Ann Coulter sides with the Church of the Mouse and the Disco Ball

via Pandagon: Glory be! Little Miss Coulter has arisen from her virgin's chambers to explain why the Texas Capitol should not only install a disco ball in the rotunda but why they should also pay for it. Sure, her defense of our glorious religion comes disguised as more Constitution and freedom bashing nonsense, but read between the lines--the government clearly needs to endorse the religion of drinking Lone Star and listening to the Ramones...read on"

Amanda does a great job of kicking Ann Coulter (as Eric Cartman would say ) "in the nuts."

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It's kind of funny how Bill O'Reilly can benignly declare a nakedly nativist organization like the Minutemen, despite a clear proclivity for attracting racists and violent extremists, "in the great tradition of neighborhood watch groups" -- and indeed assiduously decline to report on it when the violent evidence at hand makes clear they are much, much more than that.

And then he can turn around, as he did last night on The O'Reilly Factor -- assisted by his "internet cop" Amanda Carpenter -- and attack a relatively benign advocacy organization like Presente Action, a project of Color of Change, whose purpose revolves around providing an effective voice on the Web for minorities.

What has his goat, of course, is their campaign to defend Sonia Sotomayor by pointing out the prominent role played by hatemongers like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. So he dismisses them as merely a "tentacle" of MoveOn.org and the "radical left."

Funny how that standard is a one-way street in O'Reillyland.

You have to wonder if maybe he, like Jeff Sessions, believes that "Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another".

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On Reliable Sources this morning, Howard Kurtz brings on Huffington Post's Nico Pitney to deal with two naysayers eager to scream "collusion!" over Nico's question to President Obama this week regarding the Iranian election: WaPo's Dana Milbank and TownHall's Amanda Carpenter. The fact that hyper-partisan Carpenter is even asked her opinion shows how little interest Kurtz had in an honest dialog. Seriously, Amanda, the video shows Nico in the back of the room behind other reporters--your complaining about Nico being "pushed to the front of the room" is discredited just like all your other "facts"--who you gonna believe? Amanda or your lyin' eyes?

But it's Dana Milbank who really gets his bitchy little knickers in a twist. He starts the segment incredibly defensive. It's hard to tell whether Dana is just miffed that he didn't get called on or that some upstart blogger who doesn't get the same Beltway cocktail party invitations asked a better question than he ever has.

This whole media-created "scandal" is ridiculously inane and smacks of a willful short memory which would be comical if it wasn't supplanting much more important discussions. Um, Howie, Dana, Amanda....does the name "Jeff Gannon" ring a bell? Jamison Foser:

Here's the thing: Nobody is actually claiming that Obama knew what question Pitney was going to ask. The allegations of "coordination" and "staging" are premised on the idea that the Obama folks knew what topic Pitney would ask about - Iran.

Well, it isn't all that unusual for a president to have a pretty good idea what topic a reporter is going to ask about. If you call on a reporter from Stars & Stripes or Army Times, you'll probably get a question relating to the military. Call on a Washington Post reporter, and you'll likely get a question about steroids in baseball or haircuts. Call on a New York Times reporter, and there's a pretty good chance he'll ask what enchants you about the White House. Call on a Huffington Post reporter, and they'll probably ask something a little more substantive.[..]

I'm pretty sure Dana Milbank knew what topic he was going to be asked about when he appeared on CNN's Reliable Sources opposite Pitney today. Ohmygod! Dana Milbank and Howard Kurtz coordinated! It was staged!

Oh, the stoopid hypocrisy. It hurts, doesn't it, Dana?

Just to put this into perspective, think about this. Nico Pitney has spent the last two weeks tirelessly developing sources from inside Iran, aggregating every relevant story available on the internet through every available form of the new communication technology and synthesizing one of the most most difficult and important foreign policy stories of the decade.

Dana Milbank has spent the same period bitching about the "low press" getting to ask questions at a press conference and filming snotty little gossip items for his little insider video embarrassment called "Mouthpiece Theatre."

And the newspapers wonder why they're dying. Let me remind all of you that WaPo decided to sack Froomkin, but kept Milbank. So goes the state of "journalism" at the Washington Post.

By the way, when I emailed Nico to congratulate him on a serious smackdown of the Very. Serious. Villager., he shared with me Milbank's comment to him as Kurtz was introducing the next segment: "You're such a dick." You stay classy, Dana.

Adam Green from Open Left spotted one of those Fox News ambush crew outside an ACORN gathering yesterday and decided to have a little fun with them on behalf of Amanda Terkel.

It was Griff Jenkins, there on behalf of Glenn Beck (who barely used Jenkins' stunt on his show, since it was not exactly a success), complete with a small red carpet he rolled out for ACORN officials. Mind you, it was Jesse Watters, not Jenkins, who perpetrated that outrageous stalking of Terkel, but then, the whole ambush-crew approach is such a journalistic travesty it doesn't matter.

Besides, we've seen Jenkins besiege a hapless history prof with bogus misrepresentations of his work, so it's not like he's an innocent in this. And who can forget Griff getting smacked down by Barney Frank?

Indeed, this whole ambush-journalism thing doesn't seem to be working out too well for Griff. He certainly wasn't prepared to deal with Green. Karmic payback and all that.

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Last night on his Fox News show, Bill O'Reilly discussed with Amanda Carpenter a website devoted to the memory of Dr. George Tiller called "I Am Dr. Tiller".

The site, as you can see, features many people from various walks of life -- ministers, health-care providers, medical students, even children -- who are making a public statement about their support for the work Dr. Tiller was engaged in before he was gunned down by a right-wing fanatic named Scott Roeder. They are saying when the fanatics go after Dr. Tiller, they're going after people like them too.

Many of them placed the signs proclaiming, "I am Dr. Tiller" over their faces, O'Reilly asks Carpenter this:

O'Reilly: Well, why are they hiding their faces, Amanda, if it's such a noble cause?

Gee, I dunno, Bill. It couldn't be that they're afraid that, after Bill O'Reilly puts their faces on public display and holds them up for public demonization, some fanatic will walk into their church and shoot them in the head, could it?

Of course, Bill himself would adamantly say No. The rest of us, however, are a different story.

[Incidentally, you can see if you visit the site that not all of them protect their identities; O'Reilly can't even get that right.]

Bloggers Amanda Carpenter (Townhall.com) and Jane Hamsher (firedoglake.com) discuss John McCain, his inability to control North Carolina Republicans over their ads against Barack Obama, Cindy McCain, the "Sugar Momma Express" and ANWAR. Open Thread below...

Good morning, scamps and scoundrels. I’m your round-up guest host for the week, Melissa McEwan, otherwise known as Shakespeare’s Sister (that’s a Smiths’ and Woolf reference, not an egregious bit of braggadocio, cheeky gits!), the bare-knuckled proprietress of Shakesville—a group blog absolutely chock-a-block with shameless purveyors of libertine feminism and the radical gay agenda. Buckle up; off we go…

Egalia over at Tennessee Guerilla Women knows she not the only dummy who expected the Dems to act like an opposition party.

The Heretik helpfully suggests they could try actually opposing something.

Peter at Right Wing Watch finds that professional a**hole Randall Terry is heartbroken by Pat Robertson's endorsement of Giuliani and his "hypocritical and seductive evil."

Amy at Incertus puts on her science geek cap to take a look at what brains are saying about the candidates.

Eric Hopp raises his voice once again in support of universal healthcare, in the wake of the news that the US is among the worst in the world for infant deaths.

Dave Neiwert provides space for Trefayne to take a stroll down Memory Lane and spend some time with Ron Paul's Congressional record.

Amanda finds one more reason for people in the Reality-Based Community to avoid seeing Bee Movie, if anyone still needed one.

And over at WIMN's Voices, the lovely Echidne takes a look at the alarming allegation that feminism killed the Neanderthals. We're so powerful, evidently, we can retroactively kill entire species! Mwah ha ha ha!

That’s all for today. Seeya tomorrow! If you’ve got any hot tips, email me at shakespeares_sister at comcast dot net.

I'm joining in to the music discussion that started over the weekend. The music world has changed incredibly in a short period of time, (technology, copyright laws, the Internet, etc...) so what's the big deal if bands let commercials use their music for a hefty fee? Back in "the day," it was the cool thing for a band to not "sell out" to the man, but as Amanda says: "That is so 20th Century." I still cringe a bit when I hear a Hendrix song on a commercial, but the times are a changin' and it has always been a struggle to make it in the music world.

What's sad is that the music industry knew that the dynamic was changing because of technology; file sharing in part was developed by them, but they sat on their hands because they DID NOT WANT to set a precedent. I'll have more on this later...

TOWER records went out of business and as expensive as a CD was, I still enjoyed browsing the store. Bands have huge costs to consider. A major tour takes a load of cash to pull off---now figure how hard it is for a lesser known band to do the same. When I toured with John Taylor (mostly for the House of Blues chain around the country) in the late 90's, Sixpence None the Richer opened for us. They were a great bunch of people and soon after they had a few hit songs, but they were just getting by...Duncan talks about supporting bands you like.

I find a lot of new music on TV these days. It seems like many more shows since Buffy are putting out compilation discs and featuring either new artists or old classics in their episodes...HOUSE, MD highlights some great music at the end of each episode most of the time..

Matt Yglesisas put together his: Ultimate Nineties Alt-Rock Playlist

Amanda resigned yesterday. Pandagon is going up and down right now...

Check out the hate filled diatribes by the Bill Donohue clan...Try this one as an alternative...

Bob Geiger: Frist blames Dems for "do-nothing congress," and gets his ass handed to him. After the mid-terms, expect to see a new GOP boss and even Jim “Iraq is nothing short of a miracle” Inhofe heading the Armed Services Committee

The Hollywood Liberal: We gotta educate 'em...!

Stop Big Media: Media consolidation shuts out women and minorities

Lassiter Space: Republican campaign staffers are posing as Democrats to spam progressive blogs in NJ.

My Dem.org: Are you registered to vote? Are you sure? This site was created to give you the tools you need to make sure your vote counts.

AmandaAcrossAmerica: One video blogger interviews another. Amanda talks with Josh Wolf who is currently in federal custody for refusing to turn over video material to authorities.