medical expenses are for people who HAVE insurance.

Yes, you read that correctly. It is people who HAVE insurance. That's a sad thought, that people who have insurance are the ones are struggling more than the ones without.

I think this was what the President said that was the most important to me. We have to make sure WE stay involved. Again, this goes back to what I have said before. If we don't stay involved with our Representatives they don't know what we want. You have to call, write or email them.

They can't read your mind. Get in touch with them. Let them know what you want for health care. If you don't let you Senator or Representative know then you can't be upset if you don't get what you want, or if you don't get anything this year.

I also made it very clear to Congress that we must develop a plan that doesn’t add to our budget deficit. My budget included an historic down payment on reform, and we’ll work with Congress to fully cover the costs through rigorous spending reductions and appropriate additional revenues. We’ll eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in our health care system, but we’ll also take on key causes of rising costs – saving billions while providing better care to the American people.

All across America, our families are making hard choices when it comes to health care. Now, it’s time for Washington to make the right ones. It’s time to deliver. And I am absolutely convinced that if we keep working together and living up to our mutual responsibilities; if we place the American people’s interests above the special interests; we will seize this historic opportunity to finally fix what ails our broken health care system, and strengthen our economy and our country now and for decades to come.

Here is the President. Help him help us, call, write, or email your elected representative and let them know what you want. Let's get health care for all this year.