Morning Maddow: January 16

As Bush would say "how uniquely American" or as the present class clowns in the gop would say--get to work knave

1 vote

#5.1 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:02 PM EST

Deb-3596991

I am really confused here on what big government is. Our Democracy of “We the People” chose what we want and it is found a government is wanted that protects the freedoms and rights of all people. The people want Social Security, Medicare and Medicad, since that is something that helps all people. Just as the EPA, Department of Energy, the Justice department and many other departments do. But now we have the Republicans and the 1% who doesn’t want any of these departments and if these departments would be removed, our very safety, health and rights would be gone. The Republicans and the 1% give a fancy talk saying “Oh we are here to protect your rights and freedoms, cause we care about you so you can eat a cheeseburger if you want to and carry a gun at the same time”. But seriously now where are they helping us, except as being self serving to themselves. They don’t want any pollution controls, so you can have a nice contaminated water supply and food source. They want you to pay higher taxes so they can have big tax advantages, cause they claim they are the job creators which is false. They don’t want you to have your freedom of speech and want to control what is being said. They want your rights removed so they can nicely put you away in some cell somewhere or dead in some field somewhere. They want to get rid of Social Security, Medicare and Medicad so you can fend for yourself, cause they claim that is the American way. Social Security would be privatized so people can give their money more directly to the 1%. They will get rid of unions, cause big business knows what to pay you and what benefits to give you and why would anyone want to negotiate for fair pay, safety and benefits. Thinking about this yes I see it now, the Republican and 1% way is big government with no freedoms or rights to anyone, except for those at the top. And we the people know better than to listen to some corrupt corporate mafia.

2 votes

#6 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:04 AM EST

Yes sir gather around santorum and watch as Americans opposed to a theocracy become energized against you.

1 vote

#7 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:10 AM EST

oldswede-3640067

There is more to the Santorum problem than his theocracy. There was a nice photo earlier today on the McClatchy web of Rick and Ralph Reed standing close and smiling face to face. It was at the Faith and Freedom's Coalition breakfast yesterday. Reed is one wheeler dealer who should have gone to jail. Rick hangs with others too.

Seems that Rick has a long history with congressional corruption, being a player in Tom DeLay's K Street project, along with other luminaries like Gingrich, Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist. A little google will get you much.

oldswede

#8 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 11:12 AM EST

There is more to the stuff I scrape off the bottom of my shoe also.However I don't care if it makes decent fertilizer at the time I am scraping.

1 vote

#8.1 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:10 PM EST

John-2416054

With Huntsman out, my choices in the primary are Romney, Paul, Gingrich, and Santorum...really? The animal abuser, racist, narcissist or theocrat?

Maybe I'll skip the primary and just vote in the general.

1 vote

#9 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 11:58 AM EST

Every progressive should cross over to the Republican primaries and vote for Santorum. He won't make it as a presidential candidate. His statements are so radical that he will find little support outside the Bible Belt states. If he is the nominee then Republicans will lose the elections by big margins in a lot of states because Santorum will drag the whole party down. The benefits to all of this is that Obama and the Dems win big. A secondary benefit is that the radical right loses the referendum on their agenda for social and economic issues. Reagan's coalition falls apart. Republicans will be forced to change or split the party into two factions and that would make them a semi-permanent minority.

1 vote

#10 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 12:31 PM EST

skip hoffman

You make it sound like a football team that needs another team to lose in the last week of the regular season to "back" into the playoffs. Are you basically saying that President Obama and the Democratic legislators can't win outright without this type of "stuffing" the primary ballots?

Not a real vote of confidence in the current administration.

#10.1 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 12:44 PM EST

Dirty tricks were invented by the Republicans and have been going on since Nixon when he ran for Congress in California. I am advocating that Dems do to Republicans what they have done to Dems. Do Republicans think the next Republican president and Senate are going to be immune from the same conduct they have used in Obama's term? The Republicans opened the door and now they will not be able to shut it.

1 vote

#10.2 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:25 PM EST

skip hoffman

So the Democrats have always been squeaky clean? From your logo, I assume you are from the Chicago area (as am I). Now there is a squeaky clean Democratic town :-).

#10.3 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:35 PM EST

Give me a break. Elections in Chicago are a lot cleaner than the rest of the state. There is very little competition for offices and there are no Republicans, except one alderman, in the city. The only contested offices are county and Republicans are still outnumbered.

1 vote

#10.4 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:57 PM EST

JohnMesserly

Regarding the SOPA kerfuffle on UP yesterday between NBC/Universal's legal VP Richard Cotton and the rest of the world:

Contrary to Universal's legal department's assertions that SOPA only affects foreign companies, this article details 3 ways that US companies are affected by SOPA.

The pointer to the article was tweeted by @WLLegal - Trevor Timm, a legal analyst of Electronic Freedom Foundation. Personally, I thought that Universal need to fire their media consultants- tactically Cotton made a disastrous presentation of their position. I have seen VPs fired for less. My commentary on the Up site, but it is typically long winded, sorry. I hope no one kicks Hayes around over it, he did a good journalistic job.

1 vote

#11 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 12:47 PM EST

The VP Cotton is trying to sell people BS and he knows it. Companies who are supporting SOPA want this bill because they would have unfettered rights with takedown notices. Unfortunately, Cotton did not advise people that all file sharing sites are located in countries and domains that will not cooperate. The only these sites can be stopped is through blocking like other countries like China. And even those measures can be circumvented with proxies. Pirate Bay has done that because of the Dutch blocking the site. We should be worried about SOPA because it is using an elephant gun to kill a fly. The music industry is moving toward digital downloads so piracy is not as big a problem. The MPAA, the software industry and others are mad about the SCOTUS decision about class actions which screwed up their lawsuits suing individuals for file sharing that they were forced to abandon. SOPA is better because they don't need a court involved, just a takedown demand on any copyrighted material. There are legitimate fair uses for copyright material which SOPA cannot protect. Sites can be blocked or taken down without any independent procedures to insure the block or takedown is proper.

1 vote

#11.1 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 4:14 PM EST

Off topic, maybe, but then again...

I want to recommend a book: Jack London's 1907 novel, The Iron Heel. The plot is not intricate, and the characterization a bit 2D. It's a bit like what Ayn Rand might had written if she had been a socialist. But some of the scenes are quite powerful, and the quotes from American figures of the 1900s are startlingly apropos to discussions today. For example:

Of the total number of persons engaged in occupations in the United States, only nine-tenths of one per cent are from the Plutocracy, yet the Plutocracy owns seventy per cent of the total wealth.

So it was the 1 percent in the 1900s too, based on figures from the Census of 1900. Of course, they had Teddy Roosevelt then, and he was willing to say things like:

We all know that, as things actually are, many of the most influential and most highly remunerated members of the Bar in every center of wealth, make it their special task to work out bold and ingenious schemes by which their wealthy clients, individual or corporate, can evade the laws which were made to regulate, in the interests of the public, the uses of great wealth.

That from his address to the 1905 Commencement at Harvard.

One other thing that struck me: a footnote, ostensibly by a future historian talking about the 1900s, but remarkably fitted to today's discourse.

The people of that age were phrase slaves. The abjectness of the servitude is incomprehensible to us. There was a magic in words greater than the conjurer's art. So befuddled and chaotic were their minds that hte utterance of a single word could negative the generalizations of a lifetime of serious research and though. Vast populations grew frenzied over such phrases as 'an honest dollar' and 'a full dinner pail.' The coinage of such phrases was considered strokes of genius.

Might want to send that one to Frank Luntz.

1 vote

#12 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:12 PM EST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/13/new-york-times-public-editor?INTCMP=SRCH

I'd like to hear more about the recent kerfuffle with the New York Times' Public Editor:

#13 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:44 PM EST

http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/12/the-republicans-cow-pie-bingo

I would state the obvious, Obama can't lose, but then it was obvious Bush lost.

#14 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:04 PM EST

Lee J Rickard

Interesting characterization of the Republican situation as 'the anti-Lake Wobegon', "where all the candidates are below average."

My favorite comment: "No one ever left a Gingrich encounter wanting to hear more."

1 vote

#15 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:12 PM EST

Deb-3596991

Now this has got to be the biggest proof yet on how the Republicans are manipulating and hypocritical, when President Obama says that the soldiers who were peeing on dead combatants would be punished. Right away the Republicans ran to say the opposite in which they have proven that they don’t care about our soldiers in the military. So what is it Republicans do you support our military or not? Or is it when these soldiers only suit your corrupt needs? These Republicans are nothing but con and scam artists and keep handing out a load of crap to the American people just so they can serve their rich dark masters. What a pack of scum and wolves in sheep clothes.

1 vote

#16 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:23 PM EST

http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2012/01/pdf/krueger.pdf

If you haven't seen it yet, here's a fascinating speech by Alan Krueger, the Charman of the Council of Economic Advisers, on the causes and consequences of income inequality (income dispersion, as he calls it) in the United States.

1 vote

#17 - Mon Jan 16, 2012 4:09 PM EST