And they are called Republicans.

A 65-year-old man rallying in favor of healthcare
reform was knocked to the ground by a man who disagreed
with the call for a government-run health plan outside
of a Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce meeting
headlined by Sen. Bill Nelson.

Luis Perrero of Coral Gables was standing among about
40 Democratic activists and union workers when a man in
a Ford pick-up truck pulled up to the rally at Jungle
Island and began arguing with the crowd. The man, who
only gave his first name as Raul, said Perrero called
him a Spanish curse word. He punched Perrero in the
face. Perrero fell to the ground and lay motionless for
a few minutes.

"I'm amazed the way this has become such a politicized
issue,'' Perrero said, while still sitting on the
ground but sitting up. "It shows that people who are
against the public option will resort to anything,
including battery on a senior citizen to prevent
healthcare reform.''

Not satisfied to just punch out a senior citizen, they also want
to get the President killed.

Dan Savage, author of the well-read "Savage Love"
column, appeared on MSNBC's Keith Olbermann last night
and spoke about the crazies of the religious right,
including our very own Rep. Michele Bachmann. But his
own extreme comments could bring him under some serious
fire too.

When talking about the rhetoric used by Bachmann and
people like her, particularly during the health care
reform debate, Savage said "the Michele Bachmanns of
the world and the Glenn Becks of the world are actively
and consciously, or subconsciously, trying to get - I'm
just going to say it, trying to get the president
killed."

These people are truly sick and rather than be in congress on
television - they should be in straight jackets in a rubber room.

C

Is only fair. Don't you think ?

C

How many TPM posters does it take to change a light bulb?

ANSWER:
1,331:

1 to change the light bulb and to write a blog that the light
bulb has been changed

14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the
light bulb could have been changed differently.

7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light
bulbs.

53 to flame the spell checkers

156 to write to Josh complaining about the light bulb
discussion and its inappropriateness to TPM.

41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames.

109 to post that TPM is not about light bulbs and to please take
this subject to another blog.

203 to demand that cross posting to daily kos, America Blog and Eschaton
about changing light bulbs be stopped.

111 to defend the posting to TPM saying that we are all use light
bulbs and therefore the posts **are** relevant to TPM.

306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to
buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this
technique, and what brands are faulty.

27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs

14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected
URLs.

3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this
list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list.

33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all
headers and footers, and then add "Me Too."

12 to post they are unsubscribing from TPM because they cannot
handle the light bulb controversy.

19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three."

4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.

1 to propose new Light Bulb Blog.

47 to say this is just what coldfusionBloggers was meant for, leave
it here.

143 votes for Light Bulb Bloggers.


C

With a hat tip to Matt Taibbi.

It was inevitable that the same people who pushed
through the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall
Street would come out later on and tell us what a great
idea theirs turned out to be, in retrospect and under
the light of evidentiary examination. And we're getting
that now, with a pair of reports, the above one in the
New York Times and another in the Financial Times,
telling us the bailout is working because the
government has made some money on TARP. They came to
this conclusion by quoting Fed officials, who
apparently calculated how much interest the Fed earned
on TARP investments above what it would have earned on
T-bills. The amount so far, according to these worthy
gentlemen: $14 billion.

This is sort of like calculating the returns on a
mutual fund by only counting the stocks in the fund
that have gone up. Forgetting for a moment that TARP is
only slightly relevant in the entire bailout scheme --
more on that in a moment -- the TARP calculations are a
joke, apparently leaving out huge future losses from
AIG and Citigroup and others in the red. Since only a
small portion of the debt has been put down by the best
borrowers, and since the borrowers in the worst shape
haven't retired their obligations yet, it's crazy to
make any conclusions about TARP, pure sophistry.
Moreover, a think tank set up to analyze TARP,
Ethisphere, calculated in June that TARP was still $148
billion down overall, a debt of over $1200 per
American. To start talking about what a success TARP is
now is beyond meaningless.

The other reason for that is that it's only a tiny
sliver of the whole bailout picture. The real burden
carried by the government and the Fed comes from the
various anonymous bailout facilities -- the TALF, the
PPIP, the Maiden Lanes, and so on. The losses from the
Fed's purchase of distressed/crap Bear Stearns assets
(Maiden Lane I) and AIG assets (MaidenLanes II and III)
alone were as recently as late July calculated in the
$8.6 billion range, and even that number is very
conservative. Then there's the trillion or so dollars
that the Fed used on buying up mortgage-backed
securities and Treasuries; we don't know what their
market value is now. And there are untold trillions
more the Fed has loaned out in the last 18 months and
which we are not likely to find out much about, unless
the recent court ruling green-lighting Bloomberg's FOIA
request for those records actually goes through.

Not surprising that they would attempt to paint this with a rose
colored brush. But really...how gullible do they think we are ?

C

"I'm going to pose a question,"King Milinda said to Venerable Nagasena.
"Can you answer?"
Nagasena said"Please ask your question."
The king said "I already asked."
Nagasena said "I have already answered."
The king said "What did you answer?"
Nagasena said "What did you ask?"
The king said "I have asked nothing."
Nagasena said "I have answered nothing."


C

I have read a number of posts pertaining to the quality of the
posts, comments and blogs on TPM not being of the calibre
many would like them to be.

Granted that some tend to be rather childish and not as well
researched and backed up by data as they might.

However I feel I need to remind some folks that one of the biggest
problems that those of us on the left have is the tendency toward
intellectual snobbery, snottiness, condescension and arrogance.
Which is a major turn off to most in this country.

Remember that: One - George W. Bush was not elected in spite
of his lack of intelligence or command of the English language -
but because of it.

And Two - the average IQ in this country is 90 NOT 190.

So unless you want TPM to become just another place for academic,
intellectual policy wonks - the discussions that take place here should
encompass  any style that writer chooses. And the Cafe any subject
that comes up.

C