The Horror--The Daily Show Exposes Swedish Dystopia

Last week, Wyatt Cenac of The Daily Show went to Sweden to see just how terrible our socialist future will be.

Part 1:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Part 2:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

The Daily Show Covers Your Government, Not At Work

UPDATE: John Amato at Crooks and Liars says that he's thinking about running for Harman's seat. I would feel very comfortable having John in that seat and having Rep. Harman out of it.

Jon Stewart breaks down the Jane Harman wiretap saga.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Your Government Not at Work - Jane Harman Scandal
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Specter a Symptom of Shrinking GOP

At the height of the Bush Administration, Arlen Specter drove me nuts. He would occasionally appear on the precipice of doing the right thing, then... not so much.

In July of 2007, Specter talked of empowering a special prosecutor to look into the 2006 firing of U.S. Attorneys.

In May of 2006, in a move designed solely to force red state Democrats onto the record, Specter voted for a gay marriage ban in committee before voting against it on the floor.

After all that, knocking off Specter meant a lot to me. So, while this is a great moment for the Obama agenda, it's a tough day for progressives hoping to get a better Senator in that seat in 2010. Also, Specter joining the Democrats effectively ends my one-man Bob Saget for Senate campaign. Well, he was a better choice than Chris Matthews.

Still, Specter's switch to the Democrats tells a larger tale. The Republican Party shrank so much by 2008, that a relative moderate like John McCain had to take on such radical positions just to get nominated that he could not sustain a credible national campaign. What remains of that party is a mess, and while at least two viable national parties are necessary to the health of our nation, it doesn't bother me in the least to see the message being sent in the clearest possible language--the Republican Party must change or it will die.

How Warming Deniers Use Shortened Trend Lines To Create Misleading Statistics

This clip breaks down the importance of using longer trend lines when looking at the history of global warming. For instance, just because 1998 was warmer than 2008, the Earth did not stop warming. 1998 had a severe El Nino, which spiked temperatures. If the trend line is drawn from 1997 to 2007 or even 2008, a cooler La Nina year, the warming pattern returns.

Nailed It!

An actual tweet I sent four days ago after reading about this poll.

You sure @SenArlenSpecter doesn't want to switch parties? http://tiny.cc/FYLca Could be fun.

You know who's taking it well? Michael Steele.

Mirror Mirror On the Wall, Who's the Snarkiest of All

File this under "Are you fucking serious?"

From a study by Heather L. LaMarre, Kristen D. Landreville and Michael A. Beam at Ohio State University called, "The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report":

This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.

In otherwords, a great deal of conservatives don't know he's making fun of them. Of course, the way this study is worded gives conservatives proof that it's just as likely that Colbert's making fun of liberals. I'm okay with that.

Have a question for Obama?

President Obama is visiting Arnold, Mo. next Wednesday, April 29th according to sources at Arnold City Hall. It has been reported that he will visit the Fox C-6 School district

but further information has not been forthcoming. Although Obama did not carry Missouri last year, he did carry Jefferson County.

Since it's unknown if this is a meet and greet or a speech, I was wondering if there might be a Q&A with the President.

If so, the Agent and I were wondering what questions readers might ask if given the opportunity. Since the debate in St. Louis was tightly controlled with no questions from the audience I thought this might be our one chance to ask him about Iraq, the economy, Guantanamo Bay, Cabinet appointments, anything.

Leave a question in the Comments section and the Agent and I will choose one if given the chance. If I have to shout a question to him, I'll do it. I'm not shy.

UPDATE: It has been confirmed that this will be a Town Hall meeting marking President Obama's 100th day in office. I am registering for a ticket right after I update this post. Wish me luck!

"Hospitals Which are so Expensive that it's Cheaper to Die"

Bukowski's 1991 poem "dinosauria, we" provides some chilling commentary on society that hasn't changed a bit.

born into this
into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul Look Back at Election '08

Two people who know how to raise the hell out of some funds are Secretary of State Clinton and Dr. Ron Paul. The two of them had a warm exchange at the end of this tight five minutes in the House of Representatives. Paultards and PUMAS Unite! Just kidding, one love everybody.

Did DHS Report mean these people?

The Department of Homeland Security's report on right-wing extremism brought howls of protest from Republicans, Conservatives, teabaggers and others because they all felt THEY were included in the report's findings. Paranoia ruled the airwaves! But recent news stories have shown how prescient the DHS was in releasing the awaited report.

It wasn't just the Marine Corporal who was found carrying bomb making equipment in his luggage, it was Daniel Knight Hayden who was arrested on April 16th for using Twitter and his MySpace page to make threats.

From Wired.com, among the tweets: "START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be the FIRST DEATH!", and "After I am killed on the Capitol Steps, like a REAL man, the rest of you will REMEMBER ME!". He also tossed in a shout-out to the cops: "Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads (sic) and throw the[m] on the State Capitol steps."

Hayden's MySpace page is a "gallery of right-wing memes about the "New World Order", gun control as Nazi fascism and Barack Obama's covert use of television hypnosis". What better place than Oklahoma City than to threaten people with terrorism?

Then we have the WBC (not the World Boxing Council) - the infamous Westboro Baptist Church people. Not content to just protest outside of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., because, gee, the poet may have been bi-sexual or gay, it turns out they may be planning a mass suicide ala Heaven's Gate 12 years ago!

WBC's home page (careful, it may burn your eyes and offend sensibilities) is rife with hate, so you may want to check out Gossip Boy's take on the group. It sure sounds like they have something in the works. Perhaps they're planning on hooking up with Marshall Applewhite or even Xenu.

When a government agency releases a report, people must realize that it doesn't mean them! You're anti-abortion? Fine, but if you haven't bombed or plan to bomb a clinic, I don't think the government is necessarily planning to break down your door soon. You own guns? Okay, it's legal. But you don't need an AK-47 to hunt squirrels or protect your home from burglars. Any discussion of bringing back a ban on assault weapons doesn't mean Obama wants to take all of your guns away! And when the DHS uses a term like "militia", they're not bashing the Marines, Navy or Army. They're talking about groups like the "Covenant, Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA)" and the Aryan Brotherhood!

Stop grasping at straws and re-intepreting everything that comes out of D.C. That's Coulter's and Malkin's job.

The Diabolical Al Gore Strikes Again

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) has been hearing things from some people, you know around, that Al Gore's just making an issue of the whole global warming thing because he's, you know, making a lot of money on it. Of course, the slightest research shows that Gore is a bazillionaire from his associations with Google and Apple and that he donates any money that comes his way from books and movies about the environment going to shit and the subsequent awards that accompany that service.

Here's the very tender moment:



As far as the news about Antarctica actually gaining ice, the story that the right is acting like is some kind of kill shot against global warming, there's more to the story.

Ian Allison, head of the Australian Antarctic Division's ice, ocean, atmosphere and climate program, says:

In east Antarctica there may be a slight increase due to increased snow fall. In west Antarctica, the smaller bit that hangs off the tail going up towards the Antarctic peninsula, some of the very large glaciers have increased their speed and are discharging more ice into the atmosphere. On average, west Antarctica is losing more ice than the east is gaining.

Ethan Siegel at Science Blogs talks us through the whole thing once more, with feeling.

Randi's Coming Back

Randi Rhodes is coming back soon. She signed a deal with Limbaugh's syndicator. LTR has the press release.

Messianic Convergence

Tim Tebow congratulates President Obama on winning the election. No, wait, I mean, President Obama congratulates Tebow and the Gators for their National Championship.

Ron Suskind on Rachel Maddow Show

Last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel spoke to the author of the must read book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism, Ron Suskind about the reason why the Bush Administration tortured in the first place. Here's a hint: it wasn't to protect us. It was to protect them from lying about the connection between Saddam and al-Qaida. Like Amanda, I wasn't jaded enough to see through that bullshit. This was never a tangential debate about over-zealous tactics and caring too much, it was always about the biggest story of the day--Iraq.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Deploy Clinton

Quite a day for Secretary of State Clinton. Here she is on the Hill laying waste to the Hugo Chavez took advantage of Barack Obama talking point.



In this clip, over at Huffington Post, she smacks Dick Cheney around a little bit too. Party unity in the house.

Senate Armed Services Committee Releases Torture Report

Today the Senate Armed Services Committee released a devastating review of torture under the Bush administration. It seems clear now that torture was always meant to be a method for getting all kinds of intelligence, no matter how incredible, which would then allow the Bush administration to cherry-pick whichever bits of information it wanted to, especially concerning the "establishment" of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida.

From Salon:

As the report puts it, "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees." The report undercuts the Obama administration's case for leniency against the CIA, since the agency was pursuing abusive techniques even before Department of Justice lawyers had issued their supposed legal justification for the techniques in August 2002. The report also shows that the administration appears to have attempted to use the abusive techniques to shore up its case for war in Iraq. Interrogators employed the techniques, which are notorious for producing bad intelligence, to get detainees to make statements linking Iraq and al-Qaida.

(more)

In other words, torture does work when you don't care about the accuracy of the information you get.

Back From Twitter Land

I've been delving into this whole Twitter phenomenon, mostly because my job has designated me the in house twitterian. Discovering Twitter at this point is kinda like going to buy a copy of Nevermind after Kurt Cobain killed himself, but I must say, I am enjoying the format much more than I thought I would. The look of the site just screams silly--the name, the little birdie. I was a happy outsider, glad to take as many or as few words as I need to say whatever I want.

The format sucked me in. Then I started finding people to "follow" who are quite good at whatever this is. After a couple weeks, I think I would miss reading tweets from a few of my good friends, a few bloggers--Rising Hegemon, Blue Gal, Glenn Greenwald, Sam Seder and Tommy Christopher--and a few celebrities--Rob Corddry, Kevin Smith, Rainn Wilson, Trent Reznor, Ted Leo and Sarah Silverman.

I was surprised to see that conservatives have jumped all over the format as well. John and Megan McCain and even Karl Rove twitter it up. John McCain's recently twittered his reaction to Hugo Chavez giving President Obama a book critical of colonialism and neocolonialism in South America.

Chavez's book - best cure for insomnia!!

Chavez's book? Like Chavez wote it? The book is called Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent and it was written by Eduardo Galeano (incidentally, not on Twitter). Senator, I know your ghost twitterer only has 140 characters, and the effects of the book were putting him or her into a coma, but let's get serious here. You can attack the book on its substance in under 140 characters. The good twitterers often break ideas up into a short series of tweets.

Meanwhile, in a very entertaining article, McCain's daughter Meghan attacked Karl Rove for... being creepy and boring, I guess. Far be it from me to stipulate that anyone needs a reason to attack Karl Rove, but it did seem odd that all she really compalined about was that Rove followed her. Well, I guess she can attack me next, because I'm following her too. And so are 25,000 other people.

One of Meghan's tweets that surprised me a bit:

Everyone should follow @ThatKevinSmith , he is obsessed with hockey and having sex with his wife. Highly entertaining/cute...

So Meghan McCain is using her twitter account to rip on Karl Rove and to pimp Kevin Smith. And she's the young face of the Republican Party. I can Digg it. And I did.

Justifying DHS Reports

A week ago, the DHS released a report (begun during the Bush administration) on extremist groups. The report called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" focused on militias and other known extremist groups and included a section on how these groups may target Iraq and Afghanistan veteran to bolster their ranks.

Naturally, Conservatives, Republicans and others who hate President Obama expressed outrage because the report (gasp!) included all of them! You know who they are - the Teabaggers, the anti-abortionists, anti-feminists, traditional marriage people, the Creationists, the Climate Change Is False crowd, the Obama's a Socialist/Marxist/Fascist/Communist/Liberal/Dictator Loving President persons.

This report targets our blessed military personnel they cry! We love our vets and HOW DARE the DHS target and name them! If Obama doesn't apologize for this (discounting Napolitano's explanation of the report) why, we'll SECEDE JUST LIKE TEXAS or worse - throw another useless TEA PARTY and inflate the crowd numbers!

So today, when I saw this report today from WCNC-TV, I knew the crickets would be chirping during the daylight hours. The TSA yesterday discovered that a Marine traveling from Las Vegas to North Carolina through Boston was carrying "bomb making materials, a gun and ammunition in his checked luggage".

22 year-old Cpl. Justin Reed of Jacksonville, NC was arrested and charged with "possession of an infernal machine and possession of a concealed weapon in a secure area at an airport (Logan International)".

Now the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Inc. using the Thomas More Law Center has filed a federal lawsuit (PDF) against Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder. I went to the CBR home page and be warned. There's an extremely graphic depiction of an abortion being performed, courtesy of AbortionNO.org.

The first name listed under plaintiffs was none other than Michael Savage, the infamous radio talk-show host. How long will it take for this lawsuit to be misconstrued as a "freedom of speech/they're trying to shut down radio" issue?

As stated in the suit's introduction: "This case seeks to protect and vindicate fundamental constitutional rights. It is a civil rights action brought under the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution challenging the policy, practice and custom of the United States Government that targets for disfavored treatment those individuals and groups that are considered to be "rightwing extremists" by the federal government".

Yes, if you don't agree with the rightwingers and investigate people and groups who wish to destroy our country and abrogate our laws, they'll sue you.

Something Complicated Happened and Some of it Is on Tape

Obviously there's no shortage of coverage on the blogs of the revelations that wiretaps recorded Democratic U.S. Rep. Jane Harman of California telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would try to get the Justice Department to reduce charges against two officials indicted in the muddy AIPAC espionage scandal.

For the details, I defer to TPM.

As for the bottom line, there are more questions coming out of this than answers. A lot of suspicion falls on Nancy Pelosi, who was lobbied in 2006 by the man rumoured to be on the other side of Harman's tapped call, Haim Saban, to place Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Questions come to mind. For example, did Nancy Pelosi appoint Silvestre Reyes to that position to protect herself and maybe to protect us? If so, good move.

This thing will make for a hell of a book or movie someday. For now, the sorting will continue for quite some time.

The question I have is, despite the involvement of the Bush administration, will any Republicans try to exploit the situation politically? Because that would be hilarious, and that is what they do these days--comedy.

For much, much more, Glenn Greenwald has a report and updates and a podcast or two here.

Texas Isn't Seceding, It's Turning Blue

Talk of Texas seceding continues to be a hot topic this week despite the fact that it will never happen. Well, that is, it will never happen again.

Kvatch at Ragebot!, has a list of concerns Texans should ponder a bit before packing their bags. My favorite is this one, "Water — You might want to start thinking about desalination because New Mexico and Oklahoma just damned up the Rio Grande and Red rivers." He also suggests the semolian as Texas's new currency.

Meanwhile, Chris Matthews, who continues to give crazy a platform, had arm-flapping maniac Tom DeLay on the show so he could delve into the minutae of the treaty that admitted Texas to the union in the first place while waiting out the longest period between indictment and trial in the history of the universe.

Of course, there's not really a lot of support in Texas for seceding, but since Perry brought it up, we should fully explore the meaning of such a maneuver. Nate Silver draws Rick Perry a picture. It's America without Texas. It's a Republican Party without two Republican Senators and a 20-12 advantage in the House. It's a picture of a Republican nominee in 2012 and subsequent elections without most of Texas's 55 electoral votes. All but six of those votes would be redistributed to 2008 blue states.

Having said all of this, I still think that Texas will become a blue state in about ten years, if not sooner. The demographics in that state are changing rapidly. The increasing Latino population and radical shifts in the views of young voters there will change that state. They're going to start by dumping Governor Perry, who doesn't even realize this week that he signed his political death warrant.

Bill Moyers Talks to The Wire's David Simon

The executive producer of the best TV show ever made sits down with Bill Moyers for a great conversation about the show and the absurd system it reflects.

More of my raving about The Wire can be found at Off Screen Explosion.

Shoe Throwing School

Not everyone has the rocket arm of the infamous Iraqi shoe thrower (who's sentence was recently reduced). So, sometimes you just gotta practice, like these villagers in India who have been practicing throwing shoes in preparation for visiting politicians (h/t Veronica).

Nice to see the BBC is allowing bloggers to embed their video.

More Than Meets the Eye

Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic analyzes Obama's angle concerning potential torture prosecutions. Things may not be as they appear.

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul

Glenn Beck and Texas Governor Rick Perry are floating trial balloons about secession. Three months into a pretty decent looking presidency and Texas looks like they have already had enough. Any bets on who's next? Alaska? South Carolina? Louisiana? I'm starting to feel pretty good about being safely in the North.

Meanwhile, I'm watching CNN's coverage of the tea parties. Clearly these people (not that many of them) have seceded from reality on planet Earth (Andrew Sullivan has pictures). At least Wolf Blitzer is not making the tired teabagging-equals-balls-in-the-mouth jokes that were fun at first, but were quickly played out. Still, every time Wolf comes back from a break he sounds giddy, like there's a big sporting event going on instead of a bunch of losers who don't get that their taxes are lower than they used to be. In fact, Nate Sliver writes, "Even today, US tax receipts as a proportion of GDP are generally lower that other large, industrialized countries, except perhaps Japan." SadButTrue weighs in with a look at how U.S.-style tax cuts are hurting Canada.

Pandagon blogger Jesse Taylor breaks it down (h/t Sullivan):

Tea Partiers are hoping that if they mimic the energy of anti-war protests and the savvy of Obama’s new media operation, that at some point an actual movement will spawn. Getting together a bunch of pissed off middle-aged white people with no clue about how the tax system works in public areas will generate a coherent agenda designed to combat the stimulus; if it gets enough media coverage, they will DOMINATE THE AGENDA.

It’s like taping a horn to a horse and waiting for it to alight on a magic cloud of stardust and pixies.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks takes on Neil Cavuto's bullshit regarding Fox's coverage of high tea:



Don't worry teabaggers, help is on the way--Newt's got his eyes on the Oval Office.

Don't Call It a Comeback

Not sure why, but I kinda want Eliot Spitzer to make a comeback. According to Page Six, he wants it. Of course it's just Page Six. But if David Vitter can be a Senator, Spitzer can be New York's AG.

Cybersecurity Act of 2009

Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe introduced the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (S. 773) on April 1st (unintended, I'm sure). Its purpose is to "ensure the continued free flow of commerce...through secure cyber communications...and maintain effective cybersecurity defenses against disruption..." by regulating public and private networks, securitized software, and the integration of testing/licensing/certification of cybersecurity professionals.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns of sections in the bill that "risk(s) giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security". Specifically, "one proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds."

This is described in the bill under Section 18 (2) and (6), Cybersecurity Responsibilities and Authority.

Section 14 (b, 1) states that the Secretary of Commerce "shall have access to all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access".

These provisions have the capability to gut current statutory provisions for electronic privacy or even financial privacy regulations.

I understand the need to centralize cybersecurity concerns but this bill, as it is currently written, loosely defines "critical infrastructure" and imposes mandates on private networks, securing software and certifying professionals.

It almost seems as if the "unitary executive" theory (as interpreted by Reagan and implemented by Presidential signing statements) especially regarding national security matters will be expanded too far by this bill. If S.773 is not seriously discussed and amended, we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

Obama Loosens Restrictions on Travel to Cuba

During his daily briefing with reporters today, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced that the Obama Administration will allow Americans to make unlimited trips to Cuba and make unlimited money transfers to family living there as well. Gibbs said that the President is also considering easing other restrictions on Cuba. The restrictions lifted today will affect the 1.5 million Americans who have relatives in Cuba.

(more at Political Machine)

Where Was The Lunatic Fringe In March 2001?

In an email to me today, our heartland correspondent, Russ Weiss, asked what madness the Lunatic Fringe would have unleashed had President Obama's first foreign policy test gone the way President George W. Bush's first international test turned out.

Frankly, I think Todd Rundgren's cover of "Lunatic Fringe" beats the crap out of both the Red Riders' original and Rush Limbaugh's actual lunatic fringe. Note to EMI, it doesn't help with the judges when you can't embed the video clip. Were you bought by the AP?

Here's Rundgren's version, you decide:

Hostage Situation Had Nothing to do With Obama, But...

...if the Mission had Failed
the Right Would Have Crucified Him

Great news about Captain Phillips being rescued, but I would like to echo Andrew Sullivan's point that it's important not to over-hype today's events. Sullivan wrote, "In the grand scheme of things, this is not the most pressing national security issue, and the hyper-ventilating about it is a form of adolescent posturing. Somalia's chaotic state means more of these incidents will happen; and we need to get a grip when they do."

Beofre the rescue, on Thursday, Rush Limabugh did plenty of over-hyping the President's supposed inability to handle the crisis. From Media Matters:

El Rushbo kicked off today's show by returning to the Somali pirate saga, playing a sound bite of Obama declining to comment on the ongoing situation. According to Rush: "This is President Obama voting present, declining to comment. This is President Obama not wanting to address anything that is hard. Addressing things that are hard bring your approval numbers down." Rush went on to attack Secretary of State Clinton for saying during a press event with the Moroccan foreign minister yesterday that the "world must come together to end the scourge of piracy," and laughing as she was recounting America's cooperation with Morocco in combating piracy in the early 19th century. Rush said that Clinton "warned" us all about this "3 a.m. phone call," but both she and Obama are "inept" in their handling of this. They "don't know what to do."

(more)

Rush wasn't the only one eating his shoe today. Tommy Christopher has the story of Newt's idiotic Twittering.

As always, it is healthy to remember that the rise in piracy in this area is a bit more complicated than our media or Johnny Depp's movies will ever tell us.

Live!!! On Stage...

StLToday.com reported today that Glenn Beck is "taking a comedy show on the road for six live performances over six days during the first week of June".

Beck calls his act a "poor man's Seinfeld" and intends to mix topical humor with his modern day reimagining of Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense" (snicker).

"The live shows give him the chance to see firsthand what sort of themes are resonating among his regular followers, Beck said."

Yup, like "Obama is gonna take your guns", "Obama is making this a socialist/fascist/Marxist/Nazi-like/every-other-bad-ist country you can imagine".

Feel free to insert your own joke in the comments section.

Glenn Beck's Setting Himself on Fire

In this clip Glenn Beck pours "gasoline" on a dude and tries to make the point that the President's agenda is the equivalent of setting the American people on fire.



This is very dark shit. Cable news has been a fucked up realm for a long time, but this is beyond deranged, even for Fox.

Steve Benen has a post up discussing what happened next, after the clip above ends:

But that's not really the interesting part. Alex Koppelman added, "Unfortunately, not captured in the video is what happened next, when Texas Gov. Rick Perry came on and Beck asked, 'Governor, you're regretting being on this program at this point, are you not, sir?' Perry responded, 'Not at all, Glenn Beck. I'm proud to be with you.'"

And that, in a nutshell, helps explain what's gone terribly wrong with conservative Republicans of late. Beck appears to be in desperate need of medication, and the chief executive of one of the nation's largest states is "proud" to appear on the show, just moments after Beck pretended to set a colleague on fire.

For god sake we have a US Representative making a list of socialists. What the fuck is going on?

Zinn on Class

The great historian Howard Zinn discusses the term "class" on The Real News Network.

Teabagging Hysteria!

Here in the St. Louis area, we're only 6 days away from the great "Tax Day Tea party" aka the "we're not gonna take it anymore now that Obama is in power" party. It was okay when "W" added $4 trillion to the National Debt according to a CBS News report in 2008.

They threw their first party on Feb. 27th with a great turnout of about, oh, 500 people. Not too bad considering that Bill Hennessy, a co-organizer, said "Originally, I was hoping for 50 so we've got about 10 times what I thought we were going to get." Of course, in subsequent days the organizers increased the size of the crowd to 500 then 1,500!

The Teabaggers (not to be confused with the people who actually perform a "teabagging" act - well, not that they would talk about it anyway) picked the perfect day, April 15th. Forget the fact that most of them will start seeing extra money in their paychecks now that Obama's tax cuts are in effect. I'm sure they'll all do the charitable thing and donate to a worthy cause. But instead, they are to "bring non-perishable food for the food drive" because they "want to show the world they care about our neighbors in need" and "it's our down payment on a society that takes care of its brothers and sister (sic)".

That almost sounds like socialism, doesn't it?

The Teabaggers are obsessed with other groups like ACORN or the Huffington Post. Per the local web site: "To prevent opposition groups from obtaining your personal information, we will give you guidance on how to identify official Staff members and approved groups and organizations. We will not disclose these identifiers in advance so that the opposition groups can not mimic them"! They won't be "Detered" - which is misspelled, of course.

They rant because some cities have "refused to issue permits". I could only find 5 cities, Alletown, Pa., Rutland,Vt., Cape Coral, Fl. (since aproved), Burleson, Tx. and Mobile, Al. Of course, several of these cities required liability insurance for police coverage before they would allow any permit on city property. In Burleson, Texas that made sense because the rally was "to be held on a state highway right of way"! The organizers decided to move to "the parking lot of the Burleson Commons shopping center". In Mobile, the rally was to be held at the U.S.S. Alabama Battleship Park - state property that holds federal assets.

These are the same people who point to Mark Levin's "definitive work" "before Obama destroys your kids minds in his "lets kill all of the productive people" Nazi-Marxist youth camps".

They also say "They want to take away our guns and dismantel (sic) our Constitutional rights. They want to make the National Animal ID system MANDATORY (sic) to tag all our animals and become "Stakesholders" (sic) of al our farms and livestock. We will not be able to grow our own food, use the term Organic or own a small farm business. They want to starve us if we protest." Then there is my favorite (channeling Michelle Bachmann) "FEMA has built over 800 Concentrations (sic) camps with railroad tracks and helicopter pads all ready to lock up the American people when they can proclaim...Martial Law!"

Teabaggers, no one is trying to stop your protests! We're not going to call you "unpatriotic", "loony" "tin foil hat-like" as you did us for 8 years. Get over yourselves. Have your fun, gather food for the pantries and keep looking around for liberal spies! We look like you and we could be anywhere!

Americans Losing Patience With Capitalism

I didn't know that polling agencies polled capitalism, but they do, and it's down. Here's the score:

Capitalism: 53%
Socialism: 20%
Undecided: 27%

Twenty percent for socialism? Maybe that whole Obama-is-a-socialist thing is convincing people that they like socialism.

Nate Silver has more.

AP's Latest Fail

The AP has been going downhill for a while, and has been very strange since Ron Fournier took over including their Metallica-esque crackdown on linking to newspaper content, but this latest foolishness over threatening people who embed YouTube videos from their is simply mind-numbing considering they can trun the function off any time they like.

UPDATE: Late word, via Tech Crunch, is that the AP has backed down.

Auditioning Outrage

Marriage equality picked up two states this week, so clearly it's time we heard from the people who have been hurt by gays and lesbians getting married.

What do you mean you couldn't find any? Okay, call in the casting director!



And the finished product is here. A rainbow coalition is coming.

Political Correctness Run Wild--Obama Institutes Potato Day

Jon Stewart helps the right wingers understand the difference between tryanny and losing an election.

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Newt's Bloviation Spree Continues

Newt Gingrich hinted at a third party if Republicans "can't break out of being the right wing party of big government." Clearly he's bluffing. Any such thing would result in a sure victory for the Democrat in any race the this Newtian third party entered. Newt even went on to make that argument himself, reminding everyone about how Ross Perot split the conservatives in the 90s.

Newt is also pissed off about the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling allowing marriage equality in that state. He called it "judicial arrogance". The 14th Amendment just doesn't work for Newt.

The Iowa ruling was followed in quick succession by legalization in Vermont, whose legislature voted to override the Governor's veto. Newt called that "healthier".

I agree with Dr. Monkey. These idiots need to keep on talking.

The Way of The Gun

Seven mass shootings across the country killed 48 people in March. What do we do about it? I have no idea. The way the courts and the media are currently structured a gun control debate is politically counter-productive and any legislation that could be enacted would die a quick death in the courts. Even more sadly, there's no way to shut up the assholes that are agitating the problem. The worst part is guns aren't really the biggest part of the problem. The larger issue is the way people are treated in this country. We don't recognize mental illness. We do not have a great deal of social or economic justice and our educational and prisons systems make things worse, not better.

Holy Treaty of Tripoli, Batman

Just in time for Blog against Theocracy, The President did something few Presidents ever do, define America as something other than a Christian nation.

This is what he told the Turkish press:

I've said before that one of the great strengths of the United States is, although as I mentioned we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

Here's the coverage, CNN-style:

Feel Free to Read This Post At Work

Turns out that a little leisurely internet surfing at work actually makes workers more productive. I've been saying that for years. Just not to my bosses.

The Class War Is Being Televised

How Is It Possible that there's no real voice of the American people on television? I'm talking about a twenty-four hour network that is in the home of every American with cable television. I want anchors who are going to war with guests in order to protect the interests of a vast majority of the American people. Instead, there are at least two networks with hosts going to war day after day on behalf of their rich buddies.

Observe:

The Kids Really Dig The President

DKos has a breakdown of their latest polling numbers on a variety of politicians. Here's some of the highlights:

The President has a 67% approval rating, that's one point higher than a Washington Post poll last week. 72% approval among women. Among 18-29 year olds President Obama blows the roof off with an 81% approval rating. When his approval is measured by region, he does very well in the Northeast (88%), Midwest (73%) and West (76%). And the South? Not so much. A paltry 41% approve, while 54% disapprove.

Despite all the gnashing of teeth about sleeve-less-ness and looking like James Brown (ouch), Michelle Obama polls even higher than Barack in the latest Gallup Poll.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the new George W. Bushes of the polls, coming in at 33% and 35% respectively. That is until you compare them with Republican leaders Boehner (16%) and McConnell (22%). Congressional Republicans score a paltry, Cheney-esque 17% approval rating.

If I Stole Stephen Colbert's Material

If I had a notice board I would have took Iowa off it last year when they propelled Barack Obama into the position of frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Today they took it a step further when their Supreme Court ruled that gays and lesbians have the right to marry.

If I had a Dead to Me list, Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson would have made it today. So glad Obama didn't put that assclown Bayh one heartbeat away from the Presidency. I guess this is Bayh's pathetic idea of revenge.

Coming off the Dead to Me list would be former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, but first he has to do the unthinkable and run against Sarah Palin for governor. How awesome would that be?

¿Puede decir usted "gracias"?

Rough translation: "Can you say, thank you?"

From RawStory.com:

The main chemical in marijuana appears to aid in the destruction of brain cancer cells, offering hope for future anti-cancer therapies, researchers in Spain wrote in a study released Thursday.

The authors from from the Complutense University in Madrid, working with scientists from other universities, found that the active component in marijuana, tetrahydrocannibol (THC), causes cancer cells to undergo a process called autophagy -- the breakdown that occurs when the cell essentially self-digests."

"The research which appears in the April edition of US-published Journal of Clinical Investigation, demonstrates that THC and related "cannabinoids" appear to be "a new family of potential antitumoral agent.

I have always endorsed the legalization of marijuana (and only marijuana) and now it appears that there is justification for more clinical trials with future legislation for at least decriminalization for medicinal purposes.

Years ago, my great-aunt actually wondered aloud if she could get some pot to help with her glaucoma battle. Naturally, she said this in front of just myself and my sister with no other adults around. I imagine she correctly thought that we knew where and how to get some for her, but we remained silent. It was only years later when my mother was fighting debilitating cancer and the subsequent treatments that sickened her did I even consider offering her the illegal drug that might help her with her nausea. I think she may have even mentioned it once to me, but again, I did nothing only to watch her pass just before Mother's Day.

If she were alive today and going through chemotherapy, I would not hesitate. It may not be tax deductible but I imagine I will be mailing a modest check to NORML soon.

Senators Webb and Specter have introduced Senate Bill 714, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 seeks to establish a blue-ribbon commission to "undertake a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system" specifically examining "the current drug policy and its impact on incarceration, crime and violence, sentencing, and reentry programs".

Writing in a recent Parade Magazine, Sen. Webb said "Drug offenders, most of them passive users or minor dealers, are swamping our prisons" and "I believe that American ingenuity can discover better ways to deal with the problems of drugs and nonviolent criminal behavior while still minimizing violent crime and large-scale gang activity."

Amen.

Best Demon Ever

Stacy posted a fond farewell to actor Andy Hallett who died early this week at the young age of 33.

The War On Spain Flows Mainly From O'Reilly's Brain

The Young Turks analyze Bill O'Reilly's threat of a one man boycott of Spain for their potential prosecution of Bush administration officials. By analyze I mean laugh their asses off.

Shultz In, Shuster Out As MSNBC Host

MSNBC is about to hand its 6pm slot to liberal talker Ed Shultz. From an ideological standpoint, this is probably a push. Though Shuster has more of a pretense of journalism, he's clearly no fan of the Republican Party and/or he felt the best thing for his career was a personality-free attempt to be Kieth Olbermann, Jr. Though I'm no fan of Shultz, getting Shuster's mesmerizing jaw (he enunciates so hard I sometime think he's going to pull a muscle) out of my face during the dinner hour works for me. Besides, Shuster was a very good reporter, so let him go back to that. Of course MSNBC might decide that playing Hardball at 5pm and 7pm is ridiculous and just give Shuster the 5pm slot.

I thought Shultz was a shoe-in for the 10pm slot that MSNBC's been teasing, then the network decided over the weekend to put their 10pm plans on hold for the foreseebale future. So, put the Sam Seder vs. The Young Turks fun feud for that slot, which neither of them will likely ever get even though they are both better picks than Shultz or Shuster, on the back burner for the time being.