Taibbi: Romney winning would be like waking up with a naked Lloyd Blankfein sitting on your face

How the Hype Became Bigger Than the Presidential Election
Blame the media for making whole generations hate The Process

By Matt Taibbi
October 9, 2012 3:20 PM ET

Well, it's over. Or almost over, thank God. It looks like Obama will probably win, which I guess is good news, compared to the alternative – a Mitt Romney presidency would have felt like four straight years of waking up with a naked Lloyd Blankfein sitting on your face. But it's not so much the result that matters – it's the quiet.

What we Americans go through to pick a president is not only crazy and unnecessary but genuinely abusive. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in a craven, cynical effort to stir up hatred and anger on both sides. A decision that in reality takes one or two days of careful research to make is somehow stretched out into a process that involves two years of relentless, suffocating mind-warfare, an onslaught of toxic media messaging directed at liberals, conservatives and everyone in between that by Election Day makes every dinner conversation dangerous and literally divides families.

Politicians are much to blame for this, but we in the media have to take responsibility for the damage we do to the American psyche in the name of election coverage. At this very moment, there are people all over the country who are stocking up on canned goods and ammo for the apocalypse they believe will come if Obama is re-elected. For the broadcast business to be successful, viewers need to be not merely interested in our political melodramas, they have to be in an absolute state about them – emotionally invested in the outcome and frightened not to watch what happens next. And any person who's been subjected to 720 consecutive days of propaganda is not likely to take the news well if he gets the wrong result, whether it's a victory for Obama or for Romney. By that point, the networks have spent two years finding new ways each day to convince him that the world is going to disintegrate into some commie or Hitlerian version of Mad Max, to keep him coming back and watching ads.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-hype-became-bigger-than-the-presidential-election-20121009

London Mayor Boris Johnson whacks Mitt Romney in front of 60,000 people

By ALEXANDER BURNS |
7/26/12 3:16 PM EDT

And now the mayor of London is joining the fun:

Bill Maher: Aurora Massacre Reminds Us Of American Exceptionalism

Arizona Goes Birther: Secretary Of State Says It’s ‘Possible’ Obama Won’t Be On Ballot

Arizona Goes Birther: Secretary Of State Says It’s ‘Possible’ Obama Won’t Be On Ballot

Nick R. Martin May 18, 2012, 10:53 AM

The man in charge of running Arizona’s elections has gone to the birthers. Secretary of State Ken Bennett now says he’s not convinced Barack Obama was really born in the United States and so he is threatening to keep the president off the ballot in November.

Bennett’s comments came in an interview late Thursday with conservative radio talk show host Mike Broomhead on Phoenix station KFYI.

Bennett said he was following the lead of the state’s eccentric Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a fellow Republican who ordered an investigation into the president’s birth certificate last year and concluded the document released by the White House is a forgery. Bennett said he is now trying to get verification from state officials in Hawaii that the certificate is authentic.


In doing so, Bennett caved to a fringe group of activists and writers who believe in a conspiracy theory that just never seems to die no matter how much proof they get. Hawaiian officials have said time and again that Obama was born there in 1961, yet the theory persists.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/arizona_ken_bennett_obama_birth_certificate_birther.php

Meet George Zimmerman: He Is the NRA

Daniel Gross
03/22/2012 3:10 pm

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The shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman is a heartbreaking tragedy. But make no mistake, it is not a surprise that it happened in Florida, the NRA's closest thing to an armed utopia. In fact, much more so than any of the shills they had promoting their agenda in their big budget propaganda campaign, George Zimmerman is the embodiment of the gun lobby and its vision for America.

George Zimmerman is the NRA.

And now the NRA has made it abundantly clear that their vision is of an America that looks just like Florida, a nation where it's easy for criminals and dangerous people to get, carry and use guns -- a nation without any gun laws, where just about anybody can get a gun and use it anywhere. Their spokespeople use fear, bordering on paranoia to justify flooding our streets with armed and violent people, and the result is more tragedies like Trayvon Martin's.

The NRA is literally working to promote "George Zimmermans" to carry and use their guns in virtually every state across our nation.

Just days after the Trayvon Martin tragedy, the NRA was working on Capitol Hill to nationalize Florida's vigilante mentality. The gun lobby has gotten U.S. senators to introduce a bill that will force states like New York with strong gun laws to follow Florida's model of arming criminals and killers. Led by Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), they call S.B. 2188, the National Reciprocity Act.

We call it the George Zimmerman Armed Vigilante Act.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-gross/george-zimmerman-nra_b_1372873.html

Bill Maher Tweet Proclaims The Alabama/Mississippi Elections ‘Toothless Tuesday’

by James Crugnale | 11:40 pm, March 13th, 2012

On Tuesday evening, Bill Maher sent out a snarky missive targeted at voters in Alabama and Mississippi holding elections for their Republican primaries, tweeting “Toothless Tuesday too tight to tally!”



http://www.mediaite.com/online/bill-maher-tweet-proclaims-the-alabamamississippi-elections-toothless-tuesday/

Derrick Bell's wife speaks out and defends her deceased husband against right wing attacks

Doubts about Obama's faith persist among GOP faithful (especially southern Republican voters)

By BYRON TAU |
3/12/12 2:26 PM EDT

The incorrect belief that President Obama is Muslim is alive and well among some southern Republican voters, according to a new poll.

According to the latest PPP survey, a full majority — 52 percent — of Mississippi Republicans polled say that Obama is a Muslim, with only 12 percent of voters correctly identifying him as a Christian. Another 36 percent surveyed report that they are unsure about the president's faith.

In Alabama, PPP finds that 45 percent of GOP voters report that Obama is a Muslim, with 41 percent uncertain. Only 14 percent correctly identify Obama as a Christian.

"We’d never polled that anywhere else so I didn’t really know what to expect," PPP director Tom Jensen said in an email. "But I’m not terribly surprised by the numbers, especially in the context of the level of birtherism we found still existing in Georgia, Ohio, and Tennessee last week. I think those issues are closely related. With both the religion thing and the birther thing I’m not totally sure all these voters really think that Obama is a Muslim or that he was born in Kenya or Indonesia or wherever—I think it may be more a function of people who hate Obama expressing that negativity in any way they can to the point of making these odd claims about his personal identity."

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/03/doubts-about-obamas-faith-persist-among-gop-faithful-117169.html

Misinformed Redneck (Republican) Voters Interviewed

Palin: Obama Wants To Return To The "Days Before The Civil War" When People Weren't Considered Equal

Yes, that's right. The nation's first black President wants to bring America back to the days before the Civil War according to Sarah Palin.