Sharron Angle And Sean Hannity Have A Big Bowl Of Sour Grapes Over Her 2010 Election Loss To Harry Reid

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Sharron Angle went on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night to promote her new book, ostensibly, but really, it was mostly a long session kvetching about Angle's loss to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

HANNITY: You lost a tough election. That was, for me, one of the harder ones. I wanted him beaten so bad.

ANGLE: Everybody did. You know, I had a 7-year-old boy say to me, I'm so sorry you lost. And I have lots of people coming up. And all I can say is, I'm sorry too. But life isn't about winning or losing, it is about doing the right thing and doing your very best. And I think, that's what we just have to continue to do as people who want to get back to the Constitution. We can't give up, we can't quit. We've got to keep in the game even if we lose one.

HANNITY: Let's talk about, did Harry Reid steal this election? Do you think he stole votes in this election?

ANGLE: Well, in my book, the "Right Angle," I do discuss that a bit. And you may know this, we have a lawsuit after Department of Justice.

HANNITY: About ACORN and the SEIU?

ANGLE: It's actually about Harrah's casino and the SEIU and their involvement and what we feel was not legitimate election conduct.

Of course, Angle was making these claims even before the election, and they were every bit as groundless then, though of course you'll never learn that while watching Hannity.

Neither, for that matter, will you hear any mention of the real reasons Angle lost, beyond her utter nutbaggery -- the primary one being that Republicans tried a stop-the-Latino vote campaign that horribly backfired, along with Angle's obscene demonizing of Latinos in her campaign, followed by her hilarious flip-flopping on the subject. Result: Some 90 percent of Latino voters backed Reid, and he won going away.

The Wait Is Over! Palin's 'Undefeated' Movie Trailer: Pure Essence Of Propaganda

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Most normal moviegoing folks -- especially those of us with kids -- are looking forward to July 15 for one very good reason: It's the release date for the final Harry Potter film, and the trailers look terrific. The end of Voldemort, at last!

Then there are the hapless conservadweebs who instead will plunk down their hard-earned dollars to endure two hours of propaganda devoted to singing the praises of Sarah Palin titled The Undefeated.

Of course, this is kind of a strange title, considering that Palin indeed was defeated in her campaign for the vice presidency. And for some reason, they didn't title it The Uncompleted as a way of actually describing her term as governor. Or The Quitter, which would also be more accurate.

Anyway, Andrew Breitbart plumped the first trailer for the movie yesterday. You'll notice that he didn't bother to mention to readers that he's in the trailer. There is no need for full disclosure at propaganda mills like Breitbart's operation.

Indeed, the Palin trailer -- and no doubt the movie itself -- reminds me of the propaganda techniques identified half a century ago by the long-defunct Institute for Propaganda Analysis, because each of them can be seen at work here:

-- Name Calling, or hanging a bad label on ideas or persons.

-- Card Stacking, or the selective use of facts or outright falsehoods.

-- Band Wagon, or claiming that everyone like us thinks this way.

-- Testimonial, or the association of a respected or hated person with an approved or despised idea, respectively.

-- Plain Folks, a technique whereby the idea and its proponents are linked to "people just like you and me."

-- Transfer, or an assertion of a connection between something valued or hated and the idea or commodity being discussed.

-- Glittering Generality, or an association of something with a "virtue word" to gain approval without examining the evidence.

Now, you may ask yourself: Why would Sarah Palin put out a propaganda movie about herself right now if she weren't running for the presidency? And that would be a good question.

The answer, of course: She wouldn't.

Meanwhile, look for a fresh bumper crop of "Republicans for Voldemort" bumper stickers.

Paul Ryan Thinks Voters Will Go For His Medicare-killing Budget Plan If It's Just Sold Right

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Republicans have been deluding themselves, ever since the debacle in NY-26, that all Republicans really have to do is sell their proposals better, and voters will get on board with the Paul Ryan Path to the Poorhouse budget plan -- you know, the one that ends Medicare as we know it, among other things.

In an interview with WISN-TV, Ryan himself explained why polls consistently voters strongly disapprove of his plan:

RYAN: Those polls don’t describe it very well. When the plan is described accurately, it actually polls very well.

Well, Greg Sargent runs through the list and finds that the polls describe his plan perfectly well:

In reality, the polls that accurately describe Ryan’s plan almost all show woefully low support for it. What’s more, Republicans have in effect already acknowledged that they lost the larger argument over Medicare by beginning to attack Dems from the left on the issue. They are now accusing Democrats of being the ones who really want to cut Medicare, and have even accused Dems of wanting to “shred the social safety net.” And even Mitch McConnell has distanced himself from Ryan’s plan.

How does Ryan intend to improve those poll numbers? The WISN interview makes it plain that his strategy is simple: Slag the Democrats on Medicare.

RYAN: Whenever you lead and propose a solution to a complex problem, you're putting yourself out there to be distorted, to be demagogued to be lied about. What's happening is the other party's chosen to try to scare senior citizens to try and get votes. Here's the deal on our Medicare plan: ObamaCare ends Medicare as we know it.

Got that? The whole story on Ryan's plan is that it's actually "Obamacare" that's the problem. Of course, this has been Ryan's fresh new lie for a week now. And as Brian Beutler observes, it's profoundly mendacious:

Ryan's plan actually sustains those $500 billion in cuts, while repealing just about all other parts of the health care law. Far beyond that, though, his plan would close the door on traditional Medicare in 10 years, and phase it out by putting new retirees in a private, subsidized health insurance market. As usual, though, privatizing a major entitlement polls really poorly, and Republicans are facing huge voter backlash in their districts after voting to endorse Ryan's plan.

The most amusing part of all this is watching Republicans flop back and forth on scaremongering seniors. After NY-26, they denounced Democrats for waging "Mediscare" tactics. There was no small irony in this, considering that this was the party that invented the "death panels" lie and ran videos of Democrats killing poor grannies.

Man Loses His Job After Chase Bank Has Him Arrested For Cashing Their Own Check

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Lynda Bryon at KING-5 News in Seattle has the story, ably summed up at The Consumerist:

Ikenna [Njoku], a 28-year old construction worker, went to deposit a $8,463.21 Chase cashier's check at his local Chase branch, only for the teller to decide that neither he nor his check looked right and he got tossed in jail for forgery, KING5 reports. The next day, a Friday, the bank realized its mistake and left a message with the detective. But it was her day off, so he spent the entire weekend in jail.

By the time he got out, he had been fired from his job for not showing up to work. His car had been towed as well. It ended up getting sold off at auction because he couldn't afford to get it out of the pound. He had been relying on that cashier's check for his money but it was taken as evidence and by the time he got it back it was auctioned off.

All this while the cashier's check had been issued by the very bank he was trying to cash it at.

Chase didn't even apologize, not even after a year. A lawyer volunteered to help write a strongly-worded letter requesting damages. After trying hard to get a response, they sent KING 5 a two-sentence reply: "We received the letter and are reviewing the situation. We'll be reaching out to the customer."

I dunno about you, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if he had been another color, none of this would have happened. Auburn is not a lily-white suburb by any means, but the man's description of her questions raises all kinds of red flags.

Meanwhile, I just love being at the mercy of the people who run the financial-services sector, don't you?

Just How Is It That Republicans Get To Lecture Democrats About Ballooning Federal Deficits?

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

This sneering, preening performance by the new Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, yesterday on Fox News really set me off, for some reason. As you can see, it's all about blaming Democrats for the state of the economy, insisting that they are somehow responsible for the ballooning federal deficit and the need to raise the debt ceiling. That's the thrust of the RNC's latest round of Obama-bashing ads.

You certainly can't say they lack for chutzpah.

Look, this meme has been building ever since the Tea Partiers started raging about the deficit and the debt, and now it's the official Republican talking point. It all makes me want to ask:

Where do you guys get the balls to lecture Democrats about deficit spending and the state of the economy?


Seriously.

The previous Democratic president -- a guy named Bill Clinton, who Republicans hounded with a meaningless sex scandal -- handed off to his Republican successor a $46 billion federal surplus after having erased the deficit for three successive years.

That surplus disappeared the first year George W. Bush was in office, even before the 9/11 attacks happened, in no small part because Bush began slashing taxes for the wealthy immediately upon taking office. And then he and his Republican allies running the Congress proceeded to ring up the deficit to unheard-of heights, thanks largely to a needless invasion of another nation under false pretenses.

Where were all these Republicans in the years 2001-2006, when they were setting new records for federal deficits and destroying the economy along the way?

And then blaming Obama and the Democrats for lost jobs really takes the cake. It's undoubtedly true that Obama's policies have not restored jobs in anything near an adequate fashion. But those millions of jobs were destroyed on Republicans' economic watch, as a result of Republican economic policies.

Fixing the economy is indeed a much bigger uphill climb than the Pollyannas on the White House economic team reckoned. But Republicans have done nothing but make it harder, by obstructing every Democratic initiative to stimulate the economy and improve our economic competitiveness (which was what the health-care debate was largely about), not to mention the employment picture generally.

Indeed, it's now becoming crystal clear that they are perfectly willing to wreck the American economy entirely in order to defeat Obama's economic policies, such as they are. And at the same time, they not only plan to blame Obama for the wreckage, they are already doing so.

Remind me again why our president is deluded into believing he can bargain in good faith with these people.

OK, rant over.

To No One's Surprise, Exxon/Mobil Was Lying About The Severity Of The Yellowstone River Oil Spill

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

We already noticed that Exxon/Mobil officials were downplaying the severity of that oil spill in the Yellowstone River. Now it turns out -- to absolutely no one's surprise -- that they were lying through their teeth:

Federal documents show it took Exxon Mobil nearly twice as long as it publicly disclosed to fully seal a pipeline that spilled roughly 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River.

Details about the company's response to the Montana pipeline burst emerged late Tuesday as the Department of Transportation ordered the company bury the duct deeper beneath the riverbed, where it is buried 5 to 8 feet underground to deliver 40,000 barrels of oil a day to a refinery in Billings.

The federal agency's records indicate the pipeline was not fully shut down for 56 minutes after the break occurred Friday near Laurel. That's longer than the 30 minutes that company officials claimed Tuesday in a briefing with federal officials and Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

An Exxon Mobil spokesman said the longer time span was based on information provided to the agency by the company and the discrepancy might have come about because Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. President Gary Pruessing was speaking without any notes in front of him when he addressed Schweitzer.

There's also been a startling lack of information for the people who are directly affected by the spill.
Gee, who could have foreseen this? Drill, baby, drill!

ACLU And Elon James White Call Out The Lost War On Drugs

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

[Video Not Safe For Work]

Elon James White, one of our favorite comedians and a Netroots Nation stalwart, channels a lot of people's sentiments in this video. It might be NSFW, but White says a lot of things that need saying.

It's part of the ACLU's campaign to End the War on Drugs:

June 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs" — a war that has cost roughly a trillion dollars, has produced little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs in the United States, and has contributed to making America the world's largest incarcerator.

The war on drugs has sent millions of people to prison for low-level offenses, and seriously eroded our civil liberties and civil rights while costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year, with nothing to show for it except our status as the world's largest incarcerator. There are 2.3 million people behind bars in this country — that is triple the amount of prisoners we had in 1987 — and 25 percent of those incarcerated are locked up for drug offenses. Taxpayers spend almost $70 billion a year on corrections and incarceration. A far more sensible way to deal with a public health problem like drug addiction is to provide treatment, which study after study has shown is more effective than incarceration.

Through advocacy and litigation, the ACLU has been seeking an end to this failed war on drugs and our costly addiction to incarceration for decades. Go here to read more about the ACLU’s work to end to excessively harsh crime policies that result in mass incarceration and stand in the way of a just and equal society.

There is a series of posts on the subject at the ACLU's Blog of Rights. Be sure to check it out.

The Big Right-wing Lies: We're Going Broke, And Spending Is Out Of Control

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

We've remarked from the get-go that the most remarkable thing about the Tea Partying Republican Right is that they represent a political bloc predicated on people believing things that are provably untrue. This has, of course, ranged from the Birth Certificate nonsense to the belief that Obama is going to take everyone's guns away, and everything in between.

But these are in many ways secondary add-ons to Tea Partyism, whose core mantra really revolves around the federal deficit and spending: We're on the verge of bankruptcy, they claim, and it's being caused by "out-of-control" federal spending.

In the video above, Van Jones -- who knows all about right-wing lies -- deconstructs the Really Big Lie that is a cornerstone of Tea Party beliefs, not to mention right-wing media talking points, namely: We're going broke.

We're not.

Meanwhile, Brian Beutler at TPMDC deconstructs the claim that "federal spending is out of control":

But a close look at the numbers reveals a few important, and frequently overlooked facts.

Domestic discretionary spending is a small sliver of the budget. Our deficit and debts can be traced to the fact that spending on entitlement programs and defense has shot up, and tax revenues have plummeted to their lowest level in decades. But spending on domestic discretionary programs has grown much more slowly. And, if you correct for inflation, and for growing population, it turns out we're spending exactly the same amount on these programs as we were a full decade ago.

These numbers come from Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee, who are doing their best to guard this turf.

"Although non-defense discretionary spending in nominal dollars has increased, when taking inflation and population growth into account the amount contained in the [2011 budget] represents no increase over what we spent in 2001, a year in which we generated a surplus of $128 billion," said chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) in a prepared statement.

"So the right question to ask is: Are we really spending too much on non-defense programs? The answer is clearly no."

Beutler provides some graphic illustrations of the reality behind the numbers that make it clear, as he suggests, just who the chief culprit in this matter really is: right-wing governance and its mania for cutting taxes.

In the wake of the Bush tax cuts, and the Great Recession, tax revenue has fallen through the floor to near-historic lows. As a percentage of GDP, it's fallen 24 percent since 2001, and if you correct for inflation, the government is collecting nearly 20 percent less per person than it was a decade ago. At the same time, the population-adjusted costs of mandatory spending programs -- driven by Medicare, including its new prescription drug benefit, and Medicaid -- have increased by over 30 percent. And, of course, defense spending has skyrocketed. But if you isolate domestic discretionary programs, a decade later we're spending no more on a per-person basis than we were back then.

Meanwhile, Robert Reich explains all this in detail:



Yes, it's true: Right-wing ideology is increasingly built on a foundation of lies.

Gaxiola Found Guilty Of All Counts In Flores Family Murders

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

While cable channels like Fox have been paying attention 24/7 to the largely meaningless Casey Anthony murder case, we've instead been following the trials in the case of Shawna Forde and her killer Minutemen, which has considerably more social significance -- and thus has, of course, been largely ignored in the media. Indeed, the clip above was the only video I could find of the final verdict, which came down Friday:

An Arivaca man was convicted today of being behind a May 2009 home invasion that resulted in the death of a former friend and the friend's 9-year-old daughter.

It took a Pima County jury five hours to convict Albert Gaxiola, 44, of first-degree murder in the deaths of Raul Junior Flores, 29, and Brisenia Flores. He was also convicted this afternoon of attempting to murder Flores' wife, Gina Gonzalez, and one count each of burglary, armed robbery and aggravated robbery; and two counts of aggravated assault.

Jurors must now decide if the circumstances of the case warrant consideration of the death penalty. If they say "Yes," defense attorneys will present mitigation evidence over the next several days.

Dave Ricker has much more at his blog:

Now that the jury has found Gaxiola guilty of the two counts of first-degree murder the trial will move to the aggravation phase starting on Wednesday, July 6. If the jury finds one of the alleged aggravators, multiple murders and a victim under the age of 15, to have been proven then the trial will move to the penalty phase where the burden lies with the defense to persuade the jury to grant the defendant leniency.

During closing arguments in the trial, Thursday, the jury was reminded of a text message sent on May 30, 2009, by the defendant just hours after the a deadly home invasion in Arivaca.

That message sent by Gaxiola read “Sweet dreams.” Deputy County Attorney Rick Unklesbay paused for a moment. “They had just killed a 9-year-old. They had just killed her father. They had just wounded Gina,” he said. “And, Albert Gaxiola’s text message back to Shawna Forde was ‘Sweet dreams.’ Shawna Forde’s reply was: ‘You’re one of my minutemen.’”

Unklesbay found himself searching for words. “I’m not sure what words can adequately characterize the actions of these people,” he said. “This is beyond outrageous. This is just downright scary.”

During those same closing arguments defense counsel Jack L. Lansdale suggested to the jury that his client was incapable of harming Brisenia or her sister. He asked the jury to recall testimony by the medical examiner complete with detailed pictures of the injuries suffered by Brisenia and her father. “Did anyone of you hearing the testimony during the presentation of the photographs of Brisenia Flores happen to notice Albert and his reaction?” he asked, rhetorically. “For him to participate in any action to hurt those children is incomprehensible.”

We'll keep you posted on the final sentence for Gaxiola -- which will wrap up this case, barring appeals, for good.

Oh, Those Annoying Peasants: Montanans Outraged By Exxon/Mobil's Tepid Response To Yellowstone River Oil Spill

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]
 
[From KTVQ-TV.]

That horrifying oil spill on the Yellowstone River in Montana is bad enough. But of course, Exxon/Mobil officials had to go and make it worse by minimizing the damage done to the river and making only the most tepid of cleanup responses:

An oil spill in Montana's Yellowstone River surged toward North Dakota on Sunday as outraged residents demanded more government oversight of Exxon Mobil's cleanup.

An estimated 750 to 1,000 barrels, or up to 42,000 gallons, spilled overnight Friday through a damaged pipeline in the riverbed, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said. The break near Billings could be related to the river's high water level, officials said.

More than 100 people were working on the cleanup late Sunday, Jeffers said. But local officials said that, because of the raging floodwaters, only a handful of crews were laying absorbent pads and booms to trap oil along short stretches of the river between Billings and Laurel. In some areas, residents said, oil may be flowing underneath the booms and continuing downstream in the murky water.

Jeffers said most of the oil was believed to be within 10 miles of the spill site, and Exxon crews were flying over the area late Sunday to assess how far it had spread.

But Montana's governor disputed the estimate.

"Nobody can say definitively," Gov. Brian Schweitzer said. "It's too early. We need boats on the water," not only flyovers. Boats were potentially unsafe because of the high water, however.

Montanans don't let just anyone mess around with their rivers. After all, this is A River Runs Through It country, and every summer the state's blue-ribbon trout streams draw a steady stream of fly fishermen who spend lots of tourist dollars. It's a big moneymaking industry -- maybe bigger than oil in the state.

As the story observes:

Oil was reported as far as 100 miles away near the town of Hysham, Yellowstone County Commissioner Bill Kennedy said.

Although the spill is downstream from Yellowstone National Park and the fertile Yellowstone fly-fishing grounds frequented by tourists, some officials worried about harm to the industry that draws 11 million annual tourists a year to a state with a population of 980,000.

"We take our rivers very seriously here in Montana," said Schweitzer, a soil scientist who planned to visit the spill site Tuesday. "We will not allow this catastrophe to affect the $400 million trout industry in Montana."

Of course, Exxon Mobil officials claimed there had been no sign of harmed wildlife so far:

UPDATE 7 a.m.: Gov. Brian Schweitzer says statements from ExxonMobil officials that no injured wildlife had been found were premature.

"For somebody to say at this early stage that there's no damage to wildlife, that's pretty silly," Schweitzer told the Associated Press on Saturday. "The Yellowstone River is important to us. We've got to have a physical inspection of that river in small boats — and soon."

The Billings Gazette has published photos of soiled pelicans and turtles. The Environmental Protection Agency said it can't confirm any damage to wildlife or fish kills, but investigators were checking and the federal agency expected to know more Monday.

Here's one of those photos:

The worst part is waiting to see what happens to the trout populations on the Yellowstone and its tributaries. This could get very ugly.

Bye Bye Beck: Whew! Fox's Worst Is Gone, But It's Still Fox

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Glenn Beck's finale yesterday was pretty much what you'd expect: lotsa fond remembrances, beginning with Beck's own version of his "greatest hits" (we much prefer our version,, but you can't please everyone) and wrapping up with a few moments' preachiness and a list of credits on a chalkboard.

Of course, we've already given our thoughts on his exodus, and what more can you say that hasn't already been said -- and said well -- over at Media Matters?

Now, of course, the anticipation will be about seeing how Fox fills his time slot. Will Eric Bolling's months-long audition as someone nuttier and nastier than Glenn Beck finally pan out? Or will Ailes & Co. try to tone it down a bit?

Which only raises the more important point: Beck's show was only the worst of many awful things on Fox. Ultimately far more noxious -- and damaging to democratic discourse -- is the relentless lying and propagandizing that now permeates nearly every corner of the Fox News operation (Shep Smith's show being the lone possible exception).

Beck was especially bad because he so effortlessly transmitted far-right extremist ideas into the mainstream, and on such a massive level. But it still happens elsewhere on Fox. And one of the major effects of these kinds of transmissions -- to alienate ordinary people from factual reality, creating a kind of wedge with the real world, thus priming many of them, particularly those with mental illnesses or violent instabilities, for acting out in extreme and often violent ways -- in fact is also present with "newscasts" that deliberately falsify and distort. Disinformation can radicalize people as surely as conspiracy theories.

That's still very much ongoing at Fox. Beck may be gone, but the beat goes on. And so does the work of people keeping an eye on it.

Glenn Beck's Last Fox Show: Our Long National Nightmare Is Finally Over

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

This afternoon, Glenn Beck broadcast his last Fox News show. We'll have some thoughts on the particulars in the morning. Meanwhile, I thought it might be useful to look back on his "greatest hits," as it were, and reflect on the mess he leaves behind:

Now, there are plenty of things to object to about Glenn's trainwreck of a career at Fox, particularly the noxious and yet little-noticed way he almost effortlessly mainstreamed extremist ideas and rhetoric, most recently with his full-bore descent into promoting John Birch Society conspiracism. Undoubtedly, Beck's relentless fearmongering and the vicious eliminationism of his rhetoric were important components of what made Beck so toxic. Media Matters has compiled an impressive list of the "50 Worst Things Glenn Beck Said On Fox News" that gives a pretty good rundown -- but is really only a start.

Ultimately, the worst damage he caused was to the shape of our national discourse -- from all these factors, but especially in the way he wrapped it up in a "zany" morning-zoo-show format, dragging that discourse down to the level of a prearranged pro-wrestling match.

Of course, he's planning to build on his apocalyptic cult, which is a disturbing prospect, no doubt. And Beck has been promising that his plans for Total World Domination will make us whining, mewling liberals "crap ourselves". We tremble in anticipatory fear.

Meanwhile, I'm drinking a nice cold beer and toasting his departure.

Turning Victims Into Perpetrators: Right-Wingers Defend Prosser's Chokehold By Claiming Assaulted Colleague Was The Aggressor

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]
 
Greta Van Susteren already has a record of favoritism when it comes to Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, so it probably wasn't any surprise when she devoted a segment of her show the other night to suggesting loudly that Prosser was being set up by the woman he allegedly tried to throttle, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, as well as the court's Chief Justice, Shirley Abrahamson, whom he has previously attacked verbally as a "total bitch".

Indeed, that's largely a continuation of Van Susteren's previous narrative around Prosser -- namely, that Prosser is the innocent victim of a campaign cooked up against him by conniving feminist justices in Wisconsin. And the heated denials and countercharges coming from Prosser and his many ardent defenders (including the Planet Bizarro that is the Althouseosphere) have certainly played into that narrative.

It's almost as if they're colluding. Van Susteren is promising "more to this story". What's next? Some Breitbartesque e-mail thefts, perhaps? Well, it's their only possible narrative short of abject humiliation, so of course they're sticking to it.

Fox Talkers Dream Up Latino Votes For GOP By Focusing On Obama Immigration Failures -- But Omit Where Republicans Really Stand

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

This discussion on Fox News.com Live the other day caught my attention, mainly because it featured a hopeful discussion by a Latino conservative, the Heritage Foundation's Israel Ortega, who was insisting that Republicans stand a lot to gain in the coming election cycle if they bash President Obama for his manifest failures at passing not just meaningful immigration reform, but even a simple measure like the DREAM Act.

Now, it's certainly true that Obama has abjectly failed on that front. Latinos know it better than anyone. And there's little doubt that pointing that out repeatedly to Latinos will help depress Latino turnout for his re-election.

On the other hand, it's hard to see -- as Ellis Henican gently tried to point out to Ortega -- how Republicans can stand to gain from pointing it out too loudly or too often: After all, it doesn't take much to remind Latinos just why Obama couldn't pass anything: Across-the-board Republican lockstep obstructionism, accompanied by a loud chorus of vicious right-wing Latino-bashing.

I think the Anonymous Radicalized Marginal House Democrat (who is an actual House Democrat) put it about perfectly in his discussion awhile back with the Paranoid Self-Loathing GOP Lobbyist (who is an actual GOP lobbyist) on this very topic:

PSLGOPL asked why "a filibuster proof Senate, bullet proof liberal Majority in the House and a President dedicated to Change" hasn't done anything about "Comprehensive Immigration Reform, or better yet, just the DREAM Act." ARMHD responded:

"Easy: because desperate Republicans two years ago had to swap dog whistles for bull horns to reach their virulent nativist base voters, and now nativism has become a litmus test for Republicans.

"Anti-immigrant groups were building blocks of the Tea Party. Tea Party Republicans foam at the mouth when they have to press one for English.They want to arrest and deport anyone buying Tecate beer with cash at WalMart. It's the culture, stupid.

"Republicans' open bigotry toward Latinos will be more and more of an electoral problem for them, of course, but when their party was in shambles two years ago they weren't thinking about the long run, they had to fire up their base right away, including their crazies...especially their crazies. So the people that Karl Rove tried to keep hidden because he was afraid they would completely creep out soccer moms are front and center.

"The Tea Party has made cowards of Republican politicians who used to hold themselves out as courageous statesmen, or more likely, revealed them to be cowards. The sainted John McCain, who worked with Ted Kennedy on a 'grand bargain' on immigration, beat J.D. Hayworth by making a hard right turn. Remember the 'danged fence' ad?

"Lindsey Graham will be practicing law with Bob Inglis unless he can get way right by 2014. Orrin Hatch and Dick Lugar are in deep trouble. Chuck Grassley is trying to explain that when he called for an 'individual mandate' for health care, he meant an individual mandate to prove citizenship in the emergency room.

"What a bunch of wusses.

"With every Republican opposing reform, whether from conviction or from cowardice, it only took one skittish Democrat to kill anything even in that brief window when Democrats had the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster, and Republicans filibustered everything.

"The good news for Democrats is that the electorate will be browner and browner, Latinos see the anti-immigration rhetoric as thinly veiled appeals to bigotry against them, and Asians and other minority groups are watching it all and wondering whether Republicans really like them any better. So enjoy anti-immigration politics now, PSLGOP, anchor babies will be voting soon, and so will their friends."

Republicans may want to wish away all the ugly rhetoric and right-wing lawmaking directed at Latinos (see the new Alabama laws for the most recent example). Lots of moderate Republicans have tried to point this out too. But they know, too, that bigotry pays dividends -- in the short run. That's what they do it.

Another Hannity Job: Cued-up Obama Clips Provide Bachmann All The Cover She Needs To Toss Off 'John Wayne' Gaffe

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]
 
Sean Hannity had the excuses all ready-made for Michele Bachmann on his Fox News show last night, cuing up a number of minor verbal gaffes by President Obama as the softball he could lob to Bachmann when he asked her about her idiotic mixup of John Wayne's birthplace while campaigning in Iowa.

That's right: Once again, it's Obama's fault that Michele Bachmann is an idiot.
Perhaps just as noteworthy: Bachmann in fact fails to cop to the fact that she made a stupid mistake at any point. Hannity simply covers for her, saying: "It's obvious you misspoke." So this simply leaves Bachmann free to go on a rant attacking Obama once again.

This is what we call a classic Hannity Job.

I guess this sort of thing goes over well with Republican primary voters. Don't ask me why. They're beyond anything resembling rational human understanding.

CBS' Bob Schieffer Calls Out Bachmann For Her Lies On 'Face The Nation'. She Responds By Prevaricating.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Bob Schieffer interviewed Rep. Michele Bachmann on Face The Nation yesterday and actually tried to pin her down on her many and numerous outright lies, as PolitiFact recently examined in some detail.

And as usual, she did her usual blob-of-mercury routine:

SCHIEFFER: I want to ask you about something else. A lot of your critics say you have been very fast and loose with the truth. You know, the po-- PolitiFact, which is a website that won a Pulitzer, did an analysis of twenty-three statements that you made recently. Of these twenty-three, only one they said was completely true. Seven they call pants on fire kind of falsehoods. Four were barely true and two were half truths. How do you answer that criticism? Because here’s one of them, you know, you said on the record there had been only one offshore oil drilling permit during the Obama administration and, in fact at that time they had been two hundred and seventy. How do you explain that?

BACHMANN: Well, you know, I think that what is clear more than anything is the fact that President Obama does -- has not been issuing the permits, that he should have been issuing on offshore drilling that’s--

SCHIEFFER: Well, it’s more than three hundred now.

BACHMANN: Well --

SCHIEFFER: At-- at that time there had been two hundred and something. And you said there had been only one.

BACHMANN: But as far as drilling goes, we hadn’t been drilling what we need to-- that’s why we just this week--

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): But that’s different, isn’t it?

BACHMANN: Well, that’s why this week it’s-- it’s ironic and sad that the President released all of the oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve because the President doesn’t have an energy policy.

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Do you think that was a good move?

BACHMANN: He has a politically correct environmental policy.

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Was that a good thing?

BACHMANN: It was a very bad move. It put-- it has made the United States more vulnerable. There’s only a limited amount of oil that we have in the Strategic Oil Reserve. It’s there for emergencies. We do not-- the emergency that we have is the fact that -- the fact that-- the President of the United States has failed to give the American people an energy policy. Here’s the good news that a lot of Americans don’t even realize. We are the number one energy resource rich nation in the world according to the Congressional Research Service. But the President of the United States has unfortunately put American energy resources off limits.

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Did--

BACHMANN: We need to open those up so we can bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. The President has it exactly wrong when it comes to energy.

SCHIEFFER Just quickly though, the-- the original question I asked you is all of these statements that you have made that have later proven to be sort of true or-- or totally false in some cases, what is your answer when people say that to you? Do you feel you have misled people?

BACHMANN: No, I haven’t misled people at all. I think the question would be asked of President Obama. When you told the American people that if we borrow a trillion dollars from other countries and spend it on a stimulus that we won’t have unemployment go above eight percent and today as we are sitting here, it’s 9.1 percent and the economy is tanking. That is what’s serious. That’s a very serious statement that the President made. Did he mislead the American people? Not only did he mislead the American people, he’s caused our economy to go down to--

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): All right.

BACHMANN: --depths that we haven’t seen. That’s what’s serious.

SCHIEFFER: Again, I have to say congresswoman, I asked you a question and you-- you, to my knowledge I don’t believe you answered it, but I want to thank you.

Indeed, Bachmann simply would not answer any of Schieffer's points about her mounting record of falsehoods, trying instead to "pivot" the interview and make it about Obama's supposed misleading statements. It's like trying to talk to a trained robot, programmed never to admit to anything like lying -- so of course, it lies in order to do so.

Your Librul Media At Work: Minneapolis Paper Highlights The Right's Imitation Confab, Ignores Netroots

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

 [Keith Ellison gives the Netroots keynote on Saturday: the Minnesota politician the Star-Tribune chose to ignore.]

I sat down to have a nice departing breakfast at my hotel in Minneapolis yesterday morning after a satisfying Netroots Nation, and as is my custom on such occasions, I bought the local Sunday paper. In this case, that meant buying a copy of the Star-Tribune.

Now, I will admit I am impressed that the paper has thus far refused to succumb to the Shrinkage phenomenon that is reducing modern papers to the size of postage stamps. The Star Tribune is still printed on standard old broadsheet paper, and it is graphically quite appealing as well.

But what I went there to read was to see what coverage they had of Netroots -- easily the largest gathering of political bloggers in the country, and one of the most powerful gatherings of progressive activists in the country as well.

Now, I expect that local readers will tell me that the Minneapolis paper is a long-established right-wing Republican rag, and gauging from their Sunday editorial-page lineup, that certainly is the impression I came away with. And no doubt it is despised by the PowerLines of the world for not being right-wing enough, which then becomes their excuse -- "See? Both sides hate us! Therefore, we must be exactly right in the middle!"

So to be honest, I wasn't really surprised to see that the Star-Tribune, as I perused it over my coffee and hashbrowns this morning, had actually completely ignored the presence of Netroots Nation in their city and carried not a single word about events there. And indeed, if you check their archives, they couldn't even be bothered to send a single reporter over to the convention center this week to write about the many luminaries there. Instead, their coverage consisted entirely pieces filed by Associated Press reporters. Oh, wait -- there was one piece by a columnist that talked about Netroots and its deeper meaning without any indication he'd ever set foot in the convention.

That's just embarrassing.

But then I nearly blorted my coffee out onto the rag when I came across Bob Von Sternberg's loving coverage of the Republican luminaries at the Right Online conference, complete with big pictures of Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty, which meant that they not only sent a reporter, there was a Star-Trib photographer there as well. (Von Sternberg wrote a second piece, for online readers, about Right Online as well.

There was no indication whatsoever that the Star-Trib was aware that Right Online has ALWAYS been a deliberately imitative gathering -- they follow Netroots Nation around like a pathetic wannabe girlfriend, a creepy stalker, setting up shop in whatever city we gather in. Which means that next year, they'll be in Providence, Rhode Island too, no doubt.

Previous gatherings were truly pathetic. They first tried this in Austin, and it was hilariously tiny. The same thing happened in Pittsburgh and in Vegas last year.

But this year they made it ridiculously cheap for anyone to attend, thanks to heavy Koch Brothers underwriting, as Tina Dupuy observes. So they were able to boast some decent attendance numbers -- I saw one site claim there were in excess of 1,200 people, and my independent sources inform me that's probably correct (and not in the realm of the mythical 1.7 million who marched at the GlennBeckpalooza in Washington that in fact gathered about 90,000 people).

Moreover, the story did end with this nugget that in fact is almost completely wrong:

Meanwhile, a couple of blocks away, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, RightOnline's liberal counterpart, Netroots Nation, was holding its own conference with Sen. Al Franken headlining.

Yep, that's the entirety of the Star Tribune reporting staff's coverage of Netroots Nation. Meanwhile, Right Online gets two long pieces, photos in the print edition, and several videos in the online edition.

Moreover, it's true that Franken was indeed the keynote speaker Saturday morning -- but he was only one of several keynoters throughout the conference weekend. The "headliner" at the convention, if anyone, was Rep. Keith Ellison on Saturday night.

Now, I can just hear the Star-Trib's reporters and editors explaining their thinking: Pawlenty and Bachmann are from Minnesota, after all, and deserve priority for their readers, right?

That sounds good. Until you realize that both Franken and Ellison are from ... wait ... I need to look this up ... oh yeah! Minnesota! Huh! Whoda thunk?

You know, I love when mainstream reporters whine that blogs ruined their business and made them irrelevant. Incidents like this demonstrate just how they have managed to do that all by themselves. Bloggers just are filling the vacuum created by the black holes remaining in the spaces that were supposed to be occupied by their journalistic standards.

You may want to share your thoughts with the folks at the Star-Tribune about those standards. You can call their front desk at (612) 673-4000, or you can write Von Sternberg at vonste@startribune.com and let him know what you think. It might be useful to make your feeling known to Political Editor Patricia Lopez too.

Please be polite and thoughtful. It makes a difference.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez At Netroots: Latinos Want To Vote For President Obama, But Being Taken For Granted Will Kill Their Turnout

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

I took part in a small-group discussion at Netroots Nation this morning with Rep. Luis Gutierrez organized by the fine folks at America's Voice, and afterward I managed to squeeze in a brief interview kind of summing up the discussion.

The upshot: President Obama's political team may well be endangering his ability to gain re-election by deferring action on immigration -- not merely in passing comprehensive immigration, but in providing administrative relief for DREAM Act-eligible students, and laying off its draconian "Secure Communities" initiative -- because it wants to tackle these issues in its his second term.

As the congressman said:

GUTIERREZ: That's what he doesn't understand, I think, is that people just won't show up. And you know what? There's nothing more, I believe, that the Republicans want, than to see us just kind of sit on our hands. 'Cause guess what -- they're voting. They're not staying home. You can say in the polls they're 10 points behind, but they're still going to show up the next day. Our folks? We need to be fed.

C&L: Well, if you're being taken for granted ...

GUTIERREZ: And we have been. And unfortunately, we have an administration who made us a promise about bringing about comprehensive immigration reform. Now, are there challenges this president -- are there challenges the president of the United States could have been defeated on? Yeah. But you see, what they want is someone who goes down fighting.

I would say that the congressman is talking about a lot of progressives from across a wide spectrum.

But this is a significant case of short-sightedness. Latinos delivered the vote for Obama and Democrats in 2008. They saved the Senate for Democrats in 2010. And now the administration's inaction threatens to wash all that down the drain -- along with their own re-election chances. That's plain stupid.

More Right-Wing Violence: Notorious Montana Militiaman Takes Shots At Cops, Disappears Into Woods

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

[Videos from KPAX and KECI.]
Militiamen are really a bunch of bad pennies who just keep popping back up:

LOLO - A former militia leader who went on the run Sunday after allegedly shooting at Missoula County sheriff's deputies seems well-equipped for a long sojourn in the woods, given the caches of weapons, food and gear already discovered, Undersheriff Mike Dominick said Monday.

Some 65 county, city, state and federal authorities combed a 30-square-mile area west of Lolo on Monday for David Burgert, who once led Project 7, a Flathead County militia group accused of plotting to assassinate judges and law enforcement officers in hopes of provoking a war with the federal government and NATO.

Burgert holds intense anti-government views, and has survivalist skills, Dominick said.
"He has that type of mentality where he believes in training, in preparation," he said. "... This guy seems to have had a plan."

Authorities discovered ammunition in the Jeep Cherokee in which Burgert originally fled on Sunday and also located a second car, loaded with ammunition, food and camping gear, that they believe belongs to Burgert. They're searching for yet another that Dominick described as a tan or red Jeep Wagoneer-type vehicle dating to the 1980s.

I reported on Burgert's original spree back when it happened:

Kalispell made the news last year when a militia outfit called Project 7 was broken up by local police. Its leader, a 38-year-old named David Burgert, was arrested for jumping bail on an earlier conviction for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest; when captured, officers uncovered him in possession of an arms cache of about 30 weapons and some 30,000 rounds of ammo.66

What was even more disturbing was the simultaneous discovery of his plans for this materiel: To run amok in a killing spree against local authorities. Burgert had organized a team of about 10 people to target some 26 city and county officials, including some of those same police officials, mayors and judges who came out for the potluck last summer.

Burgert, who received support from the usual far-right suspects, eventually pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges in the case, and faces a maximum 10-year prison term when he's sentenced in September. But no one has ever been charged in the alleged conspiracy, partly because any evidence that the plot extended much beyond Burgert's fantasies was not very strong. He has countered by filing a lawsuit against the FBI and Montana's state Division of Criminal Investigation.

Of course, we've been reporting for quite some time now that the Patriot movement of the 1990s is fully resurgent in 2011, thanks in large part to its close associations with the Tea Party movement. Indeed, we've reported that places like Montana are significant hotbeds for this kind of extremist revival.

David Holthouse at Media Matters observes that Burgert's fugitive run is occurring in the context of a fully resurgent extremist right in western Montana:

This coming Saturday for example, the Montana-based militia group Flathead Liberty Bell, which Cox helped get off the ground in 2009, is sponsoring a survivalist "Preparedness Expo" at the Valley Victory Church in Kalispell, Montana.

Scheduled workshops include Political Structures, Wild Foods and Herbal Remedies, Home Schooling, Animal Care, Self-Defense...and much more.

Also featured will be Special Presentations by radical right luminaries including Ruby Ridge icon Randy Weaver, who will be autographing copies of The Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge, and Stewart Rhodes, ex-Ron Paul aide and founder of the Oath Keepers, a national organization of police and soldiers who've sworn to disobey orders they deem unconstitutional.

Glenn Beck Suggests Americans Need To Get A Gun To Deal With Obama And Sunstein

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

[H/t Media Matters.]

Apparently Glenn Beck is planning on going out the door at Fox News with a deep, lingering slime trail behind him. He reached a new low on his show yesterday:

BECK: By the way, the U.N. is also working on a small-arms treaty -- which purports to fight terrorism, but if implemented, Second Amendment proponents like me believe that it will only enforce rougher licensing requirements, create more red tape, and possibly an international gun registry. As if terrorists give a flying crap about registering their gun or their machete before they kill you.

This will do nothing but make it harder for you to get a gun. Why would you get a gun? [Points to picture of President Obama and adviser Cass Sunstein.] To prepare for tough times. That's why.

He then went on to explain that Sunstein and Obama were apparently destroying America's energy infrastructure by regulating coal-fired power plants out of existence -- while referencing Dan Froomkin's HuffPo piece on Sunstein ... a piece that actually is all about how Sunstein has hardly been a slash-and-burn environmental regulator.

Naturally, Beck will laugh this off as just a coincidental timing thing. But given his track record, that deniability is simply no longer plausible.