Oath Keepers launch plan to infiltrate fire departments and ambulance crews in attempt to con people into trusting them.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

The Oath Keepers are tired of being marginalized as “militia members” — so the pro-gun militia group is planning to carry their anti-government message into local government institutions to conscript unsuspecting neighbors into their yearned-for revolution. 

The group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, outlined the plan Aug. 29 at the group’s “Appalachian summit” in Gilbert, West Virginia, but the speech was recently posted online by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. 

The three-day event attracted members of the Oath Keepers and Three Percent militia groups, as well as Tea Party and other conservative or right-wing activists. 

Rhodes urged them to join volunteer fire departments, search and rescue teams, ambulance crews, police auxiliary and reserve officer groups — which he said had essentially replaced militias in community life. 

He said these volunteers are “perceived as a good guy” by their neighbors, who might not be receptive to invitations to join a militia, and go “shopping for talent” to identify potential members of neighborhood watch groups that are armed vigilante groups. 

“(Militia) has been turned into the M-word,” Rhodes complained. “It’s a dirty word now — just like the N-word.”

Oh yeah, just like the "N" word. Except for the fact that nobody screams "militia" at you when they are trying to cave your skull in or hang you from a tree for looking at a white girl.

This guy Rhodes also suggested that Oath Keepers hold block parties in order to find potential members.

I can see it now, "Hey how about those burgers? Good huh? Hey you wanna help us overthrow the government?"

You know this plan might have worked better if this idiot had not stood on a stage with a microphone and announced that this was their plan.

I'm just saying.

Is Roger Ailes on his way out at Fox News? Maybe.

Well fuck.

So as many of you probably know Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as the CEO of his empire, and leaving his son James in charge.

What you may NOT know is that James Murdoch, as well as his brother Lachlan Murdoch, have a VERY contentious relationship with Ailes.

Here is more courtesy of New York magazine: 

Yesterday, 21st Century Fox announced that Ailes would be reporting to Lachlan and James Murdoch. For Ailes, it was a stinging smack-down and effectively a demotion. 

Just five days earlier, Ailes released what now appears to be a rogue statement to his own Fox Business channel declaring that he would be unaffected by the announcement that Lachlan and James will take control of Fox as part of Rupert's succession plan. "Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch," Fox Business reported. According to a well-placed source, Ailes directed Fox Business executive Bill Shine to tell anchor Stuart Varney to read the statement on air. "Ailes told Shine to write the announcement of the move for Varney to say," the source said. "In it, Ailes inserted language that he would report to Rupert." 

This was, apparently, news to Rupert. And now the Murdochs are correcting the record. "Roger will report to Lachlan and James," a 21st Century Fox spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. 

What makes the reversal most remarkable is that, until now, Rupert always backed Ailes during his messy feuds with Murdoch's children. Ailes's tangles with Lachlan were legion. Not long after 9/11, Rupert gave Ailes a new contract after Ailes threatened to resign following a heated argument with Lachlan in the Fox newsroom. Four years later, Lachlan quit his job as deputy COO in charge of the Fox broadcast group after Rupert supported Ailes in a dispute over a TV show that Ailes wanted and Lachlan didn't.

The article goes on to say that James Murdoch is an environmentalist whose wife worked for the Clinton Foundation, and that Ailes has been heard repeatedly referring to James as a "fucking dope" and "Fredo."

So this could be it for Ailes.

Can you even imagine what Fox News would look like without Roger Ailes?

You know if I were Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly I might start sending my resume out.

Of course I the only thing I know for sure is that I am going to need some more popcorn. 

Stephen Colbert responds to the #CancelColbert controversy. And even makes it entertaining.

Courtesy of Salon:  

Stephen Colbert is dealing with the fallout from a tweet sent out on his show’s behalf — and doing so on-air by imagining his show really getting cancelled. 

Last week, the Twitter feed @ColbertReport, affiliated with the Comedy Central series, tweeted an out-of-context joke from a segment mocking the Washington Redskins’ owner and his attempts to reach out to the Native American community without changing his team’s offensive name. The #CancelColbert hashtag immediately caught fire, and Colbert opened his show by depicting the studio shutting down… his writers walking out dejected… Manhattan freezing over… the famous 1970s-ad Native American shedding a single tear… all manner of dystopia. 

The actor B. D. Wong, himself Asian, appeared as a therapist of sorts to explain to Colbert, dressed in Redskins regalia and lying on a couch, that he was having a horrible dream. “This is still ‘The Colbert Report,’” Colbert announced. 

It was, all in all, a pretty audacious gambit — to openly mock those who’d sought to get Colbert fired by rubbing in their face that it’d never happen, and to bring in one of America’s most prominent actors of Asian extraction to aid in a non-apology. In his opening monologue, following an audience chant (“Ste-phen! Ste-phen!”) Colbert joked about how offensive it was that his shoes were made in Vietnam (rather than in China) and how upset he was that iPhone’s emojis are growing more diverse thanks to the “P.C. police.” 

And, yes, Colbert directly addressed the controversy: In a segment called “Who’s Attacking Me Now,” Colbert joked that “we almost lost” and then went through just how the controversy went down, through a sort of mirror-world reality whereby “Colbert,” the conservative on-air persona, saw his attempts to support his fictitious and racist alter ego get misinterpreted online. 

I was hoping that Colbert would take this and run with it, and he did it spectacularly. 

He managed to take advantage of the "controversy" to continue to point out the hypocrisy of going after him and leaving the Redskin's new "out reach" to the native American community virtually untouched.

If you did not see the show last night I highly suggest that you click the links provided above and enjoy seeing the master at work.

I knew she looked familiar!

Is there a rule that the GOP only welcomes women who are batshit crazy?

For those who may not remember.

The next evening guest host Ari Melber explained just how wrong Jennifer Stefano was during her insane rant.

In Montana, some of the Democratic candidates on the primary ballot are really Right Wing extremist wolves in sheep's clothing.

Muppet hater Michael Comstock

Courtesy of Southern Poverty Law Center:  

Democratic primary voters in some Montana legislative districts will see new and unfamiliar names on the ballot this year. That’s because at least eight Democratic candidates are actually far-right “constitutionalists” and Tea Party activists. One of them is the current Republican vice-chairman for Sanders County. Two of the others have turned out to be homeless. 

Most of the activity has occurred in Gallatin County, where Bozeman is the main population center and county seat. The county is home not only to Montana State University but also a variety of extremist elements. Key members of the radical Montana Freemen group were active there in the 1990s. 

Chief among the new crop of candidates is Michael Comstock, a well-known local Tea Party activist and antigovernment “Patriot” movement organizer who has run previously as a Republican. This year, he filed to run in the Democratic primary for the state Senate seat in District 24, a seat currently held by Republican incumbent Roger Webb, who is running for re-election. 

Comstock claimed during an interview with KCFW-TV in Bozeman that he’s a mainstream Democrat in the tradition of John F. Kennedy and Montana icon Mike Mansfield, and more mainstream than his primary opponent, Democratic activist and educator April Buonamici. But as the blogger Montana Cowgirl observed in her posts calling out Comstock and the other candidates, no one in Bozeman who knows Comstock is fooled by this, since he has been a colorful figure on the local political scene for many years: 

Comstock’s main focus is his concern about a possible takeover by ‘a one-world UN controlled government,’ the Bozeman Chronicle has reported. In his campaign literature and on Facebook, he says he is worried about the impending collapse of civilization. He proudly calls himself ‘a Tea Party extremist’ and believes the Muppets have ‘sold out to socialism and bad behavior.’

Yes, well everybody knows that the Muppets are tools of the radical Left Wing. Right?

So here's a question.

If the Democrats are in such trouble in 2014, and the Republicans have such clear sailing ahead, WHY are they resorting to all of these dirty tricks in order to sabotage the Democratic primary, and suppress turnout?

No, everything indicates that they are the ones that are worried, and that we are the ones who need to recognize that we are the ones in the catbird's seat. 

Of course if we don't have that confidence we could still shoot ourselves in the foot.

Have you ever wondered why Fox News polls rarely fall in line with other polling? Well wonder no longer.

Below is an actual question about Benghazi that shows up on the newest Fox Poll.

"In the aftermath of the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Libya, the Obama administration falsely claimed it was a spontaneous assault in response to an offensive online video, even though the administration had intelligence reports that the attacks were connected to terrorist groups tied to al-Qaeda. Which of the following do you think best describes why the Obama administration officials gave false information in their early public statements about the September attacks on Libya?"

Oh yeah nothing leading, or conspiratorial, about that question.

By the way I am currently reading the Ailes biography "The Loudest Voice in the Room" and what it reveals about the head of Fox News, and Fox News itself, is deeply disturbing.

The hatred for President Obama runs through the veins of that organization like its lifeblood.

Right Wing claims it was Rachel Maddow, not Sarah Palin, who got Martin Bashir fired. Maddow calls BS on that accusation.

"I'm sorry, I did what?"

It looks like the attempts to damage the credibility of MSNBC has taken a new tack. Now the MSNBC hosts are being accused of eating their young.

This courtesy of National Review Online: 

Sources say it is Maddow rather than Phil Griffin who provides MSNBC’s editorial direction, and that she also holds considerable sway over personnel decisions. “I know I’m never going to get freakin’ talking points from Phil,” Maddow told The New Yorker last year. “Can you imagine? Like, what would they be?” 

Behind her back, colleagues call her “the queen,” a not so subtle suggestion that Maddow gets what Maddow wants. And what she wants is a network filled with young wonks such as Chris Hayes, Ezra Klein, Alex Wagner, and Harris-Perry, whose highbrow intellectualism can, she hopes, push the Democratic party, and the country, to the left. On Twitter, Harris-Perry’s show proudly uses the hashtag #nerdland. Alex Wagner’s move to the 4 p.m. hour, where Bashir’s show once aired, has Maddow’s fingerprints on it. 

Griffin, who came of age as a sports producer at CNN and then as a booker on the Today show, is, according to a former colleague, “utterly non-ideological.” “He makes decisions,” says the former colleague, “based on 30-day trailing numbers” and lacks a strategic vision. Maddow, who came aboard in 2008, has filled the ideological void. “Alec Baldwin and Martin were outliers; they weren’t part of her inner circle,” says a television insider. “Bashir’s contract was up, he was twisting in the wind when this happened, and he was out of sync with Rachel’s ideology.” 

First I am not at all convinced that Phil Griffin is "utterly non-ideological," there are plenty who believe he is fairly Right Wing but keeps that under wraps in order to run a mostly Left leaning cable show.

As for this "scoop" the writer is Eliana Johnson who was once a producer for Fox News, and now works for this Right Wing rag.

The Fox News vendetta against MSNBC is well documented and I doubt there are very many on the Right who would not like to see them go down in flames. So recognizing that reality, WHO exactly on the MSNBC staff would be giving up dirt on Rachel Maddow?

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

As for Rachel, she wasted no time in refuting this conservative fantasy: 

“This is categorically false,” Rachel Maddow said. “I have never had any role in any management decision at MSNBC. Any source who says otherwise is wrong.”

You know when I think of integrity it is Rachel Maddow's face I see.

Number one this does not sound like her, and number two if it WERE she would simply stay silent about it. NOT lie. 

NO if anybody is responsible for the firing of Martin Bashir, it is Sarah Palin and the flying monkeys on the Right Wing fringe. Oh, and Phil Griffin of course.

(H/T to Politicususa.)

Right Wing shock jock Rush Limbaugh helped Sarah Palin pimp her book on his radio show, so, using the creepiest photo ever, she returns the favor.

Courtesy of the Christmas candy cane polisher's Facebook page:  

It was an honor meeting Rush Limbaugh during the first leg of the “Good Tidings and Great Joy” book tour and getting a copy of his great book “Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims.” As the daughter of a schoolteacher, I received cherished books for Christmas from my parents growing up. Such books bring us back to simpler, sweeter times; many of them are now passed along to kids and grandkids and still appreciated today. “Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims” reminds me of those cherished books of my childhood. Our books make great stocking stuffers! 

Oh yes let's all buy Limbaugh's book about his time traveling fantasies, an invisible talking horse, and his twisted revisionist history. Sounds like just the thing to give to that special somebody you want to never talk to you again.

I think the only thing Rush knows less about than history would be successful dieting tips and women.

Perhaps the creepiest part of this co-pimping by Sarah Palin and Limbaugh is the fact she let him paw her young daughters.

Eww! I won't even let my daughter listen to this asshole's radio show muhc less let him touch her.

Besides it does not seem to have done any good for Palin to prostitute her children to Rush, since her book is now rated 605 on the Amazon book ratings.

I swear I have seen comets plummet to the earth with less velocity.

The treasonous actions of the Right Wing's hero Ronald Reagan, and how it made Iran the "dangerous threat" the Republicans still use to frighten Americans today.

Courtesy of Truthout:  In 1980 Carter thought he had reached a deal with newly-elected Iranian President Abdolhassan Bani-Sadr over the release of the fifty-two hostages held by radical students at the American Embassy in Tehran. 

Bani-Sadr was a moderate and, as he explained in an editorial for The Christian Science Monitor earlier this year, had successfully run for President on the popular position of releasing the hostages: 

"I openly opposed the hostage-taking throughout the election campaign.... I won the election with over 76 percent of the vote.... Other candidates also were openly against hostage-taking, and overall, 96 percent of votes in that election were given to candidates who were against it [hostage-taking]." 

Carter was confident that with Bani-Sadr's help, he could end the embarrassing hostage crisis that had been a thorn in his political side ever since it began in November of 1979. 

But Carter underestimated the lengths his opponent in the 1980 Presidential election, California Governor Ronald Reagan, would go to screw him over. 

Behind Carter's back, the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with the leader of Iran's radical faction - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini - to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980 Presidential election. 

This was nothing short of treason. The Reagan campaign's secret negotiations with Khomeini - the so-called "October Surprise" - sabotaged Carter and Bani-Sadr's attempts to free the hostages. And as Bani-Sadr told The Christian Science Monitor in March of this year, they most certainly "tipped the results of the [1980] election in Reagan's favor." 

Not surprisingly, Iran released the hostages on January 20, 1981, at the exact moment Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. 

The "October Surprise" emboldened the radical forces inside Iran. A politically weakened Bani-Sadr was overthrown in June of 1981 and replaced with Mohammed Ali Rajai - a favorite of Khomeini's. These radical forces today are represented by people like former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hard-liners who oppose any deal with the United States and, like Khomeini in the 1980s, will jump at any chance to discredit the current moderate presidency of Hassan Rouhani. 

The October Surprise also led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people around the world, and in Central America in particular. Reagan took money from the Iranians and used that money to kill nuns in Nicaragua. 

But those are just the most obvious results of the October Surprise. Again, if Carter were able to free the hostages like he and Bani-Sadr had planned, Carter would have won re-election. After all, he was leading in most polls in the months leading up to the election. And if Reagan were never elected, America would be a much more progressive nation.

I am sure that many of you are old enough to remember when all of this went down, however with the President's new deal with Iran on their nuclear program taking such heat from the Right Wing it is important to remember that they have a history of sabotaging deals with Iran, and that we should keep a wary on them at all times.

Could you just imagine how different the world would have been if Carter's deal had been implemented? How much better our relationship would have been with Iran, as well as Iraq and Pakistan?

How many American lives could have been saved if Iran had not been manipulated by the Republicans into becoming the bogeyman to replace the newly democratized Russia?

And while we are on the topic it should be remembered that not only were the Republicans instrumental in getting the Shah of Iran into power in the first place, their were also instrumental in laying the groundwork for his overthrow and the eventual fundamentalist Islamic uprising that saw those American hostages taken in 1979.

Remember "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." We are close to creating a new deal with Iran which might go a long way toward quelling violence in the Middle East, and laying the groundwork for a future where terrorism is a thing of the past, and none of that works in the Republican's favor.  

Conspiracy theorist, and contributor to Alex Jones Infowars, claims that President Obama has been killing off reporters right and left.

Jim Garrow.

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch:  

Earlier this year, a right-wing activist named Jim Garrow started claiming that President Obama had instituted a litmus test within the military, requiring leaders to pledge to fire on American civilians if so ordered and purging anyone who refused. 

Yesterday, Garrow showed up on Rick Wiles' End Times radio broadcast to claim that for the last forty years, he had been working as an undercover intelligence officer for the US government until he was forced out last month by President Obama for revealing this information. 

During the interview, Garrow claimed that everyone in the intelligence community knows that President Obama is bisexual and that he has "little buddies ... brought into the White House even now." 

Garrow also revealed that the Obama administration was responsible for the deaths of right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart, journalist Michael Hastings, and novelist Tom Clancy, all of whom knew that Obama was, in reality, an agent of the Saudi Arabian government. In fact, Garrow said, it was the fact that Breitbart couldn't keep his mouth shut about it that caused all three of them to be killed:

Wiles: Is it common knowledge among intelligence agencies that Barack Obama is not an American but indeed a foreign agent? 

Garrow: Yes. Yes. 

Wiles: But do the other agencies know who he works for? 

Garrow: Yes. Yeah, they do. 

Wiles: And you think that answer is Saudi Arabia? 

Garrow: Well, I know that to be true and that's why Breitbart, Hastings, and Tom Clancy are dead. 

Wiles: Okay, Breitbart, no doubt in my mind, taken out. He bragged. I liked Andrew Brietbart but what he did was incredibly stupid. He bragged the day before his death that in the morning he was going to reveal shocking information that would stop the Obama campaign. Mr. Breitbart dropped dead waling home at night and his corpse was blood red. 

Garrow: Brighter than that actually. But the point is that he caused the death of Hastings and Tom Clancy because he had been sharing data with them. 

Wiles: There's a connection between Breitbart's death and Hastings and Clancy? 

Garrow: All of them, yea. All of them. Because of the information that Breitbart gave to Tom Clancy, he was working on a novel that would have exposed Obama as a Saudi agenda, as a Saudi plant in the White House ... He knew exactly who Obama was and he was going to release it in character form in a book . The character was going to be this President of the United States who was a plant. It was going to be the real information about Obama was going to come out in the form of a novel. 

If you are thinking that this Rick Wiles guy sounds vaguely familiar you are right. He was the guy from End Times radio who interviewed the husband of the Stenographer for God the other day.

So these are the kinds of conspiracy theories rattling around out there in the fringes of the Right Wing. The ones that are shaping the views of many of the Tea Party's staunchest supporters.

And you just KNOW how much they want to believe that Obama had something to do with the death of Andrew Breitbart. 

"Facts? We don't need no stinking facts! We know it must be true!"

Bill Maher believes that President Obama keeps his policies "centrist" due to fear of assassination.

What follows is part of a conversation between Maher and Chris Matthews on the Overtime portion of last Friday's Real Time. The transcript is courtesy of Real Clear Politics:

BILL MAHER: It seems like the people like that, Kennedy, they just seem to always, at the end of the day, somehow get cut out of the picture -- violently, or otherwise -- and maybe that is why Barack Obama is a little more of a centrist than we want him to be. 

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You think that? 

MAHER: Well, I think he knows that if he goes a little too far to the left -- 

MATTHEWS: Really? 

MAHER: Well, yeah. 

MATTHEWS: I'm just really curious that you think that. 

MAHER: Well, if I were Barack -- 

MATTHEWS: That's an extraordinary statement. 

MAHER: What? You don't think -- 

MATTHEWS: I'm just saying that's an extraordinary statement. I'm amazed -- I'm impressed you think that. 

MAHER: Think what? 

MATTHEWS: That his policies are driven by fear of assassination. 

MAHER: Well, not by fear of assassination. 

JAMES GLASSMAN: Is that what you said? 

MATTHEWS: Then by what? 

MAHER: Well, I'm saying that yeah -- 

MATTHEWS: I thought you just said that. 

MAHER: I didn't say it in those words. 

MATTHEWS: Well, I would try and clarify. 

MAHER: Well, I'm saying that, yeah, I think that's something that probably [Obama] thinks about at night, yeah. Wouldn't you? 

MATTHEWS: That he has to change his policies for that reason? 

MAHER: No! But I think that he is a centrist. I think people saw him as what they wanted to see him. They saw a liberal, and he was never really that much of a liberal. And to call him a socialist, is completely -- 

CAROL ROTH, CNBC: I don't think that anybody who is in the center or at the right would think that he is a centrist. You might think that, but everybody else doesn't think that. 

MAHER: I don't think that is an insult to say to somebody that he may modulate his policies because he is afraid of all the hate that he sees. 

MATTHEWS: He probably gets reports constantly about threats, though. That must unnerve him. 

Now you might dismiss this as simply Maher being provocative, except there was also this recent post from Andrew Sullivan:

I’ve been doing some reading about John Kennedy, and what I find startling, and even surprising, is how absolutely Wanted_for_treasonconsistent and unchanged the ideology of the extreme American right has been over the past fifty years, from father to son and now, presumably, on to son from father again. The real analogue to today’s unhinged right wing in America is yesterday’s unhinged right wing in America. This really is your grandfather’s right, if not, to be sure, your grandfather’s Republican Party. … 

Reading through the literature on the hysterias of 1963, the continuity of beliefs is plain: Now, as then, there is said to be a conspiracy in the highest places to end American Constitutional rule and replace it with a Marxist dictatorship, evidenced by a plan in which your family doctor will be replaced by a federal bureaucrat—mostly for unnamable purposes, but somehow involving the gleeful killing off of the aged. There is also the conviction, in both eras, that only a handful of Congressmen and polemicists (then mostly in newspapers; now on TV) stand between honest Americans and the apocalypse, and that the man presiding over that plan is not just a dupe but personally depraved, an active collaborator with our enemies, a secret something or other, and any necessary means to bring about the end of his reign are justified and appropriate. And fifty years ago, as today, groups with these beliefs, far from being banished to the fringe of political life, were closely entangled and intertwined with Senators and Congressmen and right-wing multi-millionaires.

A famous handbill circulated on November 21, 1963 In Dallas, Texas. One day before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Yes I would love to dismiss what Bill Maher says as mere hyperbole, but just this week we have seen protesters fighting with police right outside the White House while claiming that our President is illegitimate, a Muslim, and a danger to our country.

 Yes I would like to dismiss the words of Bill Maher. I just can't.

Mark your calendar kids! Tomorrow is the big day where Sarah Palin replaces the "Jersey Shore" reality series as the most embarrassing thing in the state. Well they DID survive Hurricane Sandy.

Source

Okay I swear that is the creepiest poster ever!

Both Lonegan and Levin look like creepers just waiting for Palin's jacket to lose a button or for her to bend over to pick something up. Gross.

Currently Lonegan is 14 points behind Corey Booker and if he really thinks that some radical Right Wing talk radio guy and a disgraced political albatross are going to help him move up, then he is even more ignorant than his critics believe him to be.

Speaking of the disgraced albatross she has also had her ghostwriter put up this bizarre Facebook post:

Friends, please see the article linked below. Consider this school teacher's assignment which mandates that kids undertake the task of deciding the fate of characters in an exercise that can obviously be considered a numbing lesson in “death panels.” Unbelievable. 

We’ll be in NJ this Saturday to rally for Steve Lonegan for the U.S. Senate to thank his supporters for pushing back against Obamacare and to halt D.C.-inspired nonsense like this. 

We should hope that influential adults could teach the next generation that it is never ethical, it is never right, for our government to take steps towards the destruction of the sanctity of innocent life. And the way to do that is for our culture to condemn and reject the insensitive callus that grows in a society by this kind of thinking. The teacher could hopefully explain how Orwellian and wrong this thinking is. And she'd go on to declare our right to LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit if happiness, upon which American exceptionalism was built. I challenge her to do so.

Wait, the school is supposedly teaching the children a lesson that "obviously" numbs them to the idea of non-existent "death panels?" WTF?

She links to an article by Fox News radio host Todd Starnes, in which he takes a high school social studies exercise, examining ethics, and turns it into some kind of Machiavellian manipulation.

Here is what the exercise entails.

The lesson involves 10 people who are in desperate need of kidney dialysis. For Fox News Only For Fox News Only “Unless they receive this procedure, they will die,” the lesson states. 

But there’s a problem. The local hospital only has enough machines to support six patients. 

“That means four people are not going to live,” the assignment states. “You must decide from the information below which six will survive.”

The choices for who, would, or who would not receive the dialysis included a doctor, lawyer, housewife, teacher, cop, Lutheran minister, ex-convict, a prostitute, college student and a disabled person.

The worksheet also included their ethnicity, their marital status, their age, and whether or not they had any children.

I don't know about all of you but I engaged in similar exercises while in high school and in college. They were a part of my philosophy classes, and they were the impetus for some rather interesting conversations among the students, who were also asked to explain and discuss their decisions. And by the way this was back in the late seventies and early eighties, way, WAY before there was any talk of "death panels" and back when Sarah Palin was still a frumpy high school kid with bad hair and low self esteem.

Now the Todd Starnes article links to another Right Wing rag which contacted the principal of St. Joseph Ogden High School in St. Joseph, IL and received this in response:

“The assignment you are referring to is not a “Death Panel” assignment. The assignment is one in the sociology unit of our Introduction To Social Studies class. The purpose of the assignment is to educate students about social values and how people in our society unfortunately create biases based off of professions, race, gender, etc. The teacher’s goal is to educate students in the fact that these social value biases exist, and that hopefully students will see things from a different perspective after the activity is completed. The teacher’s purpose in the element of the assignment you are referring to is to get students emotionally involved to participate in the classroom discussion, and to open their minds to the fact that they themselves have their own social biases. The assignment has nothing to do with a “Death Panel.” 

We encourage parents to contact their son/daughter’s teachers if they have any concerns about an assignment in the classroom. That line of communication typically clears up any potential misunderstanding.”  

However apparently that very reasonable and measured response was not good enough for the Whack-a-Doodle from Wasilla, who simply could NOT let an opportunity to talk about "death panels" slip by without vomiting forth some response.

Oh yeah, I think she is going to do wonders for Steve Lonegan's chances in New Jersey. Just like that iceberg helped the Titanic quickly make it to its destination.

Rachel Maddow reports on the wild conspiracy theories partly responsible for the protests in the Middle East and Paul Ryan's connection to those who have fomented those conspiracy theories in the past.

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

As usual I turn to Rachel Maddow to help explain just what is happening in the Middle East right now, and find myself amazed that the roots of the unrest can be traced directly back to those who support the Republican party, and are now closely associated with the VP candidate on the 2012 ticket.

But then again, why should I be surprised by that?

Rachel Maddow exposes the crazy conspiracy theories behind the Republican's "Fast and Furious" witch hunt

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

I have been watching this unfold over this last week, and have become increasingly angry at what I clearly recognize as a witch hunt, however leave it up to Rachel Maddow to discover just how completely out of line and insane their crusade truly is.

By the way I just wanted to mention that I was there for the portion that Rachel talks about when she came up here to attempt an interview with Joe Miller, and was standing behind her when she was talking to the crazy, horribly uninformed Miller supporters on the street that day in Anchorage.

"Hey, I've read your blog!"

Even I, a lifetime Alaskan resident, was amazed at their complete lack of intelligence when it came to understanding just what they were supposed to be so angry about. Of course they were Joe Miller supporters, so what could you expect?

Iraq veteran injured by projectile during Oakland protests. Update!

Courtesy of the Associate Press:

A clash between Oakland police and Occupy Wall Street protesters left an Iraq War veteran in critical condition Wednesday after a projectile struck him in a conflict that came as tensions intensified over demonstrators' encampments across the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Scott Olsen, 24, suffered a fractured skull Tuesday in a march with other protesters toward City Hall, said Dottie Guy, of the Iraq Veterans Against the War. The demonstrators had been making an attempt to re-establish a presence in the area of a disbanded protesters' camp when they were met by officers in riot gear. 

Several small skirmishes broke out and officers cleared the area by firing tear gas after police say protesters threw rocks and bottles at them. It's not known exactly what type of object struck Olsen in the chaos, though Guy's group alleges it was a police projectile. 

Multiple attempts to reach Oakland police by The Associated Press were unsuccessful ahead of a late afternoon news conference. Guy said also it wasn't immediately clear whether Olsen, a network administrator in Daly City, would need surgery. "It's still too early to tell," Guy said. "We're hoping for the best."

As it turns out the Mayor clearly realized that this incident did not make her police force look very good and offered an olive branch of sorts:

Oakland city officials are allowing Occupy Wall Street protesters back into a plaza where police raided and cleared a 15-day-old encampment, but they will continue prohibiting people from spending the night there. 

Mayor Jean Quan announced the conciliatory gesture Wednesday, hours after officers in riot gear clashed with and fired tear gas at demonstrators who had tried to re-establish the disbanded camp. 

Quan says Oakland supports the protesters' goals, but had to act when a small number of them threw rocks, paint and bottles at the police.

If indeed the Oakland police support the protests, you would think they would exercise extreme caution before firing projectiles of ANY kind into a crowd of Americans protesting on their behalf.

I worry that as these protests continue we will see more incidents like this which might cause some gatherings to escalate into actual riots, which of course would totally feed right into the meme that is currently being created by the Right Wing to dismiss these protestors as radicals determined to wreak havoc, cause vandalism, and physically attack authority figures.

I still want them to continue, and totally support the protestors, but I think perhaps they might start to prepare to kick troublemakers out and police their groups in order to keep local law enforcement from finding an excuse to do it THEIR way.

If there are any protestors reading here I would like to know if efforts have been made to anticipate and deal with participants who might get caught up in the moment and do something to invite aggression from the police. Because I have to say that it is starting to look like the police in a number of these cities are losing their patience, and might start looking for ANY reason to disperse these crowds while using increasing aggressive measures to achieve that result.

Update: I just received this video in my e-mail.  I think it provides some very disturbing perspective on what happened to Iraq vet Scott Olsen in Oakland today. It is hard to argue that this incident was accidental if the police are caught on film throwing tear gas canisters directly AT the protestors.