Sunday, June 28, 2009

Flailing Opposition to Healthcare Reform

TheHill.com - Graham calls Dem tactics Rove, DeLay politicsThe elder generation of Republican leaders are apparently trying every Rovian tactic in memory to slow or derail the healthcare reform process, including using Rove's name as a negative. Instead of addressing the issues and offering alternatives, it seems talking points are all the opposition party can offer. In fact, it's starting to look like an almost generational divide. Witness longtime pol and healthcare critic Charles Grassley's latest.
"When we're restructuring 16 percent of our economy, that's what healthcare is, and we're affecting every person in this country, then we ought to have bipartisan support," Grassley said.
It does not, apparently, occur to Senator Grassley that his party had an excellent window of opportunity, about eight years in width, to create a bipartisan effort to address the problem.

Memo to Grassley - don't like the way things are going in Congress? Win a few elections.



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Friday, June 26, 2009

Faded Star Burns Out

Michael Jackson, the people's king of pop? | guardian.co.uk
Jackson's was not an unblemished life and this makes it tricky for the news channels and tweeting celebrities who long for nothing more than to bathe in the soapy, sudsy pleasure of hyperbolic adoration and eulogies. But anyone who watched the Martin Bashir 2003 documentary in which he talked about sharing a bed with 12-year-old cancer patient, Gavin Arvizo, is going to find this a little strange, if not dishonest.
The striking thing about media coverage of Michael Jackson's death is the careful emphasis on past accomplishments, not the truly bizarre events that dominated the last two decades of his life. I certainly do recognize his contributions to pop music, but, really, does a career that peaked with "Thriller" in 1982 merit the wall-to-wall coverage we're seeing today?



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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Michelle Bachman Comic Launched

High profile Minnesota Republican wackaloon Michelle Bachman is now starring in her very own comic book. Talking Points Memo has a review. Sample:
It's now in print in Minnesota, and anybody can order it online. So how is it?

As both a comic book fan and a Bachmann fan, I quite enjoyed it, but my hope is that the first issue was really laying a foundation for more to come. This comic introduces us to Bachmann, but then doesn't so much focus on her as it does on the important information we need to truly understand her political prominence -- the nature of extreme right-wing culture that has bequeathed a politician such as her to our national dialogue.






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