I GUESS ROGER AILES ALSO FELT GLENDA BECK WAS GETTING STALE

Below I noted that Glenda admitted that his TV show had become stale and according to a report in Mediate, Roger Ailes had the same opinion:

“But that story of what’s going on and why America is in trouble today, I think he told that story as well as could be told. Whether you can just keep telling that story or not … we’re not so sure.”

Unless radio is different, and it may be, this criticism should also apply to Beck's radio show.

WISCONSIN NEWS

A rube election official left out the results for an entire town and now that those votes have been added to the totals for Waukesha County,  Justice Prosser has a 7,500 vote lead.  This seems to be a simple-minded mistake:

But at the news conference with Nickolaus, Ramona Kitzinger, the Democrat on the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers, said: "We went over everything and made sure all the numbers jibed up and they did. Those numbers jibed up, and we're satisfied they're correct."

As a Democrat, she said, "I'm not going to stand here and tell you something that's not true."

The good news is that the unqualified 27-year old who was given a $64,728-per-year position has resigned. I guess he has more integrity than Gov. Walker.

INTERESTING LOCAL RADIO AD

For the last few days, I've heard an ad on KNST, one of the 2 major wingnut stations, that advocates for police pensions.  In the ad, there are 2 narrators, male and female, who separately point out that they are they for the rest of us when we call, so could we call Gov. Brewer and ask her to protect police pensions?

Although there is no on-air identification of who or what paid for the ad, I suspect it is a police union.  Perhaps this is a reaction to all the GOP sponsored union-busting occurring in other states.

MORE CONSERVATIVE "CLEANLINESS"

(h/t Atrios)

One of the more preposterous results of the Heritage Foundation analysis of Paul Ryan's budget plan was the prediction that unemployment would drop to 2.8% by 2021.  Sharp-eyed Paul Krugman discovered that this bit of foolishness has been scrubbed from the analysis without an explanation.

UPDATE: David Weigel spoke with a Heritage data analyzer and was told that they "adjusted the full employment unemployment variable" to get to a somewhat more believable 4.27%

IS TALK RADIO DIFFERENT?

Glenda Beck admitted that his TV show had become stale and it seems to me that a lot of right-wing talk radio should be the same.  I can't be absolutely sure but I think starting in 2002 Hannity has claimed that every Federal election has been "the most important in our lifetimes."

GLENDA BECK SHOWS SOME SELF-AWARENESS

On his FAUX news show today, he ended by asking his viewers “It really is getting boring, isn’t it?” and I guess Roger Ailes agrees because it looks like Glenda will be a part-timer at FAUX after his current contract ends.  I guess poorly-informed paranoid delusions can only carry a show so far.

A BAGGER HALF-FAIL

(h/t Joan McCarter at DKOs)

A Bagger poster on a POLITICO thread claimed that the elderly and disabled account for most of the 2 trillion the U.S. spends on people.   Matt Yglesias has the real numbers for Medicaid in 2007:

FUNDIES ARE JUST FRIGGING WEIRD

(h/t Steve Benen)

Brian at Right Wing Watch writes that the American Cancer Society has become a target of the pro-blastocyst Fundies because the ACS supports stem cell research.

LOOKS REALLY CLOSE IN WISCONSIN

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has the current vote total in Wisconsin is:

Supreme Court	REPORTING	99%
	David Prosser (inc)	733,074	50%
	Joanne Kloppenburg	732,489	50%

There are a total of 34 precincts that have yet to report and in all but one, in Taylor County, Kloppenburg has the lead.

AT LEAST THIS BAGGER IS HONEST

From an NPR story about Libya and the Baggers:

Alan Davis of Chillocothe, Ohio, said he was suspicious of the policy, but also ambivalent.

"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know," he said. "The world is much too confusing. This is bad. It gets complicated. ... Do we get involved in foreign things or not? We're already so doggone involved."

REMEMBER HOW THE RADIO GASBAGS, ESPECIALLY HANNITY...

have been hammering Pres. Obama for playing golf?   Well, the 29-year old head of the Tea Party in Iowa also has a connection with golf.  From a profile in the National Journal:

Not even three years ago, the chairman of the Iowa Tea Party [Ryan Rhodes] was a 26-year-old college student studying “turf grass management’’ -- as in golf courses.

ANOTHER REASON PAUL RYAN IS A FREAK SHOW

He and Glenda Beck not only are ideological soul mates, they love each other.  From John Amato at Crooks & Liars:

BECK: Paul Ryan, you sir, you sir, I love you.


RYAN: I love you too.

[snip]

BECK: Okay. Hang on just a second. I ‑‑ did you see my speech at CPAC?

PAUL RYAN: I've read it. I didn't see it. I've read it, a transcript of it.

BECK: And I think we're saying the same thing. I call it ‑‑


PAUL RYAN: We are saying the same thing.

GOV. WALKER BACKS DOWN

The 27-year old son of a major contributor to Walker was summarily dismissed from his $81.5K job but he will still retain his $64,728 job as director of the state Department of Regulation and Licensing.  Not bad for a guy without a college degree and very little management experience.

Walker demotes son of campaign contributor
27-year-old had little experience, no college degree
Daniel Bice
April 5, 2011
JSOnline

Brian Deschane - the 27-year-old son of a prominent lobbyist - was demoted on Tuesday following a public uproar over his appointment to a cushy job earning $81,500 per year working in Gov. Scott Walker's administration.

But check out the two candidates Deschane beat out to get the position as head of environmental and regulatory affairs in the state Department of Commerce:

The first, Oscar Herrera, is a former state cabinet secretary under Republican Gov. Scott McCallum with a doctoral degree and eight years' experience overseeing the cleanup of petroleum-contaminated sites.

The second, Bernice Mattsson, is a professional engineer who served since 2003 in the post to which Deschane was appointed.

By contrast, Deschane has no college degree, little management experience and a couple of drunken-driving convictions. His father represents a trade group that gave more than $121,000 to Walker and his running mate.

Starting Wednesday, the younger Deschane will return to his job as a bureau director at the state Department of Regulation and Licensing, a post he took in mid-January at an annual salary of $64,728. His promotion led to a 26% increase in his pay.

RADIO TIDBITS

Fats Limbaugh is supporting Paul Ryan's atrocious budget plan.  He also had another caller who claimed that there was a conspiracy to destroy the United States and Pres. Obama & George Soros were involved.

Mark Levin claimed that Paul Ryan called him on Sunday to discuss Ryan's budget proposal.  Ryan was also a guest on the show today,

MEN, NOT LAWS == BUDDY POLITICS

I know liberal politicians have been corrupt and will be so in the future but they just are nowhere near as hypocritical as conservatives.  Gov. Walker of Wisconsin has given the 27-year old son of a lobbyist an $81.5K job "overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees, despite his having no college degree and little management experience, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Monday." Gov. Christie of New Jersey nominated his own chiropractor to be on the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners and didn't tell the State Judiciary Committee.  Finally, Sen. Russell Pearce of Arizona has apparently gotten free sporting event tickets in violation of state law.

THIS SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED IN THE EARLY 90s

That's when it became clear that Rush Limbaugh was a major force in conservative politics but as far as I know, no conservatives called Fats on his ignorance, lies and fraud.   In fact, it's been just the opposite for Pigboy.  In 1994, he was made an honorary Republican Congressman and in 2007 he was given the Media Research Center's first William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence.

Conors Friedersdorf  in the Atlantic does a great take down of Limbaugh's babble about the Libya intervention.  Here are some snippets I especially liked:

His commentary has misled his audience, his prejudices have helped to distract the conservative movement from the stance it ought to be taking, and even his defenders will have a difficult time explaining away his latest buffoonery.

But Limbaugh's commentary on Libya is also noteworthy as an example of how talk radio's charlatan streak hurts the United States and the conservative movement at moments when a better version of itself could serve as effective opposition to abuses of power.

Limbaugh is a man confident that his mistakes will drift off into the ether unnoticed.

A decent person would apologize for all this when it proved incorrect. With Limbaugh, it's like it never even happened. He respects neither himself nor his audience enough to correct the record.

As shown above, however, the talk radio host isn't guided in his commentary by any consistent principle, nor does he acknowledge obvious errors in analysis. Instead he blithely misinforms his audience about reality daily.

Despite the evidence marshalled by Friedersdorf, conservative bloggers like The Idiot McCain defend Fats.

THIS IS WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST

(h/t Atrios)

We know that no matter how small, a Bagger rally can get local and national media coverage but the same isn't at all true for those of us who are opposed the the Bagger agenda.  I used LexisNexis to search for transcripts of TV and radio shows mentioning the We Are One rallies held nationwide and all I found was this:

Fox News Network
April 4, 2011 Monday
SHOW: BECK 5:00 PM EST
BECK for April 4, 2011
BYLINE: Glenn Beck
SECTION: NEWS; Domestic
LENGTH: 5466 word
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "We Are One" rallies that are happening across the country today. Workers, students, families and, oh, yes, socialists, radicals, communists getting together to fight for the American dream.

(NEWSBREAK)

BECK: The "We Are One" rallies, they're happening all over the country today. We are one, one nation, and we are one. And they are standing in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin. Now, today's date is significant because it was back on this date in 1968 that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. He was there supporting sanitation workers for their fight to form a union with AFSCME.

There were more results when I checked U.S. newspapers and wires but not as many as I would expect.

1. Unions mark MLK's death with national protests
The Associated Press State & Local Wire, April 5, 2011 Tuesday 3:18 AM GMT, BUSINESS NEWS, 647 words, By ERRIN HAINES, Associated Press
2. 200 people rally in Ky. in support of labor
The Associated Press State & Local Wire, April 5, 2011 Tuesday 1:10 AM GMT, STATE AND REGIONAL, 398 words, By PINKY MEHTA, Associated Press
3. Unions Rally, Remembering Rights Leader
The New York Times, April 5, 2011 Tuesday, Section A; Column 0; National Desk; Pg. 13, 401 words, By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
4. Union makes point in silence
The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), April 5, 2011 Tuesday, B, 522 words, ERIC FERRERI; Staff Writer
5. Union members, students rally at Temple to protest Corbett's planned budget cuts
The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 5, 2011 Tuesday, PHILADELPHIA; P-com News Local; Pg. B02, 467 words, By Robert Moran; Inquirer Staff Writer

MARK LEVIN SHOW THEME MUSIC

It's "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park and if it was deliberately chosen for the message, it indicates that Foamer is really alienated.   Here are some of the lyrics:

I had nothing to say
and i get lost in the nothingness inside of me

i wanna heal i wanna feel like im close to something real.
i wanna find something ive wanted all along
somewhere i belong

what do i have but negativity
cuz i cant trust no one by the way everyone is looking at me

nothing to gain im hollow and alone

Here's the YouTube video:

IF WE'RE GOING TO DO OUT REACH TO THE WORKING CLASS

we better start NOW because the economy seems to be pushing them toward conservatism rather than away from it. From Richard Florida's fine analysis in The Atlantic:

Conservatism, at least at the state level, appears to be growing stronger. Ironically, this trend is most pronounced in America's least well-off, least educated, most blue collar, most economically hard-hit states. Conservatism, more and more, is the ideology of the economically left behind. The current economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism's hold on America's states.

Although I did not anticipate this result, I was more worried about the insufficiency of the stimulus package than the administration's continuing the legal policies of the Bush regimes war on terror because we liberals need to show that we can help the working class.

I GUESS JUAN WILLIAMS WENT OFF-SCRIPT

Fox News Watch went off-script because one guy had the nerve to tell the host that he was wrong and I think the same thing happened on Fox News Sunday.  From Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress:



Here's the partial transcript:

HUME: Juan, Juan. What we need is not higher tax rates. What we need is higher revenue. And how do you get higher revenues? You get higher revenues from an expanding economy. That’s where the big money comes from.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, and G.E. paying no taxes? That’s good for America? Come on, you know that’s not right.

[Pause]

WALLACE: I just want to say, I pay all my taxes!

I KNOW IT'S ONLY TWO STATES BUT...

A GOP legislator in Arizona tried to move the tax burden to the middle and lower classes and the same damn thing is being tried in Georgia.  From Zaid Jilani at Think Progress:

Georgians making over $180,000 would see steep tax cuts while middle class Georgians making between $20,000 and $180,000 would see tax hikes.

The AZ plan is worse than this but Georgia isn't going to win any awards for fairness.

HELP OUT WISCONSIN

Post this video to your social sites.

GAACK! I WANT MY KRAZY STRAIGHT UP!!!

Coast to Coast AM has gone Fundie....

UPDATE: Worse than I thought! Chuck Missler just repeated the wingnut lie that we know "nothing" about Pres. Obama.

SOME GOOD NEWS FOR LABOR

In Wisconsin, the professors at the state schools have taken some action:

UW Stevens Point becomes 5th school in System to unionize

Faculty representatives credit Walker’s budget repair bill for overwhelming majority in vote
By Pam Selman
Sunday, April 3, 2011 12:05 a.m.
Updated Sunday, April 3, 2011 10:02:16 p.m.

Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point voted with an overwhelming majority last week to join the American Federation of Teachers — a move to unionize that faculty said would not have been nearly as strong without Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining bill.

With a vote of 283-15, UW-SP communications professor Karlene Ferrant said the decision would give faculty more of a voice and send a message to the governor.

WAYNE ALLEN ROOT BACKS OFF A BIT

He used to claim that no one from Columbia has come forward and said they remember Pres. Obama when he went to college there.  Now that a few have been reported, he's saying that the number is too little.

SOURCE: Billy Cunningham's radio show tonight.

AN ADDITION TO MY LIST OF CONSERVATIVES WHO ARE AGAINST

our current wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya: Jed Babbin.  He's talking about this on Billy Cunningham's show right now.

UPDATE:  Even Ass Rocket thinks is may be time to leave Afghanistan.

IOKIYAR

(h/t Atrios)

George Will attacked government funding for train service because liberals want to diminish "Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."   Yesterday, Paul Krugman saw Will getting off an Amtrak train in DC.  


This reminds me of how much the wingnuts attack Ivy League schools despite the fact that they attended them and they don't prevent their children from attending them.

EDMUND BURKE AND TODAY'S CONSERVATIVES

I've been reading volume 1 of F.P. Lock's biography of Edmund Burke which covers the years 1730-1784.   I'm about 70% through it and I've already found several striking similarities between Burke and some modern day wingnuts:

- pseudo-paranoia:  Burke believed that there was a "hidden Cabinet" that actually controlled how the King and his "surface" ministers acted.

- belief in the Free Market Fairy: Burke was adamantly opposed to any government measures that tried to help the poorest in England because he thought that would interfere with the glorious Free Market.   In addition, Burke contradicted himself by asserting on the one hand that the government could not affect the market but on the other asserting that the export bounties provided in the Corn Laws did affect the market.

- Men or Laws?: Burke believed that the structural problems of English government, such as insufficient checks and balances, should be solved by having the "right people" in power, not by changing the system.   This is something Hayek criticized conservatives for in 1961.

- ideological purity :Burke was a member of Lord Rockingham's party and they refused to compromise on their "principles" and thus were an ineffective minority for years.

- corporations over people:  The East India Company was terribly corrupt and had done great harm to the people in India but Burke denied that Parliament could or should take any action because the rights granted by the company's charter were absolute.

THE IMPORTANT THING DONALD TRUMP SAID

Trump said he's seen the crookedness of the Wall Street MOTU. From Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress:

TRUMP: Bill, I grew up with Wall Street geniuses. What they do in terms of fraud, and how they change documents.

ONLY IN AMERICA...

The irony here is so thick it's made of pure neutron star material:

Glenn Beck: Donald Trump's making me 'uncomfortable'
By MAGGIE HABERMAN | 4/2/11 1:11 PM EDT Updated: 4/2/11 4:38 PM EDT
POLITICO

BRUCE ASH IS A LYING WHORE

Ash is a local GOP big shot and pays for "issue ads" on KVOI that just spread lies and disinformation.  Today I heard a new ad that falsely claimed that Pres. Obama did not inform Congress before initiating military action against Qaddafi.  In the ad, Ash claims to have gotten that information from an aide to Speaker Boehner.   Apparently the aide was unaware of the meeting of high-ranking politicians from BOTH parties with Pres. Obama BEFORE any military action.

SAVAGE VS. LEVIN or SPY VS. SPY

Michael Savage and Mark Levin have gotten into another one of their on-air fights.  You may recall that Levin got spanked by Thomas Woods, a real constitutional lawyer, over the question of the President's war powers.  Yesterday, Savage had Jack Hunter, the Southern Avenger, on to criticize Levin's neocon position.   As so often happens, Levin wasn't mentioned by name only by this description - the hysterical radio host.

Levin may be correct about this issue and he has a decidedly non-hack supporter in conservative Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith.

LOCAL FUNDIES NOTE

I was listening to a local wingnut radio program, Inside Track, and a older woman called in and started complaining about the "religion" of secular humanism being taught in the schools.  She claimed that this started in the 60s and is primarily responsible for the decline of our public schools.  Emil Franzi, the main host of the show, completely agreed with her and expanded on a few of her points.   Franzi also said that conservatism MUST include social conservatism and not confine itself to fiscal and foreign policy issues.

UM, MAYBE I WAS A BIT HASTY

Cops and firefighters make more than the people Joe Bageant wrote about but many of them are conservative and do vote Republican.   According to POLITICO, the recent union-busting tactics at the state level by GOP politicians is turning them away from the GOP.

Cops, firefighters turn on GOP in labor fight
By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 4/1/11 4:35 AM EDT Updated: 4/1/11 11:33 AM EDT
POLITICO

Calling these folks "union thugs" will hurt the GOP in 2012 and maybe before then.

EXPOSING ANOTHER RIGHTWING LIE

On his radio show, Glenda Beck claimed that the mainstream media would not cover the story of a young Wisconsin woman who emailed death threats to GOP politicians.    This claim, "mainstream media won't cover X", is almost always false and this one is too. From Google News:

Woman charged with threatening Wisconsin lawmakers

CBS News - Lucy Madison - ‎11 hours ago‎

A 26-year-old woman is being charged with allegedly sending email threats to a handful of Wisconsin lawmakers during the state's contentious battle over collective bargaining rights earlier this month. The woman, Katherine Windels, is being charged ...

Woman faces charges for alleged threats to kill Wisconsin lawmakers

CNN - Rich Phillips - ‎19 hours ago‎

(CNN) -- A Wisconsin woman, apparently enraged over the new state law that limits collective bargaining for government workers, is being accused of sending e-mails to 16 Republican state senators threatening to kill them. ...

26 Year-Old Woman Charged With Sending Death Threats To GOP Senators In Wisconsin

TPMDC - ‎7 hours ago‎

A 26 year-old woman from Cross Plains, WI has been charged with two felonies for allegedly sending death-threat emails to Republican state Senators at the height of the dispute over Gov. Scott Walker's (R) collective bargaining law. ...

 

 

"CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING"

Joe Bageant wrote (see below) that we liberals need to reach out to the working class in order to make them aware of the social and political realities in America instead of the conservative BS most of them believe.  As I read about the people he described, I became pessimistic about trying to do that because there is just so much frigging ignorance in the country.   Here's a good example:

Poll: Americans Wrongly Estimate $178 Billion In Fed. Budget Goes To Public Broadcasting
Jon Terbush | April 1, 2011, 2:34PM
TPM

In a CNN poll of American adults released Friday, the median guess on what percentage of the federal budget goes to public broadcasting was 5%. With a $3.55 trillion budget last year, that would put funding for the CBP at approximately $178 billion.


Further, 20% of respondents thought CPB funding made up over 10% of the entire budget, including 5% who said it made up at least half.

You can find all the poll results here.

JOE BAGEANT

He was a progressive writer who concentrated his coverage on the working/lower class.  Unfortunately, I didn't know about him until after he recently died. I then read his 2007 book, Dear Hunting With Jesus, and found this dispatch from a Fundie "reporter" during the Iraq War:

Blessings from the land of Babylon!

. . . It makes me so angry that these quiet warriors receive no appreciation from the media. . . . The media is a pack of lying, deceiving whores who will go to any length to defeat George Bush and the righteousness of this cause to set these helpless people free from antichrist spirit through Saddam and his wicked sons, Uday and Usay. . . . There are two lords, we follow one or the other. There is JESUS or there is the devil. . . . Call those liberal lying rags like the Washington Post, L.A. Times, N.Y. Times, CBS and the CNN [communist news network] and voice your disapproval of their lying. . . . As the song goes "do you know JESUS and does HE know you."

GOD BLESS
Michael

Michael was an embedded "reporter" who wrote for a church newsletter for an Assembly of God church in Arlington, Virgina.  This attitude toward the media is obviously a major part of the propaganda spewed by the GOP Noise Machine and according to Bageant, has really sunk in with many in the working class.

GLENDA VS. MEDIA MATTERS

Media Matters posted that Glenda Beck had dropped below 400 radio stations but Beck claimed that was false. Mediaite thinks Beck won this round but MM followed up with a verification of their original report.

MM might be wrong about this but that's not the important point. Unlike conservative media in general, MM took the time to check its facts.