Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Media Destroyer

Rep. Barney Frank destroys the right wing echo chamber:



angrybear destroys Rep. Shelby and the right wing cheese eating media:
Shelby single-handedly decided to hold the Federal Government hostage so that a U.S. military contract would be awarded to a foreign country, worse yet that country is France. But don't expect that to be the lead at Fox, even the stories in the rest of the MSM seem oddly resistant to putting the words "European" or "Airbus" into their stories. Might make a Republican look bad or something, maybe even unpatriotic. Have the Teabaggers caught wind of this yet?
Sen. Al Franken destroys the rudderless ship:
Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.
The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.
Rep. Anthony Weiner destroys Lieberman (and would destroy Bloomberg):
JON STEWART: "My question to you is this. Is he a dick?"
REP. ANTHONY WEINER: "Yes, Jon."

Some post appropriate music to surf by as you continue on:



Rep. Paul Ryan self-destructively wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security:
He's shilling for Wall Street yet again as he usually does. He wants to privatize medicare and social security although he uses words like "vouchers" to mask what he's saying.
Jon Stewart Destroyed the sexxy side of the left Blogoshere:
Jon Stewart took a shot a Raw Story and several other websites for hyperbolic headlines Thursday. The Daily Show featured our story titled "Stewart destroys Hannity for a second night this week" as an example of how blogs sex up their stories to get clicks.
Stewart appeared as a guest on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show Wednesday and Thursday nights but the Comedy Central host didn't understand how that was possible since The Huffington Post had already declared that he had "destroyed" the Fox News Channel just a few weeks before.
Clearly, Raw story has not a clue about sexxing up headlines when compared to HuffPo but since we, along with the entirety of Blogtopia, have been targeted for destruction by the comedic terrorism and mad-genius of Jon Stewart's Wit of Media Delivery, here are some echoing thoughts from another place I Blog, ePluribus Media, before it all disappears:
Or you can visit News Corpse - The Internet's Chronicle of Media Decay.

11 comments:

  1. “Rep. Paul Ryan self-destructively wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security.”

    Here is Rep. Ryan’s response to those who have attacked his plan. Perter Orszag is the director of the Office of Management and budget:

    “Peter Orszag is right that the Roadmap dramatically changes the future structure of the Medicare program. But that’s the point. The Roadmap preserves the current program for those 55 and older — many of whom have planned their retirement years based on the current system — and begins a gradual transition to a reformed program that meets the needs of future generations.

    “And yes, Medicare costs will grow more slowly under the Roadmap than they would otherwise. Again, that’s the point. Even the president acknowledges that, absent reform, Medicare will go bankrupt. Director Orszag has stated in the past that nothing else we do on the fiscal front will matter if we fail to address the unsustainable future of Medicare; after the program goes bankrupt, it will drag down the entire federal budget and U.S. economy. Medicare’s trustees project that the program will go bankrupt within the next seven years."


    “On Social Security, the Roadmap provides seniors with the option either to stay in the traditional government-run system or to enter a system of guaranteed personal accounts. Neither option is privatized. In the personal-accounts system, the accounts are managed and overseen by a government board — not a stockbroker or private investment firm. People choosing the reformed system select from a handful of low-risk, government-regulated options — just as members of Congress and federal employees do.


    “The overall tax plan would also keep the tax burden in line with its historical average. Under the status quo, the tax burden would have to double in the coming years just to meet the government’s spending obligations. That revenue path would increasingly fall on low- and moderate-income individuals, would sink the economy, and would lead to a decline in living standards for everyone."

    This is what The Economist said recently about President Barack Obama’s budget:

    “What is truly worrying, though, is the medium-term outlook. Mr. Obama’s budget reveals a road-map to fiscal catastrophe. At no point over the coming decade will the deficit be below 3.6% of GDP; and after 2018, it starts rising again. The cuts the president has proposed are comically insufficient: a budget freeze on non-security discretionary spending, which amounts to only about 17% of the entire $3.8 trillion budget; and a toothless deficit commission (a better version has already been killed by obstructive Republicans in Congress) whose recommendations will doubtless be ignored.

    “Entitled to live in debt for ever?

    “In the medium term there are only two ways to bring the deficit back to a sustainable level—which means no more than 3% of GDP. Either taxes will have to rise, or a serious attempt must be made to rein in the entitlements—legally mandated programmes such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—that constitute the great bulk of spending. Mr. Obama is proposing only a bit of the first, and none of the second. Taxes on the rich (those earning $250,000 a year or more) will go up from next January, as the Bush tax cuts expire; but Mr. Obama had promised Middle America that it will pay “not one single dime” more in tax, and so he is extending George Bush’s budget-busting tax cuts for the remaining 98% of Americans.

    “Any serious attempt to tackle entitlements now looks doomed. Health care offered a chance to do so (broader coverage could come with tougher cost controls). But a weak administration and a greedy Congress conspired to produce a baggy monster of a bill which, from a fiscal point of view, might have made things worse. No one dares touch defense, in a troubled world. The Social Security pension scheme is deemed sacrosanct.”

    Ryan’s plan stabilizes both Medicare and Social Security, both due to go bankrupt in the near future.

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  2. For those who are interested in finding out what is in Ryan’s plan rather than demonizing it, this link is a good start: http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/

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  3. Shorter Ryan plan: Handing Social Security over to the criminal shadow bankers and investors that tanked the economy and Medicare over to the insurance corporations that caused the healthcare disaster we suffer from.

    WOOOT! Talk about entitlements for the rich. More "Corporate Welfare" from the GOP.

    Thanks, but the next/newest/greatest "free market run amok" from those groveling at the still crumbling altar of St. Ronnie is what common sense and pragmatic people want to avoid.

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  4. And... Since when is telling the truth attacking? Love those victim cards the right wing cling to like a wet security blanket.

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  5. Handing Social Security over to the criminal shadow bankers and investors that tanked the economy

    Nope.

    On Social Security, the Roadmap provides seniors with the option either to stay in the traditional government-run system or to enter a system of guaranteed personal accounts. Neither option is privatized. In the personal-accounts system, the accounts are managed and overseen by a government board — not a stockbroker or private investment firm.

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  6. Don't lie to me, Don. I don't like liars. Per the CBO:

    "The age of eligibility for Medicare would increase incrementally from 65 (for
    people born before 1956), as it is under current law, to 69 years and 6 months for
    people born in 2022 and later. Starting in 2021, new enrollees would no longer
    receive coverage through the current program but, instead, would be given a
    voucher with which to purchase private health insurance."


    As per usual... The right wing idea is to bankrupt a good government program and replace it with corporate welfare for an inefficient "free market run amok".

    Did I mention I don't like liars, Don?

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  7. And as for this part, per the GOP website I must dcontimainate myself for having visited:
    “Privatizes Social Security” -- The Roadmap makes no change for those 55 and older. It provides future retirees with the option to either stay in the traditional government-run system or to enter a system of guaranteed personal accounts."

    You are asking the government cover the gambling debts of those that choose to have privatized... Sorry dude. If you want to gamble with private accounts instead of Social Security I am not going to pay for your losses. It is just another way for the GOP to bankrupt government and pay money to incompetent investors and the banks that manage it.

    Did I mention I don't like liars, Don? I think I'll mention that I don't like liars, Don, just in case I have not mentioned it before.

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  8. Conn,

    Okay, I’ll try this just one time, and then I’ll surrender you to the furies.

    Social Security is the bugbear of our time. It was sold to people as a sort of insurance program that would make a person’s last years tolerable. During the good old days of the New Deal – and there was much that was good about the New Deal, in my view – people died younger than they do now. Retirement age was pegged at 65, about six years before the angels escorted you off to heaven. Mortality at that time was lower than today because, among other reasons, the medical system was deficient. There are other reasons as well. Fast forward to 2010. People are living longer. But they are still retiring at 65, and in some cases younger. The Social Security system also has expanded to cover groups left unattended in Great Depression years. And the result of all this is that the system itself has become unsustainable. EVERYONE agrees that it is unsustainable, including the people who are drinking liberally in New Milford. President Barack Obama, the OBM, the people over at DailyKos, and even my dear mother, who passed away two years ago on Sept. 11, an easily remembered date… all agree that the system is unsustainable. Why? Too many health consumers chasing too few tax contributors. Sad to say, the social security system was NEVER and insurance system: It was a pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme concocted by people who were… Let’s agree not to call them liars, since they were well intended.

    Anyway – and I fear this will unsettle you, Con – it’s over. The SS system is due to go bankrupt, like so much else in this sorry century – unless something is none to sustain it. This is no lie. Everyone agrees this is the case, including many the fine people on your side of the barricades.

    You know what the problem is, Con? It will not do here to focus on the wrong problem – Pesci is a liar, a LIAR I say! – if you hope to arrive at a reasonable solution. It does not help to propose a false solution to the vexing problem – kill the bankers, KILL THEM I say!

    A partial solution– and here I ask you to take cover, because someone is certain to lash you – is to adjust the retirement age upward. People are living longer. Ain’t that the truth, now? So, the Ryan plan, which you airily dismiss as a bunch of crapola, does this. It pegs retirement age 12 years before the actuaries tell us we will approach room temperature, which is twice as long as Roosevelt the Magnificent provided. All this is in link that, if I’m to just by your response, YOU READ.

    If you have another real solution – not a synthetic one -- I’d be pleased to hear it. And you’re solution should not include in it the word “liar.” All that vitriol spoils a blessed and lucid mind, which I would be the first to say you have in abundance.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Conn1 (Steven Herron)

    Okay, I’ll try this just one time, and then I’ll surrender you to the furies.

    Social Security is the bugbear of our time. It was sold to people as a sort of insurance program that would make a person’s last years tolerable. During the good old days of the New Deal – and there was much that was good about the New Deal, in my view – people died younger than they do now. Retirement age was pegged at 65, about six years before the angels escorted you off to heaven. Mortality at that time was lower than today because, among other reasons, the medical system was deficient. There are other reasons as well. Fast forward to 2010. People are living longer. But they are still retiring at 65, and in some cases younger. The Social Security system also has expanded to cover groups left unattended in Great Depression years. And the result of all this is that the system itself has become unsustainable. EVERYONE agrees that it is unsustainable, including the people who are drinking liberally in New Milford. President Barack Obama, the OBM, the people over at DailyKos, and even my dear mother, who passed away two years ago on Sept. 11, an easily remembered date… all agree that the system is unsustainable. Why? Too many health consumers chasing too few tax contributors. Sad to say, the social security system was NEVER and insurance system: It was a pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme concocted by people who were… Let’s agree not to call them liars, since they were well intended.

    Anyway – and I fear this will unsettle you, Conn – it’s over. The SS system is due to go bankrupt, like so much else in this sorry century – unless something is none to sustain it. This is no lie. Everyone agrees this is the case, including many the fine people on your side of the barricades.

    You know what the problem is, Conn? It will not do here to focus on the wrong problem – Pesci is a liar, a LIAR I say! – if you hope to arrive at a reasonable solution. It does not help to propose a false solution to the vexing problem – kill the bankers, KILL THEM I say!

    A partial solution– and here I ask you to take cover, because someone is certain to lash you – is to adjust the retirement age upward. People are living longer. Ain’t that the truth, now? So, the Ryan plan, which you airily dismiss as a bunch of crapola, does this. It pegs retirement age 12 years before the actuaries tell us we will approach room temperature, which is twice as long as Roosevelt the Magnificent provided. All this is in the link that, if I’m to just by your response, YOU READ.

    If you have another real solution – not a synthetic one -- I’d be pleased to hear it. And you’re solution should not include in it the word “liar.” All that vitriol spoils a blessed and lucid mind, which I would be the first to say you have in abundance.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Via David Kurtz at TPM:

    Playing The Victim
    "One of the amusing things about the emerging debate over Rep. Paul Ryan's GOP "shadow budget" is that there's really no dispute about what Ryan's budget proposes to do. The debate is over whether what it proposes is desirable (and, not for nothing, over whether the assumptions it rests on are valid). But I guess pointing out that Ryan's budget privatizes Social Security and eliminates Medicare is just a political attack -- even if everyone on both sides agrees that's what it will do."

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  11. In all honesty, I just don’t get it. Maybe we’re not speaking the same language. A “political attack” is an attack by politicians. Politicians have attacked Ryan’s plan. Therefore he has come under pllitical attack. It’s self evident, unless you are prepared to argue that the Ryan Plan has not been attacked by politicians, which would be incorrect -- not a lie.

    Why don’t you just drop the “L” word? It’s really not appropriate in this venue. No one here counts personal invective for much. What’s really fearsome is the person who can convince me, because if I am convinced, then I must act on my convictions. Try that. It’s better.

    You might start by trying to convice me that both Medicare and Social Security are NOT on the road to bankruptcy unless something is done soon to make both programs solvent.

    If you have a plan to do that, I would be glad to hear it.

    ReplyDelete