DOWNLOADS: (508)

PLAYS: (3462)

Embed

Thanks to Newt Gingrich, it appears that a refresher course in Saul Alinsky and his teachings are in order, because clearly Bill O'Reilly and his sidekick Monica Crowley have no clue, even with Alan Colmes there to try and set the record straight.

Let's start with the end of this clip, where Colmes correctly asserts that the group most effectively employing Alinsky's tactics is the tea party. It's true. Tea party organizing has been exactly what Alinsky advised young radicals to do.

Via The Guardian:

It hurt me to see the American army with bayonets advancing on American boys and girls. But the answer I gave to the young radicals seemed to me the only realistic one: "Do one of three things. One, go and find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing – but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organise, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.

The tea party did this quite well, and the Occupy movement has taken some steps in that direction as well. Alinsky's message is clear: Don't simply protest. Act.

There's nothing radical about that at all, but to hear O'Reilly go on about it, it's just socialism, writ large. It's not socialism; it's democracy. Here was Alinsky's stated purpose, as laid out in "Rules for Radicals":

“What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

In a democracy, the power can only be with the people when the people stand up and speak for themselves, and then act on the collective message by inserting themselves into the political process. Tea partiers did this by protesting, and then running for school boards, state assemblies, state senates, and the United States Congress. It's classic Alinsky, which absolutely horrified Billo when Alan Colmes calmly pointed it out.

Bill O'Reilly isn't a fool. He knows this. But as long as he can keep the audience terrified of the name Alinsky without actually pointing out that the man was not some kind of radical socialist but one who believed in the power of communities and the disempowered to self-empower, he keeps the lie alive.

Continue reading »

On H&C tonight, Alan Colmes asked Coulter to explain a statement in her recent column calling NY'ers cowards:

" and it's far preferable to fight them in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York (where the residents would immediately surrender)

Download | play -WMP

Download | play -QT

Colmes: You don't feel that New Yorkers are cowards?

(pause)

Coulter: ahhh...I think they would immediately surrender...

Calling people who suffered cowards is reprehensible. She should speak to a fireman or policeman about it sometime.

DOWNLOADS: (965)

PLAYS: (6507)

Embed

Is there any end to the lengths that these folks will go to justify torture? Particularly Bill O'Reilly, who was puffed up like a blowfish with poison tentacles over Alan Colmes' assertion that Rumsfeld is correct about the fact that information leading to Osama bin Laden did not emerge from "enhanced interrogation techniques."

In fact, BillO was so bent he just about came over the table at Alan Colmes, who wasn't putting up with the nonsense even for a second.

This question of how the information was obtained -- by torture or standard techniques -- is important for a number of reasons, and not simply because torture apologists want us to believe it's an effective way to extract information. It's important because it reveals the priorities and motives within the Bush administration at different times. In 2003, their focus was on Iraq, not Bin Laden. In 2007, they were still focused on Iraq. In Bush's own words, Osama bin Laden was just someone he didn't think about very often.

So watch Bill O'Reilly go after Alan Colmes in this segment. This is actually round two -- round one was right at the top of the show where Colmes tries to get a word in edgewise while BillO claims Rumsfeld's statements on torture are just wrong. Plain wrong. After Crowley goes through some fairly boring and benign apologetics, BillO comes after Colmes with his fangs out.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (607)

PLAYS: (3340)

Embed

Bill O'Reilly was really upset because Wisconsin protesters were shouting down FOX News reporters who were trying to cover the story. O'Reilly claims that FOX is playing it straight with the protests and so the unions are making a big mistake and they better watch out. Hey Bill, It might actually be because FOX News regularly denounces unions as a whole and these WI protests 24/7. These protesters also know that FOX actively helped create and organize the Tea Party protests using their top personalities like Cavuto, Beck, Hannity and Greta as well as many of their guests who advertised on FNC dozens of times they were going to lead protest Tea Party protests themselves and everybody should go and support them. His propaganda is shameful. Alan Colmes did a good job of telling O'Reilly these facts after his talking points segment, but as usual BillO denied that actually occurred and was getting upset about it. Monica "Alesiter" Crowley was on too and was pushing her Armageddon-like fearmongering that the we're all going to die if unions are allowed to exist as usual.

FOX Transcript:

One of the strategies for the pro-union people is to attack Fox News because FNC is one of the few media outlets not sympathizing with the protesters. Rather, we are trying to play it straight. That is not sitting well with some on the union side:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF FLOCK, FOX BUSINESS: Most of the protesters, despite this gentleman here. Most of the people have been…

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fox lies.

FLOCK: …fairly reasoned, calm and willing to talk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fox lies.

FLOCK: Because, as you know, we have done our best to give everybody a voice here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fox lies.

MIKE TOBIN, FOX NEWS: You're going to have to listen beyond the hecklers as I answer your question but yes Gov. Walker shot that right down. He said limiting collective bargaining on a temporary basis is just moving a budget problem along to the next election cycle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we're hoping to go back and try to do a basic calculation of just how many people….

PEOPLE: Tell the truth. Tell the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our best guess at this point that there are hundreds if not…

STUART VARNEY, FOX BUSINESS HOST: OK, and here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to ask you to get off TV for a second. Get on the phone. Get to a place where we will be able to hear you telling the truth and away from that raucous crowd in the background.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

"Talking Points" believes that pro-union demonstrators are making a big mistake by attacking Fox News and portraying themselves as unreasonable.

The Democratic senators in Wisconsin are also making a huge error in leaving the state...read on

Bill then claimed that the disgusting Rasmussen poll was accurate to indicate that it was the people that were losing the battle for public opinion. Nate Silver analyses the polling questions and writes:

Because of the problems with question design, my advice would be simply to disregard the Rasmussen Reports poll, and to view their work with extreme skepticism going forward.

And Americans are supporting the unions over Scott Walker. To FOX, their Big Lie is that the Tea Parties were a totally organic and natural uprising and not sore losers who were aided by Koch Brothers corporation types that funded many of their phony grassroots gatherings. In our book, Over The Cliff, David and I document every step FOX News took in their promotion of the Tea Parties, which was seismic and the first time in the history of broadcasting that a network took such an active roll in creating a movement to derail a newly elected president and the agenda he was elected to enact.

DOWNLOADS: (871)

PLAYS: (3146)

Embed

Now here's an irony: Bill O'Reilly accusing Al Jazeera of being anti-Semitic because it includes guests who clearly fit that description. Meanwhile, the Glenn Beck Anti-Semitic Elephant in the room goes politely ignored.

Of course, what this was really about was, once again, right-wing Fox talkers like O'Reilly and Monica Crowley using unrest abroad as a way to smear liberal Americans as insufficiently patriotic. And so when Alan Colmes called them out for it, his reward was to get the BillO the Bully Full-On Nasty treatment.

It happened last night on O'Reilly's opening "Talking Points Memo" segment:

"Talking Points" could provide hundreds of examples of anti-Semitism and "hate America" rhetoric displayed on Al Jazeera, the network Sam Donaldson admires.

And he's not alone. Here's what Brian Stelter wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday: "As recently as Friday, the conservative Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly branded Al Jazeera as 'anti-America.' … But that view has been largely drowned out by people like [Sam] Donaldson who have hoisted up Al Jazeera English for its protest coverage."

Totally absurd. Any fair-minded person who follows Al Jazeera knows it is anti-American and anti-Semitic. Only on the far left can it find acceptance.

Sure. And it's true that it's there are many examples of anti-Semitic guests on Al Jazeera -- just as it's true that Fox has had on its airwaves a broad assortment of nativists and other far-right extremists over the years as well.

But even more important, one of Fox News' leading anchors -- and a frequent onstage and on-air cohort of O'Reilly's -- is under siege from Jewish rabbis outraged by Beck's anti-Semitic slurs of George Soros and his obscene overuse of Nazi and Holocaust comparisons and metaphors.

Oh well. That -- like any criticism of the network at all -- is NEVER mentioned at Fox.

Because as the segment that followed with Colmes and Crowley amply demonstrated, this was less about bashing Al Jazeera and was really all about bashing liberals -- as Crowley made explicit. And that set off the fireworks:

CROWLEY: Well, I -- I don't want to attribute this directly to Sam Donaldson but I would say to make a broader point that the far left in this country is essentially anti-American.

COLMES: Oh please, now that's disgusting.

CROWLEY: They are -- and so a lot of their -- a lot of their philosophy.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: That's disgusting. That's sickening.

CROWLEY: I'm not saying you, Colmes, I'm saying the broader far left has an anti-American agenda that in many ways dovetails…

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (328)

PLAYS: (3538)

Embed

Right-wingers seem to have a problem understanding how this whole free-speech thing works. They seem to believe, for instance, that it's perfectly acceptable for them to say the most outrageous things imaginable as part of their rights to free speech -- but if someone stands up and exercises their free-speech rights by criticizing what they said, then by God, they're trying to take their rights away!

Like those brilliant minds over at the Right Scoop:

What is really at work here is the Left trying to control the speech of a small group of impressionable people – Republicans. They could care less about how civil the nation is but if they can keep the Republicans from name calling, they end up looking better than they would if Republicans constantly reminded America of their socialist agenda.

This idea intrigues Fox's Megyn Kelly yesterday morning, and so she invited Alan Colmes on to chew it over. She found she had more than she bargained for:

COLMES: When Sarah Palin responds to the State of the Union address and uses the acronym WTF, and says it was a 'WTF' speech, that is really uncalled-for and over the top. That is --

KELLY: Why can't she say that? What is the problem with saying that?

COLMES: I didn't say she couldn't say that. But I have a right to get on the air that's absolutely absurd -- let her say it! In fact, I want her to say more of that stuff! But we have the right to come on and say that's absolutely absurd and ridiculous! I'm not saying anybody should be shut down.

KELLY: Yes, but others are. You're not.

COLMES: Come on, who's saying anybody should be shut down?

KELLY: This call for civility.

COLMES: Wait a minute, Megyn. Who's trying to shut who down? Who's trying to shut anybody down? Who?

KELLY: Well, that's the question. The theory is -- the theory is that this call for civility in fact an effort to silence critics who -- let me just finish the theory -- this is from this article -- the theory is -- other conservatives have said this -- that they're trying to silence Republicans or conservatives or Tea Party people who have been -- who have been successful in winning back control of the House, winning back more seats in the Senate, and they're worried about how successful they might be in 2012.

COLMES: Paul Broun of Georgia, the congressman who said that Obama was just spewing his venom, said the reason Democrats wanted to sit with Republicans was to shut them down, to shut them off, to silence them. That's absurd!

This is a crazy conspiracy right-wing theory that somehow is accusing the Left of when they call for civility, what they really want is to shut you up? No!

What's wrong with just calling for civility for its own sake? So we should be condemned because people on my side call for us to be civil? And they expand this into some kind of bad evil plot to shut you down? That's crazy!

Let's stipulate, perhaps, that civility is a lofty but probably unreachable goal. But let's also stipulate that democratic debate itself is impossible when one side threatens, intimidates, smears, and invokes violent eliminationist rhetoric against the other -- especially if it simultaneously refuses to engage in a debate over the facts of the issues but instead devotes its energy to shrieking hysterically about false "facts" and conspiracy theories.

Civility would be great. But honest, clear debate without the cloud of violence is what we desperately need.

DOWNLOADS: (1101)

PLAYS: (1816)

Embed

Bill O'Reilly thinks the Eric Fuller story is a Big Fracking Deal, revealign the depths of depravity of the "far left" and their use of violence -- so much so that he devoted his opening "Talking Points Memo" segment to this thesis. A little later in the show, he brought on Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley to talk it over.

Crowley, predictably, complained that the "story was buried" by the rest of the media. That's because, in fact, it was rather more similar to the right-wing O'Reilly fan's arrest last week for threatening Rep. Jim McDermott -- which is to say, the story dealt with a threat and not actual violence. Did anyone happen to notice Fox News covering that story? I sure didn't.

But then Colmes started in with some serious points:

COLMES: Look, I object to something you said in the opening talking points. You said that the logical argument could be made that the far left encouraged an unbalanced guy. There's no more evidence of that than that the far right encouraged this guy Loughner to do what he did.

O'REILLY: Wait. There is evidence in the specificity of what the man said. The names that he used in the context of the threat.

Hmmmmm. Well, using that same criteria, we can definitively connect the man who threatened Jim McDermott to Bill O'Reilly now. Because not only did he call and threaten McDermott on the very same day that O'Reilly's column attacking him was published, but the caller specifically threatened McDermott over the very same issue for which O'Reilly attacked him.

But then it got really serious:

O'REILLY: Loughner had no -- and testimony now has revealed -- that he didn't watch cable TV. He didn't listen to talk radio.

COLMES: There is no evidence -- look, you could make the case that Byron Williams went to attack the Tides Foundation and shot up the California Highway Patrol because of stuff that Glenn Beck said about the Tides Foundation.

O'REILLY: You can't make that case.

COLMES: Sure you can. That's just as much equivalency there as what you're talking about!

O'REILLY: No, there isn't, because the overwhelming debate last week was about this story. It wasn't one guy. It was everywhere.

COLMES: But when a guy goes and wants to go attack the Tides Foundation and shoots up the California Highway Patrol because Beck is vilifying them and the ACLU -- there's equivalence!

O'REILLY: All I'll give you is it's circumstantial. But the evidence is far more compelling --

COLMES: You are doing, Bill, the same thing you are accusing the left of doing, by accusing the left of violent rhetoric.

O'REILLY: No I'm not. No I'm not. I'm only dealing in the facts. And the facts as we know it were presented.

O'Reilly is just flat-out lying. Because it was three months ago that a devastating story from Media Matters provided all the evidence you need to make that connection -- since Byron Williams himself went on the record and explained quite ineluctably that he was directly inspired by Glenn Beck.

Here are some of the things Williams said:

"I'm not gonna say anyone is worthwhile," he replies. "I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind. I said, well, nobody does this."

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (2267)

PLAYS: (6212)

Embed

Filling in for Bill O'Reilly last night on Fox, Laura Ingraham led off with a "Talking Points Memo" segment castigating Daisy Khan and the backers of the "Ground Zero Mosque" for having the temerity to point out how the whole debate has served to stir up a real wave of anti-Islamic hatred. Apparently, when minorities under siege in this country stand up for themselves, that's a real sign of "extremism" in Ingraham's book.

But then she brought on Alan Colmes, who promptly called her out for he naked hypocrisy -- having, after all, not so long hosted an interview with Daisy Khan in which Ingraham declared: "I like what you're doing."

COLMES: This is worth seeing who the intolerant people are in this country. It's interesting that the word "tolerance" was used with you and the love fest you had with Liz Cheney. But the real intolerance we're seeing are from those people who don't seem to believe in religious freedom in this country. And I'm interested that you were very much for this when you interviewed Daisy Khan or spoke with her.

INGRAHAM: Actually, you're not reading the transcript correctly, Alan.

COLMES: I did read the transcript.

INGRAHAM: I never said I was for building the mosque--

COLMES: You actually did.

INGRAHAM: --600 feet from Ground Zero.

COLMES: You actually said I don't have a problem--

INGRAHAM: I said I like what you're doing. No, I said--

COLMES: I like what you're doing, which is--

INGRAHAM: No, I said I can't find a lot of people who have a problem with it. I like what she said--

COLMES: Yes.

INGRAHAM: --about bringing Muslims into the American experience.

COLMES: Right and that--

INGRAHAM: And I repeated that last night. Absolutely.

COLMES: And that hasn't changed. That hasn't changed.

INGRAHAM: When she goes on television and calls people who question the positioning of the mosque, where it is, not the right to build it--

COLMES: Right.

INGRAHAM: --but the place of building as people who hate Muslims--

COLMES: You know--

INGRAHAM: --I reject that. That's intolerant.

Memo to Ingraham: There's an important -- and large -- difference between declaring that the opposition to the mosque is stirring up Islamohobia and claiming that everyone who's opposed to the mosque is a bigot. Khan says the former, not the latter.

In any event, Ingraham then immediately retreated to the day's favorite Fox talking point -- namely, the suggestion by the mosque's imam that America has Muslim "blood on its hands" in Iraq:

Continue reading »

David Brooks' next book: Congelicals on the Farm

via Jesus General

David Brooks
The New York Times

Dear Mr. Brooks,

As a resident of the Heartland, I'm tired of being denigrated by faithless blue-staters. My festering anger for these elitists finally erupted full force last Thursday when I saw the Frenchman, Alan Colmes, attack culture of life activist Neal Horsley for engaging in a traditional Heartland pastime...read on

Skippy has a little more about Brooks: shorter krugman: david brooks is a big fat weenie liar

DOWNLOADS: (1116)

PLAYS: (1234)

Embed

Bill O'Reilly's been on a tear lately in pushing the notion that Islam itself is the Enemy of America. Last night -- while sneering that "the media" gave Muslims a break by not blaming Islam for the failed Times Square bombing attempt -- he declared that there are "millions of jihadists" out there

"Millions of them!" he shouted.

Well, no doubt there are large numbers of radical Islamic jihadists -- and more every time O'Reilly opens his mouth on the subject. But millions? I don't know of any expert on the subject who would put the numbers that high.

This continues a recent theme for O'Reilly of demonizing Islam generally. The night before, he had this segment with Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes:

DOWNLOADS: (867)

PLAYS: (1242)

Embed

O'Reilly: Why is it important? The goal of the United States should be to protect its citizens, No. 1, and to defeat the enemy, No. 2. Why is it important to pinpoint that it's Islam? Why is that?

Crowley: Because when you have this inability to call the enemy what it is, then there's no hope of defeating that enemy.

O'Reilly added that "I wanna name Islam", but wasn't sure it would do any good.

Alan Colmes brought some sanity to the discussion by pointing out that Islamic fundamentalist radicals are no more representative of Islam than the Hutaree Christian Militia are representative of Christianity.

Of course, this blew the minds of O'Reilly and Crowley, who promptly short-circuited and dismissed Colmes as "babbling".

What O'Reilly and Crowley can't seem to understand is that it's not only a crude, bigoted smear to declare "Islam" the Enemy, it flies in the face of our many Islamic allies who play critical roles in the "war on terror" (e.g., Turkey and Pakistan).

Oddly enough, a visibly angry Crowley wraps up by explaining: "We're not in a war against a religion, but we are in a war against terrorists who are acting in the name of Islam."

Um, yeah. And that would differ from what Obama has said exactly how?

We are at war. We are at war against al Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people, and that is plotting to strike us again. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them.

And we've made progress. Al Qaeda's leadership is hunkered down. We have worked closely with partners, including Yemen, to inflict major blows against al Qaeda leaders. And we have disrupted plots at home and abroad, and saved American lives.

And we know that the vast majority of Muslims reject al Qaeda. But it is clear that al Qaeda increasingly seeks to recruit individuals without known terrorist affiliations not just in the Middle East, but in Africa and other places, to do their bidding. That's why I've directed my national security team to develop a strategy that addresses the unique challenges posed by lone recruits. And that's why we must communicate clearly to Muslims around the world that al Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death –- including the murder of fellow Muslims –- while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress.