Remember the video of the guy in the "pimp costume" who got advice from ACORN employees on how to run his prostitution ring? Turns out the whole story was just a lie, a doctored-video smear job on an important organization. The guy never wore a "pimp costume" and the real, undoctored videos showed that ACORN employees did nothing wrong. But a lie travels around the world before the corporate media bothers to check the facts. The "news" media blasted the story everywhere, and Congress was so outraged they forced ACORN to close its doors. And here we are again.

The corporate media is blasting out the story that the IRS "targeted conservative groups." Some in the media say there was "IRS harassment of conservative groups." Some of the media are going so far as claiming that conservative groups were "audited."

This story that is being repeated and treated as "true" is just not what happened at all. It is one more right-wing victimization fable, repeated endlessly until the public has no choice except to believe it.

Conservative Groups Were Not "Targeted," "Singled Out" Or Anything Else

You are hearing that conservative groups were "targeted." What you are not hearing is that progressive groups were also "targeted." So were groups that are not progressive or conservative.

All that happened here is that groups applying to the IRS for special tax status were checked to see if they were engaged in political activity. They were checked, not targeted. Only one-third of the groups checked were conservative groups.

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On Friday, Fox News' Monica Crowley informed Hannity's audience that President Obama and his administration have an "ideology of control" just like communist, socialist, and fascist regimes of times past.

Over the weekend, we heard comparison after comparison of the IRS so-called scandal to Watergate. Even David Gregory chimed in on that chorus by legitimizing the claims rather than forcing the squawkers to justify their claims.

Similarly, Paul Ryan's claim that connection between the IRS and Obamacare is somehow sinister and threatening is yet another dog whistle to the Tea Party masses.

Meanwhile, Rand Paul is trumpeting the fanfare over Benghazi and trying to flog Hillary Clinton with it. Of course, it's not just intended to flog Hillary, but also to serve as a clarion call for the masses to rise up this summer yet again.

On the extreme side of things, we have radio hosts claiming Obama is really the first openly gay president who hasn't come out of the closet yet. Um, okay. But wait! There's more.

According to Virginia's Republican Lieutenant Governor candidate, winger pastor EW Jackson, Democrats are slave masters and Obama is really a Muslim. Did I mention that Mr. Jackson happens to be black?

What we have here are the beginnings of a long, hot summer, with tons of manufactured discontent. Unlike 2009 and 2010, wingers don't have Obamacare to kick around anymore even though they think they do. They've had control of the House since 2010 but haven't done anything with it other than repeal ObamaCare 37 times, block every job bill that had a chance of actually improving the lives of Americans, and thump their chests about Benghazi and other stupid inventions.

All of this is, as Katrina Vanden Heuvel called it, are weapons of mass distraction, sacrificing real issues and governance for political point-scoring, brewing a summer with town hall meetings full of angry elderly white people shaking their fists at evil Democrats for scandals Republicans caused.

Over the weekend I watched The Billionaires' Tea Party, which is an updated version of AstroTurf Wars made during the health care town halls. It includes footage from American Majority training sessions where participants are instructed in the fine art of gaming everything from Amazon reviews to social media. It was a good review in anticipation of what they plan for this summer and 2014.

The Occupy movement and all activists should be prepared to take them on this time. They do not get to benefit from the element of surprise. Most people who aren't insane know there's an effort afoot to gin up everything they possibly can to keep this president and Democrats from doing anything worthwhile, but we don't have the Villagers on our side, nor should we ever expect to.

If I were you, I'd put those local town hall dates in my planner and plan to attend, if only to counterbalance the insanity they're about to unleash on us all.

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A female former staffer for the Iowa state Senate Republicans says she was fired only hours after she reported sexual harassment by male lawmakers.

In an interview on Sunday, Kirsten Anderson told WHO-TV that she had worked as the communications director for the state Senate Republican Caucus until Friday when she was fired after providing documentation about the sexual harassment.

"When you go to the workplace, you should have a safe environment," she explained to WHO-TV's Dave Price. "Women especially should not have their body parts scrutinized, objectified. People should not be ridiculed or mocked for simply the color of their pants that they are wearing, and those sorts of things were taking place at the Capitol."

"Things that would make you blush," she recalled. "Things that you don't want your daughter, your mother, your sister having to put up with. And that sort of attitude about women -- objectifying women -- it has to change."

Anderson said she was told that the senators "had the authority to terminate me at this time."

Pressed by Price, the former staffer said that she was not prepared to name names because her complaint "was more about changing the work environment."

Ed Failor Jr., a top assistant to state Senate Republican Leader Bill Dix, on Sunday insisted that Anderson had been fired for failing to improve her work performance.

"I can assure you that under Senator Dix’s leadership, sexual harassment is not and will not be tolerated," Failor told the Des Moines Register. "She was given an opportunity to improve her work performance and it did not improve."

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)

Not a good place for poor people, because the suburbs are greatly lacking in the kind of aid programs you can still find in most cities, and they're usually very sporadically served by public transit, making car ownership more of a necessity than it would be in a city:

Bucking longstanding patterns in the United States, more poor people now live in the nation's suburbs than in urban areas, according to a new analysis.

As poverty mounted throughout the nation over the past decade, the number of poor people living in suburbs surged 67% between 2000 and 2011 — a much bigger jump than in cities, researchers for the Brookings Institution said in a book published today. Suburbs still have a smaller percentage of their population living in poverty than cities do, but the sheer number of poor people scattered in the suburbs has jumped beyond that of cities.

Authors Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube cited a long list of reasons for the shift.

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Customer John lives in the gnawing belly of East Texas and sends us some insight into the pits of hell.

When you can’t understand why people in East Texas keep electing Louie Gohmert, Steve Stockman, and other assorted fools, here’s a bit of a hint: sometimes they just don’t know any better.

Take the local newspapers for example.

Click the little one to get the big one or open it in a PDF because we are technologically sassy at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.

This is the Tyler Morning Telegraph.

It’s an AP story which includes information that there is no evidence that President Obama ordered or even knew about the IRS targeting groups wanting tax exempt status.

You would not guess that from the headline, now would you?

And while the story includes the fact that other Presidents may have used the IRS for punishment of their political enemies, the headline indicates that President Obama is familiar to scandals.

When the AP files a story, local newspapers can and do write their own headlines.

The same story appeared in the Boston Globe except “Scandal” was replaced with “Allegations” in the headline as did the Fresno Bee, NBC News, and even KTUV.

Every other replay of the AP story used the word “allegation.” The East Texas newspaper used “Scandal.”

And they put the story in the “FAITH” section. Yes, they do still have freedom of religion in East Texas: you can belong to any kind of Baptist Church you want to.

Why would political news headline the FAITH section of the local newspaper, you ask?

Because you have to accept on faith that Barack Obama has cloven hooves.

John promises to keep an eye out for more of this crapola.

Juanita Jean blogs at the World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.

First of all, you don't need to be Sigmund Freud to understand the kind of deep, twisted misogyny that leads to fantasies about shooting a powerful, accomplished woman in her private parts. I'd even go so far as to suggest that old Pete can only perform with women with the aid of a certain little blue pill. (After all, he didn't suggest shooting her in the knees.) Do men who have successful, loving relationships with women have fantasies like this? I'm guessing not.

There's no way you can convince me that Pete isn't trying to encourage his listeners to act as surrogates for the job he's too impotent to do himself. And while the legal responsibility for such cheerleading can be murky, most of us are ethically aware enough to see where the moral responsibility lies:

Extremist radio host Pete Santilli is defending and reiterating his inflammatory attacks on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, stating on his program that he wants "to shoot her in the vagina and let her suffer right before my eyes."

In a May 17 rant captured by Right Wing Watch, Santilli called for the Bush family and President Obama to be shot and for Clinton to be "shot in the vagina." The Secret Service told TPM Media that they would investigate Santilli's comments in order to "determine what a person's intent is when making comments like this."

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Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe (R), who maintains that global warming is a hoax created by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations, said on Tuesday that it was "hard to explain" why Monday's tornado was "so much worse."

During an interview with John Berman on CNN, Inhofe remarked that the storm had transported a photo 80 miles from Shawnee to his neighborhood in Tulsa.

"So many things happen that are so hard to explain," he told the CNN host. "This thing was huge. This is one of the largest ones that we've had."

"What you're looking at now in Moore, Oklahoma is what you could have seen had you been there in 1999 or in some parts of of Shawnee. Devastation is devastation. And it's just that this is so much worse. Because you're talking about a two mile by 20 mile area. That's very unusual."

In terms of disaster aid, Inhofe said Oklahoma had "everything that we need," but he recommended donating to the Salvation Army and the Red Cross.

"It's going to be necessary to raise a lot of money."

Why was this woman from Occupy Our Homes Atlanta tased? Because they can.

It's the second day of the action that brought the Home Defenders League and allies in the Occupy movement to rally at the “Bring Justice to Justice” event at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. Dozens of underwater or foreclosed homeowners were arrested in non-violent civil disobedience.

They're still holding a vigil at the Department of Justice. This OOHA resident fighter was tazed and violently arrested this morning while peacefully protesting at the Department of Justice. She was there with others demanding that Eric Holder and the DOJ prosecute and jail bankers for their economy-crashing crimes.

If there is any one person besides Wayne LaPierre who might be responsible for domestic terrorism in this country, it's Larry Pratt. Blend that persona with a little Alex Jones, and you get a full contingent of right wing nuttery. In this one segment, Pratt claims:

• Obama is a 'full-bore Marxist' and communist
• Obama and the Democrats 'had to steal' the last last election with 'barely 50 percent of the vote'.
• Obama is out to grab every last bit of power he possibly can.

To anyone who is rational, this is so ridiculous it deserves a solid mocking. Someone winning the presidency by 5 million votes is hardly "barely 50 percent" but of course, that message is for the True Believers who say 5 million voters stole the 2012 election because surely America couldn't elect a black guy twice.

Here's the full transcript, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

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Truly awful people. Really all that needs to be said.

(h/t Heather)