Call it what it is.

As we head down to the wire in races that will shape the future of our country and the world, it's important to understand that supporters of the Party of Torture and Perverts will stop at nothing to get and retain power. People like Art Pope and his alter-ego in West Virginia are putting hundreds of thousands of dollars behind their Puppets in state legislative races to tip the balance. And right-wing opinion manufacturing machines like the Cato Institute and the John Locke Foundation continue to recycle the same old bullshit, trying to scare voters into believing their free-market fantasies.

One topic the wackos revisit every other month is the minimum wage, claiming without a shred of reliable evidence that progressive policies around wages destroy value and jobs. Today at NC Policy Watch, Chris Fitzsimon takes them on - again - with compelling data that's hard to dispute.

Wednesday brought a resounding rebuttal to all the minimum wage bashing. A group of 650 economists, including five recipients of the Nobel Prize for economics, came out in support of raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25, saying “the benefits to the labor market, workers, and the overall economy would be positive. That can’t be going over too well at right-wing central.

The economists also addressed the other main criticism of raising the wage, that it would primarily help teenagers, not adults and struggling families, saying “While controversy about the precise employment effects of the minimum wage continues, research has shown that most of the beneficiaries are adults, most are female, and the vast majority are members of low-income working families."

This seems like a case that is settled once and for all. Good for North Carolina lawmakers for recognizing it this past summer and helping low-wage workers. Now it is time for Congress to do its part and help poor families even more.

Chris Fitzsimon is a nice guy with his heart in the right place. He goes on NC Spin week after week with John Hood, representing reality in good faith and in good conscience. He gives Puppets the benefit of the doubt and he never challenges their intellectual honesty. He never calls them what they are. Destructive liars.

Chris, I hope you'll forgive my unsolicited advice: When you're dealing with the Puppetshow, no case is settled once and for all. You can talk till you're blue in the face and it won't amount to a hill of beans as far as John Hood is concerned. Facts don't matter. Not one bit. And it's time to call a spade a spade.

So the next time you see Hood drag out the same old saw, repeat after me: I'm sorry John, but that's just another free-market lie.