Fox wrongly blames increased health care costs on health care reform: Fox & Friends falsely suggested that a projected 12 percent increase in out-of-pocket health care costs for the coming year was due to provisions of health care reform. In fact, as the Chicago Tribune reported, the increase of costs is primarily due to advances in medical technology and changes in the workforce demographics due to the economic downturn. [ READ MORE ]
Shrum on The Ed Show: Fox “create[s] an alternate universe” where “the debate is about non-existent things“
Hume falsely claims that the stimulus failed [ READ MORE ]
Fox whopper: DOJ said Voting Rights Act wasn’t violated in New Black Panthers case [ READ MORE ]
Occidental College’s Heldman pushes back on Hannity’s “absolutely fictitious” stimulus talking points
Dick FAT Morris blogs: Dorgan and Dodd quit sinking ship!, Congenital liar, GESTAPO Sean KLANnity at Fox News screamed: Obama “quadrupled the deficit,” …the Dems are in trouble!!
In addition to the six Senate Republican incumbents who have decided not to seek re-election (compared to the two Democratic incumbents) there are 14 GOP incumbents in the House who have decided not to seek re-election (compared to the ten 10 Democratic incumbents have made the same decision.)
“[Republicans] are having some really bloodletting primaries in virtually all of their states. Particularly in open-seats, they are having these huge primaries,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). “Whether it is the tea party people or the birthers or others, the reality is that the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, they keep pushing their candidates further and further to the right… So, the bottom line is, they are going to be out of sync of where the mainstream electorate is in the midterm election.” [ READ MORE ]
Keep in mind: The Republicans are right now the minority party in both houses of Congress, therefore they have a deep hole to climb out of.
Expert Opinions
Craig Charney: The withdrawal of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) is good news for the Democrats. He has been around a long time and was somewhat tainted by his ties to the banking industry. (In particular, he was tarnished by his quixotic vanity run for the White House in 2008, largely funded by financial industry donations.) He’s been polling poorly for some time and hasn’t shown signs of improvement. Attorney General Dick Blumenthal has been waiting in the wings for a Senate vacancy for years now. He is exceptionally popular (a 78% approval rating) and should win the seat handily. This one just moved from the tossup to the lean-Dem column in my books. [ READ MORE ]
Bob Shrum: Democrats are inseparably tied to 0bama. And it’s more than possible that they will regard that as an advantage– for sure by 2012 and even by 2010. That may be a lonely view, especially with regard to this year. But I believe we should now be reading the business pages rather than the instant political analysis of a moment or a day. ( Said with apologies to POLITICO, which with regularity seems to predict a falling sky for the President and the Democrats.) The economic reporting increasingly points not only to a recovery, but to real and substantial job creation. If that’s the story of the next few months, by August we will be standing on a very different political landscape. [ READ MORE ]
“……With the paranoid style, the more things change, the more they look the same. Once, in the face of the first waves of Irish Catholic immigration, it was ‘the pope of Rome‘ who was ‘plotting America’s destruction.’ In the fevered minds of the rabid Right, the New Deal aimed ‘to pave the way for socialism or communism.’ Other examples can be drawn from every period of stress and change in our national experience. Sen. Joseph McCarthy deserves his own chapter–from his absurd charge early in the Cold War that Democrats were guilty of ‘20 years of treason‘ to his later assaults on Dwight Eisenhower and the State Department. But McCarthy had not only followers but heirs. Leaflets distributed in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, indicted John Kennedy for giving ‘support and encouragement to the Communist-inspired racial riots,‘ ……” — BOB SHRUM, Democratic Strategist
GLENN BECK STYLELIES & COMMUNIST PARANOIA FROM THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY WEBSITE: “…….The ‘conservative‘ President George W. Bush awarded him the Medal of Freedom. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him. The Nobel Peace Prize committee awarded him their prize, just as they did Obama.
And, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics issued a commemorative stamp in his honor in 1988. This is a clue as to who Mandela really is.
There are many, many pictures showing Mandela at communist functions, standing below the hammer and sickle and giving the communist salute. Presiding over communist conventions and other events staged by the South African Communist Party.
For in truth, Mandela is nothing more than a communist terrorist thug, placed in prison because he was about to launch a terrorist campaign against South Africans, aimed more against the black population than the white……..” [ READ MORE ]
The press probably will give Palin credit for not falling down on stage. She couldn’t deal with many of the questions directly or most of the facts, so she bloviated according to plan. She winked at us; the voters won’t wink back at her. I think people still have a bullshit factor — and that means she survived even as she met the low expectations she’s created. McCain gained nothing; he was the loser — in the first presidential debate, and the vice-presidential one. Palin relied on topline phrases and had little command of facts. Why, she even memorized the name of the President of Iran. But it was mostly blah, blah, blah. At the end, the Obama-Biden ticket is far ahead on the big issues — and Palin’s a parrot repeating memorized phrases, not a plausible vice-president. Biden called her on it every time. — Robert Shrum, Political Consultant.
The “Killa From Wasilla” came to the debate armed to the teeth with Republican talking points. She wasn’t afraid, she had the confidence — that of a robot programmed to “Vomit Policy.”
“Sarah The Barracuda” was pesky, scripted, loud, shrill and incoherent, as she rattled whatever her coaches had crammed into her head, with abandon.
For the entire ninety minutes she shuffled her “cheat sheets,” as if she were taking an “Open Book-Open Notes” Exam or participating in a Spelling Bee contest. She scraped and fought hard, spewing “Gibberish” by the bucket.
Ms. Palin exhibited little spontaneity and looked thoroughly rehearsed — sometimes avoided answering questions directly, instead slid into irrelevant sound-bites about her tenure as mayor of “tiny-town” Wasilla, Alaska.
On foreign policy, Palin stalled — giving generic non-specific answers, and when she resorted to her juvenile chants — “Maverick!,” “We are mavericks!,” “We are a maverick team!,” Biden promptly shot her down: “McCain wasn’t a maverick on ‘the things that matter to people’s lives,‘ citing issues such as health care, education and the war.” “He’s not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table,” Biden said.
The debate format was not confrontational, and Joe Biden avoided engaging her, for fear of being labeled sexist. Had he forced her to deviate from her script, the results would have been disastrous. She would have forgotten her lines and gone off on some of her moronic, meaningless rambles.
CNN’s political analyst Bill Schneider was critical: “Palin’s answers do not lack confidence, they lack coherence.”
Newsweek’s Harold Fineman: “Palin was like ‘A Wolverine’ Attacking The Pant Leg Of A Passerby.”
frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" name="myInlineFrame">
Joe Biden on the other hand was remarkably restrained, awash with policy and his vast knowledge and experience clearly showed. He offered much more detail on a range of topics, from national security to domestic issues, and relentlessly lumped McCain with Bush.
While Sarah acted like a “frisky” freshman debater, Joe was polished and presidential in his delivery.
Per Bob Shrum, Palin did not fall down on the stage — she survived.
Her performance was much better than I expected, because of one and only one reason — the debate format allowed her to stick to her rehearsed script. There were barely any follow-ups by the moderator, unlike in the first Obama-McCain debate, when vigorous follow-ups revealed the stark differences, weaknesses and strengths of the two candidates.
In this debate, Palin was allowed to verbally diarrhea “crammed policy,” like an express train without brakes, spewing useless garbage, winking and giving a “shout-out” to some high school in Alaska!
Give me a break! How stupid does one have to be not to read through this nonsense?
She is a total embarrassment — an affront to intellectualism, a trait I insist must be part of the package of a serious contender for the presidency of this great land.
“Hockey Moms” stay home and manage their families, they do not run for an office where they might be required to manage the largest stockpile of nuclear and biological weapons on earth.
My assessment is that Sarah Palin is not ready. She still knows nothing. Go Home Sarah!
“This is going to help stop the bleeding,” said Todd Harris, a Republican consultant who worked for Mr. McCain in his first presidential campaign. “But this alone won’t change the trend line, particularly in some of the battleground states.”
Partisan right-wing THUGS had other ideas:
“Sarah Palin was sensational tonight,” roared White Nationalist Bigot Pat Buchanan, in a post-debate comment on the MSNBC cable network. “She regained that magic she had at the convention.”
Joining the maniacal squealing, were the SYPHILITIC NATIVIST NAZIS at Fox News. Festooned around their racist brains is the falsehood that Sarah Palin won the debate hands down.
Sarah’s “Spelling-Bee Performance” must have injected a shot of liquid cannabis into their soiled veins.
Morons!
Well, ALLpost-debate polls indicate that Biden thrashed her decisively, while holding back his fire considerably.
But then what’s to be expected of the “FIX” News Channel?
1.Why Some Women Hate Sarah Palin — “Women are weapons-grade haters. Hillary Clinton knows it. Palin knows it too. When women get their hate on, they don’t just dislike, or find disfavor with, or sort of not really appreciate. They loathe — deeply, richly, sustainingly. I do not say this to disparage my gender; women also love in more or less the same way.” — Belinda Luscombe
2.Palin Delivers, but Doubt Not Erased — One debate will not erase doubts that have been building about Palin’s capacity to serve as vice president, but the effect of the encounter may shift the focus away from the sideshow that Palin has become and put it back on the two presidential nominees and what they would do for the country. Thursday’s debate adds to the importance of the two remaining presidential debates, the first of which will be held Tuesday.
3.McCain Lost the VP Debate Too — Today McCain pulled out of Michigan; the economic news worsened. The electoral map is smaller; the economy is smaller; and the odds on McCain are longer and longer. The press probably will give Palin credit for not falling down on stage. She couldn’t deal with many of the questions directly or most of the facts, so she bloviated according to plan. She winked at us; the voters won’t wink back at her. Pat Buchanan thinks she won. I think people still have a bullshit factor– and that means she survived even as she met the low expectations she’s created. McCain gained nothing; he was the loser — in the first presidential debate, and the vice-presidential one.
4.She Still Knows Nothing — Palin proved that she can speak in complete sentences, but not that she understands anything about foreign policy.
5.No debate, Biden won — True, the governor of Alaska did better than many people expected. But Joe Biden showed why he’s in a different class
