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The right wingers are pulling out all the rhetorical stops in trying to pretend that global warming is all just a hoax cooked up by Marxist ideologues. Take, for instance, Bill Bennett last night on Sean Hannity's show:

Bennett: It's amazing, you know -- the power of ideology to blind people to reality. You've got this Russian report that you cited -- you know, this thing is falling apart. You had the stuff out of East Anglia University -- I mean, this is reminiscent of the old alchemy, and phrenology stuff.

I mean, this, this -- there's so much junk, so much corruption in the fact that we would fork over a hundred billion dollars. Plus I think the biggest event at Copenhagen was the standing, thunderous standing ovation to Hugo Chavez when he condemned capitalism. That tells you really what that meeting is all about, it seems to me.

Hannity: That's what I want to get to. If we look at the ClimateGate scandal, coupled with what you just pointed out, we've pointed out, about this Russian climate center, what they had to say, there's another agenda. Why would a scientist -- and I have really not gotten a satisfactory answer from anybody -- why would scientists risk their careers and their reputations to lie and manipulate data if there wasn't some agenda? And if they are, and there is an agenda, what is it?

Bennett: Yeah, well, take a look at Soviet psychiatry under Stalin, take a look at various kinds of medical, quote, science under Hitler, and you'll again see the power of ideology to bend men to their, to the ways of the dictator.

You know, I remember reading that biography of Einstein. There's a list of all the scientists who were driven out of Germany by Hitler because of his crazy policies. It's the world's roster of greatest scientists. That's what's happening here. You're getting some of the best people in the world questioning what is going on in this supposedly accepted wisdom, and the thing's falling apart.

Really? A minor dustup among a handful of e-mails is just like Hitler's persecution of the Jews within the German scientific community? Climate scientists are acting like Nazi medical experimenters? Climate science is just like phrenology? Global warming is about bending us to the will exactly which dictator?

Christ on a crutch, get a grip, people. Or at least some tiny bit of perspective.

Hannity has been out leading the parade in trying to make global warming out to be a hoax. And he's obviously pulling out all the stops.

Bennett is right about one thing, though: This situation does indeed powerfully illustrate "the power of ideology to blind people to reality." Just not the way he thinks it does.

Or as the Pat Bagley cartoon put it:

Perfect timing for CNN. Hugo Chavez gets cut off as he berates the U.S. for the genocide of our indigenous Americans, and CNN switches to live coverage of the G20 protests. The anchors are too dumb to realize the police are using sonic cannons, instead referring to it as "an annoying siren."

Our America grows more authoritarian by the day, and the election hasn't changed that. Citizens are seen as the enemy, corporate interests are sacred and the police are the ultimate authority, answering to no one. They deploy weapons developed for war zones against civilian populations - and nothing happens. The media? Don't make me laugh.

PITTSBURGH — Hours after the Group of 20 meeting ended, the protests did not.

The police here arrested 110 people on Friday night, according to the mayor’s office. They dispersed hundreds of students milling near the University of Pittsburgh with pepper spray and smoke canisters in a scene reminiscent of the previous night’s disturbances on the first day of the economic summit.

The group, estimated at close to 500 people, gathered near Schenley Plaza around 10 p.m., with students saying they were drawn because they were angry over how the riot police treated students at Thursday’s gathering. Some students said their curiosity was piqued by a university message warning them to stay off the streets.

The police used a loudspeaker to announce that the plaza assembly was unlawful and ordered the crowd to disperse about 11 p.m. Soon afterward, plumes of white smoke could be seen rising near Bigelow Boulevard and officers beating cadence on plastic shields with long batons marched down Forbes Avenue, driving back students, onlookers and journalists. A block north, as people scattered, officers fired projectiles at a young man riding a scooter down Fifth Avenue, knocking him to the ground and arresting him.

It was the second consecutive night of turbulence in the bustling streets surrounding the university, where crowds of bar-hoppers were largely displaced by fleets of police vans, armored vehicles and phalanxes of officers wearing helmets, padded vests and shiny plastic shin guards.

On Friday morning a flier had circulated instructing people to gather again at the university to protest Thursday night’s events. The police then had rushed towards students in a dormitory courtyard and squirted pepper spray after black clad protesters dashed though nearby streets, smashing the windows of a University of Pittsburgh police sub station and several restaurants. Those protesters had also ignited a dumpster, which they rolled into the intersection of Forbes Avenue and Oakland Avenue before fleeing into the university campus.

Dillon Snyder, 18, a freshman at the university, said he was retreating from clouds of white smoke on Thursday, when he was struck above his right elbow with a kind of projectile fired by police.

On Saturday, he said his elbow was still sore, as he reflected on the events on his campus over the past two nights.

“There was really no reason for such extreme action,” he said. “The guns, the rubber bullets and the dogs probably did more to incite people.”

Oh, and watch Sean Hannity berate these protesters, who turn the table on him:

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Looks like Mr. Man-on-dog Rick Santorum's irony alert button is broken, but that's nothing new. While complaining about the mean old President saying that one network is devoted to doing nothing but attacking his administration, Santorum makes his point for him.

VAN SUSTEREN: Former senator Rick Santorum joins us here in Washington. Senator, I think he watches cable news!

SANTORUM: It's not cable -- he's watching FOX. I mean, he's talking about the cable chatter. He's certainly not talking about MSNBC. I mean, my goodness, they're the biggest cheerleader -- you know, they're just -- they're all over Barack Obama. This -- this is an attack on FOX. this is -- this reminds me of what Hugo Chavez was doing down in Venezuela, trying to shut down the voice of opposition in the media! This is -- this is not good, really, in my opinion, not good at all.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, it's -- I mean, it's sort of a -- I mean, we have some people on this network who are, you know, politically conservative. Sean Hannity -- no one's going to dispute that.

SANTORUM: Sure.

VAN SUSTEREN: So he goes after him. But -- but we have a lot of news gatherers, as well, who are just gathering the news.

SANTORUM: And case in point, you. I mean, I don't think anyone's going to come and say, Well, you're just -- you've been brutal on Barack Obama. You've not been brutal on him. You've put the case -- you've made the case for and against him. When you thought he was right, you stood -- you stood out there and said it.

He's -- he's overreacting. This is a very thin-skinned president. This is a guy who's not used to being criticized. And the fact that some here on FOX are taking him on and some, like yourself, are just holding him accountable when he's crossing the line in the wrong direction -- you know, his reaction, I think, is really unprofessional.

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(AP photo)

Oh Lord, thank you:

A conservative faction of the Republican National Committee is urging the GOP to take a harder line against both Democrats and wayward Republicans, drafting a resolution to rename the opposition the “Democrat Socialist Party” and moving to rebuke the three Republican senators who supported the stimulus package.

In an e-mail sent Wednesday to the 168 voting members of the committee, RNC member James Bopp, Jr. accused President Obama of wanting “to restructure American society along socialist ideals.”

“The proposed resolution acknowledges that and calls upon the Democrats to be truthful and honest with the American people by renaming themselves the Democrat Socialist Party,” wrote Bopp, the Republican committeeman from Indiana. “Just as President Reagan’s identification of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ galvanized opposition to communism, we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism.”

Didn't they already try that during the general election? We can only count our blessings that the members of the RNC want to keep running down the socialism road as a path to their salvation. Since the Republicans constantly attack Hugo Chavez, it's frakkin' hysterical that Republicans are less popular than Venezuela. The more they run down these extremist roads, the lower The Republican Teabagger Party will fall.

The Teabagger King attacked President Obama because he actually shook hands with Hugo Chavez and tried to make into an international ordeal except only his teabagging compatriots bought into his lies. ABC News did a little digging and found this on Newt's own website.

On NBC's "Today" show this morning, Gingrich criticized what he called a "weakness" in the emerging Obama foreign policy, saying that the pictures of Obama and Chavez will be used to demonstrate that Obama is "friends" with an anti-American regime.


Asked specifically about whether there's a value to having a diplomatic relationship with an enemy, like the US did with the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, Gingrich said:

"We didn't rush over, smile and greet Russian dictators. We understood who they were. I'm not against him talking to Chavez. But I think you ought to talk to Chavez in a cold and distant way."

But Gingrich sounded a bit different about the potential political value of laughter when talking about his political idol, Ronald Reagan.

As recounted in a recent interview highlighted on Gingrich's own Web site, Gingrich fondly recalled the way that Reagan shared jokes with Mikhail Gorbachev.


In the interview, Gingrich refers to a favorite picture with himself and the late president: "One of the most memorable [moments] is actually a picture hanging on the wall of my family room. The two of us are on Air Force One. We're both in shirtsleeves. We both have our arms crossed and we're laughing. We're laughing because Reagan has told another joke. Reagan collected jokes, particularly about the Soviet Union."


Gingrich recalled a joke about "the man who tells a reporter, 'I have as much freedom in the Soviet Union as I have in Washington.' The reporter says, 'What do you mean?' He says, 'Well, I can get up in front of the Kremlin and I can say that Ronald Reagan is doing a terrible job. And I can get in front of the White House and say Ronald Reagan is doing a terrible job. See, I'm totally free.' . . . . Reagan told those stories to Gorbachev."

You almost have to admire the lies he's willing to tell just to get his teabagger party all hot and bothered.

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From The Daily Show April 21, 2009, This Week in Demagogues. Jon Stewart wonders just how badly President Obama's trip to the Summit of the Americas could have played in the U.S. media and why anyone cares what Dick Cheney thinks. Of course, as usual the Fox "News" pundits supply him with an endless amount of material.

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Rush Limbaugh joined Great Van Susteren last night and spent about 15 minutes bashing President Obama for everything from shaking Hugo Chavez' hand to thinking he's a GOD-like man, who has a messianic complex---who hates America which was immoral until he took office, but still he wants to destroy.

This was a particularly painful segment to watch so I just picked a few minutes out of the many distortions and smears that I could stomach. This man can spew garbage at record levels and he surely holds a place in the Guinness World Book of Records for the trash he can deliver.

Limbaugh: I think we're looking at a person with a God or messianic complex, certainly narcissistic, who looks at these trips, not just to Central America and the G20 in Europe. Looks at all these trips as making it about "him." The US is an immoral and unjust until "he" was elected...and President Obama wants to tear apart the foundation that built this country into the greatest country in the world, American exceptionalism and make it in an image that is closer to something that would be approved of by Daniel Ortega and people like Hugo Chavez.

Without comment....

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Dick Cheney joined Sean Hannity last night on FOX in one of his "exclusive" interviews with FOX and claimed that President Obama's hand shake with Hugo Chavez along with his other trips out of the country are making him appear like a "weak" President which will lead the world to take advantage of him. Have you ever seen an ex-VP, who was basically booed out of the White House come out so fast and so vicious in the usual "politics of personal destruction?" It truly is embarrassing. Hannity as usual clipped Obama's statements and did his usual character assassinations in keeping with the hackery that he's known for.

Hannity: We have a President who's critical of our economic system, he's apologizing seemingly for our super power status around the world. Apologizing for America in general. It's been described as going on an "apologizing tour" and doesn't seem to like to tell the good story of America...

I guess I've been concerned the way we have been presented overseas..

Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity that President Obama’s handshake with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez “was not helpful” and could lead “foes” of the U.S. to “think they’re dealing with a weak president.”

Cheney: I find disturbing is the extent to which he has gone to Europe, for example, and seemed to apologize profusely in Europe, and then to Mexico, and apologize there, and so forth,” “And I think you have to be very careful. The world outside there, both our friends and our foes, will be quick to take advantage of a situation if they think they’re dealing with a weak president or one who is not going to stand up and aggressively defend America’s interests.

This was a very touching moment for the VICE, him being all worried for President Obama and all.

Newt Gingrich -- the King of the Teabaggers -- was on NBC's Today Show today slamming President Obamam for shaking hands with Hugo Chavez. In the mind of the Teabagger King, that looks bad.

The importance of the Chavez hand shake is the report you did just now, on the jump in book sales from #54,000 to number 2. Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and being with the President as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he's acceptable, He's a dictatorial figure, he's an anti American figure, but what I find distressing is this administration is opposed to looking for oil off shore, but the President bows to the Saudi King...

It does matter to the world...

He's doing his best to lead the Fox News cult, isn't he? Obama is just so weak on North Korea too. Teabaggers like Newt will stare in the face of history and go blank. The Teabagger King will lie about all things and be strong for his people. Nixon/Brezhnev, Reagan/Gorbachev none of those great Republican presidents ever shook hands with dictators. Nope, that never happened. George Bush never bowed to a Saudi King. Nope, never happened. Poppy Bush never used cash he got from the Saudis to bail out his son over bad business deals. Nope, never.

What crime has President Obama committed? He's trying to restore the image of America overseas to the rest of the world and he's being successful at it. And the Teabagger King can't have that.

The Reaction: American history is littered with scores of examples of doing business with tyrants but the GOP hypocrite brigade now has the unmitigated gall to claim that some handshakes are "irresponsible." 

Mondoweiss: Palestinians don't have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, US says

DownWithTyranny!: Publicity seeking, lunatic fringe, Republican, Chuck DeVore vs Don Henley

Truthdig: Female soldiers battle sexual violence

Whiskey Fire: Guns don't kill people, but sick cultures do

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: CNBC worried about image...Edmund Burke denounces George Will...Lights, Cameras, Mayhem!...Shoddy by choice...BillO's power in Spain...Escalate To Babble Tantrum...A different view of America...Your liberal media sets a new standard...Media fails America again...More WaPo horse pucky...Dems letting Net Neutrality die...Time Warner scraps metering trials...Swelling WH press corps...Then and Now...He said/She said Journalism...Certain facts omitted...

January 09, 2009 News Corp