Tuesday Mashup (7/20/10)

Gee, no points for originality here, wingnuts; let’s see if your cheap knockoffs manage to outsell the same items denoting the last day in office of Obama’s predecessor.

Also, Repug U.S. House Rep Eric Cantor of Virginia believes that he has bragging rights over the adoption of his home state’s budget (here)…

During these challenging economic times, Virginia balanced its budget and created a revenue surplus of more than $200 million in FY 2010. This is a result of the steady leadership of Gov. Bob McDonnell (R). Due to its fiscal prudence, Virginia was also able to close a $4.2 billion budget shortfall in the FY 2011/2012 by significantly cutting spending and without raising taxes. If America is to get its fiscal house in order, Washington needs to learn from the bold actions taken in Virginia by Governor McDonnell.

Really? As noted here…

Virginia lawmakers went into overtime this weekend to pass a two-year, $70 billion budget that includes millions in cuts to health and human services programs in the state.

…

(Katherine Webb, senior vice president of the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association) said hospitals will need to make tough choices to either reduce service or even jobs.

Prior to the finalized budget, the VHHA was critical of health care cuts for these very reasons.

“The General Assembly, like all Virginians, has had to make tough decisions during these difficult economic times,” said says Laurens Sartoris, president of the VHHA, in a statement. “But it is unconscionable to take money designated for a specific purpose and allocate it to other areas of the budget. No one would find it reasonable to transfer federal dollars for education to Medicaid. Why would it be acceptable to take health care dollars away from health care?”

Other health aspects of the pending budget include mental health services for 250 additional Virginians through Medicaid and $1 million for the Massey Cancer Center at VCU Medical Center in 2011.

And given the ridiculous attempt at fiscal management here, Cantor really has no room to say anything on this subject anyway.

Also, does anyone besides me remember how the Philadelphia Inquirer had once contemplated a “pay wall” for its glorious content here (snark – I know the story from last year didn’t say that was coming soon, but I don’t know how it could be avoided since they were discussing ways to generate revenue online)?

Well, it seems that, according to this, the Times of London has already tried that. And they lost 90 percent of their online readership as a result.

Just sayin’…

Finally, I give you BoBo in the New York Times today (here)…

This progressive era amounts to a high-stakes test. If the country remains safe and the health care and financial reforms work, then we will have witnessed a life-altering event. We’ll have received powerful evidence that central regulations can successfully organize fast-moving information-age societies.

If the reforms fail — if they kick off devastating unintended consequences or saddle the country with a maze of sclerotic regulations — then the popular backlash will be ferocious. Large sectors of the population will feel as if they were subjected to a doomed experiment they did not consent to. They will feel as if their country has been hijacked by a self-serving professional class mostly interested in providing for themselves.

If that backlash gains strength, well, what’s the 21st-century version of the guillotine?

Is that supposed to be funny?

When we are routinely deluged in our media with images like this?





But then again, as noted here, Brooks has been making excuses for the teabaggers in the name of false equivalency with the DFHs for some time, so I don’t suppose that his bit apologia for right-wing violence today is surprising in the least.