From the webpage, UnknownNews.org. Democracy depends on an informed public discourse, and it’s imperiled when lies and misinformation are multiplied by mass media, or by bloggers or panicked emailers. Please — our nation and our world face very serious, very real problems, and you can help, by being a little skeptical about all the phony, non-existent problems that are only distractions. —H&HH

This seemingly unending list of lies vomited up by pathological liars is so long you won’t have the patience to read it all. Sadly, this is what the Republican Party has come to. A ridiculousness that should result in an almost complete abandonment by anyone with a brain. Oh, the awful embarrassment of being associated with this stuff.

Latest update: Feb. 14, 2010

No, it’s not true that global warming stopped in 1998 and the world has been cooling ever since. This video does a good job tracking down the single wingnut who made that bogus claim, which has been repeated ceaselessly by climate change deniers ever since.  #

No, Republicans are just lying when they claim that prosecuting terrorists in ordinary American courtrooms is something unusual or dangerous. There’s nothing outrageous or even out of the ordinry about how the Obama administration is prosecuting the so-called underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.  #

No, contrary to conservatives’ claims, big snowstorms don’t disprove global climate change. A snowstorm doesn’t mean science is a fraud. As explained briefly, we’re going to see more snow, not less, because more precipitation — including heavy snowstorms — is a sign of global warming, as atmospheric moisture levels have increased with warmer temperatures, meaning more storms with heavy snow or rain.  #

No, it’s not true that Sen Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) has proposed legislation the would establish universal voter registration, including votes for ex-felons and welfare recipients and oh my!
It sounds like a great idea to me. I believe people should be encouraged to vote and voting should be as easy as is practically possible — but for their own reasons, other people like to have a few hurdles in the way so that only people who bother to jump those hurdles get to vote. You could make reasonable arguments for the latter notion, and maybe that’s a conversation we should have.
But instead of making those reasonable arguments, right-wingers like John Fund, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck are simply lying, because Senator Frank has made no such proposal. There’s no universal voter registration legislation to oppose. When you hear or read about this proposal from Senator Frank, you’re hearing or reading a lie.  #

No, the widespread right-wing meme that the underwear bomber quit talking as soon as he was read his Miranda rights is bull.  #

No, it’s not true, despite columnist George Will’s claim, that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would “abolish workers’ rights to secret ballots”. It’s a right-wing talking point, but it’s no more true today than the last time it was debunked on this page. It’s untrue every time you hear it, which sure is often.  #

No, it’s not true that President Obama used a teleprompter to address a class of sixth-graders at an elementary school in Falls Church, Virginia.  #

No, despite Investor’s Business Daily’s hokum, the Community Reinvestment Act didn’t cause (more…)

The Man with a Plan

Someone’s in charge, right?

By D.P. Sorensen

Columnist for City Weekly

If we are willing to cut God (by the way, does anyone know what his last name is?) some slack, we could say that he just wasn’t paying attention when the earthquake struck Haiti last week, taking the lives, by latest estimates, of some 100,000 souls in that island paradise. Proof that he does pay attention, at least part of the time, came in the form of his intervention in 2008’s election, when, according to Sarah Palin, her selection as the Republican vice presidential candidate was “God’s will.”

The fact that God smiled on Sarah Palin, but not on the 100,000 Haitians, raises some troubling questions about God’s basic competence. Even if we do cut him some slack, and allow that he was (more…)

Over the years Watts Cookin’ has saved many articles on many subjects simply because they were so well written, well reasoned, and/or had a timeless aspect to them. This is one of those special articles that come along so rarely. It was written in September, 2008. It so captured the essence of Romney and the politics of the moment that it is timeless and priceless. All hail language and Leonard Pitts for this special piece of word magic, and ah, so true. Print this out and frame it. It will gather more meaning as the next campaign begins.

Words on words: How do you say ‘hypocrisy’ in Romney-speak?

By Leonard Pitts

”We need change, all right. Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington. We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington – throw out the big-government liberals.”
- Mitt Romney, Sept. 3, 2008

And then the gorilla run knee socks paint porno on the Cadillac. But school laughed and didn’t we sing hats?  Ahem.

Maybe you wonder what the preceding gobbledygook means. I would ask which gobbledygook you mean: mine or Mitt Romney’s? If he’s allowed to spew nonsense and people act as if he’s spoken intelligently, why can’t I? If he gets to behave as if words no longer have objective meaning, why can’t I?

I mean, baffle grab on the freak flake. Really.  And again, ahem.

If you’re a regular here, you’ve heard me rant from time to time about intellectual dishonesty. By this, I mean more than just your garden variety lie. No, to be intellectually dishonest means to argue that which you know to be untrue and to substitute ideology for intellect to the degree that you’ll do violence to language and logic rather than cross the party line.

Yes, we’re all intellectually dishonest on occasion. But no one does it like Republican conservatives. They are to intellectual dishonesty what Michael Jordan was to basketball or the Temptations to harmony: the avatar, the exemplar, the paradigm. They have elevated it beyond hypocrisy and political expedience. They have made it . . . art.

Which returns us to the astonishing thing Mitt Romney said while addressing the party faithful in St. Paul, Minn. You want to walk around it the way you would Michelangelo’s “David,” admiring the elegance (more…)

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

By Peggy Fletcher Stack

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 12/12/2009 11:38:20 AM

Thirty-one years ago this Christmas, a little book of Mormon cartoons by Calvin Grondahl, Freeway to Perfection , hit the LDS market like an underwater earthquake, suddenly erupting on the surface.

Brigham Young University students lined up by the hundreds to get a signed copy. Deseret Book couldn’t keep it in stock. The green-covered wonder was passed around surreptitiously at church and openly at Mormon family parties. White-haired Relief Society presidents bought dozens for their children and grandchildren.

“It was as groundbreaking as Columbus finding the new world,” recalls longtime Salt Lake Tribune political cartoonist Pat Bagley, who has published about a dozen Mormon cartoon books. “It opened up a new world of Mormon humor.”

Tribune humor columnist Robert Kirby says Grondahl, then an editorial cartoonist at the Deseret News , set the standard by which every LDS humorist would be measured.

Kirby remembers flipping through Freeway during a Mormon sacrament meeting when he landed on Grondahl’s cartoon of a father holding up a monster baby for congregational approval.

He couldn’t stop laughing and had to leave the chapel — a moment he marks as the beginning of his (more…)

By Casey Jones
Tribune Columnist

Barack Obama, President and CEO of Government Motors, wearing a Chevy bow tie and singing “Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick,” has announced GM’s revamped model lineup for 2010, which follows.

The Filibuster: A high-mileage endurance vehicle — keeps going and going and going.

The Geithner: Economy model. Tax free!

The Kennedy: An alternative fuel vehicle. Runs on ethanol … or Scotch … or bourbon … or …

The Socialist: Features progressive pricing designed to redistribute (more…)

The LDS Church started a radio station this week. The 24/7 service is accessible worldwide. Mormons will be able to tune in while attending BYU in Provo, dodging military patrols in Venezuela or herding goats in Kenya.

According to a church spokesman, the programming will be a bit on the subdued/dull side. I’m paraphrasing, of course. What he actually said is that it will feature choir music, firesides, conference addresses and potluck recipes.

I quickly put together a kicking proposal for real Mormon radio and ran it over to church headquarters. I pitched it to some guy who, truthfully, may have only been a janitor. Everyone wears a suit over there.

A few hours later, I allegedly received a phone call politely declining my proposal. The deal breaker was money. In general, there was no point in paying me to run the radio station when they could just call me on a mission.

“And there’s no way that’s happening again,” he may or may not have said.

(more…)