Nettertainment

The Tea Party may never have been the political force the Faux media built it up to be and the mainstream media swallowed, but now they seem to be diminishing in activism:



This is coming at the same time that Republican overreach in Wisconsin and other states, and especially with the Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) Reverse-Robin-Hood Budget ending Medicare, is causing them to take unexpected heat:

It's August, 2009 again. Except this time the disgruntled town meeting attendees aren't teabaggers, they're everybody. And the targets are now Republicans. Here's Rep. Pat Meehan (R-PA), at a town hall meeting facing constituents over a broken campaign promise to not privatize Medicare. An angry constituent confronts him: "If you voted to abolish Medicare, how would you explain that to people in their 50′s out of a job?!"

There are more examples in the link above. Could this be the turning point that wins the 2012 election for Obama -- and maybe weakens the GOP hold on the House, if not outright flipping it again?

Check out the new ad:



And since, hey, 70% of self-identified Tea Partiers oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, one has to wonder...what is the GOP leadership thinking today?

Liz Taylor, RIP. She proved that she walked the walk, from early gay friends (McDowell, Clift) to her unmatched contribution to AIDS awareness back in the dark days of the 1980's.

And her friends remember her for it.

Some good news on the town hall front, where some pro-health insurance reform citizens have been able to neutralize the brownshirts by the end of the week. From Indiana, a particularly good read:

1. One woman said she had recently lost her job and her kids were on Medicaid but she didn't want the government controlling her health care! When reminded that Medicaid was "single payer" she said she'd rather not have her kids on it but she had to! Well, at least she could have that.

2. Another guy was complaining about VA health care and all the cuts, I reminded him that we just had an historical increase in VA health and other benefits, he retorted that was for young vets and he wasn't going back to College. I questioned whether he wanted to help out vets coming home from Iraq/Afghanistan and he drifted off muttering of course.

3. Another woman who had a sign that said "obamacare supports abortions and euthanasia" had an appeal to Senator Donely (sic), which was both misspelling his name and mistaking him for a Senator instead of a Rep. When I pointed out that the misinformation in her sign matched her knowledge of the Representative, she quickly lowered it in embarrassment. Later, I noticed she had torn off his name and title, and was holding the sign a little lower.

4. I often used the phrase that "you are entitled to your own opinion but not to make up the facts" which seemed to really stun them. They were confronted with a view that someone respected their different views but challenged them on the misinformation and really couldn't respond to it.

5. Many of them acted as if everyone held the same opinion as they did, and when I politely said I did not, it seemed to genuinely surprise them. In their circles, they don't know anyone who has a different view and who doesn't just nod at the same misinformed view they have. I always corrected them if they came up to me talking as if I agreed with them which happened at least a dozen times. They just assumed I was there like they were and for the same reasons.

Progress from Washington state, Massachusetts (they even have crazies there) and others. On the flip side, there's a pro-reformer car vandalized last night in Colorado and union members being threatened with violence, no doubt due to the rightwing gin-up from the Florida scuffle earlier this week, as expected completely turning on it's head who started what.

What may become more disturbing even than the wingnut disruptions is a question that ought to warm their hearts:

Did Obama already sell out true healthcare reform to the pharmaceutical industry?

Word from the NY Times is that Obama and team are going hard against the insurance companies this week:

The effort will feature town-hall-style meetings by lawmakers and the president, including a swing through Western states by Mr. Obama, grass-roots lobbying efforts and a blitz of expensive television advertising. It is intended to drive home the message that revamping the health care system will protect consumers by ending unpopular insurance industry practices, like refusing patients with pre-existing conditions.

“I think what we want to communicate is that this is going to give people who have insurance a degree of security and stability, the protection that they don’t have today against the sort of mercurial judgments of insurance bureaucrats,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, adding, “Our job is to help folks understand how this will help them.”
....

The tough talk, however, has risks. The industry trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, is urging members to confront Democrats at public meetings, and the rising tensions could make it difficult for the president to keep insurers at the negotiating table.

All I can say is, Gobama. The health insurance energy claims they will cooperate on reform -- as long as there's no Public Option. Which is why I wish they were threatened properly with Single payer, before Sen. Max Baucus and other Dems unilaterally took it off the table.

How corrupt is the top eschelon of capitalism in this country? There's the insurance companies about which, insiders like former CIGNA exec Wendell Potter admit, Michael Moore was right in his expose, Sicko. Then there's the Wall Street banks gaming the Federal Reserve by trading with them. Per Paul Krugman:

...some institutions, including Goldman Sachs, have been using superfast computers to get the jump on other investors, buying or selling stocks a tiny fraction of a second before anyone else can react. Profits from high-frequency trading are one reason Goldman is earning record profits and likely to pay record bonuses.

On a seemingly different front, Sunday’s Times reported on the case of Andrew J. Hall, who leads an arm of Citigroup that speculates on oil and other commodities. His operation has made a lot of money recently, and according to his contract Mr. Hall is owed $100 million.

What do these stories have in common?

The politically salient answer, for now at least, is that in both cases we’re looking at huge payouts by firms that were major recipients of federal aid.

Something has to be done to clean this country up, and it's either not going to be the Obama Administration or, more importantly, not that leader and team alone.

If it's a participatory democracy we live in here, it's time to participate.

The whole series, spearheaded somehow by director George Hickenlooper and featuring famous actors in black & white shorts supporting the Writers Guild of America in its strike for a fair contract, is awesome, and today's is the most fun, a compilation of actors set to music as they go and scrawl "Speechless".

Here's the list of actors in the video and participating whole-heartedly with their biggest business asset, their images, in the pro-union activism:

David Schwimmer, Kate Beckinsale, Chic Eglee, Susan Sarandon, Benito Martinez, Walton Goggins, Sean Penn, Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, Paula Garces, Garry Marshall, Lizzy Caplan, Holly Hunter, John Amos, Gary Dourdan, Matthew Perry, Bill Hader, Robert Patrick, James Lemar, Joshua Jackson, Matthew Modine, Bill Macy, Andre Benjamin (aka Andre 3000), Rosanna Arquette, Jill Kushner, Chazz Palminteri, Cch Pounder, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Christine Lahti, Eva Longoria, Patricia Clarkson, Amy Ryan, Frances Fisher, Justine Bateman, Jason Bateman, Ed Asner, Nicolette Sheridan, Felicity Huffman, America Ferrera, Judith Light, Rebecca Romijn, Ana Ortiz, Ashley Jensen, Mark Indelicato, Tony Plana, Freddy Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, Christopher Gorham, Michael Urie, Laura Linney, Alan Cumming, Michael Weatherly, Michael Jace

Love seeing my faves from The Shield in there! It's all very iconic and sharp and strong. The writers strike has produced much better agitprop than anyone must have expected. I guess the writers can control the means of their own production. After all, the most successful of them in TV become executive producers.

You can find all of the videos on emerging Internet doyenne Nikki Fink's Deadline Hollywood Daily blog. They're all interesting -- Laura Linney, Felicity Huffman & Bill Macy, Sean Penn, Holly Hunter etc etc. Personal faves have to include Jeff Garlin (#4) because's he's so darned cute at the end, and elder statesmen Hollywoodians Richard Benjamin & Paula Prentiss (#2) -- she's particularly adorable, even as she seems to have a cast on her right arm. He & She, anyone? And Andre Benjamin (#7) is great to look at as he speaks Martian.

Here's to a speedy, quality deal between the writers and the production entities. Everyone knows there is money enough for all.

Why else would anybody be working in Hollywood?

The worst Veterans Days are always the ones where there's a war going on. And while all wars seem to engender some degree of patriotic censorship, even the ones going well, the chaotic banning of anti-Iraq War vets from V-Day parades is just, well, un-American:

Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out were prevented from joining the annual parade down Atlantic Avenue and restricted to a nearby parking lot, officials said. Organizers said the groups were trying to push a political agenda at an event to honor veterans. Earlier this week, the Veterans Day Parade Committee rejected their applications to participate, according to the Long Beach Press- Telegram. "This is not a political event, this is a time to come and just say thank you to all veterans," said Long Beach City Councilman Val Lerch, who also was on the parade committee.

Here's Val. I'm hoping he means well, but you just don't know these days, with such a dissent-averse rightwing as we have now. The partisans in charge.

Keith Olbermann had on a very compelling Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director and Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), where they covered the stifling of veteran free speech, the 1 in 4 stats of Iraq & Afghanistan war vets currently homeless, and a recent case story in the L.A. Times by a photographer who got closer than usual to his Marlboro Marine.

Oh, and they cover Bush not pausing in his war council to attend the annual wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetary.

Meanwhile our very own Admiral William Fallon, head of Central Command, says:

None of this is helped by the continuing stories that just keep going around and around and around that any day now there will be another war which is just not where we want to go.

Getting Iranian behaviour to change and finding ways to get them to come to their senses and do that is the real objective. Attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice in my book.

Getting our government to change its behavior is not even possible until January 20, 2009.

It's enough to drive one to absinthe.

This is a threshold issue for me, and I've already written my most susceptible Senator, Diane Feinstein, that she not support any bill without real teeth:

A Democratic bill to be proposed on Tuesday in the House would maintain for several years the type of broad, blanket authority for N.S.A. eavesdropping that the administration secured in August for six months.

In an acknowledgment of concerns over civil liberties, the bill would require a more active role by the special foreign intelligence court that oversees the interception of foreign-based communications by the security agency.

A competing proposal in the Senate, still being drafted, may be even closer in line with the administration plan, with the possibility of including retroactive immunity for telecommunications utilities that participated in the once-secret program to eavesdrop without court warrants.

I'm trying very hard to support Democrats and not fracture my Party at this time of great GOP evil. I also recognize that it is up to me to make my federal representatives know where I stand, hopefully helping a larger effort to convince her with my one little webform email.

Here's where you can find your reps contact info.

Tell them, politely if need be, that no teeth = they lose your vote.

Mister George W. Bush is now not only "The Decider," he is Obstructer-in Chief. Since Irving Lewis Libby was convicted of perjury, lying to Federal agents in order to obstruct justice, by commuting his sentence today, Mister Bush has proven that for the GOP to ever again call themselves the "Law & Order Party" is laughable on the face of it.

Per Steve Benen at Political Animal:

In conservative circles, there's a standard approach to law and order: we need tougher sentences, inflexible mandatory-minimums, and harsh punishment for those found to have broken U.S. law. But if you help expose the identity of a covert CIA agent during a war, lie about it, and are convicted by a jury on multiple felony counts, those standards no longer apply. Perhaps we should call this what it is: "amnesty."

Any Republican candidate who defends Mister Bush's actions is immediately disqualifiable for the Presidency, as they are essentially applauding a violation of the Constitutional Oath of Office. That means Rudy Giuliani for starters. The rest of the Republican field have so far been too cowardly to comment. But let it be known that for all their cable television bloviating, the rightwing is wrong to label it a left-only complaint:

Survey USA polled 825 Americans familiar with the Libby case immediately after the commutation was announced. Results are below (h/t TPM):

21% agree with President Bush's decision to commute Libby's prison sentence

17% say Bush should have pardoned Libby completely.

60% say Bush should have left the judge's prison sentence in place.

32% of Republicans agree with the President's decision, compared to 14% of Democrats and 20% of Independents.

26% of Republicans say Libby should have been pardoned completely, compared to 21% of Independents and 8% of Democrats.

Per Orin Kerr, it wasn't liberals who tried and convicted Libby:

As I understand it, Bush political appointee James Comey named Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Plame leak. Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Fitzgerald filed an indictment and went to trial before Bush political appointee Reggie Walton. A jury convicted Libby, and Bush political appointee Walton sentenced him. At sentencing, Bush political appointee Judge Walton described the evidence against Libby as "overwhelming" and concluded that a 30-month sentence was appropriate. And yet the claim, as I understand it, is that the Libby prosecution was the work of political enemies who were just trying to hurt the Bush Administration.

Look, any American with half a brain knows exactly what happened here. The rich are different. The powerful help each other escape responsibility for their actions, even if treasonous. And, in this case, the criminal enterprise of President Cheney and Acting Don Bush have saved their henchman, who will sure have others pay the $250,000 fine for him, who will get work immediately, who has been given a Monopoly-style "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

Echoing the law & order hypocrisy at hand, The New York Times entitled their editorial, "Soft on Crime":

Mr. Bush’s assertion that he respected the verdict but considered the sentence excessive only underscored the way this president is tough on crime when it’s committed by common folk. As governor of Texas, he was infamous for joking about the impending execution of Karla Faye Tucker, a killer who became a born-again Christian on death row. As president, he has repeatedly put himself and those on his team, especially Mr. Cheney, above the law.

Within minutes of the Libby announcement, the same Republican commentators who fulminated when Paris Hilton got a few days knocked off her time in a county lockup were parroting Mr. Bush’s contention that a fine, probation and reputation damage were “harsh punishment” enough for Mr. Libby.

Presidents have the power to grant clemency and pardons. But in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.

In an outrageously vile insult to our once-great democracy, those bastards currently occupying the White House turned off the phone lines today just as the news was released.

Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) has quite rightly called upon the public to express our outrage by flooding the White House with phone calls starting Tuesday morning. For your convenience:

202-456-1111

Let's keep it up over the 4th, our Independence Day from tyranny.

If there ever was a time to storm the battlements, that time is now.

Mister Bush and President Cheney should be commended for engendering new political activists and starting them young. Video courtesy of Crooks & Liars:

President Bush was presented with a letter Monday signed by 50 high school seniors in the Presidential Scholars program urging a halt to “violations of the human rights” of terror suspects held by the United States…

There's more awesome video with the students interviewed by CNN after the event (damning stuff as they describe what Mister Bush was lecturing about just before getting served by them) at Raw Story and this quick ass-covering from the White House:

White House spokesman Dana Perino said Bush let the student know "the United States does not torture and that we value human rights," a statement seemingly contradicted by Bush's signing statement which gave him power to largely ignore a Congressional ban on torture spearheaded by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

At this point, lying to children should be easy for Mister Bush.

(Nettertainment has decided to no longer refer to him as "El Presidente" as this past week's four-part Washington Post story on Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney confirms the lingering suspicious that Mister Bush is merely a figurehead who has carried out shadow President Cheney's orders the entire length of his official term to date. Think Grand Vizier, often the de facto ruler in Ottoman times.)

Will these kids make the difference in Bush/Cheney policy reversal? Talk about the walls closing in.

Meanwhile, Congress grows cajones:

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and the Justice Department after what the panel’s chairman called “stonewalling of the worst kind” of efforts to investigate the National Security Agency’s policy of wiretapping without warrants.

Get ready for a showdown...please!