On Thursday morning, Jim DeMint went on "Morning Joe" to pimp his new book -- Now or Never: Saving America from Slightly Higher Taxes on Rich People Economic Collapse -- and peddled a bunch of lies. All of which went completely unchallenged by the panel, of course.

It all started with Scarborough serving up a nice, fat softball to DeMint.

SCARBOROUGH: We were just saying earlier in the show one of the big problems over the past ten years has been the fact that you had a Republican president who doubled the national debt, with a Republican Congress for six years. Now you have a Democratic president who is going to double the debt again...what do we do to stop the bleeding?

DEMINT: Well, that's what the book's all about. 2012 could be our last chance to turn this thing around. The only way the Republicans in the House now can stop the bleeding is if they shut the government down.

Great plan!

And notice: there's absolutely no mention of the fact that taxes are currently at historic lows, and were cut under the previous administration before the country launched two wars, created a massive new domestic security agency -- and fell into the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

None of that has contributed to the deficit at all. Nope, it's just "spending" that's the problem. Amazing.

And it just got worse.

DEMINT: Now we've got the tension between those who want centralized power, government control of education, health care, transportation, energy -- and Republicans who I think finding their footing around their core principles of we need to devolve power out of Washington, we need to decentralize, because that's what makes America work. [...]

The Democrats are there to beat us. Every policy that they introduce is to centralize power. They are completely incapable of cutting spending because their constiuency is based on dependency on government and those who want more government.

Nice racist dogwhistle at the end there. But how many lies can DeMint cram into two paragraphs?

First, you think someone on the panel would point out to DeMint that government payrolls have dropped by 500,000 jobs under Obama. Isn't that what Teabaggers want? Smaller government?

Also, someone may have pointed out that energy companies and the health care industry are making record profits. Again, kind of an odd thing to happen under a bunch of socialists who want to nationalize everything.

Hey, Brokaw and Meacham. You call yourselves journalists? How can these two let this BS go unchallenged? Awful.

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If you read Rogers Ailes' dialogue on ABC's This Week, you will see just how entrenched his rhetoric is with what Fox News, the Teabaggers and the GOP puts on the air day in and night out. His own words are an indictment of his politics and the station he falsely calls "fair and balanced."

--

AILES: Well, they tried to ban us. They tried to break the pool, but the other networks stepped up and protected Fox on it, because it was tortuous (ph) interference with a contractual relationship and sort of tramping around on the Constitution...

WALTERS: But now you're OK.

AILES: We're fine. I mean, we were -- it was not as bad as it was played, and things are not as great (ph) as they should be, but we have a good dialogue. And I saw the president and his wife at the media Christmas party. They were very gracious, very nice, both of them. And we have a dialogue every day with them.

--

Lies...

WALTERS: What advice would you give to Barack Obama?

AILES: I think he's in a very tough spot. He is enormously likable and I think despite what everybody says, people would like him to succeed. But he came in with the belief that the radical change he wanted or what some people say is a radical change that he wanted would be widely accepted.

WALTERS: But give him some advice, boom, boom, boom now.

AILES: The first advice I'd give him is listen to everybody and then go in a dark room by yourself, because in the end, it's all going to happen in your brain. If you actually believe all these things that you're for, and Richard Neustadt in "Presidential Power" explains that the only real presidential power is the power to persuade the people, to be open, to go out to them and say this is the reason I believe this, this is the direction I believe the American people should go. If he doesn't do that and I don't think he can sell some of his programs. I think he has to become president of all the people and I think he's got to go to transparency and I think you'd be surprised. People who are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but you can't do this in back rooms surrounded entirely by political consultants.

He is the president of all the people.

HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it's not a question of picking a fight. And aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree...

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I'm a little....

HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.

AILES: I don't -- I think he speaks English. I don't know, but I mean, I don't misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television. So I don't think it's -- I think if we start going around as the word police in this business, it will be...

As we've noted, Roger Ailes lied through his teeth about Glenn Beck.

AILES: If you say -- if (inaudible) words are in the Constitution, if the founding fathers managed -- they didn't need 2,000 pages of lawyers to hide things, then tell, then tell...

KRUGMAN: Oh, come on. Legislation always is long.

AILES: ... then tell people it's an emergency that we get it, but it won't go into effect for three years. So you don't have time to read it, you...

---AILES: But there are 300 million people who have a health care plan that they are happy with. There are about 30 million people who don't have a health care plan. So as an executive, what do you do? You go fix the 30 million. You don't go over here and upset the apple cart for 300 million...

KRUGMAN: Which is exactly what the plan was.

AILES: No, no, no...

KRUGMAN: It was trying (ph) to leave the employer-based health care...

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: ... $500 billion away from old people.

He parrots the GOP's claims about health care. 300 million people don't have heath care and the HCR is not just about helping the 30 million people that don't have health insurance. It's about lowering costs, not kicking people out of a plan, doing away with pre-existing conditions. He's promoting the fearmongering that old people will not be covered and die too.

---AILES: Safety and sovereignty of the United States, and I think people, when they see a guy get all the way over Detroit to (inaudible) his underpants, but he could have, and now we're in a situation where we're going to have to either -- we took every body's shoes off; now we're going to have to take every body's underpants off. But the fact is, that's not going to stop. We've got to get much tougher. We've cut the hands off the CIA. We can't -- it's the Norwegians that are doing this. We know who it is. We can't seem to say it. So sooner or later, we're going to have to toughen up on all this stuff. And the American people know it, they feel it, and they're worried about it.

He uses Peter King's lunatic rantings about the underwear bomber. Another GOP trick.

--

AILES: I thought he did a pretty good job of delivering his speech. He seemed to get a little bit of his energy back. He'd fallen away over the last few months. You know, he did some dumb things, like take on the Supreme Court. But the media saved him and blamed it all on Alito. But you know, that speech, he's got to follow it up with his -- look, there is an easy way to get it done. I went to the White House one night because I had to meet with Ronald Reagan. And there was a lot of laughter down at the end of the hallway. I waited about 10 minutes, and out came Reagan and Tip O'Neill, arm in arm, with a drink in their hand, telling Irish jokes. In the paper the next day, they kind of trashed each other's ideas, but they obviously cut some kind of a deal.

And that's, you know, there are ways. If he wants to invite the four Republicans and four Democrats over to the Super Bowl and say, come on, guys, we've got to get some jobs...

(CROSSTALK)

HUFFINGTON: He tried to do that. He wasted three months...

AILES: No, that's the way it gets done.

Obama has to do it the Republicans' way or else.

And if there's one thing he knows, it's conservative victim-hood:

AILES: He's tried to get Republicans to agree with him, there's no question. And the media will report that -- what they say is a Republican is evolving, as if he's a caveman if he leans towards the president on something.

--

AILES: I have no -- no idea, no idea whether she even wants to. I don't think she -- she knows. I mean, everybody hates her who's ever written a book because they didn't sell many. She wrote a book and it sold two million in two weeks, and so now they hate her, they have a new reason to hate her. I don't know...

Everybody hates Sarah because she sold a lot of books.

WALTERS: But you hired her to be a commentator. Do you think -- so you must think she has some qualifications? She seems to be very popular with certain groups. Do you think she has the qualifications to be president?

AILES: Fox News is fair and balanced. We had Geraldine Ferraro on for 10 years as the only woman the Democrats ever nominated. Now we have the only woman that the Republicans nominated. I'm not in politics, I'm in ratings. We're willing.

HUFFINGTON: Roger, you clearly are in ratings, but if you are in ratings, can you explain to me why Fox went away from the meeting the president was having in -- why did you go away, 20 minutes before the end?

AILES: Because we're the most trusted name in news.

He's trying to be a Kingmaker and he's grooming Palin to run for president. Talking about ratings is a joke. And he has the audacity to boast that FNC is fair because he hired Geraldine Ferraro.

What head of a news organization would go on the air and expose their own political agenda as far as he did? Fox News is an exact reflection of Ailes himself: an odious, compulsive liar.

h/t ThinkProgress

Why anyone disputes Markos' characterization of these lunatics as American Taliban is beyond me. This isn't political speech; it's hate speech.

Since they're so into claiming policies are being "shoved down their throats", all I can say is that I hope they all choke on it.

Local members of the Tea Party sponsored a float, decorated to look like a Radio Flyer wagon, pulled behind a truck. In that truck a number of people sat holding signs that read everything from “Obama Care” and “Healthcare Take Over” to “Wasted Tax Money.”

But the thing that got people upset was a man in shirt and tie wearing a mask of President Barack Obama. In one hand he held a sign that read “Hey Kids! Thanks for paying out debt!” In the other hand he held a horse riding crop which he snapped at a young teen in front of him pretending to pull the wagon by the handle wearing a shirt that read “Future Tax Payer.”

Don't ever forget that Jenny Beth Martin, co-head of the Tea Party Patriots, received a $510,000 tax bailout. Biggest. lying. hypocrite. ever.

Goldie at Horses Ass has more.

"Why I'm a tea partier"

Open thread below...

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All this anger and frustration at the state of the country is supposedly resulting in this huge anti-incumbent fervor, but do the tea baggers REALLY think that the Republican Party wants to fix what's broken in DC? Surely, you jest.

In anticipation of major GOP gains in next week’s elections, House Republican leaders have put together a list of experienced Washington hands to help fill top staff positions for the surge of newly elected outsiders.

Leading the effort are Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The leaders have put together a list of about 75 to 80 potential chiefs of staff, including current and former Capitol Hill staffers and lobbyists who have been recommended or have inquired about working for an incoming Member, according to several Republicans familiar with the document.

“There will be a lot of new, energetic Republicans coming to town — some of whom will have staff, others who will begin to assemble their teams,” Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said in an e-mail. “There’s a lot of important work to get done right out of the gate, so it’s important that newly elected Republicans have access to experienced, competent staff so that they can hit the ground running.”

One former GOP staffer said leadership has been actively, but informally, seeking individuals to fill the chief of staff positions for new Members from tough districts. The goal is to help the freshmen navigate Washington and to guide them through future election cycles.

“Every election cycle, the NRCC offers to assist our new members by providing a résumé file of qualified staffers,” NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain said in an e-mail.

Several Republican lobbyists said it is important for GOP leadership to assist incoming lawmakers with filling senior-level staff positions, especially for those who could face tough re-election races in 2012.

“You want to be sure that the newbies, when they hit town, do not necessarily bring their campaign staff to run their Congressional offices, because in some cases they are totally ill-equipped,” one veteran Republican lobbyist said. “Winning an election is one thing, running a Congressional operation is another. A lot of these folks are really, really new to politics.”

Besides being completely incoherent in their politics--wanting to have government out of Medicare, supporting tax cuts for the very wealthiest, adding billions of dollars to the deficit and yet, clutching pearls over the deficit, supporting the party that actually grew the size of the government while decrying the size of the government--tea bagging supporters of these upstart candidates think they're bringing in new thinking and new way of doing business in Washington DC.

Suckers.

Those entrenched, establishment Repubicans will put their entrenched, establishment lobbyists and staffers in the offices of any tea bagger who quixotically wins a seat. And those staffers, don't kid yourself, will make sure that nothing changes.

I’m you, dear readers. Well, actually, I’m not. But I’m also not a witch, so at least I’ve got that going for me.

The above is of course a reference to Delaware’s favourite Wiccan of Wilmington, Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell, who began her most recent television advertisement by assuring viewers that she, indeed, is “not a witch.” In past political years this might have been considered a bit low-brow, to actually have to assure the voting public you didn’t spend most days at dusk swooping over the heads of the Lollipop Guild.

The bar has been raised among this year’s crop of weirdos and wackadoos seeking higher office in America. If you don’t have the Second Amendment tattooed on your buttocks or actually think you’re The Walrus, don’t even try and claim to be among the craziest third of aspiring politicos on the current American landscape.

For Jay Leno may have once called politics “show business for ugly people.” But the larger truth these days is that a run for political office is a surefire way for those seeking a moment in the spotlight, but lacking any discernible talent or a handle on the truth, to have their hour in the headlines. It’s show business for crazy people.

Continue...

NewsMax and WorldNutDaily really are having an impact among the Teabircher crowd, which has now successfully substituted Muslim conspiracy theories in place of the worn-out Communist ones. WND has gone so far as to demand a sample of DNA from President Obama to prove he came from his own parents.

Man, here I thought that with Nazi re-enacters, witches, and teabaggers insisting they have a higher security clearance than the Commander in Chief, we had reached as low and as ridiculous as we could possibly get. How sad that reality proved to be so much worse than my pessimism:

Someone sent me a link to this article on the website of something called the Western Center for Journalism. I was hardly surprised, after I read the article, to find out that this organization was founded by Joseph Farah. They're going beyond even birtherism and demanding Obama's DNA:

This includes the determination of his actual identity, which requires genetic analysis. I started my investigation and analysis by deeming nearly every assertion as open to question, including the claimed identity of Mr. Obama's parents. A certificate that a child was born to Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama in Honolulu on 4 August 1961 might be true; but, assuming it's true, it does not necessarily follow that Mr. Obama is that child. Whether he is or not requires genetic analysis.

::head desk:: Check the link, because it gets so much better. One of the commenters ponders if Obama's father isn't actually...wait for it...Malcolm X.

God, I wish I was kidding.

Now we have a new one. Fears of Sharia Law in America Grow Among Conservatives

The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in America has brought with it a wave of largely-unsubstantiated suggestions from conservative media commentators and politicians that America is at risk of falling under the sway of Sharia law.

First, a definition: Sharia law is strict Islamic law. It is designed to guide devout Muslims in their personal and professional dealings, and has been used by the Taliban and others to justify limits on women's rights and harsh punishments, including amputation and stoning. (It is open to interpretation, however; here's a helpful backgrounder from the Council on Foreign Relations.)

Last week, Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle invoked Sharia law when asked about "Muslims wanting to take over the United States."

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Memo to Justices Scalia, Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kennedy: Your Citizens United chickens are coming home to roost in 22 major markets, starting tomorrow.

Los Angeles Times:

A conservative advocacy group Monday will kick off a huge ad campaign in 11 states and two dozen of the most competitive congressional races, slamming "wasteful federal spending."

The $4.1-million ad buy from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation does not mention individual candidates in the November election. The script attacks Washington policies, describing the economic stimulus program as a failure and declaring that "wasteful spending must stop."

Well, of course it doesn't mention individual candidates. That would mean they'd have to report independent expenditures to the FEC, but since it's an issues campaign that simply happens to dovetail with the teabaggers' lament, they can hide behind the curtain and never let the public know whose message this really is.

Americans for Prosperity. Such a misleading name. Rich Americans for Prosperity might be more apt. Americans for Prosperity is, of course, the Koch mouthpiece that funded last summer's town hall protests, the Sarah Palin bus tour, partners with every teabag operation out there, and lays astroturf in every town with a sidewalk.

And lest we forget, AFPs Tim Phillips got his start with Century Strategies, Ralph Reed's lobbying firm and close ally of Jack Abramoff. Rachel Maddow peeled that onion last year during health care reform.

So they're going to saturate key markets with claims of pork and waste in the stimulus bill, eh? Here's a suggestion for the DCCC and other groups getting ready to put ads up: Start with this list of Republicans who denounced the stimulus bill with righteous outrage while skulking back with their hands out for a second bite at the apple. Rapid-fire it at the viewer with a few key names. That ought to be an appropriate beginning.

I hope the Billionaire Boys' Club at Americans for Prosperity spends lots of money on their ads and stimulates the economy even more while their agenda goes down in flames.

Tonight was a big night in primary-land with some expected, some unexpected, some disappointing, and some cliffhanging results.

Arkansas: Blanche Lincoln squeaks by Bill Halter

Despite Bill Halter's slight lead in the polls, Blanche Lincoln took the lead in votes from the first returns and never gave it back, squeaking through the runoff by a 9,500 vote margin as of this writing, winning the Democratic nomination to run against Republican John Boozman in November.

It appears that voter turnout was down slightly from the May 18th primary. In that race, a total of 324,216 votes were cast. In this one, with 83% reporting, 213,818 votes had been cast. Extrapolation of that result gives me an estimated voter turnout of 257,600 or so. This might not be such a big deal, but there are lingering questions about the integrity of this runoff, given that one county only had two polling places for this runoff instead of the 40 open for the primary. A lawsuit has been filed; voter disenfranchisement alleged.

California message: Rich corporate washout women win

Yep, that's right. Carly Fiorina will run against Barbara Boxer for the US Senate, and Meg Whitman will face Jerry Brown for Governor. Tom Campbell, Chuck Devore, and Steve Poizner were left in the dust. Sarah Palin can finally put a winner (Fiorina) in her column, and we're off to the races. Whitman spent $81 million ($71 million of her own money) on the primary. And they say Republicans are conservative.

On the ballot initiatives, Californians bear-hugged open primaries but sent fair elections packing. Despite a harrowing first few hours of returns, it appears that enough Californians rejected the idea of P,G&E and Mercury Insurance buying custom-built laws to build up their business at taxpayers' expense, but it is not a shoe-in. It is 1:00 AM as I write this, and Prop 17 just flipped to NO 15 minutes ago. Prop 16 flipped at midnight or so. Prop 13 sailed to victory as did Prop 14.

In other news, Rep. Jane Harman overwhelmed challenger Marcy Winograd 59.3%-40.7%.

Seems that anti-incumbent sentiment didn't quite ooze all the way out to California.

Birther takes a bath

Orly Taitz lost big, but it still amazes me that nearly 300,000 California Republicans think she's worthy to run for or hold public office.

Nevada - Harry Reid has a very strange challenger: Sharron Angle

A lot of money went to Angle from the tea party groups in the last few months of the campaign, and with Sue Lowden doing the funky chicken, Angle pulled out the win, more or less guaranteeing Harry Reid his next term in the Senate. Angle isn't your ordinary conservative. She wants to repeal Social Security, Medicare, health care reform, and all regulations hindering offshore drilling. I think there may be some issues with that these days. There's more, but that link goes to a cached version of her website which may change since the live site is offline but for a donation page.

Senator Ensign's good buddy Gov. Gibbons lost his primary bid by 30 points (ouch!) to Judge Brian Sandoval, who will run against Democrat Rory Reid in November.

More on yesterday's primaries here.

There are more stories to tell, including how this Twitterer was born. Election nights are emotional, and tonight was no exception, even for some unnamed "senior White House officials."

Remember this?

Are the media really that desperate to paint arch-conservative ideologues as something more than they are?

The NY Times decided to do some fluffing when it comes to CNN's new conservative pundit, Erick Erickson. By the way, as you read this piece, you'll realize yet again that conservatives can say absolutely anything and not only not be criticized for it, but be exalted to higher planes of existence.

MACON, Ga. — In his seven weeks as one of CNN’s newest contributors, Erick Erickson has made scarcely more than a dozen appearances on the network. But his every utterance — every Twitter message, blog post and radio rant — has been parsed with the rigor usually reserved for a Supreme Court nominee.

Liberal detractors have obsessively cataloged his right-wing rhetorical excesses, from calling Michelle Obama a “Marxist harpy” to a flip accusation that the former Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter molested children and animals. Even the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, criticized Mr. Erickson for suggesting that he would threaten a census worker, saying the comment “should concern CNN.” The Boston Globe protested what it called “one more screamer on cable.”

Except for the "we hang on his every word" beginning, the NY Times exposes some of his more idiotic and typical rants. Good for them, but then comes the usual false equivalency that always seems to accompany a piece done by the MSM these days on the far right.

What critics have not noted is that Mr. Erickson, the editor of the influential conservative blog RedState, is as hard on many Republicans and conservatives as he is on Democrats. He has accused Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, of playing the race card; suggested that RedState readers send toy balls to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, during budget negotiations; and, of late, begun exhorting Tea Party followers (he considers himself one) to move beyond protests and get involved in the nitty-gritty of precinct-level politics.

“I always think there are more people who hate me on my own side than there are on the left,” Mr. Erickson said on a recent afternoon as he went from Macon City Hall, where he serves as a councilman, to his favorite coffee shop.

See, he's so cool because he even attacks Republicans. What Shaila Dewan doesn't do is answer this vital question: Why does he attack his fellow GOPers? The answer: It's not because they are bad-faith players who fail to represent Americans that voted them in office -- it's because they aren't far right and loyally conservative enough.

Get it? When Michael Steele expressed the opinion that because he's black, conservatives and the media might have a problem with him, well that didn't sit well with EE.

Actually, it could have nothing to do with race and everything to do with outsourcing the RNC to the same consultants who have been bleeding the RNC dry for years.

Anything to do with race and conservatives drives them off the rails.

Dewan then states that EE is all about advocacy now and not calling people goat fu*&king child molesters.

With about 4.5 million page views a month, according to Nielsen, RedState does not attract nearly the traffic of other right-wing blogs like MichelleMalkin.com or Hot Air. But Mr. Erickson said his site fell into a different category, one of advocacy, and he said he measured his influence by the number of Congress members who call his cellphone and the candidates who plead for his attention.

See, he's had a rebirth since CNN hired him so all is forgiven.

The conversation provides a glimpse of the new Erick Erickson, the one who says he has grown up since his Twitter message that Justice Souter was a child molester. After CNN was strongly criticized for its decision to hire him, Mr. Erickson was invited onto the network’s media criticism show, “Reliable Sources,” to take his lumps.

“It was about the dumbest thing I’ve done,” he said of the Souter comment on the show.

I guess he should thank me for his conversion because I was the blogger who highlighted the Souter remark which has made him into a new man. Sorry guys, I'm to blame. Maybe he'll send me a box of See's Chocolates for showing him the light.

Erickson also has a very interesting brand of "advocacy": He used his position as a blogger to lead a campaign to strip away eligibility from as many nonwhite Georgia voters as he could by promoting the 2005 Georgia Voter ID law.

The Georgia measure was prepared with the assistance of Erick Erickson, a self-described right-wing political junkie from Macon who is a part of a network of other conservative political activists and groups working to enact similarly restrictive measures across the nation.

Even Bush lawyers said that it was racist.

A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice, according to department documents...read on

Ah, good old Jim Crow.

Erick Erickson is a classic right-wing bad-faith player, but because CNN needed a right-wing voice they probably helped clean him up and put him on the air. Hey, CNN can hire who they like, but his record on voter suppression exposes him for what he truly is.

Now, if he went back and helped reverse all Voter ID laws and bills that are spreading throughout the country, then I might think he actually has changed into a decent guy. If CNN thinks Dewan's piece has helped clean him up, put him in a new suit and turned him into an honest political player, it is sadly mistaken. He's nothing more than your standard movement-conservative operative. Period.