I'm looking at Matt Drudge's webpage right now, and I'm shaking my head in disgust, and I feel like sharing why. I'll just stick with the top of his site, basically, because that's enough to make my blood boil, and blood isn't supposed to boil too much.
Five articles above the picture and main headline. You know how Drudge works. Sometimes it's a flashing-esque light (a rare sight these days), sometimes no articles above the picture, and five is about the max, although maybe it gets higher. Let's just walk down the articles together.
Oh, I should say, in case you didn't know, that people die in this country in 2009 because they can't afford adequate health care, and people go to bed hungry despite billionaires barely feeling the economic contraction that is causing havoc for so many. So what does Matt Drudge's view of the day look like?
First up we have: DEMS TO HIT TOP EARNERS WITH 5.4% SURTAX.... It's an article that talks about the passage of one bill through the Senate's Health Committee. Tremendous progress would be made in this country if the bill passed, as more people would have better health care coverage (but not all, so the bill is not perfect). The bill also adds a new bar on companies denying people because of pre-existing conditions, and appears to (confession: I haven't read the bill) contain a patent handout to the biotechnology industry. Republicans attack the bill because only one side wrote it (does that mean it's good you just wanted co-authorship?) and because it will harm small business, although the facts in the article suggest otherwise. Anyway, to Matt Drudge the most important and/or salacious (he is trying to make a living getting people to click on links he posts) part of the article is that "top earners" will get "hit" with a 5.4% surtax. Is that different from a tax? I don't know, I'm not good with numbers. 5.4% is for millionaires only, although tax increases start for people making "50,000, i.e. less than 1.5% of the public will see a tax increase, at least according to wikipedia. So, don't cry too hard for people getting a tax increase, even though I like lower taxes, when feasible. Democrats attack this plan, some saying a tax increase will not be part of a final bill; regardless Durbin talks about needing 60 votes to get anything passed instead of acting like Democrats are in charge. I remember the Republicans getting sh*t done when they were in the majority in the Senate without 60 votes. So, to summarize, we are on the cusp of progress, many complicated issues are involved in health care, how to pay for it has Democrats fumbling over each other and claiming to need more power than they should, but to Matt Drudge: the rich are about to be soaked! Nothing matters more than taxes on the richest of the rich!
Article two is 1,000+ page bill would make health care a right in USA.... I mean, what needs to be said about this other than the fact that he seems to be suggesting that, what exactly? 1,000 is a lot? To reform the health care system? I think not. 1,000 is too little? He can't be suggesting that. Who knows what his point is here. I guess the point is there can be no point. Who cares how long the bill is? What does it say? The article answers that in the headline in the part that Drudge lifts: House bill would make health care a right. Is someone against that? Is the length of the bill a reason? This is nonsense. Just retyping it makes me happy.
Article three is 'Since when does our great free-market country punish success'.... Here is where the rich can cry me a river. We hear from the ever-reliable (cough**cough) U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who claims:
"The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America’s small business owners," the Washington-based group’s president, Thomas Donohue, said in a statement. "Since when does our great free-market country punish success?"
Uh, what? Taking a few percent of your income to help the entire country live better and longer and fix a problem that is and has been dragging on our economy is punishing success? You're still successful, even if you pay a few more percentage points in taxes! You're more successful if you help people with that money! And how does taxing high-income households hurt small business owners again? Trickle down somethingorother? You're the group that encouraged the system that plunged us into this economic morass and failed to see it would lead us to this point, right? So I'm supposed to trust you to know how the economy will work in the future regarding health care? Your track record inspires no confidence.
And Ben Nelson, just stop. People looking to get there themselves some day don't mind, especially since they're not there now.
Article four is Obama airing TV ad touting massive overhaul.... I guess Drudge is trying to say that it's creepy the President has that much control over the airwaves? If so, I take the point, but the hypocricy is rank. Bush actually helped fake the news, never sought to communicate the truth of what was going on inside the Executive Branch, and the media was entirely complacent. This is not about fake news, but is about communicating the truth of what Obama wants to see happen (if in a somewhat superficial commercial, not a policy wonk Powerpoint or something). Also now the media has decided to wake up, and is challenging the President more. Not to mention Fox News, which is dedicated at its core to attacking this President, and spent eight years fawning over Bush.
The last article is 9-MONTH WAIT FOR ARTHRITIS TREATMENT IN UK.... Waiting too long for medical care can have horrible consequences, and Drudge here is obviously trying to scare people. The article, however, talks about the problem being that patients don't know enough about the disease and its symptoms and often wait too long to go see a GP. Another problem is with the training of the doctors, who require many visits to recognize the problem. So what if health reform involved, among other things, better training for GPs about arthritis, and better training for patients about their own health? Nah, let's just put up a scary headline.
The main headline, underneath a pic of Speaker Pelosi, is TAX THEM!, and is basically article three above at a different link. Who is them? Why are they being taxed? Answering those questions should have the whole country happily chanting TAX THEM! together, since it would result in a better place to live, but the tax bogeyman is one of the last vestiges of the modern Republican party, so let them try to scare people away from doing what's right by shaking the money stick.
A coda: the first thing I see when I look down the page is the biggest picture, that of several firefighters, seated, at Sotomayor's hearing. The headline is Republicans keep heat on Sotomayor.... Hmm. That's a little odd. Are all the firefighters Republicans? Are the Republicans keeping the heat on by having the firefighters there? As I understand it, this is a hearing for the Senate to examine the nominee and determine whether they want to give their advice and consent to this pick of the President's. For the overwhelming majority of our country's history, the President's Supreme Court nominee was swiftly approved, without drawn out hearings in the Judiciary Committee. This is all kabuki theater. Her record is known, and no one can legitimately dispute this woman's bona fides to serve on the highest court in the land. Even if we're going to have this ridiculous hearing, it should at least be about the law. So the Republicans are keeping the heat on a woman whose qualifications are not reasonably in dispute by having non-lawyers who came out on the wrong side of a case sit there? A case that was correctly decided at the time based on an application of Supreme Court jurisprudence to the Circuit Court level but was overturned by 5 shockingly conservative Supreme Court justices in a case that created new law? A case that was 5-4? That's how they're keeping the heat on? How many substantive, legal disputes are there with this woman's 17 year career of writing District Court and Circuit Court opinions?
Anyway, typing this out has helped my blood to simmer down. I can't stand people who try to distort reality, and I see it every time I click on Matt Drudge's page. Why do I keep doing it? That's for another diary.