I hope you caught Max Blumenthal on the IFC channel last week. He did a great piece on the Tea Party movement which he follows up close and personal.

My thirty minute documentary on the Tea Party and right-wing fear-mongering airs tonight at 8PM ET on the Independent Film Channel.

The Denver Post admires the series and praises the research Max has done on his 30 minutes episode called "Fear."

He knows some of the topics we covered all too well and wrote an amazing blurb about our new book:

“If you want to understand the forces behind the extreme demonization of President Obama and the assault on progressive America, look no further than Over the Cliff. With witty analysis and thorough investigative reporting, Amato and Neiwert provide a definitive chronicle of the far-right’s rapid movement from paranoia to outright violence. —Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party

That was very kind of Max. Yes, I'll be posting about the book since it's my first one. I'm tremendously excited about it and I was very fortunate to be working with David on this project.

Don't forget, you can grab a copy here.

OTC is the #13 ranked book in Politics on Amazon right now and you know how competitive I am. You can also buy it from all the major online retailers and Over the Cliff is now available as an ePUB and mobi-Kindlen on PoliPoint.com.

And we have all the end notes listed on our Over The Cliff website which is a great resource guide in of itself. Check out the notes on Chapter 3: Reaping the Whirlwind, as an example.

I think I need to do some real investigative reporting to check out why the RNC's favorite LA hangout club is Voyeur.

Washington Post:

Although it is not unusual for either party to spend money in tony settings to cater to wealthy donors, the RNC's latest filings captured widespread attention for one expenditure at a risque nightclub: $1,946.25 for "meals" at Voyeur in West Hollywood, which features topless dancers wearing horse bridles and other bondage gear while mimicking sex acts.

The committee fired an unidentified staff member as a result of the disbursement and emphasized Monday that Steele had not visited the club and was not aware of the expenditure. The reimbursement went to Erik Brown, a Southern California GOP donor who has spent time with Steele in the past and whose marketing firm has earned more than $160,000 from the RNC and other Republican committees, according to campaign disclosure records.

I believe it's important to think like a conservative in this climate so that we can better understand their ridiculous actions and what better way than to check out Voyeur for myself. I'm sure David Vitter could fill me in too, but my attempts at contacting Diaper Dan's office has not resulted in an interview.

Vitter still loves the South, though.

The hooker-loving Vitter shot back with this:

"I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values," said Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "There are a lot of us from the South who hold those values, which I think the party is supposed to be about. We strayed from them in the past few years, and that's why we performed so badly in the national elections."

...Mr. Vitter also criticized Mr. Voinovich for voting last week against a failed amendment sponsored by Mr. Vitter and Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican, to expand Americans' ability to carry concealed weapons.

"He's a moderate, really wishy-washy," Mr. Vitter said.

Let's see who has it right---a moderate, or a diaper dandy?

Vitter was pretty hard on Voinovich, but I guess he feels he has to uphold true conservative values---like going to clubs like Voyeur.

I wouldn't ask for almost two grand to go to the club if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Since there will be no real travel costs except some gas, I'll be able to get the real sense of the place.

Do your part for investigative journalism. Our motto: Hey, at least we're more honest than Breitbart!

I meant to get to this earlier in the week. It's so illustrative of the problems with our corporate media that the guy who wins a Pulitzer prize for investigative reporting is ignored - because he was investigating the corporate media for stacking the deck with paid sources to support the Iraq war:

On the April 20 edition of NBC's Nightly News, reporting on the awarding of the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes earlier that day, anchor Brian Williams stated that "The New York Times led the way with five, including awards for breaking news and international reporting." But Williams did not note that the Times' David Barstow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting that day "for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended." Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented the unwillingness of the major broadcast networks, including NBC, to report on Barstow's April 20, 2008, Times article. Moreover, NBC joined ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in reportedly declining to participate in a segment based on Barstow's article that aired on the April 24, 2008, edition of PBS' NewsHour.

In an April 29 post on his MSNBC.com blog, Williams responded to Barstow's April 20 article, describing NBC News analyst military analyst Barry R. McCaffrey and Wayne Downing, who died in July 2007, as "honest brokers" and writing that McCaffrey and Downing were "warriors-turned-analysts, not lobbyists or politicians":

All I can say is this: these two guys never gave what I considered to be the party line. They were tough, honest critics of the U.S. military effort in Iraq. If you've had any exposure to retired officers of that rank (and we've not had any five-star Generals in the modern era) then you know: these men are passionate patriots. In my dealings with them, they were also honest brokers. I knew full well whenever either man went on a fact-finding mission or went for high-level briefings. They never came back spun, and never attempted a conversion. They are warriors-turned-analysts, not lobbyists or politicians.

Glenn Greenwald has more:

Continue reading »

Will Bunch is taking a short sabbatical from AttyTood for a special project that sounds right up our alley, and he's got some questions for you:

One of the ways that journalism must change is that we must start and -- in the case of this site -- continue our two-way dialogue with the community, as oppose to talking down to some unseen "audience" (that's been fast disappearing, anyway). This project isn't just advocating that conversation, but it is an embrace of that.

So, what do you want to see from the news organization of the immediate future?

If the phony objectivity and on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand balance of the late 20th Century didn't work, what should replace it?

How can journalists better become part of their community, and become voices of the everyday people, and not mouthpieces for the powerful people that we cover?

How can mainstream journalists and bloggers work together for a better informed American public?

In an era of shrinking print advertising and a not-so-promising picture for online ads, either, who will pay for investigative reporting?

Do you, as a citizen and reader, have a role to play in the creation of journalism? If so, what is that role?

We've been all waiting for an op-ed to come out about Judy from the NY Times. Maureen Dowd is the first to answer the call.

Gilliard has some analysis. Let's just say that Maureen didn't hold back:

"The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy - her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur - have never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types."

You can see where she's going.

"Judy admitted in the story that she "got it totally wrong" about W.M.D. "If your sources are wrong," she said, "you are wrong." But investigative reporting is not stenography....read on .

Booman Tribune: In an explosive article that will further shake the foundations of the White House, Italy’s la Repubblica has released the second installation of their investigative reporting on the Niger document forgeries. The American Prospect gives us a summary in English and confirms that Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley met with the chief of SISMI in 2002 about the documents....

If the White House knew that one of its own was involved in perpetuating the case of the false Niger/uranium claims, that would definitely explain why they went after Joe Wilson and his wife. They knew that blaming it all on the CIA could not hold up forever and that Wilson’s revelations were a direct threat to their cabal....read on

The Novak column falsely and maliciously accuses her of conflict of interest by orchestrating a hearing to grill Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) while her husband consulted for the Association of Public Television Stations.... I know something about investigations, perhaps even about investigative reporting, which, as a matter of basic fairness, involves talking to both sides to find the facts."

It's just not a good day for Bob! Is he calling Novak a hack?