Crooks and Liars

Blue America's new Blanche Lincoln ad: Demand an Up or Down vote!

John Amato — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:00:31 +0000

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Blue America just produced a new ad that highlights the many payoffs she has received from the health Insurance industry and demands that she starts representing her constituents who unequivocally support the public option. I'm not much of a NASCAR fan, but you can see that the comparison we use in this ad matches her role well.

If you can, please help us to be able to blanket the entire state of Arkansas with this ad, because for a Democratic Senator to filibuster health-care reform is to become an active member of the teabagger/Republican party. She needs to vote for cloture and give Americans the right to an up-or-down vote and to be true to the will of the good people of Arkansas.

Howie Klein writes:

No, as we've been telling you all year, there's only one weak link worth trying to beat into submission: Arkansas' corrupt and reactionary-- don't those two terms always seem to find a way of cuddling up with each other?-- senior senator, Blanche Lincoln. Blue America has run TV spots against Lincoln all summer and fall and she's watched her re-elect numbers dwindle down to a place where if a serious opponent-- i.e., one with big bucks to buy advertising-- jumped into the race, she would lose. She may lose anyway, even though her current opponents would probably do better if they toured together as a carnival show. Yesterday the RNC started trying to push her to vote with Republicans-- as she so often does-- and against health care reform.

This week Blue America and our friends at Donkey on the Edge have a brand new ad for Arkansas voters to look at-- the fourth in our series-- and the message is very different from the Republicans'. By all means, be the first to view it-- and please consider making a contribution of our Campaign for Health Care Choice page so we can run it deep and wide.

If you live in Arkansas and contact Senator Lincoln, please let me know. Contact me at crooksandliars-AT-gmail.com. We need your help and so does America.

Rupert Murdoch says Glenn Beck 'was right' that Obama is a racist who hates white people

David Neiwert — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:00:05 +0000

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Rupert Murdoch, probably the most powerful media mogul in history, submitted to an interview with Sky News Australia's David Speers last week that was incredibly revealing. (We'll have a follow-up post to some of the other things he said. The full interview is here.)

And probably the most revealing was his full-throated defense of Fox News and its War on Obama -- and particularly Glenn Beck for calling President Obama a racist.

When Murdoch poo-poohed the notion that Fox's news coverage was slanted, while its opinion shows like Beck's were supposed to be opinionated, Speers pointed out that the problem was how far Beck was going:

Speers: Glenn Beck who you mentioned has called Barack Obama a racist, and he helped organize a protest against him and others on Fox have likened him (Obama) to Stalin is that defensible?

Murdoch: No, no, no, not Stalin, I don't think, ah, not one of our people.

On the racist thing, that caused a (unintelligible). But he (Obama) did make a very racist comment. Ahhh -- about, you know, blacks and whites and so on, and which he said in his campaign he would be completely above. And um, that was something which perhaps shouldn't have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, he was right.

Well, just for anyone interested, we've provided both in the video above and in transcript below exactly what everybody said.

First, here's what Beck actually said that Murdoch thinks was "right":

Beck: This president has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture, I don't know what it is. But you can’t sit in a pew with Jeremiah Wright for twenty years and not hear some of that stuff and not have it wash over you.

... This guy has a social justice – he is going to set all the wrongs of the past right.

... I’m not saying that he doesn’t like white people. I’m saying he has a problem – he has a – this guy is, I believe, a racist. Look at the things that he has been surrounded by. Let’s look at his new green-jobs czar.

Now, what exactly was it that Obama said that brought Beck to this conclusion -- and which Murdoch claims was a "racist" thing for him to say? Well, he was talking about the Henry Louis Gates arrest:

Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. And that's just a fact.

As you know, Lynn, when I was in the state legislature in Illinois we worked on a racial profiling bill because there was indisputable evidence that blacks and hispanics were being stopped disproportionately. And that is a sign, an example of how, you know, race remains a factor in this society. That doesn't lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that's been made. And yet, the fact of the matter is that, you know, this still haunts us. And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and hispanics are picked up more frequently and often time for no cause cast suspicion even when there is good cause, and that's why I think the more that we're working with local law enforcement to improve policing techniques so that we're eliminating potential bias, the safer everybody's going to be.

And this was racist exactly how?

I suppose if you redefined "racism" to include "bringing up historically and factually accurate information about racist behavior of white people", then I suppose you could say that. I don't think we're there yet, but Rupert Murdoch is obviously working on it.

Murdoch, you'll note, was either intentionally or intentionally was chock full o' ~~s--t~~ misinformation. After Speers quoted the "White House Communications Director" -- namely, Anita Dunn -- for her remarks describing Fox as "the communications arm of the Republican Party", Murdoch sneeringly dismissed press secretary Robert Gibbs as "a very young, inexperienced guy" -- even though he hadn't made those remarks.

He also claimed that Fox would always make a correction when it got its facts wrong. Well, we're still waiting for multiple corrections from Glenn Beck -- and that's just for starters. Fox almost never corrects its misinformation -- just ask Media Matters.

He tried to cast Fox's news shows outside of its "opinion shows" as being accurate -- even though Fox's daytime "news" programming is every bit as slanted as its opinion shows -- they just lack the intense levels of open advocacy. Though when it came to the tea parties, there was hardly any distinction worth making.

He claimed "the other networks" only have on Democrats, while his network shows both Republicans and Dems. But the reality, of course, is that the guests are heavily weighted in favor of Republicans, and its "Democrats" are fine examples of "liberalism" like Lanny Davis and Joe Lieberman.

And his claim that no one on Fox had likened Obama to Stalin? Well, here's Judge Andrew Napolitano declaring that Obama was "Stalin without the bloodshed."

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Oh, and here's a screen grab from a Fox News website front:

Because, of course, Fox's news operations are always "fair and balanced," right, mate? Wink wink, nudge nudge.

All in all, you have to wonder how someone can run one of the world's most powerful corporations effectively and have a head so full of bald misinformation. But then, maybe that's why Fox deals in so much misinformation and disinformation and outright Newspeak: It needs to manufacture nonsense in huge amounts just to create its own little bubble planet to which its corporate masters can retreat when evil liberal Democrats intrude upon their profit-making schemes. Money talks, reality walks.

Pat Robertson denounces Islam: 'Not a religion,' but 'a violent political system,' wants adherents treated like Communists

David Neiwert — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:00:29 +0000

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You just knew that when Holy Joe Lieberman started grandstanding about the Fort Hood massacre by demanding an investigation into whether or not Nidal Hasan "infiltrated" the military as a "terrorist", it was the kind of demagoguery that would bring out the worst in his fellow Islamophobes.

Sure enough. Here's Pat Robertson, yesterday on The 700 Club, following a report from Lee Webb on Lieberman's scenery-chewing act on Fox News Sunday:

Webb: Meanwhile, Pat, the Army Chief of Staff says he doesn't want a backlash against other Muslim soldiers because of Hasan's actions.

Robertson: Oh, worry about backlash, but the truth is that this guy was off his trolley and they should have gotten him out, but nobody wanted to go after him because of political correctness. We just don't talk about somebody's, quote, religion, even if the religion involves beheading infidels and pouring boiling oil down their throats. He wasn't hiding it.

I tell you what should happen, and I think is going to happen, is the families of those soldiers who were killed have an absolute, major lawsuit for damages against the United States government. There was a failure -- they should have, as Senator Lieberman said, this man should have been gone, he should have been out of the service.

Just imagine -- our young men -- brave defenders of the freedom we enjoy, having to sit in psychological evaluation in front of this man. Just think what that means. Just think what it would do to their psyches.

Whew. It was a horrible chapter, but if we don't stop covering up what Islam is -- Islam is a violent -- I was gonna say religion, but it's not a religion, it's a political system, a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and -- and -- and world domination. That is the ultimate aim.

And they talk about infidels and all this -- but the truth is, that's what the game is. So you're dealing with a -- not a religion, you're dealing with a political system.

And I think we should treat it as such, and treat its adherents as such, as we would members of the Communist Party or members of some fascist group.

That's just classic hatemongering. In the name of Jesus, of course.

We know that demagoguery like Lieberman's always produces vicious ethnic and religious garbage, usually on the street level. Seeing it voiced so high up the religious-right food chain, though, is disturbing.

Of course, Robertson wasn't much worse than Michelle Malkin on Glenn Beck's show later that day. But then, we've known about Malkin's racist lust for racial profiling of Muslims for a long time.

But rhetoric like this always unleashes the worst in Americans, like opening an evil Pandora's Box.

Michael Steele says that "he" actually scares white Republicans

John Amato — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

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Michael Steele's buffoonery knows no bounds, but I wonder if he's telling the truth this time or just trying to play the race card to save his job.

Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Steele, who is known for making controversial statements, on Sunday said that white Republicans are afraid of him.

Steele also took aim at some in his own party last week as well, saying that he would "come after" centrist Republicans who support healthcare reform.

The Republican chairman appeared on NewsOne's "Washington Watch" this weekend, a new Sunday political talk show aimed at a black audience. The host, Roland Martin, asked Steele how Republicans could reach out to black voters. Steele responded by talking about issues such as education, small business, jobs and the economy, The rest is in a partial transcript:

MARTIN: But your candidates got to talk to them. One of the criticisms I've always had is Republicans -- white Republicans -- have been scared of black folks.

STEELE: You're absolutely right. I mean I've been in the room and they've been scared of me. I'm like, "I'm on your side" and so I can imagine going out there and talking to someone like you, you know, [say] "I'll listen." And they're like "Well." Let me tell you. You saw in Christie and you saw in McDonnell a door open because they went in and engaged. McDonnell was very deliberate about spending...

MARTIN: Right.

STEELE: I mean, Sheila Johnson was on his team. I mean, that was a big deal. That's because he engaged her and she helped navigate him through that relationship.

Where are the black Congress members?

Michael Steele is saying that because of the color of his skin, his fellow Republicans are afraid of him. He is proving the point that we've been making for a long time. When you look at tea parties, they are predominantly white folks shouting down Obama's race and religion.

If the party Establishment is afraid of Steele, how is there any room for race relations to improve in this country---ever? This poll -- showing that Americans don't think Obama has improved race relations in the country -- first of all makes no sense: How is President Obama supposed to improve race relations when he has white supremacists, birthers, Oathers and militia members filling up the ranks the tea party brigades that are out there in full view of the American people and are smearing non-whites on a consistent basis? How is the president supposed to suddenly ease racial tensions when Republicans and mouthpieces like Fox News are promoting racial division, telling their audiences that the president is a radical black who hates white people? Why isn't Michael Steele using his position in the Republick Party to do something about it himself?

Dylan Ratigan: Is Goldman Sachs Doing "God's Work"?

Heather — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:00:42 +0000

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From MSNBC's Morning Meeting, Dylan Ratigan talks to author and former managing director for Goldman Sachs Nomi Prins about this week's article in the UK Times I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs.

Think Progress has more--Goldman Sachs CEO says he’s ‘doing God’s work,’ rejects the idea that Goldman profits from gov’t support:

Last quarter, Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs made a $3.19 billion profit, and according to some estimates, the firm will set aside $21.9 billion for compensation this year. In an interview with London’s Sunday Times, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said that the firm is serving an important “social purpose” by helping companies grow, and denied the idea that Goldman is only able to make record profits thanks to government support.

Blankfein dismisses any suggestion that Goldman needed to be bailed out, and, by extension, rejects any notion that the firm is now profiting from public support. Sure, he took $10 billion from Washington’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp). But the bank has since repaid the cash, with healthy interest — 23%. Goldman also benefited from the federal bail-out of the huge US insurance firm AIG. Goldman had bought $20 billion worth of insurance from AIG and received billions of dollars — perhaps as much as $13 billion — when Washington pumped $90 billion into the stricken giant. But Blankfein insists Goldman was “hedged” against any AIG losses, in the best possible way — with cash.

Mike's Blog Roundup

Mike Finnigan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Booman Tribune: A small slice of conservative sanity

Emptywheel: Mueller already reviewing the shortcomings of the Hassan investigation

INSTAPUTZ: The CA Senate Race: Get Yer Popcorn!

Prometheus 6: Well now, yeah...

A Tiny Revolution: Get that man a place on Mt. Rushmore

Politics in the Zeros: Willfully blind banksters, and changing public opinion

Open Thread

driftglass — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:30:32 +0000

Open Thread below...

C&L's Late Nite Music Club: The 50 State Strategy with Rebecca Schiffman (NY)

MaxMarginal — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Title: The Rabbit Habit

Artist: Rebecca Schiffman

A wispy voiced girl can't swing a guitar around New York City without getting compared to Cat Power, as Rebecca Schiffman inevitably does by anyone who doesn't get that her whimsical tunes are way more fun. "The Rabbit Habit" belongs in the canon of great songs of a certain subject matter like "Pump It Up", "She-Bop" and "Longview". You know what I'm talking about.

LNMC's 50 State Strategy is C&L's ongoing series to showcase a top act from every state in the union, alphabetically by state. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next up: North Carolina.

JFK Visits The Berlin Wall During His German Visit of 1963

Gordonskene — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:30:10 +0000

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(JFK - Berlin - 1963 - Bringing the message to the worlds largest group of shut-ins)

With the Cuban Missile Crisis a fresh memory only eight months earlier, President Kennedy toured Europe in the summer of 1963 and stopped in Berlin on June 26, 1963 to address a crowd of over 150,000 against the ominous backdrop of the Wall that divided the two Berlins.

"Today the proudest boast is, Ich Bin ein Berliner"

The day before, Kennedy spoke at the Assembly Hall in Frankfurt and offered a similar message.

Kennedy: “For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”

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All in all, JFK did much to bolster the confidence of the German people, in light of the increased Cold War posturing going back and forth in the divided city. Still, it wasn't until 26 years later that the Wall would finally come down.

Bolder by the day: Unapologetic Nazis are coming out of the woodwork

David Neiwert — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:30:38 +0000

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James Verini at the Daily Beast notices something we've been tracking here at C&L too: Neo-Nazis and far-right extremists are not only recruiting more openly, they're being much more public in their full-on expressions of racism, nativism, and xenophobia. Unlike David Duke, these characters aren't even trying to hide it:

A year after President Obama's election, hate groups are feeling bolder than they have in over a decade, and their usually insular anger is beginning to spill into the public realm. This weekend, the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, held rallies in Arizona and Minnesota. Those demonstrations came on the heels of similar actions in Southern California, where epithet-spewing white supremacists were forced to disband by rock-throwing counter-protesters. The upsurge in visibility is more than anecdotal—law-enforcement officials are monitoring levels of agitation among extremist groups that they say are the highest since Timothy McVeigh’s deadly attack in Oklahoma City nearly 15 years ago.

The outcries of right-wing tea-partiers, death panellers, birthers, and the like are accompanied by increased activity all along the paranoid fringe.

“It’s sort of a beehive now,” says James Cavanaugh, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Cavanaugh was one of the agents at the standoff at David Koresh’s Waco, Texas, compound in 1993 (which McVeigh timed his terrorist act to commemorate, two years later, on April 19, 1995). Last October in Tennessee, Cavanaugh aided in the arrest of two white supremacists charged with plotting to assassinate Obama, and in 2007 he helped bring down members of the Alabama Free Militia, who were found with hundreds of hand- and rifle grenades and other explosives. The arrests had an unsettling familiarity. “We haven’t had that kind of activity since the 1990s,” Cavanaugh says.

“We believe there is a real resurgence,” adds Lieutenant David Hall, director of the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which tracks antigovernment extremist groups around the Midwest. “The atmosphere is ripe.”

That was obvious to anyone who was in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, this past weekend:

The Arizona Republic reports that, as is so often the case, the anti-Nazis outnumbered the actual Nazis by about 10-to-1:

Members of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group based out of Detroit, were met with a greater number of protesters.

Phoenix police kept the groups apart, as members from both sides shouted insults at each other.

Jeff Schoep, a NSM leader, said his group was standing in defense of America.

J.T Ready of Mesa also spoke at the America First Rally. He said the group was defending his country against invaders.

After about an hour, the neo-Nazis left the capitol to march down Jefferson Avenue before getting into their cars at 12th Avenue.

Andy Hernandez of Phoenix said he was surprised at the different types of people who showed up to protest the neo-Nazis.

"There's all kinds of people, from different races and colors," Hernandez said. "We represent America. We didn't shut them down, but we gave them a counter protest. We just oppose what Nazi represents."

Ironically, that was just what Ready himself whined to a reporter for Phoenix's Fox station in the video above:

Reporter: Do you consider yourself a National Socialist?

Ready: National Socialist? I am.

Reporter: Weren't Nazis considered National Socialists?

Ready: Well, there's a term that starts with an 'N' for calling black people too, uh, so I think that the 'N' term for National Socialists, calling them Nazis, is the same thing.

*Sniff* Gosh, we all should bow our heads in shame for having referenced National Socialists derogatorily. Lord knows they don't deserve it.

Anyway, it's true that the German National Socialists never called themselves "Nazis" because it was a indeed thought to be a derogatory term. On the other hand, American Nazis like George Lincoln Rockwell have always embraced the word. Why should anyone stop calling them what they plainly are?

BTW, there was a similar NSM rally in Austin, Minnesota, this weekend, that drew even fewer Nazis.

As Verini suggests, much of the naked bigotry these people express is being encouraged by the rise of extremist rhetoric generally, within the supposed conservative mainstream:

So where might another McVeigh—or worse—spring from?

Experts on extremist groups say that the outcries of right-wing tea-partiers, death panellers, birthers, and the like are accompanied by increased activity all along the paranoid fringe—from radical border-patrol groups to skinheads to sovereign citizens. Two camps are particularly restive: militia enthusiasts and white supremacists; their members are seething because of the persistence of two wars and the election of a black (and Democratic) president with an ambitious agenda. The previous upsurge of antigovernment activity in the 1990s—of which McVeigh’s attack marked the apex—was set off in part by a recession and the election of a liberal president.

The Nazi bubbles we're seeing now are bubbling up out of a much bigger cauldron of toxic garbage that is being stirred up by the Right. Look for a lot more bubbles in the coming months.