Dylan Ratigan Previews 2010
18 December 2009 12:39 pm by Taylor Marsh
updated
Meet the new hero of economic rage, and the foreshadowing of things to come. Dylan Ratigan gets it. He absolutely feels my pain, but also my political rage.
How can any Democrat defend the practice of forcing the American people to buy a product from an industry that enjoys a monopoly, with individual choice obliterated by a political party who has always professed to have the people’s back?
As we’ve seen this week, they can’t. It’s been a Dexter size political bloodbath for anyone who has tried.
Paul Krugman has lost his mind.
What’s unfolded this week has ignited my inner libertarian, with voices of You Can’t Make Me Buy Anything raging in my head.
That Rep. Wasserman-Schultz, a progressive dynamo who is among the very best we’ve got, ducked the obvious implications to the insurance stocks soaring by saying she’s not a stock analyst, reveals just how low Democratic leaders are willing to go to push the current health care bill. She made a fool of herself, just like David Axelrod did on “Morning Joe” when Ed Schultz called him out.
How Democratic leaders losing all credibility on the altar of bad legislation helps Pres. Obama or the Democratic Party is beyond me.
Paul Krugman’s embarrassing stipulation that we must “pass the bill,” the price for the average American and the middle class be damned, is a death wish. With that sound you just heard Mr. Krugman falling flat on his face from space.
On Sunday, we will next see Obama’s Karl Rove, Mr. David Axelrod, defend the White House health care plan on “Meet the Press,” with Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow Howard Dean and Markos Moulitsas, along with Ed Gillespie, sitting down to join this little chat. There will be no doubt that Mr. Axelrod will be talking about his own family’s struggles, a very personal story he’s been telling all this week. But coming out of the mouth of someone so cravenly political, who has used every dirty trick when it suited his own purpose, I find it unseemly in the extreme for him to use it at such a moment for obviously naked political goals. Even as my heart breaks for his family. However, after watching Axelrod work for years, any effort to engender empathy on his part plays like a spider to the fly drama in my head.
If we listen to Mr. Krugman, Rep. Wasserman-Schultz, and Mr. Axelrod and others like Sen. Harkin, a tireless champion on the public option, painfully defend the current action by Democrats, we’re going to be in even bigger trouble than we are today going forward. For Krugman, it’s absolutely unconscionable to run around saying “pass the bill,” suggesting the American people should be forced to buy insurance from an industry without any competition included to keep costs down.
I’ve been uninsured many times in my life and it was for a reason. As a self-employed person I couldn’t afford it. I see this plan to force people to buy insurance, looking at those un-insured times in my life and thinking about paying a penalty, and I just want to scream at the top of my lungs.
This is a free country last time I looked.
Democrats have absolutely no right and no moral authority to tell me or anyone else they must buy anything, least of all inside a rigged market that sends me further into debt or maybe worse.
My inner libertarian is on fire, and I’m a die hard liberal. If that isn’t a warning sign nothing is.
As you know, Taylor, Obama was never my candidate until there was no other. But there was great promise and expectation upon his election. He so quickly frittered away all good will at the service of the masters of Banking and Wall Street and flat out gave away everything that would have benefited Main Street.
You’re right about another thing too – there is a lot of pain meeting rage.
LOL, you,d be surprised at how many sentences and paragraphs I’ve been deleting before hitting “submit comment.” A matter of self censorship – I’m a bit too over the top at moments for my own well being.
Heya djjl. It’s a moment of fury that really needs to be bottled and sent to your representatives & congressperson.
I hope everyone watches this video of Wasserman-Schultz, a true progressive heroine biting the dust. It’s tremendously tragic.
Biting the dust to have Obama’s back……and when he won’t have ours.
I’m glad he’s starting to be given credit where credit has long been due.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/16/democrats-lash-out-at-oba_n_394424.html
snip
While many House Democrats have expressed anger with the Senate for the watered-down bill, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) argued that it was really Obama who let centrists take control. “Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge?” he said. “It’s time for the president to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate.”
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) similarly suggested that blaming Lieberman was ignoring the real culprit — Obama.
“This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don’t think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth,” said Feingold. “I think they could have been higher. I certainly think a stronger bill would have been better in every respect.”
As Politico’s Craig Gordon noted about the president’s health care maneuvering, “Time and again, [Obama] rebuffed Democrats’ requests to speak up more forcefully about what he wanted — a strategy that allowed Obama to preserve maximum flexibility to declare victory at the end of the process, no matter what the final bill looked like.”
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), pointed to polling that suggests Democrats will face trouble with their base if they don’t deliver a strong bill. “Thirty percent of Democrats will not come out and vote if there is no public option in the health care bill,” she said. “What does that tell you?”
I LOVE Dylan Ratigan… He definitely gets excited but there is no question that he fully believes in his causes. Dylan should run for office! To think I didn’t like him at first.
This has NOTHING to do with anything… but such a sexy beast he is too! And his principled stands make him all the more attractive..
Wow. OMG! Taylor and djjl, that was a truly tragic scene. As hard as Wasserman-Schultz and others try to sell this mess, I keep coming back to one main point:
“HCR” can’t be sold because the leadership doesn’t really believe in it. It is very hard to sell something that you do not value or are not passionate about at some level. Throwing out the Clinton card only gets you Change We Can NO LONGER Believe in. The Obama Administration needs to show that it is passionate about more than showing the hippees who’s the boss.
Great video.
Just wish he was asking Obama, Axelrod, or hell, Paul Krugman the same question.
Truth is, most Americans are smart enough to look at stock trends like he showed and realize the fix is in.
The noise is only going to get louder
I know, StephenAG!
Ratigan is demystifying economics while linking it to politics at a time when our corpocracy is ripe for muckrakers.
I just watched the clip and Mr. Ratigan was actually pretty rude. He asked how a bill with a mandate, but no cost controls would be good for Americans. Rep. Wasserman-Schultz started to answer (albeit in talking points) and Mr. Ratigan changed the question in mid-sentence to why are the stocks going up. She is obviously not a stock analyst and that was not why he had her on to ask her questions.
Talkshow hosts should let their guest answer the question asked, perhaps cutting them off after they make their main point, and then ask ANOTHER probing question. Talking over each other is not productive. He should have let her make her point about how this changes the whole insurance landscape, yada yada, and THEN blasted her with his take and another question.
Taylor, I hear you about your libertarian side taking over. After watching the majority Democratic Senate do its thing on the HC bill, I am ready to grab my pitchfork and head to DC.
voter revolt- only 33pct back sen bill w/mandates. 58 pct back it if it has pub opt and or medicare 55. when will our leaders get it
Voters Revolt: Only 33% Support for New Senate Health Care Bill
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/18/114114/55
Our we all holding our breath for the announcement of a NON-BINDING climate agreement?
Sorry, are we…not our we.
If you are holding your breath you can stop now. It wasn’t worth it.
Maybe you should take a moment, Taylor.
You’ve just heaped praise on a irrational ranting bully, who put in a performance that would have done Bill O’Reilly proud. Then you’ve proclaimed that the straighforward comments of a Nobel Prize winning economist are signs he has lost his mind.
You aren’t scoring any credibility points.
Those times when you went without insurance, wouldn’t you have preferred to purchase it with a subsidy? The mandate is almost irrelevant – most of us purchase it out of need and a sense of responsibility, thought the cost may be exorbitant. Do you recognize that it is foolish and irresponsible to go without insurance, and that the only way for any system to work – public or private – is to have everyone pay into it at all times, because it is a basic need.
Getting upset over the mandate is childish, and has been ever since Obama opposed it in the primary.
moveon joins the fight with dean to fight mandating people to buy crooked insurance. sign their petition here:
http://pol.moveon.org/block/?r_by=18359-4534745-pGuOEhx&rc=comment_paste
58pct americans oppose being forced to buy private insurance unless emdcare or pub is there. taylor is witht he majority. and u bet the gop will run on undoing the mandates.
i just sent a request to be taken off the OFA email list. when asked why simply put, “he turned his back on us, he can do this one himself”
Kanzeon is correct about mandates. It was the basis of Hillary Clinton’s healthcare reform plan. She was for them, Obama against. But then again those for universal coverage, or a single payer system did not have a friend with Obama. The surprising thing is the current proposed legislation contains MINUS a public option.
Mandates are the only way to insure a large pool of payers, again as Kanzeon stated. It’s basic.
Politicians mainly understand money so while progressives wail I tell people to go after the money
http://bit.ly/traitorjoe
http://bit.ly/public_option
http://bit.ly/drug_benefit
Taylor, that was an essay that I am in full agreement with. Now, if you would come around on the Afghanistan issue by breaking with Hillary, you and I would be simpatico. Peace
Wow – justs says it all – how far can it go before Hillary is brought in . You do know that it is ALL Hillary. She as not agreed , by her position as SOS, to act on behalf of the elected POTUS. Nope, she’s the evil wicked one who is pulling the changes.
What a supreme and ridiculous joke.
Where never is heard a discouraging word
and the skys are not cloudy all day………….
Thanks to Obama, or is that thanks to his blogs who continue to refuse to at least allow him to be responsible for what HE DOES.
Let’s watch tweety, Olberman, and all the Obama allegiants…………
What a sorry mess Obama and HIS allegiants have foisted upon the world – all to elect the Prom King.
You should hang your heads in shame. Shame, shame , shame.
“Did anyone see this on MSNBC? Dylan Rattigan acted really disrespectfully to Cong. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz.”
Obamaphilia on display. What’s it say when Obama matters more than the nation and it’s citizens to some of those who worked hard to put him in the WH? Is it that we should all realize that Obama is what is really important and not the people of the country.
djjl, actually the jokes on you. Do you really believe that what you see is what you get? Have you ever read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave? Yeah, I know, nobody reads Plato anymore. But, do yourself a favor and read his Allegory if you haven’t. It’s pretty short. Peace
sheanabana says:
18 December 2009 at 6:30 pm
That’s really something and I bet it wasn’t easy to do.
Let’s keep working to get something, anything changed, and a better bill.
I’ve long read Plato. You need to quit trying to puff up – it’s really not becoming. Quite familiar with the allegory of the cave.
craig crawford: the democrats need to have the audacity to be democrats. hope aint enough!
My, my, just where do we begin to thank President Obama for what he has given:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
It’s only the price to pay for a preening peacock accustomed to the easy way.
How many of you recall reading in 2007 that one of the reasons he chose Chicago was because Chicago had a history of being good to black politicians. Naaawhhh, naawwhhh, naaawhh pastor of similarly (imo) a similarly considered choice.
t4h
Right on!
Remember how quickly Crawford was “dismissed” from Tweety and company when he wasn’t appropriately slovenly in bowing to Obamamania?
JoeBeets says:
18 December 2009 at 2:33 pm
djjl says:
18 December 2009 at 7:51 pm
I agree. Ratigan should have given her a chance to speak, IMO, otherwise, why have her on? And yes, Wasserman-Schultz does appear to be making excuses for this shabby bill.
This is so disturbing on so many levels:
“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama told DeFazio during a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, according to members afterward.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/72889-pelosi-rahm-do-not-scare-rep-defazio
Noogan
Thanks for the link – I found De Fazio delightfully and hopefully refreshing.
As far as Obama “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” – President Obama may find that the Democratic and independent voters are also keeping score.
However MoveOn has been late to the party as Obamabots from the early days when they threw Hillary under the bus.
It’s been months [July] since Obama cut his deal with devil BigPharma’s lobbist Billy Tauzin in the back rooms. Remember Obama promising C-Span would carry all important details of HC process so we could all participate? Transparency?
Progressives have watched Obama wimp out for a year on everything from Wall Street, Banks, Afghanistan, Healthcare and Drugs without objection. Until now I’m beginning to hear awareness and anger in the left wing blogs that were all in the tank for Obama.
I do hope this awareness morphs into political payback and hold Team Obama accountable.