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32,000,000The number of people who will now be covered by healthcare by PRIVATE insurance companies if the new healthcare bill passes the House.
Wow - that's some socialist takeover of our healthcare system!
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression."--Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA) on March 19.
Another moron Republican from the south, demonstration once again the coherence and intelligent alternatives to President Obama's healthcare proposals.
*****
Facts & Quotes are updated weekly, or as close as I can get.
LAWYERLY LINGO
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This is a very hot topic with me, and one that is hopefully gaining much needed momentum and attention by voters around the country. I'll be writing about this much more later today or definitely tomorrow, including some letters I've written to my legislators.
The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, originally introduced by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), is an important bill that absolutely must be passed by members of Congress. Yet, amazingly, there are people who are opposed to this bill in its current form, and who want a watered down bill because of cost, among them President Bush, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. And these are three of the biggest cheerleaders about Supporting the Troops.
I find their reasons for opposing this bull downright stupefying for a number of reasons. So does Jon Stewart (take a look at the video above). Much, MUCH more about this in the coming days.
Scott McClellan's book raising plenty of press issues
Scott McClellan's book is touching off lots and lots of important issues, and at least for that, he's to be applauded (cue the cliché Better late than never). One of the big issues that has received a great deal of coverage from this past week from his book is the press' coverage of the Bush administration leading up to and during the War in Iraq.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but thE four-minute video clip above is one of the most outrageous I've seen during these last eight years. I don't mean to interject some Keith Olbermann hyperbole here - I don't write a sentence like that lightly. But, there are some pretty serious assertions brought up in this piece, specifically by Couric, where she says (I'm paraphrasing) that someone from the Bush administration called to complain that he didn't like the tone of the interview questions during the run-up to the war. According to Couric, she said, "well, tough," and the unidentified person said that access would be restricted when the war began. In one word: OUTRAGEOUS.
My thought when I heard Couric say this was, "Why are we only hearing about this now?" Scott McClellan is taking lots of heat (and rightfully so) for not standing up and saying something when he saw and heard many of the allegations discussed in his book. Fair enough. But, what about the press? As best as I can remember, save for a few isolated incidents where journalists were trying to make names for themselves by asking very probing questions, I don't remember any prominent anchor or reporter raising the issue that Couric asserts above.
There are many reasons and root causes for the War in Iraq, and plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the political aisle (but more on the GOP side, without a doubt), but the press is complicit, too. Hopefully McClellan book brings more of these facts to light, and lots of analysis about how our supposed free press failed America, Iraq, and quite frankly, the rest of the world, too.
As for Charlie Gibson, he's either mixing medications, or he slipped and bumped his head. "All of the questions were being asked," Charlie? C'mon - I'm not even going to dignify that remark with any sort of response, other than to say that with that attitude, it's little wonder why the ratings of network news have been free falling for years.
Tom Brokaw joined the "Who, us?!?" chorus during an interview the other night on the broadcast he used to host, NBC Nightly News...
This is a pretty disgusting interview given by a once respected journalist news anchor. (People who sit behind desks and read off of teleprompters aren't journalists in the traditional term, in my book.) "All wars are based on propaganda," Tom? Wow, I'll file that one away. Brokaw has a firm grasp of the obvious, but the big elephant in the room when he's talking about war propaganda is that the press is under NO responsibility to disseminate that propaganda, which our corporate media did so willingly before and during the war (& actually, it's continuing to do to this day).
I got pretty angry watching Brokaw blamestorming all sorts of individuals and groups who were responsible for the war. It's too bad that even after he's given up the NBC anchor desk, he couldn't be open and honest about his network's (as well as the press') shortcomings on covering the war. Instead, we just get more spin and obfuscations. Who knows - with this ability to banter & bullshit, maybe we're looking at Bush's next press secretary. As Crooks & Liars' John Amato so succinctly pointed out the other day, members of Congress & others certainly bear some blame in this war, but members of Congress aren't responsible for the press' coverage of this war.
Brokaw is correct in bringing up the context of the time following 9/11, and that's important. But, it doesn't explain away all of the cozy press coverage that the Bush administration received on the eve of war. There was strong pressure in most aspects of American society, not just from this administration, to "go along" and "support the president." I experienced this a great deal in my own life following 9/11, when I was critical of Bush on some occasions - some of my friends and family were livid at me for having the temerity to question Bush's motives & conduct. I had three words for all of them - Too freakin' bad. Anyway, the context and political climate do explain away a small part of the press coverage before & during our invasion of Iraq, but it doesn't even come close to explaining away everything.
Color the above video clips as the 8,422,900th reason to not trust our corporate media, and to get your news and commentary from multiple sources.
When I woke up this morning, a replay of The Daily Show was on Comedy Central where Jon Stewart was interviewing Doug Feith, the former under secretary of defense for policy under Donald Rumsfeld. Feith, one of the architects of the War in Iraq, has written a book, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, that he's pimping to try and make money off of, since his diplomatic career is in tatters (unless another Bush makes it to the White House, heaven help us). To me, Feith is simply another war profiteer, trying to make money off another destructive war that he played a role in provoking (But who certainly didn't play a role in planning out adequately. Wait, no one from this administration did).
I have to give Jon Stewart a great deal of credit for how he conducted this interview - not lots of jokes or levity - he kept it pretty serious, which isn't always the norm. Kudos to Stewart for holding Feith's feet to the fire, especially the PR and propaganda tactics the Bush administration used to build public "support"during the run-up to the war. At one point, Stewart even quoted then-White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, which seemed to catch Feith off guard.
Note that the footage is just a clip from the full interview, which ran over 20 minutes. If you visit Comedy Central's Website, you can find the full-length interview.
In some circles, including some inside the Bush administration, Feith is known as a totally incompetent imbecile. In fact, Gen. Tommy Franks, the original commander of the ground forces in Iraq, once very famously said regarding Feith, "I have to deal with the stupidest fucking guy on the planet almost every day."
I have to admit that at some point (when it comes out in paperback, at best), I would like to read Feith's book, to try and better understand why this administration blundered us into this disastrous war. Maybe, in the end, I won't agree with Gen. Franks' assessment, but for now, I certainly do, from what I've read and heard about Feith. The above interview did nothing to dispel that opinion, either.
I picked this one up from Crooks & Liars yesterday - a few days ago, the one-year anniversary passed where our conservative Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision authored by Bush appointee Samuel Alito, handed down a decision that makes it much more difficult for people (women) to sue for pay discrimination, even if they discover it much later in their careers, like Ledbetter did. Translation: Women, who have been getting the short end of the stick as far as wages go in this country since before the Industrial Revolution, will almost certainly continue getting screwed in their paychecks, for doing the exact same work as men.
Lilly Ledbetter faced years of pay discrimination, but she only learned about it late in her career. Thanks to an anonymous tip, she learned she was being paid far less than her men doing the same job. She sued and won back pay. But Goodyear didn't give up and was finally rewarded by the Supreme Court, which ruled in an opinion by Alito that workers must sue within 180 days of the initial decision by an employer to pay a discriminatory wage - even if they don't learn of it until later and their pay is still lower as a result. That's ludicrous.
(We sat down with Lilly last year, and she told us about her case and the discrimination she faced - watch the videos here.)
Democrats attempted to undo the damage by passing new legislation, but Senate Republicans blocked it last month. McCain opposed it and has been loudly singing the praises of Alito and his fellow right-wing justices. He evidently thinks pay discrimination is a winning issue.
After watching the video above, and it's pretty evident where McCain stands on the performance of Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito - he wants more of them. How else could one explain his support for Ledbetter v. Goodyear, a truly absurd and asinine decision by the court?
The importance of selecting our next president cannot be overstated for a laundry list of reasons, but count the Supreme Court near the top of my list. Our next president, if he or she serves two full terms, will likely appoint at least three Supreme Court justices, and quite possibly more. These appointment will shape the court for decades to come. In the next few years, there will be very important decisions made on abortion, civil rights, affirmative action, etc. Hopefully many things are taken into consideration by voters before deciding which candidate to vote for, but I certainly hope that impending retirements on the Supreme Court factor very heavily in voters' minds in the voting booth. It should.
Regarding the footage above, good for the 14-year old girl who stood up to McCain.
I'd be remiss if I didn't share the big laugh I had over the crowd cheering and whistling when McCain took pot shots at lawyers. I wonder if half of these morons realize that lawyers put Bush in the Oval Office in the first place. I'm no apologist for some of the ambulance chasers we have in the legal profession in this country, but there are many excellent lawyers who do excellent work, too. Count some voters' ignorant hatred for lawyers as just another element of intolerance that the Republican Party takes advantage of in elections. I remember quite well Bush mocking John Edwards during the '04 election about tort reform; of course, the Kerry campaign let him get away with it. Many people hate lawyers, until they need one.
I was at my friend Mandy's house watching the national spelling bee last night, and when we saw this, we just had to find it on YouTube. Sure enough, minutes later, it was there.
"Did you just ask me to spell numb nuts?" A National Spelling Bee classic moment.
Oh, and this is one smart kid, too; he knew how to spell "numna," and he ended up winning the whole thing, too. Cheers to our new National Spelling Bee champion, who's a much better speller than I could ever dream of being.
Is there any wonder why Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report won a Peabody Award? This latest clip is one of his wittier ones in recent memory, as he hates on the Myanmar junta, Michelle Malkin and Scott McClellan. That's quite a trifecta.
As angry as I get over Malkin and McClellan, Colbert brings me (and millions of others, presumably) back down to Earth with just the right amount of sarcastic humor.
By the way, I'll have much more about McClellan later tonight - the press has been in a feeding frenzy, and the way he's hitting the talk show circuit, you'd think he was shamelessly plugging a book full of ideas that he should have said years ago when he was really in a position to make a difference.
For all of the heat the former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is taking for his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, there's little question that a great deal about what he says in the book is true, and I'm only going from memory going back to the beginning of the Iraq War. The press simply laid down and reported what the administration wanted it to support, in the time of militant and belligerent patriotism. People like CNN's Jessica Yellin (and McClellan) are now beginning to step forward to reveal to what extent this took place.
Good for her. I really do like Anderson Cooper - he's one of the few shining stars that CNN has right now, but his surprise at Yellin's comments is borderline laughable. Surely he was exposed to at least a little pressure from network bigwigs at CNN to cover the GWOT in a favorable light during the run-up to the War in Iraq. I can't think of a domestic-based major media outlet that raised sufficient questions about why we were going to war. I may be wrong, but I can't think of any. And I'm including traditionally viewed "liberal" outlets as well - the New York Times, WaPo, CNN, etc. Okay, Air America Radio is one, but that doesn't have the reach that major media outlets enjoy.
This will be an emerging story in the years to come, without questions. Especially now that the Bush administration is coming to a merciful end, and there's money to be made selling tell-all books.
I believe I'm stating the obvious here, but I haven't heard this point nearly enough in the media, but it's now pretty clear that Iraq is to Bush as Vietnam is to LBJ. The Vietnam War left the Johnson presidency in tatters, along with his presidential legacy. I don't think there's any question at this point that Iraq will do the same thing to Bush in the years to come (with a big assist from lots of smaller failings, led by Hurricane Katrina).
I'm still pretty angry over what Bush said about appeasement in front of the Knesset, the Israeli Legislature, some days ago. I know, it may seem like old news to some of you, but I don't share that view. Just because our agenda-setting gatekeepers in our corporate media no longer deem it news, doesn't mean it isn't. In addition, there are some developments along this front that I'll get to in a minute.
Anyway, the footage above is former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, appearing on Hannity & Colmes to talk about appeasement. I wish I could find a longer clip of this - a seasoned and respected diplomat explaining to the uneducated Hannity and the shrinking violet Holmes what diplomacy actually entails.
However, even this minute-long footage is a good example of Baker not towing the neocon line that "talking to our enemies is appeasement." And I also love it how Hannity seems to be swallowing his tongue - the guy just doesn't know what to say.
It's also not surprising that President Bush doesn't know the meaning of the word diplomacy, either. What I found particularly amusing (and tragic) was that Bush was willing to roll the dice in front of the whole world, saying in no uncertain terms that talking to our enemies is not a good idea. He made himself look like the imbecile he truly is.
Whether Baker meant to or not (I'm guessing he did), he pretty much blew Bush's assertion out of the water about not talking to our enemies. While Baker has obviously never been president, it's pretty clear that his pinkie knows more about diplomacy than Bush's entire body. In fact, what Bush knows about diplomacy you could fit on the head of a needle and still have room for the yellow pages.
Here's wondering if deep down, Baker doesn't regret his intervention (at the behest of Bush 41) in the whole Florida mess in the fall of 2000, which ultimately paved the way for the Supreme Court to anoint Bush president. If Baker could go Back to the Future. ...
Lots to get to this morning, but before I do, it's worth taking a minute to mention one of Keith Olbermann's Special Comments last week. It's no secret that I feel Olbermann is one of the best liberal commentators on television, but that doesn't mean I always agree with him. For instance, last week, in light of Hillary Clinton's RFK gaffe, Olbermann took some pretty harsh liberties with Clinton, and by saying that, I'm being kind. My personal lowlight from his 10-minute tirade (transcript Here):
And certainly to invoke [RFK's assassination], three days after the awful diagnosis, and heart-breaking prognosis, for Senator Ted Kennedy, is just as insensitive, and just as heartless. And both actions, open a door wide into the soul of somebody who seeks the highest office in this country, and through that door shows something not merely troubling, but frightening. And politically inexplicable.
Sweet Jesus. I've vehemently and sometimes obnoxiously defended Olbermann countless times over the last 3-4 years against the charge that he's becoming the left's Bill O'Reilly. While I'm certainly not on that train yet, a few more Special Comments like these, and I may just get in line for a ticket. Olbermann has done so much good, and has been such a powerful, refreshing voice in the wilderness during Bush's second term, he does himself and his listeners a tremendous disservice by slamming Clinton over her RFK gaffe. To say that her comment "opened the door wide into her soul..." is simply absurd.
Evidently, I'm not alone. In this week's Time, James Poniewozik gives KO a gangsta slap for his Hillary Special Comment. A lengthy excerpt (and trust me, it's worth the read):
...Olbermann is edging ever-closer to self-parody, or, worse, predictability. (As soon as the Clinton gaffe broke, blog commenters were wondering how ballistic he would go, and he obliged, and how.) Even if we concede his argument—that Clinton was at best callously and at worst intentionally suggesting she should stay in the race because Obama might be killed—every time he turns up the volume to 11 like this lately, he sounds like just another of the cable gasbags he used to be a corrective to.
But mostly his outburst reminds me of how the long Democratic primary has divided the left-of-center media (or at least, the media outlets with a left-of-center audience) into camps, like a bad divorce. Personalities and institutions that were once universally beloved by people who were sick of the Bush administration have either taken sides, or have been perceived to, splintering what used to be a unified and largely uncritical amen chorus.
Most of the perceived side-takers have been on the Obama side, as we've seen—it's not just Olbermann, Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, but even some viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (as sanctified as any center of anti-Bush comedy can be) have gotten alienated by the shows' attacks on Hillary Clinton. (I haven't sat down with a stopwatch to see if they mock her more than Obama, but they certainly mock her better.) There are fewer pro-Clinton equivalents, but Saturday Night Live, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and my old employer Salon.com have all taken criticism for carrying water for Hillary, from the same sorts of people who loved them when they were knocking Bush and Cheney.
[...]
It's probably asking too much, but maybe the experience of being annoyed by someone you used to constantly agree with could teach political audiences something about how they have appeared all along to their adversaries. Think about it: if you've found yourself suddenly irritated by any of the people or outlets I mentioned above this election, is it really they who've changed? Or are they simply less charming when they're not confirming your comfortable beliefs?
Sometimes, maybe, the only way to really understand how your idols sound from the other side is to actually find yourself on the other side of them.
I'm not ashamed to say that Poniewozik's piece this week is as poignant and spot on as any of Olbermann's Special Comments I'd heard in 2008.
Olbermann really does need to ratchet down the rhetoric and save those "volume 11" rants, as Poniewozik calls them, for the true outrages of the Bush administration.
Countdown is still a can't-miss show, and most nights (or the next morning) I watch it, but the last thing the left needs is a blowhard like Bill O'Reilly, making every little indiscretion or gaffe sound like it's the worst political miscalculation ever. What's more, there are plenty of outrages out there being committed by this administration he should be focusing his attention on.
I know, I know - Malkin and fool is a double negative, but for a moment, you must indulge a grammatical suspension of disbelief.
God, I love the Internet. I know I'm showing my age by writing that, but it really hasn't been around that long. I'm the last generation that will ever be able to say I remember when there wasn't an Internet, which will no doubt bring groans from the younger crust. So be it.
But, try as they might, some people, no matter how smart they think they are, simply haven't yet mastered the Internet, nor realized its power to embarrass. This is especially sweet when it happens to the sanctimonious and righteous indignant -- enter Michelle Malkin. One of my favorite new blogs, Sadly, No! delivered a well-deserved beat-down earlier today to the right's latest screeching xenophobe. Just days after she screeched about a Dunkin' Donuts ad that had Rachel Ray wearing a scarf, she's been busted. (Incidentally, only someone with a whole bunch of time on her hands would interpret said scarf as being a symbol of terrorism.) Anyway, the nerve of Malkin, even touching the cloth of hate (above), after pressuring Dunkin' Donuts to pull its Rachel Ray ad, is just too stunning to contemplate!
Then again, I guess when you're a purveyor of misinformation on the right, you don't have much else to drone on about these days, since the last time there was good news in Republican circles was when President Bush landed on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in his Halloween costume, and we know how long that good news lasted.
For those of you who missed it (and hopefully, anyone reading this blog did just that), here is the beginning of Malkin's rant on Wednesday about the Dunkin' Donuts ad:
My syndicated column today examines the keffiyeh kerfuffle with Dunkin' Donuts and Rachael Ray that I noted on the blog last week. As you'll recall, I linked to an item by LGF's Charles Johnson about the scarf she wore in a recent Dunkin' ad. Keffiyeh chic has been covered on this site and at Hot Air extensively (see here, here, and here). Anti-American fashion designers abroad and at home have mainstreamed and adapted the scarves as generic pro-Palestinian jihad or anti-war statements. Yet many folks out there remain completely oblivious to the apparel’s violent symbolism and anti-Israel overtones.
First of all, anyone who uses the word kerfuffle should automatically have his or her literary credentials called into question, or revoked.
Secondly, I remember a time not so long ago when conservatives used to rail against political correctness. Wait, they actually still do. (See Bill O'Lielly's War on Christmas for the best example.) However, maybe it's time we realize that conservatives have taken up political correctness and certainly bastardized it from its original, noble goals to advance their own causes - blatant nationalism, making the rich richer, the dramatic minimization of our government (consequences be damned), etc. In other words, whenever an individual, group or entity like Dunkin' Donuts doesn't conform to the right's world view, it's... Attack! Attack! Attack! Probably the most prominent example of the GOP's use of PC came when the Dixie Chicks dared to speak out against Our National Embarrassment while touring in England. Of course, Bush said at the time that the Dixies were free to say what they want, but that didn't stop morons like Malkin, O'Reilly and Ann Coulter from frothing at the mouth. And, it didn't go unnoticed that the same people who howled in protest about the band criticizing the president while "on foreign soil" swallowed their tongues when Bush made a disgrace of himself in Israel while calling Barack Obama, in so many words, an appeaser.
The only thing more outrageous than the right's use of PC to advance their own, hate-filled, obnoxiously belligerent brand of nationalism is that Dunkin' Donuts has given these imbeciles a template - people like Malkin on the right are no doubt encouraged and motivated that a major corporation would cave to their stupid, intolerant demands.
It's enough to make me to go Wawa for my next donut.
Here's another post that almost slipped through the cracks last week that I couldn't let go without writing about. Former-U.S. Senator-turned-political-columnist Rick Santorum just can't let the gay marriage thing go. I mean, will this guy ever get it? As Attytood noted last week, it's little wonder that this guy is an ex-Senator (I've said it before, and it bears repeating - it never gets old running the picture of conceited Rick conceding on election night in 2006). Anyway, someone living in a cave can monitor the political winds better than this guy.
Last week, in his Philadelphia Inquirercolumn, this is what Santorum had to say about California's impending recognition of gay marriages:
Bigot! Hate-monger! Homophobe!
Those were just a few of the terms hurled my way in 2003 when I said that the Supreme Court's Texas sodomy decision opened the door to the redefinition of marriage.
When I wasn't ducking the epithets, I was being laughed at, mocked, and given the crazy-uncle-at-the-holidays treatment by the media. Or I was being told I should resign from my leadership post by some Senate colleagues.
Five years later, do I regret sounding the alarm about marriage? No.
I'm just saddened that time has proved right those of us who worried about the future of marriage as the union of husband and wife, deeply rooted not only in our traditions, our faiths, but in the facts of human nature: as Pope Benedict said, "The cradle of life and love," connecting mothers and fathers to their children.
(Cue epithets: Bigot! Hate-monger! Homophobe!)
The latest distressing news came last week in California. The state Supreme Court there ruled, 4-3, that same-sex couples can marry.
In doing so, four judges rejected a statute that passed in a referendum with 61 percent of the vote that defined marriage as a union of one man and one woman.
It's merely the latest in a string of court decisions that have overturned the overwhelming will of the people.
OK, if you're not inclined to hurl epithets, you might ask: Don't we have more to worry about than some court redefining marriage? After all, gas prices are soaring, health-care costs are rising, and our nation is at war. Why should we care what a few activist judges in California say?
Let's put aside the tired argument that the people should have a say in the laws of their government. That is so 18th-century white-male drivel. Thank goodness we have unaccountable judicial elites to make decisions for us bigots.
It's hard to know where to begin, here. First, I have to confess that it never gets old reading Ricky feeling sorry for himself. All sorts of epithets should have been thrown your way back in '03, Senator homophobe. Don't get me wrong - I'm not hateful like he is. He has a family and many young kids, and by all public accounts is a family man and a good father and husband. Good for him. (Really.) But, where I part company with Santorum in a hurry is when he feels the need to push his beliefs on everyone else, and as was the case in '03, on all Pennsylvanians and the Senate, too.
Next, Ricky talks about the "overwhelming will" of the people, and how they are opposed to civil unions. Well, let's talk about those numbers for a minute. As Kos points out, there are some pretty damning statistics that support gay marriage:
Do you approve or disapprove of California allowing homosexuals to marry members of their own sex and have regular marriage laws apply to them? (Same question asked every survey throughout the years.) See the chart at right for the results.
It seems like the trend toward favoring civil unions and/or gay marriage is on the march, and has been for decades now, despite the bleak forecast of gloom and doom by Santorum. What's more, age in California is directly proportional to approval of gay marriage - the older are less in favor, while younger respondents are much, much more in favor (see below). So again, it doesn't take George Gallup to predict which way the trend will likely continue in the foreseeable future.
Santorum also decries what the new California Supreme Court ruling will do to organizations that do business with the state:
The California court just declared that those of us who see marriage as the union of husband and wife are the legal equivalent of racists. And openly racist groups and individuals can be denied government benefits because of their views, including professional licenses (attorney, physicians, psychiatrists, marriage counselors), accredited schools, and tax-exempt status for charities.
In Massachusetts, the first same-sex-marriage state, Catholic Charities, one of the state's largest adoption agencies, was forced out of business because it refused to arrange adoptions for same-sex couples. In New Jersey, a Methodist group lost part of its state real estate tax exemption because it refused to permit civil-union ceremonies on church-owned property.
People discriminating against gays, or in his words, "the legal equivalent of racists"? GOOD. Because they are. In Massachusetts, Catholic Charities was forced out of business because it refused to arrange adoptions for same-sex couples? Boo Hoo.
I hope I live to see the day where gays are mandated by the federal government to be treated on par with race as it relates to getting tax breaks and preferential treatment, be it taxes or any other benefit, including federal contracts.
How sweet would it be for Halliburton to lose one of its no-bid contracts because it wouldn't hire Dick Cheney's daughter? Pass me a slice of irony with pepperoni, please.
Keep pumping out that propaganda, Ricky. Before long, I'm sure the Inquirer, a once-great newspaper, will be run further into the ground by GOP hack activist Brian Tierney for hiring the likes of you.
No wonder I don't subscribe anymore. Any paper that feels Santorum is worthy of a columnist slot isn't worth my 75 cents every day.
Plus, who an forget the senator's insanely asinine comment leading up the the 2006 election about Democrats who were trying to take over the U.S. Senate and House: that their election would be a "disaster for the future of the world."
A year and a half later, I'm still thankful that Pennsylvanians saw fit to bounce his ass out of the Senate.
This is a pretty funny video I found on Fark today, and I got a bit of a laugh out of it. Bob Barr, the former Republican Congressman and current Libertarian candidate for president, could play a pretty big factor in the November election. The theory goes that he could siphon off votes from Republicans who are unhappy about some of McCain's more moderate political views. Gee, that would be too bad - it would be nice for the GOP to suffer from a third-party candidate for once.
Barr is a complex character, but I mostly dislike him. I'm over it, for sure, but I'll never forget the Clinton Impeachment and what those on the right are capable of if given control. Actually, it's too bad that Democrats don't have the backbone that the GOP-controlled Congress did in the late 1990s, because Congressional Democrats actually now have an extremely strong and compelling case for impeaching a president (for a laundry list of reasons). Sigh. Oh well, President Bush has about as much of a chance being impeached as I do of hitting the Powerball. It's like the last 16 years in presidential politics has been some sort of a bad dream. Here's hoping that November exorcises a bunch of demons.
Hey, I took Psych 101, and when we hear a hard-line right-winger like Rupert Murdoch predicting a Barack Obama win in the fall, we all should call it out for what it really is - a big, steaming pile of GOP #2. C'mon, you don't have to be a political scientist to figure out what he's trying to do here - a lil' reverse psychology. It's not in Murdoch's best interests for Obama to win the election this fall, so don't think for a second that Murdoch and his "network," Fox Noise Channel, won't do everything in its power to propel John McCain to the White House.
For instance, Obama recently publicly said that the Sherman Antitrust Act ought to be reinforced, and if an Obama administration decided to do just that, it could possibly spell an end to News Corp's hegemony (and maybe even right-wing talk radio, too). I also think it's time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, something President Reagan allowed to lapse in 1987.
Anyway, here is some of what Murdoch had to say about Obama:
He is a rock star. It's fantastic. I love what he is saying about education. I don't think he will win Florida.....but he will win in Ohio and the election. I am anxious to meet him. I want to see if he will walk the walk.
Again, I'm wary about what he's saying. Maybe, just maybe, even Murdoch realizes what most other political realists do - that McCain has an increasingly steep hill to climb to win the White House.
However, this is exactly the type of development and pronouncement that Democrats have to guard against. It isn't going to be an easy election for (presumptively) Obama to win, and Republicans and the right-wing neocons aren't going to simply roll over and die. But, they may play possum, and that's what I think Murdoch is doing here.
It doesn't get much better than this. Like I wrote yesterday, it's too bad that civil servants no longer have the courage to put their asses on the line when they see something criminally inept, like the Bush administration's justifications (and execution) of the War in Iraq.
Better late than never, eh, Mr. McClellan?
He's laughing all the way to the bank, without question.
He's not a totally unsympathetic figure, however, especially watching and listening to just about everyone who is still under Bush's flag attack and vilify him. I'll confess, I'm definitely reading it... when it comes out in paperback.
Cartoon via Attytood (the best of the Philly blogs)
Every once in a while, I see a story in the media that just blows me away, and I get convinced that we're only days away from book burnings. This is one of those. Dunkin Donuts has pulled an ad featuring Rachel Ray, because she was wearing a scarf [or a keffiyeh] that looked like one that a terrorist would wear, at least according to psychopath Michelle Malkin. I always knew that Malkin had serious emotional problems, including her scorching case of xenophobia, but this one's notable even for her. Breathless debate in the right-wing blogosphere ensued, and Malkin (and no doubt Bill O'Lielly) threatened a boycott. Considering the laughable track record of O'Lielly's phony boycotts, I doubt one by Malkin would have gained much traction, either.
What's worse, Dunkin Donuts folded up like a cheap rug and pulled the ad. Ridiculous. To be fair to the company, DD (for a nanosecond) is in virtually a no-win situation - it either offends some on the far right and keeps running the ad, or it pulls the ad under pressure, but by doing so risks a backlash for folding to intolerant rubes like Malkin. And the latter is precisely what the company did by pulling the ad. Well, Dunkin can kiss my business goodbye. No way will I patronize a company that allows itself to be bullied by the likes of Malkin and her stable of drooling drones who hate anything that doesn't look, sound, or appear "American."
Olbermann gets it right in the clip above: Time to STOP buying the donuts.
I haven't posted any contemporary political "propaganda" posters from The Old American Century lately, so I figured I'd bring you one of the better one's I've seen over there lately. Tragically, this one is all but true, too. With the out-of-this-world deficits the federal government is running, only the criminally insane would believe that education isn't going to take a financial hit in this country in the years to come. I sure hope I'm wrong.
Ron Ziegler'sScott McClellan's book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception is turning into one of this summer's must-reads for political buffs, yours truly included. And, when the smoke clears, there can be absolutely no doubt that McClellan, Bush's former White House press secretary, will join the lengthening list of former Bush administration officials who will be attacked, vilified and crucified as if they have committed the worst, treasonous acts by another human being by just about any current member of the Bush cabal. (Richard A. Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Colin Powell, and there will undoubtedly be many others.)
I'll get to some excerpts in a minute, but having only read some excerpts from the book, I have to at least tentatively give McClellan some credit for having the courage to stand up and call out the Bush administration. However, my big question is, while all this was happening, why didn't he stand up then? It takes considerably less courage to stand up to a president when your ass isn't on the line. Courage in presidential administrations is so rare these days. It may happen behind the scenes somewhat, but I can't even remember the last time a high-level man or woman in an administration said, "I resign" over a decision made by a president. Gone are the days of people like Jerald terHorst, President Ford's press secretary, who immediately resigned when he learned that Ford, in a controversial move to this day, pardoned President Nixon.
Yesterday, The Politico ran some very interesting excerpts from the book. Among them:
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• Steve Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, said about the erroneous assertion about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium, included in the State of the Union address of 2003: "Signing off on these facts is my responsibility. … And in this case, I blew it. I think the only solution is for me to resign." The offer "was rejected almost out of hand by others present," McClellan writes.
• Bush was "clearly irritated, ... steamed," when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: "'It's unacceptable,' Bush continued, his voice rising. 'He shouldn't be talking about that.'"
• Instead, McClellan's tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House "spent most of the first week in a state of denial," and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped.
But he writes that he later was told that "Karl was convinced we needed to do it - and the president agreed."
"One of the worst disasters in our nation's history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush's presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush's second term," he writes. "And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath."
Of course, the ideological buzzards are already circling McClellan's political carcass, ready to rip him to shreds. Actually, it's already started, and there are only excerpts out right now.
Keith Olbermann offered come commentary last night on McClellan's book, along with Air America's Rachel Maddow...
Probably my favorite part of the above clip is when Olbermann and Maddow mention what McClellan writes about propaganda and its role in selling the War in Iraq to the American people. Propaganda?!? In a time of war? Wow.
Below is Karl Rove McCain campaign consultant, political commentator for Fersatz News Channel, throwing McClellan to the wolves.
It's amazing how someone who was Bush's press secretary for so long is now all of a sudden an imbecile, just because he now thinks it's appropriate to speak out against all that Bush has done.
So, let's get this straight - every single word Scott McClellan wrote is a total lie, and Karl Rove is completely innocent. RIGHT! Is there anyone who honestly believes that? C'mon...
McClellan will be on NBC's Today Show tomorrow morning, so set your DVRs, or your alarm clock, because it should be a good interview. Here's hoping that Matt Lauer brings his A-game.
Actually, my favorite reaction so far is from the GOP toad and mouthpiece, Matt Drudge...
Bitter beer face, Drudge. It kills me that Drudge keeps up the act that he's a "non-partisan" site, that he "goes where the story goes," yet that's a screen shot from his site this morning, bemoaning McClellan's book "snitching" on the Bush administration. Notice it doesn't say "Scott the Liar" - he's merely a "snitch." Draw your own conclusions.
This one's pretty good - take the Bush-McCain challenge to see if you can tell the difference between the two - I didn't do too well. Click Here to take the test.
Yesterday, (video above) Barack Obama took a swipe at John McCain for his fundraiser in Arizona with President Bush, which was behind closed doors. A partial transcript:
I just had the privilege of visiting with Felicitas Rosel and Francisco Cano at their home here in Las Vegas.
Today, John McCain is having a different kind of meeting. He's holding a fundraiser with George Bush behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras. No reporters. And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn't want to be seen, hat-in-hand, with the President whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years.
That's damn right. McCain wants to suckle from the president's fundraising teats, but he doesn't want any pictures with a president who has the worst approval rating of any president since Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974. Here's hoping voters aren't fooled by McCain's cozy relationship with Bush that goes all the way back to late 2000. The only time McCain has put any sort of distance between himself and Bush was when he decided to run for the presidency. And even since then, it hasn't been nearly enough.
Reuters explores the complex and delicate relationship McCain will have with the president this fall:
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has said he wants help from Bush, who can haul in enormous campaign cash. But McCain has walked a fine line with the unpopular Bush, backing the president on the Iraq war while bucking him on how to address climate change.
Bush will kick off raising money for McCain on Tuesday and Wednesday at three events in Arizona and Utah, but they will only be together at one and it will be out of the public eye. That has raised questions about whether Bush helps or hurts the Arizona senator.
[Snip...]
"The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006 when we lost 30 seats," Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, said in a memo to fellow Republicans.
[Snip...]
"[Bush] is poisoning the well for Republican congressional candidates and for John McCain," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "I think McCain's chances depend in part on whether Bush and his White House team can manage to get Bush up around 40 (percent) again," referring to the president's approval rating.
That's a pretty interesting analysis, and the last point by Sabato I find very entertaining - get Bush back up to around 40 percent? I have a better chance of becoming president than that happening, but only time will tell.
If Obama is smart, he will spend a significant amount of his campaign cash doing precisely what he describes in the footage above, and that's re-running pictures over and over and over again of McCain hugging Bush, as well as his many appearances with him, including this spring's press conference in the Rose Garden. It may not "stick" in terms of political damage to McSame, but it's a point worth reminding voters about, without question.
So, just how much has McCain actually voted to favor of Bush's position on issues? See below...
This according to the Congressional Quarterly, via Progressive Media. I guess we can conclude that the answer to the question I posed above is "a great deal," to say the least.
One other noteworthy statistic about McCain's Senatorial conduct this year - as WaPo reports, he's also the most absent senator in 2008 as well. And running for president should not be an excuse, for any senator, period, to miss important Senate votes. I don't know the statistics that compare Obama, Clinton and McCain, but I have read in recent weeks and months where Obama and Clinton have jumped on planes to get back to Washington for critical votes. I can't remember the last time I heard McCain doing the same thing. Heaven forbid a McCain fundraiser ever gets in the way of his obligations as a U.S. Senator. Ooops.
I had to share this one with you this morning - I'll be back in a bit with much, much more, but in the meantime, enjoy this one. Thanks to C&L for reminding me about this one - I hadn't seen it in a while.
It's little wonder that President Bush's approval rating is at 23 percent, which is the post-World War II low, a distinction he shares with President Truman (at the end of his second term) and President Nixon on the day he resigned the presidency. Bush's low ratings are about on par with how consumers feel about the economy right now, which is to say not very good:
Soaring gas prices and weakening job prospects left shoppers gloomier about the economy in May, sending a key barometer of consumer sentiment to its lowest level in almost 16 years.
The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 57.2, down from a revised 62.8 in April. Economists surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR had expected a reading of 60.
The May reading marks the fifth straight month of decline and is the lowest since the index registered 54.6 in October 1992 when the economy was coming out of a recession.
Economists closely watch sentiment readings since consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the nation's economic activity.
"Weakening business and job conditions coupled with growing pessimism about the short-term future have further depleted consumers' confidence in the overall state of the economy," Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board's Consumer Research Center, said in a statement.
I know this phrase is trite, and it has been used over and over again in American politics, but this year, I think it's particularly apropos. What Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic Nominee for president, should be saying over and over when referring to the Bush administration, is simply this:
Are you better off now than you were eight years ago? Four years ago? If the answer is no, then you have President Bush, and one of his principle enablers, Senator McCain, to thank for that malaise.
Why not? Very few, except for the extremely well off in this country (who have only gotten more well off under Bush) can probably look in the mirror and say, with a straight face, that they are doing much better now than in 2000. What's more, it worked for President Reagan in 1980 in his campaign against President Carter, so why not for Obama now?
If Obama can successfully run on the issues, and the corporate media actually reports on the issues (fat chance) - he should win this election running away.
Instead, what did we get all weekend, for example? Hillary Clinton's RFK gaffe. Our corporate media is hopelessly broken, hopelessly corporate, hopelessly infotainment and not "news," and hopelessly tied to the fortunes of the Republican Party. Our only hope in taking back our press is for Obama to become president. I'm certainly hoping he backs up his words about enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act. He can start by dropping a huge, fat bomb smack dab in the middle of the corporate media conglomerates that dominate not only what's news, but how it's presented. We can only hope, wait and wonder, but most of all, do all we can to make sure a Democrat reaches the White House this November.
Rep. Tom Allen (D-ME) has made a very fitting, appropriate Memorial Day tribute to our troops who have served and who are still serving in our armed forces around the world - take a look - it's only six minutes long.
Allen, who has distinguished himself in many ways in the U.S. House, is running for the U.S. Senate this year against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a rubber-stamp GOPer who needs to be shown a different career path. Allen is in for an uphill fight, but hopefully he will ride into the Senate on an expected wave of Democratic victories this fall. If you wish to support Allen, you can visit his U.S. Senate Website, or by visiting ActBlue.
Allen would make a wonderful, Progressive addition to the U.S. Senate - I wish I could cast my vote for him.
Anyway, Happy Memorial Day, everyone. Wherever you are and whatever you're doing today, please take a moment to think about our troops and how fortunate we are to have our fighting men and women protecting us from those who mean us harm. We really do owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude, and I can only hope that Congress, President Bush, and our next president all see to it that they are given the benefits they so richly deserve. It's the very least we can do. (The G.I. Bill proposed by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) and recently passed by the House would be a good start.)
In the coming days, I'll be writing about some ways we can support our troops overseas. Whether you agree with the War in Iraq or not, they are still our soldiers who are just doing their duty, and we will have to support them in the coming months years in many, many ways large and small. We can, we will, we must.
Okay, one more quick one from my backlog from last week. I picked his one up off of Crooks & Liars, and I just had to share it with you if you haven't seen it. In his seemingly inexhaustible zeal to attack Barack Obama on his radio show, the rotund pill popper decided to Google the Great Depression to educate his viewers all of the "liberal propaganda" he would find. The problem is, one of the pieces he found was written by a tenth grader. Wow, it takes an intellectual giant to attack a tenth-grade paper:
The best story I've heard this week by far was told today over lunch. Apparently, a co-worker of mine named George listens to the Rush Limbaugh show in his car, and yesterday heard him discussing Barak Obama's comments about similarities between the recent housing crisis and the lead-up to the Great Depression. I imagine the comments were referring to the obvious similarities between those who obtained ridiculous sub-prime loans and those in the 1920s who bought stock they couldn't afford on margin. However, Limbaugh decided that Obama's comments were the result of a crazy "liberal education" - and even remarks how "lucky" he is that he didn't graduate from college, thus allowing him to escape the perils of actual knowledge.
To prove his point, Rush says he did some Google searches for "Great Depression" and then proceeds to attack each of the results as liberal propaganda. Because we all know that college professors teach straight off of Google results pages. So my friend is listening and hears something rather striking... the name of one of our mutual colleagues - Paul Alexander Gusmorino ("The Third!" - I love the way Limbaugh says that).
Limbaugh found among the top results an essay written by Paul, entitled "The Main Causes of the Great Depression." He quotes Paul's essay and refutes each of its claims, dissecting them as if they were part of a Harvard professor's lecture on the subject. He doesn't pull any punches either. "Mr. Gusmorino, you better check Karl Marx and see if you plagiarized him in putting this piece together."
Ouch. Those words would be harsh if they really were for a Harvard lecturer. But that's not who wrote this essay. It was my friend who works as a program manager at Microsoft. When he was in 10th grade.
Rush really is the right's Rosie O'Donnell, as someone in the comments section of this story points out. I also love how Rush considers it some sort of a badge of ignorance honor to have not graduated from college. Maybe Rush and Sean Hannity can get together to have an Uneducated Conference on Right-Wing Punditry. Hey, I'd go. You can't pay for entertainment that good these days.
This is another piece of footage that slipped through the cracks last week, amidst all of the appeasement coverage, when President Bush disgraced himself, America and the presidency by likening Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain during a speech in front of the Knesset, the Israeli legislature. Chamberlain is the British prime minister who carved up Czechoslovakia for Adolf Hitler before World War II in the hopes it would satiate Hitler's lust for territory and power. Likening Obama to Chamberlain because Obama believes it's a wise course of action to at least talk to our enemies is laughable enough, but some of the dopes who attempted to join the Bush chorus on television was probably the funniest thing about the whole incident.
Anyway, the video above is probably the best single piece of footage I've seen this year, maybe even since I started this blog over two years ago - it's Chris Matthews absolutely taking apart conservative radio talking head Kevin James, who wouldn't know appeasement if it bit him in the face. By about the mid-way point of Matthews' thundering away at James, I almost started to feel sorry for the guy. Almost.
A partial transcript, courtesy of C&L:
Matthews starts out by saying:
Chris: I want to do a little history check on you—what did Neville Chamberlain do wrong in 1939? What did he do wrong?
Kevin: It all goes back to appeasement. It’s the key term.
Chris: No, what did he do, tell me what he did?
Kevin: It's the key term.
Chris: You have to answer this question. What did he do?
Kevin: It's the same thing, it puts it all…
Chris: Well tell me what he did?
Kevin: It's appeasement.
Chris: What did Chamberlain do wrong...
Kevin: His actions, his actions enabled, energized, legitimized...
Chris: What did Chamberlain do?
Kevin: It's the exact same thing.
Chris: No stop, Kevin. I'm not going to continue with this interview unless you answer what that thing is. What did Chamberlain do in '39, tell me? '38?
Kevin: Chris, it's the exact same thing alright?
Chris: What did he do? [yelling] What did he do![/yelling]
Matthews just took him apart. I loved how Chris ends the interview, too: "Don't use the term appeasement if you don't know what it means."
Ouch!
I also thoroughly enjoyed Matthews' reference to the fact that Dana Perino, President Bush's press secretary, didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, and admitted as much, during an appearance on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! program a few months ago. Wow - if I'm the press secretary in the White House (Heaven forbid) and I didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, I certainly wouldn't admit it.
Chalk up Kevin Jones (and Perino, for that matter) as two more conservatives who don't know what the hell they're talking about. And I have to confess, it's pretty fun pointing it out.
Some on the right accuse "libruls" of being "elitist" and "arrogant" when pointing these things out. Quite the contrary, but when you use these terms or claim to be some sort of expert, you really should know historical references before you start throwing them around to back up a president who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, either.
Here's another piece of entertaining footage - Bill O'Lielly again going after Markos Moulitsas, the founder of The Daily Kos, an excellent liberal blog that's doing a great deal of important work.
The bottom line here is that O'Reilly can't handle criticism, and when prominent liberal blogs go after him for his lies and distortions, he gets his dander up, labeling them "hate sites." Of course, BOR can never get through a criticism of anything or anyone liberal without a Nazi or KKK reference - in this case likening Moulitsas to David Duke - which is pretty hilarious.
I got a good laugh out of O'Reilly and Mary Katherine Ham coddling each other about how disgusting the pictures are of Iraqi War casualties. Yes, they are disgusting, but it's violence that this administration has caused, period. So, I get a kick out of conservatives expressing horror and disgust whenever a liberal Website has the temerity to publish unpleasant images of the War in Iraq. Too damn bad - this is violence that your president has caused.
And Ham and O'Reilly, as usual, can't get through a criticism about a liberal blog without mentioning the comments section in any Website, either, be it the Daily Kos or The Huffington Post. Too bad O'Reilly allows many hate filled comments on his site, too, as detailed by some great work on the part of Crooks & Liars.
Somehow Newsweek shouldn't have hired Kos because of what other people say in the comments or post in their user blogs, but of course [O'Reilly's] okay with [Fox News] hiring Rove who has been involved in scandal after scandal. Who's more like David Duke? Kos, or the guy behind the robocalls [who] said McCain had an illegitimate black child? I'm just sayin'.
Sweet. I couldn't have said it better myself. More on Rove's role at Fox, as well as his status as a McCain consultant, in a bit.
This one's a little old, but it still merits a mention. Just under a few weeks ago, Keith Olbermann unleashed a tirade against the Bush administration for its conduct in Iraq. After thinking about it, Olbermann clarified his remarks backed up his proverbial bus, and ran over Bush and his war-making cabal again, calling some of them (including Bush, and presumably, Dick Cheney) "cold blooded killers." I won't apologize for agreeing with him.
Bush and many in his cabinet (but not all, as Olbermann rightfully points out) almost certainly deserve to be tried for war crimes. It's a pretty sticky issue that many would take offense to - so be it. But, any American who can possibly even try to evaluate and analyze the War in Iraq objectively would almost certainly come to the conclusion that if Bush were the leader of another country, invading a neighbor, the U.S. would most likely be up in arms, beating the drums of righteous indignation, calling for a war crimes trial. Oh wait, haven't we already done that? Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein are two recent examples that come to mind, specifically Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, an invasion we went to war over. Desert Storm was a farce in many (but not all) ways. We certainly weren't liberating a democracy, that's for sure. But, I digress.
Anyway, it's important to note that neither Olbermann nor probably the overwhelming majority of liberals (including me) lump our troops under the statement or thoughts behind his label "cold blooded killers." Olbermann in the footage above rightly classifies them as the heroes they truly are, and on this Memorial Day, it's worth mentioning again that we can and must give them the resources they will need, for the rest of their lives, to confront, combat and conquer the physical and emotional obstacles that await them once they return home from battle.
This administration and those who support it make great sport of constantly repeating, over and over, the slogan of this war by many on the home front: Support the Troops. Well, Supporting the Troops is going to take a lot more than putting a ribbon on your car in the coming years. Yet, thus far, this administration has done little more than just that for returning troops, and for many troops in the field, some of whom have had to go without adequate body armor, etc.
At the end of his Special Comment, Olbermann takes one final swipe at two of his critics by saying, "Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, why do you hate our troops?" I don't know what he's specifically referring to there, but that's bound to stoke the flames of partisan bickering in the weeks and months to come, which will surprise no one. But, in the end, Olbermann is spot on for calling out this administration for its massive, criminal negligence in not giving our troops what they need.
Olbermann truly is a voice in the wilderness - an island of reality in a sea of diarrhea that passes for what many call our "free press," which should be called what it really is - our corporate media. Frankly, it's a miracle that NBC lets him air his show at all. Make no mistake - it's only because there's money to be made, not because of his political views.
I got this from Crooks & Liars the other day, so I'm getting most of my information about this story from that site, which, by the way (as I frequently mention) is arguably the best liberal blog and information site on the Internet (along with HuffPo & Think Progress). The people over at C&L do tremendous work, and liberals owe that site a debt of gratitude for the hard work they put in by bringing us spot-on commentary and raising and highlighting issues that otherwise wouldn't get the attention they should. I get lots and lots of my video clips from that site, too. I don't always remember to post h/t's (hat tips) to C&L for providing video clips, but I try to remember. Anyway, if you haven't visited that site, 1. Where have you been? It's the best, and 2. Please spread the word and support C&L, a site that I hope CMB is 1/8th as good as, some day. Anyway, moving on...
This is the most stark example I've seen in quite some time as to why our corporate media needs to be broken up - now. More on that point in a minute.
Barry Nolan of CN8 in Boston, Comcast's news channel, has been fired for daring to criticize the fact that Bill O'Reilly, of all people, was being honored at the Emmy Awards.
I am appalled, just appalled," [that O'Reilly was being honored] Nolan told the Track. "He inflates and constantly mangles the truth... and his frequent target is the 'left-leaning' media - the ones who do report the news fairly. And those are the same people who will be sitting in the room honoring him."... More Here.
"Their take is that I was insubordinate," Nolan told us yesterday. "They wanted me to sit down and shut up." The host of "Backstage With Barry Nolan" had argued that O'Reilly, the volatile Fox News host and former Channel 7 anchor, was unworthy of the Governor's Award. (Past recipients include the likes of Mike Wallace, Ken Burns, and Natalie Jacobson.) "The idea of honoring someone who does their job with constant factual errors, name-calling, and mangling of the truth... It's ridiculous," said Nolan...
We're told Nolan was warned by his bosses at CN8 to pipe down, but at the May 10 dinner honoring O'Reilly he handed out a six-page document listing some of O'Reilly's wackier errors, utterances, and information about the talk-show host's sexual harassment settlement. Seems Comcast was concerned that Nolan's actions could harm the network's relationships with the academy and Fox. He was immediately suspended without pay for two weeks and then fired over the phone Tuesday.
One particular instance that I find incredibly nauseating is how O'Reilly goes after crime victims (or victims' surviving family members, like when he attacked the son of a man killed in the World Trade Center on his show, an then threatened him with violence). John Amato over at C&L has thoroughly documented and written about how O'Reilly went after Shawn Hornbeck, an 11-year old who was held captive for over four years by Michael J. Devlin in Kirkland, Missouri. Devlin is currently serving 74 life sentences, and if there's any justice in this world, a prisoner where he is incarcerated will test out a new shiv on him. (Posted above is video O'Lielly discussing attacking Hornbeck during a discussion with Greta Van Susteren, the princess of plastic.) Take a look at the video - it's just plain sickening and revolting. By the way, O'Lielly's attack on Hornbeck got him uninvited to a speaking engagement to the National Center for Missing Kids. (Due in part to the efforts of Amato over at C&L; predictably, no comment from BOR.)
This is just one example of the kind of sewage and filth that O'Reilly continually spews forth to his listeners. The truly frightening thing is that people listen and believe a great deal of it.
As Amato succinctly put it over at C&L the other day (and I whole-heartedly agree) - it's worth considering whether Rupert Murdoch is now going after anyone who criticizes O'Reilly, his networks or their executives? After all, he's not above going after NBC over Keith Olbermann's criticisms of Roger Ailes, the head of Fox Noise Channel.
As Howard Kurtz of WaPohas reported, last summer Ailes threatened to go after NBC if Olbermann didn't cease going after him and Fox, using BOR and The New York Post.
This is exactly why our corporate media conglomerates must be broken up. I find it outrageous that any CEO of a corporate media entity would see fit to going after a critic by using TV stations, commentators and newspapers as cudgels. But, that's exactly what Murdoch has been doing for years. Phew! Thank GOD his corporation was permitted to buy The Wall St. Journal!
I'm very thankful (and hopeful) that if Barack Obama gets elected, he will reverse this troubling trend in our press. He recently stated that if elected, he feels it's time the U.S. government start enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act, a law that is still in the books (if you can believe that) that would break up these multi-media giants. I don't care if we're talking about liberal or conservative media conglomerates - they all are a threat to destroying our free press. (I do wonder and worry that Obama may have incurred the wrath of these multi-media giants by saying he would like to bust them up, before he wins the election. God only knows what lengths these companies will go to in order to get McCain elected now. We've always known that our corporate media is on McCain's side - Obama's recent comments did nothing to ameliorate this worrisome concern.)
In the meantime, O'Reilly goes on as one of the loudest mouthpieces for Murdoch's News Corporation, the parent of Fox News, carrying out his marching orders from the abominable Murdoch.
I cannot even comprehend what our economy would be like if gas were to rise above $6 or $8 per gallon, much less $12 to $15, but that's precisely what energy analyst Robert Hirsch believes is going to happen.
I'm no energy expert, and I'm certainly no economist, but you have to be neither to foresee the consequences of double-digit gas prices on our economy.
I have to confess that I find it extremely annoying that certain politicians and of course the Big Oil executives (who themselves make hundreds of millions of dollars per year in compensation) are preaching that we need to drill and explore more to combat high gas prices. What a crock. However, don't take my word for it - Read Here.
Drilling in ANWR would do little more than line the pockets of Big Oil, and the politicians who approve such a move. I can just about guarantee that there would be no price relief at the pump.
What this country needs is a sound energy policy, and fast. Okay, by fast, I mean when hopefully Barack Obama takes the oath of office next January. Heaven help us if McCain is putting his hand on the Bible at noon on 1/20/09, because that will mean plenty more of the same in the way of energy policy.
We must demand a very radical mass-transit and alternative energy plan from this next administration, which in many ways will be about 170 degrees different from what the Bush administration has spent the last 7+ years giving us.
Alternative energy and mass transit will be a major, major theme of this blog in the coming months and years, including form letters to use to write your elected legislators, news, views, ideas on how to save energy, etc., so stay tuned. This one affects us all, and there will be no hiding from it in the coming years and decades. We've already seen what rising gas prices have done to the prices of just about everything, and it's only going to get worse, unless we demand that our state legislatures and Congress do something about it.
(Major hat tip to Crooks & Liars for the video, as well as the research in finding the MSNBC link on the '04 ANWR study.)
Speaking of gay marriage, this is a pretty sweet piece of footage - former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura taking Pat Buchanan behind the woodshed during a joint appearance on MSNBC's Verdict with Dan Abrams. My favorite line in the exchange:
VENTURA: "Well, first of all, I made a statement when I was governor and stand by it today. Love is bigger than government. Who the hell are we as a government to tell people who you can fall in love with? I think it's absurd that fact it's even being debated."
That's about as poignant and spot-on statement as I've heard about this issue, ever. I haven't always agreed with Ventura in the past about certain issues, but I find myself agreeing with him and more and more. I wish this guy would run for national office and really shake things up.
Better yet, I wish Ventura would really get behind creating a viable third party in our political system. He has the right combination of moxie and determination to do just that. h/t Crooks & Liars for the video
