By Dave Lindorff

I reported in this space yesterday that Gannett's USA Today newspaper had incorrectly identified the message of the orange ribbon worn at the Oscars by Oscar nominee Julie Christie. The paper had said it was for the ACLU. I had said it was the symbol of the national impeachment movement.

While it is the case that the impeachment movement is using the color orange, and encourages the wearing of orange ribbons and armbands, it turns out that Christie was wearing her ribbon as part of an ACLU-led call for the closing of the US torture camps at Guantanamo Bay Naval base on the Isand of Cuba.

My headline, of course, is metaphorical.

The publisher in question is Joseph Farah, founder of WorldNetDaily.com, which shares the bottom of the rightwing "news" chain with Matt Drudge's Drudgereport.com. For guys like Farah and Drudge, no baldfaced rightwing lie about a Democrat is too false or sleazy to publish. And once they publish such lies, they get promoted by more "credible" outlets like Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, FOX News, and Wall Street Journal, and are then embraced on MSNBC by Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan, who together did more to promote the Swift Boat Liars than anyone on TV.

If They Want A Condemnation We'll Give Them One

Once in a rare while a member of Congress will speak the plain truth without equivocation.

Action Page: http://www.usalone.com/condemnation.php

And when Pete Stark stood up to accuse the president of the United States of having no conscience about the deaths of the thousands of valiant troops he sent on a criminal war mission (for his "amusement" Stark said), while at the same time stealing the medicines out of the mouths of babes, not a word was voiced in protest by the Republicans present in the moment. There was only a mild generalized statement from the chair about avoiding personal references to the president.

And the reason there was not a peep of actual outrage when Stark spoke those indicting words (that they are so howling about now), is that they in knew in what was left of their hearts that it was all shamefully true.

All of our emails and calls are giving Democrats in Congress the backbone to say NO to Bush's demand for warrantless wiretapping power.

So to avoid defeat, the Busheviks are once again playing their ace-in-the-hole - the Big Lie - which is being stovepiped into Congress through Rupert Murdoch's lie-filled NY Post.

On May 15, Spc. Alex Jiminez (left) and six other soldiers were on lookout in the Triangle of Death when insurgents attacked, killing 4 and kidnapping 3, including Jiminez.

While U.S. troops began a highly-publicized manhunt, NSA lawyers struggled to find a top Justice Department official to get an emergency warrant for a wiretap (of what I don't know - did the insurgents leave behind a cellphone or their personal address book?).

But it took them 10-12 hours because

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was out of town; Deputy AG Paul McNulty had resigned already; Solicitor General Paul Clement "had left the building"; and the other responsible official, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein was not yet authorized to approve the emergency order.

Last week Ann Coulter told CNBC's Donny Deutsch that Jews need to be "perfected" through conversion to Christianity.

Deutsch was shocked, but didn't have the brains to ask "and if they don't?" Deutsch apparently never heard of the Spanish Inquisition, when Jews (and Muslims) had a simple choice: convert to Catholicism, leave Spain, or die.

Many conservative Christians believe the United States should be a "Christian Nation," just as Spain was a Catholic nation. So the idea that the Christian religion might be enforced through an Inquisition-like authority is not an absurd one - especially for someone like Ann Coulter who believes Joe McCarthy was right.

MediaMatters cataches old Rushbo in flagrante:

NY Times columnist David Brooks spent 110 minutes with Bush and insists, "Bush is not blind to the realities in Iraq" because Bush "lives through" difficult moments: "the trips to Walter Reed, the hours and hours spent weeping with or being rebuffed by the families of the dead."

I have no doubt Bush has been "rebuffed by the families of the dead," although such rebuffs have never been reported - and should be.

I also have no doubt the families that didn't rebuff Bush did a lot of weeping.

But my Bullshit Detector is going off the charts at the suggestion that Bush spent one second - let alone "hours and hours" - weeping with them.

Just read Cindy Sheehan's description of her meeting with Bush, as told to William Rivers Pitt:

"Congress Braces for Fight Over Fairness Doctrine" is the headline of an article by McClatchy's Rob Hotakainen today. Why this should be a fight is one question. The certainty that Bush would veto it is a point that goes unmentioned. And the amazing thing is that an article on the distortion caused by right-wing talk show hosts quotes only right-wing talk show hosts:

Washington - After conservative radio talk show hosts helped bury an immigration bill, Republican Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott complained that "talk radio is running America."

Lott suggested a remedy that immediately got talk-show hosts talking: He suggested bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, which would force broadcasters to provide more political balance on the nation's airwaves.

"It's absurd," said Mike Shanin, a self-described conservative radio talk show host in Kansas City, Mo.

Call Good Morning America at 212-456-5900 and complain.
Call Hardball w Chris Matthews at 202-783-2615
EMAIL ACTION PAGE: http://www.peaceteam.net/ban_coulter.php

This last week Ann Coulter said the following on Good Morning America, and for the sake of fairness and completeness we quote its full original context:

"Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I've learned my lesson. If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."

There are sure enough serious issues to discuss, but if you want to watch Coulter make a jackass (no offense to our hoofed friends) out of herself first listen to her death wish for John Edwards:

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=b9e65602-78f1-4fb9-91b3-d6f6960150...

Then listen to Elizabeth Edwards ask Ms. Coulter to stop her personal attacks, and watch her self-defense:

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=d8a300dc-d991-49dc-9728-b619a4a110...