They gave us a republic.: GOP supports survival of the fittest

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Crooked Timber: Bookblogging: the reanimation of trickle down

Southern Beale: Nut Allergies

The Washington Monthly: "Stupak happens to be wrong"

Mad Kane’s Political Madness: Chip Off the Old Crock

(Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com)

It's not just the hair that makes him look foolish, but the words he utters from his mouth. Here's his latest buffoonery.

Donald Trump is not a big believer in global warming. "With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore," the tycoon told members of his Trump National Golf Club in Westchester in a recent speech. "Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn't care less. It would make us totally noncompetitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America's stupidity." The crowd of 500 stood up and cheered.

Is this supposed to be taken seriously? Isn't it winter on the East Coast and doesn't it usually snow there? Is this his proof?

Please Lord, help us all.

The HuffPo reports:

"The Donald" did not include Vancouver's unseasonably warm temperatures and lack of snow in his weather observations. After last week's record-breaking storms, many scientists went to great lengths to explain that the storms do not disprove climate change. Some even believe that climate change contributed to the storms.

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It's actually quite rare for Glenn Beck to invite onto his Fox News show a guest he disagrees with. Most often he's playing fanboy to the likes of Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg, which means that the show is usually an hourlong right-wing mutual-admiration society. This means the Glenn Beck show largely is a big Snoozarama, livened up only by Beck's weepy wingnuttery.

But yesterday he invited on Scott Levinson of ACORN, which Beck has been chasing after and demonizing since last summer's campaign. As you can see, the entire exchange turns into a fiasco when Beck refuses to respond to Levinson's points and begins instead showing videos of a Burger King worker bathing in a sink.

At one point, Beck even orders Levinson's mike turned off.

Even more remarkably, after Levinson was off camera, Beck continued to attack him on the camera -- relaying to the audience the argument that ensued afterward (Levinson accused Beck, evidently, of being afraid of black people), calling him a "dirtbag," and then later telling his audience that Levinson had hit up on one of his female assistants in the green room.

Wow.

Continue reading »

Akron Beacon Journal:

It was the first gubernatorial debate in Ohio history, possibly the United States, in which one candidate accused the other of being applauded by the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).

J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor who is trailing by double digits in most polls with three weeks until the election, went on the offensive in the fourth and final debate Monday night against Democrat Ted Strickland.

[..]To recap, Blackwell said Strickland did not vote for a resolution condemning sex between adults and children as a U.S. congressman.

That vote led NAMBLA, an organization that promotes sex between adults and consenting minors, to applaud Strickland, Blackwell said. Blackwell also said Strickland knew, employed and traveled with a man convicted of exposing himself to young children in Washington and Athens counties.

``It goes right at his judgment,'' Blackwell said.

(UPDATE below the fold)

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The Firing of Mary McCarthy

Larry Johnson worked with Mary...

Mary McCarthy "categorically denies" being the source of the leak on agency renditions
"A former CIA officer who was sacked last week after allegedly confessing to leaking secrets has denied she was the source of a controversial Washington Post story about alleged CIA secret detention operations in Eastern Europe, a friend of the operative told NEWSWEEK...read on"

The story goes on to say:

"One of the sources, a law enforcement official close to the investigation, noted that polygraph evidence is normally inadmissible in criminal court cases because of judicial doubts about the reliability and credibility of lie-detector machines...

A lot is being said about Mary at this point without enough information available on the subject at this time. Apparently, donating to Kerry's campaign is enough of a reason to convict her. I thought Howard Kurtz was out of line on his show "Reliable Sources," when he ended a segment without giving any of his guests a chance to respond to this statement:

KURTZ: Some people noted that Mary McCarthy contributed to John Kerry's campaign. David Gergen, before we go, we're going to talk in the next half hour about the Duke rape case. You are on the board of trustees of Duke University. How do you feel the university's handling this and have you provided any advice?

What people noted this Howard?

Update: Greenwald:

Not only was Mary McCarthy branded a traitor all weekend -- completey with angry protests that she was not yet imprisoned -- but anyone associated with her was all but branded a traitor as well. They don't need to wait for evidence or know any facts. The administration has branded her An Enemy, so now it's time for the punishment. That is just a microcosm of the same distorted, indescribably undemocratic and plainly un-American dynamic that has guided most of the radical policies of this administration for the last five years.

Keith had on Andrea Mitchell and Ex-CIA officer Melissa Boyle Mahle, to dig a little deeper on the Mary McCarthy story.
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Andrea says that Mary did meet reporters, but says she didn't leak classified information. The story unfolds.

Ex-CIA officer Melissa Boyle Mahle who maintains close contacts with CIA insiders reports that the leak investigation is considered to be a "witch hunt" by many inside the agency.

The reaction from some right wing bloggers over this story really goes beyond the pale. They think that-I kid you not-the secret prisons were all a cover to draw out leakers from the agency. Mark Kleiman digs up the facts. You have to read the post. It's some of the biggest conservative sites promoting this crazy idea.

( h/t David Edwards for the vid)

Keith Olbermann had on Larry Johnson Tuesday, to discuss the case of Mary McCarthy, who was fired from the CIA for failing a polygraph. Larry talks about the partisans that are running the CIA now.
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OLBERMANN: Did the case against Mary McCarthy smell at all fishy to you even before her denial that she was the source of the leak to "The Washington Post"?

JOHNSON: Absolutely. I was one of the first ones out of the box saying that, for several reasons.

If you look at Dana Priest's article, there were multiple sources, many who had ties to the counterterrorism center, that were not identified by name or even very many particulars. But it was clear that wasn‘t Mary's background.

I used to work for Mary back in 1998-'89, and she moved on up into the senior ranks of management, where she was handling-she was at the National Security Council, National Warning Office, other things. So she wouldn‘t have had any of the operational details that were reflected in Dana Priest's article....read on

Rebellious Peasant: U.S. Holding Children as POW's

The Heretik: the 'legal' beagles who have assured Junior Mint that it's OK to wipe his ass with the Constitution.

whatever already! Murray remembers Jack Anderson, a muckraker who took 'em all on...from McCarthy to Nixon.

Of Cabbages and Kings: TheChristian War on Christmas

Bob's got the Cartoons

Virtual Matter: Randi Rhodes on C-SPAN today (12/18/05)Cartoons

Virtual Matter: Randi Rhodes on C-SPAN today (12/18/05)

The Village Voice: From Joe McCarthy to Richard Nixon, he took them all on. Despite all his shortcomings, when it came to his journalism, he was fearless. In the current day, the public has pushed back against insider, access journalism�whether practiced by Bob Woodward, Judith Miller, or Robert Novak. Anderson always understood it was his role to be an outsider, not just in regard to the politicians he covered, but also vis-a-vis the established order of journalism, that established order having always been part of the problem...read on"

He's sorely missed now.