How The Lieberman Stole Real Health Care Reform, Bailout Blues, James Arthur Ray Employee Speaks, And Chicago Violence Discussed

Hi everyone. Happy New Week! I'm a bit short on time, so this will have to be one of those lovely abbreviated reviews. There's a lot to get to tonight. On we go! The broadcast kicks off with the "breaking news" that our Democratic leadership is once again contemplating completely rolling over on important legislation in order to placate attention-seeking cry babies. That deal with the Medicare buy-in they just finagled last week? Forget about it.

According to Dana Bash, word on the D.C. street is that whole thing is getting scrapped because Senator Joe Lieberman isn't happy. That's right, it all comes down to one asshole. And if you think I'm being pejorative now, you should have heard what I called him when I initially read the news. The big irony here is that Lieberman is on record as being a supporter of the Medicare buy-in.

What changed? Dana tells us Lieberman's people says it's the deficit, but I call BS. Look, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that some people are going to do anything they can to see that the health care reform bill dies. What flummoxes me is how our friends at 360 continue to ignore the relationships our Congresscritters have with the health insurance industry. Hello! Lieberman and Aetna? At least they had the Medicare buy-in video, which to my amusement, Anderson Cooper referred to as a "flip flop." I was kinda expecting to have to add that in myself. I'm not sure what that says.

Moving on to our anchor hitting the Big Wall for some bailout breakdowns. We've got the whole outrage regarding lobbyists and bonuses going on here. Then Ed Henry pops in to tell us that President Obama is really letting the bankers have it...with his words. Action? Not so much. Also, I've yet to give the big Matt Taibbi piece that's recently being discussed around the interwebs a good read, but I'd love to see his perspective on the show.

New segment name alert: "Insider's Briefing." Oooh, fancy. Who's the insider? David Gergen of course. As if you had to ask. He's here to talk about Obama's no good, very bad week. But I'd like to begin with my own question: What has happened to our Gerg? Ok, yes, he's always been a bit of a Villager, but we tolerated it--even grew to find it adorable. Now though? It's like he's entrenched in that beltway bubble and dude is it annoying.

Case in point, he talks about how the liberals are upset about the death of the public option. All of the D.C. elite keep trying to equate the PO with far left thinking, when in reality, it's more popular than the overall bill. It has more than just liberal support. Another annoyance was the Gerg deeming the PO and Medicare buy-in as first steps to single payer. I'll give him the buy-in, but if he actually listened to the arguments on the left, the PO has always been about holding insurance companies accountable. Oh, also? Oprah! As in, this segment contained an Oprah clip. Because this is 360 and it is therefore mandatory.

Transitioning now to Gary Tuchman live in the studio. He's still on the case of James Arthur Ray and recently sat down with one of the self-help guru's former employees, Melinda Martin. She was there that night that three people died in the sweat lodge. Once again, Ray's callousness and indifference to the situation around him is relayed. Melinda says he left while victims lay dying. She herself performed CPR.

As for the woman who committed suicide, the guru flat out lied when Melinda asked him if she had been found. Ray assured her she had, but she had decided not to return to the event. While it's true she did not return, one might quibble with the word "decided," given her being dead and all. Melinda also tells us 10 people might be indicted, though she doesn't know specifics. From Gary we learn that Ray is still allowing people to sign up for courses next year, but he canceled the seminars a few days after Gary's team crashed one of them. Go Ismael!

Moving on to tape of T.J. Holmes sitting down with Vashon Bullock, a Chicago teen involved in the fight that left Derrion Albert dead. Vashon's brother Eugene Riley was there as well, and is now one of the teens charged with the crime. This is pretty depressing. Though police maintain that Darrion was an honor student who inadvertently was caught up in the fight, Vashon claims it simply a situation that got out of hand. Someone is dead, but he doesn't feel anyone needs to be held accountable. It's sad he thinks so little of life.

After the piece, we're joined by Steve Perry for discussion. Steve points out Vashon's inarticulateness and ties that back to education. Anderson notes, as I have on this blog previously, that all the same things keep being said, but nothing ever actually changes. He's only referring to government officials--I'd expand that to include these segments. What do you do though? I suppose depressing repetitive coverage is better than no coverage at all. Most other outlets have the "no coverage at all" angle, well, covered. Also? I think Steve implied Chicago is more dangerous than Afghanistan. Um...yeah...I don't think being hyperbolic really helps the situation.

The last segment of the night is the requisite Tiger Woods coverage. At least they dumped it last. I couldn't even watch Friday. I mean, top story? Puhleese. Anyway, your moment of WTF, courtesy of guest Rick Horrow: "(Tiger is) one of the most, if not the most, recognizable man in the history of the universe..." The history of the universe, huh? Wow. Well, mankind does love it's pro-golfers.

In tonight's "360 Bulletin" we learn there's a poor deer on the loose with Christmas lights wrapped around its antlers. Since antlers fall off, it has been decided (most likely by people who do not wish to chase after deer) the situation will be left up to nature. This is all reported by Erica Hill. Our anchor then goes into a spiel about deer and Grinches and...I actually stopped listening (which is ironic given the end of this little recap). The pertinent part is that the Silver Fox then ponders about the deer getting the lights off, leaving Charlie Moore to IFB him the info that Erica just said.

"I'm glad you were listening," she says. "Did you just say that?" asks our anchor. She confirms she did, he apologizes..., which would normally lead me to exclaim "You're not sorry!" except, uh, he kind does seem sorry. Anyway! I bring up this rather pointless exchange for two reasons: First, Anderson is always doing that. Poor Erica. I can't even count the number of times that I'm sitting here going, "dude, are you even paying attention to your own show?" Someone needs their listening ears!

As for the second reason, gratuitous Charlie Moore mention! C'mon, like I wasn't going to note that? I loves me some Charlie. And since he's so into having his name said on the TeeVee, I'm sure he's just as thrilled about being discussed on the interwebs. Him and Ted Fine. Why so shy?

The "shot" tonight is a kid playing a ukulele and singing Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours." I use the term "singing" loosely.

The show was pretty good. I like that we had a lot of variety. I'd like to see more investigative work regarding health care reform and the bailout. That'll do it.

Tentative Senate Agreement On Public Option, Massive TSA Security Breach, Greenland's Melting Ice, & More On James Arthur Ray

Hi everybody. We've got "breaking news" tonight. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says they now have a broad agreement on health care reform, as the "Gang of 10" (five liberal and five conservative senators) have reached a deal on the public option. But hold onto that "yay!" or expletive you're about to utter, because this information is coming at us sans details. Basically? We don't really know what the hell just happened.

Dana Bash then joins us to share her insider-y insider-ness. She's hearing that the senate has tentatively decided to drop the public option and instead set up a not-for-profit private insurance plan, as well as allow people to buy into Medicare at the age of 55.

Since we're talking politics, David Gergen is brought in and he sagely notes, "the devil is in the details." Word. Dana also points out that not all the liberals have signed onto the agreement, and everyone is still waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to take a look at things. So this is all very up in the air right now. But some good news? The Nelson abortion amendment was defeated. So yay for that.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to bring you right back down. The Gerg reminds us that basically this whole healthcare bill now rests on the votes of three senators: Ben Nelson, Olympia Snowe, and Joe Lieberman. Two out of the three are needed. Isn't it absolutely disgusting that the healthcare of millions of people is now in the hands of only three senators? They probably can't even remember what it's like to go without, if they ever even experienced it at all. Sometimes the system sucks.

Moving on to the totally amazing (in a really non-good way) story of how the TSA just accidentally put all their secrets on the interwebs. Seriously. This is what went down: the TSA posted a bunch of documents on another government web-site for would-be contractors to read. Now, they weren't completely stupid. They did redact the super-secret parts, but they did so in such a way that pretty much anyone can undo the redactions. So...wah lah! The biggest security breach since 9-11. Great job, guys. Why don't you just give terrorists a manual on how to attack us? Oh wait, you just did.

By the way, as Anderson Cooper is relaying all this information, he's holding (and waving around) some of the documents in his hand. He's been doing a lot of document-waving lately for some reason. This might sound stupid since it's such a small thing, but I kinda like it. I don't know, it makes him more life-like or something. Anyway, our anchor is also sure to note that he's not going to tell us anything in the documents--no doubt wishing to deflect any angry emails, as well as, you know, not personally endanger national security.

For discussion of all this, we're joined by Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general for the Office of Homeland Security, and former TSA air marshal Robert MacLean. Robert was actually fired from the TSA for going public with the fact that the agency was cutting corners on flight security. You'd think there'd be some sort of whistle-blower protection for him. An interesting discussion follows based on a lot of WTFing from everyone. Seriously, TSA, WTF?

Speaking of WTF? You know that whole "climate-gate" thing? Well, the Washington Post recently got a great scientific mind to opine on the subject for the paper. Who you ask? Sarah Palin of course! Yes, she who shoots wolves from helicopters was asked to pen her thoughts on the environment. Kill me now.

Anderson then tells us that they "...want to kind of go beyond just the talk and discussion among scientists..." Well, good. Because as evidenced last night, you suck at that. This of course is all just leading up to a re-running of a 2007 Planet in Peril piece,which did not suck at all. Before I get into it, here are the two blog posts I did on the special back then, and here is an extra bonus post with pretty pictures and tongue-in-cheek fangurling (you know you love it). Back in 2007, PIP was a very big deal for CNN. They even made a freakin trailer and had a song done by REM (which has a rather amusing back story involving one Mr. David Doss and one Mr. Charlie Moore). Ah, memories.

In the piece, Anderson and Jeff Corwin check out the melting happening on Greenland's ice sheet, with Dr. Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado as their guide. Much of this I've already recapped at the above link, including the rappelling into the moulin, which is a deep hole made from rivers of meltwater. Our anchor is NOT a fan of rappelling, though one really can't blame him given that they set it up in a way that he had to free fall. Not cool, guys. But anyway, if you thought Mr. Wasp was cussing a lot (aw, he was scared!) in the clip they showed tonight, wait until you see the outtakes.

After the piece, Dr. Steffen joins us for discussion about the hacked emails. Hey, look at that: no fake balance. While a part of me feels like they're laurel-resting by running footage that's two years old (especially given that poor PIP seems to be dead), I'd rather them do that than subject us to the crap we had last night. Besides, they're tying it in nicely by having Dr. Steffen back now. Resourceful! Anyway, the doctor is not at all surprised that climate critics have resorted to breaking into computers. He then goes on to do some brief debunking, basically noting the "scandal" is much ado about nothing.

Anderson tells Dr. Steffen that he hopes to see him in Greenland sometime, but I totally don't believe him. Why? Because despite his desired studio temperature, our anchor does not like the cold. At all.. I still don't understand why he didn't brush his teeth. Also? Shigloo! Anyway, Anderson says he'll have to work on his rappelling. Says Dr. Steffen: "OK. Come back. And then lean back," Ha! Aw, everybody likes to mock the Silver Fox.

Moving on to the continued saga of snake oil salesman James Arthur Ray, who much to my chagrin, is still out there making money. Gary Tuchman has discovered that before the loss of life in the sweat lodge, there was actually another Ray-connected death. Back in July, Colleen Conaway attended a three-day seminar in San Diego entitled "Creating Absolute Wealth." One of the exercises of the seminar involved being dropped off in the middle of the city with no phone and no I.D., as if they were homeless. The idea was to teach self sufficiency.

For unknown reasons, alone in the city, Colleen Conaway jumped off a ledge and fell to her death. Without identification, she was labeled a Jane Doe. In fact, participants of the seminar seemingly had no knowledge she was with their group. The bus left without fanfare. About seven hours later, Ray's people reported her missing. The guru himself never contacted the family. A sympathy card was sent later. When asked why a refund had not been given for the seminar fee, Ray's group said no request had been made. I'm not sure Ray is as at fault in this case as the others, but he's consistent with the callous bastard streak, huh? This is all going to catch up with him at some point. You know what they say about karma...

After Gary's piece, Anderson talks with Deepak Chopra about the self-help industry. There's not really much of note here.

The "shot" tonight is more mocking of our anchor for his Battlestar Galactica love. Dudes, why?! I stand by my assertion that his love of the Real Housewives is much more mockable. Anyway, the Silver Fox only has four episodes left, so DO NOT EMAIL HIM WITH SPOILERS, PEOPLE! Oh man, I feel him on this one. Every Sunday night I find myself yelling at people not to spoil Dexter for me. Dexter, by the way, is the most awesome show about a serial killer ever. And yes, spoilers will cause me to hunt you down and go all, well, Dexter on you. But I digress.

The big to-do here is that director Eli Lazar found a framed print of the show. I've actually never seen BSG (but I've heard good things), so I pretty much have no idea what's going on here. Thirteenth cylon? My knowledge of all this basically begins and ends with "frak." What's funny is that Eli is not actually giving Anderson the print (hey man, that might be worth money some day!); he's just lending it to him for his viewing pleasure. That's...nice?

"Now that I'm a complete nerd," says Anderson. Dude, what is with this complex? You are not a nerd. You're a dork. Let's get it straight. Then from our anchor: "I'm glad at least the director of this program is also a complete nerd." Finally, he jokes that the print had actually been hanging in Eli's bedroom "on the wall next to his big 'Star Trek' poster." Oh, don't go after the Trekkies, man. You don't want that kind of trouble. (Edited to add: Video!)

Wow, what a difference a day makes. The show was newsy, not annoying, and actually quite enjoyable. Hey, let's do this again, shall we? Also? Did you have fun going on that little nostalgic PIP trip with me? Lots of fun links for you guys tonight. Enjoy!

The Public Option Has A Bad Day, Michael Moore Interview, More Polanski, Father Arrested In Japan, Job Scam, And Did You Hear CNN Has An iPhone App?!!

Hi everyone. Anderson Cooper is doing the new standing thing again. It's a nice change of pace, but I hope this isn't part of the solution to fix the ratings. Anyway, we're kicking off things with a recap of health care reform's no good, very bad day. The Senate Finance Committee quashed not one, but two amendments to add the public option to the health care reform bill.

Lest there be any confusion, the Democrats--the people we voted into office to fix health care--are the ones who just shot us in the foot (and that's not covered!). I don't think it can be said enough, but screw Max Baucus. And when I say "screw," I mean something else, but I'm trying to keep this place classy.

According to Candy Crowley, it's not over for the public option, except that it kinda is. She seems to think we'll be getting some sort of public option-lite. Until the proverbial fat lady sings, I'm not giving up hope. Jason Linkins over at Huffington Post isn't as optimistic, but he has a good write up of what happened today, and just why it's so infuriating. For my fellow public option supporters, if your senator is on the finance committee and voted no, tell them they suck! But, you know, politely.

Joining us for discussion of all this, is Michael Moore. Woo! Obviously I'm a bit biased here, but it's always nice to see a real progressive get teevee time. Michael is fired up and ready to go! He's planning on kicking ass and taking names, though actually probably not in that order. Time to challenge some of these spineless Democrats. Normally I'm not really much of a reactionary, but things have gotten ridiculous. If certain Democrats aren't going to deliver on the public option, vote them out.

Anderson seems to be perplexed by this, asking Michael if he'd really campaign for Republicans. Erm, there are these things called primaries that I think we'll start with, thank you very much. Ned Lamont ring a bell? Bueller? Sure, that didn't work out in the end, but it made Lieberman spend his money and gave him quite a scare. Michael stresses that at least two-thirds of Americans support the public option, so exactly who is Congress working for? He calls the public option, "absolutely make or break."

Then there's talk of a single payer system,which is what Michael really wants (as do I). He says that "any intelligent, or even half-intelligent, nation has either a single-payer or a national health care plan." Okay Michael, simmer down there. Needlessly inflammatory statements like that turn people off. But then he makes the very good point that despite all the calls to compromise on the public option, Obama already compromised on health care reform right off the bat by taking single payer off the table. In my opinion, a dumb move.

"Nothing is going to change. Trust me on this one thing," says Michael, referring to a bill without a public option. And I do trust him. Because as he points out, he's been right about basically everything he's been saying over the years. A lot of progressives have. Yet they are consistently marginalized and I am so friggin sick of it. Perhaps the only thing worse than living through a train wreck, is to warn that one's coming and have no one listen to you. A bill without a public option is a massive tax payer funded gift to the insurance companies. It's that simple.

Anderson wants to know why all the public option supporters aren't out at town halls making their voices heard like the opponents. Michael says he's going to do his part to organize people, but notes that probably most Americans thought that after voting in a Democratic president and a super Democratically-controlled Congress, we were kinda, you know, set. Apparently, democracy also requires batshit insane yelling.

Next, the whole vote count thing is brought up. Some senators (coughBaucuscough) are claiming they couldn't vote for today's amendments because they don't have enough votes, which Jason Linkins pointed out in the above-linked piece, is just about the most ridiculous thing ever. Michael thinks this is stupid as well, and puts on his faux "whiny Democrat" voice that I must admit is in of itself a little annoying. But I'm totally down with what he's saying. As Michael notes, this isn't how the Republicans would play this thing. They'd just do it.

"What is wrong with our side of the aisle? Where is the spine? Where is the courage?" he asks. Amen! Why is it presumed we need 60 votes? We don't. We need 51. Democrats like Baucus are really going to join Republicans and vote against cloture? Fine. Call their bluff. Make them do it. As Michael says, let the Republicans have their filibuster. We do not need 60 votes on the bill. If the Democratic caucus can come up with 51 votes for a bill with a public option there is absolutely no reason to surrender.

Moving on to some discussion with David Gergen and Candy Crowley. The Gerg is "mystified" by Michael's emphasis on the public option. I am mystified by how much the Gerg seems to not get it. He concedes that there is approximately 65 percent support among the public for the option, but then just as quickly dismisses the number, noting that you don't find that state by state. I guess we're supposed to assume that senators like Baucus who are in more conservative states are just doing right by their constituents. Yes, that must be it. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the millions he gets from health and insurance interests that are against reform.

More bizarrely, about a couple minutes later, the Gerg notes all the ways that this is now a weak bill. Uh huh. Once again, you can't mandate that people buy insurance and then not put into place anything (public option) to keep those insurance companies honest. Lots of new customers with nothing to keep down costs? I'm thinking those companies are currently saying, "yes, please." There must be a public option.

Transitioning now to talk about Roman Polanski with Jeffrey Toobin and Jeff Berg, Polanski's agent. I think this is just going to be one of those stories I skip. At least they didn't put it up top again.

So hey, did you hear that there's a new CNN iPhone application? No? Well, then you must not watch CNN, read anything on CNN's website, or follow anyone with any connection to CNN on Twitter. Yeah, me thinks there was a "promote me!" memo sent out today, because boy have they ever! And now it's Anderson's turn. So tell us, Anderson, how much is it? "Less than 2 bucks, $1.99. I mean, you can't afford not to get it. Am I right?" he says. Such a steal! Do you think that was painful for him? Eh, what's a little corporate whoring every now and then. Am I right?

We then move on to the case of Christopher Savoie, an American who had two children with a Japanese native. The couple divorced and the agreement was that Noriko (the ex-wife) could take the kids to Japan for the summer, but would otherwise live close to Christopher in the states. Things were going according to plan, until one day Noriko took the kids back to Japan. Christopher subsequently alerted police, a warrant was put out, and he was given full custody. He expected to get his kids back, but that's not how it works in Japan.

In fact, when Christopher traveled to the country himself to get his children, he was the one who ended up being arrested. Now he sits in jail, while his ex-wife has his kids. Way uncool. For discussion, we're joined by Jeremy Morley, Christopher's attorney, and his current wife, Amy Savoie. This case is pretty outrageous. I had no idea this was how Japan operates.

On now to a Drew Griffin investigative piece, but I missed some of it, so I think I'm just going to take a pass.

The "shot" tonight is a naked New Yorker with a fanny pack buying a taco from a food stand. There is so much wrong with that sentence I don't know where to begin. First of all, ew, unsanitary! And second, a fanny pack? Nakedness, fine. But a fanny pack? That's just tacky. Anyway, Anderson and Erica Hill share my revulsion and for a second there, I thought we were going to get a bastard version of "Really?!! With Seth and Amy." I think they could totally pull that off. I'd watch it.

Once again, 360 did the whole thing where they drop a good segment into the second hour. Tonight it was an interview with the mothers of those hikers being held in Iran. I'm still comfuzzled as to why they're doing the programming like this. Given the current cable news landscape, I would assume 360 is trying to build a base of loyal viewers. Yes, CNN gets mad ratings when events happen, but Michael Jackson can't always die. Cable news has changed significantly even since 360 has been on the air.

So...given that the segments they are dumping seem to be subjects that loyal viewers would actually be drawn to, and given that (I'm assuming) appointment viewers are more likely to tune in for the live first hour broadcast, I don't get their reasoning at all. Because hey, I'm a big fan, but even I'm not going to watch almost two hours of the same thing every night. The only reason I caught the segment tonight is because Colbert had a commercial. But, anyway, I guess they have their reasons.

The show was an improvement from last night.