Posted 9:31 AM by Scoobie Davis

Neil Bush Still on the Unification Movement's Gravy Train
On the Moon blog

Posted 1:29 AM by Scoobie Davis

McCain and John Hagee: Double Standard on Religious Bigotry?
(Updated below)
Yesterday, Senator John McCain enthusiastically accepted the endorsement of the Reverend John Hagee, noted apocalyptic preacher and anti-Catholic (This is hardly surprising--McCain had a secret meeting with Hagee last year). McCain: "I'm very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement today." Hagee is the poor man's Jerry Falwell (watching his televised sermons with a so-bad-it's-good sense of ironic detachment was a favorite exercise of mine until I discovered that the Bush Administration and some media outlets were giving credibility to his bellicose and scary End Times scenarios).

Like many old school fundamentalist preachers, Hagee has a long history of inflammatory statements about the Roman Catholic Church. It's noteworthy that McCain's eagerness to accept Hagee's support would occur a day after Tim Russert grilled Barack Obama concerning Louis Farrakhan's endorsement of his candidacy (To Obama's credit, he repudiated Farrakhan).

Two things I'm wondering:
1) The next time McCain appears on Meet the Press, will Russert question him about his relationship with Hagee?
2) Will William Donohue of the right-wing Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights condemn McCain's acceptance of Hagee's support?

UPDATE: I'm no fan of William Donohue of the Catholic League. However, in this instance, he has the courage of his convictions by issuing a press release today strongly denouncing McCain's embrace of Hagee.

UPDATE II: Glenn Greenwald has more.

UPDATE III: This is refreshing. On the right-wing discussion board Free Republic, a significant number of posters dismiss Hagee as a kook.

UPDATE IV: Here's a video of McCain telling a town hall audience how "pleased" he was to have Hagee's endorsement.

UPDATE V: (via Don Byrd of Talk to Action) Here's a YouTube video in which Hagee portrays the Roman Catholic Church as the "Whore of Babylon" discussed in the Book of Revelation. Note: Hagee's reference to the Catholic Church as a form of Baal worship is a rehash of the theories put forth by nineteenth century protestant minister Alexander Hislop in his book, The Two Babylons: Papal worship Revealed to be the worship of Nimrod and His Wife.. Although Hislop's thesis has been rejected by serious historians and theologians, his theories are still put forth by Chick Publications (in many Chick tracts as well as in the recent books such as Babylon Religion: How a Babylonian Goddess Became the Virgin Mary). Quick note: Chick has two new tracts, "Fatal Decision" and "Oops."

UPDATE VI: Glenn Greenwald interviews Bill Donohue of the Catholic League about McCain and Hagee. Greenwald's post links to this photo on Oliver Willis' blog of McCain with Hagee.

UPDATE VII:Catholic League president Bill Donohue makes the following observation regarding Mike Huckabee's "disappointment and surprise" that McCain received Hagee's endorsement:

If Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama were fighting over the support of Louis Farrakhan, we’d say they’re nuts. So what are we to conclude about McCain’s embrace of Hagee, and Huckabee’s lament for not getting the bigot’s endorsement?

Posted 3:51 PM by Scoobie Davis

Rove gets Pwned
Click here

Posted 1:03 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Power of the Unification movement's Media
On the Moon blog

Posted 2:51 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Larisa Alexandrovna on the Karl Rove/Don Siegelman controversy.

UPDATE: In case you missed 60 Minutes last night, the Scott Pelley segment is here. This isn't the first instance of Karl Rove playing dirty in Alabama politics, reporter Joshua Green wrote on how Rove started a whisper campaign against then-Alabama Supreme Court Justice R. Mark Kennedy in which University of Alabama law students spread the rumor that Kennedy molested children. Three years ago, I addressed this charge to Bill O'Reilly. Now that Rove is Fox News contributor, I wonder if O'Reilly will ask Rove about this. I'm not holding my breath.

Posted 12:33 PM by Scoobie Davis

New Posts on the Moon blog
Click here I have an internal Unification Church memo telling members to manipulate YouTube rankings. Also, bizarre rituals at the Washington Times involving former Bush Administration appointee Josette Shiner.

Posted 1:58 AM by Scoobie Davis

Working on a Project
Details later this week.

Posted 11:29 AM by Scoobie Davis

Synchroncity
The other day, I did a post on the Moon blog about Helen Thomas leaving the UPI wire service in 2000 after Sun Myung Moon acquired it. By chance, I found a hilarious clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that addresses the flap. Enjoy:

Posted 3:21 PM by Scoobie Davis

Wicked
Robert Greenwald's latest short film My Friends, not to be confused with The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "My Friends" music video, which I also like.

Posted 2:07 PM by Scoobie Davis

Helen Thomas: Totally Phat!
On the Moon blog

Posted 12:45 PM by Scoobie Davis

Oscars Picks
I won't be in LA for the Oscars so I won't be doing any red carpet or party crashing crashing (quick note: check out last year's Radar magazine article on Oscars crashing that features me). Let me give my picks on some of the categories (my choices are in bold):

Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

Best animated feature film of the year
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie in Away from Her
Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney in The Savages
Ellen Page in Juno

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton

Best documentary feature
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

Best motion picture of the year
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Posted 6:01 PM by Scoobie Davis

Is Barack Obama Running a Cult?
On the Moon blog

Posted 1:04 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Internet as Enemy of Destructive Cults: Three Case Studies
Cross-posted on the Anti-Amway and Moon blogs.

Posted 12:21 PM by Scoobie Davis

Great Parody
Via Josh Marshall:

Also on Marshall's blog, there's a revealing post on the mindset of Washington state GOP chair Luke Esser, who is embroiled in controversy over the GOP caucus results, regarding his philosophical views about voting rights (let's just say that he wouldn't have marched in Selma). This guy is a real piece of work.

UPDATE: Here's another parody of the Will I Am video done by BarelyPolitical.com

UPDATE II: David Neiwert has a must-read article on the scandal.

Posted 1:28 AM by Scoobie Davis

Moon Ally Ousted as Philippines House Speaker
On the Moon blog.

Posted 4:17 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Washington Times on Barack Obama
Check out the Sun Myung Moon blog.

Posted 12:39 PM by Scoobie Davis

Wow, I Feel Safer
The post "Homeland Security Money Funneled to Group with Ties to North Korea" is on the Sun Myung Moon blog.

Posted 12:39 PM by Scoobie Davis

Should I Vote Today?
If I decide to vote today, the only reason I would do it would be to vote for Obama (there is no way that I would vote for Hillary either in a primary or in the general election--click here and here).

Reasons not to vote in today's California primary:
1. I don't care about any of the local or state initiatives.
2. When I decided to register as an independent, I decided not to support any candidates.

Reasons to vote in today's California primary:
1. I don't like Hillary.
2. I like Obama.
3. Obama was the target of a particularly ugly smear by Sun Myung Moon's Insight magazine.
4. Scarlett Johansson called me and asked me to vote for Obama--well, kind of.
4. I got a really cool Obama poster the other day (also, here).

UPDATE: I'm voting. The clincher: The Moonie Times crops an Obama quote in order to mislead readers--this, of course, is not the first time this happened.

UPDATE II:
I was trying to find the poster that the Obama person gave me the other day but couldn't find it. A few minutes ago, I was on Fox News Democrat Tammy Bruce's web site and she had a graphic of the poster. I thought the artwork was vaguely familiar: it's by Shepard Fairey, the Obey Giant guy.

Posted 9:57 AM by Scoobie Davis

A Brief History of "America's ________" Branding
I really enjoyed the recent Media Matters video on Fox News' attempted branding of Rudy Giuliani as "America's mayor" (it's at the bottom of this post).

This is hardly surprising. Fox News' chief operative Roger Ailes was a campaign consultant for Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign (Reagan declared the GOP "America's party" in his convention speech). Others followed suit; Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times refers to itself "America's newspaper," despite the owner's view of America as "Satan's harvest" and his desire to destroy American democracy (they even went as far as to buy the domain name "americasnewspaper.com").

I suspect that Ailes got the idea after Ted Turner began using his cable station WTBS to dub the Atlanta Braves "America's team" in the early 1980's (or perhaps after the "America's team" meme was first applied to the Dallas Cowboys). In any case, it remains one of Ailes' favorite devices in his rhetorical toolbox; Ailes has even named two of the Fox News channel's shows "America's Newsroom" and "America's Pulse."

Posted 1:59 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Daily Show's John Stewart on the Moon Coronation
On the Moon blog.

Posted 11:58 AM by Scoobie Davis

Scarlett Johansson Just Called Me
Actually, it was a Scarlett Johansson robocall on behalf of the Obama campaign informing me that as a political independent, I am allowed to request a Democratic ballot in the primary. Note: Ghost World is one of my favorite films. A few minutes before that some campaign workers gave me an Obama poster outside the library.

UPDATE: The poster is here.

UPDATE II: Here's the recording (via The Bad and Ugly).