You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1542)

PLAYS: (7425)

Keith Olbermann calls out the dangerous rhetoric and lies of Sarah Palin and her other GOP cohorts--such as Glenn Beck and Sen. John Cornyn--scaring the populace with their outrageous fear mongering over health care reform.

You shouted "fire" in a crowded theater -- a hot one -- and then today tried to roll it back with "no, no, sorry, not fire, I meant flashlights."

Too little, too late, too obvious.

Madam, you are a clear and present danger to the safety and security of this nation.

Whether the 'death panel' is something you dreamed, or something you dreamed-up, whether it is the product of a low intellect and a fevered imagination, or the product of a high intelligence and a sober ability to exploit people, you should be ashamed of yourself for having introduced it into the public discourse, and it should debar you, for all time, from any position of responsibility or trust in the governance of this nation or any of its states or municipalities.

It is exactly this kind of lowest demoninator scare tactics of Palin's and her other GOP buddies that has brought about the aptly albeit bluntly named PleaseCutTheCrap.com.

And while it's semi-nice to see Palin back-pedaling slightly, the fever pitch is such that a concerted joint effort by the White House and the Democrats in Congress is required to push back on this inciting and ugly rhetoric, before it goes too far.

Transcripts below the fold

Continue reading »

Thought Crimes: This is how bad it is, and this is what a "perfeshunul jernelust" said 

Mondoweiss: Gambling With Conflict: How a neocon casino king from California funds the Israeli settler movement

The Washington Independent: Remember the Tancredo/ Buchanan aide who karate chopped a black woman and called her a "n*gger?"  Unsurprisingly, he also blogs at Clownhall! (h/t reader RepackRider)

Democurmudgeon: You're Fired! County GOP Chief's criticism of Limbaugh doesn't "represent the views of most members"

Where’s the Outrage?: Serious Healthcare Reform -Starting From Scratch

PERRspectives: Cheney and the asterisk Republicans

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1605)

PLAYS: (3823)

If you want an example of how "centrism" is its own specially blinkered ideology, check out the rant from David Zurawik, the Baltimore Sun's media critic, yesterday on CNN's Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz:

OLBERMANN: You saved no one, Mr. Cheney. All you did was help kill Americans.

In the name of God, go.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KURTZ: David Zurawik, what do you make of a cable culture where some of these anchors and hosts get really, really mad, or upset or emotional, and it seems to work for them?

ZURAWIK: Howie, they're speaking for a visceral response. And honestly -- I don't want to overstate this, Howie, and you know from time to time I do -- risk that. But it's really that path lies fascism.

I mean, what we need as a democracy is reliable information. This is the opposite of it.

And by the way, that clip of Olbermann just really, I think, encapsulates it. This is a bizarro world or cartoon version of Edward R. Murrow with the cadence and this arch rhetoric and all this, but he is saying madman stuff.

So, heated debate is the sign of fascism? Sounds like Zurawick has been reading Jonah Goldberg.

A clue for David Zurawick: Keith Olbermann may have been contentious and even tendentious, but there's a factual case behind his observations that Dick Cheney likely did not save any lives -- after all, 3,000 Americans died on his watch on 9/11, and there is simply no public evidence whatsoever that the measures he enacted afterward actually thwarted any serious terrorist acts -- and his actions in promoting the invasion of Iraq in fact cost thousands of American lives, and over a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians' lives.

That's called robust debate. Fascism, on the other hand, entails the antithesis of debate -- it argues for the elimination of the opposition, not engagement. And it acts accordingly. When we see Keith Olbermann organizing or simply encouraging street thugs to go out and beat up Dick Cheney and his supporters, then he might have a legitimate concern about fascism.

Moreover, there's nothing quite as overheated, as contentious and tendentious, as calling people fascists, is there? -- particularly when you use the term as carelessly and thoughtlessly as Zurawick does here. Hello, pot, meet kettle.

But the really bizarre aspect of this is that Zurawick is really most upset about MSNBC in general, who he attacked throughout the segment (he doesn't like their weekend fill-in programming, but exactly what kind of media critic tries to claim that fill-in programming is evidence that MSNBC doesn't staff its national bureaus? Besides an utterly ignorant one, that is?).

Moreover, Zurawick seems to think the MSNBC invented the ideologically leaning opinion-news format that has him so worked up:

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (2517)

PLAYS: (5239)

From Countdown April 16, 2009.

As promised, a Special Comment now on the president's revelation of the remainder of this nightmare of Bush Administration torture memos. This President has gone where few before him, dared. The dirty laundry — illegal, un-American, self-defeating, self-destroying — is out for all to see.

Mr. Obama deserves our praise and our thanks for that. And yet he has gone but half-way. And, in this case, in far too many respects, half the distance is worse than standing still. Today, Mr. President, in acknowledging these science-fiction-like documents, you said that:

"This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke."

"We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history.

"But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.

Mr. President, you are wrong. What you describe would be not "spent energy" but catharsis.
Not "blame laid," but responsibility ascribed. You continued:

"Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future."

Indeed we must, Mr. President. And the forces of which you speak are the ones lingering — with pervasive stench — from the previous administration. Far more than a criminal stench, Sir. An immoral one. One we cannot let be re-created.

One, President Obama, it is your responsibility to make sure cannot be re-created. Forgive me for quoting from a Comment I offered the night before the inauguration. But this goes to the core of the President's commendable, but wholly naive, intention. This country has never "moved forward with confidence".without first cleansing itself of its mistaken past.

Continue reading »

Olbermann exposes another slimy move by Sean Hannity for Rudy Giuliani.

Download | play Download | play

transcript: But the winner, Sean Hannity of Fixed News.  Next time somebody tells you Fox is not dedicated to electing Republicans and slamming Democrats, answer with this anecdote.  Another Hannity interview of Rudy Giuliani this week, yet another occasion when Hannity and Fox and Roger Ailes did not disclose that on August 19^th Giuliani held a big ticket fund raiser in Cincinnati and the man introducing him to the high paying guests was Sean Hannity. 

Sean Hannity, whom his bosses insist is not a journalist, but just a conservative commentator who has now dropped down one more notch to Rudy Giuliani‘s fund raising meat puppet.  Even the other presidential hopefuls should be screaming bloody murder about this.  Sean Hannity, today‘s Worst Person in the World!

Hannity doing one of his solo interviews with Rudy on FOX while fundraising for him at the same time. Sean better be careful or Dobson will kick him out of the club.