Jon Stewart takes another grueling hike up Bullshit Mountain, for a closer look at the now utterly ridiculous right wing Benghazi conspiracy theories.

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Guess who fell for that ridiculous “MILITARY IS COURT MARTIALING CHRISTIANS” persecution fantasy, helped along by Fox News “culture warrior” Todd Starnes?

Yes, it’s the dumbest man in Congress, our beloved Louie Gohmert from Texas: Congressmen Scalise and Gohmert Fall for Debunked Fox News Story on Supposed Plan to Court Martial Christians.

From an inadvertent humor standpoint, you gotta love Louie.

As Warren Throckmorton points out, the Defense Department guidelines on proselytizing and religious bias that has so enraged Starnes and others was actually put in place in 2008 during the Bush administration and the language clearly “draws a distinction between simply speaking about one’s faith and coercion.” Throckmorton also notes that Starnes twisted a statement from a Pentagon spokesman “to make it seem as though the outcome of religious proselytizing cases would be court martial.”

The Tennessean and Stars and Stripes have also debunked the story, but don’t tell Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who in an interview with Starnes said that Obama is trying to make Christian service members leave their faith:

“Under President Obama’s military you are no longer allowed to share your faith,” he said - noting that the policy is putting Christians in a tough position. “Do you follow President Obama or do you follow God and the teachings of Jesus?”

“That’s pretty tough when your commander in chief puts you on the horn for that dilemma,” he added.

“On the horn for that dilemma!” Louie is incomparable.

This is just sad. Generations of anger passed on by abuse and beatings resulted in hateful demagogues like Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin, who pass on the legacy of abuse to their own children and preach it to others on Fox News.

Hannity and Malkin began by mounting an awful defense of recently-fired Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice, and ended by revealing something truly disturbing about themselves.

At the end of the segment, the two conservatives’ defense of Rice involved recalling their own experience with being disciplined as children. “My father hit me with a belt, and I turned out okay,” the Fox host recalled. “Except in the minds of liberals.”

“Same here. And with more than a belt,” she said. “I’m sure the left thinks we are warped minds.”

She then concluded: “I’m much better at administering spankings now than receiving them.”

I’m not being snarky; it honestly does make me a bit sad to hear that Hannity and Malkin were beaten with belts (and worse, according to Malkin). I have no sympathy for the adults they are now, but I feel for the children they were.

Predictably, the right wing media freaked out at Jim Carrey’s “Cold Dead Hand” video lampooning the NRA and Charlton Heston. Fox News has devoted hours of airtime to attacking Carrey, and today he responded:

Since I released my “Cold Dead Hand” video on Funny or Die this week, I have watched Fux News rant, rave, bare its fangs and viciously slander me because of my stand against large magazines and assault rifles. I would take them to task legally if I felt they were worth my time or that anyone with a brain in their head could actually fall for such irresponsible buffoonery. That would gain them far too much attention which is all they really care about.

I’ll just say this: in my opinion Fux News is a last resort for kinda-sorta-almost-journalists whose options have been severely limited by their extreme and intolerant views; a media colostomy bag that has begun to burst at the seams and should be emptied before it becomes a public health issue.

I sincerely believe that in time, good people will lose patience with the petty and poisonous behavior of these bullies and Fux News will be remembered as nothing more than a giant culture fart that no amount of Garlique could cure.

I wish them all the luck that accompanies such malevolence.

(h/t: BongCrodny.)

Fox News contributor Angela McGlowan helpfully explains to the moronic audience of Lou Dobbs’s Fox Business show that President Obama is taking away our guns and that means we’re not going to be able to defend ourselves when Syria and Iran invade America.

Yes, really.

Rachel Maddow had a great segment last night on President Obama’s trip to Israel, and the extraordinary off-script direct appeal to Israelis and Palestinians in his Jerusalem speech. It concludes with a look at how the cable news channels covered (or in the case of Fox News, didn’t cover) the ceremony in which Obama was awarded Israel’s Presidential Medal of Distinction.

Also see:
Transcript of Obama’s Speech in Israel
President Obama Speaks to the People of Israel | the White House

Grievance-mongering is a huge part of Bill O’Reilly’s (and Fox News’s) snake oil sales pitch, and since the War on Christmas is now out of season, he’s moving smoothly on to the next silly fake outrage: O’Reilly Declares Victory in ‘War on Christmas,’ Joins Fox’s ‘War on Easter’.

O’REILLY: More evidence that Judeo-Christian tradition is under attack in America. That is the subject of this evening’s Talking Points Memo. If you watch the Factor, you know that we won the “War on Christmas” battle. A few years ago some American companies ordered their employees not to say “Merry Christmas.” Remember that? We presented the facts to you, you told the stores you wouldn’t buy there. The crazy edict was quickly rescinded. Power to the people. But the war on Judeo-Christian tradition continues on in some public school districts. In 10 days it will be Easter Sunday. But in some schools you are not allowed to say the word “Easter.” On Long Island, the East Meadow school district, holding a Spring egg hunt — not Easter eggs, Spring eggs. Same thing in Prospect Heights, Illinois. Manhattan Beach, California. Flat Rock Elementary School in South Carolina, and a school district in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. No Easter. They are having Spring egg events. Moderated by a Spring bunny, at least in San Diego. I know it’s stupid. You know it’s stupid. But it’s happening, and there is a reason why it’s happening. Secular progressives are running wild with President Obama in the White House. They feel unchained, liberated and they are trying to diminish any form of religion. The goal is to marginalize religious opposition to secular programs. [Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, 3/21/13]

Under the loving guidance of Fox News and Bill O’Reilly and the wingnut blogosphere, right wing Christians have never felt more victimized with less reason.

Remember when right wing pseudo-comedian Steven Crowder provoked and insulted and shoved union demonstrators at the Michigan Capitol until someone took a swing at him? Remember how he used a blatantly edited video to try to push this phony story of “union thuggery,” and Sean Hannity and Fox News and Breitbart.com and the whole right wing blogosphere hyped it like crazy?

Well, after reviewing unedited video of the incident, the prosecutor has decided there’s no case.

The prosecutor in this case has determined that there’ll be no charges against anyone who popped Crowder on that December day. Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III “will not be authorizing criminal charges in this case,” Shanon Banner, a spokeswoman for the Michigan State Police, wrote in an e-mail to the Erik Wemple Blog this morning.

Dunnings said in an interview that the video his office originally reviewed on the matter “appeared to have been edited.” A subsequent review of what the prosecutor termed “unedited” video helped the office reach its decision not to proceed with a case.

“A look at the unedited video, taken in conjunction with the statements of the alleged victim and the alleged assailant, led me to the conclusion that I would not authorize issuance of the warrant,” Dunnings said.