Jon Stewart: Our Last 100 Days

I loved this segment! Jon's initial reaction to the news of the flu -- exactly how I felt. Pretty sure this is the first time in my life that I've ever been pissed off over a flu outbreak... or maybe its the media coverage. And nobody exposes the ghouls in the corporate media quite like Jon Stewart.

Lincoln, I believe, would have loved this show. Humor, politics... and surgical satirizing of the more ridiculous elements in our society, especially our media. I didn't get around to posting this after I saw it because I was out of town... but its never too late to remedy that!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Snoutbreak '09 - The Last 100 Days
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The Daily Show: Goin' Rogue

Even Fox's Shep Smith is doing it!

McCain's big Faux moment

This story is becoming Shakespearean in its grandiosity. Let me narrate as best I can.

A McCain campaign worker from Texas (in Pittsburgh) filed charges that she was attacked because she had a McCain sticker on her car -- and it appears that she also claimed this was done by an African American male.

Richard said the woman had described her alleged attacker as an African-American, 6 feet 4 inches tall with a medium build and short dark hair, wearing dark clothing and shiny shoes.

It seems the hapless woman carved a backwards 'B' on her face (using a mirror?) and gave herself a black eye; then told the police that she was attacked while using an ATM. Strangely, the ATM tape didn't show any attack, so the police grew suspicious. They gave her a polygraph test and lo -- she confessed that she made the entire story up.

Police say a campaign volunteer confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

At a news conference this afternoon, officials said they believe that Ashley Todd's injuries were self-inflicted.

Todd, 20, of Texas, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police.

But...

Not before the story ran in all its dubious glory on the Drudge Report.

And not before McCain's Communications Director in PA gave reporters a very incendiary version of what is now known as the "Carved B" story:

MCain's Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established -- and even told reporters outright that the "B" carved into the victim's cheek stood for "Barack," according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.

And not before Faux News blared the story -- all day -- sputtering their outrage and citing this as the death knell for the Obama campaign; even prompting the station's executive vice president, John Moody, to write:

It had to happen.

Less than two weeks before we vote for a new president, a white woman says a black man attacked her, then scarred her face, and says there was a political motive for it.

Ashley Todd, a 20-year-old white volunteer for John McCain’s presidential campaign, says she was mugged at an ATM machine in Pittsburgh (my hometown) by a big black man. She further says he threw her down, then disfigured her by carving the letter "B" into her face with a sharp implement when he saw that she supported McCain, not Barack Obama.

Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama’s campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination.

That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.

I am waiting excitedly for word that Moody, and in fact all of Faux News, has now endorsed Barack Obama for president. Obviously Mr. Moody is correct, and Senator McCain's campaign is now over - dead and buried. I'm sure they will announce their endorsement soon.

In other news... former McCain campaign advisor Charles Fried announced today that he has voted early, casting his vote for... Barack Obama.

And look at this new national map! Indiana is blue blue BLUE!!



UPDATE: Best Ashley Todd joke, courtesy of Bill Maher:

"McCain called her to offer his support, Palin called her to offer her support, and Karl Rove called to say 'You dumbass, you got the B backwards.' Of course the police knew she was lying all along, because she told this outlandish story about getting money out of a bank."

Fox Flag Fiction

The mouthpiece of the GOP has outdone themselves in faux patriotic sleaze.

From Media Matters; the people who watch Fox... so I don't have to:

For hours, Fox News reported GOP claims about American flags -- which Cameron called "the Stars and Bars" -- before providing Dem response

http://mediamatters.org/items/200809070007

Between noon and 3 p.m. ET on September 6, Fox News' America's Election HQ aired numerous reports documenting claims by Republicans and the McCain campaign that they "rescued" American flags that were going to be "disposed of" by the Democrats after their convention at Denver's Invesco Field. During the reports, Fox News gave no indication that it had sought to contact a Democratic Party official or Obama campaign spokesperson for comment. Rather, during the 2 p.m. hour, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron guessed what the "Obama campaign" would say in response to the story, stating: "It's the kind of thing that the Obama campaign will say, look, we ... had come and gone and some stuff just went bad on the ground. We didn't know that this was happening; it was a vendor problem; or it was the collection and the clean-up, and that it shouldn't reflect badly on [Sen. Barack] Obama."

It was not until the 3 p.m. hour of America's Election HQ that Cameron reported a Democratic response, reading a statement from the Democratic National Committee:

CAMERON: Well, the Democratic National Committee Convention's public affairs official, Damon Jones, has now put out a statement that completely changes the tenor of the story. It reads, quote, "American flags were proudly waved by 75,000 people who joined Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention. John McCain should applaud that, but instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play out a cheap political stunt, calling into question our patriotism. On the same day he agrees to join Barack Obama at Ground Zero on September 11, John McCain attacks the patriotism of Obama supporters who so proudly waved the American flag at our historic event in Denver just days ago."

In a separate statement, the Democratic National Convention Committee said that "[s]tories circulating about flags at the Democratic National Convention are false," and added that "the flags removed from Invesco field were intended for other events and taken without permission."

Additionally, in a September 6 Huffington Post article, national editor Nico Pitney wrote:

Fox News' Carl Cameron and Bonney Kapp reported that they had "been told" that "a vendor at Invesco Field found the flags, which were going to be thrown out, and turned them over to the McCain campaign."

The Democratic convention official says that's not true.

"It's pretty reprehensible on their part," he said. "Someone made an assumption, took the flags, and essentially lied about what was going to happen to them. I mean, c'mon, we were never ever going to throw out flags."

Emails to three McCain spokespersons inquiring where the flags were found and how the McCain campaign obtained them were not returned.

While Fox News did not air a Democratic response until hours after it first reported the story, during the noon hour of America's Election HQ, co-host Kelly Wright said: "That is a major faux pas. You never discard the American flag."

During the 2 p.m. hour, Cameron also said of the story: "[J]ust having wrapped up the conventions with every single back-and-forth a potential momentum changer, you can be absolutely certain that Republicans will assert that Democrats weren't caring for the Stars and Bars." In fact, as Merriam-Webster Dictionary notes, the "Stars and Bars" is a not a nickname for the "American flag," but rather for "the first flag of the Confederate States of America having three bars of red, white, and red respectively and a blue union with white stars in a circle representing the seceded states." Indeed, an article posted on FoxNews.com notes that "the original flag of the Confederacy" is "otherwise known as the 'Stars and Bars.' "

The Confederate Flag? Riiight. Brilliant.

(And the Great Sleaze Parade marches on.)

FOX propaganda machine gears up

Dispatch from the Angry Middle:

FOX Attacks Obama... shades of the Kerry attacks in 2004. (If you have problems hearing sound with this video, please click here.)

I'm sure the Democrats will claim him, Fox!

Silly, silly Faux News... the antithesis of real news reporting. But always good for a laugh!

If you've ever noticed, any time a Republican steps out of line, the Fox ticker immediately labels him (or her) a Democrat. If a Democrat does something they like... they label him or her a Republican.

This one is my favorite!

The Murdoch 'morans'

Murdoch, Murdoch everywhere... and not a drop (of truth) to drink.

In October 2003, the non-partisan Program on International Policy Attitudes published a study titled "Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War."(PDF) It found 60 percent of Americans believed at least one of the following: Clear evidence had been found of links between Iraq and Al-Qaida; weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; world public opinion favored the United States going to war with Iraq.

The prevalence of these misperceptions, however, depended crucially on where people got their news.

Only 23 percent of those who got their information mainly from PBS or NPR believed any of these untrue things, but the number was 80 percent among those relying primarily on Fox News. In particular, two-thirds of Fox devotees believed the United States had "found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the Al-Qaida terrorist organization."

Everyone who laments the death of true journalism in America (and around the world) understands who the primary attacker is: Rupert Murdoch. The man can't seem to keep his hands off reputable news outfits; seemingly never satisfied until they has remade them into carbon copies of those trashy gossip rags you find near the checkout counters in the grocery store.

Yes, this is Murdoch's dream for America: that we all become uninformed serfs and therefore subject to whatever propaganda he might decide was best fit for our consumption. After all, a man with his evident wealth can much better pick and choose our 'news' for us than, say, some brainy, liberal journalist... right?

I think there is a good reason why the propaganda system works that way. It recognizes that the public will not support the actual policies. Therefore it is important to prevent any knowledge or understanding of them. - Noam Chomsky

Alas for my unused journalism degree, I fear that diploma will remain in a drawer collecting dust for the remainder of my life. Blogging is my only outlet, and soon they will undoubtedly come for this media as well. Perhaps then we will all resort to carving strange characters on trees like our ancestors, the Celts. This might be a good time to start learning the Ogham.

The problem with Murdoch isn't that he's a right-wing ideologue. If that were all he was, he'd be much less dangerous. What he is, rather, is an opportunist who exploits a rule-free media environment - one created, in part, by conservative political power - by slanting news coverage to favor whoever he thinks will serve his business interests.

In the United States, that strategy has mainly meant blatant bias in favor of the Bush administration and the Republican Party - but last year, Murdoch covered his bases by hosting a fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate re-election campaign.

And now I'm supposed to disconnect the logical centers of my brain and trust her with my Net Neutrality? I still haven't forgiven Bill for allowing these corporations to build these vast, media empires in the first place (that 1996 Communications Bill.)

Now that Murdoch is in Hillary's camp, exactly why would I trust her with anything related to 'truth' and 'honesty', not to mention democracy itself? Because Murdoch and democracy are at cross purposes.

In Britain, Murdoch endorsed Tony Blair in 1997 and gave his government favorable coverage, "ensuring," reports the New York Times, "that the new government would allow him to keep intact his British holdings."

And in China, Murdoch's organizations have taken care not to offend the dictatorship.

Now, Murdoch's people rarely make flatly false claims. Instead, they usually convey misinformation through innuendo.

During the early months of the Iraq occupation, for example, Fox gave breathless coverage to each report of possible weapons of mass destruction, with little or no coverage of the subsequent discovery that it was a false alarm. No wonder, then, that many Fox viewers got the impression WMDs had been found.

This is why it is now impossible to talk to my Republican friends. We're simply all getting different news feeds.

I smelled a rat with Fox immediately (journalism training no doubt,) and fled to the internet. When all else fails, I can find international coverage of national news on the web.

But for those who turn to Fox for baseball or football (Fox has a monopoly on sports as well,) there was no warning label attached to the evening news: that the news wasn't really 'news' at all, but partisan propaganda.

And thus commenced the duping of America.

Our citizenry is totally clueless now... and that is very dangerous for our democracy. When I was growing up - most especially during Watergate and the Vietnam war - we had intelligent and credible news anchors and news departments that gave it to us straight.

Because so many of us grew up trusting the venerable television anchors like Walter Cronkite, Roger Mudd and Dan Rather, many people haven't realized that everything has changed... and our current 'actor' newscasters are now slanting the facts, or simply not reporting them (to the advantage of the big money corporations and the White House.)

Average Americans no longer have any clue what is going on in Washington (they aren't digging for news out here unless they somehow figure out what they are being lied to - and most of them can't really tell.) Thus many don't even know that they want Cheney impeached, and why; and thus aren't screaming. And because they aren't screaming, of course the pundits - who never gave them the facts - assure the politicians that the people 'don't really care,' when in reality, they don't KNOW.

There are so many issues that I have been following via excellent journalism 'hubs' here on the web; issues that are never even mentioned by mainstream, network news. Its outrageous... and very scary. It worries me greatly, because I learned early (in journalism school,) that one of the best safeguards of our democracy is an informed citizenry:

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts. - Abraham Lincoln

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. - Thomas Jefferson

So what the heck is Murdoch doing... and why are we letting him gobble up our news at this rate? You'd think someone within government would call foul. Then again...

When all else fails, Murdoch's news organizations simply stop covering inconvenient subjects.

Last year, Fox relentlessly pushed claims that the "liberal media" were failing to report the "good news" from Iraq. Once that line became untenable - well, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that in the first quarter of 2007, daytime programs on Fox News devoted only 6 percent of their time to the Iraq war, compared with 18 percent at MSNBC and 20 percent at CNN.

And so, now we await the fate of the hapless news department at the Wall Street Journal.

These veteran journalists know the writing is on the wall. What has surprised me is that there isn't more of an outcry from others in journalistic circles, or from those with backgrounds in journalism -- because surely we know what may soon be lost to us forever, if this great and honorable news department is allowed to be corrupted by the 'Murdoch moran' news funk.

If Murdoch does acquire the Journal, it will be a dark day for America's news media - and American democracy.