“Declare victory, and get out.”

Keith Olbermann’s special comment on Afghanistan.

“General McChrystal has doubtless served his country bravely and honorably and at great risk, but to date his lasting legacy will be as the great facilitator of the obscenity that was transmuting the greatest symbol of this nation's true patriotism, of its actual willingness to sacrifice, into a distorted circus fun-house mirror version of such selflessness.

”Friendly fire killed Pat Tillman.

“Mr. McChrystal killed the truth about Pat Tillman.

“And that willingness to stand truth on its head on behalf of "selling" a war -- or the generic idea of America being at war -- to turn a dead hero into a meaningless recruiting poster, should ring essentially relevant right now.

“From the very center of a part of our nation that could lie to the public, could lie to his mother, about what really happened to Pat Tillman - from the very man who was at the operational center of that plan - comes the entire series of plans to help us supposedly find the way out of Afghanistan?

“We are supposed to believe General McChrystal isn't lying about Afghanistan?

“Didn't he blow his credibility by lying, so obviously and so painfully, about Pat Tillman?

”Why are we believing the McChrystals?

See the whole thing here.

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Would Mike Huckabee like to comment on the 4 cops executed in Washington state?

The man suspected of ambushing and killing four cops in Washington state Sunday morning had been serving a life sentence in Arkansas, until the sentence was commuted by then-Governor Mike Huckabee, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

WTF is wrong with people?

If alien beings ever come to earth to decide whether or not to destroy us, they should spare us why, exactly?

Black Friday turns a little ugly again this year, as early morning Wal-Mart shoppers ripped into shrink-wrapped items that were supposed to remain closed until the 5:00 a.m. sale time.

Management at the Upland Wal-Mart called local police to the store at 2:44 a.m. when customers began "fighting inside," reported the Los Angeles Times.

About 300 people were in the store, which had remained open all night as a security precaution after a Wal-Mart worker on Long Island, N.Y., was trampled to death last year on Black Friday when a surging, impatient crowd rushed the doors after the store opened. “This was without a doubt the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said one employee, who said she has worked a dozen Black Fridays. “They wouldn’t let people line up,” she added. “They were belligerent. They just bombarded the store.” Several officers were sent and stood by as shoppers were kicked out and the store closed down, Etchason said. The bargain hunters were told to line up in the parking lot. Meanwhile, the carts were emptied and all the items returned to the shelves, employees said. But they said that outside, people began “yelling and screaming,” pounding on the glass doors and trying to sneak into the store through the lawn and garden section.

Sarah Palin’s “bus” tour

Sarah Palin is doing her book tour by bus, we're all told. Boy, that makes her folksy and reg'ler people! Woo hoo!

Except, like almost everything else in Palin-land, the "bus" tour is a lie.

The bus is a prop. She's actually getting around via luxury jet.

But I'm sure the Paliban will make excuses for her.

WTF is wrong with the Secret Service?

At a time when there is an unprecedented number of threats from racists and conservatives against the president and his wife and children (stoked by Glenn Beck, Fox News, Michele Bachmann, etc.), why the hell did the Secret Service allow this to happen?

Telling a lie so big…

Either Dana Perino is absolutely clueless and incredibly brainless, or she is attempting to purvey a lie so big that the fact she's attempting to do so shows us she is completely soulless and without morals.

Which is it?

Dana Perino: 'We Did Not Have A Terrorist Attack On Our Country During President Bush's Term'

For those with memories as spotty as Perino's, President Bush took office on January 20, 2001. On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the U.S. in terrorist attacks coordinated by al-Qaeda. Five people were killed later that year in the anthrax attacks.

Interesting how the Fox hosts who supposedly know all about terrorism don’t correct her.

Telling a lie so big…

Either Dana Perino is absolutely clueless and incredibly brainless, or she is attempting to purvey a lie so big that the fact she's attempting to do so shows us she is completely soulless and without morals.

Which is it?

Dana Perino: 'We Did Not Have A Terrorist Attack On Our Country During President Bush's Term'

For those with memories as spotty as Perino's, President Bush took office on January 20, 2001. On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the U.S. in terrorist attacks coordinated by al-Qaeda. Five people were killed later that year in the anthrax attacks.

If abortion is murder…

Finally, a major media pundit asks the question I’ve been asking anti-choice proponents for years… If abortion really is “murder,” then what do they think the legal punishment should be for doctors who’ve performed them and women who’ve had them?

The “abortion is murder” rhetoric always falls apart at this point. What this shows us is that most of the people shouting that abortion is murder DON’T REALLY BELIEVE THE RHETORIC.

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The lights are on but none of them are home

They don’t know why they support Palin, they just do.

They don’t know why they hate Obama, they just do.

Which ones are the Nazis?

We keep hearing that Obama is a Nazi, a Socialist, etc. He's constantly compared to Hitler, Stalin, etc.

But which political party in the United States is acting like Nazis and Stalin-era Communists with party "purges" and ideological purity tests?

Hint: It ain't the Democrats.

Antarctic ice breaking up

Global warming has caused a massive ice floe in the Antarctic to break up, sending an unprecedented number of icebergs floating to New Zealand and endangering shipping lanes.

But climate experts Matt Drudge and little Jimmy Inhofe say that global warming is a hoax... Huh.

The compassion of teabaggers

This should be spread far and wide... the more real Americans see that this is what conservatives and right wingers support, inculcate and applaud, the sooner we'll be rid of them.

A group called the Chicago Tea Party Patriots publicly heckled a grieving family and suggested that the couple fabricated their tragic story.

At a town hall held by Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) on Nov. 14,, Dan and Midge Hough spoke about how they believed the death of their daughter-in-law and her unborn child were caused, in part, by a lack of health insurance. Twenty-four-year old Jennifer was uninsured. According to her in-laws, she was not receiving regular prenatal care and was not properly treated when she got sick. She ended up in an emergency room with double pneumonia that developed into septic shock, had a heart attack, a brain bleed and a stroke. The baby died and Jennifer died a few weeks later.

Midge Hough was heckled by anti-reform crowd members. "You can laugh at me, that's okay," she said, crying. "But I lost two people, and I know you think that's funny, that's okay."

Stuck in the Middle Ages

The Catholic Church is still stuck in the Middle Ages.

If this is the way they want to operate, time to stop calling them a religion and start treating them like a PAC.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family.

"The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.

What’s really wrong with America

What's really wrong with America? MEN PEE SITTING DOWN, that's what! And God's going to destroy countries that let men pee sitting down! Barack Obama pees sitting down, I bet!

A Christian pastor is preaching the "truth" about men peeing sitting down.

No, I'm not kidding.

Top 18 lies

I know, it's hard to even make a list, because there are so many, but here are the top 18 lies in Sarah's book:

"Going Rogue": The 18 Biggest Falsehoods In Palin's Book

Not the sharpest tools in the shed

Teabbagers aren't too bright. As long as they're waving their torches and pitchforks around, and yelling something against somebody, they're happy. They don't really stop to think about exactly what it is they're yelling against. This group of teabaggers gets punked into yelling for the removal of white people from America.

Carrie Prejean’s solo meltdown

America was vibrating with excitement, watching Carrie Prejean on Larry King. During the interview, she fingers Sarah Palin as her “hero.” Then, she has a freakout, ripping off her microphone during her solo act, and acting like a spoiled master brat.

Barney Frank says DADT will be gone next year

That's fine, Mr. Frank, only if you make sure the policy is replaced by one that allows gay soldiers to serve openly.

Barney Frank: ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ gone next year

The US military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy barring homosexuals from serving openly in the armed forces will "likely" be ended next year, in the 2010 defense spending bill, says US House Rep. Barney Frank.

Frank, who is only the second openly gay member of the House of Representatives, told Advocate.com that repealing DADT as part of a military spending bill was always the plan for approaching the issue.

Faking the video

Jon Stewart catches Fox News’ Sean Hannity playing fast and loose with video footage to make an anti-Obama protest look bigger than it really was.

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Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage
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How's that work?

Why are Fox News and Glenn Beck taking credit for the departure of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn? She had taken the position only on an interim basis, and her stepping down had been planned from the beginning.

 

It's almost like they don't really care about reporting accurately.

Bad news for Republicans

Republicans are having a shit fit on news that the Dow has reached a 2009 high. They are absolutely livid over this fantastic economic news for America, and amidst much screeching and gnashing of teeth are meeting with their leaders Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to figure out some cloud in the silver lining, some way to turn this into bad news, and blame it on the Antichrist, er, Obama.

Passed

The health care overhaul bill passes the House 220-215.

Absolutely brilliant! BEST Jon Stewart bit EVER!

This is the best Jon Stewart bit he’s ever done on The Daily Show. His mocking of Glenn Beck is devastating!

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Michele Bachmann is a domestic terrorist

Michele Bachmann is inciting violence at the Capitol, telling protesters to "storm" the building and "scare Congress."

Why is this traitor not in jail?

Yes, there have been a few arrests so far, but the traitorous, domestic terrorist ringleader still walks free. Why? Why isn't DHS and the FBI doing their jobs?

Bachmann says she wants the protesters to "scare" Congress into voting against health care reform. Isn't this just like today's conservative movement? They can't use reason and debate to make their case, so they resort to THREATS AND VIOLENCE TO SUBVERT OUR DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM.

That’s domestic terrorism. That’s treason.

“V” – universal health care is EVIL!

The writer of the pilot of the "V" remake on ABC snuck in some blatant anti-health care propaganda.

You see, one of the alien's SINISTER takeover plans is "universal health care." They were so obvious about it they interjected characters REPEATING "universal health care" with looks of horror on their faces. In one character's case, it was the aliens' promise of "universal health care" that finally convinced him they were evil.

I'm not kidding.

The script was written by Scott Peters. Scott Peters can go to hell.

Fox News ratings spike? Not so fast

The myth of Fox News' ratings spike

Fact: The breathless claim that Fox News' ratings recently spiked thanks to the White House's public critique is bogus hype -- hype that Fox News and the Beltway press have relentlessly pushed.

It's just not true.

[...] those numbers didn't add up. Or more specifically, those numbers did not reflect Fox News' ratings two weeks prior to the controversy and two weeks after. Instead, the numbers represented a cherry-picked attempt to create the illusion of a ratings spike for Fox News.

And here's how. As I mentioned, the two weeks prior to the White House dispute cover the dates from September 28-October 11. The two weeks after that cover the dates from October 12-October 25. But the tabulation used to come up with the 9 percent ratings gain (i.e. 1.2 million vs. 1.3 million) only measured Fox News' post-controversy ratings from October 12-October 23, which meant it was a 14-day comparison vs. a 12-day comparison. And which two days were left off the tabulation? Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25. Traditionally, Saturday and Sunday, of course, are the two lowest-rated days of the cable news week.

What happened when you included October 24 and October 25 in the tabulation to make a true two-week-vs.-two-week comparison? Suddenly, that 9 percent gain in overall viewers evaporated into a barely-there 2 percent blip, while that 14 percent increase among viewers 25-54 shrunk to a much more modest 7 percent bump.

[…] And by the way, in the world of cable news, a tiny 2 percent bump in viewership over a relatively short span of two weeks is utterly irrelevant and signifies nothing more than the normal up-and-down viewing patterns that are part of the business. For instance, on October 15, Fox News averaged 1.5 million viewers for the day. The next day, the total audience slipped to 1.3 million, a drop of more than 10 percent. Did that mean Fox News' ratings "plunged"? Hardly, which is why the channel's 2 percent gain in the two weeks following its battle with the White House didn't signify much of anything.

The same was true of the relatively modest 7 percent gain among the more targeted 25-54 demo. Because that audience group is much smaller (roughly 330,000 viewers each day as compared to the larger pool of 1.2 million), a 7 percent increase or decrease is unexceptional. Again, between October 1 and October 2, Fox News' total day 25-54 demo decreased from 415,000 to 320,000 viewers -- a drop of almost 25 percent. The smaller 25-54 demo often fluctuates like that.

Read the entire article with more ratings information here.

Where are the protesters?

Where are the tea party protesters? Where are the "deficit hawk" Republicans? You know, the ones who go nuts about "government spending" and blast President Obama for the deficit?

They're livid that Obama wants to spend 90 billion bucks a year on health care... "SPENDING MUST STOP!!!" they shriek.

And yet, strangely, they're silent on the 680 billion-dollar defense appropriation bill.

How come we have so much money to kill people with, but none to heal them with?