December 2011

Here comes today's outrage from the right wingers. During a lead in, in which Chuck Todd thought the cameras were off, he get's caught flipping that notorious middle finger.

This was captured by the wingnut site NewsBusters and has this added commentary:

Will there be repercussions for Todd? Stay tuned.

Even on the YouTube NewsBusters posted you have a bunch of wingnuts calling for Todd to be fired and now Fox has picked up on it.

But certainly a Republican would NEVER do something like this - would they?

OOPS! I guess they would! But certainly that was just an off day and Bush would NEVER do that again - right?

Well damn, would you look at that! And yet when these incidents happened the right didn't go into defending Bush. You know why? BECAUSE NO ONE CARED!!!

I just love how these people can't find anything real to be outraged over so they have to go into the manufactured outrage over things that mean nothing.

In 2003 Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, which later became known as Medicare Part D. Remember that? A lot of wonks point to it as a critical piece of legislation that helped Bush win his re-election in 2004. Of course the law didn't go into effect until 2006 and for the next year we heard horror stories on the news of seniors not able to get their medicine and the phrase "doughnut hole" entered our vocabulary. Suddenly a lot of seniors, who supported Bush in 2004, started wishing they could turn back time and take away that vote.

You know who was one of the most instrumental players in getting this past? None other than Newt Gingrich:

Newt Gingrich played the role of political godfather in pushing the Medicare prescription drug benefit into law, returning to Capitol Hill in November 2003 to deliver a pivotal speech that turned some conservative skeptics into believers.

Three days before the clock started on what would be an excruciating and historic three-hour floor vote, Republicans huddled in a House office building committee room to hear their former speaker’s vision of a modernized Medicare plan that would offer prescription drugs for seniors while subsidizing Medicare Advantage and introducing health savings accounts aimed at giving conservatives a reason — any reason — to expand the bastion of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society.

This story at the New York Times has me ready to kick kittens:

The share of income received by the top 1 percent — that potent symbol of inequality — dropped to 17 percent in 2009 from 23 percent in 2007, according to federal tax data. Within the group, average income fell to $957,000 in 2009 from $1.4 million in 2007.

Analysts say the drop largely reflects the stock market plunge, and most think top incomes recovered somewhat in 2010, as Wall Street rebounded and corporate profits grew. Still, the drop alters a figure often emphasized by inequality critics, and it has gone largely unnoticed outside the blogosphere.

OMG! We should start a fund to help out the rich in their tough times! Maybe 2010 will be even better and way in the future, say in 2011, they might really recover. Oh wait.....

The author of the article apparently didn't realize what year it was. Sure the top 1% saw their income decline in 2009, as did every other person in this county. But notice that one key line in there? "most think top incomes recovered somewhat in 2010". Now since a large part of this groups income is dependent upon the stock markets, let's have a look at it from 2007 to today:

So a stock market in the 9,000 range in 2009 would cause these people to lose money, yet we are approaching those 2007 levels again, meaning these people have recovered.

But facts won't stop this pity party:

Ever wonder why we call them "right wing nut jobs"? It's because they are nuts! They are little conspiracy theory, Dale Gribble, paranoid nuts!

The latest chapter into the mind of these tinfoil hat wearing lunatics comes from John Hinderaker of Powerline:

BAMA ADMINISTRATION COORDINATING WITH LEFT-WING GROUPS ON VOTER FRAUD?

I wrote yesterday about the lightly-attended march in New York, ostensibly on behalf of voting rights, which was sponsored by a broad coalition of left-wing groups and was addressed by several Democratic politicians. While the number of participants was small, the affair had all the signs of a semi-official Democratic Party initiative. Sure enough: Nation magazine notes that Eric Holder will deliver a “major speech on voting rights” tomorrow, and links Holder’s speech to yesterday’s march:

He goes onto quote this article from The Nation talking about a speech Eric Holder gave on voting rights and then concludes with this:

So you can see how this will all come together. The Democrats will use their constituent organizations to whip up a frenzy of opposition to “voter suppression,” while DOJ launches, or threatens to launch, legal challenges to selected state statutes. This will energize the Democrats’ base by pretending that Republicans are trying to disenfranchise voters. It also may succeed in increasing the illegal votes that Democrats rely on at the margins of close elections.