Fox News is indisputably the most popular cable news channel. And yet in 13 years, Fox has never broken a story. That’s okay, because it is not in the news business. It is in the news-shaping business. Its programming is an admixture of right-wing propaganda and fear-porn for feeble-minded paranoiacs, served up by spokesmodels who have no clue what they are reading.

And, yes, it sells like hotcakes.

A new poll from DailyKos/Research 2000 finds that while almost all normal Americans see through this ruse, Fox depends almost exclusively on middle-aged and older Southern Republicans for its success.

Here’s Kos’ analysis:

Republicans watch Fox News and nothing else, Democrats split between MSNBC and CNN, and Independents watch nothing. MSNBC, in particular, depends on Democrats for the vast majority of its audience. One would think they’d realize this and get rid of Joe Scarborough to boost its morning ratings.

The South, unlike the rest of the country, appears to have their TV dials stuck on “FOX NEWS”. Except for the youth, that is. 82 percent of 18-29-year-old respondents never watched FNC.

When asked to rate the trustworthiness of the channels, Fox was called trustworthy by just 35 percent and untrustworthy by 41 percent. Among Southerners, 46 percent found Fox to be reliable, while only 25 percent did not. In the Northeast, 27 percent found Fox to be credible, while 55 percent did not. In the Midwest, the finding was 33 percent reliable, 46 percent unreliable; and in the West it was 33 percent vs 43 percent.

As Kos put it, “Republicans (and the South) obviously think [Fox is] the word of god, while Democrats think it’s shit.” (As if more evidence of the effectiveness of Fox’ brainwashing were needed, only 6 percent of Republicans found MSNBC to be credible.)

Relatedly, yesterday Wal-Mart and seven other companies joined the advertising boycott of Fox News’ Glenn Beck, in response to Beck’s assertion on Fox’ air on July 28 that Pres. Obama is a racist who, despite the fact the president’s mother was white and he was raised by his white grandparents, has a “deep-seated hatred of white people or the white culture.”

Advertisers joining Wal-Mart in the ban included GMAC Financial Services, Best Buy, CVS and Travelocity. The total number of corporations in the boycott is now around 20, and includes Geico, ConAgra, RadioShack, Men’s Wearhouse, State Farm, Sargento and Procter & Gamble.

At a real news organization Beck would be held accountable for his comments. Not surprisingly, Fox management has been silent on the controversy, which, of course, makes them complicit.

What do you get if you combine an electronic Roomba vacuum cleaner with an X-Box video game? The next generation of military weaponry, operated by 20-something gamer/soldiers with big thumbs, lightning reflexes and a knack for remote-controlled combat.

It’s been a standing parental joke for decades: If only Junior could turn his skills at Halo 3 honed over hundreds of hours to good …. Well, now he can — in the Army.

According to NextGov, for the past year the U.S. Army has been testing robots, unmanned airplanes, sensors and other gear at the White Sands facility in New Mexico, and plans to deploy the high-tech weaponry to combat troops as early as 2011, when it’s likely we’ll still be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The high-tech systems the Army is testing and refining at White Sands Missile Range are both the remnants of its ambitious and now canceled $160 billion Future Combat Systems program and the core of a new battlefield modernization program the service plans to develop to replace it.

The Army intends to spin out systems developed for FCS as part of the brigade combat team modernization program headquartered at Fort Bliss, Texas, which adjoins White Sands, said Jerry Tyree, director of integration for the program. These include the tracked robot, an aerial robot, tactical and urban unmanned ground sensors, a missile system, and a battlefield network to link them all together.

The service plans to field these systems to seven infantry brigade combat teams between 2011 and 2014 at a cost of less than $2 billion, said Paul Mehney, an Army spokesman.

Of course, first the Army will have to figure out how to provide a battlefield broadband network to operate and coordinate the new systems. Today, communications-equipped Humvees can only deliver about 1.5 megabytes per second while the average speed of a residential broadband connection is 7 Mps.

Love twitter, hate twitter, or just wish people understood the difference between status updates on facebook and tweets, and didn’t post the identical thing in both places. But. Whatever you feel about twitter, you have to admit that something very brief can provide huge insight.

Take Marco Rubio for example, or should I say marcorubio? The only guy not scared of running against Charlie Crist in a Republican primary in Florida for U.S. Senate is exploring his inner Iranian freedom meme on twitter. In successive posts on Father’s Day, you can watch him home in on how best to slam Obama, strike the proper note of patriotism and far rightwing zealotry, and applaud fatherhood. It’s not an easy job, but I think he’s done it.

First, there was this.

#May God bless those fathers in Iran who are speaking out in order to protect their childrens future. #iranelection #tcot #sayfie44 minutes ago from TwitterFon

A good start, but we’re missing the “terrorists have won” sentiment that Republicans so enjoy.

#An American govt afraid to speak out for freedom is exactly what the terrorists wanted to accomplish. #sayfie #tcot #iranelection #tehran36 minutes ago from TwitterFon

That’s better, but not overtly insulting to Obama and the Democrats.

#American govt may be afraid to speak out in support of Iranian freedom but the American people are not! #sayfie #iranelection #tehran #tcot32 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Almost perfect. Let’s just think about it a little more…Hey! Guns!

# I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a 2nd amendment like ours. #sayfie #tcot #nra20 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Now you’re tweeting, Marco! Way to make that Charlie Crist guy look like a wuss!

Gotta love Stephen Colbert.

But today’s PollTrack from National Journal gives some insight into the topic from a different angle — Beltway insiders — and the breakdown of opinion between parties might surprise you:

Of the 41 Republican insiders surveyed, over half said a strike was ‘not very likely,’ and one in five called it ‘very unlikely.’

In National Journal’s latest survey of 84 congressional insiders, Republicans were much more skeptical than Democrats of the chances the administration would attack Iran, but few members of either party considered an attack to be “very likely.” Whether they were optimistic about the effectiveness of diplomatic pressure and sanctions or merely distracted by the growing foreign policy challenges in Pakistan, respondents were generally less concerned about Iran than is the public at large.

Of the 41 Republican insiders surveyed, over half said a strike was “not very likely,” and one in five called it “very unlikely.” Asked about the chances of attack, one GOP member dismissed the possibility, saying, “The administration swung its bat in Iraq…. They don’t have the energy, backing or resources to attack Iran.” Another Republican who said the U.S. was not very likely to launch a strike added, “Israel will, however.”

Democrats were more convinced that President Bush would attack Iran, with over half saying that attacks were likely. “They’re that crazy,” said one insider. While 14 percent of Democrats said attacks seemed probable, a 49-percent plurality were less sure, deeming military action only “somewhat likely.” “The administration may bomb or attack by air if Congress is in recess; but no invasion, because we lack the troops for that,” said a Democratic respondent.

What do they know that we don’t know? And why won’t they tell us, their constituents why they think it’s unlikely that Bush won’t attack Iran?

there’s the argument that we don’t have enough troops, but we certainly have enough planes and bombs. And what was that bit about Israel? Are these Republicans confident that the U.S. isn’t going to attack because they know there’s a plan to have Israel be the aggressor? And are the Dems less sure because they’re not in on the plan?

Rumsfeld is accused of authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The French complaint accuses Mr. Rumsfeld of authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and says it violated the Convention Against Torture, which came into force in 1987.

As part of their complaint, the groups submitted 11 pages of written testimony from Janis Karpinski, the highest-ranking officer to be punished in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. She was demoted to colonel from brigadier general and lost command of her military police unit. She contended that the abuses at the prison had started after the appearance of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was sent by Mr. Rumsfeld to assist military intelligence interrogators.

French prosecutors were said to have the power to pursue the case while Rumsfeld was in the country.

One source cites unconfirmed reports that Rumsfeld was abruptly whisked away from a breakfast meeting on Friday in order to avoid his arrest:

U.S. embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush’s “war on terror” for six years.

Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French soil.

The report said Rumsfeld fled to Germany because similar charges were dismissed against him there in the spring.The German court ruled that Rumsfeld’s criminality was an internal matter for the United States.

Woman screams ‘War criminal!’ at Rice and ‘Take her to the hague!’ Cops drag Code Pink members out screaming even though it’s unclear they were involved

Setting up another confrontation with congressional Democrats over the war in Iraq, President Bush on Monday sent Congress a $45.9-billion emergency funding request for expenses related to U.S. military campaigns around the world.

The request, which comes on top of $147.5 billion sought by the administration earlier this year, pushes the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to more than $600 billion.

It is a neat trick. Too bad the Dems can’t find a way to counter it.

Among the problems identified before the audit was suspended were duplicate payments, the purchase of a never-used $1.8 million X-ray scanner and payments of $387,000 to house DynCorp officials in hotels rather than other available accommodation.

Since the Democrats took over Congress, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has been charged with trying to find out what happened to the billions of dollars the administration and its cronies have squandered, lost or stolen.

Unfortunately, in too many cases, the job has turned out to be impossible:

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said it was forced to suspend its audit of the DynCorp contract after administration officials told investigators they had no confidence in their own accounting records.

The inspector general said the agency had not validated the accuracy of invoices received before October 2006 and described bills and supporting documents as being in disarray.

Among the problems identified before the audit was suspended were duplicate payments, the purchase of a never-used $1.8 million X-ray scanner and payments of $387,000 to house DynCorp officials in hotels rather than other available accommodation.

The inspector general blamed the problems on long-standing contract administration problems at the State Department agency responsible for the contract — the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL.

“As a result, INL does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program. INL’s prior lack of controls created an environment vulnerable to waste and fraud,” SIGIR said in an interim review.

DynCorp is a private military contractor based in the Washintong suburbs that receives 96 percent of its $2 billion in annual revenues from American taxpayers.

In addition to training the Iraqi police, the company orovide security in Afghanistan and is involved in the poppy eradication program there. It was also deployed in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Mid-2003: A reporter in Iraq stands on a pallet filled with shrink-wrapped bricks of C-Notes

“Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?” — Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Pres. Bush said he vetoed the Democrats’ expansion of the SCHIP children’s health insurance program because it was too costly. This confirms what we know about the president’s priorities. But the cost to cover 10 million additional children would be $35 billion, Democrats have pointed out, which is roughly what it takes to run Bush’s war in Iraq for 41 days.

An even more apt example of the misplaced values of Bush and his party — of taxpayer money squandered in Iraq that could have been put to good use in the United States — is the story of the $12 billion or so that was flown into Iraq in 2003 and then went missing and will never be recovered. It sounds like a financial scandal of historical proportions, and yet it is one of the most under-reported story of the war:

The United States flew nearly $12 billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent.

The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a U.S. congressional committee.

In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tons, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22, 2004, six days before the handover.

After this was revealed in an investigation into Bush’s handling of his invasion of Iraq, Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee was prompted to ask:

“Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?”

Security in the war zone was so lax as to be non-existent:

“One [Bush Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)] official described an environment awash in $100 bills,” the memorandum [on the investigation for Waxman's committee] says. “One contractor received a $2 million payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency. Auditors discovered that the key to a vault was kept in an unsecured backpack.

And:

“They also found that $774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division’s vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75 million in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds.”

The Bush team — many of whom were inexperienced Republican Party operatives, cronies of the president and their twenty-something kids — lost or ripped off millions of dollars from the UN that was intended to feed Iraq’s poor people:

On April 12, 2004, the [CPA] in Erbil in northern Iraq handed over $1.5 billion in cash to a local courier. The money, fresh $100 bills shrink-wrapped on pallets, which filled three Blackhawk helicopters, came from oil sales under the UN’s Oil for Food Programme, and had been entrusted by the UN Security Council to the Americans to be spent on behalf of the Iraqi people.

The CPA didn’t properly check out the courier before handing over the cash, and, as a result, according to an audit report by the CPA’s inspector general, “there was an increased risk of the loss or theft of the cash.”

Paul Bremer, the American pro-consul in Baghdad … kept a slush fund of nearly $600 million cash for which there is no paperwork: $200 million of this was kept in a room in one of Saddam’s former palaces, and the US soldier in charge used to keep the key to the room in his backpack, which he left on his desk when he popped out for lunch. Again, this is Iraqi money, not US funds.

To get a sense of the Bushies’ attitude about the loss of the money, here is retired Admiral David Oliver, who was Bremer’s financial advisor, on the loss of billions of Oil for Food dollars:

“I have no idea. I can’t tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn’t – nor do I actually think it’s important.”

Q: “But the fact is billions of dollars have disappeared without trace.”

Oliver: “Of their money. Billions of dollars of their money, yeah I understand. I’m saying what difference does it make?”

The reason Adm. Oliver should have cared — aside from the fact that finance was his purview — is that some of this cash very likely fueled the insurgency that ensued a few months later. It is also likely the money ended up in the hands of terrorists who used it to buy weapons to kill our troops.