“Sarah Palin screaming about death panels…you know Sarah? If we were killing off useless people, you’d be the first to know.”

Line of the year!

It also taps into a greater truth that all the shameless neo-cons use INSANE hyperbolic language about Obama saying he is a “socialist” (than why has he not taken over the textile industry, steel industry, airlines etc.? Why did he deny Chrysler a 2nd bailout request) and that he is “coming for our guns” (there is no pending legislation on fun control) and of course, my favorite, the FEMA death camps that Palin and Bachmann you just KNOW think are real.

I mean, if they were real, Bachmann would be in one right now.

oops, typo, I meant “gun control” and not “fun control.”

But firing guns on a range IS fun, let the record reflect.

Shoot:

Calling Obama a socialist is neither insane nor hyperbolic:

http://www.anonymousfinch.com/2009/04/10/liberals-need-to-get-their-story-straight-about-the-s-word/

And denying that he’s a socialist because there are some industries that he hasn’t taken over yet is just plain hilarious. By that standard, communist China isn’t socialist either!

And, no, I don’t “just know” that Palin and Bachman think the FEMA caps are real. After all, it was Glenn Beck who debunked that conspiracy (which started during the Bush administration):

http://www.anonymousfinch.com/2009/06/12/paul-krugman-the-big-fake/

Question for you, Finch, would a “socialist” appoint a former Goldman Sachs employee as his Treasury Secretary?

Obama hasn’t “taken over” ANY industry, jackass. He rescued GM to save jobs and arguably helped avert a depression. Ford is still private. Chrysler got rebuffed by “socialist” Obama for a second bailout and now they are partially owned by Fiat.

Yes Beck debunked Alex Jones’ conspiracy after spending months talking it up.

Kind of like how NOW he is saying violence is wrong after a full year of heated rhetoric and all but begging someone to take Obama out. I just hope it’s not too late, but Beck should be commended for at least TRYING to now put the brakes on the big rig of hate he has rolling down the highway.

shooter:

I hate to confuse you with the facts, but Tim Geithner never worked for Goldman Sachs. But that’s completely irrelevant anyway. Again, as the link to my blog describes, there is a self-professed socialist in the Senate (Bernie Sanders). Obama (and Biden) both had a more liberal voting record than Sanders.

Shooter:

Beck most certainly did NOT spend months talking it up. You are woefully ignorant.

http://www.anonymousfinch.com/2009/06/14/more-on-glenn-beck-and-the-fema-conspiracy-crooks-and-liars-lives-up-to-its-name/

Yes, no one from the left is a socialist, proven by how many have invoked the terms “wealth redistribution” and “mal-distribution” in the past weeks, by Biden declaring they would be taking over the insurance industry, by the government now being in charge of all student loans, by appointed officials dictating the bonus payouts in companies, by Congress setting up retroactive taxes, by . . .

You are correct, my bad, Geithner did not work for Golman Sachs. But my larger point was and is that Geithner comes from the culture of CAPITALIST Wall Street. He is NOT a “socialist” and neither is Obama.

Geithner’s inner circle has previously included counselor Lewis Alexander, the former chief economist at Citigroup; Chief of Staff Mark Patterson, who was a lobbyist at Goldman Sachs, and Matthew Kabaker, a deputy assistant secretary who worked at private equity firm Blackstone Group LP.

Those guys sound like socialists to you?

You really need to stop reading “Big Government” and other biased websites, Martini. You are only getting talking points.

Here is the full context of the Biden quote.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/03/exclusive-vice-president-biden-says-obamas-cancelled-trip-not-a-bad-sign-for-health-care-bills-prosp.html

And here is the reality: stocks at every insurance company are UP because the smart people (money managers on Wall Street) are aware that this is in no way a “takeover” by the government and is, in fact, a boom to private insurance companies.

Check Wellpoint’s stock this year: it’s UP since the bill passed.

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/historical.asp?ticker=WLP:US

Obama is not a “socialist” unless you also claim that we are all socialists, at least since the passing of the original medicare bill. Calling Obama a socialist is about as fair as calling Glenn Beck a “fascist” because of his right wing leanings.

Good thing that all of the polls taken since the passage of the Health Care bill support Maher’s contention that the American people overwhelmingly support it. Oh wait…the polls show the exact opposite. But Maher wouldn’t deliberately try to mislead us would he?

We have had socialistic policies and programs within a capitalistic framework for decades. Quit pretending it is somehow different now that Obama is president.

Obama ran on a platform of healthcare reform. He reformed it. If the polling data is unfavorable at this point than tough shit. George Bush didn’t base his Iraq policy based on unfavorable polling data and I didn’t hear dirty Freepers complaining about it then.

The polling data is premature. The reform bill has not even been implemented yet. And same2u has it on the mark, Obama ran on a health care reform platform. He was elected by a solid majority. That says more than anything else about what the people want.

Valkyrie,

Who liked to say “We don’t govern based on polls”?

George W. Bush

Calling Obama a socialist is neither insane nor hyperbolic

Yes it is. It is a total denial of reality to say different.

Here is a chart showing the percentage of American companies that are owned by the government.:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/percentage-of-american-companies-owned-by-the-united-states-1.png

President Obama didn’t cause the financial system to melt-down and need to be bailed out. Nor did he cause the auto companies to go bankrupt and need to be bailed out.

Bush started the financial system bail out and no one called him a socialist.

Reagan bailed out Chrysler in the 80s and no one called him a socialist.

Nixon proposed a far more progressive reform of the Heathcare insurance industry and no one called him a socialist.

Just repeating the same lie over and over again, doesn’t make it true.

Yeah, that socialist Nixon–who is in large part responsible for the overthrow of Chile’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende (a real socialist)-proposed the requirement that all employers, not just large companies, offer insurance.

there is a self-professed socialist in the Senate (Bernie Sanders). Obama (and Biden) both had a more liberal voting record than Sanders.

Sorry to confuse you with facts but that statement is at best barely true.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/bill-maher-thanks-tea-baggers-for-passing-of-health-care-bill/#comment-38207

That rating in based on an analysis of the President’s senate voting record for the year 2007. However, in previous years he had much lower rankings.

Also, the National Review methodology has been disputed by many. They cherry pick only certain votes for their analysis and don’t consider a Senators full voting record. (Their analysis for the year 2003 showed John Kerry as the most liberal senator. What a coincidence!)

Other organizations that measure all votes taken by a Senator have ranked that President and Vice President’s records much lower.

JamesA1102,

Absolutely SPOT ON. I’m tired of right wingers running around shouting terms they can’t even define or apply in a sentence. The problem is, when you have a 24-7 megaphone like Fox News & Hate Radio, the echo chamber is so vast that millions of people can be influenced to believe whatever Anti-Obama hysteria happens to be bubbling up that day.

Fear of a Black POTUS. Short and sweet.

AnonymousFinch writes:

“Again, as the link to my blog describes, there is a self-professed socialist in the Senate (Bernie Sanders). Obama (and Biden) both had a more liberal voting record than Sanders.”

Leaving aside the fact that there’s NOTHING “WRONG” WITH BEING LIBERAL and nothing “correct” about being conservative, let’s challenge your assertion.

“On Jan. 31, 2008, five days before the Super Tuesday primaries, National Journal published an article headlined “Obama: Most Liberal Senator in 2007.” The article said Obama had missed 33 of the 99 votes that were rated but that it was enough for a calculation. The magazine said McCain was not rated because he missed more than half the votes in the economic and foreign-policy categories.

“Obama is a liberal, but he’s not the most liberal,” said Keith Poole, a University of California-San Diego professor who runs the site, whom we interviewed when we first looked into similar statements in June 2008. “

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/sep/26/john-mccain/several-ratings-rank-obama-lower/

Sorry, but thanks for playing.

–Cobra

Having a liberal voting record doesn’t make a person a socialist anymore than having a conservative record makes you a fascist.

Obama as Socialist is a meme often repeated by those who have been Glenn Becked. And thats all you need to know about that.

HOW WRONG CAN ONE PERSON BE!? It’s amazing this guy still has a TV show.

#1 – We all know the American people did NOT vote for this bill. Only Democrat politicians in Washington, DC voted for this bill. The bipartisanship was against the bill, both Democrats & Republicans voted no on ObamaCare.

#2 – The majority of the country was against ObamaCare before it passed and now even more are against it, after it passed.
***
CBS poll: Believe it or not, support for ObamaCare still eroding
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/02/cbs-poll-believe-it-or-not-support-for-obamacare-still-eroding/

#3 – “The calm Black man’s” poll numbers are still falling, even after passing ObamaCare.
***
CBS poll has Obama approval at new low of 44%
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/02/cbs-poll-has-obama-approval-at-new-low-of-44/

But what a CLASSY guy Bill Maher is. I wonder which conservative he’ll wish to be killed next.
***
Bill Maher Wishes Glenn Beck Had Been Killed at Pentagon Thursday
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/03/06/bill-maher-wishes-glenn-beck-had-been-killed-pentagon-thursday

Nothing more pathetic than some smug elitist like Maher ridiculing average folks because they don’t want government controlling every aspect of their lives. This constant mockery of ordinary mom and pops by angry rich people like Maher will backfire on the left. In fact, the backlash has already started, as we recently saw in Massachusetts.

Now all of Bill’s hookers can get treated for the diseases he passes on to them.

felix,
The people behind your conservative movement are all super rich mega millionaires (Beck: 20 or 30 million per year; Rush 30 million plus; O’Reilly: 20 million plus; etc.), and you ridicule Maher for being elitist? LOL. The super wealthy have in fact taken control of the tea party movement, and to be sure, they seek to lower there own taxes to protect their obcene profits while also seeking to eliminate regulations so that they can make even more obcene profits while dumping their toxic waste (figureatively and literally) into our atmosphere. The common man that is the tea party masses, have become a pawn of those people. Here is reality: 2% of the population now own or control 90% of the wealth and the gap between the rich and middle class is the widest it has been since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And what is the mantra of these super rich: lower taxes and less regulation. I find it incredible that the common man of the tea party is that stupid to buy into that nonsense. The Reagan notion of trickle down economics, assuming it ever had merit, clearly does not now given that most manufacturing is outsourced to foreign countries where costs are less, thus rendering greater profits to the American corporations. Go to Lowes, look at the products they sell. Mostly made in China or some other country where labor and other manufacturing costs are less. So there is no trickle down, no reinvestment, because the owners of industry have closed down all the factories. They make money off the U.S. consumer, but reinvest it in other countries. Better open your eyes, felix, you are being duped by those corporations, as they spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year keeping their cash cow going by buying politicians and astro turfing outrage against our government for their own interest.

I keep hearing from conservatives about the suffering small businessman. Invariably they say they are suffering because of high taxes. That is nonsense. The reason they are suffering is because they are competing with mega corporations who buy billions of dollars of low cost merchandise from their foreign manufacturing outlets and thus drive the small businessman out of business because he can not compete with the mega corporations. Lowes, Walmart, and all those superstores have put more small businessmen out of business, by far, than anything the government has done.

Your outsourcing argument has merit. But you can’t pin that all on conservatives. Did you ever see anything made in China while Clinton was in office? Do you see things made in China now that Obama is in office? The Dems are in power. So what are they doing about it? That’s why the tea parties sprang up. Because people are sick of Democrats and Republicans. But because we now have a liberal black Democrat in the White House, the left’s knee jerk reaction is to yell ‘racist’ at anyone dissatisfied with the way things are going. That doesn’t help.

I am not pinning anything on either party. I am pinning the situation on the corporations who stopped manufacturing in the U.S. in favor of making greater profits, unprecedented profits, by manufacturing outside of the U.S. So while those corporations make more money than ever, the benefit to the rest of the American people has become less and less. In what way? Less American people are employed. The unemployed pay no taxes. Combine that with the lower corporate tax rate, the lower tax rate for those earning in the top income bracket, and the fact that half these corporations funnel their profits into shell corporations sited outside the U.S. to avoid U.S. taxes, and the net value to the American economy is dramatically less than it once was.

Won’t argue that. What’s the answer? I don’t think taxing corporations more is the answer. They’ll seek to make up the difference somewhere else. No matter who is in office, the trouble is that people in third world countries are willing to work for a couple of dollars a day. Americans can’t and won’t do that. If someone can figure out how to combat third world wages, then we’ll be talking recovery.

Valkyrie, you missed my point. I am not opposed to wealth — although I imagine you are. I am opposed to people who are already wealthy who want to prevent the rest of us from getting ahead, by supporting a punitive, expansive government that tries to control all aspects of our lives, and sticks its hand in our wallet at every opportunity. I don’t mind Maher making money, but he should let the rest of us keep a fair portion of what we make, and not ridicule us for wanting to lead our lives without constant government interference.

Well felix, you say you are not opposed to wealth. Can I assume that it would not bother you if one corporation owned everything? Because that is what eventually happens when you worship straight unregulated capitalism, which ultimately plays out like a game of monopoly with one person owning the whole board. Without government regulation, without a government of the people, by the people and for the people, that would have already happened if not for anti-trust laws passed by liberals over conservative objections in the early 20th century. And if you look at the current situation with a handful of corporations buying up smaller corporations like sharks eating the smaller fish, that situation is happening more and more in spite of the antiquated anti-trust laws. The small businesses are being taken over, and/or put out of business by the larger corporations not the government.

Take for example the media industry. In 1983 there were 50 major corporations that controlled most of the American media. Today there are five or six. What happened to the other 44? Bought out by the big five or six. The same situation exists across the board in the food industries, chemical industries, etc. The big fish eats the smaller fish. That is how unregulated capitalism plays out. But you do not approve of government regulation, rather, you worship unregulated capitalism. Correct?

You say you do not like government regulation? OK. So you are good with child labor, unregulated pollution, 70 hour work weeks, no worker benefits, no rules against drunk driving, no consumer protection agencies, no highway regulations, no food inspectors, none of that stuff. Right? …. A paradise where the strong, the smart, or the powerful do what they want without consequence?

Or do you believe that the government has an important role, on behalf of the people, to regulate?

Again, I mentioned before, who do you think puts the small businessman out of business? High taxes? No way. The streets are lined with empty storefronts because Walmart, buying their goods in bulk from third world countries, essentially outsourcing production to countries where children work 70 hour work weeks for 50 cents an hour, put them out of business.

Valkyrie, you ask if I would object to “one corporation owning everything.” That’s not allowed under antitrust law. However, the government under Obama is now seeking precisely that kind of monopoly control in industry after industry — banking, auto, healthcare. If you are truly concerned about the concentration and abuse of power, you should be worried about what’s happening in Washington, D.C. No business in the world has anything close to that type of coercive control, and the current administration is hell-bent on getting more and more power.

felix,
Obama chose to keep afloat our auto industry and preseve hundreds of thousands of jobs associated with that industry. He chose to bail out our banks so that the world economy did not fall a part. Of course the crisis that precipitated those bailouts came into play under Bush, not Obama. Those bailouts do not constitute government ownership in any long tern sense. Indeed, the government is about to divest itself of its investment in keeping Citibank afloat with an 8 billion dollar profit. Why would the government seek to divest itself of that interest in Citibank if it sought to take it over? So your theory is nothing but a Glenn Beck conspiracy theory. And all this blaming Obama for the current economic mess is completely unfair, and your view on that is highly partisan.

It’s good for Maher that he finally was able to get on a TV show that someone actually watches. Who knows, maybe this will help him to become famous one day.

Valkyrie, you need to learn the difference between a productive job that creates value and a non-productive job that destroys value. If Obama takes $100,000 from tax payers and uses it to subsidize a $50,000 job in Detroit, no economic value is created. In contrast, if a business owner hires to support profitable business expansion, this creates additional wealth in the economy. The long term result of penalizing value-creating jobs while subsidizing value-destroying jobs will be an ugly shrinkage in the U.S. economy.

I suggest you sit down some time and think long and hard about how wealth and value are created. If you think you can spend it without creating it, you are in for a rude surprise…and you will drag the rest of us down in the process. And right now, every program and policy coming out of the Obama administration is destructive of real economic value.

You still do not get it, felix. The corporations are not hiring people to make things in this country, they hire some guy at 1 dollar an hour in China to do that. Why should a corporation make stuff in the U.S. since it costs more to do that? And yes, those anti-pollution regs, those regs that prohibit child labor or unsafe work conditions, all those nasty regulations that capitalists hate, but which we the people have insisted upon through our government, prevent our country from being competitive with other countries that do not regulate.

Here is reality, my friend, the big corporate interests, have sold our country to China. It was not the government that did that. Sure, a lot of the politicians helped, especially those in the pocket of the big corporate interests, but it was the capitalists, the big corporate interests that decided to cut the American worker out of the equation, further to they making bigger profits. And once the profits were made, the corporate bosses put those profits right into their pockets. You are blind if you can not see that.

Your view is myopic, felix, for this reason: you subscribe to economic principles that presume a closed economy. Not taxing corporations as a way of providing incentive for re-investment, which leads to jobs, does not get the effect you believe because that re-investment is made outside of our economic system, in a foreign country where most of the products are manufactured. Our role here in America is essentially to consume the goods that are made somewhere else. Sure, we still manufacture some stuff, and we have a vibrant intellectual property industry, and still very plentiful natural resources to draw on, but the common man worker, who used to make steel, auto parts, and consumer items, no longer has a job because those products are made outside the U.S. Of course, ideally, our economy should shift to make new and different things, etc., but that has not played out for the same reason. Why should a corporation manufacture in the U.S. when it can do that cheaper somewhere else? So now, the men who prided themselves on hard work for forty or fifty hours a week in our factories, lament the indignity of unemployment or having to work for minimum wage at Lowes, selling Chinese made products, where the work is still pretty hard, but at 8 or 9 dollars an hour without benefits, which is not enough to live on. So what is the government then to do? It has to carry much of the load whether it wants to or not. It has no choice. So sure, the tea party blames the government for spending too much to take care of its citizens, but the reason for that is not the government, the reason is that the corporations moved their operations to foreign countries where it is cheaper to manufacture explicitly for one reason: to make more money. So you might say, Oh, because of those low foreign manufacturing costs, the products that we buy are cheaper. Yep, and those people who can afford them benefit from that, but the common man, the displaced workers, the 40% of the population who are especially suffering, except to an insignificant extent, do not.

All of this is an undeniable reality, and you have nothing to say to rebut it.