Posted 10:55 AM by Scoobie Davis

I Was Mentioned on Air America Radio Today
Today on The Thom Hartmann Program, Hartmann interviewed Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. Hartmann questioned Farah about how he used the Scaife-funded Western Journalism Center to shill for Scaife-funded pseudo-journalist Christopher Ruddy's Vince Foster conspiracy theories (I have a comprehensive post on the matter here). Farah asked if Hartmann got his information from ConWebWatch. Hartmann told him that he got his info from this site. Farah went on and accused me of being a Google bomber and an anti-Semite.

I admit to being a Google bomber--I'm open about my Google bomb site. Farah called me an anti-Semite because when I Google bombed his name, there was a cut-and-paste error and an anti-Farah site that I meant to exclude from the Google bomb was inadvertently included in the g-bomb. As soon as I found out about the error, I deleted the offending site from the g-bomb. Farah used this error to falsely accuse me of anti-Semitism. Typical Farah.

Posted 9:42 PM by Scoobie Davis

Working on a Huge Post
so far, it has about 1800 words and it's only half-finished. I will post it tomorrow.

Posted 2:01 AM by Scoobie Davis

Phony Populism

Noam Scheiber on the GOP's cynical cracker-barrel routine.

Reading Scheiber's article reminds me of one of my favorite films, A Face in the Crowd.

Posted 1:57 AM by Scoobie Davis

Robert Greenwald Has a New Film
Tell Us the Mission:

Posted 4:41 PM by Scoobie Davis

UPDATED POST
I've updated the post on the Moonie Times confederacy lovers with a revealing photo. check it out

Posted 2:14 PM by Scoobie Davis

Busy, But. . .
I've added updates to recent posts.

Posted 1:53 PM by Scoobie Davis

Woo Hoo!

Just found out they're doing a Harold and Kumar sequel. I crashed the premiere after-party for the original.

Posted 1:49 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Glenn Greenwald on Bill Moyers' documentary

Posted 5:29 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Ellis Weiner on why the right isn't funny.

Posted 1:51 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Moonie Times Hearts Dixie

Media Matters has the story. More on Moon, The Washington Times and race here, here, here, and here.

One last thing, the Media Matters article mentions the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Quick item on the UDC, they erected a monument honoring Henry Wirz, the commandant of the notorious Andersonville prison who was executed for war crimes.

UPDATE: The Confederate Memorial Association has a picture of Washington Times editor-in-chief Wes Pruden pledging allegiance to the Stars and Bars. I've reprinted it below:

Posted 12:52 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Views

Josh Marshall has a great series on Karl Rove, contrived voter fraud, and Attorneygate. Yesterday's segment shows the speech Rove gave citing bogus claims of Democratic voter fraud. Today's segment gives compelling evidence that in his speech about alleged Democratic voter fraud, Rove cited pseudo-scholar John Lott/Mary Roush.

Posted 4:48 PM by Scoobie Davis

Revamped Hannity Post

For those of you not familiar with this blog, a while ago, Le Googlebomb blog started a google bomb of the term "Sean Hannity" (Le Googlebomb blog is run by A La Gauche). Included in the links to the term was a hilarious transcript of an on-air radio conversation in which I took Hannity to task about Republican sexual hypocrisy. As a result, for the past couple years, this post had consisently been in the top ten Google searches for the term "Sean Hannity." Becasue I've received thousands of hits as a consequence, I revamped the site and added an extensive lsit of links at the end. If you know of any other informative links, please email me. Enjoy

Posted 2:33 PM by Scoobie Davis

Busy Busy Busy
I might post later today

Posted 1:44 PM by Scoobie Davis

What Do You Expect?
Is anyone surprised to hear that El Rushbo said that the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui "had to be a liberal"? (Read the entire post because it debunks Limbaugh's phony claim that then-president Bill Clinton blamed him for the Oklahoma City bombing--for more on this, read David Neiwert's analysis).

In the past, Limbaugh concluded on his radio show that because the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers' Party that "Hitler was a liberal." Also, I reported on this blog the following Limbaugh quote: "They [liberals] celebrate in private the attack in Spain [the Madrid training bombings that killed 191 people]."

4/22 UPDATE: Newt Gingrich blames the Virgina Tech massacre on liberalism.

UPDATE II: ConWebWatch has a post on how Brent Bozell's CNSNews rehashed Limbaugh's hysteria about the Oklahoma City bombing.

Posted 2:37 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Bill Berkowitz on the Bush/Moon Connection.

Posted 12:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

Jack Chick Tracts in the News

A prison chaplain is in hot water for distributing Chick tracts that are, to say the least, highly critical of Islam.

I have a recent post on a anti-Muslim Chick tract controversy in Florida.

Posted 1:04 AM by Scoobie Davis

Media Matters Derangement Syndrome

I have pointed out that what makes the media watchdog Media Matters for America dangerous is not that it lies about the right's media apparatus. Rather, what makes it dangerous is that it cuts through the fog in an elementary way: 1) The correspondents at MMFA record the words of the right's media figures; 2) MMFA gives an explanation about the statements given by the media figure. It's that simple.

Because MMFA uses verbatim quotes by right-wing media figures, the figure in question can't accuse them of making stuff up. At first, wing-nuts accused MMFA of taking their words out of context (El Rushbo did this when MMFA was a new site). The problem with the out-of-context argument is that when a post on Media Matters quotes a wing-nut saying something misleading, stupid, or slanderous, it usually provides a transcript of the entire conversation and audio or video so that the reader can determine if the quote is in context and if the criticism is warranted.

When that defense fell flat, wing-nut media figures like Bill O'Reilly used the Nazi non-argument. That hasn't gained any traction.

It makes me wonder why Fox News Democrat Tammy Bruce would use this desperate tactic. In a recent post on her blog, Bruce refers to MMFA as a "brown-shirt cadre", one of George Soros' "Gestapos" representative of "today's fascists." Bruce gives no evidence for the alleged fascism of MMFA. I guess we're supposed to take her word for it.

By the way, Bruce's website used to have a picture of Bruce proudly posing with wingnut G. Gordon Liddy (who in his memoirs wrote about his fondness for the Horst Wessel Song and that listening to Adolf Hitler made Liddy "feel a strength inside [he] had never known before"). More on Liddy can be found on Media Matters' web site.

UPDATE: The derangement continues: Rush Limbaugh referred to Media Matters as "Stalinist" and part of the "Clinton machine agenda."

UPDATE II: Also, Media Matters has more on Bruce

UPDATE III: WorldNetDaily's Melanie Morgan referred to MMFA as "left-wing free speech Nazi's [sic]."

UPDATE IV: Media Matters has Keith Olbermann's hilarious video segment on Bill O'Reilly's Media Matters Derangement syndrome.

Posted 1:58 PM by Scoobie Davis

Two Great Articles on Pat Robertson's Law School and What it Means for America

One of them serious (by Paul Krugman). One of them hilarious (by Bill Maher).

UPDATE: Maher does a Regent University monologue on his HBO show.

Posted 1:48 AM by Scoobie Davis

This is a Trip

During the Clinton years, Joseph Farah ran the Western Journalism Center, a Scaife-funded front group that Farah portrayed as a think tank devoted to the betterment of journalism, but which, in fact, had the primary purpose of attempting to legitimize the shoddy reporting on the "mysterious death" of Clinton aide Vince Foster by Scaife-funded "journalist" Christopher Ruddy. Both Farah and Ruddy were funded by paranoid billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, who was a believer in the "Clinton Body Count" urban legend (Scaife viewed Foster's death as "the Rosetta Stone to the whole Clinton Administration..."). When Farah was shilling for Ruddy, he made no disclosure that Scaife was bankrolling both Ruddy and the Western Journalism Center. Based on the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), what Farah did was inexcusable. Even if the code didn't exist, it's clear that what Farah and Ruddy were doing stunk to high heaven.

In today's WorldNetDaily column, Farah calls for a code of ethics for entertainers, citing the SPJ's code for journalists.

NOTE: If you Google "Scaife+paranoid", the first four entries are written by me. I'm stoked.

Posted 12:41 AM by Scoobie Davis

E.J Dionne isn't Completely Useless
Read his column on bloggers versus Fox News. In case you haven't read it, here's my post on reaching out to Fox news viewers.

Posted 1:05 PM by Scoobie Davis

Quote of the Day

(via Cliff Schecter): "Fred Thompson is a member of the treason faction of the Republican Party." --Joe Wilson (referring to Thompson's support of the Scooter Libby Defense Fund).

I've previously noted that Thompson is also a member in good standing in the McCarthyite and dirty tricks wings of the GOP.

Posted 11:05 AM by Scoobie Davis

Sun Myung Moon Implicated in Illegal Whale Meat Operation

According to Unification Church theology, Sun Myung Moon is the messiah who selflessly became messiah after Jesus miraculously appeared and told Moon about His failure as messiah and how He thought that Moon should make a go at it (Moon returned the favor by fixing Jesus up with an elderly Korean woman--Moon even held a marriage ceremony for the couple--the marriage allowed Jesus to enter Heaven).

Anyhow, in contrast to the Prince of Peace, Moon's messiahship is drenched in blood and misery (click here, here, here, and here). The latest revelation about Moon is his alleged involvement in whale meat distribution. Moon owns one of the world's largest sushi and seafood distributorships which is involved in the scheme.

Boycott sushi.

Thanks to Moonboots for the heads up.

Note: the picture in the post may or may not pertain to Moon's operation. It is from this web site.

Posted 9:34 AM by Scoobie Davis

Every American Should Read this Post on Voter Suppression
Josh Marshall:

Republican party officials and elected officials use bogus claims of vote fraud to do three things: 1) to stymie voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts in poor and minority neighborhoods, 2) purge voter rolls of legitimate voters and 3) institute voter ID laws aimed at making it harder for low-income and minority voters to vote.

This sounds like hyperbole but it is simply the truth. (A great example of this in microcosm was the 2002 senate election in South Dakota -- Johnson v. Thune -- in which Republicans spent the entire election ranting about a massive voter fraud conspiracy on the state's Indian reservations, charges which turned out to be completely bogus but had the aim of keeping voting down on the reservations. You can find much more on this in the TPM archives. Go to the search feature and type in some combinatin of 'fraud south dakota' etc. I'll try to write more recapping the story soon.)

The tie-in with the US Attorney story is that the White House and the Republican National Committee have used the power of the Department of Justice to accomplish those three goals that I outlined above. Only most of the relatively non-partisan and professional US Attorneys simply didn't find any actual fraud. Choosing not to indict people on bogus charges got at least two of the US Attorneys (Iglesias and McKay) fired. And we are seeing evidence that others may have been nudged out less directly for the same reasons. In turn they've been replaced by a new crop of highly-political party operative prosecutors who, in the gentle wording of the Times, "may not be so reticent" about issuing indictments against people who have committed technical voting infractions with no intent to cast a fraudulent ballot. Along the way, the fever to find someone, anyone guilty of committing even a technical infraction has landed folks like Ms. Prude in the slammer. They are what you might call the prosecutorial road kill in the Rove Republican party's effort to ride roughshod over American citizens' voting rights to entrench the GOP as the country's permanent electoral majority.

Who's running all this? Who's put it all in motion. Look at the documents that have already been released. It's been run out of Karl Rove's office at the White House.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum has more.

Also, Joshua Green on how voter fraud allegations have been a goldmine for Karl Rove.

Also, Sidney Blumenthal on what we should do about the Mayberry Machiavellis.

Posted 3:49 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read Article
John B. Judis on why Democratic candidates should boycott Fox News.

UPDATE: Media Matters has more on Fox.

Posted 3:00 PM by Scoobie Davis

New Jack T. Chick Tract!!!

It's part of the Chick tract series aimed at African-Americans; it's called "Free At Last" (if the theme seems familiar, it's similar to the recently-published Chick Tract "Set Free" except that the main characters--including Jesus--are black). The art is by Fred Carter.

Posted 12:41 PM by Scoobie Davis

As Luck Would Have It
About two minutes after posting a guarantee on the sidebar (right below the "Front Page" link on the left sidebar), an e-mailer sent me a link. Keeping to my promise of not discussing the person in question on this blog and because the post also deals with wing-nut David Horowitz, I linked to it on a post on HorowitzWatch.

Posted 12:21 AM by Scoobie Davis

At Least He's Thorough

The other day,I watched the VHS tape, Bill and Hillary Clinton's Circle of Power, that Jerry Falwell sold in 1993 to his flock via infomercials on his Old Time Gospel Hour broadcasts (for the price for $40 plus shipping). Most of the talking was by Jim Johnson and Larry Nichols. The tape is a crude version of The Clinton Chronicles.

I have to hand it to Falwell at least from a marketing standpoint. He seemed intent on squeezing out every last penny from his congregation and television audience. At the end of the video is some back-end marketing in the form of a personal appeal by Falwell for viewers to call a 900 number to have their names placed on a petition to Congress to investigate the Clinton administration.

Posted 1:17 AM by Scoobie Davis

George H. W. Bush to Fete Sun Myung Moon--Again!
John Gorenfeld has the details.

UPDATE: Department of Look Who's Talking: In Moon's Washington Times, columnist Herbert London on George Soros:

Imagine a megalomanical billionaire intent on destroying a democratically elected president with well-oiled propaganda institutions he subsidizes and with outrageous commentary he glibly delivers to the press. Mr. Soros thinks he funds public interest organizations, but in fact they are ideologically driven propaganda enterprises designed to foster his belief system.

For those who don't see the irony of London's statement, click here, here, here, and here.

Posted 1:53 AM by Scoobie Davis

How to Reach Out to Fox News Viewers
Fox News chief Roger Ailes must be still smarting over the Dems' decision to drop Fox News as a sponsor of a Democratic primary debate. These loaded questions on a recent Fox News poll are evidence (this is especially ironic since Ailes falsely accused PIPA of doing "an old push poll" when the group's survey research found that the more people watch Fox, the more ignorant they become). The spin by Ailes and Fox News sympathizers is that Democrats squandered an opportunity to "reach out" to Fox News viewers by kowtowing to liberal bloggers and groups like MoveOn.org. Their reasoning is that by marginalizing Fox News, Democrats blew a chance to state their case to an important media demographic: the Fox News Viewer. The idea that by marginalizing Fox News and appealing to Fox News viewers are mutually exclusive is a prime example of a false dichotomy. Let me explain by first discussing the difference between loyal and casual Fox News viewers.

The Casual Fox News Viewer Versus the Loyal Fox News Viewer
Let's forget about appealing to the loyal Fox News viewer. As a group, they voted for George W. Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. They are the "30-percenters" who think that George W. Bush is doing a good job. They are hopeless.

On the other hand, there are the casual Fox News viewers. These are people
who are not particularly politically informed (that's not necessarily a bad thing). They get home from work and surf the channels for interesting shows, regardless of the channel. They watch Fox, but they also watch legitimate journalistic outlets. They don't pay enough attention to know about Fox News' agenda and lack of journalistic legitimacy.

I have a friend who is typical casual Fox News viewer. I told him about
Fox News and he was shocked. He had previously thought of Fox as similar
to CNN or MSNBC. He was outraged and vowed to take anything he saw on Fox with a grain of salt.

Reaching out to Casual Fox News Viewers by Marginalizing Fox News

By marginalizing Fox News, we can get the word out to the casual Fox News
viewer that Fox is a pro-GOP political operation masquerading as a news outlet. This will turn many casual Fox News viewers into a non-Fox News viewers--leaving Fox News with a rump viewer demographic almost entirely composed of true believers, which will further marginalize Ailes and company.

Note: if you like the image, you can get a t-shirt with it here

Posted 12:43 PM by Scoobie Davis

Busy and Bummed
I've been busy so there hasn't been much posting lately. I'm bummed because I just found out that there won't be a Los Angeles premiere for Spider-Man 3 (apparently the premiere will be held in New York and Tokyo). I was able to crash the premiere after-parties for both Spider-man and Spider-man 2.

Posted 1:55 PM by Scoobie Davis

April Fools!!!!
Orrin Hatch in 2005:

Karl Rove is an exceptional person, and I'm proud that he has Utah ties. I don't believe for a second he would do what his political opponents are accusing him of doing--he is too decent a person, and, frankly, he is too smart.

Orrin Hatch today on Meet the Press:

And frankly, in order to make that stick, [Albert Gonzales] would have had to have willfully and intentionally lied. This man isn’t capable of doing that. He’s a good man, and yes, it’s been a flap that has been embarrassing to him, to the administration, and to Republicans in general.