B12 Solipsism

Another crazy Obama smear circulating the frothosphere¹.

After Robert Montgomery wrote in an ESPNOutdoors.com column that the federal government had a strategy in the works that “could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters,” it was only a matter of time before the conservative media took the bait — hook, line, and sinker. Easily made puns aside, the story was tailor-made for “conservative journalism.” After all, Montgomery had no evidence for his claims.

Another week, another wild, right-wing-media-driven conspiracy theory centered on the Obama administration.

Conservative blogs led the charge in advancing the dubious story, posting their own spin under headlines like “Obama: The Will Of The People Be Damned – I’LL Decide Who Can Go Fishing” in the case of RedState.com and “Obama’s war on fishing?!?!?!” from the queen of right-wing blogging and bellyaching, Michelle Malkin. It mattered little that the story was complete bunk — unsupported by a shred of proof.

It wasn’t long before Fox News’ Glenn Beck, a regular purveyor of ridiculous Obama-centric conspiracy theories, took up the yarn. In classic Beck fashion, the crew-cut host told his audience, “I told you a year ago this would happen. I’m not some prophet by any stretch of the imaginations. … People are losing their rights. Who’s more important: the fish or you?”

Beck aside, no smear of the Obama White House would be complete without an assist from Rush Limbaugh, the granddaddy of the conservative media. On back-to-back shows, El Rushbo laid it on thick, one day saying that “fishing is about to become a privilege controlled by Barack Obama,” and the next, speaking as if he were Obama: “[Y]ou can’t touch me. … I can stop you from going fishing wherever you want. … I can do whatever I want to do.”

In perhaps the strangest turn of events surrounding the story, FoxNews.com ended up debunking Fox News, with the conservative outlet’s reporter Joshua Rhett Miller writing that government documents didn’t contain “language pertaining to a potential ban on recreational fishing, as some reports had previously asserted.” Of course, some of those “reports” included the Fox Nation website, Fox Business Network, and the previously mentioned Beck.

Ultimately, an ESPNOutdoors.com editor acknowledged “errors” in the handling of the piece and its lack of “balance,” but you can expect this one, like so many others, to end up in some chain email from your Fox News-loving uncle in the coming weeks.

[Click to continue reading Gone fishin': Right-wing media hook another dubious Obama conspiracy theory | Media Matters for America]

Laughable if it wasn’t so serious a topic, and such a perfect illustration of how facts are silly things to the Republican right.

1. I just made this word up – I think – referring to the frothing-at-the-mouth conservative sector of the country. The Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh brigade, in all of their paranoid glory [↩]

I’ve been laughing at this for hours. Some stupid Republicans, with their lack of clear thinking, cost themselves a spot on a Republican central committee. Apparently, jumping parties in a primary is actually illegal in Ohio, but its one of those laws that are difficult to prosecute.

Remember way back in 2008, during the big primary, when Rush Limbaugh was telling Republican voters in Ohio and Texas to switch to a Democratic registration just so they could vote for Hillary and screw up the primary? People listened and obeyed, and now it looks like it could be coming back to haunt them:

Victoria Robertson has been an avowed Republican for decades, working tirelessly for conservative candidates and causes.

That is until a typo by a pollworker changed her party affiliation, elections officials say. Now she can’t even run for re-election to the GOP central committee.

“You’re a Democrat as we speak until the primary, and that cannot be changed until you get the right box checked,” Butler County Board of Elections Chairman Tom Ellis told her at a board meeting Wednesday, Feb. 24 — the deadline to certify the May primary ballot.

…Robertson was one of seven candidates for Republican central committee who were disqualified for pulling Democratic ballots in the 2008 primary. She was the only one to contest it, officials said.

Now let me pretend I am a lawyer making some closing arguments. In these closing arguments I want to present all the facts again. Here they are in nice bullet point form:

• Butler County, Ohio has a population of 332,000
• Butler County is a very red county, voting for McCain over Obama in 2008 by 61%-38%
• In 2008 Butler County made national attention when people proudly proclaimed their obedience to Rush stating that they did exactly what he asked for.
• In 2010, the next election cycle, 7 Republicans have been disqualified from running for voting Democratic in the 2008 primary
• In 2010 0 Democrats have had this problem.

.
Coincidence? Sure, it could be, and unicorns could also roam the earth.

[Click to continue reading This Is What Happens When You Listen To Limbaugh | Crooks and Liars]

As Nelson Muntz might say, Ha! Ha!

Yee godz, I hope the terrorist wannabe¹ James O’Keefe goes to jail for a long, long time.

Fact: On the guerilla clips posted online and aired on Fox News, O’Keefe was featured in lots of cutaway shots that were filmed outside and showed him parading around with Giles in his outlandish cane/top hat/sunglasses/fur coat pimp costume.

The cutaway shots certainly left the impression that that’s how O’Keefe was dressed when he spoke to ACORN workers.

But inside each and every office, according to one independent review that looked at the public videos, O’Keefe entered sans the pimp get-up. In fact, he was dressed rather conservatively. During his visit to the Baltimore ACORN office, he wore a dress shirt and khaki pants. For the Philadelphia sting, he added a tie to the ensemble.

Instead, the ’70s-era, blacksploitation pimp costume was a propaganda tool used to later deceive the public about the undercover operation. It was a prop that was quickly embraced by the mainstream media and turned into a central part of the ACORN story.

It’s true that Giles was seen on the ACORN office tapes scantily clad as she discussed her future prostitution plans with ACORN workers. But it was the pimp costume, or the idea that O’Keefe was sitting there getting ACORN advice while decked out in it, that really hit the laughter button and caused the press — and public — to guffaw at ACORN’s apparent cluelessness. Read: Not only were the ACORN employees morally suspect for doling out tax advice to a would-be prostitute, but the low-income advocates were dumb as stumps to boot!

[Click to continue reading James O'Keefe and the myth of the ACORN pimp | Media Matters for America]

Amazingly² the corporate media has endlessly repeated, breathlessly, as if the facts were just as idiot O’Keefe described them. Click the URL link above if you want to be amused³ by the gullibility of the 4th Estate…

1. just imagine for a second that an Arab Muslim, in full desert regalia, attempted to wire-tap the office of a Republican member of the Homeland Security committee. Right, there would be 25 hours of outrage each and every day until the offender was waterboarded into confessing he killed Millard Fillmore. But since Senator Landrieu’s affiliation is with the Democratic Party… [↩]
2. well, not really, if you have an iota of memory of the history of political theatre in the US [↩]
3. or sickened [↩]

I sincerely hope the professional gabbers seize on Senator Dick Shelby’s unrequited, forbidden love for Northrop Grumman and mercilessly ridicule him. How is holding up the working of the Senate to demand more political pork for Alabama going to be justified to his Teabagger masters? Even more importantly, wouldn’t be nice if this was the final straw that broke the back of the filibuster?

Gail Collins writes:

Normally, a senator who’s feeling testy will just put a hold on one presidential nomination, the way Jim Bunning of Kentucky did last year when he stopped action on the confirmation of a deputy U.S. trade representative because he was upset that the Canadian Parliament was considering a bill to ban the sale of cigarettes with candy flavorings.

I am not making that up.

Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri had a hold on the nomination of Martha Johnson to be the leader of the General Services Administration since last summer because he was ticked off with the G.S.A. over construction of a new federal building in Kansas City.

The agency kept saying it had responded to Bond’s questions, although perhaps the staff was slow in getting back to him since there was nobody in charge. But Bond held firm until the Democrats forced a vote this week. That naturally involved a great many delays, postponements, overrides and a passionate if incomprehensible speech by Bond, the highlight of which was: “Please bear with me. I know this is confusing.”

Then after many, many months of waiting and several days of total gridlock, Johnson was approved, 96 to 0.

That was a normal Senate procedure. Now Shelby has upped the ante with a blanket hold on everybody. His incredibly grave reasons were the desire to see that a defense contract for a new tanker is awarded to a bidder who will do the assembly work in Alabama. Also, he feels that a new F.B.I. facility for testing explosive devices should be conveniently located in Huntsville.

“If this administration were as worried about hunting down terrorists as it is about the confirmation of low-level political nominations, America would be a safer place,” said a spokesman for the senator.

[Click to continue reading Gail Collins - No Holds Barred - NYTimes.com]

Obstructionist, Party of No, these epithets are too mild for the Republicans in the Senate; Mouth-Breathing Idiots might be accurate, but doesn’t quite have the necessary zing. Got to think of a better phrase for these idiots – what say you?

A few interesting links collected January 1st through January 3rd:

• Daily Kos: State of the Nation – Remember the Naughts – Don’t forget the naughts, because this decade, no matter what anyone on the right might say, was conservatism on trial. You want less taxes? You got less taxes. You want less regulation? You got less regulation. Open markets? Wide open. An illusuion of security in place of rights? Hey, presto. Think we should privatize war by handing unlimited power given to military contractors so they can kick butt and take names? Kiddo, we passed out boots and pencils by the thousands. Everything, everything, that ever showed up on a drooled-over right wing wish list got implemented — with a side order of Freedom Fries.They will try to disown it, and God knows if I was responsible for this mess I’d be disowning it, too. But the truth is that the conservatives got everything they wanted in the decade just past, everything that they’ve claimed for forty years would make America “great again”. They didn’t fart around with any “red dog Republicans.”
• Ptak Science Books: Mapping the Invasion of America, 1942 – The following maps appeared in a two-page spread, detailing ways in which the Axis powers could combine their efforts, focus on America, and take over the country. Maps such as these with arrows being drawn towards America were absolutely uncommon during this time.

• 

• d r i f t g l a s s: “…if Christ is Not Risen – Sometimes he had to pee, but did it fountain-like, leaning backwards out the bathroom door limbo-style it with one ear cocked for the brrrring…and never flushed or washed his furry little paws for fear the white noise of running water would drown out the sound of Opportunity Calling…which is also why he hadn’t done laundry for a month, and why his sink was piled with sticky, old dishes.

  And so, as he sat in his stink, panic closing slowly over him as a tiny voice whispered to him that The Call wasn’t coming — that he was finally facing a long-overdue oblivion which would have engulfed him 20 years before in a Better Universe — Jokeline decided to take matters into his own hands, and do the one thing GUARANTEED according to the ancient and sacred rules of his lodge to earn him the approbation of the douchebag gatekeepers standing between him and the warm, healing light of the teevee cameras.

  Punching some imaginary hippies for nonexistent crimes.

• 

A few interesting links collected December 23rd through December 29th:

• Fun phrases in Latin – Ridiculum sum, ergo sum

• 

• Glenn Greenwald – Karl Rove: Champion of “traditional” divorce – [he ] engineered multiple referenda to incorporate a ban on same-sex marriage into various states’ constitutions in 2004 in order to ensure that so-called “”Christian conservatives” and “value voters” who believe in “traditional marriage laws” would turn out and help re-elect George W. Bush. Yet, like so many of his like-minded pious comrades, Rove seems far better at preaching the virtues of “traditional marriage” to others and exploiting them for political gain than he does adhering to those principles in his own life:Karl Rove granted divorce in Texas

• 

• 

• Animated stereoviews of old Japan ::: Pink Tentacle – In the late 19th and early 20th century, enigmatic photographer T. Enami (1859-1929) captured a number of 3D stereoviews depicting life in Meiji-period Japan.

  A stereoview consists of a pair of nearly identical images that appear three-dimensional when viewed through a stereoscope, because each eye sees a slightly different image.

A few interesting links collected October 29th through October 30th:

• Chief drug adviser David Nutt sacked over cannabis stance | Politics | The Guardian – Alan Johnson, the home secretary, has sacked Professor David Nutt as senior drugs adviser after the scientist renewed his criticism of the government's decision to toughen the law on cannabis.

  Johnson wrote to Nutt saying he no longer had confidence in him as chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) and asking him to consider his position.

  Nutt had accused ministers of "devaluing and distorting" the scientific evidence over illicit drugs by their decision last year to reclassify cannabis from class C to class B against the advice of the ACMD

• Think Again: Obama’s Commie Past Exposed Yet Again – Robert Fox, the millionaire brother-in-law of a GOP congressman, tried to prove the connection. He offered $10,000 to Dr. Peter Millican, an Oxford professor who had developed a computer program to make comparisons between texts. Times of London reported this on November 2, 2008. Millican told Fox that the initial findings made it “highly implausible” that the books shared authors. He also said that if further research was done, then the findings would be made public whether or not Ayers was proven to be the author. Fox withdrew his offer.
• Excerpts From The Book The NBA Doesn't Want You To Read – Tim Donaghy – Deadspin – I'm still fucking bitter about this game six travesty
  :"If we give the benefit of the calls to the team that's down in the series, nobody's going to complain. The series will be even at three apiece, and then the better team can win Game 7," Bavetta stated.

  As history shows, Sacramento lost Game 6 in a wild come-from-behind thriller that saw the Lakers repeatedly sent to the foul line by the referees. For other NBA referees watching the game on television, it was a shameful performance by Bavetta's crew, one of the most poorly officiated games of all time."

ACORN is not the problem, FOX News¹ is

The Washington Post’s Darryl Fears and Carol D. Leonnig describe “The $1,300 mission to fell ACORN.” It started with a phone call to James O’Keefe III (the “pimp”) from Hannah Giles (the “prostitute”), daughter of a conservative blogger named Doug Giles. The plan from the very beginning was to damage the reputation of the organization. O’Keefe admits that his enmity for ACORN derived from its success helping Democrats win elections, not from any charges of corruption. The Post also points out that in Philadelphia ACORN employees called the police when the duo left the offices there. The videotape of that encounter has yet to be released, and so the prevailing image of ACORN in the mainstream media has been the one that the video makers, with a vendetta against the organization, wanted out there.

Hysterical Fox News commentators have blown this story up like a hot air balloon, and much of the rest of the media appear to believe that what Fox says goes. Andrew Alexander complains that “traditional news outlets like The Post simply don’t pay enough attention to conservative media or viewpoints.” But writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, Rick Perlstein responds: “Why would a newspaper like the The Post be training its investigative focus on ACORN now? Whether you think ill or well of ACORN, they’re a very marginal group in the grand scheme of things and about as tied to the White House as the PTA.”

This right-wing stunt proved such powerful catnip to mainstream media bigfeet that amazingly, George Stephanopoulos thought it worth discussing with the President of the United States during a rare one-on-one interview opportunity. The president quite understandably explained that that he wasn’t following the story very closely, and that the country was dealing with more serious problems right now. (U.S. grants to ACORN, already suspended, account for literally 52 seconds of annual U.S. government spending, according to one careful estimate.) Stephanopoulos had nothing else to say. As though he were correcting himself, he continued, “Afghanistan is a serious problem facing the country right now.” Oh, yeah, Afghanistan….

[Click to continue reading Think Again: Falling for the Far Right’s ACORN Agenda]

Constantly amazed at how pliable the news media is to whatever is the Right Wing smear-de-jour. Sickeningly familiar from constant repetition.

1. and their masters [↩]

A few interesting links collected September 18th through September 21st:

• Back Issues : The New Yorker -

  “Today we launch Back Issues, formerly a department in our News Desk blog, as its own blog on newyorker.com. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll use this space to delve through more than eighty years of New Yorker history, with an eye to relating that history to the happenings of the day. Our chief goal will be to make this vast resource approachable and useful to our readers.”

  maybe its just my inner historian, but I love looking at news coverage from years before I was born

  

• Chicagoans for Rio 2016 – It would be exciting to host the Olympics here in Chicago. But you know what would be even better? Rio De Janeiro. Just let Rio host the 2016 Olympics. We don’t mind. Honest.
• In defense of ACORN | Salon -

  To claim that the stupid behavior of a half-dozen employees should discredit a national group with offices in more than 75 cities staffed by many thousands of employees and volunteers is like saying that Mark Sanford or John Ensign have discredited every Republican governor or senator. Indeed, the indignation of the congressional Republicans screaming about ACORN and the phony streetwalker is diluted by the presence of at least two confirmed prostitution clients — Rep. Ken Calvert and Sen. David Vitter — in their midst. Neither of those right-wing johns has been even mildly chastised by their moralistic peers. Nobody is cutting off their federal funding.

  Indeed.

• 
• freedarko.com: A Significant Bullet – From the press kit for Herzog’s new film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: “I call upon the theoreticians of cinema to go after this one. Go for it, losers.”

Perfect fodder to send to those you hear ranting about socialism

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

• Social Security
• Medicare/Medicaid
• State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
• Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
• US Postal Service
• Roads and Highways
• Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
• The US Railway System
• Public Subways and Metro Systems
• Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
• Rest Areas on Highways
• Sidewalks
• All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)
• Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
• Public and State Universities and Colleges
• Public Primary and Secondary Schools
• Sesame Street
• Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
• Public Museums
• Libraries
• Public Parks and Beaches
• State and National Parks
• Public Zoos
• Unemployment Insurance
• Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
• Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
• Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
• Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
• Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD’s ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
• Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies
• Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies

If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:

• Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History
• The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments
• The government-operated Statue of Liberty
• The Grand Canyon
• The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials
• The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
• All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC

I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.

I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.

I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.

Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.

_____________ _________________________

Signed Printed Name/Town and State

There’s even a nicely formatted version (PDF) so you can print multiple copies for your annoying office mates

Denver billionaire and conservative Christian Philip Anschutz has, uncharacteristically, been in the news recently. First for purchasing Dick Cheney’s favorite magazine, The Weekly Standard:

[ Right Turn Ahead]

In June, [The Weekly Standard] was handed from one conservative billionaire, [Rupert] Murdoch, to another, Philip F. Anschutz, for about $1 million, according to an executive close to Mr. Murdoch who spoke anonymously because the terms of the deal were meant to be confidential. The new ownership comes at a time when conservatism, especially the version espoused by The Standard involving American muscularity to spread freedom abroad, is not in the ascendancy.

Mr. Anschutz, who made his billions in oil, real estate, railroads and telecommunications before turning to media, is more closely aligned with Christian conservatism, a thread not associated with The Standard.

Staff members say Mr. Anschutz, who has visited the magazine’s Washington offices once since buying it, did not meet with the staff as a whole. He instructed the two top editors — William Kristol, who last year was also a columnist for The New York Times, and Fred Barnes — not to alter the publication’s ideological complexion.

[From New Owner for Weekly Standard as Political Tastes Change - NYTimes.com]

and second, for purchasing a crowd-sourced news web site, NowPublic

Examiner.com, a media company controlled by the conservative billionaire Philip F. Anschutz, said on Tuesday that it had acquired NowPublic, an innovative Web site for citizen-generated media.

With the sale, Examiner.com, a unit of Mr. Anschutz’s Clarity Digital Group, became the latest company to show interest in a lively corner of the Web: the tools that let people read and share the news around them, sometimes down to neighborhood blocks.

[From Examiner.com Buys NowPublic, a Citizen-Media Web Site - NYTimes.com]

[for instance, this photo of mine was used by a NowPublic user]

The Weekly Standard does not interest me, except in abstract terms,¹ but NowPublic’s users have used dozens² of my photos in various articles over the four years of their existence. Not a huge number, but at least ten that I noted. I don’t want my photography to be anywhere close to any corporation owned by Philip Anschutz.

Who is Phil Anschutz you might ask? Well, for starters, from his Wikipedia entry:

Anschutz, a Republican donor and supporter of George W. Bush’s administration, has been an active patron of a number of religious and conservative causes:
Helped fund Colorado’s 1992 Amendment 2, a ballot initiative designed to overturn local and state laws that prohibit discrimination against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation.[13]

Helped fund the Discovery Institute, a think tank based in Seattle, Washington that promotes intelligent design and criticizes evolution. [14]

Supported the Parents Television Council, a group that protests against what they believe to be television indecency.[14]

Financed and distributed Christian films, such as Amazing Grace and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for mass audiences through his two film production companies and ownership of much of the Regal, Edwards and United Artists theater chains. In addition, as a producer Anschutz reportedly required the removal of certain material related to drug use and sex in the 2004 film Ray because he found it objectionable.[14]

Financed The Foundation for a Better Life.

[From Philip Anschutz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

There’s more, but that was enough for me to send an email to NowPublic co-founder Michael Tippett, asking

In light of super conservative Republican Philip Anschutz purchasing your company, how do I go about removing my photos from the various stories they’ve been used on?

Cheers, and hope you haven’t been fired, or forced to take a loyalty oath to the anti-evolutionary forces

If I get a response, I’ll add it to this post.

1. liberals would do well to at least have a vague idea of what the latest conservative talking points are [↩]
2. or more, I stopped keeping track [↩]

Couldn’t happen to more despicable folks

Despite media reports to the contrary, Fox News executives explicitly refused to distance themselves from Beck’s claim that President Obama is a “racist,” let alone reprimand the host for the shockingly hateful comments. Fox News’ initial knee-jerk response of failing to question any of the gutter rhetoric Beck dishes out, and the cable news giant’s decision to treat the transgression as a nonstory unworthy of a serious response, of course, is what led to the boycott drive.

The fact that nobody anywhere inside Fox News had enough sense to hold Beck accountable or to even suggest that calling the president of the United States (aka “this guy”) a “racist” on national television was well outside the bounds of professional broadcasting — the fact that Fox News could not even for a moment publicly contemplate that Beck had stepped over a glaringly obvious line of common decency — is why those same executives have been forced to watch as an avalanche of A-list advertisers go public with their plans to make sure they are no longer associated with Beck.

Looking back, it’s hard to imagine how executives at Fox News could have handled Beck’s “racist” smear any worse. And it’s hard to imagine how Fox News could have inadvertently cultivated the ground any better for a sweepingly successful advertising boycott than the cavalier way they dealt with Beck’s presidential race-baiting.

And if you don’t think the snowballing ad boycott has left Fox News suits stunned and knocked back on their heels, then I don’t think you understand the kind of arrogance that runs through the water supply over at its Manhattan headquarters on Sixth Avenue. Execs there this year no doubt have been congratulating themselves on their ratings success and patting each other on the back for having the brilliant insight to unleash a hatemonger like Glenn Beck on the airwaves.

But suddenly, uh-oh, there’s a price to be paid for peddling hate? And worse, it’s a free-market penalty where blue-chip advertisers — those bastions of corporate America that Fox News idolizes — are deciding for themselves that they cannot afford to be associated with Fox News’ wonder boy? Corporate America is turning its back on the new face of Fox News?

[Click to continue reading Why Glenn Beck, and Fox News, can't escape the "racist" trap | Media Matters for America]

Glenn Beck’s vile show may get good ratings, but if blue chip advertisers stay away from sponsoring it, what good does the high ratings do for the network? Money is king, after all. Can the Fox News division survive on a diet of penis enhancement pills and other bottom of the proverbial barrel fare? I doubt it, there are summer homes in Aspen to pay for, and times are tough for corporate executives all over.

Looking for a complete list of advertisers who’ve bailed, here’s a partial list:

The A-list collection of disgruntled Beck advertisers is staggering: Applebee’s, AT&T, Bank of America, Best Buy, Campbell Soup, Clorox, ConAgra, CVS, Ditech, Farmers Insurance Group, GEICO, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, Lowe’s, Nutrisystem, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, RadioShack, Sprint, State Farm Insurance, The UPS Store, Travelers Insurance, Verizon Wireless, Vonage, and Wal-Mart, among others.

Robert Novak will always be remembered as a traitor to his country.¹

Eric Alterman writes:

While six journalists were approached by Bush officials to reveal Valerie Plame’s identity as an undercover CIA agent, only Novak did so. This even though Bill Harlow, the agency’s spokesman at the time, warned Novak, as he later testified, in the strongest possible terms that Plame’s name should not be made public lest it endanger the operations and people with whom she had been secretly associated. Though Novak refused to admit it in public, he gave up his source almost immediately to Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation while other journalists--who did not out Plame--languished in jail and legal limbo. When, after the case ended, CNN finally prepared to ask Novak about his actions, he screamed “Bullshit!” on the air and stalked off the show before the questioning began. He never returned to the network that had paid him and promoted his analysis for more than two decades.

[Click to continue reading Novak Without Tears]

Novak also joined in on the smearing of war-hero John Kerry:

Novak also ceaselessly promoted the lies of the “Swift Boat Veterans” about John Kerry, both on television and in an admiring review of their movement bible Unfit for Command. He did so without revealing that his son, Alex, was in charge of the book’s publicity or that the book’s publisher, Regnery, was owned by the very same person whose company, Eagle Publishing, distributes the $297-per-year “Evans-Novak Political Report.

1. Some backstory to the Plame case here if you’ve already forgotten. There are undoubtedly much better sources elsewhere, but these links will give you a flavor at least [↩]

Some additional reading August 14th from 12:05 to 12:45:

William Blake:

• Think You Can Rip Someone’s Image From the Internet and Use it For Free? Think Again, You Just May End Up Sued and Lose | Thomas Hawk Digital Connection – “It was interesting to hear yesterday from photographer Christopher Boffoli who has done a lot of freelance work lately for the West Seattle Blog. Boffoli wrote me and told me about a situation where a Seattle based Realtor, Laura Miller with Catalyst Commercial Partners, used an unauthorized photo of his for a real estate listing (photo above) of hers and ended up having to pay him a $1,000 small claims court judgment over it.

  I’ll let Boffoli tell part of the story”

• Change of Subject: Getting aboard a health plan — it’s time to throw a lifeline to 60 million Americans – “they’re fine with the idea of providing coverage to everyone. But only if it costs them nothing and leaves them with all the advantages, priorities and prerogatives they currently enjoy. In other words, the old “I’d haul you up, but you might swamp my rowboat” argument.

  Others tell me they view access to quality health care as something they’ve earned — either by working hard or being related to someone who works hard. And if others want it, let them earn it too — the old, “Go build your own rowboat, you slacker!” argument.

  Still others say that those without coverage can always fall back on the patchwork of public hospitals, charity and Medicaid — the old “You don’t need a rowboat. Driftwood will do” argument.

  Obviously, though, too many swimmers are drowning:”

• Krugman- Republican Death Trip – NYTimes.com
• - “President Obama is now facing the same kind of opposition that President Bill Clinton had to deal with: an enraged right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency, that eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media complex.”
• Court extends Tribune Co. control of Chapter 11 case — chicagotribune.com – “A bankruptcy judge said Tribune Co. can keep control of its Chapter 11 case for three-and-a-half more months as it looks to sell off some assets, including the Chicago Cubs, in its bid to exit bankruptcy protection.

  Judge Kevin J. Carey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., on Monday gave the publisher of the Chicago Tribune an extension to Nov. 30 to file its reorganization plan to emerge from bankruptcy and to repay creditors. He also set a March 15, 2010, deadline for the media giant to win creditor support for a plan.”

• delicious blog » Sharing Made Easier: Email and Tweet Your Bookmarks – “If you use Twitter and want to send bookmarks to your Twitter feed, associate a Twitter account (only a single Twitter account can be associated at one time) by logging into Twitter under the Twitter panel. You have the option to send all your saved bookmarks to Twitter by selecting the “Tweet all bookmarks unless private” checkbox when you add the Twitter account. If you’ve selected this option, your Twitter account will appear by default in the Send field.”
• 
• Juan Gris

It’s quite telling that the Republican opponents to health care reform, and any other topic, have no solutions of their own. Their strategy is just to drown out any and all discussion, like little children putting fingers in their ears and screaming, “I can’t hear you”.

The bitter divisions over an overhaul of the health care system have exploded at town-hall-style meetings over the last few days as members of Congress have been shouted down, hanged in effigy and taunted by crowds. In several cities, noisy demonstrations have led to fistfights, arrests and hospitalizations.

Democrats have said the protesters are being organized by conservative lobbying groups like FreedomWorks.

[From Health Debate Turns Hostile at Town Hall Meetings]

Pathetic.

There is no dispute, however, that most of the shouting and mocking is from opponents of those plans. Many of those opponents have been encouraged to attend by conservative commentators and Web sites.

“Become a part of the mob!” said a banner posted Friday on the Web site of the talk show host Sean Hannity. “Attend an Obama Care Townhall near you!” The exhortations do not advocate violence, but some urge opponents to be disruptive.

“Pack the hall,” said a strategy memo [PDF] circulated by the Web site Tea Party Patriots that instructed, “Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

“Get him off his prepared script and agenda,” the memo continued. “Stand up and shout and sit right back down.”

When I was a student at UT-Austin, there was an area near the UT Tower with tables from various student organizations, passing out literature, and engaging students who passed by. The Young Republicans were one such group, and on a couple times I attempted to have dialogue with them, and observed their behavior several subsequent times. They never really wanted to debate, they only wanted to shout down anyone who disagreed with them. They were not at all interested in discussion, were not interested in debate, they were intent solely on being the loudest voicein the area.

Same as now – just proto-brownshirts, attempting to stifle conversation about important topics, disrupt, lie, and intimidate opponents. To me, this proves they have no counter-arguments, no patriotism, no desire to make our country a better place.

Pathetic, in other words.

As a thought experiment, imagine if Iraq anti-war protestors swarmed in Republican Congress-critters Town Hall meetings, and overwhelmed the proceedings. Wouldn’t they have been all arrested? Wouldn’t the FBI have infiltrated their ranks?¹ Wouldn’t the television news and radio demagogues blow-hards been fulminating for sending the protestors to Gitmo? Or saying “Love Your Country or Leave it!”, or other ridiculous phrases? Yes, of course. However, when the protests come from the reactionary elements of our country…

A volatile mix has resulted. In Mehlville, Mo., St. Louis County police officers arrested six people on Thursday evening, some on assault charges, outside a health care and aging forum organized by Representative Russ Carnahan, a Democrat. Opponents of the proposed changes, organized by the St. Louis Tea Party, apparently clashed with supporters organized by the Service Employees International Union outside a school gym.

That same day in Romulus, Mich., Representative John D. Dingell, a long-serving Democrat, was shouted down at a health care meeting by a rowdy crowd of foes of health care overhaul, many crying, “Shame on you!” A similar scene unfolded in Denver on Thursday when Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California visited a clinic for the homeless there.

In a statement Friday, Mr. Dingell, 83, deplored those trying to “demagogue the discussion,” but said he would not be deterred. “As long as I have a vote, I will not let shouting, intimidation or misinformation deter me from fighting for this cause,” he said.

The tenor of some of the debates has become extreme. Ms. Pelosi has accused people at recent protests of carrying signs associating the Democratic plan with Nazi swastikas and SS symbols, and some photographs showing such signs have been posted on the Web.

On Thursday, the talk show host Rush Limbaugh said the administration’s health care logo was itself similar to a Nazi symbol.

…

One of the week’s most raucous encounters occurred Thursday in Tampa, Fla., where roughly 1,500 people attended a forum held by Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Kathy Castor. When the auditorium at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County reached capacity and organizers had to close the doors, the scene descended into violence.As Ms. Castor began to speak, scuffles broke out as people tried to push their way in. Parts of her remarks were drowned out by chants of “read the bill, read the bill” and “tyranny,” as a video recording of the meeting showed. Outside the meeting, there were competing chants of “Yes we can” and “Just say no.

…

At an appearance at a grocery store in Austin, Tex., on Aug. 1, Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat, was drowned out as he tried to speak on health care change. One opponent had a mock tombstone with Mr. Doggett’s name on it.

Last week, a protester hanged an effigy of Representative Frank Kratovil Jr., Democrat of Maryland, at a rally opposing health care change. This week, Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina, said he had received a death threat about his support.

Nowhere is there even a hint of what the competing Republican Health Care plan is, other than lowering taxes on the wealthy and sprinkling holy water on the wounds of the indigent. Or something equally as magical.

1. they probably did, actually [↩]