You know when it comes to mocking Sarah Palin and other conservatives, I bow to the master. Bill Maher.

That may be an oldie, but it is also a goodie.

By the way did any of you notice my gift to you yesterday?

No?

Well it was a whole day without a Sarah Palin post.

You're welcome.

Now for those who have been pestering me about my next post with information from my source, that is in the works right now.

Today I am sending off an e-mail with a list of the questions that you all suggested in a previous post.

When she responds, and after a phone call or two for clarification, I will post more information.

I don't have a timeline right now, but I expect it will be within the next week or so.

Baltimore Fox News affiliate edits video to make it appear that peaceful protesters are encouraging the murder of police officers.

Courtesy of Gawker:

Last night, Baltimore's WBFF aired a video of protesters chanting "kill a cop"– evidence, it claimed, of murderously violent rhetoric on the part of anti-brutality protesters in Washington, D.C. The only problem? The protesters weren't chanting "kill a cop" at all, and there's video evidence to prove it. 

The current national pastime appears to be constructing elaborate ways of laying responsibility for recent police shootings at the feet of anti-police-brutality protesters. This, of course, is bullshit. Faced with the daunting task of shifting blame for broad and escalating distrust of police away from the murderous bastards themselves and onto mostly non-violent activists, our insanely cynical news media has been forced to dig deep into their bag of tricks.

Here is how WBFF broadcast the footage:  

We can't stop! 

We won't stop! 

So kill a cop!

Sounds bad right?

However THIS is the unedited footage of the same chant:  

We can't stop! 

We won't stop! 

'til killer cops are in cell blocks! 

The woman pictured leading the chants is Tawanda Jones, sister of the 12 year old boy that was gunned down by Baltimore police while playing with a toy gun. Who responded with this on Facebook.

Right now there is a very aggressive attempt by conservatives to blame those NYPD deaths on protesters, and this is simply one example.

I think the very least the FCC should do is to heavily fine these people, but if they were really doing their jobs they would take the entire Fox News cable network off the air entirely.

Is the slow motion death of religion in America more the fault of the Republicans than it is the fault of outspoken Atheists? Could be.

As all of you know the only thing that fascinates me more than politics is religion. And I spend an inordinate amount of time reading about its origins, evolution, and its decreasing popularity in America, and increasing popularity in other parts of the world.

Seriously I could write, debate, and learn more about it every day and not grow bored of the subject.

So when I happened upon this article from Salon I had to share it.

It sets out to essentially understand what is behind the increase secularization in America today.

It does discuss the Atheist movement led by Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and others, as well as the Catholic church scandals, the rise of the internet, and a few other contributing factors.

However the one that caught my eye was this one:

For starters, we can begin with the presence of the religious right, and the backlash it has engendered. Beginning in the 1980s, with the rise of such groups as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, the closeness of conservative Republicanism with evangelical Christianity has been increasingly tight and publicly overt. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, more and more politicians on the right embraced the conservative Christian agenda, and more and more outspoken conservative Christians allied themselves with the Republican Party. Examples abound, from Michele Bachmann to Ann Coulter, from Mike Huckabee to Pat Robertson, and from Rick Santorum to James Dobson. With an emphasis on seeking to make abortion illegal, fighting against gay rights (particularly gay marriage), supporting prayer in schools, advocating “abstinence only” sex education, opposing stem cell research, curtailing welfare spending, supporting Israel, opposing gun control, and celebrating the war on terrorism, conservative Christians have found a warm welcome within the Republican Party, which has been clear about its openness to the conservative Christian agenda. This was most pronounced during the eight years that George W. Bush was in the White House. 

What all of this this has done is alienate a lot of left-leaning or politically moderate Americans from Christianity. Sociologists Michael Hout and Claude Fischer have published compelling research indicating that much of the growth of “nones” in America is largely attributable to a reaction against this increased, overt mixing of Christianity and conservative politics. The rise of irreligion has been partially related to the fact that lots of people who had weak or limited attachments to religion and were either moderate or liberal politically found themselves at odds with the conservative political agenda of the Christian right and thus reacted by severing their already somewhat weak attachment to religion. Or as sociologist Mark Chaves puts it, “After 1990 more people thought that saying you were religious was tantamount to saying you were a conservative Republican. So people who are not Republicans now are more likely to say that they have no religion.”

These are very good points that I agree with wholeheartedly. 

In fact, as I have shared many times before, the factors above have quite a lot to do with your ability to visit this blog today.

It was in response to that Republican branding, and the attempt to paint themselves as the moral superior of every other political group, that pissed your favorite Alaskan blogger off so much that he started channeling his frustration through a keyboard.

However as much as I agree with authors about how the Republican Religious Right poisoned the well, I still think that without the internet we would not be seeing the changes we are witnessing today.

Anybody care to disagree?

Republican lawmaker in Missouri is pushing a bill that would require women to get the father's consent before getting an abortion.

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

A Missouri Republican is pushing a bill that would allow a man who gets a woman pregnant to stop her from having an abortion. The measure would force a woman who wants an abortion to obtain written permission from the father first—unless she was the victim of "legitimate rape." 

Rick Brattin, a state representative from outside Kansas City, filed the bill on December 3 for next year's legislative session. The proposed measure reads, "No abortion shall be performed or induced unless and until the father of the unborn child provides written, notarized consent to the abortion."

Jesus, are they talking about "legitimate rape" again?

Rape is rape asshole!

And they say there is no conservative war on women.

Michelle Bachmann claims that she defeated her liberal foes using "evidence based arguments." Wait, what?

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Bachmann told World Net Daily, which referred to her as a “GOP legend” in the headline, that she had become a media target because she had basically outsmarted her liberal foes. 

“I took them on, and their agenda, and I went to the heart of whatever it was they wanted to advance, and tried to take it apart through evidence-based arguments, and they don’t like that,” Bachmann said. “When the left argues, they argue from emotionalism.” 
  
“That’s the best way to defeat them, by the way — defeat them with evidence and defeat them with their false premises, and I did that,” she said.

“The Republican Party always gets a bad rap because there are not as many women that are in elective office, but it’s a tough business,” Bachmann said. “It is public humiliation, public ridicule, constant criticism when you’re in public office – if you take on the left.”

Yeah, I don't think the ridiculing had anything to do with her gender.

Let's revisit some of Michelle Bachmann's "evidenced-based arguments" shall we?

These are courtesy of the Daily Kos:

Accusing members of Congress of being "anti-American:

The news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would, I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they are pro-America or anti-America. 

Claiming that the Obama Administration was going to be forcing Americans to attend re-education camps:

The real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums. 

Claiming that actor John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, when instead it was serial killer John Wayne Gacy:

What I want them to know is just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that's the spirit that I have too. It's really about not being ashamed of America. It's embracing America. 

Terrifying parents by relaying an unsubstantiated story from an anti-vaxxer:

There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given [the HPV] vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result. There are very dangerous consequences. 

Claiming that earthquakes and hurricanes are messages from God about reining in big government:

I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending.

There are more, in fact the Daily Kos lists 40 altogether, but I think we get the point. 

That my friends is the kind of "logic" that Michelle Bachmann used to "defeat" us.

Gosh, I guess we never had a chance.

Jeb Bush is just George W. Bush as seen from a different angle.

Think Progress has gathered together a number of facts about Jebbie that paint his as essentially the keeper of the George W. legacy, and an uber conservative to the core.

Here are a few:  

He doesn’t recognize exceptions to abortion restrictions. When a severely retarded woman was raped and impregnated while in the care of the state, Bush asked a court to appoint a guardian for the fetus in an effort to block her abortion. 

He opposes the expansion of Medicaid in Florida. When current Gov. Rick Scott (R) accepted federal money designated under the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid coverage to more low-income residents, Bush said he had doubts about the program because funding will be phased down after three years. 

He has worked to suppress voting rights. Florida currently has one of the worst restrictions blocking many convicted felons from voting, even after they are released from prison. In 2000, Bush’s administration also misidentified 12,000 eligible voters, more than 40 percent of which were African American, as convicted voters and purged them from the voting rolls. 

He has passed NRA-supported “Stand Your Ground” legislation. In 2005, Bush signed into law the bill which gave Floridians the right to use deadly force when they are in danger in public places, despite opposition from police chiefs in the state’s high crime Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The law famously came into play when George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. 

In 1999, he abolished affirmative-action in higher education and state contracting through a unilateral executive order, triggering widespread protests across the state. His other major education reform, a statewide voucher program that directed taxpayer funds to private schools, was declared in violation of the Florida Constitution. 

 On national security, Jeb’s doctrine adheres closely to that of his brother George and he believes the U.S. should not back away from engaging allies and enemies around the world. 

When it comes to climate change, Jeb Bush claims the “not a scientist” defense. He started using that now-ubiquitous line back in 2009, when he also declared that the climate “may not be warming.”

The "New Coke" version of Bush is going to try very hard to reinvent himself as a moderate, and  is going to make distance from both his brother and father when it seems politically necessary to do so.

However Jeb has a record, and it is not one that can be buried under 25,000 e-mails hand picked to put a shine on his reputation.

What I find truly humorous about the idea of Jeb becoming the 2016 GOP candidate is that conservatives have put a lot of stock in an already visible attempt to smear Hillary using Bill Clinton's past sexual peccadilloes against her.

However I am fairly certain that the voters are going to be far less concerned with the husband of one candidate's wandering eye than the brother of the other candidate's past attempts to single-handedly destroy this country.

College conservative group upset that ASU Biology professor compared Creationism to magic.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A biology professor at Arizona State University is under attack for an image he showed in class that compared creationism to magic. 

The conservative group Campus Reform, which targets educators it perceives to have a liberal bias, reported last week that professor Christofer Bang showed the image during a PowerPoint presentation in his Biology 100 class. 

The PowerPoint slide, titled “Evolution vs. Creationism,” showed the March of Progress illustration of human evolution next to an image of Jesus Christ shooting lightning out of his fingers to create a human. The image shows Jesus saying, “MAGIC!” 

A student told Campus Reform that the picture was offensive: “Quite a few students in the lecture hall were bothered by the picture, and it didn’t contribute to the lecture besides adding spite.” 

Conservatives at Arizona State University also expressed their displeasure with the professor on Facebook. 

“Liberal scum certainly exists on this campus! While I personally support the drawing on the left, I think it’s wrong and unethical for professors to shame those who believe differently,” one person wrote on the Facebook page for College Republicans at ASU.

Another conservative student complained on Facebook that the Founding Fathers also believed in Creationism, which is a point that is hard to argue against since Charles Darwin did not publish Origin of Species until 1859.  (Yes folks, that's your college tuition money at work.)

You know I recognize that it must be hard for some of these students to come face to face with  undiluted facts for the very first time, and it hurts their little irrational feelings when somebody points out that they have been lied to their entire lives. But really what's the solution?

I mean do you take each of these Christian school educated children into a room with soft light and soothing flute music, have them lie down on a comfy sofa with a cool drink, and THEN tell them that everything they think they know is bullshit and that their parents and teachers were fucking morons?

I mean come on if you suggest that Evolution, which painstakingly lays out exactly how organism evolved into what we see around us today, and choose to replace it with the idea that God made it all happen like this....

....then yes, you believe in magic.

Unless of course one of these little geniuses wants to explain exactly HOW God simply thought things into existence. Because I am fairly certain that the professor would LOVE to hear that hypothesis.

Time Magazine's Person of the Year is certainly going to irritate a certain New Jersey Governor.

Here is brief portion of the article courtesy of Time Magazine: 

The death in Dallas of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed on U.S. soil, and the infection of two nurses who treated him, shook our faith in the ability of U.S. hospitals to handle this kind of disease. From there the road to full freak-out was a short one. An Ohio middle school closed because an employee had flown on the same plane as one of Duncan’s nurses. Not the same flight, just the same plane. A Texas college rejected applicants from Nigeria, since that country had some “confirmed Ebola cases.” A Maine schoolteacher had to take a three-week leave because she went to a teachers’ conference in Dallas. Fear, too, was global. When a nurse in Spain contracted Ebola from a priest, Spanish authorities killed her dog as a precaution, while #VamosAMorirTodos (We’re all going to die) trended on Twitter. Guests at a hotel in Macedonia were trapped in their rooms for days after a British guest got sick and died. Turned out to have nothing to do with Ebola. 

The problem with irrational responses is that they can cloud the need for rational ones. Just when the world needed more medical volunteers, the price of serving soared. When nurse Kaci Hickox, returning from a stint with MSF in Sierra Leone with no symptoms and a negative blood test, was quarantined in a tent in Newark, N.J., by a combustible governor, it forced a reckoning. “It is crazy we are spending so much time having this debate about how to safely monitor people coming back from Ebola-endemic countries,” says Hickox, “when the one thing we can do to protect the population is to stop the outbreak in West Africa.” 

I don't know if it was purposeful or not, but Time is certainly going to ruffle more than a few conservative feathers with this choice. 

After all it was the conservatives, and their propaganda channel that were yelling "The sky is falling, the sky is falling" when all that was really happening was that America discovered that they were no more immune from getting sick than everybody else.

The treatment of Kaci Hickox was simply embarrassing and I think it is awesome that she is being vindicated for her understanding that she was not a risk to her fellow citizens, and recognition for her selflessness in trying to help those who desperately needed her even at risk to her own health.

Oh and by eh way, and fuck Governors Chris Christie and Paul LePage.

John McCain gives impassioned speech in support of the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture.

Courtesy of CNN:

Republican Sen. John McCain broke with members of his party Tuesday, lauding the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on torture and decrying the use of torture as having "stained our national honor" and doing "much harm and little practical good." 

McCain, a survivor of torture himself from his Naval service during the Vietnam War, said from the Senate floor that the techniques outlined in the report "not only failed their purpose — to secure actionable intelligence to prevent further attacks on the U.S. and our allies — but actually damaged our security interests, as well as our reputation as a force for good in the world." 

McCain said that while "the truth is a hard pill to swallow...the American people are entitled to it." And he acknowledged that violence against the U.S. from the "Muslim world" is "possible..perhaps likely," but argued that America's enemies "hardly need an excuse" to attack the nation, so the good done by the release of the report should trump any security concerns. 

"This report strengthens self-government and, ultimately, I believe, America's security and stature in the world," he said. 

You know it has been a long time coming, but finally there is something good to report about Senator John McCain.

I have long said, and I still believe, that much of McCain's legacy was  wiped out after he snatched Sarah Palin from the wilds of Wasilla, hosed her off, and plopped her on the national stage.

However at least in this case McCain has partially redeemed himself.

And it is particularly striking considering how many other politicians and Right Wing pundits are reacting to this report.

Of course the next question is what do we do next?

For the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the answer is obvious: 

“In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture – recognized as a serious international crime – they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency. When that happens, we undermine this exceptional Convention, and – as a number of U.S. political leaders clearly acknowledged yesterday – we undermine our own claims to be civilized societies rooted in the rule of law.” 

Unfortunately I do not believe that is going to happen here, especially with the Republicans about to take  back the Senate.

So what other option do we have?

Well Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union has a novel idea.

Pardon the torturers: 

The Obama administration could still take measures to hold accountable the officials who authorized torture. Some of the statutes of limitations have run out, but not all of them have. And the release of the Senate’s report provides a blueprint for criminal investigations, even if that’s not what the intelligence committee set out to do.

But let’s face it: Mr. (President) Obama is not inclined to pursue prosecutions — no matter how great the outrage, at home or abroad, over the disclosures — because of the political fallout. He should therefore take ownership of this decision. He should acknowledge that the country’s most senior officials authorized conduct that violated fundamental laws, and compromised our standing in the world as well as our security. If the choice is between a tacit pardon and a formal one, a formal one is better. An explicit pardon would lay down a marker, signaling to those considering torture in the future that they could be prosecuted. 

Mr. (President) Obama could pardon George J. Tenet for authorizing torture at the C.I.A.’s black sites overseas, Donald H. Rumsfeld for authorizing the use of torture at the Guantánamo Bay prison, David S. Addington, John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee for crafting the legal cover for torture, and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for overseeing it all. 

While the idea of a pre-emptive pardon may seem novel, there is precedent. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate soldiers as a step toward unity and reconstruction after the Civil War. Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon for the crimes of Watergate. Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft resisters. 

The spectacle of the president’s granting pardons to torturers still makes my stomach turn. But doing so may be the only way to ensure that the American government never tortures again. Pardons would make clear that crimes were committed; that the individuals who authorized and committed torture were indeed criminals; and that future architects and perpetrators of torture should beware. Prosecutions would be preferable, but pardons may be the only viable and lasting way to close the Pandora’s box of torture once and for all. 

This is something that I admit would never have occurred to me, but it would be quite the spectacle don't you think?

Could you imagine the outrage that would come from the conservatives over this?

Fox News broadcasts would consist simply of one long primal scream.

What do you think?

Conservatives finally notice that a teacher has been asking his students to recite a rewritten Pledge of Allegiance for the past twenty years. Did you guess they were outraged? Well you were right.

Courtesy of Campus Reform: 

A tenured professor at Metropolitan State University (MSU) in Denver required students pledge their allegiance to a racist, sexist, homophobic America that targets "blacks," and "women who want abortions," in the name of Jesus. 

 Dr. Charles Angeletti, a self-proclaimed atheist and socialist professor of American Civilization at the publicly funded Denver university, required students recite the satirical Pledge of Allegiance during the fall 2014 semester according to a class flier obtained by Campus Reform. 

"I pledge allegiance to and wrap myself in the flag of the United States Against Anything Un-American and to the Republicans for which it stands, two nations, under Jesus, rich against poor, with curtailed liberty and justice for all except blacks, homosexuals, women who want abortions, Communists, welfare queens, treehuggers, feminazis, illegal immigrants, children of illegal immigrants, and you if you don't watch your step.”

Seems accurate to me. 

When asked why he had the students recite this, the professor responded thusly:

“We’re very racist, we’re very repressive, we’re very Christian oriented, we don’t tolerate other kinds of thinking in this country,” Angeletti told Campus Reform. 

“I could go on and on—and do in my classes for hours about things that we need to do to make this a better country.” 

Angeletti, who has taught at MSU since 1967, has a B+ grade on RateMyProfessor.com, but one former student addressed Dr. Angeletti’s liberal bias.

Dr. Angeletti admits he is “biased” and says that he has distributed the pledge for 20 years because it helps people look differently about what goes on in this country. 

“We are scared to death of anything un-American,” Angeletti said. 

During the interview, Angeletti repeatedly affirmed his love for America, his disdain for “family values people,” and his course, clarifying that he supports diversity of thought and allows his students to “say and do anything.”

Of course this freaked out those on the Right, including Greta Van Susteren who used this to further the Fox News agenda of attacking "liberal" education in America.

It should be noted that this is a UNIVERSITY class that is offered as an elective and is not mandatory for graduation.

Personally I think educators who challenge student's perception of their country, their religion, and even themselves are helping to create a generation of rational thinkers and that can only be good for the country.

MSNBC seems to subtly have promoted Rachel Maddow from cable show host to news anchor. Conservatives not exactly thrilled.

 ANNOUNCER: Meet Rachel. She’s a NEWS ANCHOR with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate. But we’re about to find out what happens when she gets serious: 

RACHEL MADDOW: This is a story of legitimate wrongdoing on a big scale. 

MADDOW: Nope, that’s made up. Not true. 

MADDOW: If we’re not going to ask these questions now then when exactly are we going to ask them? 

ANNOUNCER: From MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show, weeknight’s at 9.

Okay so that's the promo, which I like, but I have to admit the change of title did not even catch my attention.

Did it catch yours?

Well it certainly caught the attention of some people: 

You won’t likely see MSNBC host Rachel Maddow filling in for Brian Williams on “NBC Nightly News.” While Maddow is usually described as the “host” of a cable news show, she is rarely called a “news anchor.” Her own NBC bio describes her as a “host”–and never even uses the word “journalist.” 

So it’s worth noting that a new MSNBC promo flips the script, describing Maddow as a “news anchor with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate.” Conservative critics immediately jumped on the promo, noting that previous “Lean Forward” promos for MSNBC included hosts like Maddow talking about their passion for progressive issues. “Given the MSNBC host’s long track record of pushing her agenda it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously considering Rachel Maddow anything more than a liberal commentator with a cable news show,” writes Jeffrey Meyer at NewsBusters.

You know I would agree that Rachel is a liberal, I think that it obvious to everybody.

However if she has an "agenda" it is that facts are important, and that they, not political agendas, should determine if a story is newsworthy or not.

It is not her fault that facts tend to have a liberal bias.

Whenever I am asked by anyone who is the most trusted voice on any topic in the news I do not even hesitate to say "Rachel Maddow." I have a lot of respect for Lawrence O'Donnell, and many others on MSNBC, but my go to host, I'm sorry news anchor, is ALWAYS Rachel.

Some have even compared her to the great Edward R. Murrow, and I think that is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate comparison.

There are those who want to argue that MSNBC's low ratings indicate that none of the hosts are terribly impressive, but I would say that is mostly the fault of marketing and has nothing to do with Rachel's reporting.

In my personal opinion Rachel Maddow is the most trusted voice in news today. And I think it is high time she is recognized for that.

A Deficit of Dignity.

I read this New York Times article this morning by Timothy Egan that is ostensibly about the disrespect shown by Elizabeth Lauten toward the First Daughters. However the article makes the case that this is the kind of disrespect the President, and his entire family, have been receiving since the day he took office.

Here. take a moment to read what he says: 

We know President Obama wants a lasting deal on immigration, something to make taxes fairer, a little help from a caveman Congress on climate change. If he’s lucky, he might get some of the above. But one thing his worst opponents have never given him, and probably never will, is respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. 

From the day he took office, his legitimacy has been challenged, his American birth has been suspect, and he’s been personally insulted, lectured, yelled at and disrespected in public, by public figures, in a way that few if any American presidents have ever faced.

At this point Egan discusses the Lauten incident, which I think we all know quite a bit about so I will leave that out and instead share what he says a few paragraphs down:

I want to believe this is not about race, but it sure looks that way. Barely nine months into his presidency, a Republican congressman, Joe Wilson, shouted out “You lie!” at the president in the decorous setting of a joint session of Congress — a flagrant show of disrespect for the man and the office. For this, Wilson became a hero in conservative media. 

The biggest slap at the president was the smear about his birth. It’s insulting and humiliating that Obama — alone among presidents — has been forced to release his long-form birth record to satisfy a clutch of fact-deniers. Leading the attack on the president’s very citizenship is the professional vulgarian Donald Trump, who gets away with the kind of preposterous, race-based comments granted few black public figures. 

Trump’s displays of idiocy on Fox News are a staple of that network. I wait for the day when something Trump says that is both stupid and incendiary is held up as representative of all white people — and he’s asked to apologize for his race. 

Also on Fox, Sean Hannity recently blamed President Obama for the troubles in Ferguson — because, I guess, he’s black. 

The list goes on and on: Arizona’s governor, Jan Brewer, wagging her finger at President Obama while lecturing him on an airport tarmac, as if he were some errand boy and not the commander in chief. The complete fraud of the Benghazi nonstory — as even a Republican House panel had to conclude recently. The endless millions spent finding nothing scandalous about the president on Benghazi proved just one thing: how grass-roots conservative hatred of the president drives Republican congressional action.

The article goes on to talk about the disrespect demonstrated toward Michelle Obama as well, which included this rather satisfying paragraph: 

The first lady cannot go on vacation without the Drudge Report hyping elaborate travel bills, playing to race insinuations. But when the family of Sarah Palin was involved in a beer-fueled, fist-flying brawl in Alaska this year, conservative media did not call them out for bad white family values, or failures as role models.

Yeah, I always love when the brawl shows up in an article just to remind all of us that despite all of her attempts to make it go away this thing stuck to Palin and her family, like a dingleberry on a dog's ass.

I don;t know about the rest of you but I found myself yelling "Goddamn right!" over and over as I read this article.

And that is really the thing after all. When people argue that this President could have done more, or  that he failed to keep all of his campaign promises, or that he is "ineffectual," I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them vigorously while yelling "What could YOU have accomplished with this level of disrespect, obstructionism, and  partisan entrenchment?"

In light of what this President has faced since the very day of his inauguration, he is a fucking miracle worker.

His list of accomplishments is actually quite staggering, even without considering that he is piloting the country into unrelenting partisan headwinds that essentially never let up.

I told my brother during Thanksgiving that history is going to completely exonerate this man, and that he would hardly recognize his presidency in ten to fifteen years. After the historians get the chance to wipe way all of the mud that is being thrown at him everyday by the Right Wing politicians and conservative media, they are going to reveal some amazing accomplishments of which I really think most Americans are not even completely aware.

Ultimately, and I think this is going to anger the racists most of all, President Obama might really turn out to be the "Magic Negro."

Conservative groups band together to block nomination of Jeb Bush.

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

Conservative leaders who had a hand in key Republican victories including Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the Contract with America and the birth of the Tea Party, are ganging up to oppose a Jeb Bush presidential bid, declaring him easier to beat than Bob Dole or John McCain. 

“I don’t know of any conservatives who are supporting him,” said Richard Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com. 

“Jeb is a very good moderate Democrat,” added top-rated talk radio host Mark Levin. “He's very boring. He doesn't elicit excitement and energy outside a very small circle of wealthy corporatists and GOP Beltway operatives. Time to move on.”

Wow! Easier to beat than Bob Dole! That is some nasty backstabbing right there my friends.

Okay now do you want to know what measuring tool they are using to judge Jeb's suitability to be President?

The Reagan-ometer that's what: 

“The objection so many Reaganites have to another Bush is because he is another Bush,” said Reagan biographer Craig Shirley. “He, too, has an alarming belief in centralized authority. From the standpoint of history, the Bush family got their start in 1980 opposing Reagan and Reaganism, as they continue to do today.”

Of course as most of us realize even Ronald Reagan could not measure up to the Conservatives deified version of his memory.

And who do these conservative leaders want instead of the easily defeated Jeb Bush? Well I thought you'd never ask:

“We just don’t trust him,” said Viguerie, who favors Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

Oh yeah, thinking that Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, or Rand Paul are more electable than Jeb Bush.

Just things  batshit crazy conservatives do.

So according to the Republicans the difference between the best American President in history and the worst is..uh..is..uh..

Yep, that's confusing alright.

What is even more confusing is how the conservatives can deify a President who could not even get nominated in this new uber Right Wing Republican party.

Simply can't catch a break with conservatives.

You know it's true.

Bulk buying your way to the best seller's list.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

In January 2012, former megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll’s book Real Marriage went to the top spot on the Hardcover Advice section of The New York Times best-seller list. In March 2014, it was disclosed by evangelical magazine, World, that Driscoll’s publishing success was aided by a consulting firm called ResultSource, which purchased books on behalf of Driscoll in a coordinated effort to spike sales and give the impression that the book was popular with thousands of book buyers. Driscoll recently resigned from his church and one factor associated with his departure is the decision to buy his way onto the best-seller list. 

Driscoll later admitted that the scheme was wrong and even asked that the designation “New York Times best-selling author” be removed from his bio and book covers. However, Driscoll is not alone among evangelicals wanting to improve their brand and increase sales. 

This Daily Beast article is mainly concerned with how Christian authors get their books onto the best seller list, however I am sure that most of you were quick to realize that this is probably how a LOT of undeserving authors get there as well. 

In fact the author links to a 2013 Wall Street article which makes that very point: 

It isn't uncommon for a business book to land on best-seller lists only to quickly drop off. But even a brief appearance adds permanent luster to an author's reputation, greasing the skids for speaking and consulting engagements. 

But the short moment of glory doesn't always occur by luck alone. In the cases mentioned above, the authors hired a marketing firm that purchased books ahead of publication date, creating a spike in sales that landed titles on the lists. The marketing firm, San Diego-based ResultSource, charges thousands of dollars for its services in addition to the cost of the books, according to authors interviewed. 

As ResultSource's website points out, hitting best-seller lists can mean fame, and potentially lucrative consulting assignments. 

"Publishing a book builds credibility, but having a Bestseller initiates incredible growth—exponentially increasing the demand for your thought leadership, skyrocketing your speaking itinerary and value," ResultSource says. 

ResultSource's principal, Kevin Small, declined requests for an interview. On its website, the company outlines its ambitions: "'We create campaigns that reach a specific goal, like: "On the bestsellers list," or "100,000 copies sold.'"

Even though those who compile data for bestseller lists are vigilant about bulk book sales, and do not count them in their calculations, companies like ResultSource have found ways around their scrutiny.

This of course is the way that conservative authors like Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly obviously contiue receiving credit for writing bestsellers, even though their approach to their topic (Obama is bad!) is ham fisted and their built in audience is for the most part functionally illiterate.

And it also explains the success of this future bargain bin mainstay.

I had to read this literary shit stain for the blog, and I do believe that I have written far more eloquently constructed sentences while drunkenly banging my face onto the keyboard whilst attempting to retrieve a dropped cashew nut with my lips.

Hey do you remember back when an author actually had to write a good book to make it on the bestseller's list? When a politician actually had to garner votes from the majority of the people in order to get elected? And when a person's fifteen minutes of fame actually had to last only that fifteen minutes?

Boy those were the day weren't they?

More than two weeks after the fact Bristol Palin attacks President Obama by misrepresenting what he said. Drunk, tardy, and stupid is no way to go through life young lady.

Hey let's take a trip in the way back machine shall we?

Remember back around Halloween when the President said this:

"Too often parents have no choice but to put their kids in cheaper daycare, that maybe doesn't have the kinds of programming that makes a big difference in a child's development. And sometime there may just not be any slots, or the best programs may be too far away. And sometimes someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. And that's not a choice want Americans to make."

And then afterwards the conservatives edited the remarks to make it sound like the President was  dissing stay at home moms, and oh did they have themselves a fine little freakout over that.

Well apparently somebody forgot to rouse Bristol from her alcohol induced slumber and she missed the entire thing. Oh the humanity.

But fear not, on Friday Bristol, with the help of the ever punctual Nancy French, penned a much too late, and completely unnecessary response.

It is essentially full of the same kind of stupid as those other conservative responses (Including one from her mother twelve days earlier.) were.

However it also adds this to give it that oh so personal touch: 

As a single mom, I have to work. In fact, I drive to Anchorage every day and clock in and out — just to make sure I have a steady income to put bread on the table for my son. However, I don’t think that we should look down on moms who have the option of staying home!

Yeah, no she doesn't.  This job, which I assume is the same dermatologist office job that she has been bragging about for the last five years, is not a real job in the sense that she ever even has to show up for work.

How else to explain her ablity to take huge leaves of absence to do DWTS?

Not once..

but twice?

Or have her own reality show?

Or make that appearance on Celebrity Wife Swap?

No this is not the lifestyle of either a stay at home mom OR a working mother.

This is the lifestyle of a person whose family has millions of dollars to spend, and who has personally made over a million dollars herself by trading in on her mother's famous name.

The President was speaking of real workign families who have to scrimp and save in order to meet their monthly payments, and who sometimes have difficulty affording good childcare.

He was NOT speaking about a spoiled little brat, who convinced her boyfriend to impregnate her and then told the world he raped her, who drunkenly picks fights a parties and then claims to have been assaulted, and who flies all over the country appearing on various television shows while claiming to work a 9 to 5 job in an office in Anchorage, Alaska.

This would have been an ignorant post if it had happened two weeks ago, but now it is simply a pathetic cry for attention.

If you did not see Rachel Maddow yesterday trotting out all of the misinformation that has been inflicted upon us by the conservative media, then you really must stop and watch it now.

Click image to play video

Okay seriously how many of these examples had you missed or completely forgotten about?

And Breitbart news...Breitbart News should rename itself the "Conservative Onion" so that people will know that they are NEVER to be taken seriously as a news outlet, ever!

I think that Rachel should to a follow up piece about all the stories that the conservative media reported correctly that was ignored by the regular media.

Of course that will only be about two minutes long, but in the interest of fairness.....

President Obama's move to protect net neutrality is good for everybody except powerful service providers, so that means the Right Wing is coming after him with torches and pitchforks.

Courtesy of The Washington Post:  

President Obama on Monday called for the government to aggressively regulate Internet service providers such as Verizon and Comcast, treating broadband like a public utility as essential as water, phone service and electricity. 

Such a move would have a dramatic effect on cable and telecom firms that have fought vigorously to keep their highly profitable Internet businesses free of regulation. 

This is Obama's most aggressive statement yet in favor of a free and open Internet and against allowing Internet service providers to charge content companies like Netflix for faster access to their customers. The president's statement, released online Monday while he traveled to Asia, calls for the FCC to adopt the strictest rules possible for ensuring so-called net neutrality, or the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. 

"I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online," Obama said in a statement.

Of course for somebody like me, whose entire day is spent on the internet and who has a local service provider trying to bleed me dry, this is incredibly welcome news.

We absolutely need more regulation to protect us from monopolies that have customers in a vice grip, and to protect online businesses from having to pay extra money to stream their content, the cost of which invariably gets passed on to the consumer.

So because this is clearly a great idea for most Americans, conservatives hate it.

Of course most are not quite as batshit crazy about it as Ted Cruz:

"Net Neutrality" is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) November 10, 2014

I don't even know what the hell that means.

However the folks over at The Oatmeal have made an effort to educate Ted Cruz.

Here of course is the real reason that big telecoms and their political surrogates like Ted Cruz are going to fight this thing, and why it could ultimately be a godsend to folks like you and me: 

Right now, no one is really talking about rates: The main concern is balancing access to the internet with investment by the private sector. The FCC wants to make sure it can prevent internet service providers from discriminating against traffic, and US courts have made pretty clear that the best way to do this is to classify the internet as a “common carrier,” as Obama endorsed today. The FCC has the powers to regulate common carriers across a variety of arenas, including preventing unreasonable discrimination. 

But one other thing that the FCC can do with a common carrier is ensure that its rates are “just and reasonable.” For instance, the FCC doesn’t allow phone companies to charge more than $6.50 for a single line, so that all Americans can afford access. Similar pricing rules are in place at electricity plants. If the internet is regulated under Title II, the government could come up with a similar cap on how much companies can charge for internet access.

Of course currently there is no mention of this in what the President is suggesting, and I understand why, but ultimately I would like to know that such regulations on how much providers can charge customers might be in the offing.

However even without that component to this change the idea is still very sound and would protect companies, and their consumers, from the type of abuse that we know is coming soon. And in some cases is already here.

Dark money in politics and the honesty of Senator Mark Begich.

Courtesy of TPM:

Republican dark money groups are outspending their Democratic counterparts by an incredible margin, according to data from the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation. 

During this cycle, conservative groups that do not disclose their donors have spent more than $94 million, while liberal dark money groups have spent more than $28 million.

The data this cycle confirms Republican dominance of dark money spending. In the 2012 election cycle, about 80 percent of dark money spending backed Republican candidates.

Of course as we know there has been untold millions spent up here in Alaska in support of Dan Sullivan, hell anybody trying to watch a You Tube video, listen to the radio, or watch television can tell you that. 

And when asked about that Dan Sullivan ran away like somebody was trying to take his lunch money.

Now undoubtedly Mark Begich has received some money from outside groups, and some of those are certainly from shady PACs that don't want to disclose their donor list.

However Begich is not one to shy away from scrutiny as evidenced by the fact that he has voluntarily provided documentation as to how his campaign money is spent.

This from ABC News:  

Senate campaigns aren't required to tell us by Election Day--they submit spending reports to the Federal Election Commission on paper, a seemingly antiquated system that prevents reporters and the public from being able to dig effectively through their latest receipts and expenses. For most campaigns, sortable expense data is only available through June. Weeks or months later, we'll get a fuller picture. 

But Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, apparently out of the goodness of his heart, has been filing his disclosures electronically since October 2013, giving us a window into how Senate campaigns are spending their millions of dollars these days. 

Since Oct. 1, 2013, Begich has spent $7.3 million, a middling total for campaigns. Alaska isn't the most expensive state in which a candidate can run, and it's outside the top 10 this election cycle for candidate spending, although, including outside money, it's the sixth most expensive of all 2014 Senate races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Can anybody imagine Dan Sullivan being this transparent? Nope me either.

As if we needed another reason to support the only REAL Alaskan running for the Senate in 2014.