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March 2, 2012 at 10:00 AM
Week In The News: Afghanistan Erupts, Romney Survives, Iran Strike Debated

Romney lives. Deadly allies in Afghanistan. More war talk on Iran. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Afghans display an effigy of the US President Barack Obama during anti-US protest over burning of Qurans at a military bass in Afghanistan, in Ghani Khail, east of Kabul Friday, Feb. 24,2012. (AP)

Afghans display an effigy of the US President Barack Obama during anti-US protest over burning of Qurans at a military bass in Afghanistan, in Ghani Khail, east of Kabul Friday, Feb. 24,2012. (AP)

A bad week to be in Baba Amr, the Syrian opposition stronghold crushed by government forces.  A bad week for Harrisburg, Illinois, with its monster tornado.  For Chardon, Ohio – school shooting.  For US troops in Afghanistan, attacked, killed, by Afghan allies.

It was a good week for Mitt Romney.  He took Michigan.  Arizona.  On health care coverage and contraception, it depends where you stand.  Democrats won a vote crying personal freedom, women’s rights.  Republicans cried religious freedom.

This hour, On Point:  Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

-Tom Ashbrook

 

Guests

David Gergan, is a senior political analyst for CNN and has served as an adviser to four U.S. presidents. He is a professor of public service and the director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Jamie Tarabay, managing editor of White House and national security & foreign affairs for National Journal

Jack Beatty,On Point news analyst.

From Tom’s Reading List

National Journal “The contraception battle has also dominated the campaign trail. On Wednesday, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said he opposed the Blunt amendment during an interview on the Ohio News Network. His campaign quickly walked back those comments, saying Romney supported the amendment.”

Foreign Policy “The United States and North Korea have each issued statements about the results of last week’s meetings in China, but the two sides seem to be reading from two different sheets of paper. ”

Al Jazeera “As the offensive on the central city of Homs intensified, Syria’s main opposition group formed a military council to organize the armed resistance and funnel weapons to rebels, a sign of how deeply militarized the conflict has become over the past year as Syria veers closer to a civil war.”

 
  • John

    Hey folks check this out, should be added to your Friday discussion.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EzO02qdi4o

    • Gregg

      I don’t know if it’s uber-arrogance, infantile naivete or an attempt to cover his butt, but Malkin nails it. Appeasement pours gas on the flames of Jihad. How pathetic it is that our President’s constant argument for everything is, “If not for me it would have been worse”. The only thing more pathetic are those who buy it.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        It worked SO well for ‘W’!   The guy that said he would make the Budget Surplus BIGGER? the guy that said he would make us SAFER? the guy that said he would create JOBS?

    • Anonymous

       Apologitis? What an ass.

    • Still Here

      He owes America an apology for doubling down and blowing it completely.

  • http://twitter.com/TweeterSmart b smart

    SYRIA? WAR IN AFRICA???

  • Yar

    The Roy Blunt bill said nothing about contraceptives, please quite framing the debate this way.  The bill would have  giving employers the right to deny health services in company-provided insurance coverage if they considered them a violation of religion or moral conviction.  Should a Christian Book store owner be allowed to deny health coverage to the dependents  of a single parent?   This legislation would pave a way to do just that.  What about a interracial marriage, this legislation would allow a company to deny coverage to the spouse of a employee because the employer objects to mixed race marriages.   This legislation is Pandora’s box, it is insane that 48 US senators voted for it.  I am Christian but I don’t want to live in a Christian Theocracy because I don’t want my employer to tell me what is Christian.  I call this separation freedom to practice my faith, this legislation lets employers define what is moral, it establishes a Theocracy.  Call it what it is: CRAZY! 

    • JustSayin

       I don’t want a fascist Christian theocracy either, but not because it does dishonor to Christianity, but because the USA is a secular nation, and was founded as a secular nation, with a deliberate separation between religion and governance.

      It has become routine for Congress to break their pledge to the Constitution. They have revoked Habeas corpus, and now they vote for Christian laws forced upon the secular populace.

      The next congressional bill may be the formal dissolution of the republic. It’s the only way to avoid that nasty legal problem of making laws contrary to the Constitution.

    • Gregg

      It imposed nothing on no one. It merely allowed freedom.

      • Isaac, in Groton CT

        Sure, if you view the employer-employee relationship as one of cooperative equals, each as free as the other to give or withhold what they bring to the table.

        Yeah, then I suppose it “merely allowed freedom.”

        • Gregg

          Exactly. Employees can choose to become employers.

          • Isaac, in Groton CT

            What color is the sky in your world?

          • Gregg
          • Isaac, in Groton CT

            Can’t see the video. What is it you’re trying to say?

          • Gregg

            Blues skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see….

          • Anonymous

            Thank the clean air act.

          • aj

            L
            o
            L

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Pie in the sky?

          • Anonymous

             So when EVERYONE is an employer, who will be an employee? How will all the employers have even one employee?

          • Gregg

            Whoever chooses to.

          • Anonymous

             You did NOT answer the question. If everyone is an employer, how do they get employees?

            Your position is vacuous, oxymoronic.

      • Anonymous

        Why are conservatives only concerned about the freedom of employers?  Employees should have the right to health care not restricted by their employer’s personal beliefs. 

        • Gregg

          Employees are free to work anywhere they choose.

          • Yar

            Gregg, you are smug in your point of view. You know full well that in today’s job market employees have to take the job conditions that are available.  It is like you  are telling the slave to get a ticket on the underground railroad if they don’t like slavery. 

          • Gregg

            Mick Jagger said it best:

            You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometime you just might find you get what you need.

            Beggers can’t be choosy.

          • Yar

            So you think it is OK to deny a single parent the right to purchase health insurance for their children from a workplace insurance provider?  Who is begging?  Health benefits are earned.

          • Gregg

            I can’t answer your question because the premise is false. No one is denied anything.

          • Anonymous

            How do you know that people are not denied health insurance.
            The reality is that more companies are now dropping or just not offering health insurance mostly due the absurd cost. Single payer is the way to go.

          • Yar

            Should a Christian Book store owner be allowed to deny health coverage to the dependents  of a single parent?   

          • Gregg

            I think an employer can provide whatever benefits they want to. I don’t
            think the employee should have a say. If they don’t like it, they are
            not being denied squat. I buy my own insurance.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Au contraire!  People on minimum wage jobs CANNOT afford REAL health-care pemiums!
              Could YOU, when you were homeless, and starving for your art?  For a family?

          • Anonymous

            You are reducing an employee to the status of a beggar?

          • Gregg

            My response was to Yar’s scenario. He/She wrote: “employees have to take the job conditions that are available”.

          • Martin Luther

            Gregg — do all of those employers take NO government funds??

          • Anonymous

             But you just said they COULD choose to work where they want or where they can get what they need.

          • mary elizabeth

            In addition, more and more smaller  hospitals are being acquired by Catholic run institutions thereby expanding their  dictates into wonan’s health.
            The Catholic church might do well to examine it’s attitude toward the missing fathers whose desertion contributes to the abortion choice.
            This patriarchal hierarcahy  all through the ages has turned a blind eye to the failings of  men who contribute to the demise of the family.
             

          • Anonymous

            So we should scrap all workplace protections too?  Freedom of contract doesn’t exist when the bargaining power is so out of balance. 

          • Gregg

            Employees expecting a safe working environment and employees demanding their contraception be provided: Yea, there’s no difference.

          • Cory, Lord of the Nerds

            Or to starve and be homeless…

          • Gregg

            Exactly! There is a bigger picture. My peachy life is sweeter because of sacrifice.

          • Ray in VT

             But I think that your worldview discounts those who do work hard, sacrifice and still get screwed over.  I see no reason why we can’t seek to create some sort of baseline level below which decent, working people should not fall below in this, the richest nation on Earth.

          • Gregg

            I was screwed over plenty until I took matters into my own hands.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            If you enjoyed it that much, and think it made you so great, why don’t you donate ALL your assets, and go do it the rest of your life?
               You thought you had it so great at the time?
               You had NO complaints?  Or, you won’t admit them, now?

          • TFRX

            So you’re saying Applicant X, Athiest, can’t be discriminated against by working for a religion-run school or church. But discriminating  against them for insurance is a-okay.

            Does not compute.

        • William

          It is difficult to understand why put another mandate on the backs of employers with respect to healthcare insurance. This will just encourage more employers to drop the healthcare insurance for all their employees due to higher costs.

          • Anonymous

            Contraception costs far less to businesses than pregancy and offering maternity leave.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Does your employer-provided health-care, pay for Viagra?  THAT costs a LOT in the long run!  More children are more expensive!

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Employers have the $MONEY, that the GREEDY rich worship, which makes wage-slaves of people trying to get by?

      • Ray in VT

        That is certainly a type of “freedom” that many employees can do without.  I would also put into that category opposition to various pieces of civil rights legislation or environmental laws on the grounds that the government should not impose upon companies or individuals who want the freedom to racially discriminate or dump contaminates.

        • Gregg

          Ray, please tell me you are not saying an employer not being forced to provide a benefit they find immoral means companies are free to pollute and discriminate by race.

          • Ray in VT

            No, but I see opposition to all of those measuring coming from the same ideological field.

            One problem that one of my Senators raised with the proposed measure was how vague it was.  It seemed to more or less leave that wide open to interpretation that, from the perspective of it’s critics, was could leave what was “immoral” totally open in such a way that it could cover any bs reason that one could come up with.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            If they are ‘morally’ opposed to clean air, and clean water, if it interferes with PROFIT?
                The ‘morals’ of GREED?

          • Anonymous

             There is a reason every “moral value” is not enforced by law.

          • Anonymous

             Mormons used to believe it was “moral” for men to have multiple wives. But the Mormon Church changed their beliefs so that Utah could be admitted to the Union.

            The Roman Catholic Church has already widely agreed to allow insurance policies its “businesses/charities” buy for employees to provide contraception. (28 States, some 6 of which are more absolute than what PPACA requires — and then there is Europe.)

      • Cory, Lord of the Nerds

        Nothing on noone…  Isn’t that grammatically the same as something on everyone?

        • Gregg

          What do “Herman’s Hermits” have to do with it?

      • denis

        to who was the freedom allowed… The boss or the worker

  • Gregg

    RIP Andrew Brietbart.

  • Ed

    An excerpt from Cardinal George on the attack on religious freedom:

    What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the Church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the Church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down … Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship-no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society. 

    • Isaac, in Groton CT

      Option 5 is: “Stop offering health insurance as part of its compensation package, and instead increase the salaries of its employees so that they may go out and get health insurance on their own.”

      • Cory, Lord of the Nerds

        Ooh, I like it!

    • Terry Tree Tree

      ‘Moral’?   The Roman Child-Molesting and Child-Abusing Church?  Moral?
          They only want MORE VICTIMS for the pedophile priests?
          WHAT morals, Ed?

    • Anonymous

       The separation of church and state goes BOTH ways. Just as no one has the “right” to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater. Justice Antonin Scalia has written a decision that where a law that is for the wide benefit of society has a secondary effect on a religious teaching, it is NOT unconstitutional for that reason.

      Stop the Church’s war on government.

  • Ed

    Previous posts need to consider what is meant by the First Amendment ‘Free exercise of religion’.

    • Isaac, in Groton CT

      Employer-provided health insurance is an exercise of religion?

    • Terry Tree Tree

      ‘Free exercise of religion’, to MOLEST and ABUSE CHILDREN?  Catholics have that NOW!

    • Anonymous

       The right to “free exercise of religion” is NOT absolute, just as the right to free speech is not absolute.

  • Isaac, in Groton CT

    The Huffington Post ran a few articles about a Kansas abortion law that would drastically change the medical landscape: doctors could not be sued for medical malpractice for lying to their patients, if the lie was told in an effort to prevent an abortion.

    Among the lies a Kansas doctor could tell without fear of malpractice are, “No, you’re not pregnant,” “The child is perfectly healthy,” and “The risk is low that you will die from this pregnancy.”

    The bill requires doctors to get a woman’s consent to perform an ultrasound prior to an abortion, which is good, but it also requires that a doctor perform the ultrasound, regardless of whether the woman actually granted consent, which is bad.

    In much of the week’s political conversation, I’ve heard conservatives accuse the media of calling up social issues as a distraction to draw attention away from the economy. Given the laws that Republicans have been more than eager to pass as of late, I can only weep at the idiocy of those complaints.

    • Gregg

      Since you did not link to the article, I looked for it. The “lie” scenario you describe is an exaggeration on your part. The bill DOES NOT allow doctors to lie. No wonder you didn’t link to it.

      • Isaac, in Groton CT

        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/kansas-anti-abortion-bill_n_1258185.html

        “A Kansas House committee is scheduled to take up a bill Wednesday that would exempt doctors from malpractice suits if they withheld medical information to prevent an abortion.”

        You know, you could have asked, and I would have been more than happy to provide the link.

        • Gregg

          Yes, that’s the one I found. Thanks for the direct quote instead of your interpretation which is laughable.

          • Isaac, in Groton CT

            What do you think was wrong with my characterization of the law? Can you point to a specific passage of my comment that you think is dishonest?

          • Gregg

            “Dishonest” may be too harsh a word, I don’t know.

            Among the lies a Kansas doctor could tell without fear of malpractice
            are, “No, you’re not pregnant,” “The child is perfectly healthy,” and
            “The risk is low that you will die from this pregnancy.

            Withholding information is one thing a direct lie is entirely different.

            BTW, from what I see, I would not support this law.

          • Ray in VT

            They are both dishonest.  Perhaps sin of omission would better describe it.  In theory the doctor-patient relationship is supposed to be one in part based on trust.  A measure such as this would seem to undermine the faith that patients place in their doctors to act in the best interests of the patient.

          • Gregg

            I don’t disagree and don’t like this bill. But my Libertarian side says a woman can ask the doctor if she is pregnant. If she is and the doctor says no then the doctor should not be allowed to practice. This bill does not conflict with that notion.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            If the ‘doctor’ hems and haws, or gives a ‘politician’s non-answer, that gives the impression that he is saying she is NOT pregnant, when she is?

          • TFRX

            Wow. I just hope you’re not a doctor.

            This is crackpot reasoning even by your standards.

          • Anonymous

             No need to sugarcoat it. We go to the doctor because he has information and expertise which we do not. Its what he gets paid for. Implicit in this relationship is the expectation that he will give us an honest assessment of our physical state. If he willingly chooses to withhold from us any part of that information which he knows to be true, he’s lying.  

          • Isaac, in Groton CT

            You might say a “direct lie” is entirely different, but the Kansas bill’s text, as I saw last night (but am having trouble relocating this morning) didn’t.

        • aj

          House Committee is where BILLS(as opposed to LAWS) go to die.

          This isn’t National news, let us know when clears one chamber, which it probably never will.  Making all this haymaking just that.

          So I guess Republicans do have a legitimate gripe, that the so called Mainstream Media is just looking for dragons to slay. ( doing the dems bidding)

          But what do you expect when Mrs. Greenspan a.k.a. Andrea Mitchell is considered an esteem journalist inside the beltway.

          Hideous.

          • Isaac, in Groton CT

            That was from February 6. Two days ago, the Huffington Post had this to say:

            “Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) indicated that he is likely to sign the state’s sweeping anti-abortion bill, which includes a provision that would allow doctors to withhold information from patients.”

            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/kansas-abortion-bill-governor-sam-brownback_n_1307076.html

            I mean, instead of griping about the media reporting the kooky things Republicans have to say lately, you might instead get Republicans to say fewer kookier things.

          • aj

            Ah Hah, we got you on the run now.  Shoot, your in full blown retreat!!

            So dont try this baloney Rear-Guard action!!! Just head for the hills and chalk this one up to nerves or … the sun was in your eyes or … something.

            Face it General., you’ve been flanked.

            YOU CALLED IT A LAW!!! :)

          • Isaac, in Groton CT

            “YOU CALLED IT A LAW!!! :) ”

            If that’s the substance of your criticism of my comment, I’ll gladly state: it’s not a law, it’s a bill.

            It’s still reprehensible, and it’s still something Republicans are voluntarily introducing to the public conversation. You can go ahead and focus entirely on word games, but you’re missing the point of everything I wrote.

          • aj

            I’m sorry.

          • Anonymous

             What you apparently mean is that Republicans should be allowed to pass laws in the dark of night so no one knows what they are doing. Does that mean you would not object if Democrats or any other group did the same?

          • TFRX

            This isn’t National news, let us know when clears one chamber, which it probably never will.

            Bit of a stretch to make that complaint.

            This bill looks like the future of Teabagger legislation. And forewarned is forearmed.

          • aj

            Yeah sure, relevant if you are a taxpaying citizen of the state of Kansas.

            But to act as though because some kook scribbled on a napkin that doctors can lie, and it hasn’t even gotten out of committee and onto the floor of one chamber of the statehouse in Topeka rises to National news? Is that not somewhat of stretch either?

            Even if it was signed into law by that doosh Brownback (which at that point it becomes relevant to nation), because it will likely be on the docket in Kansas Federal court before sundown. No?

            With the Huffington Post a party to the lawsuit, no less.  An injunction issued, and no harm no foul.

            Does my respectful critique carry NO water?

            You already told me I’m stupid previously, but I still respect your opinion, what do you think?

            Pretend your the editor of the Times, would you see this proposal -to allow State liscensed physicians to commit fraudulent malpractice- that is buried in committee, newsworthy fit to print.

            Clearly, the overpaid Arianna Huffington, thought so, or was just her doing the Dem’s bidding?

            P.S. It’s Tea party NOT “Teabagger”.  And I voted for Nader!

          • TFRX

            The race to the crazy-ass bottom usually is fought between the leges in Texas and South Carolina.

            That Kansas is making a race of it should be news. The continual moving of the goalposts merits coverage in the press.

            Last year’s right-wing crazee so often becomes the media’s accepted framing that I’d be remiss if I didn’t start ringing the alarm now.

            PS They gave themselves the label Teabagger. I use it as I wish.

          • aj

            “Last year’s right-wing crazee so often becomes the media’s accepted framing that I’d be remiss if I didn’t start ringing the alarm now.”

            Smart.

            But they didn’t name themselves teabagger.  That’s a bald-faced LIE, LIE, LIE.

          • GradyLeeHoward

            Mom, why am I a Bankster and you’re a Media Whore?

          • aj

            YES!! Love that. You made me LOL GradyLeeHoward :)

            Now I don’t have to post anything for the rest of the day. Thank you!

      • Newton Whale

        “A half truth is a whole lie”

        -Yiddish proverb.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      FIRST, DO NO HARM!   A ‘physician’, that lies by omission, or by giving evasive answers that delude patients, IS DOING HARM!!
        Such a ‘doctor’, would WANT to know if a bridge is out, his car has a dangerous fuel leak, or other possible lies of omission-type dangers?  If a ‘doctor’ causes harm, by omission, he has NO ethics!

      • Anonymous

         All you have to ask is why did someone (Republican law-and-order) feel that they needed to indemnify doctors for doing something that they could be sued for?

  • aj

    Heckler: ” No War with Iran ”

    Prezident: ” No body has ANNOUNCED a war”

    Talk how about a slippery slope, now its a given, that the President (a Dem!) will just announce that we’re at war with Iran, willy nilly.

    I swear I read somewhere that both chambers of Congress has to issue a formal DECLARATION of WAR!  Oh yeah, its that old Constitution thingy (which is written on reefer paper incidently).

    And Hussein Obama has a law degree from Harvard Law, and taught Constitutional Law!!!???  I say impeach him, the veep, and the speaker!!!!  Its TIME to send a MESSAGE to these bums.

    • Isaac, in Groton CT

      You want to impeach the President over a purely semantic disagreement you have over some off-hand comment he made? Faaaaantastic.

      • aj

        I want the CONSTITUTION to be more than just some faded ink on Hemp.

        And I want to smoke reefer at the bus stop, with out being shot by PIGS!

        Give me Liberte’, Or Give Me Death!

        • Isaac, in Groton CT

          Right, so you’re taking constitutional issue on the basis of semantics in an off-hand comment. I got that.

          • aj

            Did he go to congress before he gave the order to invade Libyan airspace and bomb a sovreign state.  Not semantics, there is ample precedent, is there not?

          • Isaac, in Groton CT

            Make up your mind: do you want to impeach him for the action in Libya or do you want to impeach him for simply SAYING, “No one has announced a war [in Iran]?”

          • aj

            I want LIBERTY!!!!
            :)

            and Single-Payer too…with dental.

        • Anonymous

          Obama did NOT say WHO would “announce” a war with Iran. If Congress passes a war declaration, and he signs it, that would be an announcement. What would be wrong with that?

    • mary elizabeth

      An article in today’s Boston Globe by Nicholas Burns describes the administration “return to diplomacy” before any military action.
      Your post and it’s shrill directive is based not on any facts, but on a hecklers  erroneous assumption. 

      • aj

        meow.

      • aj

        Miss Mary, if Nick Burns (an AIPAC errand boy) and the administration wanted diplomacy, they would have pursued the fuel/swap deal that Turkey and Brazil negotiated 2 years ago. 

        Instead Obame and his dual-citizen NeoCon HACK Dennis Ross thumbed their nose at it and instead implemented an oil embargo. 

        I got NEWS,just for you my lady, we’re already at war with Iran, and the President doesn’t even know it.

  • TFRX

    Andrew Breitbart, dead at 43.

    I choose to remember him as the class act he was, by not fabricating lies about him to destroy him personally.

    Let’s not sully his image by using words such as “villain”, “prick”, “duplicitous bastard”, or a “special pile of human excrement”.

    He’d do the same for any of us.

    • Ray in VT

      What shocked me was that he was only 43.  I would have guessed that he was at least 50 based upon his appearance.  It’s quite unfortunate for his wife and children that he left behind.

      • GradyLeeHoward

        He shouldn’t have been out chasing a goat that early in the morning.

        • GradyLeeHoward

          Result: Too many kids (opposed veterinary contraception coverage?)

    • Isaac, in Groton CT

      That’s probably how he’d choose to remember himself, too. But to be fair to Mr. Breitbart’s detractors, with Andrew gone, SOMEONE has to take on the mantle of fabricating lies.

    • kelty

      I prefer “double-ended turd” myself.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    MANY nations have the capability to observe the actions in Syria, IF they wanted to?  Satellites, drones, spy planes, and other technology could easily verify the reports of government massacre of innocent children and other civillians!

  • Terry Tree Tree

    STUPID!!  NOT keeping track of, and treating with respect, the Quorans AFTER so much violence about mis-treatment of Quorans in the past?

    • Ray in VT

      It’s pretty amazing that the mistake was made again, given what a tinderbox such actions have been in the past.

      • Gregg

        I remember Bush being savaged over the Quran toilet flushing thing which turned out to be untrue.

        • Ray in VT

           I sort of remember the kerfuffle, but I don’t  remember a lot of the details.  Given the problems that this general issue has raised in the past, though, we should have learned how to deal appropriately with these texts.

    • aj

      True that Terry Tree Tree, the longest war in this nation’s perpetual war-making history, 600 Billion/yr Department of War budget,  600 billion on this war alone,

      You would think these bozos in the Pentagon would have these details figured out by now. Like you said, just such a stupid error. Such a diservice to the honorable 1%, the 1% that is brave enough to put on the uniform willing to die (1700 in Afganistan K.I.A.) for this country and its rotten cowardice leaders.

      Thank you for your service.

  • Patrik

    Something that may have slipped through the cracks in the news is this growing response from representatives and others to students and advocates when regarding access to post High School education. “Welcome to Life”, ” Life’s Not Fair”. 

    Huffington Post: BV

    Education News

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Insurance companies should be able to tailor insurance policy coverage to each religion’s directives?  ALL religious people HAVE to tell the insurance company which denomination they are?  Religious people can ONLY get the insurance approved by their religious leaders?  NO member of any denomination can buy insurance, or health-care NOT approved by their denomination?
        HOW WILL THIS WORK, FOR THE RELIGIOUS?

    • Patrik

      Its straight out of the Middle Ages, and Rick ‘Imholierthanthou’ Santorum wants to turn the clock back to that period…

  • Double Stuff Coreos

    What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan?

    • aj

      Killing and dying.

      “Our foe is hunger and ignorance
      Bring ‘em home, bring ‘em home
      You can’t beat that with bombs and guns
      Bring ‘em home, bring ‘em home”

      -Bruce Springsteen

    • Still Here

      Who’s we?  Are you high?

    • Anonymous

       I don’t know. But if our involvement there is winding down, we damn well better get on the stick and figure out who we’re going to invade next. How else will we get to continue killing people? How will we be able spend those billions of defense dollars? Why would we want to end a real good ten year run of overseas adventuring. Maybe Iran? I understand they’re about to destroy the rest of the world.

  • Still Here

    When will he apologize to the American people for this ongoing disaster?

    • Double Stuff Coreos

      He who?  Which disaster?  Are you drunk?

      • aj

        lol

      • Still Here

        Our fundraiser ‘n chief.

  • ebw343

    Remember Tom, no more than 10 minutes on the presidential primary horse race!

  • James W.

    I’m confused. Tom just said, and the mainstream news media keeps saying, that Romney won Michigan. But the delegates in Michigan were awarded equally between Romney and Santorum. Isn’t that a tie? I understand that Romney squeaked by in the popular vote, but that has no more importance here than it does in a presidential election (just ask Al Gore). Please report the Michigan election accurately: in terms of delegates to the Republican convention, which is really what matters, the Michigan primary was a tie. 

    • aj

      Totally agree.

    • Anonymous

       And now Romney has convinced the Michigan Republican Party to post-election change the rules for assigning the two “at-large” delegates so Romney could get 16 delegates to Santorum’s 14 rather than both getting 15.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

    On the contraception war – I wonder if parties that believe corporations are people would also allow corporations the ability to have religious/moral stances?

    • Roy Mac

      Most of them INSIST on it–look at their investment policies!

    • Anonymous

       As long as the “moral values” justify any path to increasing the bottom line.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    BP, TransOcean, and the other companies that contributed to the Deepwater Horizon killings, should only pay the victims, the amounts that they paid their top 3 tiers of executives, for the time the safety and laws were violated, to EACH victim!
        These people made concious decisions to cut corners and ignore safety concerns, for PROFIT?  They should have to give back ALL that didn’t generate profit from Deepwater Horizon!  Since DH went WAY in the red, the execs should pay out of their own assets!

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Massacre Energy execs, safety personnel,and supervisors that cut corners and safety, for ‘production’ PROFIT, should be locked in that mine, and required to meet ‘production’ rates that they demanded, with the SAME equipment!

    • aj

      Now that’s National News!

      Take notes Isaac.

    • aj

      Of course that report out of West Virginia, wont get even a mention in this week in review, not with that stiff David Gergen doing the color, maybe Tom will tee it up?

      How many were murdered by that aHole CEO of Massey energy?

      • Terry Tree Tree

        29, in ONE mine incident!  Execs got HIGH pay, to KILL?

        • aj

          “Execs got HIGH pay, to KILL?”

          It ain’t right, it just ain’t right.

      • aj

        A non-union mine Gregg!

        Which side are you on?
        Which side are you on?

        • Gregg

          I’m not sure I understand the question. I certainly don’t advocate mining accidents nor do I have a problem with private sector unions.

          • aj

            my mistake, I thought you were generally anti-union, do forgive.

            Catch anything yesterday?

          • Gregg

            6 lb Largemouth on the last cast under the moonlight.

          • aj

            Sweeeeet.

          • aj

            But to be clear, you would support ROBUST enforcement and additional REGULATions if needed, at both the federal and state level?

        • aj

          Come all of you good workersGood news to you I’ll tellOf how that good old unionHas come in here to dwell
          Which side are you on?Which side are you on?Which side are you on?Which side are you on?

          My daddy was a minerAnd I’m a miner’s sonAnd I’ll stick with the unionTill every battle’s won
          They say in Harlan CountyThere are no neutrals thereYou’ll either be a union manOr a thug for J.H. Blair
          Oh, workers can you stand it?Oh, tell me how you canWill you be a lousy scabOr will you be a man?
          Don’t scab for the bossesDon’t listen to their liesUs poor folks haven’t got a chanceUnless we organize

          • aj

            -Good Old Pete Seeger

  • Rex

    A win is a win and all that counts? Uh, no. They SPLIT the delegates.

  • Worried for the country(MA)

    George Will is still bitter that Romney didn’t hire his wife and she had to settle for Perry.

  • TFRX

    Olympia (Not Wingnut-Enough) Snowe to leave Senate the way she spent so much of her time in it: Voting in favor of a piece of far-right overreaching legislation while being hailed for her staunch third-way moderationism which we can all get behind because Washington is sooooo partisan.

    • TFRX

      Strike the above reference to Olympia Snowe. I mixed her up with Susan Collins, and not for the first time. (Probably all the proof one needs to show I’m not in Maine.)

      But, yes, let’s talk more about Reasonable Republicans who, when the chips are down, vote for overreaching far-right legislation while maintaining that precious Beltway Inbred reputation for being “not one of those nasty partisans”.

      She actually said “I have to vote for the Blunt amendment with the hope that its scope will
      be further narrowed and refined as the legislative process proceeds.”

  • Still Here

    Unions are a scourge on this country, especially public ones.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Executives that steal, lie, and bankrupt the company they are hired to ‘lead’, and get HUGE compensation for it, are an asset, in your world?
        Go work for one of them?

  • Tina

    To Someone posting as “Tina”,

    Hi, Tina!  I saw your post yesterday on the show about sugar.  I’ve never seen your postings before; altho that does not mean you are new to posting.  I’ve been posting with the name Tina for years now.  If you are new to posting here with the name Tina, would you mind changing your posting name?  I don’t know how to even know if you’ll see this, as I’m writing a day after the show aired (show aired  Thursday, March 1), so I may just post this everyday until we get to write and reply to one another.  I’ll post this today, Friday, but I’m guessing that there will be way too many posts to find each other, as I have to use Edit/Find for every “web page” of each show — a long process.  Therefore, I might not find you until a show airs with around 100 people commenting, not more. Thanks very much!  

    • Yar

      Tina, or
      Moontide96
       if your register with Disqus you establish an ID based on your email address.  Then someone can’t spoof your identity.  Tina is a pretty common name.

  • Michiganjf

    Yes Mr. Gergan,

       that’s just what we need… four more years of Republican obstructionism while president Obama tries to fix the Republican mess in America!

    HOW ABOUT, instead of Republicans holding the House and trying for the Senate, Americans act on what they’ve seen the last 3 years and DUMP Republicans altogether, giving the House back to Dems and gving Dems a SOLID, filibuster-proof (and I mean REAL filibuster-proof) majority!

    … then maybe we’ll finally see some serious progress in bringing unemployment back down to 5% or so, and Republicans blocking everything just to score political points with their EXTREME base can come to an end!

    • Jasoturner

      Republicans are not just trying to score political points.  In preventing progress, they can argue that seemingly obvious things, such as Keynesian economics, do not work, thereby allowing them to dupe voters into buying into their ideological voodoo.  It is an attempt to trash reality so that their fantasies can be sold as false alternatives that will “fix” the mess.  It is sinister and shameful, quite honestly.

      • Michiganjf

        Good point!

      • Worried for the country(MA)

         Yup, their preventing progress like the Keystone pipeline from being built.

        • Jasoturner

          Man has built pipelines (or their antecedents) for centuries.  One might more plausibly argue that sensitivity to the fragility of the environment represent substantive progress.  But the equation Pipline = Progress is completely unconvincing on it’s face.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          TransCanada needs another pipeline to sell oil to China?

          • Anonymous

             By sending it to refineries in Texas and Oklahoma and Louisiana, it can be refined the most cheaply anywhere in the world at the cost of raising the price of natural gas otherwise available for industry fleets (buses, trucks) and home heating. See my comment above.

        • Anonymous

           The pipeline that should be built is a natural gas pipeline from Alaska so that the gas coming from the oil wells there would no longer just be “flared off” resulting in increased CO2 for no benefit. It would also help reduce the need for “fracking” in New York and Pennsylvania until better information on the risks of fracking in those states (and others) could be developed.

          But the cheap “fracked” natural gas is what allows the oil companies to “crack” the oil into gasoline, naphtha, diesel, jet fuel, etc. cheaply by burning that rather than the more expensive oil. It is what makes U.S. refined oil products the cheapest in the world and why the EXPORT of those products (notably gasoline) exceeded imports for the first time in DECADES. It is also why gasoline costs have been going up by the reduction of supply (what otherwise would have been for sale within the U.S. is now being sold for more outside the U.S.

          Don’t you just love CAPITALISM? How does that sit with those who claim drilling here will reduce gas prices HERE?

      • Anonymous

         Regardless of what anyone thinks of the Bush administrations 700 billion dollar bailout of Wall St., it was nothing if not a vivid example of Keynesian philosophy at work. Some even believe it walked us back from the precipice. Tsk, tsk. What a horrible example for a Republican administration to set.

        • Newton Whale

          No thanks to the House Republicans:

          It was, according to accounts filtering out of the White House, an extraordinary scene. Hank Paulson, the US treasury secretary and a man with a personal fortune estimated at $700m (£380m), had got down on one knee before the most powerful woman in Congress, Nancy Pelosi, and begged her to save his plan to rescue Wall Street.
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g2gdYhjlsM&feature=relmfu 
          Please don’t blow up this deal, Paulson pleaded. Pelosi tried to keep it light. “It’s not me blowing this up. It’s the Republicans,” she told him. Paulson sighed. “I know,” he said.
          “This sucker could go down,” Bush is said to have told the group – referring to the teetering US economy.
          http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/27/wallstreet.useconomy1 

        • Anonymous

           But it was for their class, the 1%; no such action for the 99%. The big thing is that there were no strings on a return to lending that would have helped speed the recovery.

    • Worried for the country(MA)

       We tried that for Obama’s first 2 years and it was a disaster.

      • denis

        except that is not true… there never was a filbuster proof majority in the senate as there was leiberman and nelson just to name two that were not in support of the policies the voters voted for.

  • Anonymous

    So Romney’s defense to the latest flipflop is that he didn’t understand the question?  He was clueless to an issue that dominated the news for weeks? 

    • Anonymous

       It doesn’t matter what Romney understands. As soon as public opinion changes, so will his.

  • TFRX

    To David Gergen: Can you differentiate between “The Catholic Church” and church-run schools and hospitals which compete in the marketplace against non-church schools and hospitals?

    Why do right-wingers or Beltway Inbreds always seem to want to gloss over this distinction? My tax dollars know the difference.

  • Ed

    Wait until they require that the health insurance not cover certain cancer drugs, or include other things – they chose contraception because it’s popular.

  • Scott B, Jamestown NY

    So tired of the albino suasage fest that is the Right wanting smaller government except when it comes to women’s health and control over their bodies, the poor needing social services, and giving bigger tax breaks to the alleged “job creators”.  

    • Gregg

      Not requiring employers to provide certain insurance IS “smaller government”.

      • Scott B, Jamestown NY

        So we can keep the formert sattus quo of spiraling heath care and social costs from paying for the results of the uninsured? ER visits, the parents and kids that end up on social services, courts…  It’s not just one thing that gets effected, it goes through society and government.  

        • Gregg

          I didn’t say that but Obamacare sure isn’t the answer.

          • Ray in VT

            There are certainly advocates for single payer.  Some of them up here are from the business community who get undercut by Canadian companies.  I few years back my companies top business guy figured that it was save the company several thousand per employee per year.

  • Pittsburgh

    What David Gergan about Romney “deserving the benefit of the doubt,” and that Romney has been pretty consistent on “non-interference” with birth control, makes NO sense.  Particularly when he turns around and says that Romney supports the Blunt Amendment.  What is the Blunt amendment but an interference in access to contraception?  Gergan’s response was just as convoluted and disingenuous as Romney’s.  Birds of a feather….

    • Worried for the country(MA)

       You need to educate yourself on the Blunt amendment.  It sounds like you don’t understand it.

  • Bamallama

    Re Romney’s supposed flip-flop on contraception, he’s actually consistent in trying to have it both ways: brushing off “government interference” when asked about it during a debate, for instance, but also eagerly endorsing the zygote=personhood amendement rrejected by voters of Mississippi .

  • Still Here

    Who are these Democrat ladies fooling, they don’t need contraception anyway!

    • ebw343

      Classy.

    • Anonymous

      Ahh yes, the mind of an 8 year old.

  • Anonymous

    Thank you caller for finally showing the other side of the argument concerning insurance covering viagra! 

  • Laurie

    I have a moral objection to my taxes paying for the salaries and health care of Republican legislators. Do I get to opt out?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

    It’s time to dust off our copies of “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Sadly it’s becoming highly relevant in terms of the direction our country is going.

    • margbi

      I re-read it every year. I remember Margaret Atwood, the author,  saying that readers in Europe said it was an interesting story, while in the U.S. the response was “how long do we have?”

      Ladies, maybe it’s time for the Lyistrata option.

    • kelty

      It is frightening how eerily similar things are to the descriptions in the “Tale” – getting women under their control again is the ultimate goal here

  • Anonymous

    Republicans also use birth control…
    Who knew?

    • Anonymous

      I wish more of their parents did.

      • Anonymous

         I love your one liners.

    • Gregg

      Why would you think they don’t?

      • Anonymous

        I was joking. 

  • Scott B, Jamestown NY

    Make the doctors that have to perform the sonogram have to have be catherized during the the proceedure.

  • Tina

    I’ll be really explicit:  in the mid-1970′s, I moved to a different  state where I was astounded.  I had an IUD which gave me excruciating pain — like a cannon ball had been shot thru me. The first THREE OB-GYN doctors I went to refused to remove it for me, because … I was unmarried!  

    Is that enough said about even more crusading we might see if we go down this one path?

  • ebw343

    It seems to me that Republicans believe employer-sponsored health insurance is something between a gift and a welfare benefit; while Democrats think it’s part of the compensation package you earn at your job, as much yours and not your boss’s as your paycheck itself. 

  • Terry Tree Tree

    HYPOCRICY IS RAMPANT!!   Viagra is covered, but contraceptives are NOT.  Contraceptives can be used to make physical health better, in other ways!
       Viagra does NOTHING for the religious stance!
        If God says you can’t get it up, why defy God?
        Priests NEED Viagra, to Molest MORE children?

    • Ray in VT

      I agree that contraceptives can have other beneficial uses for some women who have other types of medical conditions.  So what about the use of those drugs for non-contraceptive use?  That’s a real bind for women in such a position.

      • Gregg

        So can aspirin.

        • Ray in VT

          Is that a reference to Foster Frieze’s joke?

          • Gregg

             Guilty.

          • Ray in VT

            I thought that it might be.  If you were some other posters than I would have just assumed that you were being a jerk, but I know that that isn’t you’re m.o.

          • Gregg

            Just a chuckle, nothing more.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Asprin works FAR better for headaches than the Republican use for contraception?

  • Guest

    The government in many cases uses “my” tax dollars for causes I do not personally support.
    Why is birth-control always given special treatment on this subject?

  • Pittsburgh

    Seriously? Gergan comparing the Republican Party of 1972 to the current monstrosity that IS the Republican Party.  Why not pretend they are still being led by Abraham Lincoln?  Nice try.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      One fantasy is as good as any?
          Republicans haven’t tried this yet?  Lincoln’s clone?

  • Patricia MacLeish

    David Gergen should know better. The word is suffragist not suffragette.

  • Matthew in Nashville

    Point of clarification: The Catholic church’s problem with contraception is not related to preventing pre-marital sex. Its based on a biblical proscription against contraception. They dont want married people to have contraception either so the marital status of viagra using men is a less than perfect comparison.

    That said they are supposedly against pre-marital sex as well, so the Blunt bill could have let them get into that area as well.

    • Ray in VT

      I think that your last point is what worrying many critics of the Blunt bill.  Could a Catholic institution, or any other similarly opposed employer, refuse to cover pre-natal care for a child conceived out of wedlock or some other such thing.  As much as I generally dislike the slippery slope argument, that is essentially that one that is being made.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Viagra is interfering with God!  More religious HYPOCRICY?   Men controlling women?

  • Scott B, Jamestown NY

    I’m disappointed with Snow, et al, that quit saying they’re disgusted with the polarization, so they leave so an even more polarized person can replace them.

  • Peggy

    The contraception debate should not just be framed as an issue of women’s health.  It is an issue of family health.  Not only do men benefit from women’s use of contraception for family planning and other medical reasons, some Catholic religious organizations and hospitals also do not cover vasectomies.  This never seems to be part of the coversation

  • Barbara

    Re: requiring that insurance cover contraceptives: Why does no one mention that there is a clear alternative to this dilemma: single payer medical insurance, rather than employer-provided coverage?

  • Anonymous

    Obama passed a Republican approach to health care.  He wasted far too much time and political capital trying to be bipartizan.

    • Gregg

      Dude, it was the most partisan bill of consequence in history. Not a single Republican voted for it. It went as far as Democrats would allow and even then it took “The Louisiana Purchase”, the “Cornhusker kickback” and a meaningless signing statement to Stupek and his crew. Democrats own it.

      • ebw343

        He said TRYING to be bipartisan. You need to put the blame squarely on the Republicans for voting against their own ideas to deny the President a win.

        • Gregg

          He didn’t try to be bipartisan at all. He rammed it through.

          • mary elizabeth

            Tell us again what kind of reform did the Repubs want?  They had eight years under President Bush and did nothing re: our runaway cost system that left millions out.
            Again, what was their plan?

          • Gregg

            To reform Medicare (aka “throw grandma off a cliff”). 

          • Anonymous

            At the end when he realized trying to compromise was futile.

          • Gregg

            He wouldn’t even let them in the room.

          • Gregg
          • denis

            Once again you are throwing out republican / fox
            talking points with no actual supporting documentation…like Ron Paul I must
            give you credit for being constant, and again like Ron Paul, even if you spout
            fantasy fairy tale stories.

          • Gregg

            I don’t know what universe you live in.

      • northeaster17

        No Republicans voted for this bill for two reasons.
        They were playing to the Teapartiers who were against any change in our health system and they were doing all they could to scuttle any thing Obama wanted to accomplish. The fact that a single payer option was not even discussed by the administration show’s how far he went over to the Republican side as an initial compromise.

        • Gregg

          If democrats supported single payer then we would have it.

          • northeaster17

            That is also true.

          • aj

            Obama and the Democrats are such phonies and rotten to the core, that we didn’t even get a lousy public option. 

            And don’t forget, we only needed 51 votes for it in the end, because they used the budget reconciliation process to get around Republicans fillibuster.

            I think it was commenter nj_v2 who called it “No Insurance Company Left Behind ” on a post earlier this week.  That summed it quite nicely, I thought.

          • aj

            I like “No Insurance Company Left Behind” better than “Obamacare”

          • Ray in VT

            Bernie Sanders tried to bring it up, and with the clock ticking against getting a health care bill, the GOP used a proceedural measure to compel that Bernie’s measure be read in full to the Senate.

            I would like to see single payer put to an up or down vote if for no other reason than to see what the vote would be and who would vote for it.

          • Gregg

            Somebody should have read something.

          • TFRX

            Now, Ray, you know that we won’t hear the chant UpOrDownVote until the White House’s occupant is no longer a Democrat.

            Then the Filibuster will become, per all our media, the worst thing evah!

          • denis

            And where did you get this info from?

            Did God speak to you?

          • Gregg

            Because he had all the Democrat’s votes and it was enough. It passed without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate. If Democrats supported single payer we would have it.

  • Lisa – Iowa

    This whole issue just highlights yet another reason why we need a national single-payer health system.  Let the government define a certain basic level of health services for which everyone should have coverage and administer it.  Stop allowing employers to choose what their employees can have, and make sure everyone has access regardless of employment status.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      RIGHT ON!!

    • aj

      YEAH! And we want dental coverage too!!

  • TFRX

    Jack Beatty comes through again: Funny how those facts (partisanship since 1975) sound like they have a well known liberal bias.

    Tom, the media crit in me can’t say loudly enough that this “both sides do it” meme about partisanship has entirely to do with the press.

    Remember the mainstream media’s ground rules: Republicans get to be as partisan as they want, and only when Democrats start taking their own side in a fight does our media start fretting about “excessive partisanship” and hurt fee-fees.

  • Eugene

    It is not a question of Religious freedom it is a question of religious conduct.  Religious freedom is absolute.  You can believe what ever you want.  Religious conduct is subject to the rule of law.  You can’t have two wives (Reynolds v US) You can’t use peyote in a religious ceremony (Employment division v Smith)…

  • JAMESDTHOMPSON

    I went from a conservative to center GOP voter who literally was “on the bus” with Ronald Reagan is his 1976 ans 1980s campaign to almost never voting Republican(except for Bill Weld when I lived in Massachusetts).  Part of the reason was when folks like David Gergen and Senator Cohen were labeled traitors-and John Huntsman since-for working for a President of the opposite party.  Traitors?  Hello, we are all Americans and should be delighted to serve our President.  What has disturbed me even more is this very radical shift rightward and the absolute meanness and insanity of the new teabag group. Questioning President Obama’s birth place, his religion, his loyalty…I know politics can be hot and heavy, but this goes far beyond anything I can stand.  Now we have the GOP in the Seante talking about contraceptives and “moral objections”…Jesse Helms must be smiling and Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and Jack Kemp must be rolling over.

    • Anonymous

       Bravo. If today’s Republicans were to witness Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill actually working together in order to get something done, they’d label their patron saint a traitor and a sellout.

    • John in Amherst

      Recently spotted this bumper sticker:  “Tea Party’ sounds so much nicer than “mob of racists and homophobes”

    • Anonymous

       The best comment made in three months.

    • Gregg

      I don’t agree with your characterization but I won’t quibble because you reminded me (by the names you cited) of one of my favorite Senate moments. Do you remember when Democrats demanded a hearing on William Weld’s nomination for Ambassador to Mexico? Jesse Helms was awesome! I even disagreed with his reasoning but he was great with the gavel. I wonder if it’s on YouTube.

  • Newton Whale

    David Gergen is blowing smoke by blaming Democrats for Olympia Snowe’s supposed disappointment over the inability to get a “bi-partisan” health care bill.

    Obama adopted Romney’s plan. The individual mandates were supported by Republicans until Obama adopted them.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/a-lot-of-republicans-supported-the-individual-mandate/2011/05/09/AFi26Z0G_blog.html 

    Republicans moved the goal posts because they would rather deny Obama a win than enact legislation they had previously supported. That includes Snowe.

    Gergen knows this and is perpetuating the problem by failing to hold Republicans accountable.

    • TFRX

      Did David Gergen just say “President Obama brought the GOP’s reaction on because Obama didn’t phrase and parse something the best way immediately out of the gate”?

      Exactly when did the “grown ups” in the GOP not collapse on the fainting couch over anything President Obama says or does? Where has Gergen been since summer 2008?

    • mary elizabeth

      I was disturbed by Gergen’s comment also. Notice he said tht he had spoken with Snowe in private.  It does seem that Ms. Snowe is not afraid to make her full views known and would have done so publically.

    • Worried for the country(MA)

       LOL  You quote Ezra Klein on GOP doctrine? 

      The GOP NEVER would have supported the 2700 page Obamacare disaster.  However, you are correct that they went back and read the constitution and they don’t believe this is the purview of the Federal government.  You will see a trend of pushing responsibilities back to the states.

      • Ray in VT

        I would be inclined to welcome that on some fronts.  Many “red states” take way more from the Federal government than they pay in, while the reverse is true for California, New York and Massachusetts especially.  So, with some of these things that Fed money supports at the state level, I say let the poorer states fend for themselves.  You’ll be better off in Mass. for it.

        • TFRX

          B-b-b-b-but they still get the money, right? I mean, these states (and thanks, too, our “librul media”) have pretty much figured out that nothing they walk away from the Fed gummint with will make them anything less than “self reliant”, “small government”, and “fiscally responsible”.

          Nothing they do will get them described in the press as they are. Sweet, sweet gig.

      • Newton Whale

        So you refuse to believe Ezra Klein when he says the individual mandate was a Republican idea? You figure he’s just making it up? 

        Read it and weep:

        Mitt Romney, as we know, has been catching a lot of flak from conservatives for Romneycare, because Romney’s signature legislative achievement served as the model for Obamacare. But as Romney said in a debate in Las Vegas last October, “we got the idea of an individual mandate…from [Newt Gingrich], and [Newt] got it from the Heritage Foundation.”  

        In 1992 and 1993, some Republicans in Congress, seeking an alternative to Hillarycare, used these ideas as a foundation for their own health-reform proposals. One such bill, the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993, or HEART, was introduced in the Senate by John Chafee (R., R.I.) and co-sponsored by 19 other Senate Republicans, including Christopher Bond, Bob Dole, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, and Arlen Specter. Given that there were 43 Republicans in the Senate of the 103rd Congress, these 20 comprised nearly half of the Republican Senate Caucus at that time. The HEART Act proposed health insurance vouchers for low-income individuals, along with an individual mandate.Newt Gingrich, who was House Minority Leader in 1993, was also in favor of an individual mandate in those days. Gingrich continued to support a federal individual mandate as recently as May of last year.
        http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/02/07/the-tortuous-conservative-history-of-the-individual-mandate/ 

        Gingrich:“The individual mandate requires those who earn enough to afford insurance to purchase coverage, and subsidies will be made available to those individuals who cannot afford insurance on their own. We agree strongly with this principle.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/12/26/gingrich-in-2006-romneycare-is-exciting-and-has-tremendous-potential/ 

        • Anonymous

          At some point in his or her career, every politician has had to backtrack and put spin on some earlier statement. In other words, lie. But I don’t believe I have ever seen a group so unmasked by their own public statements as this bunch. It’s amazing how drastically one’s views can change when one decides to run for president. And it’s equally amazing to see how willing people are to forget about those statements.

    • Fredlinskip

       Ever since I saw Gergen interviewed on PBS just before 2000 election saying essentially, ” there’s little difference between the 2 candidates (Bush & Gorr), so it doesn’t matter who you vote for”, I lost my respect completely for the man.
      He couldn’t possibly have been more wrong.

      • Gregg

        At that time there was very little difference between Gore and Lieberman but there is now. One of them changed. I’m not arguing your point though.

      • TFRX

        Yep. If we ever need a man to give us what everyone else in the Beltway is thinking, we know who to get.

        And those types are so underrepresented on public radio.

    • Gregg

      The individual mandate was despised by Obama until he was elected.

  • Katie

    We often hear about the horrors of women having no rights in countries like Afghanistan, etc., We also hear so much about religious extremism in these countries as well, yet we have folks in the far right and in the Catholic Church trying to take us in the exact same direction here. Religious freedom is important, but not at the expense of everyone else’s rights

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Catholics want priests to have ALL the rights, and the VICTIMS, that they can?

  • Worried for the country(MA)

    I’m not sure if Breitbart is a Republican.  He  seems more of a Tea party guy.

    • TFRX

      You’re acting like there’s a difference.

    • Just_sayin

       Andrew Breitbart did a huge favor for everyone Anthony Weiner.

      As a news person, he broke a story both parties would bury until an election.

      As a Republican, he broke the story they would not have had if Democrats covered it up.

      As for Democrats, he played honest broker with news and did not hold the story until it was too late during an election.

      • Anonymous

        He wasn’t that honest with the Shirley Sherrod video.

        • Just_sayin

           oh, yeah i forgot

        • TFRX

          For once, a serial faker picked on the wrong target.

          Funny how all Breitbart’s shaky sourcing (to be kind) doesn’t really make headlines today. It’s all the hosannahs from the right wing.

      • JustSayin

         JustSayin that this copycat is NOT JustSayin.

  • Janice Stearns

    Maybe if we hadn’t gone all FUBAR in Iraq, we could help the Syrian people.  As for Afghanistan, as Senator George Aiken of Vermont said about Vietnam, Declare victory and bring ‘em home!
     

    • aj

      Well said. So true.

  • Jmmcmillin

    Arab leaders need to find their own conscience, if they want stability and the west out of their territory then they need to act on such issues. Americans are weary of playing the referee.

    • Steve

      The Middle East is more than just Arabs and Islam is not homogeneous

      • JMc

        The most power and influence that can stand against such actions in the region fall predominately under Arab leadership, i never assumed that Islam was only an arab belief and cannot see how you presume such a statement out of my comment.

    • Anonymous

       Please don’t try to blame middle eastern countries for America’s continual interference. That was our choice.

      • JMc

        I would love it if we stayed out of their issues, the problem is that we create justification through the lack of civility dictators show towards their own people, I do believe it is a trojan horse for us to spread our own interests because in the end the problems still remain and we have secured our true intentions of extracting resources.

        • Anonymous

           There’s nothing new under the sun. British failure in Afghanistan. Soviet failure in Afghanistan. Our own inevitable failure in Afghanistan, as anyone who believes we will have made any significant difference can only be delusional. Let’s not forget the fiasco of Viet Nam. Fifty eight thousand dead Americans. A few million dead Vietnamese. Will any leaders of this country ever learn that wanting to impose our will on another nation is not the same as actually doing it? Can none of them learn from history? Or, do they each believe that they’re the ones who will finally get it right?

          • JMc

            they do not read history, truth is a benign trait and does not support their actions. The question I have is how history is so easily forgotten by the majority of citizens, the ability to influence opinion behind baseless facts is shocking.

          • Anonymous

             If you’re waiting for average Americans to make an effort at informing themselves, get yourself a nice, comfy chair. It’ll be a looonnnggg wait.

          • JMc
          • Anonymous

             Dave Van Ronk. RIP.

          • Anonymous
          • Anonymous

            Don’t forget Cambodia, Laos and Thailand were all effected by the war in Viet Nam. We dropped more bombs on Cambodia than the US did in WW2.

          • aj

            That’s deep.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    From some analysts, Syria is a VERY complex situation, and most of the world leaders KNOW it will be FAR WORSE than Iraq?

  • JAMESDTHOMPSON

    Wher is the face book and twitter social media people demanding boycotts of Russian Vodka and good along with Chinese goods?  If they want to stand with the people of Syria then why are they not calling for a boycott of the Chinese and Russian economy?

    • Jasoturner

      Boycotting Russian Vodka…Is a road too far.

  • Dave Eger

    The problem with Romney is he has a shiny grin that looks like he’s trying too hard to be nice. Santorum’s smile makes him look like he just doesn’t quite get it yet. I don’t thint that either of them would make the right decision about continuing a campan of foreign wars. I hope President Obama shows us some “change” and ends it. I think that there are a lot of people on the right and left, and know there is a large percentage of the military, who agree with Ron Paul that it is time to end it diplomatically.

    I think Ron Paul doesn’t have a good chance to win the Republican nomination, but I do think that he could beat any of the other candidates if he runs as an independent.

    • Anonymous

       I think Romney’s smiling coach must have left the campaign long ago. He obviously wasn’t very good.

    • JustSayin

       Romney always looks constipated. Which is surprising with his ability to flip flop on everything. One would think upon hearing him speak, that he can reverse the digestive process as in a South Park episode.

  • Just_sayin

     

    As for Syria.

    Acknowledge that Syria is should be Turkey.  Syria is an artificial construct with the end of the Ottoman Empire.

    Without WWI agression from Europe and Germany, Syria would naturally be part of Turkey.

    There is no need for the continued existence of the Syrian government.

    If our NATO ally, Turkey, exerts its right to annex Syria, we should give them whatever they need.

    • Anonymous

      There’s a plan. And while we are at it why not give Iraq back to the Turks as well. Why stop there, lets bring back the entire Ottoman Empire. They did such a wonderful job.

      • Just_sayin

         There is a legitimate need for the Iraq government.

        There is no longer anything anyone can suggest about any particular suggestion that the government of Syria has a need or a claim to exist.

        • Anonymous

          I’m sure the Turkish government and people would not want to get involved in this hornets nest.
          Especially being that their economy is growing in leaps and bounds, so much so that a lot of Greeks are moving there for work.

          How about letting the Syrians work out what their future will be. Assad has to go, he’s the worst kind of despot.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Give the U.S. back to the Native Americans?

  • Thomas

    What is happening in Syria is awful and the U.S. is right to be bothered that Russia and China blocked the U.N. move to help.  And, the world is right to be similarly bothered by the U.S. blocking U.N. attempts to stop the aparthide policies in Israel/Palestine.

  • Sharon Carlisle

    I would welcome the voice of Tom Oliphant on your Friday news roundups.  Perhaps you he has joined you and I have missed him…

  • JMc

    the crisis in Iran is not escalating if you ask the intelligence officials, this is purely political and disgusting to see sow few decide the fate of so many based on ideology, those that will likely nor their sons and daughters step foot on the front lines of the destruction they create.

  • GradyLeeHoward

    Talk about a Shapeshifting Future of Films, On Point shifted to a re-run topic while the first our was in progress. Whahappun?

    • Patrik

      lol

    • Ray in VT

      I know.  I was really looking forward to that.  I guess that I’ll just listen to On The Media’s most recent show.

    • Gregg

      It was the oligarchy.

      • Anonymous

        I thought it was Obama’s fault.

        • Gregg

          Depends on who you ask. “Oligarchy” is Mr. Howard’s favorite word.

  • kelty

    All the recent Bills. Amendments, and Resolutions regarding womens’ health care and contreception coverage is about controlling women. By denying or preventing access to birth control, you control a woman’s life. Whether by limiting access through denying Insurance Plan coverage, reducing ability to pay by making it prohibitively expensive, or reducing/limiting/eliminating access to free or low-charge clinics or PP, they all move toward the same goal – controlling women’s reproductive choice. Do some research on all these types of bills & initiatives being put forward in so many States, not just NH. You’ll see how pervasive this effort has become across this country. People want to use their religion to force ALL women to adhere to THIER beliefs. They do not believe women should have any say or right to choose when, if, or how they have children and it ultimately comes down to trying to make women subserviant to men and back to the days of bringing shame & guilt on the woman, but letting men off the hook. Haven’t we moved past this way of thinking YET? Just imagine what these people would do if they controlled more of our government?

    • aj

      Enjoyed reading that.  ( Dont hate me but I’m still pro-life[except when mama's life is at risk], pro stem-cell though for now) I want a woman Prezident NOW!

      If you could have any woman be the POTUS; who would you pick?

      Me, I would pick Sheila Bair of FDIC.

  • Corinne, burned out M.D.

    I don’t understand why the contraception issue has become such a controversy.  Many people are referring to the debate as whether women should get contraceptives “for free”.  As far as I know, few if any people get their prescriptions or other health care services for “free”.  Patients who have employer-sponsored health plans are given access to those plans as a BENEFIT of their employment.  This money that goes to pay for their health insurance is part of their COMPENSATION.  It is the emplyee who owns the money that goes to their health plan.  It is up to the patient and his doctors to decide how the patient will use his or her benefits.  Whether a person uses the money she gets from her employer in the form of a paycheck to pay for contraceptives or whether she uses the money from her employer given directly to the health plan, the money is still hers.  The money flows from the employer to the health plan to the parmacy then to the drug manufacturer. 
         For decades employed people have had their health care choices dictated by the health plans  their employers feel they can afford.   The cheaper the plan, the less it covers.  Many patients are unable to afford care that is not covered by their insurance.  President Obama has tried to set a minimum level of care that all plans should cover.  Unfortunately some think that this is a bad idea.  Unless we can agree on a few basic requirements for all health plans, we will remain a country where patients in their 90′s will get open heart surgery and months of dialysis while the working poor go without any affordable care, and the CEO’s of the health care megacompanies walk home with millions and millions of dollars of their subcribers money.  We will remain in a system that pays physicians next to nothing for councelling people about quitting smoking, or helping people and families plan for end of life care, yet will pay much more for a physician to care for a patient with a heart attack, or care for an elderly terminally ill patient in the ICU for three weeks until modern technology can no longer continue to keep the heart beating.
        

    • Yar

      Well put, and I would add that the price for services outside of insurance are often much higher than the same service when provided through insurance.  Where else in our economy do you purchase a service and have so little input on what you are buying?  Individual health plans are a real crap shoot they are not directly comparable to group plans.  I would like to see the total value of each employer provided benefit show on the pay stub.  At least we would know how much we are paying.

    • Gregg

      Thank you Corinne. I couldn’t agree with you more… well, maybe a little. You wrote:” President Obama has tried to set a minimum level of care that all plans should cover.  Unfortunately some think that this is a bad idea”.

      Even here, I can’t disagree on the facts but I think it goes deeper than that so I could agree a little more. 

      I think PPACA was so undebated and unvetted (Remember the Pelosi quote) that it’s too fundamentally flawed to fix. Better to scrap it and start over to address the issues you raise.

      • aj

        I think Chief Justice Roberts is working on just that, as we type.

        • Gregg

          I saw something about Scalia being the fifth vote to uphold Obamacare. That’d be a kick.

    • aj

      That was great, really great article.  We need dental for poor people.

  • John in Amherst

    I have nothing but contempt for the GOP candidates and their minions’ rabid moralizing. Their apparent desire to turn America into a
    theocracy, with the president as hierophant-in-chief is not just wholly un-American, it is repugnant.
    How we view God, and our relationship to God, are parts of our private lives that,
    like our sexual choices, others in society have no business intruding
    upon. I am comfortable with making my own moral choices and being judged
    by god for them. THIS is the American way. It is bitterly ironic that many religious conservatives who decry the
    rise of the “liberal socialist nanny state” and hold personal
    responsibility a paramount virtue see no contradiction in imposing their
    sexual morals and religious beliefs & restrictions on women.  .
    I fail to
    understand how it is a violation of the Righteous Right’s religious
    freedom to deny them the ability to impose their moral standards on
    society at large. This troubling development is hardly unprecedented.
    Within a generation, the Pilgrims went from fleeing oppression and
    settling in Plymouth to inspiring refugees to escape Puritan morality
    and settle Rhode Island. When a faith relies on coercion for conversion,
    it has left religion behind and entered into politics of the darkest
    and most cynical kind. This is increasingly the GOP’s, and especially Santorum’s, home turf.

    • aj

      I saw the most interesting show on CSPAN2 booktv weekends, it was about Roger Williams of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation.

      It was extremely enlightening about early New England colonization and the civil war in England.  Roger Williams was an absolute lynch pin in understanding this period.

      Anne Hutchison’s story is also very interesting in this regard.

      The white man burned little Native babies alive, in the Pequot War too.

      • aj

        Gotta love good old whitey.

  • Ray in VT

    Regarding the untimely passing of Andrew Breitbart, my boss just brought this to my attention:

    http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/michael-savage-was-breitbart-assassinated/

    I figured that someone would be suggesting that he was assassinated.

    • Anonymous

      Michael Savage? One cannot take anything that man says seriously.

      • Still Here

        Look who’s talking.

  • Ed

    The issue is really much simpler: should a religious organization be forcedd to pay for things that are against their beliefs? Or should they get a conscience exemption? (It’s not about imposing beliefs, etc., etc.)

    • JustSayin

       Yeah, everybody is a moral and conscientious whiner now. If everybody gets to pick and choose their own version of Rule of Law based on their personal sensitivities, then we have Dave’s libertarian chaos.

      If everyone gets to play by their own rules, then the USA spirals into Somalia’s version of do what you have the force to do..

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Catholics already have a ‘religious exemption’ to molest and abuse children?  Explain how they don’t?

    • Zero

       It’s not about religion, it is about business.  If the Catholic Church doesn’t want to follow the rules that every other business has to follow, perhaps the Catholic Church should get out of businesses.  If anything, the Catholic Church is trying to get undo advantages.

  • LA

    I think the US should get out of Afghanistan as quick as possible, in fact now.  I don’t believe the US can help pacify Afghanistan, which is the reason why we should not continue to spill American blood in that nation.  Take out the men and women now and replace them with drones.  The drones can watch out for people who might planning to hurt America and its interests around the world.  

    • aj

      Is there any publically traded drone companies listed on the Nasdaq?

  • Gdbknyc

    All these wars are dragging down our economy, and making the middle east hate us more. We need to concentrate on solving the problems of the U.S.

    http://gooddesign-bknyc.blogspot.com/view/magazine

  • aj

    How bout those tornadoes tearing up the Ohio river.  They just took out a little village in south Iniana, yikes.

  • aj

    Eastern Kentucky and Tennesee on HIGH-ALERT Tornado watch.

  • TomK in Boston

    It is disappointing that Willard Romney is considered presidential material based on his “business experience”. 

    Willard was a Leveraged Buy Out (LBO) gamer. The game is to put the minimum $ down to buy a company, then borrow every penny that the company can borrow to pay back your loans and pay yourself huge fees and “dividends”. Unlike real business or venture capital where risk taking is legitimately rewarded, there’s no risk, since the target company pays you such enormous fees that you make a big profit even if you drive it into bankruptcy.

    The goal is to sell the victim company in 3 yrs or so. The defenders of the LBO scam will tell you that it’s therefore in the interests of the LBO artist that the company do well, so it’s just happy capitalism. However, it’s SO much easier to fire workers, close stores, and decrease quality before the customers notice, skimming off the higher profits to you and your investors, sell the company for whatever you can get, and walk away in triumph. If thousands of jobs are lost and a once good business destroyed, the LBO king doesn’t care. Besides, companies staggering under the debt loads that they get in an LBO aren’t likely to do well, anyway.

    So, that’s Willard’s game. I would think that, after experiencing a horrendous financial crash brought about by financial manipulation and scheming, his experience in financial gaming would be an absolute disqualification for the presidency.

    Wake up, people. This guy is not a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Henry Ford. 

    • Worried for the country(MA)

       Desperate!

      • TomK in Boston

        By the way, Willard and Bane get credit for the idea of getting all their $ from the victim’s debt right away, and not counting on what they got from selling the company. So, I’ve been wrong to say his only accomplishment was Obamacare. 

        He’s a poster boy for everything that is wrong with the far right version of capitalism.

        • aj

          How can anyone deny this?  You’ve really pegged him.   

          • aj

            Do you know he gave EACH of his five sons a $20,000,000 trust fund.  Put that in a bunch of CD’s at 5%, and your making 2mil a year in interest!!!!

            I’m so jealous.   

          • Gregg

            Envy is the only deadly sin that does not give pleasure. Life’s too short.

          • TFRX

            It’s not envy.

            It’s about some rich guy like Mitt whining that the tax rates which his wealth was made under, and underwrote the society which keeps him from having to go around in armored limosines every day of his life, will make him poor if they are maintained.

            And the (literally) poor jerks who are hoodwinked into thinking that Mitt’s “excessive” tax rates are their problem too.

          • Gregg
  • Gregg

    GM alts production of the Volt and lays off 1300 while Obama compares himself to Gandhi and Mandela. This is working well.

  • Gregg

    5 Pennsylvania coal plants are closing because of Obama’s new regulations. He said he’d put them out of business and he’s making good. Heck of an energy/jobs policy.

    PA just turned red.

  • Anonymous

    Hasn’t it been sweet, not having to maneuver our way around the inane bleatings of the idiot today. Unfortunately, I fear he’ll be with us any moment. Light bulbs, vouchers, Hitler, destruction of the black family. Blah, blah, blah.

  • Shelley

    I would like to comment about the issue of mandated contraception coverage. It is difficult to believe that this is being heralded as a woman’s issue. I’ve only ever heard of one case of immaculate conception, and women aren’t impregnating other women, so that only leaves the obvious, that men are part of the equation.

    May I suggest that women in the United States boycott sex just like the bus boycotts: if African Americans could walk miles to work, all women can abstain from sex until our voices are heard. Let’s see how the politicians vote after a month or two of women taking matters into their own hands.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      What about us guys that have already taken care of contraception?

      • TFRX

        Any guy’s sister or daughter may not wish to trust to luck about that when it comes to any random male who makes such claims.

        (I’m not saying this about you personally, T.)

        • Terry Tree Tree

          I’m very aware of this.

    • Gregg

      Why should gays who don’t need contraception be forced pay for other’s contraception? Isn’t it a violation of their civil rights?

      • Zero

         “violation of their civil rights?”…huh? 

        Two consenting adults having the same rights as two other consenting adults is a civil right.  Paying a tax to help society is called society. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/isafakir Isa Kocher

    the health reform bill was written 100% by republicans and the bill that was passed was a complete capitulation of the left to the right so it is an insult to democrats to say the refused to be bipartisan. your commentator is lying. or just doesn’t care what the truth is. not challenging that lie is insulting to the rest of us. not one progressive liberal proposal was even considered. never got to the house floor. only berney sanders forced a vote in the senate on one progressive proposal.

    • Gregg

      Then the questions are simple: If that’s true then why didn’t a single Republican vote for it? And if Republican votes weren’t needed (they weren’t), why isn’t the result Democrat nirvana?

      • TomK in Boston

        Isa is correct. National Romneycare is straight out of the “American Enterprise Institute”. They thought up the dreaded “mandate” when they were afraid that the Clintons were going to let poor people get over on them with a freebie.

        Republicans didn’t vote for it because all they care about is hurting the President.

        Why would there be a nirvana? Obama is the last surviving old style moderate republican. He talks the liberal talk sometimes, but he doesn’t walk the walk.  He’s happy with AEI Romneycare. 

        • aj

          I so agree with you and Isa.  I thought I was crazy or something.  I would post comments similar to this, and I would get all sorts of nasty insulting replies, like I was stupid or something, from Obama loyalists.

          I’m glad its not just me who picks up on this.  To be fair to Gregg’s side, I think we should call Obama ” the last surviving old style liberal republican” but nonetheless.

          What was the moment when you knew Obama was a virtual republican TomK?

          For me, it was after the election and before the inaugruation when he chose Larry Summers as his econ guy, that ended it for me :(  

          How would you describe Bill Clinton? I want to get a description from both Gregg and TomK so I can compare.

          • Gregg

            What is more radical left that Obama’s vote on infanticide while he was a state Senator?

          • aj

            That IS disturbing, very.  I guess your correct in that this would be considered radical left.

            In essence it’s seems more a vote of pure partisan as opposed to ideological in nature.  The political nature of vested interests within the party as opposed to left side of the political spectrum.

            But that just might be my bias, because I would give a disproportionate emphasis upon political economics and financial welfare vis a vis more “social issues.”

            Though, I don’t know enough about the “infanticide”.  Meaning if the premature infant is so marred from the initial abort procedure, taht the most humane thing is to in effect, for lack of a better word Murder the babe.

            But that is why I am pro-life staunchly to begin with.  Except for mama’s health, rape, or inscest.  So does that make me Republican or conservative.  I voted for Nader, how could I be a conservative.  Iguess I think abortion is not right/left liberal/conservative but instead more moral/immoral.

            Henceforth my disproportionate bias on economics.

            Though in a political campaign context, your point is a good distinction of Obama within the Republican Party proper, and as defendant I can only plea no contest.

            Obama is a “conservative economic corporate Democrat who sees fit to X-out angelfaced newborns” :(

             

          • Gregg

            Well, I disagree but will elaborate up top where there is room.

            I do appreciate your penchant for honest debate. The thing about the bill is he was the single yes vote.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Most conservatives say NO abortion, whether the health of the mother is in jeopardy, or what!

          • TomK in Boston

            aj, as you say, keeping the clinton/bush wall st gang in all the key financial positions was a giveaway, as was floating the “public option” and then quickly folding without a fight….which has become a pattern.

            I think BHO and WJC are pretty similar. They have some liberal leanings, but when it’s crunch time they go with voodoo econ. I think they drank the “tax cuts ‘n deregulation” kool aid, ignoring the facts that clearly shows voodoo does nothing but transfer wealth to the top.

          • Gregg

            I would put Clinton closer to Bush than Obama on the ideology scale. I would also posit there is more room to the right of Bush/Clinton than there is to the left of Obama.

          • Zero

             I don’t know–what would be the reaction if Obama had implemented NAFTA?

        • Zero

          I’m pretty sure republicans voted against it because Obamacare has an unending surtax on the richest 400 Americans to pay for the bulk of it.  You know, deny 50 million people health care to protect 400 people, whose incomes start at $200 million, from a tax hike of around 10% if I remember correctly.

          And by the way, CBS reported that 244 of the 400 have already donated to Obama.  The report came out last summer.  Pretty interesting, huh? 

        • Gregg

          I don’t argue the Romney care thing, that will probably doom him in the end.

          AEI didn’t come up with the mandate, Hillary made the mandate part of her plan and Obama raked her over the coals for it. I don’t understand the “freebie” comment. Hilary didn’t come up with the mandate either, the notion has been around.

          Maybe “nirvana” isn’t the right word but the bill contained everything the Democrats would allow. Republicans were helpless to stop it.

          • TomK in Boston

            Hillary was involved long before BHO came on the scene, when WJC gave her a lead role in his attempt at health care and the right attacked it as “Hillarycare”. That’s when the AEI came up with the mandate, framed as taking personal responsibility. You know, the right wants average citizens to act responsibly, although it doesn’t apply to the oligarchs.
            RE the freebie, I’ll let Willard explain. Please let me know if you still don’t get it:First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages “free riders” to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.
            —USA Today, 2009. 

            I hope that helps. I’m really looking forward to watching Willard attacking “Obamacare” in the general election. Is it possible tor a persons arguments to get so twisted that he actually bursts into flame?

          • Gregg

            You make a good point about the way the mandate sounds like it’s more about personal responsibility. I think that’s what got Newt. Romney make a different argument rooted in the 10th amendment.

            I still don’t get the freebie. During the campaign when Obama was against the mandate, Romneycare was not a factor.

            Watch this, it’s short:

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AOJBiklP1Q

          • TomK in Boston

            Good video, it’s nice to be reminded of the liberal Obama I thought I was voting before. That’s the version of BHO who was going to give us national health care.

            Regardless of pol’s shifting positions, the mandate is all about not letting those who could pay but will not do so get a freebie. I think it’s a good idea, but national health care is a much simpler and better idea.

            I think Hillarycare did not have an individual mandate but by the time she ran against BHO she had adopted it.

  • aj

    Ha Ha Rush Limbaugh doesn’t know how the pill works.  4 wives and you of thought he picked up a little intel on the opposite sex.  What an overpaid doofus.

    • TomK in Boston

      With the cardio system that obese rageaholic must have, he’s probably not up to collecting much “intel”.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Rush was caught trying to smuggle Viagra into the U.S., from Canada. 
           My guess, is he was telling the truth about it being for a friend.  What woman, with ANY self-respect would have anything to do with him?
           Wonder how much ‘gag-order’ came with divorce from Rush, for four ex-wives?
           Unless he’s a Catholic priest?  Viagra to use on boys?

    • Hidan

      Yet the media felt the need to play Rush L sexist remark all day long. Some on NPR ask if this would effect sponsors but than went on to say “that’s what he does”and of course the media is more than willing to help. 

      • TFRX

        NPR: Nice Polite Republicans.

  • Joan

    Tom,

    I found it very troubling to hear your panel accepting the fraudulent arguments by the Zionist apologists that Might
    is Right in Syrian…

    This is old propaganda pretext (Humanitarian Crisis )to
    justify the unjustifiable use of military force….

    We have all seen the lawlessness in Libya on our TV screens
    by the West arming a counter-insurgency in Libya and heard about the horrendous human rights abuses that occurred as a result. Some were far worse than anything that seen under
    that country’s leader. .
    .
    In addition, to the shocking destruction of Libya’s civil infra-
    structure by the moral bombing campaign of Nato forces. 

    Today, Libya lies in ruins and its people are worse off than
    they were under Gaddahi.(This is documented in The Am-
    nesty Internationals Report.) 

    In addition,such Western pretexts negates Syrian leaders leg-itimates claims that their country was being infiltrated by the Western forces which continue to pull the trigger in Syria and
    place that civilian population at risk for bombardment. 

    Thus, your panel do a great disservice to the people they claim
    to want to help and to your listening audience….Joan 

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29234

    • Hidan

       It’s the U.S. media where talking about hear. Lucky for many the internet is making it harder for our Media to continue this but of course they still will. It’s sicking that so many in the press are so fearful of the Israeli lobby and mindlessly report what it’s dutifully told to. But some credit should be given to tom atleast he brings on some opposing views once in a great while.

      ‘This is not about some abstract concept,’ [Israeli Defense Minister Ehud] Barak said as he gazed out at the lights of Tel Aviv, ‘but a genuine concern. The Iranians are, after all, a nation whose leaders have set themselves a strategic goal of wiping Israel off the map’.” Note that we are told that Barak uttered this article-shaping blatant falsehood “as he gazed out at the lights of Tel Aviv.” So solemn, contemplative and profound.

      That’s the reward system in action. Goldberg twice assures everyone concerned that President Obama is “tougher” on Iran than even the Republicans were or are (Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter proudly re-tweeted Goldberg’s Toughness praise), and Goldberg then is granted “the most extensive interview [Obama] has given about the looming Iran crisis,” in which he again assures everyone that Obama Is Tough and Means Serious Business.

      Check out

      The incomplete media debate on Iran

      By Glenn Greenwald

      http://www.salon.com/2012/03/02/the_incomplete_media_debate_on_iran/singleton/

  • Joan

    I will look forward to the day when Israeli officials and AIPAC will be banned from the Whitehouse and Congress. (This will
    be demanded by the American public in the days ahead.) How dare the war monger Netanyahu come to the US and pressure Obama to join his call to strike Iran’s nuclear plants.(It figures, that shameful Zionist apologists Jeffrey Golberg would set the tone by interviewing Obama to force him into accepting Isrrael bogus claim that Iran is an existential threat.This is just more bullying to maintain its Top Gun status. (see URL below.) Anti-war groups have already petitioned him to decline US involvement in such war mongering… ) Iran has not threatened the US unless it is attacked. And if the Israelis are stupid enough to attack Iran sites –let them become history–not Americans. Joan Neocons would blow up the Middle East not the Mullahs http://politicalcorrection.org/fpmatters/201008160003Accusing Iran, Ignoring History , Tom Snider http://www.zcommunications.org/accusing-iran-ignoring-history-by-ted-snider

    • aj

      I certainly appreciate your timely contributions on this topic.  With the Goldberg(former Israeli soldier) interview today, the AIPAC speech by Obama Sunday,and Netanyahu lecture on Monday.  

      • aj

        The AIPAC speeches are the best, a real hoot to see the President of the most powerful nation in the history of the world, grovel to a couple hundred treasonous dual-nationals, and for what?

        Not to mention every member of congress, who has to show up to the AIPAC conference once a year like its Solomon’s Temple at passover.

        I mean, when you stop and think about it; what is actually taking place, its really kind of twisted in a way.

        How many standing applause’s did our shameless members of congress give Bibi, at the joint session.  It was only a few hours after he had finished bitch slapping the President in the oval office.

        And the press just goes along, like its how things are supposed to be,…hmm…I wonder why??

        Excuse me while I vomit.

        • Hidan

           gotta love how both the President and Congress dance around the sudden increase in the price of Gas.

          Both were told that sanctioning Iranian oil would raise prices and spectator would have a field day with it. Instead Republicans are running with the fake line that only if the XL pipeline was built prices would go down.(not like the Saudi would cut back to keep the price the same or that the oil still wouldn’t be sold to china). The White house is choosing to run with the Economy is getting better so prices are going up.(French on the verge of falling back and Europe still a mess)

          Check out the fair piece it’s priceless

          http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/02/21/bombing-iran-a-real-headache-for-israel/

          War would ensue the instant Iran responded to being bombed? This is not only bizarre wording, it ignores the low-intensity war that has been waged against Iran over the past few years, including explosions at nuclear facilities, the assassination of its scientists and the arming of insurgent groups in Iran’s border areas.

          • JayBoy3

            The West has got to stop playing these tribal games of protracted and no win warfare. The Western tradition is to seek a decisive confrontation and destroy it’s opposition totally, on the battle field. Not move in and become the local beat cop, then engage in endless tribal skirmishes. Really — nobody in America give a Fu*k about Iraq, and Afganistan, and Iran. If we aren’t gonna take anything for ourselves in the way of oil resources and the paying for the war the that neocon genius Rumsfeld promised us, just get the hell out, and if any more attacks are launched from their territories set off an EMP over their territory to destroy their electronics. If they persist drop a sensor fuzed weapon on their national armory sites. Stop trying to take up the stupidity were the British left off. We are not a colonial empire and do not want to be one. They all sucked.

      • Hidan

         You see this yet? Even Elizabeth Warren is jumping on the AIPAC Wagon. PEP she littally lifted her FP views from the Israeli Foreign Ministry website( You know the openly racist FM)

        Surprise– courageous Elizabeth Warren is craven on Israel lobby

        http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/surprise-courageous-elizabeth-warren-is-craven-on-israel-lobby.html
        http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/ten-reasons-why-the-israel-lobby-aipac-is-so-dangerous.html

        Ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous

        1. AIPAC is lobbying Congress to promote a military confrontation with Iran. AIPAC – like the Israeli government – is demanding that the U.S. attack Iran militarily to prevent Iran from having the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, even though U.S. officials say Iran isn’t trying to build a weapon (and even though Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons). AIPAC has successfully lobbied the U.S. government to adopt crippling economic sanctions on Iran, including trying to cut off Iran’s oil exports, despite the fact that these sanctions raise the price of gas and threaten the U.S. economy.

        …..

        • aj

          That is depressing. Good night.

  • Joan

    addendum

    Re jeffrey Goldberg and the neocons
    http://politicalcorrection.org/fpmatters/201008160003

  • Hidan

    War on Terror logic and the Saudis

    http://www.salon.com/2012/03/01/war_on_terror_logic/singleton/

    Speaking of the complete lack of connection between U.S. policy justified by Terrorism and actual Terrorism: after the White House this week insisted the U.S. must remain in Afghanistan in order to get Al Qaeda, Jake Tapper of ABC News inquired as to when it was that an Al Qaeda fighter was last killed in that country. White House spokesman Jay Carney did not know the answer, but The Nation looked into it and found out.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. in just the last three years alone — in the name of 9/11 and Terrorism — has dropped bombs on at least six Muslim countries whose governments had no connection whatsoever to 9/11 (often aimed at groups that did not even exist at the time of that attack). And now Washington is abuzz with exciting debates about the mechanics of how yet another country that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — Iran — should be aggressively attacked. As Jonathan Schwarz put it when the U.S. and the Saudis collaborated to depict the “Quds Forces plot” on U.S. soil as the latest proof of Persian aggression: “The funny thing is I’d bet the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. has closer ‘ties’ to Al Qaeda than 90% of the people we’ve killed with drones.” In sum, 9/11 has absolutely nothing to do with virtually all of the policies the U.S. has since undertaken in the name of Terrorism: except that it is exploited to justify them all.

  • Hidan

    I feel so much for this guy. Must be really tough on him

    http://www.npr.org/2012/03/02/147830367/defending-pain-on-wall-street

    New Yorker Andrew Schiff’s personal finances were his own personal business. That changed last Wednesday when Schiff — communications and marketing director at the Wall Street brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital — was featured in a Bloomberg article about how smaller bonuses are leaving Wall Street workers strapped for cash

    He makes $350,000 a year, lives with his wife and two children in a 1,200-square-foot Brooklyn apartment, has one child in private school and rents a summer house in Connecticut.

    Then the tears started up

    For one thing, Schiff says he was a bad example to use in the piece because his bonus usually amounts to about one-sixth of his salary, or around $60,000, a far cry from 80 percent many Wall Street workers receive. He says that after taxes, his bonus wouldn’t even cover private school tuition for his two kids.

    • aj

      Lol.  This fella will be riding the bus downtown if things get any worse.  I hope it all turns around for the little bitch.

  • aj

    20 dead from tornadoes :(

    • Hidan

       Crazy,

      My wishes go out to the families.

  • Mikata61

    David Gergan’s gurglings should not be encouraged in this forum.
    His moldy ‘conventional wisdom’ belongs in the sub-basement of the National Gallery, not as part of a serious discussion of issues and policy.  Tom Ashbrook you can do better than this.

  • Joan

    AJ, 

    I am glad you found some of my references on the war mongers in Israel helpful and their mobster arm in AIPac.

    I find it all so disturbing today –Especially the terribly injustice
    those shameful land thieves and war mongers have waged against the Palestinian people in their homeland of Palestine.
    Forcing them to live like rats in tunnels in Gaza to maintain
    themselves and their economy. 

    It is hard to imagine this was the same group of people whose
    leaders pleaded with the world body of the UN for a homeland
    of their own —claiming their people were devastated after the
    war (11) by the loss of their property and violations in human rights at the hands of the Nazi Regime;  Now, that same group of people have turned around and are guilty of committing the same kind of war crimes against the Palestinian people. 

    I believe this invalidates their claim to remain in Palestine today and people have a moral duty to kick them out today,
    if they don’t clean up their act….Joan

    P.S. Have you ever seen Palestinians behind barred wire and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli Jails? They look like Jews 60 yrs. ago, And at checkpoints being asked to produce their ID papers
    in their own country.it’s one big reflection how fascist Israel has  become…U am sick to my stomach everytime such images come to my mind…See this poster by a Palestinian protester.
    http://kerkko.fi/i-am-to-blame

    Here is another disgusting Zionist apologist…John Mc Cain
    Missing is Loe Liberman, John Bolyon and Robert Keagan
    http://libertyinexile.com/tag/military-industrial-complex/

    • SageGRey1

      There are only 15 million Jews in the entire world, but they always want attention, so it seems like there are a lot more of them.

      • ShaneO3

        Really? That can’t be true. There are probably more Zoroastrians than that. Let’s say 2/3 of them are religious — that doesn’t even qualify as a major world religion. The frozen people have alot of catching up to do.

        • CarmineSantos35

          According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics there were 13,421,000 Jews worldwide in 2009, roughly 0.19% of the world’s population at the time.

          And I think that every one of them is considered religious, because the number of followers of Judaism in Wikipedia is given as 14-18 million. So evidently all Jews are religious. Except for about 90% of those that I know.

          • Shane03

            Well that seems realistic — but that would only leave 1.5 million practicing Jews in the world. We should be putting them in museums to protect them instead of worrying about them taking over.

      • Zero

        15 million practicing Jews or 15 million Jews? 

        • Zero

           Never mind; I read on.

    • aj

      Thank you Joan.

  • JJJimmmanyC

    Obama is the best scam the one percent has going since Clinton and Reagan. Only thing worse would be ANY of the Republican jokes that are standing in for statesmen in the primaries.

    This just in (in the past, in the present, in the future):

    Though all persons with a brain in both parties admit that campaign finance reform is a necessity and the lack of it is the lynch pin that is subverting every aspect of our civic lives and economic future, there is no one in power who wants it, and every devise has been employed to make the subject boring and sexless by the media minions. There will never be meaningful campaign finance reform because it will end most corruption and corruption is the business of Washington.

    Down with the Democrats and Republicans and down with their plutocrat masters.

  • Clem

    Better start watching out for Israeli agents with suitcase nukes and such. Noting would be better for Israel than an Iranian caught with a nuclear devise in the US.

  • JustSayin

    If this religious exclusion rule becomes law, then in addendum the consumer needs ALL of these businesses, and their products to be clearly labeled as practitioners of faith based, products, and services.

    The consumer has to be informed that the application of religious rites may be performed before entering the business. 

    A large sign must be applied to all businesses that services and products within will be religiously applied if the morality, lifestyle, skin color, etc of their customers are NOT religiously acceptable by the business, and they may need to alter, withhold or perform such rites according to their faith. 

    It has to be made clear to the job seeker that secular and non-denominational, and non Christians are NOT going to be equally covered by health insurance, and may be required to pass a test of faith and morals as prescribed by the corporate religion before being hired.

     

    • Still Here

      secular nihilist

      • JustSayin

        Religious extremist. 

      • Terry Tree Tree

        TRUTH in advertising of the job?

  • JonS

    This board has evolved into a sounding board for some of the most disturbing irrational vile of left wing kook garbage that I’ve ever read. 

    • Still Here

      devolved

    • Hidan

       wait but you just commented.  And Moda’s been gone.

      Authoritarian Right projection. Go figure.

    • TFRX

      It’s so unfair that you have to work this hard to hear left wing crazy, while all the rest of us have to do to hear right-wing crazy is turn on the teevee.

  • Hidan

     Our Gang of War Criminalshttp://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/01/our-gang-of-war-criminals/If a bunch of street toughs decided to gang up and beat the crap out of some guy in the neighborhood because they feared he might be planning to buy a gun to protect his family, I think we’d all agree that the police would be right to bust that crew and charge them with conspiracy to commit the crime of assault and battery. If they went forward with their plan and actually did attack the guy, injuring or killing him in the process, we’d also all agree they should all be charged with assault and battery, attempted murder, or even first-degree murder if he died.

    In international relations and international law, the same applies. Under the Nuremberg Principles, later incorporated into the United Nations Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, which is defined as a war started against another nation that does not pose an imminent threat of attack on the aggressor nation or nations, is the highest of war crimes, for which the perpetrators are liable for the death penalty. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of those above acts is an equally serious capital crime.process which, even if it were to be implemented, would not lead to an actual bomb suitable for testing for at least a year, and which would not give Iran a functioning, useable weapon for even longer. (US intelligence sources say that Iran at this point is not even trying to make a bomb!).That alleged threat, even if it were real, doesn’t even come close to constituting an “imminent” threat of attack of the kind which might justify a pre-emptive strike on Iran, as is being publicly contemplated and threatened by the US and Israel.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Rush Limbaugh, three-time admitted drug abuser, shows his imperialistis,  voyeristic side, DEMANDING videos of private, confidential processes?
        Next, he’ll DEMAND videos of ALL child-births?
        Does he DEMAND  videos of men and boys getting rectal exams, or prostate exams?
       How LOW will Rush stoop, to see other people’s privates?

    • Gregg

      You’re a hoot!

      What do you mean by “three-time admitted drug abuser”? And what does it have to do with anything? I would advise you not to listen, his brilliant point went right over your head.

      • Hidan

         “his brilliant point went right over your head.”

        Rush L apologizes for his brilliant point.

        Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh apologized today to a Georgetown Law student he called a “slut” and a “prostitute” this week. His comments about Sandra Fluke, who testified on Capitol Hill that insurers should provide no-cost contraception, outraged women’s groups and others, including the president, who called her on Friday.

        In a statement released Saturday, Limbaugh said he chose the “wrong words” and that he didn’t mean a personal attack on Fluke

        http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/03/03/147883954/limbaugh-apologizes-for-insulting-law-student

        • Gregg

          TTT was commenting on Rush’s call for the video which was a brilliant point and it went over your head too.

          As for the “slut” thing, he’s a radio guy and the President gets involved!? That’s weird. Did Obama care when Ed Shultz called Laura Ingraham a slut? Or when Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a cunt?

          • Modavations

            They hear only through the left ear and missed it.

        • Gregg
    • Zero
      • Gregg

        Do you think that’s funny?

        • Zero

          Did you listen to the end? 

          Bill Hicks is my favorite comedian. This was the first bit I ever heard by Hicks, and yes, I was a bit taken aback, but by the end, I second guessed myself and thought that was a damn good bit.

    • Modavations

      Pres.Obama smokes dope and uses coke(his book),Bill C. had a nose like a Hoover,Al Gore’s pals say he was high his whole tour in Vietnam,Bush liked Coke,Pot and booze,JFK had a codeine habit,Patrick Kennedy was addicted to absolutely everything and on and on.TerryTT says he never used drugs,nor alcohol.He,however,is probably the head of NAMBLA,Tenn….

      If we did a surprise drug test in congress, half would flunk.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Your inaccuracies are astounding in number, and size!

  • Hidan

    Not covered on the news

    Rabbi Basil Herring former head  of the  Rabbinical Council of America. actually asked this…

    “Noting the difficulty in destroying Iran’s underground nuclear installations, Herring asked if Israel would consider “the use of tactical nuclear weapons in areas that aren’t so populated, or in the open desert? To show the Iranians that their lives are on the line, that Israel won’t go quietly?”

    To stop Iran Israel should use WMD on it. Sounds crazy.

    http://972mag.com/defending-israel-down-to-the-last-drop-of-israeli-blood/36370/

    One of the very few liberals in the group told me he knew of three organizational leaders who sounded like they wanted to use tactical nuclear weapons on Iran “right now.” A number of them think Netanyahu is being too soft on the Iranians. As a whole, he said, the visitors were a little shocked at all the relatively dovish talk they were hearing from some of the Israelis on these panels.

    • Zero

      I can give a rat’s ass about what those idiots do, so long as America doesn’t sacrifice thousands of lives and a trillion dollars on another war based on speculation.

  • Gregg

    I’d like to address this notion that Obama is a centrist. One of the problems a Senator of House member has when running for President is the voting record. The manner in which our system works makes it very easy to take the record out of context. Santorum and Newt are seeing it. Romney too but IMHO as Governor he is more responsible for his record, it’s harder to take the votes out of context. He doesn’t vote. This is why Obama is was known as “Mr. Present”. He did not want the record and where there is one it’s far left. He was rated the most liberal Senator and as State Senator was the only vote for infanticide.

    The most cited reason for his centrism is the fact Obamacare is not single payer. That is not Obama’s fault. There are political realities and the Democrat Congress as a whole is to his right. Obama would have signed a single payer plan if he had the Democrat votes. He didn’t need Republican votes to pass the bill. And he still had to bribe Nelson, Landrieu and Stupek’s crew to get what he got.  Not to mention reconciliation.

    The same is true with extending the Bush tax cuts. If Democrats had supported ending the cuts (even just the top rate) then it would have happened. He had the votes without Republicans but Democrats would not go along. This is mainly because it was a horrible idea in a dismal economy.

    He got people exited about closing Gitmo but it was NEVER going to happen. It was just a way to beat up Bush.

    • Worried for the country(MA)

      I agree.

       Vote present == deferring a decision on Keystone
       Vote present == 4 years with NO budget
       Vote present == ignoring the results of Simpson-Bowles

      There is a pattern with Obama.  He has shown very little courage or leadership on this difficult problems facing our country.  It is politically easy for him to divide the country by calling for tax increases on the wealthy but it does nothing to solve the countries woes.

      • Zero

        Wait a second…”It is politically easy for him to divide the country by calling for tax increases on the wealthy but it does nothing to solve the countries woes.”  I know a 3% tax hike amongst conservatives sounds like “communism,” but in reality, it is actually quite conservative if you look at a broader history of the United States, which I have briefly provided above.  The only thing radical is republicans reaction to the rather smart economic idea of raising individual taxes on the rich during a demand-crippled economy. 

        “…very little courage or leadership”… I really don’t understand why I am addressing this inane criticism.  There is no question that republicans would not work with Obama no matter what he said–for Christ’s sake, bills aren’t being passed because democrats think they are too far to the right and a quarter of the republicans think they are not far enough to the right–i.e., political gridlock caused by the era of Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin politics. 

        Most of my criticism of Obama comes from the left of him: I hate some of the homeland security policy, I hate that we are prolonging Afghanistan, Solyndra should of had tax credits instead of subsidies, I think all of the Bush Tax Cuts should expire, I hate the average age of the judges he appoints, and, most of all, I wish he had a republican attitude when politicking.  

        As for leadership–Obama quoted Ronald Reagan almost verbatim but without attributing it to him…and the republicans unknowingly attacked Obama for the substance of what he and Reagan said.  The only people who can lead the republicans are a few oil billionaires and Wall Street Tycoons.  And that is the god damn truth.  

    • david

      Keep up the fight guys for sound reasoning.
      While our ship of State is sinking and the water is now knee deep, those on the right side of these issues are sounding the alarm, while those on the left are making excuses, passing blame and are more worried about what is on the ship’s FREE buffet than they are about the ship that is sinking beneath them!!

    • Zero

       One thing is for sure: economically speaking, Obama is far far far far far right of American economic policy by ever president between FDR and Carter. 

      The country has been to the right since 1980. 

      And I thought the Bush Tax Cuts were suppose to expire after the midterm elections? 

      And Gitmo is radically different since he took over…call it a compromise. 

  • J__o__h__n

    Harvard’s Primate Research Center has denied any role in the death of Davey Jones.

  • Modavations

    Mr Tree Tree,why do you think Rush L., made,400 million on his last contract?Because he’s the most listened to guy in the world.A few weeks ago,Terry posted about Pervert Priests and child pedophilia over 30 times in one day.Terry was obviuosly abused.My concern is that anyone who protests with mania,is often an abuser himself.Some lady also pointed about that real men don’t discuss their charities.Terry reminds us daily.He’s a volunteer  fireman and the junkies stole his hoses

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Can you get more inaccurate?  I’m sure you’ll continue to try?

      • Modavations

        Why did the lady from the religious story on Thursday tell you to quit calling attention to your charitable work.Real men work in silence.Rush L.gives zillions to charity and wants no thanks.The year John Kerry ran for Pres.he gave 400.00 to charity.He’s worth three times as much as Rush.

        • Anonymous

           I wonder how you know about Rush’s “zillions” to charity?

          • Gregg

            How can you not know? Leukemia? Duh! The Ebayed Harry Reid letter was a classic!

          • Anonymous

            But, but, but, “real” men do their charitable work in silence. Just ask your friend the genius.

  • Gregg

    Today is the day the entire nation takes a step forward.

     

  • Modavations

    In his endless defense of the Left ,Mr. Zero gave  me the name of a company that sells law journals.These would  be sources for Pres.Obamas voluminous writings, while head of the Harvard Law Review.I contacted the co. to buy pertinent issues of the Journal.Here was the reply
    From Wm S,Hein Co.3/1/12
    Dear Mr…..
    Further to our phone conversation the a.m. and your email request
    Here’s the scoop from our top researcher here a Hein….
    “B.O.did not actually write anything for the review.He was the editor for the period,but did not author anything”

    Mr.0,….I do not expect,nor intend to await an apology,but will instead expect the usual invective.

    • Zero

      Here is what you asked of me: “Show me one thing he wrote while head of Harvard Law Review.”

      I showed you where you could find Law Review while Obama was editor. I said verbatim that you would find Obama’s name on them, nothing more.  You are the only person who said Obama had “voluminous writings.”  That did not come from me, and as far as I know, it has not come from the left. 

      But traditionally speaking, whoever is editor of the Harvard Law Review is one of the strongest legal minds in the country.  I would like to see you refute something like that instead of fabricating arguments out of thin air.

      • Modavations

        Lies,lies,lies..You went to the trouble of fowarding the name of the company,never thinking I’d check.

        • Zero

          Go back and look at the transcript of our conversation!  It is there for all to see.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      I heard that Barack Obama was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, but NOT about any claims of authorship.
         I DID hear ‘W’ promise to make us safer, in his 2000 campaign, along with his promise to make the Budget Surplus BIGGER!  Either in 2007?

      • Modavations

        Hey Freak Show,that’s exactly what he said and I called that company up.

        • Anonymous

           Are you foaming, son ?

      • Modavations

        Bush Did it,The Greedy Greedy;’s did it,the Perv.Priests did./….Well someone did it

  • Modavations

    FDR said there is no place for the Public Employee Union.I repeat…Private Unions….Si,Public Union…No!

  • Joan

    Addendum: AJ  Please view the following R/T Netanyahu’ visit

    Obama should pressure Israel , not Iran.  Marjorie Cohen
    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/18
    This is the violent/racist Israeli state AIPAC and their Apolo-gists wants Obama to uphold with US tax dollars and blood.http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_61355.shtmlDr. Salman Abu Sitta, a victim of Zionist terrorism during 1967 war (Note how he redraws the events of 1948 and Zionist land theft then…)  http://www.plands.org/videos/004.htmTell Me Again Who Made the Desert Bloom? (Note the inventoryof produce from the land It exposes Zionist Propaganda claims) http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2010/03/palestinians-made-the-desert-bloom.htmlJoan 

    • aj

      I’ve just started reading the links.

  • Modavations

    President Obama has the solution to skyrocketing oil prices.He and his ant-energy Czar(Herr Chu) say,inflate your tires and tuneup your cars!!!!

    • Modavations

      anti

  • Joan

    Addendum: Aj View the following: Obama & Netanyahu’s visit 

    Pressure Israel, Not Iran. Marjorie Cohen
    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/18

    This is “The Jewish State!” AIPAC & Apologists want Americans
    to uphold today with US tax payers dollars and blood…..)
    http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_61355.shtml

    Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, A victim of Zionist Terrorism 1967 war.
    http://www.myspace.com/alternatefocus/videos/video/2702902

    Tell Me Again Who Made the Desert Bloom? (Note the inventory of produce from the land . It exposes Zionist propaganda …) 
    http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2010/03/palestinians-made-the-desert-bloom.html

    Joan 

    • aj

      I’m sorry Joan, I was tired last night. Check back this evening, I’ll try to post back by then (after Bibi puts his feet up on the desk in the oval office this afternoon). appreciate ya.

    • aj

      Dear Joan The article by Miss Cohn was the most comprehensive, thorough, concise, and clear minded summary of the US/Iran/srael situation that I’ve read.
      I cant thank you enough for bringing it to my attention. I would urge all readers of this to read it.  I thought the most newsworthy bit was as follows,

      “When the new Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff and the new head of CENTCOM told Obama late last year they were disappointed that he was not firmly opposing an Israeli strike on Iran, Obama replied that he “had no say over Israel” because “it is a sovereign country.”

      Obama does indeed have a say – a strong say – over Israel. The United States has pledged $30 billion to Israel over the next 10 years. Obama should inform his counterparts in Israel that if it launches a military attack on Iran, the U.S. will withhold foreign aid from Israel.”

      If you think about what those 2 paragraphs really mean, it is startling.

      • aj

        Tell me, you wouldn’t be likely to see a very similar picture in 1936 Berlin.

        photo from the axisoflogic link, see above

    • aj

      This axis of logic article was so revealing, I had to copy and paste a bit. can you imagine mrs greenspan a.k.a. andrea mitchell filing even a single report on this? Never! But you know she has her aquaintenance, the Israeli ambassador on her show once a month. Thnk u Joan.

      Palestinian children and adults are commonly run over by settlers and the gruesome crime is hardly ever reported in US Zionist controlled media. Not only do Israeli drivers deliberately choose to run over their victims, but they also get away with their crime without any accountability.  Palestinian citizens and children are killed every single day by Israelis but their stories are deliberately ignored .  After all, maintaining Israel’s image of a “poor but civilized democratic” state is a crucial Western mission and a most sacred task for the complicit imbedded mainstream media which we all know is owned by Jews.
      This Israeli settler deliberately ran over the Palestinian man, then again in reverse and a third time moving forward.

    • aj

      Citoyenne Joan, the lawrence of cyberia article was as refreshing as watermelon, as enlightening as the full moon before dawn in June, meaning quite simply, it was beautiful, it was heartbreaking, it was lovely.  These links were gifts. I don’t know what drives you, but I know its true.Bless u J.

      P.S. I’m watching the Abu Sitta myspace video, hope to finish this evening, very informative so far.

      Everyone should view these 4 brief links, for an exquisite vignette of the Palestinean soul. Then thank Miss Joan.

      In the spirit of reciprocation, a couple videos worth a half hour.
      http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7400904n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

      http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2012/02/20122166933773157.html

  • GeneKelly47

    This blog has become a circle-jerk for idiots who have been taken in by the game and are going to waste their time looking up the details of the delusions they have swallowed whole. Go listen to Limbaugh — idiots.

    • JJJImmmanyC

      I loved the time Limbaugh had his grandfather on and the first thing he said was that Rush was an asshole, and Rush didn’t even realize it. It was the whole usual megalomaniacal hyperbole that you rightwingnuts respond so sympathetically to: “With talent lent from God, able to defeat the homeless with one hand tied behind his back and 5 oxys in his blood, an man whose basso profundo has been mistaken for profound thought by the clueless”. . . etc.  And his grandfather comes on and says, “Yeah, well, we Lymbaughs are not the types who strut around in front of others.”

      • CockranTheGreat3

        I know these simpletons spend hours a day listening to this blowhard because they can’t stand to be alone with their own impoverished thoughts (with good reason) and if  some guy sat down next to them in a bar and started spewing the same idiocy they wouldn’t listen to the boar for two minutes before they moved to another stool.

        • JJJimmmanyC

          ditto

          • Modavations

            Black Crows on a telephone line….Caw,Caw

    • Gregg

      I absolutely agree.

    • Modavations

      The days of the NPR being the playaground of the Limosine Liberal ,are over.Listen to difference in opinion,the country is 40-40 left right.NPR is still 80-20 biased to the Left,in my opinion.Unfortuneatly so many of you are here to shore up,your world view,like atendees at an AA meeting.Real intellects have no problem with,nor fear of contarian opinion

      • Zero

        Can you please point out the biases as it happens? 

  • Modavations

    Yeah well if you lived at the bottom of the barrel and had nothing to do but wipe up the santorum that Limbaugh and our other fearless leaders leave every time they open their mouths you would sound like an idiot too.

    • Modavations

      Little boys hiding under their blankies are the guys who post under others names.I am an independent agent.I read the NYT,then WSJ,then decide.I listen to Heritage,thenBrookings ,then decide.I listen Rush thn Chris Matthews,then I decide.

      • JamesTucker

        You are a joke that doesn’t get itself. 

        • LaComplentaintDgreave4

          True enough, if someone is as dimwitted as this, they are no doubt too stupid to see how limited their minds are. Unfortunately some of them feel the need to display before others all the time. How boring and endlessly repetitious.

          • Modavations

            dimwitted,too stupid,.boring,repetitive.Is there a point,or is this just a temper tantrum

          • Anonymous

             The point is, you’re dimwitted,stupid, repetitive , and boring. Seems pretty obvious to me. aRRE yoo GaYe?

        • Modavations

          Is there a point,or is this more little boys and blankys

          • Gregg

            It’s like you can make them do tricks at your command. Can you make them call you a troll again? That one kills me.

            Where are you headed to next? To buy what?

          • Modavations

            Mex.March 23 to buy silver specimens.

      • Gregg

        lol — (he doesn’t realize how funny this is.) Bathos or pathos dear reader, I leave it to you to decide. Too much time wasted on this clown already — good day

        • Modavations

          Just another psycho under a phantom post.The real Gregg would never speak like this

        • Gregg

          Above not me, it’s the pathetic loser… again.

  • Modavations

    This from the real Moda….not the boy hiding under the “blanky”

    Spain’s Rajoy leavess  the latest,endless meeting of the European Solons.The ink hadn’t dried on the documents they had signed, promising to abide by spending limits.Rajoy said we have no intention of abiding by this document.Spain stopped work on the new,$221 million dollar, Costa Brava airport.The 75′statue to the local solon remains half built.Evidently the runways aren’t long enough(?).The local solon said,just one more loan,please,please,just one more loan.By the way,when Pres.Obama heard there was a statue to a solon that was 75′high,he got jealous.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Isn’t the Washington Monument taller than 75′?

  • Modavations

    The lady who testified probably pays $50,000.00 a year to go to Georgetown.She said she and her girlfriends were having so much sex,that she needs the tax payer to pay her $3000.00 per annum Birth Control bill.Rush calls someone intent on screwing half the student body a “Slut”.I’ll call senselessly,dangerously promiscuous.

    • TFRX

      Source the part where she said the words you put in her mouth.

      Actually, let’s just skip the little dance and flag your comment right now.

    • Anonymous

      Foul devil, for God’s sake hence, and

      trouble us not;

      • Modavations

        Temper Tantrumsw,always with the temper tantrums.Tell us why FDR warned against Public Unions.Please don’t call me a vile little man!!!

        • Anonymous

           Vile little jackass.

  • Modavations

    Why was FDR warning about Public Unions?

  • Gregg
  • Modavations

    I ask again,Why did FDR warn about PUBLIC UNIONS?

    • Zero

       I think the better question is: how have public unions damaged the country? 

      Do yourself a favor and compare Canada’s average teacher wages to America’s average teacher wages?  Do a little comparative research instead of making declarative yet indirect political statements.

      • Modavations

        I’ll ask again,when does NPR get an apology

        • Anonymous

           SURE am sorry, NPR.

          • aj

            lol

      • Modavations

        I’ll paraphrase Steve Jobs from his book.The day the Dept.of Educ.came into creation was the day SATs started to slide.He went on to say that the stronger the Unions got the lower the SATs sank.But what does S.Jobs know about anything?

        • Zero

           You know, Jobs was a liby-lib….

        • Zero

          Why do you reply, if you don’t have an argument or anything pertinent to say? 

        • Zero

          Okay, I’ll bit even though you did not address my point. 

          Educations started going down when women were given opportunity in business.  Before, talented women were relegated to the social role of teacher, and ever since women have been allowed to succeed in business, talent has vacated the teaching profession.

          Canada provides teacher wages that compete with the private market, but America does not.  You can look up the numbers yourself: but, on average, a college educated worker is taking less money to work in the public sector.  (The opposite it true of workers without a college education: high school graduates make more money in the public sector than they would have in the private sector.

          The government would not have to pay teachers as much as Canada does, but the current wages and the current political environment is dispiriting a lot of good teachers.  And whenever you attack teachers, the one’s with graduate degrees leave first.  Most teachers don’t need that profession, and so your political movement is causing the As and Bs students to join the private sector, and the C students to become teachers. 

          Moreover, teachers are not allowed to discuss thought-provoking topics.  I wish we could teach creationism in a philosophy class because that would mean that students would also get to learn material philosophy as well.  Teachers are not show students how filthy Shakespeare is.  The greatest American Novel, Huck Finn, is rarely taught, and if taught, the students are probably reading the censored version. Teachers can’t teach evolution without apology.  And teachers can’t put spoiled brat students in their place.  And then there is the issue of teaching to the test.  In all, teacher are barely allowed to engage the students, and then you, Moda, come around and say “Voucher Voucher Voucher” so students can go to private schools where state laws don’t apply to teachers.

          Perhaps, you should use some of your own republican philosophy and deregulate the teachers, since, after all, teachers are not going to release pollutants in the environment and they are not going to swindle the students out of their lunch money. 

          ———————————–
          You see what just happened there?  You told me to correlate “the rise of the teacher unions with the rise of bad education” and then I when on a detailed discussion of why education has dimmed.  Also, labor representation in America (comparative to other G20 nations) sucks. Also, it is hard to believe you about what books say after you bullshited “The Wealth of Nations.” Also, citing conventional wisdom or an authoritative intellect doesn’t work with me?  I might think an extra moment on the subject, but I generally come to my own conclusions. 

          Finally, I can’t believe I actually respond to your pointless drivel that actually makes me think that I am correct rather than making me think otherwise.  I guess I still believe in people–please don’t squash my faith, and please actually consider what I wrote because it is not all garbage. 

          • Anonymous

             Remember, now. He can’t read more than a paragraph.

  • Gregg

    Congratulations President Obama and Media Matters. When George Stephanopoulus brought up the contraception thing out of the blue in a debate, Romney pointed out no one was talking bout anything of the sort. But the seed was planted. Now the sheep believe there is an effort to deny contraception. Then they find this 30 year old activist who went to Georgetown for the express purpose of challenging the contraception policy. It has dominated the conversation instead of the dismal economy, out of control spending, “Fast and Furious”, Iranian nukes, the entire Middle East spinning out of control, gas prices and a host of other important topics.

    Well played puppet masters.

    • Zero

      I can tell you personally that I have not said once that republicans are trying to deny contraception.  The main concern from the liberal end is that religious affiliated businesses get undo wavers of laws that other businesses have to follow.

      I do agree, however, that democrats ‘baited’ the uncouth republicans revealing their radical religious point of view.  But the latter of you comment reorients the conversations to unsubstantiated claims, e.g., “out of control spending”…again I point to the budget and its leading drivers of the deficit of which Obama is trying to remedy while the republicans are trying to keep in place. 

      And as for Obama’s foreign policy, I really don’t understand why you try to find argument there.  Foreign policy has been–in my opinion, brilliant–nonetheless good.  Even that liby-lib Bill O’Reily thinks the president has been good on foreign policy.   If you need by to restate why I think so, I will.

      • Zero

         How do people edit?

        • Modavations

          When does NPR get an apology

          • Anonymous

             MY apologies, NPR.

      • Modavations

        When does NPR get an apolology????

        • Anonymous

           I apologize to NPR.

        • Zero

           An apology for what?

          • Modavations

            For claiming the Pres.had voluminous entries in the Law Journal.After I enquired you sent a second text saying each journal has Pres.Obamas name.For those who doubt me,read this guys post of2/29/12 at 6:26 PM

          • Zero

            I just reread the post.  Where did it say Obama wrote anything?  I don’t even use the word, “voluminous.”  My adjective would have been “extensive” if I indeed said he wrote legal opinion. 

            But he probably did write legal opinion, and if you knew how to do research, you could probably find some.  Just read the journals from when he was an editor, you will find insight nonetheless.  And perhaps, find out what year Obama taught law at the University of Chicago and look up publications out of there from those years.  You have to actually read if you want to find something. 

            Good luck.

          • Zero

             And what does NPR have to apologize for?

        • aj

          I’m Spartacus.

          • Modavations

            Spartucus was the  name of the guy who wanted to Bugger me in a Transvestite bar in Bangkok.He was also the guy who wanted to shoot me in a barrel like a fish.You are a very sick man.Let me introduce you to TerryTT.

          • aj

            lol

          • aj

            Man, you get around?

          • Anonymous

             I thought you might be a transvestite.

          • Zero

             That got me laughing.

      • Gregg

        If you have not said “republicans are trying to deny contraception” then I believe you because I have not seen it. But that’s the narrative. Did you see David Gregory and Newt this morning? And it’s narrative that has been created out of whole cloth and fed to the masses. It’s bogus.

        • Zero

          Yeah, I don’t deny that that is the narrative.  But the republicans have a false narrative about religious liberty as well.  They are both horseshit, and what sucks is that the real issue (i.e. business mandates) is too complex for the average American. 

          I guess I made a misrepresentation when I said, “the main concern from the liberal end.”  The narrative out of MSNBC has been what you say it is.  I didn’t really pick up on it because I can’t stand MSNBC, so it was a little out of my horizon. 

          • Gregg

            If we agree no one is denying contraception then let’s just wait until there is a real issue to hate each other over. Maybe we can avoid it and get along.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Did Rush Limbaugh publicly call Bristol Palin a slut, etc…?

      • Gregg

         No.

  • GreggModaSuxDeadDonkeysdics

    Man has this blog turned to absolute crap — Thanks a lot Moda/Gregg

    • Modavations

      Now do you guys understand my point about juvenile temper tantrums.People who can no longer defend intellectually, fall upon base tactic.

      • TFRX

        You forgot to blame all us lefties for not flagging that one cretin.

        And I can tell the difference between GMSDD and the rest of us. Can you?

      • Anonymous

        Who knew that your ill-conceived tomes where to be interrupted as intellectual banter.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        YOU lead the way on THAT, MANY times?

  • Brett

    “What is more radical left that Obama’s vote on infanticide while he was a state Senator?” -Gregg

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/fact-check-gingrich-claim-on-obama-infanticide-vote-a-stretch-20120222Aren't musicians supposed to have some modicum of creativity? Or are you one of those “play only covers and play them exactly how they were played on the record” kinds of guys?  …narrative by the numbers, my friend

    • Brett

      “aren’t musicians…”

      • Gregg

        I hope you are not the Brett from the opening act I met a few years ago in Richmond. The dude was a great player, the band were great guys and the time was big. Politics never came up.

    • Gregg

      I have no idea what you are referring to as you didn’t say and your link can’t find the page. Obamas’ record is his record.

      If you want to compare credentials or talk creativity, fine. I’ve got plenty to talk about. That’s a separate irrelevant issue but I’m insightful, experienced and strong in that setting if you want to go there.

      Tell me what your point is and I’ll debate it but LEAVE MUSIC OUT OF IT.

      • Gregg

        Do you really want to exchange videos of each other playing in front of tens of thousands of people as musical director of hall of fame legends? My ego doesn’t need it (I’m not about that) but I’ll go there if you want to. 

        • Brett

          Sorry to offend you. I respect the kind of discipline and level of musicianship those kinds of gigs require. I don’t think much of the lack of creativity that goes along with that area of the music business, though, but that’s another topic. 

          • Gregg

            Stop with the lack of creativity thing. You have no idea. I have stacks of copyrights. Come see me at a Melissa Reaves gig and you will see enough on the spot, stream of musical consciousness creativity to bring tears to your eyes.

            Why are you doing this?

          • Brett

            You are taking this the wrong way, dude. It was a METAPHOR because you DIDN’T understand. Once again, I have never heard you, don’ know how you approach your music, and DON’T CARE. How ’bout the painter that paints pretty garden scenes all her life and never has anything to say that is original? Or paints exactly like some famous artist? Is that more acceptable a metaphor for what I was talking about? P.S.- We all have “copyrights” and I don’t care for Melissa Reaves. I’ve seen her at various places. 

          • Gregg

            Look man, you are the one who got some notion about musicians (like me) should have creativity. Then you did it again in regards to big gigs. I don’t know what your deal is, maybe you’re all full of yourself for writing a good song. I don’t know how one could read these comments (especially the first one) and not conclude you were accusing me of not being a creative musician. It was out of the blue and a terrible metaphor if that was your intent. Creativity has nothing to do with infanticide or labeling it as such.

            I don’t care if you like Melissa or not but she is the most creative person I know and working with her is the epitome of creative endeavors. It’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. That’s why I brought her up. Melissa gets around (she’s in AZ now) and works with a wide variety of musicians and styles. If you’ve seen her you may have seen me. Where have you seen her?

            I also have the utmost respect for those who learn cover songs note for note. I even respect people who write I IV V progressions and rhyme Fire and Desire.   

          • Brett

            No, sir, I’m accusing you of following the scripts of your neocon heroes. Sorry if I touched a nerve. Hey, we all have to make money (I give music lessons). 

          • Gregg

            I get sick of this projection stuff and it’s sad how the issue has been lost. To clarify, Rush did not tell me about Obama’s infanticide. Newt mentioned it in a debate but I knew all about it from the campaign. No heros involved,no scripts. All I was doing was rebuttingthe notion Obama is a centrist. I’m done.

      • Brett

        It was a metaphor, Gregg (ya know, you play music, so maybe you might understand a music metaphor…get it). Meaning, specifically, that one of your neocon heros brings up some issue with all of its talking points and you say the same thing on this forum the next day, so it’s like playing covers just like the record. Get it now? I don’t know what your music history is and don’t care. I just thought you’d understand that kind of musician I’m talking about; I’m sure you do. 

      • Brett

        Look at my 2:44pm comment for the right link (sorry). I am complaining about your use of the word “infanticide.” Please. I was quoting from an earlier comment of yours; don’t you remember what you wrote? Are you just copying your neocon heroes’ talking points? You sure like to play dumb when it’s convenient.

        • Gregg

          In truth I can read minds but I played dumb instead.

          Here’s what I wrote: “He was rated the most liberal Senator and as State Senator was the only vote for infanticide.”

          That’s true and your opinion piece is not very analytical.

          http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/292204/obama-s-infanticide-votes-patrick-brennan

          I don’t care what word you want to use, his was a radical position and my entire point was Obama is not a centrist.

          • Brett

            Um, I don’t know if you are pretending I made up that quote from one of your comments, but I copied and pasted it, so it isn’t a distortion of your words or anything. 

          • Gregg

            I never said you distorted it I just didn’t understand the question I was supposed to garner from it.

  • Brett
    • Brett

      wrong!

  • Brett

    wtf is up w/ Discus? It leaves off words from my posts and incorrectly copies my links…

  • Brett

    nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/fact-check-gingrich-claim-on-obama-infanticide-vote-a-stretch-20120222

    • Brett

      this one works

  • Brett

    …pretty sad to see the neocon mouthpiece publicly call another person, a woman (who has a differing opinion) a “slut.” He said he was joking. Ha Ha. Anybody who listens to him has no respect from me. Of course, that whore (just kidding), Sarah Palin, hasn’t chimed in yet. I wonder how she feels about Rush calling a woman a “slut.”  

    • JustSayin

       Mr. Limbaugh did not apologize for himself, he apologized because the guys who hold his leash (Clear Channel) gave it a good yank. Mitt’s good friends at Bain had to pull him back, there is too much at risk to let the dog just keep yapping…

      BTW, Bain Capital owns Clear Channel who owns Premiere Radio who owns Limbaugh, Savage, and the rest of “liberal media”.

       

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Did Rush publicly call Bristol Palin a slut, etc…?

      • Modavations

        Ed Shultz called Laura Ingram a slut,Bill Maher called Palin a c-unt repeatedly.Last year a poster on NPR said of Michelle Bachman(at least 5 diff.times) that she needs Sex Toys.Not one of NPR’s phoney baloney Feminists said a word.Terry you are a first class hypocrite

        • Anonymous

           Nice defense.

          • notafeminista

            He’s just pointing out the intellectual dishonesty.

          • Anonymous

             Anyone for whom “your side did worse” is the best they can do should go find a sports blog somewhere.

        • Gregg

           Amen.

          • Brett

            So, as long as liberals behave badly, this excuses conservatives from behaving badly. I guess, if nothing else, we see the neocon game in a nutshell: tit-for-tat. This is fine, and even understandable in some ways; what about that feigned moral superiority you neocons love to boast about possessing, though? 

          • Gregg

            No, the problem is the double standard of the media and a
            President elevating this one instance, it’s incredible. Rush is a private citizen, a radio guy. Obama did the same thing mentioning the Koch brothers (private citizens) name. When has this ever happened before?

      • notafeminista

        No.  Letterman took care of that.

        • Brett

          Not unlike a child getting caught misbehaving and saying, “so-and-so does it too!” Great reasoning, there, nota

  • Modavations

    NPR please don’t remove the young man’s foul comment.Please don’t remove the comments of the Stalkers who post under others names.Let these serve as examples as to  why the world has turned away from the Left

    • aj

      That old south paw will get you everytime.

      • Modavations

        Aj posts under Spartucus(his Blanky persona)Spartacus was the poster who wanted to bugger me in a tranvestite bar in Bangkok.The next day he wanted to shoot me like a fish in a barrel.You guys have violence problems.

        • aj

          Are you high? You sure are paranoid :)

          I dont owe you or NPR an apology.  If anything, I owe Jefe68 one.

          So here goes. Jefe68, sorry.

        • aj

          When you get that paranoia from the dro like that, the best thing to do is -chief- some more.

          Works for me.

          • aj

            That hydroponic can knock you for a loop.

            You’ll be alright, bro.

            Just relaaaax, put on the Doors, and… break on through, man.

          • Modavations

            Methinks you protest too much Mr.Spartacus

        • aj

          And for God’s sake man, what the hell were you doing in that bar!?

  • Anonymous

    I wonder when the fat junkie is going to condemn all the men who’ve accepted insurance coverage of Viagra. It seems to me the only thing this does is help them get laid. What a bunch of sluts.

    • Gregg

      This comment is so inane on various levels my first inclination is to let it sit and stew in it’s ridiculousness. Then I realized where we are and how it rings true to so many here. Lets walk through it.

      “I wonder when the fat junkie…”

      The man got addicted to pain killers, so what? He admitted it, kicked it and moved on. God bless him. Word’s like “fat” (actually not so much these days, especially compared to say… Michael Moore or Michelle Obama) and “Junkie” are just mean meaningless attacks.

      “is going to condemn all the men who’ve accepted insurance coverage of Viagra”.

      This part’s funny. First, He did not condemn insurance companies providing contraception. He condemned the expectation that contraception be provided under penalty of law. That’s a little different. Secondly, Viagra is a drug to address the medical problem of impotency. Pregnancy is not a medical problem.

      The rest of your comment is just trash, I’ll leave it at that.

      • Anonymous

        Limbaugh spent years condemning people with drug addictions. If you think God “blesses” him for kicking his own addiction and that everyone else is supposed to be subject to Limbaugh’s scorn for similar behavior, well, what can I say? No surprise from someone who thinks this bloviating fool is an admirable human being.  Maybe Rush and all his fans have decided to no longer sit in judgement of drug addicts, now that the fat bastard has actually demonstrated similar weakness. A far as “mean” attacks, I don’t believe there has been a meaner radio personality on talk radio. How about calling a woman a “slut” and a “prostitute?” How about insulting Michael J. Fox’s drug induced muscle spasms. Parkinsons disease sure is funny, isn’t it? This all seems pretty mean to me. I guess you think it’s all just a hoot. I’ll give Rush as much civil treatment as he’s given people over the years, which is to say, none at all.                     If I was so inclined, I’m sure I could, with very little effort, find a plethora of similarly sweet statements made by Rush, over the years. I could try to post the type of links you’re so fond of. But I won’t. Ill let you find them. Anyone truly interested could find them in a heartbeat. My guess is, you won’t bother. As to dismissing issues of pregnancy and contraception as non-medical problems, while claiming that pursuit of the elusive boner is, well, again. What can I say?

        • Gregg

          “Limbaugh spent years condemning people with drug addictions.”

          BS!!! Where do you get that?

          Michael J. Fox?! You’ve got to be kidding. It didn’t happen. Where do you get your news?

          You are truly a shallow cliche’. Dig deeper.

          • Anonymous

             Gee. How did I know you wouldn’t bother to look?

          • Gregg

             Look for what?

          • Anonymous

              If you want to know what to look for, reread the final paragraph of my post above. But, why bother? As I correctly stated, you won’t bother to look for any information that fails to support your lofty opinion of the oaf.

          • Gregg

            Oh, I see you want me to google sound bytes and ignore everything I’ve listened to for over 20 years. Here’s a news flash I know all about the Michael J. Fox lie because I was listening. I know all about the Molly Ivins lie over Chelsea because I was watching. I know all about his addiction because I was listening the day he left for rehab. I don’t have to be told what to think. You’re hopeless.

          • Anonymous

             I don’t “want” you to do anything. Nor do I expect that you will. Your need to adore this pompous ass is obvious for all to see. Your claim that all who fail to have the same reverence for the fool are uninformed does more to illustrate your own bias than anything I could put forward.

          • Gregg

            Why do you guys alway say I claimed something I didn’t?

          • Anonymous

             Reply to your post below: “Fine, then keep your uninformed mouth shut.” Who said this and what could it possibly be implying?

          • Gregg

            Reply to your post below: “Your claim that all who fail to have the same reverence for the fool….”

            O yea, that’s what I claimed.

          • Anonymous

            Of course it is.

          • notafeminista

            I’m betting that feettothefire thinks that addicts on the whole should be treated with compassion and rehab rather than prison. 

            Except for Mr. Limbaugh, whose bad behavior and/or disagreeable comments feettothefire uses to entirely abandon whatever principles he might hold for addicts.

            Intellectually dishonest.

          • Anonymous

             Are you really this clueless, or is it just an act? I would simply LOVE for you to point out where I advocated prison time for Limbaugh. If you’re too dense to understand the concept of condemning the hypocrisy of Limbaugh and his many disciples, not his drug use, which by the way, I believe should be legalized, then you’re not nearly the deep thinker you believe yourself to be.                                             Intellectually vapid.                            

          • notafeminista

            Where is your compassion for the “fat junkie” feet?   Or do you only save that for the addicts you AGREE with?

          • Anonymous

            As I stated in my comment above, I’ll show the fool as much consideration as he’s shown to others over the years. It seems to me that such a staunch supporter of that “Christian Nation” nonsense as you would ascribe to the biblical notion, “as ye sow, so shall ye reap.” When I see some mea culpas from Jughead for the nasty things he’s said over the years, then I’ll try to dig up some human compassion for him.

          • Gregg

            How true.

          • Anonymous
          • Gregg
          • Anonymous

             Aye caramba. Imagine. Having to use Coulter to bolster ones argument. A person who speaks nothing but fluent nonsense. How monumentally sad.

          • Gregg

            Don’t tell me you don’t like Coulter either! Unbelievable. I guess it’s because you can’t refute her.

          • Anonymous

             As I know I’ve told you several times in the past , I don’t like Coulter because She’s a dope. Your claim that not liking the fool is “amazing” is  certainly no surprise. You admonish us for not being open minded and honest, and then you claim surprise that we can think for ourselves.

          • Gregg

            If you could think for yourself you would address the point Ann made concerning what MJF wrote about his testimonies. But you got nothing.

  • Gregg

    I realize it’s sacrilegious but I have a plea. Listen to the first few minutes of Rush tomorrow. He comes on at 12:00 on the AM dial. It’ not a lot to ask. Otherwise, if you can’t be bothered and choose to be told what to think, then shut up… with all due respect.

    • Anonymous

       TOLD…..WHAT….. TO……THINK????? HA, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!!

    • Anonymous

      You have to be kidding.
      Let me get this straight. You are stating that people cannot form an opinion about Rush Limbaugh based on this last bit of public assignation that he has engaged in.
      Here’s what I say to that, tough. The man was trying to silence a citizen using language and position.
      I don’t know, but I find that an act of a coward.

      The fact remains, he publicly insulted and demeaned Sandra Fluke. Anyone can form an opinion on what this man had said. You also seem to be cut from the same cloth as him with you telling people to shut up.
      With all due respect, I wont. I listened to some of the diatribe Rush Limbaugh unleashed on Sandra Fluke.
      I stopped after a few minutes as it was clear to me what he was doing.

      Go ahead, defend him, but it seems 7 of his advertisers have had enough and are making statements by leaving him in the dust. 

      • Gregg

         “The man was trying to silence a citizen using language and position.”

        See, there you go. If you have come to that conclusion then you are missing the point. He want’s to silence no one. It’s incredibly shallow.

        As far as “agendas” go, this 30 year old chose Georgetown because of this policy. She is an activist and this was her intention.

        • Anonymous

          So when a radio personality such as Rush calls a woman a slut, and a prostitute that’s not using language to intimidate.
          Where did you get the idea that this woman had an agenda to go to Georgetown? That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. First off you’re implying that she had a way of knowing she would get in. That she’s in to being an activist, which you are already using as a negative in this case, is neither here nor there. If Rush Limbugh has the right to publicly use personal attacks on Sandra Fluke, and then hide behind the 1st Amendment, then surly it’s Sandra Fluke’ right to go an testify at a Congressional committee without the fear of being lambasted by the likes of him for doing what is the right of every citizen.

          Anyone who sees nothing wrong in the language that Rush Limbugh used in this instance is really saying that it’s OK to call woman whores, sluts and to demean them when you don’t’ agree with their ideas.
          If you don’t think Limbugh was trying to intimidate Sandra Fluke, then I do think there is a problem with how you view men of position. Maybe you all just agree with him. Which is pretty sad in my view.

          Anyway his advertisers are leaving in droves. That about sums it up. The money is walking.

          • Gregg

            I don’t think there is a problem with the money walking. advertisers are lined up a mile long. I did not say Fluke (rhymes with truck) had no right to testify. No one said that. It’s the total BS socialist crap she said that makes her a target.

            And yes, she’s not 23 as reported and she has an agenda.

            http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/03/stunner-georgetown-coed-sandra-fluke-is-a-30-year-old-womens-rights-activist/

          • Anonymous

            As if you don’t.
            I said that Rush was using his position to bully this woman. It’s as clear as day. That you don’t agree with her politics is neither here nor there.

            Your use of the socialist moniker is absurd.

            The president of Georgetown sums it up pretty well:

            “She provided a model of civil discourse,” he said in a letter to the school. “This expression of conscience was in the tradition of the deepest values we share as a people. One need not agree with her substantive position to support her right to respectful free
            expression.”

            He branded the reaction of Limbaugh and some other commentators as “misogynistic, vitriolic and a misrepresentation of the position of our student.”

          • Gregg

            Demanding contraception be provided isn’t rooted in socialism? 

          • Anonymous

            This is not about free contraception.
            And no, it’s not about socialism.

            Look, I’m not sure if it’s worth going back and forth here. We have a difference of opinion. I’m going to leave it at that. 

        • Anonymous

           Such a shame. Choosing an institution because of it’s policies. And laying in wait for old Rush to make one of his stupid comments, what a sly fox this woman is.

      • Modavations

        Poppycock.I heard the whole conversation.Rush never silences anything.The girl was wrong,wrong,wiong.I was not offended by Rush.Guys like you and the rest,however,insult me daily.Hate speech and diatribe.I listen to all sides,every day.,without fear.

        • Anonymous

           Guys like us hate you because your hateful. you make it so easy.

        • Gregg

          “I heard the whole conversation.”

          So did I, that’s the thing. The word was used and I’m not crazy about that but the point of the comment was not to make the case she was a slut. 

          • Anonymous

            Sorry, he called Fluke a slut and a prostitute. If that was not bad enough he then goes on to pontificate that women getting contraception through a health insurance plan should be compelled to post videos online for him to see.
            I’m not sure what part of this man’s act in this instance you want to defend, but if you do, I’m thinking you will need a backhoe and not a shovel for that whole you are digging.

             

          • Gregg

             O yea, Rush wants the video.

          • Anonymous

             Gregg believes we shouldn’t judge Rush by the words that come out of his own mouth. Those are “soundbites,” don’t you know.

          • Gregg

             Bytes.

          • Anonymous

             As if it’s not bad enough that   the clod said what he said, he doesn’t even have the stones to either apologize outright, or stand by his words. He has to pretend it was an attempt at “humor.” Can he really believe that everyone is as mesmerized by his clownish performance as his regular listeners?

  • Anonymous

    Listened to Rush years ago. Learned then what an ass he was. You’d have to pry my cold dead fingers off the gun I used to blow my brains out, before I’d listen to that clod again.  

    • Gregg

       Fine, then keep your uninformed mouth shut.

      • Anonymous

         Ooohh, temper, temper there, Greggy. Apparently, in your tiny little mind, no one is allowed to listen to Limbaugh and draw any conclusions that conflict with your own. I guess your impassioned plea below really means, “Listen to Rush and like him, or else.” The perfessor might have to accuse you of being closed minded.

        • Gregg

          No, I just think one should know what they are talking about. Sue me.

          • Anonymous

             I see. If we listen to Rush, and we don’t like him, we don’t know what we’re talking about. And of course we can’t possibly get our information from any other sources. Thanks for making your position crystal clear.

          • Gregg

            If you listen and don’t like him that’s fine, I don’t care. And no, being fed sound bytes from haters is not the same thing.

          • Anonymous

             Since you’re so fond of using other peoples quotes, I thought I’d use some of yours.                                  “Fine, then keep your uninformed mouth shut.”                         This stance clashes significantly with                                            “If you listen and don’t like him that’s fine, I don’t care.”                                       I wonder what you really think. And I laugh at anyone who believes that any source of information, other than Rush Limbaugh is a “sound bite from haters.”

          • Gregg

            The statements do not conflict. Either know what you are talking about or shut up. You have not listened.

          • Anonymous

             Duh ?????

          • Modavations

            I listen to everyone,every day.Fascists listen to one side exclusively.They fear the contrarian view

        • Modavations

          What an immature,scared,freaked out little man you are.Mommy,mommy I need my Blankie”,

          • Anonymous

             Ouch. I’m struck to quick by your witty riposte.

          • TFRX

            Project much?

            Really, the knowledge you claim to have about others’ emotional states throught the internet is astonishing. Mere mortals like I need vocal tone or non-verbal communcations to hazard a guess.

            Where can I get the app that does this?

          • Modavations

            never

          • Anonymous

            Methinks you protest too much…

    • Modavations

      I listen to every side,every day

      • JustSayin

        IMO I find Rush mentally unbalanced, do you think he has some kind of mental disorder, or is he is a really good actor? IMO I think he is disturbed, or maybe the drug abuse fried his brain… It has done so, to so many.

        The paranoid hand wringing about overblown or ever impending threats… that never occur. The bizarre pounding on the desk, the panting, the irrational shouting and wispering, the Hee Hee Hee heee, etc. The gleeful wielding of power over individuals and callers with disturbing ribald attacks, for having the temerity to express an opinion that he does not agree with.

        I don’t find him entertaining or informative. I just have pity that someone who I believe is mentally ill is given so much power.

        Hes not the only one… radio seems to be filled with these mentally ill people left and right, and many have the same traits.

        Perhaps its just a matter of my knowing what radio used to be, and that I’m tainted by the informed civility of the past. I can’t listen to any of these paranoid nihilists.

        • Anonymous

           Careful now. Gregg will accuse you of being closed minded and uninformed. How dare you form an opinion of people based on their own words? Why, you must be one o’ them libral fellers.

          • Gregg

            Just Sayin seems to have at least heard the show or sound bytes. As generous as Rush is with dissenting views it’s hard to imagine where JS gets the idea he attacks callers though. That’s a red flag.

            But at least he/she is not regurgitating the same tired crap they all do. So you’re wrong.

          • Anonymous

             Damn my lyin’, libral soul.

          • Modavations

            I listen to all sides,every day.I do not freak out when confronted with an alien view.Instead,I hope to learn

          • Anonymous

             It’s not working.

          • aj

            lol

        • Modavations

          Opinion,only opinion and I beg to differ.Rush is the most listened to guy on the planet.I find him a national treasure.I do not find him physcho at all.Now Mr.Maddow,Eddy S. and the other chap,I do consider nuts.I put up with C.matthews,but can’t listen to the rest.That is my opinion.

          • Anonymous

            So you’re a nihilist or at least support Limbaugh’s version of nihilism.

          • Anonymous

             Isn’t this whole forum about opinions, knucklehead? Thanks for pointing that out.

          • JustSayin

             Hmm, That’s interesting.

  • Zero

    Gregg, the substantive issue aside…the politics were pretty cool.  The republicans did look ridiculous with all men on their opinion board.  And the democrats, having that one woman testify, was a brilliant political move by itself.  But she was also a lure for the republicans, and everybody knew it except the mud throwers. 

    I guarantee you Obama picked up some moderate independent votes.

    It was certainly a political blunder saying Obama is attacking religious liberty.  And if Obama would have said it’s not about religion it’s about business, America would have snoozed on Obama and republicans would have gained political capital.  The only sensible thing for Obama and the DNC to do was make it about contraception.  Fox News and the republicans jousted MSNBC and the democrats, and republicans could not suffocate their crazier side.  Absolutely beautiful politicking.

    But think, if republicans had an argument about the real issue of business mandates, there would have been no need to bring up the B.S. issue of religious liberty. 

    Anyway, that’s my political analysis.

    • Gregg

      Zero, I hear you but your political analysis is all based in a world of perceptions. I have a problem setting  substantive issues aside.

      Obama is attacking religious liberty.

      • Zero

        I have asked several times why should religious affiliated businesses have undo wavers of laws every other business has to follow? 

        No one on this tread has answered that question?  One response asked why should businesses provide contraception…?  But that actually proved my point, indeed, it is not about religion.  So, if you have an answer, I am willing to read it. 

        • Gregg

          It’s the wrong question if the “laws” are unconstitutional. Obamacare can’t square the circle, how many waivers did Obama dole out? Unions are exempt.

          • Zero

            The law would only be un-Constitutional is Obama had mandated that churches (not religious affiliated businesses) had to provide contraception.  Churches don’t have to provide anything!  And unions aren’t businesses as well!  A business is a business.

            Churches and unions may look like businesses at times, but they are in a different category.

            That is why this law isn’t attacking religion, it is just making all business provide contraception. 

            Why should Notre Dame be exempt from a law that Harvard has to follow?

        • Modavations

          Answer me this one,Why did FDR say no to Public Unions?.As for the religious institution exemptions,note the “conscientious objector”‘.Furthermore………
          The “conscience clause is a law exempting those whose religious or moral principles forbid compliance.In Boston, when Catholic Charities was forced to place kids in homosexual families ,they closed their doors

          • Zero

            The conscience clause only applies within a certain perimeter.  Adults can’t marry 13 year-old kids simply because they are religious.  The church is free to be exempt from provide contraception within a church.  Once the church starts up a business like everyone else, they have to follow the laws like everyone else.  The government does not hand out special wavers of law for religion unless the organization remains nonprofit.  If religious affiliated businesses went to a nonprofit model, then they would be exempt from the mandate.    

          • Modavations

            Do you realize the damage when Catholic Charities closed in Boston?

          • Zero

            People who are charitable stay charitable.

          • Zero

             FDR has his own rationale; I have mine.  Attack my rationale if you want me to change my mind.

          • Modavations

            That’s an evasion,not an answer

          • Zero

            Quit evading my rationale.  You are just proposing BS questions.

            How about this–Why do you think Eisenhower taxed the rich 91% and gave America the best economy ever?
            Why do you think Reagan said that capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as labor?

            Why do you think Teddy Roosevelt wanted socialized health care? 

            No, I present a rationale that you are free to attack.  Why you present a rationale, I usually ignore you because it is just stupid.  I usually respond to you responding to me. 

            You are the one evading and propping up some side issue, trying to get me to do some circular logic of why FDR would think differently today.  Get real.  

  • Zero

    Hey Moda, I found and read (parts of) a Harvard Law Review Journal from 1989. Obama’s name is on it.  It was the only article available.  This link might not work because it cost money to have jstor. But the article is pretty cool.  They cite Michel Foucault–how awesome is it that we have a president who has read Foucault!   

    http://www.jstor.org.dax.lib.ufl.edu/stable/pdfplus/1341407.pdf

    I tried to copy and paste it here but it is pretty mangled.  I just copied the section up until Obama’s name is cited. 

    VOLUME 103 NOVEMBER 1989 NUMBER 1
    HARVARD LAW REVIEW I
    ESSAY
    THE CURVATURE OF CONSTITUTIONAL SPACE:
    WHAT LAWYERS CAN LEARN FROM MODERN PHYSICS
    Laurence H. Tribe*
    Twentieth-century physics revolutionized our understanding of the physical
    world. Relativity theory replaced a view of the universe as made up of
    isolated objects acting upon one another at a distance with a model in which
    space itself was curved and changed by the presence and movement of objects.
    Quantum physics undermined the confidence of scientists in their ability to
    observe and understand a phenomenon without fundamentally altering it in
    the process. Professor Tribe uses these paradigm shifts in physics to illustrate
    the need for a revised constitutional jurisprudence. He argues that judges
    and lawyers need to recognize the profound impact that the law has in
    shaping the social background. This background is too often taken as given.
    Judges, in particular, cannot simply reach in and resolve disputes between
    individuals without permanently altering the legal and social space. The
    very act of judging alters the context and relationships being judged. Professor
    Tribe concludes that, while perspectives resembling those of modern
    physics have been integrated into some of the most important constitutional
    cases decided during the twentieth century, the current Supreme Court shows
    an unfortunate tendency toward relying too often on visions of society and
    knowledge that have long beent rejected as overly formal and sterile.
    I. INTRODUCTION
    Although my topic is the constitutional lessons of general relativity
    and quantum physics, I do not address the subject because I am
    determined to bring science or mathematics into law; I still believe
    what I wrote in the I970′s about the perils of that enterprise.1 Nor
    * Tyler Professoro f ConstitutionaLl aw, HarvardL aw School. I am gratefult o Rob Fisher,
    Michael Dorf, Kenneth Chesebro, Gene Sperling, and Barack Obama for their analytic and
    research assistance and to Professor GeraldH olton( HarvardP hysicsD epartmentf)o r his helpful
    comments. This essay builds upon the 43d Annual Cardozo Lecture I gave before the Association
    of the Bar of the City of New York on May II, I989, 44 RECORD OF THE ASS’N OF THE BAR
    OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK V7: (ToRn)-

    • Modavations

      On the 2/29/12 forum I queried the Presidents acamedic credentials.Mr.Zero,as ever,was defending all that is “Left”.I said what were his SATS,show me something he wrote while Editor of the Harvard Law Review.How many Presidents of the Harvard Law Review don’t speak foreign languages?Mr.Zero then sent at 6:26PM, date 2/29/12 a post starting:”here you go stupid,e-mail the following person to obtain law reviews written between 1988-1990.’I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU,BUT TO ME THIS INTIMATED i WOULD FIND voluminous SCREEDS BY pRES.oBAMA.i Ccntacted Wm.S.Hein  Co. to buy the articles.Here’s the replay when I asked the rep.to cite me volumes in which I could read the President…….

      Dear Mr M……
            Furter to our phone conversation this a.m. and your e-mail request.
      Here’s the “scoop”from our top Researcher here at Hein…….
      “B.O. did not actually write anything for the review.He was the  editor for period,but did not author anything”

      • Anonymous

         Jeepers, Batman. That was at least two whole paragraphs.

        • Modavations

          I didn’t read his spin.I never read your endless tomes.Go beat your wife,or dog,or kid.What a violent,insecure fellow you are

          • Anonymous

             You replied to his post without reading it? That sounds like a real effective debating technique. If you don’t read my endless tomes, how do you know what I think? Must be that problem you have with paragraphs, again.

          • Modavations

            correct

          • Modavations

            When you mature,you too will be able to acertain one’s jist,without reading the screed.

          • Anonymous

             Learning without reading.What a time saving technique. You should write a book. Oh, but then people would have to read. Never mind.

      • Zero

        Where did I say Obama wrote law review?  Where have I ever in the history of this blog said Obama wrote “voluminous law review”? 

        …I intimated, I said indirectly that Obama wrote law review?  Yeah…that sounds like me.  You, who thinks the world is a giant liberal conspiracy, who claimed that liberals claim that Obama “wrote voluminous law review.” I didn’t claim anything!  Get your head out of your ass!  Obama is not a foreign-borne Muslim communist. 

        What is your point by all of this?  He was editor of the Harvard Law Review, which is the top position in Harvard Law School, which also means that his input, his fingerprints are all over the late 1980s Law Review, and it also means that Obama is one of the top legal minds in the country.

        What is your point?  What am I suppose to be defending (except what I said)?

        • Modavations

          He’s an affirmative action case.No SATS,no written opinions,no foreign languages(Cinco de quatro was his greetings to a Latino group at the White House).You were defending the man and absolutely gave me Hein Co. as a source for his writings.Never in a millipon years did you think I’d enquire..

          • Zero

            Was it harder for Obama to get into Columbia on affirmative action, or was it harder for Bush Jr. to get into Yale on his rich daddy’s legacy? 

            Kiss my ass you racist pig!

          • Modavations

            I stand corrected.You have taught me something.When out of ammo,use the race card.Many times I have called Bush(the second worst Pres.)an affirjmatyive action case,:ie the Silver Spoon type.My name is Frederick Douglas Manning.Yea,that Frederick Douglas.

        • Modavations

          Show me anything the man wrote that would lead a sane person to think he is a genius.I never called the Pres.a foreign born communist muslim.You are a Groupie,an excuse maker for the Welfare State.For any one interested read the discussion of 2/29/12 at 6;29Pm and the surrounding back and forth.I do not consider my adversaries to be “asses”.Just niave and overly propagandized.

          • Zero

            You assumed I had a college education, which leads me to believe that you think I have a certain level of intelligence.  I don’t have to read Obama’s books, which are beautifully written.  Just listen to the man talk and judge him on what he says (not what Fox News says he says).  Your communist, socialist rants are propaganda.  You putting words in my mouth is the strongest form of propaganda. 

            I can tell you this much about Obama: he doesn’t go around saying he wants to follow the principles Adam Smith laid out in “Wealth of Nations” and do the opposite of what Smith said.  And I am the one that is niave.

            I grew up, upper class white boy in the South.  I know morons like you–I have heard it all my life.  You are full of shit.  You lie to us and you lie to yourself.

            I went through the trouble of providing you places to go to research Obama, because I want you to educate yourself.  But you are too attached to an Individualistic ideology that has caused pain, suffering, and revolutions.  Look at history–every time people have become unequal, did the lower class “hard worked” there way to the top…no…social revolutions or violent revolutions happen. 

            Go read a book.

          • Modavations

            I’m sure I’ve read them all.I’m 60 years old,Poly Sci at B.C..I don’t read anything over a paragraph

          • Modavations

            No Sir,you’re a fraud in my opinion.You insinuated I’d find Obama’s wrtitings if I’d only consult with Hein Co..I did,they said he wrote Niente.Only a child,an insecure fellow, tells an educated person,go read a book.How many times have you sworn at me?

          • Zero

            You asked me where you could find where Obama has written Law Review.  I gave you a source where you can find law review while Obama was at Harvard.

            I never said that you would find actually writing by him, but I did say a few times that you could still find something he wrote, and I still think that you can.  He was the editor, which means you could find footnotes and commentary that he penned.  Moreover, everything written in the Law Reviews, Obama has had input and discretionary power.  That’s what it means to be an editor. 

            I mentioned that I found out that Obama has read Foucault…that says a lot and it means a lot to me.  If you want a secondary portrait of Obama, you got to dig.  Archiving ain’t easy!

          • Modavations

            Like calling Hein Co.?Don’t you think you should have made the effort?

          • Zero

             I have no clue what you are talking about.

          • Zero

            When I said Romney never lived a day outside the upper class (which is true)–you said Obama went to a private school that cost $26,000, neglecting the fact that he was on scholarship.

            That, in my opinion, warranted me to call you a :moron.”  I called you a “racist pig,” and I thought it was warranted.  If you don’t think an insult is warranted, turn it around on the individual and make them look like the idiot.  That’s what I do when someone insults me without warrant. 

            Moreover, it would be easy to dismiss me if called you “blank” without giving you a rationale.  And I give you a rationale somewhere north of 90% of the time. 

          • Modavations

            I don’t swear at people,ever

          • Modavations

            Romney gave his inheritence to charity

          • Zero

            He has never lived a day outside of being a millionaire.  The man never had a worry in his life.  If I inherited millions after I finished Harvard Law and Business, I would give it away too.  Romney saying that is just a way for him to appear as if he climbed the social latter.  His dad climbed the social  latter in a time when American economic policy was way to the left.

          • Modavations

            Piece of Sh-t,moron,.Keep it together son….What is the point about Wealth of Nations?Please show the class where I called Pres.Obama a foreign born,Muslim,Communist.Watch out for your Birkenstocks.Do you realize what drips of sweat do to them?

          • Zero

            Fine, you haven’t called him a foreign borne terrorist.  You got me.  I’m a liar and there is zero truth to what I say.

            My point about Wealth of Nations and Romney is that Romney is not just changing his view to gain political capital, he is a hypocrite. 

          • Modavations

            Agreed,but.So what.I side with the lesser of two evils(my opinion)

          • Zero

            If you can point out Obama’s hypocrisies without me being able to rationalize them, that would be the best way for you to turn my opinion. 

          • Zero

            I’m not the one arguing for faith-based economic policy.

          • Modavations

            I’m not calling you a liar.Your ideology impinges on your noggin

          • Modavations

            I assume everyone on NPR has a college education.The question is from where

    • Modavations

      Was this written by Pres.Obama?Why did FDR say no Public Unions

      • Zero

        The authors name is there, and it footnotes Obama’s input.   I still don’t understand the point you are trying to make.  I am trying to help you research Obama.  And I’ve actually found it fruitful.

        As for the FDR thing.  I’ve told you: I don’t care about FDR’s rationale per se.  Attack my rationale on what I have said about unions!  If you can’t do that, then perhaps you should rethink some things.

        • Modavations

          Why did JFK lower rates?.As for the Pres.writings,in case it isn’t clear*,I felt you intimated I would discover untold pearls of wisdom and mental acumen,if only I would look to Hein.For the tenth time I provided you their reply.tHEY HAVE Niente.As for someone quoting the Pres.,that is not what I call a paper.Please foward anything the Pres.has written.I was able,for instance to read Michelle Obama’s Princeton thesis.I found it okay for high school,not for Princeton.Of course,it was a woe is me,racism piece.Now put up.By the way,I find your telling me of your wish iillumine me condescending.you’ve yet to teach me anything.It is,however,preferable to be sworn at(sort of)I am enjoying the examination of Leftolipithicus,however.SORT OF LIKE lEAKY AND and his australipithicus,Lucy.

          • Zero

            “Why did JFK lower rates?”  …again, you really need to read about two-valued logic and infinite-valued logic.  I have expressed many times that there are economic conditions where it would be beneficial to lower taxes.  I’m not an ideologue.  I look at the conditions and judge what is the appropriate policy to implement.  I don’t come from a singular vision of raising taxes or lowering taxes–those kinds of visions have hubris all over it.  

            Listen, you broached the subject, not me.  You inquired were you may find his writings, and I tried to help you find them.

            I not once said Obama is a genius because he wrote law review.  You have a habit of creating arguments out of thin air.  I had made zero claims about Obama’s academic record!  I would like to see his academic record myself. 

            As for the “woe is me, racism” comment–you live in the Northeast where there are great universities and it much more liberal. I grew up and still live in the South–every time I go up north or west, I notice that black people have certain jobs that they don’t have in the South, and I didn’t realize how segregated the South still is until I traveled to other regions.  (I went to an all white public schools–there were two black kids and they were siblings at my high school of 1,200.  I worked at a Walgreens growing up, and my assistant got pulled over in my wealthy community for driving while black twice within a three years.  There is a lot of racism in the country, and it does have an economic impact.  I could go on.

    • Modavations

      Do you know what Laissez Faire means.It means “Leave alone”.That’s Mr.Smith.He figured it out in the 1700′s.In the 20th Century you guys have given us the 5 year plan and the insufferable Ghetto.Are you for School Vouchers?

      • Zero

        I actually prefer an economy with lower taxes, like Japan.  But financial equality is only achieved in those kinds of economies with strong labor representation.  That’s why Smith thought unions were important, and I am pretty sure he said something about how the consumer class (the majority) should always have more control than the entrepreneur class (the minority). 

        Republicanism asks of us that the majority bow down to the will of the “job creators” because they have settled into a certain lifestyle and if that is even dented with a modest tax hike, the job creators will ship jobs to China. 

        We have a 35% ineffective tax rate on the wealthy, (which is second lowest among G20 nations (lower only slightly to Japan)).  Countries have raised taxes on the rich without slipping into communism.  America has raised taxes before and it has worked!  In fact, communism has come about by not taxing the rich and providing social safety nets.  Radical shifts come after extreme levels of inequality, and as far as I can tell: more tax cuts on the rich and another war with a Muslim country is going to cause serious uproar. 

        I have told you many times that you need to stop thinking with two-valued logic and move to an infinite-valued logic–once you do that, your extremism will die down and you will come to more sensible conclusions while still being a republican…you will just look like Jon Huntsman instead of Michelle Bachmann. 

        • Modavations

          We offer a level playing field,not financial equity.That’s Marxism and 5 year plan stuff.I’m for letting taxes rise,if and only if the monies are used to reduce the debt.This year we will pay 457Billion in interest on the debt,.With that money we could save NASA a million times over,we could save the P.Office a million times over.With the 2 trillion spent on the various stimulus plans we could have cut all the working stiffs a check for 13,000.00.And your opinion on school vouchers is what?.Herr Smith warned of monopoly.He called it collusion.I agree!!!That’s what the 4 health insurers in Ma.are guilty of(my opinion).Me and FDR have no problems with Private Unions.It was The Public Union we reject

          • Zero

            Financial equality is not Marxism!  Financial equality is the aim of every economic theory including your beloved supply side economics.  The evil people in the history of the world are the ones that turn a blind eye to the poor and could not care less about equality. 

            And what makes you think that if Obama raises taxes, it won’t go to reducing the deficit and trying to balance the budget like Clinton? Look at the republican track record for balancing the budget!  Democrats were screaming about the deficits under Bush, not the republicans, so it is pretty hypocritical of you to scream now.  If you would actually look at the leading drivers of the deficit, Obama (not the republicans) are trying to remedy them.  Republicans have actually been proposing policy that would exacerbate the leading drivers, (except Medicare Part D which they just want to cut consumer side care while Obamacare remedies the massive fraud on the provider side). 

            Moreover, you can’t really stop public employees from unionizing–teachers, police officers, garbage men can always strike.  And if you look at the history of unions, the public sector unions have been the most reasonable–perhaps too reasonable because most people including a portion of republicans think teacher are underpaid. 

            I don’t understand why you want to capaciously take away a public employees right to negotiate wages.  Public sector union negotiation with politicians is a lot more productive than strikes.  Sure, the government can pooh pooh public employees who don’t have college education, but most college grads don’t need the public sector but the country needs teacher. 

            And if you ask most republicans if taxes should be raised on the rich to reduce the deficit, reduce college tuition, give scholarships, help police departments, etc, most of them would say yes.  But right wing propaganda says democrats want to tax the rich to give it to lazy black people–and the politicians get lower and middle class Southerners to vote against their economic interests.

            As for teacher pay–we don’t need to raise taxes to increase education on a national scale, we just need to allocate more money to the teachers themselves and attract some talent. The problem the is that No Child Left behind rewards the schools that are doing well, and punish the ones that are failing–but the ones that are doing well are predominantly from wealthier counties where school funding is already pumped up and t he ones that fail are from poor counties with already crappier equipment and evironment than the rich schools.

        • Modavations

          I have no master.I voted Perot.Are you clairvoyent.Pick me a stock.I’m stuck $4000.00 with that dog,BoA.Why are you always swearing

          • Zero

             If my swearing is what allows you to ignore the substance of my argument, then you (not I) am the one that has a problem. 

    • Modavations

      Was this written by Pres.Obama

  • notafeminista

    To feet below as the thread is starting to narrow..:  And as I stated in my comment, you (as well as any number of others) use Mr. Limbaugh’s bad behavior to completely abandon whatever principles they might have had otherwise.    See, I thought the Left was supposed to be better than that.  All you’ve got is….Limbaugh treated others badly so I’m going to treat him badly (despite what I really believe or think).

    I’m a fan of “Best of the Web” in the WSJ (no surprise there I’m sure).  Mr. Taranto compares the sort of thinking described here to “Forrest Gump”.  You know the scene…when Jenny’s then boyfriend hits her repeatedly and then blames his actions on President Johnson and the war.   He can hardly be blamed for battering her because he’s just so overwrought about Vietnam.

    As you can hardly be blamed for behaving poorly…because well…Mr. Limbaugh did and that excuses you.

    • Anonymous

       And, yet again, you’re inability to grasp the simplest of intellectual exercises is astounding. Of course, you’re wrong in you’re assertion that intolerant statements about drug use, made over a period of many years, are to be ignored in favor of compassion for a vile clown, simply because he got caught doing what he loudly condemned in others. When I hear Limbaugh state that “Drug addicts should not be sent to prison,” or when I hear him say “I should have gone to prison myself,” perhaps then my  opinion of him will change. It’s called hypocrisy. Look up the definition, and then don’t accuse me of it, while ignoring it in Rush and his minions. And, if you don’t think people should be judged on the basis of their words and their behavior, maybe you can tell us how we’re supposed to do it. Unless you’re trying to claim that no one anywhere has ever deserved to be condemned for bad behavior. I guess we’re all just a bunch of angels.

      • Modavations

        What a violent chap you are.I smell hate oozing from your pores.Seek help before you hurt yourself,or others

        • Anonymous

           Untie that half of your brain you claim to have stuck up your ass. Maybe then I’ll try to play.

          • Modavations

            Pure violence from every pore…Again,those who freak the most,are those who are most insecure in their beliefs.You bring new dimension to the word “insecure”,

          • Anonymous

             I wonder if you think I’m violent and insecure. Maybe you can let me know, again.

      • notafeminista

        Why hold yourself to his standards and not your own? 

        • Anonymous

           I’d sure like to know where you ever got the insane idea that I’m some kind of benevolent soul, forgiving of all human transgressions. There’s nothing I enjoy more than trying to stick it to hypocritical morons like Rush. I should think I’ve made that clear in the past months. Implying that I’m inconsistent for not practicing a principle I never claimed to own is simply more evidence of your inability to comprehend  simple English.

          • notafeminista

            While engaging in your own hypocrisy.  Again, why hold yourself to his standards and not your own?

          • Anonymous

             I just told you my standards. Try again.

          • Anonymous

            There seems to be a fair amount of a lack of comprehension on this forum.
            I wonder why that is?

  • Modavations

    During the Thanksgiving week a psycho posting under multitudes of phantom names, almost brought NPR to a standstill.One of his posting identities, was “Spartacus”.Yesterday AJ called himself “Spartacus”.Yesterday phantoms appeared using other posters names and very vile language(see below).One day I asked AJ if he’d kill a Jew in Manhattan ,if he thought he’d get away with it.He answered I’m a Vegetarian.By the way, the postings by the very insane Spartacus(I’m not claiming these are the same guys,but my intuition says yes,yes,yes)still stand.Look at the week preceding Thanksgiving and a few days after

    • aj

      Your intuition is wrong,wrong,wrong. I have never used “phantom posters”.  The reference to Spartacus on this thread was a joke.  A well known line from a well known movie, perhaps you didn’t think it was funny.
       

      • Gregg

        AJ, I don’t recall you being around at the time but the person Moda is referring to vomited “I am Spartacus” on every single post Moda wrote. I’m not accusing you of anything (neither did Moda) but there is a basis for the suspicion.

        Personally, I find your debate style honest and somewhat insightful disagree as we may.

        • Modavations

          Mr.Feet.Please note how a mature person responds.No names,no invective,no hate

          • Anonymous

             He told me to “shut Up” earlier. I can only aspire to such a level of maturity.

          • Gregg

            Only if you refused to make an informed comment. It’s not a lot to ask.

          • Anonymous

            I think I finally understand. Those of us who listen to Limbaugh and consider him to be a fountain of wisdom are open-minded and well informed. Those of us who have listened and found him to be a boorish oaf are closed minded and uninformed. Boy, I’m glad I finally got that figured out.

          • Modavations

            Gregg makes a point 99% os I the time(we are human afterall and I find him making a rough retort,only when provoked).I find you a walking provocation.For instance at 8:17 you posted……Babble,babble,babble,oof,ungh,amen,unhhh,doe!!

          • Anonymous

             You are a walking, breathing provocation.

          • Zero

            You do nothing but reduce liberals to “Marxists, communists, socialist, etc.”

            Why don’t I reduce you to a social Darwinist who thinks liberals are the parasitic race? 

          • Modavations

            I’m sorry,but that’s how I feel.Furthermore I think the Left is setting up a Putsch.They will foment a race war led by Union Stormtroopers.

          • Zero

            If what you think is hyperbolic to everyone else, you need a reality check.  You and right wing propaganda reduces democrats to a consistency of far left agenda, when in reality, Obama is far far far right of every president from FDR to Carter, economically speaking.  Nobody even tried to disprove that when I wrote it earlier. 

            I’m not pointing you to Media Matters or the Frankfort School, I’m pointing you to what Japan is doing, what Germany is doing, what the best economies with the best human rights are doing.  And you call me a commie.

            You are the clearest victim of right wing propaganda.  Even though Gregg agrees with you…look at how he argues…and get off the random hyperbole. 

          • Modavations

            I find that assumption preposterous.Since when do rising taxes yield prosperity.Read JFK and explain his rational for cutting rates

          • Zero

            I have no problem cutting taxes when taxes are actually high!

          • Zero

             Furthermore, Obama has expressed no desire to tax the rich above 50%. 

            One of his economic advisers thinks Obama should tax the rich 49%.  I have heard (source forgotten) that Obama’s ideal tax rate for the rich is 44%.  That is still way right of JFK’s tax rate, and I imagine Barry Goldwater would have been pretty happy with 44%. 

      • Modavations

        I too hope Gregg is right,but………….

        • aj

          but what you little bitch. 

          • Anonymous

             Uh, Oh…. More violence. Wait for it.

          • aj

            I’m sorry, for calling y ou a little bitch.

          • Gregg

            Everybody calm down, let’s join hands and sing “Feelings”.

          • aj

            lol

          • Modavations

            no sweat

    • Anonymous

       Babble, babble, babble,..oof,…ugh,..ahem,…unhh,..doe!!!!!   

      • Modavations

        How does one   reply to such brilliance???

        • Anonymous

           Very good. Self-examination is always a good first step.

          • Modavations

            Answer me this,as your brethren won’t.Why did FDR warn against the Public Union?

          • Anonymous

             I am not now, nor have I ever been the slightest bit interested in discussion of unions.

          • Modavations

            Give it a try

          • Anonymous

             No. Not interested in the subject.

          • Modavations

            Come on dude,it’ll take your mind off the hate

  • Gregg

    I look forward to reading what Media Matters tells the commenters to think about what Rush said today. I’m listening now and he’s knocking it out of the park.

  • Gregg

    For some perspective I am posting some lyrics from the song “Ghetto Dream” by rapper Common who was celebrated at the White House and honored with an invite.

    I want a bitch that look good and cook good
    Cinderella fancy, but she still look hood
    Butt naked in the kitchen flipping pancakes
    Plus she tricking from the dough that her man makes
    We got our own handshake
    Her titties ain’t fake
    F-cking in the car cause we just can’t wait to get home
    Early in the morn’ getting stoned
    Pretty with her eyes low, bunny buy a Bible
    This the type of bitch that BIG said he would die for
    It’s type that I’d ride or stay alive for
    Tatts on her back, looking all tribal
    She know shoes like she know survival
    Well put together, she weathers the storm
    Seen her brother die so forever she strong
    Hear Beyonce’s song and she gotta perform
    Whether f-cking or fighting: we getting it on!

    • Brett

      It’s amazing how many contortions you’ve gone through in an effort to defend Limbaugh….so, do two wrongs make a right in  your world? I guess that’s your point? Maybe I’m wrong; maybe your point is a different one. You neocons do have funny, made-up definitions for words like “hypocrisy,” “radical,” “infanticide,” and so on…so who knows.

      Obama’s people invited someone to the White House who had used foul language in one of his “songs”! This is an example of “hypocrisy” or whatever it is you are trying to say? …Brilliant! [sarcasm]

      • Modavations

        Brother B that’s not Gregg,That’s an imposter

        • Brett

          Thanks, MO-D! And, Sorry, Gregg (to the real Gregg). Whoever posted that: I curse you! 

          • Modavations

            I’m right beside you lad

      • Gregg

        Brett and Moda, That was me not an impostor. and Brett, my point is not about 2 wrongs making a right or defending Rush. Hell he didn’t even defend himself for the words. Common has a right to his art and Obama has a right to celebrate it, fine. The Rush thing is feigned outrage and I think the Common invite proves it in dramatic fashion. My problem is with the media being manipulated by Obama and creating all this hoopla over a radio guy. Rush certainly stepped in it but this is nuts.

        • Modavations

          GenG., I think you credit Pres.Obama with cunning when it’s just blind luck

          • Gregg

            Don’t underestimate the tyrant. Brietbart’s evidence is coming soon.

      • Modavations

        Brother B.I humbly appologize and will self flagellate

      • Hidan

         I used to think people like him couldn’t possibly believe such and given information one would at least rethink their views.

        But than again he holds the likes of Ann Coulter in high regard.

        • Gregg

           I love Ann Coulter but she’s gone soft.

    • Modavations

      I appolgize to NPR

      • aj

        lol

      • Hidan

         nice

    • Hidan

      Try all you like to label Common as something he’s clearly not. but than again you think Rush is logical and the tea parties not racist.

      Nothing close to what
      Johnny Cash said. Invited to the WH

      can’t forget the day I shot that bad btch down.

      http://www.lyrics007.com/Johnny%20Cash%20Lyrics/Cocaine%20Blues%20Lyrics.html

      http://www.lyricsdepot.com/johnny-cash/cocaine-blues.html

      The judge he smiled as he picked up his pin 99 years in the Folsom pen99 years underneath that ground I can’t forget the day I shot that bad bitch downCome on you’ve gotta listen unto me lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be

      • Gregg

        So you agree the President should not be bothered by a couple of words from a radio guy who has spread so much love during his career? Me too.

    • Hidan

       Common.

      featuring Lauryn Hill

      Yo we gotta start respectin life more y’all
      You look at your brother man you gotta see yourself
      Gotta see the God within him
      Brothers gettin changed real quick over nothin
      We losin too many of ours
      Gotta recreate y’all
      Yo check it

      Knowin you the best part of life do I have the right to take yours
      Cause I created you irresponsibly
      Subconciously knowin the act I was a part of
      The start of somethin, I’m not ready to bring into the world
      Had myself believin I was sterile
      I look into mother’s stomach, wonder if you are a boy or a girl
      Turnin this woman’s womb into a tomb
      But she and I agree, a seed we don’t need
      You would’ve been much more than a mouth to feed
      But someone, I woulda fed this information I read
      to someone, my life for you I woulda had to leave
      Instead I lead you to death
      I’m sorry for takin your first breath, first step, and first cry
      But I wasn’t prepared mentally nor financially
      Havin a child shouldn’t have to bring out the man in me
      Plus I wanted you to be raised within a family
      I don’t wanna, go through the drama of havin a baby’s momma
      Weekend visits and buyin J’s ain’t gon’ make me a father
      For a while bearing a child is somethin I never wanted to do
      For me to live forever I can only do that through you
      Nerve I got to talk about them niggaz with a gun
      Must have really thought I was God to take the life of my son
      I could have sacrificed goin out
      To think my homies who did it I used to joke about, from now on
      I’ma use self control instead of birth control
      Cause $315 ain’t worth your soul
      $315 ain’t worth your soul
      $315 ain’t worth it

      Seeing you as a present and a gift in itself
      You had our child in you, I probably never feel what you felt
      But you dealt with it like the strong black woman you are
      Through our trials and tribulations, child’s elimination
      An intergration of thoughts I feel about the situation
      Back and forth my feelings was pacin
      Happy deep down but not joyed enough to have it
      But even that’s a lie in less than two weeks, we was back at it
      Is this unprotected love or safe to say it’s lust
      Bustin, more than the sweat in somebody you trust
      Or is it that we don’t trust each other enough
      And believe, havin this child’ll make us have to stay together
      Girl I want you in my life cause you have made it better
      Thinkin we all in love cause we can spend a day together
      We talkin spendin the rest of our lives
      It’s too many black women that can say they mothers
      but can’t say that they wives
      I wouldn’t chose any other to mother my understanding
      But I want our Parenthood to come from Planning
      It’s so much in my life that’s undone
      We gotta see eye to eye, about family, before we can become one
      If you had decided to have it the situation I wouldn’t run from
      But I’m walkin, findin myself in my God
      So I can, discipline my son with my writin
      Not have a judge tellin me how and when to raise my seed
      Though his death was at our greed, with no one else to blame
      I had a book of Afrikan names, case our minds changed
      You say your period hasn’t came, and lately I’ve been sleepy
      So quit smokin the weed and the beadies and let’s have this boy
      y..

  • Modavations

    I must confess that I too have been dumbed down by the Left,a slippage of I.Q..A year ago I would never have missed this.Day by day,minute by minute Mr.Feet becomes more agitated,full of invective,gushing endless vitriol without a point.6 months ago,a truly sick fellow(my opinion)left the scene after a similar on screen”break down”.He used to say….”There’s nothing I enjoy more then sticking it to hypocritical morons like you”….Please go to todays post from Mr.Feet,at 9;20Am.Here Mr Feet says”there’s nothing I enjoy more then trying to stick it to hypocritical morons like Rush”.During Ultrax’s reign of terror he would constantly pose as legitimate posters and spread obscenties.This happened on this thread yesterday.Mr.Feet,are you Ultrax.I will donate $100.00 to the charity of your choice if someone can convince me Feet is notUltrax

    • Jasoturner

      Hmm.  Frighteningly similar to the cash “bounties” doled out in the N.O. Saints locker room.  Coincidence?

      • Modavations

        no intiendo

        • Jasoturner

          ¿No entiende?

          Una historia sobre footbal Americána en las noticias esta semana.

          • Modavations

            Pues di me todas.Que significa

          • Jasoturner
          • Modavations

            Je suis un Sot.Qu’est-ce que voudras dire. Otra vez chavo,Que es el punto quieres hacer? 

  • Zero

    I was listening to Limbaugh one day and Obama had a speech at the same time.  Limbaugh played it live, which astonished me…but then Limbaugh commentated while Obama was talking…and although Limbaugh or Obama did not tell any jokes…I laughed and laughed. 

  • aj

    ADDENDUM memo to Citoyenne June

    I’ve finished going through your links. My replies are below your last post.

    • aj

      Correction: Citoyenne Joan.

      Forgive me Joan, I got summer on my mind :)

  • aj

    BREAKING BREAKING

    Its gonna be 70 in NY thursday. R U ready 4 battle OccupyWallStreet?!?

  • aj

    SPRING FEVER in the city, yeeeaaaaaahhhhhh booooyyyyyyyy!!!

  • aj

    Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!

  • aj

    They took the 13 month old found in the rubble, off life support yesterday?? Tears.

    • Gregg

      Not sure I get the rest of your comments but that is very sad. None of her family survived. It’s just awful. Tornadoes are a bitch.

  • aj

    We coming 4 ya Bloomberg!!! Mike chek!!!!
    Surveil this punk!!!  SURVEIL THIS PUNK!!!!!!!!

  • Gregg

    While everybody hyperventilates about Rush, Obama is laughing. Issa was played with the last second substitution that put the selfish activist on the stand. Her testimony was irrelevant and stupid. The hearing was supposed to be about religious freedom. She went to a Catholic school with the express purpose of changing their policy. Now we learn she also argued for sex changes to be covered. Fluke went on “The View” and plugged Media Matters who is a threat to honest debate. She’s a real piece of work, the perfect useful idiot for Obama’s dastardly distraction.

    • aj

      I have to admit, I dont disagree with anything you have written above.  But Rush is still an overpaid gasbag.

      • Anonymous

        Overpaid, drug-addled, obnoxious gasbag. Please be accurate.

        • aj

          lol

        • Gregg

          He’s drug free. Please be accurate but Obama’s doctor told him he drinks too much.

          • Gregg

            If you had merely called him an overpaid obnoxious gasbag then we could have a beautiful difference of opinion but you had to go get all nasty.

      • Gregg

        So then we just have a difference of opinion. It’s beautiful.

    • aj

      And Issa is a bonehead.  He’s been going overboard with the house oversight committee. He holds a hearing on a different straw man every other news cycle, and he got burned.

      He should of focused his commitee on FastFurious and Solyndra and just done hearing after hearing on just those. He got carried away with his power trip committee, which has subpoena power. 

      Even O’reilly was admiring  how well the democrats turned a mishap into a political winner in an election year.  You are looking at the fundamentals, and I agree its being distorted.  But you must admit, strictly politically speaking it has been a coup for the white house.

      • Gregg

        Yea, I thought O’Reilly made a good point. And I agree Issa got played but look at the shenanigans that got Fluke on the stand. She was not the scheduled speaker.

    • Anonymous

      Dastardly distraction! Media Matters! Oh my… what a predicament, what’s a right winger to do? Go on the BUR forum and whine.

      Honest debate? I doubt you’re interested in that judging by the hyperbolic preamble you post here.

      So again, how does one know they are going to get into a school before they get in? I mean I would really love to know how this is done. Unless the young woman was a legacy, but I’m not sure there is such a thing for entering law schools.

      • Gregg

        Media Matters is what everyone here accuses Fox of being. The only difference is there is evidence with MM. Fluke advised people to go to the site and look at the list of commentators nasty remarks. Some how there is no mention of Ed Shultz calling Laura Ingraham a slut. Or Olberman calling Michelle Bachman a bimbo. Or Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin a dumb twat and cunt. Obama takes his million bucks. I looked this morning at MM and they are dredging up the Chelsea thing and quoting the late Molly Ivins but she’s not being truthful. We know, it was on TV there are transcripts. I saw it. How does this site have credibility and how can ABC let it go unchallenged?

        One knows where they are applying and the policies thereof. Do yourself a favor and look into it. Be just a little curious instead of being manipulated. This is a 30 year old seasoned activist with an agenda. Fine, but she is being portrayed as a 23 year old shrinking violet.

        And as to the “dastardly distraction”, I think Newt said it best:

        http://www.therightscoop.com/newt-owns-david-gregory-on-contraception/

        So yes, Honest Debate is of paramount importance to me.

        • Brett

          I know this isn’t your point today, but one of your points yesterday was that Limbaugh is an entertainer, and not in public office, so whatever he says is not as subject to scrutiny as ____(fill in anyone else you don’t want to defend). So why bring up Shultz, Olberman and Maher? Has anyone here tried to defend Shultz, Olberman and Maher the way you ostensibly are defending Limbaugh? 

          By the way, what Ed did and what Rush did are very different. What Ed said was a one-off offensive comment (for which he busted himself to his bosses and was put off the air for a week). Shultz also called Ingraham himself and apologized for his comment, for which she accepted. Limbaugh not only kept up his diatribe for three days, but he hasn’t really apologized (unless you’ve also convinced yourself that what he said was an apology). 

          Anyway, you’re proving yourself to be quite the partisan hack…I know, the media gives all liberals a pass and the poor conservatives are demonized unnecessarily…Also, let’s say, for the sake of argument, this Fluke person (pronounced like “cook”) is exactly what you imply she is, does this expunge Limbaugh? …The folks that Brietbart sent into Accorn were ringers…does that justify calling Brietbart or the people who went “undercover” offensive names?

          • Gregg

            I’m pressed for time right now so I’ll get back but your first paragraph confused me. Where did I: 1) defend Rush’s choice of words, and 2) imply “Limbaugh is an entertainer, and not in public office, so whatever he says is not as subject to scrutiny”?

            As a matter of fact I would LOVE Rush to come under much much more scrutiny but his point was lost and not scrutinized at all. That’s his fault for giving the media the fodder.

            Check back.

          • Brett

            So am I (short on time), but I’ll look it up. I didn’t say you are defending his choice of words, I said you appear (that’s what “ostensibly” means) to be defending him. If someone says, “so and so does it too, why didn’t they get into trouble” isn’t that defending? I also didn’t say you said Rush shouldn’t be scrutinized “at all.” But, you don’t want Rush scrutinized, you want Fluke scrutinized. Correct? Again, I’ll look up your comment, but, the implication was that private citizens and entertainers should not be held to the same scrutiny as public officials. So why bring up Maher or Schultz?

          • Gregg

            My position is Rush is a radio guy and the
            President of the United States is weighing in.  I am not saying he doesn’t deserve scrutiny. As I wrote, I wish there was more scrutiny from the public but the President? All the Sunday shows? This is hardly a national crisis. It’s whacked. Maybe that’s the confusion.

            Maher is particualrly relevant because he donated a million dollars to Obama’s campaign. He has many politicians eagerly appear on his show. His rhetoric is deplorable and he pays no price. They even put him on “This Week” as a panelist. Of course he made a fool of himself by saying Brazil didn’t use oil.

            I’ve seen the Ed Show but not much because before his TV show I listened to him quite a lot on his radio show.  I am quite familiar. I think his comments are far more than just a one time shot. Limbaugh did not spend 3 days attacking Fluke.  He was attacking the fabricated notion of free contraception.

            It’s funny you think I’m a partisan hack when I consider you far more partisan than I. All this pro-choice, pro-drug, non-Christian is concerned with is honest debate.

          • Brett

            Thanks for the clarification. What’s “pro-drug”?

          • Gregg

            I think all drugs should be legal. I even smoked pot… once… but I didn’t inhale… much.

        • Brett

          Oh, yeah, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Fox has ever distorted news events or has been dishonest in its reporting. 

          • Gregg

            No, I don’t believe there is save for the usual and common minor transgressions associated with all news outlets. Certainly not the coordinated partisan efforts of MM as evidence by Byron York’s recent reporting. It’s really quite serious.

          • Brett

            Ah, so Fox’s distortions are “common, minor transgressions…”  I’m not defending MM; however, you ARE defending Fox.

          • Gregg

            No, I’m not. I just don’t see the evidence. I gave you the “minor transgressions” as a fig leaf. I’m sure there must be something somewhere.

          • Modavations

            Read WSJ then NYT then decide.Listen to Brookings then Heritage then decide.An honest broker listens fearlessly to all sides.Personally I find Fox Medium Right.There are plenty of Libs(Allen Combs,the fat guy,Juan W,there are more.I find MSNBC(other then morning Joe,to be pure hate speech.I put up with Chris M,but find the others unwatchable.And I take no offense with MSNBC

          • Brett

            Hey, MO-D, I try to see what the different sides are saying, I even watch Fox sometimes (Bret and Shep and a few others are tolerable); my comment was just that Fox does distort and propagandize, just like what neocons accuse Media Matters (and their ilk) of.

          • Zero

             The different sides are saying the same thing as their affiliated political party.

        • Anonymous

          I don’t pay much attention to Media Matters.
          Sorry, but there is a huge difference between calling someone a bimbo and a slut and a whore. I also think that there is a difference between debasing a citizen and how one treats people in the public arena.
          Politics is a dirty game. It’s always been this way so anyone going into it is well aware that someone somewhere is going to be throwing mud. If you want political drama look up the general election of 1800.
          One only has to remember the Hamilton/Burr duel. Talk about politically charged hatred, these two men where (are) the very personification if it.

          Palin and Bachmann deserve all that has been flung at them in my view. They both have said some pretty offensive and outrageous things themselves. and you know what, they give it back. They know what they are doing, or so it seems.

          Palin has been very good at manipulating the media to get what she wants.
          Also, using the tit for tat argument is a stray horse. The issue here is not dirt politics, it’s Rush Limbaugh stepping over the line of civility with a citizen. He screwed up and is now paying the price. I doubt he’s going away and in a few weeks he will be back hurling his insults with all the aplomb your so found of listening too.

          • Gregg

            Please dude, I don’t want to deny ANYONE a voice and have NEVER said or implied so. I want fair accurate reporting.

        • Zero

          Obama had a Q&A with republicans and Fox  cut away from it in mid broadcast because Obama was killing a room full of republicans. 

          I also noticed that Fox didn’t air Obama’s Kansas speech but felt compelled to talk endlessly about how “Obama found a thousand different words for class warfare today.” 

          For Christ’s Sakes, just watch Fox, MSNBC, and CNN on mute, and analyze the visual rhetoric, and it should be apparent to you that Fox and MSNBC are propaganda arms.  I wouldn’t and don’t get my information from propaganda arms.

ONPOINT
TODAY
May 22, 2013
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Apple CEO Tim Cook is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 21, 2013, prior to testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent subcommittee on Investigations hearing. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Apple in the hot seat. Lawmakers say the company dodged billions in taxes on overseas profits. We’ll look at the world of off shore tax escapes.

May 22, 2013
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A woman carries her child through a field near the collapsed Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., Monday, May 20, 2013. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)

After Oklahoma’s giant twister, does Tornado Alley need to change the way it builds and lives in the age of superstorms?

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May 21, 2013
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Henry Ford sits at the tiller of his first automobile, the Quadricycle, in front of the John Wanamaker salesroom on Broadway between 49th and 50th Streets in New York City in 1904. (AP)

The controversial and brilliant Henry Ford and the world he invented.

 
May 21, 2013
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Detail from the book jacket of "The Unwinding: An Inner History Of The New America" by George Packer. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

New Yorker writer George Packer’s inside history of the great unwinding of America’s 20th century way of life and where we stand now.

On Point Blog
On Point Blog
Switching Shows For Our Second Hour Today
Friday, May 17, 2013

Adventures in live radio. Richard Snow, our guest for our show on Henry Ford, was held up — possibly by a faulty Model T? — so we’re running a terrific archive show on great quotations.

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Floyd Abrams On Obama Vs. Nixon
Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Floyd Abrams — one of the country’s leading authorities on the First Amendment — joined us today to talk about revelations that the Justice Department seized two months of phone records from the Associated Press.

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Dr. Judy Garber On Angelina Jolie’s Cancer Decision
Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Dr. Judy Garber — director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — joined us for the final segment of our show today to talk about star Angelina Jolie’s decision to undergo a preventative double mastectomy.

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