The Delusions Of Sarah Palin: Putin’s Bear Wrestling vs. Obama’s Mom Jeans

Posted by on March 4, 2014 at 4:16 am. 10 Comments :

Yesterday Sarah Palin demonstrated the world-class idiocy that has become the hallmark of her public persona. She pretended that she had predicted the current events in Ukraine, but her version of reality was unrecognizable to anyone who actually has a grip on it. To make matters worse, Palin popped in to Sean Hannity’s show to sop up some fawning validation from her Fox News colleague.

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Hannity jumped in with praise for the phony Palin prediction, but it was Palin herself who dragged the whole segment into a pit of pitifulness. Her moronic stammering and belching of buzzwords was almost painful to watch (video below). She often didn’t even seem to know the meanings of the words she strung together, such as when she lambasted President Obama for weakness that she imagined in “the perception of him and his potency.” This may be the first time in history that a president’s potency has been discussed in public.

It went downhill from there, if you can believe it. In a non-sequitur response to a question from Hannity about whether Putin had designs on more than just Crimea, Palin lurched into an obviously prepackaged insult that she was determined to slip in, whether it was contextually appropriate or not. The alleged punch line went like this:

“People look at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans.”

Seriously? This is what passes for foreign policy analysis on Fox News? Palin didn’t bother to identify the people who she thinks look up to Putin. Most of the world sees him as an autocratic aggressor who is violating international law. There was no mention of the complexities of the regional dispute and ethnic division? Nothing about the pending sanctions or the suspension of G8 summit activities. Both Palin and Hannity failed to note the successful unification of the western allies against Russia’s aggression. Palin didn’t offer a single proposal of her own to resolve the situation. Nor did she notice that Obama’s proposals were in line with what every knowledgeable diplomat in the U.S. and our allies have had to say on the subject.

Instead, Palin’s juvenile taunt served to aggrandize Putin in her own image – he as a bear wrestler, she as a moose slayer. And they both loves them some oil drillin. Palin, along with most of her right-wing comrades have been heaping praise on Putin as a leader, while purposefully tarnishing the reputation of their own president in the midst of a serious crisis. This is behavior they fiercely damned during the Bush administration if anyone uttered an opinion that was the least bit derogatory about George W. What was regarded as treasonous in the previous administration is now a daily affirmation from the conservative pews, without regard to the damage it does to our national interest.

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Sarah Palin Thinks She Predicted A Russian Invasion Of Ukraine (w/Video)

Posted by on March 1, 2014 at 12:09 pm. 63 Comments :

In addition to being able to see Russia from her house, Sarah Palin now thinks that she was able to see into the future. On her Facebook page Palin is bragging that she predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine if Barack Obama were elected President:

Palin: Yes, I could see this one from Alaska. I’m usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did.

Palin and her conservative comrades are taking advantage of events in Ukraine to reignite their cold war passion for conflict with the former Soviet empire. This is a brief diversion from the Putin love-fest that they have been consumed with for the past few months.

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However, the evidence of Palin’s alleged prophecy was a trifling passage from a campaign speech she gave in October of 2008. Although she was obviously reading from a TelePrompter a speech that was surely written for her by McCain staffers, the substance of her remarks fell somewhat short of the clairvoyance about which she is boasting. If you look beyond the brief reference to Russia, it is apparent that her prognostication skills are sorely lacking. Nevertheless, the right-wing media machine is in full distribution mode to hype this phony grab for undeserved credit. Everyone from the so-called mainstream, yet lie-riddled Fox Nation, to the wingnuttery of Breitbart News is regurgitating Palin’s boast. But the truth is readily available in her stump speech forecast (video below) that contained what she called the “Four Crisis Scenarios” that would accompany an Obama administration. It’s a bundle of wrongness that will be hard for future political fakers to exceed.

Crisis Scenario #1 was that Obama was “proposing to meet with the regime in Tehran that vows to wipe Israel off the earth.” Of course this never happened, so Palin is starting out with a wild swing and a miss. What did happen was that sanctions implemented by the Obama administration, and diplomatic efforts to unify the international community to oppose Iran’s nuclear weapons program, forced Iran to capitulate, cease development, and agree to inspections.

Crisis Scenario #2 concerned Obama’s advocacy of “sending our U.S. military into Pakistan, without the approval of the Pakistani government, invading the sovereign territory of a troubled partner in the war on terrorism.” Indeed, Obama held open the option of taking action to pursue dangerous terrorists when our so-called allies refused to do so. However, this is the policy that rid the world of Osama Bin Laden, a conclusion that would not have been achieved had Palin’s protocol been in effect.

Crisis Scenario #3 criticized Obama’s position on Iraq when he “voted to cut off funding for our troops leaving our young men and women at grave risk in the war zone.” In reality Obama eliminated the grave risks faced by our troops when he pledged to end the Iraq war and bring the troops home. It was Palin who advocated leaving those young men and women in the war zone.

Crisis Scenario #4 is the money scenario. This is where Palin said that “After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.” Notice that Palin did not say what Obama’s response was or why it would encourage Putin in future military endeavors. For the record, here is what both Obama and John McCain said at the time:

Obama: There is no possible justification for these attacks. I reiterate my call for Russia to stop its bombing campaign, to stop flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and to withdraw its ground forces from Georgia.

McCain: Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.

If Obama was indecisive and lacking moral fortitude, it was in exactly the same measure as Palin’s running mate, McCain. Palin’s remarks were nothing more than the typical carping that occurs in campaigns that have nothing of substance to say. Instead, Palin asserts an absurd scenario wherein Putin would require “encouragement” to engage in military aggression, as if he’s looking to the west for validation. If that’s so, what did George W. Bush do to encourage Putin to invade Georgia?

To a certain extent Palin got lucky in that she happened to mention the Ukraine one time during a campaign rally. But overall her speech was littered with inaccuracies and failed vision. It is surprising that she would bother to remind people of her foreign policy inadequacies. She didn’t predict the citizen uprising in Ukraine, or the ouster of it’s president, or the Russian presence in Crimea, a region whose population is majority Russian and staunchly pro-Russia. And to characterize her 2008 remarks as predictive of what is taking place today is nothing short of delusional.


WARNING: Climate Science Imposter On The Loose On Fox News

Posted by on February 28, 2014 at 6:02 pm. 4 Comments :

Be On The Lookout: In recent days a disreputable character has been making the rounds on Fox News claiming to be a co-founder of Greenpeace while peddling PR spin straight from the ivory tower suites of the energy industry.

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This imposter is Patrick Moore. He was last seen on the Sean Hannity program where he continued to misrepresent his association with Greenpeace. Hannity’s introduction was typically dishonest and dripping with animus as he declared that “For years the left has been spinning their lies about global warming, all in an effort to push through their radical agenda.” And he took full advantage of Moore’s subterfuge by noting that his climate science denial was surprising “coming out of your mouth.” What is surprising is that Moore is getting away with passing himself off as a co-founder of Greenpeace and an environmentalist.

The recent sightings of Moore in the media have been exploited by conservative outlets eager to dismiss the broad agreement in the scientific community that the Earth’s climate is changing at a rapid pace, and that it is caused by human activity. In fact, 97% of the scientists in the field have affirmed this in peer reviewed publications and research.

That hasn’t stopped Moore from conducting his charade wherein he asserts that there is “zero evidence that the earth is warming because of human activity.” His persistence is understandable with the knowledge that he is a paid representative of a variety of nuclear power and energy firms. Without any credentials in the field of climatology, Moore makes broad allegations that are not supported by verified research. Then he invents a vast liberal cabal that he claims is conspiring to build some sort of holy congregation of environmental opportunists:

“It is a powerful convergence of interests among a very large number of elites including politicians who want to make it seem as though they’re saving the world, environmentalists who want to raise money and get control over very large issues like our energy policy, media for sensationalism, universities and professors for grants […] it is a kind of nasty combination of extreme political ideology and religious cult all rolled into one.”

Contrary to his false identification as a co-founder of Greenpeace, Moore actually became affiliated with the group’s Canadian branch after it was already operating for a year. He left Greenpeace in 1991 to cash in on the lobbying fees he could collect from America’s pollution industries. And that’s what he has been doing for the last twenty-plus years. Greenpeace set the record straight about Moore a couple of years ago refuting any claim that Moore represents Greenpeace. They posted a detailed description on their website that revealed the facts of their past association and Moore’s current pro-pollution activities:

“Patrick Moore, a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry, frequently cites a long-ago affiliation with Greenpeace to gain legitimacy in the media. Media outlets often either state or imply that Mr. Moore still represents Greenpeace, or fail to mention that he is a paid lobbyist and not an independent source.”

This is just another example of how Fox News deliberately deceives their audience. With full knowledge of the false representations, and utter disregard for the truth that qualified scientists provide, Fox dispenses a litany of lies that keeps their viewers ignorant. For more information about Moore’s deceit, and the cooperation from Fox News and other rightist media organizations in proliferating his hoax, see the analysis by Media Matters.


Attorney General Eric Holder Hospitalized: And The Fox Nation Hopes That He Dies

Posted by on February 27, 2014 at 3:34 pm. 26 Comments :

This afternoon it was reported that Attorney General Eric Holder was admitted to a Washington, D.C. hospital after feeling faint and short of breath. Subsequent reports say that he is resting comfortably and conversing with his doctors.

However, in yet another example of the repugnant and hateful community that Fox News fosters on their Fox Nation website, comments posted there openly express their hope that his ailment results in suffering and eventual death. These sentiments are nothing new for a community that has also prayed for the death of Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and, of course, President Obama. And these are the so-called “patriots” who claim to be guided by the compassion and tolerance of their alleged Christian faith.

Here is a representative selection of the comments posted with the article announcing Holder’s condition. The vile nature of this congregation of haters is self-evident.

Fox Nation hopes for Holder's death


Fox Nation vs. Reality: You Don’t Have To Defend Laws That Are Unconstitutional

Posted by on February 26, 2014 at 10:07 am. 16 Comments :

Whenever Fox News encounters an issue that offends their rightist ideological biases, their automatic response is to construct a deliberately misleading campaign to distort the facts. But sometimes the facts make it too difficult for them to refute in terms simple enough for their dimwitted audience to grasp. And in those times of difficulty, Fox simply decides to make up arguments that have no basis in reality.

Fox Nation

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The Fox Nation website is often the first place that these rhetorical concoctions show up. Take for example the article they posted claiming that Attorney General Eric Holder advised the nation’s state attorneys general that “You Don’t Have to Enforce Laws You Don’t Agree With.” Anyone who knows how Fox works has already figured out that Holder said no such thing. What he said, as reported by the New York Times, was that, “[S]tate attorneys general are not obligated to defend laws that they believe are discriminatory.”

Notice the difference in these quotes between the words “enforce” and “defend.” What Holder was talking about was whether or not state officials are obligated to defend the constitutionality of laws that are being challenged in the courts. He never suggested that the laws as enacted should not be enforced by local police agencies while they are in effect. Holder was merely pointing out, quite correctly, that no state is required to mount costly and time consuming defenses of laws that it believes do not pass constitutional muster.

The Fox Nationalists, however, were incapable of presenting a valid argument against Holder’s actual remarks, so they altered them to create the appearance that Holder was advocating that states neglect any laws that they don’t like. And rather than linking to the original source in the New York Times, Fox linked to the ultra-conservative blog Townhall, whose assessment of the controversy was utterly false:

Townhall: Attorney General Eric Holder is taking the lawless attitude of the Obama administration and passing it down to state attorneys general. Yesterday during an interview with The New York Times, Holder said state attorneys general do not have to enforce laws they disagree with, specifically when it comes to the issue of gay marriage.

Once again, that is not even remotely what Holder said. Enforcing the law as enacted in the state is an entirely different matter than defending the law against constitutional challenges in federal courts. Holder himself demonstrated the principle behind this position last year when he declined to defend the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Supreme Court later struck it down as unconstitutional. So Holder was right, and his position prevented the waste of scarce resources on a vain mission to defend the indefensible. Nevertheless, the law was fully enforced up until the Supreme Court issued its ruling.

The editors and producers at Fox News know the difference between the concepts of enforcing and defending a law. They are intentionally misrepresenting the facts in order to disparage Holder and the Obama administration. And they are exploiting the fact that their viewers are too partisan and incurious to discover or understand the truth. That is not how ethical journalism is done. But then, Fox News has never been much of a proponent of ethical journalism.


Let Them Eat Bombs: Cheney And Hannity Favor Military Bloat Over Feeding The Poor

Posted by on February 25, 2014 at 2:41 pm. 3 Comments :

With the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has proposed a new budget that recognizes the realities of the current needs of the military establishment. Since we will no longer be fighting multi-front battles it makes sense to reduce the size of the military forces, focus on cutting wasteful programs, and direct scarce resources to modernization.

However, at Fox News any proposal advanced by President Obama or his administration must be immediately criticized as an attempt to weaken the nation and surrender it to our enemies. Consequently, when Hagel came forward to announce that our current Army “is larger than required to meet the demands of our defense strategy,” Fox reached out to war monger Dick Cheney to rebuke any effort to cut spending and reduce the deficit (something conservatives usually slobber over).

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Cheney called into the Sean Hannity show with a predictable complaint that Obama’s budget would be “dangerous,” but he failed to demonstrate why. He simply asserted that Obama “would rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military.” Of course, that also happens to be the position of most of the American people.

Currently approaching $700 billion dollars, the U.S. defense budget is greater than the combined military budgets of the next ten largest spenders. And even after making the proposed cuts, we will still be allocating more money to defense than China, Russia, the UK, Japan, France, and Saudi Arabia combined. Yet somehow Cheney and Hannity believe that this would make America more vulnerable, and that it would be unpatriotic to reduce expenditures. It should be noted that neither Hannity, nor Cheney, served in the military, but Hagel is a decorated veteran.

In addition to the obvious logic of cutting spending when we have the opportunity, it is a policy that is favored by most Americans. This is particularly apparent when compared to the public’s support for programs that benefit the needy. A majority of Americans (59%) favor maintaining spending on programs for the poor over deficit reduction. But when asked about maintaining defense spending, a majority (51%) would rather cut the deficit.

And if that weren’t enough, the right-wing sheds crocodile tears over the welfare of veterans who might be impacted by defense budget cuts, but they utterly ignore the fact that “900,000 veterans nationwide lived in households that relied on SNAP [food stamps] to provide food for their families.” The conservative mindset that pictures all food stamp recipients as lazy moochers cannot comprehend the fact that many veterans are beneficiaries as well.

In the discussion with Hannity, Cheney complained that those in the administration “act as though it’s like highway spending and you can turn it on and off.” What exactly does he mean by that? Is he saying that once defense spending is turned on it can never be turned off? Or that if turned off, no new spending could ever be allocated? Obviously that’s nonsense. It is like any other allocation in the budget. It is determined by need and available resources. And right now we need more resources directed to domestic highways and infrastructure than to foreign adventures in warfare.

That’s the reality based on rational defense analysis and the priorities of the American people who are footing the bill. But leave it to Fox News to take a hard-line militaristic stance that ignores the wishes of the people in order to attack the president they hate so fiercely.

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Guess How Fox News Covered Ted Nugent’s Hate Speech

Posted by on February 23, 2014 at 1:36 pm. 25 Comments :

Remember when Barack Obama was campaigning for president and Fox News tried to shackle him to anyone they thought would damage his reputation? Bill Ayres, who was barely an acquaintance, turned into a terrorist that Obama was “palling around with.” Rev. Jeremiah Wright became a daily fixture on the Fox News Channel consuming more airtime than the actual presidential candidates. And others, from Louis Farrakhan to Ludacris, were presented as villains that Obama was obligated to renounce, despite the fact that he had nothing to do with them and they were not a part of his campaign.

Which brings us to 2014 and the utterly reprehensible Ted Nugent, who recently called Obama a “subhuman mongrel.” That’s the least of the disgustingly hostile remarks that Nugent has spewed at the President and other targets of his sickly wrath. Yet Nugent was embraced by Greg Abbott, the leading Republican candidate for the governorship of Texas, who even shared the stage with him to accept his endorsement.

When this twisted relationship came to light, some in the media properly put it in context with inquiries about whether it was appropriate for a gubernatorial candidate to link arms with a vulgar, racist, misogynist, pedophile. But one network maintained complete silence, ignoring the controversy entirely. That is until after Nugent issued what may be the most starkly non-apology apology ever made:

Nugent: I do apologize – not necessarily to the President – but on behalf of much better men than myself, like the best governor in America, Gov. Rick Perry. The best attorney general in America, God, just think of America had an attorney general as great as Greg Abbott, like we do here in Texas. So on behalf of those professional politicians, and those who put their heart and soul into representing We The People so actively, like the people I just mentioned […] I apologize for using the street fighter terminology of subhuman mongrel instead of just using more understandable language such as violator of his oath of the Constitution. The liar that he is.

It can hardly be considered an apology if it expressly excludes the person who was the target of the original attack. Nugent was only sorry for the wingnut politicos who suffered due to their association with him – which was really more their fault, than his. Nobody forced them to accept his advances. Likewise, an apology doesn’t ordinarily include additional personal accusations of lying and treason.

So after ignoring the story when it first broke, and then pretending that Nugent’s apology was even remotely sincere, Fox News addressed the matter again on Howard Kurtz’s Media Buzz. It was a brief segment near the end of the program that only peripherally mentioned Greg Abbott. To Fox News the meat of the story had something to do with a dispute with CNN.

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Notice the lower-screen graphics that label the story as “Ted Nugent vs. CNN.” It isn’t Nugent vs. Abbott, or Nugent vs. Obama, or Nugent vs. Decency. Somehow Fox squeezed out an angle that cast the story as a dust up with a competing news network. This is not an incidental point. A team of Fox editors and producers had to have had a meeting to hash out this preposterously skewed perspective. They must have begun with a determination to avoid allowing the story to negatively impact Abbot, or others with whom Nugent has been affiliated, including Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry. Then they brainstormed a way to deflect the muck onto a common enemy. Lookout “liberal” media.

Once again Fox News has demonstrated that they are more interested in protecting their allies and attacking their enemies than they are in informing their viewers. The deliberation that had to have been mustered in order to concoct this nonsense illustrates just how hard they work at being deceptive and unethical. And all that hard work pays off in an audience of blindly loyal dimwits with the same ignorant incivility as Nugent.


Raving Fox News Pundit Accidentally Makes The Case For Food Stamps

Posted by on February 21, 2014 at 11:27 am. 4 Comments :

On a network that is focused so intensely on opposing every policy initiative of the Obama administration, it can lead to some rather fiery outbursts by its fiercely partisan pundits. However, for Fox News that sort of unfettered rage can severely impair mental acuity, particularly amongst FoxPods who are already starting out with diminished capacity.

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An example of this rage-fueled mind-numbing occurred yesterday on Your World with Neil Cavuto. During a segment with Fox Business contributor Charles Payne, the discussion took a turn for the weird (video below). Cavuto and Payne were merrily trashing social safety net programs, or as they call them, “entitlements,” when Payne slipped off the conservative mantle.

Cavuto: Whether it’s addressing a hike in the minimum wage or getting health care coverage, as long as Uncle Sam’s got my back I can lay back. […]

Payne: A lot of people are trying to convince the average person that there’s no way you can climb and reach the top. Although this morning, [yelling] there was a deal of a guy who sold a company for $19 billion. The guy came here from Russia. His family was on food stamps. He didn’t stay there. He didn’t stay there, Neil. The guy went out and started a business from the bottom. He was on food stamps. So the American dream is alive and well.

Exactly! The guy was on food stamps. The guy was able to feed himself and his family during a time of financial hardship and, as a result, he was able to lift himself out of poverty and achieve enormous success. That’s the American dream. And in this case it was made possible in part by America’s compassion for people who may temporarily have difficulty making ends meet. Whether it’s an immigrant, or a laid off worker, or a recent divorcee with children, this nation provides for them so that they can put the pieces of their lives back together and prosper.

Fox News has been a relentless opponent of things like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps), characterizing them as handouts for the lazy moochers who refuse to work. Conservatives have been working tirelessly to reduce benefits for food, housing, unemployment, and health care, while simultaneously advocating on behalf of the wealthy for more tax cuts and higher corporate subsidies.

Now along comes a Fox News pundit who inadvertently makes an argument for precisely why food stamps, and other social safety net programs, are so necessary and beneficial. The right-wing myth that food stamp recipients are perennially dependent on benefits is contradicted by the facts:

“SNAP supports households as they get back on their feet, supplying them with needed nutrition and encouraging work. The average amount of time a new participant spends on SNAP is 8 to 10 months, and the SNAP benefit formula is structured to provide a strong work incentive.”

It’s too bad that Cavuto and Payne fail to recognize the role that food stamps play in lifting families out of poverty, and even paving a path to success as illustrated in their own example. They concluded the segment with the same lamentations about government programs coddling the lazy. Their predictable obliviousness is reminiscent of the time when actor Craig T. Nelson appeared on Glenn Beck’s Fox program bragging that when his family was poor and on welfare and food stamps they never got any government handouts (except for the welfare and food stamps).


Sarah Palin: If He’s Good Enough For Ted Nugent…

Posted by on February 20, 2014 at 2:47 pm. 10 Comments :

We haven’t heard much from Tea Party queen Sarah Palin lately. That may explain why she is now taking desperate measures to draw attention to herself.

Sarah Palin

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In the state of Texas there is a budding gubernatorial contest that is certain to make waves. Democrats are likely to nominate State Senator Wendy Davis who rose to prominence during a heated state senate session where Republicans sought to ram through a legislative package that would have severely hampered access to reproductive health clinics for women in the state. Davis led a filibuster that, at least temporarily, blocked the legislation.

On the other side, Republicans are leaning toward the current state Attorney General, Greg Abbott, who is an arch-conservative Tea Party candidate with some unsavory friends. One of those friends is aging schlock-rocker Ted Nugent. When news broke that Nugent would appear on the campaign trail with Abbott, the candidate was forced to respond to critics who questioned how he could share the podium with a hostile, foul-mouthed, misogynistic, hate monger, who recently called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel.”

This is where Palin comes in with an endorsement for Abbott. But in her Facebook post she didn’t enumerate Abbott’s qualifications for the governorship. She didn’t reel off a list of accomplishments as Attorney General. She didn’t even praise his personal set of values that are aligned so closely to Palin and her Teabaggery. Nope. All she said was…

“If he is good enough for Ted Nugent, he is good enough for me!”

That’s an astonishingly low bar for someone who wants to be governor. But it is about as high as Palin can see. You may recall that her own turn at governing a state ended when she quit midway through her first term after being resoundingly bitch-slapped by America in her bid to move to Washington, D.C. But to cite Ted Nugent’s support as a reason to back Abbott stretches the boundaries of sanity. Essentially Palin is saying that if Abbott is good enough for a draft-dodging, pedophile, who has publicly advocated violence against his political foes (especially women), then she is all for him. Here is an example of the kind of vision that Palin admires in Nugent:

“I vow that I will use our freedom to get these dirty c*ck-suckers out of the White House. The president is a bad man. The vice president is a bad man. They’re all bad people. If you don’t get that, you’re a dead motherf*cker.”

And if that doesn’t set your heart to palpitating, how about this (video below)…

“I was in Chicago last week I said, ‘Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk?’ Obama, he’s a piece of sh*t and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns. Let’s hear it for him. I was in New York and I said, ‘Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch.’ Since I’m in California, I’m gonna find Barbara Boxer she might wanna suck on my machine guns. Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore.”

That’s the level of citizenship and patriotism that Sarah Palin regards as so exemplary that she would base her support for the governor of Texas on the favorable assessment of the crackpot who spewed it. It just shows how low these cretins will stoop to garner the support of even the most repulsive wing of their wretched party. We can only hope that the people of Texas are paying close attention and will look to a more respectable source for advice on who should be their next governor.


Congenital Liar James O’Keefe Makes False Charges Of Illegality Against Battleground Texas

Posted by on February 20, 2014 at 3:45 am. 11 Comments :

James O’Keefe has just released the latest of his long-running series of intentionally deceitful videos. In this episode O’Keefe returns to one of his favorite themes: harassing civic-minded volunteers who commit their time to registering voters and honoring America’s tradition of democracy. If there is one thing that extremist conservatives like O’Keefe hate, it’s people participating in the electoral process or helping others to do so. Especially if they are minorities, the poor, and other disenfranchised citizens.

James O'Keefe

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The new video purports to have captured illegal activity engaged in by volunteers for Battleground Texas, a local organization that promotes voter participation. O’Keefe’s hidden camera records a volunteer named Jennifer Longoria describing a part of the process for engaging voters and encouraging them to turn out on election day. Longoria explains that Battleground Texas keeps contact information gathered from the voter registration forms they collect. It is this practice of saving names and phone numbers that O’Keefe alleges is illegal.

The only problem with O’Keefe’s allegation is that it is utterly false. What O’Keefe did was to clip a portion of the Texas election code that says “The registrar may not transcribe, copy, or otherwise record a telephone number furnished on a registration application.” What he either fails to understand, or is deliberately misrepresenting, is that this section of the law applies only to the Registrar of Voters and other county officials. It does not apply to the volunteers or organizations that distribute and collect voter registration forms. In fact, the Texas Secretary of State website addresses this matter directly in their “Frequently Asked Questions” for volunteers:

Q: May I photocopy a completed application before turning it in to the county voter registrar?

A: No. Section 13.004(c-1) of the Code requires the county voter registrar to ensure that certain information, such as the telephone number, on a registration application is redacted from photocopies of voter registration applications from her office. In our opinion, this means that a photocopy of an application must come directly from the county voter registrar’s office, so that he or she may ensure the required information has been blacked out or otherwise obscured. With that said, we believe that a volunteer deputy registrar may photocopy the receipt. You may also copy the relevant information from the application in writing just as you would be able to do if you went to the registrar’s office and pulled a copy of the original application.

So actual photocopies are not allowed, but manually recording the data is expressly permitted. And that’s all that Battleground Texas is doing. The purpose of the applicable code is to prohibit confidential voter information from being published or otherwise made public by people on the government payroll who could have motive and opportunity to abuse their power. But Battleground Texas is not a government agency, nor are they publishing any of the data. Also, the information defined as confidential is specified in the code and includes things like the social security number and driver’s license number, but not the phone number.

The fact that James O’Keefe is thoroughly shredding the most basic standards of ethical journalism should not surprise anyone. His previous escapades have resulted in his arrest and conviction in a Louisiana senator’s office, and a legal order to pay a $100,000 settlement to a former ACORN employee he defamed. He himself has broken voter registration laws in a failed attempt to defend suppressive voter ID legislation. And let’s not forget his sleazy plot to seduce a CNN reporter aboard his “Love Boat,” or harassment allegations by a former associate that he tried to drug and kidnap her. His videos have been criticized by a broad array of media analysts for editing that blatantly misrepresents reality. Even Glenn Beck condemned his deceptive tactics.

However, what is truly disturbing is that, after having established a reputation as a shameless scam artist, there are still media outlets that provide a platform for his lies. Almost as soon as O’Keefe posted the new video it was picked up by Fox News on their Fox Nation website. From there it was swept up into the conservative media vortex that includes National Review, Breitbart News, WorldNetDaily, NewsBusters, FreedomWorks, The Daily Caller, Townhall, Human Events, TeaPartyOrg, and conspiracy kingpin Alex Jones’ Infowars.

Despite sensationalistic headlines about “Busted Dems,” none of these so-called news enterprises bothered to actually look into the law and ascertain whether a violation had occurred. They have simply taken the word of a known purveyor of falsehoods. That’s because their role is to distort and confuse rather than to inform. And that’s why O’Keefe can always find an outlet through the wingnut-o-sphere to peddle his phony investigations that invariably attack disadvantaged Americans and are a coordinated part of the Republican war on voting. The state of Texas has one of the lowest rates of voter participation in the nation, and O’Keefe and his GOP allies want to keep it that way.