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Senator Ted Cruz continues to endear himself to his fellow Republicans, saying he doesn't trust either party on the budget. His remarks were particulary pointed towards John McCain as well.

Text via Raw Story:

“Madame President,” Cruz said to Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who was presiding over the Senate session, “the senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear, I don’t trust the Republicans.”

“And I don’t trust the Democrats,” he continued after a beat. “And I think a whole lot of Americans likewise don’t trust the Republicans and the Democrats because it is leadership in both parties that has gotten us into this mess.”

Considering that Cruz is expected to run in 2016 for his party's nomination one wonders how he'll get any support, beyond the right wing fringe. He certainly won't win any popularity contests among his peers, but that's not really the point with someone like Cruz.

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Just in case anyone didn't think that Michelle Malkin's display on Fox & Friends was quite enough with them carrying water for Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, they decided to bring in for good measure right wing rag The Daily Caller co-founder, and heir to the Swanson food fortune, Tucker Carlson, to lay the blame for the school shooting at Sandy Hook at the feet of President Obama, Democrats and Hollywood liberals. Because we all know that guns don't kill people, people who watch violent movies do.

Tucker Carlson: Obama Ignores Violent Media Because ‘Hollywood’ Donates To The Democratic Party:

The Daily Caller’sTucker Carlson appeared on Fox & Friends this Saturday and slammed President Obama for refusing to acknowledge the media’s role in our violent culture for fear of losing “Hollywood” donations. “Hollywood is one of the largest donors to the Democratic Party,” Carlson said, and because of this, the Obama administration ignores the violent media.

Host Dave Briggs asked Carlson if he thought Hollywood was “hypocritical” in speaking out against gun violence but never admitting their contribution to the problem. Co-host Alisyn Camerota suggested Hollywood is a “powerful lobby” that “bears some responsibility for the culture of gun violence”. According to Carlson, the main question Hollywood should be asking is whether “watching violence movies” and “playing violent video games” affects children. Carlson admitted “we don’t know” whether the media desensitizes people to violence but he believes “common sense suggests maybe.”

Carlson lamented that the role of media in America’s violent culture hasn’t been examined fully. He underscored his point that the reason for this is because Hollywood makes large contributions to Democratic to Democratic candidates:

“This is something Hollywood should be taking a close look at it. There ought to be some soul-searching. There ought to be, in the words of the left, some corporate responsibility here. And yet, you do not hear members of Congress on the Democratic side suggest this because they’re taking hundreds of millions of dollars from Hollywood.”

I'm not going to defend children being allowed to watch violent movies or play violent video games, but when it comes to controlling what adults watch, I guess Tucker suddenly doesn't like that "freedom" he and his fellow wingnuts are always railing about. Sadly no one bothered to ask Carlson why people in other countries manage to watch these same movies or play these same games, and somehow they don't have the same level of gun violence that we do here in the United States.

I'd also like to know just what they think any Democrats are supposed to do about what movies Hollywood puts out there. They seem to love the 2nd Amendment, but think it's perfectly acceptable to throw out the 1st if it suits their political agenda on any given day of the week, and as long as it means protecting the gun manufacturers in America and their profits.

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Another Sunday, another week for Bloody Bill Kristol to be wrong about something else. During his appearance on Fox News Sunday, Kristol suggested that the Democrats have given up on that whole line of attack that Republicans are waging a "war on women" because he didn't hear it mentioned during some interviews over the weekend and hasn't seen any recent attack ads on the topic. If I'm not mistaken, it's going to be one of the major themes at their convention this week.

And I'd love to know why Kristol thinks it's not working. He admitted that Republicans were worried about it enough that they based a good portion of their own convention on trying to convince voters otherwise, which to me went over about as well as them trying to pretend they've got any great love for minorities or the poor, which is basically like a lead balloon.

I guess we'll see if he changes his tune once the convention starts this week.

WALLACE: Bill, how tough do you expect the attacks here on Romney to be? And where do you expect them to come from? What will they hit hardest?

KRISTOL: Well, that's a very good question. You know, wasn't the theme two weeks ago the "Republicans' war on women?" They were just hammering that, both in paid advertising and in speeches by senior Democrats. I don't think I heard that phrase from Axelrod or Mayor Villaraigosa.

WALLACE: And why not?

KRISTOL: Well, I wonder. I wonder if that was, a little bit of a, you know, faith and the base loves it and they have -- they spent a week or two doing it, and then the polling showed no one really believes the Republicans are waging a war on women.

The Republicans, sort of, half-believed that it was a threat. They certainly rolled out a ton -- the theme of the Republican convention was we love women; we're not engaged in a war on women. I wonder if that was a little bit of misdirection by the Democrats or they perhaps reconsidered...

HUME: But Bill, remember now...

KRISTOL: And it seems to me they're going to go with the middle -- the economic argument. Taxes -- you're cutting taxes for the wealthy and you're not doing anything for the middle class. That's going to be their core argument, not the social issues, I suspect.

I would suggest they're probably going to do all of the above. I guess Kristol believes they're only capable of waging one line of attack and that's it, instead of being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

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What a mess. Rachel Maddow made the apt comparison of what just happened in Tennessee to what we saw in South Carolina, when the Democrats found themselves with an unknown candidate winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate back in 2008, named Alvin Greene. Here we go again with the nomination of Mark Clayton.

Democrats disavow their own Senate nominee in Tennessee:

The Tennessee Democratic Party has disavowed its own nominee running against Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) for being a member of a "known hate group," it said Friday.

"Mark Clayton is associated with a known hate group in Washington D.C. and the Tennessee Democratic Party disavows his candidacy, will not do anything to promote or support him in any way, and urges Democrats to write in a candidate of their choice in November," the party said in a statement. "Many Democrats in Tennessee knew nothing about any of the candidates in the race, so they voted for the person at the top of the ticket. Unfortunately, none of the other Democratic candidates were able to run the race needed to gain statewide visibility or support."

The result is a sign of how weakened Democrats have become in the state. Six years ago, Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) nearly beat Corker, and heading into the last election they held the governorship and five of the state's nine House seats.

Here's more from Mother Jones: Dems Nominate Anti-Gay Conspiracy Theorist for Senate:

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From this Monday evening's The O'Reilly Factor, flame thrower Bernard Goldberg apparently isn't the only one wanting to discourage people from voting: Fox's Bernard Goldberg: "If You Don't Know How Many States There Are" Or "What The Capital Of The" U.S. Is, "Don't Vote".

Goldberg was spouting similar nonsense in a column he wrote back in May: Going After the Stupid Vote:

According to a recent poll by the Gallup organization, more than six in 10 Americans (63 percent) think the United States benefits from having a class of rich people.

There may be something in this for President Obama to consider since his campaign for re-election is be based on dividing Americans based on how much money they make.

Despite all the shots he's taken at the so-called rich, despite all the times he's told us they're not paying "their fair share," most Americans not only think the country benefits from having rich people around, but a majority of Americans (another 63 percent) — who do not consider themselves rich now — would like to be rich if they had their choice. None of this should surprise anybody. Of course most people would like to be rich. Why wouldn't they? And what kind of dolt would think the United States does not benefit from having rich people around.

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Now this is a clever web ad. Being a Democrat in Utah seems like it would be difficult at best but Ryan Combe running for Congress in their First District has some fun with it.

The YouTube version is here if you'd like to leave a comment.

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I'm not sure if Rick Tyler just won the country for Newt or handed the primary to Mitt Romney, but on a day where a major breast cancer charity has chosen to turn their back on poor women in need of breast cancer screenings (including poor black women), this is beyond despicable. Here's the part I zeroed in on as he spoke the words:

TYLER: More people are on food stamps today because of Barack Obama, they fail in the schools, you can ask Al Sharpton, the Democrats have failed in the public schools with the African-Americans, they abort their babies, they've done nothing to lift them out of poverty.

And then he doubled down a few seconds later.

98 percent of African-Americans vote Democrat, okay? What have they gotten for it? Poor schools, poor neighborhoods, crime-ridden neighborhoods, a destruction of the family, and the Democrats want to abort their babies. That's their position. I'm not going to defend that.

Wow. Got that, folks? If you're a Democrat, you presumably want to abort black babies. Really? That's just loaded code right to the core.

Also, about that whole "they've done nothing to lift them out of poverty thing?" According to this 2011 Brandeis study, the single most destructive economic factor in African-American communities is...debt.

Economic stagnation and decline was experienced by both low-wealth whites and low-wealth African-Americans. However, African-Americans were found to be more likely to have very low levels of wealth. In fact, for every year of the study at least one in four African-American families had no assets at all. The increase in negative wealth experienced by many households at the lowest positions on the wealth distribution reveals a new dependence on credit to make ends meet. Among those with no financial assets, credit is often an emergency resource. Summing all assets and debt, one in ten African-Americans owe at least $3,600 (see Figure 3), while their debt burden in 1984 at was about half of this in real terms in 1984 ($2000). In sum, many African Americans hold more debt than assets.

Now I ask you. Whose policies would have put African-Americans in this position? Democrats who "want to abort black babies"? Or Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich's sugar daddies?

Rick Tyler is a worm of a human being who will someday see his ugly heart strangle him in the mirror. But looking beyond his disgusting words, what really makes him the liar he is are the statistics which stamp the word "LIE!" across everything that came out of his smarmy little mouth.

Joan Walsh called it the Republican id unleashed. I'd say that might start to describe it, but it's something more than that. It's as though the last 30 years of barely-veiled hate has bubbled up and is erupting like a volcano filled with the hottest, stinkiest, most disgusting offal we've seen. They're spewing it all over the nation, because they're that desperate to see our first African-American President fail.

A very special shoutout to Reverend Al Sharpton for calling it what it is and standing up for what's right. He was the only one in this segment to come out without being covered with what Tyler served and continues to serve on Twitter. Here's one reply he sent out to someone I follow:

@4lgsgood democrats are pro-abortion. It's in their platform.A disproportionate number of the babies aborted are black.

— Rick Tyler (@rickwtyler) February 1, 2012

Full segment follows below the fold. If you'd like to see what Jamil Smith, former Rachel Maddow producer currently working on the new Melissa Harris-Perry show debuting in February and Mr. Tyler discussed, I've embedded a series of tweets there, too.

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Our friends over at News Hounds flagged this segment from Fox News with Frank Luntz and another one of his focus groups, giving Allen West some cover by playing dumb about West's recent remark that President Obama and Democratic leaders should "get the hell out of the United States."

As we've covered here at C&L, West has a long history of making inflammatory remarks, but Luntz chose to treat the one woman on the panel who was obviously aware of them as though he didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about when she brought them up, but failed herself to be specific about the things she's heard West say.

If Luntz needs a refresher, here are a few for him.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz refutes Allen West's lie that he apologized to her

Allen West thinks Obama supporters are "a threat to the gene pool"

Wingnut Allen West Slams Obama's Statesmanship While Calling Him A "Low-Level Socialist Agitator"

GOP congressional candidate Allen West tells Tea Partiers: "make the fellow scared to come out of his house"

Allen West defends 'sexist' comments by implying Democrats are racists

I'd say that Luntz should be ashamed of himself for misleading these people in this focus group and the audience at Fox, but we all already know he doesn't have any sense of shame.

Here's more from News Hounds -- Frank Luntz Runs Interference For Allen West’s divisive rhetoric. Go check out their post for a detailed description of the exchange.

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From Countdown:

Former Sen. Russ Feingold, founder of Progressives United, tells Keith he both supports and is excited about the Occupy protests. Feingold is calling on Democrats to not play “cautious politics” and to join the movement, saying conservatives are attempting to mock the protests because “they’re very nervous that this might work.” Feingold adds, “My sense is that there is great fear that this sweet deal that a lot of these people have in both Washington and New York … is finally being threatened and challenged.”

I love what Feingold had to say in the beginning of the interview about where he thinks the #OWS movement may eventually go:

FEINGOLD: Well, I think this can go very far and I think it will. What I like to say is by the time this thing is done, it's going to make the tea party look like... a tea party. It will be very extensive. And the reason is, the crimes against the working people in this country have mounted up and people have finally realized, they have to actually deal with it. They can't just take it.

And if obviously the Wall Street abuses keep going, the protection of the very wealthy, that they don't have to participate and have to try to deal with our deficit problem, the complete domination of the political process by unlimited, secret contributions, the shipping of our jobs overseas, the lousy trade agreements while at the same time taking away the collective bargaining rights of the public employees unions. You know, it's finally reached a point where people are saying, that's it. We are tired of being ripped off. And they're responding. And I think once that's unleashed, it keeps going.

Amen brother.

“Will the Supercommittee save Congress from Congress’ archenemy: the American people?”

The debt ceiling debacle's first act is now over and we can look forward to the second part with the rise of the super committee.

Our heroes include: “The Senator Drone,” (Sen. Reid) who will “talk to you about things for a long time,” “Professor Kvetch,” Jon Kyl as "The Trickler" (his golden stream shielding the rich), (Sen. Charles Schumer) “drowning out opponents with his supersonic whine,” and “Old-Man Man” (Sen. John McCain), the guy who's lawn you must not tread upon.