It's day two of our C&L '09 fundraiser. We're reaching out to our readers and asking for your help so that the MSM and Corporate media do not overrun the blogosphere with Villagers. With ad revenues way down and the corporate elites funneling in millions of dollars to compete with us, it's going to be hard for all blogs to thrive and survive.

David Neiwert, who is the best expert we have today on right wing hate talk radio and hate groups, has become the managing editor of C&L.

Jane Hamsher writes:

There are lot of people on TV saying irresponsible things about the shooting at the Holocaust museum (one mentioned the "Obama effect," as if this was something that Obama's election precipitated).

If any TV bookers are looking for someone knowledgeable to speak on the subject, they should call David Neiwert. David blogs at Orcinus, he's the managing editor of Crooks & Liars, he's an expert on the subject and the author the new book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right.

David actually predicted something like this in the book. You can find more on the book here on David's book salon, which was hosted by Digby.

If any media folks need contact info for David, drop me a line.

Thanks, Jane, for your kind words about David. He'll be on the air this morning on MSNBC and has been a great addition to the site. Our initial goal is to reach at least $50,000, and the target is to get up to and beyond $100,000. Day I of the donation drive: C&L's Donation Drive '09: Please help save blogs before we're overrun by the corporate media was awesome. Yesterday we had over 200 people donate and hit the six thousand dollar mark, which was really a great start. I know this will take time and energy. I'd like to pay more money to the people that help make C&L a good blog and I do need to hire a few more bloggers and staffers because the workload is so tremendous.

I'll write more about this in the next posts, so please, donate if you can. You can also use snail mail to make your donation.

For Snail Mail:

Crooksandliars.com

P.O. Box 66310

Los Angeles, CA 90066

We're reaching out to our readers and asking for your help so that the MSM and Corporate media do not overrun the blogosphere with Villagers. They are funneling in millions of dollars to compete with and ultimately drive away independent bloggers so that they can rule the Internet. And the kind of cash they are pouring in is staggering.

It's hard to compete with that since the economy is way down, and I think what we've accomplished is in jeopardy if the Internet doesn't step up to help us all, including other blogs that you like. So please donate what you can.

As you've seen, C&L has been expanding and improving the site and we need your help to continue to make more improvements and add more bodies to keep it going. We've released a host of new sites, including our Supreme Court blog Third Branch, the excellent Video Cafe, an expanded LNMC that is breaking new music and bringing music stars to our pages and finallythe very cool Newstalgia--which is posting the most extensive historic audio and video content on the web today. We've also released our first embeddable video player that now lets you embed all videos you see on C&L. This has taken a lot of time, effort and money to do, but we're succeeding. The economy is way down and it's affecting the blogs as well.

Our initial goal is to reach at least 50,000 dollars and the target is to get up to and beyond 100,000. I know this will take time and energy. As you've seen we're also reaching into the blogosphere and hiring bloggers to make C&L an even better site and to reward some of our own. The workload is tremendous. David Neiwert is now the managing editor and Susy Madrak has become a valued front-pager. Max Bernstein is handing the Late Nite Music Club and Gordon Skene is digging into his amazing time vault to bring us historical content that is relevant to today's news and Heather is leading the charge at Video Cafe. Now we're looking to hire video bloggers, a researcher, extra site monitors and an investigative journalist, but we can't do it without your help.

The money is going to be poured right back into C&L and into the hands of our own. It's a daunting task to keep the content flowing, even the MSM has recognized our efforts:

It's wild knowing that we've had over 200 million visitors and growing, so won't you please help us? You can also use snail mail to make your donation.

For Snail Mail:

Crooksandliars.com

P.O. Box 66310

Los Angeles, CA 90066

Continue reading »

DOWNLOAD (59)

PLAY (116)

Well, now we know what it takes to get a response to legitimate questions about their candidate out of the McCain/Palin campaign: Appear on CNN.

I did so today, on Rick Sanchez's CNN Newsroom program, where we discussed the Salon piece Max Blumenthal and I co-wrote and its ramifications. Sanchez was particularly focused on Palin's connections to the Alaskan Independence Party, so that was the bulk of our discussion. (I'll update with the transcript when it's available.) [Update: Here is the transcript.]

Now, when we were preparing the Salon piece for publication, I contacted the McCain/Palin campaign first by phone to ask for their reactions to our report's findings. They asked me to send an e-mail, which I did. But I never heard a word back from them.

So today, after CNN picked up the story, they were in fact able to elicit the following response:

CNN is furthering a smear with this report, no different than if your network ran a piece questioning Senator Obama's religion. No serious news organization has tried to make this connection, and it is unfortunate that CNN would be the first.

We are trying to arrange to have one of the Governor's people come on air to respond in the event you do run this piece.

A few points about this:

-- A smear by definition is untrue. However, everything in our story is fully documented. We've even posted the relevant documents here so readers can judge the accuracy of the story for themselves.

-- This is not about Sarah Palin's faith; it's about her conduct as a public official.

-- In fact, CNN is not the first network to pick up on this story. Rachel Maddow at MSNBC in fact featured Blumenthal on her Thursday night broadcast, when the story first broke, to talk about it.

If Team McCain wants to convince anyone this is merely a "smear", they're going to have to demonstrate some falsity or distortion first.

What we've already heard from some Palin defenders is that this report is merely another attempt at "guilt by association."

But "guilt by association," by definition, involves an entirely irrelevant association (which describes the William Ayers "connection" to a T). Palin's associations with the "Patriot" right, however, are entirely relevant, because they reflect directly on her conduct as a public official and her judgment. They also, I should add, reflect on a deeper level the kind of right-wing populism she's been indulging in recent weeks.