Posted 4:18 PM by Scoobie Davis

We are Living in Wingnuttia

A reader emailed me the link to this press release. At first I thought it might be a joke until I read the same thing on the Huffington Post:

For Immediate Release: December 28, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON? PARK SERVICE WON’T SAY — Orders to Cater to Creationists Makes National Park Agnostic on Geology

Washington, DC — Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’”

In a letter released today, PEER urged the new Director of the National Park Service (NPS), Mary Bomar, to end the stalling tactics, remove the book from sale at the park and allow park interpretive rangers to honestly answer questions from the public about the geologic age of the Grand Canyon. PEER is also asking Director Bomar to approve a pamphlet, suppressed since 2002 by Bush appointees, providing guidance for rangers and other interpretive staff in making distinctions between science and religion when speaking to park visitors about geologic issues.

In August 2003, Park Superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale at park bookstores of Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, a book claiming the Canyon developed on a biblical rather than an evolutionary time scale. NPS Headquarters, however, intervened and overruled Alston. To quiet the resulting furor, NPS Chief of Communications David Barna told reporters and members of Congress that there would be a high-level policy review of the issue.

According to a recent NPS response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by PEER, no such review was ever requested, let alone conducted or completed.

Park officials have defended the decision to approve the sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View, claiming that park bookstores are like libraries, where the broadest range of views are displayed. In fact, however, both law and park policies make it clear that the park bookstores are more like schoolrooms rather than libraries. As such, materials are only to reflect the highest quality science and are supposed to closely support approved interpretive themes. Moreover, unlike a library the approval process is very selective. Records released to PEER show that during 2003, Grand Canyon officials rejected 22 books and other products for bookstore placement while approving only one new sale item — the creationist book.

Ironically, in 2005, two years after the Grand Canyon creationist controversy erupted, NPS approved a new directive on “Interpretation and Education (Director’s Order #6) which reinforces the posture that materials on the “history of the Earth must be based on the best scientific evidence available, as found in scholarly sources that have stood the test of scientific peer review and criticism [and] Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes.”

“As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan,” Ruch added, pointing to the fact that previous NPS leadership ignored strong protests from both its own scientists and leading geological societies against the agency approval of the creationist book. “We sincerely hope that the new Director of the Park Service now has the autonomy to do her job.”

Posted 1:03 PM by Scoobie Davis

Have a Great New Year!!!
I've been away from the computer for a few days. I am working on a "Year in Political Hypocrisy" post that looks at the previous year. The only problem with it is that there was so much political hypocrisy that the post is becoming unwieldy. It should be out next week.

In the meantime, Robert Parry has a special report on the Moonie Times titled, "The GOP's $3 Billion Propaganda Organ." It's a long read (over 15,000 words) but should be read by anyone cncerned about this country. I've always thought that Moon and others low-balled the figure when they claimed that it has only been about a billion or so dollars that the Moon has pumped into the Times to keep it afloat. Quick note: Parry isn't kidding when he writes about Senator Orrin Hatch's ties with Moon. Hatch even co-wrote a song, "The Jerusalem Peace Song", for one of Moon's front groups.

UPDATE: I found this video of Hatch kissing Moon's wife's ass right before she declares the end of the completed Testament Age:

In 1993 the U.S. senator introduces his friend, the wife of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who proceeds to declare the end of the Completed Testament Age. For those of you keeping score at home: 1. Old Testament 2. New Testament 3. Reverend Moon's Completed Testament

Posted 4:31 PM by Scoobie Davis

Happy Festivus
I saw It's a Wonderful Life last week and it never ceases to make me think about Gary Kamiya's salute to a truly tight place: Pottersville.

Posted 4:02 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Article Every Democrat Needs to Read
Todd Estes on the permanent campaign.

Posted 10:03 AM by Scoobie Davis

Spring Break 2007 With Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Coulter!
All my dreams have come true! Spending spring break having fun at the beach and engaging in hedonistic activities is so behind the times. If you really want to be on the cutting edge, you can see Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Coulter at the Reclaiming America for Christ conference on March 2 and 3, 2007 in Fort Lauderdale (formerly America's college spring break mecca--see addendum). It won't be on the beach but will be held at D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. Schlafly will be the main speaker for the Salt & Light Banquet. Coulter will be giving the closing session lecture. The topic of her lecture was not announced but one of the conference's topics is "Darwin's deadly legacy" and Coulter appeared in Kennedy's TV special with the same name (she also slammed Darwin in her most recent book Godless). Quick note on Coulter and Schlafly: Coulter wrote an unintentially hilarious 3-page paean to Schlafly in Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right.

Let me just segue this post into a discussion about education and evolution. Coulter's stands on Darwin and evolution can be attributed to one of two scenarios: 1) Coulter is so incredibly obtuse that even an Ivy League education couldn't wipe the stupid off her (thus putting Coulter into the tiny camp of Ivy League-educated opponents of evolution such as George W. Bush); 2) Coulter doesn't believe her own bullshit about creationism but sees it as a way to pander to the yokels. I believe scenario two is the case. I know Coulter well enough to know that she's not stupid and that she's cynical enough to play the fundies like a ten-dollar accordion (Coulter, who grew up in the New Canaan, Connecticut suburbs, has pandered to the neo-confederate crowd also).

Here is the Reclaiming America for Christ website

Addendum: Requiem for a Party Town. Fort Lauderdale used to be America's top college spring break destination until puritans like D. James Kennedy put pressure on the local government in the 1980's to clean up Ft. Lauderdale's rep as a hedonistic playground for college students. Kennedy and others were responsible for the election of Doug Danziger as vice mayor of the city. Danziger wanted to make the city more "family-friendly" and was largely responsible for a police crackdown on college students on spring break (Ft. Lauderdale outlawed parties in 1985)--resulting in an exodus of spring breakers to places like Daytona Beach and Panama City. By the end of the 80's, the spring break population in the city had gone from 350,000 to fewer than 20,000.

Vice Mayor Danziger made his bones with the fundy crowd and was considered a rising political star with the sectarian right until, as luck would have it, he was videotaped having sex with escort Kathy Willits (billed as "America's Favorite Nymphomaniac") and quickly sank into obscurity.

Posted 5:33 PM by Scoobie Davis

Just Found Out About This
Sin City 2 Like the first one, it's a Frank Miller/Robert Rodriguez project.

Posted 9:34 AM by Scoobie Davis

Person of the Year
Even though Time picked me and you as their persons of the year, I think it was a cop-out. I prefer Salon's Person of the Year, S.R. Sidarth:

Macaca and all the missteps that followed helped convince voters in these affluent, well-educated and increasingly diverse zip codes outside Washington that they had grown tired of George Allen. But the same voters may also have recognized Sidarth, born and raised in northern Virginia, a straight-A student at a state college and a member of the local Hindu temple, as their neighbor. Allen was just a California transplant with dip and cowboy boots who had glommed on to the ancient racial quirks of his adopted home. Sidarth was the kid next door. He, not Allen, was the real Virginian. He was proof that every hour his native commonwealth drifts further from the orbit of the GOP's solid South and toward a day when Allen's act will be a tacky antique. Allen was the past, Sidarth is the wired, diverse future -- of Virginia, the political process and the country.

Posted 9:26 AM by Scoobie Davis

Let It Be a Fight to the Death
Judith Regan Versus Rupert Murdoch

Posted 11:11 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Last Generation

The other day, I and other mockers noted the column in WorldNetDaily that warned readers of the food plant with roots in Hell that is feminizing American males: the soybean.

Today in WorldNetDaily, pop eschatologist Hal Lindsey on the last days:

The growing nuclear cooperation between Persia [Iran] and Gog [Russia] is of special importance. It provides one more bit of evidence that supports the conclusion that this is the last generation in human history before the return of Jesus Christ for His Church and the onset of the Tribulation judgment period. . . If you don't know Jesus, now is the time to get down on your knees and introduce yourself. While there is yet time to do so.

If you're a Rapture believer and you're counting the days until God uses His holy vacuum cleaner to suck you up into Heaven, here's the bad news: this isn't the first time Lindsey told us that we were living in the last days. In his 1970 book The Late, Great Planet Earth (which was the bestselling book of the 1970's), Lindsey predicted that the End would occur within one generation of the establishment of the state of Israel (1948). This and most of the things Lindsey predicted in the book didn't pan out.

Lindsey's apocalyptic writings are not a fun read--unlike Jack Chick's books such as "The Last Generation" (one of my favorite Chick tracts that contains immortal dialogue (e.g.,"If I turn in a sicko, will I get a reward?" and "@!!!***! Take this heretic away. Dispose of it, or use it for food."). To be fair to Lindsey, I prefer comix and I haven't yet read the sequential art version of Lindsey's book There's a New World Coming (published by Al Hartley's Spire Christian Comics in the 1970's).

Posted 10:55 AM by Scoobie Davis

New Consortium News Blog
Consortium News is the site where you will find the news that the mainstream media doesn't have the guts to print or broadcast. They now have a blog. Check it out and if you're a blogger add it to your links.

Posted 3:46 PM by Scoobie Davis

Jeff Greenfield
It's interesting that Greenfield bemoans the "conspiracy theories" that portrayed Bill Clinton "as a drug ring- and murder-enabler." However, Here was Greenfield when he had a chance to skewer one of those conspiracy theorists:

Appearing as an "expert" on the Viewpoint special, [Rush] Limbaugh denied twisting the rumor [in which Limbaugh misinformed his listeners that a newsletter claimed "that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park"]: "Never have I suggested that this was murder," [Limbaugh] said. ABC's Jeff Greenfield, in a taped segment, further covered for the talk show host, claiming that Limbaugh "broadcast the rumor as an example of the more wild stories circulating."

One thing to keep in mind is that although Limbaugh downplays his Foster rumor-mongering to mainstream journalists like Greenfield, he still fans the flames of Vince Foster paranoia to the inhabitants of Wingnuttia (his radio audience) despite the fact that it's been over ten years since Foster committed suicide (and several investigations have found no evidence of foul play--e.g., click here and here).

Posted 11:23 AM by Scoobie Davis

Is George W. Bush Satan's Helper?
This fundy web site thinks so. It has this photo of Bush giving what appears to be the Devil Horn hand gesture. Apparently the writer doesn't know that the gesture means a lot of things--Bush's daughter Jenna went to the University of Texas at Austin where the gesture is known as the Hook 'em Horns.

This isn't the first time a president has been accused of being aligned with Old Scratch. In his excellent biography Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley, Timothy White pointed out how some Rastafarians--enraged about Ronald Reagan's anti-weed policies--concluded that The Gipper was the Antichrist because each of his three names (Ronald Wilson Reagan) had six letters (666).

Posted 10:22 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Raftman's Razor on PBS
When I attended the 2005 LA Film Festival, there was a short film I fell in love with: The Raftman's Razor. It will be on PBS's Independent Lens on the 27th. Here's more info on the film and info on getting a VHS or DVD copy.

Posted 12:24 PM by Scoobie Davis

Only on WorldNetDaily
Those of you familiar with this site know about how I feel about Joseph Farah and WorldNetDaily. (Via the Huffington Post) WorldNetDaily is now aiming its sites on the "devil food" that transforms clean-cut American children into queers: soybeans.

Quick notes on homosexuality and/or WorldNetDaily: Today I received a "holiday note" (via e-mail) from WorldNetDaily's Star Parker. Someone should report her to Bill O'Reilly for using the word "holiday" instead of "Christmas". . . Anti-gay crackpot Paul Cameron (click here and here) recently weighed in Mary Cheney's soon-to-be family. Those of you familiar with Cameron won't be surprised that he's not happy that Mary is preggers. Cameron and Cheney deserve each other. . . Terry Krepel of ConWebWatch's article "The 'Forced Homosexualization' of Joseph Farah". . . Another reason it's called WingNutDaily: Farah's embrace of the Clinton Body Count.

UPDATE: Since I and other bloggers mocked this article, someone changed the title of the article from " A devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals" to "Soy is making kids 'gay'"

Posted 3:44 PM by Scoobie Davis

New Megachurch Gay Sex Scandal
Move over, Ted Haggard. Paul Barnes is joining you (via HineSight).

Probably the most entertaining gay sex scandal involved the now largely forgotten Billy James Hargis whose Christian Crusade was a forerunner to the Majority Majority and the Christian Coalition.

Posted 3:10 PM by Scoobie Davis

Biggest Unreported Story on the 2006 Elections: A Huge Setback for Amway/Quixtar/Alticor

Pyramid scheme and success cult Amway/Quixtar is a microcosm of the Republican Party's vision for America: it has a small elite at the top who are multimillionaires but the vast majority of its distributors make very little or lose money. In fact, its structure is similar to another dysfunctional organization--the Unification Church: both Amway and the Moonies have a small elite who live like royalty but most of their members work their fingers to the bone to ensure that the elites retain their lavish lifestyles. Ironically, those at the bottom rungs of both groups tend to the most enthusiastic members--their enthusiasm (cynically drilled into them by their leaderships) apparently is all they have. Both have a theocratic view of American government (click here and here. Amway and the Moonies are also similar in that the hierarchy of both groups gives massive financial support to the Republican Party.

Anyone who has been to an Amway rally knows about the cultish nature of the group (Dateline NBC did a report on Amway and the videos of the Amway rallies are scary--click here and click on the top link--also read former Amway insider Eric Scheibeler's online book Merchants of Deception). Despite these reports, Amway continues to run a quasi-criminal enterprise with relative impunity and is able to maintain a veneer of respectability in the public's mind (though my Google bomb of Amway helped educate web surfers).

There is some recent great news about Amway/Quixtar: 2006 was an unmitigated disaster for the group:
1. Dick DeVos, son of Amway co-founder Richard DeVos, was soundly defeated in the Michigan gubernatorial election. Although DeVos' campaign spent $41 million (that's not a typo) on the campaign, he garnered only 42 percent of the vote against incumbent Jennifer Grandholm. DeVos is a hardcore theocrat who hold reconstructionist/dominionist views and a member of the notorious Council for National Policy.
2. Former Amway distributor Tom DeLay not only was indicted and resigned his seat but his seat went to Democrat Nick Lampson.
3. Amway distributor Richard Pombo (R-CA) lost his House seat.
4. The MLM Liberal Blog reported that many of the GOP members of the House and Senate who lost their seats had received money from Amway.

Amway's defeat is a victory for America.

UPDATE: Minddig sees parellels between Amway and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Posted 12:48 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Robert Parry on journalistic giant, the late great Gary Webb. Not surprisingly, Moon's Washington Times was at the forefront of the attacks on Webb.

Posted 4:29 PM by Scoobie Davis

Former Member of Florida Governor-elect Charlie Crist Team Uses Chick Tracts (to Bash Islam)

O'Neal Dozier, pastor for the Worldwide Christian Church and who was a member of Charlie Crist's election committees was dismissed from Crist's team in September after he distributed anti-Islamic Chick tracts after learning that a 29,000 square foot mosque was planned to be built near his church. Chick tracts that address Islam are highly inflammatory (I interviewed Chick and Fed Carter when Carter's project at the time was "The Little Bride"; chick told me that this tract really "sticks it to Islam"; Indeed, it does!) Dozier called Islam, "a cult" and said, "we don't want our area to be a breeding ground for terrorists."

Chick's Battle Cry newsletter has the full story.

Other Anti-Islam Chick tracts: "Allah Had no Son"; "Men of Peace?"; "Who is Allah?"; "The Sky Lighter"; and "The Pilgrimage"

Posted 3:12 PM by Scoobie Davis

Fighting The Christmas Warriors with Ridicule
Simon Maloy and Brad Reed has the holiday spirit.

Blast from the past: me talking to O'Reilly himself about the War on Christmas last year. Disclosure: I celebrate Festivus.

Posted 9:52 PM by Scoobie Davis

No, I'm Not Making This Shit Up
Real quote from William Bennett: "In all my time in Washington I've never seen such smugness, arrogance, or such insufferable moral superiority."

Posted 8:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

Pan's Labyrinth
I went to a sneak preview of Pan's Labyrinth on the San Diego State campus tonight. I gave it an 8 out of 10. An actor colleague didn't like it that much. I've met director Guillermo del Toro a couple times. I love his attitude.

Posted 9:51 AM by Scoobie Davis

Howard Kurtz
I'm doing some research on Howard Kurtz. If there are any articles you would like to recommend, e-mail me.

Posted 10:23 PM by Scoobie Davis

A National Party No More
Paul Waldman on the Republicans

Posted 2:41 AM by Scoobie Davis

Welcome Readers of the San Diego Reader
Hi to those of you who read my post in the San Diego Reader about the Jack T. Chick documentary. If you would like to read the original post (with hyperlinks and a high school photo of Jack Chick), click here. Also, scroll down and check out the blog. Here's a little more about me:
1) I like to call talk radio and take on the right-wing blowhards. For some funny transcripts of phone calls to Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, et al., go to the left sidebar under "Phone Call Transcripts."
2)One of my avocations is crashing Hollywood parties--an art I refined to the point of being the first meta-crasher. I also developed the concept of dharmic party crashing. Nobody throws a party like Hollywood. Since I moved to SD from LA, I haven't crashed as many parties but I still go to LA for a premiere after-party that I think will be fun. Last summer I went to the premiere after-parties for Superman Returns, Clerks 2, Beerfest, and Talladega Nights.
3) Sean Hannity had me kicked off the USS Midway. That's okay, I got to confirm firsthand that his head is really, really funny-shaped to the point that I think his mother pushed too hard when his head was in the birth canal.
4) E-mail me and tell me what you think about the blog ): scoobiedavis77@yahoo.com
5) Be excellent to each other and party on!

Posted 3:12 PM by Scoobie Davis

What's a Poor Boy to do?
I like listening to both Al Franken and Ed Schultz; I can't listen to them at the same time.

Posted 3:29 PM by Scoobie Davis

Film Recommendation
I'm a big Jack Black fan and I thought Tenacious D In The Pick of Destiny was tight.

Posted 12:04 PM by Scoobie Davis

HEN-RY!!!!!!!
My former member of Congress has the Bush administration running scared.

Posted 2:09 PM by Scoobie Davis

Happy Thanksgiving
Enjoy the holiday.

Posted 12:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

Busy with film work

Posted 11:21 AM by Scoobie Davis

Prediction
Ohio State 24, Michigan 17

RIP Bo Schembechler Aum

UPDATE: Ohio State 42, Michigan 39 Woo Hoo!

Posted 12:13 PM by Scoobie Davis

Required Reading
Check out last 7 or 8 posts on Consortium News.

Posted 12:54 PM by Scoobie Davis

It Was a Joke, Laura!
Today I went to Laura Ingraham's web site in an attempt to see if she was contrite about telling her radio listeners to jam a voter protection hotline (nothing about it on her site). I noticed her post, "the lie of the day" in which she accuses David Letterman of lying about not knowing where to find Fox News on his television:

"I don't even know how to get to your show," claimed David Letterman, when Bill O'Reilly made an appearance.

THE TRUTH:
Sorry Dave, but we can smell what you're cooking. You're trying to make it seem like no one watches Fox News Channel or "The O'Reilly Factor" in a lame attempt to dismiss Bill's points. We all know you're watching his show like a hawk!

The real truth is that Letterman was setting up a punchline. Here's the quote in context:

Letterman: Let me tell you something, I don't even know how to get to your show.

O'Reilly: Right down, you just go straight down, you take a right.

Letterman: But it's on, it's on Fox, I dial up Fox and it's always The Simpsons. And I don't--Where are you, Bill?

Posted 1:57 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Minority Maker
When the GOP took over Congress, Rush Limbaugh was touted "The Majority Maker" due to his softening up of the Clinton administration prior to the 1994 elections. The Claire McCaskill campaign largely credits Limbaugh's callous mocking of Michael J. Fox for putting her over the top and, thus, giving control of the Senate to the Democrats. How sweet it is.

UPDATE: Read Rick Perlstein's article on GOP dirty tricks and why Democrats must address them.

Posted 8:09 PM by Scoobie Davis

Busy
Editing a short film.

Posted 7:50 AM by Scoobie Davis

Both Houses!!!

Posted 6:49 PM by Scoobie Davis

We Won!!!!

Posted 5:20 PM by Scoobie Davis

I Voted Today
I took the paper ballot option. No lines.

Posted 11:07 AM by Scoobie Davis

Once Again. . .

The most important thing about this election is Democratic control of the House--which will give John Conyers subpoena power. Everything else is gravy.

Posted 9:52 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Unexamined Life. . .

As I pointed out, the most important thing about this election is getting the 15+ seats in the House (thus, giving John Conyers subpoena power). That will occur because, to paraphrase Hugh Hewitt, it ain't close so the Republicans can't cheat enough to prevent at least a 15-seat Democratic gain.

The one thing that never ceases to amaze me about the radical right is not that their meanness is earthshaking--quite the opposite: it's the utter small-mindedness that gets me. Take for instance Rush Limbaugh, who recently had two major crises--loss of hearing and drug addiction. After emerging from these crises, Limbaugh has, remarkably, become a bigger asshole than before. This increase in assholiness is not because his behavior has changed, but because it has stayed the same. For normal people a major illness tells them that life is too short to be petty and Limbaugh continues to be nothing but petty. The mocking of Michael J. Fox's illness is just one example--I could go on.

Then there's Laura Ingraham. Just to give you a indication of where she's coming from: as an editor of the right-wing college paper, the Dartmouth Review, Ingraham sent a "reporter" into
a meeting of the gay student association and then sent the tapes of the meeting to the parents of the students. Recently, Ingraham was diagnosed with breast cancer. Did her illness cause Ingraham to turn over a new leaf? No. Soon thereafter, Ingraham impugned as cowards, reporters who risked their lives in Iraq.

Today, Ingraham encouraged her listeners to jam the phone lines of the voter protection hotline with crank calls. This woman has no soul.

Addendum:

"Assholiness" is a word. I heard it used in the classic film Flesh Gordon (at a midnight showing when I was a student at Miami University).

Posted 9:24 AM by Scoobie Davis

Bad News
It appears as if the Republican harassment via robo-calling is working.

One thing to remember about the radical right--especially the sectarian right: they think they are anointed by God and that any who opposes them is of the devil. Their only criterion for behavior is whether they are rewarded or punished electorally. So if journalists don't do their jobs and make the GOP pay at the ballot box, then their bad behavior will continue.

Posted 9:18 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Most Important Thing about this Election
Subpoena power. We need 15 seats in the House for that to happen.

Posted 10:26 PM by Scoobie Davis

If I Lived in Arizona, I Would Be Ineligible to Vote
I haven't updated my driver's license since I moved to San Diego.

Posted 5:56 PM by Scoobie Davis

Only on Fox News MSNBC

I was watching MSNBC this afternoon and on the news ticker of one of the shows (I think it was Hardball) it was written that a certain percentage of Americans wanted a "Democrat-controlled [sic] Congress." The use of the word "Democrat" as an adjective (e.g., Democrat Party) used to be an indicator that the writer or speaker is an unapologetic wing-nut, a wing-nut posing as a nonpartisan observer, or a Fox News Democrat like Tammy Bruce (who uses the phrase "Democrat Party" here).

What has happened in recent years is that the so-called liberal media has appropriated the use of "Democrat" as an adjective (e.g., click here and here) so what I watched was not surprising.

When I was tuned into MSNBC, I also saw this exchange; it looks like Hardball strikes out once again.

UPDATE: At least MSNBC can bring itself to name the Democratic Party--even if they use a pejorative, unlike the fair and balanced channel--which can't bring itself to name the party with a lead in the polls. I guess that should count for something.

11/7 UPDATE: This link requires no comment.

Posted 1:53 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Story of the Day

Republican voter suppression via a campaign of harassing robocalls. This GOP dirty tricks campaign is not receiving the proper attention from the mainstream media--except in a few cases.

UPDATE: Dave Johnson has a comprehensive (and succinct) post on the the scandal.

2:30 PST UPDATE: Apparently Mark Halperin isn't completely worthless because ABC is covering the story as "breaking news."

2:36 PST UPDATE: TPM Muckraker has more details and details from a former push-poller.

2:47 PST UPDATE: The Daily Kos has a post on robocalls in Virginia that amount to voter harassment and intimidation.

2:58 PST UPDATE: Rahm Emanuel call the GOP's voter suppression campaign via robo-call, "the worst of dirty tricks."

Posted 12:34 PM by Scoobie Davis

Will Post Later Today
Too busy to blog right now but will post later today and tomorrow.

Posted 10:11 AM by Scoobie Davis

Welcome to San Diego Citybeat Readers
Hi to you San Diego Citybeat readers who read David Rolland's piece on me and Sean Hannity. To read my post on the incident, scroll down to the October 28 post titled, "Sean Hannity Had Me Kicked Off of An Aircraft Carrier: Exclusive Story."

Posted 9:23 AM by Scoobie Davis

New Jack Chick Tracts
An anti-Masonic tract, "The Unwelcome Guest"--drawn by Chick and a new tract in the black tract series "Who Loves You?" drawn by Fred Carter. Read the previous post for my announcement of the Chick documentary.

Posted 1:15 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Jack T. Chick Documentary

For the last two years, I have been chomping at the bit in my desire to tell you this: I am the first person to do a recorded interview of Jack Chick in over 30 years. Those of you familiar with this blog know that I have a great interest in Jack Chick's work (which has attained icon status at least in terms of popular culture). That interest will be manifested in a documentary film about Jack Chick and his work.

I first met Jack Chick at one of the premieres for his film The Light of the World in October 2003. When I arrived at the church in Orange County where the premiere was held, I eagerly anticipated watching the film and possibly seeing Chick (though I wasn't counting seeing him because of his reputation for avoiding the limelight). I have been to many movie premieres but I have to say that this was, by far, the most unusual.

When I arrived at the premiere, volunteer ticket-takers led me to the sanctuary where there were two large screens where the film would be projected. Before the screening, the head of the Light of the World Foundation spoke. Even though I disagreed with the theology of the film (clips are available here and also on YouTube), I was very impressed with the quality of the paintings for the film (most of which were done by Chick Publications' artist Fred Carter).

After the screening, to my surprise, Chick and Carter was introduced to the crowd of several hundred (we gave them a standing ovation). I was seated about 100 feet from Chick and my first impression was that he looked like an older, thinner Helmut Kohl. After the introductions, the premiere was officially over and people congratulated Chick and Carter. I shook hands with Chick and told him I was a big fan of his work; I also complimented Fred Carter on the painstaking process of doing most of the 360 paintings used in the film.

I had given thought of a documentary film on Chick for quite some time. However, one big hurdle was that he hadn't given an interview since 1975 (The Los Angeles Times tried but failed to get an interview when it did a series of front-page stories on Chick during the height of the Alberto controversy) . However, there were two things on my side:
1) I knew that Chick invested heavily in his film and would probably welcome any help with promoting it.
2) I'm rather resourceful in terms of getting into places I shouldn't be and being in the interviewer's chair with Jack Chick was just another challenge.

I started off by calling the head of the Light of the World Foundation, posed as a fundamentalist filmmaker, and offered to give advice on promoting the film. He agreed so I cut my long hair and put on conservative clothes before I met with him at his office. I gave him some valuable advice based on my own experience in independent filmmaking (For instance, I told him to get the film listed on the Internet Movie Database). One of the other ideas was a documentary film that could possibly be played on public access television. The head of the foundation contacted Chick; a few days later, the head of the foundation told me that Chick prayed about whether to give me an interview for my documentary and apparently God gave Chick the green light because, to my surprise, he agreed to an interview (artist Fred Carter also agreed to an interview ).

Before I go any further, let me discuss the ethical implications of my actions. There are no hard-and-fast ethical guidelines for documentary filmmakers (though recently in International Documentary Magazine, Bill Nichols wrote a thoughtful article calling for a code of ethics for documentary filmmakers. At various film festivals and film seminars, I have spoken to documentary filmmakers who have told me that the most important thing is to get the interview.

That wasn't good enough for me. While journalists are not documentarians, the two groups have much in common. Accordingly, I looked at the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists for guidance. The code states that "journalists should avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story." I think I stand on firm ground when I argue that going undercover was the only way for me to get the interview. Had I told Chick the truth about who I was, my chances of getting an interview would have been nil.

The code also dictates that "journalists should recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone's privacy." On the one hand, I respect Chick's desire for privacy and I would do nothing to invade his privacy. However, Jack Chick is the world's most published living author (years ago, it was estimated that he has sold 500,000,000 tract and books--Chick told me that he sells over 130,000 tracts a day so my guess is that the current total is closer to 750,000,000 books and tracts distributed). Chick and his ideas deserve examination--not debunking, mind you, because Chick tracts generally deal with matters of faith. Nevertheless, the Chick tract phenomenon should be looked at from a socio-historical and a cultural perspective.

One overarching principle of the code is that "ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect." Although I disagree with Chick from a theological standpoint, I have no doubt in his sincerity and respect him for taking unpopular views--views that almost cost him his business. I also like Chick as a person and was pleased with his down-to-earth and unaffected manner (e.g., he insisted that I call him Jack). Although Chick has been accused of creating hate literature, I can attest that Jack Chick, in his heart, is not a hater.

I met Chick and Fred Carter for their interviews at Fred Carter's house. Both gave interviews about 45 minutes long. Both men had interesting insights. I won't go any further on this. Wait for the film!

Posted 1:52 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Josh Marshall on Karl Rove's head fake.

Posted 2:18 AM by Scoobie Davis

Two Moonie-Funded Universities on List of Worst in Higher Education
A few days ago, in my discussion of the Moonie-produced big-budget flop Inchon I discussed why mind control cults fare poorly in the creative arts. They also are piss-poor when it comes to higher education because total ideologies are a miserable failure in intellectual endeavors (think: Lysenkoism). (Via John Gorenfeld) The Moonie-funded University of Bridgeport made Radar magazine's list of the worst American universities. Not surprisingly, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, which was saved from bankruptcy largely because of Moon's largesse, also made the list.

Doing research on this post made me think that the reason Sean Hannity had me ejected from the U.S.S. Midway Museum was that I called him "Mr. Hannity," not "Dr. Hannity" ( Hannity has an honorary doctorate from Falwell's diploma mill).

Posted 11:56 AM by Scoobie Davis

Sean Hannity Had Me Kicked Off of An Aircraft Carrier: Exclusive Story
Having crashed a lot of Hollywood parties, I've been bounced out of more than my fair share of expensive places--until yesterday, the most expensive place was the Four Seasons. Yesterday, I topped that in spades: I got kicked off of a friggin' aircraft carrier--for trying to ask Sean Hannity a quick question.

Here's the story: yesterday, the Hannity & Colmes show came to San Diego as part of Fox News' 10-year anniversary celebration. They had the show on the deck of the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum. I was a member of the show's live audience. In order to blend in with the crowd, I shaved off my soul patch and trimmed my sideburns. In order to give the impression that I had short hair (at least from a front view), I put my hair in a ponytail--in fact, my hair was pulled back so tight that it looked like I had the same hair stylist as Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH). I wore a pinstriped suit, a red and blue Gucci tie with an American flag tie pin.

The crowd of about 300 was about as fair and balanced as Fox News. I noticed a couple non-Caucasians but that was about it, making the crowd collectively pastier than the Bill O'Reilly event I attended in LA a couple years ago. Not surprisingly, before the show, when Hannity asked if there were any liberals in the crowd, I and two other people applauded.

My goals as an audience member were three-fold:
1) My main goal was to be part of the audience Q & A with the hosts (Colmes didn't make the trip so Bob Beckel co-hosted). I wanted to ask a tough but fair question. This didn't happen because, like the O'Reilly event I had attended, the questions were screened (audience members were given cards to write down questions before the show) and my question wasn't chosen.

2) When the camera panned the audience, I wanted to unfurl a 1' by 3' banner with the words "SLANTHEAD.COM." Slanthead.com is a site I have that contains an open letter to Fox News viewers ("Slanthead" is Ed Schultz's nickname for Hannity due to Hannity's funny-shaped head--which I can attest looks as funny-shaped in person as it does on TV). This didn't happen either because the camera panned the audience too fast for me to unfurl it with any chance for home viewers to see it. Quick note: during the show, I restrained myself from pimp-slapping Republican strategist Karen Hanretty for these comments.

3) After the show, I wanted to ask Hannity for his take on Ed Schultz's claim that Hannity dodged a debate with him when the two were in Cincinnati earlier this year. That's when the trouble started.

Before I go any further, I want to emphasize that Ed Schultz had nothing to do with either the domain name Slanthead.com or the question I wanted to ask about Hannity's debate-dodging. I just think slanthead is a hilarious nickname, so my friend grabbed the domain name for me. As for my question about Hannity's chickening out of a debate, I thought it would be interesting to get his side of the story and report it to the readers of this blog. The only time I spoke with Schultz was when he was in SD earlier this year and I asked him a question for the benefit of my blog readers.

Also, let me note that Hannity knows about me and this blog. The reasons: first, I have gotten on called Hannity's radio show twice and ate his lunch (the hilarious transcripts of the calls are on this blog, click here and here). More importantly, because of a Google bomb that I and another blogger did, my conversation with Hannity about GOP sexual hypocrisy has been in the top ten Google sites that pop up for a search of "Sean Hannity" for over a year and a half.

Anyway, after the show, Beckel and Hannity were hanging around and signing autographs for the crowd. I went up to Beckel and told him he rocked for calling Bush a draft dodger in front of a hostile crowd. Then I went over to where Hannity was signing autographs for a couple dozen of the audience members. He was flanked by a serious-looking guy in a suit, whom I'll call Smiley (I'm assuming Smiley is part of the dreaded "Fox Security"). Here is the brief exchange between Hannity and me:

ME: Mr. Hannity, I have a quick question for my blog.
HANNITY: What's the name of your blog?
ME: It's called Scoobie Davis Online.

I could tell it took a second or two for the tumblers in Hannity's head to click. He then turned his back to me and started signing other peoples' stuff and getting his picture taken with fans. I waited patiently for a couple minutes and when he turned back around and I said, "Excuse me--" Smiley then told me to "hold off." Hannity then took Smiley aside and started whispering to him (Hannity was looking at me when he did this).

Smiley then came over and said, "Let go over there and talk." One thing I learned in my experience of crashing events is that when people say, "Let go over there and talk," they mean, "Let's go over there so we can toss your ass out of the joint." I figured since he didn't demand that I come with him that he wasn't with the Midway's security team, but was a Fox News employee. So I figured I would fuck with him for a while. I responded, "Well, I can hear you well here. What don't you tell me what you have to say here?" Smiley then repeated himself and then I repeated myself. My exchange with Smiley reminded me of the "Dude! You got a tattoo!" sequence in the film Dude, Where's My Car?. After I got tired of jerking Smiley around, I agreed to walk with him. We walked over to Midway's security area and Smiley told them to escort me off the carrier. Midway security then walked with me as I left the carrier.

This whole episode shows how the members of the radical right are a bunch of wusses. Even if Hannity thought I was going to ask him an insulting question, he had the crowd on his side. But the fact is that I wanted to ask him a legitimate question in a respectful manner--this despite the fact that he engages in insults and personal attacks against those he disagrees with (e.g., his false accusation that I was making things up when I told him about Jerry Falwell's phony infomercials and his insulting behavior toward Alec Baldwin). Hannity is great with professional punching bags like Alan Colmes, but when it comes to people who know what the score is, Hannity would rather dodge than fight. UPDATE: Here's some empirical evidence that Hannity is a total pantywaist.

UPDATE: San Diego's Citybeat has a short story on the incident.

Posted 7:58 PM by Scoobie Davis

Michael J. Fox Is in Da House
Here's his interview with Katie Couric. He's a class act all the way.

Posted 7:04 PM by Scoobie Davis

Michelle Malkin and Me
Click here for the full details

Posted 4:16 PM by Scoobie Davis

Read This
I'm too busy to blog but Eric Boehlert isn't:

During an October 22 profile of House Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on CBS' 60 Minutes, correspondent Leslie Stahl was busy fretting over Pelosi's uncivil rhetoric and wondered how the Democratic leader could possibly work with President Bush if her party prevailed in November. Reading back some of Pelosi's quotes about the Bush administration being "failed" and "arrogant" and -- gasp -- even criticizing the government's inept response to Hurricane Katrina, Stahl insisted, "You're one of the reasons we have to restore civility in the first place."

Pelosi disagreed, noting that rhetoric is the everyday language of political debate in this country. And plus, she said, it was accurate. But an overly anxious Stahl was unconvinced. "How does this raise the level of civility?" she pressed.

Stahl is hardly alone when it comes to current-day hand-wringing over how Democrats -- and Pelosi in particular -- will respond if they recapture control of the House after 12 years in the minority. Time magazine worried that some Democrats "would undoubtedly try to use their majority power to exact revenge for Republican overreach" in recent years. And MSNBC host Norah O'Donnell went one better, demanding Democrats go "on the record" and "promise" that if they seize control of the House, they would not issue subpoenas to the White House and make "the president's final two years in office a living hell."

The flood of unsolicited advice about etiquette and manners coming Democrats' way from Beltway insiders -- from the "make-nice crowd," as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls them -- rings hollow. The press seems spooked that a Democratic victory would mean Congress would then become too political, too partisan. Yet this is coming from the same Beltway press corps that yawned while polarizing, partisan House Republicans, led by Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), discarded generations' worth of bipartisan Capitol Hill traditions and protocol in order to radically alter the way the legislative branch functions. But only now, with the specter of a Democratic majority looming, do journalists consider partisanship to be a newsworthy (and disturbing) issue.

The trend highlights two distinct media double standards on clear display during the run-up to November. The first suggests that when Republicans are in power, partisanship, even the jacked-up kind on steroids, is dubbed healthy hardball. But if Democrats practice any (or even contemplate it), that's deemed to be bad for democracy. The second is that Democratic Party leaders are routinely held to a different press standard; a standard usually constructed by Republican smears.

Read the whole thing

Posted 1:02 PM by Scoobie Davis

Jerry Falwell: Gay Smut Peddler?
The Mark Foley page scandal reinforces my belief that the contemporary Republican Party, especially its sectarian wing, has some serious sexual hang-ups. First, there's the widespread practice of serial marriage among GOP bigwigs. Regarding homosexuality, there are two Republican pathologies; the first is closet tolerants such as Ann Coulter who defended Jerry Falwell for blaming 9/11 on gays but who has a big reputation as a fag hag. Then, there are the self-loathing Republicans like Foley and GOP apologists (like Fox News Democrat Tammy Bruce).

As luck would have it, this weekend I found a videotape of Jerry Falwell's Old Time Gospel Hour program from 1993. During the Clinton presidency, Falwell devoted part of his show to hawking videos to his flock (at high markups) accusing Clinton of drug dealing, serial murder, and everything except sinking the Lusitania. The tape has a Falwell-narrated infomercial for his video exposing "the radical gay agenda." I'll upload the commercial to YouTube as soon as I learn how, but the transcript (which I abridge for space considerations) of the ad is very revealing. It seemed to me that Falwell was pitching the video to evangelical closet queens. David Kuo's revelations in his book Tempting Faith that members of the sectarian right often speak to each other in code made me think that it wasn't a coincidence that Falwell uses the word "blow" three times in his short pitch. While Falwell is speaking, the video portion shows footage of gays and lesbians frolicking in various stages of undress (quick note: The last sentence explains Falwell's comments after 9/11 pointing the finger of blame at gays and various liberal groups):

FALWELL: I want you to fasten your seatbelts right now because I'm going to tell you something that will, I think, blow your mind--about this tape right here. This is the tape that nobody in Washington knows how we got. You see, let me explain: during the April 25th [1993] homosexual March on Washington, I sent two camera crews undercover and incognito to infiltrate the anticipated one million gays and lesbians in that parade march on the nation's capital. Our camera crews attended dozens of unbelievable events. I mean they attended marriages of hundreds of gay couples . . . What they filmed was undoubtedly triple X-rated: nude lesbians blocking the street and nobody arresting them--dancing in the street, nobody arresting them. It was just as if Sodom and Gomorrah had stepped out of the Old Testament pages and visited our nation's capital . . . I watched in amazement as I saw a gay rights dance, a radical fairy get-together, and so much more that I cannot show you on this television station . . . It includes my biblical commentary which clearly tells you blow-by-blow what you are seeing and defines what you and I can do to stop the implementation of this radical gay agenda before it's too late for our country. God help us if we don't succeed. This tape will cost you $35 on your Visa or Mastercard plus three dollars for shipping and handling . . . I sincerely believe that only if everyone in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ today gets informed and becomes involved--rising with a mighty voice in unison, exposing sin as sin--can we avert the judgment of God upon this nation which, I believe, is imminent. . .

Falwell's pitch and the video excerpts remind me of the old saying that Democrats and Republicans read banned books--it's just that Republicans form censorship committees and read them as a group. Similarly, fundamentalist homophobia allowed Falwell to make a quick buck by giving voyeuristic kicks to latent homosexual fundamentalists who wanted to watch gay porno and not feel guilty about it. It's good work if you can find it.

Posted 12:16 PM by Scoobie Davis

First Time I Heard This
Yesterday Charlie Cook was on CSPAN and he mentioned that many Democrats bitterly joked that the word "green" in Green Party is an acronym for Get Republicans Elected Every November. Here's why

Posted 11:20 AM by Scoobie Davis

National Journal's Latest List of Competitive House Races
They expanded it to 60 races.

Posted 9:06 AM by Scoobie Davis

Film Post Postponed

Posted 3:02 PM by Scoobie Davis

Cliff Schecter is Da Man!
(Via Kos)Schecter slams on MSNBC debating Karen Hanretty:

Posted 2:01 PM by Scoobie Davis

Only on Ebay
A couple weeks ago, I mentioned how people on Ebay are capitalizing on the Mark Foley scandal. The latest thing: The Congressman Mark Foley Action Figure


UPDATE: The action figure sold for $315.01

Posted 12:38 PM by Scoobie Davis

Sean Hannity: Debate Dodger
On his radio program today, Ed Schultz told his viewers about how Slanthead refused to debate him in Cincinnati earlier this year. Radio executives told Schultz that Hannity expressed fears that Schultz would physically attack him. What a wuss!

I suspect that what Hannity really feared was an intellectual pummeling, not a physical one. Hannity doesn't want to face an opponent who knows the score; why else was Colmes chosen to be his partner on Fox News? Anyhow, Hannity eventually agreed to a debate--with Jerry Springer.

Posted 11:25 AM by Scoobie Davis

Big Film-Related Announcement on Monday
Stay tuned

Posted 3:28 AM by Scoobie Davis

Alma Mater Predictions
Ohio State 52, Indiana 7
Akron 14, Miami 10

Last Week's Results:
Predictions:
Ohio State 33, Michigan State 10
Miami of Ohio 20, Buffalo 7

REALITY:
Ohio State 38, Michigan State 7
Miami 38 Buffalo 31

Posted 3:07 PM by Scoobie Davis

Who Were The Survey Subjects? The Fox News Staff?
Neil Cavuto: "[M]ost Americans, when they're polled on the likability of this president, he polls highly in that regard."

Posted 8:35 PM by Scoobie Davis

Woo Hoo!!!!!!!New Page Scandal!!!!!!!
(Via Archpundit) It allegedly involves Jerry Weller (R-IL), who according to CQPolitics and the Cook Political Report, possibly until-now was in a safe Republican district.

UPDATE: This is an unconfirmed report. I don't know if it's true or not.

10/19 UPDATE: I might have been unduly optimistic about another GOP page scandal.

Posted 6:12 PM by Scoobie Davis

Ken Blackwell is Desperate (Don't Ya Love It!)
In August, I let you know about how Blackwell operatives were engaging in telephone push-polling in Ohio. Now, soon-to-be-private-citizen Blackwell is engaging in a particularly nasty innuendo campaign against his Democratic opponent Ted Strickland. I heard Blackwell repeating this bilge on Hugh Fuckwit's radio show.

Blackwell sounded optimistic on Hewitt's show but it ain't gonna happen: The latest CBS News/New York Times poll has Strickland leading by 25 points. When a candidate is that far behind, it's too much of a deficit to be made up by cheating (as Blackwell did with the Ohio presidential vote in 2004). Let's hope that when Strickland becomes governor that he does a full investigation. Blackwell belongs behind bars.

Note: The Patriot Project has an informative post on the nature of push-polling.

Posted 10:59 AM by Scoobie Davis

Sun Myung Moon's Creative Offering to the World: The Movie Inchon
I finally finished seeing the Moonie-produced film Inchon (IMBD entry here) (I got a bootleg copy in June but it was such painful viewing that I had to see a little at a time). Since principle production was done in 1980 and it is conservatively estimated that the film cost $44 million to make (about $104 million in today's dollars) and it made less than $2 million at the box office, it is one of the biggest--if not the biggest--box office disasters in history.

From a critical standpoint, the film received a lot of attention from the Golden Raspberry people--winning four Razzies and is considered one of the worst films of all time.

I can see why the critics and audiences panned it. The script was awful. The opening invasion scenes reminded me of a cross between scenes from The Rat Patrol and The Green Berets. Laurence Oliver, who played General Douglas MacArthur, hammed it up badly and looks ridiculous. The pacing was bad. There were problems with costuming (e.g., in the press room scene, there were actors with late-1970's wardrobe and haircuts).

The badness of Inchon is completely logical: Inchon is to the cinema what Moon's Washington Times is to journalism--bloated white elephants that evoke mocking laughter from serious people. The Washington Times, which has cost Moon over $2 billion, is viewed with derision by real journalists. Total ideologies, by their very nature, create sterile art (think: socialist realism and architecture under the Ceausescu regime, e.g., click here) and the concept of a journalist's search for truth is an alien idea to those with a totalitarian mindset.

Loose Ends: I got my bootleg copy through Superhapppyfun--don't worry, if you buy it, none of the money goes to Moon or the Unification Church.

Rex Reed was in the film. For some reason, Reed has gotten roles in some really bad films (Inchon, Myra Breckenridge, and Hurry Sundown).

In the closing credits, the filmmakers gave thanks to The Little Angels School--the Moonie-run school where Moon's "daughter-in-law" was recruited.

I have an Inchon movie poster (I got it on Ebay)

Posted 6:20 AM by Scoobie Davis

Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong
Brent Budowsky writes in the Huffington Post:

I am proposing here that after the election Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi go the President and offer the kind of government America must have in these troubled times, offering a new spirit of national unity, bipartisanship, shared purpose and a restoration of goodwill and civility in Washington.

To the old hands who read this, please bear with me, I am addressing this to two groups, the leaders themselves and to patriotic Americans and young people who do not have insider knowledge of Washington but have the innate goodness and common sense that has always made America a great nation. . .

Are we nation of domestic enemies, at war with each other? Or a great American family, in which we are all in this together? . . .

Democratic Leaders should both challenge and offer the President a good faith and common sense path that can end the crisis in Iraq, end the crisis of credibility of our leaders and end the acrimonious politics of disrespect, and division, which are hurting our country, our democracy, our security, our troops, our communities and our credibility around the world.

Anyone who thinks that Democrats should work with the Bush White House and cooperate with congressional Republicans is a fool.

Democrats are supposed to work with Karl Rove? Why don't Budowsky ask them to make out with a cobra? Work with the Newt-clones in Congress? Fuck that noise. Budowsky asks, "Are we nation of domestic enemies, at war with each other?" My answer is an emphatic "yes." The Republican hard right started it; the Democrats should end it.

After they cynically exploited 9/11, the Bush White House and Republicans in Congress were riding high and they thought they would be part of a permanent majority for the next generation. I know they did a lot of things that they thought they could get away with because they thought the Dems would not have subpoena power for the foreseeable future. The Foley scandal is small potatoes and the tip of the iceberg.

My advice to soon-to-be Speaker Pelosi and (hopefully) Majority Leader-elect Reid is simple:
1. Investigate
2. Subpoena
3. Repeat steps one and two

The hard right is not to be trusted; it is to be discredited and defeated. To paraphrase Karl Rove, the Democrats in the House and Senate should fuck Bush and the GOP like no one has ever fucked them. After that, then they can talk about working together.

Posted 4:54 PM by Scoobie Davis

Media Matters Stuff
Read Eric Boehlert on the Dolphin Queen

Also, Jamison Foser's quote of the year:

The conservative movement has been very effective attacking the media (broadcast and print) for its liberal biases. The refusal of the media to disclose and discuss the ideological leanings of reporters and editors, and the broader claim of objectivity, has made the press overly anxious, and inclined to lean over backwards not to offend critics from the right. In many respects, the campaign against the media has been more than a victory: it has turned the press into an unwilling, and often unknowing, ally of the right.

--Building Red America author and former Washington Post reporter Thomas B. Edsall

Posted 9:48 AM by Scoobie Davis

Media News: Forthcoming Book on Fox News
It's by the guys at Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly. The working title: Fair and Balanced, My Ass: An Unbridled Look at the Bizarre Reality of Fox News (via RadarOnline).

Posted 9:09 AM by Scoobie Davis

George W. Bush's Spiritual Brethren: Hate Radio Jocks

Bush recently met with some prominent talk radio jocks, at least two of whom (Sean Hannity and Mike Gallagher) defended Ann Coulter's Moussaoui-like attacks on 9/11 widows

So much for being a uniter, not a divider.

Posted 1:42 PM by Scoobie Davis

What Gives?
Last night, 60 Minutes interviewed former deputy director of Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives David Kuo who claims that high level staffers in the Bush White House cynically manipulated religion for political purposes and mocked evangelical political leaders behind their backs (e.g., calling Pat Robertson as "insane" and Jerry Falwell "ridiculous").

I was curious how Christian bloggers would respond to these revelations. Blogger La Shawn Barber , who tells her readers, "[f]irst and foremost, IÂ?m a believer in and follower of Jesus Christ" wrote about a 60 Minutes story--the one on the Duke rape case but had no mention of the Kuo interview. Click here and ask her why no post on Kuo.

Posted 9:18 AM by Scoobie Davis

New Google Bomb
On the Google Bomb Blog, I targeted Scandal-plagued Senate candidate Bob Corker is in a tight race with Harold Ford in Tennessee. Let's inform internet searcher about this guy.

1. Copy and paste the following to your web site or on an internet bulletin board:

<a href="http://www.dscc.org/news/hallofshame/20060822_corker/index.htm">Bob Corker</a>
<a href="http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/politics/article/0,1426,MCA_1496_5057186,00.html">Bob Corker</a>
<a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/QuickHeadlines.asp?sec=l&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fepaper%">Bob Corker</a>
<a href="http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/politics/article/0,1426,MCA_1496_5001493,00.html">Bob Corker</a>
The results will look like this:

Bob Corker
Bob Corker
Bob Corker
Bob Corker

Posted 2:50 AM by Scoobie Davis

Robert Parry on Foleygate
Yeah, yeah, there's been a lot written about the Foley scandal but this article presents the overarching issues of the scandal.

Posted 1:39 AM by Scoobie Davis

More Great Campaign News
From Joshua Marshall

Posted 9:19 PM by Scoobie Davis

Krugman is Fucking Brilliant
He sums it up better than anyone (copied from donkey o.d. ):

One-Letter Politics By PAUL KRUGMAN

October 16, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist


In a recent interview with The Hartford Courant, Senator Joseph Lieberman said something that wasn’t credible. When the newspaper asked him whether America would be better off if the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives next month, he replied, “Uh, I haven’t thought about that enough to give an answer.”

Why wasn’t this a credible answer? Because anyone with the slightest interest in American politics — a group that obviously includes Mr. Lieberman — is waiting with bated breath to see how this election goes, and thinking a lot about the implications. If the Democrats gain control of either house, no matter how narrowly, the American political landscape will be transformed. If they fail, no matter how narrowly, it will be seen, correctly, as a great victory for the hard right.

The fact is that this is a one-letter election. D or R, that’s all that matters.

It’s hard to think of an election in which the personal qualities of the people running in a given district or state have mattered less. Given the stakes, voters who answer “yes” to the question Mr. Lieberman claims not to have thought about should think hard about voting for any Republican, no matter how appealing. Conversely, those who answer “no” should think hard about supporting any Democrat, no matter how much they like him or her.

There are two reasons why party control is everything in this election.

The first, lesser reason is the demonstrated ability of Republican Congressional leaders to keep their members in line, even those members who cultivate a reputation as moderates or mavericks. G.O.P. politicians sometimes make a show of independence, as Senator John McCain did in seeming to stand up to President Bush on torture. But in the end, they always give the White House what it wants: after getting a lot of good press for his principled stand, Mr. McCain signed on to a torture bill that in effect gave Mr. Bush a completely free hand.

And if the Republicans retain control of Congress, even if it’s by just one seat in each house, Mr. Bush will retain that free hand. If they lose control of either house, the G.O.P. juggernaut will come to a shuddering halt.

Yet that’s the less important reason this election is all about party control. The really important reason may be summed up in two words: subpoena power.

Even if the Democrats take both houses, they won’t be able to accomplish much in the way of new legislation. They won’t have the votes to stop Republican filibusters in the Senate, let alone to override presidential vetoes.

The only types of legislation the Democrats might be able to push through are overwhelmingly popular measures, such as an increase in the minimum wage, that Republicans don’t want but probably wouldn’t dare oppose in an open vote.

But while the Democrats won’t gain the ability to pass laws, if they win they will gain the ability to carry out investigations, and the legal right to compel testimony.

The current Congress has shown no inclination to investigate the Bush administration. Last year The Boston Globe offered an illuminating comparison: when Bill Clinton was president, the House took 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether Mr. Clinton had used the White House Christmas list to identify possible Democratic donors. But in 2004 and 2005, a House committee took only 12 hours of testimony on the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

If the Democrats take control, that will change — and voters should think very hard about whether they want that change. Those who think it’s a good idea to investigate, say, allegations of cronyism and corruption in Iraq contracting should be aware that any vote cast for a Republican makes Congressional investigations less likely. Those who believe that the administration should be left alone to do its job should be aware that any vote for a Democrat makes investigations more likely.

O.K., what about the Senate race in Connecticut, where Ned Lamont is the Democratic nominee, and Mr. Lieberman, who lost the Democratic primary, is running as an independent but promising to caucus with the Democrats if he wins? Is this a case where the man, not the party, is what matters? Only if you believe that Mr. Lieberman’s promise not to switch parties is 100 percent credible.

Posted 7:51 PM by Scoobie Davis

What's the Matter with Kansas?
Nothing

Posted 11:19 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Sectarian Right and the GOP

Karl Rove on the faith-based initiative: "I don’t know. Just get me a fucking faith-based thing. Got it?” This quote that author David Kuo attributes to The Architect is in his explosive forthcoming book (to be release October 16), Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. Rove and I are on the same page at least about the leadership of the sectarian right: they are "boorish" and "nuts." The difference is that I'm willing to discuss it in public--e.g., my confrontation of Slanthead about Jerry Falwell's mendacity and Pat Robertson's sectarian bigotry.

The book hasn't been published yet but it and other events such as the Foley scandal are having a big effect on religious voters; while the GOP generally gets about two-thirds of frequent churchgoers, this year it looks as if it will be 50-50--which will be an unmitigated disaster for Republicans if the trend holds. Looks like the GOP's strategy to scare up religious votes isn't working.

Thank God.

Note: I don't use terms "Christian right," "conservative Christian," or "religious right" because "sectarian right" is a more accurate term to describe this group because their defining characteristic is their sectarianism. There are tens of millions of Americans who are right-of-center who are Christian who deplore the politics of the sectarian right which wants to make their theological views the law of the land.

Also, Kuo is a guest on Keith Olbermann's show this week.

Posted 5:11 PM by Scoobie Davis

Look At Those Polls!!!
They're looking very very good for Democrats

UPDATE: Charlie Cook and Larry Sabato have more