Update: Today’s show in audio and video:

And here’s the audio.

While it’s nice to see people care, it’s equally sad to have to allow reality to intrude into conservative story time. Here it goes anyway:

Obama’s approval rating is 49%. That’s three points ahead of where animatronic Republican deity Ronald Reagan was at this point in his presidency. George HW Bush was at 68% and look at what happened to him — defeated by Soviet sex criminal Bill Clinton (who, incidentally, won a second term and was, at this point in his presidency statistically tied with Barack Obama at 50%).

But why do conservatives care about poll numbers anyway? During the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama promised to establish a public option for health care:

People without coverage could buy insurance through new public and private plans. Key to Obama’s plan is creation of a National Health Insurance Exchange in which private insurers would offer coverage as generous as the government’s plan, with new regulations requiring them to accept and not penalize anyone regardless of pre-existing conditions.

Then a poll was held. Obama won 365 electoral votes to John McCain’s 173. After that, Republicans not only opposed the public option the country voted to support, but refused to discuss any kind of reform that might (1) adversely affect the insurance companies who fund their campaigns; or (2) actually deliver health care to people who need it.

A few more decades of that kind of leadership and people might start to suspect Republicans of intellectual dishonesty.

In a March 9, post titled, “Obama’s war on fishing?!?!?!” Michelle Malkin posted the ESPN column’s claim that “[t]he Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.” Malkin added, “Longtime readers know I love to fish and have been at war with the anti-fishing nuts at PETA for years.”

It’s a good thing there aren’t tens of thousands of Americans dying from lack of health care, two wars, and an unemployment rate of 10% to deal with right now. You know, because if the nation had to find a way to solve all of those problems while also  contending with the Obama fishing emergency, government attempts on the lives of seniors, and impeachment proceedings against the president for lying about the fact that he was born in two foreign countries rather than one pretend state — well how could we prioritize all of that?

Partisan Gridlock with Geoff Berg airs every Friday from 3:00 – 4:00 pm on KPFT, 90.1 FM in Houston, 89.5 FM in Galveston, and streamed live everywhere else at www.kpft.org. Connect through Facebook or at www.partisangridlock.com.

Update: Hey, it mostly worked. Here’s the video:

And here’s the audio.

Yawn. That’s what Republicans do. Remember 2004? Gays were destroying traditional marriage, so conservatives — especially religious conservatives — had to rush to the polls  to amend eleven state constitutions to prevent activist judges from turning the entire nation into a pack of raging fairies. Fear of gays drove conservative voting through the roof.

As Republicans know, fear isn’t just good for elections, it’s useful in governing too. Here’s Houston’s own Congressman John Culberson demonstrating how:

Over the past year, Americans have said in every possible way – through letters, phone calls, town hall meetings, and elections – that they do not want a government takeover of health care. Today, the president will once again deny the American people the right to a clean start with health care reform, instead opting to push through his own agenda.

step in the direction of Communism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism.

socialism. It moves the country in a direction which is not good for anyone, whether they be young or old. It charts a course from which there will be no turning back.

Of course, it’s not just Medicare. Republican Senator Daniel O. Hastings of Delaware could have been any modern Republican talking about health care reform when he said in 1935 that if Congress enacted Social Security, it would

end the progress of a great country and bring its people to the level of the average European. It will furnish delicious food and add great strength to the political demagogue. It will assist in driving worthy and courageous men from public life. It will discourage and defeat the American trait of thrift. It will go a long way toward destroying American initiative and courage.

destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding.

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By the way — get out your wallet. Pledge drive continues and we’ll continue to explore what talk radio sounds like without progressives on the air. It ain’t pretty.

Unfortunately, internet problems at the station prevented live streaming, but today’s show is available here.