It's not exactly clear why the folks at Tea Party Express are buying up so much ad space on Fox News these days. They could save themselves a whole lot of money by just waiting for Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to their inevitable "reports" on the event and do the publicity for free.

Of course, said reportage will emphasize the current Fox narrative -- that these teabaggers are just a bunch of "ordinary Americans" who happen to be easily inspired by hysterical right-wing propaganda. What could be more "grassroots" than that?

Incidentally, this "Tea Party Express" event is being sponsored by the "Our Country Deserves Better" PAC, an offshoot of Move America Forward. It's chaired by Howard Kaloogian, the erstwhile Republican congressional candidate from California.

You may remember the "Our Country Deserves Better" folks. A little while back, they ran a series of ads comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler.

This PAC was organized specifically to oppose Barack Obama while he was still in the Democratic primaries, and its entire website is devoted to opposing all things Obama.

So much for the claims that these "tea parties" are all about "ordinary Americans" who aren't just compulsive Obama-haters prone to comparing his presidency to the Nazis.

(video courtesy of Think Progress)

CNN's Don Lemon interviewed two astroturf town hall protesters in Atlanta Monday, and when one of them claimed that no "real Americans" spoke at Obama's town hall meetings, Don shut him down instantly -- and didn't let up:

Lemon:...At least the president is trying to reform health care, so where did the outrage suddenly come from?

Hardage: Don, this is the second town hall he's done in the last week that I actually saw real Americans get up and ask questions, it wasn't a pre-selected group or a -

Lemon: Hang on, before you do that - Real Americans - that's another term that sets people off. We're ALL real Americans, everybody.

Hardage: Anybody can get in, anybody can ask questions, you've seen a completely different tenor in the town hall he held on Tuesday and today than townhalls we've been seeing so far in this debate. That's what I mean by real Americans.

Lemon: You know what, that whole real Americans thing, can we lose that real Americans? Because everybody in the country who is a citizen is a real American. We're all real Americans and that's part of the issue that really sets people off and divides people, so let's get rid of that "real American." I'm a real American, you're a real American, conservative, liberals, independents, we're all real Americans."

How refreshing to see on a corporate news channel.

There's nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to the frothing at the mouth right-wing rage over health care reform. But thanks to the 24/7 media's transformation of politics into just another form of entertainment, delusional Birthers, deceitful Deathers, raging Teabaggers and town hall intimidators are dominating press coverage of the debate. And it's all a recurring symptom, Rick Perlstein argues in the Washington Post, of a nation in which "crazy is a preexisting condition."

In his instant classic Nixonland, Perlstein documented how Richard Nixon, "a serial collector of resentments," fanned the flames of racism, anti-communism and the budding culture war not only to take power in his time but to help produce a bitterly divided America in ours. Now in his Washington Post op-ed, Perlstein makes clear that we've been here before.

The repeated outbreaks of "black helicopters" in the 1990's, the National Indignation Convention in 1961, cries that the Civil Rights Act would "enslave" whites and countless other episodes of seeming conservative madness, Perlstein reminds us, result from the combustible combination of authentic fear and manufactured outrage:

So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.

But Perlstein's cautionary tale is not merely one of the more things change, the more they stay the same. In its pursuit of entertainment over objective truth and conflict over common sense, he suggests, today's media environment rewards extremist claims and behaviors it once shunned:

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Are the Obama people really that dumb? They were "surprised," "caught off guard" by the massive dirtstorm unleashed on healthcare reform?

These are the geniuses of 11-dimensional chess? Puhleeze. I think they've started to believe their own press. Obama the Healer, Obama the Post-Racial Lincoln. What a bunch of damned dopes.

Dick Polman, the Philadelphia Inquirer political reporter, is also astounded at just how unprepared Team Obama was for the attacks on healthcare reform:

During the 1993-4 health care reform battle, the Clinton White House was outmaneuvered by the Republican right and their corporate allies, who swayed the electorate with all kinds of devious hyperbole. And, more recently, in the 2004 presidential race, John Kerry and his advisers sat back and did nothing for three crucial summer weeks, absolutely convinced that voters would never believe the Swift Boat attacks on his Vietnam record. That strategy worked out pretty well.

And now we have the Obama people, waking up to the idea that maybe it's not politically wise to sit mute and allow themselves to be tarred as fascists who would euthanize granny, ration health care, and slash Medicare benefits. (It's priceless to hear the Republicans portraying themselves as the defenders of Medicare, given the fact that, if they had been in charge back in 1965, they never would have enacted Medicare in the first place. But I digress.)

The Republican right understands the power of the visceral; it knows how to stoke emotions at the expense of civility. This is not exactly a fresh observation, yet it's amazing how flat-footed Democrats seem always to discover it anew. They seem forever convinced that the power of high ideals should be sufficient for victory - that, in the present case, Americans should simply be convinced, on the merits, that health care reform is preferable to the dysfunctional status quo. As Howard Paster, Clinton's health care guy in 1993, told The Times this morning, "The expectation (among the Obama people) was that things have gotten so bad in the last 16 years that there would be a consensus on the need to act this time."

But that's not how the other team plays the game. Indeed, numerous Democratic strategists and commentators have been trying to make this point for a long time. A couple years ago, for instance, radio host and ex-California Democratic chairman Bill Press offered this advise to his brethren: "In politics, if somebody slaps you on the cheek, you punch him in the nose. Then you punch him in the gut. Then you kick him in the groin. Then you crack a chair over his head. Then, just to make sure, you jump up and down on top of him with both feet...The only way to win is to fight back. Hard and tough. If they don't, they don't deserve to win."

Press was characteristically a tad over the top, but his basic point was that Democrats should stop being surprised to learn that politics ain't beanbag. This is not to suggest that Obama should retaliate by retailing lies equal in virulence to those being spewed by his opponents; if he was to conduct himself as his opponents are doing, he would be promptly attacked for failing to change the tone in Washington.

His best option is to do what he probably should have done months ago: find an attractively repeatable health reform pitch that can fit on a bumper sticker, something that can appeal to positive emotions. (Perhaps if Obama had done that during the spring, he could have at least partially preempted the nabobs of negativity.) Indeed, there are reports today that Obama will now pitch his plan as a vehicle for ending unfair insurance practices, for protecting the millions of Americans who have pre-existing health conditions.

Maybe a positive emotional pitch can still work - unless it is too little, too late, and insufficient weaponry for an alley fight.

America Honors Leaders -- Not Politicians:

In this picture provided by the environmental group Greenpeace, Greenpeace climbers rappel down the face of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, S.D. on Wednesday, July 8, 2009 to unfurl a banner that challenges President Obama to show leadership on global warming. Obama is at the G8 meeting in Italy to discuss the global warming crisis with other world leaders. A federal prosecutor says a dozen people were taken into custody on Wednesday after the incident.

Open thread below...

Our buddy, Sam Seder, decided to go check out the protest talk show hack (and professional potty-mouthed angry person) John Ziegler organized to take David Letterman off the air in light of his joke about Sarah Palin's daughter, a joke for which he had already apologized twice.

Give Sam credit. It wasn't easy to find those whole fifteen protesters amongst the sea of media covering them. I'm not sure that your protest can be considered effective if the media outnumbers the protesters by more than 2 to 1. Way to try to horn in on the media circus that surrounds Palin, Ziegler.

(T)o show you the lengths Ziegler will go for his point, check out this convoluted logic in explaining the hypocrisy of going after Letterman and not other media figures. When asked why the protest took a week to happen, Ziegler asked, "Why did David Letterman take a week to apologize?" When Air America, in more of an accusation that a question, remarked that Sarah Palin went on Saturday Night Live in 2008 a week after they had aired a skit which said that Tod (sic) Palin had slept with his daughter, Ziegler pointed out that skit was set in a New York Times staff meeting where the paper's staff was considering topics to write, so it was essentially a satire on what the Times might publish to discredit her, not Saturday Night Live saying this directly of Gov. Palin.

So this was more about attacking David Letterman and CBS than in some crusade to go after "perverts." And as Keith Olbermann pointed out, the amount of time for Letterman's apology was a matter of 3 or so hours, not a week. It sounds like Ziegler graduated magna cum laude from the Palin school of upholding responsibility.

The timing of Ziegler's latest round of publicity appears to be tied in with his return to radio in Los Angeles this month, almost as if he got involved to promote his revitalized radio career. But when you look at his track record, it's a wonder that even in the world of conservative talk radio that he keeps getting hired.

Ahhhh...so the real agenda comes out. Well, Ziegler, Freedom of Speech is a wonderful thing. You're free to make an ass out of yourself and others are free to start a FireJohnZiegler.com site to show you for the ass you are.

This hasn't gotten too much coverage in the blogosphere, but I just want to note her that at her doctor's request, actress Mia Farrow has just ended a 12-day fast undertaken to draw attention to the plight of Darfur.

She's right, what's happening in Darfur is so massively horrendous, and the response of the Western world so inadequate, it seems to call for some sort of large gesture. I'm only sorry people seem so very disinterested:

UNITED NATIONS, May 8 (Reuters) - Actress Mia Farrow, ailing after almost two weeks on a hunger strike, announced on Friday that British billionaire Richard Branson would take over her protest in solidarity with people in Sudan's Darfur region.

A Farrow spokesman said her health had deteriorated in the past few days and her doctor requested that she end the liquids-only fast she began 12 days ago to protest at Khartoum's expulsion of more than a dozen aid agencies from Darfur.

Farrow asked Branson to take over the fast, her statement said, adding that the British entrepreneur had accepted and would begin a three-day hunger strike on Friday.

"I'm honoured to be taking over the fast for the next three days," the founder of the Virgin Group said in a statement on his blog.

"We cannot stand and watch as 1 million people suffer. We all need to stand up and demand that international aid is restored and that the people of Darfur are protected and given the chance to live in peace."

Farrow's spokesman said last month that her doctor expected the slightly built actress could not fast for more than three weeks.

Farrow, who was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF in 2000, has been campaigning for years to raise funds for children in conflict zones such as Darfur, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Chad and Nigeria.

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in March, charging him with masterminding mass killings and deportations in Darfur in western Sudan.

Since then, Sudan has expelled 13 foreign and three domestic humanitarian aid agencies, accusing them of collaborating with the Hague-based ICC.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his latest report on the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, that the expulsions had put "over 1 million people at life-threatening risk" in Darfur.

Well, if this doesn't paint Blue Gal as an aging hippie, nothing will.
Today is the 39th anniversary of the anti-war protests at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. For those of you under 40, May4.org has the history recap here.

Although I was in the first grade on May 4, 1970, I can't forget what happened in Kent, Ohio on that day.

I was there.

Not on campus, I was in first grade. In Kent, Ohio. My father and my mother's father were both faculty members at Kent. By 1970 my grandfather had retired from the Math Department. When he retired in 1968 he was the only math professor on record as opposing the War in Vietnam.

My dad, on the other hand, was in the Art Department. Nuff said.

We were rushed home from school that day in a panic of police sirens, smoke, and confusion.

When I got home, my mother had the front door locked for the first time in my life. "Mommy, what is happening?" "I don't know, dear." Mom not knowing, being visibly scared and shaken. Another first.

But she had the TV on and Walter Cronkite was talking about Kent. That was exciting to my six-year-old heart. I didn't see the consequences, had no idea what death was, let alone that four college students had been shot to death that day in my hometown. Their only crime was protesting their government's illegal, unilateral invasion of Cambodia.

I know, it's hard to believe a Republican president invaded a far away country based on lies and innuendo. (/snark)

The sad irony of Kent State, and what made it so explosive in terms of the "silent majority" of Americans, was that those Americans who could afford it avoided the military draft and the dangers of Vietnam by enrolling their children full-time in college and graduate school. All four students killed on May 4 were full-time students. If the war was going to kill sons (and daughters!) in OHIO? Many who were not outspoken before May 4, now said it was time to stop the war once and for all.

At my own house, a mile or so from campus, my two younger sisters, both pre-schoolers, were in their pajamas in the middle of the afternoon because my mother thought there might be an evacuation and getting the girls in their pajamas was something she "could do." They were playing making a tent with a blanket and the dining room chairs.

They do not remember that day, because it was just another day to play and make a tent.

I remember a few days later Kent was really, truly, on that proverbial "cover of Newsweek." I said to my dad:

"Daddy, before no one ever heard of Kent. Now no one will ever forget."

The University now holds an annual two-day symposium on democracy to commemorate the events of May 4.

Mudflats (the go-to blog for Alaska politics):

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen here.

So, if you’ve been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin’s rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy...Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans.

There's a photo gallery (with some great signs) here, and a video of the crowd below.

The Guardian UK:  (h/t uglycasonova)

After police banned them from playing a political rally in Minnesota yesterday, Rage Against the Machine whipped out the loudspeaker and went a cappella.

The band's original plan was to play an impromptu gig at left-wing rally Ripple Effect. Sadly, the police had other ideas, leaving Zack de la Rocha to address some angry fans.

"Rage Against the Machine is a band that has never, ever advocated violence," he, er, rages. "We've always advocated a direct opposition to unjust wars like the one started by John McCain and the Republicans and Bush and all of them."

He continues: "Why the F@#% are these cops so afraid of us? Are they afraid of us?"

I showed this video to our C&L team and BillW could not say enough how much he loved it.  It's terrible to me that the larger story of how the police have acted -- or have been directed to act -- has gone mostly unreported in the traditional media, becaue it really does exemplify the tenuous grasp on basic civil rights that most Republicans seem to possess.

A St. Paul police officer who was dragging an alleged protester down the street was jumped from behind by what I'm assuming is another protester. The officer quickly sprays the surrounding onlookers who are not involved in the incident and is forced to retreat and loses both men in the process.  The angle of the video doesn't show what the alleged protester had done to prompt the officer to drag him down the street.

Note:  In posting this video I am not advocating attacks on police, or violence of any kind. But as I heard someone  say yesterday, the Denver police prepared for protests, the St. Paul police prepared for the Apocalypse.  Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher have been documenting the searches and seizures on peace groups. And the Minnesota Independent documents a 17 year old peace protester and community organizer who was beaten and pepper sprayed by the St. Paul police. 

Amy Goodman is bundled off by policemen wielding clubs, plus footage from the press conference.

Glenn Greenwald reports:

Beginning last night, St. Paul was the most militarized I have ever seen an American city be, even more so than Manhattan in the week of 9/11 -- with troops of federal, state and local law enforcement agents marching around with riot gear, machine guns, and tear gas canisters, shouting military chants and marching in military formations. Humvees and law enforcement officers with rifles were posted on various buildings and balconies. Numerous protesters and observers were tear gassed and injured.

... Perhaps most extraordinarily, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now -- the radio and TV broadcaster who has been a working journalist for close to 20 years -- was arrested on the street and charged with "conspiracy to riot." Audio of her arrest, which truly shocked and angered the crowd of observers, is here. I just attended a Press Conference with St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and Police Chief John M. Harrington and -- after they boasted of how "restrained" their police actions were -- asked about the journalists and lawyers who had been detained and/or arrested both today and over the weekend. They said they wouldn't give any information about journalists who had been arrested today, though they said they believed that "one journalist" had been, and that she "was a participant in the riots, not simply a non-participant."

Tear gas has also been used.

Do you think maybe that events in St. Paul would have gotten more attention already if we weren't all distracted by the Palin circus show?

Update: Amy has been released, but her two producers, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, are still being held.

"I was down on the convention floor interviewing delegates when I heard that two of our producers had been arrested," said Goodman. "I ran down to Jackson and 7th Street, where the police had moved in."

Goodman said that when she ran up to find out what was going on, she was also arrested.

"They seriously manhandled me and handcuffed my hands behind my back. The top ID [at the convention] is to get on the floor and the Secret Service ripped that off me. I had my Democracy Now! ID too. I was clearly a reporter."

Goodman, who was released after being charged with a misdemeanor, said that Salazar had been hurt in the face, while Kouddous had been thrown up against a wall and hurt his elbow.

"Nicole told me that as they moved in on three sides, she asked them 'How do I get away from this?' and they jumped on her."

Both Kouddous and Salazar could be held for up to 36 hours.

"One of the police kept shouting at me 'Shut up, shut up," she said. "It was extremely threatening."

Update 2: Democracy Now! reports that both Kouddous and Salazar have now been released too. (H/t Kat)

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Glenn Greenwald:

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations..."

If this wasn't so despicable, unconstitutional, and downright fascist, it would be funny.  Cops circling a place called Seeds of Peace?  Raiding so-called "hippie houses"?   If the cops wanted to know what was going on with RNC protesters, they could have checked the website.   When a guy from the National Lawyers Guild reads the charges, people can't help but laugh:

Videos from Veracifier/Talking Points Memo.  

Firedoglake notes the mainstream media silence....

Twincities Indymedia is following with a live feed of updates.

More updates:  The Dirty Hippies are suing to stop confiscations of cell phones and cameras among protesters... Um, is there a publicity department for the Ramsey County MN Sheriff’s Office?  We think not.  

I'm of two minds about these protesters, but the coverage of them on FOX is hi-damn-larious.   It is to seriously giggle.  They clearly did not expect to see the vitriol towards Pravda, er...FOX News from the "far left" protesters (why are all Democrats "far left" in FNC's eyes?  Do they think that moderates stay home or just don't exist?), or they wouldn't have sent relative newbie Griff Jenkins (gawd, if that doesn't sound like a frat boy, I don't know what does) out amongst the riff-raff to ask them if they believe in freedom (of speech).  Dude, they're protesting.  That IS exercising their freedom of speech.  That they choose not to validate the Republican Party's official propaganda arm isn't exactly ignoring freedom of speech.

Griff is shocked--shocked, I tell you!--that there could actually be people protesting at the Democratic National Convention who might not support Obama (because aren't all Democrats lemmings like the unquestioning party-over-country Republicans?), even though he acknowledges that the protest includes Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney and her supporters.  Critical thinking skills are obviously not a job qualification for a FOX on-air personality.  In fact, it probably helps if you don't have any.

And to be fair--as much as I hate to be--to FOX, I'm not sure how well these protesters come off.  I personally stopped going to anti-war protests because the message seemed to get more and more diluted by those who brought their own agendas (including those who just got off on being anarchists).   As Will Rogers famously said, "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!" and there's clearly some truth to that viewing the protests.

Speaking of protests, Howie Klein of DownWithTyranny just told me about a fabulous one:

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BlogSchmog:

How to get deported in three easy steps. First, go to China. Second, take footage of protesters in Tiananmen Square. Third, put footage up on Qik.[..]

Noel Hidalgo-(a.k.a. Noneck) an activist I once met online in 2006 while attending RootsCamp in Second Life-had a camera as he walked through Tiananmen Square and happened upon some people protesting the human rights violations in Tibet. He wound up on a plane back to the States. Fortunately, Noneck twitters:

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