Progressive Media

Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett write for Counterpunch:

In any case, our lucky Neo Julian Assange was only able to enjoy his fugitive-from-justice status for a few hours. By noon, the charges were already dropped, and he was free to be defamed from one end of Sweden to the other, not to mention the countless websites. It’s a simple system: the websites show the headlines, and the headlines report the web gossip. It’s Character Assassination 101, but why in Sweden of all places couldn’t the dirty tricks department make the accusations stick?

It was a rare pleasure to wake up to Ed Schultz ripping Joe Scarborough to shreds. Ed was particularly good on the faux-controversy over Speaker Pelosi, demanding the name of a single House Democrat who thinks Pelosi should be replaced as Speaker. Of course Joe couldn't name a single one because (1) House Democrats credit Pelosi with putting Democrats in the majority, and (2) because they believe her when she says the CIA lied to her.

Joe (and Mika) continue to be shocked! shocked! that anyone could accuse the CIA of lying. Hey JoeMika - over 4,600 of our bravest sons and daughters are dead and 20 times that number are maimed because the CIA lied!

Obviously this is just INN's side of the story, but we have had an excellent relationship with INN since the Stolen Election of 2000 and want them to continue to do their outstanding work, and hopefully get back onto FSTV in a better time slot..

Free Speech TV Gags Independent National Newscast

Glen Greenwald asks,

Is it even theoretically possible to have a worse, more deceitful and more moronic press than the one we have?

Atrios responds, Sadly, yes. But for once I disagree with Atrios. And the reasons are purely market-driven.

The only reason the "press" exists is to filter news for citizens who don't have time to filter the ever-raging torrent of news themselves. Otherwise no one would "consume" its product.

Kucinich's historic Articles of Impeachment were the top story on Tuesday's Countdown with Keith Olbermann - which is now the #1 cable news show, beating out The O'Reilly Factor for the first time.

Olbermann and his guests treated Kucinich with tremendous respect - which formed a sharp contrast to the nasty coverage Kucinich received last November (led by the ineffable Countdown regular Dana Milbank) when he introduced 3 Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Cheney.

But there was still a fundamental problem with the analysis by Olbermann, Georgetown Law Professor Jonathan Turley, and Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman: they missed three of the five major reasons for impeaching a President:

For entirely crazy reasons, the biggest news story of last week was Moveon.org's ad in the NY Times.

Was it the biggest news story because Moveon questioned a sacred General? Hardly. American generals have been questioned throughout American history, starting with Gen. George Washington's defeat at Brandywine Creek.

The only reason is because FOX News created a Shitstorm (TM) over the ad.

What is a Shitstorm (TM)? It's when FOX News takes a bullshit topic and turns it into a tornado by pumping it full of bullshit for a major chunk of each news cycle for day after day.

There have been innumerable Shitstorms since FOX went on the air. FOX actually has two going right now - the Moveon ad and the visit of Ahmedinejad to Columbia. If you tune in for any given hour you'll get at least 10 minutes of both.

"The Iraq Veterans Memorial is an online war memorial that honors the members of the U.S. armed forces who have lost their lives serving in the Iraq War. The Memorial is a collection of video memories from family, friends, military colleagues, and co-workers of those that have fallen."

Over 2.3 million folks have viewed it on YouTube, now you can too...

Funny what grabs people's attention...

In the wake of Ann Coulter's meltdown, Steven Crockett, co-host of Democratic Talk Radio wrote about other typical forms of harassment against Democratic activists from his own experience in "Democratic Activists Harassed by Republican Lunatics."

Populist Democratic activists are routinely being harassed by the lunatic fringe of the Republican Right and fanatics from the anti-Democratic Left. Lately, it seems increasingly likely that some of those on the Internet harassing Populist Democratic activists are actually supporters of the Republican Right pretending to be from the anti-Democratic Left.

Ann Coulter, that contemptuous example of "compassionate conservatism," infamous for bashing the 911 widows who "marinate in their exquisite personal agony...I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much" while promoting her misinformed and skewed diatribe "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" struck out twice at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

First, she simultaneously smeared gays and John Edwards with this despicable comment:

"COULTER: Oh, and I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. But it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word "faggot," so I'm -- so I'm kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards. So I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions."