I am a citizen of the United States of America. In this country, I can criticize my government as intelligently, as profanely, or as stupidly as I wish. I can call the president of the nation an unintelligent, uninspiring, and incompetent leader — which I have done. I can call my representative in Congress a buffoonish party hack — which I have done — and urge his removal from office by the voters. I can attack the policies enacted by government at all levels as often as I wish.

I can assemble with others to complain about the government. I can petition the government for redress of grievances. I can practice a religion free of government interference. Most importantly, I have the right to speak my mind. I can say whatever I want about the government short of advocating violence against it. I am free to speak or write critically about the actions or inactions of my government.

I can be a critic of my government because for hundreds of years, hundreds of thousands of Americans before me fought and died for my right to do that.
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Well, I didn’t expect my return to Scroguedom after six months would be in the form of a personal screed, and on domestic topics no less (as in “household”). However, as the feminist mantra of the 1970s claimed, “the personal is political,” a statement as salient today as it was then.

I’d like to be writing about clean energy or debating health care policy. I wish I could add something astute to the discussion about the future of democracy in Iran. But to do so would mean investing the time to follow these issues closely enough to have something worthwhile to add. And then there’s the time needed to actually write something. I’ve already got four or five unfinished posts languishing on my laptop.

Yet, in the words of my 14-year-old son this morning, who is angry at my asking him to pitch in around the house prior to the arrival of weekend guests, and who can’t understand why I won’t just drop everything to pick him up from the lake with his friends later today, I don’t have a “real job” — so why can’t I be like a good stay-at-home mom and craft my life exclusively around his? Full Story »

It might be more difficult for Republicans to bash President Obama for being “timid” in his comments about the Iranian government’s violence against protesters if the U.S. media didn’t consistently censor US-Iranian history.

Take CNN’s recent Iran timeline, titled “A brief look at Iran’s history.”

According to the timeline, which begins in 1979, Iran has “been at odds with the West and some of its neighbors” since the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It refers to the Shah as having been “pro-Western.” Yet in the mother of all omissions, CNN leaves out how the US government was directly involved in bringing the Shah to power in a 1953 coup that toppled the democratically elected Iranian government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Full Story »

A week after the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, the chief of his transition team, John Podesta, served notice that the president would make good on his campaign promise of change in the area of ethics. In a statement, Mr. Podesta said:

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to change the way Washington works and curb the influence of lobbyists. … During the campaign, federal lobbyists could not contribute to or raise money for the campaign. … [T]he president-elect is taking those commitments even further by announcing the strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history.”

Presumably, that means President Obama wishes to end the pay-to-play philosophy that pervades the practice of politics. Well, he’s got some explaining to do, because what he promises is not always what he does.
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Greg Mitchell, award-winning author and editor of the news industry trade magazine Editor & Publisher, brings four decades of journalism experience to his incisive media analyses in his E&P column “Pressing Issues” and on The Huffington Post. He was on the ground covering the bloody 1968 Democratic National Convention and, in the 1970s, became the senior editor of the legendary rock/political magazine Crawdaddy, where he helped write and publish the first magazine article about Bruce Springsteen. Full Story »

Damn straight.

Yeah, the last person you want loitering around a freakin’ PEACE conference and mucking things up is the D-Lam.

Dirty goddamn hippies.

A couple of weeks ago author and NYU media theory lecturer Douglas Rushkoff penned a provocative essay for Arthur Magazine. Entitled “Let It Die,” the essay explains why we should stop trying to save the economy.

In a perfect world, the stock market would decline another 70 or 80 percent along with the shuttering of about that fraction of our nation’s banks. Yes, unemployment would rise as hundreds of thousands of formerly well-paid brokers and bankers lost their jobs; but at least they would no longer be extracting wealth at our expense. They would need to be fed, but that would be a lot cheaper than keeping them in the luxurious conditions they’re enjoying now. Even Bernie Madoff costs us less in jail than he does on Park Avenue.

Alas, I’m not being sarcastic. Full Story »

Part of the reason I’ve been off the radar here for so long — my latest investigative report for Raw Story:

Federal agencies were involved in the decision to raid the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in Nevada last October, just weeks before Election Day, the offices of Nevada’s Secretary of State and Attorney General say.

The allegations raise questions of whether politics played a part in the raid and calls into question assertions by the US Attorney’s office that they were uninvolved. Federal guidelines instruct agencies investigating election fraud to avoid action that might impact the elective process.

Bob Walsh, a spokesman for Nevada’s Secretary of State, and Edie Cartwright, a spokeswoman for Nevada’s Attorney General, said that not only were the Nevada US Attorney’s Office and the FBI involved in investigating Nevada ACORN on allegations of voter registration fraud but that all four agencies jointly made the decision to conduct the raid. Both the investigation and the raid were conducted as part of the joint federal-state Election Integrity Task Force announced last July, the spokespersons said. Full Story »

First, just in case you haven’t seen it, please review the video (in three parts).

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Perhaps because my middle name is “Gullible,” I’d like to trust my new representative in Congress to act wisely, unselfishly, and nobly on my behalf. I’d like to trust his 434 brethren and the 100 senators to do so as well. I’d like the lofty words they speak in the wells of the House and Senate to be accompanied by similarly lofty, well-thought-out actions designed solely to improve the lot in life of me and my 312 million fellow citizens.

But … I doubt it. An obstacle lies squarely in the path of politicians’ ability or willingness to act sensibly and selflessly. That obstacle is money. Or, rather, the pursuit of it to grasp and maintain power, prestige, and wealth.

Despite any number of outrageous conflations of influential wealth and influenced legislation, and despite the protestations of the masses with fewer dollars over the power of the few with many dollars, and despite the laughable “reforms” Congress attempts occasionally, money is not going to leave politics.
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Last week, actor Tom Hanks called Mormons who supported California’s Proposition 8 “un-American.” Today Hanks apologized.

He shouldn’t have, because he’s right.

Anyone who would support curtailing the civil rights of a minority group is un-American. Codifying discrimination in a state constitution or in the U.S. Constitution is un-American. And supporting people who aim to curtail civil rights and codify discrimination, as the LDS Church did with regard to Prop-8, is un-American.

And I’ll say this to anyone who supported Prop-8 - you acted un-American too.

Conversation at the recent dinner party thrown by conservative pundit George Will for Barack Obama may remain shrouded in secrecy. But one thing will not: the menu. And there was no shortage of food. An anonymous source leaked the detailed catered menu to The Wounded-Courier today. (Other conservative pundits in attendance included William Kristol, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, Paul Gigot, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone and Rich Lowry.) Here is what was served:

Hors d’oeuvres

Skewers of Unmitigated Gall

Fingerless Sandwiches

Record Dow Asiago-Spinach Dip

Mercury-Infused Bay Scallops with Deregulation Coulis

Chickenhawk Balls Wrapped in Old Glory Full Story »

[Please note: While the "Challenge" is based on material from MediaBloodhound's pages, we thought the experience of this annual trainwreck would be universal. - B. Jacobson, MBH]

The following are quotes and headlines culled from this past year at MediaBloodhound (keep in mind some were said or written prior to ‘08 but noted here during the year). Some are real (fact) and others are from satirical articles (fiction) posted under “The Wounded-Courier.” See if you can distinguish between the two. Once you’ve answered all the entries — but not before because multiple entries may come from the same post and checking one might give away another — you’ll find the answer key at the very bottom.

All right, news junkies and media mavens, the 2008 Fact or Fiction Challenge is on:

1) “Hey, tell Brokaw to suck it.” - Chris Matthews, following Tom Brokaw’s on-air dressing down of Matthews during MSNBC coverage of the Democratic primary race

2) “If we had a state-run media, how would it be any different?” - Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman

3) “Worse than seventeen Donna Rices sitting on Obama’s lap on a luxury yacht called ‘Monkey Business.” - Gary Hart, one-time Democratic presidential hopeful, on John Kerry’s endorsement of Barack Obama Full Story »

About three weeks ago, Jim Moss over at The Seminal laid the 2008 electoral results map over maps of poverty and income inequality. The visual comparison was illuminating, and Jim’s post got me to thinking - what if you did the same thing with a wider range of measures and rankings? What kind of picture would emerge? (Jim has himself expanded on the exercise in a couple follow-up postings here and here.)

So I spent some time digging, looking for data that may tell us something about how America is constructed at our current moment in time. Full Story »

When 72-year-old John McCain revamped his campaign for president by hiring the very same character assassins who sucker punched him in 2000, the GOP lost a consonant. They were no longer the Grand Old Party; they were just the Old Party.

When he picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, a long simmering fissure between the moderate pragmatists and the blind ideologues rose to the surface, they were no longer a unified party and so they lost another consonant. Now they are just Old.

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As the majority of Americans continue to bask in the glow of Barack Obama’s landslide victory on Tuesday, comedians nationwide have suddenly fallen on hard times. Some literally.

Widespread reports of comics leaping from windows on Election Night have received little attention in the press. Some historians liken the turn of events to the stock market crash of 1929. But Freddy Roman, Dean of the legendary New York Friar’s Club, called it “worse, much worse, mayo on corn beef bad.”

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart put a good face on it during Comedy Central’s election night coverage. Yet sources at the show say Stewart retreated to his office afterward and “went, like, totally ballistic.”

“We had Grandpa Cranky McCrazyPants and Sarah f**king Palin! Now we’re stuck with Obama! There’s nothing funny about him! It’s like cracking jokes about Lincoln following his Gettysburg Address! F**k me twice with a motherf**king hope stick, people!” Stewart cried amid the sound of breaking glass, a shrieking cat and overturned furniture. Full Story »

It’s official - I’m already sick of hearing about this “historic election.” It’s better than hearing about “historical” elections as Ken Jennings has complained, I suppose - at least “historic” refers to something “famous or important in history” or “having great and lasting importance” instead of something that has the character of history. Reagan’s election in 1980, FDR’s election in 1932, Lincoln’s election in 1860, Jefferson’s election in 1800 - those are all “historical” elections. Let’s give Obama at least to the end of his term before calling his election “historical,” OK? But I digress.

As I was saying, I’m already tired of hearing about how Obama’s election was historic. Not because it’s not true, but rather because it’s already overdone. I lost count of the number of times I heard the phrase “historic election” even before President-elect Obama took the stage in Chicago election night, never mind all the times I’ve heard it on the radio and read it on nearly every webpage, blog, and news site I’ve visited since election night.

There’s another reason I’m sick of the phrase, too. It’s not enough. Full Story »

As he has frequently done in the past, President-Elect Obama invoked the spirit of Abraham Lincoln during his speech tonight. “As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends,” Obama said. “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

As Obama spoke those words, I couldn’t help but take another glimpse as the red state/blue state map posted on CNN.com. A swath of blue swept down from the northeast, across Pennsylvania and Ohio, following the course of the Ohio River to the Mississippi. In the trans-Mississippi region, Minnesota and Iowa were also blue, as were California, Washington, and Oregon.

A map of the United States in 1861 would’ve looked nearly identical. And it was that very time period when our nation was “far more divided.”

Tonight’s map has some significant differences compared to the 1861 map. Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, is perhaps the most notable. There’s no way that would’ve been a blue state in 1861. Virginia was as gray as gray could get. Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico were also blue tonight. Florida was gray in 1861, and New Mexico was grayish. Colorado wasn’t much of anything. Full Story »

Five hours in Detroit. Six hours in St. Louis.

In tiny Limestone, I walked right in.

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