Rush Limbaugh Remains A Fountain Of Misinformation

Right-wing nut Rush Limbaugh was on the air today discussing the tortured argument about whether or not President Obama was born in the United States of America. It’s an old story that the conservative haters continue to harp on to try and portray the president as not being “one of us” as being “different” or something else.

Here is the headline from a Media Matters for America story:

Limbaugh: “I don’t know” where Obama was born, “supposedly Hawaii”

This is a thoroughly debunked storyline that was a smear during the presidential campaign and is continuing to be a smear even to this day.

Media Matters for America:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200906300027

Another Detroit Pistons Coach Bites The Dust

The Detroit Pistons have let go of another coach as the inexperienced Michael Curry was fired by team president Joe Dumars on Tuesday.

I guess this is somewhat of a surprise, but Dumars should never have hired Curry in the first place. Curry was not seasoned enough to be put in such a position and, thus, did not have the best chance to succeed.

Then, All-Star guard Chauncey Billips was traded to Denver – case closed on Michael Curry’s tenure as a head coach. In reality, Curry might as well have resigned after the Billups trade and his inexplicable decision to bench Richard Hamilton in favor of Allen Iverson.

Curry, who some day could become a solid head coach (with a little more experience under a strong and successful head coach) completely blew it there and truly sealed his own fate (a fate that has played out today with his dismissal).

Now, Joe has a big decision and he must go with a veteran head coach (one he will have to pay for). He has some choices out there with guys like Doug Collins, Avery Johnson or Jeff Van Gundy.

There are some viable candidates out there, but will high-quality coaches want to come to the Pistons with Joe’s record of firing or forcing out a lot of good coaches (including Larry Brown and Flip Saunders).

What Is Going On With Joe Jackson?

Look, I’ll cut Joe Jackson a little slack as he is mourning the somewhat mysterious and sudden death of his son, legendary entertainer Michael Jackson (the greatest entertainer of my lifetime and arguably the best ever). But, I found it more than a little uncomfortable listening to him at the BET Awards and during a news conference today (flanked by the Rev. Al Sharpton) promoting his record label.

Sorry, but it just didn’t feel right.

Here is how one blogger saw it:

This is just awful. Earlier tonight CNN’s Don Lemon interviewed Joe Jackson on the red carpet at the BET awards, where Jackson displayed indifference over the recent death of his son and then plugged some Blu-Ray disc he’s peddling.

The Blu-Ray plugging comes in at about the 3:20 mark, but the whole thing is completely cringe-worthy right from the start and doesn’t stop until the very end. To his credit, Don Lemon maintained his composure throughout the interview and resisted what must have been an overwhelming urge to grab Jackson, slap him across his face a few times and shake him vigorously while screaming, “What the hell is wrong with you old man!”

That was painful to watch and listen to at the BET Awards and to listen to him in a press conference today (June 29).

Again, I will cut him some slack as this might simply be his way of grieving the stunning death of his son.

Remember the movie “The Jacksons: An American Dream” (from the early 1990s) that still plays once in a while on VH1? The portrayal of Joe Jackson in that movie looks too similar to the Joe Jackson we’re seeing today. Joe’s handlers might want to work with him a little more because, right now, Joe is not coming across well.

Frankly, it’s too early to discuss business ventures, protecting Michael’s legacy and promoting record labels.

Hopefully this merely is Joe’s way of grieving.

I know some people will think I am being tough on Joe Jackson. I just hate to see him come across the way he’s coming across (negatively).

Reliable Sources Confrontation Was Pretty Lame

I can imagine Howard Kurtz, host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, was pretty excited about the prospect of an on-air confrontation (primarily between Washington Post writer Dana Milbank and Huffington Post blogger Nico Pitney … with the highly-conservative TownHall commentator Amanda Carpenter present to eagerly assist Milbank with a double team Pitney). Sunday was the day that Reliable Sources turned into a cable news television version of MTV’s The Real World. It did not work well for television as it just sounded like two guys who didn’t like each other arguing about something that is little more than a nontroversy. Back to Nico Pitney. Personally, I commend this man for his work to build sources in Iran and his work to try and understand the conflict in Iran from those who were on the ground in a country in such historic turmoil following a disputed presidential election. Instead of us applauding Pitney for his work to build sources, grind out information and present it to people, he gets bashed by a right winger who probably can’t stand Huffington Post (Amanda Carpenter) and a mainstream media, big newspaper snob (Dana Milbank) who probably (perhaps out of some sort of jealousy) enjoyed taking such a shot at Pitney and (as probably an added bonus) President Obama’s White House to try and portray both in the most negative light possible.

Yeah, I wonder if Kurtz knew what Carpenter, Milbank and Pitney were going to discuss when they came onto the program?

Is it reliable when you know two people are going to double team one person on a show that is supposed to be about (among other things) fairness, balance, objectivity and accountability in the media?

OK, Milbank and and Pitney had a lively exchange (the video is below) that became rather heated (more so than you would expect for Reliable Sources).

After the confrontation heated up, Milbank left Pitney with this thoughtful nugget from inside his head (according to Pitney):

The only thing that surprised me was when Dana turned to me after our initial sparring and called me a “dick” in a whispered tone (the specific phrase was, I believe, “You’re such a dick”). Howie Kurtz wrote on Twitter that he didn’t hear it, which is understandable — he was doing the lead-in for the next part of the segment on the ABC White House special. But it happened (I urge Howie to watch the video of the panel during the ABC intro) and it was frankly pretty odd.

I find the entire issue odd and stinking of partisanship and snobbishness. Pitney asked a better question and probably did more research than some of the snobs who are trying to throw him under the bus. You know, I suspect many people who watched that segment, and got a feel for Milbank, would hardly be surprised to hear him say something along those lines.

I’ll end with some impressions of the Sunday-morning confrontation:

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nico-pitney/debating-the-iran-questio_b_222001.html

Crooks and Liars (this entry, among other things, debunks a claim of alleged favoritism for Pitney in terms of his positioning in the room):
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/reliable-sources-dana-milbank-gets-h-0

Hullabaloo:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/pitney-vs-milbank-by-digby-just-to-put.html

Surprised To See Jesse Jackson And Al Sharpton Turn Up After Michael Jackson’s Death?

I will not even pretend to say I was surprised to see the Rev. Al Sharpton show up on television to be interviewed after the shockingly-sudden death of Michael Jackson, who was one of the great entertainers of all time. In the back of my mind, I was wondering when Rev. Sharpton would make his first appearance on the airwaves to have something to say about the life and death of Michael Jackson. But, then I began to wonder, when would the Rev. Jesse Jackson show up? It was not long before Rev. Jackson had shown up to essentially serve as spokesperson for the family of Michael Jackson. I could see the photograph that accompanied the Associated Press story with Rev. Jackson standing with Joe Jackson, father off Michael Jackson (that’s a lot of Jacksons).

I know a lot of people will come out and criticize Rev. Jackson and Rev. Sharpton (both men certainly have earned their share of legitimate criticism over the years). I was hardly surprised Rev. Sharpton quickly found a television camera. But, perhaps Rev. Jackson might have been sought by the Jackson family or had offered to serve as a spokesperson for the Jackson family. To some extent, how his role came about as a sort of spokesperson for the Jackson family is a bit unclear to me.

While I know Rev. Jackson and Rev. Sharpton both crave the spotlight (we’ve seen evidence of that over and over again), personally, I am going to give Jesse a pass on this one. I think, at least in this case, it appears Rev. Jackson is doing a noble deed for the family of Michael Jackson (even if he does get something out of it for himself: the spotlight he seems to enjoy).

If Jesse is able to bring the family of Michael Jackson a little comfort and support during this tragedy then I have no problem with it.

Huffington Post Question Story Being Blown Out Of Proportion

Many reporters on the left, and some reporters from the so-called mainstream media, are throwing a it about a question that the Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney was allowed to ask President Obama during a White House press conference. This is another one of those manufactured controversies from individuals on the right wing and from individuals from the mainstream media overcome by a powerful sense of jealousy.

Here is the exchange during the press conference:

OBAMA: Since we’re on Iran, I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

OBAMA: Nico, I know that you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?

QUESTION: Yes, I did, but I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions on tonight from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online. And one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of — of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?

OBAMA: Well, look, we didn’t have international observers on the ground. We can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country.

What we know is that a sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. It’s not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There is significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.

And so, ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States.

And that’s why I’ve been very clear, ultimately, this is up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government.

What we can do is to say, unequivocally, that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence, about dealing with the peaceful dissent, that — that spans cultures, spans borders.

And what we’ve been seeing over the Internet and what we’ve been seeing in news reports violates those norms and violates those principles.

I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that — that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it.

The White House apparently was following that Nico Pitney was communicating with individuals inside of Iran as that country’s turmoil was all over the media. White House spokesman Bill Burton came out with a response: “We did reach out to (Nico) prior to press conference to tell him that we had been paying attention to what he had been doing on Iran and there was a chance that he’d be called on.”

This is a totally overblown story spun out of very little. There is no evidence that the president knew what the question was going to be (even if he had an idea what the subject matter might be). I could care less if he wanted to take a question about the situation in Iran from a reporter that the White House felt was in contact with people on the ground in Iran.

Pitney asked a question that was a hell of a lot better than others I’ve heard asked at presidential news conferences.

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/23/nicos-question/

POLITICO:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0609/Obama_calls_on_HuffPost_for_Iran_question.html?showall

Comments About Tyler Hansbrough Do Him A Disservice

One of the popular compliments to make about former North Carolina college basketball star Tyler Hansbrough (drafted by the NBA’s Indiana Pacers) echoes in the ears of people who love and follow basketball: He plays so hard. Hansbrough does play hard and he brings a high level of intensity to the basketball court. Hey, we all saw it so often when he was at the college level playing for the Tar Heels in one of the best college basketball conferences in the nation.

That being said, two things about the Tyler-Hansbrough-Plays-So-Hard compliment:

1. It almost implies that other guys do not play hard. A lot of guys play hard, but you aren’t drafted in the NBA just because you play hard.
2. It takes away from what I believe is a strong skill set Hansbrough possesses and takes away from his athleticism (better than a lot of people give him credit for).

Hansbrough has so many people talking about how hard he plays that they ignore the fact that he is both NBA athletic and NBA skilled. I believe Tyler Hansbrough is going to be a solid NBA player for a lot of years.

Michael Savage’s True Colors Are A Vivid Reminder Of Some Of What’s Wrong In America

Conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage, who has a strong following (indicative of some sick people out there), shows us some of his true colors right here.

Michael Jackson’s Legendary Performance At Motown Celebration

This was in 1983 and still remains memorable to this day.

Michael Savage … Savages Common Sense

In the news, recently, we’ve seen two individuals Sen. John Ensign (downplayedby the talkers on right-wing media outlets like Fox News) and Gov. Mark Sanford go down to marital infidelity. So, what does right-wing talk show nut Michael Savage do … he finds some way to make their infidelity out to be something that is President Obama’s fault. If you listen to Savage, he seems to be indicating that this is some kind of plot from Obama to take down two of his potential rivals for the 2012 presidential election. Savage, the Republicans need very little help destroying themselves for 2012. Sanford and Ensign join others (like Gov. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich) who are perfectly capable of destroying their own candidacies.

Here is what Savage said: ”Obama’s team is taking out potential rivals one after another.”

Again, the Republicans are doing a good job of taking themselves out. In these cases, their problems are self-inflicted wounds.

Media Matters for America:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200906260012

Savage on Ensign, Sanford scandals: “Obama’s team is taking out potential rivals one after another”

Michael Savage Again Is On The Attack Against An Obama

After whining like a child about coverage of the death of Michael Jackson, conservative radio nut Michael Savage then went on to attack First Lady Michelle Obama with this comment: “(Michelle Obama) is the worst dressed first-lady in history of the country.” Savage again proves to be a low-class individual and it’s amazing to think that so many people actually listen to the garbage this bigot offers on a daily basis.

Media Matters:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200906260021

Pistons’ 2009 NBA Draft Was So So … The Jury Is Still Out

I have to admit, I am a little skeptical of 6-foot-11 Austin Daye, of Gonzaga. He has a tremendous upside, but needs to get with Arnie Kander and put on some weight and add some strength. DaJuan Summers, out of Georgetown, could turn out to be a solid pick for Detroit. Both Daye and Summers come from programs where you figure they were well-coached players. Detroit also added a Swedish front-court player in Jonas Jerebko, who is 6-8 and about 230 pounds (that’s pretty good size). Time will tell if he pans out for the Pistons.

The Pistons later added Chase Budinger, of Arizona, with the 44th pick. Honestly, I was pretty excited when the Pistons picked up Budinger, who I felt was a steal to come up with so late in the draft. Budinger has good size, he is athletic, he can shoot and he played in the Pac-10 Conference. He has the physical tools and the skill set to be an NBA player for a lot of years. I think the Pistons might have missed the boat dealing him to Houston for pretty much nothing.

We will not know much about this draft for several years (as is sometimes the case for a lot of drafts).

I think Austin Daye is a feast-or-famine pick. In all likelihood, he will either develop the strength to play at the NBA level or he will be pushed around for a lot of years showing flashes of a high skills set, but without the physical tools to play at a consistent level.

Summers has the body and athleticism to be a factor for the Pistons at some point.

Jerebko is a player I don’t know a whole lot about outside of the video we all saw during ESPN’s draft-night coverage.

I am more interest to see what the Pistons are going to do with free agency now that ESPN’s Chris Broussard was on the air this morning speculating the Pistons (and team president Joe Dumars) are targeting Utah’s Carlos Boozer and Orlando’s Hedo Turkoglu.

Changing The State Name Of Rhode Island?

This story caught my attention because it was something I had never heard before. “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” is the whole name of Rhode Island. Well, I can honestly say, I had not known that. Below is the AP story posted by Yahoo.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The country’s smallest state has the longest official name: “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”

A push to drop “Providence Plantations” from that name advanced farther than ever on Thursday when House lawmakers voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the “State of Rhode Island.” It’s an encouraging sign for those who believe the formal name conjures up images of slavery, while opponents argue it’s an unnecessary rewriting of history that ignores Rhode Island’s tradition of religious liberty and tolerance.

The bill permitting a statewide referendum on the issue next year now heads to the state Senate.

“It’s high time for us to recognize that slavery happened on plantations in Rhode Island and decide that we don’t want that chapter of our history to be a proud part of our name,” said Rep. Joseph Almeida, an African-American lawmaker who sponsored the bill.

Clearly, we live in much more of a politically-correct society and thus it is no surprise that such a topic would come up.

I wonder how many people knew that was the full name of Rhode Island?

Maybe they brought more attention to something that not very many people actually knew about in the first place.

Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090626/ap_on_re_us/us_providence_plantations

Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

I just don’t have the words to express how painful it is to learn that the great Michael Jackson is dead at 50 years old. I am just blown away. I grew up listening to his music and admiring his talents. He was just plain brilliant.

He was a brilliant entertainer who died far too young.

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson … you left us way too soon.

Clarence Thomas Reminds Us Of The Pain Of Losing Thurgood Marshall

The more I think about it, it’s sad to think that someone who has done so little for civil rights (Clarence Thomas) replaced someone so great (Thurgood Marshall) who did so much for civil rights. It’s almost unforgivable that George H.W. Bush, in 1991, nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court to replace one of the important figures in black history, Thurgood Marshall.

Here is a lengthy excerpt from Wikipedia:

Marshall won his very first U.S. Supreme Court case, Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227 (1940), at the age of 32. That same year, he was appointed Chief Counsel for the NAACP. He argued many other cases before the Supreme Court, most of them successfully, including Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944); Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948); Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950); and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950). His most famous case as a lawyer was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” public education was unconstitutional because it could never be truly equal. In total, Marshall won 29 out of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court.

During the 1950s, Thurgood Marshall developed a friendly relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1956, for example, he privately praised Hoover’s campaign to discredit T.R.M. Howard, a maverick civil rights leader from Mississippi. During a national speaking tour, Howard had criticized the FBI’s failure to seriously investigate cases such as the 1955 killers of George W. Lee and Emmett Till. An FBI informant reported that Marshall had “no use for Howard and nothing would please him more than to see Howard completely crushed.” Ironically, two years earlier Howard had arranged for Marshall to deliver a well-received speech at a rally of his Regional Council of Negro Leadership in Mound Bayou, Mississippi only days before the Brown decision. ^[4]

President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961. A group of Democratic Party Senators led by Mississippi’s James Eastland held up his confirmation, so he served for the first several months under a recess appointment. Marshall remained on that court until 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him Solicitor General.

On June 13, 1967, President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this was “the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.” Marshall was confirmed as an Associate Justice by a Senate vote of 69-11 on August 31, 1967.^[5] He was the 96th person to hold the position, and the first African-American.

Meanwhile, Thomas fought against civil rights and continues to fight against civil rights.

From The Daily Voice:

In an 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Justice Clarence Thomas cast the lone vote against a key provision of the Voting Rights Act on Monday (June 22).

The Court, in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder (PDF link) declined to overturn the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has often been challenged by conservative critics as unnecessary. Instead it avoided the “difficult” question about the constitutionality of the law. But the Court did allow a tiny Texas municipality to be exempted from a requirement to provide advance notice before making changes to its election procedures.

In his dissent, Thomas seemed to argue that the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary because the explicit racial segregation of the Jim Crow era is gone.

”The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains,” Thomas wrote. He admitted that in 1965, “Congress had every reason to conclude that States with a history of disenfranchising voters based on race would continue to do all they could to evade the constitutional ban on voting discrimination.” But, Thomas added, “The extensive pattern of discrimination that led the Court to previously uphold Section 5 . . . no longer exists…And the days of ‘grandfather clauses, property qualifications, ‘good character’ tests, and the requirement that registrants ‘understand’ or ‘interpret’ certain matter,’ are gone.”

Some things change, but other things remain the same.

It hurts to think this man replaced the great Thurgood Marshall.

Field Negro Takes On Clarence Thomas

I would encourage readers to check out one of my favorite blogs on the Web, Field Negro. In one blog I just took an opportunity to read, Field takes on Clarence Thomas for yet another inexplicable slap in the face to black people.

Here is an excerpt:

Some sister must have really done Clarence wrong back in the day, because that Negro seriously hates his people. I bet he vowed to get the entire Negro race back for those black folks who dissed him in his early life.

Honestly, how could Uncle Clarence be the only one of the Supremes to vote against not scrapping a certain provision of the Voting Rights Act? (He even went against his closet lover, Antonin Scalia, on this one) A provision which pretty much insured that certain states would not be messing with the civil rights of minority voters? Has this Negro taken leave of his senses? Does he just do this kind of shit to get attention? Folks, believe me, in spite of what some folks in certain states would have you believe, that provision is still needed today. Those pesky little literacy tests could come back faster than you can say Jig Clarence, Jig.

Field Negro:
http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2009/06/most-dangerous-negro-in-merry-ca.html

More Far-Right Extremism In The News … This Time It’s Hal Turner

The infamous Hal Turner, a Neo-Nazi commentator through various mediums, finds himself in some hot water again these days:

CHICAGO, June 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/– Hal Turner, an intermittent Internet radio talk show host and blogger, was arrested today by FBI agents at his home in North Bergen, N.J., on a federal complaint filed in Chicago alleging that he made Internet postings threatening to assault and murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago in retaliation for their recent ruling upholding handgun bans in Chicago and a suburb.

Turner, who has had an association over the years with Fox News conservative host Sean Hannity, was cuffed up by the Feds.

Yeah, it was interesting when all of those people slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the Obama Administration for the release of the report on extremism.

Included in the report was this:

Gun-related violence: “Heightened interest in legislation for tighter firearms…may be invigorating rightwing extremist activity, specifically the white supremacist and militia movements.”

More on Hal Turner from Wikipedia:

Harold Charles “Hal” Turner is an American white nationalist and white supremacist from North Bergen, New Jersey. He runs his program, The Hal Turner Show, as a webcast from his home once a week, and depends on donations from his listeners. He quit the show in July 2008 and resumed in April 2009. In August 2008 his website also closed down, though he retains a blog, though currently that presence was shut down by his host, Google‘s Blogger, for violations of terms of service.

What’s Up With The Right-Wing Nuts Comparing President Obama To Hitler?

These right-wing nutjobs are going crazy finding ways to pour salt on President Obama. The following was in a letter from Republican Women of Anne Arundel County (Maryland) President Joyce E. Thomann:

Obama and Hitler have a great deal in common in my view. Obama and Hitler use the “blitzkrieg” method to overwhelm their enemies. FAST, CARPET BOMBING intent on destruction. Hitler’s blitzkrieg bombing destroyed many European cities – quickly and effectively. Obama is systematically destroying the American economy and with it AMERICA. First the banking/investment industry, next private enterprise (GM and Chrysler) and now HEALTH CARE. And he is working on grabbing more of the American economy with his environmental extremism!

We too CAN fight back. Contact everyone you know. Start a blitzkrieg of our own. Shut down the Capitol switchboards and the White House switchboards! Say NO to the Obamination of Obama Care!

This just goes to show how crazy some of these right wingers are when it comes to President Obama. It makes you wonder what has caused them to quickly hate him as much as they do.

They’ve hated him from the beginning (even when they knew nothing about him other than the very basics.

This is just plain nutty.

It’s almost like a box of crayons.

What is it about a black man in the White House that makes Republicans see red (especially after eight years of Bush-Cheney)?

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/23/md-gop-obama-hitler/