Avalanche on Bullsh*t Mountain

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Watching Karl Rove do the "yabbita, yabbita, yabbita" is priceless.

It's not that I dislike conservatism, it's the opposite really: FOX news is setting back conservatism by a generation with this insanity. It's like what Jack Kevorkian did to the notion of euthanasia, stripping it of dignity and the moral high ground by driving around in a Chevy van with IV poles. 

Fox is doing the same thing to conservatism. This election was over months ago and Fox has acted like the family members on Family Feud when Gramps says the favorite meat in America is..."possum".

"GOOD Answer, Granpda!!!!"

"SURVEY SAYS: ...ummm, not possum." 

First of all, Obama has not been super-liberal as president, I mean his health care reform was practically written by the Heritage Foundation. Furthermore, there are conservative counterarguments to everything that has been broached by the left-wing, but nobody is making them. Instead we hear idiocy like "Obama's a Kenyan post-colonial socialist" and "Romney's gonna win in a landslide."

As long as Fox News stays on the air, disseminating its misinformation to a solid 43% of the electorate, we will never be able to get beyond this impasse.  At some point facts do matter.

"Lied to by the conservative entertainment complex"

David Frum is a smart Republican:

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Back in October I remember conversing with someone after the first Romney-Obama debate and stating that the election was essentially over and had been over for several weeks. 

For the Republican party to survive-- and the country would do well to have two viable parties-- they are going to have to come to terms with reality. Hanging onto the white majority males won't work in national elections mainly because white males are no longer the majority in most jurisdictions.

Facts matter. I understand the discomfort we have for many of Obama's policies, such as health care reform (the one I'm most familiar with), but ignoring facts have ruined the Republican party.

Our economy starts to fracture when 50 million have no insurance, so why do Republicans have no plan? Medicare is the most significant source of non-discretionary federal spending, so why is the Republican plan to do nothing for 10 years? 

The great irony is that Gov. Mitt Romney had the chops to school Obama on health care reform if he really wanted to because Romney is one who signed the prototype for the Affordable Care Act. Instead he chose to appease the nutjob wing of his party and throw his signature piece of legislation in the trash.

Further, Romney chose as his running mate someone whose budget proposals are ludicrous. Paul Ryan's solution to Medicare is not even a serious attempt, it was just a cynical ploy to get the over-55 crowd to play along by making that the completely arbitrary cut-off for not getting voucherized. 

Chris Matthews has said that we need the Republican party, and I agree. Where are the Jack Kemps, the Nelson Rockefellers, the Gerry Fords to provide some counter debate? 

I've heard commentators say that this election shows the need for someone like Marco Rubio to energize the Latinos to vote Republican. Much has been made of George P. Bush, the Hispanic nephew of George W. Bush, voicing interest in political office.

I disagree with this gambit and feel that it's another cynical attempt to paper over the party's real deficiencies-- like when McCain thought Sarah Palin would garner the women vote in 2008. Demographic groups are not that superficial; I think that most individuals vote for what they feel is in the country's best interests, and not just because someone's name ends in a vowel.

Republican voters need to bring their party back to sanity or it will go away. There really are conservative arguments to be made, but they are not being made in the "conservative entertainment complex."

(h/t Eric)

Jerry Rivers got raped

I learned something, what is it?





That the TSA is ham-handed? No, I kinda figured that already. Give someone a badge and the odds are pretty good it will have an effect, some effect, on their behavior.


That someone would want to get intimate with Geraldo? No... I mean, who wouldn't?


That Shep Smith is homophobic? Please.


No, the thing I learned is that you cannot say "junk" on television anymore, it must now be spelled out: J-U-N-K. 


Thanks for the heads up, Gretchen.... or should I say H-E-A-D-S up?

Meghan McCain (still) doesn't get it

Meghan McCain has a brain storm: Keith Olbermann has an opinion show. D'uh.

Olbermann needs to determine if he is a commentator or a journalist. It never really crossed my mind that he was considered a journalist by anyone, just like I never assumed that anyone considers Glenn Beck a journalist. And, for the record, neither does he. Both Beck and Bill O’Reilly (as recently as his appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher) said they fall on the commentary side of the network. This is the state of the media. No one should really be surprised by Olbermann’s donations. What should surprise people is that entertainment, commentary, and journalism have fused into such a state that it is difficult to differentiate among the three.

The problem I have with this false equivalence between Fox and MSNBC has been stated elsewhere. To review:

1. No where in their name or on the screen does MSNBC refer to "News" during opinion shows. Fox calls it self "Fox News" with the logo chyron on the screen at all times. This is intentional.

2. NBC has an entire other division that provides unbiased news; Fox does not. They portray Beck, O'Reilly and Hannity as "news."

3. Fox continually floats from news to comment without proper differentiation. That's unethical.

4. I can't believe I just spent 5 minutes engaging Meghan McCain's sophomoric false equivalence.

Juan Williams: Al Campanis* 2010 [Update below]

Juan Williams was sacrificed to the gods of political correctness and it should backfire on NPR.

1. Bill O'Reilly was right (did I really just say that?) when he pointed out that Juan did not give an opinion, he was just describing his emotional state. If he had said we "should" feel nervous... that would be another issue.

2. What "Muslim garb" was worn by the 9-11 terrorists? Or Richard Reid? Or the Xmas Eve bomber? The problem with Williams' statement is that nervousness is a stupid emotion to have.

3. Mara Liasson has the highest job security in the world today.

4. Joan Walsh nailed it in her column today.

*Obscure Reference Alert: Al Campanis (below) iced his career as a baseball executive in 1987 when he implied in an interview with Ted Koppel that African-Americans were not smart enough to be Major League managers.

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Update 10-23:

A commenter (who has subsequently deleted his/her own comment) made the valid point that Al Campanis is not the proper analogy to Juan Williams' firing because Campanis was a true bigot who viewed racial differences as reasons to discriminate on hiring. Granted, it's not the perfect analogy and the commenter is correct. To his credit, Campanis came out days later and stated that his remarks about race were misinterpreted since he only meant that there were no blacks with the proper Minor League management experience to warrant hiring into the Major League positions. He also said that he was tired and chose his words poorly in the Koppel interview. Of course, he was likely only trying to preserve his own high-paying job, but that is the story.

Calling Fox News "Propaganda" would be generous

If you are relying on Fox for your news, then you are usurping your responsibility as a citizen. They do not present the "other side", they merely present the crazy side. Yesterday, I commented that Bill O'Reilly's "research" was really just a bushel of bullshit. Now, HuffPo has aggregated the item into one video:

I don't know what's most annoying: O'Reilly's perpetual smirk, Cavuto's faux outrage, fat-fuck Dick Morris' simpering whine, or the fact that Fox has the highest ratings in cable news. This is where a plurality of voters go for their news? We don't deserve a democracy, folks.

Some of us don't necessarily agree with all the policies of the current Congress and President, and we do need a loyal opposition, but when Tom Coburn appears to be the rational one, then we all know that there really is nothing serious on the other side of Obama. We have some serious issues in this nation regarding basic principles of government, entitlements, war, jobs, etc. But when commenters on Fox News cannot even read the fucking health care bill, then what's the point of watching Fox News-- except to confirm your (mistaken) bias?

My recommendation: read the goddam bill, or STFU. It's now the law, it will affect everyone in this country for the rest of our lives, so read it. This is 2010, we have access to all manner of information as never before in our history: pdf's html's, heck you could probably even find an mp3 of someone reading it to you if you look; so there is no excuse for being mislead by Fox News. They are LYING to you. This is not propaganda, this is just bold-face lying. There is an argument against the current health care bill, but Bill O'Reilly certainly isn't making that case. Beck, Cavuto, O'Reilly, and all the other nimrods on Fox are just trying to piss you off; they don't care to have a "debate" about what to do with 46 million uninsured people, they aren't "presenting the other side", they are just appealing to your lizard brain--- don't fall for it.

Bill O'Reilly does "Research" !!!

... and of course, it's as half-assed as the rest of his shtick. Sure, nobody on Fox ever said that the gummint was gonna put you in jail for not having health insurance... because Bill says he "researched it."



Media Matters then gives the rundown on all the morons who have stated [not implied, but stated] that lack of health insurance would land US citizens in jail. Count 'em: Hannity, Dick Morris, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Andrew Napolitano, Neil Cavuto, Bill Hemmer, and Greta Van Susteren have all inaccurately said that health insurance mandates carried criminal penalties. Yeah, nice research, Bill.

I used to watch Fox to see what the imbeciles were "worried" about this time, but now it's gotten so bad that it just destroys brain cells.

Glenn Beck fixes healthcare!

If anyone can find a more annoying person anywhere, please let me know so I can be sure to avoid him/her. I saw the headline so I figured, what the hell, maybe Beck has some good idea about health care reform. Wrong. Just the usual sarcastic bullshit.

This is the guy in high school who sat in front of me in trigonometry class, had the latest TI-30 calculator, wore a Tiger print nylon disco shirt with pocket protector, blew dry his hair straight back, bragged incessantly about his reel-to-reel tape player, gossiped about the student council president, worked on weekends as a wedding DJ... and he never ever shut his fucking mouth. I always wondered what on earth he'd do for a living and it turns out that Fox News has hired a whole bunch of these narcissistic trolls. Who knew?

Why I love Fox News...

Here's one reason:

They're shameless in their silliness.

A few years ago when they promoted illegal war and torture I pulled my hair out, now I just laugh.