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This is not a post about rising gas prices, despite the title of the video. No, this post is about something else entirely. Rising gas prices just happens to be the convenient topic.

I've just finished reading "The Fox Effect" by David Brock and Ari Rabin-Havt. For those of us who have lived every painful minute of the past three years, reading this book is no less painful, nor will it offer many revelations. What it does offer, however, is a strong, well-argued case for the anti-American techniques they use to indoctrinate and hypnotize their audience into believing the lies they spew. Beginning with the history of Fox News and Roger Ailes' vision for "conservative television," the book takes the reader through how Fox News is structured, what their goals are, and how they've changed since Barack Obama was elected President.

For those people smart enough to keep Fox News out of their living room, it is an instructive and safe walk through their process. For those of us who have actually watched it over the past three years, it feels like having a root canal six times over.

Still, the book really should be shared with as many people as possible, if for no other reason than to save them from the consequence of too much Fox viewing; namely, being a misinformed citizen, which harms our democracy. On page 168, the authors describe "The Fox Effect," as it relates to fake controversies like Shirley Sherrod and ACORN. But it's far more than that. They also use the same techniques and distorted facts to create fear and discontent for fun and profit. The gas price rise is a shining example.

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Liz Cheney went on Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer and a few other Republican strategists to discuss Rick Perry and Herman Cain's recent troubles, but as usual, she played the part of Lady Vader, a role her mother is quite good at as Wolf Blitzer can attest to. I almost forgot his interview with Mommy Vadar on CNN back in 2006 which surprised him so much because they are such buds that it made him tape a separate segment so he could tell America that he too, is a patriot.

Sunday, Liz made her mom proud by playing the same conservative victim card and insinuated that the media is wasting our time showing us clips of Rick Perry giving a bizarre speech where some people have said he appeared drunk. And then she went there. What do I mean? She proudly stated that George Bush left this country in great financial shape after he left the White House:

BOB SCHIEFFER: What do you think, Liz?

LIZ CHENEY: You know, I think-- again, I find this all pretty frustrating. This country faces huge, huge challenges. And you know, frankly, watching a morning show like this one where first we're talking about Herman Cain allegations and then we're shown a YouTube mash-up of--

BOB SCHIEFFER: We were covering the campaign, Liz.

LIZ CHENEY (Overlapping): Well, but the issues are what matter, Bob. And with all due respect, you know, the American people are out there afraid. They're afraid that the economy is going off a cliff. They're afraid that this President wants higher taxes and more spending and bigger government. And in the midst of all of that, I think that-- that's what we ought to be talking about. You know, last night in Texas, you had Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich have a very substantive exchange about the issues and a very cordial exchange but one that focused on how important it is to deal with the entitlement crisis, how important it is to create an environment where the private sector's actually going to be willing to invest again. How important it is to look at what's happening in Iraq, you know. Barack Obama likes to talk about what he inherited. He inherited a victory in Iraq. He inherited a AAA bond rating. And right now, you've got a situation where, frankly, he is going down the wrong path on all of these issues. And I just got to imagine that people who are watching this morning and, you know, voters all across this country want to know who is going to help put this country back on the right track. Not, you know, who was able to put together a mash-up of, you know, clips out of a speech that Rick Perry gave on YouTube.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, I mean, I take your point. But I would also make the point that we in the media, it is not our job to make the campaign. That is up to the candidates. The candidates determine what the campaign is going to be out.

LIZ CHENEY: But you guys choose what you're going to cover, Bob.

BOB SCHIEFFER: And we show up and cover what's there

Did you see what she did there? She was asked specifically to come on to FTN to discuss the exact issues that she's trying to brush under the carpet and bash the media for doing their job on. See, if the media was running with an obviously horribly edited video that smears the candidate or a person and doesn't bother to verify it's validity then Lady Vadar would have a point, but that's not what happened in this examples. I mean they've done it before for sure. Not only that, but she tries to insinuate that Obama walked into a picnic in Iraq (she forgot to mention Afghanistan) while George Bush won the Iraq war as if it took a couple of weeks, no casualties and something we spent a buck three eighty on. The two wars the Bush administration bought us makes Newt's Tiffany's obsession all but a ripple in the pacific ocean.

Then to top it off, after her father's administration destroyed the world's financial markets which have caused this great recession, she says Bush left Obama with a AAA credit rating to boot! As if that wipes away his massive economic failures.

Now if President Obama gave a speech and it appeared that he was falling down drunk in it, Liz Cheney would be spending millions of dollars with her group Keep America Safe making ads replaying the tape in every state she found air time available. And do I really need to comment on the legitimacy of the Cain's sexual harassment stories?

If you haven't noticed, conservative pundits are framing the UK riots into the narrative that liberals will be in the streets and burning down the nearest rich person's house and maybe even your car. Bill O'Reilly did it all last night, but RushBo usually gets the party started.

Limbaugh Likens UK Rioters To "A Government Union Worker"

The austerity measures being implemented around the world after the elitist financial movers and shakers crashed their countries economies which is at the heart of this desperation. And you definitely won't hear how these UK riots broke out in the first place. UK Police shot Mark Duggan:

PCC releases initial findings of ballistics tests in police shooting of Mark Duggan, whose death sparked London riots. Mark Duggan did not shoot at the police, says IPCC.
Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked London's riots, did not fire a shot at police officers before they killed him, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said on Tuesday.

Bill O'Reilly forgot to mention that part of the story. Hannity jumped in as well.

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I wish President Obama stuck up for progressive values as much as he's stuck to his guns against the propaganda arm of the GOP, FOX News:

President Obama is pulling no punches when it comes to Fox News, declaring the cable news outlet to be "destructive to [America's] long-term growth."

In a more than 8,000-word interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Obama compared the cable news channel to papers owned by William Randolph Hearst at the turn of the 20th century that unabashedly pushed the media titan's own political views.

"You had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition – it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view," Obama told the magazine.

Officials in the Obama White House have long made Fox News a punching bag, launching a full blown offensive last year when aides declared the network to be "opinion journalism masquerading as news." Then-White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said the cable outlet "operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party," and top aide Valerie Jarret called Fox "clearly biased."

But the new comments from Obama constitute the president's most direct attack yet on the network owned by business mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Fox News pushes "a point of view that I disagree with. It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world," Obama said.

"But as an economic enterprise, it's been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number one concern is, it's that Fox is very successful."

In our book, Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane,we have a chapter dedicated to Fox News that describes in detail how they helped create an opposing party called The Tea Party, which is really the John Birchers of 2009, to undermine and ultimately destroy a newly elected Democratic president. Here's a link to the end notes of that chapter.

Roger Ailes didn't hide the fact that he's mainly concerned with ratings. Please read my post called: Ailes exposes Fox News' GOP philosophical connections it has plenty of transcripts available.

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While ratings are important for any TV channel, it shouldn't be the driving force behind a supposed news network, because then the news gets lost to sensationalism. We all know that, and so does Ailes and his boss. It's his cover story. Murdoch would be willing to lose millions of dollars on Fox because it's there to perform one function and one function only: Foist a conservative agenda onto the America public. And they are being successful at that.