This weekend, President Obama visited Capitol Hill to talk to senators about the healthcare reform bill. I thought it would be interesting to see how various media outlets presented the visit. I’ll let the headlines speak for themselves.
BBC News
Obama rallies senators in healthcare meeting
NYTIMES
Push for Deal on Public Health Plan
LA TIMES
Senate healthcare talks pick up pace
Chicago Sun-Times
Obama pushing health bill in Capitol stop Sunday
Washington Post
Obama visits Hill to rally Dems on health reform
Daily Beast
Obama’s Health-Care Pep Talk
Denver Post
Obama urges Dems to pass health care overhaul
Miami Herald
Obama Pushes Health Bill in Capitol Stop Sunday
ABC News
Obama Pushes Health Care Reform in Rare Capitol Hill Sunday Trip
Fox News
Republicans Accuse Democrats of Backroom Dealing on Health Care Bill
Drudge
OBAMA RACES TO HILL TO SAVE HEALTHCARE!
Huffington Post
Obama Doesn’t Mention Public Option In Health Care Speech To Senators… Lieberman Elated
E’cat, your work reminds me of the joke I made the other day on the “other site.”
I fully expect to see a headline at HuffPost soon:
“Obama to progs: Drop dead”
LOL. Or “Obama secretly admired Hitler!!!”
Typical HP headlines trying to promote a meme.
“Anatomy Of A Failed Foreclosure Program”
Now look at the real story even with the spin the fault is the borrowers.
“Just how badly is President Obama’s $75 billion foreclosure program working out? Consider these newly-released numbers: Out of every 100 homeowners who came to JPMorgan Chase for help under the program, just 15 have or will likely receive a permanent payment reduction.
What happened to the other 85? For every 100 trial plans initiated from April through September 2009 under the Home Affordable Modification Program:
* 29 borrowers did not make all required payments under their trial plan;
* 20 borrowers did not submit all documents required for underwriting;
* 31 borrowers submitted all required documents but the documents did not meet HAMP underwriting standards, due to such things as missing signatures or nonstandard formats;
* 4 borrowers were or are likely to be rejected for undisclosed reasons;
* 1 borrower will not or is not likely to get their payment lowered.”
So in 49 cases the BORROWERS did not live up to the agreement.
In 29 cases BORROWERS were not eligible.
So how was this the administrations fault?
KQuark, I read the story that went with the latest idiotic headline. I wonder if HP personnel ever read the comments — a significant percentage of them are now “What’s with this stupid headline?”
If I get really bored one day, I’m going to go through a thread on a story like this and categorize the comments into several groups:
* Disgruntled leftie who bashes Obama no matter what.
* Only slightly attentive leftie who is in a rage because of the headline (doesn’t have a clue what’s really going on). **** This is the target audience for those headlines ****
* Weary but determined Obama defender.
* Poster questioning the motives of HP. (My usual role nowadays).
* Fiscal conservative whining about leftie spending.
* Rightwing Obama-hater trying to look brilliant.
* Mentally ill right wing troll spewing toxic waste.
* Poster hanging out with friends.
LOL…I have not been to HP since Sat. morning, aren’t you guys proud of me?
LOL. Any withdrawal symptoms?
Nah, not really. Just swung over there, some guy got arrested at the Mall of America for throwing tomatoes at Sarah Palin. The idiot missed and hit the cop standing near her.
The left and right are having fun with this…some of the posts are pretty funny!
E cat thats it in a NUT Shell!
How about,
Tonight’s argument will be brought to you by…….
Or, Tonight’s ulcer will be brought to you by…
I resemble No. 8.
Brilliant escribacat you really nailed the vast majority of posters on HP these days. Huffy’s motives are quite simple to understand when you classify who posts there these days because the first two groups are their bread and butter.
Excellent job, ecat. An article worthy of Media Matters. The headlines do indeed speak for themselves.
The best headline of all is actually yours: “President Obama visited Capitol Hill to talk to senators about the healthcare reform bill.” It’s the only one that is completely objective.
I agree that this would be a great regular feature for PPOV.
From Talking Points Memo the headline and sub headlines.
Fired Up? Obama Rallies Dems To Wrap Up Health Care Bill
Obama Makes Rare Visit To Capitol Hill … Durbin: ‘He Reminded Us Why We’re Here’ … Baucus: ‘It Helped, More Than Significantly’ … Conrad: ‘It Was A Powerful Speech’
Excellent idea, and oh so revealing. Interesting, but not suprising to see the Huffington Post sitting down there with the worst and most misleading.
Speaking of the Huff Post, I deleted my account, so as of tonight I will no longer participate in their threads.
Congrats and cheers, Bernard!
I still have my account there, amuses me to think they have to retain me as a member while I campaign to expose them but I just can’t rally the motivation to use it.
I do have a sock I use occasionally to invite folks here but I don’t write comments there anymore.
Once you discover Soylent Green is people, you don’t keep eating it.
Out of principle I deleted my KQuark profile. I still have a couple socks but I could no longer even tacitly condone their site. I think most of our old friends know were they can find us these days anyway.
Their memes continue despite reality. I just read where the bailouts are going to cost taxpayers about $42 billion dollars in the end from the initial bank bailouts. Down from a first estimate of $340 billion than a later estimate of $210 billion. Actually since February’s “stress tests” and Geithners plan to raise private capital for the banks, under Obama the banks will only have gotten $7 billion from the treasury and Geithner was able to get private investors to pony up 16X more about $114 billion from private investment. You remember another plan huffy told us would fail. It turns out the “stress tests” were more accurate than huffy told us and one reason that banks are paying the money back faster is because of Obama’s limits on executive compensation. In fact the government is set to lose more money on direct lending to stem foreclosures and loans to small businesses, you know main street. You will never read about that on huffy because they have their minds made up about the treasury department but it seems they did more things right after all.
I find it tough to give up troll slapping entirely, I need the release.
Besides, where else do we find new members for this site, except at that intellectually bankrupt hole, where everybody is bitching about moderation and srubbing. Ahem.
There’s a little revolt right now, everyone page after page demanding the reinstatement of LTTL – and they’re asking for alternatives. Well, I dropped the planet.
Hi Khirad, Lots of people upset. People are getting nailed by these “head hunter” trolls like that Authentic Swing asshole.
EDIT: I have to point out how nice it is to be able to come over here and post what an asshole I think that guy is.
2nd EDIT: I have been trying to say goodbye to LTTL. He announced he’s taking a break from HP. I tried to tell him I’d see him over “yonder” but that post was scrubbed. I tried again, saying I’d see him later …that’s it … “I’ll see you later…” and that was scrubbed as well. What the fuck is it with these totalitarian assholes?
They wouldn’t even let you say goodbye?!
Scrubbing makes Skunk mad!!! Rawwwrrrr!!!!
I deleted my account a couple weeks ago. I just could not condone the behavior on their site any longer.
It’s really sad that the corporate news wires have less spin these days. I now use the ap wire and bbc news for the majority of my raw information collection. I still go to liberal blogs but I expect to read opinion on them.
I had no idea that we could delete our account, it certainly wasn’t the case in 08 or when I stopped posting in April. I just thought that some of the people I’ve known there would see that I wasn’t posting.
A poster called Davidgetsinvolved almost had a fit begging Huff to remove his comments and profile, they didn’t take any notice and after spamming the threads with his email to them, he disappeared until I saw him there again earlier this year, he had changed his moniker to david something or other.
I just went into my account profile and deleted it. I decided to ban them after they banned peacekitten.
Learn something new every day.
My computer has a hissy fit if I go there, I’ll have to have a woman to man talk with Mac. 🙂
Kalima: You’re funny by saying “hissy fit”.
I completely understand what you’re saying. My computer used to do the same thing, whenever I tried to “delete” (or “remove”) my profile on HP, and I don’t have a Mac.
The computer would just sit there “gurgling” or whatever it was doing.
The little “hour glass” would keep dangling, but nothing would happen.
And, after two unanswered e-mail requests to HP — to close my TanzaniteDiamonds account — my account was always still *active*.
Hence, I’m still there now. Go figure? lol!
Tanzie
My computer life started late, in 2007, my first stop was Huff and I really enjoyed myself for the first year until the Bill O’Reilly induced monitoring started that is.
I left in April this year, have been back for 30 minutes at a time twice I think, because I was in a bad mood but don’t miss it at all. Most of the people I got to know there were either banned or stopped posting. It belongs to the trolls AH has enabled since the primaries, they can have it.
About my Mac, this hissing noise only happens if I spent any time over there, I try not to linger or lurk but sometimes receive emails when a favourite blogger writes a new article.
One of these days I will try what KQ did, there is no rush.
I have tried to do this many times. I’ve even written HP asking them to delete my account. But for some reason, it won’t close.
I hear you, Nellie. I’ve noticed other posters, complaining about the same thing, a couple of months ago.
It appears HP has, recently, fixed the problem.
Actually, I’ve written to HP (in the past) about the same concern, when I wanted to close my HP account. They never EVER responded.
At that time, I wanted to delete my account, when they went on board with that whole Social News/Facebook ordeal. I don’t want anything to do with that!
I don’t trust Facebook anymore. I also don’t like the fact that Facebook — requires your real name — for membership. (There’s got to be a way around that?)
If I sound kind of paranoid, it’s because I was stalked by a crazy person (not Facebook) on the Internet, many years ago. It took me a long time to come back to the keyboard, after that ordeal.
No wonder I’m so “shy” at times? **smiles**
Tanzie
Hi Tanzie…I feel the same way about Facebook. I don’t know why people blurt out all their personal information on those things! Especially in a situation like HP where it’s not that difficult to get engaged in a hostile “discussion.” Why would I want to link to Facebook where my “opponents” could find out personal info about me? What a harebrained idea.
I agree, Tanzie. Did you ever read my terrifying story about Facebook. On my daughter’s Facebook account, there were a couple of “suggested” friends, and the avatars belonged to a couple of young girls who were murdered in Florida and California. They were “suggested” to her through a local hockey team’s Facebook account. I deleted her account and wrote the hockey team and Facebook and those creepy accounts were removed. It was obviously some kind of predator. Now Facebook is forbidden to her.
No Pepe: I’m sorry that I never had the chance to see your story about this horrible Facebook experience. Thank you for bringing this up again.
I’m so very sorry to learn this happened, although not entirely surprised, considering it was Facebook.
How awful. How dangerous! I don’t blame you for “forbidding” Facebook to your daughter at all. You’re one very smart and careful Father.
I started getting “creeped out” on Facebook, when I began noticing advertisements for things, I was innocently discussing with my friend in Germany, on her Facebook wall.
Example: We were once talking about a certain brand of blue-jeans. Guess what? The next day I received a blue-jean advertisement (in my e-mail connected to my Facebook), for the very same brand, that her and I were discussing on Facebook! Is that a coincidence or what?
I also agree with you about the “harebrained” idea of putting HP comments, onto a Facebook wall; what a horrible concept. No thank you very much.
I realize some people “love it” — including my friend in Germany — who now says I’m ‘paranoid’, and still loves communicating with her 38 Facebook friends, but I’m just not comfortable with it.
Pepe, we’re completely on the same page about this topic. I’m so glad you understand.
Tanzie
The thing that was too bad about the Facebook banning is that she had a lot of neat links to places like JPL, CERN, NASA, etc., but now she just has to go directly to their Web sites to get news updates.
I don’t care if my account is open or closed.I don’t go there! I no longer trust or believe the articles there. There is no sourcing or few facts. Too many other sites to read. PPOV is my home.The aggravation of the trolls is not missed by me.
They had this thing where the check box was automatically checked for every post to my facebook blog. As far as I know, I don’t have one, so I don’t know if anything ever showed up. I was peeved, to say the least. I didn’t notice it at first, and it became a routine to uncheck it every time. I wrote in and apparently I wasn’t the only one. They no longer do that. I don’t like getting overly political with facebook friends, especially ones who don’t share my politics.
And total ditto. Why ON EARTH would I open up my personal life to trolls?!
Khirad, Have you heard much about the demonstrations in Iran today?
Yes, I have a lot of synopses and articles to go through tonight and tomorrow. I didn’t get much sleep last night, but I’ll TRY to get an article in in a day or two on them.
In any case, they happened, nationwide, to the usual thuggish behavior (and I’m not just talking about the IRI apologists and few suspected Pasdars on HP).
Looking forward to your post! Enjoy your knowledge and view.
Same here.
My one reservation about BBC is their business news. It’s so Margaret Thatcher-ite! When it comes on NPR, I listen to rock music in preference since both our NPR stations carry it at the same times. It’s very distorted and market-oriented, and it continues to propagate the idea that this recession is merely a ‘glitch’ that cannot tolerate government regulation. Otherwise, I think BBC is great. I used to live near the Canadian border and listened to CBC as well as reading Canadian newspapers. LOVED it all and miss the access except online. But I can’t reconcile the pro-market BBC business news with all the rest. Anyone understand that?
Have any of your groups heard about Sister S’arah using planes form “Samaritan Purse” on her book tour? Why would she be using planes from a charity?
I seem to connect Franklin Graham–Billy Graham’s son– with Samaritan’s Purse. (Will have to confirm that.) He scares me.
He IS scary – he is the leader of the “End Times” notions, so it’s totally clear to me that he would fund her. They’re two of a kind. Since she is on a “book promotion” tour, he probably won’t get in trouble for using charitable funds for this. If anyone determines her work is partisan and political, however, he’s in BIG trouble.
You’re right, kesmarn. It is part of the Graham’s. I did look in to it.
I’ve thought about deleting mine, but have held back.
I remember you KQuark from HP, but barely and think I even remember AdLib, but I was never in the clique over there.
When you all talk about HP people and especially the trolls, I really do not know half the people you talk about.
But, I do remember BigDogMom’s favorite – Ann from California, because I actually defended her once and that was a huge mistake on my part for a variety of reasons.
I wasn’t defending what she was typing, but I didn’t like how people ganged up on her and viciously attacked her, and thought it was bullying.
Then I saw the things she posted later, and well, I still think it was correct for me to defend her, because people were horribly vicious to her, but I saw that she’s one that thrives on that sort of attention.
I’m so glad that PPOV exists so that I don’t have to follow any of that anymore.
I’m too old and can’t keep up.
I’ve never gotten into with Ann and I’m not sure why some people get so worked up toward her, but I agree, she thrives on negative attention. That’s true of most of the trolls I think — at least the ones doing it for free.
The one person that I do know, is that Andrea Costello, or whatever the name.
I never bothered with the trolls, or posters like her, because, why?
You’re never going to change her mind, so why bother.
From what I get about her from reading PPOV of all places, is that she is supposedly real and the avatar of hers is really her.
Yeah, if that’s really a real person, she is a really beautiful young woman, but seriously, does she actually believe the crap she posts?
I don’t think so.
And ask yourself, what is such a beautiful young woman who does appear to possess intelligence, what is she doing online?
And from what I get from reading PPOV, she’s online a lot.
This might be a faze or phase for her, and she is getting lots of attention, but a young woman that beautiful and intelligent would not be blogging as much as she does.
I do not think that she’s real.
There’s lots of ways to trick people online, and if by chance she is real, well then, I feel sorry for her.
d’accord.
I think she’s either getting paid to stir the pot at HP, or she’s just desperate for attention on a pathological scale. I don’t think she believes half the swill she types … and I believe that’s true of GringoLingo/Flossy/Ramirez, as well.
That’s interesting, javaz.
Interestingly, she’s on Facebook (yes, I peeked a while back).
The picture of her on Facebook profile, looked very close to her avatar photo. She was standing next a boyfriend? spouse? partner for life? None of my business (I realize), but she put it “out there”.
Hey Andrea, if you’re reading this, you’re not as smart as you *think* you are. But you’re young, very young.
Tanzie
KQuark, my brother-in-law just told me about Think Progress.com I like it. It’s got a good mix of humourous and serious articles.
Yes, Bernard, HP is a big waste of time between the misleading headlines, the troll infestations on the forums, the creepy stalking that goes on and all the sockpuppetry (and I know some people on our side do it, too.) I’m really starting to see that now. And to think I loved it so much a year ago. I remember when there were actually meaningful discussions there.
PS, E’cat, great job on collecting the headlines. HuffPost is actually the worst one! Worse than Drudge, even.
I absolutley love this. Thank you.
One word: brilliant.
This was a great idea, escribacat! An excellent way to let the MSM tools expose themselves.
As KQ mentioned, it’s striking that the negative stories on health care and Obama are once again, Drudge, Fox and Huffington Post.
And also interesting to see the NYT have a story that directly conflicts with Huffy’s assault on Obama.
We should do this on various stories, very enlightening!
Cheers I actually missed Faux News but you got my point.
“We should do this on various stories, very enlightening!”
I was thinking that too, Adlib.
I was having a swell time listening to Mitchel complain about the Dems meeting on the bill. Boo hoo hoo. It is not bi-partisan.
Boo hoo hoo. Any less bi-partisan than DeMint predicting that this would be Obama’s Waterloo?
Great example of how Drudge and Huffy are just dishonest mirror images of one another trying to foment outrage from their lemmings.
Obama gave a pep talk from what I’ve heard with few details about the actual legislation. It’s most important at this point for the president to push Democrats in the Senate to grab this moment in history so they know failing is not an option. There’s plenty of time to hammer out policy but every Senator must understand the general strategy.