WHEN WINGNUTS ASK "HOW ARE WE GOING TO PAY FOR IT?"

Tell them that part of it will be paid by the savings we get from reforming the health care system. The Commonwealth Fund studied this problem and offered a solution that could save $3 Trillion by 2020.




The reforms alone could save $1.3 Trillion.

FRUM VS. AN ATTACK POODLE

David Frum points out that Fats Limbaugh isn't a good standard-bearer for the GOP, Mark Levin flips out (as usual) and then Frum calls in to talk with Foamer Levin. I guess Frum wasn't aware that wingnut radio is more or less full of angry clowns like Mark Levin:

As I hung up, I wondered what it would be like to be a new listener, a nonpolitical person, tuning in to Mark Levin’s show for the first time. The ferocious hatred and anger – the shouting at people not present to reply, the self-pitying complaints against a world that does not pay enough respect: it’s an ugly performance. Has Levin ever convinced any listener of anything that listener did not already believe? And of those who come to the show uncertain of what they believe - mustn't the vast majority come away from these rage-filled narcissistic tirades thinking, "If that's conservatism, I want no part of it"?

SAME OLD BS, THIS TIME FROM STANFORD

In a WSJ opinion piece, Stanford professor of economics Michael Boskin repeats the tired argument that raising taxes will hurt what Fats Limbaugh calls "the producers."

Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest -- with effective rates higher still because of restrictions on itemized deductions and raising the Social Security cap. As every economics student learns, high marginal rates distort economic decisions, the damage from which rises with the square of the rates (doubling the rates quadruples the harm).

Obama is essentially restoring the tax rates that were in effect during the Clinton years and as we know, those were much more successful than even the St. Reagan years. Lowering the rates under the criminal Bush regime did not help the broader economy.

BAD SIGNS FOR THE WINGNUTS

A poll by CNN found that

Seventy-two percent of those questioned in recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey say they favor increasing the federal government's influence over the country's health care system in an attempt to lower costs and provide health care coverage to more Americans

Even worse, St. Ronnie is now in 2nd place, according to a FAUX News poll (from Eric Kleefeld at TPMDC):

"What do you think the nation's economy needs more of right now -- the economic policies of Ronald Reagan or the economic policies of Barack Obama?"

The answer: Obama 49%, Reagan 40%.

If the conservatives lose on health care and has their only Saint diminished, they will be in the minority for a long time.

REPEATING FAILURE

Reliapundit thinks the same old tactic will work:

We should be demonizing Obama and Reid and Pelosi. And Geithner. And Rangel. And Frank. And so on. Every single leftist Dem should be targeted with anything and everything. relentlessly drug through the mud. Day in and day out.

Doesn't he realize that Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Rep. Michelle Bachmann and other wingnuts have already tried that?

FATS VS. THE THINKERS

Well, the right-wing version of thinkers. Yesterday, Fats spoke dismissively of the "intellectual" conservatives who've written critically about him and even refused to name them because he apparently didn't want his listeners to learn for themselves. Daniel Larison and David Frum are two of these intellectuals and I found that both of them have made valid critiques of Pigboy;

LARISON:

Of course, there isn’t that much substantively different between Romney’s opportunistic recitations and Limbaugh’s boilerplate, but at least with Romney you knew that he was capable of saying something else and would have said it if he had thought it was to his advantage. The boilerplate is not only all Limbaugh knows how to say, but if you pressed him to elaborate on any of it he would just repeat himself.

FRUM:

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence...

RADIO TIDBITS

Jim Cramer went on another "Save Capitalism" rant and that earned him a spot on Hannity's radio show. Cramer is a basically a free-market stooge and even claimed that Bear Stearns was a good buy one week before it collapsed.

Yesterday, Fats Limbaugh said that Business Week is "leftist," just like everything else in the mainstream media. This puts him right next to the poster on LGF who claimed that the reporting of the Wall Street Journal was liberal:

The WSJ is liberal when it comes to the news desk. It is slightly conservative when it comes to the editorial desk.
This has been well known inside the WSJ for years.
-Polaris
Comment by Polaris Email 4/7/2005 - 10:32 pm

TIME HACKS DON'T GET IT

David von Drehle asks if the criticism of Fats Limbaugh is "over line" and suggests that it is. Michael Scherer called pushing back against Fats is a "petty strategy." What don't these two clowns get about the GOP Noise Machine? Don't they understand that Fats is a major, perhaps the biggest, voice of conservatism in America?

PIGBOY IN WHINERVILLE

Poor Fats Limbaugh! He gets a little pushback on all the crap he's been spewing and suddenly the WH is going "after a private citizen." Almost 4 years ago, Matt Drudge made the same defense of Fats after Howard Dean pointed out that Fats "has made a career of belittling other people." If Fats is going to use the public airwaves to spew his agit-prop, he's "fair game."

The real issue isn't Fats' belief that Obama is pursuing the wrong policies, it's the fear that these policies will be effective and that would mean that conservatism becomes not much more than a fringe movement. Conservatives have known this for some time, going back to at least Bill Kristol in 1993 (h/t Greg Sargent):

The long term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse — much worse. It will relegitimize middle-class dependency for “security” on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government…

Fats admitted a similar fear back in January:

If he gets nationalized health care, I mean, it's over, Sean. We're never going to roll that back. That's the end of America as we have known it, because that's then going to set the stage for everything being government owned, operated, or provided.

A REAL POPULIST REVOLT...

NOT the crap Hannity, Limbaugh and Joe the Plumber are peddling. (h/t Matt Yglesias)

Market Movers
by Felix Salmon
Mar 2 2009 1:23PM EST
The AIG Scandal

...the scandal is that AIG could have earned billions of dollars by selling insurance against a meltdown, even as it was wholly incapable of paying out on those policies. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Hank Greenberg was still a billionaire, even as the policies his company wrote have cost the average American household some $1,600. It's time for his wealth to be confiscated: it might be only a drop in the bucket compared to AIG's total losses, but it would feel very right.

We should also go after some of the MOTU who made a LOT of money creating the Big Shitpile.

FATS PLAYS DEFENSE AGAIN

I didn't listen to Limbaugh's entire show today but I know he started off whining about how people are attacking him for wanting Pres. Obama to fail and the economy to tank. When I caught I little more at the beginning of his 3rd hour, he said he had already devoted 2 hours to this issue. I've long thought that we need to go after the talk radio whores and it seems that Pres. Obama thinks the same. Here's a juicy part from yesterday's WH press briefing:

Q The President has spoken a lot about bringing the country together, and after the stimulus fight there was a lot of hand-wringing in both parties about bipartisanship. What is the White House's reaction to Rush Limbaugh saying again that he wants the President to fail, specifically on his economic plans? And how does that bode for bipartisanship in the future, working with Republicans?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the question is a good one. I think that -- I think maybe the best question, though, is for you to ask individual Republicans whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend. Do they want to see the President's economic agenda fail? You know, I bet there are a number of guests on television throughout the day and maybe into tomorrow who could let America know whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend.

You know, I mean, I think he -- I mean, I think it would be charitable to say he doubled down on what he said in January in wishing and hoping for economic failure in this country. I can only imagine what might have been said a few years ago if somebody might have said that on the other side relating to what was going on in this country or our endeavors overseas. You know, I'd like to think, and I think most people would like to think, that we can put aside our differences and get things done for the American people.

I will say, in watching a few cable clips of Mr. Limbaugh's speech, his notion of presidential failure seemed to be quite popular in the room in which he spoke.

RICH LOWRY HACKS AWAY AGAIN

In another silly bit of NRO wingnut hackery, Lowry notes that the stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, responded better to FDR than it has to Obama. Here I'd like to point out how extremely narrow his perception by providing a chart of the DJI from 1925-56. The Dow did not regain it's pre-crash high until 1954. This should be a sobering statistic for those who were all excited about diverting Social Security money into the stock market. (SOURCE: MSN Finance)



The DOW is also a very imperfect measure of the health of the economy because it doesn't often track GDP. Here's a chart of GDP for the years 1929-1956. (SOURCE: Bureau of Economic Analysis)

WHAT CONSERVATIVES REALLY THINK ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION

DOJ memos prepared during the criminal Bush regime reveal the extent conservatives are willing to violate the Constitution. I found this part particularly troubling:

The Oct. 23 memorandum also said that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.”

What Ari Fleischer told us back on 9/26/2001:

Q As Commander-In-Chief, what was the President's reaction to television's Bill Maher, in his announcement that members of our Armed Forces who deal with missiles are cowards, while the armed terrorists who killed 6,000 unarmed are not cowards, for which Maher was briefly moved off a Washington television station?

MR. FLEISCHER: I have not discussed it with the President, one. I have --

Q Surely, as a --

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm getting there.

Q Surely as Commander, he was enraged at that, wasn't he?

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm getting there, Les.

Q Okay.

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say, and it unfortunate. And that's why -- there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party -- they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.

ANOTHER LIE FROM FATS

Yesterday, Limbaugh lied about the results of the War on Poverty:

There has been literally no change in the percentage of people in poverty throughout the war on poverty.

In fact, in 1959 the overall poverty rate was 22.4% and by 1969 it had decreased to 13.7%.

HAH! STEELE RETRACTS, FATS WINS

This is more proof that Limbaugh is the real voice of the GOP.

Steele to Rush: I'm sorry
By MIKE ALLEN 3/2/09 5:58 PM EST
The Politico

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.”

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

In the interview with Politico, Steele called Limbaugh “a very valuable conservative voice for our party.” “He brings a very important message to the American people to wake up and pay attention to what the administration is doing," Steele said. "Number two, there are those out there who want to look at what he’s saying as incendiary and divisive and ugly. That’s what I was trying to say. It didn’t come out that way..."

FATS V. STEELE

Fats went on offense against Michael Steele and accused him of supporting Obama's socialist agenda. Will Steele be forced to retract?

HANNITY DEFENDS RUSH, ATTACKS STEELE

Sean didn't mention Steele by name, only by implication. He did defend Fats by name and Newt Gingrich showed up and did the same thing, adding in a gratuitous attack on Obama by accusing him of being a socialist.

RADIO TIDBITS

Just in case you were wondering, Limbaugh and Hannity think the cure to our economic problems is to cut taxes.

In other words, the same old supply-side BS.

THIS IS GREAT!

Fats Limbaugh gives a major speech at CPAC and before you can say "rehab," the chairman of the RNC smacks down Fats:

Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”

Pass the popcorn!

KUDOS TO CHRIS WALLACE

He nailed Sen. Kyl as a hypocrite about earmarks. (via Matt Corley at Think Progress)

WALLACE: And we’re putting up on the screen, Senator, your earmarks, a long list of them, according to the Taxpayers for Common Sense, totaling $118 million.

Question — I think it’s a fair one — who are you to lecture the Democrats on spending?

KYL: Well, first of all, I don’t see on the screen what you’re talking about. I can defend everything that I have recommended in the budget, and I would suggest that they’re not earmarks under the definition, because we have a specific definition.

Yes, Kyl is a hypocrite and McCain? McCain doesn't give a damn about the needs of Arizona.

THE AFA BEARS FALSE WITNESS AGAINST OBAMA

and thus breaks one of the 10 Commandments. The AFA is supporting the anti-labor movement by lying about the Employee Free Choice Act. The AF spews the wingnut lie that the EFCA will eliminate secret ballots for union formation. In fact, employees could still choose to have a secret ballot.

ANOTHER WINGER BOARDS THE FAILURE TRAIN

The Exterminator also hates America.

TP: Do you agree with Rush Limbaugh that we shouldn’t hope for President Obama to succeed?

DELAY: Well, exactly right. I don’t want this for our nation. That’s for sure.

TWO MORE WHO WANT AMERICA TO FAIL

Mark "Foamer" Levin and former senator Rick "Man-on-Dog" Santorum are rooting for failure because what's bad for America is good for movement conservatism. They aren't the only ones.

THINK PROGRESS: What do you think about what Rush said about, I mean, do you hope? Should we hope that President Obama fails?

LEVIN: Yes.

TP: Yes?

SANTORUM: If…absolutely we hope that his policies fail.

TP: Ok.

SANTORUM: Because, well, we, I believe his policies will fail, I don’t know, but I hope they fail, I don’t know. But I believe they will fail.

THE SECOND TIME AS FARCE

How can the GOP make a comeback when their main "idea" guy is a has been who has Attention Deficit Disorder?

I DON'T GET IT

Jon Chait is mostly pretty clear-minded and I've found his writings informative. In the WaPo, he joins the wingnuts in attacking Obama's choice to head the National Intelligence Council, Charles Freeman:

Realists tend not to abide the American alliance with Israel, which rests on shared values with a fellow imperfect democracy rather than on a cold analysis of America's interests.

This means that Chait doesn't like Freeman because he isn't an honorary member of the Likud Party like Douglas Feith. Chait writes that

...Americans, rightly or wrongly, have an affinity for a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships

I don't have an affinity for Israel and I think this is argument is pure Zionist bullshit. I certainly don't want the Jews in Israel massacred but after 60 years, isn't time we began looking at other options?

YES, THEY REALLY HATE US

Unless one is a saint, it's natural to hate those who one considers to be evil and the wingers do think liberals are evil. At CPAC, Fats Limbaugh himself directly implied that liberals are evil and conservatives are good. No wonder these freaks get along so well with the Fundie wackjobs.

TWO MORE NEWS & ANALYSIS SOURCES ON THE BIG SHITPILE

Ira Glass and friends had a nice explanation of why the banks are in trouble on This American Life yesterday and NPR has an entire blog about this and other financial issues. From the latter, I was led to another good source, The Baseline Scenario, that also has a explanation of "bad bank."