February 17, 2010 archive

A new tasteless Trash-Piece about President John Kennedy, composed almost entirely of ficticious dialog, malicious rumors, and outright lies, is now being made by Joel Surnow (the creator of the series “24”) — a well-known Hollywood ultra-conservative Neocon, in the form of a 8-part Mini-Series, titled: “The Kennedys“, to be aired on “The History Channel” network.

The piece is so completely full of made-up-out-of-whole-cloth garbage and malicious propaganda, that even the mild mannered Ted Sorenson (former Kennedy aide, and speechwriter) has come out publically denouncing it, in advance of its airing (which is one whole year away).

Filmmaker Robert Greenwald obtained an early version of the screenplay containing a draft of the dialog and its content. Greenwald said, “this one-sided right wing script suffers from a totally vindictive, malicious approach”. Greenwald and Sorenson both contend that it is not only littered with easily documented falsehoods, they also insist that the production team drafted a ridiculous “cartoon” and “caricature” of the former president — downplaying all the weighty historical episodes in favor of tawdry, salacious and entirely ficitious material and dialog.  

Greenwald told the Huffington Post he counted more than a dozen sex scenes written into the biopic with only scant acknowledgment of the Cuban Missile crisis. Sorenson, in the film, says that each and every one of the conversations he is depicted to have had with the President never even happened.

“I was amazed to find reading those pages that every single conversation with the President in the Oval office or elsewhere in which I according to the script participated, never happened. There were no such conversations… A minimum amount of research could’ve avoided the remarkable number of obvious errors of that kind in this script.”

       —Ted Sorensen

Robert Greenwald has now started a Web Site: StopKennedySmears.com where you can sign a Petition to demand that The History Channel stop this character assassination piece that has no business, and no merit being aired on “The History Channel” network.

Everyone please go and sign the Petition StopKennedySmears.com.  With enough public pressure from the public, this piece of sleaze journalism, and fraudulent history can be stopped.

Dianne Feinstein is doing a Pombo on the Endangered Species Act, with an Amendment to gut it in an upcoming Democratic “Bipartisanship Enhanced” jobs bill.  

Like Salmon ?  Too bad !  McClintock’s in on it, too.

Hey, this even makes the Kansas City Star.  Everything’s up to date in Kansas City.   Dead silence at a certain other “Democratic” blog.

http://www.kansascity.com/400/…      Feinstein plan would loosen Endangered Species Act to pump more water    2/11/2010

Yes, our northern CA based Sen. DiFi thinks Billionaire Business Water Brokers in Kern County of Southern CA Who Donate To Her Campaign Are More Important Than Salmon.  So Does Tom McClintock.  

She intends to put an amendment that says we can ignore the Endangered Species Act, onto the upcoming jobs bill to let more water be pumped out of the Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta.   Why does this matter ?  Because at certain times of the year, the nursery fish need the water to swim and feed in.   And the West Coast salmon runs are at the brink of going away. Forever.

{{{  “This came as a bit of a shock that she did this,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif.

He represents California’s North Coast, which has been hurt by two years of bans on commercial salmon fishing stemming from collapsing salmon stocks.

“If this were to go through, it would have a devastating impact on Northern California and other jobs and other economies in the state,” Thompson said.  }}}

Where the hell have you been, Blue Dog Rep. Thompson ?   Didn’t you notice the real reason so many people up here in northern CA 04  DIDN’T WANT Carpetbagging Tom MCCLINTOCK of Southern CA pimping for these Southern CAL business sharks to take water out of Norcal and kill off our agriculture and wildlife ?    He’s running the exact same playbook that former Republican Rep. John Doolittle ran with Dick Cheney and the suckerfish up in the Klamoth river drainage.  

Westminster Dog Show 2010: Why it’s better than Winter Olympics

What digby says-

Bayh is complaining about the nastiness of the liberal blogs as his reason for taking his ball and going home, and I think that’s probably a real issue for him. These Democratic Senate egomaniacs are a huge problem and they are being called on it. They see their role in America’s patrician institution as protecting the rightful owners of America from the Democratic rabble that elected them. And so does the elite political and media establishment at large, which in turn protects them. When they are actually held up to scrutiny for playing such a role, they get very angry. How dare anyone, much less the dirty liberal rabble, question their judgment and their integrity. Their response is to leave the field and turn their seats over to a similarly compromised Democrat or a Republican to teach the Democrats a lesson — a lesson which the Dems have so internalized that they reflexively run in fear of offending conservative Democrats without even questioning it.

This isn’t a bipartisan problem, by the way. The owners allow Snowe and Collins off the leash from time to time to provide cover for something that needs to be done to calm the markets. But other than that this band of aristocratic centrists of both parties have but one role to play and that is to thwart the liberal economic agenda and advance conservative initiatives whenever they are needed. The problem is that this game is being publicly discussed and there is now a (small) price to pay — the village media isn’t the only game in town anymore and there are voices that embarrass the poor sensitive darlings when they “follow their conscience” and obstruct progress for ordinary people. This is very upsetting to them.

So, yes, there is a problem with this bipartisan fetish inside the beltway. The parties and the country are ideologically polarized and this means that politics aren’t a genteel pursuit best decided over scotch and cigars among like-minded nobility. But people must also be aware that these “centrists” are false flag conservatives and any discussion of the partisan make-up of the Senate needs to account for their position as de facto Republicans. It’s much better to wage this ideological war with a proper troop count, knowing which side everyone is really on.

To anyone who claims that we have no effect, I say Wrong!

These Beltway Bubblehead Buttkissing Bastards are such preening narcissists, their egos so fragile, that mere words leave them quivering puddles of petulant quitter goo.

It takes sticks and stones to break my bones baby.

While I was browsing through the Washington Post Monday, February 15, 2010, in my never-ending quest to understand something (please, God, anything!) about the bizarro politics of this bizarro nation wherein I dwell, but instead (as usual) thinking “What the fuck?” after every article, I came across this very peculiar paragraph buried in an article about Hillary Clinton’s current junket to Saudi Arabia.  

In his meeting with Obama in May, Abdullah turned down a request for Saudi Arabia to accept detainees from Yemen and rejected making any confidence-building steps toward Israel. (The Saudis themselves had thought Obama’s visit was a courtesy call and they were surprised so many tough issues were raised without much preparation.) The tough session helped convince Obama he needed great expertise in the Middle East on his staff, which is one reason why Dennis Ross was moved from the State Department, where he worked for Clinton, to the White House, officials said.

Dennis Ross! Great expertise? What the fuck?

Ross was a noted supporter of the Iraq war and he signed two Project for a New American Century (PNAC) letters in support of the war in March 2003.[20] However, he opposed some of the Bush Administration’s policies for post-war reconstruction.[13] He also opposed Bush’s policy of avoiding direct talks with Iran.[2]

According to Wall Street Journal, Ross, along with James Steinberg and Daniel Kurtzer, were among the principal authors of presidential candidate Barack Obama’s address on the Middle East to AIPAC in June 2008. [21]

Great expertise? This idiot was a cheerleader for one of the greatest foreign-policy disasters in the history of the United States! He’s a neo-con stooge from Club PNAC, along with Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney!

And then there’s AIPAC!

In the mid-1980s Ross co-founded with Martin Indyk the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-sponsored Washington Institute for Near East Policy (“WINEP”)

And didn’t Ross write a script right out of the AIPAC playbook as one of “the principal authors of presidential candidate Barack Obama’s address on the Middle East to AIPAC in June 2008,” so well described by Dana Milbank:

A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday — and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner.

As a pandering performance, it was the full Monty by a candidate who, during the primary, had positioned himself to Hillary Clinton’s left on matters such as Iran.

Obama even outdid President Bush in his pro-Israel sentiments. On the very day that Obama vowed to protect Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — drawing a furious denunciation from the Palestinian Authority — Bush announced that he was suspending a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

So all in all the neo-con stooge for AIPAC Dennis Ross isn’t exactly an obvious choice for “great expertise” about the Middle East, especially at a time when we’re trying to mend fences with Saudi Arabia and enlist their assistance with sanctions against Iran.

What the fuck?

On Saturday, I saw a very interesting piece by Cenk Uygur, whom I have admired, on FDL, “It’s Time for a Progressive Revolution,” in which he said:

If ever there was a time for primaries, it’s now!  Almost every Democrat running for re-election should get a primary challenge.  This is our best chance at a progressive revolution. You know who should run?  Teachers, farmers, dentists, moms, small business owners, cops, butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers.  And anyone else with a shred of integrity who actually cares about our democracy.

Normally, you need a boat load of cash to run against a member of Congress. Hence, you need special interests behind you. And hence, all of our members of Congress are sell-outs to special interests. Hence, only 8% of people want to re-elect them. But right now might be one of those moments in a democracy where the people stand up and roar. Right now, all you might need is to just not be an incumbent.

It was focused on the 2010 elections, while the Full Court Press is building for 2012 because of issues of resources and filing deadlines.  But I was piqued by his saying, “Almost every Democrat running for re-election should get a primary challenge,” and I loved the broad sentiment, “You know who should run?  Teachers, farmers, dentists, moms, small business owners, cops, butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers.  And anyone else with a shred of integrity …”  Seemed like there was the basis for some dialogue here.

So I posted the Full Court Press proposal on the Young Turks website.  I was immediately met in the comments field with a cascade of viciousness.  From KenTX:

I’m the REPUBLICAN who is kicking your ass, in your own liberal blogosphere.

We already control cable news, satellite radio, and the AM radio airwaves. Now we’re in your kitchen, cooking an omlet.

By the time 2012 gets here, there won’t be anything left of the Democrat Party…