Harry's Place

“For news”?

Anyway, for the record, I agree with O’Reilly in this case.

Now Bill O’Reilly, who sometimes manages to think independently, has endorsed the dreaded public option for health insurance in the US (after saying “it’s not going to happen”).

He denied he said that last night.

But it’s true that O’Reilly seems like the voice of reason next to Hannity and Glenn Beck. But of those two, at least Hannity is a straightforward propagandist where you know where you stand. Beck, however, is one of these “born again” fruit cakes. He said something about “prepare for miracles to happen in your lifetime” the other day. I hate when people say that type of shit. He also genuinely believes that a communist revolution is on the cards – it’s not just propaganda – so you have to question his sanity. He’s quite dangerous because he can get away with saying things that other people wouldn’t say because he does it with humour and warmth – he is very engaging. Calling Obama a racist who hates white culture should have been unforgivable even on Fox, but nothing sticks to him because of his style.

John Stewart on the Audicity of Hos.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-15-2009/the-audacity-of-hos

Glenn Beck is a scatter-gun. Highly entertaining sometimes VERY on the ball, often wacky, sometimes over-the-top. But I am beginning to like him. Outing of Van Jones and Acorn recently has been good stuff.

The resistance to health care is a fulcrum against Obama. Deep in even the blackest conservative hearts are people who agree that health-care needs a shake-up. If only Obama would tell the truth on the costs. Like I said last time, they’ve got a roll going about the Marxist/Socialist Obama (whethere true or not) and since you can put the label “Socialism” against a healthcare for all then its got some mileage. Latest Rasmussen poll says 56% against Obama healthcare package. Its not Beck or Limbaugh that Obama has to worry about. Its the American People.

I can see it now. Beer, pop-corn, dogs and buckets of KFC all ready to watch the Obama Shmaltz-a-thon tv blitz. This guy just LOVES being a Rock Star!

O’Reilly think that increasing the the number of entities selling health insurance in America from 1300 to 1301 will be the difference between a corrupt oligarchy and free, open competition. That’s what Our President says he believes as well. In fact, the Public Option is designed to destroy the private insurance market and over time turn the American people into health care supplicants. That end state (nationalized health care) is what Gene, being honest, says he wants. Obama used to say that too, butg found it didn’t sell too well with normal Americans.

He denied he said that last night.

Doesn’t surprise me. But he said what he said.

Now Bill O’Reilly, who sometimes manages to think independently, has endorsed the dreaded public option for health insurance in the US (after saying “it’s not going to happen”).

Hang on! So what? This is a non-point. You can be in favour of something but STILL believe it isn’t going to happen.

Puh-lease! Daily Kos TV???? Scraping a very rotten barrel.

O’Reilly think that increasing the the number of entities selling health insurance in America from 1300 to 1301 will be the difference between a corrupt oligarchy and free, open competition. That’s what Our President says he believes as well. In fact, the Public Option is designed to destroy the private insurance market and over time turn the American people into health care supplicants.

mesquito, you guys need to make up your minds. Either the public option will (like all government programs) will be a wasteful bureaucratic nightmare, or it will be so successful and effective that it will drive private insurers out of business. You can’t have it both ways.

BTW – I realise that Kos TV took it from Fox but its just a short clip and not the whole thing. Is there anything in the full item that ameliorates the point?

Gene, since he doesn’t watch FOX, can’t get his mind around the idea that O’Reilly, although he’s got a lot of Ted Baxter in him, is a very fair interviewer. I watched this bit when it was broadcast. I simply thought O’Reilly was taking the opposite side of a point to move the interview along, something Sean Hannity is literally incapable of doing. To use KosTV is problematic, gene, because there is a high likelyhood that germane information can be found either before or after the chosen snippet.
Beck, an television, is very good, but very, very different than he is on radio. The radio bits are more free-form,chaotic and funny. I almost wrecked my bicycle a couple of weeks ago when he and his sidekick got on a wickedly hilarious riff about The Diane Rehm Show.

It was good of MSNBC to break the Acorn story- NBC, CNN and ABC weren’t far behind of course. Then Fox came trailing in last.

Oh wait- it’s the other way round.

I’m glad you enjoy surfing the Daily Kos and other scrupulously impartial websites for choice Fox quotes, Gene- everybody needs a hobby. Maybe one day you’ll even make the effort to watch the channel for yourself and see them in context.

Meanwhile I have noticed a striking absence of posts on the Acorn scandal from your good self. Well never mind, you’re already over a week late on it- too late now.

Of course if that terrifying old man Pat Buchanan had been advising the film makers on how to import Ecuadorian sex saves you’d have been all over it.

Maybe next time, eh?

Sorry that should be ’slaves’.

mesquito, you guys need to make up your minds. Either the public option will (like all government programs) will be a wasteful bureaucratic nightmare, or it will be so successful and effective that it will drive private insurers out of business. You can’t have it both ways.

Don’t try to be Michael Kinsley here, Gene. It doesn’t work.

The point of the public option is to force people into it unwillingly. We both know it will be in inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare. It will also game the laws and the tax code to make itself the Default insurance provider. I, for one, will either have to join it, or buy a much more expensive policy. Employers will drop their coverage and pay the 8% penalty. The PO will have compulsion on it’s side and will eventually undermine private insurance, just as Barney Frank says.

Yes, ACORN for the most part deserves what it got on this. However let’s not pretend that what O’Keefe and Giles did was in any sense journalism (as opposed to a hit job). Apparently they were shown the door at the ACORN office in Philadelphia, but that didn’t appear in any of the reports on Fox News.

Vern makes a fair point Gene, how about it?

Also Gene I believe that the argument is that private employers will choose to pay a fine rather than pay for their employees’ healthcare benefits and thus more and more people will wind up on the government healthcare plan, and that’s how private companies will be driven out of business. Their clientele will disappear by stealth.

I have no idea whether this is likely or not, it certainly looks like an overstatement. But you’re certainly misrepresenting the argument also.

Actually I have an excellent idea- rather than encounter your ideological opponents’ arguments in the form of pre-masticated fodder supplied to you by Kos et al, go straight to the source. Just for a week. You might find nothing changes in your outlook, but it would be an interesting experiment. At the very least, it’s good to know your enemy. And I don’t think you know him at all- except as a caricature, of course.

Puh-lease! Daily Kos TV???? Scraping a very rotten barrel.

Yeah, I got the same sort of complaints when I linked to photos of antisemitic anti-Israel protestors at the rightwing Zombietime.

I quite Like Glenn Beck and Fox news, the religious sanctimony of the presenters is over the top but as I have said before it’s not people I have a problem with it’s religion.

Actually the more I see Fox News the more I like it , Glenn Beck is very theatrical, but at least he is asking questions or do you think Mr Obama and his team are above such questioning?

Because no one else is asking the questions, all the other news organizations are still feeling guilty for being Americans.

This Van Jones character was and is an SWP type asshole, is he not, this organization Acorn are also a bit “iffy” aren’t they?

I think that if Mr Obama doesn’t and didn’t know what the likes of Van Jones, His reverend friend and all the rest on the ever growing list stand for, then he should not be in the job of president.

No question Mr Obama is a smart man but if he didn’t ‘know’ what reverend Wright was, after 20 years attending his church, every sunday and on special occasions, then quite how he is going to save the planet by “talking” to the Russians, China, North Korea and Iran leaves me more than just a little bit skeptical.

Anyway it’s irrelevant more and more Americans are getting the Glenn Beck message and the American Left don’t like it, because they are just the same as all the other Leftists on planet earth, they have trouble coping with “inconvenient truths”

I wonder how many of you will be calling for Fox to be closed down, it seems to be working in Venezuela, don’t it.

That’s certainly an interesting point of view- that undercover, secret camera exposes have no place in journalism and are not journalism. Yes, I’ll confess that I’ve never seen undercover infiltrations, secret cameras ever. Not on TV, nor in the press. I mean Matt Taibbi- he never goes undercover for example, misleads his subjects and then reports back to his appreciative, mostly left wing audience about what he found. Channel 4 in the UK never went undercover for their revelatory documentary Undercover Mosque. No, sir- it’s just a hit job!

O’Keefe and the girl may well have been turned away from Philadelphia, I have no idea- not all of the tapes have been released yet, and a lot of Bertha Lewis’ claims have already been proven false so I’d be wary of citing her as a source if that’s what you’re doing. But it’s far more important that they were granted instant access at five offices (that we know of). Does one rejection negate five successes? Does it undermine the story? No. It may be a minor detail, it would do no harm to include it in the interests of fairness, but it’s not a major detail.

And that type of concealment pales in comparison to the concealment of CNN, NBC, ABC etc who simply didn’t report on the story until after Jon Stewart made it kosher to do so. They were too busy with the wise words of Jimmy Carter, what Obama said about Kanye West, you know- important stuff. Not like a massive scandal involving a taxpayer funded ally of the Democrat party with ties to the president.

Hell, covering that just wouldn’t be journalism.

In what sense is it not journalism, gene? I grew up on “hidden camera” invesigation on the broadcast networks. ABC had one of it’s people employed by a grocery store and stapped the camera on him. A grand victory for the American consumer, as I remember it. NBC made a whole franchise of luring in child molesters and secretly filming them.
So they were shown the door in Philly? Bid deal. In D.C., Baltimore, Brooklyn, San Bernadino and San Diego (so far), ACORN was busted clean and cold. If they were slandered in any way, ACORN will sue, no?
This is the kind of Citizen-Activist-Guerrilla journalism that would normally illicit from Gene ritual praise. But it’s from the Right so it (somehow) wrong.

In what sense is it not journalism, gene?

Because they didn’t report what happened in Philadelphia. Any true journalist, especially a “fair and balanced” one, would do so. Even if it doesn’t fit the theme, it’s part of the story. Were they afraid that mentioning it would somehow undercut the point they were making? Why would it? It would still be a powerful expose.

Gene, since he doesn’t watch FOX, can’t get his mind around the idea that O’Reilly, although he’s got a lot of Ted Baxter in him, is a very fair interviewer.

Though he’s not as bad as the others, he’s not really that fair. He just goes through stages where its really important for him to look fair – the bias issue seems to get to him.

“Any true journalist, especially a “fair and balanced” one, would do so.”

You mean Like the machine gun toting Far Rightist at the health care rally “report” is that what you had in mind? There was something they left out of that one was there not, something that “didn’t fit the theme”.

Heh. Gene, if you had been following this story from the beginning, you’d know that the journalists O’Keefe and Giles have been playinng it extremely coy with FOX, and FOX has been very clear about what the network could report and what it couldn’t.

As I recall, Lefty hero Michael Moore made a whole movie about trying to get an interview with GM chairman Roger Stone. The part he ommitted was that he did, in fact, interview Roger Stone.

O’Keefe’s ommission is small potatoes compared to NBC’s failure, for example, to include that they had strapped explosives to the trucks to get them to explode in a telegenic manner.

RE: We both know it will be in inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare.

You know this, how? Canadian healthcare may be underfunded, but it is hardly inefficient compared to the U.S. system, and though it’s been called many things, a “bureaucratic nightmare” is not one of them. You guys really have this commie bogeyman at the back of everything you say, don’t you.

I don’t have any commie bogeyman, vildechaye. I don’t think I even mentioned communism. Perhaps you can show where I did.

Glen Beck doesn’t deserve the attacks he receives. A cursory glance at the tragedy he has experienced in his life should make any decent person realise that this is a man who deserves understanding, sympathy and support. Fox News should be roundly condemned for allowing this vulnerable, unstable individual to go on the air, as a purely cynical ratings grab.

“In what sense is it not journalism, gene?

Because they didn’t report what happened in Philadelphia. Any true journalist, especially a “fair and balanced” one, would do so. Even if it doesn’t fit the theme, it’s part of the story. Were they afraid that mentioning it would somehow undercut the point they were making? Why would it? It would still be a powerful expose.

Gene.”

Gene, you should put your analyst on danger money. The ACORN story is the only real piece of investigative journalism I have seen in the last 5 years. You have no idea what happened in Philly, and rather like Rather, you are putting a lot of faith in one piece of evidence.

Still Gene, fake but accurate counts as journalism for you.

I watch FOX as it is the last biased of all the networks. Watching the hatchet job on Hillary by the rest of the alphabet media was an eye opener.
One more thing Gene; Palin 2012.

Actually the more I see Fox News the more I like it , Glenn Beck is very theatrical, but at least he is asking questions or do you think Mr Obama and his team are above such questioning?

You see it too?

Beck is VERY entertaining with those rolling eyes and his little video cameos in the right-hand bottom screen while he pulls faces at the item in the main screen is brilliant. He does sarcasm better than anyone on tv (and he does make fun of himself).

He’s asking the questions that the other networks aren’t. In a sense he’s the slightly more acceptable and less conspiracy theory version of Alex Jones. Some of his theatricals are Jonesian. Jones doesn’t like Beck because I suspect he sees Beck as saying similar things to what Jones wants to say but Beck has Fox behind him. Hence, Jones now has the conspiracy theory that Beck is a switch-hitter who’s actually in the pay of the NWO.

However, often he is so auditory that his guests hardly get a look-in and I think I’ve seen a guest or two look bemused. Eccentric in a Kenny Everett sort of way with politics.

Fox News should be roundly condemned for allowing this vulnerable, unstable individual to go on the air, as a purely cynical ratings grab.

Interestingly he probably gets great ratings but a lot of advertisers have pulled out, Therefore, the breaks are fewere and so the program is more watcheable. That possibly drives up his ratings. Beck is probably a loss leader to Fox but a ratings grabber.

BTW your web message “You are posting comments too quickly – slow down” is spot on. You are right to do it”.

Well, the point is, I can see this ending in him having a major breakdown. He’s pretty much on the edge as we speak – case in point:

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/glenn-beck-out-his-tree-demands-rest

In terms of his impact, I would have thought he almost certainly damages his own cause.

I wonder what Gene thinks of the liberals over at Balloon Juice claiming that Osama Bin Laden is a better person than Irving Krystol (RIP) was?

I wonder what Gene thinks of the liberals over at Balloon Juice claiming that Osama Bin Laden is a better person than Irving Krystol (RIP) was?

Having looked at the thread, it was just one commenter (who was challenged by another commenter). I think it’s stupid and offensive. What did you think I would think?

Mesquite: I infer your commie bogeyman from your persistent remarks about govt bureaucracy etc etc ad nauseam. But instead of focusing on that, why not actually respond to my point which was that the Canadian healthcare system is typically not accused of being inefficient or bureaucratic. The only complaint is underfunded, which is, in part, the result of right-wingers going on and on about lower taxes, etc.

Vildchaye: Enrolling for classes at the University of Texas, circa 1985, was a bureaucratic nightmare. UT was not at the time communist institution.
Since Obama’s plan is not at the moment for a single-payer system, I don’t know why I should examine it right now. I’m amazed to hear that there is no bureaucracy. Way to go, Canada!
But since we’re talking about Our President’s plan, lets examine: mandates, the ‘accuntable care organization”, the office of civil rights, the Health Choices Administration, Cultural And linguistic competence training, the CER Trust Fund, the National Co-ordinator for health, the advisory committe of health workforce and evaluation, Health affordability credits, the critical preventive services taskforce, the public health workforce corps, the health benefits advisory committee, the physician quality reporting initiative.. etc etc etc

I’m just getting started. What the hell did you think was in a 1200- page bill?

I agree with Gene about balloon juice, as if it matters.

I just wonder now if the Fox News right wingers will do sauce for the gander. After all, if Obama is a ‘Marxist’, ‘Communist’, ‘Hitler-like’ etc- for wanting the public option, will they say the same thing about O’Reiilly now

mequito,

Obama may have said he is for a single payer but his record in Congress and Illinois Senate speaks differently.

He voted against a single payer measure for Illionis and voted against it as a US Senator.

Here is an audio of him bragging as an Illinois Senator voting against the single payer for the state

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk

Oh, I know, Andrew Murphy. Every self-described liberal I ever met was for nationalizing the health care system. It is, to them, basic.

“Every industrialized nation in the world yada yada yada….”

Of course Obama was for The Euphemsim (”single payer”) but, like I say above, it don’t play with normal Americans. It’s great for winning Democratic primaries in extremely blue constituencies.
But now that he’s Our President, it’s all about choice’n'competition. I’m surprised Gene ain’t heartbroke.

Mesquito: “The point of the public option is to force people into it unwillingly. We both know it will be in inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare.”

I admit to not being too up-to-speed on the current proposed legislation; but I can offer an observation or two about existing Federal programs. Social Security apparently has much lower adminstrative costs than do the private equivalents. Medicare too is adminstratively much less over-burdened than are private insurance providers, although there is legitimate concern about abuse of that system by health-care providers.

I am a fortunate VA health-care and pension recipient. Not only in comparison with the grief that friends insured by private moieties go through, but in absolute terms, the VA is a marvel. It’s a federal program, and it’s competently run. Granted, there have been horrific issues during the past few years, but at least a little of those can be laid at the feet of the Bush-appointed yahoo in charge; and none of that showed itself to me in the course of my use of and interactions with the system.

Social Security apparently has much lower adminstrative costs than do the private equivalents.

How can there be a private equivilant to social security? If there was, the managers would be in jail. (See: Madoff, Bernie)

As for the VA, you are indeed fortunate. You are at the tail of a gigantic demographic bulge that ran throu the system, but is now, alas, receding. 11 million served in the armed forces during WW2, and they are leaving us rapidly. It’s like being one of twenty guests at a hotel designed for thousands. Service will be pretty good. How efficient? Who knows.

Mesquito: I suspect you are better informed than I, but lemme give it a shot …

“How can there be a private equivilant to social security? …” Can’t privately-administered pension plans, 401k’s, and Long-Term-Care plans, be considered private equivalents?

“As for the VA, you are indeed fortunate. You are at the tail of a gigantic demographic bulge that ran throu the system, but is now, alas, receding. 11 million served in the armed forces during WW2, and they are leaving us rapidly. It’s like being one of twenty guests at a hotel designed for thousands. Service will be pretty good. How efficient? Who knows.”

My admittedly woolly impression is that the VA is far more efficient in monetary terms than is the wider health-care system. It certainly puts a great deal of effort into prevention (wellness, etc).

As far as the “demographic bulge” issue is concerned, there’s a pretty substantial bulge of Vietnam-era vets (my cohort), and if the First Gulf War- and contemporary veteran-cohorts are much smaller, they still need, and do receive (*) care. And they should; and in most cases would not in the privatized world.

(*): There have been a great many stories about Iraq and Afghanistan vets receiving poor care, or none, particularly in the areas of PTSD and traumatic brain injury. I don’t know if these issues are being better-addressed subsequent to the change in administration. They certainly should be.

Perhaps naively, I feel that the VA is somehow “mine”, in the sense that I am treated as though I belong there, that I am entitled to the treatment I receive, and that those who are employed by it genuinely want to do their jobs well; from the unit clerks to the nurses and physicians.

If the VA is forced to constrict as the WWII cohort dies off, then (given its mandate) that’s as it should be. But there’s a considerable difference, isn’t there, between constricting the population one intends to serve because it is by definition a population identified by prior service, versus constriction achieved by ruling out recipients with “prior conditions”, or whose diagnoses were determined by “unapproved providers”?

Finally, the VA is accountable to us all, as a federal program. What accountability does the private insurance-and-provider structure have, unless we legislate that accountability?

>>the VA is accountable to us all, as a federal program<<

Just like the CIA, Homeland Security and the IRS, right?

I won’t say too much more, Rob in Madison, but I do appreciate your response.

–My point about social security is that it can have no legitimate private sector anolog: It has $tens of trillions in liabilities and an operating balance of $0.00.

– the Vietnam-era armed forces were quite small, very much on the order of the post-war average.

–Still, as the numbers of veterans eligable for VA services has fallen off dramatically in recent years, it is very politically impossible to reduce the program’s size (”They are trying to slash veterans’ benefits, the bastards”.)

-We could trade good or bad anecdotes about something as vast as the VA for the rest of our lives and it would prove nothing. Veterans I know a) depend on it and b) complain about it ceaselessly.

I’m glad you find the VA to be accountable. Or do you? Have you had a grievance and tried to have it addressed? I have a modest little health insurance policy. Notwithstanding Our President’s vow to make my carrier “accountable,” I have always considered the policy a legally binding contract between myself and Aetna. That’s real accountability, not the pretend kind people feel when they pull the lever for or against their local congresscritter.

I have always considered the policy a legally binding contract between myself and Aetna

Yes, and Aetna cannot invoke “sovereign immunity” in civil court, unlike a government insurance policy.

When Gene writes that O’Reilly displayed “against-the-grain good sense” and managed to “think independently” he means that O’Reilly, in this one case, took the orthodox Left position. That’s what having “sense” and thinking “independently” means on the Left.

Thus, Gene’s hostility to Fox News, a news source with a forthrightly pro-America, Pro-capitalism, anti-left, libertarian bias, and featuring such vivid characters as O’Reilly, Beck and Hannity in their opinion programming segments.

Fox News exposes the lie that ABC-NBC-CBS-CNN-MSNBC are giving out straight news. Its tag-line, “Fox News. We Report. You Decide.” is not only a forthright admission of bias but a warning against the anti-democratic mendacities of the other networks.

I think they are playing us and we have no choice. It is survival, good luck and God bless.

It is a shame that the “best” news coverage on Cable (excluding NPR) comes from the channel labeled “comedy”.

Mesquito: “–My point about social security is that it can have no legitimate private sector anolog: It has $tens of trillions in liabilities and an operating balance of $0.00.”

I admit I don’t understand this issue. I’m guessing that Social Security is budgeted based on anticipated tax revenues. In itself, I don’t find this troubling, but I certainly don’t understand the problems that assumption may entail.

“… it is very politically impossible to reduce the program’s size (”They are trying to slash veterans’ benefits, the bastards”.) …”

I think the VA has been reduced over the last couple of decades, for just the reason you advance; and, as I said earlier, that’s just as it should be. No doubt, kvetschers find reasons to complain; probably in many cases because their local VA providers have closed down. I don’t see this as a problem. The VA should expand and contract as need requires. It’s not a universal system. But I do maintain that it illustrates that a federal health program can be competent. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t necessarily think that a federal program is absolutely necessary for Americans in general. But the performance and behavior of the private mechanisms demonstrates an appalling immorality we should be eager to be shut of.

For what it’s worth: I was an RN for a number of years, working in Army (as a corpsman) hospitals, and later in municipal (Charlotte, NC and Salinas, CA) hospitals. What I saw is that providers want nothing more than to take care of those who come through their doors; but the vagaries of coverage are as often inhibitory to that coverage as facilitative of it.

I submit that the urge to care for those in pain or peril is the axe-mark toward which the system as a whole ought hew. No nurse or physician I’ve known had ever any intent to squander funds; indeed, most of us had a very conscious concern that we not pursue expensive tests or therapies that had no utility in the moment.

Yet, the performance of private, for-profit insurance is insensible of any consideration of need. Their metric is ever informed by a parsing of expense-versus-public-approbation, and the result is that health care cannot be delivered with compassion, generosity (human-kindness), and outcome, as its principal outcomes.

My experience with the VA is that it is substantially informed by those laudable sensibilities, and, based on the griefs friends and family suffer through private plans, I gather that the privately-insured health care they are subjected to is more resemblant of a story by Kafka than it is of any rational delivery of succor.

With respect.

They both deny saying what they obviously said.

Could it be that there’s a directive at FOX “fight public health care OR ELSE!” Maybe they think they’ll lose their jobs if they don’t toe the line. This could be a scandal.

That said, Glen Beck is clearly a scum bag. He didn’t just toe the line, he flip-flopped as extremely as those that lost John Kerry all his credibility and lost him an election. It’s an insult to the public to flip your position while denying you’ve done so. [Of course Kerry did that every time he spoke in front of a different audience, forgetting I suppose, that there were recording being made that would replay his craven disregard for our intelligence on the radio every night.]

Bill O’Reilly is a Blue Dog Democrat, always has been.

Bravo to Rob in Madison!
He is getting down to brass tacks at last.

Surely no one could conceivably object to assistance for people who can’t afford the medical assistance they require – unless they have an ideological twist in their brains – and, God knows there are plenty of those around.

What interests me is the economic viability, especially as I am pretty ignorant on this subject. Where will the money come from.? Has Obama outlined his plans?

I lived for a while in a golden age of health insurance under Wilson’s government in Britain. It proved economically unviable. If I remember rightly the whole system got drastically into debt. But this unviability does not mean that national health insurance is wrong in itself or that it shouldn’t exist.

I imagine that the Obama is aware of such examples, as in the U.K., and knows better what he is doing. He is not the first USA President who has wanted to introduce health insurance.

Like everyone I complain about bureaucracy and have had awful experiences with it The truth is that we couldn’t exist without those people sitting in their offices. We probably need more rather than less bureaucracy, more efficient and integrated into a humane society as envisioned by Obama.

Kerry who said something like “I voted for it before I voted against it”

Having looked at the thread, it was just one commenter (who was challenged by another commenter). I think it’s stupid and offensive. What did you think I would think?

You tell me, Gene.

As you do remember, when Ted Kennedy died, places like LGF were very respectful. However, Liberals complained about certain places on the right “speaking ill of the dead”.

And now of course, same liberals are queuing up to badmouth Krystol.

But that’s the textbook example of liberal hypocrisy. You know Gene, you and I probably agree on a great deal of policy areas, but I absolutely fucking hate the hypocrisy, sanctimoncy, narcissism, self-importance and selfishness that is at the heart of modern liberalism. Whither J.S. Mill now?

Like everyone I complain about bureaucracy and have had awful experiences with it The truth is that we couldn’t exist without those people sitting in their offices. We probably need more rather than less bureaucracy, more efficient and integrated into a humane society as envisioned by Obama.

Oh Lord, that’s rich.

How about this: Our Visionary President applies himself to making the federal bureaucracy we already have (even) more efficient, intregrated, and humane. He could, for example, identify and eliminate the half a trillion dollars in wastefraud’n'abuse he says are in medicare and with which he intends to pay for VisionaryCare.

Oh wait. That’s not the job of visionaries. They just run their goddam heads and the little people live with the consequences.

Let me guess. Felix is a good, secular progressive, a throroughly modern chap with good-humored contempt for expressions of religious faith. If he is — and I’m sure I’m right — the irony would be delicious. Our Lord probably did not walk on water, but Our President can cause health care to appear through the magic of people sitting at their desks.

”It proved economically unviable”

”but this unviability does not mean that national health insurance is wrong in itself or it shouldnt exist”

Some choice quotes from Felix showing the superior liberal mind at work.

Mesquito

You seem to have overlooked the fact that I insisted on the practicability of a health scheme and as I’m not an expert on economics, I was expecting some enlightenment on this subject. You deliberately ignore the idea that health care could be a good thing. It can, you know be, not visionary, but real. I benefit greatly from the Italian system. I can now be treated by doctors and hospitals completely free of charge.

A man in the USA had his hand chopped off and could have had it put back on again, but couldn’t afford it, so he remains without it and can’t find work. (One of a thousand horror stories). Reality or vision!? Firemen – heros – who helped the victims of 9/11 breathed in a toxic substance and couldn’t afford treatment so someone shipped them to Cuba where thy got free treatment. I am not pro Castro, but for the USA to be put to shame by him!The man who showed these incidents in a film is virulently anti-Israel, but this is a different subject and I’m sure you all know who he is.

Mesquito, you could do with some vision and magic in your life. The music and poetry I know is visionary and magical, but every note, every syllable is measured precisely – more realistically than you, apparently, could ever hope to be – against a circumscribed reality.

Without vision there can be no future- it is present for worse and for better in American patriotism, in our belief that we are fighting Islamism, corruption etc. for our ideal of a just society.

Without this dimension we go around with half a rotting brain and let the brutal facts grind us to powder.

Mesquito, read a poem today! I suggest Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind.

Yours, Drama Queen – HP is in sore need of a few of us.

Mesquito, read a poem today! I suggest Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind.

I agree that mesquito should read poetry too.

Yours, Drama Queen – HP is in sore need of a few of us.

The more, the better.

Thanks, Felix. I’l take your advice an apply it to my pinched, philistine, pathetic life. Boy, have you got my number!

Hmmm. Poetry, you say? Gosh, the idea of having my mind opened is both seductive, yet frightening. Percy Shelly, you suggest? Maybe I should start with something simpler, something more on my level, like Jimmy Carter. Who knows, I may yet salvage my half-rotten brain.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
a Public Option decree…

I agree that mesquito should read poetry too.

And I think Gene needs more tragedy and bathos in his life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67GSo3MxGi0

EscapeVelocity,

Blue Dog Democrats are against the public option.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/08/blue-dog-democrat-comes-o_n_279418.html

You made my point, I wrote earlier on this, O’Reilly gets the benefit of the doubt and called a conservative Democrat, but Obama advocates the same thing, and he is a Marxist and Hitler.

And I think Gene needs more tragedy and bathos in his life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67GSo3MxGi0

Thanks, but I prefer George Jones’s version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfgY7ko-pcQ

“Obama’s a Marxist and Hitler” – hot stuff, Andrew Murphy – a bit of a mixed cocktail – and you have left out Stalin, Ghengis Kahn and the Devil himself. Are you suffering from hallucinations?

Mesquito. I love you all the same. You have humour and that could help to save the rotting half of your brain. But you nearly rotted the whole of my brain with that bathos link for Gene. I may have to go to bed for a week to recover. But the man was accompanied by abused, FOREIGN Hawaiian guitars. That’s where Obama came from. Is the devil creeping into American folk music? Are the guitars disguising Kenyan voo-doo?

But why is no-one discussing the cocrete economic possibilites or impossibilities of Obama’s humane endeavours, free of ideolgical prejudices. When I think of the way billions are squandered all over the world, I suspect that a welfare system would be eminently possible. Berlusconi tells the Italian people, he has so much money, he doesn’t know what to do with it. In any case poeple like me are enjoying the health care benefits under Berlusconi and not a socialist government. Take note, Americans.

Americans, don’t be so afraid of this ‘lugubrious’ health care that will draw the whole country into a maeslstrom of partanoid evils decreed by falsified Kubla Khan in his dome – of pleasure after all – “for he on honey dew hath fed,/ And drunk the milk of paradise.” The well fare benefits continue pacifically under Berlusconi whose pleasure domes are of a much more dubious nature than those of Kubla Khan.

I’ve actually grown to quite like O’Reilly! Compared to that cocking freak of nature Beck he is a gentleman…

Felix (Italy),

You misunderstand what I wrote, this is what people say about Obama on the Right, currently.

But the man was accompanied by abused, FOREIGN Hawaiian guitars. That’s where Obama came from. Is the devil creeping into American folk music? Are the guitars disguising Kenyan voo-doo?

Conway’s pedal steel guitar player is not abusing his intrument. And what instruments are Americans “supposed” to play? Native American instruments? As for voodoo, they don’t have that in Kenya. You should know that.

Of course I’m being mean to the late, great Conway Twitty with “bathos.” He turned a perfect country music song into a huge hit. Nobody but George Jones himself would dare cover it, because you can’t prove how good of a singer you are until you can sing a very simple, very slow slong.

I barely know who this Berlesconi is, and care even less. I take it he is an Italian politician and is therefor not my problem.

Americans, don’t be so afraid of this ‘lugubrious’ health care that will draw the whole country into a maeslstrom of partanoid evils decreed by falsified Kubla Khan in his dome – of pleasure after all – “for he on honey dew hath fed,/ And drunk the milk of paradise.” The well fare benefits continue pacifically under Berlusconi whose pleasure domes are of a much more dubious nature than those of Kubla Khan.

I can’t even begin to understand this.

I am amazed at the number of people in the UK who do not listen to talk radio or Fox News regularly but are self proclaimed experts on it. In the USA we have a variety of news sources. Most are fairly to the left and in a functioning economy there would be more towards the center.

Media in the USA a free market venture. FOX does a great job tapping a market that is undeserved. It was an upstart venture way behind CNN. CNN offered more of the same and failed to deliver a unique reason for the viewers to tune in.

Talk radio is a wide genre and the condescending arrogance across the pond is amazing. Mark Levin is a lawyer who specializes in Constitutional law. Of course in a three hour program there will be some good sound bites but it is infotainment. Even in a far left bastion like Vermont the local talk radio is Conservative.

Of course it is easy to pronounce judgment on shows people have not watched or listened to. No doubt an American passing judgment on the media in the UK would get a lecture about arrogance.

mesquito
Stick to your guns

Beckophobia and Foxophobia.

Rightophobia, the Lefts Achilles heel.

Healthcare for all is morally right, but it’s expensive, so have the guts to say so, stop saying “we will save this to pay for it” or “we will cut that to pay for it”, please, have the decency to admit what it will cost.

The people, by and large, are not stupid, the left have always thought they are stupid because for the Left it is all very simple, if someone doesn’t agree with them then the Left deduce that it is not they themselves that are wrong, no, they deduce that their opponents must be stupid, they must simply not understand, because they, the Left, are clever and anyone who disagrees with them is stupid or racist or a neo-con or whatever.

Rightophobia, that’s why the left is so Foxophobic and Beckophobic and O’Reillyophobic and Hannityophobic.

All the news channels in the Leftist pocket and still they are terrified of Fox.

No wonder the Left always manage to balls things up, look at the UK, 12 years of Labour, a supine “David Beckham” and “Pete and Katy” media and look where that’s led.

Or do you think the neanderthals that appear on, or indeed sit in the audience of, shows such as “Jeremy Kyle” are not really a national embarrassment, are you the Left proud that you have produced an entire generation of Lazy, drug and drink addled scum, who think that sickness benefit and the dole is a “human right” even for those who are not sick and who can work?

There is going to be quite a strain put upon the NHS in the coming years, all these Leftists needing Prozac to deal with their Rightophobia, hope the NHS can survive because Rightophobia will effect the Left for many, many years to come. In some cases it may even be irreversible.

Rightophobia, now that is an irrational fear.

P.S. Mesquito

What happens in other countries in a ‘globalised world should be of interest to anyone, also to compare health systems and how they function. Unless you just want to look at your own belly-button. Everything in our world is interconnected. I could easily say, I don’t care what happens in the USA, let them stew in their own broth. But this is really impossible.

The point I was making was that health care function under right wing governments, like Italy’s, and that this has nothing to do with socialist and communist horrors and the anti-Christ as many American huysterics believe.

I don’t give a fuck whether voodoo was practised in Kenya: yoiu know exactly what I mean.

Mnay letters like yours are charcterised by evasiveness, avoiding what is pertinent, everyone sticks to their hobby.horse at all costs, no listening to others, no reasoning, only puerile attacks which don’t lead the argument any further. The main theme here was really Obama’s health care programme. Instead of discussing it, people prefer to conjure up emotively the evil or possibly good Obama – the latter in a decided minority. The fixated mind is a disaster – it makes people resemble their enemies.

Recognisable in the Obama hysteria is the blood sacrifice of the idol. Many Americans, including some of those who previously supported him, are out to kill this ‘nigger.’

I’m simply tired of trying to deal with such abysmal idiocy and will take a good break from HP, though I will read the leading articles which still interest me.

Mnay letters like yours are charcterised by evasiveness, avoiding what is pertinent, everyone sticks to their hobby.horse at all costs, no listening to others, no reasoning, only puerile attacks which don’t lead the argument any further.
***
I don’t give a fuck whether voodoo was practised in Kenya: yoiu know exactly what I mean.
*****
Recognisable in the Obama hysteria is the blood sacrifice of the idol. Many Americans, including some of those who previously supported him, are out to kill this ‘nigger.’

And many letters like yours are characterised by smarmy, abhorrent, and dishonest attributions of racism where none exists, purely for political adavantage. I don’t play that way, Felix. I discovered long ago that I was going to be accused of racism every single time I started winning arguments with Leftists. Naturally, this happens a lot, and I am utterly inured to the low tactic.

I discovered long ago that I was going to be accused of racism every single time I started winning arguments with Leftists.

Have you ever, to your knowledge, lost an argument with a leftist?

And I hope Felix will stay with us and resume commenting shortly.

Have you ever, to your knowledge, lost an argument with a leftist?

Sure, Gene. Have you ever dishonestly accused anyone of being a racist?

“And I hope Felix will stay with us and resume commenting shortly”

Me too. I like reading Felix comments.

Interesting stuff about Beck. I hope his prominence leads to some acceptance for Mormon’s in America.

Thanks Gene and Anaximander
I just need a bit of a break and some fresh air.

Mesquito, I have never accused you of racism, and the thought of doing so has never entered my mind. Some of my remarks in letters are of a general nature and don’t any longer concern the person I’m writing to.

My remark about, the a Americans wanting to kill this ‘nigger’ came just after I had seen a whole series of horrendous youtube clips with insane murderous attacks on Obama. In any case, the Obama ghoul figure often comes up on these threads, instead of dealing rationally, for example with what he says in his speeches, pro or contra, O.K., but based on the actual words.

Some said they hadn’t listened to his speech, others that two minutes was enough. O.K. look at the words used in those two minutes and tell us precisely what you don’t like about them. I have no doubt that many are so loaded with prejudice in advance, that
even if Obama made one of the most pertinent and inspiring speeches in history, the reactions would have been the same.

This is an example of a general reflection not directed at you, Mesquito. But I still find you and others evasive. The more interesting and relevant points I and some others make (first two paragraphs in my last letter) are ignored and we go back to childish personal battles and insults. (Admittedly I was guilty above, in a fit and throwing pots and pans in all directions) O.K., these are part of the game on HP which has taught me to indulge in them myself.

Maybe I should become an Olympian, stop the personal attacks, and and stick to the arguments. See you (all) later after a rest.

Beakerkin, as one of the self-proclaimed UK experts on Fox News, let me assure you that I used to watch O’Reilly regularly. The comedy value of both him and Fox News is attributable to precisely what you have described – the condescending arrogance of the ignorant passing judgment.

Media in the USA a free market venture. FOX does a great job tapping a market that is undeserved. It was an upstart venture way behind CNN. CNN offered more of the same and failed to deliver a unique reason for the viewers to tune in.

————-

While Fox certainly did come in a swoop the giant market that was being grossly underserved….Rupert Murdoch made his fortune on this strategy across the West.

CNN however was a Maverick and different entity than the rest of the US Television News orgs (emphasis on the WAS). They created a worldwide network of journalists, perhaps even better than the BBC and could put a camera where the action was, very fast. Furthermore they were not located out of New York…..but Atlanta, and therefore had a distinct personality, different from the Leftwing New York Snob crowd. Although they were still largely Leftish in their bias. They had a Southern bias that could be seen in reportage of stories that would never have been covered by the New England set.

However, CNN has fallen greatly under poor management by Time Warner AOL….which was a dissaster for the company and Ted Turner. AOL finally left that bad marriage. You can still see glimpses of CNN’s soul in coverage of Southern arts and culture….that would mostly be sneered at by the New York set. But its lost its advantage in global coverage.

That being said, its still better than any of the others in the US, for example they covered ACORN more than anyone but Fox. Hardly a tour de force of coverage…but still…putting the others to shame.

Bill OReilly is a Blue Dog, not because of his one position on Health Care Public Options….but over a broad range of issues. He comes from modest Catholic backround and it shows.

Obama however is definitely a New Left Radical. He has surrounded himself with same throughout his life. His policy initiatives both foreign and especially domestic are ambitious Leftism. That he realizes the necessity of centrist rhetoric and compromise, doesnt change his politics.

Glenn Beck says that John McCain would have been worse President than either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. See clip at http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5328039n&tag=stack