Fox Covers for Mourdock

On the slim chance that you haven't heard about it, Indiana Republican Senate candidate and Tea Party whackjob Richard Mourdock found himself in hot water after comments Tuesday suggesting that maybe rape wasn't such a bad thing. "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God," Mourdock said. "And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

You'd think that after Todd Akin and Sharon Angle got in trouble for statements on the same subject, Republicans would learn to keep their opinions about the wonderful gift of rape pregnancies to themselves. It really doesn't seem to work in their favor.

Of course, when I say there's a "slim chance" that you haven't heard the latest GOP rape idiocy, I'm assuming that you're a serious news consumer and that you don't watch the worst news network in America, Fox News. If you're a Fox viewer, the odds of your complete ignorance of the subject is actually pretty damned good. As the chart above shows, Fox viewers have been exposed to little more than two minutes of not-very in-depth coverage of the controversy. So if you decided to make a sandwich, you probably missed it.

CONTINUE TO POST>>

A Blackout is Working to Stop SOPA and PIPA

As you're probably aware, several major websites have blacked out in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its senate sibling, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Wikipedia is still usable, but it takes some futzing to get it to work. Otherwise, Reddit, Craigslist, Boing-Boing, Mozilla, SMBC, and other popular sites are effectively down for the day.

This has turned out to be an effective form of protest.

Politico:

An Internet blackout Wednesday by Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla and thousands of other sites against two anti-piracy bills in Congress has started to have its desired effect: Co-sponsors of the legislation have changed sides and other lawmakers have called for more debate before any vote.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — who was a co-sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act — became the latest lawmaker Wednesday to pull his support. In the House, Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), originally a co-sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act, pulled his name from the list of sponsors on Tuesday. A spokesman for Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), meanwhile, told the Omaha World-Herald on Wednesday that the congressman is also unable to support SOPA as written.

CONTINUE TO POST>>