If we want some journalism on this subject, and, at this point, with Media Matters, Salon, Talking Points Memo, and even The Nation taking interest in this pseudo crackdown, we need to hear from the serfs at FoxNews. We cannot know, in truth, about the "mistakes" and the lies until we hear from the graphics masters, the editors, and, most of all, the producers who work there and "make mistakes."

It's worth noting that the cited examples were intra-party mistakes. I.e. the cited "mistakes" were obvious mistakes -- things that kept Republicans from shining on the Republican bully puppet -- rather than the distortions, misstatements, and lies that have appeared on screen, in edits, and otherwise served to dishonor "enemies" or distance from the dishonored.

If we want to know what to make of this, we must have a journalist (as opposed to a blog aggregator) go talk to Fox News employees.

I wonder if anyone is up to investigative journalism anymore? Do we need to wait for prep school kids dressing like "pimps and ho's" from blaxpoitation films?

Look, the criterion of realism is like this: we ask for "characters" (we critically informed), and yet we get upset when the characters are true. We demand "realism," and then we don't want realism. The same ambiguity and critical/viewer whimsy doomed "The Wire."

For good or ill, "Sons of Anarchy" is attempting to mirror the actual history of Hell's Angels and its 2nd-3rd generation tragedy, when it looked like it might adapt one of two ways -- toward one side of its post-war origins (actually post WW2, not post-Vietnam) or another, toward either "liberty" or "outlawry." For good or ill, the show has decided to show the players in the tragedy as contemporary bikers are in their culture. It's the same as "The Wire." In that show, misogyny and racism were rife in character dialog, because misogyny and racism was rife in the criminal underworld of the drug depressed poverty of Baltimore.

"SoA" violates realism, of course, by having a Hamlet. Their concession to reality is keeping him from ever once communicating with the people around him. You characterize this as "what's going on in his head," but, in truth, it's the plot equivalent of the flickering light bulb in a horror film: Jax's constant refusal to speak to his allies (like Hamlet's refusal to tell his friends and the palace guard that a crime had been committed) is the motor for the conflict. If either of the two sides were to speak and work things out, then neither would be alpha male enough to lead, because leaders are Decidererers.

However, being frilly and squeamish that the show would be anatomical, misognynistic, and violent is complaining that the show is -- oh, golly -- about bikers. They're a disgusting lot, just as the folks on "The Wire" were, and it's just plain weird for you to think that you have to want to join them before you can watch them.

Media self-fulfilling prophecies are the most tiresome spectacles on the planet. Of all the bubbles in this bubble dedaubed, bauble infested, attentionless, addled, inane, fallow field of a world that holds its tainted tail in its mouth and calls itself "the media universe," no bubble is more odious, more devilish, more vile, more corrosive, more ridiculous, than reporters and "commentators" pronouncing some brainless idiot "plainspoken" and then fulfilling that pronouncement at every turn.

As long as you keep dressing Barbie in new clothes and keep slapping labels on her, and as long as, by all means, talking about her, then she is "here to stay." It has bugger all to do with democracy. It has to do with lazy media figures who follow each other to the nearest PR flak's outrage machine, because outrage sells ads, and ads make money.

I'm too exhausted to vomit anymore, and I believe that's toxic.

This is an amazing thing, actually.

The Chamber of Commerce is not business. It's a certain segment of business. It represents the same segment of business that Boehner represents of the "American people." He says that "Americans say" that they don't want health care reform, when Americans have never said such a thing and when 37% of registered Republicans have said they want it. The CoC represents the special segment of business that favors capital movement at the blink of an eye. As such, it has never been in favor of the concerns of businessES, but only of capital.

In an actual business, health care is a crippling expense. Getting it "external" would be a huge benefit. It would eliminate over 90% of the strikes in the US. It would eliminate more than 90% of personal bankruptcies in the US, thus relieving credit burdens and improving lending and thereby stimulating demand. I.e. it would be good juice for everyone. However, it would retard the ability of employers to eliminate workers with the stroke of a pen by the quick manipulation of a "premium" like "benefits." It would eliminate a distinction between full time and part time workers. It would create havoc for a lot of work places where "part time" workers put in full time hours but get no benefits and thereby get to be "part time."

In other words, this is about money's will and wants, not about jobs. The CoC is about capital flow, not work, not business, and not the economy.