Good Thing Harsanyi Is An Op-Ed Columnist and Not a Journalist

If there’s one thing the Cons have demonstrated perfectly for years, it’s that one doesn’t have to think to have an opinion. One should be able to think to form a news story, but this is too often not the case in today’s media world where entertainment corrupts journalism.

Some snippets of what has become standard drivel from Harsanyi:

Dunn went on to assert that when the president “goes on Fox, he understands he is not going on it as a news network at this point. He is going on it to debate the opposition.” Who knew debating the future of the nation was such a ghastly thought?

In this opinion piece, Harsanyi asks many questions that he should have asked of the Bush “administration” (they weren’t a legitimate administration any more than Fox is a legitimate news source). What about Bush’s policy of establishing invite-only events that were funded by taxpayers? Democrats, Unaffiliateds and Cons alike paid for these events, but only people who agreed not to debate Bush were invited. Bush definitely thought debate was ghastly. Crickets from the right-wingers’ bench.

Just like every other Con whining and gnashing about the obvious unfairness of the Obama administration labeling Fox as opinion-based, Harsanyi wastes plenty of pixels (ink, too) on how anyone could possibly think that the executive branch should be able to decide who’s legitimate and who’s not. Just like every other Con, Harsanyi tries to hide his hypocrisy from public view. Where was his concern when Bush did the exact same thing to MSNBC? More crickets.

Pickens Finally Pushes His Real Plan

T. Boone Pickens, the multi-billionaire oilman who helped fund horribly immoral ads against Democratic candidates came out with the Pickens Plan last year.  After looking it over, it was easy to see he was using his wind energy plan as a front for an alternative goal.  After looking into it a little further, it became obvious that Pickens only wanted to look ‘green’ so that he could control a larger portion of the natural gas market, then sell that natural gas as part of a transportation sector makeover, so that he could make billions more.  Which he’s free to do, of course, in our messed up semi-market-based economy.  I wrote three posts on Pickens before feeling comfortable that he wasn’t likely to succeed in his ridiculous plan any time soon -

Bad Energy Plan & Hypocritical Representatives

Pope, Podesta and Pickens: Energy Policies and Climate Change

T. Boone’s Millions and the Corporate Media

Sen. Thune (R-SD) Obviously In Support Of Abortions; Blue Dogs Get Called Out

Some choice snippets from Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment last night:

We can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians.  – Sen John Thune (R-SD) , recipient of $1,206,176 from health sector in campaign contributions on 8/1/09).

Wow, Senator, this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Senator Thune, if you really think “bureaucrats and politicians” need to get out of the way of “patients and their doctors,” then you support a woman patient’s right to get an abortion. And you supported Michael Schiavo’s right to take his wife off life support. And you oppose “bureaucrats and politicians” getting in the way. And we’ll just mark you down on the pro-choice list.  That’s a rare mis-step for you, Sen. Thune. – K.O. Special Comment 8/3/09.

I’ve made this point before, so it’s nice to see someone of Olbermann’s stature reach the same logical conclusion.  If the corporate media weren’t corporate, they would report on the mental gymnastics the Cons have to play to arrive at different conclusions on similar situations.  Unfortunately, it’s left to an outstanding host of a digital cable show – thereby minimizing the potential watching audience.

And so, I’ll do my tiny part to push the video to folks who might not otherwise see it.  No matter what your worldview or political affiliation, click on that link to see K.O.’s video segment.  A number of Republicans and Democrats get absolutely and appropriately skewered for their immoral acceptance of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to ensure thousands of Americans continue to die so corporations can profit just a little bit more.

Here’s another one:

John Tanner of TN (D-08) : You’ve taken $215K from hospitals; if I and an appropriate number of my friends were to put together $216K, if we could buy his vote or would there still have to be an auction?

I’ve wondered this myself.  And yet somehow, these politicians have the audacity to act offended when you pose this question to them to their face.  They’re simply shocked someone is calling them out on their actions.  Because, as we all know, their acceptance of campaign contributions hasn’t plateaued or slowed down … ever.  So save your pathetic reaction, politicians of all stripes.  I double-d0g dare you to kill health care reform this year.  Because you’ll be out of Congress next year, I guarantee you that.

2009 CO GOP Strategy Clear: Delay & Distract

The 2009 Colorado legislative session is underway and the Colorado Cons have made their intentions and general strategy quite clear.  They will spend the 120 legislative days delaying the work of the legislature and distracting from actual problems in the lead-up to next year’s elections.  A frame is being established and Democrats need to ensure things get done despite the wasteful tactics the Cons are employing.

Example #1: State Sen. Shawn Mitchell (R-Broomfield) led an attack on regulations that were released last month by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.  He and his followers are using a false talking point in an attempt to eviscerate the regulations at the behest of the fossil fuel industry.  The talking point: any amount of regulation on industry activities will cause a devastating impact on the industry.  Instead of being manhandled by regulations, drilling corporations have consistently threatened to pull up their stakes and move to other states to do business.  This threat is simply ridiculous: would corporations willingly give up millions of dollars of profits in the face of justified regulatory activity?  Of course not.  But they keep pushing it nonetheless.

State Sen. David Balmer, not to be “out-talking pointed”, provided the following:

“By every metric I could see … the oil and gas business is declining in Colorado”

Sen. Balmer must not be looking very hard for metrics.  Oil and gas drilling operations have exploded across the state in the past 8 years, even during 2 years of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter’s term.  I have a question for Sen. Balmer: what is the state of Colorado getting out of all of this new drilling?  More crime, more pollution, more use of taxpayer-funded  infrastructure (that the oil and gas corporations are not helping to pay for, by the way) and more negative impacts on tourism (hunting and camping, among others).  Meanwhile, Colorado isn’t receiving the tax payments it’s due because of an old exemption put in place to help the oil and gas industry establish themselves in the state.  Well, they’re plenty established, but still aren’t paying their fair share.  But they’ll happilly fear-monger the populace into believing they’ll leave if the status quo changes.  As an added note, Harris Sherman is quoted in the article as identifying falling commodity prices as the primary reason the gas industry has slowed down from its record pace last year.  Maybe Sen. Balmer should spend some more time in a basic economics course before throwing around b.s. causes.

Lawmakers will be allowed to amend the proposed regulations prior to their enactment.  I hope CO Democrats will not allow the Cons to wreck the process, which has already taken years.