Maddow vs Malkin on the Bridge Collapse and the "Kossification" of America

Watch the Youtube Video


Crossposted from the Dkos Rec List

Last night on Countdown Rachel Maddow made a very moving and eloquent case that the Minnesota Bridge Collapse is a perfect symbol of the rot and decay that anti-Government/anti-People Conservatism has wrought.

At the same time on O'Reilly Michelle Malkin - guest hosting for BillO - was making the case that Liberals have begun the "Kossification" of this collapse and just can't help themselves from blaming everything on Conservatives.

Particularly when it's their fault.

The crux of the problem revolves around the age old issue of taxes. Typically Republicans want taxes as low as possible, and sometimes even lower that what's possible under the argument that "government is wasteful and bloated" and the theory that "the free market will provide."

Progressives have a different view, that some tasks are simply too large, too expensive and too unprofitable to expect private industry to perform -- and many of these tasks are fundamental necessities that we simply can't do without.

Thing's like clean breathable air and water. Police, Fire and emergencies services that you can depend on. Access to affordable Health Care. Roads and Bridges that are safe and properly maintained so that they don't come crashing down like a souffle.

Of course there is the argument that Progressives have been a bit quick to assess blame for the Bridge Collapse as this diary explains.

Sure, the entire neo-con evilification of taxes -- a simplistic, mono-syllabic repetition of the notion that all your hard-earned money is simply bled off through liberal-endorsed taxes and then thrown to welfare cheats -- has led to the current situation. Not enough taxes to perform maintenance of infrastructure leads to collapse of roads, bridges, tunnels, etc.

But can the Progressive base please give up a little credit? Only a handful of months ago, Hurricane Katrina caused the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of people.

This bridge collapse killed, what, about a dozen people?

That my friends, is what the neo-con Republicans are doing: learning from their mistakes, killing far fewer people. Hell, by election time, they might be back to only killing Death Row inmates who may actually be guilty of the crimes they were convicted of.

So go up to a neo-con today and thank him or her for not killing quite as many people today as they did last year or the year before. That's real, measurable improvement.

Yes, that's right "We're making good progress" here.

How can we blame Governor Pawlenty for the collapse simply because he vetoed a gas tax measure last year that would have provided more funds for infrastructure projects?

I mean, geez, where's the connection here? It's not like Pawlenty has suddenly decided to do an about face and reconsider that measure in the aftermath of the collapse, right? (Psst.. He has)

Just consider these comments by Senator Klobuchar:

We're spending half a trillion dollars in Iraq, while our bridges are collapsing at home. Our priorities are "messed up"

Then there's Senator Rep. Louise Slaughter who claimed:

The bridge victims are "almost victims of war, because out perpetual war depletes the funds to maintain our infrastructure"

During the segment Keith pointed out that some estimates are that it would take over $100 Billion to bring all of the bridges who need repairs among the 500,000 in this country up to par while we've spent over three times that in Iraq (in a War that we've essentially lost)

Rachel made several critical points.

- There aren't "Republican Bridges and Democratic Bridges".

- We in the country are paying a heavy price for a brand of conservatism that hates and demeans government.

- (Republicans claim that) Any spending on "the common good" is somehow "soft headed and suspect"

- (The legacy of Reagan and Goldwater is) a country that's just falling apart.

- Just this weak the President used anti-tax rhetoric to explain why he's going to veto kid's health insurance and a waste water infrastructure bills.

- If you only look at bridges that carry 190,000 cars a day, there are at least 20 that rate worse than that bridge that collapsed

- Historically 80% of highway money comes from the federal government, this White House would like to make this seem like a "State Problem"

None of these points are things you're were likely to hear from Michelle Malkin as she attempted to point a finger at Democrats - for finger pointing.

Watch Video


Malkin:

Tragedy brings out the best in people and the worst in people. The first instinct of many heroes at the collapse site was to save others first rather than save themselves, the first instinct of many armchair observers on the left was to "point their finger rather than lift a finger"

Yeah, because we wouldn't want to consider how any of this might have happened or how we can prevent in it the future would we? Right.

Continued:

The Radical Left-Wing DailyKos Fumed:

We spend billions on Iraq while things fall apart at home

Y'know I put that quote into the site search and iI couldn't find it. Malkin's graphic claims this was a "Kos Statement" that was made on August 1st, so I checked the front page diaries for that day.

Nada.

I looked at posts made specifically by Kos Himself - Nothing.

But I didn't give up, cuz I'm not a quitter or anything - I tried searching for comments and bingo - I found it. from the Liveblog on the accident.

We spend billions in Iraq (190+ / 0-)

While we fall apart at home.

"You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis." - Tyler Durden

by RandySF on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 04:36:57 PM PDT

Guess what Mr. RandySF? You are now infamous for apparently daring to make a partisan (yet true) statement on a partisan website.

The shear nerve - what were you thinking? That taxes and spending on things people need might have something to do with what happens when they don't get those things?

It's not like Senators from Minnesota and New York haven't said the same damn thing.

Fucking Kossacks must have put them up to it. Had to be. They couldn't have made the connection between taxes and government priorities all on their own.

More Malkin (if you can stomach it).

But it wasn't just anonymous (not anymore) commenters playing the "Blame Game", Air America radio host Randy Rhodes - famous (!?!) for joking about the assassination of President Bush - railed...

... so here we are wasting a trillion dollars in Iraq, protecting that lie at all costs, right? Wiretapping our own citizenry so that nobody gets to uppity about that trillion being spent. And it takes like a quarter of that to repair our infrastructure... and nothing's being spent. The bridge collapse is the result of wasting a trillion dollars in Iraq

CNN's Jack Cafferty slavishly regurgitate the same talking points...

In light of the Minnesota Bridge collapse, how could America better spend the two billion dollars were pouring into Iraq here at home?

And when asked how he would find money for bridge repair, Democrat (sic) Congressmen Barney Frank claimed he would
"End the War in Iraq."

Now I have to admit that Randy was clearly way off the mark with her comments. They were obviously over-the-top and completely uncalled for because we all know damn well ... It's only Half A $Trillion.

Well, So far...

But what brilliant point did Malkin make to show that everything these people had said was completely unfair and unreasonable? How did she expertly prove them all wrong in their desperate attempt to equate spending priorities with - um - spending priorities?

Read and weep. I did.

The Leftists have lost their heads. Infrastructure problems have existed in Minneapolis and across the country for decades, long before George W. Bush took office, long before the invasion of Iraq.

It's a bi-partisan failure, that needs bi-partisan fixing.

So, where are all the Democrat (sic) leaders who will condemn the poisonous Kossification of public discourse in a time of crisis? They're all at the Dailykos Convention pandering to the leftists who would rather burn political bridges than help build them.

Oh I see, Republicans are now the party of Fixing Stuff! They want to be shiny-happy bi-partisan people now that their policies are doing a prat fall onto the Mississippi river?

Let's not criticize or point out the freaking obvious in the midst of a time of crisis, that would be "burning bridges."

So while President Bush is threatening to veto CHILDRENS HEALTH CARE and infrastructure bills - we're supposed to expect him and his party to actually help "fix this problem" while they continue their War without End and stick the children they won't even give health care with the bill?

Tell me something, how are they going to Privatize this? Are we going to start a fire sale on all of our Interstate Highways now?

You are now traveling on I-10 - Brought to you by the good folks at Monsanto!

Is that how it's going to work? We'll have no more taxes, but every bridge will be a toll bridge owned and operated by a corporate entity, just like most of our Sports Stadiums have become.

Can't afford pay the toll? Sorry, you don't go to work today. Never mind school, and forget that trip to the Hospital - you're Ambulance just got stuck at the Walmart Pass.

Is that how's it's supposed to work?

Wasn't it the Bush Government that has wasted $Billions on Katrina Spending by putting the money in the hands of private industry and the Defense Department.

Across the 91 counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama designated as Katrina disaster areas, 57 percent of residents say most of the approximately $44 billion the federal government has spent on hurricane recovery in the last year has been wasted -- and that rises to 66 percent in New Orleans, an ABC News poll finds.

While billions more in government funds and services remain unspent and unused almost two years later?

Over the last year, FEMA has became a four letter word often used by survivors when venting out frustrations, and now Louisiana state officials are taking on the weight of the heightened tension by residents, city leaders, and parish leaders who have voiced complaints about the crawling pace of the storm recovery. Much of the growing tension between state and local officials in Louisiana stems from delays in federal programs that were established to reimburse local officials for a number of infrastructure projects, including road repairs, public building construction and debris removal.

FEMA has paid the state of Louisiana roughly $5.1 billion to reimburse local officials for infrastructure projects following Katrina, but only about $2 billion of that money has reached communities nearly 18 months after the storm that had 80 percent of the city of New Orleans under water. Other towns were wiped off of the map entirely.

Where is the rest of money?

And oh, by the way the temporary trailers provided by FEMA for Hurricane survivors are toxic.

For nearly a year now, the ubiquitous FEMA trailer has sheltered tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. But there is growing concern that even as it staved off the elements, it was exposing its inhabitants to a toxic gas that could pose both immediate and long-term health risks.

The gas is formaldehyde, the airborne form of a chemical used in a wide variety of products, including composite wood and plywood panels in the thousands of travel trailers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency purchased after Katrina to house hurricane victims. It also is considered a human carcinogen, or cancer-causing substance, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That's a Heckuvajob you guys are doing there Michelle. Heckuvajob.

Let's get one thing straight, yes, there are and have been infrastructure problems ever since we - or rather Democrat(sic) President Franklin Roosevelt - built the infrastructure. The issue here isn't the infrastructure itself, it's maintenance and upkeep of our critical resources. Y'know, those things that Republicans Historically Don't give a SHIT about?

We're not the ones who've "burned the bridges" with harsh words here - you guys are with your actions.

But if you guys really want to come to the plate and start doing your damn job of helping safeguard the people of this nation instead of fear mongering about "killers who are going to hurt our families" while our food is full of toxic chemicals, stop demeaning and demonizing the poor and the infirm while shipping their jobs overseas, stop giving massive subsidies to companies that refuse to provide health care to their employees, stop spending all your energy finding ways to bash those "Damn Dirty Democrats" and actually begin to Protect. The. Homeland....

You know where to find us (probably getting more and more Kossified by the minute)!

Vyan

O'Reilly uses Dennis Miller to rebuild himself after being Destroyed by Dodd

Here's one of my favorite exchanges from Lethal Weapon I

Murtagh: God hates me, that's what it is.

Riggs: Hate him back, works for me.

It is pretty pathetic when you get your head handed to you on your own show as O'Reilly did when he tried to challenge Chris Dodd, but it's even worse that after you lose you have to try and rehabilitate yourself with a 5th rate hack of a comedian like Dennis Miller as your sole cheerleader.



Miller claims for starters that O'Reilly ratings are "8 Times" that of Kos, while the best sources I can find indicate that the Factor has a viewership of 2.1Million while Kos averages about 650,000 visits per day.

So now that we've dispensed with that particular whopper he continues with...

Not only has he not watched "The Factor", he's never read the Dailykos

Sorry, but not only does Chris Dodd read Dailkos -- Chris Dodd writes on Dailykos. He's a contributor just as John Kerry, John Edwards, John Conyers and many other prominent Democrats are. When you say as Michelle Malkin did that "Kos is a sewer from top to bottom" including all diarists with this broad brush you're also saying that about several of our current Presidential Candidates.

Now, I would agree with the premise that Dodd has indeed been savvy to use O'Reilly to increase his own profile in the Democratic primary - franky there isn't a downside for him to point out O'Reilly's incessant lies. (Not a precise transcript)

Miller: He's looking up (in the polls) at Dennis Kucinich's behind. He just wanted to come on here to smack you around so that it would make him a big man at this Kos thing this weekend.

O'Reilly: I agree with you. But don't you think the audience sees through it and knows the game?

Miller: No, I don't think most of you're audience does.

Which for most of O'Reilly's blue-haired audience is clearly a true statement and of course why Miller has temporarily interrupt their chasing the neighborhood kids off their lawn, by doing this little Kubuki theater and explain it to them..

More of Miller's sparkling wit.

That convention is a loser-fest, I mean there are hooker's who've put an embargo on that convention

Yeah, well maybe that's because Democrats simply can't live up to the shining example of republicans like Senator Vitter.

After his segment with Miller, O'Reilly reads some mail where one of his viewers claims that a search turned up 7 thousand mentions of the "F-Word" on Kos, but none of Free Republic.

Well using the Google I did that search and actually found 650,000 mentions of "Fuck" and "DailKos", the first being "Fuck Off Democrats" (Clearly, this was a very old post since these days diaries with the F-Word in the title using get edited to "F*ck" or something equally clever)

The problem here is that this search produced a lot of non-Kos results, so I refined it to "dailykos.com,fuck" which specifically came from the Kos site and the results dropped to a measly 27,000.

I know I may be skewing these results by writing this post, but y'know what - Fuck it!

How'd I do with Free Republic? Well the first simple search (including outside sites) netted about 119,000. Not as many as Kos, but not exactly "zero."

This one from Ornicus I simply couldn't let slip by.

FUCK YOU YA GODDAMN LEFTIST PUKES AND DON'T EVEN THINK OF FUCKING WITH FREE REPUBLIC MOTHERFUCKERS! WE WILL BEAT YOU DOWN IN THE STREETS NEXT FALL! ...

Tsk. Such a potty-mouth.

When that is narrowed specifically to the freerepublic site only the result - ta da - is 557.

But then again, maybe my presumption here is entirely wrong. The letter said the "F-Word" and y'know that could be something besides "Fuck", it could also be Ann Coulter's favorite word - "Faggot"

Redoing the exact same site specific search for Free Republic turned up 1,740 results.

And Kos?

(Drum roll....

651!"

Interestingly most of the mentions on Kos are discussing Ann Coulter and various uses of the word, and while typical use on Freepervile is similar that isn't always the case as exampled from this one post concerning the rape and assault of a gay man in the castro district by two allegedly black assailants...

I’m getting some serious schadenfreude off watching liberal victim groups collide in San Cramcrisco.

Ha! Exactly! Without the evil white heterosexual male to beat up on who do the liberals & MSM root for in this "minority" vs "minority" spectacle?
9 posted on 07/24/2007 1:26:00 PM PDT by Altura Ct.

And

To: AppyPappy
They kept saying 'faggot' over and over again," whispers the 51-year-old owner of a video store in the Castro district. "It went on for what seemed like forever."

Sounds to me that it was only his feelings that got hurt. Those guys are really sensitive you know......

I remember a spanking I gave one of my girlfriends once. I kept calling her the "B" word for what seemed like forever..........she never got mad.
10 posted on 07/24/2007 1:26:26 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco

So yeah, Kossacks do love to use the F-word, but then again they really aren't the type of people to go all schadenfreude when one white male heterosexual viciously another white male heterosexual, like say when George Allen's security team attacked Mike Stark - but I admit we did enjoy watching how the Mark Foley Follies decimated the Republican Congress.

The point though, isn't whose more vicious, mean and hateful - they are, but that's not the point - it's who has the ear of our politicians, whose being more effective at motiving real people to commit to real change in our politics and country and just how deeply does that scare O'Reilly and his ilk?

The winner is clearly Dailykos as reviews from from YK2 clearly indicate.

And most of this online activism is being dominated by the left. Robert Bluey, a conservative blogger for the Heritage Foundation, notes that there isn't anything comparable on the right. While former Sen. Fred Thompson has assembled a talented Net team for his unofficial presidential run and Ron Paul and Mitt Romney have been fairly innovative online, nothing they are doing comes close.

The prominence of the upcoming event, which features 200 speakers and is expected to draw crowds of more than 1,400, may be a wake-up call for the less Internet-savvy organizations and candidates.

"So this is a lesson to the center and a real lesson to the Republican candidates," Cornfield says. "If you want to win elections in the digital age, you have to have a network; you have to have digital grass roots."

The one point that Dodd made repeatedly and BillO never even touched, is the fact that even if we were as polite as church mice - he would still attack us simply because we represent and growing and present threat to the status quo of media elites and the conservative syncophants like himself.

Dailykos is ushering forward the changing of the guard on our democracy and that's what makes Billo so frightened and he should be frightened.

He hates us for who we are, not what we say - but that's ok, most of us are happy to hate him (and everything he stands for) right back.

Vyan

Why O"Reilly will never understand Dkos or Democracy

In the last few weeks Dailykos has become the latest target of serial propogandist Bill O'Reilly who has repeatedly attacked the site as being "vile" and "filled with hate", but his real target has been the Democratic Presidential front-runners who have dared to appear at this weeks YearlyKos Conference.

By smearing Kos, he smears them en masse.

We all understand this, and today Democratic Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd will make this point loud and clear on O'Reilly's own show.

However, there's another less obvious but actually more important reason the Dkos has become the target of O'Reilly - one which no matter how hard they try, BillO and his fans will never truly understand.

Bill O'Reilly doens't understand the first thing about Dkos.

For one thing, the picture he's gotten so hot and bothered about can't even be posted onto the site. It would have to be hosted by an image site such as flickr or photobucket for bandwidth concerns first, which it isn't.

The date the pic was uploaded that this particular directory was July 30th, so how has it supposed been on the site for "a year?" (I'm not saying it hasn't, just that this version hasn't been and can't be shown on the site now)

Secondly, the picture is clearly an editorial cartoon which is clearly protected under frespeach rules as shown unanimous Flynt v Falwell Supreme Court decision.

Someone of us may not like it or agree with it, but it's clearly protected speech.

Anyway...

It's easy to understand that many among us, front-pagers included, have responded to O'Reilly attack with an impressive counter-attack of our own.

We've hit him for being a hypocrit who talks about the "hate" of Kos while sprewing his own special and piping hot brand of venom on others with whom he disagrees with fairly regular abandon.

We've pointed out at length the details of court documents showing that his own behavior with subordinate co-workers has been the very definition of "vile".

We've even had one Kossack - of his own volition - personally visit O'Reilly at his home and challenge him on these very points.

It's been a lively battle with the Yearlykos site losing the JetBlue Logo (but not their support) while O'Reilly's site has lost the support of both Lowe's and Home Depot and gained the attention of the Secret Service, but the battle itself isn't the point.

Dailykos represents and displays something that O'Reilly and his authoritarian ilk simply can't abide.

On most sites, O'Reilly's included, when someone makes a comment or posts an image that is considered "out of bounds" there is a cadre of moderators - officials - who have the specific job of policing the site, deleting the offending content and if required banning the user.

It's a top down heirarchy.

The site owners and managers dictate and everyone else must obey or suffer the consequences. It's a structure that power whores like O'Reilly are comfortable with, but that's not exactly how Dkos works.

When Mike Stark announced his visit to O'Reilly's home in retaliation to his attacks - the Dkos community was not entirely pleased with him. The community rebuked his actions.

Mike Start doesn't speak for me.

Mike Stark is not Micheal Moore.

Although it has to be said that view was far from universal.

Mike Stark did Good.

The point here is that unlike most sites where the moderators are the ones controlling things - we control things ourselves. By the use of the Recommend/Troll system individual users can gain the power to block offensive or objectional material without the invervention of the powers from on high.

Guess what Bill, there's actually stuff on Kos that's much worse than anything you've ever imagined or claimed but you can't see it because we've already taken care of it.

Most of it is simply right-wing partisan talking points and attempts to bait us into a petty arguement such as these.

fisa (0+ / 5-)

I believe congress should be involved with fica as far a information not control. To leave the Attorney General out of the mix is impossible would never happen. With respect to Impeachment of the Attorney General will never happen. Your inherent contempt of Harriett Miers for being contemptuous to Congress is nothing more than what Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter would do.Why are we wasting our time on tying to destroy our President and our Country no laws have been broken.It is disgraceful!

by ryan7777

Or

Why do Liberals hate America? (0+ / 7-)

Why do you hate everything about this Country? You bitch about freedom and yet stand ready to take away my right to speak out against abortion or homosexually or even my right to defend myself.
Your people voted for this war based upon the intell at the time but now it's ok for Hillary to bash the war and Bush. Bush has admitted mistakes where is his rights?

by potassiumnitrate

But every once in a while you get this...

Someone who has to stick their foot in a bucket (0+ / 5-)

5 times a day to preserve their immortal soul is an idiot.

by tigercourse

Or

* [new] How do you people... (0+ / 5-)

manage to butter a slice of bread without cutting your arm off? Do you have government employees there to keep you safe?

by DixonBalzer

If you haven't been on Dkos for a while and become a "trusted user" by gaining the respect of others, you won't even see these comments - but they're there.

On Kos the People literally have the power and that's what genuinely frightens O'Reilly. We have become a media force of our own, we do our own research, we gather our own facts, we submit our own editorial content - without the filtering of the elite overlords such as O'Reilly - but that hasn't made us "all powerful".

Billy likes to claim that the Democratic candidates are the one "running scared" of Kos - but if that were true most of them would have already endorsed the Impeachment of George W. Bush which happens to e a very big subject around here.

If we had the power O'Reilly thinks we have, John Conyers wouldn't have shown Cindy Sheehan the door when she came to his office to insist on that very thing last month. Her ultimatum would have been headed and she wouldn't now be planning to run against Nancy Pelosi.

We are powerful, but not that powerful - not yet.

On the other hand the right-wing has had it's own pseudo-equivelent to Kos and the Netroots for quite some time, and that is Right-wing Radio.

It was Right-Wing Radio that torpedoed the nomination of Harriet Miers to the bench. It was Right-Wing Radio that scuttled the Immigration Bill. A small group of elites, including Limbaugh, Malkin and - Bill O'Reilly - managed to set the agenda by stirring up their loyal synchophants and setting them loss upon the pour unsuspecting Congress people and President.

On DKos - the opposite happens.

THE PEOPLE come together, debate, argue and eventually find consensus to proceed forward on a particular issue. Nobody, sometimes not even Kos, tells us what to do or how to do it. We're figuring that out on our own.

Every once in a while someone like John Conyers or John Kerry, or John Edwards will come here to rally support for a particular issue - but generally, we make our own decisions, we manage our own backyard - we don't take orders or cower to threats from people like Bill O'Reilly.

Y'see if you want to really piss off a Bully - all you have to do is stand up to him, particular if you don't stand alone - right Senator Dodd?

We're standing right here, Bill - the Democratic Candidates, who unlike you all understand the power of personal politics and are standing right besides us - neither we nor they are going anywhere.

Y'know what that burning feeling is at the bottom of your blackened heart, Bill?

It's fear - and frankly, you should be scared. Very scared, because the people here and all over the rest of this country are going to completely transform your world.

Count on it.

Vyan

First they Ignore You, Then they Ridicule You...

m
Then they Fight You, then You Win."

So sayeth Mahatma Gandhi, in describing the various stages of effective non-violent resistance to oppression. Using the strategy of moral persuasian Ghandi, like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who followed him, successfully freed India from the yoke of British rule. Similarly we hear on dailykos and other various sites have taken up the no less difficult task of redirecting our ship of state away from war-mongering, rampant corporatism and full-on totalitarianism.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Netroots as of this week we have just entered Stage 3 and so far our prospects of entering Stage 4 have all lights showing green.

It's not as if last November's elections weren't a serious hint that the way of things may just be shifting, today we will see a Congressmen openly call for the Impeachment of Alberto Gonzales following his horrific performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This didn't happen because of the work of intrepid reporters of the major papers who continued to dig and dig until they finally reached down and pulled out the hidden nuggets of truth, it's happened largely in spite of the lapdog media.

It's happened because of the blogs.

And now the cultural overlords and power whores of the right-wing have finally realized and admitted just who and what the genuine threat to their continued regime is -- it's the people.

The first real hints that the Netroots had become a major target of the rightwing began not long ago when Bill Kristol claimed that Markos was "not respectable" just three years ago. (Which in turn conceeds that he is respectible and respected now - which ultimately is the point and exactly why they have attacked him and us.)

The Daily Kos, Think Progress, and a host of other lefty blogs seem to be shocked that someone might question the respectability of Markos Moulitsas... Is [this] the kind of thing respectable people say?

We can see it as several republicans blow-off their CNN Youtube debate. Y'see, these guys are just like President G.H.W. Bush 15 years ago who thought talking to MTV News was "beneath the status of his office" until he was finally and very grudgingly forced have a brief and terse interview with Tabitha Soren.

Novakula does a good job of summing it up.

Appearing on Bloomberg Television this weekend, Novak said of the YouTube debate, “I thought it was really disgusting. ... The reporters were terrible but this was ludicrous.” Novak argued, “You know when we did away with the monarchy and went through democracy, there was a lot of fear that this sort of thing would happen. It took 200 years but we got there.”

That's right, what they truly crave is a return to a Monarchy where our leaders are chosen, ordained and guided solely by GOD, unconcerned with justifying or even explaining their actions to the lowly serfs and commoners (or Congress), those who should feel proud and honored to serve the needs of the new corporate aristocracy, to implement the bidding of their masters and betters no matter how costly or deadly it might be to them personally. Authoritians such as these have little patience or faith in the ability of the unwashed masses to govern themselves via "democracy", hence they have invented the "Unitary Executive" theory to bring back the theocracy of their wet-dreams.

It doesn't matter if the Reich-wing likes or agree with us, right now the most important thing is that they have noticed us and have been forced to respond. They can't afford to ignore us anymore and they know it.

But now they've moved from snubs, this type of ridicule - to out and out attacks.

Now we have Tfucker Carlson just going out of his way to excuse two right-wing war-mongering shills against those "Hysterical Bloggers" like Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald.

This afternoon on MSNBC, Tucker Carlson expressed sympathy for Brookings analyst Kenneth Pollack, who has been “slammed by the left” all day. “It’s worth pointing out that you were not an apologist for the administration,” said Carlson. “You’ve been really tough on them.” Carlson said that the response to the New York Times op-ed by Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon has been “over the top” by the blogosphere, which is “a pretty hysterical place anyway.” He went on to criticize a post by Glenn Greenwald, whose name he repeatedly mispronounced.

Yeah, right - Glenn Greenwald whose second a book "A Tragic Legacy" debuted on the New York Times Best Sellers list in it's first week of release is just another "internet crackpot" Sure.

Carlson attempts to demean Greenwald by mispronouncing his name (a tactic I clearly am not above using myself - turnabout is fairplay), but his intent is obvious - "Who is this nobody who dares to challenge the anointed elites? I didn't see him at the correspondent dinner with Karl Rove last month..."

Over and over, the theme and intent is clear. Just as Rove himself told Sheryl Crow and Laurie David - "I work for the American People". Which clearly doesn't include those two "low-life tree-hugging environut skanks", does it?

Or when elite CNN Uber Doctor extraordinaire Sanjay Gupta petulantly berated that big fat oscar winner Micheal Moore for not having his "facts correct" while making two mistakes in his own report and failing to prove that any of Moore's data was mistaken.

Step by step, the "Little People" are making a difference - the powerful and the privileged are getting more and more scared, more and more paranoid and more and more "hysterical" themselves.

The best example of course is the self-styled Jihad by Bully O'Leilly against Dailykos.

It is true that Billo was able to get JetBlue to cower and have their logo removed from the YearlyKos site, although they are still involved with the event -- however in return he's taken more than just a cosmetic hit with the pullout of Lowe's from advertising on his program.

But as things continue it appears that O'Reilly may have just stepped on his own dick and woken a very ferocious and hungry tiger, which unlike Billo himself - isn't made of paper.

By attacking directly and openly, BillO has made a massive strategic blunder - rather than remaining in Stage 1 and ignoring us as he's been doing with Keith Olbermann for the past two years, he's skipped right past "Go" and gone right to Stage 3 with his attacks. Now the big orange eye of the Kos is fixed directly on Billy and it's not like he doesn't have a ton of bones lying around in his closet and elsewhere.

When it comes to accusing anyone else of "Hate-mongering" Bill O'Reilly is that last person with a leg to stand on as he clearly showed when he cut the mike of his own co-correspondent when she dared to "tell him the truth."

During the July 26 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly claimed to have "exposed" the Daily Kos blog "as a hate website" and went on to criticize the decision by some Democratic presidential candidates to attend the YearlyKos convention. In response, Fox News contributor Jane Hall said to him, "You had hateful comments on your website about [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY]."

O'Reilly then claimed: "No, I didn't. We took them off." He later added, "That's a lie, and I can't let you say a lie on this broadcast." After cutting Hall's microphone, O'Reilly again asserted, "I can't let Jane lie. We don't allow hateful comments on BillOReilly.com. When they come up and we find them, we take them off."

In fact, as of 5 p.m. ET on July 27, several comments about Clinton that were documented by Americablog (here, here, and here) remain on O'Reilly's website, including one that has led Huffington Post blogger Lane Hudson to ask for a Secret Service investigation:

No, they didn't take the comments off - nor did they take these comments off --

Rosie is indeed a pig, a liar, a total sham. She makes me sick. Nothing she says or does can be justified by any reasonable American. The best thing that could happen to Rosie.. well I will keep that to myself.. but it would have something to do with her not existing any longer... : ) - 05 Jul 2007 - 10:53 AM PT

-- but they did ban John Aravosis of America blog for having exposed those comments to the light of day.

Tonight O'Reilly continued his attack claiming that a comedic picture of Joe Lieberman and President Bush is reason for the Democratic candidates to shun Yearlykos.

O'Reilly: This is what the Kos traffic's in. The fact that these democratic candidates would support a website with a picture like that - is hard to believe.

Agree with him or not, Senator Lieberman is a Patriot and a man of conviction. Right now he's opposing the loons in the Senate who don't want to protect American citizens who report possible terrorist activity from lawsuits. Lieberman deserves respect, not hatred.

And just what do those "Loons in the Senate" (who happen to be actual Democrats) deserve? Sometimes Bill just can't help himself from throwing in an insult and ad hominem jab even while he's trying to argue for comity and reasonableness.

Incredible.

Just out of curiosity, since this user has not just one image in his directory - I took a look to see what other despicable and disgusting images he might have.

It was shocking - truly shocking. (Warning these pics are not for the squeamish, weak of stomach, light-headed or for that matter Reality Challenged Republicans)

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.











Now, which do you think was truly the most offensive picture - the non-photoshopped images from Abu Ghraib, the image of a White Phosphorous burned baby from Fallujah or the one that got O'Reilly's panties in a bunch?

Then you have the latest revelations that in additional to losing Lowe's as an advertiser and his impending problems with the Secret Service, according to court documents O'Reilly just may have just done for himself what that big bad dirty picture shows Leiberman doing to George Bush.

Let me just say "Ewwww!" while also wondering if this is why the Lieber-job picture fascinates and titilates him so much?

Admittedly some on Kos may indeed "traffic" in some rather crude and juvenile humor, but by comparison exactly what is it that the Bush Administration is their enablers like O'Reilly have been trafficking in these last six years?

In the end, this battle is far more likely to leave O'Reilly and his ilk alone and deserted by the willing serfs they depend upon to lift them unto their lofty positions when they ultimately push their bombast and hate speech just one notch too far - ala Imus - than it is likely to permanently damage Kos, other people powered media sites or his real targets - the Democratic Candidates who have agreed to attend Yearlykos.

As Gandhi also said.

We must always seek to ally ourselves with that part of the enemy that knows what is right.

Although they may have cut themselves off from it in their zest for power and control - somewhere deep down people like O'Reilly and his fans really do know the difference between right and wrong, truth and fantasy, even it may take some form of national intervention to finally get them to admit it.

Like Gandhi, like King and like Mandela, as long as we continue to fight for reality, truth and right we will ultimately prevail.

I have no doubt.

Vyan

Update The Battle just jumped up several notches today as Mike Stark of CallingAllWingNuts.com has put up pics from a surprise visit to O'Reilly's Home including a brief interview (emulating O'Reilly's own ambush of JetBlue's CEO) and the placing "Pervert" signs around his neighborhood.





I suspect this wake up call was the last thing Falafel boy was expecting since he "Killed" Dailykos yesterday. My they are pretty spry for ghosties.

How many people expect O'Lielly is going to have an absolutely Meltdown Tonight? Think he'll sick the dreaded forces of Fox Security on Mike once again?

Stay tuned.

King's X - Alone

King's X - Alone



High under-rated, highly misunderstood, heavily ignored and fantastically talented - this threesome from Texas just may be the greatest power-trio of this Century or the previous one. King's X are your rulers, accept no substitues.

Vayn

Pantera - Revoution is my Name

Pantera - Revolution is My Name

Conservatives Refuse to Defend Gonzo on Faux

Newt Gingrich appearing on Fox News Sunday today stated that it appears that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have perjured himself. Hm, Ya think?

Youtube Video

Gingrich: Both the president and country are better served if the attorney general is a figure of competence. Sadly, the current attorney general is not seen as any of those things. I think it’s a liability for the president. More importantly, it’s a liability for the United States of America.

But Gingrich isn't the only, every prominent Conservative that Fox asked to give "Gonzo's Side" of the story refused to do it.

Chris Wallace: “By the way, we invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales,” said Wallace. “We had no takers.”

Frankly people, that is stunning. I didn't think I'd see the day when the cabal of Neo-ConArtist inside the Beltway would actually put down Bush's water, but it seems they just might have finally done it.

More from Thinkprogress.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), appearing on ABC’s This Week, said “of course” Gonzales has a credibility problem. On MSNBC’s Hardball on Friday, Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT), the ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, squirmed when asked by host Chris Matthews if he thought Gonzales “is a good attorney general?” Cannon refused to answer the question, offering instead, “He’s a good guy.”

National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg, a reliable partisan defender of the Bush administration, admitted on Thursday that the evidence against Gonzales is compelling. “I think Gonzales has long, long, long outserved whatever usefulness he might once have had,” wrote Goldberg. “And — hey — maybe he actually did perjure himself.”

But it's not a total shutout, riding high where all Republicans Now Fear to Tread you can count on the New York Times to come to Gonzo's rescue.

A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.

Y'see, strategic leaks from the Bush Admin indicate that the dispute between Gonzo and the Senate was simply about the "Data Mining" program which is an extention or portion of the "Terrorist Surveillance Program". Rather than tracking international phone calls without a warrant as the NSA does, this is a process used to track international/domestic e-mail traffic using various telecom providers such as AT&T Bellsouth and Verizon, not to mention millions of terabytes of personal information about American Citizens which the FBI has simply gone out and bought.

Right, it's a completely different program of warrantless eavesdropping on American Citizens that Comey, Ashcroft and over 30 DOJ officials were going to resign over. This one doesn't violate FISA, it just violates the Telecom Act of 1996 which states that private information about suscribers can not be shared with the government without a warrant.

Problem solved, right?

Urm, not quite as Glenn Greenwald points out.

This leak would be arguably exculpatory for Gonzales only if it reported that data mining was the only source of the Comey/Ashcroft objections, not merely one of the sources. But both articles explicitly states that there were other grounds for those objections besides data mining, leaving open -- rather than resolving -- the only relevant questions: did those objections, contrary to Gonzales' sworn testimony, relate to the "TSP's" warrantless eavesdropping?

Of course there is one person who continues to defend Gonzo, and that of course would be ole' Snowjob.

Following extremely damaging testimony by FBI Direct Meuller indicating that it was the same program that Comey described, Tony Snow said that Gonzales “was speaking consistently.”

Snow has also stated when asked about Gonzo's credibility problems.

QUESTION: But has it reached the point for the attorney general to — he’s lost his effectiveness and his credibility?

SNOW: Well, you know, what’s interesting is that there have been all these hearings on the attorney general and yet nobody’s really laid a glove on him. [...] At this point, we have hundreds of hearings that have produced bupkis.

"Bupkis"? Really Mr. Bahgdad... er. Snow?

You might get some strenuous disagreement to that in some surprising places. Like the NYTimes, showing that they haven't completely swallowed the Kool-aid today, with this editorial that calls for Gonzo's Impeachment.

As far as we can tell, there are three possible explanations for Mr. Gonzales’s talk about a dispute over other — unspecified — intelligence activities. One, he lied to Congress. Two, he used a bureaucratic dodge to mislead lawmakers and the public: the spying program was modified after Mr. Ashcroft refused to endorse it, which made it “different” from the one Mr. Bush has acknowledged. The third is that there was more wiretapping than has been disclosed, perhaps even purely domestic wiretapping, and Mr. Gonzales is helping Mr. Bush cover it up.

Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

Amen to that.

Vyan

Was Pat Tillman Murdered for being Anti-Bush?

Friday on Countdown Keith Olbermann reported the new information the Army Ranger and Former NFL Star Pat Tillman was not only killed via "Fratricide" (Friendly Fire) but that it might also have been a deliberate act of murder due the close grouping of three M-16 shots in his forehead.

But not only that, could Tillman have been killed for his political views?

From Thinkprogress.

"Was the man the White House used to promote the war ordered to be killed because he was becoming increasingly critical of the war in Iraq?"

Watch Video from Countdown

Could it be that Tillman was fragged for bad mouthing Bush?

The idea of fragging a war critic may seem an extreme proposition, unless of course you happen to be a darling of the Right-wing like Ann Coulter.

On June 20 and 21, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter refused to explain -- and even expanded upon -- her recent claim that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) is "the reason soldiers invented fragging,"

On Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Coulter further expanded upon her statement, asserting that if Murtha "did get fragged, he'd finally deserve one of those Purple Hearts."

So it's not like what is being suggested here is entirely "unthinkable"- it's already been thought of in regards to those who have the temerity to dare question and criticize the Wars of Georege W. Bush.

Thinkprogress Continued...

Last night on MSNBC’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann noted that "Corporal Tillman held a number of personal views that were unpopular within the context of the Bush administration, perhaps also within the Army." Tillman reportedly favored John Kerry in the presidential election, opposed the invasion of Iraq, and had plans to meet with Noam Chomsky.

Speaking on Countdown Jon Stolz of VoteVets.org posed the question.

We know he was a free thinker. But it leads you to think was this guy killed possibly by people that didn’t like his political views or was he killed accidentally? We had a time in the war when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April 2004 in Iraq; we had basically the Iraqi Tet offensive where the Shiite militias rose up and the contractors were burned at the stake; the President was facing the election and he decided not to go into Fallujah for six months. Did they use him to justify, politically, bad policy in Iraq?

It may be a bit premature to neccesarily assign motives to what was clearly a tragic occurance - but the odd intensity of secrecy the Bush Administration has shown in exerting executive priviledge to block congresstional inquiries concerning this incident may be illustrative.

We already know that Tillman was shot by a fellow soldier, isn't that bad enough - what more could there be to hide?

Maybe the possibility that it wasn't an accident.

The Associated Press reported that in the last moments before Tillman died, another soldier was hugging the ground at Tillman’s side, and Tillman said, "Would you shut your [expletive] mouth? God’s not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling –"

I've never served, or been involved in a situation with comrades whose lives depend on me as much as I depend on them, but it seems to me that there were some serious personal issues at play between Tillman and the person he was speaking too. Comments such as those clearly have History.

If these were indeed his last words on earth (and this has been heavily disputed) then the public and his family absolutely deserve to know if he was shot by the person he was yelling at - or someone else not involved in the scuffle. Either way, we're they just plain careless with their weapon, did they perceive Tillman's aggressive words as a threat and the last straw in a long standing arguement, did they simply have a momentary flash of rage and poor judgement or was it something else entirely.

The Tillman shooting occurred fairly early in our campaigns in both Afghanistan and Iraq, after several years of extended deployments, stop-loss, improperly and untreated cases of PTSD since the wars began there have been 116 confirmed cases of Soldier Suicide.

Latest official figures released by the Pentagon reveal at least 116 self-inflicted fatalities in Iraq. But this does not include several dozen still under investigation, nor any of the many cases back in the U.S.

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported the latest example today. It revealed that an Iraq war veteran reported missing in northern Minnesota -- and suffering from post-traumatic stress -- had been found dead.

With the tragedies of both Haditha and Moumoudiya now on record, Tillman's shooting just might have been an early warning sign that has gone unheaded.

Vyan