The Great Broadband Scam

Why the Recovery Plan Will Fail to Meet America’s Broadband Needs

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Eric Boehlert Doing the Hard Work

Unhinged in 30 days: The right-wing media's Obama era implosion

The goal with this kind of thing is to render reasoned political discourse and national dialogue and debate irrelevant.

It's astounding to watch the avalanche of hate ooze from conservative media quarters. And why? Because Obama passed an economic recovery bill. Good Lord, imagine if he had failed to win the popular vote and then led the country into a pre-emptive war based on faulty intelligence, a war that lost thousands of American lives, and tens of thousands of foreign lives, while milking the U.S. treasury out of a few trillion dollars in the process.

I suspect the unvarnished hate directed toward Obama, the radical rhetoric behind it, and most especially the overnight delivery used to proclaim it, is unprecedented for our modern politics. Even during the first Clinton weeks and months in 1993, I don't think the right-wing ratcheted up the demonizing language this quickly. Note that back then the Republican Noise Machine was just coming into its own, whereas today it's a well-oiled hate machine. Also, in the early 1990s, the Noise Machine (i.e., Limbaugh) hadn't been given unofficial control of Republican Party messaging the way it has today. There still seemed to be some (emphasis on some) adult supervision within conservative circles.

Anyone who has brothers and sisters is familiar with the tactic--blow up the conversation so you can't lose the argument.

With money and talent pouring in from Conservative foundations and think tanks, with the military intelligence operations working behind the front, plugging the gaps, strategizing the long view, and keeping the Pentagon in control through their agents at the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute and Project for a New American Century, the corporate-military-media fascii don't have to play to win. They just wear down the audience and run out the clock.

There's one solution: start a new conversation.

MAYOR VIRG BERNERO OF LANSING MICHIGAN TEARS FOX ANCHOR A NEW ONE - HILARIOUS!!!

Once in a while somebody slips through the cracks. You at least have to give Fox the credit for not cutting away and shutting mayor Bernero up. Keep up the good work, Fox. The American people want free speech.

WPost: Stimulus Is Pork

There's been a corporate media trope lately that the stimulus bill, despite Barack Obama's assurances, contains "pork." It's not always clear what "pork" means, but the Washington Post today (2/13/09) had an example of the genre--headlined "Despite Pledges, Stimulus Has Some Pork"--that opens with a definition of what it means by the term.

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Supporters Of Bush Tax Cuts Now Call Recovery Plan Too Much

The Republicans who now call the $800 billion recovery package “too big” jumped on the Bush bandwagon claiming his $1.35 trillion in tax cuts were just what was needed to jump start a sluggish economy.

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Barney lives up to his last name: Consortiumnews.com

Frank Tells America on Sunday morning to cut Pentagon spending.

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Washington Reporters' Mass Exodus

Just when the plot thickens, the capital press corps thins. Why? Consolidation and financial pressures press presses to minimize their powers of investigative expression.

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