Trying to respond to the insane eruption of self-revealing wingnuttery over that Department of Homeland Security bulletin outlining the coming wave of right-wing domestic terrorism, Janet Napolitano went on CNN this morning to talk it over with John King on "State of the Union":

NAPOLITANO: Here is the important point. The report is not saying that veterans are extremists. Far from it. What it is saying is returning veterans are targets of right-wing extremist groups that are trying to recruit those to commit violent acts within the country. We want to do all we can to prevent that.

And again, I regret that in the politicization of everything that happens in Washington, D.C., some people took offense, but when you read the report, what it was saying -- what it was saying is, look, we have a threat of terrorism within our own shores, and one of the groups being targeted to see if they will be aligned with that are some of our veterans. Let's make sure we prevent that.

KING: Do you regret the politicization, or do you regret the choice of words by your department? Could it have been written better, to maybe reduce the politicization?

NAPOLITANO: In retrospect, anything could have been written differently to prevent politicization, but I think any fair reading of the report says this is very consistent with other reports that have been issued before, they were issued before Obama was president, they're being issued now. They're meant to give people what is called situational awareness, and they're certainly not intended to give offense, far from it.

This confirms our earlier reportage, as well as our more thorough analysis of the bulletin and the response to it.

Finally, and most on the tip of wingnut tongues, is the claim that the report "singles out" all returning veterans as potential recruits for right-wing extremists. In reality, the report only singles out returning veterans who become active in violent hate groups.

Here's the actual language of the report:

U//FOUO) Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists. DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.

This is, in fact, precisely accurate -- and as we pointed out from the get-go, this is the view not merely of DHS, but of the FBI. A July 2008 assessment of the situation by the FBI (titled White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11) found that the numbers of identifiable neo-Nazis within the ranks was quite small (only a little over 200), but warned:

Military experience—ranging from failure at basic training to success in special operations forces—is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement. FBI reporting indicates extremist leaders have historically favored recruiting active and former military personnel for their knowledge of firearms, explosives, and tactical skills and their access to weapons and intelligence in preparation for an anticipated war against the federal government, Jews, and people of color.

... The prestige which the extremist movement bestows upon members with military experience grants them the potential for influence beyond their numbers. Most extremist groups have some members with military experience, and those with military experience often hold positions of authority within the groups to which they belong.

... It's important to understand how FBI investigations into these kinds of activities take place: The FBI is constrained by DOJ guidelines that do not allow them to investigate organizations merely because of incendiary rhetoric or politically worrisome beliefs. They only open investigations into the activities of members of such groups when there is evidence of actual criminal activity.

And it's at that time that the presence of an extremist with a military background becomes not merely relevant, but potentially important.

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An astonishing thing seems to have happened to the case of Richard Poplawski and the three dead Pittsburgh policemen: It's been turned into a story about dog pee -- and not about the fact that Poplawski was fueled by a toxic mix of white-supremacist/conspiracy-theorist paranoia and mainstream-media fearmongering, including from the likes of Glenn Beck and Fox News.

Maybe the media are collectively embarrassed by the way this case demonstrates how they play an important role in whipping up the far-right crazies out there -- and they should be. Because not only did Richard Poplawski avidly participate in white-supremacist online forums and right-wing conspiracy-theory sites, he also avidly consumed mainstream conservative media, particularly Fox.

The classic instance of this: A few weeks ago, Poplawski posted a clip of Beck talking about FEMA concentration camps on the neo-Nazi Stormfront forum site. (You can see the clip from the show in question above.)

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters noticed yesterday that the New York Times completely ignored the white-supremacy aspect of the story, running an AP story that only briefly alluded to Poplawski's paranoiac fears and instead focused on the dog-pee-on-the-carpet angle. David Waldman at Daily Kos noted a similar trend.

MSNBC, which ran the same story, had this for a headline:

Meanwhile, Mark Pitcavage at the Anti-Defamation League published his findings Monday:

-- Poplawski believed that the federal government, the media, and the banking system are all largely or completely controlled by Jews. He thought African-Americans were "vile" and non-white races inferior to whites.

-- He also believed that a conspiracy led by "evil Zionists" and "greedy traitorous goyim" was "ramping up" a police state in the United States for malign purposes.

-- Web sites like the neo-Nazi Stormfront forums and the anti-government conspiracy Infowars site fueled his racist, anti-Semitic, and conspiratorial mindset.

... Poplawski bought into the SHTF/TEOTWAKI [S--t Hits The Fan/The End Of The World As We Know It] conspiracy theories hook, line and sinker, even posting a link to Stormfront of a YouTube video featuring talk show host Glenn Beck talking about FEMA camps with Congressman Ron Paul. When the city of Pittsburgh got a Homeland Security grant to add surveillance cameras to protect downtown bridges, Poplawski told Stormfronters that it was "ramping up the police state." He said, too, that he gave warnings to grocery store customers he encountered (but only if they were white) to stock up on canned goods and other long-lasting foods.

Well, at least Dennis Roddy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- who was one of the first reporters on this story -- carried most of the details and more in his Monday story:

Accused cop-killer Richard Poplawski spent hours posting racist messages on an extremist right-wing Web site, decrying blacks and Latinos and warning of forthcoming economic collapse fueled by the "Zionist occupation" of America, an expert in political extremism has determined. Earlier, he had praised the "AK" rifle as his ideal weapon.

It was an AK-47 that police say Mr. Poplawski used to gun down three Pittsburgh police officers who arrived at his house Saturday morning in the midst of a domestic dispute.

An account kept on Stormfront, a gathering place for racial extremists and others from the far-right show Mr. Poplawski's increasing belief in a coming economic and political collapse in the days leading up to the time of the deadly standoff in which he is charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers.

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You have to wonder if right-wingers will ever get it: Difference isn't a threat.

They were mewling like wounded hyenas this weekend after some of us pointed out that there was a direct connection between the irresponsible fearmongering in which they've been indulging since Barack Obama was elected and Saturday's tragedy in Pittsburgh.

Michelle Malkin, for example, whined to her cultlike audience that liberals were being mean to them: "You killed these police officers. It’s all your fault." As Oliver notes, the Instawanker has been thrashing about angrily too.

My favorite, though, was Neil Sheppard at Newsbusters:

Let's be clear what these attacks on folks like Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity are all about -- the left-wing in our nation want to silence ALL opposing voices in the media, and they will do it using all tools at their disposal INCLUDING blaming journalists and political commentators for the criminal behavior of others.

This is a familiar refrain that comes up every time anyone raises a socially damning issue like this one: We're trying to oppress them, to silence their voices, by pointing out how morally and ethically bankrupt they are.

Actually, we're just pointing out how bankrupt they are. No one here has said anything about silencing their voices -- we just want them to face up to the consequences of their irresponsible rhetoric. It's called culpability: They obviously are not criminally culpable, nor likely even civilly culpable. But they are morally and ethically culpable.

We do have serious differences of opinion here. We strongly believe that there's a clear, common-sense connection between the paranoiac fearmongering that has passed for right-wing rhetoric since well before Obama's election (and has become acute since) and violence like that in Pittsburgh, or in Knoxville: horrifying tragedies, in which the sources of the criminal's unambiguous motives are that very same hysterical fearmongering -- whether it's about the evil socialists, stinking immigrants, or conspiring gun-grabbers who've taken over the country since Election Day.

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Just about all the Village teevee bobbleheads -- especially the Foxheads -- have been trying to find ways to shuffle the blame for the economic disaster now upon us onto the man Americans hired to fix the problem: Barack Obama.

It seemed like everywhere you turned a couple of weeks ago, we were hearing about the "Obama Bear Market." Mind you, they were positively gleeful about it; after all, they know their own future success hinges on Barack Obama's failure. And it worked for a little while: the mau-mauing over Obama's recovery plan certainly didn't help the market.

But now that we're at over 8,000 again? Crickets. That's all we hear.

So now they're crying "socialism" -- or is it "fascism"? -- and hysterically warning against One World Government. I think we can all see the direction this is heading, and it's not a healthy one.

The public sees it too: A Washington Post poll reveals some unpleasant truths for the right-wing pundits who pat themselves on the backs for keeping the flock of True Believers who plump up their ratings, these masters of the media who wield the power to alter public opinion.

Because it ain't working anymore. The rest of the world is gradually abandoning them:

Media Matters has more:

The Washington Post/ABC News poll, released on March 31, asked respondents who they thought "deserve[d]" the most "blame" for "the country's economic situation." Results for who deserved a "great deal" or "good amount" of blame are as follows:

* 80 percent said banks and other financial institutions

* 80 percent said large business corporations

* 72 percent said consumers

* 70 percent said the Bush administration

* 26 percent said the Obama administration

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When guys like Bill O'Reilly -- guys with massive public megaphones -- unleash their venom on groups they hate (particularly liberal groups) they always want you to forget that they're in fact talking about mostly ordinary people who are every bit the "real American" Bill O'Reilly pretends to be.

So when O'Reilly let loose on the SEIU the other day -- calling them a "radical left" outfit bent on conspiring with George Soros to destroy capitalism -- he wasn't just attacking some big faceless union, he was describing its 12 million members that way too.

Today, some of those members released a video urging Bill O'Reilly to come spend a day in their shoes, and he might gain an appreciation for what it is the union actually does for them.

Not that O'Reilly would ever deign to respond. When you're a big giant "battleship," no one notices when you're chickens--t.

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RNC chairman Michael Steele, being obsequious before La Rush Petit, Glenn Beck, on his Fox show yesterday, let slip an inadvertent truth about Republicans in general:

Beck: Michael, ah, you know, the Democrats should not be pushing for the Fairness Doctrine, because quite honestly, um, I think, at least my radio audience is more pissed at you guys than they are the Democrats. We expect socialism from some of the Democrats, we don't expect it from you. And if I may be so bold to speak for a lot of people here, I can tell you how I feel, and I think a lot of people feel this way.

We actually believed in something in 2000. We believed in something in 2004. It's not really easy to be, you know, the pariah in your office, to be the hatemonger racist that wants to steal, you know, starve everybody's children and just hates anybody who is different. We actually took a lot of crap for a long time, and then you guys betrayed us. Why we would we even think twice of pulling a lever again? Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice -- oh my God!

Steele: No, Glenn, look, I'm not going to soft-pedal this with you, I'm not going to try to blow smoke either. The reality of it is you are absolutely right. You have absolutely no reason -- none -- to trust our word or our actions at this point.

So yeah, it's going to be an uphill climb.

I don't think admitting that they've proven themselves utterly untrustworthy is going to convince anyone that now they are. Especially when they're making the confession to nutcases who think they weren't rigidly ideological enough.

[I'm cross-posting this from Orcinus, where Sara Robinson, my longtime cohort, put this up. See dday for more.]

-- by Sara

Progressives around the country can breathe a little easier today: James Adkisson has been sentenced to life behind bars for the deaths of Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, the Unitarian Universalist martyrs who died during his assault on their church in Knoxville, TN last July.

Many of us intuited at the time that Adkisson's rampage was exactly the kind of rancid fruit that would inevitably take root in an American countryside thickly composted with two decades of hate radio bullshit, freshly turned and watered with growing middle-class frustration over the failing economy. That suspicion that was verified in the days that followed, when police searched Adkisson's apartment and found it filled with books and newsletters penned by Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and other right-wing hate talkers.

But Monday, Adkisson told us himself -- in his own words -- just how central right-wing eliminationism was in driving him to his shooting spree. Shortly after he was sentenced Monday, he released a four-page handwritten "manifesto" -- which he'd intended to be his suicide note -- to the Knoxville News (the full .pdf can be downloaded here). In it, he unleashes the full measure of his hatred for liberals -- and encourages other would-be right-wing warriors to take up arms and follow him into battle.

Some choice excerpts:

"Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

"I thought I'd do something good for this Country Kill Democrats til the cops kill me....Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals.

No doubt this manifesto is being blogged, mailed, twittered, and otherwise littered across the far-right infosphere today, and Adkisson will likely emerge from this as a new hero of the extreme right wing. (He's obviously articulate and literate, which means we may expect more of these bilious rants coming out of his cell in the years ahead.) It also seems likely that, probably sooner rather than later, other victims of our curdled economy will accept his charge, pick up their guns, and attempt to follow him into battle.

Nicely done, Messrs. Hannity, Goldberg, Limbaugh, Savage and O'Reilly -- and all your lesser brethren who keep the hate speech spewing 24/7/365 across every field and into every shop in the country. There is no more debate to be had, no more doubt about it: What you did in the name of "entertainment," and for the sake of the almighty ratings, raised and animated a monster like Jim Adkisson, gave him a list of targets ("the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book"), and was directly responsible for the deaths of two brave and decent people. Adkisson was clearly angry and crazy -- but his "manifesto" draws the clearest, brightest line possible between the media he consumed and his actions that terrible Sunday morning.

Continue reading »

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Bill O'Reilly just can't help hawking right-wing talking points on his segment devoted to same, even if they're largely false, hyperinflated propaganda:

So we can add this guy to a list of 61 former Gitmo detainees who have returned to being terrorists after they've been released, according the Defense Department. That's 11 percent of those let go returning to the terror world.

Actually, there are only 18 confirmed ex-detainees who've been identified as having returned to terrorism:

Indeed, during a January 13 press conference, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell stated: "The new numbers are, we believe, 18 confirmed and 43 suspected of returning to the fight...."

More to the point, doesn't this actually tell us that the Bush detention policies were a failure? O'Reilly assumes that closing Gitmo means letting all these people go; what it actually means is giving our legal authorities the ability to make sure we hang on to people who are real threats and to do so legally instead of relying on extralegal measures like Gitmo.

Not that O'Reilly would have the capacity to figure this out if it were explained to him. His precious talking point is much more important.

O'Reilly then goes on to compare the "war on terror" with the Civil War. And then whines that the press didn't treat Caroline Kennedy the way it treated Sarah Palin. Nevermind, of course, that Palin was running for the Vice Presidency -- the nation's No. 2 national office -- while Kennedy was simply seeking one of 100 Senate seats -- a statewide office for people who live in New York.

I think I need to start consuming large sums of ginkgo biloba or something, because watching Bill O'Reilly is destroying my brain.

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Glenn Beck helps lead the right-wing mewling about Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction at President Obama's inauguration yesterday:

Good thing Barack Obama distanced himself from Jeremiah Wright. Is this how the post-racial Obama administration begins? I mean, I understand that he's an older gentleman, and that's fine, but, really? Someday brown can stick around, the yellow man can remain mellow? And white will embrace what's right? Can you imagine anyone else saying something like that? Even at the inauguration of a black president, it seems white America is being called racist.

Mr. President, I want to believe, I want to trust, I want to hope for change. But I am really failing to see how this is any different. USA Today reports something that I am actually shocked by -- that you smiled when he said this and shook your head. And it's not like you didn't know what you were getting yourself into. This is the same reverend that made Coretta Scott King's funeral all about politics.

Someone call the Waaaahmbulance, stat!

First, it might be helpful for Glenn Beck to know that the Rev. Joseph Lowery isn't merely an "older gentleman": he is in fact one of the sole surviving lions of the Civil Rights movement, a close and longtime ally of Martin Luther King (as well as Rosa Parks), and the founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the major organizations in the battle over desegregation.

In other words, he's man who's been to the mountaintop that Glenn Beck thinks is just a handy piece of scenery upon which to chew.

Indeed, it is the persistent fantasy of the very same white conservatives who trafficked in suggestions that Barack Obama was secretly Muslim -- and that Muslims themselves are innately suspected of terrorism -- that somehow racism has been magically overcome by Obama's election (which they only coincidentally opposed, you know).

Being a true right-wing populist nutcase, Beck never quits while he's behind, and goes on to dig an even deeper hole:

And yet the only we ever heard about was the guy on the right that was going to open things up, that didn't say anything about yella being mella.

America is with you today, Mr. President. And you're right, we are all tired of the partisan bickering, the racial divides, the greed and the corruption. There are many people in this country who didn't vote for you, myself included, that actually want you to succeed. My family has been down on our knees for the last month praying for you and your family and your safety. You may be fascinated to learn that many of us don't hate minorities. That we don't want to starve the poor. And we're perfectly fine with brown sticking around.

Ah, it's good to see Beck acknowledging that maybe it's OK if "brown sticks around." Because we'd have had a hard time figuring that out from his previous Latino-bashing pronouncements on CNN.

A sampling:

"Every undocumented worker is an illegal immigrant, a criminal and a drain on our dwindling resources." -- Glenn Beck, September 4, 2007

"I've got a quick message for illegal aliens if you happen to be watching. You better start packing your bags. And to the politicians in Washington who are soft on illegal immigration, start packing up your office, because when the terrorists strike, which they will, and we find out that they're here illegally from some other country, we will be telling all of you to get the hell out." -- Glenn Beck, May 9, 2007

"America's border crisis. Rape, drugs, kidnapping, even murder. It is beginning to look a lot more like a border war." -- Glenn Beck, November 8, 2007

"It's time we wake up in this country. We are dealing with an illegal alien crime wave, and drug smuggling is just the beginning." -- Glenn Beck, January 12, 2007

And this one is similarly indicative of a tolerance of brown people (or lack thereof):

Somebody comes across the border in the middle of the night, why are they doing that? Really, three reasons: One, they're terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country.

Of course, Glenn Beck isn't the only right-wing phony twisting his pearls over Rev. Lowery's benediction. Seems Michelle Malkin is in need of a fainting couch too. (Give me an L!) Along with a whole host of their fellow wingnuts.

All because, evidently, Obama's election was supposed to mean that we're now officially over racism so we don't need to talk about it anymore.

And the ironic thing is, they accuse liberals of turning Obama into a "magic negro."

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Bill O'Reilly devoted another Talking Points Memo segment last night to his new pet thesis that Barack Obama is going to make the nation vulnerable to terrorist attack by taking torture off the table, and then brought Karl Rove on to back it all up:

You know, when he gets behind that desk, and has the awesome responsibility of protecting our country, anybody who's chief executive of the United States is going to want to have the ability, in a time of a great crisis, to call upon enhanded interrogation techniques.

A little later, he closes with this:

Look, if you've taken techniques that have kept America safe and you discard them, you are putting the country at risk and you're going to have to bear the consequences of that.

OK, let me see if I can keep this all straight.

We're now getting advice on how to prevent a terrorist attack from "the Brain" of an administration that manifestly failed at that because it was asleep at the wheel on 9/11, am I right? And they're telling us the torture regime they installed in the interim is responsible for the lack of subsequent attacks afterward -- rather than making the likelihood of future attacks greater?

Karl Rove was a key player in an administration that, in the first eight months of its tenure, specifically undermined counterterrorism programs in an essentially political dismissal of such work as "a Clinton thing."

There was the Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US," which concluded that terrorists planned to attack us using airplanes. It was ignored.

There was that briefing George Tenet gave Condi Rice on the immensity of the threat, which both she and George W. Bush also ignored -- and then lied about doing so afterward. Indeed, Rice and the Bush administration ent to great measures to cover up their own incompetence.

There was the Hart-Rudman Commission report, which warned the White House in May 2001 that it needed to take serious steps to prevent a terrorist attack. The report was ignored.

So was Richard Clarke's memo of January 2001 warning of the terrorist threat.

And finally, there were the Bush White House's pre-9/11 actions on a pure policy level: "Attorney General John Ashcroft not only moved aggressively to reduce DoJ's anti-terrorist budget but also shift DoJ's mission in spirit to emphasize its role as a domestic police force and anti-drug force." The administration also shifted Department of Defense counter-terrorism funding into missile-defense-system programs.

And yet for all that record, everyone in the press -- most especially Bill O'Reilly -- gave the Bush administration a pass for its massive malfeasance on terrorism, and came to believe that the lack of subsequent attacks meant that suddenly this gang knew what it was doing.

Even though what it was doing entailed violating basic international war-crimes laws and stoking the flames of hatred for the United States. As the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate found, Bush's invasion-under-false-pretenses of Iraq has actually made it far more likely we will have to endure future terrorist attacks.

That report noted that "actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement" included "the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal."

In other words, Karl Rove and his Jet Set Junta made it far more likely that we're going to be hit by terrorists in the coming years, the credit going in part to misbegotten torture policies that have been proven ineffective and counterproductive. And calling an end to those policies will make us more vulnerable? Oh really?

And if such an attack happens, it will be Obama's fault, according to Bill O'Reilly. Because only Republicans get to skate when terrorists strike on their watch.

These people are not just crooks and liars. They're also insane.

Last spring a southern Idaho right-wing talk-show host named Zeb Bell made some minor headlines by featuring a conversation on his daytime show in Twin Falls by referring to the "negroid black Barack Obama" and calling Obama's mother "trailer trash" with a fixation on black men. Bell, you may recall, ultimately refused to apologize, claiming the remarks all came from his guest, a far-right nativist well noted for his racial slurs named Frosty Woolridge.

More recently, Bell has been plunging even farther off the deep end, attacking gays and lesbians as the centerpiece of his defense of California's Prop 8, even going so far as to argue that "God's laws" trump the Constitution.

Most notably, he's being openly defiant about the bigoted nature of his broadcasts, going so far as to assemble his audience under the banner of "Bell's Bigots".

The fine folks at Mountain Goat Report and at The Political Game (with a hat tip to 43rd State Blues) have been tracking this disturbing trend for some months now, and as Bell has picked up his volume and gained traction in Idaho, they've assembled a Zeb Bell page with links to the wingnuttery that Bell is spreading apace.

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BillO announces he needs to spend more time with his loofah:

Bill O'Reilly has formally confirmed he's giving up one of the most successful syndicated radio shows in the country, saying he has just run out of hours in the week.

O'Reilly said the radio show, which he launched in May 2002, will end "in the first quarter of next year." Most of the time he saves, he said, will go into his top-rated Fox News Channel show.

"The media business is getting more and more intense," O'Reilly said Thursday. "We've got to keep the TV show at the level we have it now, and that means more and more time to keep it competitive and fresh. I've been working 60, 65 hours a week and I just can't keep doing that."

Maybe he can ring up Andrea Mackris and talk over old times now.

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Fox's Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade talked with Michael Reagan and John Dukakis. Michael Reagan compared Obama's policies to socialism during the campaign but changed his tune this morning.

On Oct. 30, Reagan wrote for NewsMax.com, "To anyone familiar with socialism, Obama's programs fit comfortably within the pages of Karl Marx's playbook, the root of which is the redistribution of the wealth, the key to the entire Obamian vault."

This morning, Reagan said, "That's why maybe 30% of conservatives voted for barack obama or didn't vote at all because his message literally — at the end of the campaign — was a conservative campaign. It was Ronald Reaganesque."

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[h/t Dave]

Dick "Suck On The Toe" Morris is always good for a low mordant chortle or two, especially when he gets called out for shilling a group he has a financial relationship with.

Because Morris hasn't the good sense enough to stop at that point. So there he was yesterday on Fox's Hannity and Colmes, doing it yet again -- on the very day he was called out:

Morris: The Republican Party is dead at that point, it has no role at all to play, because you will have 60 votes in the Senate for the Democrats.

And I've been pushing very, very hard for a group called GOPTrust.com that is running a million dollars of ads in Georgia to elect Chambliss and defeat the Democrat. Now in the last couple of days, some of the liberals have lashed back at me, claiming that somehow I'm getting paid by this group. But the fact is that all they've done is buy ads on my website -- like they buy ads in the New York Times. I'm no more in cahoots with them than the New York Times is. And this has all been fully disclosed in their disclosure statements.

But I won't be intimidated by those groups. It is crucially important that every American who cares about the free-enterprise system go online as soon as this show is over and Alan makes his announcement and get online to GOPTrust.com and give Chambliss the money he needs to win. Your whole future depends on it.

Well, all you have to do is look at the Media Matters report to see that the money flow goes well beyond buying ads for his website.

Through publicly available records filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Media Matters for America found that GOPTrust.com has paid a firm apparently affiliated with Morris at least $24,000 since the beginning of October, mostly for "Email Communication." The "Mailing Address" for that firm, Triangulation Strategies, is listed in one of the National Republican Trust PAC's FEC filings as "dickmorris.com." In numerous other FEC filings documenting payments to Triangulation Strategies, National Republican Trust PAC listed the mailing address for Triangulation Strategies as a New York address connected to Morris. Additionally, a separate October FEC filing from a campaign unrelated to the National Republican Trust PAC directly connects Morris with Triangulation Strategies. Media Matters has documented more than a dozen Fox News appearances or columns in which Morris has mentioned, promoted, or fundraised for GOPTrust.com without disclosing his apparent financial relationship with that organization.

Morris isn't even a good liar. But he is good for a little comic relief.

Bay Buchanan tried spouting the right-wing meme that "this is still a center-right country" when she was on D.L. Hughley's CNN show this weekend, and he had a simple question:

Hughley: Bay, do you think all the evidence -- even the election? That's the biggest evidence we would have. It's kind of shifted, don't you think?

Buchanan tried to filibuster the point (sure, it was a good campaign, blah blah blah) and then emits this howler:

Buchanan: This was a rejection of Bush, it was not a rejection of that which is conservative. George Bush did not govern as a conservative.

Sure. Because all that deregulation of the financial sector, all that gutting of government services like FEMA, all that warhawking in Iraq, all the tax cuts for the wealthy ... all of the things that Bush oversaw and which got us into this mess -- why, those things aren't conservative at all! And they had zero support from conservatives while Bush was carrying these policies out!

Right.

The rest is equally amusing. Hughley shoots down her arguments expertly, and all Buchanan can do is grasp at straws.

[H/t to Heather for the video.]