Khaaaaaannnnnnnn!

Posted on August 10, 2011 at 9:52 am by Bob Cesca

MSNBC’s Shatner-as-Kirk pundit, Dylan Ratigan, totally lost his shpadoinkle yesterday about something or another involving “tens of trillions of dollars” being extracted from America.

Naturally, Kirk didn’t give a flying rip about the nuances of the discussion, but, as usual, leaned on his favorite panic button: broadstroke systemic problems and how both sides are to blame. He might as well be shouting about goblins and the Yeti because he does this all the time and never presents a resolution other than “We MUST do something about this! Khaaaannnnnnn!”

Anyway, the metldown/rant begins at around 4:19. There’s also a bonus Osama/Obama gaffe by the “Republican analyst” earlier in the video.

We have the lowest taxation in history, Captain. How can our money be extracted from taxation?

Adding… This, too…

And also… While there’s some truth in what Dylan was saying about money in politics, etc, it all sounds disingenuous and staged. Here’s a guy who rips on “pro wrestling” in politics, then props up Andrew Breitbart and T. Boone Pickens while staging panels with people from each party — a wrestling match. If he wanted to talk big systemic issues, then talk about it. But don’t set up your panel with an “analyst” from each party, then flip your shit at them about the party divisions in Washington. Here’s the short form of the discussion:

KIRK: Let’s talk about the debt. Here’s someone from each side.
REPUBLICAN ANALYST: Osama/Obama!
DEMOCRATIC ANALYST: I disagree.
KIRK: Treeeeeeellions of dollars!!!! RRRROOOOOOWWWR! Both sides!!!!
EVERYONE: Whoa.

MrBrink with a better short form, from the comments:

I want a president who fights for an end to politics!

Is that so much to ask?

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  • Phil Day

    somebody needs a Time Out.

  • JackDaniel07

    Diilllllllllllliigaaaaaaan!!

  • http://myreadyroom.wordpress.com/ Ben Cisco

    Awesome.

    Those guys love beating the “both sides do it” meme to death, don’t they?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1432102542 Tim Neuenhaus

    He said it was the financial system that is extracting the dollars from our economy and he’s right. What was done by any party to stop it? What was done to encourage it? I think those questions should be answered. It’s ok to question those in power and wrong to blindly support ANY party in power. The tax that extracts the money is in the form of low taxes to the top 2% and the lack of a fair tax system.

    You’re really a bunch of fucking idiots if you think that all that has been done is all that could have been done to prevent the current political issues. When there was a clear majority in both houses and in the executive branch it was still mostly controlled by the republicans. Why is that?

    Stop making excuses that the presidents hands are tied, his hands are as tied as he wants them to be.

    This place is turning into a place of blind support for a mediocre administration tht doesn’t even stick up for the principles that made the democratic party a good thing. We see a give in to the Bush tax cuts and a week later I’m watching a speech about how the Bush tax cuts should be repealed…well he just signed a bill that extends them. So the both sides mem is accurate in a case like that. Republicans are idiots for advocating them and democrats are idiots for voting for them and extending them.

    So now comes the next presidential election and the choice we have is some republican crazy or a guy who meets their demands…nice choice.

    Blaze away on me if you must it doesn’t make you right, it just shows your ability to be as ignorant as a Bush supporter.

    • http://twitter.com/bphoon Brian C

      I’d like to fill in the record here: To claim that President Obama seemingly out of the blue extended the Bush tax rates misrepresents the actual events.

      The Republicans obstructed anything/everything the Democrats were trying to do during the lame-duck Congress of 2010-11. Time was limited and Obama and the Dems had some initiatives they needed to get passed before the 110th Congress ended. Things like the extension of unemployment benefits, bringing the DREAM Act to a vote, ratification of the new START Treaty, repeal of DADT, a cyber security bill, the Baucus tax relief legislation, passage of food safety legislation, allowing the EPA to continue to regulate carbon emissions…the list goes on. Unfortunately, the GOP’s stalling tactics worked and the extension of the Bush tax rates was the price for all of the above. Disappointing? Hell, yes. Overall a pretty good deal? Probably, although I think Obama will rue the day he allowed those tax rates to stay in place.

      This isn’t “blind support for a mediocre administration”, it’s how things actually played out. You can blaze away all you want and call me and those who agree with me “as ignorant as a Bush supporter” if it makes you feel better; just do yourself a favor and get your facts straight first, OK?

  • Zen Diesel

    Wait what, you mean Congress is bought and paid for,….

  • Zen Diesel

    As an independent and a critical thinker, I am often not a fan of either sides policies. I usually base my allegiance on picking the lesser of the two evils. The current political system is bat shit crazy, the Republicans are nothing but a bunch of social big government obstructionists, while the Democrats seem to be half hearteningly trying to push common sense policies. Watching the political theater day in and day out can be maddening. I truly believe the both sides know how to fix the problems, but are reluctant to do so, because the repercussions will probably lead to them getting voted out of office. I don’t think the folks here blindly follow and support Obama. Obama is far from perfect, but if you are a sane and critical thinker, the choice between the Republican Clown Caucus and Obama is a no brainer. We must stand behind the lesser of the two evils.

    • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

      Zen, even though it is hardly a rousing endorsement, I appreciate your viewpoint. I just wish the majority of Americans shared such thoughts. But they don’t. They vote with their emotions and that’s what has led us to this ugly place.

      • Zen Diesel

        Without a doubt, Obama will get my full support in 2012, because the evangelical wingnuts vying for the Republican presidential nominee are very scary. Their obsession with governing female body parts and misguided love of Ayn Rand, is enough to convince me that Obama is clearly the best choice to be our President for the next four years. It’s my hope that the majority of the voters will see though the lies and deceptions of the Republicans when it comes time to pick our next President.

  • MarshallLucky

    I don’t see anything wrong with identifying the obvious: that our system no longer works for the common good and that both parties care far more about the needs of thugs on Wall Street than they do about the needs of middle class Americans (the poor are, as usual, invisible).

    So har dee har har, he was passionate. About fucking time. The last thing these horrific times call for is dispassionate voices on the left. And if that indirectly casts Mr. Obama in a poor light, so be it. We can’t afford to be measly and centrist anymore. We’re losing badly because the average American has forgotten what we really believe in. We need passionate voices to remind them.

    • http://www.politicalruminations.com/ nicole

      We’ve always had passionate voices. Such as those of the Republicans who scream and shriek oh so passionately when we talk about people paying their fair share of taxes.

      President Obama is not the bad guy here, and Republicans, including Ratigan, are loons.

  • mrbrink

    I want a president who fights for an end to politics!

    Is that so much to ask?

    • mrbrink

      One party passed and signed financial regulatory reforms, Ratigan.

      One party is attacking labor and protecting regulation from ever seeing the light of day.

      • mrbrink

        One Democratic party president, Obama, stood up in front of the Joint Chiefs, the Supreme Court, Congress, the whole country, in prime time, during the 2010 State Of The Union and essentially declared the Citizen’s United decision an act of corporate war on democracy bought and paid for by partisan ideologues placed on the Supreme Court.

        One party couldn’t contain their belligerent shape shifting faces in coming to the defense of nothing to see here. I can’t tell which one sometimes.

        Tell these guys everything’s cool.

        You win. Democracy’s all yours. How may America help you?

  • GrafZeppelin127

    There’s no question that American law and policy has been, and is being, purchased. George Carlin had it right: We don’t have representatives, we have owners. Or, perhaps to put it more accurately, our representatives have owners. They do and say what they are being paid to do and say; what they are being ordered to do and say by whomever is paying for the party (double pun intended). That’s why so much of what they do and says makes so little sense; why so much of it is unreasonable, counterintuitive and/or counterfactual.

    No sane person would continue to insist that “tax cuts create jobs” in a world where 30 years of history, and particularly the last 10, have proven that to be objectively untrue. Not unless they are paid to say it, threatened if they don’t, or both.

    Granted, all politicians are full of shit to one degree or another. But I’ve never in my lifetime seen a group of politicians, or any one political cohort, that is as full of shit as today’s GOP/RW/TP/FNC cohort. The things they say truly boggle the mind, to the point where one must conclude that they can’t possibly believe it, so they must be getting paid very well to say it.

    But I don’t want to pick on the GOP/RW/TP/FNC cohort here. They’re simply the more egregious offenders in this regard. Substantially more egregious, I think. The fact remains that U.S. law and policy have become commodities, to be bought and sold by those with the means to buy them and in position to sell them.

    Granted, this is nothing new. I’m reminded of a scene from Scorsese’s The Aviator, in which Pan Am CEO Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) and Senator Owen Brewster of Maine (Alan Alda) are talking about a new transportation bill. Brewster, the Senator, asks Trippe, the CEO, “Is it done?” Trippe replies, “My people are finishing it now.” Brewster then apparently has to ask Trippe’s permission to serve as chairman of a special committee to investigate defense procurement during WWII (namely, Howard Hughes).

    We don’t get the laws and policies that we vote for; we get the laws and policies that they pay for. Those who can purchase law and policy will always prevail over those who can’t. Now that the Supreme Court has told us that we cannot make it illegal to purchase law and policy, I see little hope of this changing anytime soon.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YM23FX2FBZEC3UVDPZRGCUBIZ4 staci

      I’m reminded of “The Appeal” by Grisham. One would think it was fiction until realizing how incredibly close it mirrors our political system today with the buying and selling of candidates. Grisham outlines how much money is involved (millions and millions), the groups (mostly Christian conservatives) that pull the cash together for “their candidate” and how elections are bought and paid for by the special interests and lobbyists.

    • http://twitter.com/bphoon Brian C

      The fact that our politicians are regularly bought and paid for is hardly anything new. The owners just have to do a little extra jujitsu to make it a little less obvious than they did a hundred, hundred and fifty years ago. WR Hearst, Tammany Hall, Tea Pot Dome, the Grant Administrations, the Pendergast Machine, machine politics in Chicago since day one, Civil War profiteers, they’re all part of our illustrious political history. Today’s grafters/grifters just fancy themselves a bit slicker than their predecessors.

  • Lexamich

    “Shatner-as-Kirk” is superlative description of Ratigan in general, Bob.

    You DO know your acting cues, my good man.

    Matter of fact, I would apply it to most male pundits on television.

    The females like that harpy Megyn Kelly or Nancy Grace?

    Maybe Faye Dunaway from Mommie Dearest or Glenn Close in 100 Dalmatians.

    It’s so funny because it’s so true.

    Oh, and the “both sides” meme should have been seen as nonsense in light of this “Debt ceiling debate.”

    However, the swine have to pretend that there’s an actual grudge match going on, not just a single party bullying and/or badgering the entire nation into accepting its skewed point of view through elaborate political stunts.

  • nellcote

    Once you realize Ratigan is a libertarian asshole he no longer surprises. He seems to be stuck on rant all the time.

  • greendayman

    I agree that the political parties are really not the enemy here. I don’t take away from this rant that “both side do it”, but that the REAL enemy is the system that rewards corporations for off-shoring jobs, supports wars, propping up banks that should fail, gives away billions to oil companies that make billions in profits, corporate welfare, a media that supports the corporate agenda, an anti-Labor stance that favors the rich over the middle class, and a refusal to recognize that without demand there will be no new jobs no matter how much we “incentivize” and cut taxes for the rich.

    I’m mad as hell as well. Until SOMEONE remembers that unless the general population makes enough money to buy stuff there will be no growth. We need strong Labor.

    It is really very simple. When people make more money, they buy more stuff, DEMAND increases, production increases and jobs are created. That is the formula Einstein. Pay the freaking people already. CEO pay went up 1300% in the last 30 years, how was your paycheck?