Yesterday at the debt ceiling talks, President Obama and Eric Cantor had a big fight. Or judging from the conflicting accounts, they had two completely different big fights. Republicans claim that President Obama yelled at Eric Cantor and then walked out. Democrats claim the meeting ended with Eric Cantor being dressed down while sitting in silence. Both scenarios have Eric Cantor getting wimp-slapped, and that’s the best part of the story anyway. The difference is whether President Obama was losing his cool or not. I tend to think not. Yelling at Eric Cantor is the most logical thing to do in that situation. Who wouldn’t want to yell at Eric Cantor? He should open a booth at the State fair where people could yell at him for a dollar a minute. There goes your debt crisis right there.
INTERACTIVE: If there is no increase of the debt ceiling, how would you prioritize?
Obama said “This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.” Well at least the first part of that finally got the Republicans’ full attention for the only time during these talks. Obama reportedly asked the leaders “Would Ronald Reagan be sitting here?” Well, if he was, he would be napping. With all due respect, President Obama, you are no Ronald Reagan. And I mean that as the highest compliment possible.
The Daily Show has a great take on Marcus Bachmann’s anti-gay crusading (video below). Marcus Bachmann offers gay conversion therapy? My first question would be, does Dr. Bachmann do a house call to my closet, or do I have to go his closet for the treatments? I’m sorry, but listen to the guy. Marcus Bachmann may have actually found a way to be openly gay while denying that he’s gay the entire time. So it seems Marcus Bachmann’s anti-gay agenda is like the approach of one of those militant anti-smoking ex-smokers. Except I’m not sure that poor Marcus Bachmann ever even allowed himself to enjoy a cigarette. Oh, I’m sure that somewhere down the line, he had a cigarette. I’m just saying he never allowed himself to enjoy it.
Finally, thanks to the efforts of the pharmaceutical industry, antipsychotics are now the biggest selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States. If you find that upsetting, do try to avoid the temptation to take a pill to deal with it.
Today’s Homework | Discuss
Mitch McConnell has a plan to deal with the debt ceiling crisis
(video below). Of course, the first problem with any plan from Mitch McConnell is that it’s a plan from Mitch McConnell. McConnell’s plan effectively lets Congress empower President Obama to raise the government’s borrowing limit on his own without prior Congressional approval. Yes, no Congressional approval is needed. Mitch just wants more chances to express Congressional disapproval. Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit. They don’t have any problem allowing somebody else to raise the debt limit, however—as long as they can continuously blame them. It’s not exactly kicking the can down the road. It’s more like kicking the can to somebody else and then to start yelling “Hey that guy’s kicking a filthy can around!”
McConnell’s plan would allow the president to demand up to $2.4 trillion in new borrowing authority over the next year in three separate submissions. Well, not so much “borrowing authority” as “borrowing liability.” That’s three times in an election year that Republicans could say “Look what Obama is doing with spending!” ... after they authorized him to do it. In a sense, in this standoff, Mitch McConnell blinked, which is odd, if only because Mitch McConnell never seems to blink in real life. He looks like a parrot that needs a Heimlich maneuver.
Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation today announced they were dropping their bid for complete control of Britain’s main satellite television broadcaster. Maybe Rupert has decided it’s easier and cheaper to hack his way in. In Britain, Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid has hacked thousands of people, from politicians and celebrities, to murdered children. In fact, if our NSA really wanted to illegally spy on the most people possible, they could hardly do better than to find a way to crack into Rupert Murdoch’s cavern of secrets. Murdoch’s minions hacked into the cell phone of a 13-year old girl who had been murdered in Britain, looking for exclusives. Murdoch may have even hacked into the cell phones of 9/11 victims as well, which is the technological equivalent of going around the bodies and rifling through their pockets. And all this time you thought that the worst thing Rupert Murdoch was responsible for was Glenn Beck.
HOUR TWO GUEST: Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio will join Randi to discuss MurdochGate.
Today’s Homework | Discuss
Alan Grayson is back in the game! He announced his intention to run for congress again last night and will join us live in today’s second hour.
Alan Grayson's official site
Proving that they are 1) simply unfit to govern and 2) only able to sell their talking points to complete rubes that have no idea how government works, both John Boehner and Eric Cantor are now saying that raising the debt ceiling period IS the GOP’s compromise. When even the US Chamber of Commerce starts sounding the alarm over the GOP holding the nation hostage, it’s pretty clear that they guys have absolutely no intention of seeing the economy turn around before the next election.
While the House GOP engages in economic treason, 2012 presidential wannabe Michele Bachmann’s bigotry-for-profit ‘Christian Counseling’ enterprise is finally getting some media scrutiny. A hidden camera exposé shows that despite repeated denials, Bachmann & Associates does in fact engage in universally discredited pray-the-gay-away therapy. This revelation comes on the heels of Bachmann signing on to The Family Leader’s bizarre, highly-bigoted, slavery and Sharia Law invoking marriage pledge.
Meanwhile, it’s election day in Wisconsin as real Dems take on fake Dem GOP plants in the recall primary and in Southern California it’s the infamous “striper ad election” to fill Rep. Jane Harman’s seat. Also, an Arizona lawmaker points a loaded gun at a reporter, the tea-freaks go to war against energy saving light bulbs, and pizza guy/Muslim-hater Herman Cain’s 15-year old gospel album goes viral.
Today’s Homework | Discuss
Whoopi Goldberg goes off on The Family Leader’s marriage pledge on yesterday’s The View...
On the heals of Speaker Agent Orange bailing out on the idea of a ‘grand bargain’ to deal with the nation’s debt, President Obama again blasted the GOP today asking rhetorically, “if not now, when?” Obama said that he would not sign a short-term deal and burned Repubs for their all-talk/no-action approach to dealing with the debt/deficit saying it’s time for us to “pull off the band aid” and “eat our peas” – an apt response to the childish temper tantrum he’s been dealing with. For further evidence of GOP deficit hawk hypocrisy, one need only look at the bloated defense spending bill that the House passed on Friday – they wouldn’t even cut Pentagon NASCAR sponsorships.
Now, understanding the GOP hypocrisy at play here is as easy as understanding the wholly inaccurate twisted myth of Ronald Reagan that they’ve created for themselves. They have no basis in fact or history to back up their philosophies, so they just make up their own facts and history – and there should be no surprise to learn that tea-stained mythology doesn’t lend itself to actual governing. Couple that with half of US social program recipients believing they "have not used a government social program" and you have a perfect storm idiocy and denial that passes for today’s Republican Party.
And It’s been a big weekend for Michele Bachmann: she now leads the pack in Iowa, Tim Pawlenty took a swipe at her “non-existent” record of accomplishment on Meet The Press, and it’s been confirmed that her and husband’s ‘mental health’ clinics do in fact practice ‘ex-gay’ therapy.
Today’s Homework | Discuss
Bill Maher proudly equates the Casey Anthony jury’s thinking to working class Americans who vote against their own best interests...
It's Friday, ya bastids!
In the warped alternate reality that is today’s Republican Party, there is great cause for celebration today: another 39,000 teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc. lost their jobs last month. In fact, over 500,000 public-sector workers have lost their jobs since President Obama took office – as John Boehner would say, “so be it.” No matter what you think of government jobs, 500K fewer paychecks circulating through local communities in a fragile economy means everybody loses. Well, maybe not everybody... CEOs are doing better than ever and Michele Bachmann sees job losses for us as political gains for her. And based on the zero job bills that have come out of the GOP House, Bachmann’s is a view shared by many of her colleagues.
Republican senator Orrin Hatch has had it with those fat-cat poor people not pulling their weight. Unbelievable! Hatch seized on a very misleading report that states 51% of households pay no federal income tax. Of course, the facts behind that statistic tell a very different story. But don’t expect facts to get in Orrin Hatch’s way – if they did, the fact that he is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Pharma (for which his own son lobbies) would probably keep him from drawing any attention to himself over anything, ever.
Meanwhile, the latest Rupert Murdoch scandal has turned out to be quite a doozy; a Florida sheriff shrugs his shoulders over a mortgage company ordering a man’s home to be burgled and trashed; and God’s speed, Atlantis…
Today’s Homework | Discuss
| Friday, July 08, 2011 | |
| Today, justice is served on the Democratic Party. Serious damage is being done to the party BY the party. How to stop the rift? The jobs numbers out and they are BAD. Of course, the 'Cons use them to say "no new revenue". And, the head of the... [ continue reading this entry ] | |
| Thursday, July 07, 2011 | |
| Today, justice must be served on the President! Word is that Social Security and Medicare cuts are on the table in the debt ceiling hostage talks. The Democratic wing of the Democratic Party is not happy. How about you? Rupert Murdoch takes a radical step to combat a... [ continue reading this entry ] | |
| Wednesday, July 06, 2011 | |
| Today, justice is served on many topics! We have almost too much show today! The debt ceiling issues keep multiplying - is the President playing chess, or have the Republicons already declared checkmate? The President did a Twitter Town Hall - did anyone notice? The Casey Anthony murder trial fallout... [ continue reading this entry ] | |
| Tuesday, July 05, 2011 | |
| Today progressive talk radio veteran Peter B. Collins takes the helm from the San Francisco Bay Area! There is plenty to catch up on after the long holiday weekend! I am taking one more day to finish my book - so please bear with me - I will... [ continue reading this entry ] | |
| Monday, July 04, 2011 | |
| I and the crew wish you a safe, peaceful and dare I say - restful - Fourth of July! I like to give the crew the same three day weekends that many other folks enjoy - they work hard and an extra day helps, don't you think? To that end, we have... [ continue reading this entry ] |