A couple of weeks ago, i wrote a post: Canada prohibits Faux Noise broadcasting; Wisconsin Protests demonstrate why. That post included screenshots of two tweets by Faux Noise Fox News Repeater “Reporter” Mike Tobin, makin’ (stuff) up. Canada simply won’t put up with the (stuff) Faux Noise Fox News spews.

A couple of weeks before that, MediaMatters.org had a story about Faux Fox entitled “Stuff Is Just Made Up”. Which, of course, is just another demonstration of why Canada won’t put up with the (stuff) Faux Noise Fox News spews.

On the front page of MediaMatters.org today is a story entitled “All Of Us Will Be Slaves” And Other Health Care Predictions That Haven’t Come True. Two days ago, they did a report entitled “A History Of Death Panels: A Timeline”. And where did a lot – an awful lot (and I do mean “awful”) – of that stuff that didn’t come true and never was true come from? Faux Noise Fox News, whose motto should be: “We distort – you abide.”

There YouTube below is from a performance on Saturday Nite Live from 1976. It seems like Frank saw Faux coming, a long time ago.

I am gross and perverted
I’m obsessed ‘n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious
But you can’t look away
I make you think I’m delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin’ out
From your TV set

You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don’t need you
Don’t got for help…no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold

That’s right, folks..
Don’t touch that dial

Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin’ along on your livin’room floor

I am the slime from your video
Can’t stop the slime, people, lookit me go

(music and lyrics by Frank Zappa, 1940 – 1993)

(cross posted at MnProgressiveProject.com; comments welcome there)

Today we’ll be talking with John Van Hecke, Executive Director and Fellow at the Minnesota 2020 thinktank about he Republican tactic of repealing health care reform if they take control of Congress and what Minnesota healthcare will look like if they are successful.

For a quick look at the historic Health care legislation, go to AARP.org.

We’ll also be talking to DFL State Representative Maria Ruud (Nurse Practitioner when the State Legislature is not in session) and her race for re-election.

I’ll be talking about, and asking listeners to call in about, particularly egregious examples of Republicans behaving badly during this election cycle. In particular, I’ll be singling out Republican State Representative Mary Kiffmeyer.

Here’s the artwork that once adorned a wall at Kiffmeyer’s failed bank; I call it “Jesus At The Closing Table”:

(more details here)

So, again, tune in the radio today to AM-950, or listen live on your computer, here.

(cross posted from MnProgressiveProject.com; comments welcome there)

(photo by TPT)

They think the likes o’ “Billion Dollar Bill” McGuire and Stephen Hemsley of United Healthcare fame (not to mention former @MNGOP Party Chair Bill Cooper of TCF Bank) simply can’t afford an income tax increase so they pay the same effective tax rate that the vast unwashed pay.

The DFL has proposed a new tax rate of 9.15% -applied to the likes o’ the above named BoardRoom Tycoons.

Actually, it would apply to all married-joint filers declaring more than $200k in net income; income after all deductions and credits are taken.

Maybe that $200k – NET – number is too low a threshold – MAYBE.

What/where is the counter offer from The Party Of No?

Don’t hold your breath; today’s GreedOverPrinciples Party is more interested in helping the haves and have mores.

(cross posted from MnProgressiveProject; comments welcome there)

And as noted in a subsequent post entitled “Erik Paulsen And The Times-News Editorial”, Paulsen was taken to task in an editorial in the Hendersonville, North Carolina Times-News.

Once again, here’s the “money quote” from that editorial:

The idea that a representative would use as much as one third of his office budget, money meant to be spent in ways that benefit constituents, on thinly veiled re-election entreaties, is unconscionable. It’s an inappropriate use of the funds, and it presents an unfair advantage for incumbents.

Such spending should be eliminated. If politicians want to send glossy, self-promoting pamphlets about themselves, they can pay for them themselves.

Well, according to a report today from Tom Scheck of Minnesota Public Radio, Paulsen’s re-election committee has more than $1 million in the bank. So, certainly – Paulsen can afford to pay for his “thinly veiled re-election entreaties” himself, through his campaign war chest.

But, what did one dedicated reader claim to get in the ol’ mailbox, just the other day?

ANOTHER taxpayer-paid mailer – on Health Care Reform!!!

Calls to verify date of mailing to press people at Paulsen’s local and W.D.C. offices were not returned; nor was a call to Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards.

Stay tuned!

(cross posted from MnProgressiveProject; comments welcome there)

“This cannot pass. What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.” (WashingtonIndependent.com)

O
M
G.

Why couldn’t she have said that, at Lake Elmo??!? I was THERE – with a CAMERA!!!

Then again, why didn’t she just hop on a plane to Jonestown, Guyana, and say it there?

Maybe she can take her pal, “Joe The Plumber”, with her….and speaking of “Joe The Plumber”, here’s another Bachmann MotorMouth Overdrive episode that will live in infamy – let’s watch!!!

Matthews: How many Congresspeople, members of Congress are in that anti-American crowd you describe?

Bachmann: [Deer in the headlights]

Matthews: How many Congresspeople you serve with — I mean, there’s 435 members of Congress —

Bachmann: — well right now –

Matthews: — how many are anti-American in that Congress right now that you serve with?

Bachmann: You’d have to ask them, Chris, I’m focusing on Barack Obama and the people he’s been associated with –

Matthews: But do you suspect that a lot of the people you serve with –

Bachmann: — and I’m very worried about their anti-American nature.

Matthews: Well, he’s the United States Senator from Illinois, he’s one of the people you suspect as being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You’ve already suspected Barack Obama. Is he alone, or are there others?

Bachmann: [Deer in the headlights]

Matthews: How many do you suspect of your colleagues do you suspect of being anti-American?

Bachmann: I would say, what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look — I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that.

(transcript and commentary from CrooksAndLiars.com)

“I think the people would love to see an expose like that.”

I’d rather see Michele whip out a razor….

(originally published at MnProgressiveProject.com)

But, Political Muse and Dusty Trice got video!

First, Political Muse wrote a piece entitled “Bachmann Abandons 10th Amendment…”. Here’s a snippet:

One of the cruxes of the entire conservative movement, aside perhaps from an unhealthy obsession with the 2nd Amendment, is their purported adherence to the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Now I don’t necessarily share their passion for the 10th Amendment nor do I believe that it definitively proves their strict constructionist states rights beliefs but it is their belief none the less. Any true conservative will swear by the 10th Amendment and use it as a cudgel against any supposed deviation from the ideas of strict constructionism.

So, given that Bachmann is supposed to be a “rock ribbed conservative”, it would stand to reason that she too believes in this principle of strict constructionism and the 10th Amendment, right? WRONG. Today at her town hall forum on health care reform she completely tossed out the amendment even going so far as to suggest “erasing the boundaries” around each of the states in order to create so called competition in the health insurance industry. (LitLoC.com)

Bachmann’s “Big Eraser” plan apparently caught Political Muse’s attention, too. Political Muse has Bachmann’s “Big Eraser” plan on a YouTube; it’s the Bachmann quote I used earlier today. Except, Political Muse has it on a YouTube showing Bachmann used the “Big Eraser” fairy tale story TWICE. So, go look!

Dusty Trice was also at the “Forum” with a camera (big surprise there – NOT!!!) and has a whole bunch of footage – like 10 (count ‘em – 10!) YouTubes of the “Forum.” As Dusty says: “You’re not going to want to miss her stupid Brett Favre joke!” So, go look!

(originally published at MnProgressiveProject.com)

The question should also be asked of GOP State Chair Tony Sutton, and GOP State Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb.

There’s a powder keg out there, with a short fuse. And today’s GOP leadership is sending out sparks. If one of those sparks catches, well……you can be sure, the GOP will blame it on anybody and everybody but themselves.

Here’s Rachel Maddow:

And speaking of the “MOB” – I noted this:

Moving The MOB
August 13th, 2009 by Mitch Berg
Well, the verdict (throwing out all the votest for “crashing Drinking Liberally”) was pretty decisive. People want the MOB Summer Party moved to September 12.

So moved it shall be!

Location to be officially announced later.

Who knows? Might be a real barnburner….

(h/t to CrooksAndLiars.com)

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

Well, our good friends over at CrooksAndLiars.com went to the video archives, and pulled a YouTube from 2006 that puts the ad that CNN won’t run into proper perspective – let’s look!

Well, all-”righty”!

That line, “My salary’s in the millions and my dividends obscene”, at the beginning?

Remember an insurance guy by the name of Bill McGuire? From a 2006 Kare11 news report:

How big is the stock option compensation at UnitedHealth? CEO William McGuire has accumulated options presently worth more than $1.5 billion. (Kare11)

Ladies and Gentlemen, there are billions of reasons the GOP is fighting health care reform, and none of those billions are for you.

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

Unreal. The disinformation put out by rightwing astroturf groups are even hitting the GOPers that do hold Town Halls – which, of course, don’t include GOPers Bachmann, Kline, or Paulsen.

Not only did GOPer Rep. Robert Inglis, R-SC, have the guts to face his constituents, he also had the common sense to tell them the truth:

“I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But he wasn’t having any of it.” (WashingtonPost.com).

And why wasn’t the “keep your government hands off my Medicare” guy having any of it? Disinformation, pure and simple. Recently, the astroturf group “Conservatives For Patients Rights (yeah, “right”) had their ad fisked by FactCheck.org. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that their analysis of rightwing claims are, well, to quote the analysis:

CPR Administers Bad Facts, Again

* It’s not true that any of the health care overhaul measures that have been approved by committees in Congress would add “a trillion to the federal deficit,” as the ad says. The Senate bill would add roughly $597 billion over 10 years, and the House bill that was approved by the Ways and Means Committee in mid-July would add a much smaller $239 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (FactCheck.org)

Now, I’m looking at a very fancy brochure recently mailed out – at taxpayer expense – by Rep. Erik Paulsen, R=republiCon. And what does Rep. Erik Paulsen claim, in his published and mailed at taxpayer expense brochure? It’s “right” there, on page 2: “Their plan would cost over $1 trillion”

Way to go, Erik! Mailing out debunked disinformation, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.

Paul Krugman opined a little over a week ago on the subject: Why Americans hate single-payer insurance. Paul Krugman’s explanation? “Because they don’t know they have it.” And Paul Krugman uses the “particiapant” at the Town Hall, referenced above, as an example. Here’s what else Paul Krugman said:

One of the truly amazing and depressing things about the health reform debate is the persistence of fear-mongering over “socialized medicine” even though we already have a system in which the government pays substantially more medical bills (47% of the total) than the private insurance industry (35%).

In a way, this is the flip side of the persistent belief that the free market can cure healthcare, even though there are no places where it actually has; people also believe that government-provided insurance can’t work, even though there are many places where it does — and one of those places is the United States of America. (NYTimes.com)

And rather than correct the disinformation, Rep. Erik Paulsen, R=republiCon fuels the fire.

Gotta love today’s “conservatives”, doncha?

Well, in a word, “no.” And you certainly can’t trust them to tell the truth, either.

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)