Monthly Archives: September 2009

From Brave New Films’ new Sick for Profit campaign, exposing the greed that passes as coverage from one of the biggest health insurance providers.

You can’t blame Kansas Republican Congressman Todd Tiahrt (pronounced ‘t-heart’) for trying to up the ante with some more fabrication about health care reform, because who has bothered calling out the lies so far? Sarah Palin made up “death panels” and got to go to CHINA, for crying out loud! When Rep. Tiahrt tries to slip in at a town hall that Democrats want to establish a panel to set doctors’ pay rates, even the people of Kansas, known for avoiding evolution, laugh outright at his claim.

ACORN, an umbrella organization of community groups that serves poor people in major cities across the country through housing, legal advocacy, family services, and higher wages, has lost all federal funding, after decades of working for low-income, disadvantaged Americans.

That the House of Representatives has moved swiftly on anything is stunning in and of itself. More stunning, this is in response to a single independent report by conservative activists, with no follow-up investigation, no hearings, not even being provided a copy of the full, unedited video tapes shot by conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles at a couple of ACORN offices.

This is serious stuff here. This is not a game of gotcha, of cheap political points, of practical jokes — not when this is money that helps in many real ways in impoverished communities around our country.

It is vital to assess how this backlash was accepted so quickly in light of videos that were from someone whose films are funded by conservative backers, videos that misrepresented ACORN through editing and not disclosing other failed attempts at their desired response, and may well have been dubbed over, if O’Keefe would dare to release the unedited tapes in their real context to prove otherwise. Read More »

Further proof that FOX News doesn’t think their viewers will never get any information from any other source:

In addition to his important piece in Salon on the context of ACORN in this latest assault, Joe Conason also calls it out as a hit job video made illegally rather than real journalism with full disclosure. (Via Salon and Crooks & Liars)

One of the non-torversies inflated by Glenn Beck et al is the proliferation of czars in the US Government under Obama, and not the usual presidential advisers — I mean actual Russian kings living in the White House massacring their serfs. Here is a little clarification for these people as to what they are actually up in arms about, from Craig Crawford at CQ Politics:

At today’s Value Voters conference, some attendees disrupted the network broadcast of the MSNBC correspondent, who was at least trying to talk quietly. You would think he was talking on his cellphone and they are telling him to be quiet, but hey, it’s just live TV. (Via TPM)

This brilliant composite of CNN, MSNBC, and FOX shows what FOX thinks is more important than Obama’s speech yesterday on health care.  Which is funny, because FOX usually has lots of questions about Obama’s health care proposals, many begging to be corrected.  Please show this piece from DailyKosTV to anyone who relies on FOX news or does not venture outside much.

In bold tweets and letters, Rep. Kevin Murphy (R, TX-8th) has made his displeasure known that Washington D.C. did not offer extra metro rail service for Glenn Beck’s Tea Party on 9/12, even though he himself just voted against emergency funding for the D.C. Metro.  This letter, obtained creatively, reveals his full indignation:

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