I hope your Thanksgiving was peppered with happiness!

And I hope you didn’t have to eat at Megyn Kelly’s house.
Original painting (Freedom from Want by Norman Rockwell, to whom I offer my profound apology)

Gingr-itch, Starting from Scratch

From POLITICO:

Newt Gingrich has been trying to demonstrate an effort to rebuild his campaign, and one way was by getting his first finance co-chair in Iowa since the mass staff exodus of a few weeks ago.

Aides to Gingrich said he asked Greg Ganske, a former congressman who served in the House during Gingrich’s tenure as Speaker, to serve in the position during a tea party event in Indianola.

Ganske has been out of Congress for several years, but Gingrich has made clear he plans to try to make a renewed effort in the Hawkeye State, spending a string of days there this month and next in the lead-up to the Ames Straw Poll.

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Prophetic? Naaahh, Pathetic!

Since one disastrous Texas governor was not enough, there are some in the Rethuglican party who are talking about Governor Little Ricky Goodhair entering the 2012 presidential race.  Like they say in Texas, Oy vey, y’all.

From the Houston Press HAIR BALLS Blog:

Governor Rick Perry appeared on the Fox News network for an interview with Neil Cavuto.

Cavuto made the somewhat dubious statement that Perry is “very popular outside your state, still popular but not nearly as popular within your state.”

…snip…

Asked why Texas wasn’t exactly in love with him, Perry said, “I say that a prophet is generally not loved in their hometown. That’s both Biblical and practical.”

Original Fra Bartolommeo painting (Prophet Isaiah )

Who says there are no manufacturing jobs left in America?

From Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone:

How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory

The onetime Nixon operative has created the most profitable propaganda machine in history. Inside America’s Unfair and Imbalanced Network

The key to decoding Fox News isn’t Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity. It isn’t even News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch. To understand what drives Fox News, and what its true purpose is, you must first understand Chairman [Roger] Ailes. “He is Fox News,” says Jane Hall, a decade-long Fox commentator who defected over Ailes’ embrace of the fear-mongering Glenn Beck. “It’s his vision. It’s a reflection of him.”

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I hope everyone leaves the rice in the bags when they throw it

From the New York DAILY NEWS:

It’s wedding bells for Rush Limbaugh – for the fourth time.

The conservative firebrand, 59, will exchange vows Saturday in Florida with Kathryn Rogers – a blond bombshell half his age – in a lavish Hawaiian-themed wedding bash headlined by none-other-than Sir Elton John.

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(The guests, top to bottom:  Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Gretchen Carlson, Neil Cavuto)

Rupert Murdoch: Fairly Unbalanced

From Ben Dimiero at MEDIA MATTERS:

Is anyone in charge at Fox News?

This week was a bit of a mixed bag for the journalistic ethics of Fox News.

On the upside, we confirmed that News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch is familiar with the idea of journalistic standards. On the downside, Murdoch appears to be completely unaware that his news network doesn’t have any.

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You make us upchuck when you make shit up, Chuck!

From Joan Walsh at Salon:

I’ve said this before: It’s getting past time for President Obama to spell out specifics about which healthcare reform plan he supports, given the five House and Senate bills and umpteen other proposals circling Washington. And unfortunately for Obama’s dreams of bipartisanism, it’s way past time for him to give up his hopes that he can bring “sensible” Republicans on board with a smart, fair bill.

I’ve suspected that was true for a while, but today is the day to, well, pull the plug on that project. Unbelievably, one GOP senator who’s been held up as a paragon of reason and bipartisan comity, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley — one of three Republicans negotiating with three Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee — trashed Obama’s plan today in terms that went beyond Sarah Palin’s ignorant rant.

…snip…

“There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life,” Grassley told a town hall crowd. “And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you’re going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don’t have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”

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The GOP Displays its Testicular Fortitude

From The New York Times:

On a day when the government deadline for filing income tax returns offered some Americans a timely excuse to vent their frustrations over the sagging economy and ride a metaphor two centuries in the making, 773 Tax Day tea parties were scheduled in cities from Boston to Washington, East Hampton, N.Y., to Yakima, Wash., to protest government spending — namely the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package and $3 trillion budget.

Although organizers insisted they had created a non-partisan grassroots movement, it was argued by others that these parties were more of the synthetic “Game Day Grass” variety, since the occasion was largely created by the clamor of cable news and fueled with the financial and political support of current and former Republican leaders.

Fox News was covering the events and streaming live video as its own commentators Neil Cavuto and Michelle Malkin were headlining the protests in Sacramento, Sean Hannity appeared in Atlanta, and Newt Gingrich showed up at City Hall Park in New York. The web site TaxDayTeaParty.com listed its sponsors, which ranged from FreedomWorks, founded by former House Majority Leader, Dick Armey (R-Texas), Top Conservatives on Twitter, to RNC Radio.com, to the book from Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina, “Saving Freedom,” giving his “firsthand account of the unsettling socialist shift.”

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