Queen and David Bowie - Under Pressure

Well, well, well. It only took one election for the bookers of the bobblehead shows to forsake the Democratic Party almost entirely, despite the fact that we still retain the majority in the Senate and occupy the White House. Look at the lineup, all but two of the guests are Republicans. Gotta love that "liberal media".

So we get newly elected rock star of the tea parties, Rand Paul, on This Week; the hyper-partisan Mitch "Screw the country; Obama will only have one term" McConnell on Face the Nation; Sen Jim "All you tea partiers belong to me" DeMint on Meet the Press; Sen-elect Pat "I want less government, except in women's wombs" Toomey on State of the Union; and Rep. Eric "How can I block Boehner and grab the speakership for myself" Cantor and Darrell "I got a hard on for subpoenas" Issa on Fox News Sunday.

And actually, the bookings, in and of themselves, are not the problem. The problem lies in the weakness and non-journalism of the programs themselves. I want to hear these jokers say how they're going to run the country better than the Democrats did over the last few years, because I know they don't have any ideas, or any real interest in doing so. But you'll never learn that watching these shows. They'll never once ask Pat Toomey what he thinks the long term impact will be of forcing women to have babies they don't want will be. They'll never ask Mitch McConnell why he thinks the very wealthiest people should have their tax cuts, even if that means billions more to the deficit. They'll never ask Rand Paul to think through his ridiculous libertarian stances--what if the only grocery store in a 20 mile radius decided to not serve black people? While we wait for market forces to punish the store, how are those black people supposed to get food to eat? And will any of those deficit concern trolls actually ever look at how much money we're throwing away in the Middle East and think to make cuts in defense spending? Of course those questions won't be asked, the hosts will merely bobble their heads as these Republicans give their Frank Luntz-patented talking points and never once help their audience understand how truly destructive Republican policies are.

ABC's "This Week" - Sen.-elect Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Andrea Mitchell, Bob Woodward, Joe Klein, Katty Kay. Topics: Will President Obama Change? George W. Bush's New Memoir

CNN's "State of the Union" - Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; Sen.-elect Pat Toomey, R-Pa.; Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - The American electorate has spoken. And quite clearly. America's fears about the state of the economy brought Republicans back to power in the House of Representatives. But how long they hold onto their newfound power is another matter. See why Fareed says that if this "Republican Revolution" doesn't manage to cut the deficit, the American people will be saying "Fool me three times, shame on me". Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman thinks the outlook for the next two years -- with a power split in Washington -- is "terrible". In an exclusive interview, Krugman goes head-to-head with the former chief economist of the IMF, the right-leaning Raghuram Rajan on what can be done to fix the U.S. economy

"Fox News Sunday" - GOP Reps. Eric Cantor of Virginia, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Darrell Issa of California.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

Time for your weekly podcast with The Professional Left, our own Driftglass and Bluegal. Have a great weekend everybody.

You can listen to the archives or make a donation if you'd like to help keep these going at http://professionalleft.blogspot.com/.

Mentioned in this episode are:

the Glenn Beck / John Birch Society article in The New Yorker,
Jay Rosen on Breitbart and ABC,
and the Joe McCarthy 'vindicated' sign.

It's Day Two of the LNMC Positive Vibes Campaign: The Love Line is open!

I'll get it rolling by sending this one out to her parents' Tadpole, who gives me the warm fuzzies every time I think of her. xoxoxo

Shout outs to your baby below!

ps. Don't forget our sister site Newstalgia has its Backstage Weekend Concert up, too: Big Country - Live At Hammersmith Palais - 1983

In a special session on November 17, 1947, President Truman addresses the joint session of the 80th Congress on two issues. The first an emergency Foreign Aid package for Italy, Austria and France who were in the midst of going broke during this post World War 2 period. The second was to discuss the economy, which was spiraling towards inflation at an alarming pace.

President Truman: “Today, inflation stands as an ominous threat to the prosperity we have achieved. We can no longer treat inflation with spiraling prices and living costs, as some vague condition we may encounter in the future. We already have an alarming degree of inflation. And even more alarming, it is getting worse. Since the middle of 1946, fuel has gone up 13%. Clothing prices have gone up 19%. Retail food prices have gone up 40%. The average for all cost of living items has risen 23%. The housewife who goes to buy food today must spend $10.00 to buy what $7.00 bought a year and a half ago.”

Even then, it was about the economy. It was also about the "do nothing" Congress.

Sometimes it really is like shooting fish in a barrel, especially when it has to do with Howard Kurtz, who after years of working for the Washington Post, now writes for the Daily Beast.

Howard is tut-tutting today over the egregious hypocrisy of Keith Olbemann:

So is Keith Olbermann now the Worst Person in the World? No, but he made a really dumb mistake.

By donating to three Democratic candidates while covering the midterms on MSNBC, Olbermann crossed a bright journalistic line—even for a commentator whose partisan sympathies are no secret.

The network had no choice but to suspend him, even though he's the biggest draw on NBC's cable channel. "Mindful of NBC News policy and standards," MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement, "I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."

"No choice." No choice at all.

The real forehead-slapper here is that Olbermann donated the legal maximum, $2,400, to Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva on Oct. 28—the same day he interviewed the congressman for Countdown. Viewers, of course, had no way of knowing.

As first reported by Politico, Olbermann also donated the maximum to Arizona Rep. Gabriella Giffords and to Jack Conway, the Kentucky Republican who lost his Senate race to Rand Paul.

It's hard to fathom what Olbermann was thinking, because he must have realized that the donations would show up in federal election records and eventually be made public.

What's more, Olbermann has used the issue of political donations to rip his arch-enemies at Fox News. He pounced on Rupert Murdoch when News Corp., Fox's parent, gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association and another million bucks to the GOP-backing Chamber of Commerce.

Now Olbermann, who's not shy about caustic criticism, faces the inevitable charge of hypocrisy.

Oh, Howard. You really want to go there? You really want to pluck out the splinter in Keith's eye instead of the log in your own?

His mistake is not in the same league as what some Fox contributors have done. Karl Rove raised about $50 million in recent months for an independent group supporting Republican candidates. Dick Morris has raised money, spoken on behalf of candidates and refers to Republicans as "we." Sarah Palin barnstormed the country on behalf of her favored candidates, often of the Tea Party variety.

And one full-time Fox News host, Sean Hannity, has attended GOP fundraisers. Fox allows such activity for talk-show hosts and contributors, whom the network doesn't consider journalists. I've written about this from time to time; few people seem to care.

At CNN, where I host a weekly media program, James Carville and Paul Begala are contributors who also sign fundraising letters for the Democratic Party. If it were up to me, I wouldn't allow any of that.

That's because Howard Kurtz's personal standards are so high. How high are they?

Continue reading »

O’Reilly made an appearance on Bill Maher’s Real Time on HBO and the two of them exchanged jabs over Maher’s treatment of Christine O’Donnell, tax cuts for the rich and the budget deficit, whether or not President Obama is a “leftist” as O’Reilly likes to paint him and climate change.

They also got into it over Fox’s push of the phony story claiming that the Obama administration is planning on spending $200 million a day for his trip to India. O’Reilly’s defense of his fellow Fox “commentator” Sean Hannity amounted to saying that Hannity doesn’t have to report facts because he’s an “opinion” guy.

I guess Bill thinks being entitled to your own opinions means being entitled to your own facts as well, which seems to be pretty much the standard at Fox.

This one's important, spread it around.

Once again, something we can put on tone-deaf Democrats. I kept arguing that we should have pushed back on Roberts and Alito on their pro-corporate records, and not on abortion. Oh well, what the hell do I know?

I'd say it's highly unlikely that the conservatives on this court will pass up the chance to put trial lawyers out of business:

It hasn't gotten a lot of press, but a case involving AT&T that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next week has sweeping ramifications for potentially millions of consumers.

If a majority of the nine justices vote the telecom giant's way, any business that issues a contract to customers — such as for credit cards, cellphones or cable TV — would be able to prevent them from joining class-action lawsuits.

This would take away in such cases arguably the most powerful legal tool available to the little guy, particularly in cases involving relatively small amounts of money. Class-action suits allow plaintiffs to band together in seeking compensation or redress, thus giving substantially more heft to their claims.

The ability to ban class actions would potentially also apply to employment agreements such as union contracts.

Consumer advocates say that without the threat of class-action lawsuits, many businesses would be free to engage in unfair or deceptive practices. Few people would litigate on their own to resolve a case involving, say, a hundred bucks.

"The marketplace is fairer for consumers and workers because there's a deterrent out there," said Deepak Gupta, an attorney for the advocacy group Public Citizen who will argue on consumers' behalf before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

"Companies are afraid of class actions," he said. "This helps keep them honest."

The case is AT&T Mobility vs. Concepcion. The basic question before the court is whether companies can bar class actions in the fine print of their take-it-or-leave-it contracts with customers and employees.

High courts in California and elsewhere have ruled that class-action bans are unconscionable and contrary to public policy.

At issue at next week's court hearing is whether the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 preempts state courts from striking down class-action bans. The federal law requires both sides in a dispute to take their grievance to an arbitrator, rather than a court, if both sides have agreed in advance to do so.

Vincent and Liza Concepcion sued AT&T in 2006 after signing up for wireless service that they'd been told included free cellphones. The Concepcions alleged that they and other Californians had been defrauded by the company because the phones actually came with various charges.

AT&T asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California to dismiss the case because its contract forbade class actions. The court declined, ruling that a class-action ban violates state law and is not preempted by the federal law.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower-court ruling last year. AT&T subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case.

William B. Gould IV, a professor emeritus at Stanford Law School and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board under President Clinton, said the high court was clearly interested in extending the reach of the Federal Arbitration Act.

"This is a very important issue," he said. "And this Supreme Court has indicated a measure of hostility toward class actions."

If anything makes me feel warmer and fuzzier about the GOP presidential field for 2012 than Sarah Palin, it's when they seriously discuss Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor, as Fox News has in naming him one of their "12 for 2012" likely presidential candidates.

Yesterday, Bret Baier hosted a segment featuring Barbour. It included this brief and hilariously whitewashed discussion of Barbour's years as a lobbyist and Republican political kingpin:

In the 60s Barbour worked on President Nixon's campaign. In the 80s he was President Reagan's director of politic affairs. In the 90, he served two terms as chairman of the RNC. He joined the ranks of the Washington animal, the K Street lobbyists.

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: He was one of the premiere lobbyists of Washington, D.C.

BAIER: Larry Sabato says that could hurt Barbour if he were to run.

SABATO: Given the American public's view of lobbyists, it's difficult to imagine he would be elected with that qualification.

BARBOUR: "Washington insider" to some people means corrupt or bad. For other people it means knows how to get things done, can get the ball in the end zone.

Actually, that's not the half of it: Barbour's tenure as RNC chief was made particularly memorable by the incident in which he propped up the RNC by borrowing millions from a Chinese businessman -- and then welshing on the loan:

Twice in two years Hong Kong businessman Ambrous Tung Young bailed out the party at crucial moments: first freeing up as much as $2 million in the final days before the G.O.P.'s 1994 sweep of Congress; then eating $500,000 in bad debts, rescuing Republicans in the last weeks of the 1996 contest. The conduit for the money was a U.S. firm with little income and few assets, but quietly backed by an aviation-services and real estate-investment company controlled by Hong Kong and Taiwanese businessmen. The money passed through a Republican think tank that granted big donors more influence over party policy in return for more money. For Young, the arrangement also opened diplomatic doors. In Washington, Young met face to face with the lions of the G.O.P. just as they were taking over Congress. In Beijing a year later, he escorted G.O.P. chairman Haley Barbour in a meeting with Qian Qichen, Foreign Minister for the People's Republic of China.

Continue reading »

Bill Maher wasn't too happy with Jon Stewart for playing the false equivalency game at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear he and his cohort Stephen Colbert held last month in his New Rules segment on this week's Real Time.

I agree with Bill completely when it comes to his remarks about Jon Stewart. As much as I love both Jon and Stephen for what they do most days on the air and as much as I enjoyed the rally for the most part, I think the criticism was spot on. We've been pushed way too far to the right and the notion of "centrism" when it amounts to corporatism does not equal a "fair and balanced" anything.

Maher: And finally New Rule, if you’re going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you might as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon and Stephen, it seems to me that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you’d side with the sane and the reasonable and not try to pretend that the insanity is equally distributed in both parties.

Keith Olbermann is right when he says he’s not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts. The other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance’s sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is damaging as racism. There’s a difference between a “mad man” and a “madman”. […]

But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just stop giving voice to the crazies on both sides then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side, forgetting that Obama tried that and found out, there are no moderates on the other side. […]

Continue reading »

Dear Bill,
You're a smart guy, no question. I don't always agree with you, but it's clear that you're no dummy.

That's why I was so surprised to see you fall right into Darrell Issa's "means testing" trap. He says we should mean-test people on unemployment.

First of all, there are many, many people who were making $100,000 or so who, yes, really do need that unemployment check. You must not be reading much about the long-term unemployed, because this same question comes up a lot: It's making it possible for those people to pay the bills.

More to the point, Bill, people pay into their state's unemployment insurance fund. "Insurance," Bill. Get it? They pay for it, and they get to collect. Only extended unemployment benefits go beyond what people paid for. That's why they're only enacted in a bona fide economic emergency.

I'm surprised that you continue to let Issa get away with talking about the "Social Security and Medicare crisis" as if they're the same thing. They're not, and you shouldn't fall into that "bipartisan" mindset about how we all need to work together to fix what isn't broken. Social Security is fine, and it's funded under pay as you go.
Medicare is the problem.

But Social Security is what corporate politicians of both parties want, and the fact that they're both supporting these "reform" proposals should be enough to make you suspicious. The fact is, Wall Street is dying to get their hands on that money, and the recipients of their campaign cash are eager to help them. After the events of the past two years, do you really think that's a good idea?

As to the suggestion to means-test Social Security: It's a well-known ploy, one that FDR figured out early on. There's a very good reason why Social Security isn't means-tested -- because if everyone's not invested in it, it becomes just another entitlement for the poor, and we all know what happens to the programs for poor people. FDR knew that, that's why it didn't happen.

Put down the spliff, Bill. Pay attention. Your words influence people, and you have a responsibility to educate yourself before you speak.

Sincerely,
A Fan