It’s time to play the music! It’s time to light the lights! It’s time to meet the Commies on the Muppet Show tonight!

From RICHARD ROEPER at the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES:

After multiple viewings of the now-infamous Fox Business Network’s take on the new “Muppets” movie, I can come to only one conclusion.

Bonkers. They’re bonkers.

In a segment on “Follow the Money,” FBN’s Eric Bolling paired up with Dan Gainor of the right-wing Media Research Center to deliver a report that seemed straight out of “Saturday Night Live.”

“Liberal Hollywood depicting a businessman as evil, that’s not new,” said Bolling. “Dan, let’s point this out, this oil muppet, evil man that he is, is called Tex Richman.”

Gainor: “Yeah, it’s amazing how far the left will go just to stoop, to manipulate your kids, to convince them, to give [them] an anti-corporate message, I mean . . .”

Bolling: “I’ll put it out there. Is liberal Hollywood using class warfare to kind of brainwash our kids?”

Bolling asked that with a straight face. And he wasn’t even wearing a tinfoil hat.

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OMG! What’s next? Caliph-ornia?!

Chris Matthews:

Yesterday when we were giving you the latest news from Cairo and the White House, Beck was preaching the coming of the caliphate. That’s right, the coming of the caliphate. ‘Oh, we’ve got trouble in River City.’ The mad professor is prophesizing now that Britain, France, Spain and Portugal are all going to be grabbed up by the second coming of the Ottoman empire.

Why is Beck selling this fear? Because he  doesn’t want to deal with the problem at hand. It’s too tricky for him, as it is for most of us. So what are Beck and the troublemakers doing? They’re scaring people into a frenzy over the coming of a global caliphate. And to what effect? To fight for Mubarak? To place blame if we don’t? To encourage Mubarak to fight the people in the streets? No. I’ll bet Its to begin a long campaign of fear, something to talk about on the radio, something to scare people with.

(Video at BUSINESS INSIDER)

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Heil-arious

From JOSHUA GREEN at the Atlantic:

An election year already notable for its menagerie of extreme and unusual candidates can add another one: Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio’s 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, who for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments.

Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which fought mainly on the Eastern Front during World War II.

Now, now, kids, let’s not get all bent out of shape. Rich Iott is just a family guy with Republican family values. I’ve found some pictures that will show you what a nice guy ol’ Rich really is. In fact, he’s just like us (well, those of us who are not Christine O’Donnell, who is “you” (if you are not a witch). Before he grabs a shave, Rich takes a nice long bath and enjoys his morning tea while his cat, Rudolf Hiss, looks on.

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Look how proud he is of that Susan B. Anthony List endorsement!

Hanni-tea Insani-tea

From the Cincinnatti Enquirer:

CINCINNATI – Fox News unexpectedly canceled conservative talk show host Sean Hannity’s appearance Thursday night at the Cincinnati Tea Party Tax Day rally, leaving a lot of disappointed fans – and a lot of confusion.

Hannity was scheduled to hold a book-signing and a live taping of his talk show during the event.

Fox News Executive Vice President of Programming Bill Shine issued a statement to the media Thursday evening saying Fox had decided to call Hannity back to New York to do the show because officials believed the Tea Party was using Hannity to make a profit at the event.

Because the tea parties are supposed to make money for Faux News, not the other way around.

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That’s the Way the Cokie Grumbles

From Steve and Cokie Roberts at The Mercury:

Steve recently took part in a lunchtime panel sponsored by a local radio station. A beefy young man in the audience grabbed the microphone and challenged the speakers, in a sneering and confrontational tone, to name one good thing about President Obama’s healthcare proposal.

Steve’s answer: People without insurance flood hospital emergency rooms and push up medical bills for everyone. So it would be in the “national interest” to expand insurance and hold down costs. “The national interest?” retorted the questioner in an even louder voice. “That sounds like fascism!”

…snip…

We don’t know what the beefy guy reads or to whom he listens, but we would bet he’s a disciple of Glenn Beck. The popular author and broadcaster who has turned nonstop name-calling into an art form is a big fan of the “f-word.”

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Russian to the Microphones

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said on the House floor today that by passing health care reform, Democrats “will finally lay the cornerstone of their Socialist utopia on the backs of the American people.”

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Throwing the poor under the Jeebus

(CNN) — An evangelical leader is calling for a boycott of Glenn Beck’s television show and challenging the Fox News personality to a public debate after Beck vilified churches that preach economic and social justice.

The Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus’ message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.

Wallis says Beck compared those churches to Communists and Nazis.

Wallis says at least 20,000 people have already responded to his call to boycott Beck. He says Beck is confusing his personal philosophy with the Bible.

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Czars in Her Eyes

From Alex Koppelman at Salon:

Lately, conservatives haven’t shown much of a knack for the facts. The healthcare reform debate has been marred by bogus accusations of death panels and the myth that reform will include a government mandate that taxpayers foot the bill for abortions. Now, some Republicans are extending that same treatment to the personnel decisions in President Obama’s administration.

On Sunday in the Washington Post, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, wrote a column warning of the number of informal policy “czars” employed by the White House.

Oh noez!!!!! Not the czars!!!!!

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