Month: June 2011

Israel To Glenn Beck: STAY HOME!

Posted by on June 17, 2011 at 11:23 am. 19 Comments :

A grassroots movement of Americans and Israelis are launching a campaign to tell Glenn Beck that he isn’t wanted or needed in Israel.

Glenn Beck Stay HomeBeck’s insultingly named “Restoring Courage” rally will bring Beck and a few hundred of his disciples to Israel on a vague mission that purports to be supportive of the Jewish state. Unfortunately, Beck’s history of anti-Semitism and harsh criticism of any peace proposal short of annihilating all Palestinians and Muslims in the region, is not likely to produce a positive outcome. To the contrary, Beck’s presence is more likely to inflame tensions and impair relations between Israelis and Palestinians. Beck is a proud enemy of peace as evidenced by his repeated characterization of Palestinians as irredeemably hateful, intransigent, and not worthy of engaging in negotiation.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) has begun a petition campaign that directly calls on Beck to “Stay Home” and to cease his provocative and counter-productive rhetoric. The text of the petition reads:

Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Courage” rally in Jerusalem is an outrage.

The location of the rally — in East Jerusalem, just outside the Old City, one of the most politically sensitive locations in the world — signals that Beck is planning to inflame Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Americans who care about Israel are not fooled by Beck’s claim to be “standing with Israel.” A real friend of Israel would seek to help Israel make peace. No friend of Israel would seek to sow greater enmity between Israelis and Palestinians.

We have had our fill of Beck’s polarizing rhetoric. We are united in our opposition to this event.

As details of the affair trickle out we have learned that warmongers like Sen. Joseph Lieberman may be among the participants. Lieberman was an early supporter of the war in Iraq and has called for starting a new war against Iran. Also, Herman Cain, the Tea Party/GOP presidential hopeful, has expressed his intent to attend. Recently Cain demonstrated his ignorance of the Middle East when asked by Fox News’ Chris Wallace about the Palestinian “right of return.” Cain had no idea what Wallace was talking about (which he later admitted) but clumsily tried to answer the question anyway. Also on the bill is fundamentalist preacher John Hagee, who is such a great friend of Israel that he thanks God for Hitler, whom he believes was “God’s hunter” to drive Jews out of unfriendly nations and hasten the Apocalypse.

Please sign the APN petition and “Like” the Glenn Beck Stay Home page on Facebook. It is time that the true supporters of a secure Israel and a peaceful resolution to the region’s hostilities speak out and make it known that Glenn Beck has nothing to teach Israelis about courage. His brand of self-promotion and dishonesty cannot possibly contribute to the state of cooperation that is needed. He can only make things worse.

Truth-O-Meter Fail: Mitt Romney’s Job Recovery Disinformation

Posted by on June 16, 2011 at 11:19 pm. 5 Comments :

Republican presidential front-runner, Mitt Romney, was campaigning in a Tampa coffee shop where he delivered some remarks about the economy:

“It’s been a failure in the last several years to get America back on track again. It’s taken longer to get Americans back to work than it took during the Great Depression. This is the slowest job recovery since Hoover.”


Nice try, Mitt. An analysis by PolitiFact shows that Romney fell somewhat wide of the mark. As it turns out there were at least two, and perhaps as many as four, recessions that experienced slower recoveries. Amongst these were recessions overseen (and caused) by George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Now Romney and the rest of the GOP pack would like to go back to the policies that produced recoveries that were even slower than the one we are suffering through now.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what America wants, but whether or not they learn about the failures of the past that the GOP embraces will be determined by how thorough and honest the media is in reporting these facts.

PolitiFact goes into great detail in their analysis. They even explain the possible reasons that the present economic weakness has been so frustratingly enduring:

“Part of this likely stems from the severity of the recession (which most experts agree is the worst since the Great Depression) and part stems from a long-term trend toward relatively jobless recoveries. The first seven recoveries on our list averaged a jobs bounceback of more than 8 percent; the final five averaged 2 percent.”

By every standard of measure, the Obama administration is performing fairly well relative to historical comparisons, despite not achieving the results we all desire as rapidly as we would like. At least we are no longer in the vertical plunge the previous administration had cast us into.

The economy, as usual, will play a major role in the upcoming election. The challenge for Democrats is to tell the story of this recovery’s progress, even though to many voters it may not feel like there has been much. And the first line of attack is to call out the falsehoods and misrepresentations like the one Romney tried to pass off in Tampa.

Proof The Media Care More About Sleaze Than Substance

Posted by on June 16, 2011 at 1:32 pm. NO Comments :

The big story this morning, despite the sputtering economy, painful unemployment, a presidential campaign, and multiple foreign wars, is of course, Anthony Weiner’s announcement that he is resigning from congress. The blatantly twisted priorities of the media were demonstrated when Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi commenced a press conference and immediately stated that she would be talking about jobs and Medicare, and not Mr. Weiner. On hearing this, all three cable news networks cut away.

Just to recap, Weiner is a congressman from New York who is not a member of the Democratic leadership. He was caught up in a “scandal” that involved embarrassing and inappropriate personal communications on Twitter, but no illegality or sexual conduct. He was never accused of misuse of office and his constituents overwhelmingly support him and do not want him to resign.

Nevertheless, the media has hammered at this salacious triviality while underplaying far more important matters that the public wants and needs to know more about. And when offered an opportunity to engage a leader in the House of Representatives on issues critical to our nation, the press turned away as if it were a distraction.

To those who spin this story as being about lying and not about sex, please inform me as to when a scandal about lying ever produced this much attention from media. What’s more, if we are going to start ejecting politicians from office because they lied, we are going to have a nearly empty Capital Building. And for those who recognize that this is about sex or broader issues of morality, then let’s commence the calls for the resignations of Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), both of whom have been caught violating the law with prostitutes.

The Weiner announcement itself was turned into a circus by a heckler from the Howard Stern Show (whom Fox’s Martha MacCallum characterized as the “anger in the room”). But the embarrassment that is the American press corps is no less a clown act when you get down to it. Perhaps the Stern heckler is a poignant symbol of what the press has become.

Barack Obama Beating GOP Rivals In Their Own States

Posted by on June 16, 2011 at 11:00 am. 11 Comments :

As the 2012 campaign season continues to roll out, here’s something you won’t hear in much of the mainstream media:


The people who know these Republican candidates best prefer President Obama. These senators, governors, and congressmen served for years representing their constituents, yet those constituents were apparently not impressed.

Other Republican who have been the subject of speculation (Chris Christie of New Jersey, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich of Georgia, Sarah Palin of Alaska, and Rick Perry of Texas) are also notably unpopular at home. The same is true for GOP governors (Rick Scott of Florida, John Kasich of Ohio, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and more) for whom voters in their states are experiencing buyer’s remorse.

The rest of the nation should take this into account as the campaigns proceed.

People Want Substance – Media Dishes Scandal

Posted by on June 15, 2011 at 3:26 pm. 3 Comments :

A report published by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reveals the gaping divergence between the issues of interest to the American people and those covered by the media.

According to the survey, Americans were most interested in the economy (23%), but the press coverage of that issue amounted to less than half that (11%). Completely flipping those numbers around, only 13% of the country was interested in the Anthony Weiner story, but the press devoted 17% of their time to it – more than any other story.

When asked about the amount of coverage of various stories, 63% of respondents said that the Weiner story received too much coverage. Only 7% said that it received too little. Even a majority of Republicans (58%) said that there was too much press attention on Weiner. These numbers, by the way, were nearly identical to those regarding the Sarah Palin bus trip with 58% saying that it had been over covered, including 52% of Republicans.

If you ever wondered why the pressing problems of the day are not being resolved, or even seriously considered, it’s because the media so dependably ignores the issues about which the people are most concerned. And even when they do approach serious subjects they often trivialize them by focusing on tangents like Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, or distort them with partisan special interests like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Tea Party.

This is why the conventional media is losing ground daily to new media, where news consumers can seek out the information they want. And the folks at CNN, Fox, NBC, etc., can expect this trend to continue as long as they favor salacious trivialities over the issues that the American people regard as important.

A Smart GOP Would Cancel All MSM Debates and Stage Their Own

Posted by on June 14, 2011 at 3:36 pm. 1 Comments :

As I did a week ago with an article by Hugh Hewitt, my headline for this article is taken verbatim from one by John Nolte, editor-in-chief of Andrew Breitbart’s BigHollywood.

This article appeared on BigGovernment and it is great news. The rightist meme that Republican candidates should not participate in debates sponsored by those they deem the “mainstream” media is growing quickly. I can’t think of anything I would like to see more, with regard to the GOP debate season, than to not see them at all. If they actually had the guts to follow through on this threat it would be a great service to America.

Nolte’s primary argument is that candidates should not “willingly put themselves in a less than ideal situation.” That means not exposing oneself to probing questions that might have the disadvantage of revealing what you actually believe. He continues…

Nolte: Nothing is more important than getting our failed president out of office in 2012 and therefore nothing is more important than nominating someone who can win. This is why the number one quality we should be looking for among our otherwise superb field is someone who understands that when it comes to removing Barack Obama from office, the MSM is the existential threat of 2012 – not the President.

Nothing is more important to Nolte than unseating the current president – not jobs; not health care; not global warming; not terrorism; NOTHING!. And the most important quality that Nolte is looking for in a president is fear of the media – not experience; not leadership; not wisdom; not honesty; FEAR! That is the modern GOP in a nutshell (with an emphasis on the nuts). They have NOTHING to offer but FEAR.

Nolte wants the GOP field to stage their own “New Media” debates with folks like Jonah Goldberg and Rush Limbaugh asking the questions. Me too. Does Nolte think that this group won’t ask about issues like abortion or Medicare or the budget? If anything, I think they would be even more confrontational as they seek to elicit loyalty pledges from the candidates to establish their extremist bona fides. But in Nolte’s view, the purpose of the Republican debates should be to “make our side look as good as possible” and to “do as much political damage to President Obama as possible.” Oh yeah, he did throw in that they should also “help primary voters make a difficult choice.” How that would occur while in the midst of a GOP fluffing, Obama bashing festival is unclear.

It’s important to remember that it was Fox News CEO Roger Ailes who said “The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda.” That was in response to Democratic candidates who refused to participate in a debate sponsored by Fox News. So what does that say about the candidates that can’t face NBC or CNN (who is co-hosting their next GOP debate with Tea Party Express)?

Now along with Hugh Hewitt, we have Andrew Breitbart’s web site calling for a media embargo by Republican candidates. Sarah Palin has previously made similar remarks. They may be surprised to learn that I agree with them completely. I hope they have the courage to follow through, but I doubt it. That kind of strength and integrity is not what the GOP is known for.

As an aside, I have been following the Breitbart’s BigGovernment web site since the Anthony Weiner story broke. It has now been 17 days and still…


EVERY SINGLE HEADLINE at the top of the page (with the exception of a plug for Breitbart’s lame book), is about Weiner. There is a word for the kind of psychosis Breitbart is exhibiting: Obsession.

Fox News Is Very Concerned About Sexism

Posted by on June 14, 2011 at 11:54 am. 2 Comments :

On today’s front page of the Fox News online spew factory known as Fox Nation, there was a featured article that raised concerns about sexism in the media. Of course, it wasn’t directed to the dominance of ditzy blonds that populate Fox’s programming, or the fixation they have on First Lady Michelle Obama’s wardrobe or weight. It was that the Washington Post crossed some line of political correctness that offended Fox’s commitment to gender equality and respect when they published a story about Michelle Bachmann’s performance at the New Hampshire GOP debate. But take a look at the “Pic of the Day” that appeared just to the right of Bachmann’s on the web site:


The first thing that should be noted about this outrage is that the Fox Nationalists clearly don’t know what the phrase “Assume the position means.” They seem to think it has something to do with a sexual position. That, of course, is not so, but it tells us a lot about the pervs at Fox News. The phrase is a reference to a police command that a subject submit to a search for weapons or other contraband.

The next thing to note is that the Washington Post didn’t initiate the use of the phrase. They merely reported that John King, the CNN moderator of the debate, used it to prepare the candidates for the start of the debate. It was a play on words with an association to “positions” that candidates take on issues. In as much as the Post editorialized the phrase with regard to Bachmann, it was in a positive manner, saying that she “rose above the usual positioning” and that she “stole the show.”

Finally, the spectacle of Fox News becoming disturbed about sexism is a joke. As alluded to above, they are generally dismissive of legitimate complaints of sexism, which they portray as liberal whining and political correctness. But worse than that, they ceaselessly exploit sexism on the air in pursuit of horny viewers. So I took a look at Fox Nation’s “Pic of the Day” for just this year and found that they might not be as sensitive to the prevalence of sexism as they pretend to be.


This exploitation of women’s sexuality for commercial purposes is a part of the Fox News identity. It is Rupert Murdoch’s editorial creed and is practiced across his properties. If they could get away with it, they would broadcast nude pictures of women as Murdoch’s British tabloid The Sun does daily on its Page Three feature. This has long been one of the most blatant hypocrisies of the Murdoch empire which purports to advocate a Puritan-style, faith-based, morality. Somehow, Fox’s glassy-eyed congregation is able to ignore this contradiction.

To be fair, while researching this article I found that Fox was not entirely consumed with the sexual exploitation of women. There was one example of a male victim of this rhetorical abuse:


That’s Republican congressman Aaron Schock of Illinois. And, no, this is not a picture that he tweeted to a fan online. It is a picture that he posed for and was published in Men’s Health Magazine. Consequently it was on newsstands nationwide and seen by millions, not just a handful of individuals on a social network. That’s apparently the difference. If you send naked pictures of yourself to a couple of net-friends you are called upon to resign. If you publish them in magazines with millions of readers, as Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) did, it’s perfectly OK. Got that? And if you’re going to embroil yourself in a sex scandal, at least get some actual sex. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) were both caught with prostitutes in violation of the law, but they are both still serving in Congress.

Fox News Analyst Dick Morris Admits He Is A GOP Shill

Posted by on June 14, 2011 at 1:12 am. 2 Comments :

Anyone with a functioning brain stem knows that Fox News is the PR arm of the Republican Party. Their programming throughout the day is unabashedly partisan and overtly hostile to the White House and Democrats. And while they prove it every day in their news and commentary, it isn’t often that confess it openly.

Fox News contributor and political analyst Dick Morris appeared today on the Mike Gallagher radio show and made it clear that he has no intention of even pretending to be a objective analyst:

Morris: I decided a couple of – a month or two ago to stop dumping on Mitt Romney, for example … Not because I approve of Romneycare, not because I approve of his flip-flops, flip on abortion, but because I may have to be one of those who carries this guy for a couple of months when he’s running against Obama and I don’t want to make my own task harder.

There you have it. It doesn’t matter what his actual opinion is about Romney, he is only going to comment in a manner that will be supportive. So regardless what questions he is asked by Fox hosts like Bill O’Reilly or Megyn Kelly, Morris can be depended on to give a dishonest answer.

It would be interesting to ask O’Reilly what he thinks about this and how he will engage Morris the next time Morris is his guest. It calls calls into question every answer Morris gives on any subject. Is he just advancing the GOP position on not increasing the debt ceiling even though he may believe it should be increased? Is he really pro-abortion but doesn’t want to want make his task harder when he’s promoting a family values, fundamentalist Republican candidate?

OK, a lot of this is obvious partisanship that has always been a part of the Fox psyche. And Morris is, perhaps, the most consistently wrong pundit in America. But it’s still a little jarring to hear him make this admission. And the fact that he feels free to do so is likewise disturbing. When will Fox’s colleagues wise up and stop treating Fox as if it were a legitimate news enterprise? Fox is making fools of every real journalist that allows them to get away with this.

Sarah Palin: An Excruciating Combination Of Bombast And Whining

Posted by on June 11, 2011 at 9:21 am. 10 Comments :

Sarah PalinThe upcoming Sarah Palin crockumentary, hilariously titled The Undefeated, has been screening before selected audiences. The reaction hasn’t been particularly encouraging. For the most part conservatives are swooning over its unabashedly reverential treatment of the former half-term governor and defeated VP candidate, while liberals note the historical revisionism that excises all of her missteps and muddle-headedness.

The most surprising critique comes from an unlikely source. Kyle Smith is the film critic for the New York Post. The Post is not only a notoriously right-wing, tabloid rag, it is also owned by Rupert Murdoch, the same person who employs Sarah Palin at his Fox News Channel. So here is what is being said about the movie from its friendliest faction:

“Its tone is an excruciating combination of bombast and whining, it’s so outlandishly partisan that it makes Richard Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln and its febrile rush of images – not excluding earthquakes, car wrecks, volcanic eruption and attacking Rottweilers – reminded me of the brainwash movie Alex is forced to sit through in ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ Except no one came along to refresh my pupils with eyedrops.”

In other words, the movie is a painstakingly accurate representation of its subject. It will be premiering in Iowa next month, followed by New Hampshire and other early primary states. And Fox News still keeps Palin on the air as if she were not campaigning. The producers hope to launch a limited release in mostly red states later in the year. Expect it to achieve success similar to that of the Tea Party-promoted Atlas Shrugged. Which is to say that it will fail miserably. And like Atlas Shrugged, the free market-loving, Randian, Tea Partiers will blame everything but the film’s shoddy production and tedious, predictability for its failure.

The prospects for this project are conspicuously weak. Despite the Pavlovian frenzy on the part of the media, Palin is actually a marginal figure with approval ratings in the twenties. That is not the sort of product that fills seats in theaters. Her books have sold successively worse, and her TLC cable show lost viewers just about every week it was on the air. So where is the audience for this outside of the waning Palin Appreciation Society?

The one potentially positive outcome of this film is that, after it bombs, perhaps the media will grasp that Palin is nothing more than a political pet rock – a gag gift that does not deserve the attention that is showered on her. And since she hates the press so much, and refuses to interact with it, maybe they will stop following her around like lost puppies.

Was Andrew Breitbart’s X-Rated Photo Release Really “Accidental”? [Updated]

Posted by on June 9, 2011 at 2:26 pm. 11 Comments :

Just when you thought that Andrew Breitbart could not become any sleazier, he is now accusing Anthony Weiner and his wife of releasing the news of her pregnancy as a PR stunt. That’s a stretch even for a scumbag like Breitbart. As usual, he has no evidence, not even an anonymous source. It is a wholly invented canard whose only purpose can be to smear the Weiner family and bring them more pain, and consequently bring more pain to his real target, the Democratic Party.

This is politics at its worst. Despite Breitbart’s disingenuous assertion that he didn’t want to hurt the Weiner family, he now says that “We have every right to find out to what extent he’s been misbehaving.” Since when? And if we have that right with regard to Weiner, should we also be stalking every other public servant to disclose their misbehavior? Should we see what Breitbart is up to when he’s not peeking through the windows of his ideological enemies?

If anyone is engaging in PR stunts, it’s Breitbart. When the latest and most graphic picture of Weiner was “leaked” to the media this week, Breitbart feigned outrage, insisting that he had nothing to do with it. Why should anyone believe that?

Here are the known facts: Breitbart took the photo with him when he went to the radio studio of shock-jocks Opie & Anthony. That’s the first curious thing. Why would he need to have that picture with him while visiting a pair of professional jerkwads who make a living off of rank controversy? Then, without any prodding, he handed the photo, which was on his cellphone, to others in the studio who passed it around amongst themselves while making juvenile wisecracks. That is not something someone concerned about the subject’s privacy would do.

Later, Breitbart alleged that a surveillance camera in the room captured the photo from his cellphone. That is a suspect assertion at best. It is simply not credible that a surveillance camera could have picked up the image from Breitbart’s cellphone and produced the detail on the leaked photo that went public. Most surveillance cameras are positioned high on the wall near a corner of the room so that they have a broad perspective of the area they are monitoring. Breitbart expects us to believe that one of those cameras, that are not generally high resolution devices, got a clear and detailed shot over somebody’s shoulder of an image on a small cellphone screen. That assertion needs to be challenged.

Additionally, Breitbart claimed that he only offered to show the photo after he was assured that there were no cameras in the room. That is a verifiable lie. Breitbart knew very well that the show was being videotaped. You can see the video of the show below.

Clearly this was taken on a hand-held device, not a stationary surveillance camera. Breitbart even looks directly at the camera on several occasions. So he obviously lied when he said that he thought there were no cameras in the studio. And his assertion that he was told that there were no cameras was also a lie. The video shows that he never asked for, nor received such an assurance.

In my estimation, Breitbart wanted this photo to be released but he didn’t want to take the heat as the sleazeball who released it. So he manufactured this cover story with a couple of radio publicity hounds who would gladly insert themselves into a national melodrama. Anthony Cumia even admitted as much in an interview on Fox News:

“When you take a chunk of meat into a lion’s den, someone’s gonna take a bite. […] I do kind of like attaching ourselves to an international story. It is the credo of the shock jock.”

This appears to be a deliberate scheme to extend and amplify the controversy, and it is just the sort of thing Breitbart would do based on his Legacy of Sleaze. There are so many pieces of Breitbart’s story that don’t fit, or are certifiably false, that one has to refer to his history of dishonesty and purposeful deception. Until Breitbart can satisfactorily explain these discrepancies, we should assume that he deliberately devised this scheme to release the photo with his shock-jock pals as accomplices.

[UPDATE] Stephen Colbert also noticed Breitbart’s ridiculous cover story about the “accidental” release of the photo. Colbert succinctly nailed the notion that Breibart was an innocent victim of unforeseeable circumstances:

“What happened to the sacred tradition of confidentiality between respected journalists and shock-jocks?”

Colbert also mocked the absurd claim that Breitbart didn’t know there were cameras in the studio by pointing out that no cameras were visible in the video of Breitbart that was taken by a camera across the desk from him.