Amos Lee-Soul Suckers

Did you believe them

When they told you they discovered you

And that everything is free as long as you do what they tell you to

You think it's true

But nothing could be further from the truth, my love

Did you even listen

When they told you to change your name

And that nobody wants honesty when looking at a perfect frame

Play the game

It's a particularly uninspired line up for the Sunday shows. By the sheer number of Judiciary Committee members scheduled (Chairman Pat Leahy, Ranking Minority Member Jeff Sessions, Chuck Schumer, John Kyl and Dianne Feinstein) that Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan will be the topic of choice. Elsewhere, Pennsylvania Senate Democratic rivals Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak face one another on State of the Union. And if you're looking for something a little on the lighter side, former First Lady Laura Bush will be on Fox and Friends to pimp her new book.

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Andrew Sullivan, Katty Kay, Joan Biskupic and Pete Williams. Topics: The Goldilocks Pick: Why Do Liberals Fear Elena Kagan is Just Alright? Why Politics Favors Arizona's Tough Immigration Law

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Bob Bennett, R-Utah; Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Prime Minister of Greece, the David Cameron and Nick Clegg coalition in Britain and a roundtable discussion on the global economy with Larry Summers.

"Fox News Sunday" - Former first lady Laura Bush and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

DOWNLOADS: (1349)

PLAYS: (1984)

Embed

Fox News' morning crews -- both Fox and Friends and the regular newsroom -- were going ape about the Moonie Times' report on the pushback by liberal Democrats on including undocumented immigrants in the current health-care reform effort:

Fearful that they're losing ground on immigration and health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access.

The Democrats, trying to stiffen their party's spines on the contentious issue, say it's unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, they say, regardless of how long they've been in the United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if they meet the other eligibility requirements.

"Legal permanent residents should be able to purchase their plans, and they should also be eligible for subsidies if they need it. Undocumented, if they can afford it, should be able to buy their own private plans. It keeps them out of the emergency room," said Rep. Michael M. Honda, California Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Of course, this really is only common sense, especially from a public-health perspective; do we really want people not getting treated for contagious diseases simply because they can't prove they're here legally?

However, as sensible as it may be, these efforts realistically have little chance of succeeding, given the toxic political environment about immigration and health-care reform that's been floating about us ever since Joe Wilson shouted out, "You lie!"

Nonetheless, this set wingnut gums a-flapping about the horrid prospect of actually using taxpayer dollars for something they're already required by law to pay for anyway.

And the folks at Fox were all over this angle. Notably, they kept referring to these immigrants as "illegals". Illegals, illegals, illegals -- it was running on the chryon and out of their mouths.

There's a reason the National Association of Hispanic Journalists urges their colleagues to avoid dehumanizing terms like "illegals":

The term criminalizes the person rather than the actual act of illegally entering or residing in the United States without federal documents. Terms such as illegal alien or illegal immigrant can often be used pejoratively in common parlance and can pack a powerful emotional wallop for those on the receiving end.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1295)

PLAYS: (3340)

Embed

We wondered, back when the Tea Party Express was running ads on Fox, why they bothered, since they'd soon be getting all the free advertising they could ask for.

And sure enough, Griff Jenkins has been filing reports from the multiple cross-country stops for the tour since its outset, provided for all the various Fox anchors (Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren, Neal Cavuto, Bill O'Reilly, the Fox and Friends crew) to feature in their regular broadcasts.

Quelle surprise: they haven't had to run any ads on Fox since they started touring.

Most of the time, Jenkins -- who's clearly cheerleading this effort and not trying in the least to act like an actual reporter -- at least has bothered to mostly feature interviews with attending teabaggers, so as to at least create the appearance of some semblage of journalism in these reports.

But last night, on Sean Hannity's show, Jenkins just dropped the pretense, and gathered the teabaggers in New York behind him as props and launched into a rant about how these events were all about average Americans taking back America from an out-of-control federal government. He wasn't reporting; he was essentially being a paid propagandist for the Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which is the sponsor of this event.

And the funny thing is, as we reported earlier, the Our Country Deserves Better PAC has ALWAYS been about opposing whatever policies President Obama pursues. That is, this is a specifically anti-Obama campaign, and the rhetoric about "out of control government" is a fig leaf:

The "Our Country Deserves Better" PAC, in fact, was founded in August 2008 -- before the election -- specifically to oppose Barack Obama and his policies. (They called it "drawing contrasts between Senator Barack Obama and John McCain".) In October 2008, for instance, Williams was out on the stump campaigning against Obama as a "socialist" on a previous bus tour called the "Stop Obama Express". They've also runs ads comparing Obama to Hitler.

Jenkins claimed this was "black and white," but the crowd shots are almost completely of white faces. Moreover, I'll wager that every single one of them is a disappointed Republican -- if not a McCain voter, then a Ron Paul voter.

In fact, a better name for the whole enterprise would be The Sore Loser Express. Because that's who's coming out for these things -- people who think they can get a do-over on the election.

Including the fine folks at Fox, evidently.

DOWNLOADS: (2173)

PLAYS: (3874)

Embed

Kenneth Gladney is doing his best to cash in on his 15 seconds of fame, following his fake "brutal assault" at the hands of SEIU supporters outside a St. Louis "town hall" on health care. Today he went on Fox and Friends with his attorney, Dave Brown, who announced that he wanted local prosecutors to pursue the case as a "hate crime."

Mr. Brown appears to be confused about just what constitutes a "hate crime". Namely, it take more than merely the matter of Gladney being a black man to qualify as such a crime; indeed, the main qualification has to be that a bias motivation has to be present. That is, prosecutors would have to establish that the people being charged were motivated by the victim's race.

Gladney claims that he was called the N-word -- but the man using that word was another black man. Proving a motivation of bias against blacks will be pretty difficult under those circumstances.

Moreover, if you go back and look at the tape, a couple of other things are worth noting:

-- It's the black man with whom Gladney apparently first had a verbal altercation who we see lying on his back on the street when the tape opens. If anyone can claim to be assaulted here, it's this man.

-- It's not clear that any actual assault occurred here at all. Gladney is pushed to the ground by someone trying to clear space for his friend. Certainly, given that Gladney appears to be just fine for most of the rest of the video, there's no evidence that he suffered any harm whatsoever in the incident.

And in order to file a hate-crime charge, any prosecutor will have to prove first that a crime was committed -- well before he can even look into the question of whether it was committed with a bias motivation. Considering that both appear extremely unlikely, Brown and Gladney are clearly both just grandstanding.

Besides ... aren't conservatives opposed to hate-crimes laws as a matter of principle?

DOWNLOADS: (1088)

PLAYS: (4708)

Embed

Everyone but Fox analysts pretty much celebrated yesterday's release of the two American women held hostage in North Korea, thanks to Bill Clinton's diplomatic efforts.

On Fox and elsewhere on the right, as Ben Armbruster at Think Progress observes, it's all a bunch of sour grapes, claiming that we gave Pyongyang a propaganda victory. All of which goes to prove the old adage that ideologues think ideas are more important than people.

The worst of the bunch, though, had to be that sewer-dwelling toe-sucking gnome, Dick Morris, on Fox and Friends this morning with Gretchen Carlson, during which he called Clinton's successful negotations "ridiculous":

Carlson: How are we supposed to get the girls home, though, Dick? And I only have 30 seconds. How are we supposed to get them home?

Morris: I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they don't come home. Maybe they go to North Korea and live with the consequences of their decision to go there.

These people are really beyond redemption, aren't they?

DOWNLOADS: (998)

PLAYS: (4797)

Embed

[H/t Media Matters]

Brian Kilmeade put on a classic display of the way today's right-wingers cling to old half-baked notions of race and eugenics yesterday morning on Fox and Friends, discussing a Scandinavian study of the benefits of marriage:

Kilmeade: Leave it to the Finns and Swedes to come up with something. Because that's a -- we are, we're a, we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other --

[Crosstalk]

Kilmeade: I mean the Swedes -- the Swedes have, uh, pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes. Because that's the rule. Finland -- Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody. So we marry Italians and Irish and --

Dave Briggs: OK, so this study does not apply.

Kilmeade: It does not apply to us.

Other species? We marry other species? Since when? What, is this the man-on-dog sex that Rick Santorum was on about?

And what the hell do "pure genes" -- whatever those are -- have to do with marriage behavior?

It's astonishing, really, the level of complete and utter idiocy that passes for professional news talk on our cable TV these days. Charles Pierce is right.

DOWNLOADS: (1511)

PLAYS: (13374)

Embed

Gretchen Carlson of Fox and Friends was all worked up this morning over something she read off the Christian Newswire -- and in typical Fox fashion, proceeded to report on only the religious right's spin of the event.

The story involves the Pentagon's decision not to have its Air Force jets do their annual flyover at the "God and Country Family Festival" in Nampa, Idaho last weekend. She had on Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, which is constantly on the lookout for "anti-Christian" activities on the part of whatever miscreants it can manufacture. It produced this exchange:

Carlson: So when I first read this story, I actually found it hard to believe. Because for 42 years, at this rally in Idaho, the Pentagon has authorized a flyover. Suddenly this year, a new president in office, and a new policy. What do you make of it?

Mahoney: Well, we're stunned, actually, and it's a reminder that our Constitution promises freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. I think the viewers need to understand, the flyovers that were held for 42 years were not to endorse or promote any religion, but to honor the military, who was there in force.

Actually, the promoters of the event told the local paper otherwise:

Organizers don't deny the explicitly Christian nature of the annual patriotic rally.

"Yes, it's about as Christian as you can get — we believe in promoting Christianity," Syme said. "And we have no plans to change that."

Regardless, Mahoney charged on:

Mahoney: I think it causes one to pause and say, 'What changed? After 42 years, what changed?' And Gretchen, the only indicator we have is that we have a new commander in chief.

And I think that we are wondering, when we look at President Obama: Is there a culture of hostility toward expressions of faith in the public square -- particularly Christian?

Let's put this in context. Several months ago, the president spoke at Georgetown University; when he spoke there, he covered a cross, and he covered a sacred symbol for the name of Jesus. He did not celebrate the National Day of Prayer at the White House, had no events at the White House, and yet just a couple of weeks ago we had a major reception to celebrate Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in June.

So we need to move -- we right now are filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the American Center for Law and Justice, and we want to get to the bottom of this to ensure that no American citizen and no group is denied access to the public square because of their faith tradition.

Of course, I've never heard that "sucking up taxpayer dollars by employing the military for your entertainment" was a matter of having "access to the public square" before. It's a novel concept, but not one likely to fly in court.

But Carlson notes that of course the eeeeeevil Daily Kos endorses the Pentagon's enforcement of its longstanding policy. So I went looking and discovered that she was referring not to a front-page piece but rather a diary by Chris Rodda -- and a very good one at that, which explains that the Pentagon was actually finally responding to complaints filed by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. And what happened was that the Pentagon finally agreed to enforce its longstanding policy against permitting military participation in religious events:

Looking into this issue for MRFF (in what I wrongly thought was going to be a very temporary job), I found that the Stone Mountain event was far from an isolated incident. The military was regularly providing flyovers at countless evangelical Christian events all over the country, not only violating the regulations prohibiting military participation in religious events, but spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money in the process.

MRFF began exposing these events, which included flyovers on the five holidays when flyovers at civilian events are permitted, and even a few at National Day of Prayer events, and began to see some decline in their frequency, but we weren't sure if the number of flyovers at these events was really decreasing, or if the military and organizers of these events were just being more careful not to make the nature of the events so obvious.

Well, needless to say, the following letter denying, for the first time in 42 years, the request for a flyover at one Christian rally, released on many websites in conjunction with a Christian Newswire article titled "Pentagon Denies Flyover of Patriotic 'God and Country Rally' in Nampa Idaho Because of its Christian Content," was the best 4th of July present MRFF could have asked for.

The letter read in part:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1407)

PLAYS: (6667)

Embed

Did someone in the Obama administration force Chrysler, as part of its reorganization, to order the closure of auto dealerships mostly among Republicans, while leaving Democratic-owned dealerships intact?

Naaaah. What, are you kidding me? But, you know, it sounded really good to Michelle Malkin. Mostly because she loves to fancy herself an "investigative journalist" and these kinds of "scoops" entrance her on a regular basis. Of course, the fact that none of them ever pan out seems not to deter her in the slightest.

Malkin, along with her intrepid pals at Newsbusters and a variety of other right-wing blogs, were all over it yesterday. Malkin appeared on Fox and Friends in the morning to tout her latest liberal-perfidy theory.

Too bad it took only a flick of Nate Silver's wrist to blow it all to smithereens. Seems that when you go looking at political donations by occupation, people who list "auto dealers" or some variation thereof are Republican by about an 8-1 margin:

Overall, 88 percent of the contributions from car dealers went to Republican candidates and just 12 percent to Democratic candidates. By comparison, the list of dealers on Doug Ross's list (which I haven't vetted, but I assume is fine) gave 92 percent of their money to Republicans -- not really a significant difference.

There's no conspiracy here, folks -- just some bad math.

It shouldn't be any surprise, by the way, that car dealers tend to vote -- and donate -- Republican. They are usually male, they are usually older (you don't own an auto dealership in your 20s), and they have obvious reasons to be pro-business, pro-tax cut, anti-green energy and anti-labor. Car dealerships need quite a bit of space and will tend to be located in suburban or rural areas. I can't think of too many other occupations that are more natural fits for the Republican Party.

You can just toss this one on the ashheap of such discarded Malkin "investigative scoops" as the General Ripperesque notion that the Flight 93 memorial is actually a tribute to the terrorists or that a suicide bomber in Oklahoma was the forerunner of an Islamic conspiracy there. She likewise groundlessly attacked the Pulitzer winner in photography as a secret Jihadi sympathizer; attacked USA Today with conspiratorial accusations for a badly retouched photo; and perhaps most notoriously, tried to ferret out a nefarious conspiracy by the Associated Press in Baghdad that turned out to be completely false. Though perhaps nothing quite matches her attack on a 12-year-old that again turned out to be a case of overwrought right-wing fantasizing. But then, that incident pretty much was a case of self-immolation.

Steve Benen and Bob Cesca have more.

DOWNLOADS: (1650)

PLAYS: (5051)

Embed

Rep. Paul Broun, R-GA, was on Fox and Friends yesterday touting his proposal to have Congress officially designate 2010 "The Year of the Bible", and he had an interesting rationale for it:

Broun: Well, it's all about freedom, actually. The Bible was the basis of our laws, it was the basis of the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence -- the Bible was the founding source.

Hmmmmm. Well, some of us have heard otherwise, but OK, whatever.

You may remember Rep. Broun. Last November he won lots of friends on both sides of the aisle and in the White House when he warned that Obama was preparing a Hitler-like dictatorship with his civilian-youth-corps proposal: "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did ... When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Broun is, of course, asking President Obama to issue this proclamation. And what will Obama achieve by issuing it?

Broun: The Bible was the basis of our nation. And as we look to the future, and as we deal with our economic problems, as we're stealing our grandchildren's future, we need to look at the principles that were taught Biblically. When our Founding Fathers established this country, they established it on freedom. That's what the Bible teaches. Every single one of our laws are based on the Biblical precepts. And we need to turn back to those precepts if our country's going to be strong and great again.

It's absolutely critical for us to understand what freedom's all about, what our own responsibility is all about, and what government's function within our society is supposed to be. And we have forgotten that in Washington. We are heading down a road that's going to destroy our nation. We are headed toward a total government control of everybody's lives -- a loss of freedom, a loss of our money, a loss of our private property -- and it's extremely critical now for us to go back to those foundational principles that this country was founded upon.

That's the reason a proclamation of "The Year of the Bible" will help people understand what the importance of those, um, principles are all about as we go forward to make our nation secure, free, and great again.

Oh. OK. So you want President Obama to issue this proclamation so right-wing nutcases like yourself can hijack the entire text of the Bible to promote your teabagging brand of politics. Whose entire purpose is to undermine the agenda of both the president and the Democratic Congress.

Right. Well, lots of luck with that, Rep. Broun.

You can't make this stuff up.

DOWNLOADS: (2045)

PLAYS: (5484)

Embed

David Neiwert posted about David Zurawik's frothy appearance with Howard Kurtz last weekend as he bashed MSNBC. On 'Reliable Sources,' David Zurawik decries heated cable talk by shrieking about MSNBC's 'fascism'

Zurawik felt compelled to explain himself in a little more detail online.

As you can see from the video, I am harder on MSNBC than Fox, because this NBC sister channel has outrageously decided it doesn't have to cover news on weekends and holidays -- and yet, still calls itself a news channel.I have to admit, it is a great business moldel: Don't cover the news. let someone fulfill that expensive task. We'll just put on ideologues like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and let them mock our opponents as we opine about the news that others like CNN went to trouble and expense of gathering and verifying.

He's upset because they choose to run some of those Locked Up episodes during the weekend, really? Here's a little info for Z: MSNBC does cover the news on the weekends, they just don't do it 24/7. He should probably check their schedule sometime before making the claim that they don't cover the news on Saturday and Sunday. And WTF does that have to do with how they cover the news in general or if they are biased in their reporting? Which is worse, showing some non-news shows on the weekend, or pushing a political agenda 24 hours a day, seven days a week for as many years as they've been on the air?

Fox News tries to shrug off their right-wing bias by saying they have opinion talking heads, so they don't consider those shows to be news. But if anyone -- and that means you, David -- were to watch Fox News, starting with Fox and Friends right up through Neil Cavuto, you would see a right-wing bias that would make your head spin -- all dressed up as news reporting. Heavy anti-union messages, insane free-market Wall Streeters and anti-Obama segments dominate their coverage, but somehow Z isn't outraged by that behavior as much.

Sure, MSNBC's opinion lineup, from Hardball to Maddow is largely center-left commentators, but they start their mornings with three hours of Joe Scarborough before going into seven straight hours of news blocks that for the most part interview politicians from both parties along with the usual battle of the consultants. Andrea Mitchell has her own hour and you can't call her a lefty.

So while I agree with some of Z's complaints, please get some basic facts straight. And his criticism of MSNBC gives us a look into the window of the mind of a Villager critic.

And yes, these cable shows have hurt America, because they are always looking for a "conflict" which will increase ratings rather than examine the news and issues at hand with an emphasis to inform us rather than persuade of. This approach aided Bush and Cheney in their quest to go and invade Iraq, and look where that has taken us: Thousands dead, innocents lost, billions of dollars spent, torture, military commissions and wiretapping soon followed. Good job, cable news.