Irrelevant

Crooks and Liars: "Irrelevant"

Rightwing dopes, in pictures.

McCain Campaign Goes Racist: All Aboard the Willie Horton Express

McCain found a black man to be the face of an anti-Obama ad. Franklin Raines never even advised Barack Obama. But there is a reason his face is in this ad, rather than someone who actually advised Obama: Franklin Raines is black.

This ad is straight out of the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove racist playbook. The Straight Talk Express has detoured to Racism Alley. Disgusting.

Time.com: McCain Plays the Race Card

When politicians interject race into a campaign, they seldom do it directly. Consider McCain's new ad, which the campaign says it will be airing nationally:



This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.

Let me stipulate: Obama's Fannie Mae connections are completely fair game. But this ad doesn't even mention a far more significant tie--that of Jim Johnson, the former Fannie Mae chairman who had to resign as head of Obama's vice presidential search team after it was revealed he got a sweetheart deal on a mortgage from Countrywide Financial. Instead, it relies on a fleeting and tenuous reference in a Washington Post Style section story to suggest that Obama's principal economic adviser is former Fannie Mae Chairman Frank Raines. Why? One reason might be that Johnson is white; Raines is black.

And the image of the victim doesn't seem accidental either, given the fact that older white women are a key swing constituency in this election.

After the McCain campaign introduced the ad, the Obama campaign responded with this statement:

Statement from Frank Raines on the ad: "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."

"This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses," said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

McCain Smears Obama, Push-Polls in Florida Claim Obama Funds PLO

No Blood for Hubris: Roveian Push-Poll Targets FL Voters to Smear Obama

PT Key West resident Joelna Marcus received a phone call today. She was asked if she is Jewish, and she replied in the affirmative.

She was asked if she was religious.

She was then asked if her opinion of Barack Obama would change if she knew that Obama had given lots and lots of money to the PLO.

Sounds like liar John McCain's Smear-Talk Express, not unlike Ol' Man River, just keeps rollin' along.

How low can McCain go? He's hired the Karl Rove team that smeared him in South Carolina in 2000, and is using them to smear Obama in 2008. What's next? A commenter at Making Light has an idea:

Maybe next McCain can circulate rumors that Barack Obama has fathered a black child.

Obama must stop saying that McCain is an honorable man. It is no longer true.

Dishonor

This YouTube video is 10 times better than any ad the Democrats have paid their rich consultants to come up with:



Tag line: "John McCain said he refuses to define honor. Maybe that's because honor no longer defines John McCain."

hat tip to Americablog.

McCain = Bush

McCain is so wedded to Bush he's recycling his old campaign ad footage. Remember Bush's wolves? McCain's ads have the very same wolves. Not a coincidence, as Karl Rove's team is running McCain for Bush's third term.

Good Advice

I don't usually use this much of an article, but this advice is right on. To persuade you must have boiled your message down to its essence. Then pound it home, for Christ's sake. No time to be wishy-washy.

Leah McElrath Renn, HuffPo: For God's Sake, Get on Message! Ten Tips for the Obama Campaign

1. GET ON MESSAGE AND STAY ON MESSAGE. McCain = Bush, the economy sucks, our national security situation is more dire than ever due to the failed Republican policies. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...

2. STOP REPEATING REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA FOR THEM. If you don't believe that McCain is a maverick, then say what he is. Say he's unpredictable and impulsive in his decision-making and ask people if those are really the qualities that we want in our Commander in Chief.

3. Stop talking about Sarah Palin and rebutting her lies. NOBODY CARES WHAT THE FACTS ARE. They are influenced by her persona -- the impression they take away from her appearances. When you allow yourselves to become distracted and start serving as a Republican fact-checker, you come across as petty and self-congratulating. Same applies to McCain.

4. FOCUS ON OBAMA'S PERSONA AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF. Obama's special gift as a politician is to inspire people's trust -- work it to its fullest. Be hopeful and positive, sure, but also be strong and fierce. Show that Obama's leadership will combine the strength of the sword with the compassion of the chalice. He did a great job of this in his nomination acceptance speech -- but lately his pull-quotes are either wonky-to-the-extreme or on the self-congratulatory side.

5. BOLSTER OBAMA'S COMMANDER IN CHIEF CREDENTIALS. Get as many visuals of you with General Wesley Clark and other leaders in the fields of defense and foreign relations circulating as you can. The Republicans are running on the myth of McCain as a benevolent warrior -- and will be further ratcheting up the fear level in the weeks to come if their convention was any indication (repeated exploitation of 9/11 imagery, hundreds of recapitulations of McCain's POW story, etc.). GET AHEAD OF THIS ISSUE NOW.

6. USE MORE AND BETTER VISUALS in general. Recently, I was in South Carolina and saw, over and over again, one particularly ineffective Obama ad about reworking the US economy to employ more skilled labor again. Not only was the message was too esoteric for the purposes of the final 60 days of the campaign, but the visuals used in the ad were pathetic. Were they perhaps close-up photos of the time-ravaged faces and hands of working class Americans (toward whom the ad was apparently aimed)? No. The most common visual was windmills. Yes, that's right. Windmills. How working class America is supposed to be swayed to vote Democratic when they are viewing ads about windmills is just beyond me. Let's have some ads of a flag draped coffin in close up -- and then multiplied by more than 4000 times. Let's have some ads that feature a close up of a foreclosed home and a family who has been evicted -- then multiply that times however many thousands of foreclosures have taken place. Now those are visual that will reach working class Americans.

7. DON'T BE AFRAID TO GO NEGATIVE. Not all negative campaigns are equal. Describing John McCain as unpredictable, short-tempered and impulsive in his decision-making is a far different field of play than belittling John Kerry's war record. This is a war -- play to win. Once we're back in office, you can be as gracious as you please.

8. KISS: keep it simple, stupid. Every time we Democrats get into the "we're right, so if maybe we just explain it well enough then they'll understand" mode, we lose. The reality is that the vast majority of people feel condescended to when things are "explained" to them. Most people function on "gut" feelings and imagery and understand things best when they are presented in simplified, symbolic and concrete terms. This isn't because most people are stupid, however. It's because life is overwhelming as it is. People do not have the time, attention or inclination to take in and process units of complex information. If we learn nothing else from the influence of Karl Rove, let us at least learn this.

9. THE SUPREME COURT. My God, the stakes are high. Perhaps some ads that delineate how high and use testimonials from women might be in order? We do, after all, need to reach undecided women. My bet is that Sarah Palin's glamour will be a little less appealing once women are reminded that, under a Supreme Court dominated by Republican-appointed judges, their daughters might face a future in which they will not have the freedom to terminate a pregnancy even in the case of rape or incest.

10. GET ON MESSAGE AND STAY ON MESSAGE. McCain = Bush, the economy sucks, our national security situation is more dire than ever due to the failed Republican policies and the loss of the American moral high ground. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...

Why Jon Stewart is the Most Trusted Name In News

You didn't see this on your local news last night, but you should have. Jon Stewart on Sarah Palin and the bogus gender card:



I saw this at one of my favorite blogs, Boltgirl on the Loose.

Presstitute of the Year: AP's Ron Fournication

flickr, user hyku: WOMMA Research Summit - Ron Fournier

AP's Ron Fournier, hereinafter Ron Fournication, has been awarded this blog's coveted Presstitute of the Year award for this actual AP article:

Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence
By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press Writer – Sat Aug 23, 2:12 am ET

Fournication has rocketed to the top of my list of Republican presstitutes masquerading as journalists. It was just a few months ago that he won his first Presstitute of the Day award (when he said Obama was "bordering on arrogance" for making a joke, and that Barack and Michelle Obama ooze a sense of entitlement. That would be the one house Obamas, not the dozen houses worth $13,000,000 McCains.) And when Pat Tillman was killed, he was ready to carry the Bush Administration's lies, and even emailed Karl Rove: "Keep up the fight." And now he's won the annual Presstitute award, and it isn't even Labor Day.

To properly tell this story, I must indulge in some internet shouting (ALLCAPS on the 'net is SHOUTING). Ron Fournication INTERVIEWED FOR A JOB WITH THE McCAIN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. Ergo, he is not an impartial journalist. He picked a side. John McCain's side.

If there still existed something as quaint as "journalistic ethics" he would be barred from covering the presidential campaign. Instead, AP put him in charge of their Washington Bureau, and the man who once interviewed to work for John McCain is working for McCain by putting out slanted article after slanted article, all favoring McCain and heaping abuse on Obama.

How wrong is Fournication's "analysis?" Just look at the statements on Biden by REPUBLICAN Senators:

Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska: “Joe Biden is the right partner for Barack Obama. His many years of distinguished service to America, his seasoned judgment and his vast experience in foreign policy and national security will match up well with the unique challenges of the 21st Century. An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team. Biden’s selection is good news for Obama and America,”

Richard Lugar, R-Indiana: "I congratulate Senator Barack Obama on his selection of my friend, Senator Joe Biden, to be his vice-presidential running mate. I have enjoyed for many years the opportunity to work with Joe Biden to bring strong bipartisan support to United States foreign policy."

Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania: "No one on the Democratic side knows more about foreign policy than Sen. Biden," Specter said. "He's been an articulate spokesman on the subject. He also knows about domestic policy. He's been a leader on crime control."

Finally, not only are Fournication's articles solidly pro-McCain, anti-Obama, and anti-truth, he is for sale. Lindsay Beyerstein documents that Fournication is available as a speaker through the "All American Talent & Celebrity Network" (you can't make this stuff up) for $10,000 a pop.

Firedoglake has the links to let you take ACTION: Tell AP To Remove Ron Fournier From the Presidential Beat

Newshoggers: Ron Fournier's ASS Press

firedoglake: Karl Rove's Little Hot Soup Nazi

Sourcewatch: Ron Fournier [aka Fournication]

AP Must Fire Ron Fournier

Fire this Republican cheerleader

Media Matters for America: The AP has a Ron Fournier problem

We wrote about Ron Fournier's inappropriate emails to Karl Rove here. You can read the emails in the House Oversight Committee report (pdf file) here on page 23.

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

When confronted with the fact of his cheerleading, Fournier claimed (a) the emails were just "too breezy" in tone, and (b) that he was researching an article on Pat Tillman's death.

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters has discovered that the second claim cannot be true, as Ron Fournier never wrote an article about Pat Tillman:

Yet according to a search of Nexis, Fournier didn't write any bylined articles about Pat Tillman's death in April 2004. Or ever, for that matter. That means Fournier wasn't reaching out as a reporter to Rove for information, quotes, or context about the sad Tillman story. Fournier didn't need Rove to be a "source" for the Tillman story because Fournier wasn't covering the Tillman story.

Instead, Fournier seemed to be using the Tillman story as an opportunity to initiate contact with Rove and let him know that Fournier was on his side, and to urge Rove to "keep up the fight."

Read the entire article at Media Matters to see Fournier and AP's history of Republican cheerleading. Fournier isn't an objective journalist. Here's just one odious example of his bias:

For instance, in the months before Fournier was privately bonding with Rove and urging the White House to "keep up the fight," this was the lead Fournier wrote for a straight-ahead news article about then-Democratic front-runner Howard Dean receiving Al Gore's endorsement:

Dean hopes the coveted endorsement eases concerns among party leaders about his lack of foreign policy experience, testy temperament, policy flip-flops, campaign miscues and edgy anti-war, antiestablishment message.

Gee, not many Rovian talking points embedded in that AP article, eh?

You can let AP know what you think of their Republican plant Ron Fournier here at their contact page. I'm sure if the AP fires him, he could very quickly get a job with the McCain campaign. For writing stuff like this:

The fact is, Fournier's McCain love runs deep and goes back years. In 2004, when McCain wasn't even a candidate, Fournier praised him in print as "a former Vietnam War hero who emerged from his 2000 defeat as one of the nation's most popular politicians, beloved by independent voters and courted by both presidential candidates."

The next year, while reviewing the possible 2008 presidential field, Fournier insisted the Arizona senator was "favored by a majority of Democrats and independents who would vote in a general election."

But that breathless claim had no factual basis.

Send Karl Rove To Jail

Sign the petition at:

SendKarlRovetoJail.com

Tell the House Judiciary Committee to hold Karl Rove in contempt and send him to jail.

Apocalypse Bush

12% of the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan died in the past six weeks. In the past six weeks, 64 American soldiers have died in the war George W. Bush has starved for five years to fight his war of lies in Iraq. Why doesn't the New Yorker magazine have a cartoon on the cover showing George W. Bush in burning hell, spending eternity looking under his desk for the weapons of mass destruction? Now that would be funny.

The press corpse continues to stink up the Presidential race. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has dug up one of the bodies. Ron Fournier (we wrote about him here when he wrote a terribly slanted article calling Obama "arrogant") has been appointed head of AP's Washington Bureau. Apparently he's encouraging more opinion and fewer facts. Great. And since you can judge a man by the company he keeps, guess who Ron Fournier was emailing the day Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan and the Bushies were frantically covering up his tragic death? Ron Fournier, "journalist", was emailing with the Prince of Darkness Karl Rove. Here's their exchange, as summarized in a House Oversight Committee report:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

And after those pious niceties and expressions of patriotic solidarity, they lied to the Tillmans about how their son was killed. Reprehensible.

Edited to add: Here's a PDF of the House Oversight Committee report; the Karl Rove-Ron Fournier emails are described on page 23.

A little history is in order. Who was the biggest supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan before 9/11/01? Why, it was George W. Clusterfuck, of course. This post at dailykos details the Bush Administration's decision to send a $43 million dollar gift to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan in May of 2001.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think the U.S. government was in on the 9/11 attacks. But George Bush, a stupid, arrogant fool, did everything wrong in his first pathetic 9 months in office. He gave the Taliban millions of dollars. He ignored the Clinton administration holdovers like Richard Clarke who were running around the White House with their hair on fire over Osama bin Laden and the threat of terrorism. He spent the entire month of August 2001 on vacation, and when the CIA briefer flew to Crawford to read him the Presidential Daily Brief on August 6, 2001, with the ominous headline "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", he told that CIA briefer "All right, you've covered your ass now". All President DumbFuckinFratBoy could think to say when the CIA dared to intrude on his brush-cutting vacation was a dumb joke. He didn't hear the urgency. He spent the month playing Solomon and splitting the baby, deciding that the country would allow stem cell research on very few cell lines, most of which are contaminated with mouse DNA. He fiddled while Osama plotted.

Worst. President. Ever.

We can't elect another stupid, out of touch, arrogant fool again. (cough, cough, John McCain)
.

No, John McCain, You Can't Be President

A one-minute tribute to the ever-changing positions of John McCain.

Future Leaders of the Republican Party

Max Blumenthal, HuffPo: Generation Chickenhawk: The Unauthorized College Republican National Convention Tour

Watch these chickenhawks warily; they may not be willing to go to Iraq, but these are your future Republican Party leaders-in-training.

salon.com: Beautiful young shock troops for Bush

College Republicans are the party's farm team. Stalwarts who got their start as College Republican leaders include Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and right-wing strategist par excellence; and [Karl] Rove himself.

And don't forget Republican bagman Jack Abramoff, former College Republican National Chairman.

What Is Voter Caging?

Cage him for stealing elections.

What the heck was Maniacal Goodling talking about when she testified about voter caging? It was a very confusing moment in her testimony. The Congresscritters seemed flummoxed. She said it was a direct mail term. That made no sense to me. Tonight I stumbled upon the answer.

Here's how reporter Greg Palast describes voter caging:

The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and --- you got to love this --- American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.

Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation --- and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished.

Palast has 500 emails -- many of them Karl Rove's emails that the White House now claims are lost -- because they were sent accidentally to whitehouse.org, a domain that is owned by a friend of Palast. (They meant to send them to whitehouse.com -- Doh!)

So our soldiers registered to vote, then went to Iraq. The Republican party sends mail to their official address, but it is returned as undeliverable, because the soldier is in Iraq. So when that soldier's absentee ballot comes in, and the elections personnel go to count that ballot, they find that the ballot has been challenged as being from a phony address. Because the soldier was overseas in George W. Bush's war for democracy. And the guy who led this effort was Tim Griffin, Karl Rove's protege, who is now the USAttorney for the District of Arkansas. The chicken now guards the henhouse.

Some of the emails (SUBJECT: caging) are in the middle of this post on Palast's research.

I highly recommend watching all three Youtube clips, below, in which Palast lays out the caging scheme and how it related to the US Attorney scandal. These are felonies and impeachable offenses.


Part 1 (8:18)


Part 2 (4:58)


Part 3 (9:07)

Another Modest Proposal

DOJ Barbie: I don't know nothing 'bout vote caging!
In Re Monical Goodling's testimony yesterday (Monical is a typo, but I'm inclined to let it stay) I must apologize for my aborted attempt at liveblogging. I think I was distracted by the prospect of the Champions League final in the afternoon, and didn't want to get tied down to the computer.

But I did listen to much of the testimony, and it struck me once again that most members of Congress couldn't cross examine their way out of a paper bag. Watching the rows and rows of Congresscritters lined up to question DOJ Barbie reminded me of the Watergate hearings, back in the day. Remember when the committee investigating the breakin used staff to do the questioning? Remember attorney Sam Dash, who was appointed committee counsel by Senator Sam Ervin? It was Sam Dash doing the questioning the day Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of Nixon's secret taping system.

I wish the Congressional committees questioning these witnesses would appoint a professional to assist them. Now, who is both qualified and has the time? How about recently fired New Mexico USAG David Iglesias? He's not working and he certainly knows the issues here. He's handsome and telegenic. There may be complaints that he's partisan, but he's a Republican. Besides, this isn't a criminal trial. It's a political hearing, and both sides are allowed to be as political as they want.

John Conyers, hire David Iglesias. Let him question. Would there be any
better showdown ever, than to watch Iglesias question Karl Rove? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! (A Few Good Men was based on a case tried by Iglesias.)

US Attorney News

LATimes: 'Cowboy up,' Alberto Gonzales
A fired U.S. attorney calls on the attorney general to serve the people, not politics.

LATimes: Goodling: a Power player behind Justice's scenes
The former Justice insider, a mystery to many, is set to testify under immunity in Congress on the U.S. attorneys' firings.

WaPo: Officials Describe Interference by Former Gonzales Aide [Monica Goodling]

News Round-Up, Monday, May 21, 2007

flickr

McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder) has an important article on the success Karl Rove and his minions have had in suppressing legitimate votes, all in the name of faux voter fraud.

ThinkProgress: TSA Confiscates Congressman’s Last Meal During Food Stamp Challenge Stupid, stupid TSA liquids rules. Did they think Congressman Ryan was going to blow up the plane with a jar of peanut butter? I can't wait until saner minds prevail. The confiscation of liquids is just as stupid as the 15 years that we endured the Lockerbie questions. (Did you pack your own bag? Has your bag been out of your possession at any point? Has anyone unknown to you asked you to carry anything? Arrgh.)

Great anti-war piece in the Chicago Sun-Times: Bring troops home now (hat tip, Suburban Guerrilla)

TalkLeft: Here Come The Detention Camps: Immigration Legislation No wonder George W. Bush supported the new immigration compromise legislation; it lets him build more gulags.

Brilliant at Breakfast: Why can't a First Lady have a career? Michelle Obama has left her job at a Chicago hospital.

Best health care system in the world, my ass: The LA Times reports the heartbreaking story of a woman who was allowed to die writhing in pain in a hospital ER in Los Angeles County. They had told her to leave and call her own doctor in the morning.

The Boston Globe reports on the resuscitation of a (southern hemisphere, really lost) albatross that was found in a field in Maine.

The WaPo discovers left blogtopia; better late to the party than never, I guess.

US Attorney Purge: Stealing Elections

Must-read article:

buzzflash.com: Greg Palast, Author of Armed Madhouse, on How Rove May Have Already Stolen the 2008 Election

BuzzFlash: You’re having incredible success with the new expanded paperback edition of Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. Of course, the electronic voting machines and how they function is a very significant issue, but your specialty has really been how the Bush/Rove GOP political machine keeps persons who are likely to vote Democratic or Independent from voting.

Greg Palast: Yes. People ask me: Are they going to steal the 2008 election? No, they’ve already stolen the 2008 election. We still have a chance of swiping it back, but the reason I’ve expanded and put out the new edition of Armed Madhouse is to tell you how they will steal in 2008, and what to do about it. That’s one of the main new things. Plus a special chapter on New Orleans and my bust down there.

Of course, I was very flattered that the first review of the new edition of Armed Madhouse was written by Karl Rove and the Rove-bots -- it was subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee -- I can’t make this up. On February 7th, the Rove team, which had been writing several e-mails screaming about Armed Madhouse and "that British reporter," Greg Palast, were gloating that no U.S. media had picked up my stories. And they had a .pdf file attached. Of course, the reason my book was subpoenaed is that it has to do with the US prosecutor firings. The prosecutor firings were 100% about influencing elections -- not about loyalty to Bush, which is what The New York Times wrote. The administration team couldn’t tolerate appointees who wouldn’t go along with crime. In the book I present the evidence that Karl Rove directed a guy named Tim Griffin to target suppressing the votes of African American students, homeless men, and soldiers. Nice guy. They actually challenged the votes and successfully removed tens of thousands of legal voters from the voter rolls, same as they did in 2000. But instead of calling them felons, they said that they had suspect addresses.

BuzzFlash: In which election cycle?

Greg Palast: 2004. And in 2006 and 2004, they challenged tens of thousands of black soldiers. They stopped their votes from being counted when they were mailed in from Baghdad. Go to Baghdad and lose your vote -- mission accomplished.

BuzzFlash: How did they do that?

Greg Palast: By sending letters to the homes of soldiers, marked "do not forward." When they came back undelivered, they said: Aha! Illegal voter registered from a false address. And when their ballot came in from Fallujah, it was challenged. The soldier didn’t know it. Their vote was lost. Over half a million votes were challenged and lost by the Republicans -- absentee ballots. Three million voters who went to the polls found themselves challenged by the Republicans. This was not a small operation. It was a multi-million dollar, wholesale theft operation.

They’re right that I’m a British reporter, because I put this story on British TV, not on American TV, which won’t touch it. [BuzzFlash note: Palast writes for British papers and reports on the BBC, but he is a product of the San Fernando Valley and the University of Chicago, 100% American.] But our election was a complete, total fraud. This is grand theft -- no question. It’s not a dirty trick; it’s a felony crime.

I’m working with Bobby Kennedy, who is a voting rights attorney. He said, “This is not just an icky, horrible thing that people do wearing white sheets. This is a felony crime.” [paraphrase] And the guy they put in charge of this criminal ring to knock out voters is a guy named Tim Griffin. Today, Tim Griffin is -- badda-bing -- U.S. Attorney for Arkansas. When they fired the honest guys, they put in the Rove-bots to fix the 2008 election. That’s what I’m saying -- it’s already being stolen, as we speak. Tim Griffin is the perpetrator who’s become the prosecutor, and that’s what’s going down right now.

BuzzFlash: You have been questioned about prosecutor-gate and about the theft of the election of 2008. But these replacement prosecutors are still in place, not to mention the ones who have cooperated with Bush. Gonzales has basically told the House Judiciary Committee, make my day. I’m staying on. It’s over with. You asked me questions. I didn’t give you answers, but you don’t have the courage to impeach me, so I’m staying.

Greg Palast: That’s the game, too. Congress is shooting at the glove puppet. I shoot at the puppeteers. It’s not Gonzales. He’s meaningless. He’s a nothing. He should go because he allowed it to happen, and that’s a crime. When I was a racketeering investigator, we used to call it “willful failure to know.” He can’t just say to his staff, I know what Rove is doing, but don’t tell me about it. He would still be liable for criminal conspiracy of obstruction of justice. That’s why Monica Goodling took the Fifth. Not knowing doesn’t mean you’re not guilty, especially when you went out of your way not to know.

Gonzales should be read his rights and carted away. But it’s the puppeteers behind him -- Rove and Harriet Miers -- who were deeply involved in the prosecutor hits. No one’s talking about her. This is the woman who went from head of the Texas State Lottery to nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by George Bush, and no one asked how that happened. They said: Harriet who? But they didn’t ask how that happened. They said, oh, she’s loyal to Bush. She’s the one who did the payoffs to cover up the fact that George Senior got George Junior out of the war in Vietnam. Do you think that that was done just by daddy making a call? Money had to be paid -- lots and lots of money to keep people quiet -- $23 million. That is something I reported on BBC Television and in the Guardian newspaper. We’ve given them plenty of time to challenge that story about the payoffs. We’ve never gotten a peep from these guys. And unlike CBS, the BBC has not withdrawn the story that the fix was put in to get Chicken George out of Vietnam. No one has challenged our story, nor have we withdrawn a comment on our story that the payoffs were made to keep it quiet.

BuzzFlash: Let’s focus for the moment on voter suppression, and we'll return later to other elements of the voter manipulation story.

Greg Palast: I have it all in Armed Madhouse, including in the three new chapters. First and foremost, is that it’s not one thing. It ain’t just electronic voting, guys. You go, oh, we have paper ballots, we’re saved, we’re saved. Bulls***! Wake up! Hello! Let’s remember that in Florida and Ohio, they didn’t have computer voting. So all the stuff about Diebold -- Ohio was not stolen by computers, because they didn’t have computers there. In fact, they were thrilled when people complained about computers because they could keep the junky punch cards in. That doesn’t mean that computers are safe. As I point out in the new chapter, the Republicans held on to Katherine Harris’ seat -- and we don’t want to think too carefully about that image -- they held onto Katherine Harris’ seat with 300 votes, while 18,000 votes disappeared in the computers. So they do use computers. That was a pure, straight-up, shoplift of the Congressional seat.

BuzzFlash: A House committee just voted not to pursue an investigation of that election, despite the disappearance of 18,000 votes.

Greg Palast: That’s sick -- deeply, deviously sick. First of all, in New York and other states, when votes are in question, they simply redo them. People talk about recount -- forget it. Redo the vote. When the machines collapse, then there’s no question that there was monkey business.

Oh. My. God.

I turn on the TV this morning and there is racist Michael Smerconish -- shaved head Philadelphia radio shock jock -- sitting in Imus's studio. Out with the old white male racist, in with the new white male racist! Those black and female faces on MSBNC in the days following the ouster of Imus were just token window dressing. Now we're back to GE's favorite form of news: conservative shock jock.

Smerconish's guest is the mad Camille Paglia, who is nervously babbling that our education system is failing boys and that we should allow them to go straight into factory jobs. Factory jobs? What factory jobs? What parallel universe does she live in?

The only good thing about having Paglia on television is that she talks so fast you can't understand her. And she's such a period piece. She announces that she's a Madonna feminist. Does that mean she is going to Africa to adopt a baby? Sheesh.

I read on dailykos last week that the major corporate media was encouraged to take control of the news by Karl Rove in 1999. I guess Rover was very persuasive.

dailykos: Rove Met With Jack Welch in '99 to Create Media Cartel. W/Poll

Patricia Goldsmith, Smirking Chimp: Restore Fairness, Return to Reality

[] As Rep. Louise Slaughter said in a 2004 interview with Bill Moyers, after fairness was defeated,

AM radio rose. It wasn't even gradual, Bill. I mean, almost immediately. And I should point out to you that when we tried to reinstate [the fairness doctrine] again in '93, one of the reasons we couldn't was that Rush Limbaugh had organized this massive uprising against it, calling it "The Hush Rush Law."

Slaughter goes on to explain that the law wouldn't have hushed Rush-that would take more than an act of Congress, I'm afraid-but it would have mandated that time be given to people who represent other sides of any issue discussed by Limbaugh. The same is true for Hannity, O'Reilly, and even Imus. They just wouldn't have the airwaves all to themselves the way they do now.

[]

[I]n 1999 Karl Rove reached out to GE Chairman and CEO Jack Welch, promising radical deregulation for the broadcast industry (GE is the parent company of NBC). This fit right in with some of Welch's thoughts and ambitions. He had long felt that the news division at NBC wasn't living up to its full profit potential. According to a a must-read article, "The Media Cover-up of the Gore Victory Part Four: Democracy, General Electric Style," by David Podvin and Carolyn Kay, that conversation led to some important changes:

Toward that end, Welch said that he would finally deal with a longstanding grievance of his: the ludicrous idea that news organizations should be allowed to operate in conflict with the best interests of the corporations that own them.

. . . The new dimension that Welch introduced was the concept that mainstream media should aggressively advance the political agenda of the corporations that own it. He did not see any difference between corporate journalism and corporate manufacturing or corporate service industries. . . .

In general, he saw corporate news organizations as untapped political resources that should be freed from the burden of objectivity.

. . .

He began to aggressively, but very discreetly, evangelize the gospel of corporate media as a corporate lobbying tool.

. . .

Welch told associates that he enlisted two members of the GE board to assist him in shaping the coverage of the election by other news organizations. . . . They quietly encouraged the executives of the mainstream media organizations to rethink the relationship between news divisions and business organizations.

And a cartel is born. A cartel can be a group of corporations within one industry who meet to set prices.

So, MSNBC, owned by NBC GE, has performed an elaborate corporate charade in firing Imus, but has gone back to furthering its corporate interests by putting a conservative on the air to shape the news in its corporate interests. Wow.

White House Correspondents' Dinner

Comedian Rich Little (R) arrives for a party following the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington April 21, 2007. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES)
Who got him out of the crypt?
I didn't see it but Editor & Publisher says Rich Little laid an egg. Atrios says this was the only funny part, a David Letterman Top 10 List:



From Oliver Willis, the funniest White House Correspondents' Dinner routine evah, Steven Colbert rocking Bush's world:



Update: Oh, and Sheryl Crow and Laurie David used the WHCD to try to talk to Karl Rove about global warming. You can guess how that turned out.