An Open Letter To Rachel Maddow Re: Jan Brewer

Posted by on September 3, 2010 at 4:56 pm. 1 Comments :

Rachel Maddow has been reporting on a wide-ranging scandal in the Arizona statehouse. The local CBS affiliate in Phoenix has been investigating Governor Jan Brewer and her staff for alleged improprieties surrounding the passage of SB1070, the anti-immigrant bill. The investigation has shown that members of Brewer’s advisors and staff are also lobbyists for private prison enterprises who stand to gain from the bill’s passage:

“As CBS station KPHO-TV has revealed, two of Governor Brewers advisers, Paul Senseman and Chuck Coughlin, have extensive ties to a private prison company called the Corrections Corporation of America, CCA. As a prison operator in Arizona, that company stands to benefit from every person detained under SB1070.”

Since the story broke the Brewer campaign has removed all campaign advertising from KPHO-TV. Maddow followed up and learned that the decision was Brewer’s and that the reasons were specifically due to the station’s investigation.

What this amounts to is a sort of blackmail on the part of the Governor. It is considered inappropriate and unethical for a public servant to seek to punish members of the press for doing their jobs. This is very different than declining to grant interviews to an adversarial reporter. This attacks the news enterprise financially by refusing to purchase advertising.

However, there is a bigger question here. While KPHO-TV is to be commended for their integrity in pursuing this story in the face of these repercussions, I have to wonder where the rest of the Arizona media is. I have not heard any reports that Brewer’s campaign has halted advertising on any other Arizona television station. Maybe that’s because I have also been able to find any stories on this subject by any other station. This is clearly a matter of importance to residents of the state. So why haven’t the other stations covered it? Are they now afraid of losing ad dollars? Are they deliberately suppressing the news to facilitate the Governor?

These would be great questions for Maddow to raise when following up further on this story. If the media in Arizona has been either biased in favor of Brewer, or intimidated by her or her staff, it needs to be revealed and reported to the citizens who have an important election coming up in a couple of months. Are you listening Rachel?

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On Letterman: Donald Trump Declares War On Islam

Posted by on September 3, 2010 at 10:31 am. 10 Comments :

Joining many ignorant and intolerant right-wingers, Donald Trump has taken the position that all Muslims were responsible for the World Trade Center terrorist attack. Appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman, Trump responded to a question about the non-mosque that is not at ground zero:

Letterman: Does this suggest that we are in fact officially at war with Muslims?
Trump: Well, somebody knocked down the World Trade Center. […] Somebody’s blowing us up. Somebody’s blowing up buildings, and somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff.

Somebody knocked down the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma too. Are we therefore at war with all Christians? Somebody bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama killing four girls. Somebody shot and killed a doctor in Kansas. Somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff in the name of Christ, so no more churches should be built in America. Right, Donald?

The Fox Nation (via NewsBusters) carried this story with a headline that asserted that Trump had “schooled” Letterman. They noted twice that Trump received applause from the audience for his remarks on the mosque. What they left out was that Letterman was also applauded when he disagreed with Trump and stood up for religious freedom. Letterman received more applause later when he explicitly said that we are not at war with Muslims, but that segment was cut out of the NewsBusters video. (The video above is not from NewsBusters. It contains the full exchange).

Even worse, the Fox Nationalist’s completely deleted the exchange where Trump said that we should never have gone into Iraq. He called the Iraq war a “bad move” and “incompetent,” for which he received additional applause.

What this proves is that Fox News, Fox Nation, and their pals at NewsBusters, are no more credible than the notoriously dishonest Andrew Breitbart. They will deceptively edit their videos to produce whatever conclusion best fits their agenda. Anyone who continues to believe what they see there is simply ignorant by choice.


If You Still Think Glenn Beck Is Not Racist…

Posted by on September 2, 2010 at 12:14 pm. 17 Comments :

Glenn Beck and his defenders have fiercely denied allegations that he is a racist or has incited racial hostility on his radio and TV programs. But the evidence of his animosity toward people of color is abundant since the election of a black president.

Looking back on Beck’s crusades since the inauguration (which, coincidentally, was also the inauguration of his show on Fox News), Beck began with an attack on ACORN, a group of community organizers who advocated on behalf of poor and minority populations. Then he went after Van Jones, an African-America who sought to bring jobs and environmental justice to disenfranchised communities. Then it was Mark Lloyd, an African-America working to insure diversity in the media in his role at the FCC. Then it was Valerie Jarrett, the African-America aide to President Obama. The it was Shirley Sherrod, an African-American woman who was slandered by Beck and Andrew Breitbart in a phony attempt to cast her as a racist.

Now Beck is attacking Dolores Huerta, an Hispanic labor activist with a legendary resume. She co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez. She is presently working with the Department of Labor to insure that workers are not exploited by employers seeking to pay them less than they are entitled to under the law. Presumably Beck would like to bring back indentured servitude.

The real question is why are the targets of Beck’s attacks so often people of color? Even though there is the occasional Caucasian like Cass Sunstein (who is Jewish), the racial scale for Beck’s tirades is heavily weighted toward minorities. Anyone who doesn’t recognize the significance of that fact is dwelling in deep denial. With this assault on Huerta, Beck continues to prove that he is overtly discriminatory in his selection of enemies.

On a tangential point, the Obama administration has a pretty poor record of standing up for its people. They let Van Jones go. They forced Shirley Sherrod to resign (before apologizing). They never defended ACORN, even after they were absolved of any wrongdoing. If they permit Beck to railroad Huerta out of the Labor Department they are going to see the last remaining remnants of their support from progressives, and others on the left, drift away. So my message to the administration: Don’t be stupid.


Rupert Murdoch’s Paywall Going Bust

Posted by on September 2, 2010 at 11:31 am. 2 Comments :

In the latest in a long line of pinhead moves by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the plan to secure the content of their newspaper web sites behind paywalls is failing miserably. A report in The Independent reveals that…

“Faced with a collapse in traffic to thetimes.co.uk, some advertisers have simply abandoned the site.” and that “traffic to The Times site has fallen by 90 per cent since the introduction of charges.”

This was entirely predictable. When there is an abundance of news available online, why would anyone pay to receive information that is not distinguishable from the free information available elsewhere? Especially when consumers are already “paying” as a result of their presence being sold to advertisers. That’s traditionally how media produces revenue.

In addition to the traffic almost disappearing from the The Times site, reporters are anxious about having lost their voice and their reach into the community. What journalist would want to see their readership decline by 90%? What’s more, publicists are avoiding The Times because they know that their stories will not be seen by very many people.

It was reported last month that The Times lost 1.2 Million online readers since the paywall was erected. And that’s not all:

According to ComScore, the combined number of unique visitors to the two new sites has fallen to 1.61 million in July, from 2.22 million in June, and 2.79 million in May. […] The average number of minutes each user spent on the site was 7.6 in May, 5.8 in June and 4 in July. […] Page views have dropped from 29 million in May to 20 million in June and 9 million in July.

Some analysts insist that this is a long-term initiative. Maybe so. But by the time they might expect paywalls to pay off, the advertising market for online media will have matured and become profitable. However, anyone who follows Murdoch now into the paywall panic room will lose out in the ad market because they won’t have enough traffic to produce revenue.

Congratulations, Rupert.


Damn Right! I’ll Give George W. Bush Credit

Posted by on September 1, 2010 at 11:21 am. 3 Comments :

Much of the Rightist media is clamoring for attention today on behalf of their hero, George W. Bush. The rallying cry has something to do with giving the former president credit for the Iraq war as President Obama announces an end to the military engagement.


So in the spirit of bipartisanship, I will be happy to give Bush credit. I’ll give him full and complete credit for…

  • Waging a war of aggression under false pretenses.
  • Lying about Iraq being allied with Al Qaeda.
  • Lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.
  • Lying about oil revenue paying for the whole misadventure.
  • Killing hundreds of thousands of innocent, civilian Iraqis.
  • Losing the lives of more than 4,000 American soldiers.
  • Permitting atrocities like Abu Ghraib.
  • Aiding and abetting Al Qaeda’s recruitment efforts.
  • Sticking us with the mess at Guantanamo Bay.
  • Diverting military and financial resources from the real war on terror.
  • Destroying our nation’s international reputation.
  • Bankrupting our country and burdening us with lasting economic hardship.
  • Weakening our Constitutional liberties.

It would be inconsiderate not to recognize Bush and to give him his fair due for his contribution to the war in Iraq, which he initiated. And I for one will not rob him of the credit he so richly deserves.


Fox News FINALLY Refudiates Violent Rhetoric

Posted by on August 31, 2010 at 3:02 pm. 9 Comments :

Almost since its inception, Fox News has been a hotbed of irresponsible discourse that encouraged intolerance and hostility. They have harbored hosts, contributors and guests whose language was sometimes thinly veiled advocacy of violence, and sometimes there was no veil at all.

  • Bill O’Reilly threatened to “hunt down” and “strangle” members of the media.
  • Liz Trotta joked that “somebody knock off Osama … uh … Obama … well, both if we could.”
  • Rush Limbaugh told his listeners to start riots at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, “with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That’s the objective here.”
  • Sarah Palin has taken to giving her followers this advice: “Don’t retreat…Reload!”
  • Glenn Beck agreed with his guest Michael Scheuer that the only hope for America “is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

Beck is one of the worst perpetrators of hostile rhetoric. He used to have a regular radio bit wherein he speculated about who he would like to beat to death with a shovel. He fantasized about choking Michael Moore to death with his bare hands. And more recently he frequently condemns progressives as a cancer that has to be “cut out.” So perhaps it was Beck to whom this Fox News story was referring when they said that provocative remarks “could easily incite a rabid fan to commit violent acts.” And that fans “could be influenced because of their devotion.” The article quoted Cooper Lawrence, the author of “Cult of Celebrity” saying that:

“The fear isn’t that a celebrity will influence someone to do something violent or out of character due to the sheer devotion to the celebrity, the fear is that someone who is already vulnerable, mentally disturbed, already considering something dangerous, may be encouraged to do so if it is advocated by their favorite star.”

Image consultant Michael Sands concurred saying that he “is taking his fame too seriously. He is having delusions and his anger” could “get him arrested!”

These criticisms ought to be taken seriously by anyone, left or right, who ventures into such disturbing scenarios and has the ability to influence others who may not be of particularly sound mind. Certainly that would apply to someone with the public posture of Glenn Beck. Just one little thing…The article was not referring to Beck or any of the other viscerally divisive characters above. It was referring to actor John Cusack who Tweeted…

“I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES ORDICK ARMEYAND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS”

Much of the reaction at Fox News, and elsewhere in the rightist blogosphere, is that Cusack was articulating some kind of threat. That just illustrates how deficient their comprehension skills are. Anyone with a functioning cerebrum can see that Cusack was responding to the bigoted and illogical arguments against the Islamic community center being planned near ground zero in Lower Manhattan. Cusack was satirically turning the controversy on its head by proposing a church of Satan near Fox’s offices. But the dimwits at Fox, and their ideological peers, just don’t get it.

It’s too bad that when Fox News finally gets around to making a principled statement against violent hate-speech that they direct it toward someone who wasn’t engaging in it and ignore their own complicity. It would be nice if those getting so worked up about this phony misinterpretation of Cusack’s comments would be similarly outraged by the very real violent rhetoric that is a regular part of Fox’s programming, as noted above. But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that expression of fairness and balance to occur.

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Beck-Stock Postmortum

Posted by on August 30, 2010 at 12:54 pm. 8 Comments :

I think it’s fair to say that the promised miracles for Glenn Beck’s Right Power Rally failed to materialize. There were no sightings of the Virgin Mary in tea leaves and no healing of lepers. [FLASH: Beck announced a “miracle” that occurred at the rally. Some birds flew overhead. Yep, that’s it. Sends chills down your spine, doesn’t it?] It was less a turning point for America than a veering off into ditch. But there were a couple of things that deserve notice:

First, Beck appeared on Fox News Sunday the day after his revival meeting and walked back his famous assertion that President Obama is a racist, telling Chris Wallace that…

“You see, it’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don’t know what that is, other than it’s not Muslim, it’s not Christian. It’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.”

Well, that clears that up. Obama isn’t really a racist, he just believes in oppression and is perverting the gospel. That’s much better. Thanks for the clarification.

Secondly, prior to Beckapalooza, he appeared with Bill O’Reilly to hype the event. In the course of their discussion O’Reilly bet Beck that there would not be more than 100,000 people at the rally. If there were, O’Reilly promised to give Beck his primetime spot on the Fox News schedule. Crowd estimates have varied widely from an expert’s analysis at CBS of 87,000, to Beck’s own guess of between 300,000 and 600,000. Since O’Reilly would never concede that CBS would get anything right, it leaves us with a figure that was certainly in excess of 100,000. So I’m wondering when O’Reilly will step down and let Beck move into his studio.

Finally, it should be noted that Beck’s sermon about how it is now time to “concentrate on the good” didn’t last even 24 hours. He was already bashing the President the next day on Fox News Sunday. So I wouldn’t get too excited about a new, positive Beck. In fact, I would expect his petulant tirades to continue into the foreseeable future


Has Our Honor Been Restored Yet, Glenn Beck?

Posted by on August 28, 2010 at 1:15 pm. 9 Comments :

Pope Glenn BeckThis was the big weekend for Glenn Beck, and allegedly, America. He went from the Kennedy Center Friday night to the Lincoln Memorial Saturday, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream Speech.” That’s three murdered progressive heroes in two days. Is there a name for that sort of psychosis?

I watched over three hours of Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally this morning. I watched it very closely. I didn’t leave the room even once. But I’m afraid I may have missed something.

For months prior to the event Beck promised that it would be a turning point for America; that it would be an awakening; that miracles would happen. Well, unless a leper was healed in the reflecting pool off-camera, I must have missed the miracle. In fact, all I saw was a live, extended episode of the 700 Club with Glenn Beck as the guest host.

If I had spent several hundred dollars on transportation and lodging to hear an alcoholic, drug abusing, former morning zoo radio shock jock, tell me that I should heed the word of the Lord, I would feel somewhat disappointed right about now. Especially if I was expecting some premium Obama bashing and anti-government blather.

For the most part, Beck kept his promise to avoid politics. While there were a few indirect aspersions to political issues, the bulk of the presentation focused overwhelmingly on Christian fundamentalism. It was an old-school revival meeting without a lick of originality wherein Beck announced that America is “turning back to God.” And although he promoted the event as one that would unite all faiths, there wasn’t a single representative from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or any other non-Christian sect (not to mention Atheism). The only Jewish participant was a rabbi (and former associate of convicted felon, Jack Abramoff), who was introduced on stage but did not address the crowd.

Also on stage were numerous African Americans, mostly members of gospel choirs. I would venture to say that there were more African Americans on stage than amongst the tens of thousands in the audience.

The sermon Beck delivered was notable in that he defined 9/11 as “a wake up call” from God. That may come as a surprise to those who assumed terrorists from Al Qaeda were responsible. He also stressed that “America is at a crossroads” and that “we must advance or perish.” Beck courageously declared that he would choose to advance. I guess that should silence all those radicals who think we ought to perish instead. However, I wonder if advancing might not be a little too suggestive of the progressive course that Beck so feverishly abhors.

One of the most frequently expressed themes articulated by Beck was that we have been spending way too much time on what’s wrong with America and that it is now time “to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished – and the things that we can do tomorrow. That would be refreshing if Beck were able to sustain it for more than a heartbeat.

Ninety-five percent of show his about what’s wrong with America. He hates the government. He hates the people. He hates the Democrats. He hates the Republicans. He hates health care and the environment and unions and churches and Social Security. To Beck we are a crumbling empire awash in debt, ruled by Marxists and estranged from God. And this guy is lecturing the rest of us about concentrating on the good things? A few days ago he expressed his thoughts on the future in a more foreboding tone that is common on his radio and TV programs:

“I’m begging you to get down on your knees. What is coming is not good. I don’t know how things end. I should rephrase that. I do know how things end. But I know how things end after a long struggle. I don’t know how that struggle is going to work out. I don’t know how much time each of us has. I don’t know how much time the country has.”

How does he expect his flock to concentrate on the good while he is advising them to liquidate their assets and hoard gold and guns? It will be interesting to see if Beck’s new-found evangelistic optimism can be maintained for even the next week of his broadcasts, or if his familiar doomsday fear mongering will continue to dominate his message. Either way, I’m still waiting for evidence of his Miracle on the Mall. And for the record, my honor never needed restoration in the first place.

Addendum: Attendance estimates for Beckapalooza have begun buzzing around the media hive. Predictably, they range from 87,000 (certified by a CBS expert analyst) to 600,000 (by the certifiably insane Beck).


Martin Luther King On Restoring Honor

Posted by on August 28, 2010 at 9:00 am. 1 Comments :

The real meaning of this day historically will always be the profound and transformative address delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to a quarter of a million Americans who had been denied the American dream. But Dr. King had a dream of his own [The full text of King’s speech follows]:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. [Applause]

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

Contine reading →


Fox News Posts Review Of Glenn Beck’s Rally Before It Happens

Posted by on August 27, 2010 at 10:53 am. 5 Comments :

Fox News promos often tout the network as “The Most Powerful Name In News.” Now that power extends into the supernatural as FoxNews.com is caught publishing a story reviewing Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, DC, the day before it takes place. This demonstration of journalistic clairvoyance may just be a part of the “miraculous” occurrences that Beck promised would take place at tomorrow’s historic event. However, despite the obvious scoop that Fox could claim with this pre-porting, the story was quickly removed from the site, but not before I captured this picture of the screen:

Whether or not the event plays out as depicted in this visual account, we will just have to wait and see. But many prognosticators are laying down their bets for how the event will be portrayed after the fact. Even Glenn Beck has submitted his prebuttal to the media’s reaction:

“My prediction is that this will be covered incorrectly, they will take one line from somebody, or one thing, or they will find one person on the stage that shouldn’t have been there, and or there will be somebody in the crowd, whatever, they will focus on one thing.”

It’s not surprising that Beck would produce this prediction since it mirrors so precisely his own patented method of incorrectly covering people and events in the news.

In the weeks preceding the rally, Beck made some rather grandiose predictions concerning the impact it would have on the attendees and on America. He said to expect a miracle on 8/28; that it would be a turning point for the nation; and that it would be both the Woodstock and the anti-Woodstock of the next generation. But he said the most profound impact would be on the children who would forever remember the experience, and “will be indelibly marked. It will be marked forever. … It will be a brand on them.”

Now, I’m not a Bible scholar, but the only Biblical reference to being “branded” that I can recall had to do with the “Mark of the Beast” (aka Satan). So we may want to check the kids leaving Beck’s Rally on Sunday for the telltale “666” on their foreheads.

[Numerology Alert: The numerological summation of the phrase “Restoring Honor” is “6.” The numerological summation of the date “8/28/2010” is “3.” Hence three sixes.]

The big challenge for Beck is to manage to live up to the rhapsodic buildup he gave for his Revival meeting. In what form will the promised miracle take place. Will a Heavenly aura embrace the mall? Will tears of blood run from Lincoln’s marble eyes? Will all the toast in DC sport images of Sarah Palin in biker shorts? Will the lame be healed (good news for Beck)? Will Jesus sing the lead of Cat Scratch Fever in a duet with Ted Nugent? Who knows? But if the world isn’t wholly transformed by Sunday morning, this event will have to be perceived as a failure. Can Beck deliver?

There was a noticeable evolution in the buildup to the rally as the original announcement portrayed it as a launch party for his next book, “The Plan, a 100 year blueprint for the restoration of America.” Said Beck…

“On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.”

Subsequent to that announcement the affair took on several different agendas culminating with the current version that celebrates (exploits) fallen soldiers, even though Beck recently removed the reference to honoring veterans from his permit application. The press kit (pdf) still portrays the event as a tribute to veterans but, at the same time, it dismisses any suggestion that it has any political affiliations:

“The Restoring Honor Rally is neither a 9/12 nor a Tea Party rally. There will be absolutely no politics involved. This rally will honor the troops, unite the American people under the principles of integrity and truth, and make a pledge to restore honor within ourselves and our country.”

It is hard to see how an event featuring Beck along with Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent, that is sponsored by the NRA, and has as its organizational partners FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, can be characterized as non-political. It is likewise difficult to grasp how he can claim that it isn’t a Tea Party or 9-12 rally when the 9-12 Project is explicitly cited on the permit as an organizer, and both 9-12ers and Tea Partiers are actively involved in planning and transportation activities. These distinctions are important because the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which is identified as the charity benefiting from the event, risks losing their non-profit, tax-exempt status if they engage in political activities. Although the matter of charitable contributions may be moot due to this fine-print disclaimer at the bottom Beck’s “Restoring Honor” web site:

“All contributions made to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) will first be applied to the costs of the Restoring Honor Rally taking place on August 28, 2010.”

That’s sweet. Beck is getting the entire event paid for by people who believe they are contributing to a charity for veterans. It won’t be long now until we have the answers to these and other perplexing questions. The historic significance that Beck promised will be realized, or not, in the next 24 hours or so. Are your affairs in order?

And if the report from Fox News pictured above isn’t sufficient evidence of the event’s pivotal impact on our nations future, then make plans to watch Fox News Sunday where Beck will be the featured guest and will surely give an unbiased assessment of his monumental festival of Beck Worship. The Sunday morning news program will cap months of Fox News supposedly not being involved with the rally while promoting it incessantly.