As much as I hate to admit it this site has it right on. Check it out for yourself!
http://www.drudgereport.com/

Someone make him stop.

That’s easy – just tell Douthat that you’re on the Pill.

BTW, from the number of trolls that popped up
over the weekend, it looks like FDL is on somebody’s radar.

I was buried in work over the weekend so I missed the trolls. Were they the standard trolls who spout talking points, or were they the more entertaining loony ones?

The real trolls are on the corporate media. They have framed the healthcare debate with Republican talking points. Now they are pushing the “co-op” option as a viable compromise. Co-ops will lead to a two tiered healthcare system that does nothing to address the rising costs. The United States moves ever closer to becoming the United Corporations of America.

Were they the standard trolls who spout talking points, or were they the more entertaining loony ones?

Yes.

All of the above.

The kind that try to hijack threads by posting long, detailed comments
based on an alternative set of facts. Although engaging such people in debate
can help sharpen one’s own arguments, in the current environment they are best ignored.

EPU. That link to Wonkette was priceless. Thanks

BT MSM had better watch out having people like Rachel Maddow on. It is dangerous to bring in intelligent opinions when trying to push the reich wing agenda.

Man, you got that right, particularly Libertarians and Clintonistas.

…long, detailed comments based on an alternative set of facts.

Dick Armey was here?

I’m willing to leave trying to deal with that sort of troll to the Sadly Naughts. They do a superb job.

I guess some loudmouths at TH meetings were enough to push the administration right into the arms of the insurance industry, if they weren’t really already there. The tens of thousands of emails, calls and letters must not have meant much to these people.

Since when do these people use “facts”

Hugh was choppin’ ‘em up with great style.

so if Nate’s analysis is correct, everything rides on four Senate Finance Committee votes for a publc option bill: Nelson (FL), Baucus, Lincoln, Snowe… to ensure that the public option is in the Senate Bill when it first reaches the Floor, since there is mathematically speaking no scenario for a non-public option bill to be amended into a public option one. And even this scenario relies on Byrd and Kennedy being healthy enough to vote on the final bill.

The only other way to do this is through some arcane Conference procedure (if the lower House stuck to it’s guns, which hopefully it well) that I don’t know about.

Am I right?

ps. curses as usual to Lieberman

I’ll gladly give up the public option in exchange for giving up FISA, The Patriot Act and the MCA and starting public torture trials. We’ll overwhelm congress,in the next election, after the treason trials and pass the single payer if so desired.
It’s just what the country needs besides getting out of gwb ME sandbox nightmare.

NBC/Dickhead Gregory must be mighty afraid of Rachel. Three reichwingnuts to counter her.

”Someone make him stop.”

[Edited by Moderator: Please do not make threats of violence towards anyone. Thank you]

Actually I think the PLP (”pasty little putz”= Marion’s nickname for Douchehat from the last thread) points out something very insightful. It had to happen eventually. The Repugs have been tossing out so many loopy arguments against health care reform that they were bound to eventually catch their own foot in one. Basically they are saying “Don’t let the Dems cut your Medicare, we want to be the ones to do that.”

well, Daschle is ostensibly on our side. He was fighting with Coburn, leaving Rachel aghast and agog at what was coming out of Dick Armey’s pie-hole, and Rachel was put in the spot of being only able to try to correct the Dick, and unable to really add her own thoughts, for the most part.

I’d love to see a compilation of the various looks of amazement on Rachel’s face every time Armey opened his mouth…..

No troll here….

Americans need more information. Corporations in health care are either for profit or tax exempt. Most non profit are tax exempt. The lack of tax revenue produced by these corporations, is a subsidy. This is the scam. Most corporations pay property taxes excise taxes. These corporations do not. How many people know the tax status of the health care insurer? Mire yourself in the mess!!!

http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/nccsTools.php

2005 – A 1 Healthcare of Jax Inc (421640390)
2005 – A Womans Touch in Healthcare Inc (431991154)
2007 – Abraham Lincoln Healthcare Foundation (363492268)
2008 – Acadiana Assisted Healthcare Inc (721395964)
2007 – Acce Healthcare Technology Foundation (061675022)
2005 – Access Allegany Comn Healthcare Plan Inc (800107061)
2007 – Access To Healthcare Network Inc (721619489)
2006 – Advanced Strategies for Healthcare (061625127)
2006 – Advanced Strategies for Healthcare (061625127)
2007 – Adventist Health System Sunbelt Healthcare Corporation (592170012)
2007 – Adventist Healthcare Inc (521532556)
2007 – Affiliated Community Healthcare Physicians (954698312)

[edited for length by moderator]

That was just using “healthcare” as a search term?
http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/nccsTools.php

the flaw in Nate’s analysis is that it relies on the assumption that only a bill from Finance can reach the Floor. But the Senate HELP committee is a far more friendly (and appropriate) environment for this kind of bill…

I had not seen Dick Armey in action before. Nauseating fat ugly POS. And Gregory kept diverting the conversation away from the merits of reform and TO the conflict aspects and the town hall nutjobs. I only TiVo’d MTP to watch Rachel, and now I see why I never watch otherwise. Blech.

I watched the webcast and it seemed to me that Armey didn’t have any substance (certainly none anchored in facts) and just filled air time with bloviating anecdotes that had no point. It was hard for her to get a word in edgewise, but she was great when she did. Seemed like she gave up trying to correct him after a while.

And Coburn has sanctimony and privilege dripping from every syllable. Daschle did OK, and Rachel was great when she could get a word in edgewise. I noticed Armey kept looking over to see what she was reading her facts from.

Dammit, it was not a threat. It was a profoundly anti-gun statement. If you’re a human, you need to learn to read with understanding. If you’re a robot, well, there went the First Amendment.

Benen sums it up nicely:

Armey’s Standards, Memory Lacking

Rachel dazzles ‘em with brilliance while Armey baffles ‘em with bullshit. The sad part is the Press the Meat groupies would rather consume the bullshit than think.

Your point about Gregory & the press was really spelled out by Kathleen Hall Jamison on the Moyers’ show on Friday. She repeated herself about the press’s failure to deal with facts & issues, but focus on the noise/bull then spin that to say the President has failed. Really sickening. She is so good; truthful, clear, reliable. I have watched her alot, usually, around election. This was the most critical and on-fire I have ever seen her.

Oh, shit, they’re startin’ early today. Shields Up!

Interesting…try again and let us be the judge.;))

I noticed Armey kept looking over to see what she was reading her facts from.

Well, that’s encouraging! Maybe now he’ll go off somewhere and try to find out all about “facts” and what they are.

That was a good show. Thanks for reminding me about it the other day.

doesn’t that depend on the agreed sequential referral order?

Good Morning;;;Is “shield up” an instruction or Mark?

ROFLMAO. *snort* LOL *oh stop, yer killin’ me here* LOL *can’t breathe* LOL

Add this to your required reading this a.m.

Obama and the left misread his mandate.
http://www.realclearpolitics.c…..ate_1.html

You’re welcome….one of the best, I think. And Moyers looked like he was really enjoying it.

A quote from Capt Kirk to Mr Sulu.

Libertarian troll alert.

Review the IRS 990 forms of corporation like Blue Cross Blue Shield who operate as tax exempt public charities, like the United Way or the Red Cross? How can a Tax exempt health insurer be considered a public charity for tax law purposes? “Lessening the Burdens of government,) while increasing premiums 22%, denying coverage and when peole get sick they lose their coverage. Please take the time to look at the revenues collected by Kaiser’s Mid Atlantic Plan or and Number of tax exempt health corporations operating in various states. Mind you all this does not include the for profit health insurers! . The alleged, not for profits are on nobodies radar, but more important tax exempt health insurance corporation, hmo’s are never discussed?? WHY?

R. Maddow yesterday heard Dick Army say the repugs prescription plan was written by a certain committee and the exec or former CEO of BCBS? BCBS WEllpoint; for profit, not for prrrrrrofit, or tax exempt or both?

Tax exempt health insurers…….real public charities. INUREMENT?
Inurement – Section 501(c)(6)

http://www.irs.gov/charities/c…..97,00.html
http://www.irs.gov/charities/n…..03,00.html

http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/nccsTools.php

I didnt like how gregory kept refering to the big dick as ‘Congressman Army’. I thought the people of his state spoke out loud and clear that they didnt want Dick Army to be called their congressman.

It’s called kissing ass.

As much as I’d like to stick around and play with the trolls today I gotta go swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

It’s called kissing Republican ass.

a/k/a Meet the Press.

edited just a hair…..

Hey BT thank you again for the clip and your MS post.

I think wigwam has it correct in quoting the Krugman column today in terms of what is on Obama’s mind…Swissifying health care.

When it comes to the Swiss, nothing is done without the benefit to their banks. How will US financial institutions benefit from a Swissified health care plan? That is the question we need to look at. And then we need to fight for extreme regulation of the insurance and financial industries because they have become too intertwined.

It would be good to bring Krugman back for a Salon to specifically discuss the possibility of Obama Swissifying health care. Besides, Rahm likes to make sure financial institutions are happy.

Rachel nailed it btw. It will be nice to see what she does on her show today as a follow-up with clips of DA and then the filled in research.

Paul Krugman says:

So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

Christy is upstairs…

And this is a great diary on health care.

It is not Republican pressure that is killing the public option. Further, Americans understand that other government run agencies, ala the Post Office, Medicare and Public Education offer neither choice, nor competition. These programs operate at a loss and the only thing keeping them going is their government mandate.

The Post Office is looking at cutting services in order to save money, namely, reducing delivery days from six to five and closing a significant number of its locations. Government administered health insurance will do the same thing when it also costs a lot more money than predicted.

The public is not gullible, but rather imbued with common sense. The President has yet to make clear exactly what HIS plan will or will not include. He is consistently vague and contradictory.

How can Americans support a plan when we do not know what the administration has in mind? Right or wrong there is a growing sense that the President is not leveling with the American people.

I called the President this morning at 202 456 1111 and told the operator that unless he enacts single payer HR676 into law and also enacts a real fix for the prescription drug benefit into law according to http://bit.ly/drug_benefit I will abstain from voting for President and my 2 democratic senators from NY in 2012. I will vote for the Democratic candidate for the house in 2012.

Read our blog http://blog.democratz.org

Join our new progressive political party http://democratz.org and still remain a democrat also.

Dream on. Single payer cannot be stuffed down the throats of the American people. Why do you think the ‘public option’ is in peril? Because American KNOW that it is a transition to single payer that will result in a system that is as competitive and efficient as the USPS!

Try reading the excellent op-ed by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey instead of running off half-cocked and hysterical. He has some serious ideas.

http://online.wsj.com/article/…..65070.html

WHY is it so hard for Pundits to understand that the fall in our presidents approval on the issue of HEALTHCARE does NOT indicate that people do not approval of a PUBLIC OPTION, it can also indicate that many of his heretofore supporters are PISSED OFF that he is willing to throw away a PUBLIC OPTION to make republicans happy.

Here is another great diary on health care.

Any activists here? Please get as many people as you can to sign these health care petitions.

http://bit.ly/HR676

http://bit.ly/single_payer_ross

http://bit.ly/drug_benefit

Deep down in EPU land, but this seems to fit here. Here is probably the best rundown of the Sunday morning shows I’ve ever seen. I laughed, I cried, I gnashed my teeth…

Hysterical, Marion! And unfortunately only partly satire.

I actually watched Press the Meat yesterday, and I found their rundown to be spot on. A hell of a lot funnier than the show itself, but spot on to what went on.

The public option has never been seriously considered by Obama. He made a politically calculated move to align himself more with progressives in order to get nominated. Now that he is in the WH he is doing what any good machine pol would do…strike backroom ‘pay for play’ deals with big business(TARP II, Big Pharma), pay off political supporters (see ’stimulus’ bill) and offer them protection(GM takeover to protect unions). He is looking to consolidate power for himself and his cronies.

I have no doubt that he shares far left views of this country, but his pragmatism and talent lie in exploiting or abandoning those views for personal gain. He is a political opportunist par excellance.

Bill Clinton, another narcissist, recognizes this when he noted that once Dems pass something, Obama’s approval ratings will rise.