All the news that's fit to print... or spew.

The Washington Post recently ran a blog/article on How Jon Stewart became President Obama's biggest problem. The accompanying chart got me to thinking about where I get my news and information. Seems our household doesn't fit neatly in the 60-64 (getting close to the 65+) demographic in which our dates of birth places us.

So, where do I get my news? Who do I trust? Who do I return to day after day?

I watch local and network national/local news (mostly ABC or NBC) almost every day. I DVR the Colbert Report and Daily Show and watch them the next day. Some days I'll catch all or some of MSNBC shows like Morning Joe, Hardball, or Maddow (MSNBC may lean forward, but there really is diversity of views). Most Sunday morning will find me watching Meet the Press and perhaps another Sunday show. It all gets supplemented with Time magazine, the Washington Post, Mother Jones and 60 Minutes and occasionally with articles from the Wall Street Journal or the Economist (and similar magazines). A day or two a week I'll catch a show on NPR. Our local papers are pretty lame and the opinion pages hollow, but I check out interesting articles online.

I try to be fair and balanced by watching Fox from time to time but their bias and blatant use of "false facts" and bogus "experts" leads me to push the button on the remote and move on. Same with Limbaugh and the other right wing radio jocks who are making big bucks spreading manure. Unfortunately, too many Americans will buy the big lie they are selling.

So, where do you get your news and how do you form your opinions. Only watch/listen to those with whom you agree? Or, do you intentionally seek out other points of view?

I don't know where I'm a gonna go

With sincere apologies to Jimmy Buffett. Check out Jimmy performing Volcano in Jacksonville, January 2012.

Now I don't know

I don't know

I don't know where I'm a gonna go
When the tea party blow

Let me say now, I don't know

I don't know

I don't know where I'm a gonna go

When the capitol blow

Ground she's movin' under me

Tidal waves out on the sea

Sulfur smoke up in the sky

Pretty soon we learn to die

Let me hear ya now, I don't know

I don't know

I don't know where I'm a gonna go

When the U.S.A. blow

Now my girl quickly say to me

Mon you better watch your feet

Tea party bull shit come down soft and hot

You better pray for truth now or pray for truth not

Let me say now, I don't know

I don't know

I don't know where I'm a gonna go

When the tea party blow

"Mr. Utley"

No time to count what I'm worth
'
Cause I just left the planet Earth

Where I go, I hope there's rum

Not to worry, Mon soon come

Now I don't know

I don't know

I don't know where I'm a gonna go

When the GOP blow

One more now, I don't know

(Ah, he don't know)

I don't know

(He don't know, mon)

I don't know where I'm a gonna go

When the U.S.A. blow

But I don't want to land on no Speaker Boehner

Don't want to land near Ted Cruz

(No no no)

Don't want to land on no Bobblehead Bob

Don't want to see my country go low

(No no no)

Don't want to land in a closed National Park

Or anywhere in TexAss

(No no no)

Don't want to land in no Houston airport

Or the racist territory

(No no no)

Don't want to land in no Fox News swill

Don't want to land in the NRA

(No no no)

Don't want to land on no Bob Goodlatté

I got nothing more to say

I don't know

I don't know

I don't know where I'm a gonna go

When our economy blow

Just a one more, I don't know

(He don't know)

I don't know

(I don't know, man)

I don't know where I'm a gonna go

When our beloved country blow

when I blow, (hey)

when I blow (hey)

When I blow it smells
 BAD!!!

Lies, damn lies and Bob Goodlatte

His nose is growing!

Rep. Bob Goodlatte joins a growing Republican liars' chorus in his recent comments about President Barack Obama being anti-small business. Joined by his crony, Chris Saxman, Bobblehead Bob criticized the president for saying that small businesses owe their success to government.

Thing is, that is not what President Obama said.

Bobblehead Bob and the former delegate deceptively cherry picked President Obama's July 13 speech in Roanoke to make it sound like small businesses can't claim credit for their successes. I guess we might give Bob and Chris a pass - after all their primary source of "news" is probably Fox "News"and it was this propaganda mill that first perpetuated the big lie.

Here is what President Obama actually said with what Fox reported in italics:

[L]ook, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires. 

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That's how we funded the GI Bill. That's how we created the middle class. That's how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That's how we invented the Internet. That's how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that's the reason I'm running for President -- because I still believe in that idea. You're not on your own, we're in this together.

Fox, the Romney campaign, and Bobblehead Bob have so little good to say about GOP candidates, that they are left with a pitiful strategy of lies and intentional distortion. I guess ginning up some controversy is a good way to distract voters from Romney's foot-in-mouth "diplomacy" where he did everything from insulting America's best friend, to offending Palestinians, and eventually going way off  the GOP message by praising Israel's government controlled health care system.

On July 25, in a segment called "Do We Look Stupid? Don't Answer That," Jon Stewart skewered Fox, the Romney campaign, and all the wing nut talking heads for their willful manipulation of facts:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

If, like me, you are sick and tired of Bobblehead Bob either (1) avoiding issues (the last two times I contacted him I got a off-topic form letter response sending the strong message he doesn't give a whit about constituents' views), or (2) marching in lockstep with Republican lies, or (3) just being a crummy representative, you should know there is a better choice for Virginia's Sixth District. A choice who will listen and give you some straight talk for a change. A choice who really believes in "government of the people, by the people, for the people." That choice is Andy Schmookler.

Truth is a stranger

In much of our politics, be it local, Virginia, or nationwide, the truth has become a stranger.

All politicians of whatever stripe, from whatever era, and manipulating whatever form of government engage in exaggeration and boasts, in selective forgetting and remembering, and in false advertising. But in modern American politics, especially on the Republican side, the truth has become an absolute stranger.

Consider that the forces driving today's GOP reject science (until they need a transplant) in fields such as biology and climatology. They refuse to accept the president's (how many ways can you prove it is valid) birth certificate. Republicans, tea partiers, and their honchos on Fox and talk radio regularly engage in spewing "false facts." Oh, I guess they sound knowledgable and convincing to the ditto heads, but truth has become a stranger. Facts don't matter. Repeat lies often enough and big enough and there are fools who will believe.

As Leonard Pitts noted in a recent column, "...Americans increasingly occupy two realities, one based on the conviction that facts matter, the other on the notion that facts are only what you need them to be in a given moment."

The recent Supreme Court decision on health care has ginned up the Republican "false facts" talking machine to new levels of dishonesty. Mitt Romney, for example, just earned 4 Pinocchios for Romney’s claim on an Obama health care pledge for twisting and perverting the meaning of 2008 campaign statements made by candidate Barack Obama.

Before the ink was close to dry on Chief Justice Roberts' decision, the Fox fact-free zone was deriding the mandate and penalty as a "tax." Arrogant Eric Cantor went into hyper-lie mode as he promised to hold a (political posturing and meaningless) vote on July 11 to repeal Obamacare. Those talking points have filtered down to local tea partiers and wingntus and are being heard on call-in shows and in barber shops in the Shenandoah Valley.

Permit this bird to push back against the distortions and false facts currently littering my nest. I guess the  mandate and penalty in the Affordable Health Care Act is a "tax" in the broad sense that every payment to government is essentially a tax. Shenandoah National Park entrance fees are a "tax." Get caught failing to drive by the rules you get a fine... I mean penalty... I mean "tax." The mandate and penalty in the Affordable Health Care Act is quite similar to the well established principle that if you want to license a car and drive on our government built roads you have to have insurance. If you fail to do so, you must pay a uninsured motorist fee... or a penalty... or a "tax."

Ezra Kline @ The Washington Post.

Another oft repeated Fox/Republican false fact that is making political rounds locally as well as nationally is that Obamacare represents the largest tax increase in history. Wrong. False. Untrue. As the Washington Post's Ezra Kline concludes, "So no, the Affordable Care Act isn’t the 'biggest tax hike in history.' It’s not even the biggest tax hike in the past 60 years. Or 50 years. Or 30 years. Or 20 years."

I'd like to add that the mandate and penalty, if it is a "tax," is (like the uninsured motorist fee) a voluntary tax. You choose to be irresponsible and not be insured... then, and only then, you pay the tax. It is all about personal responsibility and paying your own way. But, we shouldn't be surprised that Republicans only give lip service to personal responsibility and paying the costs of what they want.

In their zest for removing President Obama and putting politics above nation, Republicans appear to have taken to heart the advice of Mark Twin when he wrote in a letter to San Francisco Alta California, dated May 17, 1867, "The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might."

More Mark Twain wisdom on lying liars and the lies they tell.