Bad Deeds for 7-17-2007

Bill O’Reilly Smears Daily Kos and Jet Blue – Bill O’Reilly accused the well-respected liberal blog Daily Kos of being a hate-filled website and ambushed the CEO of Jet Blue airlines for sponsoring the Yearly Kos convention. O’Reilly called Daily Kos “a vicious far-left website” and “one of the worst examples of hatred that America has to offer.” He says, “”… this is hate of the worst order. It’s like the Ku Klux Klan. It’s like the Nazi party. There is no difference here.” O’Reilly’s proof that Daily Kos is hate-filled was four comments (out of between 14 and 24 MILLION visits a month) posted by readers of Daily Kos; but nothing from the operators of the website itself. As an example, one of the posted comments was, “The Pope is a primate.” Yes, those readers posted inappropriate comments, but O’Reilly is guilty of misrepresenting the site as hate-filled. And most importantly, O’Reilly forgot to mention that the comments he alluded to on the site could well have been posted by anyone, since it’s an open site. A question one might ask then (one that’s at least as responsible as O’Reilly’s ridiculous attack): Did Bill O’Reilly or one of his producers post those “hateful” comments at Daily Kos themselves? BTW, as a matter of scientific fact, the Pope IS a primate, so is Bill O’Reilly, and so are you and I.

What O’Reilly Missed
Now Daily Kos is even more hate-filled since it has received nasty comments from O’Reilly viewers.

The Pentagon’s public affairs division has become a dumping ground for administration cronies – The “Communications Outreach” program is the latest effort to bypass the traditional media and work directly with talk radio and bloggers and provides talking points and briefings to retired military officials who now support the administration in appearances as media pundits. On board are Erin Healey, a former junior assistant press secretary at the White House, Julie George, who formerly worked as deputy coalitions director for Rick Santorum, and Jocelyn Webster, who formerly worked in the White House’s political operation for Sara Taylor, the Karl Rove aide who now finds herself in a bit of hot water. The relative inexperience of these true-believers is an old theme for the Bush administration.

$7.5B in Earmarks Unclaimed – Senators have not claimed responsibility for at least $7.5 billion worth of projects approved by the Appropriations Committee, according to an analysis by a budget watchdog group. Under seven of 10 spending bills approved by the panel, more than $26 billion has been earmarked for projects sought by both senators and the Bush administration, leaving nearly 30 percent unaccounted for. The Senate Appropriations Committee refutes the findings, arguing that the group misinterpreted a host of appropriations requirements as earmarks. For instance, the panel argues that $6.5 billion requested by the Pentagon for the base realignment and closure program was considered “undisclosed earmarks” by the group’s analysis of the military construction spending bill. But with no clear rules in place, the dispute highlights the murky nature of what exactly constitutes an earmark, or a directive to spend a specific amount of money for an individual project. “There really is no precise understanding statutorily or otherwise about what an earmark is,” said a Senate Appropriations Committee aide.

Republican Blocking 9-11 Commission Recommendations Bill – Legislation to implement recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks hit another snag yesterday when Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) objected to moving the bill to a joint House-Senate conference committee. The bill appeared to be moving to conference this week after Senate Republicans dropped their objections and House Democrats vowed to work through remaining jurisdictional squabbles that have held up the bill for months. But Kyl put his foot down when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sought unanimous consent to consider a transportation security bill, H.R. 1401, along with the House and Senate versions of the 9/11 bill in the conference committee.

Cheney Pushes Bush to Act on Iran – The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.” Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively.

House Committee Members Entangled In Cunningham Scandal Refuse To Release Full Details – An internal investigation that the House Intelligence Committee has refused to make public portrays the panel as embarrassingly entangled in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery scandal. When the committee’s investigation was completed last year, the Republican-controlled panel would not release the results; now that the committee is controlled by Democrats, it still will not release the findings.

Candidates Can “Flood the Zone” With Blog Attacks for a Price

Illegal Funding Activities by the Minnesota Republican Party – Read the memo from former Republican Party of Minnesota finance director Dwight Tostenson to the Party’s Executive Committee alleging the illegal activities and resulting harassment.

Pentagon Destroys Evidence of Alleged Iranian Involvement in Iraq – According to Fox News, the U.S. had startling “new” evidence that Iran was supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents and that those weapons were being used to kill American soldiers. The only problem is that the military destroyed the evidence.

SIRIUS Radio Calls Their Liberal Channel “SIRIUS Left” and Their Conservative Channel “SIRIUS Patriot” – Well, at least they didn’t call the liberal channel “SIRIUS Traitor”! Seriously, why not call the liberal station “SIRIUS Liberty”? The executive responsible for these sorts of decisions is Dave Gorab. Tell him to change the name.

Bush’s latest catchphrase, “precipitous withdrawal,” has been used before; by Nixon regarding Vietnam

Regards,

Jim