connecting*the*dots

(via swissmiss)

From Media Matters:

Melanie Morgan, Lee Rodgers, Rush Limbaugh, and John Gibson all forwarded the accusation made by a website controlled by Rev. Sun Myung Moon that Sen. Hillary Clinton was responsible for spreading information linking Sen. Barack Obama to a madrassa, or Muslim school. None of the four cited any evidence, other than the article, that Clinton was responsible for promoting the madrassa story, and the article cited no one by name.

Below is a clip from The Big Story with John “War on Christmas” Gibson, where Gibson reports on Hillary Clinton “playing the Muslim-phobia card” and holds a conversation with the “level-headed” Republican strategist, Terry Holt.

These guys couldn’t hide a fart in a Trojan Horse.

Here’s my play-by-play breakdown of the clip:

• Charge Hillary Clinton with dirty tactics (from a non-sourced article, published on a right-wing nut job’s website)
• “Expose” Obama being a “Muslim” and being educated at a “madrasa” (after he talked about going to a Muslim school as a child and being a Christian in his book, The Audacity of Hope, which was released earlier this year)
• “Innocently” provide context that a madrasa wasn’t radical 40 years ago (while the rest of Fox News runs with the story as if it were exposing something relevant for American voters to chew on)
• Completely forget to include the fact that Obama was barely out of diapers at the time of his schooling
• Repeat that Clinton is playing political hardball because the American public “knows what a madrasa means” (again, while the rest of Fox hard-sells the ties to terrorists)
• Refuse to explain that The Washington Times is not the same as the “left-leaning” Washington Post (classifications in this culture war that most Americans might confuse rather easily)
• Cry innocent by stating that exposing a cigarette smoker is nothing like this form of political dirty work (while the rest of the network piles on the significance of this insignificant fact)

What’s the result?

An uniformed American public swallowing this story hook, line and sinker, creating doubt with Barak Obama and more venom directed at Hillary Clinton, adding to her baggage — perceived or otherwise.

Until sources are named outside of Insight.com’s word, I’ll file this under Republican Noise Machine.

Fox News isn’t biased; they’re a major part of the spin cycle.

UPDATE: CNN completely debunks the charges — both that Hillary Clinton outed Obama and that Barak Obama attended a “radical madrasa.” They even sent a reporter to Jakarta to show the normalcy of the school on tape. The best line out of Wolf Blitzer’s mouth following the ridiculous clips from Fox News?:

CNN did what any serious news organization is supposed to do in this kind of a situation. We actually conducted an exclusive, first-hand investigation, inside Indonesia, to check out the kind of school Barack Obama attended as a little six year-old boy.

Guess what happened next? Fox News swallowed their story. Lying bastards.

The NFL has gone soft.

I’m watching the Jets get theirs asses handed to them by the Jags… and the refs. Don’t get me twisted; the Jets are getting killed by the opposition, but two plays today have summed up the differences between the NFL circa 1975 and today.

1. Jonathan Vilma broke through the Jags o-line and crushed Byron Leftwich while he was releasing his pass for an incompletion. The result? A 15-yard roughing the passer call. Unbelievable.
2. Down 28 in the first half, Eric Barton sacked and leveled Byron Leftwich on the Jags 1-yard line. Too little too late, possibly, but at least we got a lick in. Wait, check that; 15-yard penalty, roughing the passer. I guess you can’t even sack THE DAMN QUARTERBACK ANYMORE!

Just as I prepared to swear off football for good (I’m still close), I sumbled across this gem of an article:

Brushback.com
New Rule To Protect Quarterbacks Prohibits Them From Taking Field

NEW YORK — In a further effort to protect quarterbacks from violent hits, the NFL has adopted a new rule prohibiting them from taking the field. The rule, which will be put into effect in week 3, is expected to dramatically decrease the number of injuries to starting quarterbacks, and also significantly alter game planning.

“This is a rule that we needed in order to protect our marquee players from season-ending injuries,� said commissioner Roger Goodell. “Guys like Carson Palmer, Steve McNair, and Daunte Culpepper are the faces of the league. We can’t have them battered around like tackling dummies. We can’t allow defenders to hit them high or low or in the middle or late or on-time or at all. They’re dainty, like little Russian nesting dolls, and we need to protect them from those scary, HGH-addled defenders.�

Goodell went on to describe the gridiron as a “scary, violent place that’s fraught with peril.�

“It’s just too dangerous out there,� he said. “Have you seen what goes on? Everybody’s running into each other at high speeds. Sticking a franchise QB out there is just asking for trouble. Personally I don’t even think they should be allowed to stand on the sidelines. You never know when somebody’s going to get shoved out of bounds and upend them. Oh, God I don’t even want to think about it. Can we just change the subject, please?�

The new rule change will force coaches to come up with game plans that don’t involve quarterbacks in any way. Generic running plays, as well as gadget plays like the double reverse and the halfback option, should become more common. In each case, a running back or wide receiver would take the snap from center.

[…]

It’b be hilarious if it weren’t so close to being reality.

If the NFL ever becomes a sport for men again — where business investments in quarterbacks return to the world of a roll of the dice — I might return to getting amped to spend 3 hours on Sundays to watch. Until then, well, consider my patronage a roll of the dice.

As I strolled home from having coffee downtown this afternoon, I paused before crossing Arlington at MLK, as two cars were already there — one a single woman in an SUV, the other a police car with a male officer driving and a female officer riding shotgun.

After eyeballing both drivers and getting the vibe back that neither were in much of a rush, I continued across the walkway.

Big mistake.

The female cop all of a sudden started screaming and pointing at me (I thought behind me at first, I couldn’t hear her), so I picked up my gate and — after landing safely on the other curb — turned around to see what the problem was. Greensboro’s finest then rolls down her window and yells, with attitude:

“You may not be in a hurry, but we have to be somewhere! Move!!”

Before I knew it they were gone, hanging a right and flying down MLK into the distance. I looked over to the SUV driver — thinking maybe she was thinking the same thing as me — but she just shrugged her shoulders and slowly turned in the opposite direction.

Cops. In a rush. No turn signal. No siren. No nothing, except for a frantic, bitchy scream of authority… in my neighborhood.

I didn’t even have enough time to give her the obligatory Jersey response of “fuck you.”

I grew up with Cafferty on the local news scene in the NY-NJ metro area, and had no idea he was such a straight-shooting, righteous cat. Talk about “a change of scenery” doing someone good…

UPDATE: As it turns out, Specter was simply circumvented by Cheney and a bunch of spineless Republican Senators. Hopefully Cafferty gives him another look:

Rick Klein, Boston Globe
Specter ready to force showdown

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter emerged this week as a nemesis that the Bush White House hasn’t had to face: A subpoena-wielding member of Congress who is ready to force a showdown over what he sees as the Bush administration’s intrusion into legislative territory.

From President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program to the “signing statements” in which he selectively enforces portions of laws, Republicans in control of the House and Senate have been unwilling to challenge the White House.

Democrats have howled in protest but remain powerless to force changes because of their minority status in Congress.

Specter, however, seems willing to take Bush and his administration to task. A strong believer in the Senate’s institutional prerogatives, the Pennsylvania Republican has grown increasingly frustrated with a presidency that he believes is encroaching on Congress’s power — and lawmakers’ checks on the power of the White House.

That spurred the unusual letter Specter fired off Wednesday to Vice President Dick Cheney. Specter blasted the vice president, accusing him of going behind his back to derail a Senate investigation into the administration’s secret collection of Americans’ phone records to look for terrorist activity.

Specter has also made it clear that he is willing to use his post on the powerful judiciary committee to broaden his inquiry into other controversial White House policies. He is raising fresh concerns over Bush’s use of signing statements as well as Justice Department threats to prosecute reporters, and the recent FBI raid on a House member’s office; it is unclear, however, if he has enough support from other committee members.

Bush “doesn’t have a blank check. He’s not the final word. We have a Constitution,” Specter said Wednesday night on CNN. “I intend to press hard, because there are very fundamental values at issue here: civil rights and congressional oversight authority.”

Cheney’s response to Specter, however, offered no apologies — and did not address Specter’s questions about the wiretapping program or other White House actions. The vice president described his private conversations with Republican senators simply as “government at work.”

Despite their disagreements, “we should proceed in a practical way to build on the areas of agreement,” Cheney wrote. “We look forward to working with you, knowing of the good faith on all sides.”

[…]

UPDATE II: I fuckin’ hate politicians:

Glenn Greenwald
Specter falsely denied proposing amnesty for the Administration’s illegal eavesdropping

[…]

I have now obtained (with the help of the ACLU) a copy of Specter’s marked-up proposed legislation (.pdf), which makes quite clear that Specter simply was not telling the truth when he denied proposing amnesty to the administration. The bill in question was one which Specter substituted last week in the Judiciary Committee for the prior legislation he proposed back in March (the reason the new version was not available online was because — according to the ACLU — he introduced it only in the Committee, but not yet on the Senate floor).

In sum, Specter’s legislation amends the provision of FISA which provides for criminal penalties, and then, astonishingly, makes those revisions retroactive all the way back to 1978 (when FISA was enacted). The effect and almost certainly the intent of those revisions is to immunize the President and anyone acting under his authority from criminal liability for violating FISA — just as the Post and the ACLU correctly reported, and just as Specter falsely denied.

[…]