What happens when a journalist runs afoul of shrill Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly and his marauding army of right wing viewers? Rick Perlstein found out when Newsweek published his think piece on Sarah Palin’s future in the Republican Party. Even before O’Reilly’s show ended that night, Rick’s inbox filled up with hateful and ignorant emails. Rick’s original piece is here and his post-Factor essay on the results is here. Rick Perlstein is the author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.
Tim Weiner on the dark history of the CIA, including the recent revelation of CIA suicide agents.
(Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion)
This is the second major strike this week. All news broadcasts and public services—including schools and all public transportation—were canceled and even the police and fireman—who cannot strike—let it be known that their sympathies were with the people. Additionally there was a huge protest last Friday that involved tear gas and a lot of property destruction. Keep it up, Greece!
More on the riots in Greece from the Telegraph:
The strike grounded all flights and brought public transport to a halt. State hospitals were left with emergency staff only and all news broadcasts were suspended as workers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest spending cuts and tax hikes designed to tackle the country’s debt crisis.
Riot police fired tear gas to disperse rock-throwing protesters at one point of the demonstration as more than 10,000 strikers and protesters marched through central Athens, banging drums and chanting slogans such as “no sacrifice for plutocracy,” and “real jobs, higher pay.” People draped banners from apartment buildings reading: “No more sacrifices, war against war.”
The demonstrators included a group of about 100 youths wearing crash helmets and ski masks, some of whom smashed windows of a department store and bank, and sprayed riot police with brown paint. Shopkeepers along the demonstration route scrambled to roll down their shutters, while a few blocks away, people sat at outdoor restaurants, continuing their meals.
Why in the world would any respectable company want to associate their product with a sociopathic sack of shit like Glenn Beck? And what ad buyer at which advertising agency would be dumb enough in 2010 to tell their client they should be purchasing advertising on the Glenn Beck show?!?! Whoever sold TurboTax on the idea should be drummed out of the advertising business for good. What fucking idiocy.
Nice work over at the StopBeck blog. Note how fast it was for TurboTax to pull out:
On March 9th, TurboTax advertisements began running on Glenn Beck’s show on the Fox News Channel. Participants in the StopBeck effort promptly sprang to action. Less than 24 hours later, TurboTax announced that they would be pulling their advertisements from Glenn Beck’s show.
This brings the total number of advertisers to drop Glenn Beck to 120. On a related note, the broadcast of Glenn Beck’s show in the U.K. has been running without any advertisers for over a month now.
TurboTax’s statement:
Thanks everyone for your feedback, & for reminding us of what we value. We’ve pulled advertising from the Glenn Beck show.
He’s damn serious about it, too! Watch this fantastic and bust-a-gut funny video from Jameson Notodo Film Fest.
(via IheartPluto and Nerdcore)
I refer you to the comments thread of this week’s Dangerous Minds interview with Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs. This afternoon Charles linked to the interview from his popular blog and within a matter of minutes people were posting about the interview both there and here. Some pro, some con (I get compared to Sean Hannity for instance!), but some just nasty and fairly pointless, such as one item (since deleted by us and not at the request of Charles, either) which managed to slip in both a homophobic epithet and a not-so-veiled death threat!
Charming.
As Charles replied “Welcome to my world! These are exactly the people I was talking about in the interview.” I sent him the IP address and in a matter of minutes he tracked the guy down and found several instances of his email address posted online elsewhere.
Views were initially slow on this episode, but are trending upwards quickly. I’ll leave this up for another day before posting part 2.
American Leftist posts on the ongoing struggle over tuition hikes in the University of California system. (As previously covered on Dangerous Minds here.)
Last November, I posted about the protests that erupted within the UC system over registration fee increases of 30%. Police struck students with batons and tasered them during protests during the regents meeting in Los Angeles where the fee increase was approved on a bipartisan basis. Students thereafter barricaded themselves within buildings at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis. As students occupied Wheeler Hall on the campus of UC Berkeley for approximately 15 hours, a large crowd of students, UC staff and the public generally rallied in their support, and prevented their forcible, potentially violent arrest, by UC police.
The protesters positioned themselves within the social framework of opposition to the imposition of neoliberal policies within California, policies that result in incomprehensible increases in salary and benefits for people like UC President Mark Yudof and the newly hired Chancellor of UC Davis, Linda Katehi, while classes are cut, class sizes increased and students required to pay substantial increases in fees during one of the worst recessions in US history. Meanwhile, rank and file state workers experience 15% pay cuts, while judges complain about the closure of the courtrooms one day a week. In California, the more you make in the public sector, the more immune you are from participating in the sacrifice being imposed by the Governor and the Legislature.
Now, the students are back… having performed significant outreach into the community, especially in the East Bay. Not surprisingly, the faculty at UC Berkeley, as it was during the occupation of Wheeler Hall, is scared the protesters will take control of the movement away from enlightened minds like them.
A prank phone call made by British author and comedian Robert Popper apparently fooled a few of the British dailies, including The Telegraph, The Sun and (sort of) The Financial Times. Popper, who makes crank calls and puts them on his website, called talk radio station LBC and pretended to be a woman who had seen Gordon Brown throw a tangerine into a laminating machine during a temper tantrum. The hoax was reported as true in The Telegraph and The Sun. The Financial Times also published a blog post on their website, stating that the call was probably a hoax and have since issued a follow-up confirming this.
Here’s an abridged version of what happened, written by Popper himself on the BBC Comedy blog:
Last Monday I decided to do one of my silly and—admittedly—childish phone calls under the guise of my Timewaster Letters character, Robin Cooper.
So I switched on LBC (a London talk radio station) where the topic was Gordon Brown’s alleged bad temper. I called up and got through almost instantly. “What do you want to talk about?” asked the LBC operator. Without time to think I replied, “Gordon Brown visited my place of work and lost his temper right in front of me.” Very soon I was on air, explaining how Gordon Brown had toured my workshop - a “lamination factory”—and thrown a tangerine into one of the machines, breaking it, before calling a member of staff a “citric idiot.” It was all I could think of at the time. A load of nonsense. But I was quite proud of the phrase, “citric idiot.”
Anyway, skip forward to Friday night. It’s midnight. I’m lying in bed when I get a message on twitter that the tangerine story had been mentioned on BBC Two’s The Bubble. I clicked on iPlayer and fourteen minutes in, I see the brilliant David Mitchell telling his guests that Gordon Brown had allegedly thrown a tangerine into a lamination machine.
What?! I immediately stuck my phone call up on my site (I’d animated it with my crap drawings), mentioning how it had been picked up on The Bubble. Very soon someone tweeted saying that they’d read about the tangerine incident in the Financial Times. And there was a link! Within seconds, someone else added that it had been in The Telegraph, with the headline: “Gordon Brown accused of throwing a tangerine.” The article went on to say, “One of the factory workers told The Sun Mr. Brown became angry and threw a tangerine he was holding into a laminating machine.”
But my favorite part was when a Hong Kong news agency, which had previously, and bizarrely, animated various incidents of the Brown bullying story, animated my story as well. There it was in black and orange: a sort of man throwing a tangerine into a machine. I laughed so hard, I almost puked my lungs onto my legs. To think that 6000 miles away, a news director in a Hong Kong office had actually instructed one of his animators to show the British Prime Minister throwing a tangerine into a lamination machine. Did the animator have to google ‘lamination machines’ for reference? Actually, the tangerine and the machine looked pretty good, but the factory resembled a sort of over-sized torture chamber.
Popper goes on to write that only the Financial Times was suspicious of the prank, but added “[...] to The Sun and The Telegraph, I just want to let you know that I have another amazing story of the time David Cameron visited the very same factory, and threw a carton of milk into the very same machine, before calling the very same factory worker a “lactic imbecile.”
Via Xeni Jardin/Boing Boing; cross posting this from Brand X
I’m not sure I can properly parse this bit of news from Arthur.
Apparently Dick Cheney took the stage at CPAC to the tune of Howlin’ Rain’s song “Dancers at the End of Time,” a tribute, of course, to the Michael Moorcock book of the same name.
What in the… well, I suppose he’s laughing at all of us, isn’t he? SOMEBODY is. SOMEWHERE.
Imagine how hard it would be to get out of bed in the morning if you knew that over half of the people who knew you thought you were an embarrassment? Imagine now that you are a politician with that kind of affection out there for you. Would you bury your head in shame like a normal person? If you’re Rep. Michelle Bachmann, probably the stupidest person to currently hold elected office in America today—and that’s really saying something—you double down!
A new survey of Minnesotans shows that a majority of residents — 56 percent — are embarrassed by Rep. Michele Bachmann. The release of the survey, commissioned by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and Credo Action, follows recent high-profile statements by Bachmann that she believes President Barack Obama wants to “annihilate” conservatives, that the U.S. faces a “curse” – and extinction — if it fails to support Israel, and that government must “wean” Americans off of social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security.
The Bachmann survey results, released exclusively to the Minnesota Independent, measure responses to the question, “Do you think Congresswoman Michele Bachmann does Minnesota proud in Congress or embarrasses Minnesota?” While 56 percent of respondents statewide said they were embarrassed by Bachmann, 29 percent answered that they were “proud” of the Sixth Congressional District Republican, and 15 percent were “not sure.”
Predictably, 87 percent of Democrats polled said they were embarrassed, while only 12 percent of Republicans agreed (58 pecent of Republican respondents said they were proud of Bachmann).
Poll: Majority of Minnesotans ‘embarrassed’ by Bachmann (The Minnesota Independent)
“Hey guys, what’s happening? No more manned space fights. Hope you’re cool with that. K thx bye.”
Astronauts flying in space are used to VIP phone calls that don’t always go as scripted, but Wednesday’s conversation was probably one of the most awkward.
President Barack Obama used his chat with the crews of the space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station to declare that he sees space exploration as “so important.”
“My commitment to NASA is unwavering,” Obama said. He emphasized “how proud we are of you ... and how committed we are to continuing human space exploration in the future.”
A few weeks ago, the White House unveiled a plan to cancel NASA’s new spaceship, its two new rockets and the NASA program, now five years in the making, to return astronauts to the moon. Though Obama also wants to add an extra $6 billion to NASA’s budget over the next five years, his proposal has thrown much of the space agency into turmoil.
None of the 11 astronauts was rash enough to bring up the outrage felt by many of their colleagues, but they were more candid during media interviews they gave earlier in their mission.
“Impeach Obama: America’s Small Businesses Are Failing; Help Us Spread The Message.” And the billboard shenanigans continue. The above Wisconsin road sign will stay there for 6 months at the cost of $1,000 per month, and was paid for by a “company supported by number of area businessmen concerned about tax and spend politics.” Tom Wroblewski, a lawyer for the company (whose identity he naturally wishes to protect), is quick to point out that, “the billboard is not meant to allege any impeachable offense has been committed, it’s nothing personal.”
Bonus recipe for despair: read sign, contemplate this, repeat.
(via Alternet)
Author Howard Bloom on giving America a vision transplant now that our old one has crashed.
The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 could be a turning point in history. It could be the event that shocks us into a new vision of ourselves, our past, our future, our mission, and our destiny. Or it could be the prelude to a long decline. Will that turning point be for better or for worse? Will it be a new beginning, a new opportunity to see what we’ve achieve with brand new eyes and to build on our foundations brilliantly? Or will it be the end? The beginning of the Chinese Century?
The answer depends on something that may sound totally irrelevant. Our perceptions. Our view of things. Without a vision a people will perish, says Proverbs. Why? Because a vision of a goal, a destination, a promised land, a view of a destiny that can uplift all of human kind, opens a vast reserve of energies. Not the energies that come from solar panels, wind farms, nuclear plants, coal, or oil. The energies of the human spirit. The energies of your spirit and mine.
Energies? Surely that’s just an idle metaphor, sloppy motivational rhetoric, fluffy feel-good poetry. Right? Wrong. The energies I’m talking about are a matter of biology.
(Howard Bloom: Giving America a Vision Implant)
(The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism)
Newsweek’s Daniel Stone weighs in on Sarah Palin’s potential as a presidential candidate in 2012 after this weekend’s Tea party convention speech. I certainly hope he’s right:
But business is business and politics is politics. Was tonight’s speech helpful to building her appeal as a candidate? Hundreds who adore her streamed out of the ballroom with giggles, convinced that Sarah would be their gal in 2012. But the U.S. electorate, stubborn as it is, would disagree. Elections are won and lost in the middle, not on the extremes. Palin’s fiery rebuke of Washington certainly firmed her base, but it did little to widen her appeal to moderates and independents, two groups without which she’d have a real tough time passing the threshold of electoral votes. (At one point, she even mocked the majority of voters who voted for President Obama, asking them “How’s that hopey changey thing was working for you now?”)
Which is to say that electorally speaking, tonight’s speech may have been a self-inflicted wound for Palin, offering ammo to opponents to argue that she’s simply too far right and too niche to win widespread support for national office. Speeches like this make the people who love Palin love her even more, and the people who don’t ever more certain why they don’t. In other words, Palin further polarized herself to the American public.
That may have been the point. With tonight’s speech, Palin cemented her role as the de facto head of the Tea Party movement. But in a bigger sense, as the fearless warrior leading conservatives into battle in November and beyond. That might be where she’s most effective (and undoubtedly where the pay is best). Because at this point, it’s increasingly unlikely that Palin will seek national office. Until now, the Palin guessing game has focused on whether she’s running. On her current course, she simply wouldn’t be able to win.
Why Sarah Palin Can’t Run for President (Newsweek)
Charles Johnson posted this today over at Little Green Footballs, I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing it here:
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said today that there is no difference in beliefs between the GOP and tea partiers.
“There really is no difference between what Republicans believe in and what the tea party activists believe in,” Boehner said during an appearance on the conservative Mike Gallagher’s radio show.
Boehner said his advice to Republican lawmakers going into this fall’s elections has been to “prove it to the tea party activists that we really are who we say we are.”
If you take Boehner at his word, then, here are some of the things Republicans believe in.
“I’m feeling good about America.” No, not me, those are the lyrics to the jingle in this 1976 vintage Gerald Ford TV commercial. Can you imagine a major presidential campaign doing anything even remotely like this today?
Bonus clip: Pearl Bailey tries to explain, but never quite articulates, why she thinks people should vote for Gerald Ford. In the end, she settles for she likes him, so should you:
See more political TV commercials of olde at The Living Room Candidate. Thank you Timothy Stanley!
Sad to hear this:
Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist “A People’s History of the United States” became a million-selling alternative to mainstream texts and a favourite of such celebrities as Bruce Springsteen and Ben Affleck, died Wednesday. He was 87.
Zinn died of a heart attack in Santa Monica, California, daughter Myla Kabat-Zinn said. The historian was a resident of Auburndale, Massachusetts.
Howard Zinn, author of ‘People’s History’ and left-wing historian, dies at 87 in California
Fairly reported article on the brief history of the so-called Tea Party movement, from the New Yorker:
Consider our peculiar political situation at the end of this first decade of the new century. An African-American Democrat is elected President, following the collapse of the two great symbols of postwar prosperity, Detroit and Wall Street. Seizing on the erosion of public trust in ?ɬlite institutions, the C.E.O. of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon, announces her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, touting her opposition to a federal banking bailout whose principal beneficiaries include many of her neighbors in Greenwich, Connecticut. Another pro-wrestling eminence, the former Minnesota governor Jesse (the Body) Ventura, begins hosting a new television show called ?Ǩ?Conspiracy Theory,?Ǩ evincing a distrust in government so deep that it equates environmental crusaders with the Bilderbergs. A multimillionaire pornographer, Larry Flynt, is moved to branch out from his regular perch as an enemy of moral hypocrisy with an expanded sense of purpose, lamenting the takeover of Washington by ?Ǩ?Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich,?Ǩ in an op-ed for the Huffington Post, and calling for an unspecified form of national strike inspired by Shays?ǨѢs Rebellion. And an obscure state senator who once posed naked for Cosmopolitan emerges, after driving a pickup truck around Massachusetts, as a leading contender to unseat the aforementioned President.
American history is dotted with moments like this, when, as the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz says, ?Ǩ?panic and vitriol come to the fore,?Ǩ occasioning a temporary realignment of political interests. Flynt cited Franklin Roosevelt?ǨѢs use of the phrase ?Ǩ?economic royalists,?Ǩ which was itself an echo of the moneyed interests targeted by Andrew Jackson, who earned the nickname King Mob after his Inauguration, in 1829, brought hordes of precursors of the Hustler subscribers and WrestleMania fans of our time to the White House lawn. Jackson?ǨѢs staunch opposition to the Second Bank of the United States set a precedent for generations of Wall Street resentment to come.
The Movement (The New Yorker)
Right on the back of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brilliant plan to outsource California’s inmates to Mexico comes this field poll demonstrating that California’s citizens consider him a failure as a governor. Don’t worry, Arnold, history will remember you for your film work. Like that star turn as Mr. Freeze.
Nearly six in ten statewide voters believes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will leave the state in worse shape than when he first took office in 2003, according to the latest Field Poll. Given the Golden State’s robust unemployment and intractable budget politics, the results aren’t all that surprising.
But taken in light of Schwarzenegger’s brash, braggart campaign against then Gov. Gray Davis, the numbers comprise a huge “fail” for a man who once said he would settle the state’s debt and stop it’s deficit spending. In his first “state of the state” address, Schwarzenegger said, “Never again will government be allowed to spend money it doesn’t have. Never again will the state be allowed to borrow money to pay for its operating expenses.”
After six successive years of deficit spending much greater than that under Davis’ watch, California is facing another $20 billion budget gap for 2010, with $72 billion in debt that has has inspired the lowest credit rating of any state.
Of course, it’s not all Schwarzenegger’s fault. A Democratically controlled legislature with more sacred-cows than exist in India hasn’t really helped much. But more than that, California’s initiative process has tied the hands of leadership when it comes to huge chunks of state spending while limiting property taxes via Prop. 13. The housing crash has exacerbated the state’s cash flow problems.
At the same time, while once calling state Democrats “girly men” and pointing to the ineffectiveness of Davis, Schwarzenegger has repeatedly promised to change all that—and he has repeatedly failed.
And so, the Field Poll revealed over the weekend that the governor is enjoying a 27 percent approval rating, a tie with his previous low. At the same time, 72 percent of voters disapprove of the legislature’s performance, too.
Calling yesterday’s Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized the corporate bribery of politicians its most irresponsible since Dred Scott, Florida Representative Alan Grayson vented yesterday with Keith Olbermann (see below).
President Obama’s response was no less critical, calling it ?Ǩ?a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.?Ǩ
Fortunately, as BoingBoing notes, a push-back is already underway. If you want to reverse the Court’s equation of corporations with people, sign the petition at Move To Amend, a project of the Campaign To Legalize Democracy. Bill Moyers, Howard Zinn, and Bill McKibben already have.
