Beck says administration "modeled themselves ... after Al Capone. You take these guys on, and they will bash your brains out"
October 27, 2009 8:50 am ET
From the October 27 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
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As for the insurance industry, underwriting will take care of the poor profits this year. It will just become harder for people to get that extra procedure or diagnostic test because insurance companies will fight to avoid paying for it due to lower profits. Not trying to bash insurance companies, but that's just how it tends to work.
Glenn Beck the smartest man in the world...the only one that listens, the only one that sees, the only one that knows, the only one that understands, the only one paying attention....
NBA stars, most only have a High School education, and make Millions, really is that fair to the other high school grads?
NFL, when to college most never graduated, is that far to others that only have a 2 yr degree?
So if this government is going to control pay at banks and you say Healthcare companies, should they not also step in and control the pay in Hollywood and Sports?
I don't recall the government bailing out a movie company or a sports team or making control of executive bonuses a condition of such a bailout.
How does that make me wrong exactly?
If the CEOs of bailed out companies are to be compared to entertainers, they should be paid according to performance as well. If they went to Washington with their hands out, then they didn't perform very well and their salaries should be based on that.
Health care is different. It's not a luxury, it's a business that today has as it's model, making profits by denying coverage to those who pay the premiums. It's an unworkable business model and the American people deserve better.
With respect, this seems a point worth clarifying a bit, since "performance" is a tricky term in this context.
In most jobs, pay is not directly related to skill, work or merit per se. Salaries are determined to a much larger extent by the value of the employee's labor to owners and investors. Take, oh, Rush Limbaugh for example, and the 8-year / $400 million dollar contract he just signed. He's an amazing performer, but I challenge anyone to support the position that he is 1,666 times more skilled or that he works 1,666 times harder than a person who earns $30k as a janitor. Limbaugh's paycheck has far less to do with his work than it does with the projected return on investment in his labor.
And this is fine, because in many industries everybody seems to win by this system. But if what Robyn says is true about health insurance CEOs earning more per hour than most people earn in a year, we start to see a problem: tens of millions of people in this country don't have health insurance. In situations like this, the famous line from A Beautiful Mind seems worth remembering: "Adam Smith needs revision."
Furthermore, seeing a movie is a choice, watching a sporting event is a choice, using Google is a choice. Getting cancer is NOT a choice.
"Healthcare should not be a money making proposition at all. It's barbaric." Well since we all need food, should we not make money on food? What about a houses, we need shelter? We need clothes? In a free market, if we had more choices of healthcare and the government would allow cross state insurance buying options, which would drive the cost down as well as tort reform. These ideas have proven to work in the past in either other markets or other states, but he Government does not what that option, they just want to control you. If you are ok with the government controlling what the CEO’s from banks make for taking money, if you take the public option, are you ready for more government control in your life. I will leave you with a Barney Frank quote of the day.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) says Democrats are "trying on every front to increase the role of government."
Excuse me? People don't "get nothing" when they repay loans and credit card bills. That's the point of loans. The banks that took the money got their continued existence from their bailouts and agreed to terms when they took their money.
If you have no shelter, you can build it.
If you have cancer, you can... uh...
Also, did you know that all those companies that help with Cancer treatments make money? I mean they have to get paid for all the time they spent trying to find a cure and all the money the spent till they did find a treatment in order to get paid back.
By the way, many of those breakthroughs and discoveries that you love attributing to free enterprise and capitalism actually come from the National Institutes of Health, which, surprise, is a government agency that's taxpayer funded. The 2010 budget sets aside over $6 billion for NIH cancer research.
See, here is your problem you think government should get a say here and there, and the government will make the health insurance companies look like the best option ever. Did you not see the recent report on whom says not the most for treatments? FYI the government through Medicare, so based on your logic, we are going to be worse off in the future with government in control but what really works the best is the government should just butt out. Pete, they have some break through but sorry, you’re also wrong; many also come from drug companies. Oh my goodness not a company that makes a profit.
In a recent study, the government (Medicaid) says no to treatments more then private health insurance companies.
Way to take a joke, Mark. Yeah, I'll die. I'd just rather for lack of access to healthcare at a reasonable price.
I'll spell this out for you: my comment was mocking the conservative answer to the lack of adequate and fair universal health care. As Rush Limbaugh put it to a caller who said he'd broken his wrist, "well, you shouldn't have broken your wrist".
I wish you a healthy a long life, Mark.
Better trolls, plz.
ok, i am not sure who nan is. but you do know that the government is not an inanimate object. it is run by people. and a lot of those people are dedicated to makeing the lives of all americans better. just because you have some radical agenda to strip government out of our lives and turn us into a lord flies type country only shows how selfish those on the right are.
Either take your time to compose your thoughts, start using paragraphs, and re-read your posts before you post them, or just stop posting.
What Obama said bears no resemblance to your second sentence distortion of what happened in the town hall meeting. His answer was not "take a pill". His answer was that it's a decision between the physician and the patient. When he discusses the take a pill comment, he's discussing the end of life counselling that will let patients know the benefits of a variety of different healthcare options - like the 99 yr old woman taking a pill vs getting an operation.
All below from THe Perryman Group, it was easy to find with a google search, Bintx you could have done the same.
Last year, TLR commissioned a study by The Perryman Group to figure out the impact of these reforms Here are the economic impact findings of that study:
$112.5 billion increase in annual spending
$51.2 billion increase in annual output – goods and services produced in Texas
$2.6 billion increase in annual state tax revenue
$468.9 million in annual benefits from safer products
$15.2 billion in annual net benefits of enhanced innovation
499,000 permanent jobs
430,000 additional Texans have health insurance today as a result of the medical liability reforms
The complete Perryman Group report is here.
As these numbers show, tort reform can have a substantial impact on economic growth and wealth creation, and a huge impact on the healthcare system in particular. Any serious national healthcare reform must include comprehensive tort reform to reduce the practice of defensive medicine and other perverse incentives.
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/09/08/prl20908.htm
1/2 of 1%. That's all. It's not a substantial impact on economic growth and wealth creation.
The state lines crapola is just that - crapola. I'm sure it's waaayyy cheaper to buy insurance in, say, Colorado, than it is in Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho.
I guess you support taking away the anti-trust exemption from the corporate insurance vampires.
I don't see any sports teams asking for federal bailouts, not happening.
"Headline Reads - Sports Authority May Need Taxpayer Rescue"
SO not a talking point, fact.
And I said, sports teams, not a retail franchise.
No federal bailout, and no risk to taxpayers. It's not even a private organization or a business. The Houston Sports Authority is not a company at all. It's a group of municipalities!
Your whole point falls flat on its face!
Regardless, no one dies if Eric Schmidt buys a new boat.
What do the insurance companies bring to the table in regards to health care?
USP, who are you and what was your topic, do not remember you saying anything. I guess you are like a weak kid that stand around and wait for someone to throw a punch and you hell out, yea, take that sucker.
Bintx, I already proved you wrong, so move along.
You are a clueless twerp. You have no idea what I think. I think it is shameful, when the CEOs are paying themselves 400% more, than what they pay their workers. I think it is a crime, when do to their own mismanagement, they get government bailouts and still pay themselves a bonus, in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollar bonus. I have been the CEO of my own business and believe me my employees, would never find a need for a union.
Seriously, if you're going to make an analogy, at least make sense.
I also find it terribly interesting that he would first refer to himself waving a bat around on a previous show, then makes the remarks...
Refering of course to Sean Connery's call for the escalation of violence by Elliot Ness against Capone after he was gunned down by an assassin. One could only take this to mean that Glenn is encouraging the same thing in his audience.
If he wanted people to make a change in a legitimate way he would have waved a voting ballot around and not a baseball bat.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/2009/10/25/1025fox.html
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TV_FOX_VS_WHITE_HOUSE?SITE=TXMCA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/wh-were-happy-to-exclude-fox-but-didnt-yesterday-with-feinberg-interview.php
OK, enough already with the violent metaphors please.
These is absolutely NO chain of logic tying what these people say to reality. The violent metaphors are for the intellectually lazy audience who takes the Fox pundits' preamble as complicated "technical speak" which just naturally leads to their conclusive metaphors. No reason to try to decipher all that "inside baseball" - just wait for the easily understandable metaphor so that you can put it in your pocket, take it to bridge club, and impress the the other soccer moms with how politically savvy you are. Beck's making a fortune providing those metaphors for the ignorant. His chalk board isn't meant to clarify, it's meant to daze. There doesn't need to be any logical connection between two subjects, just a chalk line. And he's testing the water to see what level of outrageousness will be too much. I don't think he's aware of the level of disbelief suspense to which Fox viewers are willing to go to claim an ally in their preconceptions.
This is more than just a violent metaphor. This is another variation of the product for which Ailes found a need. And don't expect Fox to give up their stock in trade. Remember, they went to court to defend their right to lie. And won.
I'm on guard always against being cynical or too negative or unnecessarily suspicious or conspiracy-minded, but these Republican media hacks and stooges at Fox News Channel and on the radio, they're full of violent metaphors when they're otherwise pretending to talk about Public and National Policy.
They speak of "brains getting bashed out" and being killed (I believe both beck and savage like to claim that someone's trying to kill them), and in the case of limbaugh, he seems fixated with metaphors of rape and molestation... again, I try to stay positive, but are these people doing this intentionally?
I mean, is this some clever and manipulative way to stoke more fear and more hatred among the masses, by sprinkling their Public Policy talk with violent metaphors?
You know, if someone tells you that your fellow Citizen simply opposes your Public Policy opinions, then big deal, you maybe listen to them and maybe you make a better argument yourself... but if instead you are told that your fellow Citizen is trying to "kill" you or "rape" you, or "bash your brains out", those words strike a different nerve, and make for fear and anger and hatred, and not subliminally either, because it's right there in the words and on their face, "kill" "rape" "bash your brains out"...
Anyway, those are the words they love to use when talking about Public Policy for LORD'S sake, they love violent metaphors, despite the obvious fact that the literal meaning of those words have no application in the Public Policy issues being discussed.
Is there something malicious going on here?
I don't know for sure, I don't like to spend too much time thinking about it... these Republican media hacks and stooges are malicious, yes, I do know that, and their objective seems to be to stoke and provoke as much fear and anger and hatred in the public forum as they can, yes to that too, it's as obvious as is the color red...
But is the incessant use of violent metaphors by these people, is it something malicious?
Let me say this: I love words and the effects they have, principally the effect of communicating the truth... and in the world of Public Policy, few things are as serious and important as are the Law and Contracts and the testimonies we make in investigations and in the Courts of Law (all of which is comprehended by Public Policy), and I know this much: that metaphors of any kind, be they violent or not, are prohibited and not allowed in the Law or in Contracts or in testimony in an investigation or in a a Court of Law...
And so why do we allow them in Public Policy talk, why are they so rampant among these Republican media hacks and stooges, and why are they so violent for LORD'S sake?
We allow them for the same reason that we, theoretically at least, base our criminal justice system on the concept of "innocent until proven guilty." The good we see in a free and untrammeled exchange of ideas is greater than the evil inherent in the inevitable abuse of that speech by some, just as the risk that the guilty will go free is more acceptable than the risk that the innocent will be wrongfully incarcerated.
We also know that no government in history, including our own (no matter which side controls it) can be trusted with the suppression of speech. The first speech to be suppressed will always be that which said government finds embarrassing. Note that even this administration, which we voted in on promises of greater transparency and integrity, has not only failed to clean up the corruption in the Justice Department left by Bush (see: Seiligman), but has reneged on campaign promises to protect whistleblowers, and actively gone after them..
So the question is, who would you trust to suppress this violent, disgusting and absurd speech?
Never mind that despite the fact that Obama lived in Chicago, there's no evidence whatsoever that he ever participated in any "Chicago" politics.
I get one email a week at least that decries Obama's Chicago politics, however.
Why let facts stop a perfectly good rightwing myth?
If only they DID...
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How much more progress we'd have made.
I mean, if Obama wants to destroy you so badly, how come it hasn't been done yet? Your presence totally negates your story.
Yes, it has zero logic. And yes, idiots like puppieinrainbows and kyledem09 will attack us for pointing out that Beck's analysis has zero logic. As PT Barnum once said, "There's a Glenn Beck fan born every minute."
Foghornleghorn nailed it on the "Olbermann gives Limbaugh Worst Person" thread. I hope he/she doesn't mind my moving it over here.
by foghornleghorn
2
Read John Dean's Conservative Without Conscience. It explains the phenomenon of Fox's and hate radio's ratings quite well.
But since you probably won't read it, what it basically says is that the authoritarians need continual reinforcement of their flawed belief system because the real world constantly contradicts said system.
What an idiot. It's obvious, with all of Glenn's crying antics, that he's doing this stuff for ratings now. Nothing he says makes any sense.
What a fool.
Do these guys have psychological issues.
Interesting that someone like Beck, who's most certainly part of the "Mormon mafia", would invoke mob comparisons.
Do a little research on Glenn Beck and his relationship with Overstock.com. And Overstock.com's CEO, Patrick M. Byrne (who has been a guest on Beck's show). And then, if you're really bored, look into Patrick M. Byrne's and Glenn Beck's relationship with Judd Bagley.
Kind of funny how close all three of the mormon guys are so close. Also funny how Patrick Byrne and Judd Bagley were talking an awful lot about communists and George Soros YEARS ago.
You think Glenn Beck's only financial motivation comes from selling books and Fox?
It's a whole new dimension to Beck that I don't think has ever been looked in to.
I liked the Jack Nickelson movie. I was just describing a movie that should honor Becky!
It seems Beck's war on "progressive liberals" has a lot more motivation that meets the eye, especially considering his ties with Overstock.com. Note, also, how they are still advertising on his show.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/29/759137/-The-Patrick-Byrne-Chronicles:-How-He-Breaks-the-Law
Wouldn't it be hilarious if someone uncovered evidence of Beck engaging in insider trading?