Thursday Reads: Republican Fraud, Lies, and Delusion, Plus Syria and Tornadoes!
Posted: June 2, 2011 Filed under: just because 26 Comments
Good Morning!! I can’t believe the media is still flogging the Anthony Weiner smear/fake outrage. Thank goodness Joseph Cannon is on the case. He has posted multiple pieces about this fraud and his latest one is at the top of Memeorandum! His post has 91 comments as of 10:16PM Eastern. I haven’t read them yet, but I trust Cannon will handle right wing trolls with his usual aplomb. Anyway, he thinks he has nearly proven Weiner’s innocence, but he needs more help. By all means go read the whole thing.
In actual legitimate news that affects people’s lives, the Republicans are working overtime to destroy medicare. I’m sure social security will be next. But guess what? The American people aren’t buying it. According to a new CNN poll:
According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, a majority also don’t think the GOP has cooperated enough with President Barack Obama and, for the first time since they won back control of the House last November, the number of Americans who say that Republican control of the chamber is good for the country has dropped below the 50 percent mark.
The poll indicates that 58 percent of the public opposes the Republican plan on Medicare, with 35 percent saying they support the proposal. The survey’s Wednesday release comes as the president met with House Republicans to discuss, among other things, Medicare reform.
[….]
“Half of those we questioned say that the country would be worse off under the GOP Medicare proposals and 56 percent think that GOP plan would be bad for the elderly,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Opposition is highest among senior citizens, at 74 percent, suggesting that seniors are most worried about changes to Medicare even if those changes are presented as ones that would not affect existing Medicare recipients.”
And get this: 54 percent of conservatives hate the Ryan plan. Bwaaaaaahahahahahahahaha!
Unfortunately radical fanatics like Ryan won’t be convinced by what the people want any more than he’s convinced by facts. Today Ryan told Fox News that Obamacare “ends Medicare as we know it.” Think Progress has the quote:
RYAN: Millions of dollars of negative ads are being run to try and scare seniors and trying to confuse seniors. You know, the irony of this Bill, is with all this Mediscare that the Democrats are running, it’s Obamacare itself that ends Medicare as we know it. Obamacare takes half a trillion dollars from Medicare — not to make it more solvent but to spend on this other government program, Obamacare. And then it creates this 15 panel board of unelected, unaccountable, bureaucrats starting next year to price control and ration Medicare for current seniors.
Click on the link to watch the video and read the rebuttal.
Speaking of maltreatment of children, as we were last night, Syria is promising to “investigate” the death of a 13-year-old boy who was tortured and executed. WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE
Footage of Hamza el-Khatib’s mangled corpse, which emerged last week, has again galvanised protests in Syria, with thousands braving army tanks and loyalist snipers to take to the streets to vent their fury.
Independent Syrian experts who have studied the pictures say the wounds and bruises covering the boy’s body indicate he was repeatedly beaten and subjected to electric shocks during the month he spent in prison following his arrest in the southern city of Dera’a in April.
He died after his torturers shot him through both arms, cut off his penis and finally killed him with a bullet to his head, they said.
So alarmed has the government been by the reaction since the boy’s body was released – apparently on the understanding that his parents would bury him immediately – that a pathologist was shown on state television saying that the bruises were the result of decomposition.
According to Syrian activist Razan Zaytouni, who appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 last night, this kind of horrendous violence against children is not unusual in Syria.
As everyone knows by now, tornadoes struck her in Massachusetts yesterday. Early reports said that no one had died, but CNN is now reporting four deaths.
At least two confirmed tornadoes descended upon towns in western Massachusetts on Wednesday, leaving at least four dead and smashing homes and buildings across a 40-mile stretch, state officials and witnesses reported.
One person was killed in Springfield, two in nearby Westfield and one in Brimfield, about 20 miles east, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick told reporters Wednesday night.
The storms struck shortly after 4 p.m. in Springfield, about 90 miles west of Boston. Dylan McDonald told CNN he watched the tornado knock down trees and scatter debris across town as he was driving with a co-worker.
“As the light turned green, a tree fell and everything took off,” McDonald said. “We saw a roof fly off an apartment building. The car was tilting, but didn’t turn over.”
As many as 19 communities reported tornado damage Wednesday evening, Patrick said. The governor declared a state of emergency as the storm system that spawned those twisters moved east, with watches posted all the way to the Atlantic coast until late Wednesday.
I guess even New England isn’t immune to tornadoes this year. It’s a good thing the Republicans have decided to ban global warming. Oh wait …. fantasy doesn’t equal reality, does it?
So what are you reading and blogging about today? Let me know in the comments!
peej
Carissa
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
The GOP fiels is so bad they are now pressing Chris Christie to make a run. This guy is so bad that even NJ doesn’t want him but considering those who have already announced – or those just “teasing” us – as possible contenders I suppose even he looks good by comparison.
Since Sarah Palin was “Jewish” yesterday I eagerly look forward to her claim today for some ethnic or religious affiliation.
Perhaps a burka or an red mark on her forehead as a confirmation of her Indian roots? Stay tuned. She’s got a trunkful of costumes on that blasted bus.
Ugh!
How are things out there this morning, Pat?
bb: Devastating, especially for the downtown area. Many are still without electricity and road crews are out in abundance trying to clear the trees from the streets.
You could hear sirens going all night going toward East Longmeadow, one town over, and the National Guard has arrived.
Still unable to contact my son in Brimfield since the power is down out there and his street was mentioned as having been hit hard by falling trees. The last contact I had was around 7 last night and he indicated that he himself did not have any damage but that his road was impassable. It must have been pretty bad since this was mentioned on NECN which prompted my son in Reading to call when he heard it.
Today it is absolutely beautiful weatherwise and fortunately my area of the city, basically a suburban enclave, was untouched. But the rest of the city, at least what has been shown on the news, is one huge catastrophe.
Oh my gosh. I hope your son is okay and can get in touch with you soon.
Pat, it is good to see you and your family are okay. I read somewhere that the tornado that hit MA was about the same size as Tuscaloosa. (Can’t remember what article it was…they all start to run together.)
Great round up BB! …Pat, thanks for the on the ground report! I’m glad you heard from your son after the storm stuck.
Of course Repugs are bent on destroying programs that help the average person, that’s their modus operandi. The crisis is the Dems are, at best, standing by as they do so, if not out right helping. The Dems aren’t even pretending to fight for a 24 hours news cycle and then wet their pants and cave, like in the Bush 2 years. Now they are in a constant caving mode. And so they are even more accommodating to the GOP than they were with baby Bush in the WH. I believe the 11 leavle chess Dem plan here is to bog the GOP down via winning fatigue…or so it seems
The GOP field is so bad and shop own because Obama is supposed to “win” again and there is no money for GOP kabuki such as an actual field of real candidates. The over lords are cheap bastards don’t forget. But this bone deep trait is hurting their own lie that there’s a choice in 2012. It’s the over lords cheap bastardness that will bring them down in the end imo. There wasn’t a for real GOP field last time either…McCain being the nominee covered that over. But the fanmed GOP swifboaters slime machine was MIA…and will be again and we endlessly drift for the next year towards Obama 2/Bush 4. imo
The Ryan Plan would financially strap people like my in-laws. The CBO has already calculated that within ten years, seniors would be on the hook for 2/3ds of their medical costs at a time when they’re medically vulnerable. All we’re going to do is force senior citizens back to where they’re choosing between food or medical treatment. It would be more humane to simply strap them to an ice floe.
Neither Ryan’s plan or Obamacare addresses the ever-escalating cost of healthcare. To do that we’d need someone or a bunch of someones with balls/ovaries, political clout and a true sense of working for ordinary American citizens and be willing to take on and slug it out with the health insurance leviathons, Big Pharma, etc.
Truth is we have no advocates out there. Our pols have left the public twisting in the wind. My one hope is the Vermont plan as it rolls out. And again, I salute Vermonters!
The Weiner nonsense is a huge distraction and has pushed the Ryancare debacle off the front page. Cannonfire had 121 comments when I checked last night. And oh, the right-wing loons were scrambling and dancing all over the material to prove it flawed. Of course, what Joe Cannon has done is the analysis and research that our MSM should have done before they ran with another Breitbart smear, the King of Slime.
We’re literally falling apart. The unemployment numbers are devastating, the housing market is in the toilet and despite what the Bernanke says, food and oil prices are chewing up paychecks of those still fortunate to have a job and managing to stay ahead of their monthly bills. The ‘consumer’ economy is flatout dead.
This will not end well. But gee, you ever notice? We always have money for war.
Exactly…the ever-escalating cost of health care OR War is allowed to ne mentioned. As you say, they don’t give a damn and more, they celebrate and revel in their don’t give a damm. Those who can pay , just,pay, the rest of us : shut-yup yer trap. It’s like in Oliver Twist when he meekly asks for more gruel MORE??DID YOU SAY MORE???!! bellows the unbelieving slop slinger( read media/overloed complex )
This was posted on CannonFire, after you look, ones wonders how our media continues this story, and thinks they can question Weiner about anything, but they didn’t say zip about George Bush’s WMDs.
It’s a microphone:Weiner“scandal” seriously?
http://bit.ly/j7GatS
Hey BB, thanks for the great roundup as always.
I am so bored with Weinergate.
We really are living in an idiocracy.
I’m just plain sick of hearing about it. I can’t believe people like Wolfe Blitzer are taking it seriously.
I can’t believe they are spending so many resources on this. It’s like there’s a million news stories out there and they obsess on this?
same media that will chase Palin around in a bus…
At least the footage of the tornadoes breaks through their attention spans.
Oh and today is the day Mittens is announcing his run. His big pitch is that Obama has failed America. *snooze*
They’re trying their same old formulas instead of chasing real news. They’ve defunded their news bureaus every where. I can’t believe they can’t even cover the news any more. All they do is chase their favorite back east celebrities.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I’m wondering if the ultimate target of this was Hillary and/or Big Dawg–guilt by association.
Nah. Weiner’s rumored to be running for NY Mayor and he’s started being really outspoken and is picking up steam. This is either a republican hit job on him or some fifth grader who couldn’t get passed his name.
@ Dak 12:56
Huh…Huh…you said “Weiner.”
Main Stream Media Sucks!
okasha–I did wonder bc the rightwing slime machine have always had a weird thing about Huma. I think though what happened was that the rightwing heard about Weiner making some jokes about his last name at some event recently and decided this would be fun for them to take up.
@dakinikat 12:56
I don’t even think it’s because of Weiner’s mayoral ambitions per se. I think it may be just as simple as the fact that Weiner made a lot of well-received jokes about his name recently (Congressional Correspondent’s Dinner) and the rightwing slime machine thought this would be the next fun thing after going after ACORN and Shirley Sherrod.
During the primary there was a site set up just to attack Huma and it was horrid. Okasha is correct as the leaked e-mails are all along the lines of ‘Clintons’.
If he said that isn’t me, they would ask for proof…
Great post BB! I’m not sure if I am more saddened or horrified about the young boy in Syria. Obumbles won’t comment or take the lead on that one, so I’ll just go with Hillary’s actions on that one.
Speaking of my girl, she is getting MORE popular by the day…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/02/idUS90992+02-Jun-2011+PRN20110602
This is LONG LONG LONG overdue….
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/1/obama-loses-womens-support/
My ex’s husband just went back to school after a year of job hunting with no luck…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110602/ap_on_bi_ge/us_economy_missing_workers
Have a great morning all!!
Hillary 2012
You have a great day too, Rock.
Thanks for the Hillary links!
Demos courting womens’ votes? I’ll say. They just woke me up from a nap to ask me for money. As usual, I said I don’t give out money over the phone, ever. Period. Even for a good cause. And you jacka$$es aren’t that good a cause, because you betray us until election time!
great news about our girl 🙂