In case you're wondering about responses to the idiot Fox News pundit Ralph Peters who suggested that the Taliban should kill a captured American soldier, here's what Rachel Maddow had to say:

Hat-tip BarbinMD of DailyKos.

Treat this as an Open Thread.

Promoted by GH. Originally posted 2009-06-15 14:04:50 -0400.

Joseph Goebbels was Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister from 1933 to 1945. In that position, he perfected an understanding of the "Big Lie" technique of propaganda, which is based on the principle that a lie, if audacious enough and repeated enough times, will be believed by the masses.

Goebbels used modern propaganda techniques to psychologically prepare the German people for aggressive war and the annihilation of civilian populations. Among other propaganda devices, he accused many of Germany's ethnic and national minorities (such as the Poles, the Jews, the French) of trying to destroy Germany.

Is there really any significant difference between the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels in the 30s and 40s, and the propaganda of people like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh?

Posted without further comment.

This is an Open Thread.

From a DailyKos diary by Muzikal203, here's Jesse Ventura on The View shutting down Elisabeth Hasselbeck's attempts to propagate Reich-wing talking points:

Nicely done, Mr. Ventura.

You can also reference luaptifer's recent post about Velvet Revolution's attempts to disbar torture lawyers, or check out GreyHawk rant about the GOP's hyper-hypocrisy, if you'd like a little more reading on the topic.

Much has been stated, angrily, since a Homeland Security Department Intelligence Assessment {pdf} report was released the other day on Rightwing Extremism. The report gives a window into the "Possibilities" in one segment the Military Veterans, especially, who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, "May Be" Recruited by extremist groups, known to already exist and growing.

This report Does Not Label Military Veterans as Radical Rightwing Fanatics, as a security report it just points out the possibilities this country may be facing, and not only by the recruiting of a few of the tens os thousands who have served Honorably under orders of the CiC in these two occupations, Right or Wrong in policy they may be.

From CNNPolitics, Jindal defends those who want Obama to fail:

Jindal described the premise of the question -- "Do you want the president to fail?" -- as the "latest gotcha game" being perpetrated by Democrats against Republicans.

"Make no mistake: Anything other than an immediate and compliant, 'Why no sir, I don't want the president to fail,' is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience or political obstructionism," Jindal said at a political fundraiser attended by 1,200 people. "This is political correctness run amok."

Heh -- "political correctness run amok." Would that be the type of political "correctness" that united the Bush White House, the then-majority GOP Congress and a vast array of right-wing pundits in their efforts to villify Dick Durbin for calling them out for the torture going on under America's direction at Guatanamo in 2005, or the Terry Schiavo fiasco of the same year, or ... mmmm, what was that infamous natural disaster that took out an entire American city -- a city that still hasn't recovered fully from the devastation and complete failure of the Bush Administration and the GOP to respond adequately? Oh, yeah -- Hurricane Katrina, where attending a birthday party for a senator or a broadway show after shoe-shopping topped the list of how the Bush mal-Administration responded in the initial days, yet the entire GOP political hackery machinery motivated to stall any investigations into the depth and breadth of the failures to this very day.

It appears that Governor Jindal uses the term "run amok" without fully understanding the context, particularly since the GOP knows all too well how dissent "is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience or political obstructionism" -- they set the stage for that and ran with it as their primary modus operandi for the entire Bush presidency.

Do you think Mr. Jindal recalls these words, by former President George W. Bush back in 2001?

"Over time it's going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity," he said. "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."
      -- George W. Bush,
         Joint press conference with
         French President Jacques Chirac,
         November 6, 2001

The political hackery and propaganda games continue.

This is an Open Thread.

Sometimes, the item on the label tells you what is in the box. Sometimes, it's accurate. And sometimes, it's not.

Click to enlarge. Attribution: xkcd.¹

Likewise, the "new" conservative memes and new directions that appear to mark the repackaging of the conservative message which came out of CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) promises something new inside but delivers nothing but the same old grouchy bobcat. (Note to self: apologize to bobcats for the unfair comparison.)

From the New York Times:

Conservatives might be seeking a spiritual leader, organizing principle and fresh identity, but they at least seem to have settled on a favorite rhetorical ogre: socialism.

As in, Democrats are intent on forcing socialism on the "U.S.S.A" (as the bumper sticker says, under the words "Comrade Obama").

It seems that "socialist" has supplanted "liberal" as the go-to slur among much of a conservative world confronting a one-two-three punch of bank bailouts, budget blowouts and stimulus bills.

They'll never learn.  More to come over the jump.

Rosebud.¹

Attribution: xkcd.²

A phone rings, dammit.

Since when did phones start playing personal theme music, and why does it matter?

Is it a new "big badge of cool" for everybody and their brother to attempt to lay claim to in their mad dash to be unique among the ragged rabble and wretched refuse of all the other folks scrambling to portray their own special unique identity...just like everyone else in the "cool" crowd?

Bumped by Carol. Things are a tad slow today and this is a quiet bombshell.  Originally posted 2009-01-31 21:39:08 -0500

The father's sins have apparently weighed too heavily for too long upon the son of one of the deception industry's dirtiest.

by Jeff Huber

It sounds like the world's worst army once again took on the world's best army and lived to fight another day. The BBC reports that on September 25 Pakistani forces opened fire on two U.S. helicopters as they crossed the border from Afghanistan.

Chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said the helicopters had "crossed into our territory in Ghulam Khan area."

Pentagon bull feather merchant Bryan Whitman said that, "The flight path of the helicopters at no point took them over Pakistan."

General Abbas said, "They passed over our check post so our troops fired warning shots."

Bryan Whitman said, "The Pakistanis have to provide us with a better understanding of why this took place."

Um, Bryan, they just told you: your helicopter passed over their check post and they fired warning shots at it. What's not to understand?

This incident is yet another prime illustration of what America's biggest casualty has been in our woebegone war on terror: the truth. At this point, when presented with a choice of believing a Pentagon spokesman or a tinhorn two-star general of an army that lost every war it fought for a Bananastan country with imaginary borders and brooms don't even have handles, the decision is obvious: the Pentagon guy is lying.

Originally posted on DelphiForums on 20 September 2008 1:14 pm EST; reposted here at my invitation and request. -- GH

If you were deaf, dumb & blind and from another planet, you might not have noticed that Barack Obama is the first African-American major candidate for President. Otherwise, you know. Therefore, all the discussions and endless analyses during the primaries and general election of the impact of race, while unfortunate, have been relevant.

The conventional wisdom has been that, despite the senile stumbling and malicious lying of McCain, too many voters, no matter what they tell the pollsters, will be overcome by racism when they go into the voting booth. Many Americans don't make their final decisions on whom to vote for until late September or October. Therefore, until recently, I've somewhat tolerated the whining of the practitioners of conventional wisdom & defeatism who genuinely felt Obama couldn't win because of racism. Some polls from early to mid-September showing McCain with a slight lead over Obama only added fuel to the fire of racial fatalism.

by Jeff Huber

No nation has ever profited from a long war.

--Sun Tzu

$85 billion to bail out American International Group, huh? That's on top of $30 billion to keep Bear Sterns out of the soup line, and $200 billion or more to prevent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from staining their collective mattress. For that kind of money we could have financed maybe three more years of our woebegone war in Iraq. Not to worry, though; we can stay in Iraq for as long as it takes to achieve the kind of victory John McCain promises if it takes fifty years, a hundred years, a thousand years or a million years to achieve.

The Chinese are a patient people, and they take American Express.