Air America and Iowa Progressives Share Gratitudes This Thanksgiving
Here is Air America's top ten list of things every progressive should be smiling about. Below that, a few more thankfuls from Iowa progressives. Happy Thanksgiving!
10) A president who can form a coherent sentence, and answer serious questions without a perpetual smirk.
9) Lou Dobbs running for president, disproving the theory that he is a narcissistic, arrogant, entitled demagogue who believes that he is of ultimate importance to everyone in the country.
8) The Internet, where within minutes we can pull up footage of Rudy Guiliani saying literally the opposite of what he said just several years ago about holding terrorist trials in New York.
7) Ron Reagan, who can keep his cool while speaking to a person accusing President Obama of being a terrorist while the rest of us just smash our heads against the keyboard.
6) China for vaccinating pandas for H1N1, and having the highest credit-card limit on the planet.
5) Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who manage to take mind-numbing-hypocrisy, and turn it into gut-busting-laughter, until Gingrich or Kristol show up and turn it into frantic-channel-changing.
4) Alan Grayson, who is still telling it like it is every single chance he gets. Who wouldn't love to bring that guy to turkey dinner at your conservative in-laws' house?
3) Glenn Beck and DVR, saving you the money and trouble of going out to buy a bottle of Absinthe.
2) Sarah Palin for her new book Going Rogue.
1) Michael Steele, who is probably secretly working for the Democrats.
[Note from BFIA:
If you have no idea where you can tune in to hear Air America Radio,
that is because AAR, progressive talk radio, is nowhere to be found on
the air in Iowa. Iowa's publicly owned airwaves are completely
saturated with conservative talk, from border to border, with so few
exceptions they are hardly worth mentioning, although we do mention one below. But thanks to the free and open internet, you can stream AAR at http://airamerica.com/%5D
BFIA asked Iowa Progressives to share their Thanksgiving gratitude list. Here are the responses. – I am thankful for term limits and the ability to help return Senator Grassley to his farm for a peaceful retirement in 2010. – President Obama, David Plouffe, Axelrod
– If Johnson Co. progressives GOTV, Janelle Rettig will win the Johnson Co. Board of Supervisors special election in January.
– A Department of Agriculture that cares about small farmers and are taking on large agri-business. And in the end, will give the American people a healthier lifestyle and food choices.
– Howard Dean!
– The 2010 budget for the Dept of Veterans' Affairs will be $112.8 Billion, with the largest annual increase in its history. This includes expanded services to women vets, eligibility for thousands of veterans previously denied, and addressing PTSD and TBI.
– We can be thankful that Iowa's Supreme Court justices were able to see the inherent discrimination in Iowa's opposite-sex-marriage-only law, and that they had the cojones to vote for what was right rather than for what was right-wing.
– We can be thankful that the lack of an adequate supply of “swine flu” vaccine prevented the mass forced vaccination plans that media pundits and Big Pharma were trying to bring about through generating public hysteria.
– We can be thankful that the short-fused, impulsive John McCain is not POTUS during these trying times.
– We can be thankful that our US Senator Tom Harkin refused to give up on the public option, even when those in the media were declaring it dead and gone
– Republicans are no longer in power and seem to be steadily losing ground (but corporations seem to be more powerful than ever)
– The internet is still neutral and appears it will be for a good while
– Despite the hate mongers on the right, marriage equality is the law in Iowa and is slowly nearing the time when they will no longer be able to defeat it.
– And, we can also be thankful and amazed actually, that Ed and Lynn Fallonsomehow managed to insert a progressive talk radio program into the packed
right-wing line-up at 98.3 WOW-fm. The station apparently felt it
would be safe to allow one hour of rational talk in the midst of a
daily 14 hour line-up of right-wing talk that includes Sean Hannity,
Glenn Beck, Dennis Miller, Michael Savage, and Mark Levin – yes, that's
right, 14 hours solid, every weekday.
WOW's sister station in Des Moines, WHO, simultaneously
runs a packed conservative line-up, with Rush Limbaugh, Steve Deace,
Jan Mickelson, and Michael Medved, for about 12 hours daily, without
the don't-blink-you-might-miss-it hour for “balance” that WOW
provides. I guess that's how much time it takes to get people to
believe falsehoods.
We should be thankful we're not all dittoheads, when you think about it. Happy Thanksgiving!
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