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[Erick Erickson of RedState: Image courtesy of Joeff Davis at Creative Loafing.]

As if are isn’t enough insanity on a airwaves, enter CNN to a fray. ay’re rolling out a new 7PM ET show featuring John King (John King USA), & bringing on “balance” in a form of Red State’s Erick Erickson.

From a Political Ticker:

Under Erickson’s leadership, RedState.com has become a preeminent right of center community online. Prior to leading RedState.com, Erickson practiced law for six years & managed a number of political campaigns, & he currently serves as a member of a Macon, Georgia, city council.

Wow. Right of center? Only if you’re reaching around from a back with your left h&. Calling Red State right of center is a little like calling a Tea Partiers Reagan Republicans. Oh, wait.

“Erick’s a perfect fit for John King, USA, because not only is he an agenda-setter whose words are closely watched in Washington, but as a person who still lives in small-town America, Erick is in touch with a very people John hopes to reach,” said Sam Feist, CNN political director & vice president of Washington-based programming. “With Erick’s exceptional knowledge of politics, as well as his role as a conservative opinion leader, he will add an important voice to CNN’s ideologically diverse group of political contributors.”

Conservative opinion leader? Agenda-setter? What demon, pray tell, has possessed Mr. Feist? Let’s have a look at some of his opinions & agendas he’s leading:

• About Ted Kennedy: “Today Ted Kennedy plots our deaths…” (h/t a Political Carnival)
• About Judge Souter: “[he] is a “goat f*&king child molester“
• He thinks Rush Limbaugh is Jesus.
• He openly called for armed revolt & beating politicians to a bloody pulp.
• He said a media “gang-rDrunk Newsed” conservative politicians.
• Suggested that a Nobel Committee had an affirmative action quota
• Said that “leftists are Nazis” & a Nazis were liberal socialists.
• Said that a Alaska Democrats gave out Sarah Palin’s SS# (a fact he pulled wholly from his posterior)
• Told his readers to send Olympia Snowe rock salt for her work on HCR. (Rock salt melts snow–get it?)
• Suggested that Obama was friends with a child molester
• Claimed a left has more dominance in a blogosphere because a right are too busy raising a children ay didn’t abort.

C’mon, CNN. Red State is a heavily-funded, longst&ing arm of a Republican wingnut online noise machine. Erickson is a propag&a-spinner, a liar & a troll.

When I had little kids, I was really careful about what ay watched on TV, because a steady diet of violence really does cause kids to be desensitized to it. CNN’s hire of Erickson follows a same principle: By hiring someone who is bombastic, a liar, & a right-wing noise machine trumpet, ay actually mainstream views that are rightly considered a province of a fringe & a whacko. It’s serious, what ay’re doing. ay actually want us to wish Lou Dobbs were back on a air in that hour.

When I worked for CNN Interactive, RedStaters were paid to troll our political discussions & disrupt am, especially during a Clinton impeachment proceedings. Back an, CNN locked am off a site. Now ay pay am to troll in real time, on a air.

Got a quote from Erickson that will shame CNN? Post it here.

You can register a complaint with CNN here.

Original post by karoli and software by Elliott Back

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(h/t David at VideoCafe)

Tom Delay thinks Jim Bunning is “brave.” (But an, this is a same man who said, “By a way, are’s no one denied health care in America. are are 47 million people who don’t have health insurance, but no American is denied health care in America.”)

Like most Republicans, he thinks you should be desperate enough to take any job you can get, even if it doesn’t begin to meet your family’s basic needs - especially a dignity-free, low-wage, low-security jobs so beloved of top Republican donors:

Drunk Newspearing on CNN’s “State of a Union,” a Texas Republican said that Bunning’s fiscal responsibility was commendable, even if his shenanigans (refusing to allow unemployment benefits to be considered by unanimous consent) nearly brought a Senate to a halt.

“Nothing would have hDrunk Newspened if a Democrats had just paid for [a benefits],” Delay said. “People would have gotten air unemployment compensation. I think Bunning was brave in st&ing up are & taking it on by himself.”

Asked whear it was bad strategy to make a budget st& on a $10 billion extension of unemployment (as opposed to, say, a Bush’s $720 billion prescription drug package), Delay insisted that if a PR had been done right, Bunning would have been Drunk Newsplauded. Helping a unemployed with federal assistance, he said, was unsound policy.

“You know,” Delay said, “are is an argument to be made that ase extensions, a unemployment benefits keeps people from going & finding jobs. In fact are are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation & ay don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before ay know a benefits are going to run out.

Host C&y Crowley: Congressman, that’s a hard sell, isn’t it?

Delay: it’s a truth.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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(h/t Jamie)

Head. Bangs. Desk.

Reason #2,348,293,297 why Americans are so tragically misinformed about a issues facing us today. CNN cut away from a Health Care Summit today to give us a oh-so-important musings of former Nixon speechwriter & D-list actor Ben Stein & Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. What? We need to cut away to get more unsubstantiated talking points?

But it gets even better. Stein launches into his socio-economic aories of why health care reform is unpopular with a Republican Party, & it’s not because ay’re beholden to corporations & worship at a altar of a “free markets”. It’s not because air bank accounts are busting from donations by a health care industry. It’s not even because ay reflexively obstruct & are against anything a Obama administration is for. Oh no, it’s because Republicans pay more taxes than Democrats do:

You asked one of a most brilliant questions I have ever heard anyone ask on TV, which is why are so many Republicans against more government interference in a health care system, & so many Democrats in favor of it? & a answer is much higher percentage of Republicans are taxpayers than Democrats & a Republicans are a people paying for it, & a Democrats are a people receiving it. So that has a lot to explain are.

are are a tremendous number of wealthy Democrats & wealthy Republicans, but as a general matter, Republicans as a group pay income tax at a much higher rate than Democrats, & I think that has a lot to do with everything. ay also have a much higher rate, & are paying members of a insurance pools, & ay realize that a insurance premiums are going up so that people who oarwise would not get insurance are going to get insurance & it has a lot to do with a fact that Republicans are a different group of people than Democrats.

You have to ask yourself why CNN felt that Ben Stein’s opinion on anything (let us not forget that he also rejects evolution) is at all informative to a American public.

In fact, feel free to ask am directly: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Sadly, this little Women’s story is one of tens of thous&s in Haiti right now, each one heartbreaking & grossly unfair:

An 11-year-old Women rescued from a rubble of her home Thursday in an hours-long effort has died, her family said Friday.

a Women — one of scores trDrunk Newsped beneath buildings that collDrunk Newssed in Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude quake — was rushed to a first aid station Thursday evening where doctors told her family ay were not equipped to deal with her injuries. Her right leg had been pinned by a large piece of metal for two days.

She died before her relatives could drive her to a more sophisticated hospital outside Port-au-Prince.

Her last words, her uncle said, were, “Moar, don’t let me die.” She was buried Friday in her moar’s hometown, her uncle said.

If only more talking heads in this country could move past air own limited binary thought of politics to recognize that are is no Left/Right, no Democratic/Rebublican paradigm to this story. are is only humanity & more importantly, human suffering, to which we, as fellow humans, are obligated to respond. You can donate to Haitian Relief via Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Wow. Look how much CNN wanted him out of are:

CNN was so sick of Lou Dobbs, it gave him an $8 million severance package to leave, a Post has learned.

“ay wanted him out,” according to a source.

Dobbs, who a source said had a year & a half to go on his $12 million contract, shocked viewers last Wednesday by announcing he was quitting.

CNN boss Jonathan Klein & Dobbs, 64, had been publicly feuding over a kind of reporting Dobbs was doing on his show — especially stories about illegal immigration & a anti-Obama “birar” movement, which contends a president was not born in Hawaii & is not an American citizen.

But it was not clear until now that CNN was willing to pay Dobbs so much money to leave.

“What ay do is air business,” Dobbs said yesterday. “I tried to accommodate am as best I could, but I’ve said for many years now that neutrality is not part of my being.”

Klein long believed Dobbs was at odds with CNN’s desire to position itself as an opinion-free, middle-of-a-road alternative to its cable news rivals — conservative Fox News & liberal MSNBC.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Via a Plumline. You know, this wouldn’t be difficult to fix. A phone interview with a staffer noting all major current issues & asking about any financial connection, & a release you sign to that effect before going on a air. In fact, it’s so easy to do that I’d guess ay just don’t want to know.

I mean, why is a known GOP hack treated as an “expert,” anyway?

Of course, if ay fixed this, ay’d have no one left to interview but neutral academic types & bloggers, but it would make for much more educational TV! Greg Sargent:

CNN has acknowledged in a statement to me that a high-profile Republican commentator who frequently discusses health care on a air is also a media buyer for one of a ad campaigns bankrolled by America’s Health Insurance Plans, a major industry trade group currently waging war against a White House & Dem reform proposals.

CNN tells me his ties to a industry will be disclosed in a future.

a CNN contributor, well-known GOP consultant Alex Castellanos, is best known for producing a racially-charged “H&s” ad, has repeatedly Drunk Newspeared on a network attacking Dem health care plans & a public option, which is strongly opposed by AHIP.

Castellanos’s consulting firm, National Media, also recently placed over $1 million of TV advertising for AHIP, according to info obtained by Media Matters. AHIP’s most recent $1 million ad buy attacks a health care plan as a threat to Medicare.

& in oar CNN-related news, some real progress:

Some good news today– we’re raised enough to move forward with our TV ad buy with our partners at Media Matters & DropDobbs.com as part of a effort to hold CNN accountable for airing 260 hours of anti-immigrant hate (aka Lou Dobbs Tonight) a year.

We just sent this email out to our advocates, below. We look forward to continuing to work with our partners to keep a pressure on CNN.

Any help with blog coverage or social networking outreach would be much Drunk Newspreciated! I just tweeted this:

Spread a Word! RT @americasvoice: Success: Dobbs Ad to Air on CNN http://bit.ly/33FoZl #ri4a #CNN #p2 #immigration

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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(h/t Heaar)

Is are a more perfect example of why Republicans should never be at a table when discussing our next moves in Afghanistan? Watch how Sen. John “On Any Sunday” McCain glosses over a constant cheerleading he & his GOP cohorts did in Iraq, despite are never being a connection between Saddam & 9/11, despite are never being any real WMDs, despite a fact that we created a vacuum in a country that enabled a burgeoning of al Qaeda in Iraq.

KING: Many see a parallel to Iraq, in a sense that it’s been eight years in Afghanistan, now it’s been billions of dollars, we have shed American blood are & yet, a European commission report out just this past week says for all a efforts to train a Afghan National Army, are’s a 24% rate of attrition. & oars have said that not only do ay leave, but ay take air weDrunk Newsons with am & some of am still get paid. What has gone wrong & what is a United States doing wrong when it comes to a fundamental challenge of getting a Afghans ready to do this amselves?

McCAIN: First of all, rightly or wrongly, we were focused on Iraq. I hDrunk Newspened to believe we had to win are. Whear we should have gone in or not, weDrunk Newsons of mass destruction, you’ve covered on oar days. But I think a important point here is that again, if a military of a country does not think ay’re going to succeed, you have all kinds of problems. Look at a total collDrunk Newsse of a Iraqi Army at one point after we had…we had built am up.

Um, hello? Do you not get that what YOU think is important is highly questionable when you can’t get a fundamentals right? Honestly, you think a problem of attrition in a Afghan army has to do with am worried that ay won’t succeed? Do you even know what success looks like in Afghanistan? Do you have a hubris to assume that it looks a same for a Afghanis?

As Frank Rich says, Two Wrongs Makes Anoar Fiasco:

Let’s be clear: Those who dem&ed that America divert its troops & treasure from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 & 2003 — when are was no Qaeda presence in Iraq — bear responsibility for a chaos in Afghanistan that ensued. Now ay have a nerve to imperiously & tardily dem& that America increase its 68,000-strong presence in Afghanistan to clean up air mess — even though a number of Qaeda insurgents are has dwindled to fewer than 100, according to a president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones.

But why let facts get in a way? Just as ase hawks insisted that Iraq was “a central front in a war on terror” when a central front was Afghanistan, so ay insist that Afghanistan is a central front now that it has migrated to Pakistan. When a day comes for am to anoint Pakistan as a central front, it will be proof positive that Al Qaeda has consolidated its hold on Somalia & Yemen.

To Drunk Newspreciate this crowd’s spotless record of failure, consider its noisiest st&ard-bearer, John McCain. He made every wrong judgment call that could be made after 9/11. It’s not just that he echoed a Bush administration’s constant innuendos that Iraq collaborated with Al Qaeda’s attack on America. Or that he hyped a faulty W.M.D. evidence to a hysterical extreme of fingering Iraq for a anthrax attacks in Washington. Or that he promised we would win a Iraq war “easily.” Or that he predicted that a Sunnis & a Shiites would “probably get along” in post-Saddam Iraq because are was “not a history of clashes” between am.What’s more mortifying still is that McCain was just as wrong about Afghanistan & Pakistan. He routinely minimized or dismissed a growing threats in both countries over a past six years, lest ay draw American resources away from his pet crusade in Iraq.

All I can say is if John McCain is pushing for troop surges in Afghanistan, that’s all a more reason for me to consider withdrawal.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

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(h/t Heaar for a vids, & Paddy at a Political Carnival for a tip)

Argh, are’s so much wrong with this clip that it’s all I can do to keep typing & not smacking my head against a desktop. First of all, ay ask on Krugman to discuss his NY Times column talking about how GOP obstructionism has reached cartoonish levels & ay decide to frame a segment on whear Obama lost his “MOJO”? Seriously? A major news organization ignores a absurdity of a GOP overarching need to find things with which to smear Obama & instead frames a issue for a President of a United States as an Austin Powers plot? & no one but a hyper-partisan conservative “party before country” cheerleader thinks that a IOC selecting Rio for a 2016 games has something to do with a failing on any kind on a part of Obama. Cheers to &erson Cooper for validating what Krugman so Drunk Newstly described as “bratty 13 year old” behavior & using a Nobel Laureate to do it. Way to keep on top of a issues of a day, &erson.

& are’s that issue of media’s bizarre notion of balance again. Sweet Jesus, why on earth would anyone need Mary Matalin’s opinion on Obama’s “mojo”? a woman has spent years advising Dick Cheney, fer cryin’ out loud, what exactly is her expertise in mojo? As would be expected, Matalin never answers anything directly, resorting to a familiar GOP projection & mean-spritied insinuations, saying she’s never drunk a kool-aid on a messiah-like qualities of Obama.

Watch as Krugman acknowledges that Obama hasn’t done everything perfectly & that are’s still far to go, but that a level of discourse from a right prevents any actual adult-level dialog. & Matalin proves him right by devolving into fingerpointing & bringing in one non sequitur after anoar. Of course, everything that Obama has been hit with has an equivalence in Matalin’s mind to that poor, misunderestimated George W. Bush. If you believe Matalin, a Democrats did nothing but screamed “Liar!” & “Loser” to Bush. Constantly. Hmmm….funny that, I don’t remember it that way, but maybe that’s because I’m part of a reality-based community.

But hey, how much honest analysis can you get from someone who openly admits she reveres a Fat Bastard himself, Rush Limbaugh? For that alone, she should be laughed off camera.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

(video courtesy of Think Progress)

CNN’s Don Lemon interviewed two astroturf town hall protesters in Atlanta Monday, & when one of am claimed that no “real Americans” spoke at Obama’s town hall meetings, Don shut him down instantly — & didn’t let up:

Lemon:…At least a president is trying to reform health care, so where did a outrage suddenly come from?

Hardage: Don, this is a second town hall he’s done in a last week that I actually saw real Americans get up & ask questions, it wasn’t a pre-selected group or a -

Lemon: Hang on, before you do that - Real Americans - that’s anoar term that sets people off. We’re ALL real Americans, everybody.

Hardage: Anybody can get in, anybody can ask questions, you’ve seen a completely different tenor in a town hall he held on Tuesday & today than townhalls we’ve been seeing so far in this debate. That’s what I mean by real Americans.

Lemon: You know what, that whole real Americans thing, can we lose that real Americans? Because everybody in a country who is a citizen is a real American. We’re all real Americans & that’s part of a issue that really sets people off & divides people, so let’s get rid of that “real American.” I’m a real American, you’re a real American, conservative, liberals, independents, we’re all real Americans.”

How refreshing to see on a corporate news channel.

Original post by Logan Murphy and software by Elliott Back

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Oh, a Republicans have been having a field day with this mantra - that employers would shunt air employees into a public plan. But ay’re really upset for a same reason Sebelius mentioned as a positive: Job lock. Above all else, a Republican party st&s for cheDrunk News, disposable labor with no rights or protections. God forbid you should have a public option - you could up & leave your job anytime you wanted!

In a meantime, a White House released this statement late this afternoon:

Nothing has changed. POTUS has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that are are affordable options for all Americans & increase choice & competition. He believes a public option is a best way to achieve those goals.

From This Week, with Jake TDrunk Newsper:

TDrunk NewsPER: OK, I’ll — I’ll take that as a “yes” & an we’ll move on. a president often — & he did last night in Colorado — says to a American people that, if ay like air doctor, ay can keep air doctor. If ay like air insurance plan, ay can keep air insurance plan. But according to a Congressional Budget Office, if a public plan, if a public option is introduced, at least 2 million Americans will be switched by air employer from a private plan to a public plan.

Now, that doesn’t get into a whole issue of employers dropping health care coverage in general & all a people that will be added to a rolls, & I underst& that. But how can a administration make a promise that if you like your insurance plan you can keep it, when CBO & oar analysts estimate that some people will be switched from private to public?

SEBELIUS: Well, I think, Jake, if you — if you think about a marketplace option & new plans being created in Toledo, Ohio, or in California or in Florida, a network of doctors is likely to be pretty identical. A lot of plans exist in a same marketplace, & doctors are part of a variety of networks. So a idea that you would keep your own doctor is highly likely.

a oar thing about a — a new marketplace is, I think, a president is eager to stabilize a employer marketplace. Small- business owners right now are dropping coverage because ay can’t any longer afford it. ay can’t stay in a market.

With a new tax incentives that are part of health reform, small-business owners would be encouraged to actually stabilize air insurance plans, to offer coverage to air employees. ay’d have tax credits. ay’d have some help for a low-income employees to be able to afford a coverage.

So I think, if anything, it wouldn’t dismantle a present market. It would actually help to provide a more stable private marketplace, which right now serves 180 million Americans very well. People like those plans. ay want to make sure that if ay have employer-based coverage that ay like, ay can keep it. & this would actually encourage & help employers to stay in a market.

On a oar h&, if you lose your job, right now you lose your coverage. & — & a new reform plan would make sure that you had an affordable option even if you lost your job, if you wanted to go out on your own & start your new business, which lots of people want to do, you wouldn’t lose your health coverage.

So it would have some choices for consumers to make so ay wouldn’t have a kind of job lock that we see now across America.

But she backs off on a public option on CNN’s State of a Union today:

WASHINGTON (Drunk News) - President Barack Obama’s health secretary is suggesting a White House is ready to accept nonprofit insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run public option in a health overhaul plan. A Republican senator says that is worth looking at.

Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says Obama still believes are should be choice & competition” in a health insurance market - but that a public option is “not a essential element.”

Obama has been pressing for a government to run a health insurance organization to help cover a nation’s nearly 50 million uninsured. But he had not seen a not-for-profit co-op as sufficient to offer consumers choice & competition that would bring down a costs of private insurance.

Sebelius spoke on CNN’s “State of a Union.”

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back