Posted 6:30 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Salon's Gabriel Winant on Bill O'Reilly, the politics of hate, and a dead doctor.

Posted 10:34 AM by Scoobie Davis

New Post on the Moonie Blog
Click here

Posted 5:50 PM by Scoobie Davis

Welcome to Members of the Democratic National Committee
I was checking out my Statcounter stats and noticed that twice today people from the Democratic National Committee were reading this blog (it was probably due to my recent open letter to Democratic voters in Virginia regarding Terry McAuliffe). I only wished that people from the DNC had read my blog and taken my advice and the advice of other bloggers and activists years earlier; that way it wouldn't had been necessary to wait until the Bush presidency to implode before they were able to gain a governing majority.

Posted 2:51 PM by Scoobie Davis

New Anti-Amway Video Blog
Those of you familiar with this blog know that I have been a harsh critic of the Amway Global scam (which is a de facto ATM machine for the GOP and various reactionary causes).
I've seen a lot of good, critical YouTube Videos about Amway Global. I decided that one way to spread the word about Amway would be to start a blog devoted to videos about Amway. Click here to view the new Amway Global Video Blog which serves as a companion site to my main anti-Amway web site.

Posted 11:16 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Eric Boehlert on media double standards.

Posted 2:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

An Open Letter to Virginia Democratic Primary Voters Regarding Terry McAuliffe
Dear Virgina Democratic Primary Voters,

I hesitate to give you political advice because I am neither a Virginian nor am I a member of the Democratic Party (here are some of reasons why I am not a Democrat). Another reason that I am not a Democrat is that it is a party that has had people like Terry McAuliffe in its leadership. I believe that McAuliffe, who is running for governor of Virginia as a Democrat, has engaged in activities that are harmful to Democrats and the progressive cause.

I have been doing this blog for the past seven years and one of my targets has been the Fox News Channel. Fox News is an insult to journalism and a conduit for reactionary propaganda that smears Democrats and progressives (Click here for a long article on the misdeeds of FNC). I have used this blog to discredit Fox News (for instance, my Googlebomb of Fox News was a big success). In recent years, ad revenue for FNC has been down and fewer Americans are taking it seriously. I am other bloggers have done damage to Fox's reputation as a news outlet and the Fox News brand is increasingly becoming marginalized (though much more work needs to be done).

Progressive bloggers and others have been able to marginalize Fox News and FNC CEO Roger Ailes in spite of efforts of people like McAuliffe to accord legitimacy to the right-wing propaganda network. For instance, during last year's Democratic presidential primary, McAuliffe appeared on Fox and his praise for the channel was so lavish that Fox CEO Roger Ailes made the clip of McAuliffe's words into a promo for the channel. With friends like McAuliffe, progressives don't need any enemies.

My challenge to you: 1) read my extensive critique of Fox News; 2) watch McAuliffe's unctuous endorsement of FNC (see the addendum); and 3) vote your conscience.

Sincerely,

S

Addendum: Fox News ad featuring Terry McAuliffe:

Posted 11:49 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
The Daily Howler's minor correction of Paul Krugman: The right has always been mad.

Posted 1:52 PM by Scoobie Davis

Happy Memorial Day!

Posted 2:23 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Internet Versus Right-Wing Disinformation: A Case Study
Over the past couple years, this blog has received hundreds of hits for a Google search of some combination of the "Gore Monticello." The reason for this is a canard, apparently started on Rush Limbaugh's 1990's television show (quick note: the show was produced by current Fox News CEO Roger Ailes). Here's what happened: prior to their inauguration as president and vice president, Bill Clinton and Al Gore toured Monticello with Hillary and Tipper. As they entered one of the rooms, directly in front of them were busts of John Paul Jones and Marquis de Lafayette (on the extreme left and right of the room were busts of Washington and Benjamin Franklin). Gore asked "who are these people?" clearly referring to the busts of the Marquis and Jones. On the TV show, Limbaugh tried to pretend as if Gore couldn't recognize Washington and Franklin.

In the 2002 book Slander: Liberal Lies about American Right, Ann Coulter repeated the lie. I wrote about this on my blog with the correct information. This blog entry is in the top ten for a Google search of "Gore Monticello." While the Internet is a source for rumors and misinformation, it is a good resource for correct information about right-wing talk radio smears and dishonest authors like Coulter.

Addendum--More on Gore: The Daily Howler has a recent article on the Gore/Love Story media hoax. Also, in case you haven't read it, here's the transcript of phone call I made to Limbaugh's radio show in which I corrected Limbaugh to his audience about Love Story and other anti-Gore disinformation he was spreading to his millions of Dittoheads during the 2000 campaign.

Posted 2:42 PM by Scoobie Davis

New Jack Chick Tracts
For a while I thought The Chickster was losing his edge. I think his two new tracts--"Evil Eyes" and "It's a Deal"--have the demented hilarity I haven't read about in a while

Posted 1:06 AM by Scoobie Davis

Fair and Balanced
I was checking out the fair and balanced Fox Nation and noticed on the comments section for an O'Reilly Factor story critical of ACORN that the first commenter had the following observation: "Enough of this nonsense. Revoke the 13th and 14th amendments."

Generally I don't judge a web site based on the comments because anyone can post a comment; however, Bill O'Reilly compared the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post based on what some anonymous people wrote on the comments sections of their sites.

Posted 9:58 PM by Scoobie Davis

California Election
I just got back from being a poll worker for today's statewide special election. Over 120 people voted in my precinct--not a single one of whom was a hot babe.

I got a lot of writing done and will do posts soon on journalistic ethics and other topics.

Posted 1:57 PM by Scoobie Davis

Simpsons Season Finale
I just checked out Fox.com and the episode for the Simpsons' season finale is called "Coming to Homerica"; apparently, Homer forms a Minuteman Project-like group to protect Springfield's border. I'm going to watch it.

UPDATE: I watched the episode and thought it was very funny.

Posted 3:30 PM by Scoobie Davis

A Comparison

Ann Coulter May 13, 2009:

Liberals wouldn't attack James Dobson with the amount of bile they've directed at a 21-year-old beauty contestant. It's not just Christianity – it's women liberals hate. From Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso and Bertrand Russell, who treated women--mostly their mistresses–-like dogs, to Teddy Kennedy and Bill Clinton in our own day, liberals are ferocious misogynists. [Note: Sartre, Picasso, and Russell were liberals?] They share Muslims' opinion of women, differing only to the extent that liberals also support a women's right to have an abortion and to perform lap dances. You'd be better off in a real burqa than under the authority of a liberal American male.

Ann Coulter May 06, 2004:

Well, you can't avoid the fact that there are a disproportionate number of women involved, for one thing, in the [Abu Ghraib] abuse photos. It was a girl general [Janis Karpinski] who was in charge of running our Iraqi prison. And, you know, for one thing, I'm a little disappointed in Rumsfeld--he allows the greatest fighting force on the face of the globe to have girl generals--what are we doing with girl generals? But I think as a general matter, besides the fact that women don't have the physical abilities to do the training exercises while carrying even a medium-size backpack, women are more vicious than men . . . These are a few, you know, I mean, in general, these abuse photos are manifestly a few bad apples in an overwhelmingly honorable military. I don't know if you remember, but back during the Afghanistan war--and that was even the war that liberals pretended to support--our military was trained how to bury the dead so that their heads were facing Mecca. That's an incredibly honorable thing to do--and, by the way, it's something that doesn't occur to a woman because we are vicious. You don't want us in the military. . . I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek about how vicious women are, but I do think it is a serious problem having women in the military. Men are used to this sort of thing.

Posted 2:36 PM by Scoobie Davis

Not the First Time
Media Matters for America has a post about Sean Hannity playing dumb; it's not the first time--click here and here.

UPDATE: Steve Benen has more on Hannity and Limbaugh

Posted 1:30 PM by Scoobie Davis

Quick Thought
I have really noticed that there are a lot of insane comments on my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult."

Posted 2:11 PM by Scoobie Davis

New Post on the Moon Blog
Check it out

Posted 10:06 AM by Scoobie Davis

Wanda Sykes' Tasteless Joke
Tasteless? Yeah. Funny? Yeah.
For the right-wingers who thought it was beyond the pale, here's a few lines from a parody song that Limbaugh played during the Clinton years: (to the tune of the Doobie Brothers' "Black Water")

Poor Vince Foster, seems we lost ya,
Cleaned out your office on the double.
Webster Hubble, made us stumble,
Another Rose partner is in trouble.
Oh, Whitewater, keep stonewalling, we did nothing wrong,
Won't you just stop picking on me?

UPDATE: Media Matters (who else?) has more.

Posted 1:46 PM by Scoobie Davis

Update
Because of Michael Savage's talk about suing British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for putting his name on a "name and shame" list of people banned from entering Britain, I have updated my recent post on Savage's frivolous lawsuits.

Posted 1:40 AM by Scoobie Davis

New Posts on the Moon Blog
Click here

Posted 12:50 PM by Scoobie Davis

Thugocracy
Yes, it is a word. This is the description that Rush Limbaugh had for the Obama administration today. Erick Erickson of the Red State blog used the term a few days ago. It's fun to watch the right become unhinged. This shows that the Limbaugh strategy is working. This kind of rhetoric is red meat for the right's base (the 25 percent of Americans who never lost faith in George W. Bush). However this kind of talk is poisonous to the independents and moderates the GOP needs to regain power.

Posted 6:30 PM by Scoobie Davis

New Post on the Sun Myung Moon Blog
Click here