To Make Us Dumber

In its quest to blind its already deaf and dumb audience, Fox "news" adds to its disinformation campaign a "calculator" that purports to show individuals their "share" of the cost of health care reform. Unsurprisingly, it's complete bullsh*t.

For all these reasons, Fox's calculator can't be taken seriously. Its calculations are basically nonsense, and I hope that it dies a quiet death before its numbers are widely repeated without any context. There are many valid reasons to oppose (or support) the health care reform that passed last March, and it's important that we continue to have that debate without resorting to nonsensical numbers.

Gee. The article calls for serious debate, based on serious inquiry.

That'll be the day. Teabaggers will see to that.

Words. No Words.

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Watch the above (enjoy the first three minutes -- why not? -- but it's the rest of it...). Hold your head in your hands. Then, with care, with the best of intentions....

.... BEAT YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE F*CKIN' WALL.

Thank you.

Once And For All

I know people who watch Fox "news" (I stopped watching all cable news a long time ago.) I even know people who cling to the idea that it's "fair and balanced." (Which is like saying grits ain't groceries, eggs ain't poultry, and Mona Lisa was a man.) Shall we now all admit that watching Fox "news" is an exercise in bias-reinforcement? If that's what you need, fine. But call it what it is. Propaganda, pure and simple.

At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News' controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network's journalists not to use the phrase "public option."

Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox's reporters should use "government option" and similar phrases -- wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats' reform efforts....

...Two months prior to Sammon's 2009 memo, Republican pollster Frank Luntz appeared on Sean Hannity's August 18 Fox News program. Luntz scolded Hannity for referring to the "public option" and encouraged Hannity to use "government option" instead.

Luntz argued that "if you call it a 'public option,' the American people are split," but that "if you call it the 'government option,' the public is overwhelmingly against it." Luntz explained that the program would be "sponsored by the government" and falsely claimed that it would also be "paid for by the government."

"You know what," Hannity replied, "it's a great point, and from now on, I'm going to call it the government option." ...

... The next morning, October 27, Sammon sent an email to the staffs of Special Report, Fox News Sunday, and FoxNews.com, as well as to other reporters and producers at the network. The subject line read: "friendly reminder: let's not slip back into calling it the 'public option.' "

Foxians like to separate their "opinion" shows (ie, ones based on craziness) from their "straight news" (ie, thinly disguised manipulation based, among other things, on highly selective editorial choices.) But here's an example of one of their so-called straight ones:

First, on Bill O'Reilly's show Tuesday, ("news"man James) Rosen argued, with a perfectly straight face, that President Obama had raised some serious concerns about national security because he had described Republicans in Congress as "hostage takers" with whom he had negotiated:

Rosen: One other point, Bill, if I may, and this should concern a broader spectrum than just the president and his supporters. And that is the potential national security implications of a president of the United States broadcasting to the world that he is willing to negotiate with hostage takers if he believes the hostage is being harmed.

O'Reilly actually burst out laughing, assuming that Rosen was kidding. He wasn't.

Then yesterday, on Happening Now, Rosen followed up with a segment about Obama's record regarding how well he's keeping his promises. It featured a clip of Obama saying, "Look at what I promised during the campaign. There is not a single thing that I said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do," and "And if I haven't gotten it done yet, I'm still trying to do it."

Rosen then told his audience: "That leaves little terrain as ground for contradiction, and yet the Pulitzer Prize winning website PolitiFact.com lists more than 500 broken Obama campaign promises."

But as Simon Easter at Media Matters observes, that's a far cry from what PolitiFact actually reports -- namely, that of the 506 campaign promises they've monitored, Obama has actually broken only 24 of them:

Perhaps it's just stupidity: it is, after all, hard to read a graph with all those numbers on it. Categories 'n stuff. Nor do any of their bright lights emanate a lot of candlepower. So, yeah, guess the guy could just be an idiot. Or, to put it more properly, his idiocy could be all-encompassing. Still, it's a pretty hard thing to misread.

Many people refer to Fox and MSNBC as if they're two pees in a pot. I admit KO can get pretty sanctimonious and -- what shall we call it?? -- screamy. But I've never heard him boldly lie about something the way the opinionators do at Fox. And when he makes an error, he corrects it. Quickly. Moreover, there's simply no equivalent on Fox to Rachel Maddow, whom I've also stopped watching (but because she's so right and so informed and so smart, what she says is irrefutably depressing.) None, over there. None with her smarts, her precision, her fairness -- yes, fairness -- to people from the other side that she invites on her show (fewer and fewer of whom are willing to be seen forced to defend themselves against actual facts.) Nor is there any equivalent on Fox of Joe Scarborough.

So, Foxophiles. At least admit why you watch and what you get out of it: validation, reinforcement, the ability to maintain tightly-held beliefs in the face of controverting fact. Recognition is the first step to intellectual freedom.

Then, maybe, we can get you to see -- and then admit -- how dangerous and damaging is a network with no scruples whatsoever; with an extreme agenda for the promotion of which they'll stop at nothing. Certainly not at any line beyond facts.

Credulity

I've been known occasionally to post an article here from The Onion. Did it on Turkey Day, matter of fact. The difference between me and Fox "news" is that I know they're (The Onion, that is) a satire organization. Not only does Fox not know, evidently; neither do its readers. The line between what Fox calls "news" and deliberate falsehood (even when satirical) is non-existent.

It's but one more example of the need to believe the worst about Obama. It's what keeps Fox going and raking in the dough: validating and stoking hatreds, prejudices, and fears of the credulous. And the cred-heads not only don't know they're being fed a pile of crap, they don't want to know. They believe what they believe. It's not about truth.

If they wanted truth, they'd read the NYT.

Or this blog.

[Thanks for the heads-up, Pieter.]

Meet Your Congress

As I've said repeatedly, it'd be one thing to see Dems go down based on some sort of actual, factual, reactual. But when it's based on overt insanity, what's a person to think? Where are we headed? What will become of us? I refer to these guys:

Allen West (R) in Florida's 22nd

West first gained notoriety during his military service in Iraq, when he was forced to retire from the Army for engaging in abusive interrogation techniques. More recently, he'sincorporated violent rhetoric into his campaign speeches, and made demonstrably ridiculous claims about his own background. Last month, we learned about West's ties to a violent gang of criminals, which the Justice Department believes is involved in drug running, arson, prostitution, robbery, and murder. Yesterday, he won by eight points.

Renee Ellmers in North Carolina's 2nd

Ellmers is perhaps best known for running on a virulently anti-Muslim platform, and based much of her advertising on her opposition to the Park51 project (which is nowhere near her district). In September, she appeared utterly humiliated during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, but nevertheless narrowly won yesterday.

Austin Scott in Georgia's 8th

Scott ran on a platform that would, among other things, push mandatory drug testing for those Americans who receive unemployment benefits. He won by five points.

Scott DesJarlais in Tennessee's 4th

Roll Call reported a couple of months ago that DesJarlais, during a messy break-up with his ex-wife, allegedly held a gun in his mouth for three hours and was accused of spousal abuse. He nevertheless defeated incumbent Rep. Lincoln Davis (D) yesterday in a landslide.

Ben Quayle in Arizona's 3rd

Quayle, the son of the ridiculed former V.P., is perhaps best known for having contributed to a raunchy, sex-themed website -- and then lying about it. Yesterday, he won by double-digits.

And how to explain this, in Florida, a state where Medicare is like ATP reductase?

Rick Scott is, of course, best known as the disgraced former head of the Columbia/HCA health-care company that got caught up in a massive fraud scandal in the 1990s -- and nothing says victory in Florida like "Medicare fraud." Scott's firm later pleaded guilty to charges that it overbilled state and federal health plans, and agreed to pay $1.7 billion in fines, a record penalty for a health care company. The fines covered fraud perpetrated under Scott's watch, and he was forced out of his job as a result of the scandal.

More recently, Scott used his personal fortune to hire the Swiftboat liars' p.r. firm, and proceeded to launch a breathtakingly deceptive right-wing ad campaign in opposition to health care reform. He is, by the way, also at the center of an ongoing scandal stemming from his alleged fraud at a different health care company he created.

When the initial HCA scandal broke, and Scott was forced to give a deposition about his role, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment -- 75 times. After the second fraud scandal broke, Scott gave another deposition just days before he announced his gubernatorial campaign, but refused to let the public know what he said.

And despite his scandals and alleged crimes, and the fact that he's never held any public office and at any level, Rick Scot will now be the chief executive of one of the nation's largest states.

Usually, far-right Republicans get elected and then become criminals. It's not every day an apparent crook gets caught and then gets elected.

So what shall we make of all this? One thing, for sure: the power of Fox "news" to control the message and influence elections is complete. Absent ideas -- and Republican candidates' ideas were nothing if not absent -- elections can be won simply by ginning up rage over falsities, counting on the bottomless gullibility of teabaggers, and spending huge sums of money on deceptive ads.

Sour grapes? Maybe. But until someone can show me anything -- anything -- a R winner proposed during the campaign that was specific, sensible, and based on reality, my conclusion stands.

And riddle me this: a plurality of voters blame the economic crash on Wall Street (George Bush is next). And among that group of voters, the majority of them voted Republican. The party, in case no one noticed, that wants to remove the few traffic lights Democrats placed there...

Logic? Coherent philosophy? Anything? Bueller? Bueller?...

No, whatever explains the results, it isn't sound reasoning. And to get whole swaths of people to vote unreasonably, it takes a relentless and cynical propaganda machine, albeit brilliant enough to sense people's vulnerabilities and to feed them like goldfish.

Sadly we know, sooner or later, where we goldfish always end up.

Media Rare

I'm not the only one who sees that "liberal" news networks will never have the audience that Fox "news" does. Even a guy with a large national audience agrees:

...you'll never have a liberal equivalent to Fox News that has anything like the same level of success. Conservatives believe that the mainstream news is fundamentally corrupt and untrustworthy. They want a fully closed information ecosystem in which every piece of data they consume is filtered through the perspective of the conservative movement. Very, very few liberals want that. They want their liberal opinion, but they also want straight news, or at the very least news that isn't overtly propagandistic like on Fox. MSNBC has slightly right-of-center programming in the morning with Joe Scarborough, straight news throughout the day, then liberal opinion at night.

It's a battle liberals will always lose. And whereas that's great for Glenn and Bill and Sean and Sarah and Mike, it's really bad news for our country. Because not only is Fox "news" not only not a news organization but a coordinated propaganda organ, it's much more: it's the kingmaker for Republican candidates. Half of them are literally paid employees: Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee. Others, per instructions from Sarah herself, have decided to campaign exclusively through appearances on Fox, knowing they'll never be challenged. It's become the pattern for virtually all the teabagger candidates: Angle, Paul, O'Donnell, and more.

So why is that a bad thing? It hardly takes thought to answer: these candidates are bought and paid for by Fox "news." The candidates owe everything to Rupert Murdoch, one of the richest and most blatantly partisan, agenda-driven men on the planet. In a most obvious sense, this man will have a significant part of our government fully beholden to him, dependent on him, afraid of him; with the power of the unspoken threat to turn his propaganda against them any time they disagree with him. This is much more than being beholden to money; it's potentially total control of politicians by the man who literally produces, edits, and shapes all the information consumed by conservatives. It's a hell of a lot more than pursestrings: it's total influence over how these politicians will be perceived. I'd say that pretty much puts the teabagger candidates in Rupert's pocket.

Who but a teabagger would consider that a good thing? Who but a teabagger would not recognize and be repelled by this perversion of democracy, this unprecedented political influence?

And who but a teabagger would so willingly let themselves be used in such a way?

Loser

I started a post the other day, and, as is often the case, didn't finish it. Until now, I've sort of reservedly liked Alan Grayson, a D congressman from Florida: he isn't shy about his liberalism and about calling bullshit when he sees it. Despite the fact that he's made it his theme song, referring to himself as "the congressman with guts," I guess I gave him a pass, since on some level it had been refreshing to see a congressional D who isn't a wimp. I'm now embarrassed to say I even gave him fifty bucks once.

Anyhow, I'd seen his ad against his opponent, in which he refers to the guy as "Taliban Dan." Okay, I thought, that's pretty much reprehensible, and I should say so. It's a little too Foxobeckian for my taste. But, I thought, the guy does seem to be another unneeded hyperchristianist theologue, and God knows we don't need more of them running our country. So I let it go. There are, after all, similarities among all groups that want to impose religious law on people who believe differently. (I admit Christianists don't stone people to death. When they take out abortionists, they're far more humane. Single shot. Lynching, too: not nearly as bad.)

Then I saw this. Alan Grayson had done a complete Hannity, taking a statement totally out of context and doctoring it, making it exactly what it was not. Sorry, Mr. Grayson. That's RWS™ stuff. That's the poison that Fox is injecting into our veins every day. It's one thing to point it out. It's another -- and inexcusable! -- to adopt it. [I will say this, however: political ads are more or less expected to be lies, and courts have, sadly, specifically said it's okay. In my view, however, the practice is immeasurably worse and destructive when so-called news media do it, because even though in the case of Fox it's entirely undeserved and ludicrous, there are people who actually consider it accurate and seem to lack the skills to differentiate. Bad as political ads like this are, what Fox does is way worse. Just so that's clear.]

So, much as I hate the idea of John Boner being Speaker, here's what I have to say to you, Alan Grayson:

I hope you lose. You deserve it.

All The News That Fits

Either/Or

For some reason, I can no longer embed clips of The Daily Show. They work in my preview mode, but when I try to publish, I get an HTML error message. It's a shame, because Jon Stewart has been excellent of late. So, here's a link to last night's opening, in which he addresses the fundamental question of our time: is Fox "news" evil, or is it just stupid?

It's definitely worth a watch; most especially for [you know who] those that consider Fox credible in any way.

Unfair Fight

The deck is stacked.

In the political scene, such as it is, the thing that's depressed and disappointed me the most is the ease with which the RWS™ control "the message," and the ineptitude with which the Democrats deal with it. Here we are in the most uncommon era, with near-fatal calamities all around, and with only one party and its president trying -- and, to a large extent, succeeding -- to deal with them. Just look: the American auto industry -- saved; health care -- reformed for the first time in five decades; Wall Street -- first significant regulation in years; failing economy -- well, okay, at least they've tried. And it's pretty persuasive that absent the stimulus it'd be hell of a lot worse....

People can disagree about the efforts: health care -- too much reliance on insurers; auto industry -- should have let it fail, free markets being more important than jobs and recovery; stimulus -- too little or too much spending, too little tax relief or too much... But it's hard to disagree that efforts were made, and that successes have been seen. Or that Republicans decided early on that Obama's successes would be their undoing; and that if completely stopping him was impossible, convincing people that up is down was most certainly not. Cue the screamers.

To a huge number of people, it's been easily sold as socialism (it isn't), fascism (ludicrous), tearing away the very fabric of civilization. People have been led to believe that Obama has raised taxes on the middle class (he didn't), that the bank bailouts were on his watch (they weren't), that he closed auto dealerships based on political affiliations (totally debunked), and stuff way crazier than that (he's not Kenyan). Or, without so much as a clearing of the throat, the subject has been changed, to mosques and gays. Successfully. Look around: in the midst of actual problems, people are convinced they should be concerned -- they're enraged, I tell you -- about a non-mosque at non-ground zero. Brilliant.

Holding in their hands the fruits of the most productive Congress in ages, the Democrats are letting it spoil, helpless to turn the tide. What's wrong with them? With all the cards, they still can't convince people of the value of what they've done. What a pathetic lot.

Except, wait: they are up against an unprecedented and unbeatable force. There simply is -- and, because of the nature of the liberal mind, there never will be -- no machine on their side comparable to Fox "news" and the RWS™ of the airways. Dedicated without apology to the pushing of a right wing agenda (while continuing to call themselves fair and balanced!), willing to lie and distort to accomplish it, they blanket the public 25/8/366 with pure propaganda. So it doesn't matter what the President or Democratic officials say: it will be countered relentlessly with spin and distortion, stupidity and distraction. And their audience, cultivated and groomed for years, considers it "fair and balanced" or, even worse, prefers to have their prejudices and preconceptions reinforced rather than challenged or exposed as wrong. Ever since Ronald Reagan, right wingers continue to sell people on the idea that you can have everything and pay nothing.

It's an unfair fight that liberals can never win, because whereas there are indeed some shouty liberals on the airwaves, they generally refuse to spread overt lies: and liberals tend not to need or want to have constant reinforcement; at least not in the numbers corralled by the RWS™. Thus, the ratings. Thus, the impossible fight.

It hardly mitigates the frustration that Democrats are unable to get their accomplishments recognized -- much less debated on their merits. But I've come to accept that it's really not their fault. If Harry Reid were Demosthenes, if Nancy Pelosi were Angelina Jolie, if Robert Gibbs were Robert Welch, how could they counter a totalitarian right-wing network that has no scruples? By what means could they get through to a populace carefully groomed for the times: scared, angry, actively and proudly mis- and uninformed, whipped into a frenzy, equating education with treason?

We'll never know.

Well (if a little strenuously) Said

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I don't watch Olbermann any more, because unlike Foxophiles I don't need constant reinforcement of a narrow point of view, and I finally got turned off by his over-the-top self-righteousness and his tendency (as opposed to Rachel Maddow, whom I also stopped watching but highly admire for her actual journalism) to have only yes-men on his show. Which is not to say I disagree with him.

The above is exactly what I've been saying about Fox "news" and the RWS™ and all of those like Blue (I exclude Frank because I think he's huffing his hoses so much he doesn't know what he just said at any given moment and as a liberal I must empathize and hope he gets help) and teabaggers and the silent sea of softheaded seekers of solace from cerebration who enable them by defending them or simply ignoring the obvious: they're liars. All of them. Every single one. Deliberate liars. They're inimical to functioning democracy. They've taken the idea of journalism and perverted it, intentionally. Knowing the value of a vigorous and free press (protected by the Constitution the ignoring of which they supported for the prior eight years), they've chosen to destroy it by discredit. It's like those programs to control mosquitoes by releasing sterile ones into the population. I can't speak for the mosquitoes, but this plan is working well.

I'll say it again: if you heard it on Fox "news" or from any of the RWS™, it's a lie. It's a deliberate falsification based on a destructive agenda and it's predicated on the belief -- for which there remains no disproof -- that its listeners and supporters are too stupid or too needy or too lazy or too uneducated or too hidebound by their preconceptions to figure it out. And, of course, on the knowledge that among those who do figure it out, most won't care. Will, in fact, love it for that very reason.

Democracy depends on an educated electorate. Education depends on good public schools and a functioning, intelligent, well-intentioned and skeptical press. And so, systematically, brilliantly, cynically, the right wing has been amputating every leg of the stool. And they've been doing it for a single simple purpose: fool the rest of you so they can take the money and run.

Give me another explanation, and I'll consider it.

Fair Point?

As I've mentioned, right-wingers, fed as usual by Fox "news" hackery, are panty-twisted over the New Black Panthers. Obsessed, some might say. I find it strange, given the singularity of the group (it has eight members. Eight.) But, as a recent article suggests, is this the equivalent of left-wing excitement over the militia movement on the right?

The New Black Panther Party plays the same role for the right that Hutaree-style militants play for the left: They're a tiny, uninfluential group whose importance is magnified to keep the base excited. Left and right wind up worrying more about each other than they care about the institutions that actually govern the country. It's great if your goal is maintaining movement identity, but not if you're more interested in changing policy than collecting scalps.

It strikes me as a fair question. In a recent post I focused on the lies regarding the timing of the DOJ's actions. But the point about equivalence to liberal concerns about militias hadn't occurred to me. Is it the same thing; are both sides making mountains out of milquetoast? The short answer is, I'm not sure.

Which won't keep me from venturing an opinion: I don't think it's the same.

The NBBP exists, all right, and it seems like a group of not-so-nice (if ineffectual, but for their constant invitations to appear on Fox "news") people. On the other hand, I don't know of any Democratic politicians who encourage their activities; nor can I think of any other similar groups. On the right, however, there are plenty of militias and militia-lovers, and calls for violence -- ranging from subtle to entirely overt. "Second Amendment solutions", promoted by a Republican candidate for Senate, comes easily to mind. As do armed teabaggers proudly posing at their political parties, marching mindlessly. On the other hand, even if there are more militias around the country than there are NBBPs, it's true, I think, that they don't represent much of a threat.

Not yet, anyway.

But whereas militias, per se, might just be a few crackpots, the numbers of in-your-face-posturing, gun-carrying, liberals-hate-America-claiming, whatever-it-takes-talking, paranoid-angry-know-nothing people on the right so far outnumber the threatening people on the left that I can't see the equivalence.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, there's this: the faux outrage is simply a ginned-up controversy, a nearly-nothing, blatantly hyped as a way to do political damage.

So, I guess I am sure. It's wrong.

Quick! Turn To Fox "news"!

The final report of the Independent Climate Change Em@il Review has been released. To the surprise of no one except the RWS™ (and, in fairness, I have to assume that at least one or two of them have a baseline intelligence [this does not, obviously, apply to anyone in the Fox "news" lineup] to have known they were hyping thin -- if warm -- air), it found no evidence of data manipulation or of scientific weakness in the research.

6.7 Conclusions and Recommendations

39. In summary, with regard to the allegations concerning the temperature data, the conclusions of the Review Team are as follows:

Regarding data availability, there is no basis for the allegations that CRU prevented access to raw data. It was impossible for them to have done so.

Regarding data adjustments, there is no basis for the allegation that CRU made adjustments to the data which had any significant effect upon global averages and through this fabricated evidence for recent warming.

We find that CRU was unhelpful in dealing with requests for information to enable detailed replication of the CRUTEM analysis.

Crucially, we find nothing in the behaviour on the part of CRU scientists that is the subject of the allegations dealt with in this Chapter to undermine the validity of their work.

So I guess we'll be seeing a complete report on this on Fox "news" real soon. To, sort of, you know, balance their prior reporting... And while we're waiting for the report, any minute now, let's speculate how they'll reconcile their crowing that the cold winter disproved global warming with the current heat wave.

We'll be waiting.

How It Works

Sadly, there are still those who watch Fox "news" and consider it a reliable news source. Ethical, even. A couple of them drop by here once in a while to sing their praises and leave a mess. I keep hoping I could convince those people to peel the scale from their eyes. As if.

Anyway, here's but one small -- and recent -- example of what they do. (I believe the term is "lie." But since it's all they do, no matter the issue, there ought to be a stronger word, wouldn't you think?)

In 2006, the Bush Administration closed off a five-square-mile stretch of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge to the public to allow the Border Patrol to improve security. Owing to mission creep of sorts, this section stayed closed. And how does Fox interpret this? That President Obama is giving vast stretches of land back to Mexico.

I have to admit I'd never before visited the Fox "news" website. I just did. It's really quite astounding. One after another, relentlessly, article after article attacking President Obama, liberals, government policy in the most slanted language. It's not as if this stuff isn't ubiquitous on right-wing websites. But this is the network that calls itself fair and balanced. We report, they claim, allowing "you" to decide. Even the Huffington Post has articles critical of Democrats, and of the president, and it regularly posts commentary from such wingers as Tony Blankley.

But Fox... well, they're in a category alone. I don't begrudge them their bias and their right to lie through their pixels. It's just that I'm continuously boggled by the fact that anyone -- even teabaggers and others of such limited critical skills -- could call them a useful source of news. Of confirmation bias, sure. Of reinforcing prejudice and fact-free belief, of course. A place to go to get lubed and stroked, the best.

But, c'mon: a fair news source? A news source by any definition? It's pathetic, if laughable.

Stop The Presses!

One more time: Fox "news" is fair and balanced.

The real power of brainwashing is that the victims don't recognize in what they've been bathed. A couple of them come here and prove it, with regularity.

Same-o, Same-o

Just like the last time, Fox "news" has found evidence anew that Obama is sending secret messages to Muslim terrorists.

www.thedailyshow.com

Is there any point beyond which teabaggers and those who defend them will not follow Fox "news"? Over which line might they refuse to step? What bold deception would lead them to say, "Well, maybe, just the teensiest bit, and only once in the tiniest while, we're being taken for a ride by cynical people, nasty people, extremely rich people, with a very selfish -- if barely hidden -- agenda."

I think I know the answer.

The Dumb Keeps Coming

Funny. If I were to criticize the treaty Obama just signed with Medvedev (did you know that Medved means "bear" in Russian?), it'd be along these lines: it seems more for show than for real progress. Reducing our nuclear arsenal by one-third, to a level that still allows us to destroy all life on the planet ten times over isn't exactly peace on earth. But of course the RWS™ see it quite differently. (In order to do so, they have to ignore pretty much everything in the treaty, but never mind...) That "I think she's great" symbol of everything the Republican party has become, that former half-term governor of Alaska, said this:

"It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. No administration in America's history would, I think, ever have considered such a step that we just found out President Obama is supporting today. It's kinda like getting out there on a playground, a bunch of kids, getting ready to fight, and one of the kids saying, 'Go ahead, punch me in the face and I'm not going to retaliate. Go ahead and do what you want to with me.'

Naturally, as predictable as poop in a dog park, Fox "news" lays it down twofold.

As usual, Jon Stewart cuts through the crap.

The Big Bang Treaty
www.thedailyshow.com

I guess it's funny, all right. Except that there's no way for me to see any light, when Fox "news" is watched and believed by so many credulous people, with neither the ability nor the desire to seek information elsewhere. A significant portion of our population is being deliberately propagandized and cynically mislead. Razor sharp and stealthy, the cuts aren't felt, the bled blood barely missed. To teabaggers and all the rest of the creations of Fox "news" this is what passes for political discourse, for thought.

A nation of idiots cannot long survive.

It's Cold Down There

Well, I may have to rethink global warming. Because....

HELL HAS JUST FROZEN OVER!!!!!

(In case you're wondering, this is Tom Coburn, my fellow physician. Just goes to show 'ya. I guess if you make it through med school, even at the bottom of the class, you might have at least a remnant of veritas. For this, I'll give hims some credit.)

Scum/Scam

To be honest (and why not? It's Friday. The Sabbath approacheth.) I've never heard of Debbie Schlussel. Evidently, she's well-known among the right-wing, as a conservative pundit of some repute. And, apparently, some repugnance as well. Pretty, though. And the name has possibilities.

So it's interesting that she's just called Sean Hannity a fraud. Certainly, I've known him as a self-important and remarkably dumb guy, whose dishonesty about fact knows no bounds. At one time, I wondered what his presence on Fox "news" said about that network. (Long since, it became very obvious.) Anyhow, the lady reports:

For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted “Freedom Concerts” across America. They’ve told you that they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets. And on Friday Night, Hannity will be honored with an award for this “Outstanding Community Service by a Radio Talk Show Host” at Talkers Magazine’s convention.

But it’s all a huge scam.

In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes.

There's lots more at the above link, with impressive detail. She reports. You decide.

[From another blog, one can discern early reaction from right-wingers: "TheNextRight’s blogger RBIII tweets at 9:38 AM.

Apparently, allegations about Hannity are more important than that shredding of the Constitution if you’re a ‘Progressive.’

Perfect. Sounds just like the commenters here.]

[Update: here's a response from Freedom Alliance.]

[And now there's an update on the original post to which I linked. She ain't backing down.]

Hardball, Softball

Other than the bizarre amount of interrupting, it was a tough interview of Obama, but I thought the questions were legit. The interview with Bush? Well, he didn't suck his toes like his fellow Foxface.

Can anyone imagine anyone at Fox "news" coming on that strong to Bush? Or Cheney? Or any member of that party for which they are puppets? Me neither.