Media fooled by big rubber suit.
Film at eleven.
by John Cole| 16 Comments
This post is in: Media, General Stupidity
by John Cole| 74 Comments
This post is in: Media
I kinda like Dan Abrams, for whatever reason, and wish she was replacing David Gregory, but this is definitely good news on the talk show front:
Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, removing the long-time host –- and one-time general manager of the network — Dan Abrams from his 9 p.m. program and replacing him with Rachel Maddow, who has emerged as a favored political commentator for the all-news cable channel.
The moves, which were confirmed by MSNBC executives Tuesday, are expected to be finalized by Wednesday, with Mr. Abrams’s last program on Thursday. After MSNBC’s extensive coverage of the two political conventions during the next two weeks, Ms. Maddow will begin her program on Sept. 8.
Good for her. She has earned it.
by John Cole| 58 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Republican Stupidity
Michael Goldfarb is at it again, once again trotting out another veteran turned GOP hatchet man to prove to us that someone, somewhere, did in fact draw a cross in the dirt. This time, it is Swift Vet Bud Day:
After a brief conversation with Col. Bud Day, I can confirm that Col. Day is most likely the toughest man alive in addition to being the most decorated Air Force veteran in history. Some of the details Day shared with the McCain Report are too gory to reproduce here, but he did confirm that “not long after we all got back together [in the camp],” McCain told him the story of the prison guard who drew a cross in the dirt one Christmas.
You will remember Bud Day as the guy who appeared in the Swift Vet ads but who conservatives insist is not to be referred to as a Swift Vet- just bad timing on his part ending up in the same AO as the filming of that commercial. Funny, that, especially since he seems to not shy away from their core message, either. He most recently was trotted out to attack the service and credentials of Wes Clark.
Goldfarb must have unleashed some nerd fury yesterday, because D&D fans were not slighted in this venture. On the other hand, Goldfarb most assuredly was sporting his Star Spangled underoos when writing today’s post, because we get a link to Day’s Medal of Honor write-up. Why is that relevant?
Shut up, that is why!
On a serious note, I am laughing that it was, of all places, the Free Republic where this silliness started. The bonus funny is that Goldfarb seems to have co-opted McCain’s online election effort to continue his on-again off-again feud with Andrew Sullivan. The only thing that has changed, really, is that Goldfarb has moved his portion of the fight from the pages of the Weekly Standard to the McCain campaign blog. That, my friends, is change you can believe in.
Another Day, Another Swift Vet (WILL AUGUST NEVER END?)Post + Comments (58)
by John Cole| 44 Comments
This post is in: Politics
I am so sick of this nonsense:
Doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment, even if the procedures being sought conflict with physicians’ religious beliefs, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday.
In its second major decision advancing gay rights this year, the state high court ruled that religious physicians must obey a state law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
If your religious beliefs keep you from treating your patients, find another line of work.
Depressing That It Took A Court DecisionPost + Comments (44)
by John Cole| 31 Comments
This post is in: The War on Your Neighbor, aka the War on Drugs, War on Terror aka GSAVE®, Assholes, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
Yes, there are all sorts of arcane legal arguments being made here (most of which I will openly admit to not understanding), but the gist of this story is that a judge tinkered with a jury in order to get the verdict the state wanted.
That was the outcome. Period.
Then you have this:
The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.
The proposed changes would revise the federal government’s rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation’s 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.
Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.
Taken together, critics in Congress and elsewhere say, the moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush’s successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era.
Welcome to the police state, bitches. And in case they do decide to go to trial, the judges will be happy to help the jury convict you.
All together now- “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.” Our collective wars are killing this country.
*** Update ***
by John Cole| 36 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Media
Surprise, surprise. Marc Armbinder reports that the press is ginning up the Clinton/Obama rift (just as we have all known):
Reports of strife between negotiators for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are exaggerated and the two sides are nearing an agreement on how Clinton’s delegates will participate in the formal nominating process at the Democratic National Convention, according to advisers to both Democrats.
Although Clinton had resisted pressure from donors, allies and supporters to accept demands to allow her name placed in nomination, she and aides to Obama seemed to realize independently that doing so would be the best way to incorporate and welcome Clinton’s supporters into Obama’s general election campaign, both symbolically and practically.
***But within the past week, Clinton advisers informed the Obama team that many of Clinton’s staunchest supporters felt strongly that something had to be done, and that Clinton had concluded that, in part for the sake of unity, their wishes ought to be respected. They heard back immediately: the Obama campaign had always been open to having her name placed in nomination alongside his.
***On August 6, Clinton told donors at a private fundraiser that she thinks “that people want to feel like, O.K., it’s a catharsis, we’re here, we did it, and then everybody get behind Senator Obama. That is what most people believe is the best way to go.”
That sentiment is shared by Obama advisers, even as reports of tension between her aides and Obama’s campaign have proliferated in the press. To the contrary, multiple sources in both campaigns have described the negotiations as relatively free of acrimony. Obama’s convention managers and his political are acutely aware of the fact that at least 45% percent of delegates were stalwart backers of Sen. Clinton during the primary.
***Clinton aides also confirmed, and Obama aides did not dispute, that it was Clinton who informed the Obama campaign that she did not to give the keynote address to the convention. It is not clear whether the Obama camp would have offered the honorific, but they did not, sources said, deliberately deny it to Clinton.
Our failed experiment of a free press once again rises to the occasion. They have their story, and they are sticking to it, despite the actual facts.
*** Update ***
This OTB headline made me laugh out loud:
Clinton Supporters Want To Lose Again For Catharsis
Cruel.
by John Cole| 31 Comments
This post is in: The War on Your Neighbor, aka the War on Drugs