Viva La Difference

You know what this whole Fake Koch prank tells us? When the right wants to embarrass the left they must resort to severely edited videos doctored with the intention of misleading viewers, and which completely misrepresent actual events. When the left wants to embarrass the right they just need to capture the right speaking honestly.

Funny, that.

Adlai Stevenson was right all along.

Today’s IOKIYAR: Asian Parody Edition

Hey I know we’re all accustomed to hearing Rush Limbaugh spew intolerant, racist, bigoted nonsense. It’s like, “Really? In other news, water is still wet.”

So I really didn’t give two thoughts to Rush’s mockery of Chinese President Hu Jintao or the Chinese language, which he did not once but twice and which went on and on and on and on for what felt like a painful eternity.

But something seemed awfully familiar about the whole thing, and then I remembered when Rosie O’Donnell was raked over the coals by conservatives for essentially the same thing. Michelle Malkin, I recall, took special umbrage at O’Donnell’s insensitivity, even calling her an “obnoxious hypocrite” in this video:



So I’m sure Malkin will be all over Rush Limbaugh, right? Ha ha, don’t be silly. That stuff is just for liberals! IOKIYAR.

Okay, big deal. Conservatives are always reaching for their Faux Umbrage Concern Kits when a liberal does something, then looking the other way when a conservative like Limbaugh does the exact same thing. But I'm really sick of this stuff. And it's not just the conservative media, either.

When Rosie O’Donnell does something like this, it’s front page news everywhere! It sparked a huge outcry from all quarters: the Asian American Journalists Assn., New York City Councilman John Liu, even hitting tabloids like People magazine. Liu even sent Barbara Walters this letter demanding that she hold O’Donnell accountable. It was a huge freaking deal and we didn’t hear the end of it for a week until O’Donnell had apologized three times.

Why is there no outrage about Limbaugh’s comments, save from the usual lefty quarters -- Media Matters and the like? Why no articles in People magazine or demands for accountability from the Asian American community? Are we just so accustomed to Limbaugh saying racially charged, offensive things that he gets a pass? Why? Why does he get a pass? Why the double standard?

Mind you, I’m not saying Rosie O’Donnell shouldn’t have faced criticism for her parody in the national media, but if that's the case then Limbaugh should too. It's always this way and it's pissing me off. Why is the Left always held to a higher standard than the guy who makes $40 million a year and has one of the highest rated radio and TV shows in the country and who is basically the de facto leader of the Republican Party because every time he says "jump" they say "how high?" Why is accountability always, always a one-way street in the national discourse? Why is the media always so quick to make an icon of the Left look bad, and so quick to ignore it when someone on the right does the same thing?

And here's another thing: if the right wingers are going to call for the fainting couches every time a liberal does something, but completely ignore it when one of their folks does the exact same thing, doesn't that signal an utter lack of credibility? Shouldn't we just ignore them the next time they call for the the Faux Umbrage Concern Kits? Why are right wing pundits never called to account for that?

I know, you may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one! I'm just tired of seeing this same play over and over again.

Umm ... CNN?

[UPDATE]:

Via Doug at Balloon Juice:

I would not be shocked if Palin eventually makes up some crazy story about an attempted attack on her, maybe along the lines of the Ross Perot story about how the Viet Cong tried to put a hit on him.

And her appearance on Hannity on Monday will be the perfect opportunity for her to tell us how oppressed and beleaguered she is by the big, mean liberals.

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Predictably, CNN Correspondent Erick Erickson hated on the President’s speech in today’s column. No big shocker there. But he really wallowed in the mud on this one:

Out there somewhere is someone who would love to kill Governor Palin. God forbid they do it. But you and I both know there is some crazy MSNBC watcher and Media Matters reader who even now is dreaming of doing so.

And should they try, we can be equally sure of something else. The left will be divided into two camps: (1) bitch deserved it and (2) not my fault.

It is unfortunate. I hope it never happens. But you and I both know the reality in which we live.

Wow. Way to go, buddy. You really topped yourself this time. Way to take the whole “civil discourse” stuff to heart. As if Sarah Palin were even important enough to bother with. Well, maybe in her own mind, but really. Can you imagine? Most of us ignore her, except when the mainstream media insists on shoving her latest ghost-written Tweet or Facebook post in our faces. Then we point fingers and laugh. Not quite the same as assassination but then again, maybe it is to people like Erick Erickson.

I think those three paragraphs say a whole lot more about Erick Erickson than they do about the Left, Media Matters or MSNBC. And I can't help but wonder why this hack still has a job on CNN.

Adding .... Mr. Beale heard that Erickson thinks some MSNBC watcher "would love to kill Governor Palin" and cracked: "Wait, I though none of 'em have guns?" Which reminded me: I'm always amazed at the right's two completely contradictory characterizations of us liberals, which they seem able to hold in their minds at the same time. We're either weak-kneed surrender monkeys who are "soft on defense," want to offer therapy and understanding to our enemies, and can't be trusted to keep the nation safe OR we're the whacked out anarchists rioting in the streets and fomenting civil unrest.

Cognitive dissonance much?

The Wingnut Welfare Gravy Train Rolls On

Judith Miller, once of the lofty New York Times, is now a correspondent for ... wait for it ... Newsmax. You know, the conservative rag peddling black helicopter conspiracy theories funded by Richard Mellon Scaife. It’s only slightly more credible than WingNut Daily -- but not much.

This news has prompted me to wonder what happened to the rest of the Iraq War boosters.

• Dick Cheney and Halliburton narrowly skirted bribery charges in Nigeria by forking over a cool $250 million the day before Christmas:

Meanwhile, the Nigerians still wanted a pound of flesh, and because it appears to be easy for a multibillion-dollar energy company like Halliburton to throw money at problems, that's what they seem to have done. Halliburton and KBR will pay $32.5 million to the Nigerian government and $2.5 million to the Nigerian lawyers, and release some frozen assets in a Swiss bank account to the Africans. Total payout: about $250 million.

In return, Cheney, Halliburton, and KBR can walk away from the situation, and the Nigerians get even more than the original $180 million from the former vice president's company.

Remember: Halliburton and KBR already pled guilty to those $180 million bribery charges in a U.S. court. I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that someone is able to avoid jail time for bribing Nigerian officials with $180 million by .... paying Nigerian officials $250 million. Oh well, nothing to see here, move along folks ....

• Donald Rumsfeld is doing the rubber chicken circuit/book tour that is part of the Wingnut Wurlitzer. He (or, more likely, his publicist) has been teasing his pending memoir with coy Tweets which the neocons at the Wall Street Journal have been eating up like ice cream. When the book comes out it will be promoted heavily at conservative media outlets like, well, Newsmax, which frequently offers subscribers tomes such as this one at steep discounts. Neat how that works.

• John Bolton returned to his office at the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank, and in that capacity is spouting his nonsense on the Wingnut Wurlitzer. Serving just 16 months as United Nations ambassador -- too crazy even for Republicans like George Voinovich and John McCain, his nomination was filibustered and he was a recess appointment -- it seems the conservative media has found Bolton a useful stick to poke at the Obama Administration. His frequent criticism of things like the START treaty and defense spending cuts are dutifully reported across the Fox landscape. Falling upwards, indeed.

• The disgraced/disbarred Scooter Libby appears to have disappeared into a black hole, though with the new Valerie Plame flick soon to hit theaters, I’m sure someone will drag him out of his undisclosed location. The Wingnut Wurlitzer is always looking for fresh meat.

• Paul Wolfowitz always creeped me out. The whole comb-licking thing just made we want to throw up in my mouth. Forced to resign from the World Bank in 2007 after some serious ethics breaches were discovered, he has also joined his buddy John Bolton at the American Enterprise Institute as a “visiting scholar,” where at least one observer noted his lack of productivity. In his position he pens the occasional op-ed for papers like the London Times and Wall Street Journal, all part of the glorious Bush Administration Whitewash Campaign designed to protect the legacy of the most disastrous Administration in this country’s recent history.

If you’re detecting a pattern here, well, join the club. Conservatives through their “non-partisan (wink wink) think tanks” and established media outfits like Fox News and Newsmax are able to get their message out across the world. This is the Wingnut Welfare Gravy Train, where no fail is too big, no embarrassment too great, no policy too disastrous to keep the conservative family from closing ranks and enveloping their failed leaders in a warm, fuzzy embrace.

You can always go home again, if you’re a neocon wingnut (Scooter Libby being the sole exception). The American Enterprise Institute will give you a home and get your op-eds published in the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, London Times, New York Times, not to mention conservative outfits like the Weekly Standard. Your memoirs will be published and your name will be in the Rolodex of every Fox News booker. Your appearances on Hannity (and even the occasional network bobblehead show) are a given. This is how the legacy is protected, even promoted.

The right-wing has this established, well-funded infrastructure which assures the continued influence of people who by all rights should have been tossed away when they were discredited. I mean, you started a fucking war based on lies, misinformation, faulty intelligence. You were colossally wrong and people died and the national treasury was raided. We have spent and will spend trillions of dollars on your fuck-up. Some folks think you should be in jail; at the very least you should be kicked out of the club. But that’s not how it works in Wingnuttia.

Meanwhile, we’ve kicked Van Jones and Shirley Sherrod off Liberal Mountain for ... well, what, exactly? If these folks were conservatives their calendars would be full of speaking engagements, television appearances, and their op-eds would be in every influential newspaper in the English-speaking world. They’d be working on their memoirs and they’d have regular features in The New Republic and The Atlantic. But Google “Van Jones” and all you get are attacks from conservative blogs like Hot Air.

There simply is nothing comparable on the left to the Wingnut Wurlitzer. I don’t know why that is, except perhaps the perpetual myth about “liberal media” and so forth. I think this more than anything is the biggest challenge the left faces moving forward. And while I'm not the first to observe this, I can't for the life of me understand why no one has done anything about it. You can't win the argument if you can't even get your message out.

Courage & Anger

Frank Rich’s column yesterday, “Gay Bashing At The Smithsonian,” brings to mind an issue which has troubled me for some time. And that’s the issue of courage.

Rich discusses the removal of the late artist David Wojnarowicz’s work from an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. He writes:

When his mentor and former lover, the photographer Peter Hujar, fell ill with AIDS in 1987, Wojnarowicz created a video titled “A Fire in My Belly” to express both his grief and his fury. As in Haring’s altarpiece, Christ figures in Wojnarowicz’s response to the plague — albeit in a cryptic, 11-second cameo. A crucifix is besieged by ants that evoke frantic souls scurrying in panic as a seemingly impassive God looked on.

This is the piece that was originally included in the Smithsonian’s exhibition, "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," which is advertised as “a serious examination of the role sexual identity has played in the creation of modern American portraiture.” The National Portrait Gallery yanked “Fire in My Belly” from its exhibit in early December after the Smithsonian caved to a manufactured piece of outrage which I daresay few Americans even heard about.

Back to Rich:

Like many of its antecedents, the war over Wojnarowicz is a completely manufactured piece of theater. What triggered the abrupt uproar was an incendiary Nov. 29 post on a conservative Web site. The post was immediately and opportunistically seized upon by William Donohue, of the so-called Catholic League, a right-wing publicity mill with no official or financial connection to the Catholic Church.

[...]

It took only hours after Donohue’s initial battle cry for the video to be yanked. “The decision wasn’t caving in,” the museum’s director, Martin E. Sullivan, told reporters. Of course it was. The Smithsonian, in its own official statement, rationalized its censorship by saying that Wojnarowicz’s video “generated a strong response from the public.” That’s nonsense. There wasn’t a strong response from the public — there was no response. As the museum’s own publicist told the press, the National Portrait Gallery hadn’t received a single complaint about “A Fire in the Belly” from the exhibit’s opening day, Oct. 30, until a full month later, when a “public” that hadn’t seen the exhibit was mobilized by Donohue to blast the museum by phone and e-mail.

The museum caved. They caved. Why?

Time and again we see groups (and politicians) cave in the face of such obviously manufactured political theater. Where is the courage? Who thinks capitulation is a winning strategy, that it does nothing more than ensure future fake campaigns?

Why was Shirley Sherrod asked to resign so quickly last summer? Why was Van Jones thrown under the bus? Why do our Democratic leaders and institutions cave to the right wing noise machine, time and time again?

Why do they act so afraid that some pundit somewhere is saying something mean about them?

The fact that Republicans are allowed to do the same (or worse) without any pearl-clutching in the media proves how politically motivated these “fauxtrages” are. It’s all about framing, fear-mongering, indulging in stereotypes and retreading that well-worn path allowing the majority to pretend it is a persecuted minority, thus redirecting anger to a more politically expedient target.

Yes, it pisses me off. And with all of that swirling around in my head I turned the page and read Ishmael Reed’s op-ed piece in the same issue of the New York Times (expanded upon at blogs like my second home, The Swash Zone). Apparently, progressives calling for President Obama (and other Democrats) to show some backbone in the face of unprecedented GOP obstructionism need to STFU because we simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a black person in America:

One progressive commentator played an excerpt from a Harry Truman speech during which Truman screamed about the Republican Party to great applause. He recommended this style to Mr. Obama. If President Obama behaved that way, he’d be dismissed as an angry black militant with a deep hatred of white people. His grade would go from a B- to a D.

What the progressives forget is that black intellectuals have been called “paranoid,” “bitter,” “rowdy,” “angry,” “bullies,” and accused of tirades and diatribes for more than 100 years. Very few of them would have been given a grade above D from most of my teachers.

Um, here’s a news flash for you: President Obama has already been dismissed as an angry black militant with a deep hatred of white people. Or haven’t you been listening to Glenn Beck, the very same right wing commentator who cost Van Jones his job? Were you paying attention when Ben Stein came out and called then-candidate Barack Obama an angry black man on Fox News in 2008? No? Well, we progressives were, and we countered those accusations every time. Where were you?

Look, the “angry” label is nothing new, nor is it unique to black intellectuals. Maybe you weren’t paying attention when Republicans called Hillary Clinton “too angry” to win a presidential election in 2008. Karl Rove called Al Gore “one angry dude.” Howard Dean was too angry to be president in 2004 and here he is screaming after a primary win to prove it! We’re “the angry left,” and voters “don’t elect angry candidates,” as former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman famously told ABC News. (For some reason anger isn’t a negative for the Tea Party, though -- despite their guns and Town Hall shouting matches and hanging representatives in effigy. IOKIYAR.)

I get that there is a strategy among those in power exploiting cultural stereotypes and stoking fear of the “angry black male” to oppress black advancement in this country. That's the same reason we hear women are too emotional and gays are pedophiles and all Muslims are terrorists. We all have our baggage and yes, some people’s baggage might be heavier than others. But that doesn’t mean we capitulate to it. Caving to the whims of the hate machine which makes these erroneous claims does not make them go away. It enables them!

This is standard issue right wing framing. Liberals have been labeled “angry” (even “too angry”) for decades, and guess what, we are angry. We were angry when protestors rioted at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and we were angry when we protested the Vietnam War and we were angry when we burned our bras in the 1970s and we were angry when we protested apartheid in the 1980s and we were angry when we protested the WTO conference in Seattle in 2000. Hell we were so angry over the stolen election in 2000 and subsequent Bush presidential misdeeds that we created a bumper sticker about it, which the Tea Party has conveniently co-opted.

It’s okay to be angry. Angry people get things done. I just never understood why being angry was supposed to be a bad thing, anyway. Just because the RNC says it is?

So no, I’m not going to tell Democrats not to be angry because Tweety might have a sad or Joke Line may wring his hands about frothy-mouthed liberal bloggers. Getting angry is okay, if you are fighting for your principles.

This is where courage comes in. Getting back to Ishmael Reed’s op-ed, I have to say I was mighty offended when I read this:

Unlike white progressives, blacks and Latinos are not used to getting it all. They know how it feels to be unemployed and unable to buy your children Christmas presents. They know when not to shout. The president, the coolest man in the room, who worked among the unemployed in Chicago, knows too.

Well damn, there’s a stereotype for you! Here’s a news flash for Mr. Reed: not all white progressives are used to getting it all, either. And I’ll be damned if I’ll be lectured on stereotypes by someone who can’t even recognize one when it pops out of his own keyboard.

Stand up and show some backbone, Democrats. Don’t cave to the right wing noise machine. Don't agree to a political approach which neuters liberal outrage, and only allows conservatives to get angry. Every time you do so progress takes a step back. Every capitulation emboldens the opposition. It's OK to be angry and it's even better to use that anger to harden your resolve.

And I guarantee you that the Republicans are going to say mean things about you. You can take that to the bank. You know what? They're going to say mean things anyway.

Wolverines!

The thing that strikes me most about this whole James O’Keefe deal is that, when you read the 13-page “Punking CNN” plan, you realize these folks live in some alternate reality in which they are resistance fighters in a war against the forces of evil. This is an “operation” which they’ve devoted a lot of time and energy to thinking out in great detail. This is very serious shit to these folks, and to those of us scratching our heads wondering WTF, I again go back to Julian Sanchez’s column from last December.

It really does all come back to losing the culture wars, to the fact that the right’s political ascendance has not been matched by cultural relevance. Somewhere, someone in Hollywood is making fun of them, always. A “Saturday Night Live” skit is being written that shames them. It’s why Stephen Colbert speaking before Congress really got to some of them, and it explains the persecution complex rampant throughout the “Punking CNN” plan: only a fantastic, evil liberal conspiracy can explain why they’re still oppressed -- despite, you know, not being oppressed.

It reminds me of 2004 and 2005, when Protest Warrior was trying to be a big deal. I’d go to their website and read about their planned “counterstrike” against “America’s fifth column” and think, “whaaa...??” Join the dang military, already.

But of course, they live in an alternate universe where they can be heroes in their own movie taking on the wicked establishment that holds them down. That’s fine if you’re in junior high but for anyone over the age of, say, 14, you have to really wonder if there isn’t some kind of sociopathy going on.

I mean, it's kinda sad, really.

[UPDATE]:

John Cole observes:

And stop calling this a prank. What they wanted to do to this woman was much darker than a prank. If someone took one of my sisters onto a boat under false pretenses, filmed them without their knowledge, and deliberately sexually harassed them with the intent to intimidate or have sex with them or both, I’d probably be in jail right now.

Good point. And let me just reiterate, this should surprise no one, not the media, not people on either side of the (sane) political spectrum.

These are very serious, dark times to these Wingnut Warriors. They truly believe they are the last stand protecting America from the evil liberal usurpers. Born out of your modern conservative inferiority complex, itself a product of cultural irrelevance, we are looking at a generation of 20-something narcissistic Wingnut Warriors who have taken it upon themselves to write the script and cast the movie with themselves as our fair heroes. Anything goes when you’re the savior and the future of the nation rests on your shoulders.

I mean, it’s delusional, but what do you expect when you live in a world where truth is fungible and facts are what you think them to be?

Dude You HAVE No Seduction!

[UPDATE]: Folks are wondering if this in any way
violates his three-years probation related to the Landrieu case. Good question.

And Digby wonders if this wasn't a blackmail set-up. Another good question. Whole thing is very bizarre.

-------------------------------------------

I’m sorry but the utter lack of self-awareness of this dweeb James O'Keefe -- he of the hyperinflated ego and underdeveloped maturity level -- is astounding. The guy who supposedly took down ACORN and got busted trying to tap Mary Landrieu’s Louisiana Senate office just scored another major fail trying to punk award-winning CNN investigative journalist Abbie Boudreau.

Read more about it here, and watch the video:



I love this part:

CNN obtained "a 13-page document titled 'CNN Caper,'" which elaborated on the prank in hilarious detail. For example, here is the equipment list:

Equipment needed


a. Video
1. hidden cams on the boat
2. tripod and overt recorder near the bed, an obvious sex tape machine

b. Props
1. condom jar
2. dildos
3. Music
a. Alicia keys
b. 80s romance songs, things that are typically James
c. avoid Marvin Gaye as too cliche

4. lube
5. ceiling mirror
6. posters and paintings of naked women
7. playboys and pornographic magazines
8. candles
9. Viagra and stamina pills
10. fuzzy handcuffs
11. blindfold

Hey what girl isn’t turned on by Alicia Keys and 80s romance songs? This is O'Keefe's idea of how to seduce a woman?

Bwaaahaaaahaaa!!!!

Seriously, who thought Abbie Boudreau would shuck her clothes on the floor at the mere sight of the studly James O’Keefe and a jar full of condoms!

Bwaaahaaaahaaa!!!!

How absolutely humiliating -- for O’Keefe. This is the right wing’s idea of journalism? Of a prank? Of a seduction? Grow the fuck up, dude.

Media Matters has more:

Death Of Another Right Wing Myth

[UPDATE] 2:

At least some Democrats are paying attention:

Tomorrow the newest Blue America endorsed candidate, Fred Johnson (D-MI) will be joining us for a live chat at Crooks and Liars. This morning he told me that the Times report is "typical of the mindset. When it was working class folks who were underwater on their mortgages it was all about 'duty' and 'keeping your word' and everyone was supposed to just suck it up and keep paying their mortgages for the good of society. Now it hits the wealthy and suddenly a house is just a bad investment that they can simply walk away from. How about they start pulling on their own bootstraps for a change, instead of preaching to the rest of us? Of course, many of these folks got where they are through the very types of financial gimmickry that put the economy in the mess it's in now, so I guess it just shows that you reap what you sow."

Yes that sounds about right.
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[UPDATE]:

Haven't had time to really delve into this one but it looks like we have another one:

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – A government program to bail out banks at the height of the financial crisis has so far turned a profit, according to a report by investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.

The Capital Purchase Program, part of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, has generated an average return of 10 percent on the initial investment in 61 banks that have fully repaid the aid, said the report, issued on Wednesday.

"Its pretty clear that unless the economy just craters, the bank portion of TARP will be profitable," said Fred Cannon, bank analyst with Keefe, Bruyette and Woods.

About $137 billion, or two-thirds of the initial government investment, has been paid back, with $65 billion still to be repaid, the report said.

Death of yet another right wing meme?

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Today’s New York Times front page brings us the death of yet another cherished right-wing meme:

Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages Are the Rich

Whaaa...? You mean .... not those shiftless, irresponsible brown people in the projects which the big, bad Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to throw money at?

Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.

More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.

Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.

“The rich are different: they are more ruthless,” said Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist.

Well, that’s certainly nothing new.

I’ve been spending a lot of time debunking cherished right wing myths these days. There’s the “Obama has halted all offshore oil drilling” myth, which I’ve devoted several posts to debunking. Fat lot of good it’s done, as the oil industry’s false claims about lost jobs has worked on some bought and paid for judges. Still, let me repeat:

The administration’s order halted 33 exploratory drilling projects and suspended new permits, but did not affect more than 3,000 platforms already in production.

Thirty-three risky, ultra-deep wells operating in dangerous conditions. Such is the power of Big Oil that they've been able to spin this as a sad over lost jobs.

One of my favorites is the “Obama took more money from Big Oil than McCain did” myth, sometimes presented as “Democrats are now the party of Big Oil.” Sorry, FOX News fans, it’s not true:

Without getting into whether the administration’s response has been adequate, we can say that the oil and gas industry leans heavily Republican in its campaign contributions, and the 2008 presidential race was no exception. Republican candidate John McCain and his ticketmate Palin took in nearly three times the amount of money from the industry’s political action committees and employees as did Obama and running mate Joe Biden from industry employees: about $2.4 million compared with $890,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. (The Obama presidential campaign did not accept any PAC money.) Obama, however, received about twice as much from British Petroleum’s executives as McCain did: $71,051 compared with $36,649. Neither received money from BP’s PAC.

So, personal donations from BP employees to the tune of $71,051 somehow trumps the millions the Republican tickets received from oil and gas industry PACs. Okie dokie.

Paul Krugman regularly debunks right wing economic memes. Here’s a good one, about fear of government hampering investment:

Truly, we live in a time of mass delusion — or maybe make that elite delusion — where there are lots of things that everyone believes, without a shred of evidence to back that belief. Here’s one more: everywhere you go, you encounter the claim that businesses aren’t investing, they’re just sitting on piles of cash, because they’re worried about future government policies.

There is, of course, a much more prosaic alternative: businesses aren’t investing because they have lots of excess capacity. Why build new structures and buy new machines when you’re not using the ones you already have?

There’s a neat little chart-y thingie with red and blue lines and it shows basically this “fear of socialism” meme is bunk.

Finally, we’re seeing serious fearmongering about the deficit, which most right wingers seem to have swallowed whole. This despite the fact that just a few years ago, Republicans were the ones telling us that “deficits don’t matter,” something which “Reagan proved.”

So what happened? Krugman has an idea, and it’s not what you think. It’s not a sudden stab of conscience or realization that they were wrong for Bush’s two terms. No, it’s far more heinous:

There’s only one way to read this: it’s not about the deficit — it’s about the deficit as an excuse to dismantle social programs.

So you people yammering about wanting the government’s hands off your Medicare and Social Security just may get your wish.

It’s Only A Game

I think the most hilarious idea to come out of wingnuttia of late is the idea that “soccer is a socialist sport.”

I was first introduced to this bizarre notion when I saw this item over at PostPolitics. I thought it was just the solitary musings of one of our local wackadoos but no, I started seeing the idea pop up on other blogs and websites, and I realized this must have been an idea posited by someone on Fox News or right-wing talk radio.

Usually that’s where these things start, someone like a Rush or a Hannity or O’Reilly says something incredibly stupid and it ricochets around the echo chamber and we lefties all point and laugh and then someone in the establishment news media, to show how they don't have a liberal bias, decides to take a “serious” look at the issue. And then they all jump on board because if everyone is talking about it, God help the one news outlet left behind, lest they not be seen as "serious." And this, my friends, is how a fringe idea gets mainstreamed.

So, we have a few oddballs deciding that soccer is socialist, and then we have Matthew Philbin at Newsbusters and George W. Bush’s former speechwriter Mark Thiessen writing about the anti-American and socialist nature of soccer, and I’m thinking it won’t be too long before Anderson Cooper devotes an entire AC360 episode to the topic. The latter hasn't happened yet but I suspect it's just a matter of time.

I’m not going to address the argument because I just can’t take it seriously, plus better minds than mine have already done so (Matt Yglesias points out that soccer isn’t universally popular around the world, while over at The Guardian, Michael Tomasky puts Thiessen in his place.)

The whole thing is too ludicrous to be believed. Soccer is socialist? It can't be socialist. It's a game, for crying out loud! If soccer is socialist what does that make baseball? I can’t even point my finger and laugh, which is my usual reaction to wackadoodle theories from the far right. I can only scratch my head.

What the hell is wrong with you people?

For crying out loud, I don’t give a crap about soccer but when Team USA is playing in any international competition you can bet your sweet britches I’m going to cheer us on. Hell I even watched curling during the last Olympic Games, I don’t care how socialist or gay or whatever it is. I mean my God, has politics so consumed your world that you can’t even wave the flag for American athletes representing our country on the world stage? Can you imagine if instead of celebrating the Miracle on Ice we had a bunch of conservatives mouthing off about what a commie sport ice hockey is and complaining that media coverage of the event was just a liberal conspiracy?

I'm trying to figure out where the hell this comes from. Is it anti-elitism? Is it conservative American xenophobia? Is it sour grapes because we lost? Maybe a bit of all three?

The right is starting to resemble a drunken lout, kicking sand in everyone’s face and upsetting the picnic basket holding all the sandwiches just to be an asshole. Here we should be celebrating the fact that our team at least finished first in its group and yeah it would have been nice to move on but the team played its heart out and I’m proud of them. But all the far right can see is a plot to turn America into a bunch of girlie-men and cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Seriously, you guys are off the rails.

Again, I repeat: it’s only a game, people.

IOKIYAR, Shut Up & Sing Edition

Then:

(AP) The Dixie Chicks are drawing criticism from country music fans for remarks singer Natalie Maines made about President George W. Bush during a recent performance in London.

Maines told the audience earlier this week, “Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”

Now:

NUGENT: 'OBAMA SHOULD BE JAILED'

Rocker TED NUGENT isn't a fan of U.S. leader BARACK OBAMA - he thinks the president should be jailed.


The Cat Scratch Fever hitmaker, a fervent Republican, insists America should be ashamed about voting in the Democrat, who took office in January (09). 


He tells Royal Flush magazine, "I think that Barack Hussein Obama should be put in jail. It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist. 


"(Former Chinese leader) Mao Tse Tung lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I wanna throw up."

”Ashamed the president is from Texas” vs “the President is a Communist who should be jailed."

IOKIYAR.

One remark sparked radio station CD crushing parties, a nationwide boycott of a No. 1 album, and a grilling by Diane Sawyer normally reserved for heads of state and corporate crooks. One remark spawned a media meltdown as Nashville’s music business turned on its own, taking down its top platinum-selling act in an act of cannibalism unmatched in its severity or swiftness.

One remark dominated the news cycle for weeks, even months, and prompted this response:

Anyone want to place bets on the reaction the other remark will get?

** crickets **

If there's anything our media should be most ashamed of over the past decade, it's how they took down four entertainers for making a rather innocuous comment on stage in London.

Sarah Palin, Andy Williams, Sen. James Inhofe and now Ted Nugent seem to have forgotten that it was once treasonous to voice even a tepid criticism of the sitting U.S. president on foreign soil during war time. Bygones!

Now it’s perfectly OK to call the president a Communist and demand he be thrown in jail.

Right wing hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug. But as we close the book on the suckiest decade of my lifetime, I’d at least like to hear someone in our media/entertainment complex send the Dixie Chicks an apology.

Rick Kelly Is My New Hero

[UPDATE]:

In comments, Rick Kelly writes that Mayor Wiseman denies sending the threatening e-mail. Kelly says he has the original IP address and will be looking into it.

Like I said, grab the popcorn!

---------------------------------

I do not know Rick Kelly but a friend passed on to me his e-mail exchange with the Obama-hating mayor of Arlington TN. Sit back and grab the popcorn because man, it’s a doozy.

Kelly, a Tennessean, was a little ticked off at Mayor Wiseman’s Facebook rant accusing President of Obama of purposefully pre-empting wholesome, Christian entertainment like “A Charlie Brown Christmas” to talk about something as trivial as sending our troops to war.

He sent Mayor Wiseman the following e-mail:

Mr. Mayor.

Please refrain from making remarks of such a profoundly ignorant and racist nature on a forum that will allow you to reflect on the state of Tennessee in such a way. You are an embarrassment to thinking people everywhere, and the fact that your idiocy has been picked up by the Tennesseean and will inevitably end up on the national media might cause the rest of the country, and the world, to think that all Tennesseans are as reprehensible, backwards, and moronic as you.

I hope you at least weren't wearing your Klan robe in your facebook profile picture.

You pinhead.

Sincerely,

Rick Kelly

Kelly received the following response:

Mr. Kelly,

America is still a free country and every American has the right to free speech. You should know this coming from a family of liberal fuckheads. Anytime that you're ready, you should relocate northward as you're an embarassment to the South. Your sensibilities would be more appreciated there, you sad little single man.

Just take care the next time that you or your brother James pass through Arlington. We'll skin you both alive and use your combined blubber to fuel the oil lamps on our thoroughfares on into the 22nd century.

All the best,

City of Arlington

Kelly posted the entire exchange on his Facebook page.

Yesterday via Kleinheider I read Wiseman’s latest statement in which he states he regrets

any embarrassment that might have been unfairly visited on my friends, my family, my church, and the citizens and officials of the Town of Arlington.

Dude. You just threatened to run two people out of town and melt them down, and signed it “City of Arlington.” I think someone has some anger management issues.

And I think the City of Arlington needs to find itself a new mayor. I dunno, I don't live there, but I don't think this kind of stuff reflects well on the community.

As an interesting sidebar to this story, I learned via the Memphis Flyer that Russell Wiseman’s brother Lang is chair of the Shelby County GOP.

Flag Flap, Chinese Edition

Proving yet again that there’s nothing President Obama can do that won’t freak out the right wing nut jobs, I thought I'd call people's attention to this fauxtroversy about flying the Chinese flag to honor the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Apparently it has occupied the right wingers for the past two weeks, though I just heard about it today.

It started, as these things often do, with Drudge and rapidly ricocheted around the right wing nuttosphere. Here's fear-porn peddler Chuck Baldwin at News With Views:

Lest anyone doubt the communist leanings of President Barack Obama, look no further than to his decision to hoist the Red Chinese flag (for the first time in history) over the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, September 20.

ZOMG WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE!!!!1!!!11!!!ELEVEN!!!

Here’s the report from WingNut Daily:

The administration of President Barack Obama, whose official blogger while Obama was a candidate came under attack for hanging a Communist Party flag in his Harvard apartment, apparently has given permission to raise the emblem of Communist China over the south lawn of the White House.

The plan, reported by several English-language Chinese media outlets, has raised concern among those who are working to guard the United States from outside influences that could be threats.

According to the Global Times English-language edition, the national flag of the communist People's Republic of China on Sept. 20 will be raised for the first time on the White House's south lawn – a secured area seldom available for public events – in recognition of the Chinese anniversary.

ZOMG! The South Lawn is HALLOWED GROUND! Watered with the blood of PATRIOTS! There goes the Republic!!

WOLVERINES!

This just proves what a big fat Commie Obama is!

The story has since been picked up by right wing news outlets all around the country; one columnist even wondered:

Where is Senator "Tail Gunner" Joe Mcarthy when you need him?

Where indeed?

Of course Houston, we have a problem. This would not, in fact, be the first time the Chinese flag was flown over the South Lawn ever! Indeed, the Chinese flag flew on the South Lawn and all over the White House when George W. Bush welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao in April 2006. The Associated Press took a lot of real purty pitchers from the welcoming ceremony. Lots of flags:







So, where were all these nut jobs when their beloved George W. Bush was flying Chinese flags (and even playing the Chinese national anthem) over the sacred White House grounds?

*Crickets*

Adding even more insanity to this story is the fact that President Obama has not, in fact, ordered the Chinese flag to fly on the White House South Lawn tomorrow. The story was debunked by, of all people, Fox News:

The White House on Friday dismissed as inaccurate reports from China that the administration will mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic by flying the Chinese flag on the South Lawn.

China Daily, citing other media reports, claimed the president of the Fujian Association of the United States had been granted permission to hoist the flag "in a ceremony in front of the President's residence."

A ceremony, indeed, will take place. But it won't happen on the White House grounds -- rather, on the Ellipse, on the other side of E Street from the presidential residence.

China Daily's report -- which said the flag would represent strong U.S.-Chinese relations and recognition of China's success in hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics -- set off howls of protest on the Internet and among conservative talk show hosts despite failing to receive confirmation from the White House.

Of course it set off howls of protest: even though Bush did it too (and probably other presidents as well).

What a bunch of hysterical phonies. These are the folks we're going to listen to on healthcare reform? I don't think so.

American Morans, Tea Party Edition

Too many American Morans to count on Saturday, judging by the pictures and video I've seen. But this one made me laugh:

A Picture Worth A Thousand E-Mails

Oh, dear. It seems tea baggers are a little red-faced today, after some outlets (like PowerLine) promoted this picture of D.C. crowds claiming it was from Saturday’s 9/12 rally.

PolitiFact called bullshit:

There's another big problem with the photograph: it doesn't include the National Museum of the American Indian, a building located at the corner of Fourth St. and Independence Ave. that opened on Sept. 14, 2004. (Looking at the photograph, the building should be in the upper right hand corner of the National Mall, next to the Air and Space Museum.) That means the picture was taken before the museum opened exactly five years ago. So clearly the photo doesn't show the "tea party" crowd from the Sept. 12 protest.

Also worth noting are the cranes in front of the Natural History Museum (the second building from the lower left of the National Mall). According to Randall Kremer, the museum's Director of Public Affairs, "The last time cranes were in front was in the 1990s when the IMAX theater was being built."

That makes the picture at least a decade old. (We'll update this item if we find out when exactly it was taken.)

Even the Freepers are now admitting that the photo was taken at a different event--they claim it was the “Promise Keepers” rally in the late ‘90s.

Wonkette has another idea:

HILARITY: Would-be teabaggers and and other easily duped dingbats are proudly emailing each other wonderful pictures of a million teabaggers crowding the National Mall, but these pictures are actually from the Million Man March of 1997, an event attended by, ahem, colored people.

Not only did the Million Man March actually attract a million people, it was led by wingnuts’ second-most-hated negro person, Louis Farrakhan, a real black Muslim.

Oh, my. Now that would be funny! Last spring right wing nut jobs like Debbie Schlussel tried to claim Obama had both organized and marched in the Million Man March. Which would be hilarious if it were true because apparently he did a lot better job of it than all the tea baggers with their Koch Industries money funneled through FreedomWorks.

Anyway, it really shouldn’t be too hard to figure out where this picture comes from, since the web has given us access to comprehensive photo archives going back a decade or more. Whether it’s the Promise Keepers rally in 1997, which drew 700,000 or the 1995 Million Man March which drew 850,000, it shouldn’t be too hard for someone to dig through the archive and find out.

My money is on Promise Keeper’s only because I’ve been Googling around and seen this photo on other Promise Keepers-related websites. But my heart’s with the Million Man March just for the schadenfreude.

How Times Change

It’s very, very interesting to me what things spark outrage in our country today. And it’s curious which of these outrages are considered news stories by the national media, which of these stories develop into full-blown cable news hissy fits, and which ones bring out the torch-and-pitchfork crowds.

It wasn’t too long ago that the Pentagon banned photos of flag-draped coffins returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, back in 2004 the Republican-controlled Senate defeated a Democratic bill which would have allowed the Pentagon to show pictures of flag-draped coffins. From the memory hole:

Some Republicans, including Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, complained that Democrats were trying to score election-year points with the effort. Mr. Grassley noted that the policy had been in place since the first Bush administration, in 1991. ''This policy has been in place for 13 years,'' he said. ''Nobody has raised a complaint about it until now.''

In April 2004, military contractor Tami Silico and her husband were fired from Maytag Aircraft after taking pictures of flag-draped coffins on their way home from Kuwait. I always wondered how that picture came to the media’s attention. Simple: it was given directly to the Seattle Times by Tami and her friend Amy Katz (I urge everyone to read Poynter’s piece on the entire photo affair).

Liberals were accused of exploiting dead soldiers for political gain, our patriotism and support of the troops was questioned, and it was a full-tilt hissy fit.

I have to wonder: if that photo had been sent to the Associated Press, would it have been published?

It should be noted that under the Obama Administration, the Pentagon has reversed that policy, provided the families of the fallen agree (Michelle Malkin called the change "selective transparency”.)

Here's another one: It was only a few years ago that conservatives were in full hissy-fit mode over Ted Koppel’s “The Fallen” episode of Nightline, in which Koppel read the names of all U.S. soliders killed in the line of duty in Iraq. There was mass hysteria from the right; even Sinclair Broadcasting refused to air it.

Does anyone remember that? It really wasn’t all that long ago.

So I’m just curious why no one seems to care that this week the Associated Press published a photo of a dying U.S. Marine in Afghanistan.

Over the objections of the soldier’s family.

If pictures of flag-draped coffins and reading the names of war dead while showing their pictures in full-dress uniform was so objectionable when Bush was president, why isn’t a picture of a bloodied and dying Marine sparking outrage in right-wing circles now that Obama is president?

Who decides these things? Is there some Office of National Outrage, some Right Wing Hissy Fit Board where they decide which story will become the prevailing narrative of the day and which will not?

This past week we were in full torch-and-pitchfork mode over President Obama’s speech to schoolkids, which struck me as wholly manufactured and really quite silly. The Associated Press, which never went out of its way to show readers the human cost of war when Bush was president, seemed to jump at the opportunity to display a rather gruesome photo of an actual dying soldier, over the family's objections:

"We understand Mr. Bernard's anguish. We believe this image is part of the history of this war. The story and photos are in themselves a respectful treatment and recognition of sacrifice," said AP senior managing editor John Daniszewski.

I'm curious where all of these photos were when we were being given rah-rah, yellow-ribbon-magnet, support-the-troops pep talks when Bush was president.

And I'm curious where all of the right wing outrage is about this particular image, when images far more benign were enough to spark protests, blackouts, boycotts, and firings.

It's all very curious to me.

Petty Party

Could conservatives get more pathetic? As if the phony “death panels” weren’t bad enough, we have been given a string of fauxtrage pearls this week from various conservative sources.

First we have the wackos behind Sept. 8: National Keep Your Child At Home Day. These are people like Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, who thinks President Obama’s Sept. 8 address about education is really a means of socialist indoctrination.

Okay, EVERYBODY PANIC! Education Secretary Arne Duncan has urged school principals around the country to let students tune in to the address, which obviously means Obama will use his magical laser-lock mind-meld powers to turn kids into socialist zombies. Frightened wingnut parents are keeping their kids home from school that day.

Wow. Maybe you guys could spend the day at the library with your kids looking up the definition of “socialism.”

Then we have Kathryn Jean Lopez sparking a phony flag flap. Writes Andrew Sullivan:

Kathryn Jean Lopez suggests that there should be "uproar" over the redesign of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. website, which no longer features a prominent American flag image at the top. This makes us less patriotic than the French, and is presumably a prelude to mandatory Esperanto lessons and black helicopters and stuff. I, for one, am incensed.

This goes nicely with the fauxtrage generated over Nancy Pelosi’s supposed banning of patriotic Muzak on congressional hold buttons. Apparently, if you listen to the wingnuts (or watch Fox News), Pelosi has a thing for smooth jazz and has used her awesome powers to mandate jazz on the congressional phone system.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

I realize some folks are just amazed that conservatives seem to have gone off the deep end lately. But it's little different from the craziness we saw when Bill Clinton was president. Seems there's nothing like having a Democrat in the White House to make the right wing go completely nuts.

There Will Be Politics

Republicans are nothing if not adept at harnessing the political moment. As Amanda astutely observes:

... anyone who is a liberal in the public eye at all should explicitly spell out their wishes about the “politicization” of their deaths, or else the wingnuts will declare that the only proper way to honor your legacy is to start by undermining it.

And indeed, the ink was barely dry on Kennedy’s obit before I read Kevin Moon’s callous eulogy in the Macon County Conservative Examniner (you’re going to have to Google it if you want to see the real thing; I won’t link to it. Examiners are part of right-wing billionaire Phil Anschutz’s empire. Writers are paid by the number of hits they receive, something which plays into my refusal to link to this crap. But mostly, it’s tasteless crap):

Nature's long overdue removal of Ted Kennedy from the U.S. Senate is a silver lining in what would otherwise be a hopelessly dark moment in the history of this country. It is a step in the right direction (only 59 to go). We have shed a back-stabbing, perverted crook who has spent decades betraying his country and everything it stands for...and was completely unaccountable to society.
 
One has to imagine that there is a special place in Hell (right next to O.J., Bernie Madoff, and Drew Peterson) for such a corrupt, ultra-partisan drunk who literally got away with murder, whored himself out to anything that would say yes, and openly fought for abominations like partial-birth abortion.

Wow. Amazing how when Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter gets knocked up or her extended family is in legal trouble for drugs and crime, it shows what a “real American” she is, facing “real American problems” “just like the rest of us.” But when a Democrat faces "real" problems he’s a “drunk” who is “unaccountable to society.”

But oops, I’m not supposed to say anything like that, lest I be accused of “politicizing” Kennedy’s death. If i’m not careful I might just be part of what Instapundit called "a Wellstone memorial on steroids." Yes, that would be just awful. Cue eyeroll.

This seems to be the strategy among conservative bloggers, who are the forefront of Republican thuggery. Andrew Breitbart’s Tweets about Kennedy were possibly more vile than Moon's column:

Over the course of the next three hours, Breitbart unapologetically attacked Kennedy, calling him a “villain,” “a big ass motherf@#$er,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.” “I’ll shut my mouth for Carter. That’s just politics. Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement,” wrote Breitbart in one tweet.

This kind of stuff always goes unchallenged (save in this instance by the brave Meghan McCain). Imagine if a leading liberal blogger had said such things about Ronald Reagan after he died. They’d call for the fainting couches.

And then there’s this:

“Looking forward to the Democratic line-up at TK's memorial service,” Hot Air’s AllahPundit wrote in a sarcastic Twitter post. “I'm sure the eulogies won't be politicized at all.”

So in other words, right wingers are allowed to say every tasteless, nasty, filthy insulting thing they wish about a liberal icon and claim it is never, ever political. And God forbid that liberals should try to defend against that because then that would be political.

Love these rules!

You have to wonder what’s behind all of this messaging. I have an idea: John Cole links to this tidbit from the New Republican Republic’s Noam Scheiber, written on August 23, no less:

Beyond that, I suspect the coverage of Kennedy’s death would silence healthcare reform critics and boost proponents in a way that netted at least a couple of wavering moderates—so clearing the 51-vote threshold wouldn’t be a problem. Heck, you might even see Utah Republican (and longtime Kennedy friend) Orrin Hatch back in the reformist camp.

Yes that would be lovely but, wow that’s just pretty obtuse.

The modern GOP is the party of tea shouters and birthers and people like Kevin Moon. The idea that Senate Republicans might be swayed by the death of a man their base calls “a big ass motherf@#$er” and "a back-stabbing, perverted crook" would be laughable if it weren't so sadly out of touch.

But I can definitely see a bunch of Frank Luntz types sitting around wondering how they can use Kennedy’s death to completely kill healthcare reform. They will, as Atrios posted, try to pull a “Wellstone hissy fit,” fabricating boos and hisses, pretending conservatives have been attacked, hell maybe even serial victim Phil Parlock will make an appearance. It’s all designed to quell any sympathy for Democrats and liberal ideas, the way they used Wellstone’s funeral to kill Mondale’s senate race.

I can see it now: the usual liberal talking heads like Donna Brazille will be cowed into offering tepid defenses of these imagined slights, and clueless media types like Chris Matthews will play along as they follow the trail of breadcrumbs left by Drudge and Fox News.

Please. Haven’t we seen this movie already? Like, a thousand times? You always end up embarrassed at the other end when you are revealed to be fools. Let’s just skip the formalities already, shall we? You're fools. Then again, you could do your jobs on the front end. Remember to hit teh Google and teh MySpace and teh Facebook. Do it right the first time for a change, okay?

Liberal bloggers will have to be vigilant as the freak show unfolds. Watch for signs of fauxtrage, maybe even plants at public memorial events. Pray to the gods that your Google fu is on fire the next few days because as several people have said, it is going to get ugly. There's simply too much at stake.

America The Delusional

Please tell me this is a joke:

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:26 pm    Post subject:

At this point it looks like the Healthcare issue is being used to stir up civil unrest. This could be a precursor to a planned crackdown that would allow them to finally start filling up those FEMA camps. I smell a rat in regards to this whole healthcare thing. Our economy is undergoing collapse, yet you want to focus on the health system? Are you kidding me? That's like re-upholstering the cabins of the Titantic while it's in the process of sinking!

I don't know the ulterior motives.

National healthcare database linked to a microchipped populace?
Greater control over how parents rear their children? Psychiatry, home schooling, pills, etc.
Government-sponsored insurance fraud and kickbacks?
Population reduction?
Furthering feudalism?
Civil unrest?
I haven't a clue, but I don't trust it for a second.

Dude, there’s medication for stuff like this.

Oh, wait. That would require health insurance.

Never mind. Looks like we’re stuck with the crazy. Prize goes to the person who stockpiles the most tin foil.

------------------------------

[UPDATE]: BTW for those who missed it, Popular Mechanics debunked the FEMA camps urban legend back in April.

Lies, Damn Lies!

Via Kleinheider I learn that someone is peddling a pack of lies about the healthcare reform bill in an effort to scare the bejeezus out of people, just in time for the August recess.

Before this thing goes all “Obama is a secret Muslim” viral, I’m being proactive and sending the debunking to all of my friends and relatives who regularly send me “OMG is this true??!!11!!11!!ELEVEN!” e-mails. Because it is truly awful:

We're hardened, battle-scarred fact-checkers, so false claims in e-mails don't really surprise us anymore. But we sent Tolbert a copy of the latest from our in-box, and she was none too pleased.

"It's awful," she said. "It's flat-out, blatant lies. It's unbelievable to me how they can claim to reference the legislation and then make claims that are blatantly false."

The claim that the bill provides free health care for illegal immigrants is particularly egregious, Tolbert said. "No one's provided with free health care. That's ridiculous," she said.

In fact, the e-mail claims such outrageous things as:

• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.

And:

• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.

And:

• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (read: SEIU, UAW and ACORN).

And:

• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.

Are any of these things true? Of course not. Not even close.

For bonus points note the use of these wingnut dogwhistles: ACORN, “unions,” "National ID cards" and “illegal immigrants.” I detect the aroma of the Swift Boat-“whitey tape”-“secret Muslim”-"Obama doesn't have a birth certificate" smears at work here. It’s "the Clintons had Vince Foster killed" all over again: the same crap the right wing has used to sink presidents and presidential candidates, and now they’re using it to sink healthcare reform. It’s sleazy, dirty, lying politics, and it hurts the very people they pretend to defend.

I suspect it's coming from the same source. I'd love to out these lying bastards, too. Maybe one of our crack reporters can get on it? Aw, who am I kidding! They're still rehashing the Great Beer Summit Of Ought-Nine.

Zombie Mice Must Die

Geez, people. For the ten thousandth time: there is no money in the stimulus bill for salt marsh mice! Cripes. That lie has been debunked fifty ways to Thursday and Republicans are still trotting it out. And the corporate media--predictable outlets like Fox News, but also so-called “liberal media” places like CNN and MSNBC--dutifully repeat the talking point.

Here it is again, out of the mouth of Ken Spain, NRCC spokesman, as he tries to explain how Republicans aren’t hypocrites for taking money from a stimulus package they so vigorously opposed:

"We would like to thank the DCCC for circulating these comments. They are proof-positive that Republicans stood willing and ready to support commonsense measures in the stimulus package until Nancy Pelosi unfortunately chose to undercut President Obama's message of bipartisanship by including absurd pork-barrel spending projects such as millions to protect a mouse in the San Francisco Bay, golf carts for government bureaucrats, and STD prevention funds. Republicans said 'yes' to a true stimulus package, but unanimously said 'no' to putting the politics of pork before the needs of the middle class," said Spain.

Yeesh. Ken Spain knows better, I’m sure he does.

For those who have been living in a hole, here’s how the lie started:

The tale began Wednesday, when Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent an e-mail to reporters and political leaders that noted Republican staff members have been asking federal agencies how they would spend the stimulus money.

"One response? Thirty million dollars for wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area — including work to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse," wrote Steel.

The Washington Times then wrote a story citing Steel and claiming that $30 million for the mouse project is contained in the bill. The paper suggested the money was put there by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. Blogger Matt Drudge, whose Web site receives 26 million hits a day, posted a link to that story.

So the Washington Times fabricates a story and Drudge pushes it onto the cable news media. Count me not shocked.

Even Michael Steel, the guy who started the whole thing, said the Washington Times’ story was wrong:

"There is no language in the bill that says this money will go to this project," Steel told the San Jose Mercury News. "There are large pots of money in the bill that go to various agencies. One of those agencies said the salt marsh harvest mouse project is something we'd do if you gave us the money."

Well, not quite. For the record, the wetlands where the salt marsh supposedly lives is not even in Pelosi’s district--The Times made up the Pelosi “pork” connection and the $30 million figure is not for one project but five around the state:

The conservancy's wish list included five major ongoing wetlands restoration projects totaling nearly 4,000 acres, said civil engineer Steve Ritchie, a Coastal Conservancy staff member who helped draw it up. And the federal Army Corps of Engineers included all five projects on its own list of possible ways to spend stimulus money.

The projects, which range from Napa County to Silicon Valley, involve moving levees, creating islands and converting former industrial salt ponds back to marshes. Each could begin by year's end and would benefit dozens of species, including salmon, steelhead trout, ducks, egrets, and yes, the endangered mouse, Ritchie said.

The work also would provide increased flood protection to homes and businesses around San Francisco Bay, he said. In 2003, the Bush administration endorsed and helped fund the largest of the projects, the purchase of former Cargill salt ponds for wetlands restoration.

One of the most frustrating things about our current discourse, as a wise person recently pointed out, is that discussions about policy inevitably disintegrate into arguments over whose facts are right.

This is why we’ll never have bipartisanship. We don’t just have different policy approaches, we occupy different worlds. There’s no meeting in the middle when you can’t agree on where you’re starting from.

And yes, I blame the media for not doing its job. The Tennessean lets Terry Frank pull facts out of her ass (such as heterosexual couples have “fidelity rates of 75-90 percent.”) The Washington Post prints David Ignatius’ fabrication that there’s a Social Security crisis. Religious attack groups continue to peddle the lie that a provision in the stimulus bill banned religious activity at school facilities and Fox News repeats the lie as if it were fact.

Steve Benen hit the nail on the head this morning while discussing another zombie lie that refuses to die: the whole phony Obama-American flag thing. While discussing the Washington Times’ latest piece on this non-story and how it’s been picked up by Drudge and others, Benen writes:

It seems we've reached a point in which pseudo-journalists create pseudo-news content for the sole purpose of drawing the attention of people like Drudge, Allen, and the people behind The Note. Indeed, they've apparently learned quite well exactly what works -- publish a news-free article about the president and flags, and wait for the chatter.

Publishing news-free articles about Nancy Pelosi and marsh mice works, too.