contributor and joe connison is with the new york observer. joe, i want you to start. i don t want to compare anybody to what happened in the third reich but the big lie seems to be working here. if you say something over and over again, if you hint, tease, suggest, nuance, innuendo, whatever, finally the people begin to think where there s smoke there s fire. now a terrible situation where only 42% of the american people are willing to say they believe he was born here. only 23% of republicans. that differential is key to me. the republican people out there watching right now for some reason like to say that they don t think he is definitely an american. i don t think they would pass a lie detector on that. i think they know he s a republican, but they re enjoying this gig at him. i agree with that, chris. i think a lot of the response among republicans and especially the response from people promoting this is dishonest. they know the facts are very clear both in the as expressed
been part of a discussion with conservative writers about how we can most help the republican or conservative team. uh-huh. as joe connison noted at salon barnes was paid more than $25,000 plus travel expenses to speak at county republican meetings in oregon, texas, and florida between 06 and 308. you got paid, fred. you ve already joined the conservative team. but our winner rupert murdoch and his president for station operations for fox, dennis swanson. for a long time the one saving grace of the fixed news propaganda machine was that it did not extend to the local stations murdoch owns like channel 5 in new york and channel 11 in los angeles. well, you can forget the one saving grace. multiple industry sources say that within the last six weeks or so local news directors at the local fox o & os have been receiving memoranda and e-mails from swanson and other executives and even from murdoch himself, content directives they re call, to make the local news on fox broadcast stations
regulations and entitlements that the public has roundly rejected, but that they believe will be the crowning achievement of the welfare state. they are also leaving behind a procedural bloody trail that will fuel public fury and make such a vast change of laws seem illegitimate to millions of americans. the concoction has become so toxic that even mrs. pelosi isn t bothering to dwenld the merits anymore, saying that we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what s in it, or rather deeming to have passed it, which is the latest news. the nuance in the wall street journal article aside, ron, why don t you tell us what you think about this bill. well, so many things. first of all, joe, the best the best estimate that has been done on the long-term cost implications of health care reform not only for the government but the entire society, all health care spending was done by the medicare actuary, which is an independent physician who was critical in many ways of the bill
something to pass joe, they re all going to have to vote. let s not forget, they re going to have to cast votes on this legislature, cast votes on on the changes. on the changes. everybody s going to have to vote, plus they ve all voted on this bill once already. no, they haven t voted on the senate bill. well, that s right, but they ve all voted to pass a health care reform. a health care bill. that s correct. that has elements of this bill in it. joe, how old are you? well, let me ask you this question. i m older than you, actually. were you watching cartoons in the early 1970s? was i watching cartoons i was in college then, yeah, i probably was. so you may not have been familiar with schoolhouse rock. conjunction junction what s your function? do the little song. you remember that one? they started out on capitol hill. there was nothing in there about deeming. it was, like, you passed it in the house. you pass it in the senate. so if it s not
to work the way it s supposed to. do you invest in stocks? what? do you invest in stocks? because i don t. mutual funds. go heavy on insurance companies. there s going to be a mandate, baby. why are they opposing it, joe? i haven t seen the ads. tell me why. i haven t seen the ads. everyone keeps saying, a bad deal with the mandates. they d be stupid to run ads. you know exactly what they do. they re handing out checks and they re doing it every day. thank you. in 94, they destroyed clinton s health care bill. but this year they know they re very unpopular. it s one of the first things that frank luntz told the republicans, don t get in bed with the republicans because people hate them more than they hate you. that s a fact. behind closed doors republicans say a lot of decisions are being made about who s going to get a check from the insurance companies. they get the mandates without the cost controls. it s like christmas for the insurance companies. every