From Huffington Post:

Keith Olbermann interviewed conservative radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller tonigh about his experience being waterboarded.

Mancow reaffirmed that the practice was indeed torture and said that his “psychological state” going into the experiment was that he was “laughing at it. I was willing to prove, and ready to prove, that this was a joke, and I was wrong. It was horrific. It was instantaneous. And look, I felt the effects for two days.”

Mancow also revealed that his friend Sean Hannity “called me and said ‘it’s still not torture.’”

While Mancow is familiar to us as the joker of the republican party radio set, the one thing that seemed to separate him from the rest of the narrow-minded masses was his willingness to concede now and again to common sense. In this case, common sense hit him right in the face with a bucket of water.

What’s not surprising at all is Sean Hannity’s need to maintain his fantasy world. This guy reminds me of every ignoramus I every met from Long Island who believes being pushy and confrontational replaces actually having an intelligent debate. What’s more, he’s also got a face you want to punch 50 times in a row. Sadly, people like this get far more encouragement throughout their lives to continue this inane form of stupidity. I’m sure he had alot of wrestling friends in high school who thought the same way. Now he’s got an audience of dead-enders who prove daily how laughably stupid they are.

Listening to the exchange above and Hannity’s stubbornness, it reminded me of an equal degree of stubbornness he displayed when first meeting Al Franken, which Franken described in his book “Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them”:

When I first met Hannity, I had no idea who the hell he was. It was 1996, in a green room at Fox News. I had just finished my first appearance on The Factor to promote Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, and was about to pick up my coat when I was confronted by what appeared to be an angry, Irish ape-man.
Hannity did not like the title of my book “I don’t believe in making ad hominem attacks,” he said, thrusting his jaw in a characteristic display of simian aggression.
“Oh. That’s why I titled it Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. It’s an ironic comment on the fact that Rush makes ad hominem attacks all the time. You see?”
Evidently not. “I’ve never heard him make an ad hominem attack.” As I would later learn, this was in keeping with Sean’s seasoned ability to lie and believe it. Or at least just lie.
“Really? How about when he called Chelsea Clinton `the White House dog’? Would that qualify?”
This was a very famous incident. On Rush’s TV show in 1993, shortly after Clinton took office and years before Buddy joined the First Family, the show put up a picture of Socks, the cat. “Did you know that the Clintons not only have a White House cat,” Rush said coyly, “but they also have a White House dog?” Then, on screen came a picture of a thirteenyear-old Chelsea.1 Sean was ready for that one. “That was a mistake. A technician accidentally put up the wrong picture.”

I can’t tell you how many people I know like this. People who push aside facts and logic when it doesn’t fit their world view. Heck, we had a President just like this. It’s the kind of mindset you find in a spoiled child of 5 years old. Then again, I don’t mean to insult a 5 year old. Even they know when they’re lying.

Verbal Paintball Al Franken, Mancow, Sean Hannity

An article in Burnt Orange Report tries to explain current republican political anger:

Republicans started cutting taxes for corporations and top income earners under Ronald Reagan.  He convinced Congress to cut the top marginal rate from 69 percent in 1980 to 28% in 1988.  This approach then started to trickle down to the states.

The Center for Public Policies Priorities, a non-partisan research center based in Austin, provides an annual report called “Who pays Texas Taxes?”  In 2009 Texans with incomes less than $27,000 have to pay 12 percent of their income to the state.  The tax burden for Texans earning over $117,000 is just 4.9 percent.  No wonder the average Texan is angry.  After 30 years of “Republican tax cuts,” the benefits have never trickled down to us.

Bill Clinton tried to fix this disparity.  He raised the top marginal rate to 39 percent and gave middle class families several tax breaks.  For example, he proposed the child tax credit to help families pay for day-to-day expenses, and, the Hope Scholarship for students entering college.  Through a combination of tax cuts and increases Clinton created the first budget surplus since World War Two.

Republicans are angry. Their house of cards has collapsed and grand fleecing of the rest of America has been exposed for what it is. The few left have no place else to turn but to their own hatred of everything beyond the scope of their own navels.

Agree or disagree with the democratic doctrine, but one of the many things it promotes is concern for the welfare of others. You don’t have to be the most compassionate person in the world to understand that what benefits the bottom 30% will benefit the top 30%. To me, this is a no brainer. Businesses thrive when EVERYONE can afford goods and services. Stockbrokers get richer when their client base grows beyond just the top 1%. The cost of our government gets CHEAPER when we’re not paying down an enormous credit card issued by countries like China and Saudi Arabia. And, as a consequence, our security as a country is increased when we don’t have to compromise our relationships with other nations due to our overwhelming debt.

George W. Bush put this country on the path of disaster. Obama is doing all the right things to move us off this path. If the hard-headed, prejudice, selfish, narrow-minded dead-enders want to complain about this, create right wing extremist groups in response or act as spoilsports in Senatorial races like that of Coleman and Franken, lets let them.

They’ve shown us who they are. We’ve seen their anger first-hand - and we reject it as a country.

Politics Al Franken, Norm Coleman, republican anger, republican losers, right-wing extremist groups

Norm Coleman at it again.

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Friday turned down Democrat Al Franken’s request that the Senate recount be certified and that he be allowed to take a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Franken asked the court in January to compel Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) to certify his contest against incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), but the court concluded that it does not have the legal authority to force the governor’s hand.

The court went on to find that since only the U.S. Senate has the legal authority to seat lawmakers without a state certification, the court’s authority “does not usurp the Senate’s power and does not conflict with federal law, either statutory or constitutional.”

Franken’s been a good sport about all this, but the conclusion of this race is obvious to everyone. Norm Coleman is just wasting taxpayer money and Minnesota’s time trying to pry himself through the iron gates of a Democratically won election.

Are Republican’s so lacking in any small degree of fairness that they’ve lowered themselves to try to lie their way into office like this? Well, we’ve had a President who did that a good 8 years ago, so it’s familiar territory for them.

Hopefully this will be over soon, Franken can take his seat and provide the strength of that extra vote needed in the Senate to push the Republican’s further into the water.

Current News, Politics Al Franken, Minnesota Supreme Court, Norm Coleman