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Conservative pundit Terry Savage went on MSNBC to try and justify her idiotic column called There is no 'free' in which she accosted a few young girls because they dared to show compassion and give away lemonade instead of selling it for profit on a fourth of July day. Tamrin Hall of MSNBC gives her a soft ball platform to perform on. Even with the hands off treatment, Terry comes off like so many conservative pundits do. She makes about as much sense as Rand Paul. You just scratch your head and say, huh? Did I actually see and hear what I just saw?

Hall: So many people people are talking about this...OK, you drove up on these kids with your brother, you get out and the lemonade is free. What's the big deal that it was free?

Savage: I love the furor this is causing as if there was some incompatibility between being an entrepreneur and being generous. These little girls just never had a lesson on what a lemonade stand is supposed to be...

Savage has no idea who these kids are, what these children have been learning from their families and what motivated them in their being so generous in the first place. I guess it's a crime that they wanted to be engage in the act of caring and giving and not selfishness on a national holiday and for Terry, it was up to her to set them all straight about how things are done. I mean, what a conceited and arrogant conservative fool. What Terry is actually doing is trying to indoctrinate these kids into being conservatives, who bow down to the almighty free market GOD, so they can become as heartless as she is.

I'm glad my post about Terry's column caused such an outrage. Here's what the conservative buffoon wrote in her column:

The three young girls -- under the watchful eye of a nanny, sitting on the grass with them -- explained that they had regular lemonade, raspberry lemonade, and small chocolate candy bars. Then my brother asked how much each item cost.

"Oh, no," they replied in unison, "they're all free!" I sat in the back seat in shock. Free? My brother questioned them again: "But you have to charge something? What should I pay for a lemonade? I'm really thirsty!"

His fiancee smiled and commented, "Isn't that cute. They have the spirit of giving." That really set me off, as my regular readers can imagine. "No!" I exclaimed from the back seat. "That's not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They're giving away their parents' things -- the lemonade, cups, candy. It's not theirs to give."

I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight.

"You must charge something for the lemonade," I explained. "That's the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs -- how much the lemonade costs, and the cups -- and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money." I was confident I had explained it clearly. Until my brother, breaking the tension, ordered a raspberry lemonade. As they handed it to him, he again asked: "So how much is it?"

And the girls once again replied: "It's free!" And the nanny looked on contentedly. No wonder America is getting it all wrong when it comes to government, and taxes, and policy. We all act as if the "lemonade" or benefits we're "giving away" is free.

Her behavior to these young girls was truly outrageous.
(h/t Heather)

We're finally ready to rumble! Our new book is available for purchase now and David and I are very excited about it. Here's a blurb from the presser on the book:

Barack Obama’s election to this nation’s highest office was an historic achievement in American politics. His victory brought the best out in many Americans, but sowed the seeds of venom and hatred in many, many others.

In the first two weeks of Obama’s presidency, more than 200 hate crimes were committed throughout the United States, including assault, arson, and murder. And within a few months, a seemingly new right wing populist faction called the Tea Party Movement invaded the political landscape.

In a groundbreaking new book, Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane (PoliPoint, June 2010), blogosphere pioneers John Amato and David Neiwert carefully document the aftermath of Obama’s victory in chilling fashion.

Amato and Neiwert explain that this “movement” was not the organic uprising it was made to appear, but rather was kick-started by Roger Ailes’ FOX News and follows in a long tradition of movement conservative activism that harkens back to the street theater days of Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist...

Over the Cliff puts the finger on the driving force behind this descent into madness: the extremist Radical Right, where the Tea Party movement’s most unhinged ideas originate, and the conservative pundits and politicians who were willing accomplices to a divisive politics of resentment.

Please buy a copy here too. We can use your support and it's a good read.

The amount of work it took to write this book was incredible and I have a newfound admiration for authors everywhere.

Praise for Over the Cliff

“John Amato and David Neiwert have produced a book that should stay on shelves for 50 years—long enough to remind us that at least some people understood the strange and vile energies consuming the social contract at the beginning of the third millenium. As a record of what is happening to American conservatism in the year 2010, Over the Cliff is unmatched.”

—Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

Those are wonderful words from Rick. We have a few more endorsements we'll share with you later. David and I will set up a live chat during the week, but I wanted to share the news.

You can also buy it from all the major online retailers like Barnes&Noble, IndieBound, Powell's, and Border's and Over the Cliff is now available as an ePUB and mobi-Kindlen on PoliPoint.com.

PoliPoint has all the information listed, so click on over.

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On his show yesterday, Glenn Beck decided to finally confront Anthony Weiner's investigation of his Goldline scam -- in predictable Beck fashion:

Step A: Frame such attacks in a paranoid light -- "They're out to destroy me because I speak the truth to you!"

Step B: Double down on the scam by promoting it directly on the show.

Yet as Rep. Weiner noted:

"It is not surprising that Glenn Beck is attempting to deflect from his behavior in promoting Goldline," Weiner told Yahoo! News in a statement. "But the facts are clear. Goldline rips off consumers and Glenn Beck helps."

In the report (on Weiner's House website as a PDF), Weiner charges that Goldline "grossly overcharges" for coins and makes false claims about gold being a good investment. Goldline touts gold as a more solid investment in this economic climate.

The report says the gold retailer has entered "an unholy alliance with conservative pundits" — among them Beck, Fred Thompson, Dennis Miller, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham — to "promote Goldline by playing off the fear of inflation."

"What we have found, by looking through the public records, is that very often they use their public programs to advocate purchasing gold, and then immediately, advertisements begin for Goldline," Weiner said in a news conference Tuesday.

As Will Bunch notes, Mother Jones just published a months-long investigation of the practices of Goldline and its gold-industry cohorts, and the results aren't pretty:

The price of gold has increased 133 percent since the beginning of 2006, yet many Goldline customers say they have lost money on their purchases after discovering—as Richardson did—that they had badly overpaid for their gold coins. Richardson is one of 44 people across the country who have filed complaints against Goldline with the Los Angeles BBB in the past three years; customers have also griped about their dealings with the company on message boards such as Ripoff Report and PissedOffConsumer.com. Regulators in Missouri have sanctioned the company for pressuring an elderly couple to liquidate their other investments to buy overpriced coins.

The Federal Trade Commission received 17 separate complaints about Goldline's sales tactics between early 2006 and May 2010, according to information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Many of those stories mirror Richardson's.

And of course, our favorite Insane Wingnut plays an important role in all this:

Beck, whose various media enterprises brought in $32 million last year, according to Forbes, has a particular interest in plugging gold. Since 2008, Goldline has been one of his most reliable sponsors, underwriting his comedy tours and investing heavily in his radio show. Last year, after Beck called President Obama a racist, and mainstream advertisers bailed on his cable show, Goldline stuck by him. And its loyalty appears to have paid off. In an email, Goldline's executive vice president Scott Carter says that while its Beck sponsorship doesn't bring in the majority of its customers, it "has improved sales," which exceed $500 million a year.

... The more worked up Beck gets about the economy or encroaching socialism, the more Goldline can employ those fears in pitching their products to his audience. But in putting his seal of approval on Goldline, "the people I've trusted for years and years," Beck has gone beyond simply endorsing an advertiser.

No doubt Mother Jones will be appearing on Beck's chalkboard soon, too.

Heather posted on George Will's mumbo jumbo hackery with Paul Krugman on ABC's THIS WEEK already, and after Brad DeLong watched the horror unfold he asks the question that we've all been asking for way too long.

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?

I think what it comes down to is that there just aren't any conservative pundits out there who can argue in the reality-based world. So we get either George Will's hackery or Peggy Noonan's overwrought gobbledygook-soap star-punditry method. Which is not to be confused with Lee Strasberg's 'Method acting'. And Cokie at times is the worst offender of them all.

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We've been reporting here at C&L for a long time on the way mainstream conservative pundits have been transmitting talking points, ideas, and a panoply of fake "facts" that originated on the extremist right and treating them as legitimate, thereby giving them credibility with the public they do not deserve, and in the process radicalizing increasing segments of the American Right.

Yesterday, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters hosted a panel of leading progressive who are ready to start speaking out about the phenomenon. It included officials from the Southern Poverty Law Center, America's Voice, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Council of La Raza, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who set out "to examine how the mainstreaming of extremism impacts our security, politics, and culture."

The discussion follows on the heels of LCCR's timely report that was released earlier this week pointing out the toxic effects of mainstream right-wing punditry in helping to foment the atmosphere of intolerance, scapegoating, and violence that now surrounds the immigration debate. (Think Progress has more on this too.)

A classic example of this is about to occur: As America's Voice explains in a background briefing, this weekend's "America's Cause" conference will be a prime breeding ground for this kind of rhetoric:

For those who cover immigration issues, none of this hate speech is new. Nor is the fact that so-called legitimate spokespersons deliver hate-filled messages that flow seamlessly from CNN to the white nationalist foot soldier and to Congress in a flood of angry faxes and phone calls.

This weekend's American Cause conference is a vivid example of how the worlds of extremism, media and politics converge.

Look Who's Coming To Virginia:

According to the conference website, joining the Buchanan siblings at the meeting are such right-wing luminaries as: Tony Blankley, Tom Tancredo, Phyllis Schlafly, Terry Jeffrey, Ward Connerly, John Hostettler, Ken Blackwell, Christopher Horner, Richard Scott, Lou Barletta and Peter Brimelow. Leaders in the fight against healthcare reform, environmental protection, and more are joining unvarnished white nationalists to "Build the New Majority."

I've been talking about this subject on the radio quite a bit this past week, since it is the core subject of my book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. I've been pointing out how the underlying dynamic is almost identical in nature to the challenge confronting communities when they have to deal with hate crimes and hate groups in their midst -- writ large, as it were.

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Before yesterday's remarkable success story on the high seas off the coast of Somalia, the right-wing yammerers were calling Obama "President Pantywaist". One of these blogs had the following classic line:

Navy SEALs are certainly no pantywaists, but unfortunately their commander-in-chief is.

Fox News, as you can see in the video above, was littered with similar yammering.

Now the best part: It turns out that "President Pantywaist" overturned George W. Bush's timid dithering on the issue last year in unleashing those Navy SEALs:

President Barack Obama issued a standing order to use force against pirates holding an American captain hostage — including giving a Navy commander the authority to act if he believed the captain’s life was in danger, two senior defense officials said Sunday night.

Navy snipers aboard the USS Bainbridge on Sunday shot and killed three of the pirates after the Bainbridge’s commander gave the order, when a pirate was spotted aboard the lifeboat pointing an AK-47 rifle at Capt. Richard Phillips, one defense official said.

You see, back last November, George W. Bush punted on the matter:

U.S. President George W. Bush has been briefed about increasing attacks by Somali pirates off east Africa, and the United States is consulting with other U.N. Security Council members on ways to combat the threat, the White House said on Wednesday.

Calling it a "a very complicated issue," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino gave no hint of what, if any, action the United States might take following the hijacking earlier this week of a Saudi supertanker with a $100 million oil cargo.

Obama signed the order giving the Navy the go-ahead to take these people out when they had the opportunity in February.

But the mighty armchair generals of the right will never acknowledge this, of course.

David Weigel of the Washington Independent was out at a gun show in Tennessee this last weekend. If you haven't gotten a look, you should.

It's real real familiar for me. Deja vu from 1994, when I was regularly attending militia meetings, all over again: The president-bashing. The gun fetishizing. The paranoia. The unstated old bigotry. And sometimes, all of them would come together at once.

They're ba-a-a-ack. Check out the story out of Stockton, California, where the locals plan to start up an armed citizen militia to patrol the streets, since the local police are facing such severe cutbacks:

STOCKTON - A retired truck driver and Vietnam War veteran said Monday that he is forming an armed militia - mostly men with rifles and armbands, four to a car - to patrol Stockton this summer, when at least 43 police officers are to be laid off.

Alan Pettet, 66, said he has recruited 18 men, most of whom are ex-military. He said the militia will train at a firing range and "activate" if the city lays off any officer, as it intends by July 1.

But this time, there's a difference. This time, they're not just getting whipped into a paranoid frenzy by their fellow paranoids, which was generally the case in the 1990s, with a few exceptions -- namely Rush Limbaugh. In their latest immanation, the old Patriot movement is getting stoked by a whole slew of ostensibly mainstream conservatives broadcasting daily and constantly on mainstream news media.

Here's a sampler of recent-vintage wingnuttery being broadcast on supposedly mainstream venues by people who call themselves mainstream conservatives:

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Eric Boehlert has the consummate discussion of this:

Beck's sure "[d]epression and revolution" are what await America under Obama, and fears moving "towards a totalitarian state." The country today sometimes reminds Beck of "the early days of Adolf Hitler." Beck thinks that Obama, who has "surrounded himself by Marxists his whole life," is now "addicting this country to heroin -- the heroin that is government slavery."

And it's not just Beck. Appearing on Fox News, Dick Morris recently made a wildly irresponsible comment that looks even worse in light of the Pittsburgh law-enforcement slayings: "Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the UN's going to take over' -- well, they're beginning to have a case."

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In our present pundit state, conservatives can literally lie on the pages of the Washington Post and never be called to task for it. Matter of fact---they'll be asked to join the round table discussion on ABC's Sunday talk show. I call that pitiful.

One thing our media never acknowledges is that conservative pundits play under a total separate set of rules than liberal pundits. Specifically, conservative pundits are generally indistinguishable from political operatives. They aren't just writing interesting columns about things they're interested in, they're advancing an agenda, which includes electing Republicans, often with little or no regard for truth. If they can get away with it, and they frequently do, they'll just make stuff up and lie.

Talk about an insane theme for the Powerline crowd to promote. You'd think it would finish off their credibility, but we know the media would never let that happen. They can act as fact-challenged and fear-mongering as right-wing radio talk show pundits with no consequences. For example, remember the Powerline guys and the Schiavo memo ?
Duncan:

They're wrong about almost everything all the time. They make sh-t up, invent fake "scandals," and generally piss on any notion of truth or ethics all of the time. And Howie Kurtz loves them.

Sargent:

A spokesperson for the Secret Service has told me that the New York Times article providing details about the homes of Dick CheneyDonald Rumsfeld is not a security threat, as many conservative commentators have been trying to argue. Relatedly, Rumsfeld's spokesperson also confirmed to me that his office gave a Times photographer permission to photograph his home. {...}a spokesperson for the Secret Service, which guards Cheney-No, it is not a threat...read on"

Glenn Greenwald : Conservative pundits reveal murderous plot by the Travel Section of the NYT!-Updated

Hunter: Malkin, Powerline, RedState, FrontPage, NewsMax Promote False Story: Still No Corrections.

Don't expect any either.

Atrios:

"On Hardball Republican guests outnumber Democratic guests. Conservative pundits way outnumber liberal pundits. Republican guests get solo spots more often."

Media Matters has the report.