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Real Time's New Rules for Aug. 7, 2009.

Maher: Now, before I go about demonstrating how easy it is to prove the dumbness that is dragging us down, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq war, 70% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9-11. Six years later, 34% still do. Or look at the health care debate going on now. At a recent town hall meeting in South Caronlina a man stood up and told the Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare!".

Which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways. This country is like a college chick after two Long Island iced teas. We can be talked into anything, like wars. And we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget the town halls, and replace them with study halls.

Listen to some of these statistics. A majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than 2/3 of Americans don't know what's in Roe vs Wade. 2/3 don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does.

Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up by simply being alive.

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July 23, 2009 BBC World

TMZ got their hands on a clip from a never before heard track by Michael Jackson called "A Place With No Name." The song is a lift/interpretation of America's "Horse With No Name," which apparently was done with America's approval. Hopefully a complete version will surface soon, as well as some more unfinished recordings. If this one is exemplary, Jackson was working on some impressive stuff.

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May 20, 2009 ABC NIGHTLINE

The truth may set you free, but not if you're a Republican and the subject is taxes. After all, 95% of American families as promised received a tax cut from the Obama stimulus package. And while three-quarters of Americans support President Obama's proposal to roll back the Bush tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 to their Clinton-era levels, it turns out that affluent voters, too, chose Barack Obama over John McCain. Making matters worse, a Gallup poll Monday revealed that Americans' "views of income taxes among most positive since 1956."

So as their furious followers head off to their April 15th orgy of tea-bagging, the leadership of the GOP and its amen corner in the right-wing media have instead turned to tall tales on taxes.

Here, then, are 10 Republican Tax Day lies:

1. President Obama will raise taxes on small businesses.
2. The estate tax devastates small businesses and family farms.
3. 40% of Americans pay no taxes.
4. Tax cuts always increase revenue.
5. The GOP is the party of fiscal discipline.
6. Ronald Reagan was the greatest tax cutter of all time.
7. FDR caused the Great Depression, or at least made it worse.
8. Obama's cap-and-trade plan will cost each American family $3,100 a year.
9. Obama's tax proposals will undermine charitable giving.
10. The rich pay too much in taxes already.

For the details behind each of the GOP's Tax Day deceits, continue reading.

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After taking a couple weeks off and having some time to travel abroad, Bill Moyers leaves his viewers with some of his thoughts on the world's hopes and expectations for America.

We were abroad these past two weeks trying to cleanse our journalistic pipes, so to speak. We thought we could put American politics out of sight and out of mind for a spell. We were wrong.

Everywhere we went people wanted to talk about America. The Greeks, Sicilians, Sardinians, Tunisians, Algerians, and Spaniards we met, were euphoric - cab drivers, guides, waiters, hotel clerks, bank tellers. They expect miracles from America. Their own economies are imploding: layoffs, budget shortfalls, failing banks, fear spreading among the populace. They want to believe that somehow the long arm of America will pull them back. I tried but I didn't have the heart to tell them just how much trouble their rich Uncle Sam is in.

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November 12, 2008 C-SPAN
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice talked about the election of Barack Obama as president and her tenure as the 66th United States secretary of State. Topics included: the impact Barack Obama's election has had on how the U.S. is viewed worldwide; The mistakes made in Iraq and lessons for the next administration; the threat of terrorism; her personal experiences of racism in America, growing up in Birmingham, Alabama; and her plans for the future, as she prepares to return to Stanford University and begin work on three books. This was the secretary's first television interview since the 2008 elections. It was conducted in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the State Department.

November 03, 2008 BBC America

(VOAvideo of US, Poland Sign Missile Defense Deal)

American plans for missile defense bases in bordering nations infuriate Russia, and the US has had to bend over backwards to push through the Polish and Czech sites over the objections of those nation's populace - even going so far as to offer Poland US troops and air-defense missiles on their border with Russia. But why is the Bush administration pushing so hard for a defense against a so-far entirely hypothetical threat from Iran and to have bases for missiles that don't work?

Phil Coyle, the Pentagon's former top weapons tester (.pdf), says it's all for nothing. "The system proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic doesn't exist, has never been tested, and has no demonstrated effectiveness to defend Europe or the U.S. under realistic operational conditions," Coyle contends in an exclusive conversation with DANGER ROOM.

He says that even our existing missile defenses, installed in Alaska, couldn't stop more than one or two rudimentary missiles from, say, Iran. "For these reasons the U.S. BMD system proposed for Europe is causing strife with Russia for nothing."

Well, not exactly for nothing.

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