Thursday Open Thread
I hope everyone’s not too hung over from last night’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Today we go back to not celebrating Irish heritage. Are you ready for an open thread? Let’s thread.
Heckuva job CNN! CNN has hired Red State‘s Erick Erickson to be their newest contributor to their politics coverage. Erick Erickson has had great insights like the following:
He’s called a Supreme Court justice a “goat-fucking child molester.” Last month, he told “ugly” “feminazis” to “return to their kitchens.” He’s compared an administration official to a Nazi and called First Lady Michelle Obama a “Marxist harpy.”
I guess they miss that Lou Dobbs vibe. This is how CNN is selling their new hire:
In Tuesday’s announcement, CNN political director Sam Feist lauded Erickson as being a voice for small-town values.
“Erick’s a perfect fit for John King, USA, because not only is he an agenda-setter whose words are closely watched in Washington, but as a person who still lives in small-town America, Erick is in touch with the very people John hopes to reach,” Feist said.
When the show was announced in November, CNN framed it as a sticking with straight news when the other, more opinionated broadcasts were pulling in higher ratings.
“I think what is troubling in part of our business is you have people on news shows who start the conversation with a bias,” King said at the time. He also said he envisioned his show as an oasis of “insight and context.”
Adding political hack Erick Erickson means they’re free from “bias.” I assume in CNN-land bias = facts. After all, facts have a well-known liberal bias.
Rep. Shadegg (R-AZ) supports single-payer? I’ll believe it when I see it.
“The reality is, this bill is going to reward for-profit insurance companies that have done a disservice,” Shadegg said. “This bill is going to give them exactly what they wanted. The insurance industry, the for-profit insurance industry, wanted an individual mandate and that’s what they’re getting out of this bill. The for-profit insurance industry did not want a public option because they don’t like competition and guess what? They’re getting that.”
When Shuster accused Republicans of supporting insurers, Shadegg balked.
“No we don’t! You guys keep saying that, but I’m not the guy pushing the bill that says we should compel people to buy insurance from the for-profit guys. That’s the Democrats,” he said.
Then, after some back and forth with Shuster: “I would support single-payer.”
“You would support a government-run medical system?” Shuster asked.
“Absolutely,” Shadegg said. “I would support forcing American insurance companies to compete. Right now they have a monopoly.”
There’s a single payer bill in the House right now. Shadegg should sign on as a co-sponsor.
Tags: Open Thread
I drop in on Red State often in a sort of “know thy enemy” mode (don’t try this at home, kids). They are very good at inventing the insane reasoning, counterarguments, namecalling, and outright distortions that go viral in the wingnut blogosphere. Erickson has been responsible for some of the most sour, evil, and dishonest posts on Red State. You can feel the hate.
but they haved free healthcare…
Devastating new documentary Brings a Hero to Life, Exposes Fidel’s Cuba
Big Hollywood ^ | 3-18-10 | Joe Lima
Filmmaker Jordan Allott’s documentary, “Oscar’s Cuba” paints a compelling portrait of Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet, whom Armando Valladares, former Reagan administration Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and himself a former political prisoner of the Castro dictatorship, cites as the most important living figure in the struggle for Cuban liberty.
In 1998 Doctor Biscet dared to publish a report in which he interviewed many Cuban mothers who testified that their infants had been born alive and then killed by the regime. The totalitarian regime that controls Cuba views problematic pregnancies or unhealthy infants as a threat to their much-touted low infant mortality rates. Cuba has the highest abortion rates in our hemisphere, with 6 in 10 pregnancies ending in abortion. Thanks to Dr Biscet, we now know that many of these abortions were not the choice of the mothers involved, that said abortions were coerced, and indeed that many of these infants were born alive…then terminated. When Dr. Biscet made this issue a matter of public record, he gave the regime a black eye. The regime was not going to let this go unpunished. Dr Biscet continued to speak out for human rights and democracy on the island, and he paid a price for it: in 1998 and 1999 he was arrested more than 20 times.
On March 18, 2003, seven years ago today, Dr Biscet was arrested along with more than 70 other dissidents in what has come to be called “la Primavera Negra,” the Black Spring of 2003. He was sentenced to a 25-year sentence, which he is currently serving in the notorious Combinado del Este prison outside of Havana. Dr. Biscet spends much of his time in solitary confinement, incarcerated in an underground cell. Yet Biscet endures, and continues to defy the regime.
Putin: Russia to start up Iran nuclear plant in summer
Ynet ^ | 3-18-10 | Reuters
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Putin on Friday in a last-minute addition to her visit to Moscow, a US official told reporters. Russia will start up the nuclear reactor it is building at Iran’s Bushehr atomic power plant in mid-2010, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. “We continue work on developing atomic energy capacity both at home and abroad,” Putin said at a meeting on nuclear energy in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk. “The start-up of the first reactor of the Bushehr atomic power station is planned for this summer,” Putin said.
…forget the nukes, we’ve got to stop the apartments!
In other words, Erikson is good but you hate the blog overall. I will consider that as ringing of an endorsement as will happen here. Sort of like I would be a better candidate for conservatives to run than the ones that we have.
In other words, Erikson is good but you hate the blog overall
David – if DL were run like Red State you wouldn’t be allowed to post here.
In other words, Erikson is good but you hate the blog overall
I have no idea where you got this statement. Erickson’s an idiot and the fact that CNN hired him just shows they’re continuing their long slide into irrelevancy.
Also, so far, Rep. Shadegg has not signed up as a co-sponsor on Grayson’s Medicare buy-in bill or any single payer legislation.