Digby and Jay Rosen go beyond theory in what the press has to fear from Trump and his supporters

Plus: TV Watch -- All set for Wednesday's "Rectify" series finale?

In her post "Demanding a show of power" today, Digby offers this chunk of her "storification" of a 20-tweet Jay Rosen tweetstorm:

-- Digby's excerpt from that Jay Rosen tweet "storification,"
offered today with her post "Demanding a show of power"

"The good news for all the Trump supporters in law enforcement is that if their man wins he has promised to let them take the gloves off, which is likely one of the major reasons they like him so much. Journalists should probably be a little more concerned about being used by this authoritarian partnership, however."

-- Digby, in her Nov. 4 Salon post "FBI’s Clinton smear
campaign is no surprise -- and has weird echoes of the
’90s," recalled today in her above-referenced post

by Ken

As Digby herself notes in the post today, it's important to read the full 20-tweet sequence of this tweetstorm by NYU Prof. Jay Rosen, which she has storified as "How bad is it likely to get by Jay Rosen." In the post today she adds this note: "This seems like a very likely scenario to me, particularly since it looks like the FBI is going to be Trump's personal goon squad." And that sends her back to the Nov. 4 Salon post, "FBI’s Clinton smear campaign is no surprise -- and has weird echoes of the ’90s" -- written, she tells us, a week before the Jay Rosen tweetstorm. We can tell, of course, that the Salon piece dates back to the far side of Election Day from from the now-poignant phrase, relating to "all the Trump supporters in law enforcement": "if their man wins." We can now scratch that "if."

The Nov. 4 post began:

For those who have been following the fraught relationship between the FBI and Hillary Clinton for a couple of decades, the revelations that rank-and-file agents are selectively leaking like a sieve in hopes of derailing her campaign in favor of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump comes as no big surprise.
If there is such a thing as an institutional memory, then the FBI has one with an antipathy for Hillary Clinton that’s downright pathological.

The fact that the selective leaking for maximum effect hadn’t started earlier should have tipped off us old-timers that there was a plan for a late surprise. . . .

She expresses observerly admiration for the "nice touch" of kicking off this particular smear campaign by "having the FBI director himself send a vague letter filled with innuendo and suspicion to the House Oversight Committee chairman, Republican Jason Chaffetz," and connects this to the reality that "it’s now taken as a given by a large portion of the country that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will be indicted for . . . something."

Hillary, she recalls, has been subjected to "shocking vilification" dating back to "fthe moment she came to Washington," and proceeding with "with such intensity it was frightening" all through the right-wing "witch hunts" aimed at driving her husband out of the presidency "one way or the other," beginning early in his first term and continuing through his impeachment in his second term.

The right-wing rage was redoubled by (a) the failure to convict President Clinton in his impeachment trial ("mostly because his approval ratings were sky-high" and (b) the fact that "the American people punished the Republicans at the polls instead of the president." Happily for the Clinton-haters,

Then, as today, there was a Republican FBI director, Louis Freeh, allowing his agents to run wild whispering in the ears of willing reporters that an indictment was imminent. And there were always reporters willing to breathlessly report the scoop.

Exhibit A: repeated "reporting" by NYT right-wing provocateur William Safire of an impending indictment of the First Lady, always claimed to be coming any day.

Jumping ahead to "the current torrent of selective leaks," she turns to a Daily Beast piece by Wayne Barrett, "Meet Donald Trump’s Top FBI Fanboy," where we learn, she says, that it's "being funneled through a retired New York FBI agent named James Kallstrom and coordinated by former federal prosecutor and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani." Highlight: Rudy on Fox, "grinning like a fool" two days before the Comey letter, blithering about the "surprise or two" that Trump has in store for us "in the next few days":

I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises. . . . We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.

Then there was Trump daughter-in-law Lara, on Fox the same day, promising, "We've got some stuff up our sleeves," while her father-in-law was "crowing on the trail that he’s heard that FBI agents were unhappy with the decision not to indict Clinton, including his claim that "the people that have been longtime workers at the FBI are furious."

Digby notes too irony, amid concerns about the Russian government also leaking on Trump's behalf during the election campaign, remembering the FBI's deep embarrassment by the discovery that the agent assigned to the Russian desk, Robert Hanssen ("now serving life in prison for espionage"), "had actually been a Russian spy for 20 years. She recalls "the admission by conservative columnist Robert Novak," one of the prime Clinton persecutors (fondly recalled as "the Prince of Darkness"), "that Hanssen had been one of his FBI sources for damaging information about the Clintons." Novak, she recalls,

innocently wondered if the man who had betrayed dozens of American intelligence assets in Russia, at least three of whom were executed, had really used him for nefarious purposes or if he really cared. Perhaps Novak wanted to believe that Hanssen was truly a patriot. Some reporters believe what they want to believe.

"There’s obviously no connection between the Hanssen case and today’s Russian investigation(s)," she notes.

But there are still too many people in the intelligence business who think it’s acceptable to interfere in the political business of the country when they disapprove of a leader. And there are still far too many credulous reporters willing to help them do it.

Then she offers the quote I've quoted up top about "the good news for all the Trump supporters in law enforcement," continuing:

Journalists should probably be a little more concerned about being used by this authoritarian partnership, however. Neither the FBI nor Donald Trump have much respect for democratic principles, including the First Amendment (as anyone can see by the crude insults hurled at the press by Trump and his followers every day.) It won’t end well for the country to empower these people and it certainly won’t end well for the press.

No, it won't end well for the country, or for the press. But for the so-called journalists who play ball with "Trump and his followers"? One's intuition informed by history suggests that they could do very well indeed.

TV WATCH: ALL SET FOR WEDNESDAY'S
RECTIFY SERIES FINALE?

I had originally planned to write today about the Sundance series Rectify, in anticipation of Wednesday's conclusion, not just of this spectacular final season, but of the series itself. But I made an executive decision to go with the above. Anyone who hasn't been watching should watch for further replays, and especially of Season 4. (It's possible to get caught up enough on previous events to appreciate what the creative team did here.) Now I guess that will have to wait till the show is completed.

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When it comes to Hillary, Paul Waldman notes, a special standard applies as to what "raises questions"

You can find the piece to which Paul's directing us here.


"If you as a journalist are going to say that something 'raises questions,' and if you know the answer to those questions, you have to say that, too. So in this case, the question the Band email raises is, 'Did an aide to Bill Clinton get a diplomatic passport from Hillary Clinton's staff when she was Secretary of State, something he was not entitled to?' The answer is — and pay attention to make sure you grasp this answer in all its complexity — No."

-- Paul Waldman, in a WaPo post today, "Here’s a tale of
two scandals. Guess which one will get more play?"

by Ken

One of the ways in which the Right-Wing Noise Machine has learned to tie the Infotainment Noozemedia in knots is by exploiting the media crutch of "even-handedness" -- based, of course, on utterly false equivalences. And the Noise Machine has been crucifying Hillary Clinton with a steady stream of "news" items and leaks that feed to the Center and Left's appallingly lazy acceptance of the Noise Machine's "larger narrative" that Hillary is, as Paul Waldman puts it in the post of his we're looking at today, "Here’s a tale of two scandals. Guess which one will get more play?" "tainted by scandal, or corrupt, or just sinister in ways people can never quite put their finger on."

By itself this would be damaging enough to any kind of realistic political discourse regarding the election or anything else. However, the problem is wildly compounded by the exact opposite way of looking at things that should raise questions on the Right; the standard has been stretched so preposterously that every day zillions of things that genuinely ought to raise questions don't seem to. Like, for example, the growing smell of the wildly inappropriate connection between the Trump interests and Florida AG Pam Biondi. What it comes down to, Paul notes at the end, is: "Some stories 'raise questions,' and others don't."

As Digby also noted today, Paul has "done such a thorough job" with the story that she was able to forego writing it up herself. I think we'll also just let him tell the story his way.

Here’s a tale of two scandals. Guess which one will get more play?

By Paul Waldman
September 2 at 1:01 PM

Whenever some new piece of information emerges about Hillary Clinton or people close to her, we’re told that it “raises questions” of some kind, which means it’s being shoehorned into a larger narrative that says something fundamental about her: That she’s tainted by scandal, or corrupt, or just sinister in ways people can never quite put their finger on.

Yet somehow, stories about Donald Trump that don’t have to do with the latest appalling thing that came out of his mouth don’t “raise questions” in the same way. They’re here and then they’re gone, obliterated by his own behavior without going deep into question-raising territory.

To see what I mean, let’s look at a couple of stories that have come out in the last 24 hours. We’ll start with the one about Clinton. You may have heard recently about Judicial Watch, which is an organization established in the 1990s to destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, a mission it continues to this day. Through lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests, they try to obtain information that can be used against the Clintons, and they’re going to be a vital player in Washington politics should Hillary become president. The group’s latest “revelation” can be found in email exchanges between Doug Band, an executive at the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin, when Clinton was secretary of state.

Here’s how the New York Times reported this story, under the headline “Emails Raise New Questions About Clinton Foundation Ties to State Department“:

A top aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department agreed to try to obtain a special diplomatic passport for an adviser to former President Bill Clinton in 2009, according to emails released Thursday, raising new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access at the department.

The request by the adviser, Douglas J. Band, who started one arm of the Clintons’ charitable foundation, was unusual, and the State Department never issued the passport. Only department employees and others with diplomatic status are eligible for the special passports, which help envoys facilitate travel, officials said.

Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign said that there was nothing untoward about the request and that it related to an emergency trip that Mr. Clinton took to North Korea in 2009 to negotiate the release of two American journalists. Mrs. Clinton has long denied that donors had any special influence at the State Department.

The first sentence of that story is questionable at best. The top aide, Huma Abedin, did not “agree to try to obtain a special diplomatic passport” for Band. He emailed her asking for it, and she replied, “OK will figure it out.” It’s hard to say whether that constitutes agreeing to anything, and at any rate, Band and the other two Clinton aides who were going to accompany the former president on this mission to North Korea didn’t actually need diplomatic passports for the trip and wouldn’t be allowed to get them anyway, nothing happened. You might have missed it, but there in the second paragraph the story notes that no diplomatic passports were ever issued.

To sum up: An executive at the Clinton Foundation made a request of Hillary Clinton’s aide, and didn’t get what he was asking for. Now maybe there is some real evidence somewhere of corruption at the State Department during Clinton’s time there, but that sure as heck isn’t it.

If you as a journalist are going to say that something “raises questions,” and if you know the answer to those questions, you have to say that, too. So in this case, the question the Band email raises is, “Did an aide to Bill Clinton get a diplomatic passport from Hillary Clinton’s staff when she was Secretary of State, something he was not entitled to?” The answer is — and pay attention to make sure you grasp this answer in all its complexity — No. (If you want a fairer version of this story, here’s the Post’s.)

Now let me point you to another story, one you probably haven’t heard about. Yesterday we learned that Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty over a contribution his foundation made to a PAC affiliated with Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, whom you might remember from the Republican convention, where she gave a rousing speech endorsing Trump. Does this story “raise questions”? Does it ever.

Here’s the quick summary: In 2013, Bondi’s office received multiple complaints from Floridians who said they had been cheated out of thousands of dollars by a fraudulent operation called Trump University. While Bondi’s office was looking into the claims to determine if they should join New York State’s lawsuit against Trump University, Bondi called Donald Trump and asked him for a contribution to her PAC.

Now let’s pause for a moment to savor the idea that Bondi, the highest-ranking law enforcement official in the state, would solicit a contribution from someone her office was in the process of investigating. She did solicit that contribution, and Donald Trump came through with $25,000.

Or actually, his foundation paid Bondi’s PAC the $25,000, which is an illegal contribution. Trump’s people say this was just a clerical error, and Trump himself reimbursed the foundation — that’s what the IRS fine was about. But days before getting the check, Bondi’s office announced that they were considering whether to go after Trump University, and not long after the check was cashed, they decided to drop the whole thing.

Here are a few questions this story raises: How many Floridians were scammed by Trump University? When Bondi and Trump spoke, did Trump University come up? What was the basis on which Bondi decided not to join New York’s lawsuit? Why didn’t she recuse herself from the decision? Are there any other attorneys general Trump has given money to, and had any of them received complaints about Trump University, the Trump Institute, the Trump Network, or any of Trump’s other get-rich-quick scams that were so successful in separating ordinary people from their money?

Those kinds of questions are what spur more digging and allow news organizations to not just write one story about an issue like this and then consider it done, but return to it again and again. If they decided to, they could get at least as much material out of the issue of Trump’s scams as they do out of Clinton’s alleged corruption at the State Department. But I’m guessing they won’t. Some stories “raise questions,” and others don’t.

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Will the right-wing perpetrators and co-conspirators pay any price for their bogus smear campaign against Planned Parenthood?

Attack Of The O'Keefe Clones

Rob Tornoe, Media Matters for America blog (click to enlarge)

"Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky pledged to “introduce an amendment to pending Senate legislation to immediately strip every dollar of Planned Parenthood funding.” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called for defunding and for “an investigation of Planned Parenthood’s activities regarding the sale and transfer of aborted body parts.” The House Energy and Commerce Committee is undertaking an investigation, and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have ordered investigations in their states."

-- from the New York Times editorial "The Campaign
of Deception Against Planned Parenthood"

by Ken

This is the story we should be reading today:

Today, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Rafael "Ted from Alberta" Cruz (R-TX), Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee (R-UpTheirButts), Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), and Gov. Booby Jindal (R-LA) all announced that they are quitting their jobs and contemplating applying a Second Amendment solution to ther personal shitsuckitude, on the ground that, while they have long known that they are enemies of all truth and decency, their role in the 100 percent fraudulent attack on Planned Parenthood is simply one monumental abuse too many, and makes their continued presence in public life, and probably life of any sort, not merely unjustifiable but intolerable to any person of even the slightest good faith. They all insisted on offering belated apologies for having been born, and everything they have said and done since.

Instead, despite having been thoroughly discredited, this conspiracy of liars and imbeciles -- centered around a front group called "Center for Medical Progress," which appears to have no reason to exist except to spread likes -- not only will go unpunished but will likely remain lodged in the heads of the gullible targets of the right-wing lie factory as "truth." Yeah, Planned Parenthood gets rich by illegally selling fetal tissue, we got it on video.

No. Not true. None of it.

Let's jump to the conclusion of the New York Times editorial I've already referenced above, "The Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood":

The Center for Medical Progress video campaign is a dishonest attempt to make legal, voluntary and potentially lifesaving tissue donations appear nefarious and illegal. Lawmakers responding by promoting their own anti-choice agenda are rewarding deception and putting women’s health and their constitutionally protected rights at risk.

Just to be clear: There's nothing ambiguous about this case. Two videos have been released which were fabricated by persons engaged in a calculated, knowing, deliberate fraud. Every second of time put into this scheme by everyone connected with the manufacture of the hoax had no intention except to create and disseminate a package of total lies for the purpose of creating a furor among gullible right-wing followers and also discrediting Planned Parenthood for no legitimate reason. (No, their hatred is not a "legitimate" reason.) There are probably crimes for which they could be prosecuted, but that won't happen, and the crimes they could be prosecuted for probably wouldn't carry much in the way of punishment -- certainly nothing like the punishment they deserve for the massive fraud they perpetrated.

Let's say it again: There is no limit to the contempt and loathing right-wing demagogues feel for the American they spend all their waking hours shitting on. They hate the people they manipulate almost as much as they hate the truth. But only "almost," because the people they manipulate are their key to power and riches, whereas the truth is always their enemy and must always be destroyed.

And in this case, it seems safe to say that as far as the bulk of the American public is concerned, the truth has been safely destroyed. The perpetrators of the fraud attempted to lure the Planned Parenthood people they video-recorded into some sort of misdeed, and completely failed. So they edited the video into lies. None of the accusations cobbled together is true. But right-wingers know that truth is for saps. They have something better than truth. Their ideological insanity.

Not just the perpetrators but their co-conspirators -- for starters, see the names up top -- will go unscathed. I suppose it could be said that the co-conspirators weren't part of the original fraud and had no way of knowing that every word they said was a lie. Except that the same thing happens almost every time one of these frauds is perpetrated, and these corrupt pols continue to trumpet every new one without regard to the quantity of lies they have already championed. There is, apparently, no limit to their passion for truthlessness, and there never will be as long as the American public not only tolerates but rewards their unremitting assault on truth and decency.


THE NYT EDITORIAL

The editorial does such a good job of "unpacking" the story that it really needs to be taken whole (links onsite):

EDITORIAL
The Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | JULY 22, 2015

A hidden-camera video released last week purported to show that Planned Parenthood illegally sells tissue from aborted fetuses. It shows nothing of the sort. But it is the latest in a series of unrelenting attacks on Planned Parenthood, which offers health care services to millions of people every year. The politicians howling to defund Planned Parenthood care nothing about the truth here, being perfectly willing to undermine women’s reproductive rights any way they can.

The nine-minute video clip released by the Center for Medical Progress, an outfit apparently created in 2013, invites viewers to “Hold Planned Parenthood accountable for their illegal sale of baby parts.” In it, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, is seen discussing the collection of fetal tissue in a lunch meeting with two people posing as potential tissue buyers. A second video, released on Tuesday, shows another Planned Parenthood staff member discussing fetal tissue.

After the first video’s release, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky pledged to “introduce an amendment to pending Senate legislation to immediately strip every dollar of Planned Parenthood funding.” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called for defunding and for “an investigation of Planned Parenthood’s activities regarding the sale and transfer of aborted body parts.” The House Energy and Commerce Committee is undertaking an investigation, and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have ordered investigations in their states.

The full video of the lunch meeting, over two hours long and released by the Center for Medical Progress after complaints by Planned Parenthood, shows something very different from what these critics claim. Clearly, the shorter version was edited to eliminate statements by Dr. Nucatola explaining that Planned Parenthood does not profit from tissue donation, which requires the clear consent of the patient. Planned Parenthood affiliates only accept money — between $30 and $100 per specimen, according to Dr. Nucatola — to cover costs associated with collecting and transporting the tissue. “This is not something with any revenue stream that affiliates are looking at,” she said. Under federal law, facilities may be reimbursed for costs associated with fetal tissue donation, like transportation and storage.

According to a letter sent by Roger Evans, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the video is a result of a yearslong campaign of deception. The head of the Center for Medical Progress, David Daleiden, created a fake company called Biomax Procurement Services almost three years ago for the purpose of tricking Planned Parenthood employees, the letter alleges, even setting up exhibits at Planned Parenthood’s national conferences. The letter also says Biomax offered a Planned Parenthood affiliate $1,600 for a fetal liver and thymus, presumably to trap the affiliate in the act of accepting a high payment for fetal tissue. The affiliate declined.

In a statement on its website, the Center for Medical Progress says it “follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work.”

Anti-abortion groups have long pushed to defund Planned Parenthood, even though no federal money is used to provide abortions. But that hasn’t stopped their efforts to shut down the clinics, which provide services like contraception, cancer screening and other tests.

The Center for Medical Progress — which managed to get tax-exempt status in 2013 as a biomedicine charity, according to a report by The Huffington Post — appears to have done little beyond producing the undercover video. According to its registration form with the California attorney general, it has three officers: Mr. Daleiden; Albin Rhomberg, who has participated in anti-abortion protests; and Troy Newman, the president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

In a statement last week, Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that “our donation programs — like any other high-quality health care providers — follow all laws and ethical guidelines” and that “Planned Parenthood stands behind our work to help women and families donate tissue for medical research when they wish to.”

Researchers use fetal tissue to study and develop treatments for diseases and conditions like H.I.V., hepatitis, congenital heart defects, retinal degeneration and Parkinson’s. Last year, the National Institutes of Health gave $76 million in grants for fetal tissue research. Planned Parenthood is certainly not the only collector of fetal tissue — clinics associated with universities also supply tissue for research.

The Center for Medical Progress video campaign is a dishonest attempt to make legal, voluntary and potentially lifesaving tissue donations appear nefarious and illegal. Lawmakers responding by promoting their own anti-choice agenda are rewarding deception and putting women’s health and their constitutionally protected rights at risk.

WHO OR WHAT IS THE "CENTER FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS"?



In real-world terms, there doesn't appear to be any such thing as the "Center for Medical Progress." As Amanda Marcotte reported on Slate, it appears to be a created-for-the-smear front created by a band of right-wing crazies called Live Action, which pushed the "news" hard while managing mostly to keep its own name out of the story. Amanda notes:

Despite years of effort, Lila Rose and her crew have never been able to prove any of their accusations of illegal behavior. The organization has a credibility problem, one that might have interfered with getting mainstream media traction for a video with its name on it. But the Center for Medical Progress didn't have the same name recognition problem—or it didn't until now.

Amanda's Slate piece is cited by Laura Bassett in the HuffPost piece cited by the NYT editorial, "Group Behind Planned Parenthood Sting Video May Have Tricked IRS, Donors," which notes that the IRS would have had no reason to understand CMP as merely a "front group" for Live Action "when considering the group's application for tax-exempt status, and not how the group originally presented itself to the public in soliciting donations." Laura cites reporting by the Bridge Project that it was granted tax-exempt status under a code used by the IRS for "biomedicine charities," as CMP claimed to be in a now-deleted version of its website viewable via the Wayback Machine. (There's a different code for nonprofit propaganda outlets like Live Action.)

Since being approved by the IRS in 2013 as a "biomedicine charity," CMP doesn't seem to have done anything except release these videos. The current site has a completely different "about us" description, claiming to be "a group of citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances. We are concerned about contemporary bioethical issues that impact human dignity, and we oppose any interventions, procedures, and experiments that exploit the unequal legal status of any class of human beings."

Of course if the IRS were to investigate the case and find that CMP has committed fraud, against both the IRS and potential donors, and apply the legally available penalties (shutting the operation down and seeking fines or prison time for the individuals responsible) the Right-Wing Noise Machine would no doubt howl about political persecution.

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Can a book mostly bulk-bought by political hypesters to inflate "sales" qualify as a "best-seller"?

Plus: The irony of superliar Rafael "Ted from
Alberta" Cruz titling a book A Time For Truth

Daily Kos caption: "A Time For Lies?"

"This fake 'popularity' of conservative books is evidenced by the fact that 4 out of the 5 'bestsellers' in 2013 were by conservative opinion makers.

"Really? If 4 out of 5 of the most popular books are about conservative ideas then why did 5,204,364 more people vote for Democrats in the last 3 Nationwide Senate elections?"

-- HealOurCountry, in the above-linked Daily Kos post

by Ken

Remember when we were force-marched into a discussion of the meaning of "is"? Well, now hordes of lying right-wing imbeciles are up in arms because the NY Times suddenly got a tad persnicketty about the meaning of a "book sale," in the sense of "the sale of a book."

In a better world, it wouldn't matter.

Probably in our minds when we think of a "book sale," we think of somebody who wants a book and plunks down cash or a credit card to take ownership of it. And consequently we would assume that a "best-seller list" would consist of the books for which this person-buys-book-he/she-wants" transaction happened the largest number of times. Let buyers buy all the books they want and do with them what they will -- it's nobody else's business.

Ours isn't, unfortunately, that better world. In our world, it turns out that there are times when it really does matter how we define a book sale. Like when we're counting them up.

Now certainly books bought as gifts count. If Uncle Oswald decides to buy copies of Fly-Tying for Dummies for all 25 relations and friends on his Christmas list, that's pretty much the moral equivalent of those 25 lucky recipients going out and buying the books for themselves, even if 23 or 24 of the actual recipients never open their copies and limit their involvement with it to making snarky comments about Uncle Oswald on the phone with other recipients.

But what if agenda-driven organizations buy up thousands of copies, their agenda being to notch those "book sales,"  to count toward hoped-for best-sellerdom? And what if, far from being aberrant cases of overenthusiastic boosterism, this is a standard way of selling books with a certain political agenda?

In case you weren't aware, this is exactly how our book-publishing industry has been functioning for ages now. I know I wasn't always aware. I remember being surprised and puzzled when I first heard about the lofty sales figures for many highly ideological right-wing tomes. Who knew there were so many right-wing readers tearing through all those books?

I learned that there really weren't.

For a host of right-wing individuals and foundations, the propaganda value of racking up high "sales" for their titles, and in particular of having best-seller lists dominated by such titles, is well worth the cost of buying up vast quantities of books that are subsequently given away, used as paperweights or doorstops, or simply trashed. The purpose of buying those books was never to have anyone read them but simply to have those book sales on the books, as it were.

(Certainly book publishers weren't complaining, at least not the ones who publish the kinds of books that are the beneficiaries of this right-wing institutional largesse -- and those bulk sales must be a lot cheaper to process and ship, even if they're made at hiked-up discounts, than real book sales, to actual readers, or rather to vendors who hope to sell the books to actual readers.)

This was set out elegantly by Daily Kos's HealOurCountry in a Saturday post called "The NY Times stops letting Conservatives cheat. Maybe Liberals will make the Bestseller List now."

People have been ignoring the NY Times bestseller list for years.

This is because the books are cooked. The numbers are fudged. The fix is in. And it's not being done by the Times.

It's being done by the publishers.

Have you ever noticed that books written by conservative pundits make the bestseller list their very first week out? How books by Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reily seem to be on the bestseller list before they're even released?

In a long, long overdue move the Times has finally stood up for itself and said no, at least this one time.

What they said no to is a an old and well known method of rigging the bestseller lists by having conservative think tanks and other organizations buy up books written by conservative authors. These groups buy books by the pallet, sometimes by the truck load, in order artificially drive up the numbers, pushing books that spout conservative ideas and liberal hating hysteria to the top of the bestseller lists.

This is why conservative books and ideas seem to be so "popular". It may look like books that tout conservative ideas are popular but, in truth, very few people are buying them. It's just that the few who do buy them by the truckload.

So where do all these books go? They're given away. They're given away to donors, volunteers and anyone else who will have them, even if they only use them for doorstops.

They're given to people because the only way to get people to read them is to give them away. Think that's an exaggeration? I'll tell you what, head on over to your nearest used book store. You'll find the shelves overflowing with shiny new copies of books by Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Charles Krouthammer and many, many more conservative pundits. This is because the people who had them never wanted them in the first place.

NOW THIS ISN'T EXACTLY NEWS

At least not for people with some slight familiarity with the economics of the book-publishing industry. For people who didn't know about this racket, this is an excellent teachable moment, but that still doesn't explain why we're suddenly talking about it.

It's because, as referenced in HealOurCountry's post title, the NY Times last week had a sudden "no más" moment, in the case of Rafael "Ted from Alberta" Cruz's new stomach-turner, the ironically titled A Time for Truth. (In the world of Ted from Alberta, one of the most dishonest people on the planet, the time for truth would seem to be "never!") Not surprisingly, the Right-Wing Noise Machine went bonkers. The noisemakers, once again either too stupid to know the truth or too dishonest to tell it (another instance of the eternal right-wing "Are they dopes or liars?" conundrum), went into screeching High Hysteria. Here's HealOurCountry again:

In what could be described as a bold move, "The New York Times decided this week not to place Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) book on its bestseller list, leaving some conservatives convinced that the paper unfairly targeted the presidential candidate." (Talking Points Memo: Conservatives Cry Foul As Cruz's Book Doesn't Make NYT Bestseller List)

"A Time For Truth" sold more copies than 18 of the 20 books that appeared on the bestseller list this week", Politico reported in its article N.Y. Times keeps Cruz off bestseller list.

Later, the Talking Points Memo article goes on to say:

"In the case of this book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases," Murphy wrote in an email, according to Politico.

Given that Cruz's book sold so many copies and that the Times has previously included books written by Republican politicians and candidates on its bestseller list, conservatives on Thursday night were outraged.

Conservatives were outraged that a conservative politician was not allowed to get away with cheating his way onto the bestseller list? Let me see if I can feign shock and surprise...

Nope, can't do it.

Well, it was a good try, HOC!

Before signing off, I just want to take a closer look at the Times's explanation for its surprising treatment of Ted from Alberta's book,, as provided to Politico by the "Murphy" we encountered above.

Here's what appeared in the original post, which went up Thursday evening at 5:53pm:

"We have uniform standards that we apply to our best seller list, which includes an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold," Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy explained when asked about the omission. "This book didn't meet that standard this week."

Asked to specify those standards, Murphy replied: "Our goal is that the list reflect authentic best sellers, so we look at and analyze not just numbers, but patterns of sales for every book."

At 9:42pm an update was added:

Murphy emailed late Thursday night to further clarify the reasoning behind the Times decision.

"In the case of this book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases," she wrote.

Ah! Thank you, Eileen, that's certainly clearer. Naturally the number of right-wingers who have the very limited intelligence necesssary to understand this and the honesty to acknowledge it is pretty limited. Nevertheless, I have to second HealOurCountry's hope that the NYT "will stand fast and not give in to the screaming mob."

"Rupert Is Going to Need Me to Elect the Next President"

Fox News President Roger Ailes

by Gaius Publius

In a rather public and messy way, Roger Ailes has been demoted at Fox News. It started with Rupert Murdoch's plan to pass control of his recently formed media division, 21st Century Fox, to his sons Lachlan and James.

From the Fox announcement (my emphasis mine except where noted):

Rupert Murdoch to propose 21st Century succession plan that hands control to sons James and Lachlan
 
Murdoch, the 84-year-old executive chairman and chief executive officer -- and controlling shareholder of the company -- will discuss the succession plan at the company's next board meeting. The plan reportedly calls for James to become CEO and Lachlan to serve as co-executive chairman. James currently is the company's chief operating officer.

Rupert Murdoch would continue to serve as executive chairman, according to Stuart Varney, host of Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.” Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch, according to Fox News Channel.

As the chief executive officer, James Murdoch, 42, would take over the day-to-day management of 21st Century Fox's media companies. He previously ran BSkyB before becoming chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox.

The sentence I bolded above is apparently not true and was inserted at the insistence of Ailes himself without Murdoch's knowledge.

According to Ailes' biographer, Gabriel Sherman, writing in New York Magazine:

For much of the past 15 years, Roger Ailes has operated with virtual impunity inside Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Nothing, it seemed, could induce Murdoch to rebuke Ailes publicly, even if Ailes forced Murdoch to choose between him and his sons. Such was Ailes’s power that he has been able to run a right-wing political operation under the auspices of a news channel.

This week, for the first time, there are signs that this remarkable era may be entering its twilight. Yesterday, 21st Century Fox announced that Ailes would be reporting to Lachlan and James Murdoch. For Ailes, it was a stinging smack-down and effectively a demotion.

Just five days earlier, Ailes released what now appears to be a rogue statement to his own Fox Business channel declaring that he would be unaffected by the announcement that Lachlan and James will take control of Fox as part of Rupert's succession plan. "Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch," Fox Business reported. According to a well-placed source, Ailes directed Fox Business executive Bill Shine to tell anchor Stuart Varney to read the statement on air. "Ailes told Shine to write the announcement of the move for Varney to say," the source said. "In it, Ailes inserted language that he would report to Rupert."

This was, apparently, news to Rupert. And now the Murdochs are correcting the record.

Following the move by Ailes to amend the succession announcement, Fox went to the Hollywood Reporter to "correct the record" (emphasis theirs):

Fox News' Roger Ailes to Report to James and Lachlan Murdoch, Not Rupert

Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes will in fact report to James and Lachlan Murdoch when the sons of Rupert Murdoch assume control of 21st Century Fox on July 1.

The revelation comes after the Ailes-run Fox Business Network reported June 11 that Ailes would continue to report to Rupert even after Rupert handed official control of the company to his sons.

"Roger will report to Lachlan and James but will continue his unique and long-standing relationship with Rupert,” 21st Century Fox spokesperson Nathaniel Brown said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

Rupert Murdoch will transition his CEO title to James, 42, who is currently co-COO, while Lachlan, 43, will become executive co-chairman, with their 84-year-old father focusing on his chairman role. Lachlan is currently nonexecutive co-chairman.

Buried in the New York Magazine piece, however, are two noteworthy passages. The first is quoted above and repeated below:

Such was Ailes’s power that he has been able to run a right-wing political operation under the auspices of a news channel.

That's not news, but it adds a unique perspective to the demotion story. Rupert Murdoch is a political operator, not just a media mogul. He cares about power and profit, yes. But he also cares about moving the political needle and getting a political result. That's why Ailes was running Fox News for so long to begin with.

In that light, consider this:

Ailes’s contract is up in the winter of 2016. According to the many Murdoch-world sources I’ve spoken with in recent weeks, Ailes has been expecting to renew his deal. "Rupert is going to need me to elect the next president," Ailes is said to have told an associate.

The piece goes on to say that Ailes may have overplayed his hand. But I'd just like to pause here.

We know Murdoch is trying to elect (and select) the next president. Is Roger Ailes necessary to that task? That is, has the right-wing media machine hamstrung its political operation by demoting Ailes in this messy way, a way that invites retaliation?

Having Ailes on the sidelines — or at least angry and "checked out" during the 2016 campaign — may be an unappreciated advantage for the Democrat, whoever that may be.

GP

If the Supreme Court cripples Obamacare, which way will fingers point?

This photo appears to have been taken moments after a secret agent (right) has injected an enemy agent (left) with a deadly toxin that even now is coursing through his veins, causing . . . oh wait, it's just President Obama glad-handing Chief Justice "Smirkin' John" Roberts.

"Playing chicken with the Justices only works if it works."

-- The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin, in "Obama's
Game of Chicken with the Supreme Court"

by Ken

As DWT readers surely know by now, Obamacare is on trial for its life (as I wrote in early March, "Our clown Supreme Court takes on the bogus challenge to Obamacare -- and makes believe it's legitimate!"), over four carelessly chosen words in the Affordable Care Act which have been twisted by right-wing psychopaths and dishonest scumbags to mean that people who register for health care on the federal insurance exchange rather than on state exchanges (in the 16 states -- plus the District of Columbia -- that have established them) aren't entitled to federal subsidies as set out in the act.

Now the lying dirtbag plaintiffs in King v. Burwell know perfectly well that their "case" is idiotic on its face -- even in terms of the contested four words, which simply can't mean what they're pretending, at least not to anyone who's at all acquainted with the English language. And of course there's not a word of support anywhere else for their preposterous claim -- not in the entire rest of the ACA, not in the entire legislative history of the ACA, not even in the millions of invective-laden denunciations hurled at the ACA before this tiny phraseological glitch was glommed on. Nothing. And the lawyers have always known this. Their only interest, they have made abundantly clear, is finding whatever means they can to achieve their goal of undoing the act. Nevertheless, betting that there aren't five lying imbecile scumbags on the Roberts Court prepared to go along with the scam seems like an awfully poor bet.

In a new blogpost, New Yorker legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin takes a new look at what happens if this bet loses, and it's "likely" that most of the 13 million people now receiving subsidies for insurance purchased on the federal exchange "will no longer be able to afford their insurance." Jeffrey presents the question of what happens next as a drama in its own right, which we might think of as being in three acts.

Act I: Democrats are all atremble

"Until recently," Jeffrey writes, "the perception has also been that the Democrats had the largest political stake in the case. After all, the A.C.A. is the signature achievement of the Democratic President."

Act II: Pity the poor GOP!

"Suddenly, though, and paradoxically," Jeffrey writes, "it has come to seem that Obamacare's Republican opponents are most at risk if the decision goes their way. They have the most to lose by winning."

As Jonathan Chait wrote recently, “The chaos their lawsuit would unleash might blow back in a way few Republicans had considered until recently, and now, on the eve of a possible triumph, they find themselves scrambling to contain the damage.” In this view, the peril is especially great for Republicans, because, as Jonathan Cohn recently pointed out, the G.O.P. has failed to propose any kind of plan to address the loss of insurance for so many millions of people.

(I suppose it would be inappropriate for me to suggest that one eminently solvable problem we have here is altogether too many Jonathans involved in the case. Perhaps some of the surplus Jonathans could investigate other names, of which there are many. Julius, for example, or Nathaniel, or Ewan. Maybe Rafael, or Spike? There are a zillion more, more than enough to go around.)

So that’s the theory: millions will suddenly be uninsured, and will blame Republicans. As Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, put it recently, “I don’t think they will [win the case]. If they do, that’s a problem that the Republicans have.”

Act III: Hold on there, Harry!

Not so fast, Jonathans (or Rafael, or Spike), says Jeffrey T. "If the Obama Administration loses in the Supreme Court, the political pain will fall almost exclusively on the President and his Party."

To paraphrase Colin Powell and the Pottery Barn rule, President Obama will have broken health care, so he owns it. To the vast mass of Americans who follow politics casually or not at all, Obamacare and the American system of health care have become virtually synonymous. This may not be exactly right or fair, but it’s a reasonable perception on the part of most people. The scope of the Affordable Care Act is so vast, and its effects so pervasive, that there is scarcely a corner of health care, especially with regard to insurance, that is unaffected by it. So if millions lose insurance, they will hold it against Obamacare, and against Obama. Blaming the President in these circumstances may be unfair, but it’s the way American politics works.

It won't matter, Jeffrey says, how "esoteric" the legal point at issue is. "The central assertion by the plaintiffs is that the Obama Administration violated the law itself," and "the subtlety of the issue at the heart of the case will sure be lost in its aftermath."

The headlines will read, correctly, “Court rules against Obamacare,” and this will be all that matters. The Republicans will argue that the Supreme Court showed that the law was flawed from the start, that the Obama Administration is lawless, that a full repeal of the law is the only appropriate response to the Court’s decision—and that the millions who lose their subsides should blame the sponsor of the law. Watch for references to a “failed Presidency.” There’ll be plenty of them.

JEFFREY SEES THE ADMINISTRATION'S FIX, BUT --

No one, after all, knows better than people in the adminsitration "the scale of the problems that would be created by a loss in the Supreme Court." And as "a litigation strategy," there's something to be said for trying to impress on the Court the chaos that will result if the justices turn thumbs-down on the defense. He notes that HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell (the defendant "Burwell" of King v. Burwell) has said "in testimony before Congress and elsewhere . . . that the Administration has no contingency plan for an adverse ruling."

Which brings us to that line I put atop this post.

But playing chicken with the Justices only works if it works. If the Supreme Court strikes down the subsidies, the Administration will also have to answer for why it didn’t prepare for this possibility.

And it won't matter, Jeffrey insists, even if the Court is wrong -- even if, to put it in my terms, there really five or more lying-imbecile-scumbag justices.

For many people, the President of the United States is the government of the United States. It’s why he gets the credit and blame for so many things, like the economy, where his influence can be hard to discern. This is particularly true for a subject in which the President has invested so much of his personal and political capital. If the Supreme Court rules against him, the President can blame the Justices or the Republicans or anyone he likes, and he may even be correct. But the buck will stop with him.

I don't consider myself a great predictor of the responses of the American public. So while I'm not sure that Jeffrey is completely right about this, neither am I sure that he's completely wrong. And when it comes to cranking up the volume of noise, and at maximum volume hurling thunderbolts of blame at parties that may or not be to blame, which side has the better resources and track record?

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This is no time to go soft on those marauding union terrorists Gov. Scott "The Lying Scumbag" Walker beat into submission

by Ken

Let me say at the outset that I am a singularly poor predictor of those game-changing moments When Right-Wing Scumbag Liars Go Too Far. With alarming frequency one of these hell-clowns says or does something that seems to me so irretrievably blatant that even the stupidest, most blinkered followers can't help but be shaken by, and nothing happens. Contrarily, on occasions when one of them goes A Lie Too Far, it's over something that in my mind should hardly have registered a blip on the Right-Wing Scale of Outrage.

Take the Katrinafication of New Orleans. Was I shocked and sickened by those images of fellow citizens abandoned to their fate by the savage imbeciles of the right-wing power trust? Especially as highlighted by those pictures of the monster Chimpy the Prez and the monster Young Johnny McCranky playing with birthday cake? Well, of course? Who wouldn't be? I'll tell you who I thought wouldn't be offended: the American public. After all, what was there in those pictures that was different from what that public had been seeing and hearing for ages? The "otherness" of those victims would normally have rendered them safely outside Real Americans' zone of concern. Didn't we learn just recently, in the wake of the hooha of all those police shootings of unarmed persons of color that Real Americans not only don't object but are happy to see their brave cops ridding us of their kind one by one?

Even now, don't ask me to explain why many of those Real Americans were jolted out of their complacent unreality by those images. In the same way, I don't know what NJ Gov. Kris "NJ Fats" Krispy said or did to cause the air to rush out of his campaign blimp. Yeah, his imbecilic blithering in London about the vaccination question was horrible, but compared with the horrors that lying scumbag had been routinely perpetrating on a daily basis, it seemed to me hardly worth a second thought. But clearly something happened. I'm not sorry it did, but I can't tell you what it is/was.

Looking at it again from the opposite direction, there were people who thought the starkly unprincipled stonewalling of questions it was simply too politically inconvenient for him to answer would set in motion a death spiral for the political ambitions of WI Gov. Scott "I Lie for the Hell of It" Walker. Yet here he is, the newest-crowned "front runner" for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.

So now, do I think he's gone A Lie Too Far in his grotesque equating with Islamic terrorists those Wisconsin public-employee union members who, as targets of his no-holds-barred war of extermination on them, took to the streets to protest, about as American an exercise as you can imagine of the rights of free speech and assembly? Well, sure, I think it ought to open people's eyes to the kind of dishonest, demagogic, authoritarian tool of the plutocracy he has been, without apology, though perhaps with a fair amount of camouflage, since he entered political life. But does that mean I think it will have any impact with the throngs who apparently see him as their new Great White Hope?

I can't for the life of me see why. Still, he does seem to be attracting an unusual amount of unkind attention, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving scumbag.


POOR SCOTT WAS "MISCONSTRUED" -- AW-W-W-W!

I have to tell you, I was even more offended by the lies "Scumbag Scott" spewed to cover up his little gaffe than I was by the gaffe itself. The poor baby was "misconstrued." I realize he was kind of hemmed in. The usual dodges like "I was misquoted" or "I was taken out of context" were kind of taken out of play by, well, his own lying self. Reference his own damned tweet above. Misquoted? Not hardly. Taken out of context? Well, the toxic-gasbag provided his own context! So instead, he was "misconstrued." Puh-lease!

I've come up with two better (I think) explanations for this latest outburst of union-bashing by "Scumbag Scott," which I offer to his crisis-management team free of charge.

(1) He's that rare bird, a right-wing lying scumbag with a conscience.

It took me some disconnected-mind free associating to come up with this one, but it made sense when it hit me. Think of it as part of the "mandate" the governor hopes to win as he makes his way to the White House. Once he's ensconced in the Oval Office, I'm confident that he plans to continue his frontal assault on truth and decency. If, through some Katrina-like unforeseeable web of circumstances he should be exposed as a pathological liar, he can point back to incidences like this and say with considerable justice, "Did I ever pretend to be anything but a pathological liar? Isn't the record abundantly clear that the people who voted for me did so in full knowledge of who and what I am?"

I still kind of like this explanation, but it strikes me as awfully subtle for as unsubtle a pol as "Scumbag Scott," who doesn't usually traffic heavily in subtleties. So I've come up with another explanation.

(2) He meant exactly what he said.

One of the more potent screeches currently being screeched by the Right-Wing Noise Machine is the dastardly refusal of non-America-loving pseudo-Americans like the president of the United States to fill their conversation with hate-filled references to "Islamic terrorists." I expect that Governor Scott subscribes to this school of, er, thought. He's not the kind of guy to temporize or apologize in the face of his near-total ignorance about Islam. And along those lines, just as it's important to publicly call out "Islamic terrorists" for the tools of Satan they are, isn't it also important to call out other anti-American tools of Satan like, you know, union terrorists?

The truth is that unions were an indispensable part of the rise of the American middle class. But when did "Scumbag Scott" and the Right-Wing Noise Machine start giving a darn about the truth? American wants lies. Admitedly, they have to be just the right kind(s) of lies, but if anyone's prepared to gratify that wish, it's "Scumbag Scott."

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"Silence from the right on James Comey's race talk" -- Jonathan Capehart wonders why our top G-man was merely "ignored" rather than "trivialized"

FBI Director James Comey at Georgetown Thursday

by Ken

In his column today, "Silence from the right on James Comey's race talk," the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart raises a fascinating point in the aftermath of the hard-hitting speech given by FBI Director James Comey on the subject of race and law enforcement Thursday at Georgetown University: Why, instead of cranking up the Right-Wing Noise Machine, has it been greeted with stony silence from the Right?

As Jonathan points out, what Director Comey had to say wasn't all that different from what a number of other public figures have occasionally had to say about the problematic relationship between law enforcement and people of color, and usually the Right-Wing Noise Machine rises up in holy wrath and unleashes a cacaphony of defamatory lies at deafening volume. And so, Jonathan says,

I thought for sure hellfire would rain down upon him from the right. After all, in tone and word, he echoed the sentiments expressed by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder on the same topic. Yet instead of being accused of having blood on his hands or labeled a race-baiter, Comey and his “hard truths” have been met with silence.

This, Jonathan says, was "strong stuff" which Director Comey delivered to his Georgetown audience.

The four “hard truths” articulated by Comey were tough on police. “Much of our history is not pretty,” he said as he acknowledged law enforcement’s role in maintaining the status quo against “disfavored groups.” He talked about the unconscious bias that grips many in law enforcement. He discussed the “different flavors of cynicism” that cops “work hard to resist.” And he talked about the staggering problems facing many young men and boys of color that become part of officers’ “life experience.” In addition, Comey called on police to “better understand the people we serve and protect — by trying to know, deep in our gut, what it feels like to be a law-abiding young black man walking on the street and encountering law enforcement.”

"And yet," Jonathan says, "those easily irritated folks on the right who slammed Obama and Holder for saying similar things over the past six months have been rendered mute."

No doubt it is because the new messenger is a white, 54-year-old Republican son of Irish immigrants and grandson of a police chief. What’s disturbing is that they willingly ignore Comey’s entreaties while trivializing the same from the president and the attorney general.

And Jonathan recalls the venom poured forth by the likes of former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani:

We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police, I don’t care how you want to describe it, and that is what those protests are all about. The protests are being embraced. The protests are being encouraged. The protests — even the ones that don’t lead to violence — and a lot of them lead to violence, all lead to a conclusion: the police are bad, the police are racist. That is completely wrong.

No, Rudy, what's wrong is this tissue of lies you've invented in your malfunctioning brain. It earned you four Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact-checker.

Of course Rudy is very nearly the last person any person of minimal sense and decency should be listening to on -- well, just about anything. In reality, a locale Rudy G knows only as an outsider with his grotesque mug pressed up against the perimeter glass, it might take a team of experts in psychopathology and mental dysfunction and goodness knows what other areas of brain disorder to figure out whether Rudy is too mentally defective to know better or just a big fat liar. But since his career is based on a giant lie -- that he is a mentally functional human being, a persona he is able to mimic only when he can play the role of punishing authoritarian avenger -- it's not surprising that everything about his existence is a lie, or that everything that comes out of his toxic mouth is delusional.

Or there's giant waste of protoplasm that calls itself George Pataki. Or rather, calls itself Governor Pataki -- aka "@GovernorPataki" -- more than eight years after slithering out of the governorship of the Empire State.



Which brings us to the out-of-control diseased opportunist who heads New York City's Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch, the deviant who, fueled by his sleazy, cynical opportunism, propagated the appalling lie that Mayor Bill de Blasio "has blood on his hands" from the murder of two cops, having nothing to do with the mayor. In Lynch's degenerate world of delusion, anyone who suggests that cops are accountable to anyone except themselves for anything at all is a "cop hater." The shame is the NYC's good cops allow themselves to be represented by this diseased pile of puke, apparently not understanding that the act of supporting him makes them part of the party of cop-garbage -- disgraces to their badges and themselves.

If pondscum like Rudy, "Wacky Pataki" (as David Letterman dubbed him when he was first elected governor), and this good-cop-hating scumbag Lynch had any interest in reality or the real problems of law enforcement, they would be aware that, as Jonathan Capehart puts it, "What Obama and Holder did during those tumultuous months was strike a necessary balance between the fundamental right to protest and support for the men and women who ensure that this right is exercised freely and lawfully."

But the president and the attorney general, who regularly reminds listeners that his brother is a retired police officer, were not shy about placing a critical focus on the excesses of police, as they did after the Aug. 14 flare-up in Ferguson, Mo.

Obama and Holder also were not shy about expressing their innate understanding of the anger and frustration that have sown mistrust between many African Americans and law enforcement. And they did so as a way to guide a larger and much-needed conversation about that relationship.

"With his Georgetown address," Jonathan says, "Comey pushed our ongoing national conversation on race farther along."

If only Giuliani, Pataki and others were as interested in engaging in this part of the dialogue as they are in delivering destructive monologues about how the commander in chief and the nation’s chief law enforcement officer hate the police.

Which still leaves that fascinating difference Jonathan began by noting between the right-wing response to Obama, Holder, and de Blasio on the one hand and Comey on the other. In the end, it turns out not to make much substantive difference. If it's any consolation to Jonathan, I can pretty well guarantee that if there were any indication that Director Comey's presentation was being taken seriously, he would find himself at the business end of the Right-Wing Noise Machine.

Oh, in the case of the African-American federal officials and the self-avowedly progressive white mayor, they do double-dip: not just trashing their talk but demeaning their humanity. Whereas Comey gets just the single dip of having his carefully chosen thoughts stonewalled.

Either way, "ignoring" or "trivializing," the right-wingers seem to me to be acting out a phenomenon nicely described in a piece on the phenomenon of vaccination denial called 'There's No Way Out of It" in the March 5 issue of the New York Review of Books, where author Jerome Groopman quotes Eula Biss, author of On Immunity: An Inoculation, one of the books included in the discussion:

[A]s with other strongly held beliefs, our fears are dear to us. When we encounter information that contradicts our beliefs,…we tend to doubt the information, not ourselves.

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Michael Moore offers right-wing noisemakers a crash course in what it means to really support U.S. servicepeople

-- from Michael Moore's Facebook page [click to enlarge]

by Ken

I've been paying as little attention as I could decently get away with to American Sniper, and so I'm coming late to the brouhaha caused by Michael Moore's forceful expression of disapproval. Since the American Right has now sunk to a level of cretinousness and pathological dishonesty surpassed only by its loudmouth savagery, and since Michael Moore is one of their perennial bugbears anyway, this seems to have produced one of those famous Right-Wing Noise Machine psychotic breaks, all centered, naturally, on the person of Michael Moore.

I'm grateful to Daily Kos's Intheknow for getting me up to speed on the subject ("Michael Moore disses Fox News and Right Wing Critics in the best way"), including a link to a Raw Story account of Grade A Fox Noise craziness.

So Michael M stands accused of (gasp) not supporting the troops, about as heinous a charge as can be leveled against an American. Of course there's a teeny-tiny irony here, in that the brain-dead right-wing savages leading the assault are almost to a creature low-life lying doodybags who have spent every second of their verminous existences doing nothing to support the troops except run their filthy mouths off. These are people who, after all, cheered their putrid guts out when the Bush-Cheney-Rummy gang sent American troops into a pointless war in Iraq without basic protective equipment to be killed and maimed -- and then when they came home, as the right-wing war-mongers always do, turned their backs on them.

Michael M, fortunately, isn't one to sit and suffer psychotic lying imbeciles gladly, especially not when they pollute matters that really matter to him -- of which, as it happens, supporting the troops happens to be one. And he fired back on his Facebook page. And, God bless him, he didn't just fight back on the ground that, unlike his attackers, he actually supports both active-duty servicepeople and veterans in a whole range of ways that he's never had occasion to talk about publicly. He pounded the politically tougher but crucial point that he has consistently supported the troops by fighting having them put pointlessly in harm's way.

Here's just the start of the list Michael offers of what he does to support the troops:

** I have an aggressive affirmative action policy specifically to hire Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at my film production company, my movie theaters in Michigan and my film festival. I have asked other businesses in my town (and nationwide) to join with me on this. http://www.traverseticker.com/…/michael-moore-asks-business…. A vet was an editor on my films "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Sicko" and a vet (who served in both Iraq AND Afghanistan) is the projectionist at my flagship theater in Michigan (to name a few).

** I also ask people to post a sign I designed and have made available: "I Shop Where Vets Work". Here's my policy and the poster: http://www.statetheatretc.org/veterans#opening (Can someone at Fox News send me your posted affirmative action program to hire Iraq and Afghanistan vets?)

** Since I opened my movie theaters in northern Michigan, this has been my admission policy: "Admission to all movies at my theaters is FREE, 365 days of the year, for ALL active duty military and their families."

** I allow local veterans support groups to use my theater to meet for PTSD issues, I host quarterly PTSD summits, and I've hosted a conference to start a jobs movement for vets in our town.

** I have raised tens of thousands of dollars through my website for groups that help veterans and wounded warriors: http://web.archive.org/…/20140829053240/http://fa…/soldiers/

** In the early years of the war I made all my books and DVDs available free of charge to all service members through BooksForSoldiers.com

(A later point notes that his books "were the #1 requested books by troops" via BooksForSoldiers.)

Here are a few more:

** I will NOT do business with vendors who don't have a policy to hire vets.

** I regularly post blogs from troops http://www.ivaw.org/blog/ivaw-featured-michael-moore and I show and support many movies about what they've gone through in the past 12 years at my theaters.

** My movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11" - #1 selling/#1 rental on all military base PXs

** When my father passed away this year, in lieu of flowers I asked that donations by made in my dad's name to the veterans group, Veterans for Peace. Enough money was raised so that the Vietnam Vets chapter could build a home in Vietnam for a family still suffering from the effects of Agent Orange. It's being dedicated in my dad's name.

And then there's an interesting one concerning American Sniper itself:

** I am currently showing "American Sniper" at my theater that I helped restore and that I program and help run in Manistee, MI. Not because I like it, but because, unlike the other side, I'm not a censor. I trust smart people and people of good heart will know what to do. You can't have a conversation about what Clint Eastwood is up to if you haven't seen what it is he's up to. And regardless where u are on the political spectrum, you'll see that every character in Clint's film comes out dead or permanently damaged. This ain't no John Wayne rah-rah pablum. Eastwood made maybe the greatest western ever - "Unforgiven" - but now it's sad seeing him talking to an empty chair on a stage or making an Iraq movie that Rolling Stone this week called, "too dumb to bother criticizing."

And finally Michael says (again, click to enlarge):


If you think I'm going to try to top that, you're wrong.

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And speaking of Governor Booby: Having established that he's a boob, is he trying now to show that he's thuggier than Fox Noise?

Fox Noise has backed off the "no-go zones," but not our Booby.

by Ken

Boy, all of today's stories seem to just tie together! Earlier today we were talking about the, er, distinguished roster of orators who have made their name in the Village by delivering responses to the president's State of the Union address, especially in the Age of Obama -- a list that will now and forever be headed by the biggest boob of them all, Louisiana Gov. Booby Jindal. Who can forget the shock of discovery that night in 2009 when most of us got our first glimpse of this latest GOP rising star, the policy genius?

Well, for better or worse, Governor Booby hasn't gone away. And perhaps sensing that this moment on the calendar is "his" time, he's plunged himself into the news, telling Britain and Europe generally about their "no-go zones," where non-Muslims fear to tread and police stay away.

For a while after the Charlie Hebdo murders the "no-go zones" were apparently part of the Right-Wing Talking Points Packet, and got a lot of play on Fox Noise (where else?). But then a funny thing happened. Fox Noise not only backtracked but started apologizing. I'd still love to know why, of all the made-up stuff the Fox Noisemakers spew 24/7 into the mediasphere, this produced such a response chez Roger Ailes. I mean, if the Noisers actually cared about the factual record, they'd probably have to start a separate Fox Noise Apology channel.

But there we had it: the Noisers apologizing for stuff they said without factual basis. But there too was Governor Booby, standing by his story! Leaving us with another question: Just as puzzling as why Fox Noise backed off the "story" is why our Booby didn't.

Luckily, washingtonpost.com Fix-master Chris Cillizza is on the case. And when it comes to explicating life forms particular to the Village like right-wing oh-so-slowly-rising stars, Chris C is the man, am I right? The gist seems to be, if I may paraphrase, that Booby is now timing his rise to coincide with the 2016 GOP presidential nominating derby, and while he's amply demonstrated his credentials as a genuine right-wing boob (the "Rick Perry factor"), for harder-core right-wing constituencies he still needs to establish his thug potential -- i.e., can he show that he's as tough as, say, Willard Romney?

Take it away, Chris! (Links onsite.)

The Fix
Bobby Jindal won’t back down on ‘no go’ zones. Why?

By Chris Cillizza

In a speech Monday in London, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), who is running for president in 2016 (this is a decidedly relevant piece of information) said there were places in Europe in which Islamic law was enforced and where non-Muslims were afraid to go. He called these places, appropriately, "no-go zones," and insisted that a willingness to allow communities like these to exist within countries was at part of the world's problem with Islamist extremists.

While Jindal's comments drew criticism, he was unbowed, insisting in an interview with CNN that he was speaking truth to power.

That interview shows what Jindal's underlying motives here may well be. In the space of 74 seconds, Jindal makes two references to "the left" -- despite the fact that the interviewer isn't asking questions about "no-go zones" in the context of politics. "The radical left wants to pretend like this problem isn't here," Jindal says at one point. "I know the left wants to make this an attack on religion ... and that's not what this is," he says at another.

Here's what Jindal is up to: He is struggling for political oxygen in a Republican field that includes (or might include) the likes of Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. So, how do you solve that problem? Throw red meat to the Republican base while simultaneously trolling the left.

It worked.

Conservatives leaped to Jindal's defense. Erick Erickson at Red State pointed out that CNN had done a report on these so-called "no-go zones." And, when Arsalan Iftikhar said on MSNBC that Jindal's comments amounted to him "trying to rub some of the brown off his skin" (Jindal is Indian American), the right responded with fury. (MSNBC said it would not have Iftikhar on as a guest again.)

Disgusting --> MSNBC Guest: Bobby Jindal ‘Trying to Scrub Some of the Brown Off His Skin’ http://t.co/OKbcSlm6Y3 pic.twitter.com/sw5PaQ1RHT
— Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) January 19, 2015

"It's embarrassing for MSNBC to give voice to such shallow foolishness," Jindal told the conservative Washington Examiner on Tuesday. "Much like Michael Moore denigrating our military servicemen, these comments deserve no comment." Curt Anderson, a consultant to Jindal, was more blunt in an e-mail to me: "Liberals hate to hear what Jindal is saying. They cannot in public argue the main points of what he is saying, so they are trying to make hay out of noting the obvious -- that 'no-go zones' are not official or part of the law. Duh."

Regardless of Jindal's motives, here's what he's accomplished: In the eyes of the random Republican activist, he's gone from the guy they vaguely remember giving a widely panned State of the Union response to the guy who is willing to stand up not only to radical Islam but also to the political left.

Thanks, Chris, and shesh! When the Right-Wing Bullies 'n' Noisemakers start slinging muck at one another, it's wisest to just jump back and try to stay out of the line of fire.


FURTHER NOTE: DID CNN "LIE"
ABOUT THE "NO-GO ZONES"?

Among the right-wing fans of European "no-go zones," there has been righteous indignation directed at CNN for hounding Governor Booby when, they say, a 2013 report on CNN itself established their existence. But washingtonpost.com's Erik Wemple Blog looked at the claim yesterday ("Bobby Jindal remarks: Does two-year-old CNN report prove existence of 'no-go zones'?") and came away, er, unpersuaded:

Commentators Erick Erickson on Red State and John Nolte on Breitbart cite a February 2013 report by CNN correspondent Dan Rivers as evidence that the network is questioning a phenomenon that it already knows to be true. “JINDAL NONTROVERSY: CNN CAUGHT LYING ABOUT MUSLIM ‘NO GO ZONES,” notes the headline on Notle’s piece.

The CNN report in question, by correspondent Dan Rivers, provides a profile of … well, here’s how it was described in a teaser: “Sharia law in the heart of London, details of Muslim vigilantes harassing women, gays, people just out for a drink.” Rivers walked the streets of Whitechapel with the so-called Muslim patrol — yes, vigilantes who were out to harass people and make them follow their rules. “You cannot dress like that in Muslim area,” said one of the patrolmen to a woman dressed in a skirt.

Evidence, indeed, of Jindal’s comment that there are some Muslims trying “to carry out as much of Sharia law as they can…”

Yet the 2013 CNN report also deflates this whole “no-go” thing. First of all, Rivers reports that “only a handful of men are involved in the self-styled patrols.” Second, Rivers reports that five people had been arrested “on suspicion of harassment.” Third, Rivers reports that the “vast majority of Muslim people living in this part of East London want nothing to do with vigilantes whatsoever.” Fourth, Rivers reports that “police patrols have been stepped up as the authorities take a tough line.” Arrests, heightened police presence — not exactly the hallmarks of what we’ve come to know in recent weeks as a “no-go zone.”

You have to especially love the Nolte "CNN CAUGHT LYING" headline. It's fun when people who wouldn't or maybe just couldn't tell the truth about anything if their lives depended on it call other people liars.

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"Nobody knows it," says Paul Krugman, "but 2014 was the year of 'Yes, we can' "

"[O]ver the past year, a U.S. government subjected to constant bad-mouthing, constantly accused of being ineffectual or worse, has, in fact, managed to accomplish a lot. On multiple fronts, government wasn't the problem; it was the solution. Nobody knows it, but 2014 was the year of 'Yes, we can.' "

-- Paul Krugman, in his NYT column today, "Tidings of Comfort"

by Ken

"All year," says our Paul in this column reflecting on what he says seemed to him an "unusually subdued" Christmas, "Americans have been bombarded with dire news reports portraying a world out of control and a clueless government with no idea what to do." And yet the reality, he says, is that

if you look back at what actually happened over the past year, you see something completely different. Amid all the derision, a number of major government policies worked just fine — and the biggest successes involved the most derided policies. You’ll never hear this on Fox News, but 2014 was a year in which the federal government, in particular, showed that it can do some important things very well if it wants to.

It's what happens when, alas, control of the national discourse is surrendered to the Right-Wing Noise Machine, which cares only about lies the Noisemakers craft to make them, their masters, and/or their stooges richer, more important, or whatever the hell it is that drives these beasts. Goodness knows we've picked at the "why"s frequently enough. Suffice it to say, for now, that the Lying Liars of the Right have what seem to them ample reasons for dealing only in lies, obfuscations, and delusions. And Paul starts with one that came up in Noah's 2014 Year in Review: the suddenly disappeared crisis that was about to consume the Republic -- "a subject", Paul notes, "that has vanished from the headlines so fast it’s hard to remember how pervasive the panic was just a few weeks ago."

EBOLA!

It was, of course, a panic that was friven if not actually created in large part by the Lying Liars to bolster their election prospects [lots o'links onsite] --

[M]any politicians dismissed the efforts of public health officials to deal with the disease using conventional methods. Instead, they insisted, we needed to ban all travel to and from West Africa, imprison anyone who arrived from the wrong place, and close the border with Mexico. No, I have no idea why anyone thought that last item made sense.

As it turned out, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite some early missteps, knew what they were doing, which shouldn’t be surprising: The Centers have a lot of experience in, well, controlling disease, epidemics in particular. And while the Ebola virus continues to kill many people in parts of Africa, there was no outbreak here.

THE ECONOMY

"There’s no question," says Paul, "that recovery from the 2008 crisis has been painfully slow and should have been much faster. In particular, the economy has been held back by unprecedented cuts in public spending and employment."

But the story you hear all the time portrays economic policy as an unmitigated disaster, with President Obama’s alleged hostility to business holding back investment and job creation. So it comes as something of a shock when you look at the actual record and discover that growth and job creation have been substantially faster during the Obama recovery than they were during the Bush recovery last decade (even ignoring the crisis at the end), and that while housing is still depressed, business investment has been quite strong.

What’s more, recent data suggest that the economy is gathering strength — 5 percent growth in the last quarter! Oh, and not that it matters very much, but there are some people who like to claim that economic success should be judged by the performance of the stock market. And stock prices, which hit a low point in March 2009, accompanied by declarations from prominent Republican economists that Mr. Obama was killing the market economy,have tripled since then. Maybe economic management hasn’t been that bad, after all.

"THE HIDDEN-IN-PLAIN-SIGHT TRIUMPH OF OBAMACARE"

As Obamacare finishes up "its first full year of implementation," Paul says,

It’s a tribute to the effectiveness of the propaganda campaign against health reform — which has played up every glitch, without ever mentioning that the problem has been solved, and invented failures that never happened — that I fairly often encounter people, some of them liberals, who ask me whether the administration will ever be able to get the program to work. Apparently nobody told them that it is working, and very well.

In fact, Year 1 surpassed expectations on every front. Remember claims that more people would lose insurance than gained it? Well, the number of Americans without insurance fell by around 10 million; members of the elite who have never been uninsured have no idea just how much positive difference that makes to people’s lives. Remember claims that reform would break the budget? In reality, premiums were far less than predicted, overall health spending is moderating, and specific cost-control measures are doing very well. And all indications suggest that year two will be marked by further success.

ON THE FOREIGN-POLICY FRONT --

"And there’s more," Paul says. On the foreign-policy front, of course, the president has been battered from all directions by Lying Liars and Braying Imbeciles whose claim to superior wisdom is belied by their near-psychotic obliviousness to the realities of every one of the situations they bray about. In spite of which, Paul notes, " at the end of 2014, the Obama administration’s foreign policy, which tries to contain threats like Vladimir Putin’s Russia or the Islamic State rather than rushing into military confrontation, is looking pretty good.


"THE COMMON THEME HERE,"

says Paul, is what I put at the top of this post. Though you won't hear it from the Lying Liars or their masters, accomplices, and stooges, "on multiple fronts, government wasn't the problem; it was the solution."

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