Fox News features a fake Navy Seal in a story supporting Donald Trump.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Fox News ran a story on Oct. 8 about a decorated Vietnam War Navy SEAL and glass artist who created an enormous presidential glass seal he hoped to give to President Trump. On Thursday, 11 days later, the network retracted the story after being told the Trump supporter never served in the SEALs or in Vietnam, much less earned commendations for his service. 

In the segment, John Garafalo said he served in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Navy SEAL team. Fox News reported that he also received two Purple Hearts and about two dozen other medals for his service. 

The man’s claimed record turned out to be a fabrication. It was first discovered by former Navy SEALs. Both these SEALs and family members of Garofalo contacted Fox News about the story, according to the Navy Times. 

Don Shipley, a retired SEAL, told the Navy Times that he contacted Fox on Oct. 9, the day after the story ran. 

But the story was still on the news outlet’s Facebook page on Oct. 19. By then it had amassed 1.5 million views.

Fox News eventually published a correction but of course was after a million people had been fooled by their story.

 What a crackerjack team of researchers they employee at Fox News.

Now this same thing could of course happen to other cable news outlets like MSNBC or CNN, after all they have to present 24 hours of news each day.

However Fox News has a particular problem with the folks they present as experts, intelligence officials, or even actual journalists.

You know it's almost as if they care less about a person's credentials and more about whether or not they are willing to support the station's ideology and spout their talking points.

Or an I just being cynical?

So Donald Trump has fake Time magazine covers with his face on them all over this golf clubs. Why am I not surprised by this?

A Time Magazine with Trump on the cover hangs in his golf clubs. It’s fake. https://t.co/GbabQP5hXQ pic.twitter.com/EFTEcyasRE

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 27, 2017

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The framed copy of Time magazine was hung up in at least five of President Trump’s clubs, from South Florida to Scotland. Filling the entire cover was a photo of Donald Trump. 

“Donald Trump: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!” the big headline said. Above the Time nameplate, there was another headline in all caps: “TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS . . . EVEN TV!” 

This cover — dated March 1, 2009 — looks like an impressive memento from Trump’s pre-presidential career. To club members eating lunch, or golfers waiting for a pro-shop purchase, it seemed to be a signal that Trump had always been a man who mattered. Even when he was just a reality TV star, Trump was the kind of star who got a cover story in Time. 

But that wasn’t true. 

The Time cover is a fake. 

There was no March 1, 2009, issue of Time magazine. And there was no issue at all in 2009 that had Trump on the cover. 

In fact, the cover on display at Trump’s clubs, observed recently by a reporter visiting one of the properties, contains several small but telling mistakes. Its red border is skinnier than that of a genuine Time cover, and, unlike the real thing, there is no thin white border next to the red. The Trump cover’s secondary headlines are stacked on the right side — on a real Time cover, they would go across the top. 

And it has two exclamation points. Time headlines don’t yell.

Yeah only Donald Trump gets two exclamation points worth of excited about Donald Trump.

Time Magazine is now demanding that Trump have the phony covers removed, while everybody associated with the clubs or the Administration acts like they have no idea how such a thing ever happened:  

The Trump Organization did not respond to questions this week about who made the cover and why it was displayed at Trump clubs. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to say whether Trump had known that the cover wasn’t real. 

“We couldn’t comment on the decor at Trump Golf clubs one way or another,” Sanders wrote in an email.

Yeah, who's in charge of the decor at Trump's golf course anyway?

Surely THAT is the person who the press should be focusing on.

Unless they are assuming that Donald Trump is such an insufferable megalomaniac that he ordered the fake covers made up just to give the impression that he was more important than he actually was in reality.

That would mean he was somehow unhinged.

And NOBODY is saying that, right?

Right?

P.S. By the way.

Well this is Sure to Get Under Trump's Skin!!!

RT to @RealDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/xfNOf5graQ

— Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) June 28, 2017

And NONE of those is a phony. 

Alex Jones decides to prove he is not a fake lunatic by ranting that he is "real" while trying to drive a car. Well I'm convinced.

Courtesy of Right Wing News:  

In a rambling message filmed from his car this morning, Alex Jones repeatedly insisted that he is not an actor—a characterization of Jones made by his own lawyer during an ongoing custody battle. 

Jones’ attorney recently said that the “InfoWars” broadcaster is simply “playing a character” on his conspiracy theory radio program. The right-wing talk show host is []involved in a custody lawsuit with his ex-wife, whose attorneys want jurors to see footage of Jones’ unhinged and explosive outbursts. His attorney, however, said that his manic and sometimes violent statements are not relevant in the dispute since he is “a performance artist.” 

While he did not specifically address his own lawyer’s statements in the video message, Jones said that “we’re all actors, but I believe in what I stand for—I’m not an actor as my main identity.” 

Jones, who appeared in court shortly after posting his remarks on Facebook, added: “I am completely real and everybody knows it.”

Jones goes on to complain that he is being approached by former listeners, who he for some reason portrays as gay, upset his attorney's claims that he is a big phony.

Well I think we can all guess which video will be played in front of the judge during Jones' NEXT court date.

The New York Times reveals Donald Trump's 1995 tax returns, and let's just say he lost "bigly."

Hey, who hasn't lost 916 million in one year? Right?

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show. 

The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. 

Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.

Somebody will have to explain to me how anybody would think that a guy who lost 916 million in one year is supposed to know how to "fix" the American economy?

Or how a guy who may not have paid taxes for eighteen years (And let's not play games here, if Trump did not HAVE to pay those taxes we know he did NOT pay those taxes.) understands anything about raising or lowering taxes in this country?

Actually Trump himself answered that, while making no attempt to defend himself against the accusations in the New York Times article.

I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016

Yeah if anybody actually believes that Donald Trump does his own taxes or understands the complexities of the tax code, well you are probably dumb enough to be a Trump supporter.

Remember during the debate that when Hillary suggested the reason Trump refused to reveal his tax returns might be because he has not paid any taxes, he replied with "That makes me smart."

Well how does one make the case that losing 916 million dollars in one year and then having their accountants take advantage of a tax break for rich people makes them smart?

And let's not forget that Trump needed several banks to bail him out only five years earlier:

Developer Donald Trump`s four leading bank lenders tentatively agreed Tuesday to lend him $65 million and defer interest and principal payments on about $850 million of his nearly $2 billion of debt for five years, said people involved in the talks. 

The leading bank lenders-Citibank, Bankers Trust, Chase Manhattan Bank and Manufacturers Hanover-now must persuade other loan syndicates to approve the new loan package. 

That loan package was approved, not because Trump is such a good businessman, but because if his  business had failed it would have caused a financial crisis for his lenders.

These banks also put Trump on an allowance to keep him from making any more disastrous financial decisions. Apparently that was only a temporary fix as five years later he seems to have lost almost a billion dollars.

This guy has no idea what it is like for regular tax paying Americans working hard to put food on their table and care for their families in this country.

He is a giant overfed child playing a game of Monopoly with real buildings and real money, and with a get out of jail free card grasped firmly in his tiny sweaty hands. 

The inevitable unmasking of Donald Trump.

I can't believe how easy it is to fool these schmucks.

So as the Republican convention starts there have been a number of extremely damaging articles that have been published that call into question every positive thing he presents about himself and accentuates his negatives.

Let's take a look at three of them.

First there is this from the Washington Post:

As he has prepared to be named the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump has not read any biographies of presidents. He said he would like to someday. 

He has no time to read, he said: “I never have. I’m always busy doing a lot. Now I’m more busy, I guess, than ever before.” 

Trump’s desk is piled high with magazines, nearly all of them with himself on their covers, and each morning, he reviews a pile of printouts of news articles about himself that his secretary delivers to his desk. But there are no shelves of books in his office, no computer on his desk.

Reporters and others have already extensively pointed out the obvious similarities between Trump and Sarah Palin, and this is just one more to add to the pile.

Palin's answer to what she read disqualified her almost immediately for the job of VP in 2008, however there is little evidence that Trump will suffer the same fate eight years later.

(By the way, also like Palin, Trump claims that he makes decisions using "common sense." Yeah you need a whole lot more than common sense to run this country.)

This from Newsweek:

 Donald Trump, who often says he only likes winners, tells one grand tale of loss: In 1990, he nearly went bankrupt and was forced to ask dozens of banks to whom he owed money to change the terms on their loans and forgive some of his debts. 

It was, the real estate developer admits in his 1997 book "The Art of the Comeback," the darkest period of his professional life. In his telling, it's a story of redemption, of resilience, and proof of his exceptional negotiating skills and shrewd thinking. 

Six people who participated in the loan workout negotiations have a different recollection, raising questions about a key part of the personal narrative that many of Trump's supporters have found compelling as he campaigns to be the next president of the United States on Nov. 8. On the campaign trail he has portrayed himself as a survivor and a master negotiator.

The six bankers and lawyers involved in the deal claim that Trump did not come to them looking for a better deal, but that it was the banks who approached him when they recognized he was on the brink of collapse, and the only "deal making" was on their part as they worked out how to save his business.

In the end all Trump did was sign on the dotted line. So much for any "Art of the Deal."

And speaking of the "Art of the Deal." here is an excerpt from the interview that The New Yorker conducted with the man who actually wrote that book for Donald Trump: 

Schwartz thought about publishing an article describing his reservations about Trump, but he hesitated, knowing that, since he’d cashed in on the flattering “Art of the Deal,” his credibility and his motives would be seen as suspect. Yet watching the campaign was excruciating. Schwartz decided that if he kept mum and Trump was elected he’d never forgive himself. In June, he agreed to break his silence and give his first candid interview about the Trump he got to know while acting as his Boswell. 

“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.” 

If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”

So essentially, much like Sarah Palin, virtually EVERYTHING we think we know about Donald Trump is pure unadulterated bullshit.

Well good job Republican party, you did it again. 

Sarah Palin's favorite Navy Seal super sniper seems to have fibbed about the medals he won.

Courtesy of the Navy Times: 

The Navy has concluded there is no evidence that famed Navy SEAL Chris Kyle received two of the valor awards he had claimed in his best-selling memoir, including a second Silver Star. 

In an unusual move, the service has re-issued the DD-214 discharge paperwork to support the medals that the late Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Chris Kyle received during his 10-year Navy career, finding no records for two of six Bronze Stars with combat 'V' and the second Silver Star, two of which he had claimed in "American Sniper." However, the renowned SEAL sniper had earned the Silver Star and four Bronze Stars, the review confirmed. 

The Navy’s reissuing of the late Kyle's DD-214 adjusts his confirmed valor awards and continues to raise questions about other elements of Kyle's legendary story, including stories he told after he left the service in 2009. Already a combat hero, the second Silver Star would have made Kyle one of the Navy's most decorated service members in the post-9/11 era, which has drawn heavily on the skill and secrecy of special operations troops.

What? A person that Sarah Palin deified and all but drooled over was a lying piece of shit?

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Does that mean that Kyle was also lying when he said this?

"Todd Palin is a badass!" 

Nah, obviously that part was true.

 My question would be, "Is there anybody that Sarah Palin admires who is NOT an habitual liar?"

Trump dump: Trump campaign is broke, judge to release documents about Trump University, Marco Rubio apologized for pointing out Trump has a small penis.

Don't believe the biased and phony media quoting people who work for my campaign. The only quote that matters is a quote from me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2016

You heard him folks, the only person whose words matter are Donald Trump's.

And here we go.

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

Donald Trump's campaign has alerted Senate Republicans that he won't have much money to spend fending off attacks from Hillary Clinton over the next couple months. 

The notice came when Paul Manafort, Trump's senior advisor, met with a group of Senate Republican chiefs of staff for lunch last week, sources familiar with the meeting told the Washington Examiner. The admission suggests that Trump will be far more dependent on the GOP brass for money than he has led voters to believe, but it's consistent with his reliance on the Republican National Committee to provide a ground game in battleground states. 

"They know that they're not going to have enough money to be on TV in June and probably most of July, until they actually accept the nomination and get RNC funds, so they plan to just use earned media to compete on the airwaves," one GOP source familiar with Manafort's comments told the Examiner.

Well so much for "I'm self funding my own campaign."

Actually money, or the lack thereof, is playing a big part in revealing who Donald Trump is in real life.

Did you know that he accepted $150,000 from the Federal governemtn after 9-11 by claiming he was a "small business?" Well he did.

That of course follows the news that he received a tax break given to married couples who make $500,000 or less in a year. That's made more interesting by the fact that Trump's financial report claims he made $362 million in 2014.

Just where are those tax returns Donald?

As if all of that were not troubling enough for Donald Trump the judge overseeing the class action lawsuits being brought against Trump University for fraud is now going to release the "playbooks" which among other things directed sales people to rank students based on their liquid assets in order to sell the wealthier ones more courses.

That might have been in response to these comments from Trump on Friday: 

“I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel ... I think Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself,” Mr. Trump said at Friday's rally, echoing many of the same points he made in speeches a few months ago. “I’m telling you, this court system, judges in this court system, federal court, they ought to look into Judge Curiel. Because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace, OK?" 

Seriously could you even begin to imagine this arrogant buffoon negotiating with other countries on our behalf?

And finally we learn that Marco Rubio apparently apologized to Donald Trump in private for those remarks about his tiny hands: 

“I actually told Donald — one of the debates, I forget which one — I apologized to him for that.”

Please is there anybody ANYWHERE who does not already realize that Donald Trump has a tiny, possibly ingrown, Trump stump for a penis? 

I mean that does kind of explain almost everything about him, don't you think?

So did Donald Trump pose as his own spokesperson back in the 1990's? Certainly sounds like it.

Here is the entire Today show video from this morning.

Trump: Wow. You mean you are going so low as to talk about something that took place 25 years ago, about whether or not I made a phone call? I guess you’re saying under a presumed name. 

Guthrie: Yes, under a presumed name. 

Trump: Okay. The answer is no. Let’s get on to more current subjects. I know it’s wonderful for your listeners, but we have more important things to discuss.

I disagree. If a person running for President is so unhinged as to fake being an entirely different person so that he can brag about himself, without seeming arrogant (A pretense that he has completely dropped these days by the way.), I think THAT is something the voting public deserves to know.

And it appears that we actually do know that is was him.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:
   
A recording obtained by The Washington Post captures what New York reporters and editors who covered Trump’s early career experienced in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s: calls from Trump’s Manhattan office that resulted in conversations with “John Miller” or “John Barron” — public-relations men who sound precisely like Trump himself — who indeed are Trump, masquerading as an unusually helpful and boastful advocate for himself, according to the journalists and several of Trump’s top aides.

So apparently in the minds of the journalists who covered him and his own top aides, there was no question that this was indeed Trump.

And that could prove problematic. Just get a load of some of the things this "spokesman" said about himself Trump: 

“Actresses,” Miller said in the call to Carswell, “just call to see if they can go out with him and things.” Madonna “wanted to go out with him.” And Trump’s alter ego boasted that in addition to living with Maples, Trump had “three other girlfriends.”

Yeah that should really help Trump with the female voters.

The other Trump alias, this John Barron, is also a name that pops up quite frequently in Trump's life: 

A “John Baron,” described as a “vice-president of the Trump organization,” appeared in a front-page New York Times article as early as 1980, defending Trump’s decision to destroy sculptures on the facade of the Bonwit Teller department store building, the Fifth Avenue landmark he was demolishing to make way for his Trump Tower. Barron was quoted variously as a “Trump spokesman,” “Trump executive,” or “Trump representative” in New York magazine, The Washington Post and other publications. 

Trump’s fascination with the name “Barron” persisted for decades. When he was seeing Maples while still married to Ivana, he sometimes used the code name “the Baron” when he left messages for her. In 2004, when Trump commissioned a dramatic TV series based on the life of a New York real estate mogul like him, his only request to the writer was to name the main character “Barron.” And when Trump and his third wife, Melania, had a son, they named him Barron.

You know just when I think I have seen the oddest think imaginable in this election cycle, I get proven wrong.

I literally have NO idea what comes nest, but I am certain it will not be boring. 

So it appears that Bristol Palin is using her recent Instagram photo of Dakota Meyer with her baby to give the impression that the drama is over. Wanna bet?

too cute not to share

A photo posted by Bristol Palin (@bsmp2) on Mar 24, 2016 at 11:40am PDT

Courtesy of Inquisitr:

Bristol Palin has photographic proof that she’s amicably co-parenting with her ex-fiancé Dakota Meyer. 

The oldest daughter of Sarah Palin posted an Instagram pic of her ex holding their daughter, Sailor Grace. Bristol even captioned the pic, “Too cute not to share.” The new photo shows that things have calmed down between the once bitter exes. 

That same reconciliation theme shows up over at ET Online, People magazine, and US Weekly to name but a few.

Of course this fits a well known pattern with the Palin family.

Make nice in public, and plunge the knife even deeper under the cover of darkness.

I have been watching this play out for years with Levi and his family, as well as other former friends and acquaintances up here in Alaska.

And according to Radar Online that is exactly what's been happening:  

Palin had previously asked a judge to edit her visitation schedule with Meyer so she could spend her first Mother’s Day with her daughter, born in December 2015. But in court documents filed on March 14, Meyer hit back and said he wasn’t backing down.

Meyer’s attorneys asked the judge to set visitation for Mother’s day from 9 a.m. To 6 p.m., noting that “Ms. Palin originally had proposed visitation on that day … and that proposal was relied upon by Mr. Meyer in making his travel plans” from Kentucky to Alaska.

“That will still provide Ms. Palin time with Sailor on Mother’s Day, but will also allow Mr. Meyer, who is traveling across the country to see his daughter, to spend time with her that day as well,” they claim. 

“There is no valid reason to deprive Mr. Meyer of visitation with Sailor that day simply because it states on the calendar that it is Mother’s Day,” the documents continue. “Mr. Meyer cannot change his work and travel plans, which have already been made to move the visitation that was planned and ordered for that day … and it would be unreasonable at this juncture to expect him to do so.

Oh yeah, everything is all peachy keen alright. 

You know if Dakota and his representatives have any doubts about how this will play out going forward I encourage them to reach out to Levi and Sunny Johnston.

I am sure they have plenty they would like to share.

Neil Cavuto publicly apologizes for having fake terrorism expert and CIA agent on his show.

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

On Friday afternoon, Fox News host Neil Cavuto took the rather extraordinary step of delivering a lengthy apology over his show’s use of Wayne Simmons as a terrorism expert, after it was revealed that Simmons had been arrested for allegedly lying about his ties to the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Cavuto told viewers that “it has come to our attention that a frequent guest on this show might not have been who he purported to be” (which presumably means Fox News will no longer be booking “presidential candidate” Bobby Jindal), but he also made a valiant attempt to stop the buck:

“If it’s true that all our due diligence and vetting on Mr. Simmons missed this, that’s big, and that’s on me. And only me.”

Oh it's true alright. Not only that but I would be willing to bet money that a number of the other "experts" on Fox News are fakes as well.

And it should be remembered that Fox allowed this Simmons guy to do incredible damage during numerous interviews.

Think Progress has a list of just some of them.

Here are a few of the highlights:

A little more than a year after the 2008 presidential election, Simmons told Fox News that president Obama — who he called the “boy king” — was directly responsible for a number of recent acts of terrorism. 

Speaking on The O’Reilly Factor in 2005, Simmons defended then-President George W. Bush’s decision to go into Iraq, and said Democratic-controlled government would cause “9-1-1s unabated.” 

Employing another “guys like me” reference, Simmons in 2009 said that CIA operatives might abandon their posts because of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, whom he called a “pathological liar.” 

Appearing on Fox News in March, he asserted that White House adviser Valerie Jarrett was actually running the country. But she didn’t know how to defeat ISIS. For Simmons, the solution was very simple. 

“We could end this in a week. And that’s not an exaggeration. That’s not hyperbole. We could run a number of sorties, thousands of sorties, locate, identify and designate absolutely decimate ISIS, ISIL, I.S., whatever you want to call them. They would all be dead,” he said.

There are of course many more examples of the constant stream of bullshit spewed by this phony asshole.

The thing is that while I hand it to Cavuto for at least making the minimal attempt to take some responsibility here, the fact remains that Fox News provides disinformation and outlandish fact free exaggerations on a daily basis.

And the truly frightening part is that their audience does not seem to care that they do.

The Huffington Post adds Ted Nugent to their "Wikipedia of dicks." NSFW

Click image to view content

Has there ever been a more deserving dick?

It looks like Sarah Palin's popularity might be about to take a huge hit.

"Well I know I'm more popular than this guy."

Courtesy of MSN News:  


Facebook said Friday it has stepped up its battle against spammers who promise to deliver "likes" to its members, and warned users on using such scams. 

The world's most popular social network said that to date, it has obtained legal judgments of nearly $2 billion against fraudulent activities on Facebook. It was not clear how much of that was actually collected. 

Facebook's moves appeared to counter concerns that users -- including politicians and companies selling products -- are buying "likes" to make them appear more popular. And it is targeting a cottage industry which seeks to deliver these results to Facebook members, often promising "10,000 likes" or more for a fee. 

"We write rules and use machine learning to catch suspicious behavior that sticks out. When we catch fraudulent activity, we work to counter and prevent it, including blocking accounts and removing fake likes all at once," Facebook site integrity engineer Matt Jones said in a blog post.

Currently Palin gets thousands and thousands of likes on each of her ghostwritten Facebook post, but considering her dwindling support I think we all know that is total bullshit. 

Personally I would LOVE IT if Facebook started stripping her posts of Likes, or better yet blocked her account altogether.

I wonder what she would do if either of those things happened? Whatever she did in response, we know it would be entertaining.

Then all she would have is that crappy pay-per-bitch website of hers.

You know that might just drive her right around the bend.

Sarah Palin welcomes "surprise" guests to the Wasilla compound.

Okay this has to be a setup.

I have seen other people "drop in" on Palin, such as Larry the Cable Guy, and Palin was less than pleased to see them.

So this appears to be yet another attempt to portray herself as approachable and down home.

A couple of things interesting to note is that Palin clearly has an actual camera guy handling her videos, and family members are NOT the ones behind them as we have imagined, and Palin is all done up for a video which means that the "surprise" guests catch her at her best.

They are also wearing Yarmulke's for reasons that I am not Jewish enough to understand, but you will notice that she works both Israel and Netanyahu into the conversation.

There is also an unnecessarily nasty shot at the now deceased Joe McGinniss, proving that nobody holds a grudge like a Palin. AND she gets the opportunity to bring Trig into the conversation.

I will also point out that Palin's contention that nobody in Alaska has a fence is an outright lie.

And by the way she had her fence before McGinniss moved in. Todd simply added to it in order to make a show of protecting their privacy.

Which of course was ridiculous.

I call bullshit on the entire video. 

Senator Mark Begich is fed up with the Koch brother funded attack ads.

) Courtesy of Politicususa:  

Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) has been in the crosshairs of the Koch brothers and their SuperPAC, Americans for Prosperity, for the past few months. Obviously, the Kochs feel that Begich is vulnerable in this election cycle as he represents a state that went for Mitt Romney by a fairly sizable margin in the 2012 Presidential election. Of the $30 million that AFP has spent on ads so far this election cycle, nearly a million dollars has gone towards attack ads against Begich. 

One ad that AFP ran came under fire not just for twisting the truth (a Koch specialty) but by using a paid actress from Maryland and portraying her as a legitimate Alaskan resident and voter. After AFP ran another attack ad, this time falsely claiming that Begich supported a carbon tax, Begich had enough with the Koch brothers’ interference in his reelection campaign and decided to fight fire with fire. On Monday, a new ad was released by Begich hitting the Kochs for lying to the Alaskan people, killing jobs in Alaska and interfering with the state’s political process.

Well personally I am proud of my Senator for taking the fight to the Koch brothers and calling them out publicly. Apparently he is taking point on this with other Democrats, also under attack by the Koch brothers, planning to follow his lead.

One thing for certain about Alaskans, we absolute hate it when outside forces try to hijack one of our elections.  And that has cost more than a few wannabe politicians their chance to represent the state, and its people.

Columnist for the conservative Media Research Center has a ghostwriter write his columns for him while he takes all the credit and almost all of the money. Hmm, now who does that sound like?

Courtesy of Jim Romenseko:  

The conservative Media Research Center often urges liberal news outlets to TELL THE TRUTH, but the Reston, VA-based press watchdog isn’t telling the truth about its own leader: Brent Bozell doesn’t write the syndicated column that appears under his byline. 

It is longtime MRC media analysis director Tim Graham who writes “almost everything published under [Bozell's] name,” a former MRC employee tells me in an email. “That includes his weekly column. Same goes for his books, which at least carry Graham’s name in a secondary billing, but also aren’t written by Bozell (but Bozell keeps 80-90% of the advance and all profits!)”

Not only does Bozell take advantage of Graham, but apparently there is substantial resentment over that fact.   

Two other people with ties to MRC confirmed that Graham is Bozell’s ghostwriter – and that Graham is not happy with the assignment. 

“Tim just resents having to do it,” says a former employee. 

Graham’s wife, too, is so angry about the arrangement that she refuses to attend Media Research Center events. 

“She hates Bozell,” I’m told. “The forced ghostwriting is the issue,” says an ex-employee. (Laura Haugan Graham did not respond to an email sent Wednesday via Facebook. I also emailed Bozell and Graham for comment on Wednesday, but did not get responses. I called the Media Research Center offices on Wednesday and left a message that wasn’t returned.)

I have to say that this is really not all that surprising as I believe that the majority of crap that is spewed by these so-called Right Wing intellectuals in books and newspaper columns is actually written down by people who paid attention in school and were not angry that all the big words made their head hurt.

Of course they tried to excuse Bozell's use of a ghostwriter by suggesting that President Obama has help writing his speeches.

This is what Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist and National Society of Newspaper Columnists president Eric Heyl had to say about that: 

“The argument that the columnist should be allowed to use a ghostwriter because the president has speechwriters is as limp as pasta left overnight in boiling water. The comparison is ludicrous. The columnist doesn’t have to spend much of his time dealing with a dysfunctional Congress or fretting over Iran’s nuclear program.”

Not only that but the President's job is to run the country, a small part of which is to give the occasional speech, Bozell's job is to write this column and a few books. THAT is his job, and he is not even doing it.

Besides I think we all know that if you locked President Obama in room by himself where he was required to write a speech, he would emerge with an incredible one that would probably both inspire you and move you to tears. After all the man can write!

However apparently Bozell, and I believe a great number of these Right Wing "writers," can't. And the credit they receive for being well versed in their subject matter is as phony as one of Sarah Palin's wigs.

A final look back on the Palin style Christmas. Kinda reminds me of a funeral.

I remember when MY mother wore her hooker boots for Christmas. Wait no I don't, my mother is a lady.

By the way did you know that a lot of people mistakenly think that December 25th is the date that Jesus was born? Well they do, see!

Here's Tripp back from Arizona for a short time so that he can be featured in the Alaska family pictures. (Gotta maintain the facade don't you know.)

Of course one of the great things that most of us got for Christmas this year is the end of Palin's book tour. After all nobody buys a Christmas book after Christmas. (However if you are interested there is one more really great review you might enjoy.)

Of course sadly that does NOT mean that Palin will fade from the national spotlight as muhc as we might have all hoped that she would.

Next April will be the debut of her new show "Sarah Palin poses in camouflage clothing and pretends she knows the first thing about hunting."

Then of course there will be the 2014 primaries, where we can measure the desperation level of the conservatives by watching to see if they crawl to Sarah Palin for an endorsement, and then measure the intelligence of the candidates in the general by how much distance they put between her and them as they campaign against their Democratic rivals.

And sadly for the country her voice will be heard. Fox will interview her occasionally, just to break up the monotony of interviewing with people who know what they are talking about or who can string a sentence together that makes sense. 

She will undoubtedly have an article of two ghostwritten for her over at Breitbart,

And of course there will be her often bizarre and self serving tweets and Facebook posts.

However I really believe that if the progressives do well this next elections cycle, and really run the board on the Republicans, we could SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the number of times we have to hear from, or about, Sarah Palin in 2015.

In fact I think THAT could be a campaign slogan for the Democrats.

"VOTE FOR US, AND FINALLY SHUT THAT ALASKAN BITCH UP FOR GOOD!"

That would certainly get MY vote.

(Pictures courtesy of Chuck jr's Facebook page.)

A hunting we will pretend to go, a hunting we will pretend to go, heigh ho a new cable show, a pretend hunting we will go. Update!

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The Sportsman Channel said Monday it has hired Sarah Palin to be host of a weekly outdoors-oriented program that will celebrate the "red, wild and blue" lifestyle. 

The program, "Amazing America," will debut next April. The Sportsman Channel is in some 32 million homes, less than one-third of American households with television, with programming geared to people interested in hunting, fishing and shooting. Palin's show will include a series of stories about personalities and activities in that vein. 

"It's very important to have somebody of her stature as a personality on Sportsman because it validates the whole category for everybody," said Gavin Harvey, network CEO. 

"Validates the category?" Sarah Palin?

THIS Sarah Palin?

The Sportsman Channel has ordered 12 episodes of the series to start. It's the first of a three-series deal between the network and the busy nonfiction production company Pilgrim Studios. 

"The network showcases a lifestyle that I love and celebrate every day and it's great to be a part of their team," Palin said in a statement provided by the network. 

Besides the upcoming Palin series, Sportsman airs a series with conservative activist and rock musician Ted Nugent. Sportsman also airs a TV version of the National Rifle Association-sponsored radio show, "NRA News, Cam & Co.," each weekday and "NRA Guns & Gold," a show about guns styled after "Antiques Roadshow." 

Here is my favorite part.

Harvey said The Sportsman Channel has no interest in being politically polarizing. "It's not our intention at Sportsman to take any political position," he said. 

"This lifestyle, coast to coast, crosses every type of political spectrum."

Yeah good luck with that! Now with both Palin and Nugent on their programs they might as well kiss any hope of attracting reasonable progressive viewers goodbye. 

Might very well lose many of their conservative ones as well.

Especially conservatives who are ACTUAL hunters. Or did they forget how Field and Stream once eviscerated any notion that Palin has any hunting ability whatsoever?

Ms. Palin is an extremely inexperienced shooter. 

An experienced shooter would not ask if a rifle kicks before using it in the heat of battle. That would not be uppermost in their mind; getting the animal down would be. 

Why, before the fatal shot was fired, did the editor of the film superimpose a bogus crosshair on the poor dopey caribou? Why do we not see Ms. Palin firing the rifle? Is it because she did not do the shooting? 

Finally, look at the way she carries the rifle as the party walks up to the late lamented ungulate. No experienced shooter carries a rifle like this.

And now every hunter in America gets the opportunity to mock Palin, and dismiss this show as pure camouflage wrapped fluff. 

But do you know who will probably get the biggest laugh out of watching Palin struggle to act like she knows anything at all about hunting?

Because no matter what your feelings are about Levi, there is no doubt that at least HE is not a phony when it comes to hunting.

Update: Here is more from The Sportsman's Channel:

“Governor Palin is one of America’s most popular leaders, whose powerful love of country and passion for the great outdoors is inspiring to millions and millions of people,” said Gavin Harvey, CEO of Sportsman Channel. “As a sportswoman, humanitarian, and patriot who has visited every corner of the USA, there is no one more qualified to host Amazing America than Sarah Palin.”

Wow! It looks like somebody has been buying the Palin mooseshit by the barrel full.

Paul Ryan shows up uninvited to soup kitchen and washes clean dishes for photo-op. WTF?

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

The head of a northeast Ohio charity says that the Romney campaign last week “ramrodded their way” into the group’s Youngstown soup kitchen so that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan could get his picture taken washing dishes in the dining hall.

Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University. 

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.” 

He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.” 

Ryan had stopped by the soup kitchen for about 15 minutes on his way to the airport after his Saturday morning town hall in Youngstown. By the time he arrived, the food had already been served, the patrons had left, and the hall had been cleaned. 

Upon entering the soup kitchen, Ryan, his wife and three young children greeted and thanked several volunteers, then donned white aprons and offered to clean some dishes. Photographers snapped photos and TV cameras shot footage of Ryan and his family washing pots and pans that did not appear to be dirty.

So let's get this straight.

In an attempt to fight the image that the Romney/Ryan ticket does not care about 47% of the population, Ryan pushed his way into a soup kitchen after all of the hard work was over, and had his picture taken washing already cleaned dishes.

Oh yeah THAT ought to help their credibility!

P.S. Here is video of the photo op. You can clearly see that the kitchen is spotless and Ryan simply says "I'm going to get them wet, and you're going to dry them" to his son.

EPIC FAIL!

Actress Rosie Perez calls Mitt Romney out over his assertion that he would have an easier time of it if he were Latino.

"Unfortunately for you Mitt, you were cursed with the hard knock life of growing up as the son of a wealthy Governor and auto executive." Yeah fucking tragic, don't you think?

As a matter of fact apparently Romney is SO disappointed in his parentage that he had to make up stories about his father walking out of the 1964 Republican Convention in protest of Barry Goldwater's hard line against civil rights. That would be a great story except it never happened.

No Mitt Romney is NOT Latino, or a woman, or a gay American. But if he were to at least be SOMETHING REAL, and not something completely phony,  perhaps he actually could win this election.

P.S. I LOVE that Perez mentioned the spray tan by the way.

It appears that Mitt Romney has fake Twitter followers. Is NOTHING about this man authentic?

"What? Doesn't everybody have to pay people to follow them on Twitter?"

I first saw this brought up by the folks over at Reddit, who reported the following:  

He is buying thousand by the minute, most don't speak English or are computer generated... all this in the midst of all the #Aurora tweets and #theatreshooting ones... Is he so unlikeable he had to buy followers?

And this: 

Every time i refresh he gets 50 or so new followers. Most followers are following exactly 4 people. Most have no tweets or one generic quote tweet from a semifamous person. 

The tweets these people have made are almost all done in the last minute or so for the new additions to the list. While that is evidence of nothing, it certainly is suspicious.

(Here is the link to the account so you an see for yourselves.)

Later I discovered there were others on the case:

I’m not saying he bought them, but Romney’s follower stats have taken a sharp and sudden rise since Friday 5PM EST. Could it be a weekend blitz? Twitter noticed. Romney was gaining around 3000-4000 new followers per day for the past month. 

Yesterday he acquired 23,926 new followers and is climbing well over 50,000 today. The hourly stats make it pretty clear where this began. (If you click the link you can also see two rather remarkable graphics.)

Some of you may remember that his same tactic was used by both Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin last year.

I don't know about the rest of you but I am beginning to think that there is absolutely NOTHING trustworthy about the Republican part any more. (And yes that was a bit of snark.)