Should Breitbart be sued for liable, hell he should be imprisoned for obstructing a Government official.

N

re Thom's comment "The corporate media actually swallows this stuff" well duh, they sat down at the table picked up the menu and ordered the dish!

N

The only handicap of being a public person is that the burden of proof is on you.

Of course he should be sued. But, the most disturbing trend of the Shirley Sherrod affair is not that of the obvious racism of "Fix Nuts" (Fox News), and Andrew Bitefart; anybody even minimally familiar with them at all could expect something like this.

The most disturbing trend is that of the Obama administration to throw members of their base or their own administration under the bus, at even the whiff of a scandal from the media. Am I the only one that believes that this firing of Sherrod came down from someone higher up than Tom Vilsack. Does anybody believe that anyone that screwed up this bad would not be required to resign if he was really responsible for this screw up? Personally, I think this has the fingerprints of Rahm Emanuel all over it, but Vilsack, of course, would be required to take the fall.

Bottom line; the most troublesome part of this affair is the gutless cowardice of this administration. How are we supposed to have confidence in them when they won't even stand up for their own colleagues at even the hint of a problem, no matter, what the source. Are we now supposed to believe that they will stand up for us?

When I hear from Obama supporters (and I still am one) about Obama's many accomplishments so early in his administration; even there I'm a bit skeptical. Especially when you think about how leaky the Healthcare Bill is and how Financial Reform leaks like a sieve and many of the ugliest and unconstitutional policy abuses of the Bush administration have not been addressed or are still in place.

I think the biggest disappointment for many of us supporters of Barack Obama is that, this is a person that we saw the potential for a truly great president, but instead we are seeing a president racing towards mediocrity.

Are the Tea Partiers, racist, fascist, homophobic, conservative wing nuts?.... well if it walks like a duck....

N

I know this is off topic, but yesterday I heard of a "Generic Poll" that pitted Obama against "Any" Republican for president, and the "Any" Republican got a 6 point lead. I couldn't believe anyone would take the poll seriously, why would you. When you ask someone if you could vote for any candidate, they automatically assume the candidate they're going to vote for is their preferred candidate. So some think Romney, others Palin, or Huckleberry Hound, etc... so basically when your asking people if you could vote for Obama or Any Republican, your asking them would you vote for Obama or your Favorite Republican. How bogus can a poll be, and yet every instance in which I heard about this poll (on progressive radio) not one person pointed this out.

Is it just me, or is there just an apparent lack of questioning going on from our media sources.

N

Jeanie, Obama isn't only half Black, he's also only half Democratic, and that's his silent side.

Sigh....

N

Maxrot, about your poll, did anyone even ask if it was statistically significant, or a poll on a public or conservative leaning website that might allow you to vote more than once? I'd guess not.

Why can't these geeks just answer the damn question instead of changing the subject every time? He did it to you at least 3 times Thom. Hold them to answering the question please.

Does anyone have information on www.co2isgreen.org? They placed a half page ad in the Lincoln (NE) Journal. We don't know who are the organizers but it really has our peace group up in arms. Any information is appreciated.

Hey ottomine, perhaps you can use the Right wing tactic and just make up conclusions about people you think might be responsible. Something like, "Some people say that BP is funding the CO2isGreen movement, and we believe that Massey energy has also been investing heavily." So long as you start of with the "Some people say", how will they hold you responsible?

N

Not Strapping on the Happy:

I read my company’s renewal letter from Mark Gastineau, Senior Vice President of Blue Shield of California . . . Rate increase 10.3% AND they are excluding Cedar-Sinai Medical Group . . . My doctors of over twenty years and the award winning, nationally-recognized medical excellence center . . . because BSoC wants guarantee profit margins to secure their annual Executive Bonuses . . . Too bad it looks like BSoC is probably losing over $100K in premium next year.

Maxrot, I'm not sure how much Fox New succeeded and I think there has been a good bit of push back. However, the people that love Fox News will always love it, no matter what. There is always a segment of the population that will be addicted to and believe the rhetoric of any ideology and there will always be people willing to feed and exploit that addiction.

Actually, the only honest thing that I''ve ever heard form Sean Hannity is his statement that, "I don't see any racism in the Teaparty signs." Because racists don't see racism. What allows them to be racists is that they are incapable of seeing their own racism. These people tend to think that everyone thinks exactly as they do.

Personally, what I'd like to see from the Obama administration is, not only the apologies and reinstating Sherrod back to her job, but also having her sitting up in the gallery next to Michelle Obama at the next State of the Union speech and telling the story of the media lynching of this fine person, specifically pointing the finger at Fox News.

Why hasn’t Vilsack resigned? He was the one who embarrassed the Administration: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/vilsack_moves_into_full_damage-control_mode_after.php

re: #22: :D

@rladlof, I'm not saying that, the poll is. My concern was just the way the information was presented, it was just oblivious to the slanted question.

N

Wenker just appeared to have confirmed that the Calico "round-up" was on land that is in the path of the proposed pipeline. What he did not tell you is about the condition of the captured horses, those that survive the brutal round-ups, in the crammed, shadeless, often waterless holding areas. He did not tell you that humane associations are not allowed access to these horses. He did not tell you that there is ample proof, provided by filmmaker Ginger Kathrens of the Cloud Foundation, that the horses are not overpopulated and are NOT in poor condition, and will not be if given the land that was intended for wildlife, not cattle. The White House needs to hear from us about this.

Regarding Bureau of Land Management official Wenker's comment that only horses in "bad condition" are euthanized:

HOW did the wild horses get in BAD CONDITION, Mr. Wenker? Could it be from BLM's treatment of them??? Such as--

:: Is it because of the BLM's violent method of rounding them up when they are in fouling season???

:: Is it because the BLM approves of putting the horses in pens without any SHADE cover?

:: Is it because BLM changes their diet to an inadequate diet???

:: Is it because BLM induces grave stress by separating families of horses and putting them in the genocidal situation of never living naturally again???

:: Is it because the BLM rounds them up with vehicles and helicopters and makes them fall in fright perhaps?

:: Is it because the BLM causes them transportation stress without adequate temperature control, without adequate water (the same way the meat producers transport cattle with the attitude that it doesn't matter because the cows are going to be slaughtered anyway?)???

How anyone can say that removing mustangs is necessary so that CATTLE CORPORATIONS can run even more cattle is unconscionable. Cattle overgraze the ecosystem. It is just the truth. Mr. Wenker is nothing but a P.R. FLACK FOR THE CATTLE INDUSTRY AND OIL INDUSTRY. Disgusting.

And those specious arguments:

Overpopulation: There is no horse overpopulation accept in the eyes of Cattle Corporations and the Meat Industry who want the land for cattle and the Oil Industry who want to sequester the open wild land for their industrial uses!

Horses cost too much to take care of: Leave them on the plains where they can take care of themselves!

This is wild animal GENOCIDE. And this WILDLIFE GENOCIDE in our protected horse country is not the only place this is being proposed; look at this:

Australian report (Nature Conservancy and Pew Environment [?!] Group) says killing millions of wild animals will control carbon problem? (But no discussion of human health destroying, grain consuming, over-grazing, water polluting, water wasting, methane producing billions of cattle and factory farmed animals? Oh, no. The Corporatists PROFIT off those 'gassy' animals, so no way humans should protect their personal health by eating less meat!)

Can the profiteers get any more sick and insane and horrible than this?!

Evidently there is no way to profiteer off wild animals any other way, so the predatory Ruling Profiteering Class is going in for the kill on the phony pretext that carbon trading/credits etcetera will help this Earth.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/07/killing-millions-of-gassy-animal...

[excerpt]

If you hate carbon emissions, the Australian Outback may seem like a paradise, unless you're a bit gassy, that is. According to a new study, the vast, sparsely populated Outback stores an incredible amount of carbon within its forests and grasslands, a whopping 9.7 billion tons of the stuff, in fact. As impressive as that is, researchers say the region could hold much, much more if certain measures were to be implemented, but there's a catch -- one calls for the culling of millions of feral animals just because they fart and burp.

The study, undertaken by the Nature Conservancy and the Pew Environment Group, found that while nearly 10 billion tons of carbon are stored in the Outback ecosystem, it can actually hold around 1.3 billion more by 2050. To put that into perspective, the potential carbon storage is roughly the equivalent to taking 300 million cars off the road during that same period, reports News.com.au.

In order to tap into that storage capacity, the study suggests improving land management, reducing wildfires, regrowing cleared vegetation -- and killing off millions gassy animals, like feral pigs and camels.

Turns out, farting and burping critters are quite a problem. Barry Traill, a spokesman for Pews, explains:

When feral animals belch they release methane, a particularly noxious greenhouse gas, and every single camel or water buffalo releases the equivalent of around one ton of carbon dioxide each year.
When you've got hundreds of thousands, in some cases millions, of these feral animals, it's a very large amount of pollution each year.

While the report's findings seem to present a bit of a Catch-22 for environmentalists -- curb emissions at the cost of countless animal's lives -- Australia's Greens party seems up for the big kill. Senator Christine Milne sites an urgency "to make the changes needed to tap the huge potential that is there [in the Outback]."

Judging from policies in the past, Australians aren't too queasy when it comes to culling wildlife, namely when it comes to the continent's invasive species. Just last February, for example, it was announced that officials would begin dealing with a pesky camel overpopulation problem by feeding the feral animals to hungry crocodiles.

If Australia opts to consider the techniques suggested by this recent study to expand the Outback's carbon storage capacity, it will be interesting to see whether folks side with less emissions or if they'll decide that millions of farting and burping animals really aren't that bad. If the latter wins out, I imagine an entire generation of unruly children will take notice.

[end excerpt]

Thanks for covering the topic, Thom.