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Countdown's Worst Person with winners Charles E.F. Millard, Bill Kristol and Glenn Beck.

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Fox News Sunday decided to use its "Power Player of the Week" segment to let everyone know just how great the conservative movement is still doing in this country. Their proof? The Heritage Foundation is picking up lots of new membership.

Does anyone think Fox News would ever do a similar piece on a liberal think tank? Or would they rather settle for letting Bill O'Reilly go stalk their members instead?

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From The McLaughlin Group March 27, 2009.

McLaughlin: Question. Are these bailouts sufficient to restore the economy I ask you Monica?

Crowley: No because you put out a consecutive list of companies, institutions, sectors that have required some money over the last couple of months. In just about every single one of those cases there was a redundancy there. AIG coming back. The auto industry coming back. What we have poured into all of these sectors has not nearly been enough and it will not be enough. This is like spitting into the ocean. It's not going to be enough to restore the economy and if we keep going down the path of having the government jackboot on the private sector, the private sector which will be the engine of this growth (crosstalk).

Clift: The government jackboot on the private sector...uh the private sector had its jackboots on American taxpayers for a good long while and we had companies like AIG basically operating like a hedge fund selling a little insurance on the side. And it is totally appropriate that we now try to get a handle on the new financial world that is...it's a titanic struggle between the Treasury Department and the financial community and who's going to run the economy.

It evolves into one of the typical shout fests The McLaughlin Group is known for. All but John McLaughlin and Monica Crowley on the panel agree that there needs to be some government regulation over these investment companies and hedge funds.

McLaughlin and Crowley both think the free market should rule at all times. Circumstances be damned and let the buyer beware. Crowley also said that the FDIC didn't do its job. Later in the show Eleanor Clift pointed out the flaw in that argument, as in they didn't have jurisdiction or they may have come in already and seized some of these companies. Somehow I doubt that will stop Crowley from repeating the line the next time she's on Fox News.

From Headzup the Week in Cartoons.

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Bill Sammon on Fox News Sunday is now worried about the expansion of Presidential powers. This coming from one of the biggest Bush cheerleaders on the planet.

Wallace: Let me ask you about that. I mean with all the craziness that we've had about derivatives and credit default swaps, isn't there a role for the government to play to step in and say here are the rules of the road, here are some standards?

Sammon: Well that's it. There is a role. And I think Juan and Bill are making this into an all or nothing. In other words you're either going to have no regulation or all pervasive regulation as Nina has described. I think conservatives are right to be concerned that Obama is using this as a pretext for a wide power grab. Never waste a good crisis seems to be the motto of this administration and I think the fear is that a) you can't, I think conservatives feel you can't trust this administration to, to grab that much governmental authority where you regulating not just banks but insurance companies and hedge funds and a whole host of financial institutions. And b) and perhaps more importantly, can you trust future administrations to do this. Who knows who's going to be in power in the future. And you're going to give this broad authority that you'll never get back.

Yeah gee Bill you're right. You never know who might be President in the future. It could be someone who decides to invade other countries that aren't a threat to us or spy on us, or think torture is legal...or...oh never mind. Too late for that. Project much Mr. Sammon? And heaven forbid anyone regulate these industries that have driven our economy into a ditch. The horror of doing that! Hey let's just keep everything the way it is now. What could possibly go wrong?

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Dick Armey doing a bit of fear mongering from March 26th's Washington Journal. So... Dick... allowing George Bush to go invade another country that wasn't a threat to the United States didn't scare you? You knew better and went along with that anyway, didn't you?

And after eight years of one of the most intellectually incurious Presidents in the history of the United States you've got the nerve to say that President Obama doesn't understand the world he lives in? Now you're scared of the President? Spare me your feigned indignation.

So what has Dick Armey so terrified of President Obama now? Even the possibility of expanding Medicare. Heaven forbid we allow something to cut into the profits of those insurance companies who are lining the pockets of the politicians in Washington DC.

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Bill Kristol is asked by a caller on Washington Journal whether himself, Fox News, The Weekly Standard or the any of the neo-con think tanks owe the American public an apology for hyping the WMD lies on Iraq. Of course Kristol doesn't think so, but then that would require some degree of introspection that I highly doubt the man is capable of for him to have answered differently. It also would require having something called a conscience, but I don't think Kristol has one of those either.

In his response he attempts to diminish the role these conservative think tanks and publications have had in pushing our government into going to war. Does anyone think that we would not have invaded Iraq had it not been for the influence PNAC, AEI and the rest of them had over our elected offials? He also does not address at all the role the "news" networks played in getting us into that debacle.

From the White House blog:

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama stated his continued support for the people of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota and praised the volunteers who have come together to help one another. Earlier this week, he signed emergency and disaster declarations, these declarations provide Federal aid to supplement State and local response efforts. The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency continue to coordinate the federal response and are working closely with State and Local officials. But it is the people who have filled sandbags, built levees, and contributed other ways in these communities that stand out as a reminder of what Americans can achieve when we serve others.

Transcript below the fold.

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Chris Matthews is apparently perplexed as to why President might want to bypass the national press corps with his online town hall meeting today.

Matthews: Well what's the President up to? Is he doing what he does well? Is he simply sticking to his strengths or is he trying to bypass what he sees as a problem area, meaning the national press corps?

....

Well being from the Politico you must be very proud Roger because you were the only news organization that writes as part of its work that got called on at the press conference the other night. He skipped the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal. He didn't call on any of those people but he called on you guys.

First of all, The Politico is a "news organization"?? Wow. They look more like a Matt Drudge gossip rag to me. Says a lot about what Matthews' idea of "news" is.

I can't imagine why the President wouldn't want to be calling on the likes of Chuck Todd or Ed Henry. Matthews also apparently thinks that only "real" reporters ask tough questions. Yeah, "real reporters" like the fellow Villagers he names.

I've got a list of people I consider actual journalists and none of the people Matthews named are on it. The people he named are more worried about raising their own profiles with who they have access to than anything that could pass for journalism. Frankly, I hope the President continues to irk the likes of Matthews and talk directly to the public as often as possible.

After eight years of Bush refusing to talk before anything but hand-picked audiences who had to sign loyalty pledges before they'd let anyone near him or our military, which he loved to use as props, this entire debate on how President Obama is managing his audience from Matthews and the rest of the press is pretty rich.

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Leave it to Matt Taibbi to tear into Michelle Bachmann in a way only he can. Matthews had to know what type of response he was going to get here and Taibbi didn't disappoint. His reply when asked about some of Michelle Bachmann's latest hackery.

Taibbi: You know it's funny this morning outside of Penn Station I saw a guy huffing glue out of a paper bag, and he was making more sense than Michelle Bachmann was making. I can't believe it. You need to pass a written test to drive a car in this country but I bet this woman can't even write her name in the ground with a stick. I mean it's just unbelievable to me that this person is in the Congress.

Political Base asks the obvious "elephant in the room" question: At what point should we start calling Bachmann "treasonous"?