Mo Brooks, my congressional representative, got special attention from Chris Matthews last night. He's not the first Alabama politician to use eliminationist rhetoric regarding the undocumented, or the worst. But this is not the representation we need in Alabama's 5th congressional district:

Brooks had a little to say about immigration at the town hall I attended a couple of weeks ago. What struck me at the time was the tone of doom he had, which was in tune with the general tone of the affair. (Click here to watch the whole thing; I dare you). Illegal aliens are out for your job and your life -- be afraid, very afraid! Because no one ever gets murdered or killed in a car wreck with an American citizen.

Tourists leaving for Egypt are warned that if they are in a car accident, they should leave the scene as soon as possible so they don't get blamed for the accident -- on the supposition that if they had not been visiting Egypt, the accident would not have happened. That is exactly the logic Mo Brooks is using. He uses anecdotal, not empirical, evidence to paint undocumented immigrants as especially violent and prone to dangerous behavior. It's an old meme, one used on people of color in times past. It's ugly. It's also completely false. Someone should put a bullet in the brainpan of this zombie idea.

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On Morning Joe Thursday morning, NBC anchor Brian Williams stopped by to discuss the different stories that the media covered during 2010 and he had the temerity to blame the media’s lack of coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster once the gusher was capped in the Gulf on the public losing interest in the topic.

WILLIAMS: And in between for those of us that have a love affair the state of Louisiana, with the southern portion of the coastline in the United States, the one story I think that’s been forgotten, because it’s cognitive dissonance looking at that live camera, of that spewing oil. We as Americans certainly like to pick ourselves up and recover and move on. And you can go down there to Venice Louisiana and not see too much in the way of pick up and clean up crews.

I’m happy to read that the Chevy Volt is being made of 100,000 pounds of plastic body parts that are a product of 100 miles of oil soaked boom. That’s what happened to all that stuff. They transported it and they’re churning it up and melting it down and making plastic body parts for the Chevy Volt. […]

So something good came out of this awful year. But I don’t think, I think we’ve all moved on and forgot what it was like to wake up on this broadcast and others every morning… let’s go to the live picture and just the helplessness that we watched.

So that’s what I’m going to remember this year for because that area already meant so much to me and I might add a person here at this table, the only one who represented it in Congress.

Yeah, it’s a good thing all that oil just magically disappeared now that there’s no more ambulance for the media to chase in the form of that gusher of oil. Good grief. Somehow I doubt anyone who’s still living with the oil on their shores and the dispersants or anyone that wonders if seafood from the Gulf will ever be safe to eat again feels the same way. Hey Brian, there’s still a story to cover if you and your cohorts would get off your butts and go down there and do some follow up. The public didn’t lose interest in the story. The media just refuses to cover it now that it will actually take some investigative journalism to do so and bucking the establishment they love to suck up to.

h/t to Fran for bringing this up in their podcast this week. I'd almost forgotten I sent the tip on this to the team via email until she and Driftie brought it up there.

From our friends at Media Matters -- Sarah Palin: Misinformer of the Year:

Congratulations to the Fox commentator, political activist and reality TV star who has boldly created new frontiers in spreading falsehoods and distorting the national conversation. Palin has truly earned the 2010 Glenn Beck Honorary Award for Excellence in Misinformation.

The Daily Show Presents the Year That Was, Before It Isn't Anymore