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Friend of and occasional contributor to Crooks and Liars Bob Cesca appeared on The Ed Schultz Show to discuss his recent column at The Huffington Post, The GOP Plot to Screw the Economy and the Middle Class. Great job Bob. I hope MSNBC gives you some more air time. Here's some of the beginning and end of Bob's post:

We're only three months away from the midterm election when a shockingly large number of American voters will inexplicably vote for Republican candidates. I have no idea if this will mean a Republican takeover of the House or Senate or both, but there will definitely be enough voter support for Republicans to significantly reduce the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

Why? Because too many voters tend to be low-information, knee-jerk Springfield-from-The-Simpsons types, and the Republicans have lashed their crazy trains to this new wave of inchoate roid-rage to help sweep them into more congressional seats.

[...]

Unless there's some sort of mass epiphany, or unless the Democrats actually speak up and take the discourse by the horns and fight, middle class American voters in November will augment the number of Republicans (and conservadems) in Congress mostly because they've been suckered into endorsing these insane Republican economic policies. Subsequently, the Republicans will balloon the deficit and undermine the economic recovery in order to give more handouts to the super rich. And the middle class will continue to be an accomplice in its own slow-roasted homicide.

Go read the whole thing here.

You can read more from Bob over at his place and at the HuffPo.

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Well, Jon Stewart ignored Bernie Goldberg on his show tonight, but apparently Goldberg wasn't done whining to Bill-O about his treatment by Stewart on The Daily Show. He doubled down with pissing and moaning about how mean some commenters were on his blog and at least O'Reilly pointed out that this happens on all sides.

Bill-O also thinks that a comedy show is the "key component of left wing TV". So I guess a comedian ranks right up there with that mythical "left wing media" they keep harping about that doesn't exist. Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow do not a "left wing media" make and Keith's not some flaming liberal.

When MSNBC's lineup for the day consists of something along the line of Sam Seder, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Alan Colmes, David Shuster who they just booted, Nicole Sandler, Laura Flanders, Thom Hartmann, Cenk Uygur, Amy Goodman, Welton Gaddy, Mike Papantonio, Ted Kennedy Jr. and Ron Reagan Jr., along with Schultz, Olbermann and Maddow, then tell me there's an actual "liberal" television network out there.

Apparently the two of them are very upset that there is a lack of right wing comedians out there. I would imagine that might have something to do with conservative brains not recognizing satire. Case in point -- Colbert Study: Conservatives Don't Know He's Joking:

Last week, Stephen Colbert revisited a segment he had done on Florida Representative Bill Posey, who sponsored a bill that "would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificate," in order to put insane rumors of President Barack Obama's birthplace to bed.

Colbert thought a similar measure should be taken to end the whisperings that Posey was a human-alligator hybrid. Posey, in response to Colbert, said, "I expected there would be some civil debate about it, but it wasn't civil...There is no reason to say that I'm the illegitimate grandson of an alligator." And one wondered, "Does Posey not realize that Colbert is not speaking in earnest? His reaction seems uniquely stupid!"

Stupid, yes. But apparently it's not unique at all, according to a study from The Ohio State University, which proves, with math and stuff, that lots of conservatives seem to not understand the intrinsic, underlying joke of The Colbert Report.

Here's Bill-O and Goldberg with their little cry-fest about how mean the commenters at his site were and bemoaning the lack of conservative comedians. Those damn liberal Hollywood elites keeping all of those not-funny nonexistent right comedians from having their chance to break out onto the scene! Damn them!...lol.

Hey guys, I'll give you a hint about what happens to comedians who used to be funny until they became flaming right wingers (or in Jackson's case, until she outed herself as one and started going to tea bag rallies). They end up being someone named Dennis Miller who isn't doing comedy tours any more, but O'Reilly's show, or this wingnut, Victoria Jackson. It's just amazing that no one finds them funny these days, isn't it?

I did actually used to like Dennis Miller back in the day when he had his series on HBO and he just strikes me as nothing but a shallow, angry shell of a man who no longer has anything of substance to say when I watch him these days. After he let 9-11 fry his brain and Bill Clinton was no longer around to beat up on day after day he's digressed to humor that the average 9th grader can relate to.

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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.

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David Sirota on CNN's American Morning explaining why the White House throwing Van Jones under the bus was such a terrible idea. They've done nothing but show the right wing that they will cave if they decide to attack a progressive working in the White House.

ROBERTS: The president hired Van Jones to find more green jobs, putting more Americans back to work and helping the environment. Now, Jones is looking for a job himself. He has been under fire for some pointed comments about Republicans and a petition that he signed back in 2004 questioning what the Bush White House knew about 9/11. He has now resigned.

To talk more about that, let's bring in syndicated columnist David Sirota and David Frum, the editor of newmajority.com and former speech writer for the Bush White House.

David Sirota, let's start with you, because you wrote quite a scathing column that appeared on the newleft.org and as well on the huffingtonpost.com, saying you're absolutely outraged by the way the White House handled this.

SIROTA: Van Jones is a national hero for his work on green jobs. He's known as an expert on energy policy, on economic policy. He's somebody who made a mistake, who acknowledged that he made a mistake a long time ago, and he was tossed out by this White House.

And I think what we can learn from what happened is what this White House values and what this White House doesn't value. The White House stuck by Tim Geithner as Tim Geithner was involved, the treasury secretary, in a tax scandal. He's accepted gifts from the banking industry. The White House stood by him.

The White House has stood by other people, like Ben Bernanke, who has really been at the heart of our economic problems. And they're basically putting Van Jones out to pasture because of something Van Jones said was a mistake.

And I think what's going on here is that the White House is listening to the white right wing's political terrorists, people like Glenn Beck, people like conservative activists who have targeted Van Jones because Van Jones is an African-American with a progressive movement background working on behalf of social justice.

That's something, unfortunately, that is apparently, according to the right wing, not allowed in this country.

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July 09, 2009 CNN