;)
The Commentariat -- May 15, 2015
Internal links removed.
Juliet Eilperin & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The United States Thursday reaffirmed its 'unequivocal' commitment to use 'all elements of power' to secure U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf and to protect partner nations in the region against any external aggression. In a rare visit to his presidential retreat, President Obama met with top officials from six gulf states in hopes of easing tensions that have developed between America and some of its longtime allies in the wake of a tentative nuclear deal with Iran, seen as a disruptive force in the region. At the end of the meetings, Obama made clear that he would not sacrifice the chance for a historic diplomatic opening in Iran or delve deeper into to Syrian conflict in order to assuage the anxieties of gulf leaders." ...
... Julie Davis & David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Obama on Thursday offered Saudi Arabia and smaller Arab states new support to defend against potential missile strikes, maritime threats and cyberattacks from Iran, calling his commitment to their security 'ironclad' in an effort to allay fears that a nuclear accord will empower Tehran, their main rival in the Middle East. But in a daylong meeting here, Mr. Obama stopped short of offering a formal defense pact that would obligate the United States to come to the nations' aid if they were attacked." ...
... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Barack Obama has secured support from Gulf leaders for his attempt to reach a nuclear deal with Iran as a summit outside Washington concluded on Thursday with the first glimpses of possible rapprochement on an issue that has alarmed many US allies in the region."
Seung Min Kim & Kate Tummarello of Politico: "Crucial parts of the PATRIOT Act, including a provision authorizing the government's controversial bulk collection of American phone records, first revealed by Edward Snowden, are due to lapse May 31. That means Congress has barely a week to figure out a fix before before lawmakers leave town for Memorial Day recess at the end of the next week. The prospects of a deal look grim...." Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) & Rand Paul (R-Ky.) "have threatened to filibuster any attempt to prolong the bulk collection program." ...
... Greg Sargent: "A bipartisan talking filibuster is being considered by both Senators, aides to Paul and Wyden tell me.... If that happens, it would be a real rarity, at least in our current era." ...
... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "If this is a forever war, can a democracy wage it in secret? Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, suggested that it could not.... [Fourteen] years into the open-ended war there is no consensus on whether or where to redraw the line."
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Two days after Democratic senators blocked it, the Senate voted on Thursday to take up legislation that would grant the president negotiating freedom to complete an expansive trade accord with 11 nations on the Pacific Rim, setting off a contentious congressional debate on one of President Obama's top priorities for his remaining time in office. While the motion to consider the legislation passed 65-33, that belied how hard the coming weeks will be for the White House. Most Democrats, including the top three Democratic leaders in the Senate, voted against even opening debate to give Mr. Obama so-called trade promotion authority."
** "The Plot Against Trains." Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: "... the will to abandon the public way is not some failure of understanding, or some nearsighted omission by shortsighted politicians. It is part of a coherent ideological project.... What we have, uniquely in America, is a political class, and an entire political party, devoted to the idea that any money spent on public goods is money misplaced..., because ... no ultimate good can be found in the state." ...
... Michael Shear & Jay Moauwad of the New York Times: "The Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night was equipped with an automatic speed control system that officials say could have prevented the wreck.... But the system, which was tantalizingly close to being operational, was delayed by budgetary shortfalls, technical hurdles and bureaucratic rules, officials said Thursday. In 2008, Congress ordered the installation of what are known as positive train control systems, which can detect an out-of-control, speeding train and automatically slow it down. But because lawmakers failed to provide the railroads access to the wireless frequencies required to make the system work, Amtrak was forced to negotiate for airwaves owned by private companies that are often used in mobile broadband." ...
... Arturo Garcia of the Raw Story: "Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was visibly angry at House Republicans during an MSNBC interview on Wednesday, nearly cursing on-air about the GOP's plan to cut $252 million in Amtrak funding hours after a train derailment that killed seven people and injured more than 50 others. 'Those SOBs, and that's all I can call them, these SOBs didn't even have the decency to table the vote,' Rendell told host Chris Hayes...." With video. Read the whole story. ...
... Michael Ruane, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Amtrak train that derailed Tuesday sped up from 70 mph to more than 100 mph in less than a minute before derailing, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday. There was no explanation for that acceleration, but the train's engineer has agreed to be interviewed by federal investigators." ...
... Jaime Fuller of New York: "All 238 passengers on the Amtrak train that crashed outside of Philadelphia on Tuesday have been accounted for, according to Mayor Michael Nutter. An eight victim was found by a cadaver dog this morning, and eight passengers being treated in hospitals are in critical condition, although all are expected to recover fully. More than 40 people are still being treated in nearby hospitals." ...
... Amel Ahmed of Al Jazeera: "The victims of Tuesday's tragic railway derailment in Philadelphia may find themselves twice victimized when they attempt to recover damages from Amtrak, thanks to a 1997 law that caps damages to all passengers injured in a major railway accident to $200 million. The Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act (ARAA), passed to save the railway from bankruptcy, was lauded by then-President Bill Clinton as the 'most comprehensive restructuring of Amtrak since the early 1980s.'"
Linda Greenhouse speculates on how a Supreme Court decision on marriage may affect fundamentalist Christian crusaders. CW BTW: It troubles me the way Greenhouse & others imply that "Christians" are anti-gay. Some prominent Christian denominations, e.g., Episcopalian & United Church of Christ, have long supported gay rights, & others have come around.
Annals of Journalism, Ctd.
Jeremy Peters & John Koblin of the New York Times: "George Stephanopoulos, the chief anchor of ABC News, said Thursday he would not be involved in moderating a Republican presidential debate after he acknowledged an 'uncharacteristic lapse' by donating money to the Clinton Foundation in recent years. The nature of the disclosure of the donations, made only after news outlets began asking questions, combined with his longstanding ties as a former aide to President Bill Clinton, raised questions that could jeopardize Mr. Stephanopoulos' future as a top-draw interviewer and debate moderator." ...
... John Nolte of Breitbart "News": "This is a bombshell of a black eye for ABC News.... Reporting on and defending the Clinton Foundation in front of the whole world without disclosing your $50,000 donation to that very same foundation is a cover up, a four alarm scandal." ...
... Oh, the Horror! Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "How big a deal is this? Large: Stephanopoulos IS ABC News.... A donation from Stephanopoulos to the Clinton Foundation in any amount constitutes a scandal and an immediate crisis for ABC News." ...
... Catherine Thompson of TPM: "After Stephanopoulos interviewed Peter Schweizer last month on 'This Week,' he was criticized for not disclosing either his former employ with the Clintons or, later, his donations to the foundation. Schweizer is the conservative author of 'Clinton Cash,' a book billed as an expose of the former first family's corrupt connections to foreign donors. Schweizer told Bloomberg Politics in an email Thursday that he was 'stunned' by what he saw as Stephanopoulos' 'massive breach of ethical standards.' 'He fairly noted my four months working as a speech writer for George W. Bush,' Schweizer told the news outlet. 'But he didn't disclose this?'" ...
... CW: While Schweizer's "stunned" response is over the top, he does have a point. However, anybody who watches "This Week" is aware of Stephanopoulos's history with the Clintons. (Sure, many younger voters may not know his Clinton connection, but they don't watch the Sunday shows anyway.) ...
... "So What?" Jonathan Chait: "... donating money to a charitable foundation is not an interest.... If Stephanopoulos needed some angle to get in the room with the Clintons, donating to their foundation would not be the way to do it.... Stephanopoulos's defense -- that he just wanted to donate to the Foundation's work on AIDS prevention and deforestation -- seems 100 percent persuasive. He is the victim of the ethical taint of the Clintons' poorly handled business dealings, combined with an underlying right-wing suspicion of the liberal media, but what his critics have yet to produce is a coherent case against him." CW: I'm with Chait on this, & I'm no big fan of Stephanopoulos. ...
... Steve M.: News Corp. Foundation, the charitable arm of Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate, gave at least $500K to the Clinton Foundation." CW: So it seems, under the strictures applied to Stephanopoulos that Fox "News" & the Wall Street Journal should be barred from covering the presidential election, too, unless Hillary Clinton drops out or loses the primary race.
Charles Blow: "This week, during a panel discussion on poverty at Georgetown University, President Obama lambasted the media, and in particular Fox News, for creating false, destructive narratives about the poor that paint them broadly as indolent and pathological.... Obama was right to call out the media's poverty narratives. There are people across the income spectrum who are lazy and addicted and want something for nothing. But it's unfair and untenable to pretend this is the sole purview of the poor. ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Fox News is angry that Obama knows what's on Fox News."
God News, Friday Edition
New York Times Editors: "The practical effect of the Vatican's decision to sign a treaty recognizing the state of Palestine is debatable, but it is a symbolic victory for Palestinians who are struggling to keep alive their dream of a Palestinian state, which has been thwarted by the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." ...
... Rachel Bade of Politico: "Several House conservatives seemed exasperated that Francis, who will address Congress this fall, approved the Vatican's recognition of Palestine as a state. On Wednesday, critics said Rome needs to leave the question of Palestinian statehood to be sorted out in the Middle East."
Tim Egan: "Last year, [Pope Francis] was asked about his secret to happiness. He said slow down. Take time off. Live and let live. Don't proselytize. Work for peace. Work at a job that offers basic human dignity. Don't hold on to negative feelings. Move calmly through life. Enjoy art, books and playfulness."
Presidential Race
David Knowles of Bloomberg: After calling for the repeal of the Affordable Healthcare Act during a Thursday stop at a brewery in Tempe, Ariz., [richy-rich Jeb] Bush touted the potential of the health apps on his new Apple Watch.... Bush did not specifically promise free Apple Watches for every man woman and child in the country if he is elected president, however." ...
... Steve M. is excited to learn that Jeb may have a product right there on his wrist which can help that South Carolina Republican guy who purposely didn't buy ObamaCare & needs eye surgery: "Hey Jeb, got any apps on that watch that can reattach a retina and do a significant amount of follow-up care?"
Jesse Berney of Blue Nation Review: "It's good and OK for people who can afford them to purchase luxury consumer goods.... But it's another thing for those people to run for president and suggest we repeal a law that gave millions affordable health care coverage and tell people to buy Apple Watches instead." ...
... Kate Knibbs of Gizmodo: "No word on whether Bush realizes that suggesting someone replace health insurance with an overpriced, overhyped fitness band is the dumbest fucking idea anyone's ever had." ...
Sara Murray & Maeve Reston of CNN: "Jeb Bush again changes his Iraq answer.... In his clearest declaration yet on his feelings about his brother's invasion of Iraq, the former Florida governor said Thursday that 'knowing what we know now, ...I would not have engaged.' 'I would not have gone into Iraq,' he said. The comments marked the fifth time this week that Bush sought to explain his position on Iraq." ...
... CW: It's worth repeating yesterday's comment by Barbarossa, a veteran: "I already can't stand Jeb, but that crack about those killed in action makes me want to throw up. An obvious question: Why were they killed in action? Could it be because of a war started under false pretense? This guy is fucking dangerous." (Bush said any question about "hypotheticals ... does a disservice" to service members killed in action.) ...
... "Reign of Error." Paul Krugman takes up where Barbarossa left off: "Take a moment to savor the cowardice and vileness of that last remark. And, no, that's not hyperbole. Mr. Bush is trying to hide behind the troops, pretending that any criticism of political leaders -- especially, of course, his brother, the commander in chief -- is an attack on the courage and patriotism of those who paid the price for their superiors' mistakes. That's sinking very low, and it tells us a lot more about the candidate's character than any number of up-close-and-personal interviews. Wait, there's more: Incredibly, Mr. Bush resorted to the old passive-voice dodge, admitting only that 'mistakes were made.' Indeed. By whom? Well, earlier this year Mr. Bush released a list of his chief advisers on foreign policy, and it was a who's-who of mistake-makers, people who played essential roles in the Iraq disaster and other debacles.... My best explanation is that we're witnessing the effects of extreme tribalism. On the modern right, everything is a political litmus test.... It's kind of a fraternity of failure: men and women united by a shared history of getting everything wrong, and refusing to admit it." ...
... Charles Pierce: "It has been quite a week for The Sunshine Boys, Marco Rubio and Jeb (!), the two Florida Men contesting for the Republican presidential nomination. Rubio is still riding high, playing the entire neocon chorus so impeccably at the Council on Foreign Relations that Jen Rubin went into full swoon.... What the foreign policy debate in the Republican primaries is likely to be is an ongoing attempt to salvage the neocon foreign policy ideas from the incredible shitshow that occurred when they were put into practice in 2002." ...
Gene Robinson: In the GOP race, we are left with "a top tier of Bush, who can't get out of his own way; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who seems to be fading; and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the flavor of the month, who hopes to win by propounding a robust, interventionist, Bush-like foreign policy, but without the whole Iraq part. GOP to Hillary Clinton: Have a nice summer." ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM: "If Republicans running as hawks say [the Iraq War] was a mistake, then the debate is really over. And it won't end there. Because with a consensus in place that the Iraq War was a bad idea, the whys and hows of just how we made this decision are up for discussion in a very new way."
Where in the World Is Scott Walker? Ben Schreckinger of Politico (May 12): "The Wisconsin governor, the current Republican front-runner in some early voting state polls, is in Israel until Thursday, but he isn't taking questions. Stung by his own past gaffes and those of other Republican presidential hopefuls abroad, Walker has locked the media out of his Israel trip, moving to burnish his foreign policy credentials without actually talking about foreign policy.... Ahead of the trip, Walker described it as a 'listening tour' and told reporters, 'It's an educational trip. It's not a photo op.' But there Walker was on Monday, greeting people at the Western Wall in a photo posted to his Twitter account." ...
... CW: Walker is probably over there giving Pope Francis high-fives for the Vatican's recognition of Palestine. Oh, or maybe not. Maybe just glad he didn't have to answer the Iraq War question. Also, I'll chip in $5 if Wisconsin taxpayers will treat Walker to an extended "educational trip" to Siberia.
Matea Gold & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton told a group of her top fundraisers Thursday that if she is elected president, her nominees to the Supreme Court will have to share her belief that the court's 2010 Citizens United decision must be overturned, according to people who heard her remarks.... She avoided taking a position on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade accord, saying she first wants to see what comes out of Congress."
Beyond the Beltway
Brendan Farrington of the AP: Florida "Gov. Rick Scott told agency heads to prepare for the worst Thursday, asking them to list only the state's most critical needs in the event the Legislature can't reach an agreement on a budget that doesn't expand health care to the poor.... In writing the letter, Scott is further digging in his heels in his refusal to expand health care coverage to 800,000 Floridians, a move that could cost the state more than $1 billion in federal money to help hospitals treat the poor, which is called the low-income pool." CW: It's great that Farrington fingered Scott for his motives. At least some reporters are now bold enough to tell the truth.
Al Jazeera & Reuters: "Duke Energy Corporation pleaded guilty Thursday to environmental crimes over a North Carolina power plant's coal ash spill into a river and management of coal ash basins in the state, U.S. prosecutors said. Duke, the country's largest energy company, pleaded guilty to nine violations of the Clean Water Act and agreed to pay $102 million in fines, including $68 million in criminal fines and $34 million that will go toward environmental projects and land conservation. The plea entered in federal court in Greenville, North Carolina was expected as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice announced in February."
Colin Campbell of the Baltimore Sun: "Two Baltimore correctional officers were charged Wednesday with looting a downtown convenience store during unrest last month over the death of Freddie Gray, officials said. Tamika Cobb and Kendra Richard were caught on video taking merchandise from the 7-Eleven on the corner of W. Baltimore and Howard streets on April 25, the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said."
Way Beyond
William Booth of the Washington Post: "As Europe struggles to stem a spring flood of migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to cross a deadly Mediterranean Sea, Israel has begun to toughen its stance toward refugees, telling unwanted Africans here they must leave now or face an indefinite stay in prison.... Israeli leaders have proclaimed that their tough approach -- building a fence along its border, denying work permits for illegal migrants, forcing them into a detention center in the desert -- may ultimately save lives by dissuading migrants from attempting a perilous journey. Critics of the Israeli policy counter that a country built by refugees should be more accepting of those fleeing war, poverty and oppression."
News Ledes
New York Times: "In a major setback for the Iraqi government's efforts to defend its hold on Ramadi, a critical regional capital, Islamic State militants conquered the city's government sector on Friday, raising their black flag over the main compound before setting fire to it, local officials said."
New York Times: "B. B. King, whose world-weary voice and wailing guitar lifted him from the cotton fields of Mississippi to a global stage and the apex of American blues, died Thursday in Las Vegas. He was 89." ...
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Reader Comments (14)
Yikes! Krugman must have put on his steel-toed Doc Martins for today's column. Juanito sin huevos?
RIP B.B. King - I saw him live about a decade ago, he came onto the stage, played one song standing up, and then requested a chair saying "he'd been around long enough" to deserve a seat while he played. Sounded just like his albums. Looking at the lyrics of that song, I imagine he probably had a little case of the blues while laying in the hospital seeing how little has changed since his heydays.
One example struck me,
"Blind man on the corner/Begging for a dime/The rollers come and caught him/And throw him in the jail for a crime/I got the blues/Mm, I'm singing my blues"
Today, not only do some find a pretext to send the homeless to jail, but we even manage to send those good samaritans to jail for wanting to feed them and show them some decency.
On another note re: the Fast-Track to Nowhere, I have the strange feeling that we essentially just witnessed political ass-saving rather than actual political values.
Does the extremely fast turn-around not resemble the 51st? (I lost track) GOP Obamacare Death Bill Vote by the House Republicans after the new Freshman arrived? They know it's going nowhere, but they gotta get the vote on record so they can later put it in their reelection ads in big and scary red fonts. It appears our Democratic senators just took their turn, voting against it one day and then turning around the next and voting for it, so when the shit comes home to roost they can get their ad department to blow up those fonts again claiming "I tried to stop but it but damnit the lobbyists hit me right where it feels so good. But vote for me again!" The Democrats might have gotten a few "concessions" from their vampire counterparts, but this all looks too staged to be fo' real.
And a final food for thought: American journalists have, rightfully so, been actively investigation the effects of the Fast-Track TPP on American workers, but let's not forget that this deal involves 11 other countries, including Japan, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. While the deal is almost certainly going to undermine wages and worker security in the US, think about the poor workers in Vietnam or Brunei or any of the other poor countries that have no chance in negotiations against the All-Star team of lobbyists and lawyers.
Yes, the Krugman column has me saying "Amen!" over and over again. It felt so good, and yet I quickly took a step back to ask myself if I am getting into my own left wing bubble that we ridicule the Right for. But no, you can look at the video history. It is verifiable.
Will the pendulum finally be swinging left? In his column today, Harold Meyerson reminds us of the impact of Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas, and their progressive followers in moving our economy towards a social capitalism, and suggests that Bernie Sanders' democratic socialist campaign can set the stage for change once again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-democratic-socialist-campaign-its-about-time/2015/05/14/05634e18-f9a1-11e4-9030-b4732caefe81_story.html
My hope rests on my kids' generations. The young have historically not been politically active, but the 2008 election got them excited, and I think laid the foundation for future activism. These kids are now struggling to gain a footing in this rigged economy, and I believe that Sanders' authentic message could very well resonate with them. While the mainstream media and their conventional pundits seem to be ignoring Sanders in favor of chasing the silliness surrounding the Republican clowns and the Cirque des Clintons, outside this bubble things are percolating, and the Sanders/Warren/Brown/Feingold faction could very well bring momentum for change.
The last line of Josh Marshall's TPM piece linked above:
"Because with a consensus in place that the Iraq War was a bad idea, the whys and hows of just how we made this decision are up for discussion in a very new way."
It is not new that they are up for discussion, rather that the GOP candidates must at last consider that history gets annotated much faster than it used to, and that W's dodge that "History will judge" the wisdom of invading Iraq has now come slouching home, a bit earlier than they may have hoped.
I clearly recall the weeks prior to the invasion, and my advice to work colleagues that we probably didn't have to worry about it too much, because nobody could be so stupid as to actually step in that pile intentionally. I believed it was a big bluff. I was wrong. There, I admitted it; I misunderestimated the stupid.
@Janice, like your 'Cirques des Clintons' reference. Like you, I hope the younger generation is waking up to the realities they face. The Upshot feature in the NYTimes today has a graphic depiction of the effect of liberal-leaning states/areas on the probabilities that one is married by 26. If you study the map, it is as telling about the regional economies as well as attitudes, which one can extropolate.
Gopnik (above) has it right.
It is all about ideology, and the ideology is all about profit for the few. Maybe some of the younger generation is beginning to see the big picture. I hope so. Maybe one of the "benefits" of the Citizens United will turn out to be clarity. That along with the bailout of the banksters and the egregiously disproportionate distribution of profits during the recovery from the Bush Crash has made it obvious to all but the brain-dead that there are two sides at war here and that democracy is losing. After the last two election cycles some of the enemy ever have name tags.
All that's just perhaps, but I do know there are a growing number of labor actions here in the Northwest, at least six significant strikes in the last year. No wonder the Right to Work for Less forces are working so hard to destroy unions. Could their efforts turn out to be a rear-guard action? Something else to hope for.
And on the labor front this from friend Stan Sorscher on the TPP. Now (again for a day or two) yesterday's news but the fight ain't over.
"Why is President Obama having so much trouble selling the TPP?"
(The title works as a link)
Linda Greenhouse used the phrase "Conservative Christians" and then referenced Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee. She didn't state or imply that Christians generally are anti-gay.
@Michael Wells: You're right. All the iterations of just plain "Christian" are in quotes by right-wing politicians.
Marie
P.S. Just learned how to save myself from enthusiastic Jehovah's Witnesses. Say how-de-do & the minute they start their spiel, say, "Oh, I'm a committed atheist." I didn't think it would work, but it did! mmb
Marie,
Wish I knew that trick. Some years ago I made the terrible mistake, after standing at my apartment door for 10 minutes listening politely to the Jehovah's Witness spiel, of arguing a point of Bible history. Bad idea. Really bad idea. He never stopped after that. I don't know how he did it, but he was able to get into a locked building time and again and knock on my door and tape shit to my mailbox. I finally had to threaten to call the police, but even this didn't stop the harangues. The timely brandishing of a Louisville Slugger finally did the trick.
Holy shit, those people are like badgers. And they wonder why religion is declining.
Re: JW repellent,
A couple decades ago my friends S and P got married. The morning after their festivities they heard a knock at their front door. Looking out the window seeing who was there the groom, P, got out of bed to answer. After opening the door he asked, "Do you have an appointment?" They quickly turned around to leave without saying a word. Apparently they couldn't handle full frontal nudity.
Safari,
Hear, hear on BB King. I saw him every chance I got. His voices, his own and his guitar's, were instantly recognizable. I heard his voice this morning, from an old interview, talking about his early days in radio in Memphis, where he got his name, the Beale Street Blues Boy. He recalled that the station he worked at was integrated and he was allowed to play whatever he liked, a pretty rare thing in those days, but it was that freedom that helped him to develop the musical sensibilities that would later invest his playing with such richness.
Over half a century later, surely there's no one telling black Americans what they can and can't listen to, is there?
Au contraire! That paragon of truth and virtue, Bill O'Reilly, has made a cottage industry out of lecturing black people on how to be moral and holy, like him. The other day, in an interview with Valerie Jarrett who was on the show to talk about a White House program designed to help young black kids, O'Reilly interrupted her to declare that rap music was eroding American morals and was responsible for the decline in people going to (Christian) churches.
But the style of rap music Loofah Boy was on about is about 20 years past its prime. That's not to say that there aren't still corners of the rap and hip hop universes that narrate stories of violence, but the days when rap was all about bitches and 'hos and popping people, the gangsta rap days, are largely in the past.
Alyssa Rosenberg on Think Progress suggests that Loofah Boy get with it: "Jay-Z and Kanye West are already enthusiastic ambassadors for many of the ideas O’Reilly wishes America would embrace. He’s just too hung up on superficial signifiers like tattoos and cocked hats to notice."
As usual, for O'Reilly, America's problems can mostly be laid at the feet of the poor, liberals, and black people, and not necessarily in that order. Country (white) music, which has a shocking history of misogyny as well as romanticization of drunken misbehavior and violence, is never attacked for its ablation of American morality. Wonder why?
Before ending his screed, O'Reilly instructed Ms. Jarrett, that if Michelle Obama wanted to help stop all those young black girls from getting pregnant, (making sure black Americans behaved more like him and stop all this reprehensible behavior and lying and immorality and unethical activity, and....oh, wait...) that she should come on his show and talk about it. Oh, because black families all make a point of turning on Fox every night so they can learn from Bill Fucking O'Reilly what they did wrong that day, and how to straighten up and fly white.
So, the answer to my query is that, yes, there are still plenty of people around today who want to control what black people watch or hear or say or sing.
Last night I watched part of a documentary on the return of Elvis Presley to his birthplace of Tupelo, MS, in 1956. His recordings, because of the obvious influence of black music, met with plenty of resistance across the south, with flyers and newspaper articles and even movie newsreels touting Presley's work as "nigger music" and the work of the devil which was bound to lead young people away from Jesus. Bill O'Reilly is still swinging that hammer.
And not for nothin' but if someone wanted to look into the real reason for the drop off in religious affiliation, they might wonder what young person in their right mind would want to align themselves with hateful, racist, hypocritical pigs like O'Reilly and the other Christianist hypocrites who chase strippers and want gays shot on sight and allow children to be shipped away to other Christians who will sexually abuse them.
It seems Fox "news" types are really pissed at the president for calling them on things they actually do.
Several things about this. First, Fox IS constantly harping on poor people, Media Matters has compiled a lengthy and not at all exhaustive list of times when Fox shows rip the poor for being, well, poor. And it's a fact, as Jonathan Chait says, in his New York piece, linked above, that Fox will find a couple of outliers, like the "blissfully jobless" surfer dude in California who claimed to love living off the government. (This guy looks, for all the world, like James O'Keefe in yet another goofy disguise) or the woman boasting about her free "Obamaphone", and run these segments over and over again. They use these replayed clips as examples of everyone who needs government assistance, painting them all as boastful, lazy moochers who have everything handed to them.
So, yes. They do that. Charles (dickhead) Krauthammer is 100% wrong when he claims that Fox does not do that and that Obama has no idea what's on Fox.
Like Bill O'Reilly, when it comes to rap music, Krauthammer and most all Fox bots live in their Confederate bubble, blissfully ignorant of what goes on outside it.
Second, although Fox is unable to come up with more than a handful of outliers to prove their point about the essential laziness of all poors, anyone wishing to put into evidence documentation of the essential mendacity and hatefulness of these people has merely to turn their hats upside down. Examples of Confederate inhumanity and immorality rain down every hour of every day to counter any argument that Republicans and wingers in general are not butthead stupid and downright evil.
In fact, this is one of the great benefits of the internet. If I was to find, say, one or two examples of holier than thou Christian wingers doing the dirty while holding aloft their superiority, it would be unethical of me to point to those instances as evidence of how a broad swath of Confederates act (as Fox does with poor people). But evidence pours in hour by hour, day by day. Just go to any site like Wonkette and scroll back through the weeks and months. Hundreds, thousands of examples of right-wing hypocrisy, malfeasance, and mendacity. Not just a surfer dude and a cell phone lady.
And not just weirdos living in trailer parks either. You can find multiple examples of local, state, and national political figures acting like supreme assholes in the service of their mean-spirited, pinched ideology. You can even find presidents.
Okay, douchebags?
Oh, and in case you were wondering why few in the media take the trouble to point this out, I give you Dylan Byers of Politico, so-called media expert. ( I suppose in the same way that Bill O'Reilly is an expert on rap music.)
He takes this controversy and simply relates that Charles Krauthammer said the president is wrong and has no idea what happens on Fox. End of story. The entire story is Obama says this, Krauthammer says that. The headline is Krauthammer calling Obama a liar. No follow up. No investigation. No analysis. Nothing.
One would think that someone who writes a column called "On Media" might want to see if he or she could discern who might be correct in this confrontation and what motivations might be in play. Nope. Not Byers. Talk about lazy moochers. And I bet Politico is paying this idiot a lot more than he'd get on government assistance. It would be like I wrote a column about the thousands of scientists who have evidence of global warming and clear indications that human activity plays a role in it, but then mention that a handful of paid ideologues say they're all wrong, they're all liars and no one know who is right. And simply leaving it at that.
Oh wait. Byers has already written that column.
Marie and Akhilleus:
I see your "committed atheist" and raise to "Evangelical Atheist". That really gets 'em.
As a last resort give them a cold, blank stare and intone: "The Voices warned me that you would come."