Joe Lyles Goes Inside The Tea Party In New Documentary

Back in the summer of 2009 I had the opportunity to accompany independent filmmaker, Joe Lyles, as he set out with a camera to find Rush Limbaugh listeners to interview for a new documentary.

At the same time, the Tea Party was gaining momentum with rallies in cities large and small across the nation. Lyles decided to see if he could find any Rush Limbaugh listeners at the Tea Parties.

Guess what? We found that most, if not all, Tea Party protesters were active Limbaugh listeners, occasional Limbaugh listeners, or said they "rarely" listen to Limbaugh. We found that all of whom we spoke with, even those who say they "rarely" listen, were heavily influenced by Rush Limbaugh.

At the Tea Parties, Lyles found exactly what he was looking for - a large group of conservatives who are heavily influenced by Rush Limbaugh and who were willing, if not eager, to speak to us on camera and tell us all about their world view.

Lyles uses a series of Socratic Questioning to put the ideas of Limbaugh and the Tea Party to the test. This dialectical approach to the interviews resulted a in very revealing, if not outright scary, adherence and discipline to ideas that are "provably and demonstrably false".

This blind adherence to an ideology, even in the face of undeniable facts that prove the ideology is false, is cult-like among Tea Partiers. In fact, we found that the Tea Party movement contains almost every characteristic of a cult. Lyles brilliantly shows how Rush Limbaugh uses the communicative methods of cults and brainwashing to influence his listeners.

But the film goes further than this. The film challenges the core belief system of conservatives, taught by pop-pundits like Rush Limbaugh, and repeated over-and-over by Tea Partiers.

Herman Cain Goes Down Swinging The Stupid Stick As He Quits The GOP Race http://t.co/p61RMXPM

Israeli Defense Minister: No One ‘Can Raise Any Question Mark’ About Obama’s ‘Devotion’ To Israel - http://t.co/IoUEX3o6

Spain activtists fear conservative backlash http://t.co/DTQU5IBy

Check out the Federal Contractor Misconduct Database from POGO http://bit.ly/9EmBkr

MisEducation Nation - Corporate media and corporate education reform http://t.co/X7Er1clK

From Alexandria to Zuccotti Park: They’ve Been Destroying Books for 2,000 Years http://t.co/fCwIoM5Z

Report: U.S. Power Plants Are Stressing Fresh Water Resources http://bit.ly/vRrAC8

Interactive: What’s your potential risk from air pollution? http://t.co/jDtYX6Rp

BBC News - Eurozone debt web: Who owes what to whom? http://t.co/F2Hi7KOr

How to detect a fake doctor from a real one http://t.co/lpuQsCp2

Medicare's drug coverage gap shrinks: http://t.co/BZOzP13i

Rising tuition, Occupy spark new campus activism. http://t.co/0Rq9UJSP

A look at how the wealthiest Americans use tax breaks to shield income http://t.co/G3sfxvwC

Overuse of animal antibiotics could affect humans http://t.co/iPgWfDcm

Florida’s Prescription Express: Doctors Shoving Drugs at Poor Patients, for Millions http://t.co/1XQjvQJi

Perp Walk: Notary in Robo-Signing Case Pleads Guilty http://t.co/ibqx6To1

Perp Walk: Banker Gets 6 Years for Loan Fraud http://t.co/AgO8790m

Check to see if your doctor or hospital has had any malpractice or has been sanctioned http://t.co/hIWyDKlR

Everglades restoration: Can this marriage be saved? By Bob Graham http://bit.ly/ubVZva

GOP Latinos face questions over immigrant pasts http://apne.ws/u7pEtG

Affordable Care Act Lowering Prescription Drug Costs For Seniors - http://t.co/yILf2wFn

France says days of Syrian government are numbered http://t.co/E3wP39bi

Hike in Camp Lejeune male breast cancer cases http://t.co/bQDfdz21

23% of all Florida children live in poverty. http://t.co/34TCvakd

A drop in the ocean - Greece's battle with tax evaders http://bit.ly/unGdsw

A glance at automatic spending cuts for 2013. http://t.co/wOCaN8Gk

A glance at new sanctions imposed on Iran: http://t.co/J7cjXn7Y

Across The Country, Faith Groups Rally To Support Living Wage Legislation - http://t.co/nJaJhObs

After new leak, climatologist takes case to public: http://t.co/eob7QkZE

Alternative Universe: Iowa Presidential Forum Exposes Religious Right Disconnect From Reality http://t.co/SeLsXgXf

Amy Goodman | Pulling Accounts from the Unaccountable http://t.co/QlIYvglO

Anna Nicole Smith judge reaches settlement in elderly-exploitation case http://t.co/EzJgPiv6

Anonymity abuse in the corporate press. But You Didn’t Hear It From...Anyone http://t.co/kCmxYK2Y

Another Survey Finds Small Business Owners Don’t Feel Overtaxed Or Overregulated - http://t.co/qbreygTu

Argentina Inundated with E-Waste http://bit.ly/smXvDf

Asia's old suffer fraud, abuse with rising dementia http://reut.rs/sIVmdB

Atlas V at pad for Saturday launch of Mars rover at 10:02 a.m. EST http://t.co/VcJpGXDd

Ayn Rand is a cult figure for Tea Party types, but if a bad movie gets them reading, they may be surprised by her ideas http://bit.ly/hw1qlZ

Balanced Budget Amendment could DOUBLE Unemployment during Recessions http://t.co/nwwNJatL via @taxjustice

Belize Government Defies Supreme Court Ruling; Grants Oil Company Permit to Maya lands http://bit.ly/rGd906

Bill Moyers: “Plutocracy and Democracy Don’t Mix” http://bit.ly/uP5VB4

Billboard companies refuse to advertise movie comparing abortion to the Holocaust. http://t.co/nukECqNP

Bionic contact lens to project emails. http://t.co/wSxgKzm6

Black Friday Has the Cheapest Prices? Think Again http://t.co/sDME5WSP

These are desperate times for Republicans. Florida Governor Rick Scott continues to see poor approval ratings and the current Republican Congress is the least popular Congress in the history of Congressional polling in the United States. In light of these facts, Republicans are desperate to find any good news associated with their party and policies. Failing to find good news, desperate Republicans are making up facts about Florida's credit ratings.

On the August 21, 2011 episode of CNN's State Of The Union with Candy Crowley, Virginia's Republican Governor Bob McDonnell made the claim that, as the US credit rating was being downgraded, Florida's credit rating was upgraded. This claim been bandied about for a couple of weeks now by Republicans even though PolitiFact Florida and the credit rating agencies have said that the claim is false.

The truth is that Florida has had a AAA credit rating since February of 2005. According to S&P Spokesman Olayinka Fadahunsi:

In January 2009, the agency changed its outlook on Florida debt. An "outlook" is an evaluation of the likely direction of a rating over six months to two years. In 2009, S&P's outlook on Florida's rating dropped from "stable," which means that a rating isn't likely to change, to "negative," which means that a rating may be lowered.

Isaiah Berlin argued in “The Two Concepts Of Liberty” that all Revolutions are doomed to fail if the leaders believe that they have the answers to all of society's ills. Berlin argues that when the leaders believe they have the answer to all of society's, ills, and all other answers are false, they have the tendency to do awful things to bring about their “cure.” This in turns spawns tyrannical leaders who believe themselves to be virtuous - because they believe they have the only answer.

I have been using Google+ for about 2 weeks now and I am really learning to like it...a lot!. It has an easy interface that is clean and intuitive, it allows users to categorize other users into “circles”, and the Android app works flawlessly. It is a Google product and, although there is no such thing as perfect security and privacy, I trust Google with privacy and security more than many other online services. I have had a Google account for many years and I have never, not once, had a problem with security while using any of Google's products or services.

After some time off, I thought I'd get the old blog going again. I am currently making some changes to the site and may have some big announcements soon.

I send out a lot of tweets so I added my Twitter feed to the right sidebar and removed a news aggregate that never seemed to work like I wanted. I use Twitter for politics, not Facebook. I prefer to use Facebook for keeping up with high school and college friends, and family. So, for politics, keep checking this blog and my Twitter feed @ongoliard

We know that Republican Tea Party Fox "News" is foreign owned with an Australian at the helm and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal as the second largest owner outside the Murdoch family. We also know that the Republican Tea Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of big oil, big health insurers, big banks, and big Wall Street...

Now we find out that they are also owned by foreign corporations and foreign governments...Imagine that, the Republican Tea Party campaigns funded by foreign governments and foreign corporations.

Why won't they come clean about who is really behind the Republican Tea Party? And why won't more Republicans denounce this as anti-American?

Two articles and Joe Scarborough (MSNBC Morning Joe) retracts false claim about left groups...

It seems that, whenever a media outlet runs a story criticizing conservatives or a conservative idea, that particular media outlet is labeled “the liberal media” by FOX News and right wing talk radio. If the same outlet runs a positive story about conservatives, those same right wing talking heads praise the story and hold it up as evidence of their self perceived superiority.

When CNN runs a positive story about conservatives or a conservative candidate, the right wing nut media uses it to advance their delusional sense of superiority but they never encourage their listeners and viewers to become consumers of CNN. They will hold up a news piece or editorial from CNN and use it to advance their agenda but in the next sentence they will call CNN “the liberal media.”

On January 31, 2000, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed into the Pacific Ocean killing the two pilots, three cabin crew members, and 83 passengers. The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft was grounded so that investigators could find out what went wrong, get it repaired, and prevent more accidents and further loss of life.

In April 2008, United airlines grounded all Boeing 777 aircraft to complete safety inspections and repairs following a string of failures in the fire suppression systems. This was done to find out what was going wrong, get it repaired, and prevent loss of life.

Following plane crashes and likely disastrous system failures that turn up in inspections, the public expects that the aircraft in question will be grounded to prevent loss of life. The BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster that began with the deaths of 11 workers should be treated with the same cautiousness as required of airlines.