Hillary Clinton agrees to debate on Fox News

Agreeing to appear on a ratings grabbing, and therefore rather profitable debate program on a network known for being an undeniable "media arm" of the Republican party? Unbelievable.

A few weeks ago I was planning to vote for her but then the whole thing about her sitting on the board at Wal Mart, and now she agrees to a debate on Fox (FAUX!) News? Way to drive me (and I'm sure many others too) completely over the edge towards Obama.

"There is an enormous interest in these debates an clamoring on the part of the Democratic Party for them," said Clinton's spokesperson Howard Wolfson. "We have not had a large number in which two people have participated. We've had multi-candidate debates... the fact is Senator Clinton has enjoyed the opportunity to debate and get her message out. Certainly as we move to the next exciting day of this nomination calendar, voters want the opportunity to see these two candidates compete against each other."

Though Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have frequently appeared on Fox News for interviews, Clinton may be debating alone. Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama, said that no plans existed as of now for his boss to participate in upcoming forums.

And to make matters worse, Faux News CEO Roger Ailes claimed:

"The candidates that can't face Fox, can't face Al Qaeda."

HA HA, gee, maybe because Fox News and Al-Qaeda are the exact same thing?

Is Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron a demon?

Also, what the hell is the woman behind him doing?

Fox News, DCCC, Vatican caught screwing up Wikipedia!

So Wikipedia has implemented some sort of spy machine sort of like the one the government (or more specifically, the NSA) uses to spy on Americans. Except this time, it's catching some pretty stupid employees at Fox News, the DCCC, the CIA, and even the Vatican in some pretty hilarious acts of vandalism!

The new Wikipedia scanner thing has revealed what we pretty much always suspected: The world’s political, religious and media leaders are about seven years old, on average. By matching anonymous edits to Wikipedia entries back to the office computers where they originated, the scanner is able to match up particular changes to particular organizations. For example:

Somebody at the CIA repeatedly added “Wahhhh!” to the profile of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The CIA also made some helpful edits to, uhm, Oprah Winfrey’s profile.

At the Vatican, they fucked with the entry about the Catholic Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, removing “links to newspaper stories written in 2006 that alleged that Adams’s finger prints and hand prints were found on a car used during a double murder in 1971.”

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee computers added color commentary to the Rush Limbaugh profile, describing him as an idiot, racist and bigot, while noting this about his listeners: “Most of them are legally retarded.”

Diebold employees removed references to Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell being a loyal stooge of the Bush Administration.

People at Fox News fucked with Al Franken’s profile.

Fox News staffers also “de-loofahed Bill O’ Reilly, posted false information about the ratings of Fox News shows, accused Keith Olbermann of making light of Peter Jennings’ death and deleted rating info for MSNBC programs.”

Somebody at the NYT added the very clever insult “jerk” to Bush Junior’s entry, while others are editing the Wall Street Journal’s entry for some reason.

A computer at the New York Times was also used to call Tom DeLay a “grand dragon,” which is pretty good but not quite as good as Robert Byrd’s actual title, “Exalted Cyclops.”

[h/t Wonkette]

UPDATE: More sexy Wikipedia edits! Via Ana Marie Cox:

Condoleezza Rice trained to become a "concert penis"? That's Gutfeld territory, people. (Maybe they meant Mr. Penis...)

On liars and nose pickers

Oh hey there! It's me, Bill Kristol. Don't mind me, I'm just going to continue to tell lies and pick my nose.

Bill O'Reilly is such an ass

As we all know, Bill O'Reilly is not only a hypocrite, but he's also constantly on the attack against anything he deems left of George Bush, including all "Liberal" bloggers. Not only has he gone after JetBlue for their (former) ad sponsorship of YearlyKos, but he's also going after Daily Kos and other Liberal blogs for inane comments which inevitably appear on occasion on blogs that encourage ALL readers to comment, which pretty much every single major Liberal blog does. I guess he wants the Liberal blogs to go the way of almost ALL Conservative blogs these days and restrict who can and cannot comment.

Oh! But guess what!? O'Reilly has some crazies reading his blog too!! Go figure, right? In fact, the comments on his site have gotten so out of control, the secret service has actually taken an interest in them.

Brad Pitt + Albert Einstein = Dick Cheney

No, he wasn't kidding:

Matt Groenig, on The Daily Show, just said that he has been forbidden from running snarky faux news-tickers on The Simpsons in the future, "because FOX viewers might confuse it with real news."

The examples he used included "Brad Pitt + Albert Einstein = Dick Cheney" and "Rupert Murdoch is a good dancer."

UPDATE: Okay, so in trying to find a video, I found some more funny quotes from the fake Fox ticker:

"Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at Foxnews.com. ... Rupert Murdoch: Terrific Dancer. ... Dow down 5000 points. ... Study: 92 percent of Democrats are gay. ... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party. ... Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple. ... Dan Quayle: Awesome."

And here's the video:

'I like warm weather, therefore global warming is a good thing!'

Last night I was bored, and flipping through the channels looking for something to watch, and finally settled on "Special Report w/ Brit Hume" on Fox News. I happened to catch the "Fox All Stars" segment that appears at the end of the show featuring a "fair & balanced" panel (of GOP political hacks). In this case, "fair and balanced" meant Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, and Charles Krauthammer. Of course, with such a "fair and balanced" panel of commentators, you would expect a few good laughs, and boy did they deliver! At the end of their discussion on global warming, Fred Barnes had the following to say:

"We're not even sure if global warming is a bad thing. Me? I like warm weather!!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! I really want a video of this, but so far have been unsuccessful in finding one. If anyone happens to find it on YouTube or elsewhere, please post it in the comments.

Fox News to air inaccurate 9/11 "documentary" scenes

You all will recall the Disney/ABC "documentary" entitled "The Path To 9/11" that was scrutinized, and ultimately edited to delete scenes that were shown to be false. Well guess what! Sean Hannity and Fox News plan to air the inaccurate scenes, while ABC refuses to act on it's copyright! Via MediaBistro:

"Fox News Channel is touting the fact that it has obtained controversial unseen footage from ABC's miniseries 'The Path to 9/11' and is planning to air the video during 'Hannity's America' on Sunday night," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"Fox News obtained the outtakes by taping a public talk that Cyrus Nowrasteh, writer and producer of 'The Path to 9/11,' gave to a World Affairs Council chapter last Friday at Cal State Channel Islands. Nowrasteh discussed making the docudrama and played several minutes edited out of the movie," the Los Angeles Times adds.

Fox News takes another step away from reality.

Video of Bill O'Reilly accusing kidnap victim of enjoying his circumstances!

This is truly pathetic. On Monday, January 15, 2007 during his show on Fox News, Bill O'Reilly accused a kidnap victim, who had been held captive for four years of "enjoying" his circumstances.

Condoleezza Rice loves Fox News

After it was divulged that Dick Cheney requires that all TVs be tuned to Fox News in his hotel suite's while travelling, it should come as no surprise to you to learn that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ALSO favors the wannabe "news" reporters over at Fox News too!

Earlier today, Rice was overheard between television interviews saying of Fox News correspondents:

"My Fox guys, I love every single one of them."

She then went on to make a seemingly snide remark about CBS' "The Early Show" while expressing her "desire" to do a one-on-one interview with anchor Harry Smith:

"He's a decent guy. I know they are, like, 55 in the ratings, but I like him."

I guess it must be hard giving an interview to anyone other than Fox News. You know, those "ultra liberal leaning media outlets that just live to hate the Bush administration." Furthermore, I don't know what ratings Condi has been looking at, but I don't believe "The Early Show" is anywhere near 55th in ratings. Must be part of the Faux News world she lives in.

And in other news, Senator Chuck Hagel dropped a hammer on Rice this morning in a Senate committee hearing with the Secretary of State.

Bad news for Fox News Channel

Via News Hounds I see that Fox News had a terrible time keeping up in the ratings this past quarter. In fact, if you compare quarter four in 2005 to the same time period in 2006, Fox News lost 15 percent of it's viewers! Although, I'm sure FNC anchors will continue to LIE about how "well" they're doing.

What's Fox News headlining tonight?

I've tried to refrain (for the most part) from bringing you updates on how pathetic Fox News is, but tonight, I can't resist.

Instead of actually talking about relevant news, or the Democratic takeover in Congress, Fox News' top story tonight on Hannity & Colmes (a show that is geared to a political audience) was the TRUMP V. ROSIE feud. As you might imagine the entire segment was geared at slamming Rosie O'Donnell, with one contributor even saying that Rosie came up with the whole attack on Trump to promote a "gay cruise line." Sean Hannity didn't use that defense for Trump, but the one he did use, "well Rosie started the whole thing" was equally pathetic and juvenile.

How pathetic. Whatever will Fox News do when it's already shrinking audience of the ignorant whittles away to nothing?

Faux News joins Newt in making the case to destroy the first amendment

Here's a bit of a followup (sort of) to a story I mentioned in Tuesday night's (November 28) Daily RunDown, about Newt Gingrich's desire to burn the Constitution, saying that he thinks America needs to rethink free speech before we "lose a city" (won't the GOP ever grow tired of using scare tactics on American citizens dumb enough to believe them?).

Anyway, I found the video below via a News Hounds column revealing a stark contrast in the way the story was covered by both Faux News, and Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann. While Faux, as you may have guessed, used the afore mentioned scare tactics, Olbermann gave the ENTIRE STORY, and, unlike Faux, turned to someone who might actually KNOW SOMETHING on the subject.

For reaction, Olberrmann went to Jonathan Turley, an expert on constitutional law from George Washington University. Turley warned that Gingrich's appeal likely fall on receptive ears among some Americans because fear can be a powerful motivator. "People don't seem to appreciate that you really can't save a constitution by destroying it," he said.

MacCallum's piece, which ran on Wednesday (November 29, 2006) was markedly different. She framed the story with an unrelated event -- the guilty pleas of two Texas men to charges that they tried to join the Taliban by using their ATM cards to send money to a charity. Then she quoted only a brief segment of Gingrich's remarks, the scary part: "We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city ... which I believe could happen in the next decade."

For comment, MacCallum turned not to experts on the constitution, but to a former FBI official and a terrorism analyst. Their comments focused almost exclusively on the lack of funds for fighting terrorism and the problems raised for law enforcement by the constitution. MacCallum introduced one of them by asking, "Are we mired in our own muck in terms of our intelligence?"

"We need to get out of our own way. We are defining as civil liberties things that are basic to investigative law enforcement, protecting us against terrorism," said David Katz, a terrorism analyst.

MacCallum never questioned the Gingrich premise -- that law enforcement lacks the tools for fighting terrorism. She never expressed any doubts about the loss of free speech and how that would be administered. She never mentioned Gingrich's proposal that web sites that someone deems dangerous (like this one?) should be closed down.

And she totally missed the irony of Gingrich making his proposal at a First Amendment dinner. But then, that's no surprise.

No surprise indeed. Checkout the video for yourself:

Is civil war label wrong? Or do Republicans just need a Webster's?

As many of you already know, Matt Lauer announced Monday morning (November 27), on NBC's "Today Show" that the situation in Iraq can now be classified as a civil war, and the network would be updating it's terminology to reflect this. On Monday morning's "Today Show," Matt Lauer made the announcement:

"For months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war. And for the most part, news organizations, like NBC, have hesitated to characterize it as such, but after careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted -- that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterized as civil war."

The announcement was termed "a bombshell" by industry magazine Editor & Publisher. However, NBC reportedly took quite some time thinking about the issue, and according to a Boston Globe article, many other news organizations are doing the same:

A few other media outlets with reporters in Baghdad have slowly begun to refer to the conflict as a civil war and still more said yesterday they were debating the issue after the NBC announcement.

"We talk about it every day," said Sandy Genelius , a CBS News spokeswoman. "But there is no edict here. Each producer and correspondent tries to put on the air what seems accurate and appropriate in the context of each story."

Bill Keller , executive editor of The New York Times, said in a statement yesterday that "after consulting with our reporters in the field and the editors who directly oversee this coverage," the paper has decided that the term "civil war" is now appropriate.

According to the Editor and Publisher column, Lauer acknowledged that the White House disagreed with NBC's decision, and even read the press release from the White House regarding the matter:

"The White House objects to the terminology that NBC News is now using, and here is part of the statement that they've released: 'While the situation on the ground is very serious, neither Prime Minister Maliki nor we believe that Iraq is in a civil war.' It goes on to say that 'the violence is largely centered around Baghdad, and Baghdad security and the increased training of Iraqi security forces is at the top of the agenda when President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki meet later this week in Jordan.'"

Please, you've got to be kidding me. Like many others have said, the White House is clearly splitting hairs to avoid acknowledging the truth about the situation.

In his nightly "Talking Points Memo" Tuesday night, Republican lapdog Bill O'reilly, called the situation "Violent, out-of-control chaos — not civil war," according to a News Hounds column. O'reilly went on to say that the Bush administration needs to consider breaking Iraq into three autonomous regions, or allowing the Iraqi military to run the country. Oh wait, wasn't one of the reasons George Bush illegally invaded Iraq was to put "freedom on the march?" Wouldn't that sort of defeat the purpose? Of course, not having anything intelligent to say, O'reilly went on to blame the "liberal media," saying that the American media is rooting for an American loss in Iraq, and that NBC is "anti-Bush."

You know, the same thing he does every night for one reason or another. We've heard it all a million times O'reilly, come up with an argument that actually MAKES SENSE!

A column published by Reuters quoted Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution as saying:

"It's getting silly for the administration or anyone else to deny there's a civil war."

...And I agree. Webster's dictionary defines "civil war" as "a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country," so please tell me how it is wrong to characterize what's happening in Iraq as anything BUT a civil war?

What do YOU think? Can you make a case against calling it a civil war? Or do you agree with the decision by many to classify Iraq as such?

Virginia right wing blogger fuming over movie; pulls page out of Fox News' playbook

Anyone else besides myself sick of Republicans being paranoid, raging ass-hats that foam at the mouth at the mere thought that someone might be trying to "pull one over on them?" While I generally try not to call out other bloggers like so, given the recent flurry of thoughtless, inane crap posted on SWACgirl, I have no problem pointing out her most recent post about the movie "HAPPY FEET" where she complains that the movie was too politically correct for her. The Liberal Progressive wants to know when telling the truth became 'politically correct,' and what is so wrong with this? She goes on to spew out the following:

Along the way he finds a penguin ("Lovelace" with the voice of Robin Williams) who has a plastic six-pack "necklace" he acquired from the trashy waters ... and discovers humans are, of course, responsible for fishing and diminishing the fish population for the penguins.

Oh? Who is responsible then? The penguins for eating, the fish for sucking so bad that they aren't able to adapt, or the plastic and garbage that ends up in our oceans? She goes on to moan and groan about the movie being "anti human," and makes some broad accusation that it's a new and exciting trend for kids' movies to have some subliminal, left wing message, full of conspiracy and propaganda.

I'm tired of supposed "kids' movies" having some "pro-social issue/anti-human" propaganda woven through them when all I wanted to do was watch a cute animated movie!

Anti human?? I highly doubt the movie had any sort of political intentions, but if it did, what is wrong with educating kids, and perhaps getting them concerned, and aware of the way they treat the environment and such (like teaching them that not properly disposing of garbage can have bad effects on animals?).

Maybe SWACgirl needs to refrain herself from pulling pages out of the Fox News playbook. While Neil Cavuto conveniently forgot to mention the cancellation of the OJ Simpson interview by Fox (ON THE DAY IT WAS ANNOUNCED!), he found no problem pointing out that Happy Feet contained a "hidden agenda" that is "pretty far left," during his supposed business news program.

Smooth....

Faux news goes 2 for 3 in "Worst Persons in the World" sweepstakes

Keith Olbermann Friday announced his three worst persons in the world, and guess who went two for three? FAUX NEWS!!! Bill O'Reilly earned bronze (worse) for existing (well, not really, but he should have!). Laura Ingraham received the silver (worser) medal for something I find absolutely appalling, she caused a voter protection hot line to crash on election day after urging her listener(s?) to repeatedly prank call the line. Not only is it voter FRAUD but it's also REALLY mature!!! Receiving the gold was Republican Senator Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma who blamed global warming on God during an interview on "Fox and Friends."

Check out the Olbermann segment from Friday:

Did Fox News pay $2 million for release of two reporters?

Oh, this is rich!! Apparently, the terrorist organization(s) responsible for kidnapping Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig (an FNC journalist, and photographer, respectively), were paid $2 million for the release of the two men. It is important to point out, however, that the organization(s) simply claim the money came from a "U.S. source," which may or may not have been Fox News.

Similar articles can be found here from "America Blog," and here from "World Net Daily."

Another interesting part of this story unfolds here where an internal memo from Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes blast the WND saying:

"I just saw an article on the internet from WorldNetDaily.com by Aaron Klein which claims we paid $2 million in hostage money during the Centanni & Wiig kidnapping crisis. The story is absolutely 100% false. Not a cent of hostage money was paid, and it was never considered'..."

Once again, Mr. Ailes NO ONE said Fox News necessarily paid the ransom, just that the money came from a "US SOURCE." Maybe Roger Ailes needs to take a course in reading comprehension, si?

I should also point out (simply in order to protect myself), that I don't know how credible these articles may be. That's not to say the news organizations responsible aren't credible, just that, well, I'm not familiar with them.

Internal Fox News Channel memo proves network is GOP political puppet

Give credit to Raising Kaine for finding this. The Huffington Post obtained an internal Fox News memo sent out November 9, 2006, just two days after the Democrats took control of Congress, urging reporters to "Be On The Lookout For Any Statements From The Iraqi Insurgents...Thrilled At The Prospect Of A Dem Controlled Congress."

HOW PATHETIC!!

UPDATE(8:35pm): "Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann" is running a segment titled "Faux News Revealed" interviewing Robert Greenwald the documentary filmmaker behind "Outfoxed" on the memo. Greenwald is talking about Fox News ratings in decline, and sponsorships in decline as well. What an awesome segment. If you missed it, be sure to check it later tonight when "Countdown" re airs at midnight on MSNBC.

UPDATE #2(8:54pm): FNC anchor Martha MacCallum takes one right out of the Fox playbook:

UPDATE #3(1:23am): and here is the "Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann" segment from earlier tonight:

Allen staffers assault heckler; where is Fox News with this?

After the incident involving a heckler being "manhandled" by an Allen staffer today, I've been watching the national cable media non-stop waiting for updates on the story. The first one was run by CNN around 3:15pm, and almost instantly MSNBC ran it. Both showing longer versions of a video clip which can be found here: http://www.nbc29.com/Global/story.asp?S=5613839 noticeably absent though was Fox News. Surprised? Not really. What makes this even more laughable though is that the story doesn't even appear on Fox's web site yet!!! Fair And Balanced INDEED! UPDATE: Check out the full video from alternet: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/43723/ UPDATE #2: 6:15pm, a full 3 hours after CNN and MSNBC ran their stories, Fox News just ran a brief clip of the video but DID NOT SHOW THE PART WHERE STARK IS KNOCKED TO THE FLOOR!