All these people are going to look back at the Beck years in a couple decades and be so embarrassed. He'll be the polyester leisure suit to an entire generation of once-whacked right wing adherents.

about five episodes in when I realized there was literally not a single person I was interested in.

But I can point out how hilarious it was watching that person on the last page try and defend LA's culture with a sad little list starting with Disney and ending with "we have lots of books."

Salon is getting very good at hiring professional trolls as supposed writers. From the opening sentence on this article is clear crap from beginning to end.

You don't need to go any further than the author's fantasy that Palin actually wrote the book. The lady can't construct a complete sentence, but sure, she hammered out 400 pages all on her own.

This is a waste of bandwidth.

But that economist would obviously be a socialist, and we don't do anything socialist in America land of the free home of the brave STAND UP COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS WHOO.

Please. I think it is very clear that acknowledgement of the dangers of blind adherence to authority out of peer pressure is one of the most useful things we might teach an American citizen these days.

The 'War on Terrorism', including actions in Afghanistan, came close to topping $1 trillion under Bush's watch, and by some estimates far exceeded that amount.

You couldn't be more wrong. The Iraq war alone nearly topped $1 trillion during Bush's tenure. You'll remember that the $700 billion bailout was also under Bush's watch. Couple those two figures alone with his aggressive tax reduction policy and you don't need to go any further.

is look at the last 15 years to see what deficit reduction means in America.

Clinton was terrified of the deficit hawks, and in fabricating his fantasy whereby the government spends less on everything but Defense he initiated the stagnation of the American middle class just in time for the GOP to take office and run up the largest increase in budget deficits any of us have seen in our lifetimes.

The stats say it all. We've spent the last 15 years treading economic water. If you're not in the top 1-2% of income earners you are now worth less in relative terms than your parents were.

There is not a single example of reduced-governmental-spending-for-reduced-governmental-spending's sake that has led to economic benefit. Not one.

You're falling for the fallacy inherent in the deficit bogeyman.

The Department of Defense is the budget buster for this country. Take any two, three, even four or more government departments, lump their budgets together, and they will still be wildly outpaced by Defense spending.

There is no such thing as deficit control when the biggest slice of our GDP pie by an order of magnitude is wrapped up in the one department with the least to say about government policies which directly encourage long term economic growth.

Deficit reduction means nothing of the sort. It's simple code for the GOP's obsession with neutering the government's functions in all areas except Defense.

Deficit reduction as practiced by our political class has absolutely nothing to do with safeguarding economic vitality. In fact it's quite the opposite. It'll all come down to underfunding vitally necessary domestic programs and stripping the funding out of our already anemic regulatory efforts, which is the problem that has us all in this mess to begin with.

Deficit reduction will not buy a more secure economic future, it will buy a guarantee that we'll be back in this exact same position within a decade, two at most.

Mistake number one in the Obama administration, and when it comes time to take an historical accounting of why this White House's first priority has always been to bend over backwards for a neutered and utterly wrecked GOP he will be causal factor number one.

Obama's base spent two years railing heartily against all that Clintonist political compromises had cost this country and the Democratic party in supporting his candidacy and he repaid us by hiring the king of the "be a cynic and never stop being terrified of the Right's retribution" philosophy.

Paglia is a professional troll. Every discussion forum on the internet has at least two or three people who must be envious as hell, they only wish they could make millions doing what she does.

Is clearly an idiot.

How he got out a line like this "In the first place, there is no such a place as Palestine and there never has been. It was a totally made up word by an English military officer at the beginning of the last century." when Israel never existed except in the minds of those who wished it until the middle of the last century is hilarious.

Hi. Lar. I. Ous.

when we were satisfied with waging our religious war on Islam via Israeli proxy. If there's one thing the neoconservatives can be proud of it's how successful they were in thoroughly indoctrinating millions of Americans in the dogma of unflagging, unthinking support of the Israeli state and all its actions, even when those actions are in direct conflict with American goals as stated by both Bush administrations.

I guess when it comes to supporting unbridled Israeli expansion into Palestinian holdings even the Bushies weren't righteous enough, eh guys?

The really hilarious thing is if Bob and Sonny were to move to Israel they'd find themselves immediately marginalized as the extremist kooks they are even within the Israeli population. Actual Israelis, at least, are willing to cast a pragmatic eye on the actions of their government as it related to regional peace. Clearly vast swathes of this country are not.

she had the courage to sing a full stanza without autotune.