ex Bush press secretary Perino claims no terrorist attacks on U.S. during Bush presidency:
http://www.dailykostv.com/flv/player.swf
I agree with almost everything Matt Yglesias says here about the Chamber of Commerce and their stance on climate change, particularly in the context of the departure of high profile companies like Apple from the Chamber. I don't see how opposition to climate change policy can be in the interests, even short term, of their corporate stakeholders.
The fundamental problem the Chamber of Commerce is going to have on this is that they’re really really wrong. Not like how they’re morally wrong about, say, labor rights or workplace safety rules. They’re analytically mistaken about the interests of the United States business community. If we take action to avert ecological catastrophe, economic growth will still happen. Capitalism will march on. Big companies will be big, and people will earn lots of money managing them. Yes, the present-day owners of coal companies or manufacturers specifically wedded to unusually energy-intensive processes will be in trouble. But “business” in a broad and general sense will keep on keeping on. People will still want gadgets and furniture, will shop at stores, will buy and sell, and generally keep being customers for business.
The real risk is being run by doing nothing. It’s doing nothing that might end the party, and lead to various kinds of nightmare scenarios. And over time, more and more firms are going to see that they have no particular stake in underpricing pollution. One maybe of the Chamber board is a guy from Anheuser-Busch. A serious climate bill’s not going to put him out of business. Nor, to just pick board affiliated companies whose lines of business I recognize, is it going to put State Farm Insurance or IBM or AT&T or Pfizer or Accenture out of business. But the executives at those companies and their kids and their customers are all going to face all the problems caused by untrammeled climate change. And why, genuinely, should a pharmaceutical company or a telecom company be fighting to stop people from stopping an ecological disaster? It genuinely doesn’t make sense.
The media and airwaves seem filled with these people. The definition:
No, do be a glibertarian you have to first be a big “L” libertarian, and then only apply your libertarianism to other peoples problems. Glibertarians replies to any situation where someone else is hurt is “fuck you I got mine”, “told you so” or “nanny nanny boo boo”.
Frum takes on the wingnut habit of throwing the 'fascist' label at liberals in the context of the US health care debate. He nails it here:
Contra Rush Limbaugh, history’s actual fascists were not primarily known for their anti-smoking policies or generous social welfare programs. Fascism celebrated violence, anti-rationalism and hysterical devotion to an authoritarian leader. To date, the Obama administration has fallen rather short in these departments. Perhaps uncomfortably aware of the shortcoming, the hardliners have developed — okay, invented really — their own mythology about Obama “brownshirts.” (The popular conservative website RedState.org literally uses the term.) The complaint rests on a single case — that of conservative activist Kenneth Gladney, who got into a scuffle at a townhall in St. Louis, Missouri. The altercation was captured on video and you can watch it on YouTube. What you’ll see is a man, already on the ground, and another man stepping back in order to avoid tripping over him. The man on the ground is Gladney. Gladney walked away from the confrontation and later went to hospital, where he was treated for light injuries and released the same day. Whatever happened and whoever started it, this happily bloodless encounter bears not even the most glancing resemblance to the brutality that made Hitler’s brownshirts notorious. And yet, look up Gladney’s name online and he’s suddenly a poignant martyr.
Can we get a grip here? It is possible to express opposition to a president’s policies without preposterous name-calling — without diminishing and disparaging the unique experiences of those who did actually suffer from actual persecution by actual Nazis. After all, you know who else trafficked in hysterical exaggeration? That’s right: Hitler!
UK Conservative Leader responds to US wingnut attacks on the National Health Service:
Millions of people are grateful for the care they have received from the NHS – including my own family. One of the wonderful things about living in this country is that the moment you're injured or fall ill – no matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you've got – you know that the NHS will look after you.
John Cole caught this little gem in Investors Business Daily
The wingnut attack on universal health care always always relies on lurid, false, horror stories about health care in Canada, UK, and other western nations. So bloody dim and sloppy they don't even bother with anything resembling a fact check.
Update: Stephen Hawking responds:
Peggy Noonan bids farewell to Sarah Palin in the Wall Street Journal. A Republican ex speechwriter for Nixon and Reagan, Noonan turns words with economy and humour. She crafted some killers for this column.
and
"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the
party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her
and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites,
from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and
attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite
confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.
"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.
Ouch. That's going to leave a mark.
Caught by Josh Marshall at TPM, a great backstage moment between Stephen Colbert and John Kerry. First time I've ever seen Colbert out of character. Does he do this with everyone? Making sure they are in on the joke?
References to Canada in the US media usually vary from Igloo gothic wilderness bites to how bad the outpatient queues are in Soviet Canuckistan. Satisfying to read something about the value of pragmatic common sense in governance.
Over at Balloon Juice, in a post anticipating the predictable flow of Bush revisionism we can expect from the dank and undisclosed locations of the right, they reminded me of this little ditty by The Right Brothers that came out a few years ago. It was during a yahoo pulse of Republican victory laps – maybe the '04 election cycle? Wonder if they still perform this.
Kind of surprised the Obama campaign didn't put this on 24 hour rotation during the election.Catchy tune though. And how many times is Zell Miller going to find himself in a pop tune?
Also, listening again the song skates awfully close to a ripoff of Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire."
iBiome 