Day: October 10, 2009

FOX Pundit Goes Rogue

First, I like to give due to people I think have “Cajones Of Steel”, those people that may go off  message or who jump up and do what I think ios the right thing.

This time it is FOX News pundit Shep Smith….recently in an interview with Dr. and Senator Barrasso of Wyoming:  Thanks to thinkprogress.org—-

“Why would we not want a public option?” Shep Smith asked Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), kicking off a tense and lively exchange this afternoon on Fox News. When Barrasso quickly launched into his Frank Luntz-inspired GOP talking points, calling it a “government take-over of health care,” Smith — who’s been known to go off the Fox News reservation from time to time — pushed back:

SMITH: It’s not a government take over, Senator! That’s not fair and we both know it. It’s not a government takeover because what it would be is a government option if you have insurance now and you like it you can keep it. … That’s not a government take over if we’re being fair is it Senator?

Barrasso struggled to muster a response. “Well compare it to Medicare, which we know right now is going bankrupt,” he said. Later, Smith engaged in fierce advocacy in favor of the public option:

SMITH: As the costs have gone up, the insurance industry’s profits on average have gone up more than 350 percent and it’s the insurance companies which have paid and have contributed to Senators and congressman on both sides of the aisle to the point where now, we can’t get…what more than 60 percent of Americans say they support, is a public option. This has been an enormous win for the health care industry. That is an unquestioned fact. […]

[E]very vote against a public option is a vote for the insurance companies, sir. It is!

Again, Barrasso replied with trite talking points. “We’re not even allowing the people of America to read the bill,” he said, later adding that “Washington is incapable” of running health care. “I want to be clear,” Smith told Barrasso, “this wouldn’t be Washington running the system, Senator. It would be a government run plan paid for by the people who sign up for the plan.”

That is a big OOPS!  Smith went off the reservation of FOX by calling the senator out on the crap about the government take over of health care.  This is not the first time Smith has left the fold….my question is…how much will FOX tolerate before he is bounced?  God forbid one of their pundits actually hold politicians accountable for their words…FOX does not…..

Mississippians Lose!

A Gulf South Free Press Opinion

The following post are for my friends in Mississippi….granted they do not have much to celebrate but they need to know what the morons they voted for are doing on the taxpayer’s dime.  I thought I would take a day out and report on their plight.

I saw this report on projo.com and thought I would pass it on to Mississippians for they probably did not get too much of this in their local rags that is best used to wrap fish in.

At least 14 Republican governors have recently issued, or will soon issue, similar letters urging their representatives in Congress to reject health-care overhauls that may create millions of dollars in new costs for state governments.

The Republican governors’ collective lobbying effort was reported Tuesday by the Washington-based publication The Hill, which described the move as a “coordinated attack on Sen. Max Baucus’ health-care reform legislation.”

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the association chairman, issued a letter to Mississippi’s congressional delegation on Sept. 8, “and did share it with his Republican governor colleagues,” according to Kempe. “It was sent through the RGA policy person to our policy team, back in early September, via e-mail.”

Gov. Barbour?  Yep the man in Mississippi….the governor that did not want stim money to help put people to work…..the governor of a state that has about 12% unemployment…..the governor of a state where about 20% of the population is uninsured…. a state where damn near 30% of the population lives in poverty…….The GOP in Mississippi are doing nothing to make the lives of the people in this state any better….could that have anything to do with the large number of minorities in the state?  After all the GOP has become and will always be, in the South at least, the party of old white guys that are still stuck in the 50’s and not in the good way.

As long as Mississippi continues down this disguised “racist” path, it will continue to be a backwoods society….maybe we should try to change the state motto to read, “Welcome to Mississippi…set your clocks back a hundred years”.