Hey, Mister Postman
August 4, 2009 10:30 pm

Paul Krugman

Art Laffer (why is he, of all people, on my TV?) asks what it will be like when the government runs Medicare and Medicaid.

But I'd raise a further question: he warns that when the government takes over these, um, government programs, they'll be like the Post Office and the DMV. Why, exactly, are these public functions unquestioned bywords for "something bad"?

Maybe I'm living a sheltered life here in central New Jersey, but I don't find the Post Office a terrible experience - no worse than Fedex or UPS. (Full disclosure: I worked as a temp mailman when in college.) And nobody likes going to the DMV, but the one on Rt. 1 I go to always seems fairly well managed.

And in general: is dealing with these government agencies any worse than, say, dealing with the cable company?

The prejudice against government seems to have become free-floating, unattached to any actual experience.

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Shape of planet blogging
August 4, 2009 10:41 pm

Paul Krugman

Long ago I said that if liberals said the Earth was round, while conservatives said it was flat, the news headlines would read "Shape of the planet: both sides have a point." But I encountered a new wrinkle today.

I was tentatively scheduled to be on a broadcast dealing with - well, I won't embarrass them. But first they had to find someone to take the opposite view. And it turned out that they couldn't - which led to canceling the whole segment.

In a way this goes beyond my original point, which was the unwillingness of the news media to referee a controversy by actually reporting the facts. Now it seems that a fact isn't worth reporting unless someone is prepared to deny it.

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Takes On Birthers, Conservative "Mob" In New Web Ad
August 4, 2009 10:57 pm

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Buddhist Rap
August 4, 2009 11:08 pm

Sickest Buddhist from GenerateLA on Vimeo.

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Markos on Countdown: Insurance industry money vs. The public option
August 5, 2009 11:52 am

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The strange new plan from nutterville: Disrupt health care town halls with teabaggers
August 5, 2009 11:53 am

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Bill O'Reilly born in Kenya?
August 5, 2009 8:40 pm

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New Rule: Smart President does not equal Smart Country
August 7, 2009 9:25 pm

Bill Maher

And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences......

...Take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.

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Lies, Intimidation, and the Insurance Industry: The Republicans Have Lost Their Minds
August 7, 2009 9:38 pm

Frank Schaeffer

.....Here's the emerging American version of the fascist's formula: combine millions of dollars of lobbyists' money with embittered troublemakers who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people (collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the semi literate and completely and routinely misinformed right wing - Evangelical religious underground. Then put his little mob together with the insurance companies' big bucks. That's how it works - American Brown Shirts at the ready....

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Evangelicals Are the New Anti-Americans
August 9, 2009 1:12 pm

Frank Schaeffer

......Above all, ordinary American s-- and especially religious people who seek faith rather than power -- need to understand that the evangelical right is basically unpatriotic and anti-American. They feel alienated from the diverse, pluralistic country that America has become, and are working to undermine it both here and abroad. They resent the system that allowed Obama to succeed, and they worship what they believe is "God-given" free-market capitalism.

In effect, the radical right movement in America, having failed at the ballot box to find a successor to their boy in the White House, George W. Bush, is regrouping in the Senate and Congress and working hard to undo the Obama presidency......

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Alright Republicans, We Give Up.
August 9, 2009 3:38 pm

by Stroszek

Dear Republicans,

Over the past week, we have seen your passionate protests and heard your concerns about Democratic proposals for health care reform. We have considered your insightful and well reasoned arguments, and on behalf of progressives everywhere, I am here to say: OK! We give up! We are willing to compromise on the proposals that concern you. You've won! Yay!

In accordance with your cogent and potent criticisms, these are the terms of our concession:

1. We will not euthanize your grandmother..... 2. Rahm Emanuel's brother will not kill Sarah Palin's baby. [...] 8. Private health insurance will not be eliminated. [...] 10. There will be no super-secret-awesome health care program for ACORN employees. ..........

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