IT'S THE END OF THE DOLE AS WE KNOW IT
Ever since the ACORN-rigged election of 1932, in which FDR first introduced crack cocaine as an incentive to induce black Americans to vote for the party of slavery, liberal nihilists have been using the tools of government to "help" the scum of America. No longer would we permit the free-market to take care of the elderly, sick, infirm, or poor. Hence forth, it was public dole time!
(AMERICAN NIHILIST BLOG)

Roger Ebert's Journal: Archives

AN EXCELLENT LIE
"Death panels" is such an excellent term. You know exactly what it means, and therefore you know you're against them. Debate over. This term more than anything else seems to have unified the opposition to the Obama health care proposals. It fuels the anger that has essentially shut down "town hall" meetings intended for the discussion of the issues. Of course the term is inspired by a lie.
(CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, suggested by MOLLY THOMAS)

JUST SAY IT AIN'T SO, JO
Jo Bonner's "Town Hall" meetings illustrate just how much needless hysteria surrounds the issue. And, just how disingenuous or irresponsible it is to hold supposedly informational meetings across the district but never correct any of the fears and misapprehensions of your constituents? Kudos to this lady from Prichard who calls Bonner out on it. Now, I wasn't there, so I don't know what the congressman's ultimate response was to the lady who was afraid of losing her health care because she is old (and, therefore, apparently, worthless and powerless without the good-willed intervention of her insurance company) or to the wild assertion that the government can attach your bank account, but I do know that it was Bonner's response to the crazy allegation about illegal aliens, not the questioner's (as this Steve Alexander piece suggests), that that was the "reason we must defeat this thing." After all, Bonner opines, there's nothing wrong with the system of health care we have now.
(WKRG-TV)

Be sure you check out this KEITH OLBERMANN PIECE that shows vintage Reagan attacking "Socialized Medicine" (aka Medicare) and see if you don't see any parallels.

See also this MEDIA MATTERS PIECE

The sound is horrible on this HOWARD DEAN VIDEO but the talking points are well worth a listen. Here's a NEWS PIECE about Dean's position.

LOSING ARTUR
There are some in the Alabama progressive community who are becoming more openly exasperated with Congressman Artur Davis. By the time of the Obama candidacy, Davis had been positioned wonderfully, having gained for himself the mantle of this state's new wunderkinder. And, black at that! Having bucked the conventional wisdom that he should hitch his star to Hillary's coat tails, his new-found clout seemed like a just reward. But then came his announcement that he would run for governor. It sounded like trying to catch lightning in a bottle twice. It meant that at a time when we need progressive leadership in this state, one of its leading lights would be off on a quixotic chase. But, if Davis was quick to discount Hillary, it was obvious he had Bill on his mind and it looked like Davis was going to pass the others on the right. When Obama announced that he had nominated Regina Benjamin to become the new Surgeon General about a few weeks ago more than a few of us worried. After all, why was Obama's point man playing footsie with Jeff Sessions on the new US Attorney by even considering a Washington, D.C. insider over a local? Why was it taking so long to get these people in place? Was the Benjamin announcement, we wondered, just a sop to the local yokels for what was coming? And then the shoe dropped. Vicky Davis was passed over. Now,with his most recent announcement that he opposes the health care reform bills "in their present form" Davis has really stoked this discontent. As one critic points out "Health care reform is the most critical issue of our time, besides the environment. It's frustrating living in L.A. where affecting meaningful help from our 3 Federal representatives is hopeless. But losing Davis is unbearable."

TAKE ME TO YOUR LIDER
No University of Alabama player has arguably developed more over the past three years than Javier Arenas out of Robinson High School in Tampa. Thought to be too small for the Southeastern Conference at 5-foot-9, 198 pounds, he’s now on the field more than any other player. If coaches and football officials would let him, the cornerback might consider putting up a sign in the defensive backfield.
(TUSCALOOSA NEWS)

Rx for Reform | Online NewsHour | PBS

RX FOR HEALTH COSTS
Obama has touted integrated systems as a model to reduce costs under health care reform. Doctors in Billings, Montana talk about the clinic's participation in a Medicare project to try to reduce costs and improve health outcomes through better-coordinated care for chronically ill patients.
(NEWSHOUR)

Health debate turns vile with Nazi analogy - Breaking Bioethics- msnbc.com

SHOUTING OUT THE TRUTH
There is plenty to debate about health reform. But there is nothing to debate about the contemptible introduction of references, direct or oblique, to Nazi Germany. When the right wing, in their distaste for the President's push to reform a heath care system that even the American Medical Association and the pharmaceutical industry recognize has to be fixed, suggest that the disabled will be targeted or that the elderly will be killed or find themselves without health care due to rationing by government bureaucrats as happened in Nazi Germany, they marginalize the gross evil that was the racial bigotry that fueled Nazi programs to euthanize, sterilize, experiment upon and torture people in places that were in no way connected to hospitals, clinics or nursing homes.
(MSNBC)

A search for New Orleans' best snowball -- chicagotribune.com

SEARCH'N FOR SNO BALLS N NAWLINS
I drive alongside the grassy slope of the Mississippi River levee and turn east at Magazine Street, traveling past Audubon Zoo toward downtown. It's a narrow, bumpy street shaded by giant oaks, their roots upending great chunks of sidewalk. But nobody seems to mind. This is New Orleans.
(CHICAGO TRIBUNE)

TEA-BAGGERS GONE WILD!
Federal lawmakers are returning home this week to begin their month-long recess and the far right is welcoming them with large, angry "town halls gone wild." Last week, a leaked Tea Party Patriots memo detailed how town hall goers should infiltrate meetings and harass members of Congress. The memo said activists should "stand up and shout out and sit right back down" so the representative is "made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington."

NOTE: In response to this post some of my friends have asked how that is any different from ACORN's organizing efforts. My response is that ACORN organizing around an issue is okay, just as it's okay if the TPP organizes. It's the subterfuge that's wrong. Why isn't that obvious to anyone? Since when have you seen an ACORN event where the folks are clandestinely participating and where they are doing the direct bidding of the Democratic Party but acting like it's the spontaneous "will of the people"?
(ALTERNET)

SEE ALSO:

Keep The Government Out of My Medicare!

The Nazis Are coming! The Nazis Are Coming!

GOP: Party of Extremists?

What Stinking Health Care Problems?

The Associated Press: Lou Dobbs challenges his own CNN network

CNN STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
The Lou Dobbs controversy surrounding the "birther" movement asks the simple question many have asked: "How does that pendejo keep his job?"
(AP, suggested by TV NEWSER)

Mobile, AL school system loses its mind : Starts With A Bang

TEACHING WHAT?
100 years ago, segregation of sex was commonplace in schools. Not only that, but girls took "girl classes" like home economics, while boys took "boy classes" like trigonometry. One would think that we're past that by now. But under the sex-segregation program at a Mobile school, teachers had been instructed to treat boys and girls differently. At a teacher training, teachers were informed that boys should be taught about "heroic behavior" and girls should learn "good character."
(SCIENCE BLOG, suggested by LEE ANN KONIK CAMP-WATERSS)

WHY THEY DO IT
Just like Captain Renault in Casa Blanca, the race-baiters are "shocked, I tell you, shocked" to find such animosity: Senators by the "wise latina" comment; the media by outlandish tales of intrigue about Obama's dark secret motives.(eg., the "birther" "issue")
Why they do it is no surprise; Money, Power and it's easier than dealing with the mess they made and left for him to clean up. The real issue is why anyone acts surprised. It's part of their playbook. Remember the Clinton death list? Hillary as a killer crypto-lesbian who faked Vince Foster's suicide? The bottom line is, like the old joke about the dog, is that they can. But do we have to watch?

SEE ALSO
(ALTERNET)

Report: Bush mulled sending troops into Buffalo | ajc.com

POSSE COMMITATUS REDUX
In what would have been a nearly unprecedented use of military power, the Bush administration considered sending U.S. troops into a US city to make civilian arrests. The Constitution and various laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property. Cheney and other Bush aides used a Justice Department memo as justification for their claimed broad authority.
(ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION)

Intelligent Design's Latest Sneaky Assault on Science | Belief | AlterNet

SNEAKY SCIENCE
The origins of the Intelligent Design movement can be found in the so-called Wedge Document, a founding manifesto and fundraising document for the Center for Science and Culture. It lays out a broadly ideological agenda, setting out a multi-decade plan for “the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies” and for the acceptance of “the proposition that human beings are created in the image of God.” But in presentations and public appearances CSC founder Stephen Meyer still presents himself as a scientist who is just following the evidence.
(ALTERNET)

Missouri Car Dealer Offers Free AK-47 With Purchase of New Truck | PEEK | AlterNet

WHAT, NO RACK?
Max Motors in Missouri - whose business slogan is "God, Guns, Guts, and American Pick-Up Trucks" - is offering a gift certificate for a Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle to anyone who purchases a pick-up truck.
(ALTERNET)