Friday Open Thread
Welcome to your Friday open thread. Can I have a big TGIF? This week has been soooo long. Yesterday felt like it was about one week long all by itself.
The DADT repeal went down to defeat yesterday because the so-called Republican moderates are Lucy holding the football. Two Democrats did not vote for cloture – one was Blanche Lincoln who was getting a root canal at the time. The other was brand-new Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
In a statement to reporters tonight, Manchin suggested that as long as a vote on repealing DADT comes this year, he’ll be more than willing to shut it down.
“I do not support its repeal at this time,” he said in the statement. “I would like to make clear that my concern is not with the idea of repealing DADT, but rather an issue of timing.”
Manchin said the Senate testimony from military branch chiefs last week — most of whom said they were opposed to repealing the ban, but that they could implement it if asked to do so — was part of his decision not to back repeal for the time being.
“My concerns, as highlighted in the recent defense survey and through the testimony of the service chiefs, are with the effect implementation of the repeal would have on our front line combat troops at this time,” he said.
Manchin said he is “very sympathetic to those who passionately support the repeal,” but added that he needs more time “to visit and hear the full range of viewpoints from the citizens of West Virginia.”
I’m sure we’re going to love Senator Manchin as much as we love Senator Nelson.
At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News’ controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network’s journalists not to use the phrase “public option.”
Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox’s reporters should use “government option” and similar phrases — wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats’ reform efforts.
Journalists on the network’s flagship news program, Special Report with Bret Baier, appear to have followed Sammon’s directive in reporting on health care reform that evening.
Here’s a copy of the memo:
From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM
To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Subject: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”1) Please use the term “government-run health insurance” or, when brevity is a concern, “government option,” whenever possible.
2) When it is necessary to use the term “public option” (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon), use the qualifier “so-called,” as in “the so-called public option.”
3) Here’s another way to phrase it: “The public option, which is the government-run plan.”
4) When newsmakers and sources use the term “public option” in our stories, there’s not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.
The news media has reacted with a collective yawn. They’ll continue to take their marching orders from Rupert Murdoch and his millionaire buddies.
Tags: Open Thread
I hope you’re watching C-SPAN. Senator Sanders is filibustering (I mean the old-fashioned kind where he continually speaks) the tax cut bill on the Senate floor. Senator Landrieu is assisting him now.
Fox News/ DelawarePolitics / GOP.com headline
“Liberal senator blocks Unemployment INsurance for Americans”
SB: Oh, if only he still identified as a Socialist! It would have been Fox’s best chyron ever, or at least since “Coons in Africa” (for the bearded-Marxist-in-Kenya story).
“Wilmington settles lawsuit over death of ex-Marine Derek Hale”
“Witnesses also said Hale did not appear to pose a threat and had just vomited and was shaking violently from the Taser blasts when then-Lt. William Browne shot him in the chest with three .40-caliber rounds. Browne was later promoted to captain.
Browne was cleared of any wrongdoing in 2007 by the state Attorney General’s Office.”
No police state here, no siree Bob.
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20101210/NEWS/101210042/Wilmington-settles-lawsuit-over-death-of-ex-Marine-Derek-Hale
Does anybody else listen to him on “Brunch with Bernie” Friday’s on Thom Hartman’s radio show like I do? I LOVE that man. He takes calls for an hour on any topic. How many other Senators take the time to speak directly to the public like that on a weekly basis.
It’s snowing! (outside and on DL) 🙂
You win for “first to notice”
Yeah me!
(what do I win?)
I thought for a moment my monitor needed Desenex
oh its not snowing that bad. I remember snowgasm2010… that was deserving of DL Dandruf
Wow, Bernie Sanders is doing an old school filibuster. 5 hours so far. The word is that it is going to go 30 hours.
I’m in favor of the filibuster if you have to actually keep talking.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Go Bernie, go! Walmart kills communities!
You don’t think that the fact that Clinton is one of the millionaires that this tax bill “helps” the most has anything to do with him lovin’ it so much, do you? Or that he is making big bucks on the corporate speaking circuit? Naaawwwww…
Of course, Obomba didn’t have time to stay and hear Clinton ’cause he had some party’n to do.
Spot on, A1. I’ve never been less proud to be a democrat.
It was nice to see a ‘real’ President at the WH podium for once! Clinton is ten-times the leader Obama is. Tell Obama to go vacation for a few months, so Bill can lead us.
Deep down, I don’t even think Obama ‘likes’ the job! He’s all over the place, lacks experience, maturity and leadership.
Btw, Sanders the ‘Socialist’ should go down to Cuba and help them with their failed communistic/socialist economy. It’s on the brink of economic collapse. Someone tell the 70-year-old crackpot that a cloture vote will begin on Monday at 2 p.m. in the Senate.
eh. shouldn’t a Polemical neo twerp like you already BE in Cuba spreading the holy word?
The spectacle of Obama arguing against the Obama tax cuts, and Clinton arguing against the Clinton tax rates, is a thing to behold.
Welcome to your Friday open thread. Can I have a big TGIF? This week has been soooo long. Yesterday felt like it was about one week long all by itself.
I always hate when you say this. I have worked 13 hour shifts for my employer virtually every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for at least the last 10 years including all holidays that fall on the weekend. Obviously, no one has ever heard me utter TGIF (at least for the last 10 years☺).
My M-F “off” always seem so short.
meatball, I admire your dedication. I really, REALLY hope your getting O.T. and Double time. I’m at a dichotomous point myself having just got the call for my first job since August while my mother-in-unlaw is getting pinned by the big C. I swear this to you, even though she’s being pain managed in the profit centered Christiana hospital she is most pleased for my two week gig at Norstrom’s.
Everyday is Thanksgiving, you only finesse the “for” list.
9:12 PM, Senator Sanders’ filibusteris is still going strong.
Send in the unicorns.
The Derek Hale settlement was only $875K. I didn’t think it was possible to be even more disgusted than I was over this.
Joe,
Non-union shop. No OT for greater than 8, although average 24% above base for WE/nights and 50% for holidays. Inside work though, but we work hard. It’s not the kind of job you can do until you reach SS retirement (sometimes no lunch, it just doesn’t happen). I’m one of the oldest at 40.
Congress should let them all expire and demand Obama tell us his plan for passing middle class tax cuts in 2011.
Even die-hard Obama supporters are now dying over this anti-Democratic-values proposal.
You know… I’m not happy with this deal, but your gleefulness is disturbing.
“let them all expire and demand…..”—what Congress are YOU talking about? It’s already taken 25 years for HCR—and a last MAJOR tax rewrite was like what 1986? Tweak what we have.
Exactly Joanne. People are mad because Obama made a deal with Republicans (which BTW Democrats in Congress failed to do between 2008 and 2010). So the plan is wait until next year and make a deal with Republicans. A Congress full of teabaggers and with the House under control of John Boehner because that will somehow get a better deal. OY!
A Congress full of teabaggers and with the House under control of John Boehner because that will somehow get a better deal. OY!
2011 is time for Obama to take some hostages of his own. Nothing gets through until the President has a clean middle class tax cut on his desk. Obama would need a big, stiff, rigid, veto pen.
And if you can’t imagine Obama doing that, that just proves his fecklessness.
People are mad because Obama did his dirty deal without consulting his own party, and then demanding they sign on. Bringing out ole Billy Boy was a real joke. The man who delivered Nafta, Cafta and the people got the shafta…oh yeah Obama bring out more like Clinton who worked so well with republicans. Why didnt Obama give the Congress time to get their bills on the floor, before he crashed the party with this bailout for billionaires. My goodness, look at the estate tax crap. We need money IN the treasury from these filthy rich who have had a free ride for 10 years. Now the dems will have to sign on, and be referred to as spineless and weak. Its the weakness of Obama that has laid this awful job busting, deficit creating bill. Bernie Sanders told the real truth, but of course any sane person who doesnt agree with the dems must be a crazy ole white man.
Obama will get this deal done against Dem protests with Repubs putting it over the top. Now think forward to 2012. Do you see where this is going?
Crazy ole white man? Seriously?