Our friend (and C&L fan) Richard Lewis returns to Countdown

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We love you, Richard, but Amato wants to know if it would kill you to mention C&L when you're on Countdown. C'mon, throw the guy a bone. You can pick up Richard's book The Other Great Depression here and here on audio.

That's a head-to-keyboard sentence if I've ever heard one. Pam's House Blend:

Good god. Perhaps all that work on Liddy has caused something to snap. Out of all the people to try to honor in an Act dedicated to fighting AIDS, Elizabeth Dole spits in the face of LGBTs by proposing the now-dead Jesse Helms be added to the "Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008." Here's the Congressional Record:

SA 5074. Mrs. DOLE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 2731, to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 to provide assistance to foreign countries to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: On page 1, line 5, strike ''and Henry J. Hyde'' and insert '', Henry J. Hyde, and Jesse Helms''.

Why is this so unbelievably wrong on so many levels? Because of what Jesse Helms said about AIDS:

Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God says it all: Jesse Helms, the man who in 1987 described AIDS prevention literature as "so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1988 vigorously opposed the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, saying, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1995 said (in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act) that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."

I don't know about you, but I smell a Worst Person in The World award going to one Liddy Dole for this crushingly insensitive move.

While talking about RNC Chairman Mike Duncan's promise to go negative on Barack Obama Thursday night on "Verdict," conservative dinosaur Pat Buchanan made the astute observation that the GOP's only shot at winning this year is to trash Obama for his "associations" with controversial figures, and raise doubts among the electorate about choosing an "exotic" (code word for black) guy. Luckily, Tanya Acker was there to call him out on it right away and make him look like the racist "exotic" fool that he is. Buchanan's stammering definition of exotic is equally as absurd.

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Buchanan: The only way the Republicans can win this -- when everyone wants to throw the Republicans out -- is to raise questions, raise doubts about the alternative. They're gonna use his associations, and they're gonna use his statements, his elitism, they're gonna use the fact that hes exotic. That's what's gonna happen.

Acker: Exotic? What does exotic mean? Is exotic code for black? I dont understand what exotic means.

It's pretty fascinating to watch someone like Pat Buchanan opine on the 2008 Presidential race with Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee. It's almost seems at times like Pat is living in a different country, in a different era. One which doesn't resemble 21st century America, and one in which he undoubtedly would feel more comfortable.

It's my yearly push for some extra funds from C&Lers. Here's what's going on so far: We have a new homepage designed and ready to go. I also will be adding a few new web sites and bloggers that will be joining C&L. We are working hard on maximizing our servers and expanding their capabilities for some very nice features that you'll see rolled out hopefully very soon. We're looking to make C&L more interactive and more comprehensive.

I have over 11,500 video clips on my servers now, which is insane to me. When I first started trying to put clips online it was uncharted territory, but now it's become an Internet standard. :-) I also would like to throw a few bucks to the kind people that work so hard behind the scenes...so please help if you can. I will be posting about this all week, so anything you can do would be much appreciated.

Snail Mail checks to:

Crooksandliars.com

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Los Angeles, CA 90066

You can also buy C&L hats, t-shirts and coffee mugs if you click here.

If Thompson doesn't win this one will Lady MacCheney throw in the towel? And Mike really didn't mean anything meant by this:

“You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press.

“In fact,” he said, “if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole; that’s what we’d do.”

He feels that the Confederate flag is a private matter for SC and nobody should be shocked by what it stands for...Or something...

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Ah...the Doughy Pantload strikes again. Speaking in front of the Heritage Foundation (because, honestly, who else could sit through this tripe?) to pimp his latest book, Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg tries again to prove Moynihan wrong, not only by coming up with his own facts, but his own definitions as well.

The primary definition that Goldberg ignores for his own version is "Fascism." In Doughy Pantload World, "fascism" means "something bad". This is something I've suspected for many years about conservatives: They don't actually know the definitions of the epithets they like to throw out to dismiss and demean the left. They just think it means "something bad." For example:

To sort of start the story, the reason why we see fascism as a thing of the right is because fascism was originally a form of right-wing socialism. Mussolini was born a socialist, he died a socialist, he never abandoned his love of socialism, he was one of the most important socialist intellectuals in Europe and was one of the most important socialist activists in Italy, and the only reason he got dubbed a fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I.

Um, actually, not so much. Mussolini was dubbed a fascist because he founded the Fascist Party, you big, fact-ignoring dope.

Jonah's hatred of Hillary Clinton knows no rational bounds (the original sub-title was "The Totalitarian Temptation From Mussolini to Hillary Clinton"--Mussolini as an American politician--who knew?) and he steals liberally from Naomi Klein to dive head first into the Godwin abyss with fantastical allusions to 1984 and some Big Brother bleak bureaucratic scenario of DMVs with Jumbotrons with nanny-state advisories on breastfeeding, based on Hillary Clinton's It Takes A Village.

The dizzying logic of it all just shows you why if Jonah Goldberg is one of the great thinkers on the right (and certainly, he's has prominent enough platforms from which to spew this tripe to argue that point), the right is bankrupt of intellectual honesty and comprehension.

(Update: BG thanks her fellow liberal bloggers for this.)

So Happy It's Thursday, as the kids say!

Hey there, Actor212 of Simply Left Behind here once again, winding down the week with you. Thursdays...never could get the hang of Thursdays...I was born on a Thursday.

Onto the links. You guys probably got a poker game to get to...you know what? I'm tired of kicking Republicans around! It's too easy! Let's pin a few tails on donkeys in here... - Does the American education system have to mean apartheid? In a three-part series, liberalamerican of The Strange Death Of Liberal America examines the education system in America, and how it's helping to create a caste system.

- Alex over at Martini Revolution examines the shallow end of the pool: media and gene.

- What do you do when a governor says one thing in his state, and another outside it? RadioPatriot calls South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford on his lies.

- All Things Democrat: Why Congress should NOT tell us what torture is not.

- Richard Power writes one of his most achingly lyrical pieces: Hard Rain Journal*-- Who Will Rescue The Goddess of Liberty from Her Abusers & Their Enablers in the US Congress? *link fixed

- Drexel Democrats remind us that Stephen Colbert is a modern day Nostradamus.

- Marty Peretz of The New Republic - Dick

Don't forget: Voting in the 2007 Weblog Awards is open until 5PM ET (2PM for those of you on the PCH), You can vote for Crooks and Liars here, for Best Video Blog, and if you'd like to throw a little lovin' my way...don't worry, the shots cured me...please vote for my blog, Simply Left Behind.

Please email tips to Actor212 care of Yahoo spot com. I can't promise to post them all. I can promise to read them.

Uniongal at DailyKos

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(O)n Democracy Now! Jeremy Scahill author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" debated Doug Brooks the president of International Peace Operations Association, a trade group for the private security industry of which Blackwater is a founding member. In the wake of the recent revelations that the Iraqi government wants to throw out Blackwater and take a closer look at all of the contractors in Iraq Scahill does an excellent job taking down one of these war profiteers and tears right through the rhetoric and also gets staight to the heart of just what we're doing in Iraq.

The entire show and transcript can be seen at Can Iraq (or Anyone) Hold Blackwater Accountable for Killing Iraqi Civilians? A Debate on the Role of Private Contractors in Iraq on Democracy Now's web site.

It appears Susan Collins doesn't want to risk having a career ending blooper, like George "Macacca" Allen. One of her supporters posted this today on the Maine Web Report:

Markos Moulitsas’s hate-site The Daily Kos, the foul-mouthed fem-blog FiredogLake, and other ‘netroots’ extremists like MoveOn.org, have become the dominant fundraisers for Tom Allen’s senate campaign. This may be good news for Allen financially, but allowing these fringe fanatics to take over his campaign is creating a political atmosphere that will undoubtedly be rejected by Maine voters come next November.

Tom Allen’s involvement with these groups, particularly his participation in the website The Daily Kos, came onto the radar screen of Maine voters recently, as national media exposed a pattern of hateful, vulgar, and anti-semitic postings on the site. Now Allen’s extremist friends have landed on the ground in Maine, and are engaging in the same childish bullying campaign tactics that made Connecticut voters reject their attempts to unseat Senator Joe Lieberman in 2006.

The comments have been very interesting on MWR, especially this one:

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Ironically this comment is still published on the site, more than 18 hours after it first appeared. What makes that so interesting is how Daily Kos is attacked in this article for a post which was deleted within minutes after it appeared.  

So is it an "extremist" position to take interest in your political party and try to get your people elected, or would it be considered "extremist" to wish for innocent Americans to die in a terrorist attack just so your party could maybe gain support? Perhaps Susan Collins could answer that.

And throw some cash Tom Allen's way if you can...

It really bothers Collins team.

Via Feministing:

Last week, a Federal court ruled that, despite Illinois law, pharmacists in Illinois can refuse to dispense emergency contraception. The state passed a law in 2005 that requires all pharmacies to dispense EC. As a result, Wal-Mart (and other companies) have disciplined pharmacists that refused to follow the rule. Then came the lawsuits and the bad news.

U.S. District Judge Jeanne Scott denied a request Tuesday by Wal-Mart to throw out a lawsuit filed by pharmacist Ethan Vandersand. Scott sided with Vandersand, who had claimed he was legally protected from discipline by the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act when he declined to dispense Plan B. Vandersand, who lives in Bluffs, formerly worked at the pharmacy in Beardstown's Wal-Mart. He was put on unpaid leave after he refused to fill a Plan B prescription requested by a nurse practitioner at Springfield's Planned Parenthood on behalf of a female patient in February 2006.

Wal-Mart had contended the state's right-of-conscience law doesn't cover pharmacists. Walgreen Co. has made the same argument in other Illinois lawsuits filed by fired pharmacists.

But Scott wrote in her ruling, "The statute prohibits discrimination against any person for refusing to provide health care because of his conscience." Read more...