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.

The dangers of social media and why we should all be sad to see the end of HBO's "The Newsroom."

Click image to play video

I remember when this happened, and when I recoiled in horror at what these amateur sleuths had done in response to that terrible Boston Marathon bombing.

If you remember there was misinformation coming from all directions, much of it driven by the Right Wing mistrust of the government and their absolute certainty that the Obama administration was covering an attack by a known terrorist group.

Hell Glenn Beck was even sued for defamation after making up some insane conspiracy theories.

The Newsroom does something quite unique, and in my opinion quite necessary.

It not only holds puts the media on notice for its cowardice in reporting uncomfortable facts, or for cowering in the face of the conservative forces. It also holds up a mirror so that the public can see themselves revealed for their willingness to be poorly served by our politicians and our media, and how easily we allow ourselves to be manipulated by fear mongering or directed by our prejudices.

I for one will greatly miss what The Newsroom brings to the debate.

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.....

John McCain finally weighs in on the Palin drunken brawl.

Courtesy of TPM:

 Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) came to the defense of his former running mate, Sarah Palin, on Friday, more than a month after she and her family were involved in a drunken, bloody altercation at a house party in Alaska. 

During an interview with Phoenix television station KTVK, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee said he wasn't excusing the brawl but went on to blast the media's coverage of it. 

"I think these family affairs are -- I don't know much of the details about it," McCain told the TV station. "Things happen in people's families and I'm not excusing it, I'm not condemning it." 

"I just know that the kind of coverage that this got, in my view, is in keeping with the kind of coverage the liberals have accorded to Sarah Palin for a number of years, which in my view, is biased and unfair and sometimes unacceptable," McCain told KTVK.

Actually I agree with McCain that this coverage is in keeping with how the media has covered up for this lying grifter and her family. If they had ever done their jobs properly she would have disappeared from the public eye years ago.

And speaking of doing their jobs properly I think that every time John McCain is questioned by reporters, the very first question that he should be asked is why he hates America so much that he cursed it with this vile woman and her clan of hillbilly misfits. Followed up with the question of how he can look himself in the mirror to shave without cutting his own throat.

Liberal media my ass.

The facts are in. Viewers of Fox News are the most misinformed of any other viewer of cable news. And it turns out they like it that way.

Author Chris Mooney has written a book entitled "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Don't Believe in Science."

In it the author explains the findings of seven different studies and what they tell us about how viewers of Fox News think or, more often than not, choose not to think.

Here Alternet offers a description of the book's findings:

In June of 2011, Jon Stewart went on air with Fox News’ Chris Wallace and started a major media controversy over the channel’s misinforming of its viewers. “Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?” Stewart asked Wallace. “The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.” 

Stewart’s statement was factually accurate, as we’ll see. The next day, however, the fact-checking site PolitiFact weighed in and rated it “false.”In claiming to check Stewart’s “facts,” PolitiFact ironically committed a serious error—and later, doubly ironically, failed to correct it. How’s that for the power of fact checking? 

There probably is a small group of media consumers out there somewhere in the world who are more misinformed, overall, than Fox News viewers. But if you only consider mainstream U.S. television news outlets with major audiences (e.g., numbering in the millions), it really is true that Fox viewers are the most misled based on all the available evidence—especially in areas of political controversy. This will come as little surprise to liberals, perhaps, but the evidence for it—evidence in Stewart’s favor—is pretty overwhelming.

the article then goes on to itemize and evaluate the studies that Mooney used in his book.

I will spare you all of that, though if you are interested I invite you to click the Alternet link or purchase the book, and will instead offer you the article's summation: 

In summary, then, the “science” of Fox News clearly shows that its viewers are more misinformed than the viewers of other stations, and are indeed this way for ideological reasons. But these are not necessarily the reasons that liberals may assume. Instead, the Fox “effect” probably occurs both because the station churns out falsehoods that conservatives readily accept—falsehoods that may even seem convincing to some liberals on occasion—but also because conservatives are overwhelmingly inclined to choose to watch Fox to begin with. 

At the same time, it’s important to note that they’re also disinclined to watch anything else. Fox keeps constantly in their minds the idea that the rest of the media are “biased” against them, and conservatives duly respond by saying other media aren’t worth watching—it’s just a pack of lies. According to Public Policy Polling’s annual TV News Trust Poll (the 2011 run), 72 percent of conservatives say they trust Fox News, but they also say they strongly distrust NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN. Liberals and moderates, in contrast, trust all of these outlets more than they distrust them (though they distrust Fox). This, too, suggests conservative selective exposure. 

And there is an even more telling study of “Fox-only” behavior among conservatives, from Stanford’s Shanto Iyengar and Kyu Hahn of Yonsei University, in Seoul, South Korea. They conducted a classic left-right selective exposure study, giving members of different ideological groups the chance to choose stories from a news stream that provided them with a headline and a news source logo—Fox, CNN, NPR, and the BBC—but nothing else. The experiment was manipulated so that the same headline and story was randomly attributed to different news sources. The result was that Democrats and liberals were definitely less inclined to choose Fox than other sources, but spread their interest across the other outlets when it came to news. But Republicans and conservatives overwhelmingly chose Fox for hard news and even for soft news, and ignored other sources. “The probability that a Republican would select a CNN or NPR report was around 10%,” wrote the authors. 

In other words Fox News is both deceiver and enabler simultaneously. First, its existence creates the opportunity for conservatives to exercise their biases, by selecting into the Fox information stream, and also by imbibing Fox-style arguments and claims that can then fuel biased reasoning about politics, science, and whatever else comes up. 

But at the same time, it’s also likely that conservatives, tending to be more closed-minded and more authoritarian, have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape from the belief challenges constantly presented by the “liberal media.” Their psychological need for something affirmative is probably stronger than what’s encountered on the opposite side of the aisle—as is their revulsion towards allegedly liberal (but really centrist) media outlets. 

And thus we find, at the root of our political dysfunction, a classic nurture-nature mélange. The penchant for selective exposure is rooted in our psychology and our brains. Closed-mindedness and authoritarianism—running stronger in some of us than in others—likely are as well. 

But nevertheless, it took the emergence of a station like Fox News before these tendencies could be fully activated—polarizing America not only over politics, but over reality itself.

I think understanding what is laid out in this article, and book, is vitally important as we move forward in this country.

Simply put Fox News has been incredibly, and possibly irrevocably, damaging to our politics, our ability to seek compromise, and the future of this nation.

If ever there were a clearer case of blatant treason I have certainly never seen it.

It is damaging the psyche of our citizens in ways that may have long term, and potentially devastating, effects on generations to come.

Speaking of the Throwdown at the Hoedown, now the Right is accusing the homeowner of sexually assaulting Bristol Palin.

So it is now the day after audio and pictures of the brawl have been released by the Anchorage Police, and media outlets on the Right have finally decided on their plan of attack in covering it.

Essentially, Bristol's been victimized. Perhaps even sexually.

Take a look at this from the Daily Caller:  

When news trickled out about the Palins being involved in a drunken brawl, I was mildly amused. The narrative was that this band of rich hillbillies was at it again. Then I saw this disturbing quote from Bristol Palin (being questioned about the incident): 

“I walk back up. “Did you push my sister?” And some guy gets up, pushes me down on the grass, drags me across the grass. “You slut, you fucking cunt, you fucking this.” I get back up, he pushes me down on the grass again. And I have my five year old, they took my $300 sunglasses, they took my fucking shoes, and I’m just left here?

“A guy comes out of nowhere and pushes me on the ground, takes me by my feet, in my dress—in my thong dress, in front of everybody—”Come on you cunt, get the fuck out of here, come on you slut, get the fuck out of here.” I don’t know this guy.” 

IF this is true (and we may never know for sure, but she sounds sincere), then Bristol Palin was physically, verbally — and possibly even sexually – assaulted by a man.

The reporter, Matt K. Lewis, then goes on to suggest that Bristol's victimization should be the lead story, and that the media's refusal to recognize that demonstrates bias on their part.

What Lewis fails to recognize, and I think purposefully, is that the key part of his article was "if this is true."

But it's not true, and proven by the testimony of everybody who is NOT a Palin family member.

However that is unimportant as the Right now has their meme and they are going to run with it.

And this Right Scoop article drives that point home: 

CNN host Carol Costello can barely contain her excitement over hearing the new audio of the ‘brawl’ in Alaska that involved Bristol Palin a few weeks back. 

After the audio concluded, Costello said “I think that long beep was my favorite part,” referring to the beep that replaced a long string of expletives from Bristol Palin. 

Costello then quoted Sarah Palin’s Facebook post where she had remarked how proud she was that Palin defended the family, noting that it made her heart soar. Costello ended it by saying smugly “You can thank me later.” 

What’s so disturbing about Costello’s smug excitement over this audio is the actual content of the audio, in which Bristol Palin is incredibly upset as she describes to police how she and her sister were assaulted by someone at the party. I’m not sure how something like that can excite someone so much. Costello clearly has such contempt for the Palins that she apparently gets off on harm coming to the Palins. 

I suspect if these were Barack Obama’s girls in the same situation, Costello would be defending them instead of laughing at them. 

Yeah, you know what? The Obama girls are NEVER going to be in this kind of situation. They are far to well parented for that.

I know that playing the victim is the favorite Palin tradition, but that is simply not going to work in this case.

Those audio tapes reveal the Palin family as the foul mouthed bullies that we all know them to be.

They can try to shape this story any way they want, but in the end there is no escaping the fact that the party was completely drama free until the Palins arrived, and after that at least three fights broke out and every one of them involved at least one member of their family.

Well it looks as if Ebola refuses to be the media's boogeyman this Halloween season.

Despite attempts by virtually ALL of the cable news outlets Ebola is simply not living up to the hype.

Courtesy of WFAA:  

Louise Troh, whose fiance Thomas Eric Duncan,became the first person in the U.S. to be diagnosed with Ebola, says she and her family are showing no signs of the deadly disease after a 21-day quarantine. 

Duncan died on October 8. 

Since then, two nurses who had cared for him at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas have contracted the Ebola virus and are being treated at hospitals in Maryland and Atlanta.

The two nurses of course came into contact with Duncan at his MOST infectious and at least one of them is "doing quite well."

So the fact that nobody on the plane arriving in America with Duncan, nor the family members who spent two days with him while he became increasingly ill, have contracted the disease speaks to the fact that it was never the "ISIS of biological agents" that some less than responsible news outlets painted it to be.

And in fact in some of the places where the disease DID get a real toehold there is already vast improvement. Such as Nigeria: 

The World Health Organization declared Nigeria Ebola free on Monday after a 42 day period with no new cases, a success story with lessons for countries still struggling to contain the deadly virus. "Nigeria is now free of Ebola," WHO representative Rui Gama Vaz told a news conference in the capital Abuja, prompting a round of applause from other officials. "This is a spectacular success story ... But we must be clear that we have only won a battle, the war will only end when West Africa is also declared free of Ebola. 

The first case in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, was imported from Liberia, when a Liberian-American diplomat called Patrick Sawyer collapsed at the main international airport in Lagos on July 20. Because the country was ill prepared and had no screening procedures in place, Sawyer was able to infect several people, including several health workers in the hospital where he was taken. 

Ebola has killed 4,546 people across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three worst-affected countries. Nigeria had 20 cases in total, of which eight died.

Gee with this now downgraded from world ending viral infection, to manageable health concern, I wonder what the media will use next to attack the President and terrify the American people?

Well I guess we still have ISIS right?

Boo, everybody, boo.