Thom,

TOWN MEETING GUNMEN UNMASKED (many aren't just random acts):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olb...

It was nice to see you at Frugal Muse last night. Would have liked to talk to you, but don't like waiting in lines.

BTW, I traveled from D.C to Washington state this summer by car from my home in IL. You really have to do that to get a real feel for just how bad this propaganda machine is. We all know the numbers, but you have to travel by car to really get the full impact of it. What I started to do to stay awake is scan the AM dial every 50 miles and record the station number and conservative talker that was on at the time on my Rand McNally. Limbaugh was on 7 different stations at once on the Ohio Turnpike. For most areas, there are always at least 3 conservative talk station on at any given time, and they all have the strongest signals, some coming from two or more states away. And when one fades out, another always replaces it. This is no accident. Now just imagine if you're living and commuting in one of these areas and that's all you hear day after day.

The health care debate is symptomatic of, and highlighting two, and maybe three things that are REALLY wrong with America. First, that the insurance industry and other corporate interests have bought an inordinate and unhealthy amount of influence over the legislative process and government through campaign contributions and lobbying. Second, corporate America has built a massive propaganda machine, largely through corporate owned conservative talk radio, that blankets our country and controls the information people receive in a way that would impress even the leaders of the old Soviet Union. A third possible problem is that there seems to be no real accountability analogous to slander and liable in civil law for those who knowingly and deliberately dispense lies and misinformation about people or policies. They hide behind "free speech" but the speech on this massive propaganda machine that is conservative talk radio is anything but FREE. It has gone to the highest bidder. The most stations and strongest signals are owned by those individuals and corporations with the most assets. And, much of what is being said is approaching the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, an example often cited as an exemption to free speech.

Justice Roberts is on a mission

John Hightower Tuesday reminding us that Justice Roberts' is on a Corporatist mission:

http://www.jimhightower.com/node/6909

[excerpt]

A TRAITOROUS ASSAULT ON OUR DEMOCRACY
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 | Posted by Jim Hightower

...Chief Justice John Roberts and others on the corporate wing of the court will try to pervert the founders' intent, nullify the will of the people, and radically rewrite a century of legal precedent – all to advance the political agenda of corporate power. At issue are longstanding laws that ban corporations from spending their bottomless financial resources directly on election campaigns.

Roberts, a lifelong corporate shill, hopes to get a five-member majority of the court to rule that corporations have a First Amendment right to pour unlimited sums of cash into our elections. Never mind that the founders feared and abhorred raw corporate power and deliberately wrote the Constitution as a document guaranteeing power to "We the People" – not to bloodless, soulless legal constructs that know nothing of morality and care nothing for our nation's fundamental values of fairness and justice.

In a quiet move just before the justices' summer vacation, Roberts got the court to schedule an extraordinary September reconsideration of two major campaign finance laws that the court previously okayed as constitutional. By reversing those rulings and declaring that corporate speech is equal to human speech, corporations would be unleashed to spend billions of dollars to control all of our elections.

What the Roberts Court is up to goes way beyond judicial activism – it's a traitorous assault on America's democracy by corporate autocrats intent on imposing their political will through five old men in black robes.

"A Century-Old Principle: Keep Corporate Money Out of Elections," The New York Time, August 11, 2009.

"Heavy Workload of Complex Cases Awaits New Justice," The New York Times, August 7, 2009.

"Court Opens Door to Possibility of Corporate Political Spending," www.truthout.org, June 30, 2009.

[end excerpt]

As a postscript to a comment I posted a few weeks ago about how I felt I was victimized twice—first by a mugger who “inadvertently” stole my airport ID badge, then by an airport bureaucrat who didn’t care what kind of police report I submitted, that it was at her “discretion” to determine if a crime had been committed. The implication that I was lying was particularly frustrating given the difficulty I continue to have moving my jaws in order to eat, due to the sucker punch that seems to have left a crack in my skull, although I can’t be certain of it; I haven’t seen a doctor , because of my substandard medical coverage has already left me thousands of dollars more in debt.

The reason why I refused to “confess” that the badge was merely lost wasn’t just because I would be lying, and would have to pay a $250 fee up-front for a replacement—money which I didn’t have, having already lost two weeks of pay because I wasn’t allowed to work. The bigger reason was one of principle; I refused to be called a liar, and treated like a criminal when I was the one who was victimized—not just from the stolen badge, but from the pay I was unable to earn. When the police officer who filed my case number came back from vacation, she attempted to find out what exactly was required as an acceptable report; the flunkies at the ID access office seemed to find this request an unreasonable one.

Finally, a supervisor was called who grilled me on my “story,” which seemed to satisfy him, anyways. I was then informed that the badge had just been received via mail without a return address. I had to make the point that if this was the service of a good Samaritan, surely he or she would not have been shy about advertising their good deed; but this was clearly someone who was afraid and did not want anyone to know who they were. The customs seal did look a little law-enforcementy. Naturally, after all the difficulties and pain I endured, all who were involved in it had to find ways to justify their actions by insinuating it was all my fault.

After work this past Saturday, I was waiting for my bus, which left later than the other buses; a couple of Port of Seattle police officers were “hanging out” near where I was standing. As the first buses passed by and I didn’t board them, they became increasingly “suspicious” of me, and kept glaring at me as if to say “If you don’t move on, we’ll ‘help’ you to.” When my bus arrived, they observed me board and decided they didn’t need to hang around. At least they didn’t make me show them where my name was on my netbook; the occasion of my first complaint of harassment against the Port police was when an officer singled me out while I was waiting for a bus, and made me show him where my name was on my laptop. Needless-to-say, after I was done with him, he seemed rather self-conscious of the way bystanders observed the event.

I have often heard people complain about trivial things like having to take off their shoes at the airport. This is nothing if you are “brown” and work at the airport, especially when nearly all the “security” types are white; if there are any non-white Port police officers at the airport, they’ve never bothered me. What is especially hard-to-take is you have to be provide a birth certificate, be finger-printed and go through an FBI background check in order to work at the airport. Yet you are still treated as if you are a congenital thief. Why?

The myth is that Muslims or people with Arabic-sounding names are singled-out for “special treatment.” Maybe a few are, but the reality is that police don’t want to appear to be stereotyping Muslims. It is Latinos who are almost exclusively targeted, even though they’re not likely to be “terrorists” save in a paranoid xenophobe’s mind. Police are not looking for terrorists, their looking for “Mexicans.” When such bigotry is exposed the bigot tends to become even more aggressive in justifying their beliefs. These days, if you say something negative about a “Mexican,” everyone either believes it without question, or agrees that it has some “merit.” On the other hand, when Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, nobody stereotyped blond and blue-eyed white people as potential terrorists. Quite the opposite: the Clinton administration did everything in its power to prevent the case from going beyond the “lone nut” scenario, despite the evidence of assistance from a militia compound that McVeigh frequented until a few days before the bombing.

It appears that Susan Hutchinson, former co-anchor at Seattle's KIRO news station and (former) board member at the Discovery Institute, will be in a run-off election for the position of King County Executive, recently vacated by Ron Sims for an Obama administration post. She won almost twice as many votes as her closest challenger in this “non-partisan” race, which does not require candidates to reveal their party affiliation. King County, over all, is the bluest county in the state of Washington, yet it appears it will elect a Republican—albeit a stealth one—as county executive. This is either due to a lack of knowledge of Hutchinson’s political leanings, or because many people simply voted for the attractive female candidate, regardless of ideological considerations.

Admittedly, the local “mainstream” news media have fallen down on its obligation to unmask Hutchinson, although the Seattle Weekly did publish a cover story on the “real” Hutchinson, who besides being a believer in the “intelligent design” theory advocated at the right-wing Discovery Institute, and has supported Republican candidates and causes, also has had a checkered employment history at KIRO, which included personality clashes with co-workers and lying about the purpose of leaves-of-absence. Hutchinson sued the station when she was replaced as anchor; the case was settled, but curiously she has fought tooth-and-nail attempts to make public revelations of the case made against her. The question now, of course, is there enough time to convince the people who voted for her either out of ignorance or personal “activism” that they are making a mistake by doing so a second time.

DDay,

Here's to you:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=always+look+on+the+bright+side+of+...

Hey! Food Fascist gave me a "right on", so I need to come to his defense. Not that Ol' F.F needs my help. Hey Moonbat666, you want F.F to be nicer and then you want the blog to turn more positive and in the same breath tell us there is no hope for health care. What gives? I am as cynical as the next guy, but the moment we give up we have lost. Liberals need to learn how to fight more effectively. Barack needs to receive to heat from his base. Without us he is toast. Raise hell!

P.S. Some food for thought: If a guy says something and his wife isn't there to hear him. Does that still mean he's wrong? Or Why is almost all belly button lint blue, even when wearing white? Neither of these eternal questions are answered in any bible or holy book that I've read. Just wondering. Finally, is Barack playing checkers or chess? I haven't heard that answered either. It is almost beer thirty, I need a drink.

mstaggerlee

"@AZAFVET - Why would you want to be allowed to buy in to Canada’s system, as opposed to being allowed to buy in to Medicare?"

I am assuming that the won't happen this year. And I'm also concerned that the Public Option won't pass either.

moonbat666

My comment was related to something he said on yesterday’s show, so you didn’t miss anything about the topic from today.

Thom has said that his mother was religious but his father was an atheist (I think he hopes his father was an agnostic). I think Thom is a believer by nature. I think his mom’s beliefs were pretty mainstream, but he’s admitted to having been an evangelical Christian some time ago.

I agree with you that “Thom refuses to accept the finality of death”. One time, when he the end of his father’s life, he said he felt bad for his father (an atheist) because he had nothing to look forward to.

As we both know, most people hold religious or spiritual beliefs. I don’t hold any of those beliefs, but I don’t put people down too much for believing. What annoys me about Thom is that he criticizes atheists for representing their beliefs, but repeatedly expresses his.

Yesterday, he said (for the second time I can recall) that he’s in favor of people (monks essentially) being given tax exemptions for leading a monastic life and meditating. His reasoning is that he believes that their meditation helps make the world better. The point of my post was that I don’t want my tax money going to support his spiritual beliefs. In addition, he said that he used to be in favor of churches, etc, being tax exempt, but now he isn’t. In essence, he was saying that he wants his beliefs to be supported but not the beliefs of others. I don’t think he thought it through that far.

P.S.: I agree with your observation that Food Fascist is being very hostile and offensive today. We need more Food for thought and less Fascist. (The last sentence was only a pun, but over reactions are acceptable)

All this madness...
Everything that's going on in this country is understandable. We are witnessing the end of the dominance of Western Civilization...

Historically, not a very long run I'm afraid. Sort of a flash in the pan.
As far as America goes, maybe the best moments of this entire experiment came with our forefathers and the Declaration of Independence.

"Don't worry Ma, I'm only bleedin"

What a difference 5 years makes! In 2004, a couple from West Virginia was arrested on the State Capital grounds for wearing home-made "T" shirts with Vote Kerry magic-marker-ed on them at a 4th of July visit from Ol George W. Less than two months later in Minnesota, I was able to infiltrate an "unscheduled" lunch stop by "W" in my home town, with the help of Democratic operatives. I was "armed" with a Kerry shirt under my Republican-like costume. When I flashed Rove with the aforementioned illegal underwear, I was immediately surrounded and quarantined by the Secret Service. I asked one agent if he enjoyed protecting the Prez from Democrats. He whispered that he hated it. We have a concealed carry law here. Maybe I should have packed a little heat and they might have left me alone.? Ya think? Homey don't think so.