Posted 11:52 AM by Scoobie Davis

Lovely
It didn't take long for the mouthbreathers at the Free Republic to jump on the revelation that Trayvon Martin had been suspended from school because he was caught with an empty plastic bag with traces of marijuana in it. Read the responses. Example: JustaDumbBlonde responded, "Was he USING....or SELLING? Probably [sic] bof."

Posted 4:41 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Paul Krugman on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Posted 11:07 AM by Scoobie Davis

Book Review of Hollywood Hypocrites by Jason Mattera
Jason Mattera, who lied in his ambush interviews of Al Franken and others, just came out with the book Hollywood Hypocrites. Here's my Amazon.com review (with Links). The wing-nuts are savaging it. Give it a thumbs up on Amazon if you like it:

Flawed in Many Ways

In order to understand this book, it is necessary to give a little background on its author Jason Mattera. Mattera started his career with a deer-in-the-headlights appearance on Chris Matthews' show Hardball (the YouTube video of the side-splitting encounter titled "Matthews Grills Chickenhawk" is priceless). Mattera became a radio talk show host in the mold of Rush Limbaugh (not surprisingly, in Hollywood Hypocrites, Mattera uses the ungrammatical and Limbaughesque reference to the "Democrat [sic] Party").

Mattera's first book, Obama Zombies, is based on the patronizing premise that young adults overwhelmingly voted for Obama because they are clueless and out of touch. As luck would have it, about the same time that the book was released, Human Events--the magazine Mattera edits--offered subscribers a free copy of a repugnant neo-Confederate book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War. The book's cover has a flattering illustration of war criminal and Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest (not surprisingly, the book completely whitewashed Forrest's massacre of captured Union troops at Fort Pillow). Talk about being clueless and out of touch!

In Mattera's latest book, he takes on the alleged hypocrisy of Hollywood--at least that is what the title promises. However, Mattera's targets include non-Hollywood filmmakers such as Michael Moore and Al Gore. Aside from that, there are two major problems with Hollywood Hypocrites. First, Mattera's standard of morality is so high that no political opponent could do anything without being accused of hypocrisy. So what if non-Hollywood environmentalist Al Gore flew on a private jet? Hasn't Mattera ever heard of carbon offsets?

More important, Mattera is oblivious to the fact that an accusation of hypocrisy entails that the targets of the accusation possess a moral worldview. That is not a problem for much of the American Right since many hold an Ayn Randian worldview that professes that self-absorption and superciliousness toward the less fortunate are virtues. Hence, the only way that a Rand acolyte such as Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) could be accused of hypocrisy would be if he surreptitiously helped the poor and afflicted!

Perhaps this is too harsh. Mattera has expressed a moral worldview. In fact, as a spokesman for the conservative Young America's Foundation, Mattera first appeared on Hardball and fervently argued about the morality of the Iraq War. Matthews then rightfully called out Mattera for supporting other young Americans being placed in harm's way but not exposing himself to the same dangers. Now that's hypocrisy!

Posted 10:06 AM by Scoobie Davis

Quote of the Day
Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio): "Ultimately, we'll stop it [investigations into Solyndra] on Election Day, hopefully. And bringing attention to these things helps the voters and citizens of the country make the kind of decision that I hope helps them as they evaluate who they are going to vote for in November."

Posted 4:12 PM by Scoobie Davis

Exclusive: Farrelly Brothers' Three Stooges Movie Zings The Weekly Standard
A friend of mine attended a preview screening of the upcoming movie The Three Stooges (release date: April 13). Apparently, one of the film's villains is shown reading The Weekly Standard in bed. The movie is a production of Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox; Murdoch also used to own The Weekly Standard. Is there some bad blood? The Weekly Standard didn't respond to an inquiry from this blog.

Posted 9:52 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Steve Weinberg's article "There Will Be Paranoia" about Arthur Goldwag’s new book The New Hate: A History of Fear and Loathing on the Populist Right. I've read Goldwag's previously published work Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more. It was a great read.

Posted 7:02 AM by Scoobie Davis

Shocking Must Read
Robert Parry, "How the Right’s Smear Machine Started"

Posted 10:01 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Media Matters on "Hug-gate"

Posted 11:53 AM by Scoobie Davis

Cracked.com Takes on Amway Global
Priceless. Check out the anti-Amway blog for more details.

Posted 9:58 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Golden Rule and the Dead
I'm a bit put off by much of the venom directed toward Andrew Breitbart after his death. That's bad karma. It's true that he lied about ACORN, a group devoted to letting poor people and minorities vote (quick aside: I'm totally ecstatic that the Justice Department is calling the state of Florida on their voter suppression efforts).

Nevertheless, Breitbart is dead and we should obey the Golden Rule and hope that he has experiences that we would want to have in the afterlife. For instance, in the afterlife, I would love to have a conversation with the late Hosea Williams, who--along with others--suffered greatly in Alabama in his struggles for voting rights (e.g., the notorious "Bloody Sunday").

I hope for nothing less for Breitbart.

Posted 8:24 AM by Scoobie Davis

Jack Chick Takes on Al Gore!

New Chick tract "Global Warming." In the tract, not only is Gore caricatured, but Chick takes on Hillary (see the panel in which the scientist says, "Scipture? We're men of science!" and a cartoon Hillary adds, "And women!" Also, the Chickster reissued the out-of-print tract "The Passover Plot"

Posted 1:03 PM by Scoobie Davis

Sheriff Joe Arpaio says Obama's birth certificate is computer generated forgery
This would be funny if the guy didn't wear a gun