Joe Piscopo? That's ridiculous. Everyone knows for insightful news analysis, you should go to Joe the Plumber.

the biggest White House power grab ever."

I thought the 2000 election theft was the biggest WH power grab.

Move along, nothing to see here. Absolutely standard SOP:
1. Determine what people dislike most about us
2. Focus loud, persistent media attention on minor opponents examples of same.

Wins every time by first creating an awareness of bad behavior then associating a name with it. You get benefit of behavior, they get approbation of association. Effective enough that it doesn't need a stupid population because it never invokes a refutable argument.

With a media unwilling to exercise even slight independent, non-stenographic judgment very hard to defend as well.

They don't even care anymore. As long as their dittohead fans continue to fawn over their lunacy, they're more than happy to keep churning it out.
Joe Piscopo? He had 5 minutes as a comedian 25 years ago. What's done since then, other than steroids?

the propaganda on this census issue is really being jacked up. the wapo had a good informative post on it yesterday -- noting that previous census officials all thought it a great idea that the white house was going to be engaged -- it would bring attention to the importance of people actually participating:

But Kenneth Prewitt, who served as Census director from 1998 to 2001, said he worked with White House staff during the 2000 Census on budgeting, advertising and outreach efforts. In an e-mail, Prewitt said he never met with anyone "more senior than a deputy chief of staff, except once when I met with the entire cabinet on how each member could assist in the large outreach effort then underway."

Other former Census directors agreed that coordination with the White House on budgeting and outreach was appropriate while data collection and analysis should be kept separate.

As for potential political interference, “It’s virtually impossible to do something wrong without someone finding out about it,� said Vincent P. Barabba, who ran the 1980 Census. “It’s about as transparent an agency that exists.�

Barbara Everitt Bryant, who served as director during the 1990 Census, said: "I would have liked a little of the bully pulpit help, because one of the big things is just to get everyone to answer the questionnaire. The president would have a lot more clout on that than anything we could have done at the Census bureau."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/02/_sen_judd_gregg_said.html?wprss=rss_blog

I seem to recall our president suggesting that there might be stumbles and fumbles along the way...and it is fascinating watching our ignorant MSM provide analysis of every breath he takes...don't seem to recall that happening quite so intensely with BUSHIE...and REPUGS are even more into doublespeak than they were in the past...no one (except Jon Stewart) seems to be able to look back and match up the HYPOCRISY...it is beyond frustrating...watching Jon Sununu (?) trying to defend their obstacles to this bill without having any recollectin on HOW THE "F" WE GOT HERE...

Piscopo or Hannity - Now, of their respective neck sizes, biceps or IQs, which would be the lowest number?

Dude, stop posting about these idiots. They're not real people -- they're basically just cartoon characters. The stuff they say is just noise. Stop making them out to be more than they really are. As long as you're arguing with them, you're not talking about real issues or making any meaningful progress.
On a related note, where are your posts about the stuff Goofy (AKA Dippy Dawg) said on Mickey and Friends the other day? (See how silly it sounds?)

It's important to understand that Fox News does not merely make its viewers ignorant by (1) withholding information and (2) telling lies.

Fox News actively makes its viewers stupid, with propaganda techniques that not only disinform, but degrade the viewers' cognitive capabilities. The inane discourse of the on-air personalities is designed to short-circuit rational thinking with scripted, bumper-sticker slogan commentary. Even the graphical layout and video techniques are designed to inflict brain damage. If you watch Fox News long enough and really pay attention to the effect it is having on you, you will realize that it hurts just to watch the picture, even with the sound off.

Also, the video techniques combine with the content and emotional tone of the on-air personalities' discourse to elicit a sense of anxiety, anger and resentment in the viewer.

Fox News has been meticulously crafted, using very powerful and sophisticated mind-control techniques, to make its viewers ignorant, stupid and mean-spirited. It is very effective. Watch at your own risk.

Let me get this straight: President orders torture: Fine. President orders illegal wiretaps: Fine. President directly supervises the Census: Power Grab!

Next week on Hannity, Hannity, and more Hannity, Andrew Dice Clay on gender relations, plus Sean tells a Titanic joke! You don't wanna miss it!

SecularAnimist, how right you are. We surf over Fox in the middle of the cable news range, and can't stand to listen or watch. The conversation is always devoid of reason and the participants are over-animated. The sound is always louder than the other stations, and the graphics are always optically irritating. The mind can't help but close down when watching.

All of these qualities put together are no accident. They want every part of their broadcast to keep their audience in a mental-block state. When your mind is blocked, well....need I say more?

If you really want to see the sad, pathetic side of Hannity, go visit his singles page on his website - where the HannityHeads go lookin' for love in all the wrong places. When you get a handle on the kinds of people who are his fans and who want to be with another fan so they can be fans together forever, you know for certain there are indeed two species of hairless biped on the planet - homo sapiens and homo sap,/i> and the former is nowhere to be seen at that site.

Joe Piscopo? I didn't know he was still alive.

I wish Hannity and Limbaugh were so obscure and washed up I could say the same about them.

For social conservatives, it's all about hysteria.

We surf over Fox in the middle of the cable news range, and can't stand to listen or watch.

And every month, part of your cable fee goes to Rupert Murdoch as you pay for the "privilege" of having Fox News made available to you. You don't get any choice in the matter, either. Whether you watch Fox or not, whether you have cable or satellite, you pay a monthly fee for Fox News to Rupert Murdoch.

This stomach-churning fact played a good part in our family's decision a couple of years ago to drop cable. The interesting thing is, we don't really miss it. You probably wouldn't either.

"I wish Hannity and Limbaugh were so obscure and washed up...."
Posted by: nemo

Actually, they are---we just don't let on that they are, because it's so fun watching those mouthbreathing "dittoheads" pretend to be actual human beings!

I already made this comment elsewhere, but it probably belonged here. This all makes no sense at all. Whatever happened to the unitary executive theory? Wasn't the right wing all over that? Because, if they had any intellectual integrity at all, the GOP would be forced to concede that their beloved theory gives the president control over the Census, whether it's through Commerce or more directly through the White House.

But a bunch of horses' asses.

jimBOB wrote: "This stomach-churning fact played a good part in our family's decision a couple of years ago to drop cable. The interesting thing is, we don't really miss it. You probably wouldn't either."

As soon as the final season of Battlestar Galactica is over.

field-salting.

just wait till 2010.

I never watch FOX, but have no doubt SecularAnimist is absolutely right. However, it's a difference of degree (and message) rather than of kind, as I can almost measure how much stupider I get after watching CNN and even MSNBC.

No cable means no TV for us, as we have highrises all around us. I'm not quite ready to go that far yet. But I do wish we could unbundle.

"Fox News actively makes its viewers stupid, with propaganda techniques that not only disinform, but degrade the viewers' cognitive capabilities."- secularanimist

I was @ the gym on Wednesday of this week and was flipping between Hannity and Maddow. Hannity had Blago on. I thought, besides the obvious chance at parading a crazy, corrupt Democrat around some more isn't this old news? What's Hannity doing? As I watched this master at work, it became clear. Hannity was pre-educating his minions. He would read parts of Blago's incriminating transcripts and ask Blago to defend them. Blago predictably kept going on about how the tapes were a misrepresentation of the truth, about how they were taken out of context, etc, etc.

I thought damn, this guy is good (almost respectable if not for the moral bankruptcy). Now he has his audience trained that Democrats will ALWAYS cry foul, and Hannity can proceed to make attacks that actually misrepresent or are taken out of context.

I like Maddow, but not in the same class of psychological manipulation as the FOX boys. Nor should she be.

Joe Piscopo.

Joe Piscopo.

Joe Piscopo?!?

I can't quite wrap my li'l brain around how that may have come about, but will only request that Hannity use his obviously considerable influence to get RuPaul to come on and discuss the human genome.

Fair. Balanced. Fox. Disconnect.

You get benefit of behavior, they get approbation of association.

Do you mean opprobrium? Because approbation would be, like, a good thing.

I can't quite wrap my li'l brain around how that may have come about

Come on now. They have Dennis Miller on all the time. Could Piscopo be worse?

Sen. Gregg withdrew because (1) Obama’s chutzpah crossed the line and (2) Obama CANNOT put away his “birth certificate” issue.

1. Here’s the chutzpah: The Republicans didn’t get their act together enough to challenge Obama for not being constitutionally qualified to be President as an Article 2 “natural born citizen” so Obama’s White House steals the census from the Commerce Department against the specific instructions of the constitution itself — “actual enumeration” under Article 1.

2. Here’s the “birth certificate” issue: Since Obama’s earnest drive to convince the nation to weaken its economic strength through redistribution as well as weaken its national defense, COUPLED WITH HIS UNPRECEDENTED WHITE HOUSE TAKEOVER OF DECENNIAL CENSUS TAKING FROM THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT, has confirmed the very threats to our Republic’s survival that the Constitution was designed to avert, it no longer is sustainable for the United States Supreme Court to refrain from exercising WHAT IS ITS ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO DEFEND THE NATION FROM UNLAWFUL USURPATION. The questions of Obama’s Kenyan birth and his father’s Kenyan/British citizenship (admitted on his own website) have been conflated by his sustained unwillingnes to supply his long form birth certificate now under seal, and compounded by his internet posting of a discredited ‘after-the-fact’ short form ‘certificate’. In the absence of these issues being acknowledged and addressed, IT IS MANIFEST THAT OBAMA REMAINS INELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. Being a 14th Amendment ‘citizen’ is not sufficient. A ‘President’ MUST BE an Article 2 ‘natural born citizen’ AS DEFINED BY THE FRAMERS’ INTENT.

We must do to conservative media what they have done to abortion. It's time for death by a thousand cuts. They've already preempted any attack on the fairness doctrine angle. So we go for unbundling of stations ffirst and then boycott, boycott, boycott.

Then we demand that stations incorporate the fairness doctrine voluntarily with threats of more boycotts.

It has to be a grass roots movement.

By the way, they are starting to shape the propaganda on the census already and preempt anything that Democrats do with it. Americans love an underdog. I can't figure out why Democrats were unable to use that more effectively when we were the minority.

The Republican gerrymandering in Texas was appalling and defies logic. One district is like a mile wide and 350 miles long. And no one screamed about it on the TV. Yet any reasonable attempt to draw districts this time around will be met with screams of horror.

We have to get our messaging consistent. I was watching The View the other day and they were talking about Palin and the wolf hunting and everyone was against Palin except Elizabeth. Her shout to her co-workers and friends? "What is this a table of SOCIALISTS?" How do they get every minion on message like that? She didn't accuse them of being Democrats or even liberals. She used the meme of the day. Learn from it my friends.