Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

The merry fuckwits at Faux News are having fun equating Dems to terrorists. Yes, again:

Fox News' new website is a font of odd and mistaken information, but this one seemed more annoying than most.

An April 17 headline posted on TheFoxNation.com -- Fox News' new and allegedly bias-free website -- claimed that the "Taliban Copies Democrat Playbook." The headline linked to an April 16 New York Times article headlined, "Taliban Exploit Class Rifts in Pakistan." In fact, the Times article -- which described insurgency tactics such as roadside bombs -- made no mention of the Democratic Party.

This, apparently, is "Fox Nation's" idea of being clever. You see, the Taliban is exploiting class rifts in Pakistan, so the Taliban is necessarily emulating the "Democrat [sic] Playbook." How droll.

As Steve points out, the "fair and balanced" folks at Faux News didn't get terribly upset when Rep. Pete Sessions had this to say:

"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."

He added that if Democrats don't give the minority party more "options or opportunities," Republicans "will then become an insurgency."

So, Republicon takes page directly out of Taliban playbook = not news. Taliban does something that can be connected to Dems only in the overheated imaginations of insane right-wing fucktards = totally news. Got it.

This is even more amusing as news arrives that al Qaeda is begging Muslims to stop liking Obama so much.

In other amusing news, another Con has been forced to kiss Rush Limbaugh's abcessed ass:

Last week in an interview with the Kansas City Star editorial board, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) risked alienating thousands of ditto-heads by giving his honest opinion of whether Rush Limbaugh was the "de facto leader of the GOP." "No, no, he's just an entertainer," Tiahrt said.
According to the Wichita Eagle (via Kansas Jackass), Tiahrt's office is now also rushing to apologize:

Asked about the episode and resulting Web buzz, Tiahrt spokesman Sam Sackett said Tiahrt was not speaking negatively about Limbaugh but was trying to defend him against the suggestion that Limbaugh could be blamed for the GOP’s woes. "The congressman believes Rush is a great leader of the conservative movement in America -- not a party leader responsible for election losses," Sackett told The Eagle editorial board. "Nothing the congressman said diminished the role Rush has played and continues to play in the conservative movement."

As ThinkProgress has noted, other Republicans have made similar courageous statements, only to eventually back down in the face of Limbaugh's great power.

Wow. That was one of the most self-effacing, pathetic retractions I've ever seen. Rush Limbaugh is "a great leader of the conservative movement in America"? That's really over-the-top. Funny to watch them quiver in terror at the wrath of a disgusting gasbag, innit?

Speaking of kissing ass, the New York Times appears to have their lips firmly planted on some Con backside today:

Today’s New York Times has published a whole article devoted to the claim by former Bushies, and some Republicans, that Obama’s release of the torture memos endangered our national security by revealing secret torture techniques that we can now never use again.

It is a matter of simple fact that much about these techniques were already publicly known, well before Obama’s release of the memos.

But today’s Times treats this as a matter of debate, as a claim being made by “Democrats” — even though the Times has itself reported this as outright fact in the past.

Today’s article features paragraph after paragraph from former CIA director Michael Hayden and other Republicans claiming that Obama has tipped off the terrorists to all kinds of secret torture techniques. Here is the only sentence in the article addressing whether this is, you know, true:

Democrats on Sunday played down the importance of the release of the documents, saying that most of the information was already public.

[snip]

As it happens, this info can be found in the paper’s own archives. The Times published an article earlier this month detailing the revelations in the Red Cross report — and even linked to the report itself!

Seems to be a severe case of "theysaiditis" there. Looks like they're terrified of being called dirty libruls by the rabid right. Sad.

Ron Paul's thrown his hat into the secessionist ring with this idiotic statement:

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) recently raised the idea of Texas seceding from the Union as one possible response to President Obama's fiscal policies. Now, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is following suit. In a video post on his Campaign for Liberty PAC, Paul said the secession debate "is worth a discussion":

[Perry] really stirred some of the liberal media, where they started screaming about: 'What is going on here, this is un-American.' I heard one individual say 'this is treasonous to even talk about it.' Well, they don't know their history very well, because if they think about it...it is very American to talk about secession. That's how we came in being. Thirteen colonies seceded from the British and established a new country. So secession is a very much American principle.

Hmm. The colonies rebelled, so secession is an "American principle." Interesting. I'd have thought the Civil War would've put paid to that idea, but apparently not in what passes for their minds.

And speaking of Rick Perry, guess who's been pallin' around with terrorists:

Media Matters recently released some very disturbing information about Perry:

Media Matters Action Network released a memo outlining Texas Governor Rick Perry's ties to a Texas secessionist group whose former leaders are responsible for numerous acts of domestic terrorism. "From bomb threats, to kidnapping, to planning attacks using biological weapons, the Texas Nationalist Movement has a long violent history that cannot be ignored," Media Matters Action Network Managing Director Ari Rabin-Havt said. "Governor Perry should be ashamed of his association with these domestic terrorists."..read onVery disturbing indeed.

I guess we can expect that bombshell to hit the Faux News headlines right about... never.