Yes, We Are Proud "Digital Dickweeds"

CNBC’s Dennis Kneale thinks we bloggers are all "digital dickweeds." I kind of like the ring of that and it just makes me want to blog all that much more. Yes, Mr. Kneale we are digital dickweeds and proud to be of service. Now get your nerdy ass back to work and quit trying to convince the world that the recession is over. It's not. I like his optimism but he's a little early with all his glee I'm afraid.

Tag Team Trying To Kill It

The Wacko Wing & The News Pundits

So what's the deal with all the right-wing pundits feeding the wacko wing of the Republican party?

1. Are they just crazy and insane?
2. Are they just filled with hate and want to stir up a fake controversy with mean nasty partisan politics?
3. Are they un-American and un-patriotic and trying to harm America?
4. Are they trying to copy Glenn Beck and get some of those crazy wacko wing FOX News viewers to boost their ratings?

I think it's #4. They've seen Glenn Beck act crazy, as hell as he plays a full throated lunatic, and they've watched his ratings soar. They've discovered that there are lots of wacko wingnut Republicans and they've said screw this honest reporting bit, I want me some of those wackos and big ratings. Which do you think it is?

American's Most Trusted Newscaster?

According to a TIME poll, Jon Stewart is now America's most trusted newscaster, beating out Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. I'm not sure what this says about the state of nightly news at ABC, CBS and NBC. I love Jon Stewart and this really does not surprise me. Maybe we all get more of our news from the cable news shows and the internet today. In my opinion, the nightly news hour has become irrelevant. By the time they report it, we've already seen it on the internet or cable news. It's the same reason that newspapers are becoming irrelevant. We all want instant news and the nightly news hour host and the newspaper are usually nothing but reruns.

Spacey & Letterman Talking Twitter & Tweets

HT: Huffington Post

Lewis Black | Health Care Reform

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Birthers Right Up There With Loch Ness Monsters

MSNBC FirstRead blog:

*** Birth(ers) of a Nation: Remember that McCain event last year during the presidential campaign, when a woman asked if Barack Obama was an Arab? Well, that’s nothing compared to YouTube clip of a Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) town hall, in which a woman carries on and on about Obama's citizenship and birth certificate. Let's get something straight: If Obama weren't a United States citizen, don't you think the Clinton campaign (first) or the McCain camp (second) would have said something during the two-year-long presidential campaign? (In fact, McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, was the one who had the bigger potential legal question mark about his eligibility for the presidency.) But the real story in all of this is that Republican Party has a HUGE problem with its base right now. That some Republicans believe a man who won last year’s presidential contest by seven percentage points is not the legitimate president is a base problem much bigger than Cindy Sheehan anti-war protestors or black helicopter conspiracy theorists who flock to some Ron Paul events. Check out how flummoxed Castle looked. How many other Republican elected officials are dealing with questioners like this woman? Meanwhile, did Lou Dobbs really GO THERE? Seriously? This is getting absurd.

Chuck Todd and the gang over at FirstRead pretty much covered it. On one hand, it's infuriating to hear these nuts make these outrageous claims but on the other hand, it's probably great for Democrats that this is the face of the new GOP base, knowing that most of the country realizes how crazy these people are. It's kind of like watching one of those conspiracy shows where people think that the moon landing was fake.

ObamaCare Demise Greatly Exaggerated

Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight examines the four scenarios under which health care reform could still pass this year.

I'm banking on scenario number one – "Whip the Democrats Into Submission."

Understanding the FOX News Mob Think

Briseadh na Faire, an author over at TheZoo blog, posted the following as a comment to a ThinkProgress blog post and then posted it on TheZoo as an Op-Ed:

FOX has millions of viewers who agree with whatever it broadcasts. They display a lynch-mob mentality: trial by media, then hanging. Their group-think gives them comfort in that “majority rules” absolves each individual from individual responsibility.

If you don’t understand the enemy, you cannot defeat it. The mob will always need a leader; one who feeds its fears and provides weak victims as sacrifices. Notice how often its spokespersons portray their opponents as weak?

Those who negotiate are weak. Those who compromise are weak. Those who resort to violence first and ask questions later are strong. This is primal. This is mob-think. This is what is left of the Republican Party. This is Fox’s viewing audience.

That's it. That is the perfect description of what they do and who they are. I've never been able to put it into proper words but in three short paragraphs, this author nailed it.

GOP: No Plan, No Knowledge, Just Kill It

It's become pretty clear that Republicans don't have a credible health care alternative, many of them don't understand the intricacies of the policy debate, they don't seem to get why we think reform is necessary and furthermore they don't care. They just want to kill it.

Michael Steele opened his mouth again today and gave us some new word salad. You can watch the video above but there were a couple of telling answers to questions. One of the questions was about the individual mandate policy debate, as to whether or not there should be an individual requirement. Steel was completely ignorant as to what that meant, even though it was a much discussed point of debate during the 2008 election season. Stumped a couple of different times, Steele said, "I don't do policy, ...My point in coming here today was to begin to set a tone, and a theme if you will." I really should not complain because Steele is one of the best things to ever happen to Democrats but I can't help but shake my head when the Chairman of the Republican Party continues to show such a lack of knowledge or grasp of the issues. It's astonishing actually.

Further proof that Republicans just want to kill health care reform comes from remarks made by FOX News pundit, William Kristol and Senator Jim DeMint (S-SC). Kristol said, "My advice, for what it's worth: Resist the temptation. This is no time to pull punches. Go for the kill." Meanwhile, we had Jim DeMint proclaim this past Friday, "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

It's just politics for these guys. They don't care about finding a solution to help 47 million Americans without health insurance. They are not concerned that there are an additional 25 million with insurance so lousy that they are afraid to use it, for fear of being cancelled. It really doesn't stop there either. What about the millions of Americans who can't change jobs because they are slaves to their health insurance and in fear of being dropped if they move to a new job? The only people that I know who are not afraid of their health insurance company are the people in congress who have great coverage and great options. Don't we deserve what they have? Shouldn't we demand it?

I'm very suspicious that anyone trying to slow dow or delay health care reform is simply angling for time to find a way to kill it. Follow the money. Joe Liberman has been on the news this morning, calling for the process to be slowed down. A look at the record shows that he "raised almost $3.6 million in campaign contributions from the health, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries over the course of his career, averaging more than $500 per day since taking office." You can find similar contributions for almost anyone in congress who is calling for a slow down in health care reform.