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Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher React To Olbermann Leaving MSNBC (VIDEO)

“I know very little about it,” Maddow said. “All I know is that it was between Keith and the company, it didn’t involve any of the rest of us, and he was really gracious and nice when he left.”

Maher said that, in his opinion, the show went “downhill” when Olbermann started retooling his “Worst Persons In The World” segment. “Stop organizing life around the people who don’t get the joke,” he said. “Fuck them if they don’t get a joke.”

It was Keith Olbermann’s decision to leave his high-profile perch at MSNBC

The outspoken host abruptly announced his departure on Friday evening, sending shock waves through the cable news world.

But the sudden departure has a history, and the timing does not rule out a preemptive MSNBC move. The gadfly commentator first told the network last April that he wanted to leave and began negotiating his exit then, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation.

Olbermann abandoned the notion of leaving at that time but revived his plans in recent weeks with new representation from the talent agency ICM.

With two years left on his $7 million a year contract, Olbermann was seeking a full exit package but he really has his eye on creating his own media empire in the style of Huffington Post, according to the individual. That way, Olbermann would control his own brand and, in his view, potentially earn far more as an owner.

John Cole:

By the way, it doesn’t have to be as simple as “Comcast In, KO Out.” While we all harbor our suspicions and the feuding with his bosses had been ongoing and public, and the reporting structure in the organization was being changed with the new merger, and all that stuff.

But there is another element that I think is worth thinking about. In basically the last year, he lost his mom and his dad, and he really didn’t even take a break. He’s been doing this for eight years straight, and that kind of thing, in the poisonous work atmosphere that existed with his bosses, it just takes a toll on you. I’d wager that in the end, he just had enough and they agreed to part ways.

Sometimes you’ve just had enough of a situation, and you have to say to hell with it.

That’s exactly what I’d wager too.

(Source: underthemountainbunker.com)

It all makes perfect sense: Anthony Weiner’s weiner There’s no question that Anthony Weiner would post a racy pic on his YFrog account. What’s there to lose? And anyway, Rep. Weiner has always given off that lewd vibe, hasn’t he? Secondly, have we ever known Andrew Breitbart, or his excellent website, to steer us wrong? Ever? Certainly it couldn’t possibly be retaliation for Weiner’s rather popular YouTube rants against Republicans and Breitbart’s “mission.” No way.
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It all makes perfect sense: Anthony Weiner’s weiner

There’s no question that Anthony Weiner would post a racy pic on his YFrog account. What’s there to lose? And anyway, Rep. Weiner has always given off that lewd vibe, hasn’t he?

Secondly, have we ever known Andrew Breitbart, or his excellent website, to steer us wrong? Ever?

Certainly it couldn’t possibly be retaliation for Weiner’s rather popular YouTube rants against Republicans and Breitbart’s “mission.” No way.

The painted rock at Perry’s hunting camp: “We kind of laughed about it… Rick’s covering his tracks.”

I’M IN FULL DISAGREEMENT with Andrew Sullivan on this one:

I’m sorry to say I can’t see any kind of smoking bigotry in Rick Perry’s heart from the story in the Post yesterday, although the details of the story were really fascinating. Money quote:

The cowboys, when they were gathering cattle, they’d say they’re going to the Matthews or Niggerhead or the Nail” pastures, said Bill Reed, a distributor for Coors beer in nearby Abilene who used to lease a hunting parcel adjacent to the Perrys’. “Those were all names. Nobody thought anything about it…”

You know, Texas is a little different — you go where it’s comfortable,” Reed said. “. . . It would have been one thing if they had named it, but they didn’t. So, it’s basically a figure of speech as far as most people are concerned. No one thought anything about it.”

Not a racist thought in their heads. I’m with TNC on this one:

In all seriousness, I think this says very little about Rick Perry, and a lot more about the country he seeks to govern.

REALLY? WELL, SURE, EXCEPT FOR THOSE RECOLLECTIONS FROM SEVEN PEOPLE in the Washington Post report:

“My mother and father went to the lease and painted the rock in either 1983 or 1984,” Perry wrote. “This occurred after I paid a visit to the property with a friend and saw the rock with the offensive word. After my visit I called my folks and mentioned it to them, and they painted it over during their next visit.”

“Ever since, any time I ever saw the rock it was painted over,” Perry said.

Perry’s version of events differs in many respects from the recollections of seven people, interviewed by The Washington Post, who spoke in detail of their memories of seeing the rock with the name at various points during the years that Perry was associated with the property through his father, partners or his signature on a lease.

[…] The other local who visited the ranch with Perry during those years recalled the rock standing upright with the name visible. He said it was painted over years later; he was not sure exactly when but recalled remarking about the change with friends.

“We kind of laughed about it,” recalled this person, who said he would probably vote for Perry if he wins the Republican nomination. “My recollection is that it was several years ago. We were laughing because he had it painted. Because it had always been there. You couldn’t miss it, right there at the gate going in. We laughed about, ‘Rick’s covering his tracks.’ ”

Hahahahaa! Another white, male GOP politician is “covering his tracks,” pretending to not be (insert whatever applies here — i.e. racist, perverted, gay, having an affair, on drugs, hypocritical… ).

My God this gets old.

As for Obama, as one would expect for a sitting president, he has gotten plenty of coverage. But that coverage has been relentlessly negative in tone. The study found that only 9 percent of the mentions of Obama were positive, compared with 34 percent negative and 57 percent neutral - far more negative than the coverage of any of the Republicans.


Even the week that U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden, the coverage of the president was more negative than positive. That may be what one would expect for a president stuck with a terrible economy and slumping poll ratings, but it flies against the belief held by many Republican activists that the media tilts heavily against their candidates.

Media coverage of Obama largely negative, reports the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism

Your “liberal” media, folks.

Devastating street view in Sirte after clashes between Libyan interim government forces and Gaddafi loyalists on October 18th. (via: motherjones) Let’s hope this is the end of tyranny and the beginning of recovery for Libya. (via: kateoplis) VIDEOS: If you care to see — (linked only because they’re gruesome, click at your own risk): Gaddafi when captured, before he died today Gaddafi after death, dragged through the streets of Sirte Meanwhile in Sirte
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Devastating street view in Sirte after clashes between Libyan interim government forces and Gaddafi loyalists on October 18th. (via: motherjones)

Let’s hope this is the end of tyranny and the beginning of recovery for Libya. (via: kateoplis)

VIDEOS: If you care to see — (linked only because they’re gruesome, click at your own risk):

Meanwhile in Sirte

(Above: a “tax cuts for the wealthy paid for by spending cuts for the rest of us” table to consider) … If tax cuts raise growth, where’s the f*cking growth? How the GOP became the party of the rich “Taxes are ridiculously low! And yet the mantra of the Republican Party is ‘Tax cuts raise growth.’ So – where’s the fucking growth?” – Bruce Bartlett, an architect of Reagan’s 1981 tax cut, from a must-read article from the November 24, 2011 edition of Rolling Stone: … How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich: […] When Republicans won back control of the House in last year’s midterm elections, they followed Brown’s lead and moved swiftly to betray their Tea Party backers by running up more deficits on behalf of the rich. Within days of the election, Republicans not only secured a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, they also enabled America’s richest scions to inherit millions of dollars without paying a dime in taxes. All told, the GOP’s two favors for the party’s biggest donors were secured in a lame-duck bargain that adds another $858 billion to the debt – an amount greater than the original stimulus plan the Republicans opposed so bitterly. First, the GOP filibustered a Democrat-led effort to extend the Bush tax cuts on only the first $250,000 of income. The party leadership’s hard-line stance – supported by barely a third of all voters – turned $90 billion over to the wealthiest Americans. It also set a precedent for further extensions that would cost nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. At the same time, the GOP drove through a deal that actually raised taxes for couples who make less than $40,000 a year – and then turned much of the extra cash over to couples who earn more than $200,000. Obama agreed to this massive transfer of wealth in order to retain the Bush tax cuts for the middle class – but the only other significant thing he got in return was a one-year extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. But even the GOP’s big payday for the wealthy pales in comparison to the handout that Republicans secured by gutting the estate tax. With the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the inheritance tax was set to snap back to its Clinton-era standard: exempting the first $1 million of all estates from taxation, and stepping up the tax rate on the wealthiest estates to 55 percent. Instead, Obama agreed to raise the exemption to $5 million and lower the top tax rate to 35 percent – an apparent horse trade demanded by the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, who then allowed the president’s nuclear-stockpile treaty with Russia to move forward in the Senate… From the article, clear illustrations of income redistribution from the bottom to the top: […] Indeed, since Republicans began their tax-cut binge in 1997, they have succeeded in making the rich much richer. While the average income for the bottom 90 percent of taxpayers has remained basically flat over the past 15 years, those in the top 0.01 percent have seen their incomes more than double, to $36 million a year. Translated into wages, that means most Americans have received a raise of $1.50 an hour since the GOP began cutting taxes during the Gingrich era. The most elite sliver of American society, meanwhile, saw their pay soar by $10,000 an hour. America became a great nation with a prosperous middle class on the strength of a progressive tax code – one that demands the most of those who benefit most from our society. But the Party of the Rich has succeeded in breaking the back of that ideal. Today, says Johnston, “the tax system ceases to be progressive when you get to the very top of the wealthiest one percent.” Above that marker, the richer you get, the lower your relative tax burden. “We have moved toward a plutocracy,” Warren Buffett warned in a recent interview. “As people have gotten richer and richer, they have been favored by taxation – and have gotten richer to a greater degree.” Far from creating the trickle-down economics promised by Reagan, the policies pursued by the modern Republican Party are gusher up. Under the leadership of Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the House’s radicalized GOP caucus is pushing a predatory agenda for a new gilded age. Every move that Republicans make – whether it’s to gut consumer protections, roll back environmental regulations, subsidize giant agribusinesses, abolish health care reform or just drill, baby, drill – is consistent with a single overarching agenda: to enrich the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations, even if it requires borrowing from China, weakening national security, dismantling Medicare and taxing the middle class. With the nation still mired in the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, Republicans have categorically rejected the one financial policy with a proven record of putting the country back on a more prosperous footing. “You hear the Republicans say that you don’t dare raise taxes in a weak economy,” says Stockman. “Ronald Reagan did – three times.” Not even the downgrading of America’s debt – which placed the world’s only superpower on credit par with New Zealand and Belgium – has given GOP leaders cause to reconsider their pro-wealth jihad. In August, as the so-called Supercommittee began its work to complete the debt-ceiling deal by reducing future deficits by another $1.5 trillion, Cantor issued the Party of the Rich’s marching orders, insisting that Republicans not buckle under the “tremendous pressure” to hike taxes and instead target spending cuts in “mandatory programs.” Read it all… … Note to Republican Teabagger base voters, please do continue to worry about gay marriage and a Christmas tree tax and Obama taking your guns. That’s what the Republican party needs you to concentrate on through November 2012.
Zoom

(Above: a “tax cuts for the wealthy paid for by spending cuts for the rest of us” table to consider)

…

If tax cuts raise growth, where’s the f*cking growth? How the GOP became the party of the rich

“Taxes are ridiculously low! And yet the mantra of the Republican Party is ‘Tax cuts raise growth.’ So – where’s the fucking growth?” – Bruce Bartlett, an architect of Reagan’s 1981 tax cut, from a must-read article from the November 24, 2011 edition of Rolling Stone:

…

How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich:

[…] When Republicans won back control of the House in last year’s midterm elections, they followed Brown’s lead and moved swiftly to betray their Tea Party backers by running up more deficits on behalf of the rich. Within days of the election, Republicans not only secured a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, they also enabled America’s richest scions to inherit millions of dollars without paying a dime in taxes. All told, the GOP’s two favors for the party’s biggest donors were secured in a lame-duck bargain that adds another $858 billion to the debt – an amount greater than the original stimulus plan the Republicans opposed so bitterly.

First, the GOP filibustered a Democrat-led effort to extend the Bush tax cuts on only the first $250,000 of income. The party leadership’s hard-line stance – supported by barely a third of all voters – turned $90 billion over to the wealthiest Americans. It also set a precedent for further extensions that would cost nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. At the same time, the GOP drove through a deal that actually raised taxes for couples who make less than $40,000 a year – and then turned much of the extra cash over to couples who earn more than $200,000. Obama agreed to this massive transfer of wealth in order to retain the Bush tax cuts for the middle class – but the only other significant thing he got in return was a one-year extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

But even the GOP’s big payday for the wealthy pales in comparison to the handout that Republicans secured by gutting the estate tax. With the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the inheritance tax was set to snap back to its Clinton-era standard: exempting the first $1 million of all estates from taxation, and stepping up the tax rate on the wealthiest estates to 55 percent. Instead, Obama agreed to raise the exemption to $5 million and lower the top tax rate to 35 percent – an apparent horse trade demanded by the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, who then allowed the president’s nuclear-stockpile treaty with Russia to move forward in the Senate…

From the article, clear illustrations of income redistribution from the bottom to the top:

[…] Indeed, since Republicans began their tax-cut binge in 1997, they have succeeded in making the rich much richer. While the average income for the bottom 90 percent of taxpayers has remained basically flat over the past 15 years, those in the top 0.01 percent have seen their incomes more than double, to $36 million a year. Translated into wages, that means most Americans have received a raise of $1.50 an hour since the GOP began cutting taxes during the Gingrich era. The most elite sliver of American society, meanwhile, saw their pay soar by $10,000 an hour.

America became a great nation with a prosperous middle class on the strength of a progressive tax code – one that demands the most of those who benefit most from our society. But the Party of the Rich has succeeded in breaking the back of that ideal. Today, says Johnston, “the tax system ceases to be progressive when you get to the very top of the wealthiest one percent.” Above that marker, the richer you get, the lower your relative tax burden. “We have moved toward a plutocracy,” Warren Buffett warned in a recent interview. “As people have gotten richer and richer, they have been favored by taxation – and have gotten richer to a greater degree.”

Far from creating the trickle-down economics promised by Reagan, the policies pursued by the modern Republican Party are gusher up. Under the leadership of Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the House’s radicalized GOP caucus is pushing a predatory agenda for a new gilded age. Every move that Republicans make – whether it’s to gut consumer protections, roll back environmental regulations, subsidize giant agribusinesses, abolish health care reform or just drill, baby, drill – is consistent with a single overarching agenda: to enrich the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations, even if it requires borrowing from China, weakening national security, dismantling Medicare and taxing the middle class. With the nation still mired in the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, Republicans have categorically rejected the one financial policy with a proven record of putting the country back on a more prosperous footing. “You hear the Republicans say that you don’t dare raise taxes in a weak economy,” says Stockman. “Ronald Reagan did – three times.” Not even the downgrading of America’s debt – which placed the world’s only superpower on credit par with New Zealand and Belgium – has given GOP leaders cause to reconsider their pro-wealth jihad. In August, as the so-called Supercommittee began its work to complete the debt-ceiling deal by reducing future deficits by another $1.5 trillion, Cantor issued the Party of the Rich’s marching orders, insisting that Republicans not buckle under the “tremendous pressure” to hike taxes and instead target spending cuts in “mandatory programs.”

Read it all…

…

Note to Republican Teabagger base voters, please do continue to worry about gay marriage and a Christmas tree tax and Obama taking your guns. That’s what the Republican party needs you to concentrate on through November 2012.

OWS Zuccotti Park: last night / this morning

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” — The First Amendment

Police in Riot Gear Raid Zuccotti Park, Order Protesters to Vacate | NBC New York

Hundreds of police officers, some in riot gear, descended on Zuccotti Park after midnight Tuesday in a surprise sweep of the Occupy Wall Street headquarters.

It comes just two days ahead of a massive planned demonstration Thursday marking the movement’s two-month anniversary.

Police handed out letters to protesters ordering them to temporarily evacuate the park. Police said the eviction will improve health conditions.

Campers were ordered to remove all their tents. Police claimed it was a health issue.

The New York Times, “Police Clear Zuccotti Park of Protesters”

Hundreds of New York City police officers early Tuesday cleared the park in Lower Manhattan that had been the nexus of the Occupy Wall Street movement, arresting dozens of people there after warning that the nearly two-month-old camp would be “cleared and restored” but that demonstrators who did not leave would face arrest.

The protesters, about 200 of whom have been staying in the park overnight, initially resisted with chants of “Whose park? Our park!”

The massive operation in and around Zuccotti Park was intended to empty the birthplace of a protest movement that inspired hundreds of tent cities from coast to coast. On Monday in Oakland, Calif., hundreds of police officers raided the main encampment there, arresting 33 people. Protesters returned later in the day. But the Oakland police said no one would be allowed to sleep there anymore, and promised to clear a second camp nearby.

“NYC authorities clearly feel OWS eviction is just and reasonable. That’s why they are doing it at 2 am and barring all press.” — @gzornick of The Nation (via kateoplis)

lau-ra-sau-rus: FYI the bull has been surrounded by cops.

@NewYorkObserver “Here with credentialed photogs from NYT, WSJ, and Reuters; they’re also being barred.”

images: kateoplis


Source: ocelott

fearandwar: They’re locking up citizens in their own houses. Jesus Christ. Is that even legal?

inothernews: New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly was personally on hand to supervise the dismantling of the tents in Zuccotti Park.

inothernews: WITHOUT PREJUDICE   Once inside Zuccotti Park, police tore down the tents and tarps that had housed Occupy Wall Street protesters for two months.  (Photo: Robert Stolarik / The New York Times)

inothernews: Zuccotti Park has been cleared. But as an Occupy Oakland demonstrator said, “The movement is about more than just the space here.”

NYPD reportedly will allow protestors back into Zuccotti Park later this morning, but without tents and sleeping bags.

Source: paxamericana

SEE LIVESTREAM: Occupy Wall Street protesters, having been evicted from Zuccotti Park, have massed in Foley Square just north of Zuccotti Park and City Hall.

The Palin Trick

It doesn’t matter if you did something wrong in the past, if the media reports it — it becomes the media’s fault.

At that point, you don’t even have to feel sorry about it anymore. That’s a neat trick, isn’t it?

Related: 

Video: Bill Maher on Republicans’ offensive treatment of President Obama (2/17/12 New Rules)

…

Bill Maher (partial transcript via: DailyKos):

But there’s something about this President that makes conservatives think it’s OK to go apeshit in his presence. They didn’t do this to Carter, an actual pacifist, or Clinton, who really did have a plan for universal health care, or LBJ, who actually made it easier for poor people to vote and eat.  All of them clearly evil America-haters.

But they got treated with a modicum of respect, at least to their faces.  Not Obama.  What can it be that’s different about him?  (ponders for a moment to uncomfortable audience laughter)

It’s either his race, or it’s your brain chemistry, or it’s something that happened when your dad spanked you and you liked it and you were looking at a box of Cream of Wheat.  I don’t know, I’m not a therapist.  Maybe it’s not race.  I don’t know what’s in people’s hearts.  Except Newt Gingrich, I know what’s in his heart: lust and cheese fries.

But this type of in-the-room, in-your-face, in-your-space disrespect is new.  Admit that, and I will admit that, of course, something like impeaching Clinton was far more serious.  But it was also at least in some ways more respectful.  It was done with high pomp, through official channels, and was all about the rule of law, and the Chief Justice wore a special robe he got from a musical or something.

And somehow that is a lot more respectful than this.

(Source: underthemountainbunker.com)

image: bartcop.com … Why are Fox “News” viewers so misinformed? Is it them, or is it Fox? So you’re a misinformed Fox “News” viewer — but why are you so misinformed? Turns out, it’s a little bit you (because you’re attracted to a source like Fox in the first place) and it’s a little bit of Fox itself — a political operation which pretends to be a news channel, purposely misleading it’s base viewers, telling you what you want to hear but not necessarily what you should know. In other words, you’re in your own little world of paranoia and incorrect beliefs because you like that world.  The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers are the Most Misinformed – Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs. […] When are people most likely to seek out self-affirming information? Hart found that they’re most vulnerable to selective exposure if they have defensive goals—for instance, being highly committed to a preexisting view, and especially a view that is tied to a person’s core values. Another defensive motivation identified in Hart’s study was closed-mindedness, which makes a great deal of sense. It is probably part of the definition of being closed-minded, or dogmatic, that you prefer to consume information that agrees with what you already believe. So who’s closed-minded? Multiple studies have shown that political conservatives—e.g., Fox viewers–tend to have a higher need for closure. Indeed, this includes a group called right-wing authoritarians, who are increasingly prevalent in the Republican Party. This suggests they should also be more likely to select themselves into belief-affirming information streams, like Fox News or right-wing talk radio or the Drudge Report. Indeed, a number of research results support this idea. […] PIPA’s study of misinformation in the 2010 election didn’t just show that Fox News viewers were more misinformed than viewers of other channels. It also showed that watching more Fox made believing in nine separate political misperceptions morelikely. And that was a unique effect, unlike any observed with the other news channels that were studied. “With all of the other media outlets, the more exposed you were, the less likely you were to have misinformation,” explains PIPA’s director, political psychologist Steven Kull. “While with Fox, the more exposure you had, in most cases, the more misinformation you had. And that is really, in a way, the most powerful factor, because it strongly suggests they were actually getting the information from Fox.” Indeed, this effect was even present in non-Republicans–another indicator that Fox is probably its cause. As Kull explains, “even if you’re a liberal Democrat, you are affected by the station.” If you watched Fox, you were more likely to believe the nine falsehoods, regardless of your political party affiliation. […] 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… Continue reading… It’s like a perpetual feedback loop of happy, Orwellian horseshit: Fox is anything but ‘fair and balanced,’ but as long as they tell you that’s what they are, you get to pretend that’s a valid description of your chosen news source. If you’re happy knowing that about yourself, great. Just don’t be surprised or offended when your friends and loved ones won’t discuss issues with you anymore, or when they make the circling motion with their finger on the side of their head. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.
Zoom

image: bartcop.com

…

Why are Fox “News” viewers so misinformed? Is it them, or is it Fox?

So you’re a misinformed Fox “News” viewer — but why are you so misinformed? Turns out, it’s a little bit you (because you’re attracted to a source like Fox in the first place) and it’s a little bit of Fox itself — a political operation which pretends to be a news channel, purposely misleading it’s base viewers, telling you what you want to hear but not necessarily what you should know. In other words, you’re in your own little world of paranoia and incorrect beliefs because you like that world. 

The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers are the Most Misinformed – Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs.

[…] When are people most likely to seek out self-affirming information? Hart found that they’re most vulnerable to selective exposure if they have defensive goals—for instance, being highly committed to a preexisting view, and especially a view that is tied to a person’s core values. Another defensive motivation identified in Hart’s study was closed-mindedness, which makes a great deal of sense. It is probably part of the definition of being closed-minded, or dogmatic, that you prefer to consume information that agrees with what you already believe.

So who’s closed-minded? Multiple studies have shown that political conservatives—e.g., Fox viewers–tend to have a higher need for closure. Indeed, this includes a group called right-wing authoritarians, who are increasingly prevalent in the Republican Party. This suggests they should also be more likely to select themselves into belief-affirming information streams, like Fox News or right-wing talk radio or the Drudge Report. Indeed, a number of research results support this idea.

[…] PIPA’s study of misinformation in the 2010 election didn’t just show that Fox News viewers were more misinformed than viewers of other channels. It also showed that watching more Fox made believing in nine separate political misperceptions morelikely. And that was a unique effect, unlike any observed with the other news channels that were studied. “With all of the other media outlets, the more exposed you were, the less likely you were to have misinformation,” explains PIPA’s director, political psychologist Steven Kull. “While with Fox, the more exposure you had, in most cases, the more misinformation you had. And that is really, in a way, the most powerful factor, because it strongly suggests they were actually getting the information from Fox.”

Indeed, this effect was even present in non-Republicans–another indicator that Fox is probably its cause. As Kull explains, “even if you’re a liberal Democrat, you are affected by the station.” If you watched Fox, you were more likely to believe the nine falsehoods, regardless of your political party affiliation.

[…] 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… Continue reading…

It’s like a perpetual feedback loop of happy, Orwellian horseshit: Fox is anything but ‘fair and balanced,’ but as long as they tell you that’s what they are, you get to pretend that’s a valid description of your chosen news source.

If you’re happy knowing that about yourself, great. Just don’t be surprised or offended when your friends and loved ones won’t discuss issues with you anymore, or when they make the circling motion with their finger on the side of their head. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.

I won’t be eating chicken: USDA to lay off hundreds of inspectors, let poultry slaughterhouses inspect themselves

What could go wrong? Here is one of those Republican austerity measures that all of us will need to accept so that millionaires won’t have to pay higher taxes:

READ PROPOSED RULE / SUBMIT COMMENTS BY APRIL 26, 2012

USDA to Let Industry Self-Inspect Chicken

As early as next week, the government will end debate on a cost-cutting, modernization proposal it hopes to fully implement by the end of the year. A plan that is setting off alarm bells among food science watchdogs because it turns over most of the chicken inspection duties to the companies that produce the birds for sale.

The USDA hopes to save $85 million over three years by laying off 1,000 government inspectors and turning over their duties to company monitors who will staff the poultry processing lines in plants across the country.

The poultry companies expect to save more than $250 million a year because they, in turn will  be allowed to speed up the processing lines to a dizzying 175 birds per minute with one USDA inspector at the end of the line.  Currently, traditional poultry lines move at a maximum of 90 birds per minute, with up to three USDA inspectors on line.

Whistleblower inspectors opposed to the new USDA rule say the companies cannot be trusted to watch over themselves.  They contend that companies routinely pressure their employees not to stop the line or slow it down, making thorough inspection for contaminants, tumors and evidence of disease nearly impossible.  “At that speed, it’s all a blur,” one current inspector tells ABC News.

And from Mother Jones:

But Food & Water Watch’s investigation of the USDA’s longtime pilot program to test the new procedures casts serious doubt on the food safety claim. Using the Freedom of Information Act, FWW obtained inspection documents from slaughterhouses in the pilot program for the first eight months of 2011. The reports relate to the 20 to 80 randomly selected birds the USDA inspectors looked at during each shift to check up on company-hired inspectors. The results, from FWW’s summary, make pink slime look downright appetizing (full report here):

Company employees miss many defects in poultry carcasses. The inspection category that had the highest error rate was ‘Other Consumer Protection 4′ for dressing defects such as feathers, lungs, oil glands, trachea and bile still on the carcass. The average error rate for this category in the chicken slaughter facilities was 64 percent and 87 percent in turkey slaughter facilities. In one turkey slaughter facility, nearly 100 percent of samples found this category of defect.

It gets worse. In the period from March to August 2011, 90 percent of the defects found by the USDA inspectors involved “visible fecal contamination that was missed by company employees.” One inspector’s report contained this unsettling anecdote:

I observed a section of intestine wrapped around the rotating paddles in the neck chiller. The intestine was approximately 1 1/2 feet in length, contained fecal material. Additionally, numerous other pieces [of] digestive tract materials, such as chicken crops and esophagus were also observed in the neck chiller…This regulatory noncompliance would potentially allow for the cross contamination of necks by digestive contents material such as ingesta and/or feces.

Ugh. FWW reports that the public has until April 26 to comment on the program, which could be rolled out as soon as October. Meanwhile, the USDA has made clear that it wants to institute the new rules.

It’s all about money. The GOP cares about the corporations, their CEOs, and their profits — not the employees, and definitely not the public health.  Oh, and it also looks good to their ignorant teaparty base to be able to say they had a hand in laying off hundreds of federal workers. That’s gotta be the icing on the cake. That these feds protect our food supply doesn’t matter a bit. It’s the U.S. of Corporatism: profit over people.

READ PROPOSED RULE / SUBMIT COMMENTS BY APRIL 26, 2012

Anyway, if you plan to continue eating chicken that’s inspected by the corporation turning a profit on how much it can push out the door in an hour, you might find this information from FSIS useful:

Salmonella Questions and Answers

image: from Think Progress: 17 Years After Oklahoma City Bombing, Right-Wing Extremism Is Significant Domestic Terror Threat … Political correctness is deadly: right-wing extremism is our biggest domestic terror threat As long as the media and average people pretend  that ‘both sides do it’ and decide that it’s okay for self-described ‘patriots’ to rabidly hate President Obama, Democrats, and the federal government — and as long as everyone continues to look the other way when right-wing attitudes manifest themselves publicly, in the form of open racism and / or violent rhetoric, we’ll be under threat as a society and a functioning country. Ask yourself if the fictional right-wing, Fox “News” created, tea party celebrated ‘creeping Sharia law’ is more of a threat to our country than the very real and ongoing use of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy. Recall Sarah Palin’s creative ‘sniper rifle symbols’ on Democratic U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the aftermath. Think of Breitbart-protégé James O’Keefe and his ‘pimp costume’ and ACORN and the fictional Democratic voter fraud issue (as we’ve learned, Mitt Romney, the presumed GOP presidential candidate, actually committed voter fraud). Or look at the most recent example of our politically correct, both sides do it, national discourse: The ‘outrage’ for the right was something said by a CNN commentator about a candidate’s wife and was, in fact, entirely true. The ‘outrage’ for the left, which should be an outrage for the entire country, was a thinly-veiled threat against the life of our sitting president, for purposes of demonstrating the speaker’s Southern Strategy bona fides in front of an NRA crowd. With our history of political assassinations and attempted assassinations, should we ever take such rhetoric lightly? While you think about which outrage received the most national attention and why, you might also ask yourself how your silence on such matters not only contributes to the escalation of ignorance in our national discourse, but encourages some Beck- or Palin-inspired Manchurian candidate to prove his ‘Super Patriotism’ in the form of action. Sort of like this guy, who has been happily expressing his right-wing ideals in court all last week: [Anders Behring Breivik] identified as his enemy the “cultural Marxists” who he said had destroyed Norway by using it as “a dumping ground for the surplus births of the third world”. Claiming Norwegians would be a minority in their own capital “within five years”, he blamed liberal politicians for bringing about Norway’s demise with “feminism, quotas … transforming the church, schools”. The 69 people, many of them teenagers, who died on the island of Utøya when he opened fire on the youth camp of the ruling Labour party were “not innocent”, he claimed. “They were not innocent, non-political children; these were young people who worked to actively uphold multicultural values. Many people had leading positions in the leading Labour party youth wing,” he said, going on to compare the Labour party’s youth wing (AUF) with the Hitler Youth.
Zoom

image: from Think Progress: 17 Years After Oklahoma City Bombing, Right-Wing Extremism Is Significant Domestic Terror Threat

…

Political correctness is deadly: right-wing extremism is our biggest domestic terror threat

As long as the media and average people pretend  that ‘both sides do it’ and decide that it’s okay for self-described ‘patriots’ to rabidly hate President Obama, Democrats, and the federal government — and as long as everyone continues to look the other way when right-wing attitudes manifest themselves publicly, in the form of open racism and / or violent rhetoric, we’ll be under threat as a society and a functioning country.

Ask yourself if the fictional right-wing, Fox “News” created, tea party celebrated ‘creeping Sharia law’ is more of a threat to our country than the very real and ongoing use of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy. Recall Sarah Palin’s creative ‘sniper rifle symbols’ on Democratic U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the aftermath. Think of Breitbart-protégé James O’Keefe and his ‘pimp costume’ and ACORN and the fictional Democratic voter fraud issue (as we’ve learned, Mitt Romney, the presumed GOP presidential candidate, actually committed voter fraud).

Or look at the most recent example of our politically correct, both sides do it, national discourse:

The ‘outrage’ for the right was something said by a CNN commentator about a candidate’s wife and was, in fact, entirely true. The ‘outrage’ for the left, which should be an outrage for the entire country, was a thinly-veiled threat against the life of our sitting president, for purposes of demonstrating the speaker’s Southern Strategy bona fides in front of an NRA crowd. With our history of political assassinations and attempted assassinations, should we ever take such rhetoric lightly?

While you think about which outrage received the most national attention and why, you might also ask yourself how your silence on such matters not only contributes to the escalation of ignorance in our national discourse, but encourages some Beck- or Palin-inspired Manchurian candidate to prove his ‘Super Patriotism’ in the form of action. Sort of like this guy, who has been happily expressing his right-wing ideals in court all last week:

[Anders Behring Breivik] identified as his enemy the “cultural Marxists” who he said had destroyed Norway by using it as “a dumping ground for the surplus births of the third world”. Claiming Norwegians would be a minority in their own capital “within five years”, he blamed liberal politicians for bringing about Norway’s demise with “feminism, quotas … transforming the church, schools”.

The 69 people, many of them teenagers, who died on the island of Utøya when he opened fire on the youth camp of the ruling Labour party were “not innocent”, he claimed.

“They were not innocent, non-political children; these were young people who worked to actively uphold multicultural values. Many people had leading positions in the leading Labour party youth wing,” he said, going on to compare the Labour party’s youth wing (AUF) with the Hitler Youth.

FAIR GAME: birth places, polygamy communes, and presidential candidates

As the Republican Teaparty has taught us since Barack Obama won the presidency, the background of a candidate is completely fair game — particularly if that background doesnot involve the candidate’s ancestors being passengers aboard the Mayflower (and specifically if one’s ancestors are any race other than white). Fact: these are the people Romney panders to.

Therefore in the interest of public awareness and fair play, Dave Weigel asks: So was there a Polygamy Commune, or wasn’t there?

The write-up wraps with this: “Romney’s father, George, was born in Mexico and moved to the United States as a child. He went on to become the governor of Michigan.” Which… doesn’t tell us what’s being discussed. Let’s go back to what Schweitzer told Jacobs.

While discussing swing states, Schweitzer said Romney would have a “tall order to position Hispanics to vote for him,” and I replied that was mildly ironic since Mitt’s father was born in Mexico, giving the clan a nominal claim to being Hispanic. Schweitzer replied that it is “kinda ironic given that his family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico, but then he’d have to talk about his family coming from a polygamy commune in Mexico, given the gender discrepancy.” Women, he said, are “not great fans of polygamy, 86 percent were not great fans of polygamy. I am not alleging by any stretch that Romney is a polygamist and approves of [the] polygamy lifestyle, but his father was born into [a] polygamy commune in Mexico.”

Schweitzer did not say that Romney’s “dad’s dad was a polygamist.” He said that Romney’s dad was born into a “polygamy commune in Mexico.” This is true. In the 1880s, Miles Romney — the great-grandfather of the current GOP candidate — established a commune in Mexico with the express purpose of allowing the church to continue that practice after the United States cracked down on it. Miles took another wife in 1897, while living in the colony. Gaskell Romney, his son, didn’t engage in plural marriage. So both Romney and Schweitzer, talking past each other, are right. 

Related: 

Op-ed of the day — Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem

Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein wrote an op-ed that FINALLY says something constructive called: Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem. Here’s a snip:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

[…] What happened? Of course, there were larger forces at work beyond the realignment of the South. They included the mobilization of social conservatives after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the anti-tax movement launched in 1978 by California’s Proposition 13, the rise of conservative talk radio after a congressional pay raise in 1989, and the emergence of Fox News and right-wing blogs. But the real move to the bedrock right starts with two names: Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.

[…] This attitude filters down far deeper than the party leadership. Rank-and-file GOP voters endorse the strategy that the party’s elites have adopted, eschewing compromise to solve problems and insisting on principle, even if it leads to gridlock. Democratic voters, by contrast, along with self-identified independents, are more likely to favor deal-making over deadlock.

Read all: Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem

Paul Waldman remarks,

Mann and Ornstein end with a plea to the media to start reporting more honestly on what’s going on in Washington in general and in Congress in particular—to dispense with the false equivalence that treats both parties as equally guilty of whatever bad behavior anyone is demonstrating, to stop treating the abuse of filibusters an anonymous holds in the Senate as if that’s just how the system works, and so on.Good advice, without question. And I’m quite sure that many if not most journalists in Washington have understood all the points Mann and Ornstein make for some time. Maybe they’ll start to feel like they have permission to say it, and let their reporting better reflect reality.

I don’t know. I’m afraid it’s overly optimistic to think that most journalists were just waiting for permission to report “reality” as it stands, or that they were caught in some net of false equivalency from which they were unable to extract themselves individually. There is no liberal media, as the rightwing suggests. There is only corporate-owned media with profit as the bottom line: annual profits for shareholders, large bonuses for the CEOs, and reporting that doesn’t potentially enrage the loudest and least-informed (or the wealthiest) members of its audience — or cause any Malkin-type boycotts of its advertisers.

The ‘both sides do it’ meme of journalism is a marketing tool and is probably a requirement, a feature not a bug. It’s the only way to soften one side’s insanity (GOP) against the other side. Without the daily exercise of creating false equivalency in the news between those who are mental and those who aren’t, straight reporting would automatically enrage and alienate about 20-25% of any given audience. Because the fact of the matter is: some people can’t handle the truth.

It seems there’s no way a media corp would give up that much potential profit for something as unmarketable as straight reality.  Look what they did with the build up to the Iraq War.

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