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Think about it... A crash course in political reporting during what will be one heck of an exciting election cycle! And from one of the best political news organizations out there.
About the only disadvantage to the reporting job or the internships I can think of is that you would no longer be able to Blog naked. I am not the only one that does that, am I? :)
Questions on John "The Bruce McQueen" McCain's credibility from Kevin Drum that the media really needs to address, but instead of just generalizing about the MSM... Perhaps we need to direct this to each of the slack-jawed media bobblehead stenographers individually to get their attention:
Remind me again: where does all this cred come from? And what window do Democrats go to to get the same treatment the press gives McCain?
So....
Do any of you media types have what it takes to present a truly unbiased look at John McCain's MASSIVE credibility gap on almost every single topic he pushes into your media talking points?
If any of these issues came up for a candidate on the Dem side it would be on an endless media loop and the lead story on every political wonks show...
In fact, Roger Stone may find that he will no longer be welcome at any swingers clubs having broken this rule. Obviously, swingers cannot count on his absolute discretion. Is there a certain amount of irony in the possibility of a Republican being left with the one option of having sex with only their spouse? Just Curious?
Given the fact that he is just another typical Republican, they should have known that he could not EVER be trusted. lol
It must be a kick in the head to base your claim to the presidency on your savvy in foreign affairs only to have it get out that Joe Lieberman knows more about them than you do. I bet it’s a lot like how I feel when my dog corrects my grammar in front of people.
The overall U.S. death toll in Iraq rose to 4,000 after four soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad, a grim milestone that is likely to fuel calls for the withdrawal of American forces as the war enters its sixth year.
The American deaths occurred Sunday, the same day rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad and a wave of attacks left at least 61 Iraqis dead nationwide.
As reported in the Seattle times article, Overall US Death Toll in Iraq Hits 4,000, for which the title seems to ignore the hundreds (thousands?) of mercenaries that have died, as well.
The four soldiers died when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb while on patrol late Sunday in southern Baghdad, bringing the overall toll to 4,000, according to an AFP tally based on independent website www.icasualties.org.
Another soldier was wounded in the attack, a military statement said.
The chaotic and brutal conflict which is now in its sixth year has also wounded more than 29,000 American soldiers, according to icasualties.org.
At least 97 percent of the deaths occurred after US President George W. Bush announced the end of "major combat" in Iraq on May 1, 2003, as the military became caught between a raging anti-American insurgency and brutal sectarian strife unleashed since the toppling of Saddam.
I know, we went to Iraq to bring the Democracy, to stop the terrorists over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here, and all that other nonsense.
Fortunately, there are some (not the corporate media) who will keep history alive and accurate.
Reading this entire piece by Anne-Marie Slaughter is as painful as watching a one armed boxer that does not realize they are too punch drunk to enter the ring ever again... And not understanding "why?" they should never have taken up the sport to begin with.
It is not just that the Joe Kleins, Bill Kristols, and every other punch drunk hawk pundit wannabe on both the right and the left has been so wrong on so many important topics... But every metric they have used to come to their failed decisions has been equally as wrong as well. When it came to Iraq, the bell hadn't even wrung yet and they were all out cold on the mat.
To put it simply? No, we will never trust any of your suggestions, ideas or your reasoning ever again. No, we will not ask you for your opinions. And No! Don't bother to offer them. Not from any of you "Serious People" going through life ignorant of your own serious deficiencies when it comes to critical thinking.
Add to that the Al Jolson look of the character "Felix the Cat" to begin with. WTF are those people thinking? Is hillaryis44.org an "official" Clinton campaign site?
One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.
Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.
Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.
People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.
Clinton's likely reaction to being told this truth... Well? A picture is worth a thousand words:
As Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen argue in this piece in The Politico, the press has been largely complicit in maintaining the fiction that the Democratic nomination race is not for all intents and purposes over. The obstacles in the way of Hillary Clinton are virtually insurmountable. And her now-sizable deficit among pledged voters is only one of them. Everyone in the press, probably including us, should be much more candid about that.
No doubt about it. I will give Marshall props for showing a more reasonable amount of reality than the media ever did over the last month as he has slowly moved closer to this truth, but never quite outright stated it. So when you hear one of the most incompetent Dem political campaign gurus ever say stuff like this concerning Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama:
“The time that he could have been effective has long since passed,” he continued, “I don’t think it is a significant endorsement in this environment.”
Publishers of McCain’s book, Hard Call, say that the senator is “related to the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, on his mother’s side,” but “genealogists and medieval historian” tasked to investigate the link say it’s not so, calling it “wonderful fiction” and “baloney”.
Jeremiah Wright and Bill Clinton at "The Family" sponsored National Prayer Breakfast:
Hillary Clinton, as a member of "the Family," attended as well. I fully expect a night long extravaganza of speechifying by Hillary Clinton denouncing the Clinton's relationship with Wright accompanied by weeks of incompetent media speculation of just how unAmerican she may be. Anything less would be hypocritical.
Yesterday, though, the equally fringe, radical and hateful (at least) Rev. John Hagee -- a white evangelical who is the pastor of a sprawling "mega-church" in Texas -- enthusiastically endorsed John McCain. Did McCain have to jump through the same hoops which Russert and others set up for Obama and "denounce" Hagee's extremism and "reject" his support? No; quite the opposite. McCain said he was "very honored" to receive this endorsement and, when asked about some of Hagee's more twisted views, responded: "all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support."
McCain's sainted supporter, Joe Lieberman, last year spoke to Hagee's group and lavished him with such obsequious praise that Lieberman actually compared Hagee, favorably, to Moses. Why is Louis Farrakhan deemed by our political establishment to be so radioactive as to not be fit for good company -- black candidates are required to repudiate his support even when they haven't sought it and denounce his views even when they've never advocated anything close to those views -- but John Hagee is a perfectly acceptable figure whom mainstream GOP politicians are free to court without any consequences or media objections?
Here is just a small sampling of the belief system of this welcomed McCain supporter:
TG: If you use the Bible as the basis for policy, is there any room for compromise? And if you use the bible as the basis for policy, should Muslims use the Koran as the basis for their policy, and then again, what possible basis is there for compromise at that point?
JH: There is really no room for compromise between radical Islam --
TG: I'm not talking about radical Islam. I'm just talking about Islam in general.
JH: Well Islam in general -- those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.
* God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin. From the same interview:
JH: All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.
The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.
So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.
* The End Times -- Rapture -- is imminent and the U.S. Government must do what it can to hasten it, which at minimum requires: (a) a war with Iran and (b) undying, absolute support for a unified Israel, including all Occupied Territories (hence, Joe Lieberman's love affair with them). From Christian Palestinian Daoud Kuttab in The New York Times (h/t PZ Meyers):
A small minority of evangelical Christians have entered the Middle East political arena with some of the most un-Christian statements I have ever heard. . . . [Rev.] Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, "Jerusalem Countdown," in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon (which will mean the death of most Jews, in his eyes) and the Second Coming of Christ. In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West.
Hagee believes that "the president's support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state," which "will play a pivotal role in the second coming." These views are not unrelated to Hagee's support for McCain. Quite the contrary; Hagee cited McCain's so-called "pro-Israel views," his belligerence towards Iran, and his social conservatism as reasons for the endorsement.
But that is not all... Not by a longshot. I may not be fan of some of the Catholic churches past stances, but the McCain loving wingnutty Hagee takes hatred, bigotry and religious zealotry to ridiculous ends of extremism when it comes to the Catholic church comparig them to "whores," "Adolf Hitler" and the anti-Christ. Hagee in his own words:
Although cavorting with the likes of Pat Robertson and John Hagee is perfectly acceptable in Russert World, Russert also demanded, back in January, 2006, that Obama opine on various controversial remarks from the highly influential political philosopher Harry Belafonte (h/t JKP1000):
MR. RUSSERT: I want to talk a little bit about the language people are using in the politics now of 2006, and I refer you to some comments that Harry Belafonte made yesterday. He said that Homeland Security had become the new Gestapo. What do you think of that?
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Belafonte went to Venezuela, as you well know, some time ago and met with the Hugo Chavez, leader of that country, and said some things that obviously were noted in this country and around the world. Let’s listen, and come back and talk about it.
(Videotape, January 8, 2006) . . .
MR. RUSSERT: Is it appropriate to call the President of the United States "the greatest terrorist in the world"?
Obama is required to denounce certain people with whom he has no connection while the likes of Bush, McCain, Lieberman and Giuliani are free to associate themselves openly with the most extremist elements around.
This whole Wright issue is clearly a manufactured rightwing media hit job on Obama while ignoring the same from other more conservatively palatable candidates like Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
I am not an Obama supporter, nor am I even Dem... But even I can see through this charade.
Clinton wants you to ignore everything in her past experience as the world leading 'First Lady' role that won't portray her in a perfect light. She will stand aside and, sometimes, even encourage these ridiculous attacks on Obama... All for her own benefit. You won't see them owning up to Wright as this hit job plays out. The rightwing wants Obama out because they think he will be harder to beat (No Duh!) and the media wants their pre-ordained McCain - Clinton match up in the next elections. (Double No Duh!)
"(re: 9/11 attacks) "...throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen.""
"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals"
"Textbooks are Soviet propaganda"
"The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews"
"The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic stability"
"Homosexuality is Satan's diabolical attack upon the family that will not only have a corrupting influence upon our next generation, but it will also bring down the wrath of God upon America."
Rod Parsley
I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.
Pat Robertson
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we are trying to assassinate him, we should go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot easier than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."
Ariel Sharon's stroke was God's punishment for giving up Gaza and the 9/11 attack was divine retribution against America -- America's fault -- for tolerating gays, feminists and the ACLU
"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."
"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."
"Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up" –Pat Robertson, on nuking the State Department
Holy Crap! Those statements are pretty damning statements of America. And you can add the FRC's Peter Sprigg to right wingnut religions recent outrageous statement: "I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society." And those are some of the mildly overt ones you will find from religious right wingnuts. I haven't even touched on the Phelps families of the world and groups like the FIC soft peddling bigoted views...
The audio clips you can hear in this video I have produced are taken from sermons given by the man Senator Hillary Clinton has described as her "spiritual mentor": Doug Coe.
Doug Coe is the head of a secretive Washington religious organization, which hosts the yearly National Prayer Breakfast : The Family
The Family is not a conspiracy.
The Family is a right-wing fundamentalist, elitist power cult.
The Family is a global influence peddling ring with links to some of the most savage, bloodthirsty regimes of the 20th Century.
The audio clips you can hear in this video production are taken from sermons given by the man Hillary Clinton has described as her "spiritual mentor", Doug Coe.
When is every single politician going to be held accountable for their longstanding connections to these tools of religious insanity? And YES! "The Family" is Hillary's group:
Ehrenreich writes:
The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes -- knitting together international networks of rightwing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs.
She then quotes from a report by Jeff Sharlet in Harper's in 2003:
During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.
Apparently, Clinton fell in with the group in 1993, when she joined a prayer group mainly composed of wives of conservative politicians like James Baker and Jack Kemp.
When she ascended to the senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, the Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
Furthermore, the Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.
There's a new book coming about the group coming out in May by Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the Harper's piece and joined one of the sect's male only group homes to learn more about them.
A crowd of 4,000, including President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, lawmakers, judges, heads of state and others from more than 100 countries, came together for coffee, conversation and spiritual contemplation at the annual National Prayer Breakfast held this morning in Washington, D.C..
The biggest stir came when Republican presidential front-runner, Sen. John McCain, made a conspicuous entrance with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent senator from Connecticut. While most of the audience quietly awaited opening remarks, the two senators made the long walk from the back of the ballroom to their table at the front. They sat side-by-side and seemed oblivious to the flock of photographers who had swooped in for a few close-ups. McCain played it coy last month when asked if he was considering a McCain-Lieberman ticket; Lieberman, he responded, would “be a great partner in any endeavor.”
The National Prayer Breakfast is an outgrowth of a separate private weekly prayer breakfasts that various members of Congress have attended since the 1940s.
snip
In his comments, Bush said he was pleased to carrying on a practice observed by every president since Dwight Eisenhower. “It’s an important tradition and I’m sure presidents who come after me will do the same,” Bush said as he tipped his head in the direction of McCain.
The National Prayer Breakfasts, sponsored by "The Family," are the biggest story never talked about by the media concerning its connections to religious fanatics, their truly scary beliefs and behind the scenes political power around the globe.
Screw them all if they - the Clintons, the media and the GOP wingtards - haven't figured out what a political joke they are all becoming.And all because they can't accept the possibility of an outside candidate out working them all on his way into the White House.
I can understand the Clinton and McCain campaigns throwing "the kitchen sink" at Obama... But when the media uses their partisan ammunition and ignores the hypocrisy of it all, then they are throwing Obama under the bus for their own obviusly partisan reasons.
The media needs to start taking a hard look at the Clintons, McCains and the right wing GOP's religious stupidity and demanding (in days of unending relentlessness) apologies and repudiations and the media needs to continue to speculate on the "genuineness of" of their repudiations for weeks afterwards... It would be the only way they could claim any genuine semblance of balance on these issues.
If you got this far reading, you might want to Buzz this!
[update] To fix link, video and info on HRC's ties to "The Family".
