The real “death panels” already exist, and Joe Conason sums them up:

So who are the members of the death panels?

You can find them among the corporate bureaucrats who concoct excuses to deny coverage and throw the sick off their rolls. You can find them among the politicians and lobbyists who have stalled reform for years while people died. You can find them among the morons who show up to shout slogans at town halls rather than seek solutions. And you can find them among the cable and radio blabbers, who invent scary stories about reform to conceal the sickening truth.

H/T: @brucebarry and @freddieoconnell.

I realize that calling out Phil Valentine for his rhetorical hallucinations is old hat, but he outdid himself in his latest Sunday assault on reality. Yesterday Phil used his Tennessean column to showcase his abject ignorance about constitutional law, rehashing a simplistic and misinformed argument that no legal basis for disentangling government and religion exists since the phrase “separation of church and state” doesn’t appear in the U.S. Constitution. Wrapping his rant around the latest religious misadventure in Wilson County Schools, Phil goes the extra mile by reinventing some recent history:

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Wilson County schools a couple of years ago over the annual See You at the Pole event and the National Day of Prayer….A federal judge threw the case out. Even though they lost, it was apparently enough to spook school administrators.

“Threw the case out” is, to say the least, a creative reinterpretation of U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Echols’ 59-page finding that:

The [plaintiffs] have proved by a preponderance of the evidence that they suffered a constitutional violation and they will suffer a continuing irreparable injury if they are not able to enroll their children in Lakeview because Lakeview is not complying with First Amendment religious freedoms…The Court will grant the [plaintiffs] limited permanent injunctive relief.

We all realize that facts are a fleeting and optional commodity in conservative talk radio, but isn’t it high time that The Tennessean stopping giving prime Sunday op-ed real estate to a lowbrow hack who just makes shit up? (Disclosure: I sit on the ACLU of Tennessee board.)

I would like to add, however, in response to Valentine’s’ assertion that you never hear of the ACLU “rushing to the aid of someone who’s had their religious rights violated unless that religion happens to be anything but Christianity,” that yes, the ACLU does that all the freakin’ time, jackass.

And the nominees for most witless and uninformed assertion about the environment and climate change in a Sunday Tennessean op-ed this week are…

Bob Corker for his performance in “Return Cap-and-Trade Proceeds to People,” featuring this nugget: “No one can quantify how much of global warming is caused by natural cycles vs. man-made greenhouse emissions.”

Phil Valentine for his performance in “Earth Day Extremists were Wrong in the ’70s, and Still Are” featuring this gem: “There is absolutely no evidence that carbon dioxide causes any kind of climate change.”

Bonus! They both win! (And the Tennessean gets an honorable mention for “for outstanding editorial oversight in the pursuit of scientific integrity.”) Read the truth about these assertions here and here.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm…I love the smell of intellectual dishonesty between 4 and 8 pm in the afternoon…

What amazes me about these talk show ideologues like Gill and Valentine is that they continue to cling hopelessly to their tired-old schtick when public opinion on everything from the war to global climate change is clearly evolving. I guess that’s what happens when you base your livelihood on narrowly-focused ideology rather than truth, civil dialogue, and the desire for smart public policy that works for everyone.

UPDATE: Liz Garrigan wants us to be fair to Corker.