Racism at Fox News

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't know anything about this "mentor " thing and I see no link thereto, but it doesn't matter; I trust my periodontist for what he does with my oral health, not his political rants; I trust Pete Rose for the way he plays baseball, not his gambling; and anyone can trust a mentor for the way they personally inspire, not some single gotcha quote taken out of context and regurgitated on YouTube.

Sorry that's just cheap thought. Not buying it. Cheap stuff falls apart.

I see the problem here, you expect me to believe that you are completely unbiased and perfect.

I would call you a liar, but that would be an insult to liars.

I expect you to believe nothing about me. I said nothing about me except to offer personal examples. What I expect is for you to recognize standard accepted logical fallacies for what they are and drop the double standard bullshit. Not to mention the ad hominem you invariably go to when you've lost the point.

Your personal examples consist entirely of you never being wrong, never judging anyone by their friends, and claiming that you listen to the guy that cleans your teeth. To point out the obvious, but if you really listened to him you wouldn't need to get your teeth cleaned in the first place.

I don't know where that leaves you, but I already stated my position, I am not going to insult liars.

 

[Pogo]

Pogo: "We don't hire book writers or pew-sitters; we hire presidents."

Apparently we do hire book writers ... and let's not forget ... speech givers.

Hopefully we will never make that mistake again.

But in 2008 that's what we did.

We've made that mistake a lot more than just '08. It's true we don't hire executives; we hire speakers with good hair who have the right wife-and-kids-and-goes-to-church story. Which is a facile, superficial and doomed-to-failure way to operate.

Take Bull Clinton. Please. When Democrats came out of the woodwork for a chance to run against H.W., I got very interested and came up with my own ranking of preference. Clinton was dead last on that list. But he had the hair, and he had the energy, and he had the ability to speak and connect personally. On election night he achieved the only thing I ever expected him to accomplish and the only thing he's good at: he won the election. At that point the only benefit we got was not having H.W. in office any more, but that's hardly a vision thing.

Or if you prefer, back in 1980 we hired an actor who could read a teleprompter and make it look natural. Again, not a basis on which to select a chief executive. That's what party politics expressed as advertising a product brings us: an image. Not an executive or a statesman or even a capable person. In effect we elect a news anchor.

Hell, when was the last time we even saw a Presidential candidate who was even bald? 1956. Images are what we elect. Images formed, manipulated and scripted by image-makers... and opposed by image-destroyers using the same tactics in reverse. It's callous, meaningless and phony. And it's been that way as long as most of us have been alive.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

After six years of this crowing I still don't get the point. Jeremiah Wright was Obama's pastor............... and?

Who was George W. Bush's pastor? The Dick Cheney's? Mitt Romney's? John McCain's?

WHO CARES? The pastors were not and are not running for office.

Who were their dentists? Their telephone repair people? Their mail carriers?
Conspiring minds need to know. Scandal beckons.

If you spend 20 years in a hatemonger's congregation and if you cite him as a mentor, he is in a different category from your dentist. And then if you claim that after sitting in the congregation for 20 years, you never heard the hate -- then that's a story.

Early shades of the "is he dishonest or is he oblivious?" debate America is finally having 6 years too late.

But, isn't it dishonest to then say that Obama is "Muslim" if he spent 20 years in a Christian church? Just sayin.........

Would it also be dishonest to call him African-American if he wasn't born in Africa?

 

[Amelia]

Pogo: "We don't hire book writers or pew-sitters; we hire presidents."

Apparently we do hire book writers ... and let's not forget ... speech givers.

Hopefully we will never make that mistake again.

But in 2008 that's what we did.

We've made that mistake a lot more than just '08. It's true we don't hire executives; we hire speakers with good hair who have the right wife-and-kids-and-goes-to-church story. Which is a facile, superficial and doomed-to-failure way to operate.

Take Bull Clinton. Please. When Democrats came out of the woodwork for a chance to run against H.W., I got very interested and came up with my own ranking of preference. Clinton was dead last on that list. But he had the hair, and he had the energy, and he had the ability to speak and connect personally. On election night he achieved the only thing I ever expected him to accomplish and the only thing he's good at: he won the election. At that point the only benefit we got was not having H.W. in office any more, but that's hardly a term to look forward to.

Or if you prefer, back in 1980 we hired an actor who could read a teleprompter and make it look natural. Again, not a basis on which to select a chief executive. That's what party politics expressed as advertising a product brings us.

Hell, when was the last time we even saw a Presidential candidate who was even bald? 1956. Images are what we elect. Images formed, manipulated and scripted by image-makers... and opposed by image-destroyers using the same tactics in reverse. It's callous, meaningless and phony. And it's been that way as long as most of us have been alive.

*sigh*

Writing the two-term governor of California off as merely an actor

 

[Pogo]

I see the problem here, you expect me to believe that you are completely unbiased and perfect.

I would call you a liar, but that would be an insult to liars.

I expect you to believe nothing about me. I said nothing about me except to offer personal examples. What I expect is for you to recognize standard accepted logical fallacies for what they are and drop the double standard bullshit. Not to mention the ad hominem you invariably go to when you've lost the point.

Your personal examples consist entirely of you never being wrong, never judging anyone by their friends, and claiming that you listen to the guy that cleans your teeth. To point out the obvious, but if you really listened to him you wouldn't need to get your teeth cleaned in the first place.

I don't know where that leaves you, but I already stated my position, I am not going to insult liars.

Then maybe you should just shut the fuck up until you learn to read: I said the opposite of what you have here. And btw a periodontist is a surgeon; he doesn't "clean teeth".

 

[Pogo]

When a Democrat luminary such as Geraldine Ferraro is called racist for pointing out how unqualified Obama was for office, that shows how far off the rails America was in 2007 and 2008.

I fully appreciate that the Bush record may have been a guarantee that a Democrat would win the White House in 2008. However, there is no excuse for Obama to have been that Democrat.

An appropriate vetting of him, and an appropriate scoffing of those who suggested that he was remotely qualified for the office of president, could have given the nation a better Democrat candidate.

Instead we got even Ferraro being called racist for daring to speak truth about Obama.

Never heard that one either, and again I see no link, but I can agree that neither party broke much of a sweat to put up a quality candidate in 2008. Then again, when is the last time that happened at all? I'm not sure I've ever even seen it. Given a walk, the DP put up what would effectively be a PR move. That worked to further the aims of a party seeking power; not for the benefit of the country. But then that's all any political party is good for anyway-- acquiring power. Not wielding it.

So again it comes down to: "what were the alternatives". We had damn little choice.

You missed a lot.

If the media had done their job to cut through the PR bull instead of actively facilitating the PR bull, Obama could have been put on the sidelines where he belonged. There was at least Hillary, and who knows who might have given her competition if Obama wasn't sucking all the PR air out of the room.

The fault and the shame of the media in shilling for Obama instead of exposing his lies and his inability to play well with others cannot be underestimated.

Are you kidding??

Media is the whole reason we're in this pickle. I just invoked 1956; let's fast forward to the next election and the Kennedy-Nixon debate. People who listened to that debate on radio, without a picture, thought Nixon prevailed. There's no image on the radio. Nixon in turn, when he came back in '68 having learned the lesson, hired people from advertising.

Media loves PR. Media loves controversy and anything that has drama in it, because it sells papers. So in 1992 media is really not interested in Paul Tsongas' deadpan ideas; it's only vaguely interested in Jerry Brown as a maverick; but it's very interested in Bill Clinton and the possibility of a sex scandal. Which again, has nothing to do with Presidenting but everything to do with selling media. Consequently we're stuck with Bill Clinton as the candidate, like it or not.

Media loved Ronald Reagan too. He knew how to frame a statement in an emotional, folksy way that made him come off as a kindly uncle. Much the same as Clinton minus the age. Images. To this day the media image of hostages being freed from Iran as Reagan takes office has fed the mythology that the Reagan Administration actually freed them. In truth it was Carter's Warren Christopher, but the Reagan image is just so Hollywood; that's what sells.

John McCain and Bob Dole and Al Gore and John Kerry and Walter Mondale and H.W. in '92 --- just didn't sell well enough. None of them had the emotional connection their competition had. Think about it. By contrast the emotional connection of H.W.'s competition in '88 was even worse. Guess what happened.

Emotional heartstrings. That's what sells. Scandals and conspiracy rumblings and suggestions of evil, that's the tactic of the competition. We don't have politics any more; we have advertising. And we don't have candidates; we have PR products.

 

[Pogo]

Pogo: "We don't hire book writers or pew-sitters; we hire presidents."

Apparently we do hire book writers ... and let's not forget ... speech givers.

Hopefully we will never make that mistake again.

But in 2008 that's what we did.

We've made that mistake a lot more than just '08. It's true we don't hire executives; we hire speakers with good hair who have the right wife-and-kids-and-goes-to-church story. Which is a facile, superficial and doomed-to-failure way to operate.

Take Bull Clinton. Please. When Democrats came out of the woodwork for a chance to run against H.W., I got very interested and came up with my own ranking of preference. Clinton was dead last on that list. But he had the hair, and he had the energy, and he had the ability to speak and connect personally. On election night he achieved the only thing I ever expected him to accomplish and the only thing he's good at: he won the election. At that point the only benefit we got was not having H.W. in office any more, but that's hardly a term to look forward to.

Or if you prefer, back in 1980 we hired an actor who could read a teleprompter and make it look natural. Again, not a basis on which to select a chief executive. That's what party politics expressed as advertising a product brings us.

Hell, when was the last time we even saw a Presidential candidate who was even bald? 1956. Images are what we elect. Images formed, manipulated and scripted by image-makers... and opposed by image-destroyers using the same tactics in reverse. It's callous, meaningless and phony. And it's been that way as long as most of us have been alive.

*sigh*

Writing the two-term governor of California off as merely an actor

I didn't say "merely" -- but the point is what got him elected to both offices: the image. Let's admit it: without that ability to connect, Reagan never gets elected dogcatcher.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I expect you to believe nothing about me. I said nothing about me except to offer personal examples. What I expect is for you to recognize standard accepted logical fallacies for what they are and drop the double standard bullshit. Not to mention the ad hominem you invariably go to when you've lost the point.

Your personal examples consist entirely of you never being wrong, never judging anyone by their friends, and claiming that you listen to the guy that cleans your teeth. To point out the obvious, but if you really listened to him you wouldn't need to get your teeth cleaned in the first place.

I don't know where that leaves you, but I already stated my position, I am not going to insult liars.

Then maybe you should just shut the fuck up until you learn to read: I said the opposite of what you have here. And btw a periodontist is a surgeon; he doesn't "clean teeth".

Like I said, if you listened to the guy who cleaned your teeth, you wouldn't have to pretend you didn't say what you said.

 

[Amelia]

Hopefully Obama is the closest we will ever come to a purely manufactured candidate.

Hopefully he is the pinnacle of our pursuit of style over substance and we will proceed in the opposite direction after this having learned from our past mistakes.

And that's all I have to say about that here. This is off topic for this thread and I'm done with the subject matter of this thread.

 

[Pogo]

Hopefully Obama is the closest we will ever come to a purely manufactured candidate.

Hopefully he is the pinnacle of our pursuit of style over substance and we will proceed in the opposite direction after this having learned from our past mistakes.

And that's all I have to say about that here. This is off topic for this thread and I'm done with the subject matter of this thread.

Well it is the Media forum so it's at least more on track than how the oil industry works

Hopefully he is the pinnacle of our pursuit of style over substance and we will proceed in the opposite direction after this having learned from our past mistakes.

-- from your lips to the election gods' ears but as long as we remain addicted to mass televisual media as a basis for both making commodity purchases and electing candidates, and failing to distinguish the difference, I'm afraid we're doomed to more and more of the same old thing.

A lot of people don't take me seriously when I lambaste the influence of television but this is where it leads. Television is a mass propaganda tool, unsuited for information flow but perfectly suited to sell products based on cheap emotional hooks. That insidious aspect doesn't stop at selling soap and cars; it's been the main tool in getting politicians into power for over half a century. I can't think of an election in my adult life that wasn't won on the basis of selling an image better than the other side sold its image.

It's a sad commentary on our culture but let's admit, it's true.

 

[thanatos144]

Your personal examples consist entirely of you never being wrong, never judging anyone by their friends, and claiming that you listen to the guy that cleans your teeth. To point out the obvious, but if you really listened to him you wouldn't need to get your teeth cleaned in the first place.

I don't know where that leaves you, but I already stated my position, I am not going to insult liars.

Then maybe you should just shut the fuck up until you learn to read: I said the opposite of what you have here. And btw a periodontist is a surgeon; he doesn't "clean teeth".

Like I said, if you listened to the guy who cleaned your teeth, you wouldn't have to pretend you didn't say what you said.

You would think he would be used to getting caught in his own lies

tapatalk post

 

[JohnL.Burke]

I'm afraid we would, because "we" don't send oil anywhere. The oil companies do that. Again, do you want to nationalize oil companies? We have no more or less oil because we allow an oil company a cheaper way to do its business. They're simply not related. To pretend they are is to subscribe to the same cheap thought factory that uses guilt by association on a ten-second YouTube clip of Jeremiah Wright. It just ain't that simple.

But I must say it's beyond surreal to be talking how oil works in a Media thread about the racism on Fox News.

Ok, let's take away the word "we" and replace it with "U.S. oil companies".
Now let's talk about how an economy works.
1. More oil means cheaper oil
2. More jobs (refineries, tankers, construction, office work, etc)
3. More tax money
Exactly what is the downside of having a domestic oil supply sufficient to our needs?
Being immune to OPEC is a good thing.

LOL! Talking about oil on a media thread is one of the reasons I enjoy USMB. You never know what topic is going to pop up next.

Some of our oil companies are based here, some not (see BP: British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell) but they all work the same way: they take their fungible commodity to the international market where the price is set by that international market. That has virtually nothing to do with how much of it comes from here.

The EIA (during the Bush Administration, 2007) determined that if the ANWR and OCS areas were opened up immediately the net effect on the world market would be on the order of pocket change per barrel, and even then it would take 22 years. And if that were even significant, OPEC just cuts production by a sliver to compensate and goes to lunch.

The influence of that cartel is not a desirable thing but it is the reality. George Bush never made a more honest or needed statement than when he said "America is addicted to oil". For indeed we are.

I repeat, if we have a domestic supply suitable for our needs we can isolate ourselves from the decisions made by OPEC.
Yes, we are addicted to oil. We are also addicted to food and air. We are addicted to not freezing to death in the winter. There are a lot of reasons we are "addicted" to oil.
The problem is not our "addiction" to oil. It's our addiction to a form of government consisting of a small group of elites who feel morally entitled to make decisions for us in every aspect of our lives.

 

[JoeB131]

Your approaches to problems are hardly pragmatic and I'm just bored with the usual far left conspiracy theories about evil oil companies and the wars they are behind. Again, I'm not going to debate conspiracy theories.
You also forgo all self proclaimed pragmatism when you call the victims of 9/11 "rich yuppies".
Your definition of freedom being "abstract bullshit" is just another example of relativism which is of course the exact opposite of "pragmatism".
It's of course fine if you recite every left wing extremist talking point hanging in the ether. I don't care about the conspiracy theories you traffic in. It doesn't matter where your anti-American dogma comes from. What I find most offensive is that you have no respect for the english language. Please look up pragmatism and see if you can distinguish between "pragma" and the rote recital of relativistic gibberish.

Guy, I wouldn't get invited to work in a Downtown NYC High Rise. Those guys were wealthy and responsible for the economic system that really doesn't benefit most of us. That's why they were targetted. Do I feel bad. Well, yeah, I don't really want to see anyone die unnecessarily. Do I think that the Rich Yuppie in New York was less innocent than the Kid from Kiev who got drafted into the Red Army and sent to Kabul? Not really.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It really depends on who they are killing.

Pragmatically, we are at war in the Middle East because of our greed for oil and because the Zionists own Congress. Not because what's being fought for there has shit to do with Joe working in his office in Chicago.

So when a politician blurts out some horseshit like, "Al Qaeda Hates our Freedom", I just have to laugh at the stupidity of it.

No, they hate that we aer in there part of the world stirring up shit.

 

[thanatos144]

Hey pogo are you negging to everyone who points out you lie is funny lol pussy

tapatalk post

 

[JohnL.Burke]

Your approaches to problems are hardly pragmatic and I'm just bored with the usual far left conspiracy theories about evil oil companies and the wars they are behind. Again, I'm not going to debate conspiracy theories.
You also forgo all self proclaimed pragmatism when you call the victims of 9/11 "rich yuppies".
Your definition of freedom being "abstract bullshit" is just another example of relativism which is of course the exact opposite of "pragmatism".
It's of course fine if you recite every left wing extremist talking point hanging in the ether. I don't care about the conspiracy theories you traffic in. It doesn't matter where your anti-American dogma comes from. What I find most offensive is that you have no respect for the english language. Please look up pragmatism and see if you can distinguish between "pragma" and the rote recital of relativistic gibberish.

Guy, I wouldn't get invited to work in a Downtown NYC High Rise. Those guys were wealthy and responsible for the economic system that really doesn't benefit most of us. That's why they were targetted. Do I feel bad. Well, yeah, I don't really want to see anyone die unnecessarily. Do I think that the Rich Yuppie in New York was less innocent than the Kid from Kiev who got drafted into the Red Army and sent to Kabul? Not really.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It really depends on who they are killing.

Pragmatically, we are at war in the Middle East because of our greed for oil and because the Zionists own Congress. Not because what's being fought for there has shit to do with Joe working in his office in Chicago.

So when a politician blurts out some horseshit like, "Al Qaeda Hates our Freedom", I just have to laugh at the stupidity of it.

No, they hate that we aer in there part of the world stirring up shit.

Do you have any conspiracy theories that don't consist of blaming "oil" and "Jews"?

 

[Pogo]

Ok, let's take away the word "we" and replace it with "U.S. oil companies".
Now let's talk about how an economy works.
1. More oil means cheaper oil
2. More jobs (refineries, tankers, construction, office work, etc)
3. More tax money
Exactly what is the downside of having a domestic oil supply sufficient to our needs?
Being immune to OPEC is a good thing.

LOL! Talking about oil on a media thread is one of the reasons I enjoy USMB. You never know what topic is going to pop up next.

Some of our oil companies are based here, some not (see BP: British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell) but they all work the same way: they take their fungible commodity to the international market where the price is set by that international market. That has virtually nothing to do with how much of it comes from here.

The EIA (during the Bush Administration, 2007) determined that if the ANWR and OCS areas were opened up immediately the net effect on the world market would be on the order of pocket change per barrel, and even then it would take 22 years. And if that were even significant, OPEC just cuts production by a sliver to compensate and goes to lunch.

The influence of that cartel is not a desirable thing but it is the reality. George Bush never made a more honest or needed statement than when he said "America is addicted to oil". For indeed we are.

I repeat, if we have a domestic supply suitable for our needs we can isolate ourselves from the decisions made by OPEC.
Yes, we are addicted to oil. We are also addicted to food and air. We are addicted to not freezing to death in the winter. There are a lot of reasons we are "addicted" to oil.
The problem is not our "addiction" to oil. It's our addiction to a form of government consisting of a small group of elites who feel morally entitled to make decisions for us in every aspect of our lives.

And I repeat, no we cannot. "We" have no domestic supply flow; we lease that potential supply to oil companies, which are by definition for-profit multinational corporations whose loyalty is to their stockholders -- not their country, whichever country that might be. OPEC doesn't control the whole market but it controls enough of it to influence it when it wants to.

This baby is out of our hands, John. We simply don't have the option of declaring that the product drilled here stays here. Unless, again, you want to nationalize the oil companies and have the gummint do the drilling. That's the free market at work. It's capitalism. Got nothing to do with a government consisting of a small group of elites. It does have to do with a corporate cabal of elites and a cartel.

And no, being addicted to oil isn't the same as food and air. Those are actual necessities. Nor is there a cartel controlling them, so I'm afraid that analogy doesn't work.

 

[Unkotare]

Ah, the lefty wants to nationalize. Of course.

 

[JohnL.Burke]

I don't accept the idea that we can't mobilize oil companies in a crises the way we mobilized manufacturing companies in World War Two. I want the oil to be in this country. I want the refineries in this country and the distribution system in this country. To suggest that we can't direct the domestic oil industry to sell american oil at market prices is nonsense. The point being, if OPEC creates a crises to prohibitive levels by artificially limiting the oil supply then there already will be no free market in oil.

Also, food is a necessity. How do you think we get food? What do you think those tractors run on? Pixie dust? Of course my analogy works! People are addicted to oil so they can eat and not freeze to death.

 

[beagle9]

Never heard that one either, and again I see no link, but I can agree that neither party broke much of a sweat to put up a quality candidate in 2008. Then again, when is the last time that happened at all? I'm not sure I've ever even seen it. Given a walk, the DP put up what would effectively be a PR move. That worked to further the aims of a party seeking power; not for the benefit of the country. But then that's all any political party is good for anyway-- acquiring power. Not wielding it.

So again it comes down to: "what were the alternatives". We had damn little choice.

You missed a lot.

If the media had done their job to cut through the PR bull instead of actively facilitating the PR bull, Obama could have been put on the sidelines where he belonged. There was at least Hillary, and who knows who might have given her competition if Obama wasn't sucking all the PR air out of the room.

The fault and the shame of the media in shilling for Obama instead of exposing his lies and his inability to play well with others cannot be underestimated.

Are you kidding??

Media is the whole reason we're in this pickle. I just invoked 1956; let's fast forward to the next election and the Kennedy-Nixon debate. People who listened to that debate on radio, without a picture, thought Nixon prevailed. There's no image on the radio. Nixon in turn, when he came back in '68 having learned the lesson, hired people from advertising.

Media loves PR. Media loves controversy and anything that has drama in it, because it sells papers. So in 1992 media is really not interested in Paul Tsongas' deadpan ideas; it's only vaguely interested in Jerry Brown as a maverick; but it's very interested in Bill Clinton and the possibility of a sex scandal. Which again, has nothing to do with Presidenting but everything to do with selling media. Consequently we're stuck with Bill Clinton as the candidate, like it or not.

Media loved Ronald Reagan too. He knew how to frame a statement in an emotional, folksy way that made him come off as a kindly uncle. Much the same as Clinton minus the age. Images. To this day the media image of hostages being freed from Iran as Reagan takes office has fed the mythology that the Reagan Administration actually freed them. In truth it was Carter's Warren Christopher, but the Reagan image is just so Hollywood; that's what sells.

John McCain and Bob Dole and Al Gore and John Kerry and Walter Mondale and H.W. in '92 --- just didn't sell well enough. None of them had the emotional connection their competition had. Think about it. By contrast the emotional connection of H.W.'s competition in '88 was even worse. Guess what happened.

Emotional heartstrings. That's what sells. Scandals and conspiracy rumblings and suggestions of evil, that's the tactic of the competition. We don't have politics any more; we have advertising. And we don't have candidates; we have PR products.

It is what America is pumping out in representation of itself these days, and so the only way to help somehow, is to allow America to raise up a prime candidate once again, and to look for such a person to rise up some how, and then out of these ashes in which we have created so much of these days all around us.

However, that won't happen anymore or ever again maybe, because America is so confused now that what we get now is what we get, and it is all caused by our confusion in life. Now in our confusion about what this nation truly is anymore, we do get what we get as far as a candidate goes, and so I guess that's that.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Your approaches to problems are hardly pragmatic and I'm just bored with the usual far left conspiracy theories about evil oil companies and the wars they are behind. Again, I'm not going to debate conspiracy theories.
You also forgo all self proclaimed pragmatism when you call the victims of 9/11 "rich yuppies".
Your definition of freedom being "abstract bullshit" is just another example of relativism which is of course the exact opposite of "pragmatism".
It's of course fine if you recite every left wing extremist talking point hanging in the ether. I don't care about the conspiracy theories you traffic in. It doesn't matter where your anti-American dogma comes from. What I find most offensive is that you have no respect for the english language. Please look up pragmatism and see if you can distinguish between "pragma" and the rote recital of relativistic gibberish.

Guy, I wouldn't get invited to work in a Downtown NYC High Rise. Those guys were wealthy and responsible for the economic system that really doesn't benefit most of us. That's why they were targetted. Do I feel bad. Well, yeah, I don't really want to see anyone die unnecessarily. Do I think that the Rich Yuppie in New York was less innocent than the Kid from Kiev who got drafted into the Red Army and sent to Kabul? Not really.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It really depends on who they are killing.

Pragmatically, we are at war in the Middle East because of our greed for oil and because the Zionists own Congress. Not because what's being fought for there has shit to do with Joe working in his office in Chicago.

So when a politician blurts out some horseshit like, "Al Qaeda Hates our Freedom", I just have to laugh at the stupidity of it.

No, they hate that we aer in there part of the world stirring up shit.

Do you have any conspiracy theories that don't consist of blaming "oil" and "Jews"?

He has one that involves Mormons and the KKK, but he only trots that out when he is sober.