Call 5 Democrats And Make Sure They Are Voting On Tuesday!

Do it now, we have to make sure that those who care – get out and vote on Tuesday. Vote a straight Democratic ticket, there is not reason to ever vote for a Republican, they vote in lock-step against any kind of progress. It’s Sunday, call some Democrats, make sure they are going to vote.

Boycott ABC’s Election Coverage – Andrew Breitbart To Spew His Lies!

I could see Fox News having the propagandist Andrew Breitbart as part of their coverage, but what in the hell is ABC News thinking? And their response to inquiries is even more disturbing in my opinion. The great Steve Benen gives us details on this craziness from the media…

ABC NEWS IS DOING WHAT?…. About three months ago, in the wake of the Shirley Sherrod fiasco, E.J. Dionne Jr. identified activist Andrew Breitbart as a “right-wing hit man.” Dionne added that the incident “ought to be a turning point in American politics,” one in which “the mainstream media” starts appreciating the difference between “news and propaganda.”

It sure “ought to be” a turning point, but alas…not so much. ABC is probably wanting a little of that sensational, news making propaganda to boost their ratings or to try to poach away some of Fox’s rabid viewers. From Media Matters via Benen…

As it turns out, it wasn’t a “turning point,” and it’s not hard at all for the media to justify taking Breitbart seriously.

Media Matters has confirmed that noted propagandist Andrew Breitbart will provide analysis for ABC News during their election night coverage.

After Breitbart’s BigJournalism.com website reported that Breitbart would “be bringing analysis live from Arizona” for ABC, Media Matters confirmed his participation in a town hall meeting anchored by ABC’s David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg that will be featured in the network’s coverage.

Asked about Breitbart’s history of unethical behavior and misinformation, ABC News’ David Ford told Media Matters: “He will be one of many voices on our air, including Bill Adair of Politifact. If Andrew Breitbart says something that is incorrect, we have other voices to call him on it.”

The ole’ two sides to every thing including the truth. What a bunch of bullshit, I will not be watching ABC’s coverage, that’s for damn sure. I encourage you all to do the same. In fact, I’m shooting off an email to ABC telling them how I feel about Breitbart’s inclusion, but I’m sure they will choose the sensational path, more ratings, than the journalist standards path. Steve Benen…

ABC’s explanation for this is woefully unpersuasive — if the right-wing hatchet-man starts lying on the air, “we have other voices to call him on it”? Here’s a crazy thought: if ABC News has reason to believe Breitbart might try to deceive the network’s audience, then maybe he shouldn’t be part of the election-night broadcast.

For that matter, this isn’t exactly a recipe for quality journalism — Breitbart will spew propaganda; others on the broadcast will be there to “call him on it.” Viewers will, in other words, hear some falsehoods and some corrections, but won’t necessarily know who’s right.

Go here and tell ABC how you feel about it, I always like to tell them how I will be also contacting their advertisers, money seems to motivate those corporate media people.

Keith’s Special Comment – Powerful, Watch It!

Scarborough Gets Challenged By Bernstein – Watch His Head Explode!

I’m watching Morning Joke on MSNBC and loving it for once. Carl Bernstein is bringing a little reality to the show and it’s making Joe Scarborough go nuts. You can see the anger bubbling over because his carefully crafted narrative about the President is coming unraveled. He even made the snarky comment to Carl that went something like “we’ll be back and Carl will tell us why Obama is perfect” or something to that effect. When in reality, Carl was acknowledging the presidents flaws but didn’t allow Joe to propagate his narrative, it drives him nuts. I doubt that Carl will be back real soon after today. The rest of the show should be fun because clearly Carl won’t let Joe paint him into the corner that Joe likes to do to his other supposedly liberal guests like Jonathon Capehart and Harold Ford Jr. who never seem to disagree with Joe, probably for fear of never being asked back.

Go Carl Bernstein, you rock dude. Updates as they happen this morning…if anything good happens.

Update:

Why does Scarborough think that Jon Stewart has “turned” on the president, he obviously doesn’t watch the Daily Show very often. Jon certainly makes fun of the president and has been critical of some things, but for the most part, Jon Stewart is pretty darn supportive of him. Some people see things as so polarized, they don’t understand when people might actually not agree with everything someone does, but still support them. I get that all the time in my comments, everything is not black and white, no matter how hard they try to make it that way. Simple minds like to simplify things, it’s easier for their small brains to digest it that way.

Update 2:

Wow, a poll result on Morning Joke that didn’t fit the narrative, but of course they quickly went away from it….ONLY 8% in a New York Times poll blame the Obama administration for the bad economy. 8%…..is that how the media has been portraying it for the last 2 fucking years? That number speaks volumes about the false narrative that has been being pushed constantly in the media. And yet, ONLY 8% blame the Obama Administration. NEW Narrative, the American people blame Bush for the shitpile we are in, deal with it media.

President Obama Is Unmatched In His Support For The LGBT Community – No Debating It!

Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly has a post about the president’s support of the LGBT community and the fact that a large number in that community are going to stay home next Tuesday because apparently, they like it better when Republicans are in charge. Nothing pisses me off more than people who vote against their own self interest, for whatever reason it is. It’s like admitting you are wrong but sticking with your wrongness. From Steve’s post…

ANNOYING BOTH SIDES OF AN EQUALITY DEBATE SIMULTANEOUSLY…. We learned this week that President Obama, after less than two years in office, has already “appointed more openly gay officials than any other president in history.” By one estimate, there are now more than 150 officials — “from agency heads and commission members to policy officials and senior staffers” — in the administration, easily surpassing the 140 officials spanning eight years of the Clinton administration.

Get that, in less than two years, he’s appointed more openly gay folks than Clinton did in 8 years. Now, the ironic part of this is that a lot of the leaders in the gay community supported Hillary during the last presidential election and were a large part of the nastiness that plagued that primary. I would add that a lot of that group has been the loudest in criticizing this president, not just on LGBT issues, but also everything else he does. I chalk a lot of that anger and rage to sore loser syndrome, if they can’t have Hillary, they don’t want anyone…kick, scream, whine, cry…someone call them a Waaaambulance.  You know who they are, I don’t have to name them. Some more facts about what President Obama has done in less than two years…

As the debate continues, it’s probably worth emphasizing some noteworthy accomplishments. The administration, in addition to hiring more openly gay officials than any administration in history, has made a variety of advances, including hospital visitation rights, a package of domestic partnership benefits for federal workers, lifting the travel/immigration ban on those with HIV/AIDS, expanded hate-crime laws, addressing the diplomatic passport issue, ordering the Federal Housing Authority to no longer consider the sexual orientation of applicants on loans, expanding the Census to include the number of people who report being in a same-sex relationship, endorsing the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act, and making the Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act law.

There have also been more symbolic gestures, including the White House hosting an event to honor the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, announcing the first-ever transgender presidential appointee, honoring same-sex couples in his Mother’s Day and Father’s Day proclamations, recording a video for the “It Gets Better” Project, and hosting Gay and Lesbian Pride Month events at the White House.

Nevertheless, a sizable number of LGBT voters are prepared to stay home on Election Day or vote against Democrats, unsatisfied with the pace of change. The religious right, incensed by how pro-gay Dems have been, no doubt finds this inexplicable.

Can you just image how much further the LGBT community will be set back if the Republicans do take over the house or possibly the Senate too? Don’t even think about repealing DADT or DOMA, forget about them completely. How many gay people appointed in the next two years do you think will be approved by a Republican congress? Zero…..or maybe a few at most. Why on earth would a person hurt themselves so badly to prove a point? It makes no fucking sense at all and what these boneheads have accomplished by doing it is to lose the respect from people like myself who have been helping them fight the fight for decades. Are the leaders of the LGBT community masochistic, do they long for the days of Bush? Well guess what you might just get, a group of teabaggers who make George Bush look like a leftist.

Tea Party Incorporated!

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? This one is worth way more than a thousand. Click here for a larger image.

A Link To The Truth – It Will Set You Free!

GO…….to this link and share it with everyone who might be open to the truth. These are the 8 False Things That Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day from Dave Johnson at the Campaign for America’s Future. Here is just a sample…..go now and read it, and share it…..we have only 8 days to prevent the evil Republicans from getting any power back.

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush’s last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama’s first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the “stimulus” was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

People don’t believe this shit by accident, either. You know the nutball right has been pushing this shit since President Obama took the oath. Help blow away the lies, please. Here is a convenient link for you to Copy and Paste into an email for all your friends and family.  http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010104222/false-things-public-knows-they-go-vote

NPR Stands Up To Islamophobia – Kudos To NPR For Firing Juan Williams!

If you were watching Morning Joke on MSNBC this morning, you witnessed how the media loves to change the narrative. Juan Williams was fired by NPR for making comments on Fox News that “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR”. Good for NPR. What Mr. Williams said was this…

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot,” Williams said on the “The O’Reilly Factor” Monday. “But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

If you watched Morning Joke, you might have noticed that they never mentioned why he actually was fired, they turned it into “he was fired because he works at Fox News”, not that he said an offensive remark about a religion that has 1.57 billion members. Nah, it was all because he works for that respected news organization Fox…spit, cough, puke my guts out. And all these idiots who say his first amendment rights were violated, come on you idiots, do you even know what the first amendment says?

Now on to what he actually said that was not just Islamophobic, but in my opinion pretty stupid too. When I see someone in “Muslim garb”, I usually think the exact opposite of what Juan thinks, that these people are devout Muslims. It is a peaceful religion and those who are devout are just as caring and loving as any other devout religious person. It is the fringes of all religions that bastardize their beliefs, whether Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, whatever….all of those religions have had extremists who don’t represent the higher purpose of their religion. Can you imagine Juan being disturbed by a Catholic nun wearing a habit, “catholic garb”….because you know, Timothy McVeigh was a catholic. Many terrorists in Ireland were Catholics, right? So shouldn’t we all be afraid of people wearing “catholic garb”?

I was offended by Morning Joe ignoring exactly what Juan said, because you know it doesn’t matter if people bash Muslims, right? That isn’t a good enough reason to fire someone. But just imagine if it were a statement about “catholic garb”, oh my god, they would hit the fan (they being shit, hitting the fan…get it?). The fact that they completely ignored what he actually said, the basis for his being fired, speaks volumes about how clueless everyone sitting around that table was. Ron Brownstein was the only one who came close to presenting reality, but he clearly didn’t want to go there either with so many people ready to pounce on him. This is just a continuation of the media allowing Muslim bashing, very similar to how they treated the community center two blocks away from “ground zero”.

As a side note, I met and talked to Juan many years ago, in the mid 90’s when he was in town for a speech. I videotaped the speech, which I should dust off and watch for the hell of it but who has time. When I chatted with him for about 5 minutes, it surprised me how conservative he was. I was used to seeing him on Crossfire as the person on the left battling Pat Buchanon but in my conversation with him I was surprised a couple of different times about what came out of his mouth.

Saturday Morning Toons

One of the most successful graduates of the film program I work and teach in is Greg Colton, a director of the show “Family Guy”. He is a good friend of a good friend of mine and is a really cool guy. He won an Emmy Award this year for Best Individual Achievement in Storyboarding for the following section of the Multiverse episode. This is in the style of a Disney animation and is incredible. This Youtube clip is compressed kind of funky, but you still get the incredible talent of Greg. Enjoy….