Where's the Outrage?

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Several years ago, when the Democrats took over the House, they elected Nancy Pelosi to be Speaker. I thought that was an interesting choice. (Interesting, in this context, is not really a compliment.) When Harry Reid was chosen to lead the Democrats in the Senate, I thought it was odd. Now, as we look back over the last three years, what is the tough legislation that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have guided through Congress? Nothing. We have not been able to end the war in Iraq. As a matter of fact, we’re still there. We have not held hearings on torture, or former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, or the outing of Valerie Plame, or domestic spying, or even our election system, for that matter. All of these issues take political will and leadership. Now, we need leadership on healthcare and these guys are, again, AWOL.

Aaron Carroll on the Colbert Report:

There should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that healthcare is difficult. In order to do healthcare right, several special interests must be directly confronted. Neither Harry Reid nor Nancy Pelosi have stuck their necks out to say that we are giving way too much money to health insurance companies. No one is saying that health insurance companies do not add any value to our healthcare dollar. This is what needs to be said. Instead of leadership on this issue, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are nearly invisible.

We, as Americans, should not take half-measures. If we are going to truly reform healthcare, then let’s reform healthcare. By moving to a single-payer system, Americans save over $700 billion. This money then can be used to cover the 46 million Americans who are currently not covered by any insurance plan. This would provide basic medical insurance for all Americans. This does not require any special tax on the wealthy. It does not require any additional funds from the middle class. Even while not spending an extra dime, we can cover all Americans. Why isn’t Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi saying this on the Sunday talk shows every week?

When is somebody going to stand up and say that immigration reform is part of healthcare reform? Hello, Harry and Nancy, I’m talking to you!! Out of the 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, somewhere around 12 to 15 million are economic refugees (illegal immigrants); therefore, these two topics are linked. When is a politician going to stand up and tell us this? That would be leadership. Informing the American people and leading Congress through potential pitfalls is what we’re paying the majority leader and the Speaker of the House to do and they ain’t doin’ it.

Finally, if we are able to negotiate some basic tort reform, physicians will begin to order less tests. Americans instantly save billions of dollars. The quality of healthcare doesn’t change. As a matter fact, you can argue, that the quality of health care may improve.

Today we learned that the Blue Dogs and Republicans have worked out some sort of agreement that there will be no vote on healthcare reform before the August recess. Fine. We (progressives) need to organize. We need to push for a single-payer system. We need to write and fax Congress. We don’t need to spend any more of our hard-earned money on garbage. This latest bill that came out of the Senate is 1000 pages of garbage. We need to tell our representatives that they need to start with a clean piece of paper. Then, they need to write down the goals of healthcare reform — portable, efficient and cost-effective. These should be the goals. Co-ops do not meet these goals. Some sort of public-private hybrid is not efficient or cost-effective. No American should have to pay anymore money than we’re paying now for healthcare. $2.2 trillion is enough. 16% for gross domestic product is enough. A single-payer system is the only way to meet the goals of a portable, efficient and cost-effective healthcare system.

It is time for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to listen to what Americans want – single-payer.  They need to lead Congress and make this happen.

Tags: Healthcare, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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Only Stephen Colbert could take on the terrible policy of don’t ask, don’t tell while in Iraq performing for the troops. He remains one of the most cutting-edge comedians in the US today.

Tags: Military, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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U.S. Human Cases of H1N1 Flu Infection
(As of April 30, 2009, 10:30 AM ET)

States	# of laboratory confirmed cases	Deaths
Arizona	1
California	14
Indiana	1
Kansas	2
Massachusetts	2
Michigan	1
Nevada	1
New York	50
Ohio	1
South Carolina	10
Texas	26	1
TOTAL COUNTS	109 cases	1 death
International Human Cases of Swine Flu Infection See: World Health Organization

Before I begin my swine flu update, I would like to point your attention to a story in which a woman who was working for a jewelry manufacturer is now being accused of stealing $12 million in gold. I think if you’re going to steal you should steal big.

The World Health Organization, which tracks worldwide infections, labeled this swine flu pandemic a level five. Their system has six levels. Level five indicates evidence of human-to-human transmission and the capability to cause “community level outbreaks.”

It is hard to get a real handle on what’s going on. Many of the media outlets, especially the 24-hour news networks, have lost their minds. The coverage is so juvenile as to be mindnumbing. According to the CDC, there appears to be 109 cases of swine flu (H1N1) in the United States. There is one confirmed death in Texas. (It appears that the child crossed the border with his family to see relatives then he fell ill.  Look for anti-immigration folks to go crazy on this.)  Several schools have closed in the Houston area.  (Maybe Texas Liberal has an inside story.) Fort Worth has become the first major school district to close with four new cases diagnosed today.  Below is a map of the distribution of swine flu cases throughout the United States. Governor Bobby Jindal, Republican from Louisiana, just announced that he believes that there are several cases in his State. Because of the onslaught of specimens sent to the CDC, turnaround times have increased from one to two days to three to four days. Interestingly, the cases from his state are people who got sick after traveling to Mexico. This may be just the flu.

Colbert lampoons the media coverage –

There are several isolated cases worldwide.

I heard an interesting conundrum on The Mike Malloy show last night. Should you be given a prescription for the antivirals that may be effective against this influenza A (H1N1)? (BTW, the WHO would prefer that we call the virus influenza “A H1N1″ instead of the “swine flu.” Whatever!)The thought process goes something like this — you have the antivirals at home and when somebody begins getting sick, they begin taking the medication. This medication can reduce the severity of the illness (if it is effective against this particular bug and that has not been established to the best of my knowledge). These medications (antivirals) are not vaccines. Vaccines you take before an infection and they help prevent you from getting the infection. Currently, we do not have a vaccine. So, back to the question, would getting a prescription for these antivirals be the same as hoarding medication? It is my understanding that the National Guard has been called out in several states to prevent a run on these medications. Unfortunately, to my reading, its recommendations from the CDC do not make a whole lot of sense. The CDC recommends that you take antivirals when you have a confirmed infection. If confirmation takes four days (at best), how effective will medicine be if you started five days or more after contact with someone who may be infected? I don’t know the answer. Antivirals are not the same as antibiotics. The CDC has stratified people according to risk. This seems to make sense. Only the people at the highest risk should even consider getting a prescription.

Swine Flu US Map 4-30-09

Tags: Healthcare, Media, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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Stephen Colbert is one of the funniest men on television. His humor is complex. You have to sit back and listen and think. Republicans aren’t so good at thinking. At least, they’re not so good at thinking about humor. One of the best examples of Colbert’s ability to focus on a problem through satirical humor would be his interview with Representative Lynn Westmoreland. Representative Westmoreland introduced a bill into the House of Representatives to place the 10 Commandments on every major government building in the United States. Stephen Colbert interviewed Representative Westmoreland and asked him to name all 10 Commandments. You would figure that this would be an easy question for someone who is promoting such a bill. The representative only got three out of the 10 Commandments. Isn’t three out of 10 an F? The interview is funny and illuminating. (I haven’t looked to see if he’s been reelected. The good people of Georgia really deserve someone much better.)

Colbert took on Representative Bill Posey of Florida. This is the guy who introduced the bill which would have required all presidential candidates to prove where they were born. Watch the following video:

It turns out that a new study shows that many Republicans do not understand or get Colbert’s humor. They think he’s serious. I guess this really isn’t surprising. It’s kind of sad, really.

From HuffPost:

Last week, Stephen Colbert revisited a segment he had done on Florida Representative Bill Posey, who sponsored a bill that “would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificate,” in order to put insane rumors of President Barack Obama’s birthplace to bed.

Colbert thought a similar measure should be taken to end the whisperings that Posey was a human-alligator hybrid. Posey, in response to Colbert, said, “I expected there would be some civil debate about it, but it wasn’t civil…There is no reason to say that I’m the illegitimate grandson of an alligator.” And one wondered, “Does Posey not realize that Colbert is not speaking in earnest? His reaction seems uniquely stupid!”

Stupid, yes. But apparently it’s not unique at all, according to a study from The Ohio State University, which proves, with math and stuff, that lots of conservatives seem to not understand the intrinsic, underlying joke of The Colbert Report:

This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert’s political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert’s political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion. (more… )

Tags: Party Politics, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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I talked about Jim Cramer before. I think that Jon Stewart was/is right. Many of these financial analysts are nothing more than cheerleaders. Jeanne Moos from CNN has a humorous take on the battle, complete with Stephen Colbert adding puppies and kittens to soften Cramer’s image.

Tags: Economy, Media, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show by ecthompson
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Here’s the Monday evening news roundup:

• Let’s start overseas. North Korea is miffed that the U.S. has not lived up to their obligations in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in their eyes. It appears that they are beginning to start up their nuclear reactor, again.
• We saw a record jump in oil prices today, as if we don’t have enough to worry about.
• Wall Street seems to be having a difficult time figuring out what Congress is doing, just as I am. The Dow lost 372 points today.
• An Iraqi top official testified in front of the Senate today. The former chief inspector of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity told U.S. senators that approximately $9 billion of American reconstruction money had been lost, stolen or misused. $9 billion. That’s one third of a Bear Stearns bail out.
• The New York Times had a large article on Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis. Rick Davis received approximately $30 thousand per month for five years as the president of an advocacy group for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Although Senator McCain has been hammering Senator Barack Obama about ties with loan agencies, McCain’s campaign cried foul. They began whining that the New York Times is partial to Barack Obama. Then again, they’ve been whining on a variety of subjects recently. They just aren’t being treated fairly. The New York Times responded with an official statement.
• Details of the $700 billion loan bailout are slowly emerging. Questions about McCain and his economic decisions are bubbling to the surface. Did he almost bankrupt Arizona with his electric cars? By the way, as long as we are talking about this bailout, we should remember that we know President Bush loves corporate insiders. Well, where did Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson come from? In his previous role as chairman of Goldman Sachs, he received $38 million in 2005. Sweet package. In his current role, he has surrounded himself with Goldman Sachs ex-employees. Who stands to gain from this corporate bailout? Not Goldman Sachs. Couldn’t be.
• The final game of the regular season has been played in Yankee Stadium. I’m not a New York Yankees fan. But still, I do appreciate the history and the significance of Yankee Stadium. The House that Ruth built will be torn down. If it wasn’t so big, it should be made into a museum. The new Yankee Stadium was built across the street and will be ready for the New York Yankee home opener in April of 2009.
• Congratulations to Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart!!!

Tags: Congress, Economy, Election 2008, North Korea, Sports, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show by ecthompson
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Stephen Colbert has the lowdown on Republican presidential nominee, John McCain. Basically, McCain had to smear the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama because Obama refused the town hall meetings. This is funny. Enjoy.

Tags: Election 2008, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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The Daily Show correspondents explain what they will bring the convention.

Tags: Election 2008, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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Stephen Colbert remains one of the funniest men on TV. He lampoons John McCain in his own particular, peculiar way.

This is funny. Enjoy!

Tags: Election 2008, Iraq, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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I was not, and still am not, a Tony Snow fan, BUT no one should die of cancer. Tony Snow, former Bush press secretary, died at age 53. Here is Snow when he was truly enjoyable. He was on the Colbert Report earlier this year.

Tags: Bush Administration, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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Stephen Colbert is on the cutting edge of comedy. You have to be thinking when you are watching his show. Well, he has gotten an award that very few comedians get, a word in the New York Times crossword puzzle – Truthiness.

Tags: The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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Stephen Colbert explains why he has always been anti-union.

Tags: The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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Stephen Colbert has a little fun with Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Then again, they are such fun loving kinda guys, who wouldn’t have fun with them?

Tags: The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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Bill O’Reilly has been on tear about the Daily Kos for about 2 months straight. He has equated them with Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan. He points to the “hate” speech that he says can be found there. Here’s the problem, the Daily Kos is an open forum blog. Anyone can post in the dairies and anyone can post a comment. Although the Daily Kos has several monitors they can’t and shouldn’t catch everything. Billo hates that.

The fact of the matter is that Bill O’Reilly’s own web site has hate speech, beside the stuff that he is regurgitating. The FBI has reportedly launched a probe into some of the hate speech on his web site.

The Carpetbagger has found a Republican politician Tim Hugo who has launched an attack ad based on the hate speech that was found in the comment section of Rex Simmon’s blog.

Last month on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert and Daily Kos founder, Markos Moulitsas revealed to the nation how hate speech can easily get on a blog. Funny interview. Enjoy.

 

 TCR - Markos and hate speech and open forum [5:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Blogging issues, Party Politics, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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All we have to do to get the unity that Lieberman had talked about it to wind the clock back to September 12, 2001. Then we can re-believe that the President knows what he is doing. We can re-believe that Iraq has WMD and an Iraqi official met with Al Qaeda in Prague.

 

 TCR - Word - Re-Run [4:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Al Qaeda, Bush Administration, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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There is so much to say about this. Vitter came to office blowing all of that family values stuff. Personally, if you have to tell someone that you are for family values then you probably aren’t for family values.

Poor Senator David Vitter’s phone number has turned up on the DC Madam’s phone log. This can’t be a good thing for the family values Senator. More allegations about Vitter stepping out in Louisiana have been circling. So, Vitter and his wife, who said that she was more like Bobbitt than Hillary, held a press conference the other day. He said that God and his wife forgave him. She asked that the press some hounding her.

Now, in the South, and Louisiana is the south, when woman has to do something relatively formal, the pearls come out. Doing something formal with an adulterous husband requires some thought. One would figure that she would pick out something very conservative. No neck line. Nothing that reveals any hint of a figure but NOOOO, Ms. Vitter wears some clingy, plunging neck like thing. She is wearing something would cause a stir at one of those high brow country clubs. I’m sure that her choice reveals something about her and their marriage but I’m not going there.

Since both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report tackled the Vitter thang, I thought I would combine them into one video. Enjoy.

 

 TDS - TCR - Vitter [4:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Ethics, Senate, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show by ecthompson
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Stephen Colbert takes a look at People Magazine and their sexist man alive, Matthew McConaughey.  I thought that Stephen would complain that he wasn’t chosen (one of the reasons why I don’t write comedy).  Instead, he talks about how men live thru Matthew.

 

 TCR - Sexiest Man Alive [3:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Fun, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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OMG, students are being forced to learn stuff they don’t already know.  The horrors.  Will they ever stop.  (I hope not.)

 

 TCR - heated Debate [4:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Education, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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Colbert’s segment The Word is always a lesson in illogic and nonsequitur.  This is no different.

 

 TCR - Level Playing Field [4:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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It seems that Stephen Colbert has taken issue with the ACLU and some democrats who believe that it is wrong to adduct someone and torture them if they are innocent.  This is really funny.  How can these be funny?  You just have to watch the video. 

 

 TCR - Word: Better safe than sorry [4:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Al Qaeda, The Colbert Report by ecthompson
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