If Fox Business News Has A License, It Should Be Revoked

Actually Fox should lose its ability to use the public airwaves entirely, unless it forces its cable division to stop creating and disseminating fake news that has become a danger to American social cohesiveness. Fox News does this all day, everyday, but Lou Dobb’s racist little Trump-pleaser on Thursday is a good example of what they’re up to. Remember Lou Dobbs? The 73 year old far right racist broadcaster was fired by CNN for one of his racist outbursts… and then happily welcomed by Fox Business News.

On Thursday Dobbs just asserted one of his bullshit, incendiary tales about “millions of illegal immigrants” crossing our borders and voting in the midterms. Proof? Maybe he could shit it out of his fat ass but he sure couldn’t shit it out of his fat mouth. No proof-- just some baseless claims by a notorious neo-Nazi extremist, David Bossie. And no accountability from Fox for him spreading the lies.

Dobbs, happy to undermine democracy for the authoritarian in the Oval Office whose oval balls he licks on TV everyday, claimed that illegal voters are “having an immense impact” and asked “Are we just sitting here, helpless against anyone who wants to cross that border, and to have their way with the American way?”

Trump asserted the same unsubstantiatable bullshit in his interview this week with Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, a radical right website. The interview was filled with lies and nonsense like, for example, “The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes.”

UPDATE: Lou Dobbs Loses His Mind

That was part of a Daily Beast headline a few hours ago, emphasizing that Dobbs was at odds with his bosses at Fox, who supported CNN’s lawsuit that successfully forced Trumpanzee to give Jim Acosta White House access again.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, granted the network’s request to temporarily restore Acosta’s White House press badge after it was revoked last week following a public spat with the president during a press conference.

Dobbs, one of the network’s most feverishly pro-Trump hosts, railed against the “absurd ruling,” ending the rant with Trump’s favorite slogan as a reminder of where his loyalties lie.

…The rant came two days after Dobb’s bosses at Fox News publicly backed CNN’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, filing a supportive amicus brief with other major news networks.

But Lou Dobbs apparently didn’t get the company memo— or if he did, he didn’t care for it.

On Thursday night, the Fox host began his show by railing against the CNN lawsuit, suggesting the real reason CNN sued the White House was to get attention and free publicity.

In a segment with Trump’s former deputy campaign manager David Bossie, Dobbs started the conversation by asking about Acosta, whom he called an “embarrassment to any news organization covering the president of the United States.”

“He is an embarrassment and that is one of the reasons that the president decided to take the swift action that he did,” Bossie agreed. “Jim Acosta made that press conference a travesty. And he made it  about himself. It was his ego-driven speech to the president that, not a question, not a question but a speech.”

Dobbs, of course, agreed, claiming that Acosta’s actions during the contentious presser was simply an attempt to become Trump’s “peer” even though he’s “a lowly journalist,” adding that the “frivolous” lawsuit should not be “taken very seriously.”

This was after his bosses publicly backed the lawsuit.

And yet, Dobbs continued: “This is a publicity stunt on the part of CNN and they are getting all of this airtime. Most especially when I am talking about it.”

In a statement supporting CNN on Wednesday, Fox News president Jay Wallace said: “Fox News supports CNN in its legal effort to regain its White House reporter’s press credential. We intend to file an amicus brief with the U.S. District Court. Secret Service passes for working White House journalists should never be weaponized.”

The Fox brass added: “While we don’t condone the growing antagonistic tone by both the President and the press at recent media avails, we do support a free press, access and open exchanges for the American people.”

But Dobbs often openly contradicts his network’s management, typically siding with the president or baseless right-wing conspiracy theories instead of the facts.

Last month, as news emerged of pipe bombs mailed to prominent Trump critics-- including CNN-- many far-right public figures declared the threats as a “hoax” aimed at garnering sympathy votes for Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.

Alongside right-wing media allies and later Trump himself, Lou Dobbs became the highest-profile media star to embrace the conspiracy theory, summing it up in a slogan: “Fake news, fake bombs,” before adding in a now-deleted tweet: “Who could possibly benefit from such fakery?”

Alienating The Base-- A Tale Of Two Primaries... Arizona And New Jersey

Many Arizona Republicans see Jeff Flake through this Alt-Fact lens

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake has a long history-- mostly in the House-- as a right-of-center conservative. His record is very conservative but, unlike so many of his colleagues, not unhinged or deranged. He's a Mormon and his very vocal opposition to Trump seems to have been based on the same sense of decency and deep-seated beliefs that most Mormon leaders expressed during the election. Trump did significantly worse in Mormon communities than other Republicans did. In 2004, George W Bush took 80% of the Mormon vote. In 2012 Romney took 78%. Trump won 61% of the Mormon vote nationally.

We have written before than Trump's political operatives are hoping to defeat Flake in his 2018 reelection bid, preferably with neo-fascist Trumpist Jeff DeWit, Arizona state Treasurer. Another extremist who would likely be fine with the Trump Regime is extremist former state Senator Kelli Ward, another neo-fascist crackpot. When she challenged John McCain last year, McCain pulverized her 302,532 (51.2%) to 235,988 (39.9%).

A Republican mid-November poll looked sketchy for Flake. Trump's favorable rating among Republicans then was 82% and Flake's was just 30%. Wade scored 19% and DeWit came in at 35%. Head-to-head match-ups showed Ward tying Flake 35-35% and DeWit beating him 42-33%. DeWit would have also won a 3-ways primary:

• DeWit- 38%
• Ward- 15%
• Flake- 30%

Over the weekend Ward released a new poll of likely Republican primary voters from Political Marketing International. It shows Ward pulling ahead of Flake in a head-to-head match-up, 30% to 23%. Ward didn't released any polling that included DeWit, but she did boast that she was the "most conservative member of the Arizona State Senate in 2015" and reminded whomever reads her stuff that Flake is "one of President Trump's biggest foes."

[Note: Political Marketing Strategies is not a well-regarded firm and is pretty much considered one of those companies that delivers whatever results they're paid to deliver. Ward paid them $5,000 for this poll. She is touting it in a press release claiming Flake is "in freefall."]

That said, Flake, a freshman, could be in trouble with Arizona Republican primary voters. He's been a tad too independent-minded for most knee-jerk Republicans and if Trump really decides to make an example of him, he could be toast, even though Trump doesn't have an impressive track record interfering in GOP primaries. A North Carolina incumbent he strongly backed, Renee Ellmers, was eviscerated, barely coming in third in a 3-way race (George Holding- 53.4%, Renee Ellmers- 23.6%, Greg Brannon- 23.0%, just 207 votes separating the latter two). And Thursday, Trump's candidate to replace Mike Pompeo in KS-04, Alan Cobb, was badly beaten by run-of-the-mill establishment Republican Ron Estes.

Across the country, if not quite across the political spectrum, one of the very worst and most corrupt far-right Democrats elected in November, worthless Blue Dog, Josh Gottheimer (NJ) is well aware he's going to attract major Republican opposition in 2018. NJ-05 sits on the entire northern border of New Jersey with New York, from the Hudson River in the east to just outside of Port Jervis in the west, and the entire northwestern border with Pennsylvania from Milford to beyond the Delaware Water Gap. It's an affluent R+4 district in blue New Jersey. Over 70% of the population is in northern Bergen County's suburbs and towns like Paramus, Hackensack, Teaneck, Mahwah and Lodi (the Soprano's Bada Bing club town). In 2012 Romney beat Obama there by 3 points and this year Hillary managed to have beaten Trump 48.8% to 47.7%.

Gottheimer beat the incumbent Republican, bizarre extremist Scott Garrett, 156,863 (50.5%) to 146,643 (47.2%). Garrett managed to win in Sussex, Warren and Passaic counties but Bergen County voters were sick and tired of him and gave Gottheimer the 18,000-plus vote cushion he needed. Gottheimer immediately joined the Blue Dogs and started voting with the Republicans. Gottheimer-- who got more money from the banksters than any other non-incumbent running for the House this year ($889,419), outraised Garrett $4,288,192 to 2,055,513. Ryan and the NRCC were happy to see Garrett lose and they shut off the party spigots. Pelosi and the DCCC wasted over $3.8 million boosting a corrupt reactionary will will almost never vote for any progressive legislation. His ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is one of the worst of any Democrat's in the House-- 20% which basically means he's voting with Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy on virtually every one of their agenda items, giving them the opportunity to call their destructive proposals "bipartisan." Gottheimer is already damaging the Democratic brand and alienating Democratic voters. Obviously, he hasn't been involved with any resistance to Trump at all. Bergen County activists already hate him and are unlikely to support his reelection bid-- one that the Observer speculates could be a huge national circus, featuring xenophobe and racist asshole 72 year old Lou Dobbs, a longtime New Jersey resident lives in Sussex County, on a 300-acre horse farm in Wantage. The Observer analysis of the 2018 race is interesting, except that it's based on entirely incorrect numbers. For example they claim Garrett won 125,861 to 101,859 but that was before absentee and mail in ballots were counted and he actually won 156,863 to 146,643. So I'm going to throw out their faulty numbers are just use the bits of the sloppy journalism they got right.

In 2016... more voters fell off from Trump to Garrett than Clinton to Gottheimer. One can reasonably conclude that Gottheimer will be hurt more by running without a presidential candidate atop the ticket than the Republican challenger will be.

Voter registration (as of 11/30/2016): Republicans 144,959; Democrats 142,717; Unaffiliated 222,193. So it’s a slight GOP edge, but off-year elections tend to favor Republicans, though not necessarily in the first off-year election of a Republican presidency, when voters may be looking to apply a “check” on the president’s power.

...Prior to Gottheimer, the last time a Democrat won the GOP-leaning 5th was in 1974, when Andy Maguire upset 11-term incumbent Bill Widnall in the Watergate year. Maguire held on until 1980, when Roukema washed him out in the Reagan tidal wave.

The biggest question here, of course, is whether the GOP can lure a marquee candidate like Dobbs to run. With a huge national profile and over a million Twitter followers, he’d start with a strong base of support. But a Congressional seat might not seem like an attractive prize to a guy who’s been hosting his own show on national television for decades and has a closet full of Emmy and Peabody Awards.

Republicans will then have to see if Garrett runs again. He’s never been popular among establishment Republicans-- he ran close primaries against Roukema in 1998 and 2000. Garrett lost because of his own quirks and oddities, not because of his party affiliation. His odd refusal to pay dues to the Party unless it disavowed support for gay candidates sent buckets of national money into the coffers of Gottheimer, which hurt all Republicans in the district, especially the more moderate Bergen GOPers.

Two conservative northwest NJ Senators live in the district: Mike Doherty, 53 (R-Oxford) and Steve Oroho, 58 (R-Franklin). Doherty was the first NJ GOP pol to endorse Donald Trump. He’s encouraged speculation of runs of his own for statewide office since 2008, but he never pulls the trigger. Others include Assemblyman Parker Space, 48 (R-Wantage) and former state Labor Commissioner Hal Wirths, 51 (R-Wantage).

Of strong interest will be whether Bergen can come up with a high-quality, consensus candidate-- with or without Garrett. The bench is a bit depleted up there, but strong choices might include Assemblywoman Holly Shepisi (R-River Vale), 45, seeking fourth term in the Assembly; Assemblyman Robert Auth (R-Old Tappan), 60, seeking third term in the Assembly; Republican State Chairman Samuel Raia, also the Mayor of Saddle River. Of these, Shepisi probably holds the strongest crossover appeal, while Raia has personal wealth.

Bergen lining up behind a consensus candidate might just be enough to ensure that person is the nominee. But at this writing, the BCRO might be in denial. Its website still shows Garrett as the Congressman.

Gottheimer deserves a primary opponent but I doubt if he has one it will be serious enough to deny him the renomination. There are local activists working to recruit someone to run against him. He deserves to be weakened enough so that he loses. He is inexorably dragging the congressional Democrats further right and further into Wall Street corruption. He could solve the Republicans' problem in NJ-05 by switching parties; it would make the most sense... and he wouldn't even have to change his voting habits.

Tony James Was A Great Guitarist In Generation X, But The Tony James In This Post Is A Bankster-For-Hillary

I was determined to start Sunday off with something uplifting. I mean it's Sunday. But it's a season infected by Trump. The best I could do was humor (above) and a couple of sardonic bits and pieces... like Trump's campaign CEO, Steve Bannon escalating the al-right's war against Paul Ryan. The goal is to deprive Ryan of the Speaker's gavel next year and to destroy his career. Breitbart isn't just asserting that Ryan is trying to help elect Hillary but that he "leads the pro-Islamic migration wing of the Republican party" and that he's sabotaging Trump.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs called on Ryan to step aside for his efforts to “undercut” Trump in his fight against Clinton.

“[Paul Ryan] should have the character to step aside,” Dobbs said. “I don’t think he should survive this… This man shouldn’t be there.”

“[Ryan] understands the consequences of what he does. If he undercuts Trump to the point that he loses the election, he’ll be responsible for the next three Supreme Court justices, [and] the direction of the country,” Dobbs said.

“Ryan has no concept of his responsibility as Speaker… and his duty to the nation,” Dobbs added, noting that Ryan’s future has become “intertwined” with that of Hillary Clinton’s. “He is a laughing stock leader. He is a small man dressed up in a big job… Ryan should no more be Speaker of the House than Hillary Clinton should be President of the United States. And make no mistake, the future of those two are intertwined.”

Indeed, the Washington Post recently speculated about the future relationship of the could-be Clinton-Ryan Washington power couple. “Their relationship could become Washington’s most important in determining whether the federal government functions over the next four years,” the Washington Post wrote.

Pat Caddell and others have observed that the revelation of the quiet alliance between the establishments of both parties-- praised by corporate media and denounced by grassroots conservatives and liberal progressives like Jill Stein-- may prove to be one of the most significant outcomes of the 2016 election and could prove ruinous for the Republican Party. As recent reports have highlighted, in a post-2016 political environment it remains unclear whether the Republican Party can maintain its current structure of being controlled by congressional leaders who represent the desires of the party’s donors but undermine the interests of its voters.

...“We are on the verge of seeing the Republican Party go the way of the Whigs,” Pat Caddell told Breitbart News exclusively. The Party is “at war with their voters. They are literally abandoning their own. The very base that has nominated Trump is a base that Paul Ryan can ill-afford to alienate, but on the other hand, he doesn’t believe in them. He does not believe what they believe… Having lost all of their citadels of strength, the party leaders have now abandoned all of their principles. Paul Ryan is in real trouble.”

Caddell explained that Paul Ryan is the “voice” of a Washington establishment that has “absolutely made clear” that it would prefer Clinton over Trump. “What you have is a Bush and Clinton dynasty. And the curtain has risen on the corruption that they’re all in the same game and that ultimately they’re allies. That’s what the American people have been revolting about. I fear that the establishment’s mind doesn’t even understand that that’s what the base is revolting against.”

Not funny enough for you? How about Chris Christie headed for federal prison? It's not like there are any sentient beings on the planet who didn't know he planned out the whole bridge closure debacle, but now it's being testified to under oath in open court. His deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, testified that she and Christie discussed the closure of the George Washington Bridge in advance and he gave the go-ahead.

At the same time, she testified that the governor himself sought to freeze out Steve Fulop after the Democrat was elected mayor of Jersey City. She told the jury she had planned a "mayor's day" meeting to bring together members of the administration with the incoming mayor, but the event was suddenly called off.

Prosecutors have pointed to that cancellation as another example of the how the governor's Office of Intergovernmental Relations, which was headed by Kelly, systematically punished elected officials who would not endorse Christie. But Kelly said she had no idea why the event was dropped.

She told the jury she was ordered by Kevin O'Dowd, the governor's chief of staff, to have each department call Fulop's office one-by-one and cancel.

Christie, she said tearfully, later marched into the office and declared, "No one's entitled to a fucking meeting."

She said the governor told her later to "continue to ice Fulop-- that no one was to talk to Fulop."

The Daily News report could be read as an epitaph of whatever is left of the foul-mouthed Christie's political career.

The former aide to Gov. Chris Christie accused of creating a traffic nightmare on the George Washington Bridge broke down on the stand Friday as she described her boss lashing out at her.

Bridget Anne Kelly said she was discussing the program for a press conference related to a fire in the Jersey Shore town of Seaside Heights when Christie exploded at her three years ago.

“He had a water bottle in his hand and he said, 'What the fuck do you think I am? A fucking game show host," Kelly said, her voice cracking.

The governor then hurled the bottle at her, Kelly testified.

“I moved out of the way and it hit my arm," the sobbing mother of four added.

“You're afraid of the governor?" defense lawyer Michael Critchley asked her.

"Yes, yes," she replied.

The ugly incident took place in Sept. 2013 as the politically-motivated lane closures were underway.

Is it any wonder Trump preferred him to Pence as a running mate? But as Skip Kaltenheuser pointed out Friday night, not all the ugly corruption came from Trump and the GOP. He and they may be more horrible than Hillary and the Democratic establishment but... it's just a matter of degrees. They're monstrous as well, just not quite as monstrous. They know how not to cross the line the way Trumpanzee does.

[Bradley Birkenfeld's] revelations enabled the US Treasury to recover $15 billion in back taxes, fines and penalties. They also put in motion international investigations of offshore banking's many misdeeds, and juiced up reformers seeking tougher oversight. Impacts on Swiss private banks-- there are scads of such banks, all shapes and sizes-- include a 2013 tax treaty facilitating the exchange of tax data between countries. This put a hitch in Switzerland's offshore tax haven status that vacuumed money. And plenty of dirt. Alas, though trickier, Birkenfeld says the multitude of nefarious practices requiring secret accounts still have plenty of global options.

Thing is, what the US reaped was a fraction of what could have been garnered had the massive tax evasion been fully brought to heel. That failure only increases the debt load every American carries. Why the lack of DOJ prosecutorial enthusiasm against tax cheats and their enabler bankers?

I don't want to step on too many nuggets, but Secretary of State Clinton stepped in to do the negotiations with UBS. She required UBS to disclose only 4,700 out of 19,000 illegal account holders. Birkenfeld's curious, as we all might be, as to who made the selection and how, and why the names were never made public. Why was the fine so inadequate compared to long-term profits, and why did DOJ so carelessly offer undeclared account holders anonymity and repeated amnesties?

Who are these titans of favoritism? Will the real masters of the universe please stand up?

It brings to mind proposals for excessively reduced corporate taxes for repatriating money sloshing around abroad, but I digress.

In Washington's small world of startling coincidence, before the negotiated deal UBS only contributed sixty grand to the Clinton Foundation. Afterwards, notes Birkenfeld, it went up by a factor of ten. UBS also partnered with the Foundation providing a low-interest thirty-two million dollar loan for a Foundation program. And President Clinton, the First, earned over a million and a half dollars "for a series of fireside chats with the bank's Wealth Management Chief Executive, Bob McCann...Bill Clinton's biggest payday since leaving the office of the Presidency."

...Birkenfeld reckons Americans are on the hook for a trillion dollars escaping off-shore, so they ought be making demands.

Elizabeth Schulte observed what many of us are seeing, namely that Trump's horror show is hiding what could be a rotten Democratic agenda. "Each time the Trump campaign lurches and careens to the right," she wrote, "it takes the heat off the Clinton campaign to defend its candidate's agenda." She then takes a break from the regularly scheduled Trump train wreck to talk about what Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have up their sleeves: an immigration agenda that doesn't do much to change the status quo; a cozy relationship with the banksters; and gradual, incremental gutting of all the hopes and dreams Bernie painted for the electorate.

David Sirota has been on this beat for a long time-- and for all the right reasons. Last week he warned of shenanigans that could prove horrifying for American families that have nothing whatsoever to do with Trump.

While Hillary Clinton has spent the presidential campaign saying as little as possible about her ties to Wall Street, the executive who some observers say could be her Treasury Secretary has been openly promoting a plan to give financial firms control of hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement savings. The executive is Tony James, president of the Blackstone Group.

The investment colossus is most famous in politics for its Republican CEO likening an Obama tax plan to a Nazi invasion. James, though, is a longtime Democrat-- and one of Clinton’s top fundraisers. The billionaire sculpted the retirement initiative with a prominent labor economist whose work is supported by another investment mogul who is a  big Clinton donor. The proposal has received bipartisan praise from prominent economic thinkers, and James says that Clinton’s top aides are warming to the idea.

It is a plan that proponents say could help millions of Americans-- but could also enrich another constituency: the hedge fund and private equity industries that Blackstone dominates and that have donated millions to support Clinton’s presidential bid.

The proposal would require workers and employers to put a percentage of payroll into individual retirement accounts “to be invested well in pooled plans run by professional investment managers,” as James put it. In other words, individual voluntary 401(k)s would be replaced by a single national system, and much of the mandated savings would flow to Wall Street, where companies like Blackstone could earn big fees off the assets. And because of a gap in federal anti-corruption rules, there would be little to prevent the biggest investment contracts from being awarded to the biggest presidential campaign donors.



...Rather than funneling the hundreds of billions of dollars of new tax revenue into expanding Social Security benefits, as many Democratic lawmakers have called for, James proposed something different: A decade after George W. Bush’s failed attempt to divert Social Security revenue into private retirement accounts, the Blackstone president outlined a plan to create individual retirement accounts, some of whose assets would be managed by private financial firms.

...Critics see James’ proposal as an effort by a politically connected private equity mogul to present a Wall Street-enriching scheme as a social good-- at a moment when his own firm has faced lower profits, and at a generally challenging time for the alternative investments industry.

That industry relies on investments from state and local pension systems, which over the last decade have invested billions in alternatives in hopes of reaping above-market returns in exchange for higher fees. Recently, though, regulators, pension trustees, investment experts and academics have questioned whether retiree savings should be invested with firms like Blackstone in the first place.

Some pensions are pulling out their money. Other pension systems have been turned into 401(k)-style plans, which are difficult for the alternative investment industry to break into because of federal laws that discourage those plans from buying into riskier, illiquid investments.

In the face of these challenges, James’ proposal could provide a government-mandated flow of money from workers’ paychecks into the high-fee alternative investment industry.

“This new plan depends on sweeping government mandates, the appropriation of trillions of dollars from the private sector that is then handed over to zillionaire investment managers who make no guarantees about rates of returns or discounted fees,” said South Carolina Treasurer Curtis Loftis, a Republican who serves on his state’s pension investment council, which contracts with Blackstone. “The only guaranteed benefit I see in this plan is one for wealthy money managers and their cronies. Wall Streeters reading this plan will understand, without having specifically been told, that having Hillary Clinton and the federal government use its power to aggregate the existing and future retirement funds of working Americans and entrust it to them is the Holy Grail of finance.”

Chris Tobe, a Democrat who advises institutional investors and who served on Kentucky’s pension board, put it just as bluntly: “James’ plan is a deliberate attempt to get around federal protections for retirees because alternative investments are not generally allowed in the 401(k) world. This is about making Blackstone and other private equity firms even richer than they already are.”

Clinton has cast herself as skeptical of the “shadow banking” world that Blackstone operates in, and she has said she wants to close a loophole that lets private equity managers pay a lower tax rate than most other workers.

Yet for all of Clinton’s tough talk against Wall Street, James and others associated with Blackstone have been among her biggest fundraisers, and during a recent cocktail party in Washington D.C. to promote the plan, James said he was optimistic that a Clinton win could make his proposal a reality.

“What the election would mean for our plan: Yes, we’ve spent a fair amount of time with a number of Hillary’s policy advisors. So far they have been very encouraging about the plan,” he told the assembled crowd. “I am hopeful she’ll grab this issue once elected, and run with it. I think the signals are warm on that.”

Sirota also introduces his readers to Queens County boss and former New Dem chief, Joe Crowley, a glad-handing congressman who specializes in Wall Street corruption. He's slithered into position as the only House Dem seriously challenging the odious Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the post-Pelosi/post-Hoyer party leader-- the Speaker track. Either of them leading the Democratic Party is absolution repulsive. Sirota mentioned in passing that James' proposal "touts legislation from House Democratic Vice-Chairman Joe Crowley that would direct many employers to open individual retirement accounts for their employees. Crowley's office has promoted the initiative as one that would have the new accounts invest retiree savings in "a limited number of low-fee index fund options." However, the bill includes a provision that would give federal officials latitude to potentially invest the new money in alternative investments. Blackstone donors are collectively the third largest donor to Crowley during his congressional career, and Crowley has raised more than $1.6 million from donors in the securities and investment industry, according to CRP." Uplifting, right? This is what the Democratic Party has degenerated into. How do we fight back and derail this catastrophe? Electing committed progressive reformers like Zephyr Teachout, Pramila Jayapal, Tom Wakely, Paul Clements is a sure first step. Here:

Republicans Are Having A Real Problem With America's Fastest Growing Voter Bloc

Let's start with New Jersey resident-- and arch-bigot-- Lou Dobbs and sit back and watch his jihad against Chris Christie:



Then there's former Tea Party fave Rick Perry, now abandoned by the hate-spewing racist teabaggers (who were once-- days and days ago-- his base) because of the one humane policy he ever got talked into backing, a Texas DREAM Act. They don't like him no mo'. This week they started heckling him in public.

Texas Governor Rick Perry was loudly heckled Thursday while holding a fundraising event in Charlotte, North Carolina, despite attempts by his campaign to thwart the critics.

Some 15 members of the Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC) were outside San Antonio’s Mexican Grill, where Perry held his fundraiser. Bearing signs and American flags, the immigration reform protesters made much more noise than their number, and cars driving by the protest loudly honked their horns in support.

“Rick Perry is the only candidate that signed in state tuition for illegal immigrants into law, ” ALIPAC President William Gheen told local news outlet WCNC. “I shouldn’t have to pay to replace my own kids in college because of someone else’s criminal activity.”

Perry has gotten a drubbing in the polls after he told critics of his approving Texas state tuition funding for illegals attending college that they “have no heart” during last week’s GOP debate. He apologized for saying this yesterday, although he stands by the decision he made as governor.

Perry's campaign is very nervous about losing the support of the racist hatemongers who are the "populist" and activist core of the Republican Party. He's now talking about sending troops into Mexico and leaking stories about how his family home was called Niggerhead until last summer. Perhaps teabaggy Republicans will rethink the breakup.



At least the racists have a champion-- even if he's a completely flippity-floppity one. Here's the so-called "mainstream conservative" in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. He seems to be throwing away the Hispanic vote, which is kind of a big deal for Republicans interested in winning in swing states like Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. Probably bad news for Republican candidates lower down the ticket in states like Texas, California and a dozen or so other states where the GOP does count on a share of Hispanic voters. And wasn't Romney born in Mexico? Or was that his father? I recall some Mormon Romneys fled to Mexico to escape persecution at one time, no?

An end-of-week tribute to Lou Dobbs (confidential to L.D.: write if you get work!)

As Sweet Lou disappears in the rear-view mirror . . .





But let's not get too giddy. Our Lou has carved out a constituency among the underinformed and the misinformed. He knows how to whip up hysteria. That makes him a media icon. He'll be back. -- Ken

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So we've got a break from Sweet Lou Dobbs for now -- sometimes it's best not to ask too many questions

Sweet Lou back in the day, as pudgy lovable goof with his old partner, Bud Abbott. Who didn't love their zany "Who's on first?"

by Ken

So Sweet Lou Dobbs and CNN are no longer going steady, or doing whatever the heck it is they've been doing lo these many years -- but especially in the recent ones, since Lou flipped his lid and staked out his new career as a nativist nutjob noodge.

It seemed an especially odd choice to those of us with fond memories of his more honorable early days in the biz, as straight man in that celebrated comedy duo with straight man Bud Abbott, sort of the poor man's Laurel and Hardy opposite straight man Bud Abbott. Yes, he was a hoot, but people said he'd never been heard of again when he struck out on his own.

The question in everyone's mind, of course, is whether Sweet Lou jumped or was pushed off the battleship CNN. Everyone claims to have inside knowledge. I say sometimes you just have to go with the obvious explanation, just the way Andy Borowitz reported it:

		November 12, 2009 Lou Dobbs Returns to His Planet; ‘My Work Here is Done’ Bids Earth Farewell, Boards Rocket NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) - Controversial CNN host Lou Dobbs bade the people of Earth farewell today as he embarked on a long voyage back to his planet of origin. Standing on a launching pad with his rocket ship at the ready, Mr. Dobbs addressed a crowd of dozens who came to wish him a safe trip and godspeed. "People of Earth, farewell," he said. "My work here is done." In his farewell speech, Mr. Dobbs acknowledged the irony of his being an alien but insisted that he had been on Earth legally.

I have to say, it's easy enough to believe that CNN had wearied of parrying all those wearying complaints about Sweet Lou's descent into wingnut Hades. At the same time, getting sprung from a hitch on that leaky old tub the S.S. CNN isn't something you would necessarily mourn.



Some people got the impression that Sweet Lou is thinking of running for public office. Could be, but I'm not so sure. While the comment about Lou pursuing other opportunities in "advocacy journalism" came from his now-former CNN boss rather than the master himself, it seems significant to me that he was still talking about advocacy journalism, not plain advocacy. Besides, what would he run for? New Jersey already has a wingnut chub governor-elect, and there's no U.S. Senate seat up for election next year -- and you wouldn't expect a star like Lou to be running for a lowly House seat.

No, I think Lou is prepared to focus his energies on his radio show for a while, while he waits for his next opportunity to show itself. On the radio, it appears, he doesn't have to watch his words as closely as we're supposed to think he's been doing on CNN. It's on the radio, after all, that he's most openly championed the birther cause.

And who knows what opportunities may lie in wait for our Lou? Could he be headed for Fox Business News? Ah, who knows? Just don't expect him to be going quietly. As long as he can command audience share, he's got a franchise.

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Hate Speech: So Easy A Caveman Could Do It-- More Glenn Beck Advertisers Pull Off His Show

That irresistible line about the caveman, by the way, came from a reddit commenter. He was probably feeling celebratory over the fact that GEICO pulled all its advertising from Glenn Beck's hateful Fox TV show. And GEICO isn't the only company to have decided that advertising on the show of a vicious hate monger inciting violence and racial hatred is a bad marketing idea. Men's Wearhouse and Sargento are the latest companies to ask Fox to stop running their ads on TV. And today-- Blue America did the same.

Blue America is running a second wave of ads on Arkansas TV explaining Blanche Lincoln's duplicitous role in the health care debate. After looking at the logs of the first wave and noticing that some of our ads in Little Rock and Pine Bluff ran on Beck's show, we instructed the cable networks to not run any more ads on his programs in the towns we are advertising in this week-- the towns where Lincoln is doing her health care forums. Here's the note the Blue America media buyer sent to the Arkansas cable networks:

Blue America PAC has instructed me to tell you to not place any of their advertising within the Glenn Beck program on Fox News Channel for their upcoming flight.

There is a national boycott of his advertisers ongoing. as Mr. Beck has been promoting racism and violence on his program. We do not want to appear to support his efforts in any way, shape or form.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline Propps

As for Men's Wearhouse, DailyKos published a letter yesterday from Matt Stringer, the vp of marketing/creative services:

Thank you for contacting Men’s Wearhouse and bringing to our attention your concerns with the Glenn Beck program on Fox News. While we support free speech and do not make advertising decisions based on our own personal ideologies, after reviewing his recent incendiary comments we have decided to remove our advertising from his program. We hope that this decision will allow you to continue to patronize Men’s Wearhouse. I would encourage you to please share our decision with anyone else who may have expressed a similar concern.

And Media Matters published a similar note from Pat Lombardo from the Sargento Consumer Affairs Department:

We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during The Glenn Beck Show. We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in any event, they've made the decision to exclude that program from our future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won't be airing during that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.

As Color Of Change, the online civil rights group that initiated the boycott, points out, these defections come on the heels of pull outs by LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson.

So what's wrong with Travelocity? Why do they insist on still underwriting the hatred, bigotry and violence? As a reader pointed out on my travel blog this morning, "perhaps someone could clue Travelocity into the fact that racists aren't the biggest travelers..."

CNN has a similar type of problem with their own in house racist sociopath, Lou Dobbs and, according to MediaBistro.com the network is moving away from using Hate Talk Radio commentators on the air from now on, although they still refuse to fire Dobbs (who also hosts a hate talk radio show).

TVNewser has learned, and a CNN spokesperson confirms, that in his morning editorial meeting today, CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein asked his show producers to avoid booking talk radio hosts. "Complex issues require world class reporting," Klein is quoted as saying, adding that talk radio hosts too often add to the noise, and that what they say is "all too predictable."

Yesterday I spent over 4 hours at a town hall meeting hosted by Rep. Adam Schiff in Alhambra. The disruptive clowns who had come to prevent a discussion were shouting slogans straight from the Astro-Turf outfits' talking points and their world views were clearly formed by Hate Talk Radio and Fox "News." These people are hysterically opposed to immigrants' babies getting health care and opposed to the government making it illegal for Insurance companies to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. What they chant instead is "Tort Reform" and what they mutter is divisive and racist epithets most Americans thought went out of style with Lester Maddox, George Wallace and the cavemen.


UPDATE: Bad News For Teabaggers-- You're Being Played

The teabaggers like to take their thumbs out of their asses and jump up and down in front of the TV cameras claiming how real and genuine their grassroots protests are. I talked to so many of them with long lists of legitimate grievances-- one woman was suing her insurance company and very angry man with strange eyes is suing the gold company Glenn Beck shills for on radio that he claims cheated him-- but their grievances had nothing to do with what they disdainfully call "ObamaCare." How did they get from there to here? It wasn't via Pluto. According to a former Insurance Industry executive, Wendell Potter of CIGNA, the insurance companies are indeed the unseen hand behind the curtain manipulating the righteous-- or self-righteous-- indignation of the angry crowds getting their matching orders from hate-mongers like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity ,etc.

"The industry is up to the same dirty tricks this year," Potter said at a Capitol news conference after meeting with House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), an avid supporter of the Democrats' plans for a healthcare overhaul.

"When you hear someone complaining about traveling down a 'slippery slope to socialism,' some insurance flack, like I used to be, wrote that," Potter added.

Potter said during his 20 years in the insurance business, the industry would funnel money to large public firms who would create front groups and find friendly voices in conservative media.

In particular, he cited front groups created to fight "Patients' Bill of Rights" legislation in the 1990s, as well as a campaign to discredit the Michael Moore film Sicko, which harshly criticized the industry.

Slaughter joined in the attack, saying "the notion that this is going to be something devilish comes from the people who would lose money on it."

UPDATE: Roaming Gnome Relents... Dumps Glenn Beck

The same thing happened to Travelocity that happened to Blue America. Like us, they just did a cable buy and wound up with some of their ads going to underwrite the hatred, racism and violence being incited by Glenn Beck. And like Blue America, Travelocity has asked the cable systems to stop running their ads on the hate shows. After all, how many racists like to travel anyway? Where would they go? From C&L:

Dear Roger - We did not specifically place our ad on the show. We basically buy ads in bulk and then they are placed somewhat randomly. However, we have now specifically asked that our ads do not appear during this show. Thank you for your concern,

Sincerely,

Amanda

Joining Travelocity in announcing that they were no longer allowing their ads to run on Beck's show are major advertisers like ConAgra (Healthy Choice), Radio Shack, Roche and Sanofi-Aventis. Beck has been apoplectic in his tweets over this-- as well as weeping on TV again.

CNN Advocates Killing Howard Dean-- They Should Lose Their Broadcast License

CNN anchor Lou Dobbs has apparently gone insane. Or was he drunk yesterday when he called for the death of Howard Dean (below) or when he distorted what Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer said about disruptive teabaggers keeping citizens from having discussions with their elected representatives? Dobbs is a divisive ratings whore, willing to lie and slander anyone with his self righteous Know Nothing rants to drive his sinking ratings up. CNN should be ashamed. They should also lose their broadcast license for inciting violence, assassination and murder.



This morning I watched the Senate's resident dingbat, Missouri Democrat (ugghhh) Claire McCaskill at a town hall meeting demonizing something she apparently doesn't understand, single payer health insurance, after some Dobbs or Limbaugh or Beck-fueled constituent got up and started raving about the slippery slope to socialism. Imagine if Missouri had a senator who could explain what the health insurance racket is and how single payer health care reform could benefit them and their families instead of using Insurance Industry talking points straight from the GOP playbook. But then, of course, Ms, McCaskill-- only in office for a couple years-- has already scooped up $352,900 from the Medical-Industrial Complex and another $71,339 from Big Insurance... plenty of reasons to not try too hard to understand what single payer actually is. She sounds a lot like a Republican, even like an imbecile like Peter King (R-NY) who calls reform "radical" and validates Insurance Industry anti-health care memes. King assures his listeners he wants "some" reform while the Insurance CEOs and their lobbyists and astro-turf outfits are acknowledging that their goal is "no reform at all."

It's funny that the corporate media-- more, except in Fox's case, for ratings than for an ideological agenda-- is propping up the Republican jihad against health care reform, spreading partisan fear and smear and inciting people to violence.

It is this broader context that makes CNN's decision to lend its good name to the birther conspiracy so egregious and so dangerous. With the blessing of the network, Lou Dobbs has given the smear an unparalleled level of credibility by reporting it as an ongoing and unresolved story. His coverage is part of a career spent advancing prejudicial, anti-immigrant, and conspiratorial right-wing canards. He has also portrayed Obama as a "socialist" and compared him to fascist dictators. Again, this from a "journalist" with a prime time show on CNN, the self-described "most trusted name in news," a network that has publicly advocated its political neutrality and commitment to serious, fact-based reporting.

There isn't a single progressive issue that isn't in danger of being overwhelmed by this right-wing campaign and its central narrative. Health care reform is a socialist takeover. Restructuring bankrupt companies is a ruse designed to give the government direct control over the economy. Obama's speech in Cairo was part of a "Muslim apology tour" that shows how eager he is to blame America first and how unwilling he is to defend it (he is, after all, a false Christian, important to those who irrationally fear Islam). In the absence of any new legislation involving gun ownership, Democrats are still supposedly committed to overturning the Second Amendment which will further support tyranny. New environmental regulations and green energy promotion represent an encroachment upon personal liberty, an excuse for more federal power and higher federal taxes, all based on the myth of global warming. No matter what progressive issue you pick, conservatives are working to turn it into nothing less than sedition, carried out by an illegal president who is actually a traitor. The conservative media is their megaphone, with the mainstream media all-too often following suit.

The future success of every progressive initiative will be impacted by what information the American people receive. We must respond forcefully, swiftly, and collectively to counteract the distorting and dangerous impact of the right-wing noise machine whenever and wherever it appears. And we must demand integrity from mainstream news organizations. If there is any doubt about what progressives are up against, consider the fact that last week, Dobbs officially abandoned his self-appointed "Mr. Independent" label. "What do you think you're doing Barack Obama?" he said on his radio show, accusing the president of promoting "mindless, churlish, un-American nonsense." He continued: "I'm moving from being an independent, sir, to being absolutely opposed to any policy you could conceive of." Yet just days earlier, he had told Don Imus that CNN president Jon Klein and "all of the folks at CNN are just terrifically supportive."

If we can't even prevent CNN from functioning as a right-wing propaganda organ, then we have no hope of ever getting a fair hearing on any issue.

Conservative goals and tactics will not change on their own. The Right will keep doing what works. Whenever the increasingly prevalent right-wing cry of "I want my country back!" is heard, progressives must understand what is behind the words, and realize that unless they act, we will lose the greatest opportunity in a generation to redefine the American political landscape.

So while Eric Cantor's and Mitt Romney's Republican Party rebranding effort of a few months ago has flamed out entirely, the Republicans have learned they don't actually have to do anything remotely proactive-- just throw bricks at whatever the president wants to accomplish and count on the deranged penny-media nuts to blow it up into national outrage. Every single CNN employee should feel ashamed of what their company is doing to America. And, as Paul Krugman noted Sunday, explaining that the GOP doesn't have to do anything but obstruct and demonize: "We do know, however, what Republicans in opposition have been saying-- and it boils down to demanding that the government stop standing in the way of a possible depression."

Charles Pierce put it all into perspective in his brilliant book, Idiot America:

This long, slow march from the debacle of the Goldwater campaign of 1964 through the triumph of Ronald Reagan and, ultimately, the consolidation of power under George W. Bush from 2000 to 2008 depended in everything on how tightly the movement fasted itself to popular irrationality from economics to fringe religion. The movement swallowed whole the quack doctrine of supply-side economics, adopting it with almost comically ferocious zeal... [And i]n June 2007, a Gallup poll found that 68 percent of the Republicans surveyed said that they did not believe in evolution at all. And this was the ascendant political power at the time.

Movement conservatism was so successful that it drove its own media, particularly talk radio, and conservative media fed back the enthusiasm into the movement, energizing it further. The movement's gift for confrontation was ideally suited to media in which controversy drove ratings, which then drove the controversy, and so forth. The more traditional media joined in, attracted, as they always are, by power and success. The more the movement succeeded politically, the tighter it was bound to the extremes that helped power it.

Here's Obama in New Hampshire today. CNN and MSNBC carried it live. Fox, never wanting facts to get in the way of their reporting, didn't. I especially liked this line in the beginning: "I don't think government bureaucrats should be meddling [with your health care decisions] but I also don't think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling." The audience seemed to appreciate that too.

Progressives Urge Beck Advertisers To Stop Enabling The Extremism

Do you know who pays for the racist campaign against Obama? GEICO, NutriSystems, Proctor & Gamble, and... United Postal Service. Yep, those are the advertisers who pay for the TV time so that deranged sociopath Glenn Beck can get up and spout his divisive hatred and racism. And today the top online civil rights group Color of Change urged its 600,000-plus members to petition companies who advertise on Glenn Beck’s radio and television shows to urge them to cut off their advertising on Beck’s programs. The mobilization comes after Beck called President Obama a “racist” who “has a deep-seated hatred for white people” during an appearance Tuesday on Fox and Friends. [Video below]

Color of Change has also been urging CNN to fire their own racist shill, Lou Dobbs for his gratuitous birther campaign, which CNN irresponsibly uses to pump up lagging viewership.

“What Beck is doing is race-baiting at its worst, it's dangerous and it's hard to imagine any company wanting their brand associated with it,” said James Rucker of ColorOfChange.org. “Beck has now shown that his extreme views are more appropriate for a street corner than a major media program. He no longer deserves the backing of mainstream advertisers.”

ColorOfChange.org's decision to hold companies accountable for where they spend their advertising budgets is significant because of the increased consumer power of African-Americans. A 2008 report by the market research publication Report Buyer forecasts that the buying power of the country's African-American community will hit $1.1 trillion by 2012.

Please sign their petition.



UPDATE: Ratings Plummet For Cable News Hatemongers

If CNN is trying to get ratings with Lou Dobb's hate show-- which is what Bill O'Reilly claims (and who would know better?)-- the tactic is failing. His ratings have taken a serious hit since he started his psychotic birther campaign according to today's NY Observer.

Is There No Way For Society To Protect Itself From Modern Day Josef Goebbel Characters Like Beck, Hannity And Dobbs?

When I lived in San Francisco one of my smartest, most urbain and savviest friends was Susan Klein. She kind of idolized her kid brother Jonathan, who had graduated magna cum laude from Brown and gone on to work at CBS News. I always had the idea he was just as smart, urbain and savvy as Susan. Apparently the folks at CNN thought so too. In 2004 they made him president of CNN US, "responsible for management oversight of all programming, editorial tone and strategic direction of the network." Aside from a couple of Emmy awards, this guy actually did win a Peabody. And now he's responsible for CNN's editorial tone in the U.S.

I don't think I ever met Jonathan though I feel like I know him, at least enough to be certain that-- other than the way I liked Cher when I ran her record label-- he doesn't like Lou Dobbs one bit. Lately he's been damaging his reputation-- like really damaging it-- by publicly defending Dobbs. He has bosses too and Dobbs' extreme Know Nothing editorial tone attracts a certain crowd that would otherwise be busy watching Fox-News or reading Ku Klux Klan one sheets. Advertisers get measurements of their presense, not measurements of the absense of millions of former or might have been CNN viewers who now watch MSNBC or get their news even less corporately.

The editorial tone Jonathan is responsible for, at least on paper, is now so poisonous and hateful that it's impossible to mention malevolent, treasonous figures like O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, Savage and Ingraham without, in the same breath also mentioning CNN's Lou Dobbs. His show is repulsive, the way Joseph McCarthy was repulsive and the B.A. Jonathan Klein earned-- summa cum laude-- at Brown was in history. So he knows.

If Jonathan Klein is unable to self-police, no one can. It's impossible. Society will either disintegrate into a brutish reactionary mob ruled by the Law of the Jungle or it will figure out a way to protect itself from this:



Racism is not acceptable, not in America in 2009-- and not as a tactic in a Big Money war against health care reform. We-- our nation-- has to do something about the way the public airwaves are being used to brutalize the population.

Not Even One Single Republican House Member-- Not Even Nutcase John Campbell-- Backed Lou Dobbs' Psychotic Insistence That Obama Wasn't Born In The US

Birther John Campbell hid under his desk rather than vote today

Hawaii Democrat Neil Abercrombie introduced H.R. 593 "recognizing and celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the entry of Hawaii into the Union as the 50th State," and proudly proclaiming that Barack Obama was born there. Although emarrassing birther fanatic Michele Bachmann tried a parliamentary maneuver to delay a vote on an issue that is helping many Americans understand the toxicity and wholesale derangement of the Republican Party, in the end every single Republican in the House joined all the Democrats to pass it 378-0. Even Bachmann voted yes.

One birther kook-- and only one-- fled from the Chamber to avoid voting: John Bayard Taylor Campbell III, a lunatic fringe wingnut from Thousand Oaks (quite far from his Orange County district). Campbell was one of the sponsors of the "Birthright Citizenship Act," which would require presidential candidates to disclose birth certificates. He avoided voting on the Hawaiian legislation at 6:56PM but managed to vote for the Waco Mammoth National Monument Establishment Act at 7:03PM. It must have been difficult for these Republicans to leave CNN's in house racist Lou Dobbs out to dry. But they are fully aware that there case has no legs whatsoever. It's just part of the partisan game they play and more definitive proof that the rightists would rather see America fail than Obama succeed.

Campbell, a former used car salesman and a member of the House Financial Services Committee, is widely considered one of the most corrupt of the younger members of Congress. Lobbyists and corporate CEOs have reason to believe that Campbell will vote for any special interest that will pay him enough money. He's been a 100% in the pocket supporter of the worst of the banksters and Wall Street crooks and in return he's pocketed $863,386 (in just two terms!)

These interviews with Republican loons were done before they all voted for the Hawaii resolution asserting that Obama was born in Hawaii. (The imbecile hiding and making believe he was looking at pens for 20 minutes to avoid the interviewer is Pennsylvania freak Tim Murphy.)