Former congressman Ernest Istook, The Heritage Foundation's latest hit man, played Hardball with Michael Smerconish tonight, taking his turn at spinning the usual GOP yarns on the state of the economy and weaving from them some damned fine solutions for stimulation and job creation.
Ernie says that cutting off unemployment benefits is the right thing to do, before people become dependent on getting gov'mint handouts, and besides that, we just can't keep doing this forever. And if there aren't jobs out there right now, there could be. Dammit.
Ernie says giving tax breaks to everyone--including that one or two percent who own it all already--is the right thing to do because that's the way you get the economy rolling. (This economy, the Obama economy, that is, and not that economy, the Bush economy. You fool.)
Ernie says there are two trillion dollars just sitting there waiting to be paid to willing and able workers if only the gov'mint would stop scaring those potential employers by threatening higher taxes and re-regulating the deregulations.
Ernie says nobody's gonna hire under those circumstances. And Ernie ought to know because Ernie used to be in congress and now he's a "Distinguished Fellow" at the Heritage Foundation. Add to that the fact that Ernie is a Republican and you can take those words to the bank. (But don't expect to get anything back for them. The banks aren't giving out money. They're scared, too, poor 'lil guys.)
Trillions of dollars for millions of jobs are out there, available, Ernie says, but small business employers are afraid to hire for fear it might cost them too much and they might run afoul of a couple of dozen obscure regulations and then really bad things might happen. So they're sitting on their businesses, not wanting to expand, not willing to spend a dime to make a dollar because. . .
because. . .
they're afraid this current government might possibly come up with some pro-socialist, anti-business funny business.
Well, hogwash, poppycock, and besides that, bullshit. Those people don't even make good liars. (Poor Rep. Gregory Meeks tried so hard to refute. I salute the refute, honestly I do, but he might as well have saved his breath. Lalalalalalala. They can't HEAR you!)
Ryan Chittum looked at the coverage of the unemployment benefits extension over at Columbia Journalism Review today, using real facts and real figures. It's just one of a dozen dozen responsible refutations of the Istook and Friends idiocy above, but they might as well be ant hills on a mountain for all the attention they get.
It's a crazy world out there. I guess you heard the Republicans won the House. . .
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Rise up, voices! Speak truth to power. Bark orders to justice. Sing praises to the good. Beg alms for the poor.
Showing posts with label Ernest Istook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ernest Istook. Show all posts
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Morality and the Reality of Public Health Care - Ed Schultz Hits it Out of the Park
Historically, all the great social movements that have been successful have had the faith community at the heart of it.
Right now fear is controlling this debate, and we have to start talking about truth-telling and what is the moral core? We can't lose the moral core, which is people. Our friends, our neighbors, our loved ones are hurting. The broken system has to be fixed. And the faith community is not going to settle for anything less than full accessible health care coverage for all of God's children
The Rev. Jim Wallis, Sojourners
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Tonight on "The Ed Show", Ed Schultz talked with the Rev. Jim Wallis about the President's unprecedented conference call to thousands of religious leaders asking for their input on the government's role in health care. Rev. Wallis, president of Sojourners, Christians for Justice and Peace, talked passionately about the role the church must play in this all-important debate. (Their website was down soon after the Ed Show. I got on once and then didn't hang onto the link so I've been trying again for over an hour and can't get on.)
What struck me about this entire event--these thousands of religious leaders conferring with the president about how best to use their community to do good works--is how little we've heard from these people, as opposed to those leaders on the Religious Right who use their names and their clout to fight any attempt to reign in insurance company profits and use taxpayer funds to give aid to the many millions of Americans who suffer because of non-existent or inadequate health, or worse--because the Insurers have had the freedom to play God with their lives.
How is it that we've rewarded those hateful charlatans with fame and fortune while effectively shunning those who actually minister to real people with real problems? Maybe now that change is in the air, now that unprecedented numbers of our citizens need an unprecedented amount of help, we'll look to the real churches for real help.
But from the sublime to the ridiculous:
Later Ed talked to former Republican congressman Ernest Istook, now with the Heritage Foundation and tried to get him to describe the Republican plan for Health Care. The upshot, after many uncomfortable moments, is that either there isn't a plan or Istook has taken an oath of silence. Whichever, the spokesman wasn't talking.
Later still, Ed talked to Dr. Howard Dean--good stuff, and I might have opted to concentrate on that part here, but Ed saved the best for last. His "discussion" with Jonathan "Liberals are driving themselves over the cliff" Alter looked a whole lot like a barroom brawl. Now THAT was fun! Watch Dean first, and then the Alter altercation:
That was one heck of an hour. Ed Schultz, my new hero of the week.
Ramona
(Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo here)
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