Fox News Says Bill Maher Is Sexist But Ignores Steven Crowder's Misogyny

When Bill Maher recently made arguably inappropriate jokes (which pale in comparison to Ann Coulter's homicidal "humor") about the sainted Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, there were howls of indignation from the usual orifices at Fox News who accused Maher of being a sexist. Fox Nation described Maher as a "pig." In doing a TV psychoanalysis of Maher, Fox's Dr. Keith Ablow attempted to determine the basis for what Ablow claims is Maher's hatred of women.

Not to be outdone by Fox, Steven Crowder, who describes himself as "FoxNews’ brightest, funniest young Conservative mind," did his own video about the sexist transgressions of Bill Maher. Given that Crowder is a clean, heterosexual Christian, you'd think that he would never stoop to the depths of what he thinks is Maher's depravity. But think again. As the saying goes, those who live in glass houses shouldn't be throwing hissy fits about others - particularly if those hurlers are guilty of the same thing that they are accusing others of.

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Evidence of a News Corp coverup mounts

reuters.com

By this stage of the summer, Rupert Murdoch and his family would normally be relaxing on his yacht, The Rosehearty. But any hopes the magnate might have entertained that August would bring respite from the scandal that has engulfed his empire have been shattered by the release of two letters to the parliamentary committee investigating phone hacking by his papers. The excuse Murdoch gave to Parliament that he knew nothing of the wrongdoing is increasingly hard to credit. The blame for the routine invasion of privacy by his papers is now inching closer to Murdoch himself.

The first letter, from News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman, who became the patsy for the affair, gives the lie to the suggestion to Parliament by Murdoch’s most trusted retainer Les Hinton that phone hacking was the work of a single rogue reporter. In the letter, Goodman lets slip that “the actions … were carried out with the full knowledge and support” of some of the paper’s other journalists and that “other members of staff were carrying out the same illegal procedures.” The names of those others have been redacted for now, at the request of Scotland Yard, for fear of jeopardizing a prosecution.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s judgment is also called into question by the letter. The socially remote Cameron felt he could not connect with humdrum voters and hired Andy Coulson, top editor at the News of the World when the hacking took place, to explain his government’s policies in language the ordinary person could understand. Cameron says he hired the tainted Coulson because Coulson denied knowing of the illegality going on under his nose. But Goodman reports that hacking “was widely discussed in the daily editorial conference, until explicit reference to it was banned by the Editor [Coulson].” The “smoking gun” letter makes Cameron look naïve and gullible for being taken in so easily.............

George W. Bush knockoff Rick Perry joins Michele Bachmann among GOP pretenders

New York Daily News

So here comes the second coming of George W. Bush out of the governor's mansion in Texas, Rick (Dubya) Perry.

Or maybe just call him W2.

Perry is taller, has much better hair, seems to believe he has an even better pipeline to God than Bush did. And he comes out of Paint Creek, Tex., different from the Texas town that gave us Bush, the one we also know as Yale University.

Whether Dubya Perry is holier than Michele Bachmann, the new President of Ames, Iowa, remains to be seen. For now, though, Perry and Bachmann are the headliners of the moment in the Republican Party. Barack Obama must be rooting like crazy for both of them, at the beginning of a campaign where fringe Republicans might do a better job of saving Obama than he can of saving himself.

Perry is the latest guy in the race, announcing Saturday in South Carolina, not throwing his hat into the race as much as his helmet hair. This was the day after Bachmann, who really does think she can out-God Perry and everybody else in the race, wins a straw poll in Iowa with about 4,000 votes, which is a couple of blocks in New York City.

But that was enough for her to immediately be treated like some sort of front-runner on the Sunday morning talk shows. It was like watching the winner of a split-squad game the first week of spring training be declared the favorite to win the World Series.

"[The voters] sent a signal yesterday," Bachmann (below) tells Norah O'Donnell on "Face the Nation."

"A strong message to Washington."

The message was so strong that Bachmann didn't get 30% of the vote and nearly lost to Ron Paul. You want to know how desperate people are to start this campaign, even with the 2012 election 15 months away? Straw polls in Ames, Iowa, in the summer of 2011 are how desperate.

Yet there was Bachmann talking herself up big, answering questions about Dubya Perry, as if he is her main competition just by showing up. Of course they both genuflect in front of the Tea Party and the religious right, all those who cheer as Bachmann talks about "taking back the country" from Obama, and act as if gay marriage is more of a threat than the Taliban.

They don't have any ideas, new or otherwise, about getting us out of the economic fix we're in, which makes them exactly like the President. In their narrow, and narrow-minded, world, there has only been one idea from the start: Make Obama a one-term President.

And at a time when that is a very real possibility, when Obama's record on the economy has him looking as weak as the original Dubya looked on his way out the door, the zealots - religious or otherwise - who make the most noise about showing Obama the door are the ones who might save him. By running the wrong man. Or woman.................

Right-Wing Media Attack Secret Service For Commissioning New Cost-Effective Buses

http://mediamatters.org/research/201108160017

Right-wing media attacked President Obama for traveling on buses that reportedly cost $1.1 million each on his bus tour through the Midwest. But Secret Service officials have said the buses will pay for themselves over time and have also said there has been "demonstrated need for [the buses] for some time"; additionally, the buses will be available to the eventual Republican nominee during the 2012 election, as well as future presidents..............

Rick Perry Thinks ‘Printing More Money’ Is ‘Almost Treason’ Because It Would Help The Economy And Thus Obama

TPM

Texas governor, and freshly minted GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry will have to explain what he meant when he said "we would treat [Fed chairman Ben Bernanke] pretty ugly down in Texas" if he prints money -- or, more charitably, printing more money than usual. Likewise, he'll have to explain why he thinks printing money -- or prints more money than usual -- would be "almost treasonous," at least as compared to, say, secession.

But what's gone completely unnoticed in the wake of candidate Perry's first big flap is his rationale for opposing a looser Fed policy in this depressed economy: specifically that it would work, boost the economy, and thus make it harder for the GOP to defeat President Obama.

"If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous -- in my opinion."

Emphasis added. There are plenty of people on the right, even some very influential members of the Republican party, who've come out against more so-called quantitative easing, because they claim it would "debase the currency" -- i.e. lead to inflation. Inflation is not currently a risk at all, and in fact is lower than it was under Ronald Reagan whose support for tight money policies likely played a part in the current anti-inflation mania gripping the right. But that's not what Perry's saying.

Crucially, Rick Perry appears to be saying that a new round of quantitative easing "between now and the election" would improve the economy. That, he holds, would not be a good thing, but a crime. Because it would tilt the political balance in a way that harms Rick Perry's chances of defeating the incumbent President.

Rick Perry Caught In Farming Lie

Des Moines Register

U.S. Department of Transportation officials are disputing Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s statement at the Iowa State Fair today that federal administrators plan to require a farmer driving a tractor across a public road to obtain a commercial driver’s license.

“We are absolutely not requiring farmers” to obtain commercial licenses, such as those required of semi-trailer operators, said U.S. DOT spokeswoman Candice Tolliver in Washington, D.C.

She said U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood had put out a statement last week making the DOT’s position clear.

“We have no intention of instituting onerous regulations on the hardworking farmers who feed our country and fuel our economy,” LaHood’s statement said.

Perry, who on Saturday announced he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, contended in Des Moines today that federal regulations are stifling creation of American jobs.

He then proceeded to cite what he termed an “obscene, crazy” regulation. “If you are a tractor driver, if you drive your tractor across a public road, you’re going to have to have a commercial driver’s license. Now how idiotic is that?”

Perry said he had talked on Sunday night with U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa at a GOP dinner in Waterloo. Perry told Grassley he had heard in the previous two days that the federal government was going to put such a regulation in place.

“Your own United States senator, sitting there at the table, said, ‘That’s right.’ And I said, ‘What were they thinking, senator?’ And he said, ‘They weren’t.’ So that is the issue at hand here,” Perry said.

Federal officials today said it’s a non-issue......

END OF WORLD: OCTOBER 21, 2011

RALEIGH, N.C. – Now that The Rapture has occurred, we are counting down to the Apocalypse – October 21, 2011.

May 21st, 2011 has come and gone. The Rapture is over. Now the dread can begin because on October 21st, 2011… all of us that have been Left Behind, will die.

As crestfallen followers of a California preacher who foresaw the world’s end strained to find meaning in their lives, Harold...

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Conservatives Begin to Fret About Rick Perry

The Atlantic

A 14-point memo detailing the flaws in Texas Gov. Rick Perry's record is circulating among conservatives in Iowa, Politico's Molly Ball reports. Just a couple days after Perry declared he's 2012 candidacy, he sat down for an interview with a Des Moines radio station, during which the host said he'd been "deluged" with more than 150 copies of the memo. So had the station's callers.

Callers to the program confronted Perry with aggressive, statistic-filled queries about his support of an anti-cancer vaccine, his push for toll roads, conspiracy theories about a Nafta superhighway and a pan-American currency, and his attendance at a meeting of the Bilderberg Group.

The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza points to this development--among several others--as a sign that, in the wake of Michele Bachmann's win in the Ames straw poll and the excitement building around Perry, "smart conservatives have shifted from defending" their more conservative ideology "to warning it could sink" the Republican Party.

Example: Karl Rove is warning that when choosing their candidate, Republican need to keep in mind a familiar word, electibility......................