David Pleasant

Frank Gaffney declares the North American Union (a la European Union) is real. OK then.

Michelle Malkin hates kids and spends her day trying to kill the effort to host the 2016 Olympics in the U.S.

Glenn Beck dons his Pharisee hat.

Brian Darling at Red State thinks he is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on Bill of Attainder. Instead, he proves he is a moron.

John Hinderaker wants Liz Cheney to run for president. So does The New York Times.

Dana Perino really, really believes Republicans have super duper ideas that the American public is just going to love.

Mike Huckabee manages to contain his inner terrorist and promotes dumping the United Nations, lock, stock, and barrel, into the East River.

There, that ought to be a good start.

I watched Glenn Beck’s show yesterday for two reasons: 1) I had never watched an entire show, and 2) I wanted to see the effect Color of Change’s campaign to get advertisers to withdraw from Beck’s show. I recognize I watched only one show and it’s anything but scientific, but the impact was remarkable and can hardly be considered coincidental.

As I said it’s obvious advertisers have dropped Beck, but it really stands out when compared to Hardball (MSNBC), which runs in the same time slot but has maybe one-third the viewers that Beck has.

I noted every advertiser and they are listed in order of airing. Just marvel at the stark difference between the two, especially the nationally recognized names (or lack of).

One fact seems to summarize Fox’s woeful lack of ad revenue: running public service ads during Fox’s show that has the most viewers rather than at 2:00 or 3:00 A.M.

Michelle Malkin tweets that two million teabaggers attended the Moran March on Washington, D.C. today.

But that appears to be Malkin Moran Math because the District of Columbia Fire Department disagrees with her.  They estimated the “teeny, tiny fringe” to be more like 60,000 – 75,000.

Late Update: Politifact says claims by Malkin et al. are deserving of a Pants On Fire Liar rating.

This is a matrix comparing the health care reform plan Max Baucus released yesterday with the plan Max Baucus published in November 2008. The matrix is based on Marcy Wheeler’s analysis. Moreover, as Jane Hamsher notes, Baucus plan forces “low- to middle-income [families/individuals] to buy ‘junk’ insurance they can’t afford” to garner Republican support. In other words, it is a mass distribution of wealth to the insurance insurance companies.

Bottom line: It’s worse than a piece of junk and reminds me of the Ally Bank commercial (YouTube).

On his show last night, Bill Moyers lambasted Republicans in general and Obama specifically over health care reform and his kowtowing to Republicans. The full text of his commentary is after the jump and the video can be viewed here.

Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times Opinionator suggests that President Obama’s speech to kids is a “colossal failure.” Wrong. It’s the decibel level of the Wingnuts.

With the media ready to promote any conflict, if the Wingnuts shout loud enough they can kill anything, regardless of the merits of what they oppose. Again, it’s the principle of Ideas (Dems) vs. Discipline (GOP).

Robert Reich has summarized the Democrats, Republicans, and health care in this instance, rather nicely. It boils down to Ideas (Dems) vs. Discipline (GOP). Democrats can and do come up with great ideas, but the lockstep Republicans have learned through time and experience that ideas don’t matter. Just shout loud and often enough and anything can be killed (or passed).

What we learned in August is something we’ve long known but keep forgetting: The most important difference between America’s Democratic left and Republican right is that the left has ideas and the right has discipline. Obama and progressive supporters of health care were outmaneuvered in August — not because the right had any better idea for solving the health care mess but because the right’s attack on the Democrats’ idea was far more disciplined than was the Democrats’ ability to sell it.

This is a lesson they should pay attention to very closely as 2010 gets nearer.