Foreign Interesting

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Questions have arisen.

Is Osama bin Laden trying to blow a smokescreen, change the subject, by ratcheting up terrorism gossip?

Is he reeeeeeaaaaalllly, secretly funding the US Chamber of Commerce's campaign against Democratic candidates?

It's "out there." Right, Cokie?
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crossposted at firedoglake/The Seminal

The Enemy Within?

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Thought for today courtesy a comment thread over at Thinkprogress:

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”

–Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator

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You betcha.

Number 1 Story

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Via Countdown's replay of Senator Tom Coburn's town hall, we learn the Aussie Emperor Rupert Murdoch has no clothes...and Fox may be foxy, but it's full o'crap [my translation].

So have the Republicans finally awakened to the fact that the Fox tail is wagging them?

And David Frum had it right.
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PRecommends: digby on media violence-pushing

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When the likes of Roger Ailes' personal kittylitterbox keep slavering over the ramp-up of violence-prompts and deeds and resort to blaming the victim mendacity, then questions must be asked...and answered.

Roger says it's just about the ratings.

digby has her thoughts

and Prairie thinks Roger's a self-loathing avatar taking the Murdoch empire's avarice out on the rest of us.
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From A to W — A Short Herstory of Rightwing Screeders

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From Ann Coulter to Wendy Long, with a sidetrip via Liz Chee-knee and Laura Ingraham and all the other blondoids [yes, Monica Crowley, you are merely one of the other blondoids....] the right has inflicted on us in recent years, the prime unifying thread is their fast talking, overtalking screedarageousness against anything Democratic or liberal or progressive, or...may I finish??????...or American.

The rightwing has honed its blonde verbal bombthrowers to a fine edge over the years, using the tools of sexual subtext...flip that mane, sweetie pie...run those talons fingers through those oxidized locks...but just maybe the tide is turning.

I do believe I did actually hear Chris Matthews abruptly cut into Wendy Long's filibuster of nonanswerousness on Hardball. Could it be the era of drooling idiot male anchorishism [with a strong emphasis on "ish"] has run its course?

Maybe there are Mrs. Matthewses and Mrs. Stephanopouli and company out there who have finally stamped their feet and said ferchrissake you look like a damn pussy-whipped pimply faced kid fool out there. Snap out of it!

Time will tell. Maybe these anchors feel they have to act the part of the yes, I'm gonna say it, hornier demographic of their audience.

But this red-headed gramma for one is going to say: enough already, guys. Shape up or get left behind. And wipe your chin.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette