TRUF LIES

FIRED UP AND READY TO GO!

GOBAMA! This makes sense and they need to just vote this bill through NOW!

A FEISTY PRESIDENT = AN ENERGIZED BASE.

Last Friday we saw an amazing thing. We saw a glimpse of what we voted for. President Obama going head-to-head with a room full of GOP congressman. Without notes. Without a teleprompter. Answering every question thrown at him with an amazing amount of factual detail. Calling them out on their lies and "party of no" obstructionism. He showed us he's the right man right now for this job.

Since then, he's continued to do this in many appearances around the country. Yesterday he appealed to Dems to "Finish the Job On Health Care" and not take the easy way out. Today he spoke out against Birthers at the National Prayer Breakfast saying, "Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable. Civility is not a sign of weakness. Now I am the first to confess I am not always right. Michelle will testify to that. But surely, you can question my policies without questioning my faith. Or for that matter, my citizenship."

Could it be that he's "campaigning" so we can keep our majority this November? Will he continue these televised debates with both the GOP and the Democratic Party?

We hope so.

A twitter hashtag #questiontime and a petition has been started to support creating regular Q&A sessions with the President, similar to how they do Question Time in the British Parliament. The White House has already said they feel the spontaneity of last Friday's event would be destroyed if the Q&As were held on a regular basis. We'll see what happens... READ MORE

WHO'S PAYING TO KILL HEALTH REFORM?

A very cool chart by Campaign for America's Future which really explains it all.

+ click to enlarge

A SMART PRESIDENT ≠ A SMART COUNTRY

Courtesy of Bill Maher, the Huffington Post

New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing - in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It's how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off. Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.

Now, the hate mail all seemed to have a running theme: that I may live in a stupid country, but they lived in the greatest country on earth, and that perhaps I should move to another country, like Somalia. Well, the joke's on them because I happen to have a summer home in Somalia... and no I can't show you an original copy of my birth certificate because Woody Harrelson spilled bong water on it.

And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.  more

BLUE DOG BRAGS ABOUT KILLING SINGLE PAYER

Firedoglake reports today that the Blue Dog Democrats held the bill hostage in the committee for 10 days until they took the single payer option out. Yes, this is really something to brag about Mike Ross. Why don't you go back to being your true self:  a Republican who only cares about all the campaign contributions you've received from the Health Care Industry. Isn't that the REAL reason why you're stopping this?

FINALLY, THE LAME BLUE DOGS ARE CALLED OUT.

Keith Olbermann rages against republicans & blue dog democrats who are doing every thing in their power to prevent the Health Care bill from included the much-needed public option. Why? Because they've been bought and paid for by health care corporations. Finally, someone in the media is calling them out.

TODAY'S WEEKLY POLITICAL CARTOON

A great editorial cartoon from one of our newest contributors, Arash Banisafar. You'll be seeing more of his work here every week. Thank you Arash!

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IS SOCIAL MEDIA DILUTING OFFLINE DISSENT?

Whatever happened to gathering in the streets? The physical gathering of flesh and blood that makes politicians sweat? Picket lines that make companies bite their nails? And I'm not talking about the redneck Tea Parties brought you by Fox news as of late. It all seems to be fading, although you wouldn't know it by the success of "social" media. What would happen if  all the billions of our online conversations, protests, petitions and followers merely disappeared with a flick of a switch? Could happen. It all runs on electricity provided by private corporations after all. Where would all our friends be then?

 Would MLK Jr's 1963 March on Washington be larger today or the Birmingham campaign more effective? I really want to believe it would. But part of me thinks that there'd be a mass mobilization online and a weaker turn out offline precisely because we've already tweeted and emailed our rage away. We let our fingers do the walking instead of our feet. The motivation to step out of the comfy confines of our imaginary electronic social world and count ourselves amongst the masses of physical human beings is becoming more difficult to do both personally and publicly (See Free Speech Zones). Or is it just simply less convenient?

Most of us believe we're doing the right thing when we gather in mass on the web. I know I do. The first thing I did after seeing Michael Moore's Sicko was to run home and email every politician I could think of, sign every petition and give money to several organizations. I felt much better, was taking part in the political process and felt I did everything I could. But was I? Or did my name, money and outrage slip down a digital black hole?

We scream our comments online but do you actually hear anything? We gather in groups online that would bring most cities to a standstill, but look outside your window, is it business as usual? It's as if our outrage, indignation and sadness is being funneled, digitized, isolated and then dissipated. There seems to be a disconnect between the digital and the physical. The physical is uncomfortable, inconvenient, dirty and often painful, everything that expressing yourself from behind the computer screen isn't. Perhaps it's just a product of our convenience culture. Check your iPhone for the weather but don't look out the window.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an advocate of everything digital and merely exploring this notion. There are huge successes brought on by social media (Obama) and many others. I say join the conversation, sign the petition, make your comments, pass them on to a billion people. It's the great democratization of information after all. Power to the Tweeple! But at the end of the day, if we don't see the change that we have so strongly tweeted about, it needs to be followed by taking a stand, on our feet, out there. Hey, it might even be a nice day.

PHOTO CREDIT: Bush Protest, Parliament Square courtesy of randydandy via the Londonist Flickr pool