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Breitbart News editor-at-large Ben Shapiro on Wednesday dismissed the importance of ethnic studies by insisting that only purposes of the courses were "to meet girls" and "get an easy A."

Fox News host Megyn Kelly noted on Wednesday that a U.S. Circuit Court judge recently had upheld an Arizona law that banned ethnic studies in Tucson because Republican lawmakers said that the classes promoted racial resentment.

Shapiro argued that the judge had made the right decision because ethnic studies courses -- like the Mexican American Studies Program that was banned in Tucson -- had a "myopic focus on the idea that America is a racist place against certain ethnicities and minorities."

"The second point here is just the giant waste of taxpayer dollars that this constitutes," he added. "Look, I took Jewish studies courses when I was at UCLA. There are only two reason that you take a Jewish studies course. The first is to meet girls, and the second is to get an easy A."

"And that's why most students are taking ethnic studies courses, unless they're buying into this radical ideology that really is the basis of all ethic studies courses throughout America."

"That explains a lot about the make up of some of those classes back in my school," Kelly quipped.

Continue reading »

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Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday questioned if former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) even had the "competence" necessary to be the secretary of defense.

During an interview with Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Wallace pointed out that Hagel had admitted to misspeaking during his Senate confirmation hearing when he suggested that President Barack Obama favored containment of the Iranian nuclear program.

"Just on the question of competence, just on the question of knowledge, do you really have no second thoughts about Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense?" the Fox News host asked McCaskill.

For her part, the Missouri Democrat agreed that Hagel had not given a good performance during the hearing, but he was more than qualified because of "his time as an enlisted soldier fighting in a war with great bravery and decoration, to running the U.S.O, to serving on a variety of different important bodies that deal with national defense policy."

"He's qualified, I think it's despicable the way his character has been impugned by some people through innuendo an inference," McCaskill said.

"I'm not impugning his character, I'm impugning his competence -- or questioning his competence, to put it more properly," Wallace interrupted.

"He misspoke the way he said it, and should he be disqualified after a lifetime of service and a resume that clearly supports this position?" McCaskill shot back. "I don't think he should be, and I think it's time for us to come together and unite behind him so he can do the best job possible keeping our country safe."

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), however, bragged that Republicans were actually undermining Hagel's ability to defend the United States with historic opposition and the first-ever filibuster against a secretary of defense nominee.

"In modern times, we haven't had a secretary of defense that's had more than three votes against him," Coburn observed. "And you're going to have 40 votes against him or 30 votes, and that sends a signal to our allies as well as our foes that he does not have broad support in the U.S. Congress, which limits his ability to carry out his job."

[Scarce edit - Or if you want to hear this in miniature form.]

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Stephen Colbert took apart Breitbrat Ben Shapiro, the right wing echo-chamber that fell for his hit piece on Chuck Hagel and the Republicans who are now asking President Obama to withdraw Hagel's nomination, who he should obviously give into after it appears all but inevitable that he's going to be confirmed.

After wondering what other groups Hagel might belong to that the crack team over there at Breitbart's site might not have discovered yet that Hagel doesn't belong to, Colbert wrapped things up with this slap at the Republicans and their ridiculous request.

COLBERT: President Obama, you must withdraw Hagel's nomination, or you will lose the support of every moderate Republican, another group, that doesn't exist.

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Jon Stewart absolutely destroyed BFF's Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. John McCain over their drummed up fake Benghazi outrage, their petulant behavior at recent Congressional hearings and for holding up the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.

After pointing out that drama queen Graham was probably doing all of the showboating because he's worried about a primary challenge by some teabagger in South Carolina, Stewart then took his ire out on Mr. "Country First" McCain.

As Stewart rightfully pointed out, McCain never seemed to have the same outrage over the thousands of dead Americans after we found ourselves lied into invading Iraq, or the need to hold up cabinet nominations until investigations over that debacle were completed, but he's going to scream and yell over four Americans being killed in Libya as we saw him do when he attacked David Gregory for daring to ask him for details about the supposed "massive coverup" of the administration's handling of the embassy attack.

It's a shame we don't see more of this from those in our so-called "mainstream media" who just keep inviting those two gasbags back on the air.

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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says that President Barack Obama "is the most radical president we've ever seen," but Republicans who failed to stick to conservative principles are also to blame for the nation's problems.

In an interview that aired Wednesday on Pat Robertson's 700 Club, CBN's David Brody told Cruz that the media had dubbed him "the Republican Barack Obama" and a "GOP rock star."

"I try to pay very little attention to the media," Cruz insisted. "It is, as you know, a fickle creature."

Instead, Brody said Cruz was focused on creating a "new Republican Party."

"I think President Obama is the most radical president we've ever seen, but I think an awful lot of Republicans failed to stand for principle and contributed to getting us into this mess," the senator explained.

During an appearance at a weapons manufacturer in Texas on Tuesday, Cruz accused both Democrats and Republicans of trying to "silence" him for using McCarthyism to smear Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel with suggestions that the former Nebraska senator had taken $200,000 from North Korea.

"Washington has a long tradition of trying to hurl insults to silence those who they don't like what they're saying," Cruz told the crowd.

"A lot of media attention has been focused on the attacks leveled on me and I would encourage all of you if you want to write stories on that great, knock yourself out, but I would ask for every ten stories you write, attacking me, perhaps write one story on the substance of Chuck Hagel's record."

Salon's Joan Walsh on Wednesday observed that Cruz was just the latest tea party lawmaker to use former Sen. Joe McCarthy's tactics while playing the victim.

"Playing the persecuted, he challenged reporters to at least investigate Hagel a little bit while they’re attacking him," Walsh wrote. "That’s good advice. Because if they do, they’ll find no substance to Cruz’s charges in Hagel’s 'record,' but a lot of substance to charges that he’s a 21stcentury Joe McCarthy in Cruz’s."

(h/t: The Huffington Post)

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As Susie already noted here, Elizabeth Warren's first chance to ask questions as a member of the Senate Banking Committee and to take some of these SEC chairs to task for not prosecuting anyone on Wall Street for their behavior, apparently hurt some of the bankers' feelings. MSNBC's Chuck Todd used the occasion to play the Villagers' favorite false equivalency game and compare wingnut McCarthyite Sen. Ted Cruz to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Funny, how he sounds an awful lot like that anonymous Wall Street executive who was complaining about her.

And as Susie also pointed out, Warren telling the truth is not the same as Cruz' sorry display. What's really pathetic about Todd and and his cheap shot at Warren here is that even his colleague Chris Matthews went after Cruz and his attacks on Hagel for being the "new McCarthyism" in one of his segments on Hardball this Friday.

What I found humorous about the segment above is that even though Todd and his guests, Ruth Marcus and Michael Steele, did their best to be dismissive of Warren by even mentioning her in the same sentence as Cruz, you could also tell something else: They're scared to death of her.

Marcus admitted that maybe it was alright because Warren "was in her wheelhouse" (which I'd say is the understatement of the year), and they all had to admit that she'd be formidable if she decided to run for president -- -- although I find putting her in the same category as Marco Rubio is insulting as well.

There is no "Marco Rubio of the left," because the left doesn't need to prop up the few members of their party who are minorities to try to cover for their racist policies.

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After Sen. John McCain gave his most recent excuse for opposing the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, which is that Hagel was "disagreeable" to George Bush and was mean to him after we found ourselves lied into invading Iraq, Rachel Maddow took on McCain for his history revisionism and for wanting to re-litigate the fact that everything we were told about why it was necessary to go in there and how things were going once we did was wrong.

Maddow has a new documentary which will be airing this Monday titled: Hubris: Selling the Iraq War and it seems John McCain inadvertently has done his best to do a promotion for the special with his behavior this week, because as Maddow pointed out in this segment, if we allow the likes of McCain to pretend that going into Iraq wasn't a disaster and one of or biggest foreign policy disasters since Vietnam, we're going to see it happen again.

Here's more on Rachel's special next week: Rachel Maddow To Probe Lies That Led to Iraq War in TV Special 'Hubris':

Perhaps you think you’ve read or heard it all. Hell, I even wrote my own book about it, So Wrong for So Long,. But now Rachel Maddow is promising surprising revelations in her MSNBC special Hubris: Selling the Iraq War, next Monday night in her regular time slot.

It will be President’s Day, but it looks like she sure won’t be celebrating George W. Bush. Or the mainstream media.

The special marks the opening of what will surely be a slew of tenth-anniversary programs and other media revisits. If you want to go back yourself now: Ten years ago today Hans Blix made another fateful presentation to the United Nations on his team’s search for WMD in Iraq. It was said to bolster both opponents and proponents of a US invasion, since he still found no evidence of such weapons but Saddam was still not cooperating fully with inspections.

Why does this all matter? Well, consider this major Washington Post piece last night on Iran allegedly boosting nuclear program by pursuing certain…magnets. It never ends. [...]

It will be interesting to see if she covers her colleagues, such as Chris Matthews, backing the war, and her network’s move to oust Phil Donahue partly for opposing it.

Given the deference we generally see her give David Gregory, I doubt it. Go read the rest and Greg's got some excerpt clips embedded along with links to a few others. I read Michael Isikoff and David Corn's book, which her documentary is based on, shortly after it came out, but I haven't picked it back up since. Apparently there are going to be some new revelations that weren't in the book as well. It sounds like it will be well worth tuning in.

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Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday congratulated Republicans for successfully using a filibuster to temporarily block a president's nominee for secretary of defense -- former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) -- for the first time in the history of the U.S. Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday said Republicans should feel "shame" for the unprecedented obstruction, but Hannity called the outcome a "major win for the GOP."

"Republicans say it is premature to close the debate over the nominee and say that before that any confirmation vote will take place, they want answers from Hagel and the White House about what exactly President Obama was doing the night of the Benghazi terror attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans," Hannity noted on Thursday.

"It's the first time a filibuster of a cabinet nominee has been used," he added. "And needless to say, this marks a major win for the GOP, and pretty embarrassing defeat for the president."

Fox News political analyst Juan Williams pointed out that Hannity "must have missed the news" that "Republicans have basically said that in a week they will vote to end the cloture, end the filibuster and approve Chuck Hagel."

"So, nobody in this town thinks there's any chance that Chuck Hagel, one, is either going to resign or, two, is going to be denied the office of secretary of defense," Williams explained. "What we're really seeing here is a political game."

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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart gave former Vice President and chickenhawk Dick Cheney some of the lack of respect that he deserves after he was out there going after President Obama for his national security nominees at a speech he gave in Wyoming over the weekend and his subsequent interview with the entirely useless Charlie Rose on CBS this Tuesday.

Here's more on that from our friends at Raw Story:

“You know,” said Stewart, “Cheney’s really confident in his opinions and analysis, probably forgetting that he sucked at this.”

He added, “Like, he was a shitty vice [president], but even if Obama wanted to take our standing in the world down a peg he couldn’t ’cause the Bush-Cheney Administration left him with no peg room. I guess Obama could’ve created lower peg space, maybe invest in deep sea peg-hole drilling technology, but unfortunately he can’t afford to because the previous administration left us in a bit of a cash crunch.”

“And by ‘previous Administration, I mean these motherf**kers,” Stewart added. “Where does he get the balls?” Steward wondered, admonishing his audience, “Please don’t say ‘cadavers.’”

“This guy was wrong every time,” Stewart continued, after showing clips of a few of Cheney’s less-than-accurate statements about Iraq that led the country into war. “Every time he analyzed it, he was wrong. You try that at work, see if you get to keep your job and be wrong every f**king time.”

As Stewart correctly pointed out here, there is no penalty in our corporate media for always being wrong. They should be ashamed of themselves for giving the likes of Cheney air time in the first place, but I've given up on the notion a long time ago that we're ever going to see that come to a stop any time soon. Once again, we're left with the fake "news" show making a mockery of one that actually considers themselves a news outlet --and rightfully so.

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney is a fan of Barack Obama's decision to use drones for the targeted killing of American citizens, but says that the president "wants" to do "serious, serious damage to our military" by nominating former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) to be secretary of defense.

"I think it’s a good program and I don’t disagree with the basic policy that the Obama administration is pursuing now in those regards," he told CBS host Charlie Rose in an interview that aired on Tuesday.

But Rose wondered if there should be some "checks and balances" by another branch of government on the president's ability to "take out" American citizens overseas.

"When we hire the president of the United States he gets to live in a big house, makes all that money, he’s getting paid to make difficult, difficult decisions," the former vice president explained.

The CBS host also asked Cheney to defend his accusation that Obama was appointing a "second-rate people" like Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry to his cabinet.

"I’m very, very concerned, Charlie, about what I see happening in the national security arena, I think the administration’s policies are very flawed," Cheney declared. "I think the president’s performance by my standards in the international arena, in the middle East and so forth is worse than many of my friends and colleagues deem his domestic policies.”

"If you look at what the president's motives are for picking Chuck Hagel, I think he wants a Republican to go be the foil, if you will, for what he wants to do to the Defense Department, which is I think to do serious, serious damage to our military capabilities."

(h/t: The Hill)