This afternoon on MSNBC we got a great taste of how right-wing talking heads can easily loose it. In two different segments, right wing talk radio hose Steve Malzberg was debating former Air America host Mike Malloy on Foleygate then later on teachers having guns in school. In both instances Malzberg attacked the MSNBC host.
Jerry Springer is a household name. From his hit television show to his great show on Air America, Jerry is out there and very popular.
I have known of Jerry my entire life. Growing up in Cincinnati, Jerry was a household name. From his days as mayor until the time he was anchoring the local news, most of my life has had some Jerry in it.
Jerry was involved in a scandal back in the early 70's that resulted in him ultimatley resigning as Cincinnati's mayor. Instead of me going into it, I will just post the information from Wikipedia:
Springer was elected to the Cincinnati city council in 1971. He was forced to resign in 1974 after a police raid on a Fort Wright, Kentucky "massage parlor" unearthed a check he had written for its "services". Instead of denying it, he came clean at a press conference. His honesty helped him win back his seat in 1975. In 1977, he was chosen to serve one year as mayor by the City Council.
In 1982, Jerry attempted a run for Governor. He lost in the primary to Dick Celeste, who went on to win the office. During his primary run, Jerry did an ad in which he explained what happened to him a decade earlier. It was a bold political move and now, thanks to YouTube, it was brought back to life.
Our country would be much better off if all we had to worry about was our President getting a blowjob or a mayor spending a night with a call girl.
With Bush out on a new "PR" push, we are learning more about how bad things really are in Iraq:
A mob of gunmen went on a brazen daytime rampage through a predominantly Sunni Arab district of western Baghdad on Sunday, pulling people from their cars and homes and killing them in what officials and residents called a spasm of revenge by Shiite militias for the bombing of a Shiite mosque on Saturday. Hours later, two car bombs exploded beside a Shiite mosque in another Baghdad neighborhood in a deadly act of what appeared to be retaliation.
While Baghdad has been ravaged by Sunni-Shiite bloodletting in recent months, even by recent standards the violence here on Sunday was frightening, delivered with impunity by gun-wielding vigilantes on the street. In the culture of revenge that has seized Iraq, residents all over the city braced for an escalation in the cycle of retributive mayhem between the Shiites and Sunnis that has threatened to expand into civil war.
The violence coincided with an announcement by American military officials that they had formally accused four more American soldiers of rape and murder, and a fifth soldier of "dereliction of duty" for failing to report the crimes, in connection with the deaths of a teenage Iraqi girl and three members of her family.
And once more charges get announced in other deaths, the violence will continue to grow.
What is amazing is how the mainstream media continued to just call the victim a "young girl". No one seemed to ever mention just "how young" this poor girl was. I had heard about it on Air America, but the big three in network news seemed to overlook this small detail. Here is a picture of the passport of this young girl:
It was just reported on Air America. It should be an interesting case considering the differences in the way she was treated as compared to Rep. Young's wife.
Rather your for Alito or against him, you got to admire the historical event
taking place this weekend. Bloggers from the left side are working non-stop to
oppose the confirmation and muster enough support for a filibuster of Alito.
This is the first movement of its kind considering it has taken place on the
internet and grown to a larger magnitude.
Air America radio reported tonight that most Senators voice mails are full
now from the shear volume of calls they have received trying to build support
for this historic event this week. If you are willing to try and get through,
then MYDD has a
list up of Senators who need convinced to stand behind Kerry and his filibuster.
Please take a moment to call as many as you can and express your concerns over
the confirmation of Alito.
The liberal blogosphere is showing an enormous stronghold on politics in
America right now, and it is the very tool we need to get our voices heard. For
the past several years, the big corporations with their high dollar lobbyists
have had the influence in Washington. It has raped us of our very essence of
being - "A nation by the people, for the people". Proof of this lies in the
greed exhibited by the 109th session of Congress and the simple fact that a
majority of the legislation passed was strictly to support the big corporations.
This is not helping America, it is hurting the people of this country. Only the
upper 1% benefit from it and the rest of us, well we are treated like pawns in
their dirty chess game.
This historic weekend marks the beginning of a new time where our voices can
once again be heard and help put America back on the right track. Take a couple
minutes of your time to also be heard with everyone else. Make it known that you
oppose Alito.
Now we learn of allegations of wide-spread insider trading occurring in our
nation's capital:
After a comment by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) on Air America's Majority
Report Wednesday evening, RAW STORY has learned that House Democrats are
pushing the ethics committee to investigate allegations of congressional
offices providing privleged information to Wall Street investors.An article that ran below the radar in November revealed the "day
trading" practice, in which little-known firms use sources in Congress to
glean information relevant to publicly-traded stocks. As Washington turns
its eyes to fallen conservative superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, new focus has
come to other allegations of congressional wrongdoing.Independently, RAW STORY has received word that such activity -- which
involves passing on information to stock brokers on how the House is going
to vote on legislation that affects large companies, such as Defense
Appropriations bills -- is a practice that may go beyond a single individual
or congressmember's office. Individuals on Capitol Hill have pointed to
others already ensnared in the Abramoff probe as possibly having engaged in
"day trading."
Article continues
here.
Rep. Slaughter told the Majority Report (clip available via
AMERICABlog) last night that she has learned Tom Delay and Bill Frist both
engaged in this activity regularly. A new report is due out in a couple weeks
highlighting these problems. This is further evidence of how our democracy has
become an auction.
Keeping with talking about Delay (after all he is so much fun to talk about),
here is an interesting little piece of news from
Political Money Line:
Rep. Tom DeLay filed a report with the Clerk of the House of
Representatives indicating he received free travel valued at $13,998.55 from
Fox News Sunday for "officially connected travel" on October 1-2, 2005, from
Sugarland, TX to Washington, D.C. and back to Sugarland, TX. Rep. DeLay
appeared on Fox News Sunday on October 2, 2005, the weekend after his
indictment on September 28, 2005.
Who says FOX News is fair and balanced, well besides FOX News.
On the actual
travel
disclosure form, it lists the total amount as transportation. Nothing is
listed for lodging, meals, etc. I wonder how much it does cost to fly from
Sugarland to D.C.
According to Travelocity, if I was to leave Houston International Airport and
fly to Reagan International, the highest cost flight would be one on Northwest
for $1,069. That is round trip. So why did FOX News pay almost 13 times that
amount.
Randi Rhodes was talking one day on Air America about how she would not go on
FOX news. One complaint of hers was that they do not pay for anything. The other
news networks pay to have your make up and hair done. FOX expects you to cover
that cost on your own.
Perhaps now that the House Ethics panel (see story at
Raw Story) has a new lawyer, they should start looking into this as well as
all the other backlogged investigations into Delay. Seems like there was
something more to FOX's payment than purely transportation costs.
Freeper of the week has to go to Larry Northern, the 59 year old Texan who
took chained a pipe to the back of his pickup truck and used it to destroy the
white crosses set up at Camp Casey in Crawford. Each one of the crosses
represented a fallen soldier, so this tells you what Mr. Northern must think of
the brave men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice to defend his freedom of
criminal damage. Authorities found pieces of the crosses and of the American
flag under Freeper Northern's truck. Authorities are planning to charge him with
criminal mischief.
A couple weeks back, we had a
story here in the Cincinnati area about the funeral of Pfc. Timothy Hines
Jr. Less than 24 hours after he was laid to rest, someone gathered 20 flags that
were lining his mother-in-law's yard, placed them under a car sitting in the
driveway and torched it all.
A couple of days after that story broke, I noticed some right-wingers posting
to forums saying it was liberals who did this. No one had been arrested and
their were no suspects, but they instantly laid blame to the people who oppose
the war in Iraqr. I went to battle with these accusers considering their was no
suspect in the crime. A few days later, the police made the bust. Turns out the
suspects were two boys, ages 15 and 13, spending a night out doing some random
vandalism. They admitted to it after they learned it was a memorial for a fallen
soldier.
Remember when Friends was on TV. It was one of the top
rated television shows. Did you ever head NBC boasting that they were beating
CBS out in the ratings game during that period? No you didn’t. While NBC had the
number one show on, CBS was still the highest rated network.
Now you may wonder why I am brining up television ratings
and old sitcoms on a political blog. Well your about to find out.
On August 8, Rush Limbaugh issued a press
release titled
“Rush Limbaugh Leads the Race Against Liberal Talkers in Austin, Baton Rouge,
New Orleans, San Antonio, and Memphisâ€ÂÂ. Of the 591 stations that carry the fat
man of hate, he chose four to highlight.
Take for example the New Orleans station he highlighted.
WSMB was carrying conservative talk radio personality such as Dr. Laura and Bill
O’Reilly. They changed formats on July 25 of this year. The ratings Limbaugh is
going off of were for the period which ended on July 31 of this year. So
actually in that market, he was beating out other right-wing talk shows. Sorry
Rush, wait until the next period ratings come out and see how you really do.
Also it is worth noting that in these markets, Air America is aired on stations
that have a far lower output than Rush’s stations. That means Rush has the
ability to reach more listeners than Air America does.
We already know there is tons of corruption and scandals surrounding the RNC,
but how high can it go. A report released today says it could go all the way up
to the newly appointed treasurer.
The AP is reporting that federal prosecutors are investigating corruption of
a Illinois state pension fund. They have subpoened records. The records involve
$4.5 million in funds that were paid by a Washington based investment firm to
Robert Kjellander, the newly appointed treasurer of the RNC. Kjellander also
headed Bush's re-election campaign in 3 states.
Ironically, Kjellander is also a close friend of Karl Rove, so now we see
ever deeper into the dirty depths of the Republican Nation Committee. Of course
this is the type of news you never would hear on FOX news, they are too worried
about false reports that Air America Radio was stealing money from children.
See the
AP article for further details.
I guess the right-wing bloggers are jealous. They don’t
like the momentum we here on the left have right now. Left wing bloggers have
effectively kept the Karl Rove story alive, are keeping attention on Cindy
Sheehan, and working relentlessly to uncover facts about the numerous other
scandals that are plaguing the right.
Now the right wing bloggers have taken on their own
crusade. They are going after Air America Radio, and FOX news is helping. Here
is a synopsis of what happened:
In 2004, Evan Cohen, the former executive director of Air
America Radio lobbied a Bronx based boys and girl club to invest $500.00 in his
company Progressive Media. That money was never repaid.
The problem is Air America’s ties with Progressive Media
only lasted a month. They realized Evan Cohen was leading them down the wrong
path and possible into bankruptcy so they severed all ties with him and his
company and went out on their own. The relationship they had with Cohen only
lasted a couple of months and since their parting, Air America has been steadily
growing instead of being in a constant decline.
Now the right is stirring up a witch hunt. Lead by such
noted right-wing bloggers as
Michelle Malkin and
Newsmax, the story is trying to
gain a momentum while accusing the liberal mainstream media of ignoring it.
All right. Well, a money scandal at radio network Air
America and no one is covering it. A pill addiction of Rush Limbaugh's and boy,
everybody was all over it. Is it a case of liberal bias in the media?
If you listen to the opposition as much as I do, then you must also notice a
substantial increase in smearing and hate propaganda they are trying to get out.
While some folks may here this and be afraid, I take it is a sign of good things
to come.
Bill O’Reilly used his time on the air the other night to talk about how
liberal media such as Air America is failing in the industry. Well in good old
O’Lielly fashion he got it wrong. As matter of fact liberal talk shows are a big
hit. They are such a hit that Clear Channel, owner of such shows as Rush
Limbaugh, this week announced they were purchasing Ed Schultz’s show. They even
said they see a rising trend in liberal radio and wanted to get in on it.
Now this is something that has the right-wing scared. People are starting to
think on their own and not be preached to by the right. Another piece of
evidence lies in the contributions that the DNC is getting. The Republicans say
that Howard Dean is failing at raising money, when in fact he has raised more
money that Terry McAullife did in the same time period in 2003 (can not count
2004 – that was a Presidential election year). Even more troubling to the right
is the fact that Dean is raising most of this money through individual
contributions. That’s right a vast majority of this funding is coming from
people like you and me donating less than $250 dollars.
That thought really scares the right. It not only reaffirms the recent
dipping polls, but it also makes them wonder how they can steal another
election. It’s easy to get one state to switch but if they need to get 3 or 4,
now that is a whole different game. But the Presidential elections are three
years away. So why the concern?
