Lying Republicans at Town Hall Meetings

Rachel Maddow was on fire this week! Below she highlights the story of one of the vocal opponents of health care reform at one of the town halls that are being held nationwide during the summer recess. The concerned citizen who claims she is "just a mom" and "not with any political party" forgot to mention that she was the Internet Marketing Strategist for the Republican candidate who was defeated by the congressman holding the town hall.

Journalism lives!!

GOP Riling Up the Crazies

Great segment on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last week with Frank Schaeffer about the tone of the Republican side of the health care debate, and how the right wing seems to be agitating their crazies just like they did during the 2008 presidential campaign...

FreedomWorks Fails on Hardball

I'm not sure what's going on today, but it seems like the media is actually pushing back on some of these false claims from anti-health care reform folks...First Rick Sanchez of CNN, and now Chris Mathews on MSNBC.

Greg Papas from FreedomWorks goes on Hardball and tries to be a "compassionate conservative," and Mathews points out that Republicans have run from health care reform every chance they've ever had.

Someone Saw This Economic Crisis Coming...

Rachel Maddow points out that contrary to claims from many politicians, the current state of the economy was actually predicted by those who have an appreciation of history:

Rachel Maddow and Meghan McCain

Rachel Maddow's interview this evening with Meghan McCain wasn't particularly exciting, but was definitely a change of pace from what you normally see from these discussion shows.  Both Maddow and McCaing were exceptionally sensible!  

I especially love that Meghan McCain admitted that she doesn't know anything about the economy, and that Maddow accepted that response without being at all condescending!  Nice change of pace.

I do, however, take issue with the fact that while McCain admitted on Maddow's show that she doesn't know anything about the economy, it doesn't stop her from saying "a second stimulus doesn't make sense." 

If she's just saying she doesn't know anything about the economy as an excuse to not justify her views, my respect for Meghan will dwindle.

Part 1:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Part 2:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

New Stimulus Provides Fewer Jobs! Yay!

If there's one thing I think a stimulus plan should definitely NOT do, it's create jobs.  That would just be terrible.  Thanks to the "centrists" in the Senate, Paul Krugman thinks this bill will leave about 600,000 fewer people without jobs.

Speaking of Krugman, loved his performance on Morning Joe the other day...

Joe Scarborough: ...George Bush over the past eight years had the most disastrous spending policy.  They decided to cut taxes, they decided to increase the deficit.  They decided to increase entitlement spending while they were fighting two wars.  They made no tough decisions whatsoever.  You can't say that that's the traditional conservative approach to economics.  It was a disaster and I think we can all agree with that, can we not?

Paul Krugman:  You've got some mythical image of what a modern conservative is.  Reagan increased spending while cutting taxes.  Bush increased spending while cutting taxes.  Who is your ideal here?

Obama Bipartisanship Vs. Bush "Bipartisanship"

"I guarantee you this is not bipartisan."

-- John McCain in crazy man rant

Republicans, on every TV show they can get booked on, are railing against Barack Obama and his apparent "Orwellian" tactics and complete lack of bipartisanship.  Trouble is, two weeks into his presidency, Barack Obama has already met with the opposition party in the House as many times as President Bush did in  the entirety of his eight years.  The product of these talks?  The removal of family planning funding, reduced spending on mass transit, and the conversion of infrastructure spending into tax cuts....Result?  0 Republicans voted for the package.

Stimulate Without the Stimulation, Please.

While her jokes are more often miss than they are hit, I believe that Rachel Maddow is likely the most informed political pundit on television.  Whether you agree or disagree with her conclusions, Rachel provides solid data and examples explaining her position.  Her response to the debate in the Senate tonight over Obama's stimulus package is no exception.  While it runs a bit long at 8 minutes, it's definitely worth the time:

Rachel does a wonderful job of illustrating the cost/benefit analysis of something like infrastructure spending compared to the Republican idea of tax rebates.  While rebates are barely stimulative at all (at roughly $1.02 put back into the economy for every $1 the government spends), infrastructure spending yields $1.59 for every  buck the government throws at it.  That is precisely what we are trying to accomplish with this package.  To STIMULATE the economy.

The Republicans, however, are being entirely foolish.  

Even though food stamps are the single most effective way the federal government can stimulate the economy, they pouted and threw tantrums until it was removed.  

Even though there is a mountain of evidence suggesting that the impact of tax cuts on stimulating the economy is negligible, Republicans were able to get a whopping 42% of the bill to be dedicated to them.  While Karl Rove claims no Republicans wanted nothing but tax cuts, 36 of the 41 Senate Republicans voted for just that.

Republicans are putting their party loyalty over their desire to actually address the problems facing America.  

Therefore, they are boneheads.