Truculent Tuesday

Decided that for the radio show I'd make Tuesdays the day to chronicle the goings on in American hate-radio and tea party/John Bircher madness. A couple of stories from last week while I was off seemed to be emblematic of the current state of divisiveness in American politics.

 One happened in Obion County Tennessee the house of the Cranicks caught fire and they fled their home, their neighbors alerted the county’s firefighters, who soon arrived at the scene. Yet when the firefighters arrived, they refused to put out the fire, saying that the family failed to pay the annual subscription fee to the fire department. Because the county’s fire services for rural residences is based on household subscription fees, the firefighters, fully equipped to help the Cranicks, stood by and watched as the home burned to the ground.

The selfish, heartless and soulless philosophy of the GOP and tea party types on display for all to see. Not surprisingly this was defended by Glenn Beck and all the writers over at the National Review. It's hard to tell from my perch up here in Canada how this is resonating with people other than the choir.

The second story involves a group of Missouri tea partiers who have decided to campaign against regulations that would mandate more humane conditions in the state’s puppy mills. Missouri’s Proposition B, which would place new regulations on puppy mills, including mandating that they provide “sufficient food and clean water, necessary veterinary care, sufficient housing, including protection from the elements, sufficient space to turn and stretch freely, lie down, and fully extend his or her limbs, regular exercise, and adequate rest between breeding cycles.”

It is ridiculous to even debate with the right at this point as they are not interested in having a debate on any issue. If a liberal is for it they are against it and that includes puppies. Like my sometimes blogging partner said, "I'm pro-puppy!"

On to the hate spewers, beginning with a story about the man who wanted to murder the people in the Tides Foundation and the ACLU and start a revolution. Spurred on by conspiracies he heard Beck relate on his show -- you can watch a sample of this for yourself:



Media Matters does a terrific job of chronicling the bile vomited up Beck in just a single month. It's astounding that Fox lets him do this -- the extreme violence suggested by his rhetoric and the outright fiction he peddles as truths are frightening. In another era they would not have been tolerated but are now standard fare on American hate-radio. At some point in the near future they will have blood on their hands. Go read the whole long list of Beck's so-called "...anarchists, Marxists, communists, revolutionaries, Maoists who have to "eliminate 10 percent of the U.S. population" in order to "gain control."

 Beck has other enablers, like Palin, and co-conspirators in his spreading of hate and lies like Rush Limbaugh, who is "ready for the overthrow of Imam Obama's agenda."

None of this would be possible without the enabling of the regular MSM. Time magazine's editor Mark Halperin demonstrates what makes Time worth ignoring even when it's free. Media elites like Halperin have been witness to the most unhinged and hateful and sustained attack on a sitting president in modern American history. Their take-away after nearly two years of this hate-fest? It's Obama's fault. And worse, it's his fault when he defends himself.

The hack who passes for a moderator on Meet the Press, David Gregory, distinguishes himself similarly as he bows before his corporate, republican masters and advances right-wing lies about the current state of Social Security solvency in this clip courtesy of the good people at C&L.

Bob Herbert of the NYT's believes the US is losing its soul and becoming a second rate power -- it's hard not agree.

Intolerance Nightly

The planned burning of the Qurans to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack has sparked outrage around the world -- here in Canada, Peter MacKay has stood up and rightly denounced it noting that this may put Canadian troops in Afghanistan in further danger. Terry Jones of the laughably named Dove World Outreach Center has said he doesn't care who's against it and that includes General David Petreus the Commander of the Nato Afghanistan forces who has said it could endanger the troops. Right-wing blogger and CNN (fox-lite) contributor Erick Erickson has said that General Petreus has "folded like a cheap suit" to violent Islamists in being against this hateful act of extremism. And the cowardly leadership of the GOP has remained silent on the issue not wanting to alienate any of their racist voters one guesses. Here's Keith Olbermann on the fiasco:

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This is one of those stories that I've been ignoring on my radio show until today. They're a relatively small group and I always like to explain the craziest of this stuff away by pointing out that these are extremists and out of the mainstream of current American politics... but they're really not that far out there compared to what is regularly broadcast nightly on fox and other MSM news outlets. Have a listen to some of the stuff as chronicled on Rachel Maddow's show:

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The Unbearable Whiteness Of Being

I'm at a loss for words as to what to say about a media that treats Glenn Beck's megalomania as worthy of coverage -- C-Span covered the whole thing and then replayed it! I also don't understand what this snake-oil salesman has done to merit any credibility. Having a TV show that plays to the rubes and bilks them is no great accomplishment. Watch this video collection of some of the most self-aggrandizing moments not featured on the WWE that you'll ever witness or hear:




Bonus link to a great kos diary with pics of the very white rally ( and some teabagger fools climbing all over a WWII memorial!) -- you might want to note that MLK's rally was about 1/4 white while Beck's was 1/1000th black. And because I love you, here's a clip from that movie Keith Olbermann is always referring to in his op-eds about Glenn Beck's alter-ego, Lonesome Rhodes.

Hey there, and thanks for showing up! Just wanted to pop back in and post the rest of the links to the days' stories on my radio show. No narratives just the links, okay? Feel free to drop me a note from time to time - you could tell me what kind of stories you'd like to see/hear more of and what kind you could do without.

The Gulf spill doesn't get as much coverage as it should in the media so you have to go digging to find out what's been happening there of late. For starters, the Obama administration announced Monday that it is no longer fast-tracking offshore drilling projects in deep water by exempting them from detailed environmental review.

Two weeks ago, as federal officials prepared to declare that some three-quarters of the estimated 5 million barrels of oil released into the Gulf over three months had disappeared, Mark Williams, a fishing boat captain hired by BP to help with the spill cleanup, encountered tar balls as large as three inches wide floating off the Florida coast -- he has been instructed by BP not to report them.

No matter what you hear or read in the MSM the oil spill still poses threats to human health and seafood safety, according to a study published Monday by the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association.

No doubt you've heard about the NY mosque controversy. It really shouldn't be an issue, but that's not how it works any longer. The right screams and whines about some trumped up nonsense and eventually the MSM covers it. To get an idea of how overheated the rhetoric can get go read what Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove have to say about the issue. Gird your loins for those nazi comparisons.

Don Lemon of CNN demonstrates his absolute whorishness in an interview he conducted with Eboo Patel (video below). As Glenn Greenwald notes, it's sad that the point has to be made but Muslims did not attack on 9/11 - terrorists did. Muslims died on 9/11 and some were 1st responders. Fanatics come in all sizes and of all stripes as far as religions go - if you want to demonize all because of the reprehensible actions of a few the consequences could be more severe than the original attacks and plays into the hands of extremists. There are some unlikely allies on the side of defending the rights of the people who want to build the mosque.



A little something to confuse the climate science denier in your life -- the paradox of Antarctic sea ice. While Arctic sea ice has been diminishing in recent decades, the Antarctic sea ice extent has been increasing slightly. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology provide an explanation for the seeming paradox of increasing Antarctic sea ice in a warming climate.

NYT's Talks Climate Change!

The MSM has been the lap dog of corporate interests for the first decade of this new century. They have deliberately muddied the waters over the issue of ACC (anthropogenic climate change) to the point where most in the west do not believe the changes in the climate have been caused by human activity even though as the National Academy of Sciences reports, 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It's not that the MSM doesn't report what's going on it that it's mixed in with opinions on what's going on and those opinions are given equal weight with scientific fact. So if you haven't been paying close attention to the debate but relying instead on your local fish wrap to keep you informed you can be excused for not knowing what's really taking place.

Well, the extreme weather events that have been taking place around the world this year (floods that have battered New England, Nashville, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Saskatchewan, and a deluge in Pakistan that has one fifth of the country under water and has affected the lives of 20 million people -- summer heat waves that have baked the eastern United States, parts of Africa, eastern Asia, and Russia, which lost millions of acres of wheat and thousands of lives in a drought worse than any other in the historical record), has the MSM outlets finally getting around to reporting on the link between all this and climate change. The New York Times has joined the chorus along with the BBC, Reuters, USA Today and Time all reporting on these long ago predicted consequences.

What's important to remember in the discussion of ACC is that there's a lot more to this than extreme weather. For example the changing climate is the cause of great swaths of pine trees that are dead or dying from a disease called white pine blister rust caused by the the mountain pine beetle. These forests used to be immune because of harsh winters and cool summers. Now, the warmer winters and summers have allowed the beetle to breed quickly and to move to the higher elevations favored by white bark pines.

MSM Wankery Redux

This is a good segue into MSM wankery staring with: I'll bet you weren't aware how vitriolic and relentless the Democrats are. And while all the media talk has been about how those crazy Dems want to do nothing but spend money there's this from Senate Republican Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) who insisted on Sunday that Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans regardless of their impact on the deficit, even as he and other Republicans are blocking unemployment insurance extensions over deficit concerns. Will the media report it? Will the deluded teaparty types notice?


Media Matters chronicles how stories go from Fox news (no matter how inane or insane) to the MSM. In effect they create news and oft times a whole series of news cycles. Rush picks up on one of those stories and proves he's a pig.

Climate Change suggests two scientists could just as well be called Ocean Change. The oceans are choking on greenhouse gases. Our emissions are changing ocean temperature, pH and circulation with wide-ranging effects on biological productivity and ecosystem health. These are among the conclusions of five review articles published in a special feature on the oceans in a recent issue of Science magazine. Go read the whole thing.

A story that should make everyone sit up and take notice, Lake Superior 20 degrees F warmer than normal for this time of year - that's massive!

Even though the Treasury Department estimates that ending the subsidies to bigoil would decrease domestic oil production by less than one half of one percent, an amendment proposed by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would have cut $35 billion in tax subsidies to big oil companies, failed to pass, losing 61-35. Every GOP Senator voted against the measure. The good people over at the Wonk Room explain why and how they continue to get away with this.

Democrats try and unite under a single banner to counter teaparty politics, demanding all the change they voted for.

Anti-Science Cowards Know No Decency

The anti-climate-science crowd are apparently incapable of using the internet for anything other than surfing from one echo-chamber to the next and threatening people they disagree with. The so called "climategate" scandal has long since been debunked, and was in fact not a scandal at all - unless you think they shouldn't have stolen people's personal e-mails. Michael Mann's much maligned hockey-stick graph has been exonerated and while there were some MSM retractions there were no apologies. In fact two stalwart members of the MSM, the New York Times and The Washington Post, actually refused to print an op-ed that was signed by 255 National Academy of Science members defending climate science integrity.

Small wonder then there's so much confusion. The media are only too happy to run with any story that assaults global warming science. Sure they'll retract it later but by then the damage is already done. The narrative has been created and a lot of people are not around when the story is debunked - that's how zombie lies are created.

Those threats I mentioned in the first sentence? A story over at the Guardian chronicles what life has been like for the scientists whose names were mentioned in the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia. They have subsequently faced ...a torrent of death threats and hate mail, leaving them fearing for their lives and one to contemplate arming himself with a handgun. Professor Phil Jones, the UEA scientist at the centre of the hacked email controversy, revealed in February he had been receiving two death threats a week. As scientist Stephen Schneider notes, this is obviously the work of cowards. Go read some of the mails for yourself and see if you don't come to the same conclusion. (Caution: vile and threatening language)

How Dummies Report the Gulf Oil Crisis

From the people at theRealnews.com an incisive look at how the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has been covered by the MSM these past two months. Enjoy!  

Ecosystem of Businesses

If there was anything that was ever emblematic of our corporate fellating culture it was this story from the Guardian about the lawyers fighting to put an end to the moratorium on deep sea drilling in the Gulf. They had the unmitigated gall to say that the ban on drilling was "...destroying an entire "ecosystem of businesses." This in the wake of actual destroyed ecosystems, uncounted dead and dying animals and species that may disappear forever. I say this all the time on my show when I mention the Valdez spill of 21 years ago - the herring never returned.

My only conclusion can be is that they are sociopathic, lying idiots who have no children and never intend to have any. Their entire reason for being is to assist in the rape of the planet, consume all that they possibly can and die, and to hell with life on this planet. They threaten people's jobs even while the have destroyed the livelihoods of untold millions. The amazing thing is that these arguments have resonance with the right and the teaparty and today these arguments stuck and a judge with connections to big oil ruled in their favour and drilling may continue.
This push back by the right and the right-wing media and their uninformed supporters comes amid numerous stories that BP was negligent and even lied to Congress about it.

There is late breaking word on Keith's show that Ken Salazar and the Obama administration will re-impose the ban. Hooray for a modicum of sanity!

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Worst Case Scenarios

I try to avoid anything I can't verify with multiple sources here at the blog. Even when I can find them, if what I'm reading is out there (alarmist), I'll take my time to verify before posting it, knowing that the blogosphere will always be ahead of the MSM.

For the last month I've been tripping across information about the worst case scenario for the spew in the Gulf of Mexico - as if 60,000 barrels pouring in daily weren't bad enough - and been waiting to confirm it. There's no point to my freaking out, right?

So this weekend the MSM manages to stay roughly even with the blogosphere on the oil spew story and report on a document (that somehow got leaked) and reveal BP is worried that the gusher in the Gulf (BP hates it when you call it that) could leak or be leaking as many as 100,000 barrels a day - 4 million gallons or the equivalent of a spill the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez every 3 days. Problem is that's not the worst case scenario I've been reading about. The worst case involves the integrity of the hole itself collapsing and oil gushing into the Gulf at the rate of 150,000 barrels a day. Trust BP to low ball the figures one more time!

The emotional and psychological toll the Exxon Valdez spill took on the residents of the Alaska coastline has been chronicled in some detail, and the same things are expected to occur to Gulf residents but on a much larger scale.

I guess you'll be shocked to read that BP were told of a s safety fault weeks before the explosion.

This makes me smile, kinda'. While the right-wing media, including Limbaugh, double down on the idiocy of Barton's apology to BP and the use of words like "shakedown," to describe the $20 billion escrow account Obama got BP to fund,  Haley Barbour (Gov. R-Miss.) admits it was a smart idea.