DOWNLOADS: (195)

PLAYS: (472)

Embed

Wendell Potter repeated to Ed Schultz what he said in his testimony before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, that Max Baucus' bill is a joke.

Wendell Potter warned that if Congress "fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the president might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act."

Here is some of the hearing today. Potter on the Baucus "Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act".

Potter on co-ops and why they won't work.

DOWNLOADS: (2055)

PLAYS: (8936)

Embed

We already brought you the "Billionaires for Wealthcare" wonderful counter-protests to the crazy tea baggers out there. Tonight Rachel Maddow featured them on her show. Good for her.

From their group:

The latest incarnation of the "Billionaire" meme, "Billionaires forWealthcare" http://BillionairesForWealthcare.com struck againthis weekend, as Healthcare Inc. CEOs in tuxedos and gowns "thanked"Tea-baggers for coming out for Glenn Beck's March on Washington thispast Saturday.

Tea-baggers eagerly joined in on Billionaire chants of "Bring BackBush!" and “Fight Socialism! Abolish Medicare Now!”, but the greatestcrowd pleaser (and provoker) of the day, was a stirring rendition oftheir original song "Let's Save the Status Quo" sung to the tune ofthe "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and memorably captured in this music video.

DOWNLOADS: (314)

PLAYS: (504)

Embed

I agree with Leo Gerard. This is at least a step in the right direction with our trade laws.

SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. Tomorrow, President Obama will head to Pittsburgh to speak to union leaders at the annual AFL-CIO conference. Labor is fired up. I was there last night, had a radio town hall meeting. They‘re expecting a lot from President Obama.

The union‘s got a big victory from the Obama White House over the weekend, when the president agreed to impose temporary tariffs on tires imported from China. Union leaders say cheap Chinese tires have cost American jobs and shut down plants, and putting an import tax on them will level the playing field for American workers.

Joining me now is Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers International. Mr. Gerard, good to have you with us tonight. How bold a move was this by President Obama to go ahead and uphold the U.S. International Trade Commission‘s ruling on this? This is something the Bush administration did not do. How bold is this in your opinion?

LEO GERARD, UNITED STEELWORKERS INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT: I think it was a very important step, very important move. In fact, this is the first time a president has brought meaning for sanctions against a foreign—a foreign country since Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan did it twice. So I‘m pleased that President Obama stepped in.

We believe that this is a rule-base country. We went to the International Trade Commission and said, China‘s breaking the rules. They agreed. Now President Obama‘s agreed. I‘m very pleased.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (213)

PLAYS: (593)

Embed

From The Cafferty File:

Tens of thousands of protesters marched on Washington Saturday — in the largest demonstration against Pres. Obama since he took office. The march leading to the Capitol was loud and animated and stretched on for blocks.

It seemed like the culmination of what started out as Tea Parties in the spring against the president’s economic stimulus package — and turned into health care protests over the summer.

These protesters have managed to give a voice to an opposition — something that Republicans have been trying mostly unsuccessfully to do.

The crowd was protesting a whole range of things — there were opponents of Mr. Obama’s tax, spending and health care plans, as well as those who are concerned about the government’s possible encroachment on their right to bear arms.

There were accusations of socialism and shouts of “liar.” Protests like this also attract the lunatic fringe — who questioned the president’s citizenship, compared his administration to Nazi Germany and even those who likened the president himself to an African witch doctor.

The White House says the protesters are “wrong” about health care and that the president does not think the protests and the growing conservative movement against him are motivated by racism.

Whatever the cause it’s worth noting that tens of thousands of people gave up their Saturday to march on Washington, D.C. against a man who has only been in office eight months.

Here’s my question to you: What message do tens of thousands of protesters marching on Washington send to Pres. Obama?

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1864)

PLAYS: (7956)

Embed

During today's episode of Morning Joe live at the Ronnie Ray-Gun Presidential Library, Joe Scarborough wraps things up with his "political round table" and asks his panel whether Joe Wilson should apologize or not. Peggy Noonan looked like she was hitting the sauce first thing in the morning. Lawrence O'Donnell did a great job talking about why Joe Wilson needs to apologize to South Carolina for single handedly managing to put their state's racist history right back in the spotlight again. And surprise, surprise, racist Pat Buchanan didn't think Joe Wilson needs to apologize and then ended up the segment by exalting the sun revolving around St. Ronnie's magical Irish head.

DOWNLOADS: (1974)

PLAYS: (5904)

Embed

Howard Kurtz asks his panel of the editor of The New York Times Week in Review and The New York Times Book Review Sam Tanenhaus, the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody and the Washington Post's Ceci Connolly what they think of the right wing's preemptive freak out over President Obama's speech to school children last week.

Tanenhaus says it is an indication of what he calls "the death of conservatism" which is the theme and name of his book.

Brody thinks the President has a "perception problem". Hmmmm.... I wonder what might have contributed to that. The media overplaying the right wing screechers that should otherwise be dismissed couldn't have possibly contributed to that, could it David?

And Ceci Connolly says the "media are addicted to conflict". And don't blame them for feeding us crap on a daily basis since that 24 hour news cycle is so hard to fill up. Well here's a thought. Why not fill it with something besides crap? Somehow Amy Goodman manages to find an hours worth of news every day that you guys can't find the time to report on in that 24 hour cycle. Imagine that. I would imagine that a good deal of our readers here at Crooks and Liars could recommend more stories that are worth reporting on than there would be time for in the 24 hour news cycle, even on a "slow day".

I'd like to think that Sam Tanenhaus' observation is the correct one and that this over the top rhetoric does mean the death of the conservative movement, but our "mainstream media" along with a lot of other powerful forces are going to do their best to make sure it doesn't happen any time soon.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (353)

PLAYS: (535)

Embed

As Media Matters has noted, despite CNN's president Jon Klein sending a memo out stating that the network wanted to "avoid booking talk radio hosts" because "[c]omplex issues require world class reporting", they continue to make exceptions for the likes of Tea Bag Party organizer Mark Williams.

Tonight's AC360 was another example of the network giving a hate mongering Tea Bagger with a radio show a format, but they're worried about sullying their image if they might let someone like say, Stephanie Miller back on, who's been pretty vocal about being blacked out from the network on her radio show.

If they wanted to actually give some context to complex issues, they'd allow talk radio show host Thom Hartmann on as a commenter and collectively raise the average IQ of the people who regularly appear on their programming by a few percentage points rather than let this Know Nothing hate monger on there.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (194)

PLAYS: (647)

Embed

David Shuster subbing for Keith Olbermann gives us a lovely dose of the hate mongering and openly racist protests that were Glenn Beck's 9-12 rally in Washington DC, and some clips of Republican politicians who thought fomenting this hatred by participating was a good idea.

Howard Fineman weighed in and said that there are a lot of Republicans who don't like what's going on because it's going to lose them independent voters that they need to win elections, but are afraid to say so in public. So much for any of them standing up for the courage of their convictions.

Shuster: Howard, the Republicans are not merely condoning the behavior of the fringe element of their party but embracing it. A message of intolerance helps the Republican Party how exactly?

Fineman: Well it doesn’t help them. And they’re not all embracing it but I’m sorry to say they’re afraid to say so on the record. I talked to numerous Republicans today. A lot of them are very upset that for example Joe Wilson, the Congressman from South Carolina, a lot of them don’t think someone like Glenn Beck is doing the Republican Party any good. The Republicans need not just their core voters to thrive in the 2010 elections, which they indeed may. They need independent voters in the middle and there’s a tug of war going on David between the desire of independents to support the Republicans over issues like the debt and the deficit and the way some of the Republicans are behaving that repels those very independents.

Shuster: Well speaking of Sen. DeMint told the crowd on Saturday and repeated today that the protesters were informed. Given what some of those signs had to say about the President, wouldn’t that be fomenting hatred, if not violence?

Fineman: Well, at the very least it’s looking the other way and they’re looking at the glass of tolerance half full when in many cases there isn’t even a glass David. But what the Republicans I talked to today said was this. These people are there because of big government. They’re there because of fears about the debt and the deficit. And I think to some extent that’s true. I’ve been to Tea Parties. I’ve been to town hall meetings. I can sense that.

But there’s something deeper and darker that’s also there and we may as well look straight at it. There are racial fears. There are religious fears. There are regional fears. There are ethnic fears. These are coming to the surface. Like depth charges our politics has now brought all this to the surface and that’s also what we saw out there on the Mall. There’s no question about it. And there are not enough Republicans who are willing to say that on the record.

Shuster: Glenn Beck’s stated goal of wanting to move this country back to where it was on 9-12-2001 when the country was united, how did that work out for him?

Fineman: Well, he can pretend to cry all he wants on the stage and call himself a televangelist. He’s not into uniting the country from everything I’ve seen. He’s making a boatload of money dividing the country. When you say with no real evidence whatsoever that the President of the United States hates white people, you aren’t behaving in the spirit of 9-12. You’re behaving in a spirit that we thought we gotten rid of in the end of the Civil War and at the end of the second Civil Rights movement. So, you know, he can cry crocodile tears all he wants. That doesn’t seem to be what he’s actually doing.

h/t TheWrap.com

At the Toronto Film Festival, filmmaker Michael Moore excoriated newspapers for seeking profits and for "slitting their own throats".

DOWNLOADS: (722)

PLAYS: (481)

Embed

As Contessa Brewer notes in the beginning of this segment, ACORN is threatening legal action against the filmmaker who posed as a pimp at their offices and Fox News which ACORN "calls an advocacy organization for right wing interests".

Dylan Ratigan then brings in ACORN's Scott Levenson to discuss the matter and this has to be one of the more infuriating interviews I've watched on MSNBC for a long time. Ratigan was so desperate to prove his preconceived notion that what ACORN does is somehow a left wing alternative to Dick Armey's FreedomWorks that Scott Levenson may as well have been having a conversation with himself here.

Ratigan: What is your explanation for that video?

Levenson: Well there is an explanation for this video as an attack on the work that ACORN is doing. We got a hundred and fifty thousand people into their first home. Kept fifty thousand people free of foreclosure, this year, done unprecedented work in health care, unprecedented work in education, so we see this as a coordinated attack driven by Fox entertainment, and not news, Fox entertainment, on the work and the members of our organization.

Ratigan: I was thinking about the conversation that you and I are about to have and about the one I was fortunate to have with Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks who’s a conservative organizing group, a different agenda and we were talking about the frustration that exists I this country about the government process…

Levenson: And thank you for asking me…

Ratigan: …and the banks, I agree with you from what I can see journalistically that you have been targeted from conservative groups, but… when they target you they find things that are unsettling and so (crosstalk) that’s what I said when I look at Matt Kibbe, I understand your issue but I look at the, when you say “Oh kill Obama this, not kill, but kill Obamacare” so when the radicals (crosstalk).

Levenson: You’re absolutely right. Process matters. Process actually matters so it’s very important to look at these films as you’ll see none of these people got a loan. None of these people got a mortgage. None of these people filled out an application. None of these people even filled out (crosstalk) let me finish the point. None of these people even filled out an intake form. So we at ACORN have a multi-step process that keeps people from doing the wrong thing. These people never got to first base.

Ratigan: If you look at the vulnerability, like in other words let’s assume that you or Matt Kibbe or any of these organizations, that the intention is good. That the intention is to manifest political interest, but that those on the left or right are willing to behave when not properly monitored, in an unethical, manipulative, distorting, destructive manner that ultimately comes at the expense of the country. And I don’t care if it’s on the ACORN side, the FreedomWorks side or any other side. Obviously you’re process could use some improvement.

Continue reading »