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So the conventional wisdom is that President Obama won the third debate, correct? I've read all the articles and watched the debate and I also concluded the same thing. Here's a rundown of all the snap polls conducted after the debate. They conclude that Obama won easily. So I was interested to see how Bret Baier's Special Report roundtable discussion handicapped the final debate. I expected some disagreement, but what I heard was downright other-worldly. Did they watch the same thing over 50 million Americans watched?

Here are some excerpts. The entire "all star" roundtable video is posted for you to peruse.

Some choice quotes:

A.B. Stoddard: I thought President Obama at times was defensive and a little bit desperate. He was obnoxious but I think he won the debate in that he did not lose the debate.

Stoddard did say that Romney flip flopped around on many issues, but then said: "But he did not make a mistake and he did not fall on his face. He did not want to get into a fight with Obama."

Charles Krauthammer: Obama I think was attacking all the time, interrupting a lot, and the clip we saw about the Navy stuff was a perfect example of why I think he (Obama) failed last night. It was small, condescending and off the mark.

Stephen Hayes: Mitt Romney was playing to not lost the debate and I don’t think he lost it. President Obama was playing very seriously to win the debate and I don’t think he won the debate. Does the President’s condescending and disrespectful treatment of Mitt Romney hurt him with Independents? I think there’s a real chance that it could. This was so far beyond the line of acceptable Presidential behavior in my view. The mocking you just played there...

The all-star panel agreed that the moment of the night was when Romney attacked Obama for going on an apology tour, and they thought he was devastating -- without even mentioning that he also happened to be lying outrageously. This segment is so insanely out of touch with reality that it reminded me of what happened to Captain Kirk and his mates when they beamed up on an evil doppleganger ship and crew from another reality.

I've been watching the immediate reaction by the Beltway villagers after the final presidential debate and I have to say I'm dumbfounded. Mitt Romney instantly morphed from his Neocon cocoon and instead of wanting to nuke Iran, he turned into a butterfly of world peace. He even brought his tie dye shirt with him. Not a peep of outrage from the media.

If President Obama suddenly changed every position on foreign policy in the final debate the media would be destroying him. FOX News would be calling for a Darryl Issa investigation and then claim liberal bias if Obama wasn't hearing calls of impeachment from the entire media for having the audacity to lie to the American people at, of all things, a presidential debate, the holiest of holy traditions in American politics.

On top of that, Romney has crafted a narrative that has him now winning the election handily. I'm not kidding, but why should it surprise anyone? It's what conservatives do.

(h/t Heather for the video)

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Bill O'Reilly tried to make a "liberal media" punching bag out of Ted Koppel last night on his Fox News show, and found out that sometimes the punching bag can punch back hard.

O'REILLY: You think that we have corrupted the sanctity of fair news coverage.

KOPPEL: I think --

O'REILLY: That's what I think.

KOPPEL: I think that ideological coverage of the news, be it of the right or be it of the left, has created a political reality in this country which is bad for America. I think it's made it difficult if not impossible for decent men and women in Congress, on Capitol Hill to reach across the aisle and find compromise.

And if we can't -- and if we can't do that, Bill, we're going to be in -- and -- and we have been, I think, for the last few years, in a terrible situation in this country where politically we can't make deals anymore.

Now, you know that one hurt, because O'Reilly really can't deny that what Fox does is propaganda (well, he can try, and does, but it's empty blather) -- and that is has effectively altered the fabric of reality for a whole nation of right-wingers. And that the public discourse is worse off for it, because so much of it is now predicated on Fox-generated falsehoods.

After all, it's difficult to have a reasonable discourse when one side insists on believing laughable fabrications and clings to them as the starting point of the conversation.

So instead he resorted to pointing to Fox's popularity as proof of its worthiness:

O'REILLY: So you're blaming me and the Fox News Channel for the deterioration of Congress. If they don't have enough guts to do what's best for the country by compromising, all right, they don't deserve to be there. You can't be on top for as long as the Fox News Channel has been on top and sell a product that's inferior or dishonest. It's impossible in this country.

Comedy gold. As though Fox News weren't living proof that you can lie through your teeth 24/7 and make a killing from it, so long as you market everything you do to resentful and angry white people. P.T. Barnum's theorem and all that.

But that wasn't the end of it. Near the end of the conversation, O'Reilly turned pious on us:

KOPPEL: The millions -- the millions of people are watching those of you with a particular point of view.

O'REILLY: That's the way the country works. That's the free marketplace.

KOPPEL: That's the free marketplace and I'm perfectly content to leave it on that -- on that note. It's a business. And it's operating as a business. And once upon a time, you and I actually thought journalism was a calling.

O'REILLY: But I still think that I'm doing something noble.

Yeah, destroying public discourse in America -- how noble. It's as noble as Mitt Romney.

[H/t Media Matters]

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It was pretty obvious from the start that the whole New Black Panthers Party "voter intimidation" controversy was a Breitbart-like right-wing operation intended to gin up fear among white voters, made for heavy airplay on Fox News -- and later, to become an Obama-bashing tool, especially in the hands of Bush-appointed right-wing operatives still inside the Justice Department.

Now Ryan J. Reilly at TPM Muckraker has a great little scoop demonstrating that this whole scene in fact was being orchestrated by GOP attorneys: It turns out that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which has been devoting a great deal of energy to the matter, finally released the full two-and-a-half-minute video showing the New Black Panthers being chatted up by police outside the polling station in Philadelphia -- and then afterwards, the "poll watchers" -- lawyers hired by the GOP -- orchestrating the scene:

In the extended version of the footage, posted by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights this month, a police officer tells Morse to back off. That's when the commotion begins.

The video shows someone off-screen to Morse's left, telling the officer "I got him, I got him." A man who appears to be Chris Hill, a Republican poll watcher who was accused of intimidating voters at the polls by another woman at the location, says "Put it down. You've got enough."

Then Bartle Bull chimes in. "Don't you threaten him with your hands. You're threatening him. Don't you use your hands!"

Soon an individual seems to grab Morse's arm or his camera -- the screen moves erratically. "I'm a fucking professional videographer," Morse tells the person trying to stop him from filming. "I was paid... to come from L.A. today."

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which has doggedly pursued the Justice Department's handling of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, released the final version of their report this week, complete with responses from all the commissioners on the panel. Two Democratic commissioners who have dissented from the investigation pointed out the additional footage in their reply and note that while the Justice Department handed over a full copy of the video, the Commission didn't see fit to post it online until this month, far after the report had been finished.

The video shows that the white Republican poll watchers who showed up to the majority African-American precinct knew exactly what kind of media sensation they had on their hands.

"We're on the same team," says another Republican poll watcher off screen.

"You're fucking up the story. Don't fuck up the story," one unidentified poll watcher tells Morse.

"You guys are lawyers, I'm a videographer," Morse says.

The USCCR issued its full report, including evidentiary material, earlier this week, and as you can see it's a pretty divided affair, largely along partisan lines -- though in fact conservative Bush appointee Abigail Thernstrom backs up her earlier concerns about the investigation with a brief but scathing dissent:

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It's really good to see a publication that circulates in print and online put the Koch family in the spotlight in this weeks' cover story.

I've spent the past year researching the different tentacles of the Republican party and how the money flows, much of which I've reported here. But it never seems to slide into the mainstream. Until today, when Jane Mayer put it all together for New Yorker readers.

The only thing she missed was this: FreedomWorks is also a Koch enterprise. She started to go there, then backed off, but it's important to realize that both primary sources for teabagger funding come straight from the Koch family.

“Ideas don’t happen on their own,” Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, a Tea Party advocacy group, told me. “Throughout history, ideas need patrons.” The Koch brothers, after helping to create Cato and Mercatus, concluded that think tanks alone were not enough to effect change. They needed a mechanism to deliver those ideas to the street, and to attract the public’s support. In 1984, David Koch and Richard Fink created yet another organization, and Kibbe joined them. The group, Citizens for a Sound Economy, seemed like a grassroots movement, but according to the Center for Public Integrity it was sponsored principally by the Kochs, who provided $7.9 million between 1986 and 1993.

Citizens for a Sound Economy was FreedomWorks' predecessor. All assets were merged together, and FreedomWorks emerged as the new entity. Whether or not Koch continues to fund FreedomWorks, it unquestionably was spawned with their money and intentions.

After you read it, share it with everyone you know, because really, billionaires shouldn't be confused with angry populists and racists like they are now.

New York's governor weighed in on the Cordoba House yesterday, claiming his efforts at arranging an "alternate" site were close to fruition. Paterson might as well find an "alternate" bridge to cross the Alabama River -- why march through Selma when you can go miles out of your way and cross at Prattville? -- or an "alternate" lunch counter to Woolworth's, or an "alternate" drinking fountain, or even an "alternate" seat on the bus. As in the Civil Rights Era, there cannot be a neutral ground.

If I seem harsh, it's because I earned the right to be harsh about this. A few weeks ago I noticed a loss of feeling in three toes of my left foot; this is the latest sign of degeneration from the damage my lumbar spine sustained while serving my country. You'll excuse me if I take freedom very seriously, and not merely my own but that of others. To progressives, there is no difference; to regressives, the rights of one subtract from the rights of another. The relative distance of a mosque or community center or titty bar from 'ground zero' makes no difference to the zero-sum mindset, which is why regressives seem impervious to facts.

The president gets this. Last weekend he reframed the debate around Cordoba House by separating the question of whether Manhattan's Muslim community has the right to build Cordoba House from the question of whether it is right to build it at 51 Park Place. Polls show that most Americans get the first part, agreeing Muslims have a "right" to build at that location -- even though the same polls show a majority doesn't think it is the right thing to do. The difference is more than semantic.

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As many of you may recall, during the 2008 presidential election, Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin made the ridiculous claim that her first amendment rights were being violated because people were criticizing her hateful and negative rhetoric.

It seems that everyone's favorite relationship shrink Dr. Laura Schlessinger has pulled a page from Palin's playbook. The good doctor has decided, after having an epic, racist on-air meltdown, that she will quit her job as a radio show host when her contract expires (at least she's finishing out her term) and is now playing the victim. Dr. Laura claims that she's been stripped of her first amendment rights because people like the fine folks at Media Matters, dared to re-air her nasty little rant, and citizens complained to her sponsors.

I'm here to say that my contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year, and I've made the decision not to do radio anymore. The reason is, I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart, and what I think is helpful and useful, without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates and attack sponsors. I'm sort of done with that. I'm not retiring. I'm not quitting. I feel energized, actually -- stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.

Dr. Schlessinger goes on to say that she's not giving up her career, just her radio show. She still wants to give lectures and have the opportunity to "say what's on her mind and in her heart." Wow, if things like "Don't NAACP ME!" and NI**ER, NI**ER, NI**GER are what's in this woman's heart, she needs some very expensive therapy.

Shall we take bets on how long it takes before she becomes a contributor on Fox News, or gets her own show?

(definition of Pullin' A Palin can be found here)

Before you go after me for giving Glenn Beck any attention again, please watch this:

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I am writing this post so that I can email it to my in-laws who watch Glenn Beck's show every single day and ask them how they can support this kind of heartless and inhuman spew. I am writing this post because it isn't right for him to be able to shout this kind of excrement out with no counter response. It offends me. No, it infuriates me. At this point, it's all too personal and too close to home and I'm really just damn sick and tired of letting conservatives get away with this crap while they roll in their moneybags and lowball bids on foreclosed homes of the people who aren't them.

Glenn Beck needs to be unemployed for at least 99 weeks, without benefits. He needs to lose everything he worked for all his life, his home, his status, his self-esteem, his overblown sense of self-righteousness and most especially, his damn microphone, pointer and chalkboard.

In 90 seconds, Beck goes for the double play: Demonize unions and the unemployed together, because they're not "regular Americans." No, they're so into sucking off the government teat that they won't even bother to look for a job.

C&L's posting standards prevent me from using the language I think appropriate to describe this man with a brain cell count lower than an amoeba and the soul of the devil himself. But as someone who has been employed and has been an employer too, listening to the venom in his tone and the hypocrisy of his hate was enough to make me run for the Tums. I'm also going to have to plaster the hole in the wall where my closed hand went through it while viewing the video for the first time.

This is what right-wing compassion looks like. View it up close and personal. There's nothing but a selfish, ugly, lying, shriveled piece of sh-t where a heart should be.

The transcript follows, but watch the video, because it's as much his tone of voice as it is what he says. Also, he's either lying in the video or he's lying here. But you knew that. It's his native tongue.

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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.

I warned you all -- it's definitely silly season. Summer recess means spaghetti-throwing contests, and the Republicans have theirs all ready to go. We've seen Social Security attacked while they sing a song of praise for keeping the Bush tax cuts. Today's Stupid of the Day is a big whine about how much public employees make, compared to private employees.

First, the facts:

At a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.

Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available.

The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year.

Public employee unions say the compensation gap reflects the increasingly high level of skill and education required for most federal jobs and the government contracting out lower-paid jobs to the private sector in recent years.

Isn't it amazing that the federal government has managed to keep pay rates and benefit levels competitive for their employees without breaking the bank? On the other hand, private industry has laid off a good chunk of their workforce while squeezing every last bit of productivity out of those who remain, held back raises while telling their employees they're lucky to have a job, stopped making 401k matching contributions even after their profits have soared to record highs and they've banked a ton of cash that they're NOT spending to hire or rehire laid-off employees.

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It was pretty amusing watching Karl Rove and Neil Cavuto yesterday talking at length on Cavuto's Fox show about how Democratic senators played a key role in the passage of the Bush tax cuts back in 2001 without bothering to point out the obvious -- and stark -- contrast with their Republican counterparts in 2009.

They were trying to build a case for Democrats to support continuing the Bush tax cuts, but all they really did was remind everyone exactly why Democrats have no reason to play ball with these a-holes any longer: they will never compromise and work together with President Obama and Democrats to pass anything, and never will. Immigration reform is not going to be any different than health care was.

Along the way, Rove made this amusing claim:

Rove: Look, one of the reasons, one of the reasons President Bush never went out and blamed his predecessor -- first of all, it's not his style -- but also, he felt that that would simply poison the political atmosphere. And that's what the American people want. They want the president to muscle, to take responsibility for what's happening on their watch, and not spend all their time castigating their predecessor.

No one makes you want to emit low mordant chuckles quite like Lyin' Karl. Jon Perr has the actual record:

While the NEBR determined the George W. Bush's first recession actually began in March 2001, the history of U.S. GDP shows that the traditional definition of recession - two straight quarters of GDP decline - was never met during either the last year of the Clinton presidency or the first of Bush's tenure:

Undeterred, the Republican Party and its echo chamber have for years continued to perpetuate the myth that President Bush "inherited a recession" from Bill Clinton. As Media Matters detailed, the sound bite was introduced before George W, Bush even took the oath of office. On December 3, 2000, Dick Cheney told Tim Russert "I think so" when asked if "we're on the front edge of a recession." Within days, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich ("the Bush-Cheney administration should be planning on having inherited a recession as the farewell gift from Clinton") and House Majority Leader Dick Armey ("this new president may inherit a recession") followed suit. By August 2002, Mitch Daniels, Bush's head of the Office of Management and Budget, announced on Fox News:

"He [Bush] inherited that recession from the previous administration. Case is closed."

Predictably, the drumbeat from the Bush team was reproduced with zero distortion from the always reliable media. While Fox News' Sean Hannity made the argument during the November 2002 mid-term election "this president -- you know and I know and everybody knows -- inherited a recession," CNN made the case for him two months earlier. On September 18th, 2002, CNN's John King announced, "That's why the president, in almost every speech, tries to remind voters he inherited a recession." Five days later, his colleague Suzanne Malveaux regurgitated the same line, reporting, "[Bush] took up that very issue earlier today, saying -- reminding voters that the administration inherited the recession."

Bush was still blaming Clinton for his own economic malfeasance as late as 2004.

Indeed, as we pointed out previously, Bush loooved to blame Bill Clinton for just about everything:

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