Shall We Wake Rupert?

Taking Beck’s 9am-noon slot is the local Dom Giordano, currently 6-10pm. Then comes Rush Limbaugh, noon-3pm, and (Michael) Smerconish – who replaces Sean Hannity.

H/T: Mediaite

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Repeat After Me...

Here's a leaked e-mail from Fox News managing editor Bill Sammon that mimics Frank Luntz's talking points...I know; you're shocked:

Funny--I didn't hear of any Fox talking head going rogue...

Matt Drudge Still Can't Quit Bill Clinton...

Rachel Maddow Hands Bill O'Reilly His Sorry Ass (Again)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Move Over, Sarah; There's A New Hero In Crazy Town, USA!

From NBC News' FirstRead:

The liberal Web site Talking Points Memo is reporting that conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart -- who posted the very misleading excerpt of Shirley Sherrod's address to the NAACP -- is set to participate in an August fundraiser with RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has a party fundraising event coming up in August that is scheduled to feature a very special guest: Conservative media activist Andrew Breitbart, according to a copy of the invitation exclusively obtained by TPM.
The fundraising event, billed as an "Election Countdown," will take place from August 12-14 in Beverly Hills, California, and will also feature other politicians such as California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and Nevada Republican gubernatorial nominee Brian Sandoval. Steele and Breitbart are scheduled to co-headline a welcome reception on the first evening, August 12.

That's quite a line-up the GOP Confederacy is trotting out as co-headliners: an angry, race-baiting blogger and the imbecilic, bought-and-sold party chairman his own party despises. What's the warm-up act? An Amos 'n Andy tribute ?

Daily Dope: Matt Drudge

If The Truth Hurts, Fox News Is Pain Free.

Emily Henry is the Managing Editor of the South Los Angeles Report. Jose Lara is a teacher. Fox News is a fake news organization.

Those are the facts.

Here's Ms. Henry on HuffPo:

It began with an article posted on the Fox News website -- With Revolutionaries 'Looking On,' Teachers Take Kids on a Protest Trip to Arizona -- and soon spiraled into a slugging match between the far, far left and the far, far right. Anything involving the SB 1070 law has a tendency to do that, especially when it also happens to involve teachers, students and South Central.
The Fox story implied that Santee Education Complex teacher Jose Lara had led students on a "field trip" to Arizona to protest the SB 1070 law. The set up of the piece was obviously designed to raise questions about indoctrination: should teachers air opinions in front of students, potentially encouraging them to follow suit, or simply keep their mouths shut and teach?
But Lara wasn't shocked by the content of the story. He was disturbed by the journalistic process by which it had come about.
Lara, whose staunch social justice activism is captured through his FLIP camera and distributed via a handful of social networking accounts, was not directly quoted in the article, but both his Facebook and YouTube accounts were used as sources. Being that his first encounter with the story was after its publication, the situation raised questions for Lara about the validity of journalists sourcing social networking accounts rather than actual people.
If they had spoken to him directly, Lara says, they would have realized that they were publishing a factually incorrect account of events.
Lara has composed a response to the Fox news article and the questions it raised for him about "fair and balanced" journalism:

Fox News does it again
By Jose Lara

In a recent article, Fox took another swing at immigrant rights activists, teachers, and our public school system by misreporting and misleading the public.
According to Fox, three teachers took a Los Angeles School District sponsored field trip to Arizona to protest the new law, SB 1070. However, nothing can be further from the truth. Instead of fact checking and conducting authentic journalism, Fox decided to look to YouTube and Facebook for their "fair and balanced" news report, and without establishing actual contact with the subjects of the story, published it anyway.
Here is the truth: Firstly, teachers did not take any students on a field trip. The Los Angeles Unified School District would not have approved of such a trip. Secondly, the high school student quoted in the Fox article went on the Arizona protest trip with her mother, who is also a teacher. All of Fox's sources appear to come from Facebook, YouTube and online discussion groups.
I have a few questions for Fox:
Is a journalist who gets all their information from YouTube and Facebook without fact checking really a journalist at all?
Shouldn't Fox retract this story if they know it to be false?
Who benefits from stories like this?
Perhaps Fox News does not intend to produce authentic journalism, but yellow journalism instead. That is to say that Fox uses eye-catching headlines and over-sensationalized stories with little to no authentic research in order to gain ratings.
And, unfortunately, it is a successful method of attracting eyeballs. It also increases hate and division among people. The Fox News message board is filled with hateful rants - comments such as "Deport them all now", "Bring it on beano", and "America is being invaded!!!!" Fox fuels the fire by attempting to pass off opinion pieces as authentic journalism.

Hockey Mom Builds Fence To Keep The Meanies Out.

In case you missed it, aggrieved half-assed, er, half-term former Alaska Governor and erstwhile media whore Sarah Palin had her redneck husband Todd build a Mexican border-style fence between Casa Palin and the house next door because journalist Joe McGinniss moved in while he works on a book about her. McGinniss, of course, is an actual journalist, while Simple Sarah merely works for a fake news organization.

Palin--who infamously studied journalism at one of the five colleges she hop-scotched between without bothering to comprehend a smidgen of its tenets--seems to advocate the suggestion that McGinniss is some sort of Peeping Tom, as evidenced by glassy-eyed Palin groupie--and fellow Fox News fuckwad--Greta Van Susteren. According to Salon, Van Susteren claims the Palins built the fence "to protect against the 'Wasilla Stalker.'"

There's that fair and balanced, objective journalism Fox is so noted for!

And here are some of the comments from Van Susteren's loyal band of knuckle-dragging voidoids, proof positive that if you build a fence in Alaska, these cretins will come:

TigerLady

Good Job Todd Palin. It's a shame that you have to do this to keep an unethical media idiot from spying on your daughter's bedroom and on your backyard where your kids and grandkid play. Shame on him!

Diane
Who is the person that rented to this peeping tom anyway? Sarah should buy the property herself and tear it down! This guy is a real creep and would hate him to be peeping at my family.

millie
Maybe Ms. Palin should move here to the lower "48" while the SICKO is in Wasilla. Is he perhaps, a pedophile? KEEP THE CHILDREN AWAY!!!!!!!! Order of protection-500 ft. minimum!!

Mary Pearce
Background check Post body guards Bomb sniffing dogs IEDs on the property line Electric fence Scramble communication airway......etc.....

abby1957
This is just creepy and sick. Notice - he'll only be there for the summer months - doesn't have the guts (not my original wording) to stay the winter.

WOW!THE HIGHEST I CAN GO IS 6 FEET HIGH!
After that idiot moves out, I hope she takes the 16 foot fence and donates it to Arizona to help a little with the border problem ! Just a dream I have ignorant neighbors as well! I put up security camera's and it's pointed directly at their houses! They called the police on me It's legal and I just bring the cd down to the police station and There's the proof on video with sound! It helped a little, but Sarah should to do the same-"HOW DOES IT FEEL?" sort of thing! Security camera's tape 24/7!

RoadsterRick
Forget the fence. The Palins' need to confront the issue head on. What ever happened to punching a bully's lights out as the first reaction? The big dog always wins. Be that big dog, Sarah.

HOPE THE REAR-ENDS OF THOSE SNOWMOBILES ARE UP!
It's not good for their track, Iam a woman and even I know that! Why aren't they on a trailer? I am a widow and even I know better!

In a related development, Todd and his buddies were rumored to be logging in Alaska's two national forests to get enough wood to build a fence between Wasilla and the Russian Far East.

Daily Dope: Brian Kilmeade

From Media Matters:

On the May 6 Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade falsely suggested that Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver forced his players to be used "as billboards" to protest the Arizona immigrant law. In fact, Sarver "left it up to the players," and they "unanimously" decided to wear "Los Suns" jerseys during their May 5 game.

Memo to the unemployed: apply at Fox News. They'll hire anybody.

Daily Dope: Kelsey Grammer Is A Load In Real Life, Too.

I came across The Right Network roll-out the other day, but was too busy cleaning up the beer that squirted out of my nose to post anything about it.

An actual Teabag TV network. TimeWarner better not try to raise my cable bill for this shit.

(Thanks to TBLMISBT for the reminder...)

From TheImproper.com:

Actor Kelsey Grammer has become the “face” of a new ultra-conservative cable television network the promises to only focus on “pro-America,” “pro-business, pro-military sensibilities.” In other words, jingoism du jour.
The goal of the network will be to influence “the national conversation.” If it sounds somewhat Orwellian, it is.
The polarizing network is apparently taking its cue from right-wing radio shows. It will have only one point of view, the “right view;” everything else will be “wrong,” according to its promotional material.
“There’s wrong, and there’s right, right network, all that’s right with the world,” Grammer explains on the network’s Web site.

Will Fox News sue for copyright infringement?:

Michelle Malkin Is Scared (Again.)

Oy...

To your bunker, honey...

When Matt Drudge Uses His Red Banner Headline, He's Probably Lying.

The New York Times reports on President Obama's just-announced nuclear weapons policy, and as usual, the hyperbolic Matt Drudge once again fails basic reading comprehension:

From the piece's second paragraph:

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

The frothing right-wing talking point incubator is clearly attempting to paint Obama as a Commie pinko peacenik pacifist who will curtsey and bow before unilaterally disarming. Drudge is nothing if not entirely predictable.

Other excerpts:

Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the Cold War. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons, or launched a crippling cyberattack.

“I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” Mr. Obama said during the interview in the Oval Office.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting America’s most potent deterrent, and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that America would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

The most immediate test of the new strategy is likely to be in dealing with Iran, which has defied the international community by developing a nuclear program that it insists is peaceful but that the United States and its allies say is a precursor to weapons. Asked about the escalating confrontation with Iran, Mr. Obama said he was now convinced that “the current course they’re are on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities,” though he gave no timeline.

The full New York Times report is here.

Sean Hannity: Still In The Running For Top Honors As "America's Douchebag."

You know, Sean, I've called you an ignorant, lying motherf&#@$! on many occasions. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever filmed me saying it and put it up on YouTube. But I can assure you that I said it.
Maybe you'd enlighten yourself by reading accounts of the racist Teabagger taunts, including this excerpt from your own company:

Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga, and Andre Carson, D-Ind., both members of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that a group of protesters hollered at them and called them the N-word.
"They were just shouting. Harassing," Lewis told Fox News. "People being downright mean."
Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, said a protester spit on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver who is black and said police escorted the lawmakers into the Capitol. Cleaver's office said he would decline to press charges, but Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the U.S. Capitol Police said in an e-mail later: "We did not make any arrests today."
Clyburn, who led fellow black students in integrating South Carolina's public facilities a half century ago, called the behavior "absolutely shocking."
"I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus," Clyburn told reporters.

But no videotape of those specific events has yet emerged, you say, so I guess they never happened, right, Sean?

We've seen how easily snowed you are by videotape (see "O'Keefe, James.") We've also seen how fast and loose you play with your own show's distorted, out-of-context editing to twist a piece of tape into your own fetid Fox fiction.

Now you're denying last weekend's racist and homophobic slurs simply because they haven't (yet) shown up on YouTube?

What about Lincoln's assassination, Sean? I haven't seen that videotape yet; have you?

You'd better get Glenn Beck on the case; it's getting cold...

Matt Drudge Has Nothing Left.

Geez, do you think you'll hear that l'il tagline again from the mimics on the right?

Conservative Blogger Advocates Barack Obama's Assassination.

Solomon "Solly" Forrell is his name, and he thinks the President of the United States should be shot and killed.

I think Solly Forrell should be locked up.

From Jezebel.com:

According to his Google profile, Forell is the author of a blog titled Barack Obama Was An American Electorate Mistake, which centers around Forell's disappointment in Obama's presidency. This disappointment spills over into Forell's other blogs, including Anybody But Barack Obama 2012, and The Audacity of Hype, which both touch upon Forrell's disgust with the "cult" of Obama, "a man who has done little with his life, but has written about his achievements as ifhe had found the cure for cancer in between winning a marathon and building a nuclear reactor with his teeth."

Forell may think he's protected by the First Amendment when it comes to his tweets, but the law begs to differ, specifically 18 USC Sec. 871:

Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

You'll note however, that there's nothing specified about electronic threats. Perhaps that's why, as of now, Forell's Twitter account does not appear to be suspended; the tweet threatening the President's life was posted (earlier Sunday) and has not yet been removed (as of 3PM Eastern.)

Alaska's Asshat Is Reading Off Her Hand Again.

'Daily Dope' Rush Limbaugh: "If You Don't Have Any Teeth, So What? What's Applesauce For?"

Pssst...Pass It On.

Conference Call.

Have you ever wondered how the cretinous drones in the right-wing echo chamber manage to sing from the same daily hymnal?

Here's a primer:

From the Washington Post:

In November, the morning after Election Day, a conservative blogger in Georgia blasted an e-mail to 65,000 people.

Erick Erickson's 5 a.m. "Morning Briefing" seemed counterintuitive -- the election of a Democrat to a U.S. House seat in Upstate New York held by

Republicans for more than a century, he wrote, was "a huge win for conservatives."

Yet the missive immediately was posted online by the conservative publication Human Events, a corporate sibling of Erickson's blog, RedState. It next reached the Web site of the American Spectator magazine, whose publisher, Alfred S. Regnery, sits on the board of the conservative publishing house that owns RedState and Human Events.

Ricocheting inside the Beltway, Erickson's analysis fueled discussion later that morning at two influential weekly meetings of D.C. conservatives. Next, it was endorsed by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, considered by many conservatives the ultimate authority. "We kept a horrible Republican from possibly winning," Limbaugh said.

The ability of a single e-mail to shape a message illustrates the power of the conservative network -- loosely affiliated blogs, radio hosts, "tea-party" organizers and D.C. institutions that are binding together to fuel opposition to President Obama and, sometimes, to Republicans.

With the Democratic defeat in the recent special senatorial election in Massachusetts, engineered in part by tea-party activists working with several Beltway-based groups, the conservative movement is more energized than it has been in years.

It is also more unified. Disputes festered between economic and social conservatives during the Bush years, but they have eased amid what all sides decry as Obama's liberal agenda. "Nothing unites like a common enemy," said Colin Hanna, president of the conservative group Let Freedom Ring.

There's an echo in there.

More here.