Tea party crowd about sick man without insurance: "Let him die"

From AMERICAblog Elections:

The largest audience cheers in the Republican presidential debate came when Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul whether he wanted an uninsured 30 year old with a treatable disease to die because he didn't have health insurance. You can hear the crowd shout, "let him die."

Ablog Elections has the transcript. Read the rest of this post...

Anyone else watching the Teabagger debate?

Just got in from Chicago.  Turned on the Teabagger debate.  Bachmann feisty.  And what was that gay little finger, face smirch thing from Perry was a bit odd.  Feel free to jump in in the comments and discuss the debate (or whatever).  I'll be adding commentary, as necessary.

Health care is expensive?  Ya think?  I always get a kick out of Teabaggers complaining about expensive health care in America.  Your elected officials are quite happy keeping things this way in order to help their friends in big business.

Romney uses "Democrat President" slur and let's see if Wolf calls him on it.  I seriously doubt it, the media never does call Republicans on this weird, childish attempt to slur Dems by using Democrat as an adjective. It's weird.

Audience member cries out "yeah!" when Wolf asks Ron Paul if someone without insurance is supposed to just die.

Bachmann is committed?  She should be committed.

What is Santorum doing answering a question about "what are you doing to attract Latino voters," and turning his answer into a diatribe about English as the national language.  The question was about how you get Latino votes.  Santorum clearly isn't trying to woo Latino voters.  Bachmann is off on an illegal immigrant rant too.  Learn the English language.  The question was wooing American Latinos, and Bachmann and Santorum are saying they'd better learn God d-mn English.  Because Latino voters in America don't speak English?  And they're all here illegally?  And Wolf didn't even catch the fact that they answered a question about wooing Latinos by talking about cutting off illegal immigration. Read the rest of this post...

Excellent analysis of the problem that is Obama from Maureen Dowd

Sometimes she's catty, and sometimes her cattiness gets in the way of an important message. This time, the NYT's Maureen Dowd hit a home run.

So while the country has grown ever more scared, miserable, broke and broken, the president has too often been absent, quiet, ambivalent, impenetrable and inscrutable.

The master of his own narrative in print let the Republicans define the narrative in politics. And Obama likes to come in late, after the other players have staked out positions. It’s a strangely risk-averse tact, given the fact that he took two of the boldest risks in history — jumping into the presidential race in the first place and giving the kill order on Bin Laden on sketchy intelligence.

He always must be chided and cajoled before he gets re-engaged. Among other times, it happened during his campaign, when key donors went public with their displeasure at his laconic attitude.

When the president stays insulated with his little circle that doesn’t know how to push his messages, and he lets the nihilist Republicans go unchallenged in their crazy claims to be saving the country they’re hurting, he sets the stage for Rick Perry.

It’s still impossible to sum up what Obama’s presidency is about right now, except saving his own job.

I especially appreciate her mentioning, and am impressed that she remembered, the fact that the President's risk-averse approach was becoming a rather large liability during the campaign (especially around August of 2008). For all the talk from Team Obama about how we shouldn't second guess them now because they did so well all on their own on the campaign trail, in fact it was our second-guessing that helped shake risk-averse Obama out of his doldrums during the campaign.

This piece is an excellent distillation of the critique that many of us - left, right and middle - have of the President.  It's also, I think, the reason he may lose the election next year unless he has a serious personal epiphany some time soon. Read the rest of this post...

Second City takes on Michele Bachmann

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For some people, the ongoing (over?) memorializing of September 11 is neither helpful nor healthy

It's like a cross between a sinus headache and a hangover. A thick fuzzy weight of increasing pressure on my forehead. And it happens every time I get dragged into remembering the details of September 11.

I was in Washington, DC when it happened. I got up relatively late, as I always do (being a late night worker) and hadn't even opened my curtains yet when I sat down at the computer and saw that among Yahoo's top stories was something about a small plane hitting the World Trade Center. Then I read about the second plane, and knew we were under attack. That's when I opened my curtains and saw the plume of smoke from the Pentagon streaked across the horizon.

I remember September 11 too well. And I don't need anyone "reminding" me. I get annoyed this time of year, every year, by the media's incessant passion play over the September 11 anniversary. But in all fairness to the media, it's the politicians who think they have to stumble over each other to recognize this "momentous" day - the media is simply following suit.

I don't understand the need to constantly remember something that I had to go to therapy (for the first time in my life) to try to forget. Like a good number of people in DC and NY, and many in the rest of the country, September 11 left me with an unhealthy bout of post-traumatic stress disorder. And for anyone who, like me, was never quite sure if PTSD really existed, I found out a few years later, after I thought I'd been "cured," that it does.

I was sitting in La Coupole, a nice historic bistro in Paris, having dinner with a few friends. Suddenly behind me I heard a loud crash, the waiter had dropped a tray of dishes. Everyone in the restaurant turned to look, but I was the only one to break into tears. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. I had no idea why I was crying. All I knew was that I had to get out of there, and I quickly left the table and went outside.

Loud noises still unnerve me a bit more than they should, but thankfully it's been a good six or seven years since I've lost it over a broken plate.  The fuzzy thud in the head still comes back from time to time, like it did this past weekend when I couldn't get away from TV shows, and even people on my parents' block, incessantly "remembering" September 11.

I'm just not sure I get why we have to go through this every year.  We hold far more "remembrances" of September 11th than we do our own departed relatives.  What is the point in going through this ever year?  Is someone honestly afraid we're going to forget this quickly?  I wish.  Do we really dishonor the dead by holding the same number of memorials for them that we hold for our own deceased family members (one after the funeral, one 40 days later, and one a year later - and that's about it).

I wonder whether the national fixation on remembering September 11 isn't a bit like a parent who keeps their child's bedroom intact long after the infant has died.  You understand the sentiment, but you can't help but feel that at a certain point it's a bit unhealthy.

I know that, for me at least, this past weekend didn't help me heal.  And I learned a long time ago that if I'm feeling something, someone else is probably feeling the same way.  I know my reaction to September 11 wasn't healthy, and I got help.  I can't help but wonder whether the country isn't reacting to the September 11 anniversary in an equally unhealthy way.  More from Teddy Partridge at FDL:

Behind us, then, this last and greatest anniversary: perhaps? Without forgetting the victims or disrespecting their loved ones — might it be? Can we now move on? Will it be possible now to dial back the public, national paroxysm of grief to allow private mourning, personal reflection, and public accountability? All of which, I submit, have been obscured by our media and political elites’ co-option of this anniversary.

Everyone mourns differently because everyone’s experience of that day is different. Acknowledging that uniqueness, though, I submit that this weeks-long media celebration (for that’s what it was), the repetition of painful images and recitation of mistakes made and opportunities lost helps no one. I simply do not believe that continued escalation of the public, national, communal nature of this commemoration will help any one individual — or our nation — heal.

Read the rest of this post...

VIDEO: 71-year-old taken to the ground for questioning Paul Ryan

Cops take 71-year-old man to the ground for questioning Paul Ryan. Watch (h/t Cate Long):



I'm waiting to hear that Homeland Security is investigating the guy who shot the footage.

What caused this explosion from an obvious Social Security recipient? Ryan calmly lying as he says, "Most of our debt in the future comes from our entitlement programs."

Too bad these (pejoratively named) "entitlement programs" don't have a Fierce Defender.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Explosion at French nuclear site

One person was killed, three injured in a blast following a fire at what authorities are calling a nuclear waste treatment site.  Initial reports said it was a nuclear plant.

The BBC is now reporting that officials have denied that any leak occurred. But even so this incident could hardly come at a worse time for the industry.

France generates 75% of its electricity from nuclear power and exports surplus capacity to neighboring countries at off peak.

NOTE FROM JOHN: I seem to remember Chris writing that we should take assurances, like the one above, with a grain of salt.  More from USA Today.  And even more from the NYT. Read the rest of this post...

Do Republicans disagree with Obama, or simply want him to lose?

Jacob Weisberg in Slate:

Are Republicans, in fact, sincere in their belief that the way to restore economic growth and lower unemployment is to cut spending and regulation? Or are they—as Democrats generally assume—pursuing a cynical strategy of trying to keep the economy as weak as possible into 2012 in hopes of defeating Obama?

In reality, the economic views of most Republicans are not driven purely by ideology or politics, but by the herd imperative—to stay in line and obey their leaders. Of those who were in Congress in 2008, 85 percent voted in favor of the Bush stimulus bill, which was smaller but no different in principle. To assume that these people have a view about whether Obama's jobs plan would work gives them far too much credit. The only jobs they think about are their own.

Read the rest of this post...

Huge truck bomb injures 77 Americans at base in Afghanistan

A story that may have gotten a bit lost in the Sunday news cycle. AP:

Nearly 80 American soldiers were wounded and five Afghans civilians were killed in a Taliban truck bombing targeting an American base in eastern Afghanistan, NATO said Sunday, a stark reminder that the war in Afghanistan still rages 10 years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks against the United States.

No U.S. soldiers were killed in Saturday night's bombing, which took place hours after the Taliban vowed to keep fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan until all American troops leave the country. The insurgent movement also stressed that it had no role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Read the rest of this post...

Jamie Dimon hates America

The pompous banker doesn't know when to shut his mouth. He's now calling international laws that require bankers to hold cash to protect others "anti-American." Really. Punks like Dimon helped scrap laws that served the country well for decades until the Clinton-GOP era dismantling of the system. Now, any time there's even a slight attempt to protect the average American who has paid a heavy price for greedy bankers like Dimon, Dimon has a temper-tantrum. Now he's going full Teabagger.

He was quoted as describing new international bank capital rules as "anti-American".

"I'm very close to thinking the U.S. shouldn't be in Basel anymore. I would not have agreed to rules that are blatantly anti-American," he said in the interview.

"Our regulators should go there and say: 'If it's not in the interests of the U.S., we're not doing it'."

And what exactly is in the "interests of the US" Mr. Dimon? Surely it's not bailing out gamblers like Dimon and the rest of Wall Street. Perhaps Dimon should visit people who don't live the banker high life and see what they think is "in the interest of the US" because it may be a shock.

A point that Democrats and Republicans are missing is just how upset the real world is about the bankers and the Washington response to them. People are still furious. They don't have jobs and really, there's absolutely no hope of an economic recovery any time soon. They're even more furious that cowards like Obama and the rest of the crowd in Washington have kowtowed to Wall Street. Day after day, they give no reason for voting for any of them.

Naturally, the Obama re-election team is confident that people who are upset around the country are really part of nothing more than a "Washington conversation." Uh huh. Interesting since I've heard incredible fury and disgust with Washington from so many people who are nowhere near Washington. Good luck with that strategy and let's see how it works out. Read the rest of this post...