What can you do if established media refuses to print your hate- and nonsense-filled talking points verbatim? Start your own newspaper, of course! You can print it in tabloid size, forgo subscriptions, and publish propaganda screeds verbatim off the ad revenue alone.

The Courier Journal, Volume 126, Number 44 arrived free in the mailbox of nearly 70,000 people in the greater Shoals area a couple of Wednesdays ago. It is often the only reading material the area's poorest citizens have.

Filled with ads, the Courier-Journal has grown its audience by nearly one-sixth in the last eighteen months. Headlining this week's edition is "Marriage Matters":

SHOALS--One of our greatest challenges as a nation is preserving the integrity and unity of the home. Many individuals have good intentions, but they lack the determination and skills necessary to keep a family intact.

So far, so good! What wrong with keeping families together? But by mid-first paragraph, you are already getting the spiel:

Using God-centeredness as the foundation, the Marriage Matters conference provides information for maintaining good marriages.

The front page article is basically an ad for faith-based counseling. It is like the "free pregnancy test" advertised inside, wherein young, terrified women get to watch a video about fetal development and are counseled to make "the right choice" before getting their test results.

Crosspoint Church of Christ, which offers the "Marriage Matters" program, has no connection to northeastern "Church of Christ" denominations. In fact, the southeastern Church of Christ has been connected to anti-alcohol politics, blue laws, and the so-called "Constitution Party" for a very long time.

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distributorcap NY: Onward Christian Financiers

Angry Bear: Wall Street lobbyists' view of financial system reform

The Impolitic: In search of a better media

Calitics: California's Institutional Sclerosis

The Washington Note: International Treaties and the U.S. Senate

Rumproast: Arizona bans human-animal hybrids, undocumented Chupacabras*

The heat is finally getting to the Vatican because they finally posted guidelines on their website to add some clarity on the issue of how they should handle sex abuse case.

An issue that should not need any clarity at all.

The Vatican responded Monday to allegations that it had concealed years of clerical sex abuse by making it clear for the first time that bishops and other high-ranking clerics should report such crimes to police if required by law.

Victims have charged that the Catholic Church created what amounted to a conspiracy to cover up abuse by keeping allegations that priests raped and molested children secret and not reporting them to civil authorities.

The Vatican has insisted that it has long been the Catholic Church's policy for bishops, like all Christians, to obey civil laws. In a new guide for lay readers posted on its Web site, the Vatican explicitly spells out such a policy.

''Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed,'' the Vatican guidelines said.

That phrase was not included in a draft of the guidelines obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The rest of the guidelines follow previously known and public procedures for handling canonical investigations and trials of suspected abuse...read on

The Vatican offered no explanation for the addition.

Doesn't that make everyone feel so much better? Ross Douthat actually tries to make the case that the new Pope is better than the old Pope because the abuses happened under his watch.

The church’s dilatory response to the sex abuse scandals was a testament to these weaknesses. So was John Paul’s friendship with the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. The last pope loved him and defended him. But we know now that Father Maciel was a sexually voracious sociopath. And thanks to a recent exposé by The National Catholic Reporter’s Jason Berry, we know the secret of Maciel’s Vatican success: He was an extraordinary fund-raiser, and those funds often flowed to members of John Paul’s inner circle. Only one churchman comes out of Berry’s story looking good: Joseph Ratzinger.

Berry recounts how Ratzinger lectured to a group of Legionary priests, and was subsequently handed an envelope of money “for his charitable use.” The cardinal “was tough as nails in a very cordial way,” a witness said, and turned the money down.

Sorry, no sale. So Ratzinger didn't take an envelope with cash. The fact that he was handed an envelope stuffed with money shows how the Catholic church was operating like a group from a Mario Puzo novel rather than a religious institution.

And MoDo makes sense in her latest column about being a woman and living as a Catholic. Worlds Without Women

When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women.

I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women’s rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men’s club than a modern nation. They told me, somewhat defensively, that the kingdom was moving at its own pace, glacial as that seemed to outsiders.

How could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?

I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.

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Are you listening, Eric Holder? The intrepid undercover reporters at Sadly, No! have "totally admissible in court"-ready, irrefutable VIDEO EVIDENCE that Breitbart and O'Keefe were engaged in, at the very least, a conspiracy to commit heinous felonies! Does it surprise anyone that O'Keefe appears in these "authentic" (?) videos to have shown up for the job interview at Breitbart's office... nekkid? (If you can't see the video or you're an attorney for either O'Keefe or Breitbart it's Lego characters. Get over it.) h/t Batocchio.

Open thread below....

The Progressive Puppy: Gay news from a catty perspective

Hendrik Hertzberg: Um...pathetic

Progressive Breakfast: Links...

The Pump Handle: Empty chairs at the Chemical Safety Board

The Washington Independent: Does this surprise anybody?

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Activist journalism...Will FOX issue correction?... Not news... Referencing Bulgarian Media...A journalist speaks on life after buy outs...Deborah Howell, RIP...BBC Bombshell...Patheticly incompetent....Gotta recognize...Iranian blogger slaps down Krauthammer...News stories that shaped the news...Inaccuracy rules!...

TBogg: No paranoids please, this is a restricted conspiracy

Just An Earth-Bound Misfit: Grow Up, America

They gave us a republic: The Haves and Have-Nots: You can't there from here

Runway Girl: TSA agent's notebook discovered in public place

HOLY CRAP: Happy Circumcision Day...Avatar Review... Jesus hated war but 'Christians' love it...The Irish Inquisition...Can science explain religion?...The Allstate Jesus Bowl...Islam...Religious items requested...Army of God...Long before the Tiller assassination...Move your money...Links with your coffee...Whoa!...Christian charity...

Why the last decade sucked...out loud

Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010, and political stories of 2009 that were neither political nor stories

2009 P.U.-Litzer Awards

The Year In Right Wing buffoons, racists, misogynists, homophobes, and all-around idiots

Some contrarian 2010 predictions, banned words of 2010, and 5 lessons from the financial crisis we need to learn

Now seems a good time to revisit this 45-year-old essay on "The Paranoid Style In American Politics." It is perhaps more relevant today than it was in 1964.

"The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse."

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(h/t Heather)

Malkin once again proves that there's nothing so low that she won't do it. You may remember that she attacked 12-year-old Graeme Frost over the SCHIP vote and posted personal information about his family. Well, now she's lowering the bar and attacking an 11-year-old girl. (Malkin link here)

At least she's an equal-opportunity smear artist. I know this happened a few days ago, but I had to address it. Bob Cesca covered it with his post: Malkin and Fox News Are Stalking Children Again

It's a brand new conspiracy involving President Obama and an 11-year-old girl. The plot? To ask a question at a town hall meeting.

Scary. Run for your lives and all that.

Rewind to Tuesday afternoon when an 11-year-old girl asked President Obama a question about the "mean things" she observed on various protest signs outside. Malkin and other wingnuts swooped into action, investigating and exposing the girl's parents as -- shock, horror! -- supporters of the president. The girl's parents even donated some money and volunteered on the campaign.

Mind blowing, I know. It's like the Donald Sutherland scene in JFK.

But considering that there were literally millions of volunteers associated with the president's campaign, and considering that tickets for the event were available online where millions of supporters of the president typically hang out, it stands to reason that a few actual, you know, supporters would manage to acquire tickets.

Yet beyond this earth-shattering information uncovered by Malkin that Obama supporters attended an Obama event, there isn't any evidence whatsoever that the 11-year-old girl was coached or scripted by the White House. None. And, it goes without saying that Malkin and Fox News Channel are entirely ignorant of the fact that similar Bush events were revealed to be literally and entirely staged and scripted with attendees having to sign loyalty oaths.

Sean Hannity had Malkin on his Fox News show to try and justify her actions. I mean it's sickening. And yet networks like NBC put her on the TODAY show as if she's a credible person.

Malkin: The lie about the astroturfing is very important and I spent a lot of time today on my own blog talking about these Obamacare human stage props that OFA and HCAN have put forth. And yesterday in Portsmouth we saw it with that little girl who's mom happened to be a very invested and close ally of the Obama administration....

The lie is that she denies any astroturfing has been taking place at the town halls. I won't even post the information because it's been so heavily covered, but the words "truth and "lie" are interchangeable with Michelle so why bother giving her evidence when she clearly knows about it.

Eric Boehlert writes:

Wasn't Malkin's infamous, and creepy, 2007 Baltimore drive-by* bad enough? I guess not, because now Malkin's zeroing in on a young Massachusetts school girl. Why? Because she got to ask president Obama a question at a town hall forum. Bad idea! (She was an "in-the-tank questioner.") The girl may as well have painted a bull's eye on her back because Malkin and her online detective pals are takin' that kid down!!

Stay classy, Michelle.

Next up, Malkin steals a toddler's pacifier because his parents live in San Francisco and had an Obama bumper sticker. "It's just another cry baby socialist!"

Another embarrassment for the war of terror.

A federal judge has declared another mistrial against six men accused of plotting to spark an anti-government war by toppling Chicago's Sears Tower and bombing FBI offices.
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard ordered a mistrial Wednesday when jurors reported they were hopelessly deadlocked after 13 days of deliberation in the case of the so-called "Liberty City Seven." The first trial ended in a mistrial in December because of a hung jury for the same six defendants and the acquittal of a seventh.

The six defendants could have faced up to 70 years in prison if convicted of four conspiracy charges.

Logan posted on the first trial here. Jeralyn's take on the original case too.

This isn't an especially political story, but I was nevertheless amazed by what we learned at a hearing late last week of the House Transportation Committee. We're not allowed to fly with more than a few ounces of shampoo in a carry-on, but you might be amazed at what airlines can get away with.

In startling disclosures to Congress, federal inspectors overseeing Southwest Airlines say they were repeatedly thwarted by senior government officials from reporting critical problems that compromised the safety of passengers.

Federal whistle-blowers, other federal aviation inspectors and the independent investigator for the Department of Transportation testified Thursday that problems at Southwest were far more widespread than has previously been reported.

Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel said investigators in recent months found violations at the airline in addition to the breaches last year that prompted a $10.2 million fine against the carrier. Southwest violated four different crucial safety requirements on eight occasions since December 2006, including five this year, Scovel said.... Southwest knowingly flew 46 jets that had not received required inspections for cracks in the fuselage. When the inspections were finally completed, mechanics found cracks on six of the jets. Similar cracks caused a fatal air disaster on a jet in 1988 in Hawaii.

If this were simply a story of an airline trying to cut corners, and in the process putting passengers at risk, it would be startling enough. But in this case, we're talking about federal inspectors who were pressured by their superiors to allow an airline to put passengers at risk.

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