Lay Down With Dogs...

...and you end up with fleas!

This should be an abject lesson to both CNN and all other credible news outlets that treating Liz Cheney and her bunch of pro torture sychophant followers with anything other than disdain and scorn will end up tainting you with their stench.

Headline Win

56 Percent of Americans Are Too Soft to Fight Terrorism

Spencer Ackerman

Say Goodbye To Greta

Lou Dobbs, racist extraordinairre has announced his resignation from CNN. I would put the over under at 7 on the number of days before FoxNews annouces his hiring.

Oh and I am taking the under. LOL

FoxNews will now accurately reflect the GOP in the evenings.

A bunch of old, angry lame white men.

The "Librul" CNN

CNN has some 'splainin to do!

The CNN contributor, well-known GOP consultant Alex Castellanos, is best known for producing the racially-charged “Hands” ad, has repeatedly appeared on the network attacking Dem health care plans and the public option, which is strongly opposed by AHIP.

Castellanos’s consulting firm, National Media, also recently placed over $1 million of TV advertising for AHIP, according to info obtained by Media Matters. AHIP’s most recent $1 million ad buy attacks the health care plan as a threat to Medicare.

This connection, you’d think, should be disclosed whenever Castellanos appears on CNN discussing health care. Asked for comment, CNN spokesperson Edie Emery acknowledged the tie and promised full disclosure in the future. She emailed:

“When Alex Castellano returns from his vacation and next appears on CNN, we will clearly disclose to our viewers relevant information including his firm’s relationship with AHIP.”

CNN doesn’t appear to have known about Castellano’s work, and this is not the first time outside help retained by AHIP in the health care wars has created a PR mess. AHIP took heavy criticism after the firm it retained to release a study faulting the reform proposals publicly undercut its own findings.

To me this is a function of CNN concerted effort to take a move to the right. With their lagging ratings and worsening credibility this is the LAST thing they could have wanted at a time like this. To have a guy who has a financial stake in health care failing on their network talk about health care with out full disclosure is a major no no especially for a network that tries to sell itself as a "real" news outlet.

CNN Just Keeps On "Leaving It There"

Jon Stewart PWNS CNN for fact checking a SNL skit.

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Reality Check Mate

FoxNews has stirred up a hornets nest with Rick Sanchez and CNN.



The ironic part of this of course is that CNN did cover this story although it definitely was not worthy of the coverage CNN gave it AND because FoxNews lied on them its highly likely that CNN will now cover that story even more aggressively. Thats just how much our mainstream media sucks.

CNN also has an ad going at FoxNews too but I am not sure if they are playing it or not.

Robert Novak

Rather than speak ill of the dead I will just offer this clip up in rememberance.

Big Government Is No Longer A Boogie Man

There is a recently released CNN/Opinion Research poll about health care that is getting some play around the web. The focus for a lot of people is on the question of who is more likely to attend a town hall meeting. It seems that people who disagree with President Obama's health care reform plan are more likely to go to a town hall than those who agree with his plan.

Now to me this is a no brainer when you think about it. These are townhall meetings, not campaign rallys so for the most part people feel who agree with his proposals don't feel like they need to be sold on it anymore.

On the other hand people who disagree with the proposal are probably more likely to want to go to a townhall and either voice their disapproval and or ask questions that maybe they haven't had answered before. Now supposedly people are using this to justify the disruptions going on at the townhalls of Democratic members of Congress, but we all realize by now, or should at least, that the people behind those disruptions are not honest brokers. They are people ginned up to go and make a scene not regular people who just want to voice displeasure or to get more information. You simply can't make an argument that what they are doing is a testament to wide spread outrage over the health reform efforts when its obvious that its yet another example of astroturfing by the GOP and the health care industry. And thankfully, finally, the Democratic poltiical machine is now prepared to expose these people for who they really are.

Well there is something else in the polling that actually caught my eye that I haven't seen other places so far. And its this question and more importantly the percentages on how people answered.

32. In any health care system, someone must make tough decisions that affect individual patients, such as which patients get certain treatments, when they get treated, and which treatments are ineffective or too expensive. If you had to choose, would you rather have those decisions made by people who work for insurance companies, or people who work for the government?


Insurance companies 40%
Government 40%
Mixed/both equal (vol.) 7%
No opinion 13%

You read that right folks. After months and months of cries of socialism from the right wing blogosphere. After day after day of Glen Beck crying. After speech after speech of Congressional Republicans yelling about a "government takeover" of health care. A whopping 40% of respondents, equal to those who prefer insurance companies, chose the big bad hairy government as whom they would prefer to make decisions about their health care treatments.

Break out the fainting couches folks, Republicans are gonna need them!

Teh Stupid

Jon Stewart poses a very relevant question to "birther" Lou Dobbs:

"Do you even watch CNN? Its your own fucking network!"

The Born Identity

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Define Ammuntion

It never ceases to amaze me how far "news" organizations will go to try to spice up their stories.

CNN has a story up entitled "CNN Poll: Americans worry Obama health care plan will increase costs"

So lets see where that part of the story kicks in around the 7th graf.

But the poll does provide some ammunition for Republicans opposed to the president's proposals. Fifty-four percent say their medical insurance costs will increase if the Obama plan becomes law, with 17 percent feeling their costs will decrease. Around one in four say their costs will remain the same. And only one in five say their family will be better off if the president's plan becomes law, with 35 percent feeling they would be worse off, and 44 percent saying they would be about the same.

So 54% of those surveyed say their costs will go up. Ok and I suppose thats a valid worry. But how did it affect their support for healthcare reform? Well for that you have to look up earlier in the article.

Fifty-one percent of people questioned in the poll say they favor the president's health care plan, with 45 percent opposed.

So let me get this straight, 54% say their costs would go up and yet President Obama's plan STILL gets 51% support?!

Well my goodness, its almost as if the American people are ready to pay more for a better health care system.

And then lets look at the other bit of "ammunition" for the GOP in the poll according to CNN.

Thirty five percent feel they will be worse off with President Obama's plan. Well that kinda sorta tracks along with the same 30ish percentage of voters who don't approve of President Obama so far, ie wingnuts. But lets do the math on the other side of the argument.

Twenty percent believe that they will be better off and fourty four percent they will be the same. Hmmm so you mean to tell me that 64% of all Americans see either no harm coming to them or a benefit coming to them from health care reform and thats supposed to be a winnning argument for the GOP?!

Sigh.

I am sure this will bring out the concern trolls in the ConservaDem ranks who ignore any polling that shows strong support for a public option in health care reform but will focus endlessly on the framing of a poll, not the poll itself mind you, that implies that healthcare reform doesn't have public support.

This kind of reporting and story framing is what will keep bloggers in business for a very long time.

Schism

This morning two prominent Republicans went on Sunday shows and dismissed the small tent philosphy embraced by both Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. Colin Powell and Tom Ridge, both military veterans, calmly and thoughtfully put forth their case for their visions of the Republican Party going forward. Now seeing as how neither man is in office or running for office they could speak their mind without having to carry water for the wingnut base. Now they didn't present the exact same case, but one thing was for certain with both of them. Neither man believed the Republican Party can make a comeback if they listen to people like Rush Limbaugh. Now here is the thing, Rush Limbaugh is one of the most polarizing people in America let alone inside the Republican Party. But right now the GOP is not just trying to shore up its base, its also trying to reach out to independents and people in the middle. That is a fight that normally they would be fighting against the Democrats but it turns out that it seem clear now that they will also be fighting for them within the party.

I believe that today is a watershed moment. There are now two totally conflicting views of the party and sooner or later people are going to have to chose. The reason for this is that the Rush Limbaugh wing of the party wants to expel the Colin Powell/Tom Ridge wing. But they aren't going anywhere and while they would never say publicly that Rushbo needs to haul his fat ass, I am sure privately they think HE is the one that needs to go. So who will the majority of Republicans back? Who will those independents who lean Republican line up behind? The truth is it doesn't matter what the numbers end up being. What matter is I think what we are seeing now are two irreconcilable wings of one party. So unless there is some kind of miraculous kum by yah moment it would seem that it is now the destiny of the Republican Party to fracture off into at least two separate entities. I don't know how soon the public split will happen but it would seem that the private split is already in play. I do believe that we need at least two viable political parties in this country as a form of checks and balances, but until the Republicans or Republican lites get their shit together, they won't have the capacity to fulfill that role. If I could hazard a guess I am betting when the moderate wing of the Republican Party emerges as something else, Colin Powell may just be their standard bearer.



Watch CBS Videos Online

Lazy Ass Journalists

All yesterday the MSM hyped the national security speech by President Obama and Dick Cheney's Cover His Ass speech today as a duel. Give me a fucking break. You had the President talking about how we will go forward on national security issues including closing GITMO and having as much transparency as he is able to give the American people. On the other hand you had Dick Cheney solely focused on trying to justify his actions after 9-11 making pronunciations about liberals and the media and out and out lies about what President Obama has said and is saying. This was a bunch of bullshit from the start. Now you have jack asses like Chris Cilliza asking people to go "sound off on who won". Seriously. This is how and why our print media is failing and cable news won't be far behind. I will post video of President Obama's speech when it becomes available and my commentary on this but I just had to vent about the sorry assed state of our media.

School Is In

Dave Waldman aka KagroX breaks out the whupping stick on all 3 other guests and the host on CNN over the media coverage of the Bush Administration's torture program. As sorry as some other supposed surrogates for the left perform I hope we get to see a lot more of Waldman on cable news representing our point of view!

Props When They Are Due

I give Joe Klein tons of grief over at Swampland when he gets it wrong, but this morning on CNN he made up for quite a bit of it. In a stick up the ass discussion about the WhiteHouse Correspondence Dinner last night and Wanda Sykes' performance Klein smacked down wingnut stepford wife reject Amanda Carpenter when she tried to rag on Wanda's jokes about Rush Limbaugh.




Compared to some of the outrageous shit that Rush Limbaugh has said recently on his radio show and on FoxNews, Carpenter's station of choice, Wanda Sykes' jokes were tame. Fuck that fat drug addled bastard. And good on Joe Klein for pointing out the hypocrisy involved in the criticism of Wanda Sykes. If you don't want to hear someone tell jokes then don't invite a comedienne to do a set. The GOP is full of humorless jackasses and Amanda Carpenter represented for all of them this morning on CNN.

Jon Stewart On Tea Bagging

Jon Stewart describing how the Tea Bagging protests have turned cable news into bizarro world.

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Anderson Cooper Drunken 360

This is great.




(h/t Mike D)

Blagogate Shmagogate, Americans Aren't Buying It

Despite the best(worst) efforts of the RNC, FoxNews and Joe Scarborough, it turns out that not only has the Blagojevich scandal NOT hurt President Elect Barack Obama's image, but according to a new CNN poll his approval numbers actually went UP!

Eighty-two percent of those questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday morning approve of the way the Obama is handling his presidential transition. That's up 3 points from when we asked this question at the beginning of December. Fifteen percent of those surveyed disapprove of the way Obama's handling his transition, down 3 points from our last poll.

The 82 percent approval is higher than then President-elect George W. Bush 8 years ago, who had a 65 percent transition approval rating, and Bill Clinton, at 67 percent in 1992.


"Barack Obama is having a better honeymoon with the American public than any incoming president in the past three decades. He's putting up better numbers, usually by double digits, than Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, or either George Bush on every item traditionally measured in transition polls," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

The poll also suggests that the public approves of the President-elect's cabinet nominees, with 56 percent of those questioned saying Obama's appointments have been outstanding or above average, with 32 percent feeling the picks have been average, and 11 percent saying Obama's choices have been below average or poor.

That 56 percent figure is 18 points higher than those who said then President-elect Bush's cabinet appointments were outstanding or above average and 26 points higher than those who felt the same way about then President-elect Clinton's nominees.

Probably the most exciting aspect of the poll is that it shows that the more Republicans baselessly attack, the more the public will flock to Obama. Which makes this post exposed by kos on the National Review Online website even more insightful:

Rod Blagojevich, $1 trillion "fiscal stimulus", Harry Reid, expiring tax cuts, Nancy Pelosi, socialized health care, Charlie Rangel, reinstitution of the oil drilling ban, Joe Biden, liberal judicial nominees, Al Franken (maybe), nuclear Iran, John Murtha, car czars, Dennis Kucinich, PC culture, Chris Dodd, entitlement explosion, Barney Frank, entitlement implosion, Barbara Boxer, card check, the Clintons, Russian adventurism.

If Republicans can't come back in 2010 they should be sued for political malpractice.

Notice how the NRO poster never mentions anything having to do with Republicans solving problems. He is still holding hard and fast to that notion that all Republicans have to do is attack Democrats on big government and corruption issues and the country will just be handed back to them. Well I say more power to him. Please keep up the attacks, lies, and smears. Obviously they have worked so well for you over the last two election cycles.

But back to the numbers, who would have thought that a man who was being framed as a Marxist, Socialist, babykiller just a little more than a month ago would now be enjoying the support of over 80% of Americans? Its a testament to the way Obama has run his ship, both before the election and after, that he has obviously won a lot of his earlier detractors over. Thats not to say that he will keep the high approval rating after taking office, but at least its an indication that people are wiling to give him a fair chance IMHO. And thats definitely a step in the right direction for the country.


Keep handling it YOUR way Mr. President Elect

Unfortunately.....It Was Caylee

Man I pretty much figured that the remains were those of Caylee Anthony, but being a father myself I was praying that it wasn't. My prayers are with her family. From CNN

ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) -- The remains found in a wooded area last week in Orange County, Florida, are those of Caylee Anthony, authorities confirmed at a news conference Friday.

Dr. Jan Garavaglia and Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary spoke at the news conference Friday.

"It is with regret that I'm here to inform you that the skeletal remains found December 11 are those of the missing toddler," said Dr. Jan Garavaglia, the Orange County medical examiner.
The remains were confirmed to be Caylee's through a DNA match, authorities said.

Garavaglia said the cause of death was homicide, but she could not determine how Caylee was killed.

President Elect Obama's Transition Team Releases Statement on Blagojevich Contacts, Pundits Salivate

Word has just come down that President Elect Barack Obama's transition team has released a statement regarding the their report on any contacts between their office and disgraced Illinois Rod Blagojevich's office. It seems that the report is ready to go but after a revue US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has asked them to hold off on releasing report until next week so as to not impede his investigation. Now let me quote from a portion of the press release.

"At the direction of the President-elect, a review of Transition staff contacts with Governor Blagojevich and his office has been conducted and completed and is ready for release. That review affirmed the public statements of the President-elect that he had no contact with the governor or his staff, and that the President-elect's staff was not involved in inappropriate discussions with the governor or his staff over the selection of his successor as US Senator.

Now Karen Tumulty at TIME'S Swampland blogs characterized the report like so.

(I'm told it turned out to be "pretty milquetoast stuff.")

So now the report is ready, it has been reviewed by USA Fitzgerald, and supposedly its "milque toast stuff". Do you think any of that will stop the talking heads from continuing to frame this story as harmful to President Elect Obama? Of course not.

There is a reason why I highlighted the quote from the press release. No sooner than I had read the post on Swampland, I hear Rick Sanchez on CNN parsing the word "inappropriate" in the statement to frame it as mysterious. Mind you on most days I enjoy Sanchez, especially when he was in rare form during the election season. But the media are in straight group think mode right now and Blago Gate and its supposed negative effects on PEOTUS Obama is the ruling meme of the day. I can only imagine how that statement, that to any reasonable person reads as a confirmation of the absence any wrong doing, will be twisted by this time tomorrow into being an indictment on Obama and his whole transition team.

Clinton Rules are in full effect baby. But somehow I believe that Obama is strong enough to weather the storm.