On the morning of Tuesday, March 23, President Obama signed into law a bill which will expand health care coverage to more than 30 million currently uninsured Americans.
As Vice President Biden rightly said at the time, it was a big fucking deal.
In fact, it might've been the biggest fucking deal since the dark days of LBJ.
And so, with that in mind, it's hardly surprising that nearly one quarter of all Republicans believe that President Obama may be the Anti-Christ.
Morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY); Roundtable: Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meachem (Newsweek), Republican Strategist Mike Murphy and Democratic Strategist Bob Shrum.
Face the Nation: DNC Chairman Tim Kaine; Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC); Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
This Week White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett; Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R); Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D); Roundtable: George Will (Washington Post), Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile, Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal) and Paul Krugman (New York Times).
Fox News Sunday: Florida GOP Senate Primary Debate between Gov. Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.
State of the Union: White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod; Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN); Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD); Reliable Sources: Terence Smith (Ex-CBS News); Lauren Ashburn (Ex-USA Today Live); David Zurawik (Baltimore Sun); Jim VandeHei (Politico); John Harris (Politico).
The Chris Matthews Show: Howard Fineman (Newsweek); Kelly O'Donnell (NBC News); Gloria Borger (CNN); Andrew Sullivan (The Atlantic).
Fareed Zakaria GPS: Mexican President Felipe Calderon; Paul Krugman (New York Times); Robert Samuelson (Newsweek).
Primetime viewing:
60 Minutes: will feature: an interview with former FBI and CIA terrorism fighter Nada Prouty, who was herself accused of aiding terrorism (preview); an interview with Mikhail Prokhorov, perhaps Russia's richest man, who plans to purchase the N.J. Nets basketball team (preview); and, Anderson Cooper swimming unprotected with great white sharks (preview).
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were in reruns this week, so there are no new clips to share.
Instead, here's a compilation of Jon Stewart's best coverage of the teabaggers.
The Daily Show
Monday: Actor Ben Stiller ("Greenberg")
Tuesday: Actor/Comedian Robin Williams ("Weapons of Self Destruction")
Wednesday: Author Roxana Saberi ("Between Two Worlds")
Thursday: Actor Edward Norton ("Leaves of Grass")
And Stephen Colbert's take on the differences between today's protesters and the Woodstock generation.
The Colbert Report
Monday: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Tuesday: MIT Professor of Economics Simon Johnson
Wednesday: Author Craig Mullaney ("The Unforgiving Minute")
Thursday: Author Judith Shulevitz ("The Sabbath World")
You'd need to look further back in history than the 60s to find tactics comparable to those employed by the teabaggers.
The call to arms was issued at 5:55 a.m. last Friday.
"To all modern Sons of Liberty: THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW."
These were the words of Mike Vanderboegh, a 57-year-old former militiaman from Alabama, who took to his blog urging people who opposed the historic health-care reform legislation -- he calls it "Nancy Pelosi's Intolerable Act" -- to throw bricks through the windows of Democratic offices nationwide. [...]
In the days that followed, glass windows and doors were shattered at local Democratic Party offices and the district offices of House Democrats from Arizona to Kansas to New York.
Unfortunately for Mr. Vanderboegh, inciting violence against the government doesn't pay the bills. Luckily for him, however, government checks do.
Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension.
In related news:
When Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.
Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist. [...]
Mr. Grimes, who receives Social Security, has filled the back seat of his Mercury Grand Marquis with the literature of the movement, including Glenn Beck's "Arguing With Idiots" and Frederic Bastiat's "The Law," which denounces public benefits as "false philanthropy."
"If you quit giving people that stuff, they would figure out how to do it on their own," Mr. Grimes said.
And Messieurs Vanderboegh and Grimes are hardly alone.
70 percent of those who sympathize with the Tea Party, which organized protests this week against President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, want a federal government that fosters job creation. [...]
"The ideas that find nearly universal agreement among Tea Party supporters are rather vague," says J. Ann Selzer, the pollster who created the survey. "You would think any idea that involves more government action would be anathema, and that is just not the case."
The stupid... it burns!
- Trix