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McCain Does A Little GOP Ass-Kicking

McCain Does A Little GOP Ass-Kicking

John McCain has finally had enough of his Republican teabagging cohorts, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. In the latest expression of Republican frustration with conservative GOP colleagues, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) ...

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How Does God Answer Political Prayers?

How Does God Answer Political Prayers?

Our friend, John Liming, wonders how God might deal with two conflicting prayers of a political nature. I have been reading an article on the website, Raw Story, where it is ...

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Making ‘Cents’ of Tom Coburn and Disaster Aid

Making 'Cents' of Tom Coburn and Disaster Aid

Item 1: The Oklahoma tornado disaster has killed at least 24 people, left hundreds injured and caused millions of dollars in damage. But that has not stopped a senator from that ...

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The Right Needs Smarter Bigots

The Right Needs Smarter Bigots

If you're new to right-wing think, here's an easy to remember rule of thumb to help you along; any and all evil in the world can be attributed directly to ...

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Another Dick Cheny ‘STFU’ Moment

Another Dick Cheny 'STFU' Moment

From a political party overflowing with sociopaths and creeps, none other than Dick Cheney encapsulates to a greater degree what it is the Republican party has become. The blood of ...

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Scandals: Real and Imagined

Scandals: Real and Imagined

It can be debated as to whether the filibuster came about as a political accident or was created to give minority parties a stronger say in opposing specific legislation they ...

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The Crazy, The Scum and The Dead

The Crazy, The Scum and The Dead

While gun nuts sink a little deeper into madness with each passing day, Seattle is turning guns into bricks. The Seattle Police Department collected more than 700 guns during a buyback ...

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To Infinity and Beyond!

To Infinity and Beyond!

Had enough of right-wing political crap and find yourself with a deep desire to get as far from the madding crowd as you can? Read on... The opportunity to travel to Mars ...

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In Leviticus v. Deuteronomy, There is No Winner

In Leviticus v. Deuteronomy, There is No Winner

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NRA – The Blood on Their Hands

NRA - The Blood on Their Hands

  LaPierre's speech of lunacy here. ___ Follow MarioPiperniDotCom on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. .

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Guns ‘n Kids and NRA Loons

Guns 'n Kids and NRA Loons

Here's the full quote from Charles P. Pierce. If your "way of life" involves handing deadly weapons to five-year olds, your way of life is completely screwed up and you should ...

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America The Brave…or is it America the Fearful?

America The Brave...or is it America the Fearful?

A guest post from James Fidlerten. ___ After September 11, 2011, America became united, as it grieved the loss of so many lives on American soil. The tragic event also changed so ...

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Gun Crazy Arizona Does it Again

Gun Crazy Arizona Does it Again

I'm not sure that 'crazy' is strong enough an adjective to describe the many (or few) who go to the absurd lengths they do in defending America's out-of-control gun culture. ...

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Popes, Pedophiles and Saints-to-be

Popes, Pedophiles and Saints-to-be

When an enabler of sexual abuse directed at children sits on the threshold of sainthood, you know you're living in a world of screwed-up priorities. The canonisation of Wojtyla is getting ...

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What if Bush v. Gore Never Happened?

What if Bush v. Gore Never Happened?

Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, ponders Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 presidential election. Looking back, O'Connor said, she isn't sure the high court should have ...

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No More Bushes

No More Bushes

Barbara Bush on a Jeb run in 2016. "We've had enough Bushes." An entire planet concurs. __ Follow MarioPiperniDotCom on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. .

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Boston and Bush

Boston and Bush

Today we learn... The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the ...

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Maureen Dowd’s Drivel

Maureen Dowd's Drivel

The above is in response to Maureen Dowd's ridiculous assertion that President Obama is incompetent for failing to get the 60 votes the Senate required to move the gun background ...

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Guns, Gays and Immigration

Guns, Gays and Immigration

In desperate need of an excuse for voting against background checks, here's the one an unnamed Democratic senator is using. “Guns, gays and immigration — it’s too much. I can be ...

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Congress and the NRA Makes Sure That America Loses…Again

Congress and the NRA Makes Sure That America Loses...Again

The vote came in at 55 to 45 in favor of expanding background checks for gun sales. In most institutes of democracy, that would have been more than enough to ...

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The Fox News Fear Factory

Just finished reading the excellent article on Roger Ailes in Rolling Stone – How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory. There were no big surprises in that most individuals of sound mind are acutely aware of Fox’s role as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. What was fascinating was reading up on exactly how Ailes created his Goebbels-like factory of disinformation – one which has become a major player in American politics.

As Princeton historian Sean Wilentz tells it:

“Fox News is totalized: It’s an entire network, devoted 24 hours a day to an entire politics, and it’s broadcast as ‘the news.’ That’s why Ailes is a genius. He’s combined opinion and journalism in a wholly new way – one that blurs the distinction between the two.”

The Giant Soundstage:

Ailes has used Fox News to pioneer a new form of political campaign – one that enables the GOP to bypass skeptical reporters and wage an around-the-clock, partisan assault on public opinion. The network, at its core, is a giant soundstage created to mimic the look and feel of a news operation, cleverly camouflaging political propaganda as independent journalism.

The Audience:

Ailes knows exactly who is watching Fox News each day, and he is adept at playing to their darkest fears in the age of Obama. The network’s viewers are old, with a median age of 65: Ads cater to the immobile, the infirm and the incontinent, with appeals to join class action hip-replacement lawsuits, spots for products like Colon Flow and testimonials for the services of Liberator Medical (“Liberator gave me back the freedom I haven’t had since I started using catheters”). The audience is also almost exclusively white – only 1.38 percent of viewers are African-American. “Roger understands audiences,” says Rollins, the former Reagan consultant. “He knew how to target, which is what Fox News is all about.” [...]

“He’s got a niche audience and he’s programmed to it beautifully,” says a former News Corp. colleague. “He feeds them exactly what they want to hear.”

I imagine we all know people who fit the above description. I certainly do. One in particular is a bigoted, homophobic, hate-filled individual who spends his entire days with Fox News blaring in the background. It has warped his mind beyond any trace of reason. To hear him speak is to hear the parroting of every conservative talking point and lie ever heard on Fox. He, similar to many conservatives who rely on Fox as their single source for information, has become part of Roger Aile’s army of zombies…and so thorough is the manipulation, they’re not even aware of the full frontal lobotomy Fox has performed on them.

The result of this concerted campaign of disinformation is a viewership that knows almost nothing about what’s going on in the world. According to recent polls, Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of all news consumers. They are 12 percentage points more likely to believe the stimulus package caused job losses, 17 points more likely to believe Muslims want to establish Shariah law in America, 30 points more likely to say that scientists dispute global warming, and 31 points more likely to doubt President Obama’s citizenship. In fact, a study by the University of Maryland reveals, ignorance of Fox viewers actually increases the longer they watch the network. That’s because Ailes isn’t interested in providing people with information, or even a balanced range of perspectives. Like his political mentor, Richard Nixon, Ailes traffics in the emotions of victimization.

Great article; give it a read if you’re interested in furthering your understanding of what makes your Fox-loving neighbor tick.

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Fox Gets Front Row Seat – “Keep Your Friends Close, Your Enemies Closer”

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Some on the left are freaking out over this.

Fox News Channel has been granted a much-coveted front-row seat in the White House briefing room.

The White House Correspondents Association said Sunday that The Associated Press’ reporter has been moved to the front-row center seat previously occupied by Helen Thomas. Fox’s correspondent will take the AP’s former front-row seat, and National Public Radio’s correspondent will move up one row to Fox’s old second-row seat.

The center seat was long held by Thomas, a United Press International and Hearst News Service writer. The 89-year-old columnist resigned abruptly in June amid controversy over videotaped remarks she made calling on Israelis to get “out of Palestine.” Fox, Bloomberg News (also seated in the second row) and NPR had lobbied for Thomas’ seat.

Seriously, who cares and what difference does it make?  It’s not as if Fox can somehow be more smug and arrogant than they already are.

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Fox News – Confusion Central

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Quick. Who is the most biased and least competent business ‘expert’ on television?  If you answered Fox’s Stuart Varney, advance to the bonus round.

Steve Benen

Varney was outraged by the notion that Bush’s tax cuts would expire next year. Democrats, Varney insisted, are going to “swell the deficit” in the coming years by “raising taxes … which increases the deficit.”

First, Democrats aren’t “raising taxes,” so much as they’re following the Republican plan to let breaks for the wealthy expire on schedule. If Varney doesn’t like it, he should blame the GOP for coming up with this tax scheme in the first place.

Second, if Fox News’ “business expert” seriously believes the deficit goes up when tax rates increase, he’s in the wrong profession. It’s sheer nonsense, and a reminder of why a) Stuart Varney is something of an embarrassment to himself; and b) Fox News viewers struggle so badly with current events. An audience bombarded with incoherent propaganda is bound to get confused.

Confused?  OK.  That’s a genteel enough way of describing them.

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The O’Lielly Factor

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Bill O’Reilly has elevated the art of lying to guru status.  If one was so inclined, you could literally pick out his lies from just about every single episode of the Factor.  I am not so inclined but when the buffoon lies as blatantly as he did last night, well, it requires mention.  Here’s how it came down.

Last week, at a town hall meeting, Republican Senator Tom Coburn responded to a woman who was concerned about the new health care bill incarcerating people for not obtaining insurance.  The Senator responded with…

“The intention is not to put anybody in jail.  That makes for good TV news on Fox but that isn’t the intention.”

O’Reilly, defender of all things Fox, had this to say to Coburn last night.

“[Y]ou don’t know anybody on Fox News — because there hasn’t been anyone — that said people will go to jail if they don’t buy mandatory insurance.”

[W]e researched to find out if anybody had ever said you are going to jail if you don’t buy health insurance. Nobody has ever said it. What it seems to me is you used Fox News as a whipping boy when we didn’t qualify there … you were wrong to do that, Senator, with all due respect.”

Of course, there was no research, at least not by O’Reilly’s staff.  Research is not something Fox is known for.  But if they had, they might have come up with

November 13, 2009, O’Reilly Factor:

O’REILLY: Couldn’t they do [liposuction] at the same time [as your appendectomy]?

BECK: No, they wouldn’t. No. I don’t have universal health care.

O’REILLY: No, let’s get — well, you will soon.

BECK: Or I’ll go to jail.

O’REILLY: Are you going to be a conscientious objector to health care?

BECK: You know, this is the first time in history in our country where, just to be a citizen, just to be — just to not go to jail, you have to buy something.

November 12, 2009, The Glenn Beck Show:

BECK:  “if you don’t get into their government health care, there will be jail time.”

February 4, 2010, Fox and Friends:

RUSH LIMBAUGH: “This is not even a health care bill. This is a bill that raises taxes 14 times; puts people in jail, potentially, if they don’t have health insurance mandated by the government to buy. This is an avenue to control every aspect of life.”

November 10, 2009, Sean Hannity’s show:

HANNITY:  “Dick Morris was on the program last night. Penalties for people who don’t get government-mandated health insurance, uh, jail time, a possibility?

There are more examples but you get the idea. Coburn had it right but O’Reilly could not care less.  Should he make mention of this MediaMatters piece tonight, he’ll simply refer to MM as a George Soros controlled liberal smear site and that will be that.  End of story.  The right have trained their sheep with Pavlovian mastery.  The mere mention of the phrase ‘liberal mainstream media‘ instantly discounts anything a non-wingnut source says.  No point for O’Reilly’s groupies to actually check what MM wrote and discover that they are quoting directly from transcripts of Fox shows.  All that matters is that MM is branded a “liberal” source and that satisfies their little minds.

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Fox News And Angry White Men

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News item

A man accused of dropping more than 30 explosive devices into mailboxes and other locations across east Texas did so out of anger toward the government and was acting alone, federal authorities said Thursday.

Larry Eugene North was indicted Wednesday on charges of possessing an illegal firearm or destructive device. Authorities said they would evaluate whether to pursue more charges.

Authorities believe North is responsible for planting 36 devices between Feb. 5 and Wednesday, said Robert R. Champion, an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Authorities previously said they had found at least 16 explosive devices, including five pipe bombs.

“These devices, over 30 in number, have caused fear in this community nothing short of domestic terrorism,” prosecutor Brit Featherston said. “Today that fear stops.”

There is further news that North is disabled and according to his lawyer, suffers from emotional problems.

Digby writes

I’m not surprised that mentally unstable people are trying to blow things ups. They’ve always been around. It’s just that right now, all they have to do is turn on Fox or the radio to hear a whole lot of angry voices egging them on, so it’s becoming more common.

I ask again: who is the right’s voice of sanity? What will it take (short of Obama stepping down) to have conservatives break out of their myopic, crazed frenzy and realize that Fox, Republicans and talk radio have, in the words of John Amato, “unleashed a monster on our society.”

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