(Clip came from an old TDS show which highlights the extreme right attacks against Cindy Sheehan) Michelle Malkin made her living for years out of releasing personal information of people she attacked like the students from UC Santa Cruz. I was
October 10, 2011

(Clip came from an old TDS show which highlights the extreme right attacks against Cindy Sheehan)

Michelle Malkin made her living for years out of releasing personal information of people she attacked like the students from UC Santa Cruz. I was in the middle of that story because the students were scared after their info became public and asked me for help. After that Malkin stalked the Frost family in an effort to intimidate them because they dared to believe differently than her tea party beliefs.

When this brow-beater releases personal information like that, it's also a warning to anyone else not to take a stand against any type of inequality or injustice. They make it clear you will have to pay a heavy price if you stick up for average American families, LBGT rights, unions, prisoner rights, woman's choice and any number of other issues that conservatives oppose. A toll many people do not want to pay. Who would?

The John and Ken Show is a very popular KFI radio program. They are very out spoken in California and can drive local narratives mostly in the right-wing direction, but when they gave out someone's personal cell phone number, that type of behavior is a firing offense. Here's the scoop:

Long-time immigrant rights activist Jorge-Mario Cabrera is used to being called to task for his views. But when radio hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou recently gave out his cellphone number on the air in a campaign against the California Dream Act, he found himself unprepared for the barrage of hate-filled phone calls that followed.

"Hi, this message is for Mr. Cabrera," one caller said in a voice mail transcribed by Cabrera. "Listen, you pile of garbage…You need to pack your [expletive] up and go back to wherever it is you came from. Nobody wants you here. You are invading the legal people that are in this country and ruining this country. I hope you choke in your own vomit."
In the days after the KFI-AM (640) radio hosts read Cabrera's cellphone and office numbers on the air and told listeners opposed to state tuition assistance for illegal immigrants to call him, Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, got more than 400 calls, many of them filled with hateful language and calls for violence.

"It's never been as cutting, as humiliating as these calls were," Cabrera said. "These calls were intent to diminish me as a person." The incident struck a chord among leaders of civil and immigrant rights groups across the state, many of whom saw it as the latest example in a long history of the popular radio show inciting anger and vitriol.

"It was the last straw," said Alex Nogales, president and chief executive of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. "These guys have been at it day in and day out. It's the same ugly rhetoric."

The National Hispanic Media Coalition led what some believe was a successful campaign to get television host Lou Dobbs off the air at CNN for similar reasons. Dobbs resigned days after the coalition's president met with the head of the news network, but the network has denied that the meeting led to the resignation.

Now the coalition has joined with several major Latino and immigrant rights groups, including the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and the National Immigration Law Center, in calling on the radio station to remove the show's hosts or face a boycott of its sponsors.

Robin Bertolucci, KFI's programming director, declined to discuss the incident but said she planned to meet soon with the group's representatives.

Now that Gov. Brown has signed the Dream Act into legislation, I'm sure the radio duo will be up in arms in the coming weeks. Nestor Fantini writes:

The methodology used by The John & Ken Show is not isolated, but part of a media phenomena that in the last decades had grown considerably in the United States. Through ultraconservative voices such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Anne Coulter, the American Right has managed to popularize its political discourse using radios and TV stations that in many cases are associated with Clear Channel Communications and Fox Broadcasting Corporation. It seems as if this people feel that they are Biblical prophets that have the celestial mission of saving the nation at any cost.

This implies a one-dimensional, simplistic, quasi religious vision of a complex socio-political reality; a vision that, among other things, does not accept the opposition as another segment of political society but it characterizes it as being the enemy. This demonization of the Left, Democrats, unions, academics, immigrants, feminists, environmentalists, progressives, Keynesians, pacifists, makes impossible any political dialogue and leads to a vitriolic, insulting attack to dehumanize the 'enemy' of this ultraconservative Utopia that, in the last instance, is a White and Anglo-Saxon America.

I've had threats made against me and it's not fun, but people like Jorge-Mario Cabrera should not be subjected to this crap. And also right wingers don't like to have their privacy invaded either. Back to Nestor Fantini:

In a democracy, we do not silence what we do not like, but freedom of expression, as it has been numerously times ruled by the Supreme Court, is not an absolute right. When The John & Ken Show invades the privacy of community leaders such as Jorge Cabrera, it is obvious that a line is being crossed. The FCC should investigate and appropriate measures should be taken.

When Limbaugh attacks Michelle Obama incessantly with personal smears, it may be disgusting, but it is what it is. When John and Ken incite the public to attack people they disagree with that's going too far. There needs to be consequences for their actions.

When Hank WIlliams, Jr. claims ESPN violated his First Amendment rights for pulling his song off MNF for what he said on FNC, we know that's false. It's the wingers first line of defense. But when radio talk show hosts do the unthinkable they have indeed crossed the line. Will KFI bury their heads in the sand to preserve their precious cash cow? I will continue to update you on this because we're not lying down on this one.

The right wing attacks Henrietta Hughes

On 04/17/06---I broke the story that she posted the phone numbers of some UC Santa Cruz students over the issue of military recruitment on campus and they received a ton of death threats as a result. A few right wing bloggers were so appalled that they de-linked her.

Malkin endangered the life of Jamil Hussein, when she tried to discredit this AP report. The AP then responded: "AP executive editor rips into bloggers who have now endangered Jamil Hussein's life."

Not to mention that she posted Cindy Sheehan's divorce records to smear her for no reason than to be vengeful of the ruckus Cindy caused Bush over the Iraq war. She turned the public against it when it had been pretty evenly split at the time. More reactions here.

We're just getting ready with a new action to stop them from doing it ever again because the John and Ken's of the world need to know this is not acceptable.

Cabrera's numbers were read on air Sept. 1 during a campaign to defeat what the hosts call the "Illegal Alien California Dream Act," a reference to recently approved legislation that would extend state financial aid to college students who are in the U.S. illegally. Gov. Jerry Brown must still sign the bill before it becomes law.

John and Ken urged listeners to call Cabrera, saying he was planning a celebration "on the theft of tax money for illegal aliens." The phone calls started coming and, weeks later, still haven't completely stopped, Cabrera said. One man has called 32 times. Some calls were benign, like one woman who spoke in Spanish and said Cabrera's organization should work to benefit people who are in the country legally. Others were not:

"I hope somebody shoots you"; "fat pig…"; "We don't want your people here. You are dirty, you don't have any social skills…I hope you fall off the earth"; "I hope you're hit by a car walking across the street"; "Listen you pile of garbage, I hope you get … cancer tomorrow and start to die."

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