What should Democrats do? - They should tell a story in a lie with little truth- like the Republicans do - and say "Democrats Giveth, Republicans Taketh Away" - That is the story they need to promulgate. What have the Democrats become but just the cowed Republican light. They are all bought and sold by the corporations and FEAR rules the day. We should be saying "If your must be fearful, then FEAR RUSH! FEAR BUSH!" Why doesn't Obama invoke Roosevelt's "We have nothing to Fear but Fear Itself" speech? - because he is afraid. Rush and Republicans have successfully framed the story of Roosevelt as something to be afraid of. The only way to talk Republicans into voting Democrat is for them to be so afraid of their own party and to make empathy cool again - They have to fear becoming the hudled masses and at the same time relate to the huddled masses - using the "Us or Them" dogma - that the Republicans do so well. Dems have to turn the tables and make the Republicans the "Them" (Corporate Banks/Big Business/International Sell Outs) and the Dems the "US" as in USA (Community Banks/Small Business/Protecting National Interests). Big business and corporate banks will fear us if we get enough people to take thier money out of the big banks and put them in community banks. Raise your children right: 1 - Never kill for pay. 2 - Never take what doesn't belong to you. 3 - Never put your money in a big bank.

Then-Representative Alan Grayson summed up the Republican healthcare plan during the debates leading up to the passage of the minor health insurance re-regulation . . . to paraphrase:

"Die . . . Die quickly."

Thom, what Internet Service Provider do you recommend? I'd like to be done with Comcast.

Re:

Obama chooses JPMorgan exec. William Daley as new chief of staff

Hmmm... Is it still considered cronyism when it is done by a "democrat"?

LeMoyne

I'm sure our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.

In the news break during the radio show Thom adds that there is "an equal number of contractors" in Afghanistan.

From the bill of particulars against King George in the Declaration of Independence ...

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

So the US now commits the most heinous violations that spurred the British colonists to revolt and create the United States... Is it any wonder that peace is not produced from the occupations in the Middle East? I am sure that both the special rules to exempt the US occupiers from all local law and the fact that nearly a hundred thousand mercenaries are used in the occupation will not generate peace and prosperity for the Afghanis or for US. No surprise at all that the armed insurrection continues.

Anti-healthcare people always bring up MRIs and CAT scans and how easy it is to get one here and how you have to wait in Canada. What they never bring up is that MRIs are a cash cow industry here; we have WAY too many per capita, and it's probably because they're always covered by insurance. There are companies that exist that show doctors how to increase their wealth by simply getting an MRI machine. It's not a fair comparison. People would also have to wait here if there were a more reasonable number of MRI machines. And if they didn't get reimbursed so easily, doctors wouldn't be so quick to prescribe the scans.

Representative Issa revisited:

http://kaystreet.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/gop-investigation-plans-are-built-on-fox-news-falsehoods/

Teabaggers too much credit,

Thom, you're too charitable about the teabaggers and you give them too much credit. Most of them are LIVers (Low Information Voters.)

Caller Michael (of 'liberal media' fame) speaks with what I perceive as an especially heavy 'conservative accent.' Is it just my imagination that there is such a thing, or is it just a stereotype?

I've been thinking about the Citizens United result of Corporations, and the acknowledgment that they are people who have free speech rights. Fighting against it may be desirable, but what if the progressive took this crisis as an opportunity? What if we demand that they actually be treated like real people? If they're people they have a face, which I would say is their logo, and since they are in the public domain, then all satirist have the right to use their logos and images, no longer can the hide behind copyright infringement (wouldn't Disney love it the Mickey Mouse image started showing up in questionable comic strips). If money is their form of speech then all the members of the corporation make up the brain, therefore before they speak, the whole of their brain must agree on what it is going to say, 100% vote, or you can't say it. If they are persons, they can no longer have stockholders, for that makes them slaves to the stockholders. Think about it, instead of fighting the corporate wish to be persons, we should hold them to it all the way. I'm sure people here on this site are clever enough to find many more issues about being a real person that would be an albatross around the neck of corporations.

N