Gov. Arnold To Gov. Jindal, Show Me Your Stimulus Money!

While on the show yesterday, Arnold was asked to Sanford's statement over taking stimulus money, but since he took his state's share, the request by California's Governor goes to his fellow Republican Executive in Louisiana, Gov. Jindal. Bobby Jindal denied his state approximately $90 billion in unemployment monies because he erroneously though that it would raise taxes. So, Gov. Jindal, hand that money over to California, they need the finances just as bad as you do. Oh and citizens of Lousiana, you know what to do with Jindal next time he's up for re-election (or if he goes after the party's ticket in 2012).

Barney Frank Reminds Republicans Where The Wasteful Spending Is...In Iraq

The GOP has miraculously overnight become the party of fiscal conservatism yet again, claiming that Obama's stimulus package is too expensive. Creating tax cuts for the wealthy is a much higher priority than creating a job in the minority party's eyes. However, Congressman Frank reminds them where all the money really went.

McCain Confesses To Plan Taxing Your Health Care

At the debate on Friday, Barack Obama called out John McCain for wanting to tax people's health care plans they had at their job. Up on stage in front of nearly 60 million people, he dodged Obama's charge. The maverick socialist corporatism believer knows that this will result in many employers' choosing to drop costly plans altogether. Meanwhile the greedy health care industry continues to take in more money. McCain may not have wanted to come clean on Friday, but he admitted to it yesterday on This Week with Stephanopolous.

From Think Progress:

Today, during an interview on ABC’s This Week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) finally admitted that his health care tax credits would not cover the costs of a comprehensive health insurance plan:

Actually, my position is that it will be, it will give people actually more money to go out and purchase tax - health insurance on their own and only those with the Cadillac gold-plated health insurance policies today are the ones who might suffer from it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So they would see their taxes go up potentially.

MCCAIN: It depends on, on, on what plan they have. But that’s usually the wealthiest people. Ordinary working Americans have the kind of - or an overwhelming majority have the health insurance plans that this tax credit, refundable tax credit, will actually put more money in their pockets for the purchase of health care than what they had before.

Of course, that is also a lie but when a politician like McCain spews tremendous amounts bullshit on a daily basis, a few nuggets of truth may fall through the cracks. Far from wealthy Cadillac owners, this plan would be a huge burden to the middle class. It would undoubtly serve to reduce the amount of workers that can obtain health insurance while allowing for premiums to stay high for the insurance companies that relentlessly raise their rates every year.

Fiorina Lies For Palin's Earmark Hypocrisy, But The Truth Still Shines Through

Carly Fiorina was busy this weekend lying her ass off for the McCain/Palin campaign. Fortunately for the rest of us, Senator Claire McCaskill and ABC News host George Stephanopolous were ready to interject the truth about Sarah Palin and her record with earmarks.

STFU Charlie Gibson!

The dynamic duo of the traditional media are back together again to wreak havoc on truth, objectivity and common sense. Yes, you may remember them from such follies as the ABC Presidential debate, where Gotcha! journalism trumped substantive questions and issues that people actually care about in their day to day lives. Now that Hillary Clinton has bowed out but the McCain-Obama debates are still far away, the two morons need something to talk about it, and boy is this 'unfair.'

From Crooks and Liars:

CHARLES GIBSON: Barack Obama announced today that he and Hillary Clinton will campaign together next Friday, their first joint appearance since he secured the nomination. The announcement comes a day after Obama said he is not going to take public campaign financing, a decision which has drawn a great deal of criticism, and our chief Washington correspondent, George Stephanopoulos, is joining us again to talk about this.

By opting out of the public financing system, George, he could have, depending on how much he raises, two times, three times, four times as much money as John McCain. What’s he going to do with all that money?

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, we’re already starting to see what he intends to do with this kind of money. Just today, just yesterday in fact, Barack Obama bought his first general election ads. I’m going to put up a map showing the states in which he’s bought those ads: 18 states overall, Charlie 14 of those 18 states are states won by George Bush in 2004. If he’s able to continue to raise money over the Internet, as he expects to over these next several months, it is conceivable that Senator Obama will be able to campaign and advertise in Republican states right up to election day.

GIBSON: George, I’ve heard a lot of political analysis today about his decision, but let me ask you a question about basic fairness. People in this country like to believe that people play on a level playing field and that a campaign will be about ideas and personality. If you start with that much more money, is it basically fair?

Fair? Fair?!? Charlie, I'll tell you whats fair. Having journalists that objectively look at the facts of the campaign would be good for starters, but you and George are clearly not cut out for that type of journalism. If you would have discussed why Obama has so much more money (3 million donations from 1.5 million donors averaging $91) then maybe that would have been a little bit fair, but you can't even begin to comprehend fair.

Why not just admit that you don't care about issues that concern people who makes less than $200,000 dollars and that horserace politics for the sake of ratings is sacrosanct, then just STFU, thanks!

Sen. Graham Makes The Case For Bush's 3rd Term

John McCain tried to distance himself from being labeled as "Bush's third term" in his speech last week, but apparently his buddy Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina didn't get the message that real policy goals of the Republican nominee are supposed to be kept hush-hush until after November:

Imagine If George Stephanopolous Was Alive In 1860

It is a scary thought, at least for the people that lived back then. The tumultuous political and societal landscape of that era was vitally important and every event was critical to the fate of the nation. The Lincoln-Douglas debates signified the seriousness of the moment and the eloquence of each candidate was nothing short of extraordinary. Now imagine if George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson moderated that debate, how terrible would it have turned out?

From Obsidian Wings:

LINCOLN: Thank you very much, Charlie and George, and thanks to all in the audience and who are out there. I appear before you today for the purpose of discussing the leading political topics which now agitate the public mind.

We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you think Mr. Douglas loves America as much you do?

LINCOLN: Sure I do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But who loves America more?

LINCOLN: I’d prefer to get on with my opening statement George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: If your love for America were eight apples, how many apples would Senator Douglas’s love be?

LINCOLN: Eight.

Yeah that sounds about right, circa 1860 style. Now if only we could get back to the level of debate we had back then for today's debate, how much more informed Americans would be about the candidates instead of what The National Enquirer ABC thinks America cares about.

Stephanopolous Took Notes For Debate From Hannity

Anyone watching last night's debacle on ABC might have wondered to themselves about the ridiculousness of the questions directed at Barack Obama. One of them even sounded like it came out of the mouth of the reviled Sean Hannity. When George Stephanopolous asked Senator Obama about his relationship with ex-Weather Underground member Bill Ayers I almost flipped out, but now we know that he was taking notes straight from right-wing scion Sean Hannity.

From ThinkProgress:

Hannity, who for months has been aggressively pushing a story about Barack Obama’s connections to a former member of a radical anti-Vietnam 1970s organization called the Weather Underground, interviewed Stephanopoulos on his radio show on Tuesday, where he pressed the ABC host to ask Obama about this:

HANNITY: There are two questions that I don’t think anybody has asked Barack Obama, and I don’t know if this is going to be on your list tomorrow. One is – the only time he’s ever been asked about his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground who on 9/11 of all days in the New York Times was saying “I don’t regret setting bombs. I don’t think we did enough.” When asked about it by the Politico, David Axelrod said that they have a friendly relationship, and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I’m taking notes right now.

Well he could have just been facetious when talking to Hannity, being an ex-Clinton staffer and all, right?

In the debate last night, Stephanopoulos asked a question that mirrored almost word-for-word what Hannity pressed him to ask:

STEPHANOPOULOS: A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough.”

An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won’t be a problem?

I guess not. To Stephanopolous, Sean Hannity's trafe is relevant political discourse. That must be one thick bubble Mr. Stephanopolous lives in to honestly believe that, otherwise he was just performing a hit job on Barack Obama. You take your pick.

Condensing The Dumb Disgusting Debate

How pathetic was the debate? Watch how you can turn two hours of meaninglessness into less than eight minutes:

ABC Needs To Apologize...NOW!

What a complete and utter disgrace that we had to endure last night. Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos should be fired and scorned by the journalism community (whats left of it at least). At the very least, they should have to go on and make a PSA with them apologizing to America for the disservice they did to our country and our democracy last night.

While the audience "turned against Gibson" the rest of the nation was aghast at what they were watching on TV. The content of the "Gotcha" questions were suited for the pages of the National Enquirer or the Globe, not a network news channel that has access to the public airwaves thanks to the good graces of the FCC (inherently owned by the public, meaning all of us). ABC demonstrated they are one giant cog in the media machine that is destroying our democracy by making the discourse within it into petty politics and 'gaffes' that do not matter much to the lives of most Americans.

Americans care about health care, gas prices, what we want to accomplish in terms of workers' rights within our globalized economy, Iraq (the only real issue given more than 30 seconds by ABC), Afghanistan, China, the diminishing power of the dollar, the housing crisis, the rising income gap, torture, education, the greed of the financial sector and a whole host of issues that matter in the day to day life of the 300 million souls that reside in our 50 states.

Unfortunately we saw nothing of what mattered last night...except for what mattered to Charlie Gibson, poor guy is hoping that Obama doesnt cut his capital gains tax.

Again, it is time for an apology from these sorry shambles of what are supposed to be journalists. Until then, call ABC at (818) 460-7477 and let them know you are sick of being thought of as stupid and thoughtless by Gibson, Stephanopolous and network executives everywhere.

What A B C Disgrace

Last night's debate is still pissing me off. If you didn't see it last night, here's a succinct wrap up:

ABC Was The True Loser In This Debate

The ABC affiliate told me I was one of 60,000 that watched the debate online and that is a record. Despite that extraordinary number for new media, the actual debate was a disgrace. It took nearly an hour for Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos to get to any real issues that concern Americans that live outside of the D.C. cocktail circuit. The so-called "Gotcha" questions dominated the debate, while health care, torture, the environment, the mortgage crisis, veterans care and how will the Constitution be repaired were virtually ignored.

From The Huffington Post:

The Gotcha Debate: Sam Boyd at Tapped is angry about tonight's questions:

Seriously "does rev. wright love america as much as you?" Really? REALLY?!!!

Also, "what will you do when clips" of Wright "play over an over" on TV? [...]

A woman asks if Obama "believes in the American flag" because he doesn't wear a flag pin.

Charlie Gibson says that questions about the flag are "all over the internet" -- along with Pamela Anderson's sex tape, cats with bad grammar, and Rick Astley. Journalism at it's finest. [...]

And now, we're on to William Ayers. Gaaah. Obama says Ayer's is someone Obama knows... says he's also friendly with Tom Coburn who wants to give the death penalty to people who perform abortions. Attacks the whole idea of guilt by association, says "the American people are smarter than that." [...]

The debate is 46 minutes in, and nothing remotely meaningful has been discussed.

Exactly.

What a pitiful performance by ABC for putting the pathetic excuse for a set of question into the hands of Charlie and George. All three should be ashamed of making this debate about gossip and not issues that concern people who can't have lunch with elitists like themselves.

Are these "debates" finally over? Can we let the voters of PA, IN, NC, KY and every other state that hasn't voted yet decide who they want to be the nominee and not make it about the mindless drivel that comes from the traditional media day in and day out?

What Attracts Flies Again?

Hmmm?

Standing Up For Al Gore

Sam Donaldson does a great job of it as well as speaking up for the reality of climate change against conservative George Will on ABC yesterday morning:

Ron Paul On This Week

Although this was leaked last week, Ron Paul talks about his chances for next year and his reaction to the fact that a long shot like him has more cash on hand than John McCain.