When Glenn Beck speaks, a little more truth dies. In usual right-wing echo chamber fashion, they just can't let go of Shirley Sherrod. They're milking her story so dry the cows are screaming.

The latest accusations, which I have seen repeated verbatim on the Illinois Review and the Washington Examiner so far, and which appear to be from a press release sent out for posting across all conservative blogs in an effort to game the Google, are nearly unintelligible. But I'll try. (h/t BillieGirlToo)

Oh noes! Shirley Sherrod's group, New Communities, was involved in the Pigford lawsuit against the USDA

Oh, seriously. They were, that's true. And who better to hire to actually make reparations than the person who actually understood the damages?

From the press release:

... Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations.

... The cash (settlement) award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. ... New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack).

This particular round of crazy asks a series of questions that are irrelevant, not particularly interesting, and attempt to suggest that hiring her was the USDA's effort to "shut her up", and she was summarily fired so as to cover up the dastardly news that she was involved in the Pigford suit.

This question really takes the cake, though:

Given that New Communities wound down its operations so long ago (it appears that this occurred sometime during the late 1980s), what is really being done with that $13 million in settlement money?

Oh wow, wingnuts! She must have STOLEN IT. RIGHT?

The release then goes on to suggest that the USDA might be worried about possible waste, fraud and abuse (you know, that bill the Republicans all voted AGAINST?).

Step back, think. If a court-ordered settlement is to be made from the government to people who were wronged, how is that waste, fraud or abuse? It's only in the minds of the crazy folks like Breitbart, who is desperately trying to intimidate Sherrod out of suing him, as far as I can tell.

Meanwhile, over at the Illinois Review...

Writer Teri O'Brien manages to conflate the New Black Panthers, William Ayers, AND the Pigford case, citing the strength of character and discernment in Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Somewhat breathlessly, Ms. O'Brien heaves forth the knowledge that Sherrod's husband...

...was a former honcho in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee back in the 1960’s. You can read more about it in Bill Ayers book “Fugitive Days.” Yes, that Bill Ayers. He was involved in SNCC as well.

Now see? That's how you take an apple and an orange and make it into a prune. You find out about a group, link up 'scary guy' Bill Ayers without any corresponding direct link between the two or between the SNCC and the Weather Underground and all of a sudden it's a story! Who needs journalists when we've got Breitbart and his merry minions to keep us stupid?

Media Matters has a thorough debunking of this story and all of the companion versions here.

Here's a newsflash for conservatives: Shirley Sherrod is not going to be your tea party wedge issue for August. You don't have health care reform to kick around anymore and your conduct in Congress should earn you a one-way ticket home. It might be time to quit milking dead stories and get on with life on the Planet Earth. Planet Teabag can't be reached by normal humans yet.

For a palate cleanser after this tripe, I highly recommend Joan Walsh's essay on the Shame of Right Wing Journalism, and especially, this brilliant essay from her about the wrong lessons of the Sherrod story.

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John went on MSNBC yesterday afternoon to talk health-care reform. He was paired with John Stirewalt, the Washington Examiner's political editor, who was not only at a disadvantage in the neckwear department but had the misfortune of having to defend the sorry record of the Party of No.

Amato most of all issued a challenge of sorts to the House of Representatives to stand up for itself in the face of the Senate's mishandling of the legislation:

Amato: To say that it's dead is way premature, because they still have to go to conference. And the House has to make a choice: Are they actually a legislative body? Do they have a say in this process? Or is Congress just Joe Lieberman? So really, right now, it's still premature. Liberals are still fighting, progressives are still fighting.

It will be worth seeing whether the House rises to this challenge.

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Without a doubt the silliest "scandal" raised by right-wingers in many weeks has been the foofara over the supposed video showing schoolkids being "indoctrinated" with pro-Obama "propaganda" -- which is, of course, actually an innocuous video of a class of schoolkids singing as part of a Black History Month program.

The silliness would be funny, in fact, if the right-wing media's (particularly Fox's) coverage hadn't inspired death threats, whose existence were quickly airbrushed out of Fox News accounts.

But evidently these people weren't around during the Reagan or Bush years, when such encomia to the sitting president were fairly common. Indeed, as Blue Texan pointed out, they even named schools after Bush when he was president.

And you want to talk about indoctrination? How about the Texas schoolchildren whose curricula have now been revised to be explicitly creationist and anti-evolutionist?

Mike Stark brought this up on MSNBC yesterday, debating the issue with Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner, who was more interested in playing "gotcha" with Stark than actually, you know, discussing the issue. Like all good Republicans. This, of course, was because he really didn't have a good answer.

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Yesterday on his Fox News show, Glenn Beck was conversing with Sen. Jim DeMint, and I guess he decided to get all respectable or something, because he uttered the following:

Beck: I will tell you that I -- we discussed this on the radio program earlier today, that, um, a lot of people are calling this, where was it? In the Washington Examiner today. That they -- that people are saying that "Cap and Trade" is "Cap and Traitor". They're actually -- people are starting to view people -- both Republicans and Democrat -- as traitors to the country. Which I think is over the top. That's a very specific definition.

Funny thing, because just 24 hours before, on the same program, Beck was running a reward poster on his show naming the eight Republicans who voted for the bill "Cap and Traitors." His guest, Kevin Mooney of the (you guessed it!) Washington Examiner, called them "traitors" too. Guess that wasn't "over the top" then.

Because Glenn Beck went through a time warp or was abducted by aliens or something and everything he said the day before was now actually said by a whole other, different Glenn Beck. Something like that.

You can't make this stuff up. It's like watching a bad old science fiction movie, I tell ya.

David Waldman, also known as Kagro X at DailyKos and Congress Matters, appeared on a CNN webshow and showed these mealy-mouthed Democratic Party talking heads how to really frame and control the debate on torture. Finally, someone on who has a firm grasp of the facts and will not allow the discussion to get sidetracked to pointless distractions. Jane Hamsher put it best:

The successful hijacking of the torture debate by its proponents obscures the underlying facts, as Kagro makes abundantly clear:

1. Private contractors were conducting torture
2. It was torture for political gain
3. Pollsters should be asking if Americans support using torture to extract false confessions for political purposes, because that's what happened

There were no "ticking time bombs" -- as former State Department official Lawrence Wilkerson and McClatchey have confirmed, torture was conducted to extract false evidence linking Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. It was ordered by Dick Cheney and George Bush just as it was during the Spanish Inquisition, to force political compliance.

The Washington Examiner's Chris Stirewalt objects when Kagro invokes the obvious parallel, shamelessly hiding behind the military when he says "On behalf of American soldiers, on behalf of American soldiers, that's not cool." In classic Yellow Elephant fashion, Stirewalt apparently never served in the military.

You know what else is not cool, Chris? Invoking some quasi-patriotic symbol to obfuscate over what should be patently obvious to even mouth-breathing Republican apologists like you: Torturing people is a crime against humanity. Torturing people for political gain is an even more despicable crime against humanity. It doesn't matter who commits it: Spain, the Catholic Church, Japan or Dick Cheney. It is a crime. And you are an apologist for it.

Continue reading »

He actually said that:

On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

So you African-Americans? According to Byron York, you don't actually count. My buddy and former C&L contributer Steve Benen:

For crying out loud, what the hell does that mean, exactly? I read the rest of the piece, hoping to see York explain why the president's seemingly popular positions are exaggerated or inflated. Why, in other words, these positions "appear" more popular "than they actually are."

But all the piece tells me is that African Americans tend to support Obama in greater numbers than white Americans.

The problem, of course, is that damn phrase "than they actually are." York argues that we can see polls gauging public opinion, but if we want to really understand the popularity of the president's positions, and not be fooled by "appearances," then we have to exclude black people.

There's really no other credible way to read this. York effectively argues that black people shouldn't count. We can look at polls measuring the attitudes of Americans, but if we want to see the truth -- appreciate the numbers as "they actually are" -- then it's best if we focus our attention on white people, and only white people.

I swear the next thing York will suggest is calling for polling companies to consider African-Americans as only 3/5th a person to more accurately reflect reality. I'm sure you can find the historical precedence for it if you try really hard.

You stay classy, Byron.

Dave N: This is actually a not-uncommon species of eliminationist rhetoric, since these kinds of discussions are essentially exercises in imagining the world with a whole class of people effectively excised.

As Adam Serwer observes: "This is another example of a really bizarre genre of conservative writing, which I call 'If Only Those People Weren't Here.'"

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FishbowDC:

"Could 2006 be the year that sinks the Washington Times? Bill Sammon recently jumped ship to join the Washington Examiner and the paper continues to hemorrhage money. Further, two former W. Timers are working on pieces that will open the curtain on what takes place behind the scenes at the Washington Times, and from my conversations with both of them, it sounds as if some damning information could potentially emerge as a result...read on"

Will O'Reilly do a few segments devoted to how much money Moon has lost over the years to put out his propaganda newspaper?

Follow that up with this account on Ralp Peters: "Then he says, “If reporters really care, it’s easy to get out on the streets of Baghdad. The 506th Infantry Regiment — and other great military units — will take journalists on their patrols virtually anywhere.” Well, no, they won’t. Some reporters I know are having trouble getting embeds because they’re not the “right” reporters. They don’t write the “right” kind of stories — meaning they don’t follow the military’s playbook....read on

The Snarky Cat

What exactly is “not direct lobbying?”

Joe Allbaugh, the Oklahoman known for his flat-top haircut and loyalty to President Bush, has a new client: Halliburton, the Houston-based company once led by Vice President Cheney.

Allbaugh, a close adviser to Bush during his Texas days, registered to lobby on behalf of Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), Halliburton’s construction and engineering subsidiary. Allbaugh’s wife and partner at the Allbaugh Company, Diane Allbaugh, is also listed on the registration, which was filed last week with the Senate Office of Public Records.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Halliburton said Allbaugh had not been commissioned to do any direct lobbying. - the Washington Examiner

I’m beginning to think that BushCo IS Halliburton.
 

The Snarky Cat
What exactly is “not direct lobbying?”

Joe Allbaugh, the Oklahoman known for his flat-top haircut and loyalty to President Bush, has a new client: Halliburton, the Houston-based company once led by Vice President Cheney.

Allbaugh, a close adviser to Bush during his Texas days, registered to lobby on behalf of Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), Halliburton’s construction and engineering subsidiary. Allbaugh’s wife and partner at the Allbaugh Company, Diane Allbaugh, is also listed on the registration, which was filed last week with the Senate Office of Public Records.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Halliburton said Allbaugh had not been commissioned to do any direct lobbying. - the Washington Examiner

I’m beginning to think that BushCo IS Halliburton.

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OK, pop some popcorn and pull up a chair. Glenn Beck is calling out the dogs … on Republicans.

He ran a special segment last night urging his audience descend en masse upon the “Cap and Traitors” – Republican House members who actually voted for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill last Friday – all eight of them. With him to seal the deal was the Washington Examiner's Kevin Mooney, who besides being in need of a new suit was also in need of a logic text:

Beck: Now, there are eight Republicans who voted for cap and trade. ... Look at this map that we put up. It looks like all of the votes -- there it is -- it looks like all of these votes -- and we're going to have some showers -- uh -- all of the votes really came, half of the votes, more than half -- from those areas. The West Coast and from the liberal Northeast.

Mooney: Well, Glenn, you're put your finger on it. Uh, the votes, whether they're Democrat or Republican, in favor of this bill, out of the coastal areas, the elite areas of this country, they're areas of the country where the energy prices are already high. Democrats and Republicans voted against this bill in other parts of the country where they already are using other fossil fuels and have lower energy prices.

Beck: Isn't it interesting that those are the areas that are collapsing the fastest?

Mooney and Beck, not to put too fine a point on it, are full of crap. Just by way of example, look at my own home state of Washington, whose delegation voted strongly for the bill, and is included on their list of "coastal states" whose energy prices are supposedly too high. In reality -- somewhere far distant from these guys' residence on Planet Wingnuttia -- Washington's energy prices are among some of the lowest in the nation (for instance, our electricity costs are far below the national average, since we get so much of it from hydroelectric sources. Likewise for Oregon, another "elite coastal" state. Meanwhile, some of the nation's highest electricity costs can also be found in Florida and Texas -- some of the "non-elite" states on Beck's graphic.

And Glenn? Our economy here in Washington is far from collapsing. The housing bubble didn't overinflate as much here as elsewhere -- including, say Florida and Texas. And we have Microsoft and Boeing. So we're hurting, yes -- but we'll be fine. No thanks to the right-wing ideologues like yourself who wrecked the national economy.

Phony methodology aside, it is in any event always fun to see the right savage its own -- because nearly all of the eight Republicans who voted for the bill came from vulnerable districts. Dave Reichert, from Washington's 8th District, just barely survived two tough challenges from Darcy Burner, and did so in part by selling himself as friendly to environmentalists. And indeed, he comes from a district that has never elected a Democrat, but whose growing technology-worker base is a rapidly changing demographic politically -- and particularly big on environmental issues.

So we're happy to see them get hell from the Glenn Beck wing of their party. It just reminds the large mass of swing voters in the 8th District and others like it, once again, why it's stupid to vote even for a "moderate" Republican -- because they will always be overwhelmed by the pseudo-populist Wingnuttians who dominate the GOP at all levels. Especially the pundit one.