The White House did not start this war with Fox

from Media Matters


Or as Eric Burns writes, Fox doesn't report the story, it is the story.

Al Franken earns his money; GOP defends Halliburton, gang rape

...alternately titled "Stuart takes liars to the woodshed".

Senator Franken was in a hearing on health care reform talking about the very real problem of personal bankruptcies because of medical costs. A witness was attempting to spread the meme that a public option would mean MORE health care bankruptcies. Combating that, Sen. Franken goes asks her to cite the number of medically-related bankruptcies in nations that have socialized medicine.

Then, the witness attempts to get a shot in as Franken is finishing. Not a smart move.


This second clip is from a hearing on an amendment Franken made to the defense Appropriations bill. Defense contractor KBR (the new name of Halliburton, because they trashed the last one) had a female employee who was brutally gang raped while working for them overseas. Because it wasn't on U.S. soil, the woman was forced to accept binding arbitration to settle the criminal complaint - an outcome not nearly as certain as a criminal trial where the rules of evidence prevail. The woman wants a public trial, not a secret hearing in front of an arbitrator. she's been suing for four years not to get to court, but for the right to GET to court.

Here's an account of what the woman went through, from the Guardian:

In legal papers (Jamie) Jones, who was 20 at the time, says she was fed a knockout drug while drinking with KBR firefighters.

"When she awoke the next morning still affected by the drug, she found her body naked and severely bruised, with lacerations to her vagina and anus, blood running down her leg, her breast implants ruptured and her pectoral muscles torn‚ which would later require reconstructive surgery. Upon walking to the rest room, she passed out again," the papers say.

Jones was treated by a US army doctor who gave forensic evidence to company officials. She says the firm placed her under guard in a shipping container and she was released only after her father asked the US embassy to intervene. When the forensic evidence was handed to investigators two years later, crucial photographs and notes were missing.

Jones says she identified one of the men who attacked her after he confessed, but that Halliburton/KBR prevented her from taking legal action against him or the company by pointing to a clause in her contract requiring disputes to go to arbitration.
...
KBR has sought to discredit Jones's account by saying she was seen drinking and flirting with a firefighter before leaving the gathering with him, and that the man claims to have had consensual sex with her. The firm denies that Jones was held prisoner, but not that her injuries indicated serious sexual assault.

Senator Franken's bill seeks to bar the U.S. government from doing business with any contractor that forces employees to accept binding arbitration to settle sexual abuse claims.

Here is the Senator battering a KBR lawyer who attempts to argue that arbitration is "better for the victim".


Franken's amendment passed 63-30, with ALL THIRTY "NO" VOTES COMING FROM REPUBLICANS! How can the GOP oppose justice for victims of gang rape? Or, as Linkins points out, do we have to cover up rape to save capitalism?

Jon Stewart felt the need to weigh in: ""I understand we're a divided country, some disagreements on health care. How is ANYONE against this?"

Now comes word that Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime Democrat from Hawaii, is considering removing the provision or so watering it down as to render it meaningless, due to a full-court press by defense contractors.

This is your government folks. Congrats.

O'Donnell and Scarborough battle over Cheney

Lawrence O'Donnell joined the panel on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday and got into a heated debate with host Joe Scarborough over Dick Cheney's recent remarks accusing the Obama administration of "dithering while America's armed forces are in danger" and "putting politics over security and turning the guns on our own guys."

Scarborough tried to defend Cheney, stating that while he personally disagrees with the former vice president's comments, Cheney "speaks for a large chunk of America who is far more aggressive in foreign policy than those of us that live inside this bubble."

O'Donnell jumped into the conversation, leveling heavy criticism at Cheney:

The dithering thing is great because Cheney, of course, did not dither, did not dither for a minute, when the time came to make a wild guess, an outright crazy wild guess, about are there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And Cheney sat there in the White House and said, you know what, I've got everything I need to make my wild guess. On the basis of my wild guess I'm going to tell the country it's an actual fact, and then I'm gonna help send American soldiers there to die over a lie. No dithering when it came time to do that.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Retired General Paul Eaton, senior adviser to the National Security Network, has hit back at Cheney, calling him an incompetent war fighter:

The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.

The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes.

Tonight..... Pennant...... Series...... Dynasty?

29 years ago

Public option health bill CHEAPER and more popular; Reid shows his weakness, GOP hypocrisy coming home to roost

Let's see how the fiscally-conservative Blue Dogs react to this news. For months they've been distancing thekmselves from a public option because it would be 'too expensive'. Now comes this report:

On Tuesday, House Democratic leaders received a new cost estimate of $871 billion from congressional budget umpires who measured a robust version of a so-called public option for health insurance, according to a Democratic aide. [...]
The House bill with the strong public plan would extend coverage to 96 percent of uninsured Americans and significantly reduce budget deficits.

With that news comes this hard-charging jewel of a quote from the spineless leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid. Ol' blood and guts had this to say:

“We’re leaning towards talking about a public option.”

Harry Reid (Cognitive Dissonance Award Winner)

Leaning towards talking....


Now, as to the notion that it's just "teh lefties" (TM) who are for the public option, this graph should dispel that.

That's a shitload of lefties.

Or maybe it's true, maybe we are going a little lefty. Maybe the clusterfuck of the Bush Years really did push shove the electorate to the left. Read the following from ABC News/Washington Post:

Only 20 percent of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans, the fewest in 26 years. Just 19 percent, similarly, trust the Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions for the country's future; even among Republicans themselves just four in 10 are confident in their own party. For comparison, 49 percent overall express this confidence in Obama, steady since August albeit well below its peak.

And why don't people trust the GOP? Because they're hypocrites, that's why. Here's just the latest example: They made a huge stink about the stimulus that's saved the economy. They went in front of the cameras and 'turned down' the money, only to go back and take it in the dead of night. And then they had the balls to take credit for taking the money!

Let's summarize:The president is at 57 percent approval, and the public option is at 57 percent. The public has no belief in nor trust in Congresional Republicans, who seemingly have no boundaries to their hypocrisy. Yet Congress doesn't get it and the media is pushing this story like it's an athletic contest. The media like close contests because it gives them a story with angles to report on. So they manufacture an artifical reality where this is a close call, when in all reality, the public option has won over America.

And yet both government and the media will scratch their heads and wonder why people don't have any faith in them.

Amazing.

One other warning: woe be to any legislator that kils this and pisses off 60% of the electorate.

Dr. No: 1918 - 2009

Joseph Wiseman

Beck and Dobbs slam volunteering and vegtables, respectively

Celebrities are coming together to make it cool to volunteer. Disney gives you a free day at the park. This is all fine, but doesn't it seem a little bit convenient that all of this comes out now at the same time the Obama administration is calling for it? Obama controls the message through the media he holds in his pocket. Or in his little hand. And soon if you disobey, he'll just go [Beck slaps his hand]. Now the message will be embedded in television shows. Isn't this great? Aren't you proud of what we're doing? Oh, this certainly is change.

Well, this is fantastic. It's almost like we're living in Mao's China right now.

Glenn Beck

And after watching a segment where the Baltimore city schools have instituted meatless Monday's to save on food costs and offer healthy alternatives, Dobbs described this as "a real political storm in the making."

Embedded video from CNN Video

My response.............. really? This is what you've got?

Rush unhinged: victimization theories and lashing out

Rush Limbaugh, fresh off his loss to the free market system that he usually such a fan of in his bid to buy the St. Louis Rams, is flailing to find an excuse. Well, an excuse that doesn't place the blame where it belongs: on his years of demagoguery.

In the Sunday Wall Street Journal (and on his radio show), Limbaugh insists that there is no concrete proof that he uttered two quotes about race - one trumpeting Martin Luther King's assassin, another trumpeting the virtues of slavery - that a book attributed to him and that the media then echoed.

However, Limbaugh is now using this misattribution as supposed proof that he is not a racist, that he is, in fact, being unduly persecuted for his conservative beliefs and that actually, he is one of America's leading voices espousing a "belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race." You can't make this shit up.

This is part of the broader conservative grievance ideology - no matter how much power conservatives have, they will constantly insist they are the ones under attack and under persecution, particularly by black people who supposedly mislabel all conservatives as "racist."

David Sirota

Meanwhile, Huff Post's Matt Osborne points out that:

The wingnutosphere insists: Rush has never, ever made a racist comment! Ever!...Except for this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one and this one, and this one, and this one and this one.

Back to Sirota:

Limbaugh, of course, is within his First Amendment rights to have made these comments. However, as Digby notes, the First Amendment guarantees one only the right to free speech - it doesn't grant anyone the right to evade the consequences of one's speech. In this case, the consequences are a private corporation - the NFL - saying it wants nothing to do with Limbaugh.

Certainly, you can certainly disagree with that business decision for various reasons, some of which have nothing to do with political ideology or Rush worship at all (one argument I've heard is that if the NFL is going to let Michael Vick play, they should also let Limbaugh invest). However, the decision has nothing to do with the First Amendment or political persecution and everything to do with a private corporation wanting to steer clear of branding itself to an overt racist - a billing that even the dittoheads shouldn't be able to deny.

And now, we have Rush lashing out. When all else fails and he's trapped by years worth of tapes of his own racist comments, this is what we get:

CNN reporter Carol Costello ran a segment yesterday analyzing talk radio and its listeners. This analysis included shows and monologues from the king of conservative radio, Rush Limbaugh, and he was not pleased with the conclusions drawn by either Costello or the psychiatrist she consulted, which was that Limbaugh is a "bully." Limbaugh called Costello his "stalker" before suggesting she "go sit on a fire hydrant and improve your day."

Huff Post - click for video

Let's let Ed Schultz wrap it up:

I do want to point out that for years Limbaugh has been saying that the free market doesn't want liberal talk radio. Well, there's a lot of conservative owners that would never even try progressive talk radio or liberal talk radio.

Rush, how's that free market working for you tonight, buddy? It's about ownership. I'm glad you found it out.

More Fox pushback

In the "war" between the White House and Fox News, Fox is/has/will be claiming that, to analyze Fox News, one must differentiate between the 'news' hours and the opinion hours. Media Matters has put together a mash-up that demonstrates that there is little difference in the two, in that even during the 'news' hours, the network is pushing an agenda.



As Jason Linkins points out, Fox manufactures stories out of whole cloth by having reporters report on what "some are saying" about an issue, when it's really Fox pushing it's agenda. However, when a reporter then reports on what "some are saying" it allows Fox to pretend they're covering a real story, as opposed to the one they're in the process of inventing.

Rachel Weiner has compiled video evidence of 10 of Fox's most egregious news distortions. It's a safe bet that Fox won't try to refute these, but rather take the normal road of indignation that seems to resonate with their viewers. To Roger Ailes' credit, Fox has become a master of the non-denial denial. They rarely provide any proof that a critical statement is incorrect, they just claim "media bias" and move on.

This reaction from Fox comes as they're under increasing attack. First from the White House and now from Newsweek. As Jacob Weisberg argues in his new piece for Newsweek, Fox is un-American. Watching Fox respond to a charge that they've been leveling at others for years has been humorous, in the same way that watching drunk guy try to get off the floor is.

Last week, when White House Communications Director Anita Dunn charged the Fox News Channel with right-wing bias, Fox responded the way it always does. It denied the accusation with a straight face while proceeding to confirm it with its coverage.

Consider Fox's Web story on the episode. It quotes five people. Two of them work for Fox. All of them assert that administration officials are either wrong in substance or politically foolish to criticize the network. No one is cited supporting Dunn's criticisms or saying that it could make sense for Obama to challenge the network's power. It's a textbook example of a biased journalism.

If you were watching Fox News Channel, you saw the familiar roster of platinum pundettes and anchor androids reciting the same soundbites: this was Obama's version of Nixon's enemies list, the rest of the news media is in Obama's corner, Obama should get back to governing, and so on. On The O'Reilly Factor, Alan Colmes, the network's weak, battered house liberal, mumbled semi-agreement while "Doctor" Monica Crowley and Bill O'Reilly lit up the scoreboard with these talking points.

Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for "evidence" that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.

There is no need to get bogged down in this phony debate, which itself constitutes an abuse of the fair-mindedness of the rest of the media. One glance at Fox's Web site or five minutes' random viewing of the channel at any hour of the day demonstrates its all-pervasive slant. The lefty documentary Outfoxed spent a lot of time mustering evidence that Fox managers order reporters to take the Republican side. But after 13 years under Roger Ailes, Fox employees skew news right as instinctively as fish swim.

Rather than in any way maturing, Fox has in recent months become more boisterous and demagogic. Fox sponsored as much as it covered the anti-Obama "tea parties" this summer. Its "fact checking" about the president's health-care proposal is provided by Karl Rove. And weepy Glenn Beck has begun to exhibit a Strangelovean concern about government invading our bloodstream by vaccinating people for swine flu. With this misinformation campaign, Fox stands to become the first network to actively try to kill its viewers.

That Rupert Murdoch may tilt the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox's model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to develop a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. In this way, Fox hasn't just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.

What's most distinctive about the American press is not its freedom but its century-old tradition of independence—that it serves the public interest rather than those of parties, persuasions, or pressure groups. Media independence is a 20th-century innovation that has never fully taken root in many other countries that do have a free press. The Australian-British-continental model of politicized media that Murdoch has applied at Fox is un-American, so much so that he has little choice but go on denying what he's doing as he does it. For Murdoch, Ailes, and company, "fair and balanced" is a necessary lie. To admit that their coverage is slanted by design would violate the American understanding of the media's role in democracy and our idea of what constitutes fair play. But it's a demonstrable deceit that no longer deserves equal time.

Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question. Whether we journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations. Respectable journalists—I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs. A boycott would make Ailes too happy, so let's try just ignoring Fox, shall we? And no, I don't want to come on The O'Reilly Factor to discuss it.

Collision: Christopher Hitchens debates Pastor Doug Wilson on religion

In the new film Collision, Christopher Hitchens of Vanity Fair debates Pastor Douglas Wilson on the subject of religion. Huff post has run a good piece on it, from which I'll quote grab below. Click here to read the whole big she-bang.

Religion Is Absurd
by Christopher Hitchens

Religion will always retain a certain tattered prestige because it was our first attempt as a species to make sense of the cosmos and of our own nature, and because it continues to ask "why". Its incurable disability, however, lies in its insistence that the answer to that question can be determined with certainty on the basis of revelation and faith.

The great cultural question before us is therefore this: can we manage to preserve what is numinous and transcendent and ecstatic without giving any more room to the superstitious and the supernatural. (For example, can one treasure and appreciate the Parthenon, say, while recognizing that the religious cult that gave rise to it is dead, and was in many ways sinister and cruel?) A related question is: can we be moral and ethical in our thoughts and actions without the servile idea that our morals are dictated to us by a supreme entity?

Atheists Suck at Being Atheists
by Pastor Douglas Wilson

It does no good to appeal to the discoveries made by science and reason, for one of the things that reason has apparently brought us is atheism. Right? And not content to let sleeping dogs lie, reason also brings us the inexorable consequences of atheism, which includes the unpalatable but necessary conclusion that random neuron firings do not amount to any "truth" that corresponds to anything outside our heads. This, ironically enough, includes atheism, and so we find ourselves falling out of the tree, saw in one hand and branch in the other.

Contrast this with the Christian gospel -- God the Father is the Maker of heaven and earth. He sent His Son to be born one of us; this Son died on gibbet for our sins, as the ultimate and final human sacrifice, and He rose from the dead on the third day following. Having ascended into Heaven and taken His place at the right hand of His Father, He sent His Holy Spirit into the world in order to transform it, a process that is still ongoing. Now obviously, this is a message that can be believed or disbelieved. But the reason for mentioning it here includes the important point that such a set of convictions makes it possible for us to believe that reason can be trusted, that goodness does not change with the evolutionary times, and that beauty is grounded in the very heart of God.

Drunkest Guy Ever (Silent Film version)

This is hilarious. The original is great but the Olde Timey music just makes it brilliant.

"We've got a rep for that"

There's a new video out mocking the GOP's far-out stances on policy. It's a send up of Apple's "We've got an app for that" commercials.

"If you want to refute scientific research by quoting Biblical prophecy...There's a rep for that".

In the accompanying blog post the video's auteur explains his claims and sums it up by saying, "The Republican party today has little interest in developing constructive policy. Its reps would rather spend their energy offering up ridiculous claims to see if they can ride a wave of deceit back into power.

FINALLY! Pushback against Faux News

It's really not news. It's pushing a point of view. And the bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we're not going to treat them that way. We're going to appear on their shows. We're going to participate but understanding that they represent a point of view."

David Axelrod on ABC's "This Week" 10/18/09

It's not so much a conflict with Fox News. But unlike I suppose the way to look at it, the way the President looks at it and we look at it, it's not a news organization so much as it has a perspective. And that's a different take. And more importantly is not have the CNNs and the others in the world, basically be led and following Fox as what they're trying to do as legitimate news organization in the sense of both sides and a sense of valued opinion.

Rahm Emanuel on CNN's "State of the Union" 10/18/09

It's about damn time. Faux is to objective news what the NFL Network is to football - a wholly owned subsidiary pushing a biased viewpoint. In the case of the NFL Netowrk however, nothing that comes out of Rich Eisen's mouth can affect the dirction of our nation.

It's been my contention for years that Fox should be treated as an entertainment network by the public, and maybe more importantly, by its peers. Fox gains it's power when other legitimate news sources (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN) treat it's reporting as being on-par with theirs.

The standard Fox response is to poke at MSNBC, saying "we're no worse than they are". And truth be told, MSNBC is wandering into opinion-news territory. However GE has made the smart move of keeping it's 2 entities separate. Fox is not.

Fox maintains that they maintain separate functions of news and commentary. First, this is disingenuous. Second, if this is so, then they need to putt on-screen icons up letting the public know which is which.

This is all moot however. Fox revels in it's contrary nature. They follow the Ailes/Atwater playbook of saying something so often that they (and hopefully you) believe it.

Good on the White House for growing a set. No one is denying Fox's right to exist. But let's not take them seriously either.