You know what I find maddening about the debate over the public option...

[Wetzelbill]

That people in the media act like Dems should just give up on it and pass a bill, or compromise with something like co-ops that the corporate Dems want to do. They act like this is the most reasonable thing to do and it's meeting in the middle where everybody else is supposed to already be. It baffles me.

Republicans aren't voting for anything. Not a public option. Not co-ops. Not even a bill that has neither of those. By some luck, you might get one GOP vote in the Senate. And that would be pretty lucky.

The vast majority of the party in charge, the Democratic Party, wants the public option and will vote for it. For most of the party, especially the progressive wing, the public option was already a compromise and a sizable portion of that group will not vote for a bill without it.

So it hinges on about a handful of Dem senators, who insist on doing something different. They want to have co-ops or simply leave out another option from the bill entirely. Maybe 5 people want the other the whole rest of the party to switch over to their ideas, so they are holding up the whole process. That's not even reasonable. And it's also not easier to get everybody else, the vast majority of the party, to give up what they want in order to get a bill. You get those handful of senators to go along with what the vast majority wants, not the other way around.

But to hear how it's spun, you would think that the unreasonable people are the ones being reasonable while the others are just being difficult.

I guess in Beltway world everything has to be upside down, it's ridiculous.

[necso]

1. The corporate media mix

of propaganda, psywar, insularism, smugness, arrogance, ignorance and stupidity is toxic... and simply appalling.

And it's telling of a society drowning in lies, bullshit and manipulations.

[Wetzelbill]

2. It's easy to see

how we ended up with a guy like Bush in office for 8 years or how we walked into an unnecessary war and and a financial meltdown. The media either totally misses or helps perpetuate all of this stuff and then they stand by and act like they can't believe how any of it all happened. Well if they'd actually do their jobs right maybe we could avoid some of this.

[necso]

3. They're doing what they're paid to do;

the job they're supposed to do (informing, revealing) largely isn't relevant to them anymore -- generally, it doesn't pay.

[necso]

5. On another note,

the latest MODIS data(!) looks promising relative to the Station fire:

http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/activefiremaps.php?op=maps&rCode=cgb

[deaniac21]

4. They are pointing out that politicians like to get elected.

[Lex]

6. When the Repubs were in charge, the media laughed about how they could

pass what they wanted and the Dems couldn't do anything about it. It was as if that tickled the media pink back then.