It will only become a crisis if people stop watching.

What? Dja mean Paul Ryan & his corporate overlords have taken the Kabuki Show to another level? Ya don’t say… /s

I mean: whatever.

The whole Janesville GM plant closure LIE has been thoroughly debunked but continues to be heavily “reported on” by the liberal media. I guess in this case, the media is indeed liberal in “reporting on” the latest alternative version of reality.

Someone last night on Cocktailhag’s post said that there is NO “peak wingnut.” I’m inclined to agree.

I think these charlatans, whores, shills, hacks, crooks & liars could easily come out on stage and yell out racist and sexist epithets at the crowd, and the crowd would go wild… and Wolf Blizter would have starbursts.

Who’s watching this cock ‘n bullshit? Not me, but I salute you, DDAy for doing the heavy lifting. Nice to have their LIES neatly categorized. We here at FDL still care about such trivial petty matters as truth. Sadly, the vast majority of USA citizens could give a shit.

After all, wasn’t Bishop Willard partying down on some Cayman Islands Pirate booty boat in Cracker Bay last night???? I think that’s where it’s at… or, at least, that’s where MY tax dollars are at.

I marked at least seven or eight points I’m sure the fact checkers will have some opportunities to dispute if they want to go forward,

Wolfie has decided facts are disputable. But the fact checkers may or may not go forward. What does that mean?

There will be issues with some of the facts.

You cannot make this up. Wait! that is what they are doing, catapulting delusions.

Americans love lying corrupt politicians, and would never vote for someone who is actually honest with them. So in fact this article makes me think that Romney and Ryan are more likely to win now, because while Obama is trying to be all subtle with his lying, Ryan and co. have no problem giving the American people exactly what they want by being blatant about it.

The speech just encapsulated for me the utter ridiculousness of this idiot of a President spending his first 2 years reaching out to these people for solutions, sacrificing any chance of actual change on the altar of bipartisanship. Then because of those first 2 years, spending the next 2 years in gridlock with these people where he couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to. Not that I think he wants to anyways – handing health care to Max Baucus to fix made that pretty clear.

All I can say is thank God Obama ensured that Republicans would not criticize him for being anti-business by choosing people like Jeff “Mr. China” Immelt on his jobs council. Yeah, that strategy worked out well.

Any House Republican or Senate Republican up for re-election in 2014 must secretly, in their heart of hearts, want Obama re-elected. Because without him, they will have to assume ownership and responsibility for the Republican policies that are passed.

Send a Tweet to Erin Burnett’s hometown media and let them know how you feel. at MyDelmarvaNow

“The Top 15 Things Obama and Romney Agree On” http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/closer-you-think-top-15-things-romney-and-obama-agree

“…15

Although unemployment is the highest it’s been since the Great Depression, the federal government should NOT enact any sort of WPA-style program to put millions of people back to work. Under Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, Depression-era unemployment was tackled head on by direct federal hiring to dig subways, build roads, schools, parks, sewers, recreational facilities and public buildings. Oblivious of this history, Democrat Barack Obama maintains that only the private sector can or should create jobs.

14

Medicare, Medicaid and social security are “entitlements” that need to be cut to relieve what they call “the deficit.” Republicans have been on record for this since forever, though they claim not to want to mess with the Medicare people already over 65 are getting. One of the first acts of the Obama presidency was to appoint a bipartisan panel stacked with “deficit hawks” like Republican Allan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles to recommend raising retirement ages and cutting back Medicaid, Medicare and social security, and pass a law directing Congress to have an up or down no-amendments vote on its recommendations. Fortunately the “cat food commission”, as it was called, was deadlocked and offered none. But Obama and top Democrats, most recently House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi continue to express their readiness for some kind of “grand compromise” with Republicans on this issue.

13

Climate change treaties and negotiations that might lead to them should be avoided at all costs. The differences between them are only style. Democrats admit that climate change exists and is man-made, Republicans say it’s a myth. But both ignored the Kyoto protocol and Obama like Bush before him, has worked tirelessly to delay, derail and boycott any actual talks that might lead to constructive international climate change agreements.

12

NAFTA was such a great thing it really should be extended to Central and South America and the entire Pacific rim. Again, there are differences in style. On the 2008 campaign trail, Obama sometimes mumbled about renegotiating parts of NAFTA, and such. But even before the primaries were done, press reports had him assuring the Canadian government this was only campaign rhetoric, raw meat for the rubes. In four years he has pushed NAFTA-like “free trade” corporate rights agreements with South Korea, most of Central America and is now secretly hammering out something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

11

Banksters and Wall Street speculators deserve their bailouts and protection from criminal liability, but underwater and foreclosed homeowners deserve nothing. Well, maybe not exactly nothing. Republicans think underwater homeowners deserve blame for forcing banksters to offer millions of fraudulent high-interest loans were then re-sold to investors around the world. Democrats think underwater homeowners deserve empty promises of help that never quite arrives for most of the foreclosed, the about-to-be foreclosed, their families and communities. But both agree on free money for banksters and speculators but no moratorium on foreclosures and no criminal investigations of mortgage and securities fraud.

10

Palestinians should be occupied, dispossessed and ignored. Iran should be starved and threatened from all sides. Cuba should be embargoed, and Americans prohibited from going there to see what its people have done in a half century free of Yankee rule. Black and brown babies and their parents, relatives and neighbors should be bombed with drones in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and similar places. The politicians and corporate commentators have a misleading name for this. They call it “foreign policy.” The realistic term for it is global empire.

9

Africa should be militarized, destabilized, plundered and where necessary, invaded by proxy armies like those of Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi or Kenya, or directly by Western air and ground forces, as in Libya. President Georgia Bush announced the formation of AFRICOM, the US military command for the continent which has officially swallowed all US civilian diplomatic presence. But only a black US president, even under the cover of “humanitarian war” could have invaded an African nation and openly dispatched special forces to Central Africa.

8

US Presidents can kidnap citizens of their own or any nation on earth from anyplace on the planet for torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial or murder them and neighboring family and bystanders at will. To be perfectly fair, there are distinctions between Republicans and Democrats here that don’t amount to differences. Republicans Cheney and Bush got their lawyers to say these things were OK and did them. Democrat Obama got Congress to enact “laws” giving these acts a veneer of fake legality, something a Republican probably could not have done.

7

Oil and energy companies, and other mega-polluters must be freed to drill offshore almost everywhere, and permitted to poison land and watersheds with fracking to achieve “energy independence”. The Republicans say “drill baby drill” but it seems only Democrats can chill out enough supposed “environmentalists” to make this happen. Obama campaigned on restricting offshore drilling four years ago, and reversed himself just before the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The White House cooperated with BP in lying to the public about the extent of the disaster and has shielded BO from paying anything like the value of actual damages incurred to livelihoods, human lives and the environment.

6

The FCC should not and must not regulate telecoms to ensure that poor and rural communities have access to internet, or to guarantee network neutrality. Republicans have always been in favor of digital redlining, against network neutrality. Barack Obama claimed on the campaign trail he’d take a back seat to nobody in guaranteeing network neutrality. But he appointed as FCC chair a man who helped write the infamous Telecommunications Act of 1995, which gave away the government-built internet backbone to a handful of immensely powerful telecoms like AT&T and Comcast, and flatly reversed himself on network neutrality. The Department of Justice was forced to stop the ATT-T-Mobile merger by a storm of public outrage, but approved the Comcast-NBC deal.

5

Of course there really ARE such things as “clean coal” and “safe nuclear energy”. Again these are things Republicans have always pretended to believe. At the 2008 Democratic convention Democrat Barack Obama joined them, declaring he intended to be the president of “clean coal and safe nuclear energy.” Obama is building a wave of 33 nuclear plants across the country, the first two in mostly black and poor communities of Georgia and South Carolina where leaky existing nukes are causing cancer epidemics. The people know these things are myths. But Republican and Democratic candidates for office, all the way down to state and county officials seem not to.

4

Immigrants must be jailed and deported in record numbers. To be really fair, one should note that on this issue Republicans talk a mean game about sending them all back and jailing tens or hundreds of thousands along the way. But only President Obama has walked the walk, deporting over a million immigrants in his term in office, often with little or no due process and after housing many for months in atrocious privatized immigration prisons.

3

No Medicare For All. Forget about it eliminating the Medicare age requirement so that all Americans would qualify.. Republicans never wanted Medicare even for seniors, let alone everybody. Six or seven years ago Illinois State Senator Obama was telling audiences that if they elected Democrats to Congress, the Senate and the White House, they’d get single payer health care. But once in office he excluded Medicare for All from the proposals on the table, and enacted a national version of Massachusetts RomneyCare, requiring everybody to purchase private health insurance or be penalized.

2

No minimum wage increases for you, no right to form a union, no right to negotiate or strike if you already have a union, and no enforcement or reform of existing labor laws. Again, Republicans have always opposed minimum wage laws. Obama promised to boost the minimum wage his first two years in office, while he still had majorities in the House and Senate. But he didn’t do this, or pass legislation beefing up the right to organize unions, which has been eroded under Democrat and Republican administrations alike.

1

The 40 year war on drugs must continue, and even mention of the prison state is unthinkable. There are 2.3 million people in US prisons and jails today, a per capita total that beats the world. Politicians of both parties wag their fingers in multiple directions. But as Michelle Alexander points out, if the US prison population were rolled back to say, only 1 million, the level it was about 1980, this would mean one million jobs, as contractors, sheriffs, cops, bailiffs, judges and functionaries of all kinds would have to go out and find real jobs.

The rabbit hole goes still deeper. We didn’t have to stop at these fifteen points of Democrat-Republican agreement, but you get the idea. Just as in Frederick Douglass’s day, the more Democrats and Republicans agree, the worse it is for the rest of us.”

Eh? Obama’s only been engaging in Kabuki Show all along. The whole tap dance around bipartisanship was just a ruse to let the bastards rip off the 99% as much as possible. I don’t think Obama was ever seriously “reaching out” to the vultures in the GOP. Just gave ALL of ‘em cover for continuing to run the USA into the ground, grind under the 99%, and extract as much as possible from the tax payers for their own personal gains and enrichment. JMHO, of course.

As fucked up as the political system is people theoretically have an opportunity to “vote” out a candidate. How do you get rid of corrupt and complicit corporate media spokesmodels?

Sure seems that way, doesn’t it?

Several other posts have commented on the fact that RMoney & RZombie certainly don’t seem to be making much of a effort to hide their vulture-like rapacious natures, and they certainly aren’t making an effort to be subtle, as you say, in their lies.

Frankly, I think Fake & Limbaugh have done their job in this regard. The bigger the LIE, the more the dittoheads love, Love, LOVE it. No amount of facts will dissuade them, either. So, RMoney & RZombie might as well go for the whole enchilada at this point. Certainly seems like what they’re doing.

The more I think about the more I think it’s best for the Republicans to win it all.

House, Senate, Presidency.

That way, their very stupid people who vote for them and support them will know full well who slit their throats.

Then, at least one of the two corrupt parties will be over.

The “media” is all owned and run by the 1%, so good luck. However, Glenn Beck got kicked off the front stage from boycotts, and Rush got a bit of a spanking, too, over his Sandra Fluke nasty sexist bullshit. As far as I can see, that’s about it, though.

Speaking for myself, I mostly AVOID all TV “nooz.” Cannot stand any of ‘em. They’re all lying shills. Get my news from other sources, which is what I’d advise anyone to do these days. My stomach churns when someone tells me how “great” CNN is. Uh, that would be: NO.

Yeah. Whatever. I’m at the point where it doesn’t seem to matter. Aren’t the so-called “Republicans” running everything anyway????? I simply don’t see the difference.

i call that speech two nites ago ann rmoney’s sister wife speech.
she talked about her life with mitt and how he was such a wonderful man amd provider; how she trusted her future to him and he came through bigtime, earning all those bucks and caring for her and the boys, and invited the women of the world — “i love you women” — to trust him, too, and join her as sister wives.

she didnt use the words, but that is exactly the pitch and it was easy for her. it was something she seemed to know about. join us and trust mitt. he will make you happy, too.

We live in a time when the media literally thinks it’s a separate job to separate true from false in reporting on national political figures. They think their main job is theater criticism.

CNN, We Let Others Check the Facts

Blitzer: What, we’re supposed to check the facts?

We might as well get something out of it. The end of the R party would be a good start.

Low information voters don’t need facts. They need sound-bites.

Facts? We don’t need no stinkin’ facts.

I agree with your last point, but I think you’re being way to generous with your second. Its important for the knuckle draggers to always feel like victims, given the obvious disaster their preferred policies would bring they would once again turn to belief instead of fact. Remember their overwhelming support for Dubya, when he started to fail miserably the standard response was that he wasn’t a true conservative. What the idiot class wants is reinforcement of belief. A large part of Ronny Raygunz success is that he always stuck with his beliefs in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to the morons it showed he stood for something and was a man of conviction.

Ryan says that he’ll be Mitt’s running mate because he accepts ‘calling of my generation’

Didn’t Obama accept the calling of the same generation when he ran for president and was elected 4 years ago?

Well, they won’t be able to run from that this time.

The tea bags embrace Ryan. He is theirs. It will be harder to claim the RR duo aren’t what they voted for.

In 21st century America, everyone with a big enough bankroll and a stupid enough audience can buy their own facts.

Anyone who claims to be both an Objectivist and devout Catholic is either intellectually dishonest or brimming with cognitive dissonance; prone to implement worst elements of both. Somehow I suspect he is just Randian enough to fabulously wealthy and catholic enough to be a staunch authoritarian. Welcome to post-fact America, indeed.

And this time they are going to succeed where Bush failed.

They will play it smart. No drastic cuts for people on SS/Medicare right now but slash for younger people.

The damage will be done before people see the blood flowing out of their slashed throats.

The big lie is the biggest threat to American democracy and what’s left of our dwindling stock of civil liberties we still possess. We saw how it worked with the Iraq War and it has now mestastasized into domestic politics. It won’t take much more for OWS and like-minded people to be categorized as traitors. The last line of defence is the courts, and we don’t knoe how long that will hold.

Think again.

Anyone who claims to be both an Objectivist and devout Catholic is either intellectually dishonest or brimming with cognitive dissonance.

Any House Republican or Senate Republican up for re-election in 2014 must secretly, in their heart of hearts, want Obama re-elected.

Only once in the last 190 years has the party in the White House gained seats in Congress in the sixth year of his presidency. That was in 1998, when the Republicans nationalized the election by starting impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

Ann RMoney led the “good life” bc her husband is a conniving thief, crook & liar. Nice for her; sucks for the families of all the workers who lost jobs when RMoney leveraged companies, bankrupted them, took the money and ran. Ann got to live high on the hog with her dancing ponies at the expense of many in the 99%.

No doubt, though, that your “sister-wife” analogy is apt. I saw a couple min of her “speech,” where she was shrieking about how faaaaaabulous Willard was. Duly noted her Nancy Reagan red couture ensemble and bottle blonde ‘do… and had to flip the switch to another channel. NO thanks.

Low information voters don’t need facts, just beer, a butt and commercials to pollute the mind, then vote.

“Even though this speech contained enough demonstrable lies to make Paul Ryan the second coming of Al Gore”

Mr. Dayen, would you care to provide an explanation/apology for what I’m assuming to be an incredibly misguided attempt at humor? When has Al Gore spread falsehoods on Mr. Ryan’s level, if at all? This Bush campaign talking point has been thoroughly debunked, why are you repeating it now? Why attack a leading progressive voice in a piece about Ryan’s lying?

I have found your reporting, especially on finance and the economy, to be very useful in the past. Please say something about this so I don’t need to read your work with too skeptical an eye.

Thank you.

I think DDay was talking to the GOP mantra about Al Gore inventing the internet.

Or maybe he was talking about the fact that three different Al Gores showed up to the three debates in 2000.

It’s hard to say…

As usual, you are able to “zero in” on the true crux of the problem. I have a solution but it’s illegal in a large number of states. Except Tennessee, I think.

Well, it’s indisputable that the past 4 years have been very much like the previous 4 years. IO did noticet hat Obama does not chokle on Doritos during the Super Bowl. I will readily admit that I am unsure whether he does not eat Doritos or if he does not watch the Super Bowl.

Yeah, Al Gore mentioned that he sponsored legislation that first funded the internet, which was true, Republicans spun that as him saying he invented it, our side swallows it uncritically. There have been plenty of post-mortems on how the Bush campaign fed all this to the press to create a false narrative, someone should look it up for Mr. Dayen.

Wouldn’t want to have him start believing that global warming is a hoax, ya know?

What such a consistent deluge of lies indicates is that these Republican folks are not conservatives. They are Fascists. What is conservative about such thoroughly post-modern rhetoric? What is conservative about dismissing facts in exchange for motivating the faithful into a frenzy of hyper-patriotic, hyper-family, spectacle-driven, emotional ecstasy? Remember, these folks insist that they MAKE history while the rest of the regular conservatives and liberals are consigned to merely record it in their wake.

And, likely buy themselves a seat in the US House. If they have a really big banroll, perhaps the senate. And if they have friends with a really big bankroll too…….I think you know where I’m going with this.

The really shrewd politicians, like Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, choose politically prominent parents, making it easier to get elected without piles of cash.

I think yo8u are absolutely correct and Mr. Ryan is a superb example of both.

Then, of course, he could just be a world class asshole.

Doritos. You forgot Doritos.

I have no “faith” in organized religion. The Catholic Church protects pedophile priests and who know what else? Oh yes money!

I have no “faith” in US Congress, which has protected slavery, segregation and still protects economic discrimination against woman.

I have faith in one thing. My ability to discern between “cow dung,” coming from the mouth’s of bullshit artists pontificating from a pile of pigeon excrement, and facts the political elites and corporate whores don’t want addressed. It just might result in a storming of the Bastille, American style.

http://www.onthisdeity.com/14th-july-1789-–-the-storming-of-the-bastille/

The present-day Catholic Church is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Opus Dei. Its only qualification for membership is following its teachings on sexuality to the letter. Everything else (e.g., opposition to war and poverty) is optional.

yeah, I was talking about the perception of Gore in the media, and it was clumsy and lacking in context. Sorry.

Thanks. I note you’ve got another story up already, appreciate your taking the time to circle back and reply.

“For all the ink spilled on the lies in the Ryan speech, I’m sure there will be just as many debunking the debunkers, from partisan media and the partisans at more traditional media outlets on the other side. Then it becomes a food fight . . .”

This is how citizens are kept confused and anxious with nothing “solid” left to hold on to but The Leader and their manufactured group identity. The flickering TeeVee images of the representatives of the owning class appear to be delivering competing messages, but the larger, intended effect is the same.

“It’s a convention and a political campaign, in many respects, based on demonstrable lies.”

And how exactly is this at all different from the convention and political campaign of “Hope and Change”?

Your comments are always very poignant. I agree, the 99% are awakening, albeit slowly, to the destruction of the country it took is over 200 years to build. I think it would be wise to invest in three-cornered hats and knee-breeches.

That was incredibly big and honest of you. I’m not saying I keep score, but that the first thing you’ve ever written that I disagreed with.

All right, now, back to the revolution and the tar and feathering or Paul Ryan. Figuratively, for the moment.

“A crisis for the media”?!

Who owns the media, you and I? Is there job to work for us?

We, the audience, are the media’s product that it sells to advertisers. As long as we watch, what possible crisis could there ever be?

I read DDay’s piece too and he wasn’t speaking to any repug mantra, he was retelling the same old nonsense about Al Gore lying which even the progressives accepted as true because it was in the nyt and wapo.

As far as who showed up at the 2000 debates, the same Al Gore showed up. I watched them. I saw w wired up with a transmitter on his back under his coat and I heard the voice on the transmitter and I saw him respond to the transmitter with a totally non sequitur comment. w did not have that for the next debate. Don’t get into Al Gore groaning loudly at w’s nonsense quotes; he groaned, but quietly; the volume on Gore was turned up for the tv audience, not those there.

You may want to continue to disparage Al Gore, but then you will be as unfair as the repugs if you do not choose the real problems to complain about.

Real Patriots…. Not fascist scum wrapped in flag with bible in hand. They make me want to vomit!!!!!

David, I was still writing when you were “mea culpaing,” so good for you.

“What such a consistent deluge of lies indicates is that these Republican folks are not conservatives. They are Fascists.”

10-4 there big buddy! Nice to see you say it!!!

I think David was talking about the false narrative, i.e. the “truth” as Republicans know it. In the greater scheme of things, this isn’t more than a minor point that you’re making. I don’t you’re justified in calling his insight and/or integrity into question.

I wasn’t trying to disparage Al Gore. He would have made a fine president had he not shown up to three debates as three different Al Gores and had he not run against the Clinton administration during his 2000 campaign.

I have more faith in the wisdom of an 88 year old woman from Princeton, Massachusetts whose husband fought in the “Battle of the Bulge,” than I do all the politicians in America. I fell off the stool when she said Mitt and Ryan, reminded her of fascists.

In a million years I never would have expected that statement from such a frail, yet sharp as a tact elder.

She would know what a fascist is for sure. Her husband, like many of our fellow Americans, and family members either killed them or died trying to kill fascists….

No Silent American here.

I don’t want to sound like a tin foil hat, but it seems to me that none of it matters. Obama is just a foil. Romney is a test, to see if Americans are so stupid they will vote for a corporate raider, after he and his ilk nearly destroyed the world economy.
I’m convinced that those who are calling the shots are laughing up their sleeves, secure in the knowledge that the entire process is an enormous reality show. Our votes mean absolutely nothing.

Again, I raise the point of what three Al Gores are you referring to? I saw all three debates and he was pretty consistent. As I pointed out, bush had the problem of the transmitter, so he was different.

The 2012 Republican platform states:

The environment is getting cleaner and healthier. The nation’s air and waterways, as a whole, are much healthier than they were just a few decades ago. Efforts to reduce pollution, encourage recycling, educate the public, and avoid ecological degradation have been a success.

(The Right Is Wrong – 3). Anyone know what planet they are talking about?

Incidentally, to everyone, if I don’t circle back, it means I’m probably too busy working on something else. :)

You don’t need a tin foil hat; our votes mean very little, and, as JamesJoyce said, they are all fascists, therefore, by definition, corporatists.

Sorry, the Al Gore comment just stood out like a sore thumb in an otherwise great piece (as usual for David). Appreciate his response. Now I see he’s already got a half-dozen stories out on a range of topics, all valuable reading. And on a Commodore 64! Anybody know where I can buy one?

I watched the debates, too. I saw a person who showed up with three very different temperaments and dispositions. Mostly, I remember being a strong Al Gore supporter who was very frustrated by his childish efforts to use childish tactics to beat someone he otherwise could have wiped the floor with.

Bottom line: Bush should have never come close to winning. It was Al Gore’s election to lose. His campaign sucked. He lost. We paid for it.

Oops, I see Coach Bill got here first. Apologies.

Yup…. Paying cable bills to be brainwashed??

Dumber than dumb dirt!

Dredd…. Smoking does not cause lung cancer, heart disease, stroke or throat cancer. Did you not get the message??? Oh wait that has all been debunked by empirical data and the scientific method? Sorry I forgot this is 2012 and not 1963!

Well, there is no joy in saying it. But what other political system fits? They suck corporate cock, promulgate perpetual war against an irrevocably Evil Other, intensely push xenophobic flag and family fervor at home, and maintain an Executive and military/police apparatus that both is and at the same time exists above the law. What else can we call these people, constitutional monarchists?

And the above goes for Dems every bit as much as it applies to the Reps–two sides of the same coin.

BTW, good comments over on O’Connell’s post the other day.

Folks talk a lot about making changes for the better for their own lives or for the nation. It seems to me that in order to do that the first place to start is to shut off the TV. Once this is done, we can then stop being afraid, stop over-consuming and stop having other’s ideas replace our own. As long as a critical mass of citizens keeps the TV on (nearly every waking hour that they are at home, on average), Fascism, permanent war and the US Empire aren’t going anywhere until the system runs out of power and money. TV is the control mechanism that keeps the citizenry obedient and passive.

Nice work from a good site. Thanks.

I take no joy in this either… I has to be said.

Didn’t the Corleones eat dinner together most nights and he provided a safe future for her too ?

Your comment made me think of this article and David Swanson’s wonderful work:
http://my.firedoglake.com/davidswanson/2012/08/29/obamobedience/

I have often thought Dayen is an Obama operative. In any case, a neoliberal. Dayen’s job seems to be to get Obama, the Trojan Horse, re-elected. Dayen sometimes creates the impression he is saying anti-Obama things, but it seems his writings surreptitiously support Obama at a deep level. He is very productive, so is Dayen paid? Sometimes, a string of headlines or topics coming from Dayen seems to be like Obama press releases. And he seems to repeat important Obama talking points, but he hides it with lengthy comments..That is my impression..

Good call, peterboy!

Indeed. But to be fair, CNN is not a news network and Blitzer is not a reporter. :)

Well said, thanks for the link. The two wings of the corporate party have some cosmetic differences but as your list points out they have way too much in common. I have railed against the lack of choice offered by the “two party” system. As you point out, it could be because the “two party” system is really only one party….and we’re not invited.

What media?

We have only propagandists.

“Obama is just a foil. Romney is a test, to see if Americans are so stupid they will vote for a corporate raider, after he and his ilk nearly destroyed the world economy.”

Quite possibly. And looked at from that perspective, a helluva ballsy joke.

“I’m convinced that those who are calling the shots are laughing up their sleeves, secure in the knowledge that the entire process is an enormous reality show. Our votes mean absolutely nothing.”

Nope. They never have. The system was set up from the start to ensure that something as important as the Presidency was never in the hands of the great mass of citizens. And now we have the TV, which tells most citizens who to vote for. It is, as you say, just a reality show: A big, spectacular, religious ritual. And ironically, voting for the President is one of the least important things a citizen can do in a democracy.

I imagine the face of the owning class looks like this when it comes to voting: Do you remember the calm, smug, satisfied look on George W’s face on election day in 2000 well BEFORE decisive results were in?

If you are like me and old enough to remember when there were only four “free” channels on anybody’s TV set, the idea that folks would pay–what, $50 to $150 a month–to watch the same old commercial and propaganda shit is stunning. Same old stuff but now multiplied by 100 and it costs you directly. Like paying someone to follow you around everyday and tell you what to think, how to act and what to buy.

We’re presented with the choice between the stealth corporatist and the blatant corporatist. Too bad the choice of “None of the Above” doesn’t exist and that the dumbing-down of the US has been so successful.

Not to excuse Romney for being a POS, but the tactics he utilized to enrich himself by exploiting others was institutionalized by both Republican and Democratic administrations, with a majority of the economically damaging legislation being enacted during the reign of Bill Clinton.

I have to disagree. His work on finance seems to call it straight, which is definitely not pro-Obama.

Got that right ottogrendal. As Kierkegaard predicted, “…conditioned by men in little black boxes.”

Now we have essentially playboy models to hang out tongues out at as we pay to be BRAINWASHED?

Dumber than dead dirt. Gotta love Tel Com act 96. Cable TV a subscription service, for which you are charged a month in advance, to now be brainwashed. FUCKING RETARDED AMERICA!!!!!!

What media?
We have only propagandists.

What media?

We have only “fascsit” propagandist.

Fixed….