This interview is one of the reasons why America is so uninformed about serious issues in our country. Kyra Phillips is really engaged in the Utah mining disaster and has a genuine passion about the story, but instead of asking the real questions to Murray about the dangerous mining conditions he promoted after he denied them---she treated him like a folk hero. The Huffington Post has more...

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Murray: A rumor was started by the United Mine Workers. It's false statements they have made. False statements from the beginning. But I've watched them for 50 years and they have preyed on the tragedy of miners and their families to put out false information to organize their union.

Murray always has the time to bash the United Mine Workers as much as he can and then he praises CNN for the wonderful job they are doing.

Again, why was this not included in CNN's coverage?

Robert Murray insists that his company did not change the mining plan at Crandall Canyon after purchasing a joint interest in the mine last August. But documents obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune clearly contradict Murray's assertion, and show that Murray's company sought and received approval from federal regulators to make a significant, and, experts say, risky change to the mining strategy...read on

Isn't that more important than trying to defend your coverage? I understand that there is great suffering in the lives of the families that have to deal with this nightmare and our hearts reach out to them, but when are we supposed to have serious conversations on serious issues?

Continue reading »

AP Via The Huffington Post:

With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama's football stadium.About 10 condominium projects are going up in and around Tuscaloosa, and builders are asking up to $1 million for units with granite countertops, king-size bathtubs and 'Bama decor, including crimson couches and Bear Bryant wall art.

While many of the buyers are Crimson Tide alumni or ardent football fans not entitled to any special Katrina-related tax breaks, many others are real estate investors who are purchasing the condos with plans to rent them out.

And they intend to take full advantage of the generous tax benefits available to investors under the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, or GO Zone, according to Associated Press interviews with buyers and real estate officials. Read more...

Via The Huffington Post:

If the Gray Lady didn't have enough problems battling industrywide woes, now she has Rupert Murdoch to worry about.

The media billionaire has made no secret of his desire to take aim at the New York Times once his News Corp. acquires Dow Jones & Co. and its flagship Wall Street Journal in a $5-billion deal expected to close this fall.

Murdoch said during an earnings conference call last week that he wanted the financial newspaper to have "more coverage of national, international and nonbusiness news . . . all to better compete with the New York Times and other national newspapers."

In private, Murdoch has been more blunt. Read more...

Huffington Post:

For the past seven months, the Democratic majority in Congress has been overshadowed by a mysterious force. In spite of overwhelming support from the American people and the hard work of Democrats, legislative priorities have stalled time after time.

Today, the Campaign for America's Future revealed evil force behind this obstructionism. See it right here, right now. You're among the first to learn the secret.....

AP Via The Huffington Post:

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Download | play Download | play UPDATE: longer version here, you can see what a madhouse it was (h/t Scarce)

President Bush's former chief of staff Andrew Card was loudly booed by hundreds of students and faculty members as he rose to accept an honorary degree at the University of Massachusetts on Friday.[..]
Card smiled slightly while Seymour spoke and raised his hand in thanks, then sat down without speaking.

One faculty member onstage held a sign: "Card _ no honor, no degree." Another sign said, "War criminals go home." Read more...

Frankly, I have a hard time understanding why UMass would even entertain the thought of awarding Card an honorary degree, especially after hearing the recent testimony of Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey detailing his disturbing and highly unethical bedside hackery meeting in John Ashcroft's hospital room in 2004 with then White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales.

AP Via Huffington Post:

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.
The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

"We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.

But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.

"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip. Read more...

WTF is wrong with these people? It hasn't even been a month since the Virginia Tech shootings and they decide to pull something like this without informing the students or their parents. Brilliant. Is there any doubt that some of these children will have lasting emotional problems from this?

(Guest blogged by Logan Murphy)

How much worse can it get for poor, old Ted? As if the embarrassment of getting outed for doing meth with a male hooker wasn't bad enough, now the church he built from the ground up is paying him to leave Colorado Springs altogether. Gotta love those Christian values.

Via Huffington Post:

The Rev. Ted Haggard moved Wednesday from his longtime home in Colorado Springs to Phoenix, where the disgraced minister will join the same church that helped fallen televangelist Jim Baker.
Haggard, 50, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals last year, after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and said he bought meth but never used it.

As part of his severance package from New Life Church, a 14,000-member congregation he started in his basement, Haggard agreed to leave Colorado Springs, a city he helped make an evangelical center.

"When he moved out of town today, there was a kind of relief on the part of the church that life can get back to normal," said the Rev. H.B. London, one of three ministers overseeing what has been called Haggard's "restoration." "For the Haggards, it is the beginning of a huge new chapter. It's a brand new start for them, the beginning of a new beginning." Read more...

GOP pollster Frank Luntz has been advising conservative Republicans for years on how to exploit language to smear Dems and win elections. It was Luntz, for example, who teamed up with Newt Gingrich to shape the Contract with America in 1994.

And now, Luntz has taken to the pages of the Huffington Post to offer the left some advice: don’t act like his Republican clients.

I am not in the habit of offering partisan linguistic advice to Democrats. But in the genuine spirit of bipartisanship - seriously - I thought this is the perfect time to convey a simple point to the still-euphoric faces of Democrat activists: Don’t twist the knife. […]

Democracy is at its best when its practioners use language to unite and explain rather than divide and attack…. We need an intelligent debate, not a sound-bite contest.

Given Luntz's record, this just doesn't make any sense.

I don't mind a heated debate, but I look down on lies, sloppy reading, and careless writing.

There's a winger website that has apparently taken to specializing in lying about what I write - unless they just don't know what they're doing. To paraphrase Jimi Hendix, is it hate ... or just confusion?

Here's an example: Read this piece in the Huffington Post, and then this one by the self-described Gateway Pundit. Then, find the lies.

I'll get you started:

1. The victim in my piece is innocent. They claim that I characterized the victim in my piece as a terrorist.
2. There's no mention of Abu Ghraib, or of the United States, in my piece.
3. I never called terrorists "freedom fighters." They're claiming Cindy Sheehan did, although even if their transcript is correct her meaning isn't clear. What's that got to do with my piece?

(UPDATE: As they did once before, they deleted something to cover their tracks -- their claim that I called the victim a terrorist -- rather than do the right thing and 'fess up.)

Despite having written about me before by name, they get my name wrong. "E. J. Escrow" seems to be a conflation of E. J. Dionne and their tax problems. Not that it bothers me - "RJ" isn't the name my mother gave me. It certainly exemplifies their level of quality control.

But then, fact checking isn't the Right's specialty, is it?

Ands they've said false things about me before over there, so it must be standard practice for them. (continued )

The Huffington Post has a whole collection of blogs from the Middle East...