Via Talk Left, Bob Somerby on Keith Olbermann and Countdown:

But then, Countdown has almost surely become the most propagandized show in cable “news” history. Yes, you can still find pure crap in the mainstream press. But pure crap abounds now on Countdown.

When we started this site, the mainstream press corps took the cake (see item above). Now, our “liberal” cable show does—and that has our analysts bollixed.

How silly does it get on Countdown? Just watch any part of the show, any night! The propaganda flow starts right away, and it rarely stops.

But wait, there’s more! The emphasis is mine.  Read more 

Elton John says so!

http://www.millan.net][IMG]http://www.millan.net/minimations/smileys/yay.gif
on another note
Caroline Kennedy to lead “women from Obama rally”, she is going to be handing out the cutesy Obama buttons “Hot Chicks dig Obama”

I’ll keep my own free stickers thanks

http://www.ingalagringa.com/items/

Oh I’ll take a few dozen one for all my friends.

Elizabeth Drew is a sad testament to the fact that even the NYRB has succumbed to the Clinton Rules (check out the image of HRC devilishly laughing on their front page). The article is a mixture of projection, lies, and just plain asshatery. I could only shake my head as I read the following:  Read more 

Thats it for me..my time has come. Today, I proudly went and changed my voter registration from Democrat to Independant. I can’t tell you yet how I will vote in the Fall, but I honestly cannot see myself voting for Obama.
For me, its not that he won..if indeed he does win, but for me, it is the how of it.
Hillary Clinton tried to run as good a campaign as she could. She had the right, the media, the lefty blogs all against her. I can’t even watch keith Olberman any more..his outright contempt for Hillary Clinton is disturbing, to say the least.
I have seen the most vile and atrocious attacks against Hillary coming, not from the right, but from the so-called progressive left. Many female progressives have become little more than Ann Coulter wannabes, in their attacks against Hillary.  Read more 

Much has been written and said about the ability of Barack Obama to “attract Independents”, and how that translates into good news for his electability in November. But no one ever mentions that there is a huge difference between “Independents” and “Moderates”. Independents, as defined by the exits polls, are all over the map in terms of ideology, and include not just people who are “moderates” (that is, those who think that Democrats are too liberal and Republicans too conservative), but also “third” parties (Greens, Libertarians), individuals who are disaffected from the political system, and those on the ideological fringes who think the Democrats and Republicans are too “centrist.”  Read more 

UPDATE: I suppose, being as the debate is now over, that it comes as no surprise to anybody who watched that Kucinich lost the appeal. Apparently the decision didn’t come down until barely an hour before it was supposed to start. The regrettable details can be found here because I did promise to update.

(I still think John held his own. Only mentioned the word “millworker” once that I heard, which is an improvement. :) Dammit he’s wrong on the no-new-nukes thing but we’re grownups, we know that even our favorite candidate isn’t going to agree with us on every single thing.)

TMP is reporting that..well, let’s just roll the tape here:

NBC News was planning on cutting tonight’s Democratic debate in Nevada down to the top three candidates — but a judge’s ruling may just force them to expand it to four.

Last night, Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson ordered that NBC include who Dennis Kucinich, who they had originally invited but then later excluded, or he would issue an injunction to stop the whole debate. NBC is appealing the order.

To which I of course say Huzzah, hurrah, YAY, whoooooopeeeee! and similar expressions of unbridled glee.

Not because I think our favorite elf is going to stage an amazing surge and win Nevada, but think  Read more 

CD updating the update to reflect the latest news: Reid has pulled the bill.

Well, we’re into it - a full-throated Senate debate on many of the dearest, in all senses of that word, fundamentals of constitutional government,

The opening, as Lambert has suggested, was a bit confusing.

Dodd gave a passionate analysis of the many strands of this new FISA legislation, meant, mainly on the Democratic side, to correct the excesses of last August’s Protect America Act, which more or less gutted the FISA court as a check on the power of the executive branch to secretly ignore the civil liberties of Americans not to be spied upon by their own government.

To talk process for a moment, the thrust of Dodd’s first speech was in support of the many and profound reasons why the Senate should not proceed on the matter at hand as long as the Intelligence Committee’s version is the basis of the debate and the subsequent voting on the entire issue. In other words, he was arguing against the imposition of cloture, so that the Senate might spend time debating the merits of substituting the Judiciary Bill as the basis for debate and amendment.

It didn’t look or sound to me like this was Dodd’s attempt to get a genuine filibuster going, and indeed, the vote was lopsided in favor of cloture, all Republicans voting yes, only ten Democrats voting no.

This is not the end of the debate by any means, though, and from what I’ve seen thus far, do not despair that passage of the Intelligence Committee’s version of this new FISA bill is a done deal, including the extending of amnesty to those Telecoms which choose to go along with the administration. Here’s why:  Read more 

Reuters headline:

“Rock stars more likely to die prematurely”

Researchers figured this out a mere 37 years after the deaths of Janis and Jimi.

I hope I’m still alive in 2044, so I don’t miss the story “Iraq ’surge’ not working after all.”

Many today including Barack Obama are saying that rap music needs to be looked at in the wake of what Don Imus said on the radio that got him fired. You see, we are trying to get at root causes here. If black rappers didn’t say nappy headed hos, Don Imus apparently wouldn’t be a racist misogynist.  Read more 

It was bandied about in a few panels of talking heads yesterday, and dismissed in what may have been a reflexive dignity following the meltdown of Imus’ exit. But here it is again. Let’s go after the woman in the Duke Lacrosse wild sex story.

Howard Kurtz wakes up this morning, and suggests there’s more here to shovel. Why waste all those notes he’s taken on the racial divisions in Durham and the black women working as strippers to support their families on the other side of town from Duke fratboys?  Read more 

This story really pisses me off. It’s a puff piece on how wonderful and compassionate the right wing blogosphere has been regarding Elizabeth Edwards’ illness. I wrote a post on Thursday, detailing some of the lovely reaction by Free Republic members to the news. Here are a few selected quotes.

Thank God that we aren’t living under Edwards socialized medicine plan. She has a great chance for recovery.

He could be using this as a cynical ploy to get a sympathy vote later. He is a sleazy trial lawyer after all. I don’t put anything past them.

Perhaps I looked too early. Maybe the tone had changed.  Read more 

Just watched the Edwards’ presser.  Read more 

I’m sure you all know the Edwards will be having a joint new conference, called for noon, EST, and that whatever the announcement is to be, it follows on Elizabeth’s visit to her doctor, and that given the fact of her discovery that she had breast cancer soon after the 2004 election, that fears there has been a reoccurance are natural, as are speculations that Edwards may be withdrawing from the Presidential race.  Read more 

Ridiculous, you say? Well, how about this?

But Mr. DeLay isn’t letting the indictment block him from political involvement. This month, he started the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, which he sees as an information clearinghouse on what he calls the “great threat posed to our nation by the organized forces of the radicalized left.” Mr. DeLay believes the Democratic victory last November came about because “the Left now has more money, more interlocking organizations and more coordinated media supporters than we can possibly imagine.” He hopes to shine a light on these activities and encourage conservatives to work more closely together. “Nothing frustrated me more that I couldn’t get groups such as mining companies to see the need to work for a good energy bill. Most people in the business community are parochial and won’t work together for the common good. I hope to change that.”

Despite his antipathy toward liberals, Mr. DeLay joked that he’s happy to work with them. He told me he is about to sign on with CNN as a commentator. “I may be their only conservative on air, but someone has to do it.”  Read more 

NEW YORK In his column for this week’s Time magazine, due out on Friday, Joe Klein defends Sen. Hillary Clinton from those demanding that she apologize for her vote on the Iraq invasion in 2002.

Klein declares, “there are about 873 people on the left edge of the Democratic Party, plus assorted anti-Clinton consultant trolls like (Dick) Morris, who want to torment her over this. And she, inexplicably, is allowing herself to be tormented.”  Read more 

Short answer, yes: On Iraq, Brownback makes more sense than Lieberman. Longer answer, maybe no difference, when it comes to voting for a Republican or a Democrat in 2008.

But the real headline from this Sunday’s foxy witches brew of a rightwing stew, minus eye of Newt today, but just as noxious, probably should be this: William Kristol single-handedly redefines constitutional duties of U.S. Congress.  Read more 

I have been without access to a working computer for much of the last month, so it was a shock, getting back to the lethal emptiness of our political discourse as represented by the utter and complete pap spewed by our Sunday gasbags.  Read more 

Per NYT

Judith Regan, the firebrand editor who stirred up decade-old passions last month with her plans for a book and television interview with O. J. Simpson, was fired late Friday by HarperCollins, the publishing company that oversaw her book business.  Read more 

Update: Edited for clarity, and misatkes, and please note, it was Juan Williams, not Juan Cole, who “represented” liberalism on yesterdays All-Star panel.

Let me begin by clarifying the title of this post; it is not aimed at John Kerry, who, according to the SCLM was a has-been before he was a wanna-be and ultimately successful contender for the Democratic 2004 Presidential candidacy.

Still, it was hard to dispel thoughts of had-beens when confronted by the pairing of John Kerry and Newt Gingrich as Chris Wallace’s only guests, outside of the Fox All-Stars, of course, and it seemed that Chris was meant to be taking the pulse of two politcal dead-man walking to illustrate Gingrich has escaped the hangman, while Kerry clearly won’t be able to.

Speaking for those of us who are not fans of Fox News, I can report the hour didn’t work as planned; oh, that depressing musty odor of hasbeenery was present through-out the hour, but it attached itself to Chris Wallace, himself, the Fox all-stars, and Newt, too, and even the very idea of the Fox News Channel as we come to know and loathe it.  Read more 

Courtesy of ABC News

Today’s edition of This Week took place against the background of it’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of itself, while in Iraq a pair of suicide bombers managed to kill 35 and wound 58 Iraqis who were waiting outside of a police recruiting center in Baghdad, and in addition, authorities discovered 75 bodies “in the capital and Baqouba, an unusually high number even by Iraq’s grim standards.”

Prime Minister Maliki’s response was to warn of a cabinet reshuffle.

Lil’ George mentioned none of this, although his introduction to this anniversary hour did put Iraq at the center of Tuesday’s election, as he greeted his first two guests, a tag-team of Democratic Senators, Joe Biden, about-to-be-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and Carl Levin, the putative head of the Military Affairs Committee.

Will anything really change, asked George; what, if any, leverage will the newly elected Democratic majority have over President Bush?

I’m pleased to report that Levin and Biden made it clear that there damned well better be some changes ahead, and damn soon, too.  Read more 

Vice-President Cheney This Morning
Courtesy of ABC News

Dick Cheney, in his interview with George Stephanopoulis this morning, was resplendent in a beautifully tailored dark suit, white shirt, and yellow silk tie, a flag pin on his lapel, the perfect compliment to the whole look; For a man of his age, with a history of serious heart problems, I was struck with how remarkably well he looks, in the pink and then some, a tribute to American tailoring and a level of health care most Americans can barely imagine anymore.  Read more 

As the army gets ready for the second quarter, lower standards appears to be necessary to fill the ranks for the long haul coming. A recent change in advertising accompanies lower admission standards. Mad props to the McCann method – push, push, push. Army Strong is destined to go down in history with “Got Milk?” “Ford Tough.” “Pork – The Other White Meat.” “Did you Play together?” I thought the new Military recruiting trailers were good. Naw, this new mantra just sort of rattles around in your head like an under armor slogan or Homer Simpson longing for “Mmmm Donuts.” A sneaky little meme, like a semantic black hole, surrounded by two little words: Army – Strong. Exactly, how many troops do we need for China?

 Read more 

So listless is the body politic, apparently, that falling asleep during this morning’s Stephanopoulis edition was more of a danger than choking on my outrage. Or at least the right side of that body; the center left is anything but listless, but the SCLM is inured to influence from actual liberals.

Joe Biden was the featured guest, there to do battle against the latest model of Republican attack on Democrats - as Nazi appeasers. George Stephanopoulis offered three samples for Biden to react to, from Cheney, Bush himself, and Condi Rice.

Biden did just fine, with a minimum of his usual “me, myself, and I” tendencies.  Read more