Today's edition of quick hits:
* Conditions are clearly volatile in Syria, as a top Syrian general defects.
* Tehran pointing fingers: "Iran's spy chief accused German and French intelligence agencies on Friday of involvement in assassinations of its nuclear scientists, sticking to a hard official line as sanctions imposed over its disputed atomic ambitions bite harder."
* There are now drought conditions in 56% of the continental United States: "The prolonged heat across the Midwest has not only set temperature records, it is also expanding and intensifying drought conditions -- and relief isn't on the horizon for most areas."
* The right has decided it's hilarious that the White House says it's important not to read too much into a single monthly jobs report after bad news is released. There's just one problem: the White House says the same thing after good news is released.
* As Rep. Joe Walsh's (R-Ill.) antics become more cringe-worthy, he is not without media allies -- CNN's Erick Erickson isn't afraid to defend the unhinged congressman who's begun complaining about his challenger's decorated military service.
* Voter-suppression tactics become law in the Granite State: "Gov. John Lynch has allowed a bill requiring photo identification at polling places to become law without his signature, but he says he hopes the New Hampshire Legislature will revisit the issue."
* Occasionally, center-left Supreme Court justices disappoint liberals. They just seem to handle their disappointment much differently than their conservative counterparts.
* Our political discourse can get ugly, but not pull-a-gun-on-live-television ugly.
* And Rep. Phil Gingrey, a far-right Georgia Republican, complained about the new job numbers today by complaining about President Obama's "toothy smile," which "shows lots of gum." Stay classy, GOP.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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What is Joe Walsh's problem that it doesn't want people to hear when he is on the news? Is it how totally deadbeat worthless he is?
and congressional Rs weren't above claiming credit for their focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs" in months earlier this year when the hiring numbers were stronger.
My Voldemort look-a-like Congressman, Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11), resigned today:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78187.html
I thought those Alien's were helping Romney.
Romney is an alien. For proof go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLSlGmVrmuM
Rachel, how about a story on Brad Pitt's dingbat mother? She actually believes that by voting for Romney, abortion will end. Does she not know that Bain made millions of dollars while Willard was there investing in the company Stericycle.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/mitt-romney-bain-capital-stericycle_n_1211228.html
Those Repubs love living in their bubble.
Steve dude, where's my Mendacious Mitt? Even though he was on vacation this week, he still said a few whoppers, right?
Yep, I'm missing it too...
Erickson defends Walsh. Chickenhawks of a feather...
I'm guessing that Romney told so many lies this week that posting a Mendacity Chronicle would have broken the Internet.
I had hoped to see this in the mendacity post:
"The president predicted that we'd be at 5.6 percent unemployment now." -- Mitt on Wednesday to Jan Crawford, who of course moved right along.
Can we hear about this on the show?
Are human beings a burden or asset? Conservatives assume wealth creates jobs and kick out immigrants to reduce unemployment. Using fantasy as a basis for public law produces bad outcomes. Liberals increase immigration based on the assumption that consumer demand creates jobs. One of these two concepts can be true, but not both.
Conservative ideologies are distributed to the public using Fox Entertainment products that include frequent input from the following television, radio, and newspaper personalities.
Conservative politicians improve popularity by repeating ideas made popular by conservative television, radio, and newspapers.
How did this happen?
Our first Republican president freed the slaves.
Bigotry became part of the republican party during the 1990s when the United States journalism industry was realigned by foreign investors.
There is no scientific, biblical, or other factual evidence to support these conservative claims about race, nationality, and sexual orientation.
Hearst enterprises sold it's political journalism products to New World Communication in 1994, which became affiliated with Fox after controlling interest was purchased by Rupert Murdoch in 1997 (now News Corporation).
Hearst media is best summarized by the following.
The Hearst-Murdoch business-model is based on a very simple phenomenon explained best by Churchill.
The United States population crashed twice.
Wealth depends upon steady consumer demand, which depends upon population growth.
The following sequence events caused the Great Depression.
Basic economic theory indicates prices and wealth depend on consumer demand, so deportation will create unemployment when it reduces population enough to impact consumer demand.
The Great Recession followed the same population recipe as the Great Depression, with the same result.
Why would voters choose to collapse the economy?
The Barnum Effect (or Forer Effect) is the observation that most people can be temporarily fooled into believing false concepts using vague general statements and coincidence.
National Institutes of Health indicates half the population develops mental illness during their lifetime, with 1 in 4 affected at any one time. This includes a spectrum of illness that include delusional beliefs.
Negative emotions dominate positive -- anxiety, fear, hatred, anger, and rage are very popular.
This is bigotry.
William Randolph Hearst was the first journalist to exploit bigotry for profit, which was the birth of the modern conservative movement.
Half the wealth in the United States depends upon real estate, and rising wealth depends upon rising population.
Intellect allows you to overcome blind emotions so you can choose correctly in complex situations.
Emotions are feelings that may have no basis in the real world. Blind emotion causes mass drowning of lemmings that migrate when food becomes scarce.
Identity Control Theory provides a systematic understanding of how to exploit voting populations using basic emotions to produce the desired outcome.
The law of care for consequences produces the intellectual restraint that prevents us from injuring people that anger us. Intellectual charismatic appeal works with our reasoning abilities. Our intellect allows us to view the world from different viewpoints to gain a richer perspective of the world.
Intellect occupies many dimensions.
Emotions have only one dimension - selfishness.
Great piece of work. Ego and fear of people unlike ourselves.
First time looking at Maddows blog. Ive always wondered who her minions are. I just discovered the Mother Nest. Do you people really believe Maddows garbage?
Considering that, unlike Fox, she can document what she says, yes. I understand that documentation means nothing to the faith based contingent, who never let reality stand in the way of their fantasies, but when you learn to accept that data trumps belief, then maybe you'll understand how progressives think.
The truth is, Maddow sells you a bunch of fiction by connecting the dots, even making them up when there are none. I admit she is very good at it.
thereyougoagain, you have an opportunity to present your facts here to refute anything Rachel Maddow says. You can not simply say she is selling a bunch of fiction. You must show facts or you will have no credibility.
Nanny nanny poo poo?
To say that Erickson is part of the media just because he gets a paycheck from CNN is like saying that Judy Miller was a legitimate reporter just because she worked for the NYT.
Walsh strikes me as a h.s. student assigned to write an essay with 1000 words or more and repeats words (names) then adds as many extra words as possible to say what basically amounts to one sentence.
Tammy Duckworth is a doo doo head, vote for me.
Why is anyone surprised or even disgusted at Joe "Deadbeat Dad" Walsh? That same party did it to the real vets, including some that lost limbs back in 2004. You don't remember the Swift Boat Liars Club? All the vet bashing that went on from people that never served a day in defense of their country yet kept waving their little flag calling everyone else unpatriotic and un-American.
And then Joe the Deadbeat Dad says what a great hero McCain is. Yeah. He's such a great hero he's been against vets his whole career. That party disgusted me then and more so now.
I have to add that I agree, we should be expressing our opinions more regarding the ACA ruling. I think there is no outrage from the left because of having it upheld causes restraint. Also, the left desired a single payer law.
The so called liberal Justices seem a bit off target with commerce and tax laws are made by Congress. I was surprised and disappointed, yet not having much to say. Maybe because I am not a lawyer, but as a lay person, it seems to me that Congress does have those powers.
Future cases calling-in this decision may interpret a narrow applicability, even with this court, that would indeed allow those powers to Congress.
Americans, Democratic and Republican, both, would agree that America does not support businesses making money off other governments murdering others, especially when publicly asked not to by other governments supporting sanctions. Now, let America find another way to ‘tell’ Russia, instead of asking, which is supporting the Syrian government with defense weaponry and defense weapon machinery.
I say, let the U.S. Government consider militarily destroying the weapons during transportation, without killing anyone, and send the garbage back to Russia for their government to pay for its disposal.
America does not have to fear any other country, later, doing such a thing to our country, and our businesses, for the same reasons, do we? (While the U.S. automakers supplied Hitler with military vehicles, the U.S. also helped destroy Hitler; we did not allow Hitler to remain because there were auto contracts, as Russia is doing with Syria.)
While the current polarizing-President Putin, may think he can hide beside the accusation that the United States makes money any way it can, including, in publicly supporting government-mass-murder; let America, Republicans and Democrats, show him otherwise.
Can the world, please, just agree to sanctions against the current government of Syria?