North of the Border

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Obama effect? In the Middle East right after his speech there, perhaps. But that would be a stretch in Nova Scotia...although there was that first-ever international trip the President made to Toronto some months back.

Today, north of the Border, East of Ontario, for the first time ever, the NDP won. Nova Scotia has elected, well, here's the way the ruling Conservative party put it:

NDP Leader Darrell Dexter, a former journalist and lawyer, calmly and effectively persuaded voters to ignore dire warnings from the ruling Conservatives, who demonized the Opposition party as a shifty band of irresponsible, free-spending radicals.

My kind of people.

Congratulations to the folks in Nova Scotia.

And the global climate change slowly, inexorably, continues....
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Rush Bites Corporate Hand

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Maybe it's merely Rush Limbaugh's temper tantrum, but his current call for boycotting General Motors, seems to me, should give Comcast and all his advertisers serious pause.

Everyone knows about the Magic $400 million...Rush's contract. Clear Channel's* ditch.

But not content to thrash around attempting to discredit President Obama's economic policies or SCOTUS appointment or...hmmmm, has he turned on Bo yet?...Rush more and more is attacking his own.

He wants Obama to fail. But if Obama fails, the country fails.

He wants everybody to boycott GM. And if GM fails, jobs and small businesses by the thousands fail.

Rush didn't get his way in the last election. He's ranting and fuming and bouncing up and down, fat globules following. Wanting his enemies to fail, wanting his friends to fail, wanting everybody to fail. Joining him in his twisted, self-destructive little world that all the glittery dollars and Gulfstreams cannot put a polish on.

Maybe in the boardrooms and marketing depts of major corporations they're having a good laugh at the way Rush is stickin' it to the Dems and Obama.

Or maybe, finally, they're starting to say, hey, wait a minute...what if he started talking like that about...us?
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[h/t Niemoller]
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

*corrected by PS

Reliable Reaction: Who? One of Us?

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This morning on Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz talked to Bill Press and Kathleen Parker about whether Bill O'Reilly is accountable for the murder of Kansas women's health doctor, Dr. Tiller.

I won't bore you with the apologist, he's one of us--talkers--attitude coming from all three about O'Reilly. At least Bill Press offered some caveat about being mindful of one's words.

No one disagrees that ultimately the killer [I will not name him, I will not add to his notoriety and cause celebre...] is accountable.

However, here's what's missing from the conversation. Where among all these talkers is the woman speaking out, telling why a late term abortion was a necessary medical choice for her? No, the talkers all accept as default that "late term abortion" is wrong without having any understanding of what medical conditions are at issue.

Speaking out takes courage, as one woman writing to the Minneapolis Tribune this weekend showed in describing her infant who starved within days because of a solid esophagus and intestines that were a fibrous mass. A Catholic, she chose not to terminate the pregnancy against doctor's advice. But she had the choice.

Speaking out also takes a media environment that treats

Today Is D-Day

Sixty-five years ago today, British, American and Canadian forces landed on the beach at Normandy. There's a lot of live coverage of the ceremony today as well as President Obama's time in Germany visiting Dresden and Buchenwald.

Many sacrificed to bring us to this day, and cliche-ifying them in a pop culture label like Greatest Generation [get it, they alliterated!] is an injustice in its dumbing-down [whoa, another alliteration!] of this pivotal event in global history.

Better we set aside the microwave mindset and ponder the times our grandparents and parents endured to leave their children a better world.

Better we set ourselves about the same task...for our children, a better world.

Who Are the Most Terroristic Threats to America?

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Given that Fox News mouths have decided to double-down on Bill O'Reilly's repugnant, inciteful hatemongering, perhaps it's time to ask this question:

Who are the worse terrorists inciting hate against America?

Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri?

Or Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch?
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You decide.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Prairie Recommends: Bob Herbert on the Fading Species

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The hysterical hyperbole from the bulbous blowhards of the rightwing Republi-THUGS keeps getting more and more outrageous, as Bob Herbert sums up today regarding the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

Could we hope that these puffed-up self-important gasbags may at long last overblow their hot air so much that they just explode into the stratosphere never to be seen again?

Likely not, since the Mortal Combat media is only too eager to give these sumbitchez plenty of airtime for their rantings.

The Southern Strategy has become the Latina Strategy. You know...hot-blooded, raaadical, not quite one of "us." Yep, the us vs. them strategy is in full play.

Make note, fellow Americans. Next time it could be rants against an Asian American. Or any ol' smear they can develop against someone they can paint as part of some group of "other."

I must warn the little ol' Norwegian-American ladies serving coffee at the Sons of Norway Lodge. They could be next. What are those long skirts concealing, anyway?
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Imus Calls Rush Tactics "Insipid"

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The rightwing screederama danced in collaboration with the shallow stenomedia against Sonia Sotomayor last week, centered around a quote pulled out of the context of her thoughtful speech—heck, it was pulled out of the full sentence, even.

You know the one: "...wise Latina woman...."

This morning, Imus, musing with his cohorts back in New York from his Imus Ranch for Kids with Cancer in New Mexico, described the idiocy of the attacks on her as reverse racist as "insipid."

Maybe it's the clear fresh air away from the Eastern Corridor that festers between and among the Beltway and Broadway and Wall Street crowds—we've been known to have a bit of that here in the heartland as well.

Kudos to Imus for cutting through the rabble-rants of the rightwing Usual Suspects: Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Hannity, Rove and all the rest of the predictable sand-throwers.

The GOPasaurus [h/t dKos] media may be on a collision course with death throes [oh, yes, it is....], but it still makes a stink. Good on Imus for cutting through the thunder to point out there's no "there" there. And why is NBC still, as late as yesterday's Nightly News, still perpetuating the false clipping of Sotomayor's words?

Tuesday, Debra Dickerson will be an Imus guest. I'll be watching on RFD-TV, you can catch it on radio, tv or online livestreamed.

[Do your own google homework, it's summer and I'm not link-making]
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette