'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Friday, July 29th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
Guest host: David Shuster
Segments:
'Boehner Bill Passes', Sen. Chris Coons
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Boehner Bill Passes', Rep. Raul Grijalva
YouTube
'Losing the Left?', Ralph Nader
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Field of Dreamers', Dave Catanese
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Bachmann Hypocrisy
YouTube
'Screwy Science', Bill Nye
YouTube
Thursday, July 28, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Thursday, July 28th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8E: The Debt Showdown. Will it play in Peoria? Boehner delays vote, but a post office is renamed!
ShowPlug2: Guests, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and @BrianBeutler of TPM. MurdochGate: now they supply the phones they then hack?
ShowPlug3: DC Correspondent @RobertMooreITV joins me on the Sarah Payne phone scandal and unexpected vote of confidence for James
ShowPlug4: The GOP sneak vote on turning the Grand Canyon region into a uranium mining zone. Countdown Contributor @KateSheppard has story
ShowPlug5: Beck's the victim in the "Hitler Youth" Norway comparison, plus the greatest Newt Gingrich gotcha moment ever, in Worsts
ShowPlugLast: And, Helllooo! Dan Partridge, Petrarch, Pittman... no no @DPShow Dan Patrick joins me on casting the ESPN Movie.
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Boehner's Bad Day', Rep. Barney Frank
YouTube
'Boehner's Bad Day', Brian Beutler
YouTube
'More Victims, More Denials', Robert Moore
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
Mining the Grand Canyon, Kate Sheppard
YouTube
Worst Persons: Rep. John Culberson, Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich
Current.com, YouTube
'The Big Movie', Dan Patrick
YouTube
Current.com part 1, part 2 (excerpts)
Worst Persons:
Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Persons in the Worrrrld...
The bronze: To Texas Congressman John Culberson, a long-standing veteran of this list, back on it, for lying about military funerals.
Culberson wants an investigation of the National Cemetery in Houston because he claims "the Obama administration continues to try to prevent the word 'god' from being used at the funerals of our heroes."
Culberson claims he went undercover and heard a cemetery official asking a family to re-confirm that it wanted religious terms used during a funeral. Even if that's true -- and unlike Congressman Culberson, the Veterans' Administration has made its denial under oath, in a legal case, and it says it is not true -- that still isn't an attempt by anybody to prevent the use of words like "god." It's asking the bereaved what they want during the service.
Clearly what Culberson wants is to deny people the option to not use the word God at a military funeral.
The runner-up: Glenn Beck, who can get up on the cross of self-martyrdom in Olympic Record Time.
Once again, after he compared the Norwegian Labor Party's camp for teenagers, and its victims there, to the Hitler Youth, Lonesome Rhodes has identified the real victim here.
Him.
"They've been taken something completely out of context and they are trying again to destroy me. Give it your best shot gang. They tried to get me out of the mainstream media... In a year from now you... Bring it on."
Did you know that his 24-hour a day network has been on for a month?
And nobody has noticed?
We'll be praying all right, Glennie.
Prayers of thanks.
But our winner: Newt Gingrich.
His presidential campaign, which resembles a man walking around his yard stepping on rake after rake after rake, has hit a new low.
But it has produced one of the all-time greatest soundbites.
Here is Newt -- still pushing that "we need more manufacturing in America" and "buy American" line -- stepping on the biggest rake in the world, courtesy of a producer for ABC News.
Would you just hold up the t-shirt? A lot of what you're talking about is about taking America back to America We asked for T-shirts to be sent to us and they were made in America. I just picked up that one and it was made in El Salvador Uh-huh. It was a big thing when we talked to your campaign about how you wanted things to be made in America, Do you have plans to change things?
I'll have to ask the folks who ordered this. I didn't order it and I don't do it."
It would have been better for Gingrich if the shirts were solid silver and he'd bought them at Tiffany's...
Newt "I'm Toast" Gingrich, today's Worst Person In The World.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8E: The Debt Showdown. Will it play in Peoria? Boehner delays vote, but a post office is renamed!
ShowPlug2: Guests, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and @BrianBeutler of TPM. MurdochGate: now they supply the phones they then hack?
ShowPlug3: DC Correspondent @RobertMooreITV joins me on the Sarah Payne phone scandal and unexpected vote of confidence for James
ShowPlug4: The GOP sneak vote on turning the Grand Canyon region into a uranium mining zone. Countdown Contributor @KateSheppard has story
ShowPlug5: Beck's the victim in the "Hitler Youth" Norway comparison, plus the greatest Newt Gingrich gotcha moment ever, in Worsts
ShowPlugLast: And, Helllooo! Dan Partridge, Petrarch, Pittman... no no @DPShow Dan Patrick joins me on casting the ESPN Movie.
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Boehner's Bad Day', Rep. Barney Frank
YouTube
'Boehner's Bad Day', Brian Beutler
YouTube
'More Victims, More Denials', Robert Moore
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
Mining the Grand Canyon, Kate Sheppard
YouTube
Worst Persons: Rep. John Culberson, Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich
Current.com, YouTube
'The Big Movie', Dan Patrick
YouTube
Current.com part 1, part 2 (excerpts)
Worst Persons:
Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Persons in the Worrrrld...
The bronze: To Texas Congressman John Culberson, a long-standing veteran of this list, back on it, for lying about military funerals.
Culberson wants an investigation of the National Cemetery in Houston because he claims "the Obama administration continues to try to prevent the word 'god' from being used at the funerals of our heroes."
Culberson claims he went undercover and heard a cemetery official asking a family to re-confirm that it wanted religious terms used during a funeral. Even if that's true -- and unlike Congressman Culberson, the Veterans' Administration has made its denial under oath, in a legal case, and it says it is not true -- that still isn't an attempt by anybody to prevent the use of words like "god." It's asking the bereaved what they want during the service.
Clearly what Culberson wants is to deny people the option to not use the word God at a military funeral.
The runner-up: Glenn Beck, who can get up on the cross of self-martyrdom in Olympic Record Time.
Once again, after he compared the Norwegian Labor Party's camp for teenagers, and its victims there, to the Hitler Youth, Lonesome Rhodes has identified the real victim here.
Him.
"They've been taken something completely out of context and they are trying again to destroy me. Give it your best shot gang. They tried to get me out of the mainstream media... In a year from now you... Bring it on."
Did you know that his 24-hour a day network has been on for a month?
And nobody has noticed?
We'll be praying all right, Glennie.
Prayers of thanks.
But our winner: Newt Gingrich.
His presidential campaign, which resembles a man walking around his yard stepping on rake after rake after rake, has hit a new low.
But it has produced one of the all-time greatest soundbites.
Here is Newt -- still pushing that "we need more manufacturing in America" and "buy American" line -- stepping on the biggest rake in the world, courtesy of a producer for ABC News.
Would you just hold up the t-shirt? A lot of what you're talking about is about taking America back to America We asked for T-shirts to be sent to us and they were made in America. I just picked up that one and it was made in El Salvador Uh-huh. It was a big thing when we talked to your campaign about how you wanted things to be made in America, Do you have plans to change things?
I'll have to ask the folks who ordered this. I didn't order it and I don't do it."
It would have been better for Gingrich if the shirts were solid silver and he'd bought them at Tiffany's...
Newt "I'm Toast" Gingrich, today's Worst Person In The World.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: My Boehner is bigger than yours - dueling claims, dueling deals as debt clock runs. W/ @2chambers Felicia Sonmez of WaPo and
ShowPlug2: @KenVogel of Politico. POTUS's promise to Latinos on deportation, w/ Rep. @LuisGutierrez after his arrest in protest near WHouse
ShowPlug3: The Pete King witch-hunt: Our guest Rep. @KeithEllison - w/large Somali constituency, offers to testify about them, is denied
ShowPlug4: It's Bachmannpocrisy as she gets loan from program she seeks to destroy, and Billo doubles down on "No True Scotsman" BS
ShowPlugLast: + new study: Internet as addictive as Cigarettes. What are you smoking? Debt Ceiling Rap Video by our guest @Remy
ShowPlugSupplemental: Sorry! It's Debt Ceiling Rapper @GoRemy +BTW we hope to announce special Thu. guest star to help me "cast" ESPN Movie
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'A House Divided', Felicia Sonmez
YouTube
'A House Divided', Ken Vogel
YouTube
'Deportation Hike', Rep. Luis Gutierrez
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Fear Mongering', Rep. Keith Ellison
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons: Rep. Jarrod Martin, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Bill O'Reilly
Current.com, YouTube
'Rapping on the Ceiling', Remy Munasifi
YouTube
'Stuck to the camera from the WPITW paper toss: a piece of hanging script
you could READ. #BestThrowEver'
'And for those of you who thought you heard me call Rep. Peter King
Un-American, and an asshole: I did. Because he is.'
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Person In The World.
The bronze to Ohio State Representative, Republican Jarrod Martin...
Cited for operating a vehicle while intoxicated, last Friday.
An aide said Martin took the citation rather than submit to field sobriety tests -- and be videotaped by the police cruiser in the condition he was in, when he was pulled over: Shirtless, dirty, and sweaty.
Yeah, I just wanted you to have another look at him. The shirtless, dirty, and sweaty part you'll have to imagine for yourself.
This is the third Ohio Republican legislator to run into the cops since April. One State Senator was accused by his wife of shoving her around...and of course there was state Senator Robert Mecklenborg, who has resigned after exactly the kind of recorded D-U-I that Senator Parker sought to avoid...When the main backer of Ohio's Driver's License I-D law lost his driver's license in Indiana. Mecklenborg was pulled over with booze on his breath, Viagra in his system, and a stripper in the front seat.
The bronze to good old Michele Bachmann...
Makes it back on to the list not due to migraines or spouses.
You may know that Bachmann has called for the elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the government-sponsored mortgages they provide.
The mortgages they provide...to people like her.
The Washington Post reports that just weeks before Bachmann called for the programs to be eliminated, she and the hubby got a 417-thousand dollar loan, either from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, so they could move into a 5200-square-foot house. On a golf course.
"Can the hypocrites play through?"
But our winner: Billo the Combover...
Here we go again...
No true Scotsman:
"The New York Times and other liberal media have branded the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik a Christian, even though there is absolutely no evidence that the man is a follower of Jesus Christ."
Except, you know, when he was baptized at age 15 or when he identified himself as a Christian on his facebook page.
Or all those references in his manifesto to Christianity, as laid out for Billo by his guest Sally Quinn of the Washington Post
"There's no evidence this guy's in any church has anything to do with Jesus and just because he calls himself a Christian, Mussolini called himself a Christian... " "He says we believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. That makes us Christian." "What?! That's insane. He doesn't really believe in Jesus Christ, in Jesus' teachings." "And then he calls himself a cultural Christian. Who are we to decide whether he's a Christian or not? But you know, my point..." Who are we to decide whether he's a Christian or not? But you know, my point..." "As I just said Mussolini said he was a Christian and Mussolini went to church. He was a Catholic. That's insane. You can call yourself whatever you want, here's the difference... There is no evidence this guy was a member of the church, no evidence that he followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, as you know, they're non-violent."
How about The Spanish Inquisition? How non-violent were they? Or weren't they Christians?
They were Christian, Mussolini was Christian, Breivik is Christian.
And so's Bill, even though he's violated everything his church supposedly taught him... Andrea Mackris...
Bill O'Reilly, today's Worst Person In The World.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: My Boehner is bigger than yours - dueling claims, dueling deals as debt clock runs. W/ @2chambers Felicia Sonmez of WaPo and
ShowPlug2: @KenVogel of Politico. POTUS's promise to Latinos on deportation, w/ Rep. @LuisGutierrez after his arrest in protest near WHouse
ShowPlug3: The Pete King witch-hunt: Our guest Rep. @KeithEllison - w/large Somali constituency, offers to testify about them, is denied
ShowPlug4: It's Bachmannpocrisy as she gets loan from program she seeks to destroy, and Billo doubles down on "No True Scotsman" BS
ShowPlugLast: + new study: Internet as addictive as Cigarettes. What are you smoking? Debt Ceiling Rap Video by our guest @Remy
ShowPlugSupplemental: Sorry! It's Debt Ceiling Rapper @GoRemy +BTW we hope to announce special Thu. guest star to help me "cast" ESPN Movie
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'A House Divided', Felicia Sonmez
YouTube
'A House Divided', Ken Vogel
YouTube
'Deportation Hike', Rep. Luis Gutierrez
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Fear Mongering', Rep. Keith Ellison
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons: Rep. Jarrod Martin, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Bill O'Reilly
Current.com, YouTube
'Rapping on the Ceiling', Remy Munasifi
YouTube
'Stuck to the camera from the WPITW paper toss: a piece of hanging script
you could READ. #BestThrowEver'
'And for those of you who thought you heard me call Rep. Peter King
Un-American, and an asshole: I did. Because he is.'
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Person In The World.
The bronze to Ohio State Representative, Republican Jarrod Martin...
Cited for operating a vehicle while intoxicated, last Friday.
An aide said Martin took the citation rather than submit to field sobriety tests -- and be videotaped by the police cruiser in the condition he was in, when he was pulled over: Shirtless, dirty, and sweaty.
Yeah, I just wanted you to have another look at him. The shirtless, dirty, and sweaty part you'll have to imagine for yourself.
This is the third Ohio Republican legislator to run into the cops since April. One State Senator was accused by his wife of shoving her around...and of course there was state Senator Robert Mecklenborg, who has resigned after exactly the kind of recorded D-U-I that Senator Parker sought to avoid...When the main backer of Ohio's Driver's License I-D law lost his driver's license in Indiana. Mecklenborg was pulled over with booze on his breath, Viagra in his system, and a stripper in the front seat.
The bronze to good old Michele Bachmann...
Makes it back on to the list not due to migraines or spouses.
You may know that Bachmann has called for the elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the government-sponsored mortgages they provide.
The mortgages they provide...to people like her.
The Washington Post reports that just weeks before Bachmann called for the programs to be eliminated, she and the hubby got a 417-thousand dollar loan, either from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, so they could move into a 5200-square-foot house. On a golf course.
"Can the hypocrites play through?"
But our winner: Billo the Combover...
Here we go again...
No true Scotsman:
"The New York Times and other liberal media have branded the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik a Christian, even though there is absolutely no evidence that the man is a follower of Jesus Christ."
Except, you know, when he was baptized at age 15 or when he identified himself as a Christian on his facebook page.
Or all those references in his manifesto to Christianity, as laid out for Billo by his guest Sally Quinn of the Washington Post
"There's no evidence this guy's in any church has anything to do with Jesus and just because he calls himself a Christian, Mussolini called himself a Christian... " "He says we believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. That makes us Christian." "What?! That's insane. He doesn't really believe in Jesus Christ, in Jesus' teachings." "And then he calls himself a cultural Christian. Who are we to decide whether he's a Christian or not? But you know, my point..." Who are we to decide whether he's a Christian or not? But you know, my point..." "As I just said Mussolini said he was a Christian and Mussolini went to church. He was a Catholic. That's insane. You can call yourself whatever you want, here's the difference... There is no evidence this guy was a member of the church, no evidence that he followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, as you know, they're non-violent."
How about The Spanish Inquisition? How non-violent were they? Or weren't they Christians?
They were Christian, Mussolini was Christian, Breivik is Christian.
And so's Bill, even though he's violated everything his church supposedly taught him... Andrea Mackris...
Bill O'Reilly, today's Worst Person In The World.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8E: Faceplant Crisis! Boehner attacked by his Right, threatened with veto by POTUS, overheard wimpering
ShowPlug2: @BrianBeutler of TPM with latest on debt talks (phones Off Da Hook in DC); @RyanGrim of HuffPo on GOP interior turmoil
ShowPlug3: The $ gap is another form of Racism: new economic data shows Blacks, Hispanics, being left behind.w/ Frmr Labor Sec @RBReich
ShowPlug4: In Kochland (once Wisconsin) you require Driver's Lic. to vote, then close DMVs in poor areas.W/John Nichols of @TheNation
ShowPlugLast: +Billo's sophistry on Norway: he couldn't be a Christian. Plus Beck doubles down on "Hitler Youth" comparison, w/ @KarlFrisch
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Balking at Boehner', Brian Beutler
YouTube
'Drunk on Tea', Ryan Grim
YouTube
'Help Wanted', Robert Reich
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Politics at Play', John Nichols
YouTube
Worst Persons: Martha MacCallum, Rush Limbaugh, Rep. Billy Long
Current.com, YouTube
'Terror Spinners', Karl Frisch
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Persons In The World.
The bronze, to Martha MacCallum of Fixed News.
Murdoch's Mafia likes to defend that channel on the premise that it's opinion at night.... But straight news during the day.
This?
This crap about cutting the social safety net -- this was during the day:
"But I couldn't help thinking, well, if we weren't in such a precarious situation and hadn't overextended ourselves to such an incredible extent where we are sending out 80 million checks a month - the U.S. government - wouldn't we have been able to handle those things like the two wars in a much better, stronger fiscal position, and isn't that where we really want to be as a country, where a war doesn't bust us because we've got good fundamentals?"
I'm glad you've got your priorities straight.
Make war, not peace.
Preserve the money to kill other people in pointless wars.
By the way the quote "I couldn't help thinking..."?
Madam, it seems evident you manage to keep yourself from thinking, constantly.
The runner-up: Comedian Rush Limbaugh.
Commenting on a story about demographic shifts in electoral support for President Obama, Limbaugh said, quote:
"So let's see. Let's see here. Other than African-Americans and union members, Obama had three other strong voter groups in 2008. He had a bunch of brain-dead, idiot young adults under 30 still living in their parents' basements and getting health insurance from 'em. He had those making less than $30,000 a year and no doubt not paying much in taxes -- and he had either the college-indoctrinated or overeducated white people."
And here we get to see the hateful, unfulfilled individual, trying to dismiss that which he wanted most...
"college-indoctrinated"... "over-educated"... Rush Hudson Limbaugh the third, whose brother, father and grandfather were all lawyers, got in two semesters and a summer at Southeast Missouri State University. As his mother put it quote, "he flunked everything."
Thus, if you got through your Sophomore year of college, you are "college-indoctrinated" and "over-educated" to college failure Rush Limbaugh.
But our winner: another college drop-out...
Congressman Billy Long of Missouri.
You remember Congressman Billy...
He's the graduate of the Missouri Auction School, who mocked tornado warnings...
Sending out a tweet which read:
"...take cover in the following counties, get in a ditch, yada yada, war of the worlds part duex."
Yes. He misspelled "deux."
And then tornados devastated the city at the center of his district, Joplin.
Billy's done it again.
"No one could reach #AmyWinehouse before it was too late. Can anyone reach Washington before it's too late? Both addicted - same fate???"
Shut up.
Long gave out one of those half-assed "if anybody was offended" apologies and then went back to scanning the headlines to see which one he could next turn into an offensive remark.
Please put the Twitter Machine down, Sir.
Congressman Billy "140 Characters Is Plenty To Make Yourself Look Like A Rube" Long... Today's Worst Person In The World.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8E: Faceplant Crisis! Boehner attacked by his Right, threatened with veto by POTUS, overheard wimpering
ShowPlug2: @BrianBeutler of TPM with latest on debt talks (phones Off Da Hook in DC); @RyanGrim of HuffPo on GOP interior turmoil
ShowPlug3: The $ gap is another form of Racism: new economic data shows Blacks, Hispanics, being left behind.w/ Frmr Labor Sec @RBReich
ShowPlug4: In Kochland (once Wisconsin) you require Driver's Lic. to vote, then close DMVs in poor areas.W/John Nichols of @TheNation
ShowPlugLast: +Billo's sophistry on Norway: he couldn't be a Christian. Plus Beck doubles down on "Hitler Youth" comparison, w/ @KarlFrisch
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Balking at Boehner', Brian Beutler
YouTube
'Drunk on Tea', Ryan Grim
YouTube
'Help Wanted', Robert Reich
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Politics at Play', John Nichols
YouTube
Worst Persons: Martha MacCallum, Rush Limbaugh, Rep. Billy Long
Current.com, YouTube
'Terror Spinners', Karl Frisch
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Persons In The World.
The bronze, to Martha MacCallum of Fixed News.
Murdoch's Mafia likes to defend that channel on the premise that it's opinion at night.... But straight news during the day.
This?
This crap about cutting the social safety net -- this was during the day:
"But I couldn't help thinking, well, if we weren't in such a precarious situation and hadn't overextended ourselves to such an incredible extent where we are sending out 80 million checks a month - the U.S. government - wouldn't we have been able to handle those things like the two wars in a much better, stronger fiscal position, and isn't that where we really want to be as a country, where a war doesn't bust us because we've got good fundamentals?"
I'm glad you've got your priorities straight.
Make war, not peace.
Preserve the money to kill other people in pointless wars.
By the way the quote "I couldn't help thinking..."?
Madam, it seems evident you manage to keep yourself from thinking, constantly.
The runner-up: Comedian Rush Limbaugh.
Commenting on a story about demographic shifts in electoral support for President Obama, Limbaugh said, quote:
"So let's see. Let's see here. Other than African-Americans and union members, Obama had three other strong voter groups in 2008. He had a bunch of brain-dead, idiot young adults under 30 still living in their parents' basements and getting health insurance from 'em. He had those making less than $30,000 a year and no doubt not paying much in taxes -- and he had either the college-indoctrinated or overeducated white people."
And here we get to see the hateful, unfulfilled individual, trying to dismiss that which he wanted most...
"college-indoctrinated"... "over-educated"... Rush Hudson Limbaugh the third, whose brother, father and grandfather were all lawyers, got in two semesters and a summer at Southeast Missouri State University. As his mother put it quote, "he flunked everything."
Thus, if you got through your Sophomore year of college, you are "college-indoctrinated" and "over-educated" to college failure Rush Limbaugh.
But our winner: another college drop-out...
Congressman Billy Long of Missouri.
You remember Congressman Billy...
He's the graduate of the Missouri Auction School, who mocked tornado warnings...
Sending out a tweet which read:
"...take cover in the following counties, get in a ditch, yada yada, war of the worlds part duex."
Yes. He misspelled "deux."
And then tornados devastated the city at the center of his district, Joplin.
Billy's done it again.
"No one could reach #AmyWinehouse before it was too late. Can anyone reach Washington before it's too late? Both addicted - same fate???"
Shut up.
Long gave out one of those half-assed "if anybody was offended" apologies and then went back to scanning the headlines to see which one he could next turn into an offensive remark.
Please put the Twitter Machine down, Sir.
Congressman Billy "140 Characters Is Plenty To Make Yourself Look Like A Rube" Long... Today's Worst Person In The World.
Monday, July 25, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Monday, July 25th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: POTUS takes to airwaves to address "stalemate" - not debt crisis. W/ @SamSteinHP & @Markos Moulitsas
ShowPlug2: The latest from Norway+ large amounts of American RW garbage terrorist drew from, w/Mark Weitzman of Simon Wiesenthal Center
ShowPlug3: & The unconscionable reaction from Fox: The guesswork that it was a Muslim; Beck's comparison of the victims to "Hitler Youth"
ShowPlug4: Murdoch Scandal continues: Cops Vs Rupert, Everybody Vs James, hints at perjury charges. @EdPilkington of UK's Guardian joins me
ShowPlug5: Religion and the Presidency: 38% say POTUS is Christian, 18% say Muslim, 4% say... HUH? W/Contributor @MaysoonZayid
ShowPlugLast: And then our live coverage of the President's fifth tv appearance on the debt ceiling in the last 2 weeks, live, 9 ET @Current
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Debt Plans Duo', Sam Stein
YouTube
'Debt Dilemma', Markos Moulitsas
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Nightmare in Norway', Mark Weitzman
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'End of an Empire', Ed Pilkington
YouTube
Worst Persons: Brian Kilmeade, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck
Current.com, YouTube
'House of Worship?', Maysoon Zayid
YouTube
Extra: President Obama's Address on the Debt Stalemate
YouTube
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Person In The World.
There is a theme tonight:
Fox, or ex-Fox, and Norway.
The bronze to Brian Kilmeade, from the Sunrise Semester from the Fox & Friends Clown College.
This is this morning.
This morning after the Norway terrorist revealed his anti-Islamic, anti-immigration stance, and cited one American Islamophobic website 64 times.
"Are you surprised somewhat that western newspapers, in this case The New York Times seem to be jumping on the fact that they are trying to equate Christian extremists with Muslim extremists, the headline today for example 'The Killings In Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought In U.S. What does one thing have to do with the other?'"
This from a network usually devoted to suggesting the murderers of 9/11 and peaceful Muslims here have "one thing to do with the other."
To that point...
The runner-up: Laura Ingraham, filling in for Billo the Combover on Friday. She'll speak for all those who on the Right who so horribly assumed.... Of course she took it a step further.
She book-ended her prejudiced, incorrect guess of what had happened, with a dog-whistle to incite fear of, and perhaps retribution against, peaceful Muslims here:
"In the back of the book segment tonight, two deadly terror attacks in Norway in what appears to be the work again of Muslim extremists."... "In the meantime, in New York City, the Muslims who want to build the mosque at Ground Zero recently scored a huge legal victory. A Manhattan judge dismissed a lawsuit by former New York City firefighter Timothy Brown, who was trying to stop construction of the mosque."
The segment that followed showed video of not just the Park 51 Islamic Center but also the 9/11 attacks. The sadness here is, that 18 months ago, Ingraham initially defended the Park 51 project. She is not a psycho, like our next honoree, nor a moron who must appear on television, like Kilmeade.
But our winner is Lonesome Rhodes Beck.
The former TV lunatic is now only on the radio, but that, sadly, is **plenty.**
Frankly, this is one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard.
And apart from his saying that the teenaged victims in the Norway shooting were in some way comparable to the quote "Hitler Youth," is that he says it and goes right past it, as if it weren't one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard.
"And as the thing started to unfold and then there was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler youth or whatever. I mean who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? "...Disturbing."
Disturbing.
Note please what Beck thinks is disturbing. Not the Islamophobic monster thinking he's wiping out the next generation of Liberals in his country.
This afternoon, many in the Right Wing blogosphere supported those words of Beck's because they believe truth is a defense -- that a politically-oriented camp for teenaged kids is like the Hitler Youth.
Except there are camps like that here. For more than 30 years the John Birch Society ran overnightsummer camps for teenagers. Now it's switched to week-long day camps.
Yet, Beck is clearly saying the camp was disturbing. The 68 dead at the camp? That's not what he's focused on.
Let's just face this: Glenn Beck is a seriously disturbed human being. And he's today's Worst Person In The World.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: POTUS takes to airwaves to address "stalemate" - not debt crisis. W/ @SamSteinHP & @Markos Moulitsas
ShowPlug2: The latest from Norway+ large amounts of American RW garbage terrorist drew from, w/Mark Weitzman of Simon Wiesenthal Center
ShowPlug3: & The unconscionable reaction from Fox: The guesswork that it was a Muslim; Beck's comparison of the victims to "Hitler Youth"
ShowPlug4: Murdoch Scandal continues: Cops Vs Rupert, Everybody Vs James, hints at perjury charges. @EdPilkington of UK's Guardian joins me
ShowPlug5: Religion and the Presidency: 38% say POTUS is Christian, 18% say Muslim, 4% say... HUH? W/Contributor @MaysoonZayid
ShowPlugLast: And then our live coverage of the President's fifth tv appearance on the debt ceiling in the last 2 weeks, live, 9 ET @Current
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Debt Plans Duo', Sam Stein
YouTube
'Debt Dilemma', Markos Moulitsas
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Nightmare in Norway', Mark Weitzman
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'End of an Empire', Ed Pilkington
YouTube
Worst Persons: Brian Kilmeade, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck
Current.com, YouTube
'House of Worship?', Maysoon Zayid
YouTube
Extra: President Obama's Address on the Debt Stalemate
YouTube
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Person In The World.
There is a theme tonight:
Fox, or ex-Fox, and Norway.
The bronze to Brian Kilmeade, from the Sunrise Semester from the Fox & Friends Clown College.
This is this morning.
This morning after the Norway terrorist revealed his anti-Islamic, anti-immigration stance, and cited one American Islamophobic website 64 times.
"Are you surprised somewhat that western newspapers, in this case The New York Times seem to be jumping on the fact that they are trying to equate Christian extremists with Muslim extremists, the headline today for example 'The Killings In Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought In U.S. What does one thing have to do with the other?'"
This from a network usually devoted to suggesting the murderers of 9/11 and peaceful Muslims here have "one thing to do with the other."
To that point...
The runner-up: Laura Ingraham, filling in for Billo the Combover on Friday. She'll speak for all those who on the Right who so horribly assumed.... Of course she took it a step further.
She book-ended her prejudiced, incorrect guess of what had happened, with a dog-whistle to incite fear of, and perhaps retribution against, peaceful Muslims here:
"In the back of the book segment tonight, two deadly terror attacks in Norway in what appears to be the work again of Muslim extremists."... "In the meantime, in New York City, the Muslims who want to build the mosque at Ground Zero recently scored a huge legal victory. A Manhattan judge dismissed a lawsuit by former New York City firefighter Timothy Brown, who was trying to stop construction of the mosque."
The segment that followed showed video of not just the Park 51 Islamic Center but also the 9/11 attacks. The sadness here is, that 18 months ago, Ingraham initially defended the Park 51 project. She is not a psycho, like our next honoree, nor a moron who must appear on television, like Kilmeade.
But our winner is Lonesome Rhodes Beck.
The former TV lunatic is now only on the radio, but that, sadly, is **plenty.**
Frankly, this is one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard.
And apart from his saying that the teenaged victims in the Norway shooting were in some way comparable to the quote "Hitler Youth," is that he says it and goes right past it, as if it weren't one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard.
"And as the thing started to unfold and then there was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler youth or whatever. I mean who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? "...Disturbing."
Disturbing.
Note please what Beck thinks is disturbing. Not the Islamophobic monster thinking he's wiping out the next generation of Liberals in his country.
This afternoon, many in the Right Wing blogosphere supported those words of Beck's because they believe truth is a defense -- that a politically-oriented camp for teenaged kids is like the Hitler Youth.
Except there are camps like that here. For more than 30 years the John Birch Society ran overnightsummer camps for teenagers. Now it's switched to week-long day camps.
Yet, Beck is clearly saying the camp was disturbing. The 68 dead at the camp? That's not what he's focused on.
Let's just face this: Glenn Beck is a seriously disturbed human being. And he's today's Worst Person In The World.
Friday, July 22, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Friday, July 22nd, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown 8EDT: POTUS pissed; reams GOP after Boehner walks out of Debt Talks; With @BrianBeutler + @Craig_Crawford
ShowPlug2: At least 16 dead in Norwegian terror bombing, shootings; police believe it's domestic, one man, unconnected to Middle East.
ShowPlug3: Not-so-smart ALEC; shadowy state legislation factory reveals too much in set-to w/our guest John Nichols of @TheNation
ShowPlug4: Murdoch paper reports subpoenas being readied to serve on Murdoch papers. Cameron calls out James. @JohnWDean analyzes
ShowPlug5: Thurber's "File And Forget," plus in worsts, Sen. Franken crushes Family Research Council homophobe's misquote of data, and...
ShowPlugLast: Billo: no free birth control because many "who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex." Um Mrs. Billo?
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Walking on the Ceiling', Brian Beutler
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Walking on the Ceiling', Craig Crawford
YouTube
Attack on students in Norway
YouTube
'Stealth Corporate Influence', John Nichols
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Mime Arches Ton!
YouTube
'Scandal Spreads', John Dean
YouTube
Worst Persons: Don Yonts, Bill O'Reilly, Tom Minnery
Current.com, YouTube
Fridays with Thurber: File And Forget
YouTube (cut for time)
Web Extra: Fridays with Thurber: File And Forget
Current.com (full story)
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Person In The Worrrrld.
The bronze, to Don Yonts, of Gilbert, Arizona.
He is one of a group of morons writing letters of complaint -- his went to the newspaper "The Arizona Republic." He's angry at what local weathermen have been calling the mile-high dust storms that sweep through the state -- one as recently as two weeks ago.
"I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob. How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?"
I dunno.
How do they feel about Shish-Kebab? Or Hummus? Or Algebra. Zero. Tariff. Talc. And... Alcohol.
Our runner-up: Billo the Combover.
The man who once blamed a murdered 18-year old girl for her own rape and death, because she was wearing a mini-skirt and a halter top and was thus asking for it, has now reacted to a proposal to provide low-cost or free birth control for all women who request it.
"Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex. They're not going to use birth control anyway."
Well, I assume he's speaking from experience there.
But our winner: Tom Minnery, the executive director of Citizen-Link, one of the front groups for the frauds from "Focus On The Family."
Mr. Minnery testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in defense of the infamous "Defense Of Marriage Act," and trotted out his group's usual homophobia and fraudulent research. And that's when Senator Al Franken eviscerated him.
Tom Minnery of Focus On The Family... Who'll be back in the office after he returns from the cleaners Senator Franken took him to...
Today's Worst Person In The World.
Fridays with Thurber:
File And Forget
I want to thank my secretary, Miss Ellen Bagley, for putting the following letters in order. I was not up to the task myself, for reasons that will, I think, become clear to the reader.
J.T.
And here, gentle reader, I know you will be glad to leave all of us.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown 8EDT: POTUS pissed; reams GOP after Boehner walks out of Debt Talks; With @BrianBeutler + @Craig_Crawford
ShowPlug2: At least 16 dead in Norwegian terror bombing, shootings; police believe it's domestic, one man, unconnected to Middle East.
ShowPlug3: Not-so-smart ALEC; shadowy state legislation factory reveals too much in set-to w/our guest John Nichols of @TheNation
ShowPlug4: Murdoch paper reports subpoenas being readied to serve on Murdoch papers. Cameron calls out James. @JohnWDean analyzes
ShowPlug5: Thurber's "File And Forget," plus in worsts, Sen. Franken crushes Family Research Council homophobe's misquote of data, and...
ShowPlugLast: Billo: no free birth control because many "who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex." Um Mrs. Billo?
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Walking on the Ceiling', Brian Beutler
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Walking on the Ceiling', Craig Crawford
YouTube
Attack on students in Norway
YouTube
'Stealth Corporate Influence', John Nichols
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Mime Arches Ton!
YouTube
'Scandal Spreads', John Dean
YouTube
Worst Persons: Don Yonts, Bill O'Reilly, Tom Minnery
Current.com, YouTube
Fridays with Thurber: File And Forget
YouTube (cut for time)
Web Extra: Fridays with Thurber: File And Forget
Current.com (full story)
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Person In The Worrrrld.
The bronze, to Don Yonts, of Gilbert, Arizona.
He is one of a group of morons writing letters of complaint -- his went to the newspaper "The Arizona Republic." He's angry at what local weathermen have been calling the mile-high dust storms that sweep through the state -- one as recently as two weeks ago.
"I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob. How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?"
I dunno.
How do they feel about Shish-Kebab? Or Hummus? Or Algebra. Zero. Tariff. Talc. And... Alcohol.
Our runner-up: Billo the Combover.
The man who once blamed a murdered 18-year old girl for her own rape and death, because she was wearing a mini-skirt and a halter top and was thus asking for it, has now reacted to a proposal to provide low-cost or free birth control for all women who request it.
"Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex. They're not going to use birth control anyway."
Well, I assume he's speaking from experience there.
But our winner: Tom Minnery, the executive director of Citizen-Link, one of the front groups for the frauds from "Focus On The Family."
Mr. Minnery testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in defense of the infamous "Defense Of Marriage Act," and trotted out his group's usual homophobia and fraudulent research. And that's when Senator Al Franken eviscerated him.
Tom Minnery of Focus On The Family... Who'll be back in the office after he returns from the cleaners Senator Franken took him to...
Today's Worst Person In The World.
Fridays with Thurber:
File And Forget
I want to thank my secretary, Miss Ellen Bagley, for putting the following letters in order. I was not up to the task myself, for reasons that will, I think, become clear to the reader.
J.T.
WEST CORNWALL, CONN.NOVEMBER 2, 1949Miss Alma Winege,
The Charteriss Publishing Co.,
132 East What Street,
New York, N.Y.
DEAR MISS WINEGE:
Your letter of October 25th, which you sent to me in care of The Homestead, Hot Springs, Ark., has been forwarded to my home in West Cornwall, Conn., by The Homestead, Hot Springs, Va. As you know, Mrs. Thurber and I sometimes visit this Virginia resort, but we haven't been there for more than a year. Your company, in the great tradition of publishers, has sent so many letters to me at Hot Springs, Ark., that the postmaster there has simply taken to sending them on to the right address, or what would be the right address if I were there. I explained to Mr. Cluffman, and also to Miss Lexy, when I last called at your offices, that all mail was to be sent to me at West Cornwall until further notice. If and when I go to The Homestead, I will let you know in advance. Meanwhile, I suggest that you remove from your files all addresses of mine except the West Cornwall one. Another publishing firm recently sent a letter to me at 65 West 11th Street, an address I vacated in the summer of 1930. It would not come as a surprise to me if your firm, or some other publishers, wrote me in care of my mother at 568 Oak Street, Columbus, Ohio. I was thirteen years old when we lived there, back in 1908.
As for the contents of your letter of the 25th, I did not order thirty-six copies of Peggy Peckham's book, "Grandma Was a Nudist." I trust that you have not shipped these books to me in care of The Homestead, Hot Springs, Ark., or anywhere else.
Sincerely yours,J. THURBER
P.S. Margaret Peckham, by the way, is not the author of this book. She is the distinguished New York psychiatrist whose "The Implications of Nudism" was published a couple of years ago. She never calls herself Peggy.
J.T.
WEST CORNWALL, CONN.NOVEMBER 3, 1949Miss Alma Winege,
The Charteriss Publishing Co.,
132 East What Street,
New York, N.Y.
DEAR MISS WINEGE:
In this morning's mail I received a card from the Grand Central branch of the New York Post Office informing me that a package of books had been delivered to me at 410 East 57th Street. The branch office is holding the package for further postage, which runs to a considerable amount. I am enclosing the notification card, since these must be the thirty-six copies of "Grandma Was a Nudist." I have not lived at 410 East 57th Street since the fall of 1944. Please see to it that this address is removed from your files, along with The Homestead address.
Whoever ordered these books, if anyone actually did, probably wonders where they are.
Sincerely yours,J. THURBER
THE CHARTERISS PUBLISHING COMPANYNEW YORK, N.Y.
November 5, 1949Mr. James M. Thurber,
West Cornwall, Conn.
DEAR MR. THURBER:
I am dreadfully sorry about the mixup over Miss Peckham's book. We have been pretty much upset around here since the departure of Mr. Peterson and Mr. West, and several new girls came to us with the advent of Mr. Jordan. They have not yet got their "sea legs," I am afraid, but I still cannot understand from what file our shipping department got your address as 165 West 11th Street. I have removed the 57th Street address from the files and also the Arkansas address and I trust that we will not disturb your tranquillity further up there in Cornwall. It must be lovely this time of year in Virginia and I envy you and Mrs. Thurber. Have a lovely time at The Homestead.
Sincerely yours,ALMA WINEGE
P.S. What you had to say about "Grandma" amused us all.
A. W.
COLUMBUS, OHIONOVEMBER 16, 1949
DEAR MR. THURBER:
I have decided to come right out with the little problem that was accidentally dumped in my lap yesterday. I hope you will forgive me for what happened, and perhaps you can suggest what I should do with the books. There are three dozen of them and, unfortunately, they arrived when my little son Donald was alone downstairs. By the time I found out about the books, he had torn off the wrappings and had built a cute little house out of them. I have placed them all on a shelf out of his reach while awaiting word as to where to send them. I presume I could ship them to you C.O.D. if I can get somebody to wrap them properly.
I heard from old Mrs. Winston next door that you and your family lived here at 568 Oak Street. She remembers you and your brothers as cute little tykes who were very noisy and raised rabbits and guinea pigs. She says your mother was a wonderful cook. I am sorry about Donald opening the books and I hope you will forgive him.
Sincerely yours,CLARA EDWARDS(Mrs. J. C.)
WEST CORNWALL, CONN.NOVEMBER 19, 1949Mr. Leon Charteriss,
The Charteriss Publishing Co.,
132 East What Street,
New York, N.Y.
DEAR MR. CHARTERISS:
I am enclosing a letter from a Mrs. J. C. Edwards, of Columbus, Ohio, in the fervent hope that you will do something to stop this insane flux of books. I never ordered these books. I have not read "Grandma Was a Nudist." I do not intend to read it. I want something done to get these volumes off my trail and cut out of my consciousness.
I have written Miss Winege about the situation, but I am afraid to take it up with her again, because she might send them to me in care of the Department of Journalism at Ohio State University, where I was a student more than thirty years ago.
Sincerely yours,J. THURBER
P.S. I never use my middle initial, but your firm seems to think it is "M." It is not.
J.T.
THE CHARTERISS PUBLISHING COMPANYNEW YORK, N. Y.
NOVEMBER 23, 1949Mr. James Thurber,
West Cornwall, Conn.
DEAR MR. THURBER:
Mr. Charteriss has flown to California on a business trip and will be gone for several weeks. His secretary has turned your letter of the 19th over to me. I have asked Mr. Cluffman to write to Miss Clara Edwards in Columbus and arrange for the reshipment of the thirty-six copies of "Grandma Was a Nudist."
I find, in consulting the records, that you have three times ordered copies of your own book, "Thurber's Ark," to be shipped to you at West Cornwall, at the usual discount rate of forty per cent. I take it that what you really wanted was thirty-six copies of your own book and they are being sent out to you today with our regrets for the discomfit we have caused you. I hope you will be a little patient with us during this so trying period of reorganization.
Cordially yours,JEANNETTE GAINESStock Order Dept.
P.S. You will be happy to know that we have traced down the gentleman who ordered those copies of "Grandma."
WEST CORNWALL, CONN.NOVEMBER 2, 1949Mr. Henry Johnson,
The Charteriss Publishing Co.,
132 East What Street,
New York, N.Y.
DEAR HARRY:
Since the reorganization at Charteriss, I have the forlorn and depressing feeling that I no longer know anybody down there except you. I know that this immediate problem of mine is not in your field, but I turn to you as a last resource. What I want, or rather what I don't want, is simple enough, Harry. God knows it is simple.
I don't want any more copies of my book. I don't want any more copies of my book. I don't want any more copies of my book.
As ever,JIM
P.S. It has just occurred to me that I haven't seen you for more than two years. Let's have a drink one of these days. I'll give you a ring the next time I'm in the city.
J.T.
THE CHARTERISS PUBLISHING COMPANYNEW YORK, N.Y.
NOVEMBER 26, 1949Mr. James Grover Thurber
Cornwall, Conn.
DEAR JIM THURBER:
I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you since I had the great good luck to join forces with Charteriss, but I look foward to our meeting with a high heart. Please let me know the next time you are in the city, as I should like to wine and dine you and perhaps discuss the new book that I feel confident you have in you. If you don't want to talk shop, we can discuss the record of our mutual football team. You were at Northwestern some years ahead of my time, I believe; but I want you to know that they still talk about Jimmy Thurber out there.
Your letter to Harry Johnson has just come to my attention, and I regret to say that Harry is no longer with us. He went to Simon and Schuster in the summer of 1948. I want you to feel, however, that every single one of us here is your friend, willing and eager to drop everything to do your slightest bidding. All of us feel very deeply about your having turned against your book "Thurber's Ark." I note that in your present mood you have the feeling that you never want to see it again. Well, Jim, let me assure you that this is just a passing fancy, derived from a moment of depression. When you put in your last order for thirty-six copies, you must surely have had some definite use for them, and I am banking on twenty years' experience in the book-publishing game when I take the liberty of sending these twenty books off to you today. There is one thing I am something of an expert at, if I do say so myself, and that is the understanding of the "creative spirit."
We have a new system here, which is to send out authors not ten free copies, as of old, but fifteen. Therefore, five of the thirty-six copies will reach you with our compliments. The proper deductions will be made on the record.
Don't forget our dinner date.
Cordially,CLINT JORDAN
P.S. I approve of your decision to resume the use of your middle name. It gives a book dignity and flavor to use all three names. I think it was old Willa Cather who started the new trend, when she dropped the Seibert.
C. J.
THE CHARTERISS PUBLISHING COMPANYNEW YORK, N.Y.
DECEMBER 13, 1949
DEAR THURBER:
Just back at the old desk after a trip to California and a visit with my mother, who is eighty-nine now but as chipper as ever. She would make a swell Profile. Ask me about her someday.
Need I say I was delighted to hear from the staff when I got back about your keen interest in "Grandma Was a Nudist"? The book has been moving beautifully and its ceiling has gone sky-high. We're planning a brief new advertising campaign and I'd be tickled pink if you would be good enough to bat out a blurb for us.
Yours,LEON
THE CHARTERISS PUBLISHING COMPANYNEW YORK, N.Y.
DECEMBER 15, 1949Mr. James M. Thurber,
West Cornwall, Conn.
DEAR MR. THURBER:
I hope you will forgive me -- indeed, all of us -- for having inexcusably mislaid the address of the lady to whom the thirty-six copies of "Grandma Was a Nudist" were sent by mistake. I understand that we have already dispatched to you at your home another thirty-six volumes of that book.
My apologies again.
Sincerely yours,H. F. CLUFFMAN
WEST CORNWALL, CONN.DECEMBER 19, 1949Mr. H. F. Cluffman,
The Charteriss Publishing Co.,
132 East What Street,
New York, N.Y.
DEAR MR. CLUFFMAN:
The lady's name is Mrs. J. C. Edwards, and she lives at 568 Oak Street, Columbus, Ohio.
I have explained as clearly as I could in previous letters that I did not order thirty-six copies of "Grandma Was a Nudist." If you have actually shipped to me another thirty-six copies of this book, it will make a total of seventy-two copies, none of which I will pay for. The thirty-six copies of "Thurber's Ark" that Mr. Jordan has written me he intends to send to West Cornwall would bring up to one hundred and eight the total number of books that your firm, by a conspiracy of confusion unique even in the case of publishers, has mistakenly charged to my account. You may advise Mr. Jordan that I do not wish to receive the five free copies he mentioned in his letter.
If your entire staff of employees went back to Leslie's Weekly, where they belong, it would set my mind at rest.
Sincerely yours,J. THURBER
P.S. I notice that you use only my middle initial, "M." Mr. Jordan and I -- or was it Mr. Charteriss? -- have decided to resume the use of the full name, which is Murfreesboro.
J.T.
WEST CORNWALL, CONN.DECEMBER 27, 1949Mr. Leon Charteriss,
The Charteriss Publishing Co.,
132 East What Street,
New York, N.Y.
DEAR MR. CHARTERISS:
I am sure you will be sorry to learn that Mr. Thurber has had one of his spells as a result of the multiplication of books and misunderstanding that began with Miss Alma Winege's letter of October 25, 1949. Those of us around Mr. Thurber are greatly disturbed by the unfortunate circumstances that have caused him to give up writing, at least temporarily, just after he had resumed work following a long fallow period.
Thirty-six copies of Mr. Thurber's book and thirty-six copies of "Grandma Was a Nudist" have arrived at his home here, and he has asked me to advise you that he intends to burn all seventy-two. West Cornwall is scarcely the community for such a demonstration -- he proposes to burn them in the middle of U.S. Highway No. 7 -- since the town regards with a certain suspicion any writer who has not won a Pulitzer Prize. I am enclosing copies of all the correspondence between your company and Mr. Thurber, in the hope that someone connected with your firm will read it with proper care and intelligence and straighten out this deplorable and inexcusable situation.
Mr. Thurber wishes me to tell you that he does not want to hear from any of you again.
Sincerely yours,ELLEN BAGLEYSecretary to Mr. Thurber
THE CHARTERISS PUBLISHING COMPANYNEW YORK, N.Y.
DECEMBER 28, 1949Mr. James Murfreesboro Thurber
72 West,
Cornwall, Conn.
DEAR MR. THURBER:
I have at hand your letter of December 19th, the opening paragraph of which puzzles me. You send me the following address -- Mrs. J. C. Edwards, 568 Oak Street, Columbus, Ohio -- but it is not clear what use you wish me to make of this. I would greatly appreciate it if you would clear up this small matter for me.
Sincerely yours,H. F. CLUFFMAN
P.S. Leslie's Weekly ceased publication many years ago. I could obtain the exact date if you so desire.
H. F. C.
THE CHARTERISS PUBLISHING COMPANYNEW YORK, N.Y.
DECEMBER 29, 1949Mr. James M. Thurber,
West Cornwall, Conn.
DEAR MR. THURBER:
You will be sorry to hear that Mr. Charteriss was taken suddenly ill with a virus infection. His doctor believes that he lost his immunity during his visit to the West Coast. He is now in the hospital, but his condition is not serious.
Since the departure of Miss Gaines, who was married last week, I have taken over the Stock Order Department for the time being. I did not take the liberty of reading your enclosures in the letter to Mr. Charteriss, but sent them directly to him at the hospital. I am sure that he will be greatly cheered up by them when he is well enough to read. Meanwhile, I want you to know that you can repose all confidence in the Stock Order Department to look after your needs, whatever they may be.
Sincerely yours,GLADYS MacLEAN
P.S. I learned from Mr. Jordan that you were a friend of Willa Cather's. Exciting!
COLUMBUS, OHIOJANUARY 3, 1950
DEAR JAMIE:
I don't understand the clipping from the Lakeville Journal Helen's mother sent me, about someone burning all those books of yours in the street. I never heard of such a thing, and don't understand how they could have taken the books without your knowing it, or what you were doing with so many copies of the novel about the naked grandmother. Imagine, at her age! She couldn't carry on like that in Columbus, let me tell you. Why, when I was a girl, you didn't dare walk with a man after sunset, unless he was your husband, and even then there was talk.
It's a good thing that state policeman came along in time to save most of the books from being completely ruined, and you must be thankful for the note Mr. Jordan put in one of the books, for the policeman would never have known who they belonged to if he hadn't found it.
A Mrs. Edwards phoned this morning and said that her son Donald collects your books and wants to send them to you -- to be autographed, I suppose. Her son has dozens of your books and I told her you simply wouldn't have time to sign all of them, and she said she didn't care what you did with them. And then she said they weren't your books at all, and so I just hung up on her.
Be sure to bundle up when you go out.
With love,MOTHER
P.S. This Mrs. Edwards says she lives at 568 Oak Street. I told her we used to live there and she said God knows she was aware of that. I don't know what she meant. I was afraid this little boy would send you all those books to sign and so I told his mother that you and Helen were at The Homestead, in Hot Springs. You don't suppose she would send them there, do you?
And here, gentle reader, I know you will be glad to leave all of us.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Thursday, July 21st, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: On Countdown 8ET: CUTS now, new revenues LATER? MAYBE? Democrats erupt, rebel at POTUS's reported offer to Boehner.
ShowPlug2: Latest details from @DavidShuster in DC and the very unhappy reaction of @SenatorSanders of Vermont.
ShowPlug3: Parliament Part 2: James Murdoch may testify again after ex-NewsCorp execs say he did not tell truth Tues. W/ @MichaelWolffNYC
ShowPlug4: Why are we still in the Secret CIA Sites business? Contributor @JeremyScahill of The Nation back from Somalia with his story
ShowPlug5: Me, a golf club, +Ed Sullivan Theater; Allen West's latest embarrassment; & Cenk Uygur of @theYoungTurks tells of his exit from..
ShowPlugLast: The Other Place :)
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Not So "Grand" Bargain', David Shuster, Sen. Bernie Sanders
YouTube
'Hacking and Backtracking', Michael Wolff
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'The World is a Battlefield', Jeremy Scahill
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons: Rep. Allen West, Sarah Palin, Steve Wynn
Current.com, YouTube
'The Outsider', Cenk Uygur
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's nominees for today's Worst Persons In The Worrrrld.
The bronze, to the loopy, terrified, drummed-out-of-the-military, Congressman Allen West, R-Florida.
The R is for "Reactionary."
After calling another member of Florida's House delegation -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz -- quote "vile, unprofessional and despicable" and "not a lady," he says he's not apologizing.
"The thing that really most aggravates me is that there is this double standard, in that the people on the hard left can continue to attack conservatives and especially minority conservatives, and female conservatives."
Which is hilarious because if a comparable liberal were to call, say, Sarah Palin, what Al West called Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Conservatives would try to get him -- or her -- fired.
Remember what they tried to do to Charlie Gibson, David Letterman, Katie Couric.
The runner-up: speaking of...
The Half-Governor, talking to one of the diminishing number of Friendlies...
David Brody of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network.
The journalism degree -- from the University of Idaho, the fourth of her five colleges -- was unaccompanied by any actual practice of journalism.
There are no articles nor other credits bearing her name in the school newspaper from that time, contemporaries say there's no memory of her working at the university television station and the professor who signed her degree says he barely remembers her.
Her actual journalism experience appears to consist solely of two fill-in sportscasts on t-v stations in Anchorage, Alaska.
But our winner: Casino boss Steve Wynn...
On a conference call with reporters, he decided he was one of our nation's great economists:
So obviously Mr. Wynn's business must be in shambles in these dark and troubled times.
Yeah, that Obama Economy really sucks when you've only had the best first quarter in your history.
But let's remember who we're listening to.
This is Picasso's "Le Reve" owned **by** Steve Wynn.
He had a contract to sell it for a record 139 million dollars.
Had one, that is, until...he poked his elbow through it.
I'm gonna listen to anti-Obama Economic rhetoric from a guy who just had his best first quarter ever...and can wipe 139 million dollars in sales from the economy... with his elbow!
Steve "Ooops" Wynn -- today's Worst Person In The World.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: On Countdown 8ET: CUTS now, new revenues LATER? MAYBE? Democrats erupt, rebel at POTUS's reported offer to Boehner.
ShowPlug2: Latest details from @DavidShuster in DC and the very unhappy reaction of @SenatorSanders of Vermont.
ShowPlug3: Parliament Part 2: James Murdoch may testify again after ex-NewsCorp execs say he did not tell truth Tues. W/ @MichaelWolffNYC
ShowPlug4: Why are we still in the Secret CIA Sites business? Contributor @JeremyScahill of The Nation back from Somalia with his story
ShowPlug5: Me, a golf club, +Ed Sullivan Theater; Allen West's latest embarrassment; & Cenk Uygur of @theYoungTurks tells of his exit from..
ShowPlugLast: The Other Place :)
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Not So "Grand" Bargain', David Shuster, Sen. Bernie Sanders
YouTube
'Hacking and Backtracking', Michael Wolff
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'The World is a Battlefield', Jeremy Scahill
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons: Rep. Allen West, Sarah Palin, Steve Wynn
Current.com, YouTube
'The Outsider', Cenk Uygur
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's nominees for today's Worst Persons In The Worrrrld.
The bronze, to the loopy, terrified, drummed-out-of-the-military, Congressman Allen West, R-Florida.
The R is for "Reactionary."
After calling another member of Florida's House delegation -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz -- quote "vile, unprofessional and despicable" and "not a lady," he says he's not apologizing.
"The thing that really most aggravates me is that there is this double standard, in that the people on the hard left can continue to attack conservatives and especially minority conservatives, and female conservatives."
Which is hilarious because if a comparable liberal were to call, say, Sarah Palin, what Al West called Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Conservatives would try to get him -- or her -- fired.
Remember what they tried to do to Charlie Gibson, David Letterman, Katie Couric.
The runner-up: speaking of...
The Half-Governor, talking to one of the diminishing number of Friendlies...
David Brody of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network.
The journalism degree -- from the University of Idaho, the fourth of her five colleges -- was unaccompanied by any actual practice of journalism.
There are no articles nor other credits bearing her name in the school newspaper from that time, contemporaries say there's no memory of her working at the university television station and the professor who signed her degree says he barely remembers her.
Her actual journalism experience appears to consist solely of two fill-in sportscasts on t-v stations in Anchorage, Alaska.
But our winner: Casino boss Steve Wynn...
On a conference call with reporters, he decided he was one of our nation's great economists:
So obviously Mr. Wynn's business must be in shambles in these dark and troubled times.
Yeah, that Obama Economy really sucks when you've only had the best first quarter in your history.
But let's remember who we're listening to.
This is Picasso's "Le Reve" owned **by** Steve Wynn.
He had a contract to sell it for a record 139 million dollars.
Had one, that is, until...he poked his elbow through it.
I'm gonna listen to anti-Obama Economic rhetoric from a guy who just had his best first quarter ever...and can wipe 139 million dollars in sales from the economy... with his elbow!
Steve "Ooops" Wynn -- today's Worst Person In The World.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
Special bonus podcast or YouTube (Late Show with David Letterman, cameo)
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown 8ET: Murdoch tried to "thwart" Scotland Yard hacking investigation; US + UK confer on investigation HERE
ShowPlug2: Our exclusive report - MurdochGate meets ClimateGate. The hacker with a foot in each scandal, w/Joe Romm of @ClimateProgress
ShowPlug3: +The day in Murdoch w/ @MichaelWolffNYC ;Debt Deal Deadline already passed? So says Sen. Reid. W/ @BrianBeutler of TPM
ShowPlug4: They call it "Twitter Presidential Debate." I call it "Batting Practice" 140 characters from people w/ no character; @MattTaibbi
ShowPlug5: Hearings begin to replace "Defense Of Marriage" crap with "Respect FOR Marriage Act" w/ @EvanWolfson of Freedom To Marry
ShowPlugLast: And Billo The Combover insists no implicated NewsCorp people are Americans. I'll have to break it to him on @Current
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Climate Conspiracy', Joe Romm
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Climate Conspiracy', Michael Wolff
YouTube
'Debt and Taxes', Brian Beutler
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Reading the Tea Leaves', Matt Taibbi
YouTube
Worst Persons: Steve Smith (R-AZ), Bill O'Reilly, James Murdoch
Current.com, YouTube
'First Comes Love...', Evan Wolfson
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Climate-gate: (blog post)
The Murdoch Phone-Hacking Scandal may have just metastasized.
The so-called "Climate-Gate" controversy -- in which e-mails about global warming were stolen from researchers at Britain's University of East Anglia in November, 2009 -- now turns out to bear the stamp of Neil Wallis, one of the key figures in Murdoch's hacking of the phones, voicemails, and other electronic communications of thousands of people.
Wallis is unique in this scandal.
He had been the Executive Editor of Murdoch's News Of The World when hacking was at its peak.
Yet in 2009 he wound up being hired by the police as a public relations consultant while the police investigated the hacking scandal. And he wound up spying for Murdoch's people on what Scotland Yard was investigating.
Wallis was, as the New York Times put it, "reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case."
Moreover, while Wallis was keeping Murdoch's organization apprised of what and whom the police were investigating, the police were trying to convince other news organizations not to cover the story -- a suppression of evidence that benefited both the police and Rupert Murdoch.
As the British newspaper The Guardian reported last Friday: "Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis…"
It was neither exaggerated nor incorrect.
Last Thursday, Neil Wallis was arrested.
Last night, it was revealed that while acting as a double-agent for Scotland Yard and Murdoch, Wallis was also consulting Conservative Party Leader David Cameron during the 2010 election that saw Cameron rise to become the nation's Prime Minister.
Today, bobbing up to the surface through this vast ocean of ethical filth, comes Neil Wallis's role… in "Climate-Gate."
On November 20th, 2009, somebody broke into a computer server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and stole thousands of emails and computer files.
The documents were leaked to Climate Change Deniers, and although exhaustive analysis later proved that the emails merely revealed scientists' anxiety that Climate Data and Research were being properly handled and studied, the Deniers have treated those emails as if they were a kind of Holy Grail of fraud.
They claim the emails not only disproved all of climate change, but also that they proved that scientists had doctored data in order to exaggerate the urgency of an international conference on climate change coming up the next month in Copenhagen in Denmark.
As the corporations and lobbyists who sought to feed the myth that there is no man-made climate change disseminated, exploited and deliberately misinterpreted the stolen e-mails -- and used Fox News and other Murdoch enterprises as their principle venues -- the victims, the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, decided they'd better hire a public relations pro to help them fight back.
They hired… Neil Wallis.
The Murdoch editor who had supervised electronic hacking at "The News Of The World," but then went to work for Scotland Yard, but then spied on the Scotland Yard hacking investigation for Murdoch's men, but then tried to suppress media coverage of the Scotland Yard hacking investigation, now found himself in exactly the same kind of candy store over climate change denial.
And he was the chief kid!
As it was phrased in a gushing review last year in "Music Week Magazine" of Neil Wallis and his PR firm "Outside Organization": "Wallis led on the University of East Anglia's 'Climategate' job, when Outside was drafted in to help the university's Climatic Research Unit defend itself against charges of scientific misconduct."
Climate change scientists and outside experts agree that, with Neil Wallis at the helm, the Climatic Research Unit couldn't have done a worse job defending itself. The myth that its emails "disprove" Global Warming persists today.
In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Wallis has already been shown to have been undermining the efforts of the people for whom he'd been hired to work -- the police.
In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Wallis has already been shown to have been feeding information from the investigators, to those being investigated.
In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Wallis has already been shown to have been working for Rupert Murdoch, long after he claimed he wasn't working for Rupert Murdoch.
And in the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Wallis was an executive editor in charge of having people illegally hack phones, voicemails, and other electronic communications, and then publicizing the data and details that the hacking had produced.
And yet it was to him that climate scientists turned… to defend themselves against hackers.
What, if anything, Neil Wallis had to do with the original hacking of the climate emails at the University of East Anglia, is still speculative… just as whether or not he was a double-agent for Murdoch in this hacking case, just as he had been a double-agent for Murdoch during Scotland Yard's hacking investigation.
But it may not be speculative for long.
There is the news from The Financial Times: a possible FBI / DOJ investigation of a Murdoch subsidiary hacking the computers of a business rival.
And earlier today, PC World Magazine reported that while we've all been working with a number of 3,870 hacking victims in the Murdoch Scandal, data released by Britain's Home Affairs Committee suggests the number may actually be as high as 12,800.
Only 170 of the victims have yet been notified.
If any of the others among the "Hacked Twelve Thousand" turn out to be scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, Rupert Murdoch may be in a lot bigger trouble than he is, even tonight.
He may be the man ultimately responsible for the illegal and inaccurate attempt to dismiss climate change as a scientific fraud.
Worst Persons:
First, because no "Defense Act" blunts the impact of the Nation's seemingly inexhaustible supply of The Stupid...
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Persons In The World.
The bronze to Steve Smith, yet another crazy state senator from Arizona.
Even though illegal border crossings from Mexico have now slowed to a trickle...
Mr. Smith has a great new plan, to raise both fears, and money.
He has launched a website that will accept contributions that will go towards building a fence between Arizona and Mexico. The fund-raising goal: 50 million dollars.
Well, more, really.
"It's not my end goal. If we can raise $50 million, we're off to a fabulous start."
Mr. Smith was elected to office for the first time last year.
Public records show that for his campaign, the total contributions he raised... 37-thousand 800 bucks.
Mr. Smith may have spent too much time outside in Arizona without his hat on.
The runner-up: Billo the Comb-Over.
He has actually addressed the Murdoch scandal on his Fixed News comedy show. And comedy it is...
"...here in the United States, there isn't any intrusion of this story thus far on News Corp. Properties."
What has happened here, he added... "that was allegedly done by the News of the World British people. Not any American people. There's not one American employee of the News Corporation implicated in any of this.
Oops.
Les Hinton, the man who ran Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal for Murdoch, has been an American citizen for 26 years.
James Murdoch has joint citizenship, here and in the U-K. He went to Harvard, and to the Horace Mann prep school here in New York. By the way, for all of us who went to Hackley School or Dalton or Rye Country Day or Riverdale - that explains everything.
And then there's another News-Corp guy implicated in any of this, who also became an American citizen in 1985. His name is Rupert Murdoch.
Nice work, Billo the Comb-over.
But our winner: speak of the Devil...
James Murdoch.
As William Hurt famously said in "Body Heat," Sometimes the crap comes down so heavy I feel like I should wear a hat.
As a result, I missed this entirely yesterday.
He and his father spend two hours tap-dancing away from any responsibility, knowledge, or fore-knowledge of the absolute journalistic corruption in their newspaper.
Then Daddy Rupe gets hit in the pie-hole with a shaving cream pie and according to British reporters, James Murdoch turns to the police and asks about the attack, quote:
"Why didn't you see what was happening?" Pre-ject much, Jimmy?
James "I didn't say 'Why didn't I see what was happening?'" Murdoch -- today's Worst Person In The World.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
Special bonus podcast or YouTube (Late Show with David Letterman, cameo)
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown 8ET: Murdoch tried to "thwart" Scotland Yard hacking investigation; US + UK confer on investigation HERE
ShowPlug2: Our exclusive report - MurdochGate meets ClimateGate. The hacker with a foot in each scandal, w/Joe Romm of @ClimateProgress
ShowPlug3: +The day in Murdoch w/ @MichaelWolffNYC ;Debt Deal Deadline already passed? So says Sen. Reid. W/ @BrianBeutler of TPM
ShowPlug4: They call it "Twitter Presidential Debate." I call it "Batting Practice" 140 characters from people w/ no character; @MattTaibbi
ShowPlug5: Hearings begin to replace "Defense Of Marriage" crap with "Respect FOR Marriage Act" w/ @EvanWolfson of Freedom To Marry
ShowPlugLast: And Billo The Combover insists no implicated NewsCorp people are Americans. I'll have to break it to him on @Current
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Climate Conspiracy', Joe Romm
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Climate Conspiracy', Michael Wolff
YouTube
'Debt and Taxes', Brian Beutler
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Reading the Tea Leaves', Matt Taibbi
YouTube
Worst Persons: Steve Smith (R-AZ), Bill O'Reilly, James Murdoch
Current.com, YouTube
'First Comes Love...', Evan Wolfson
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Climate-gate: (blog post)
The Murdoch Phone-Hacking Scandal may have just metastasized.
The so-called "Climate-Gate" controversy -- in which e-mails about global warming were stolen from researchers at Britain's University of East Anglia in November, 2009 -- now turns out to bear the stamp of Neil Wallis, one of the key figures in Murdoch's hacking of the phones, voicemails, and other electronic communications of thousands of people.
Wallis is unique in this scandal.
He had been the Executive Editor of Murdoch's News Of The World when hacking was at its peak.
Yet in 2009 he wound up being hired by the police as a public relations consultant while the police investigated the hacking scandal. And he wound up spying for Murdoch's people on what Scotland Yard was investigating.
Wallis was, as the New York Times put it, "reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case."
Moreover, while Wallis was keeping Murdoch's organization apprised of what and whom the police were investigating, the police were trying to convince other news organizations not to cover the story -- a suppression of evidence that benefited both the police and Rupert Murdoch.
As the British newspaper The Guardian reported last Friday: "Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis…"
It was neither exaggerated nor incorrect.
Last Thursday, Neil Wallis was arrested.
Last night, it was revealed that while acting as a double-agent for Scotland Yard and Murdoch, Wallis was also consulting Conservative Party Leader David Cameron during the 2010 election that saw Cameron rise to become the nation's Prime Minister.
Today, bobbing up to the surface through this vast ocean of ethical filth, comes Neil Wallis's role… in "Climate-Gate."
On November 20th, 2009, somebody broke into a computer server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and stole thousands of emails and computer files.
The documents were leaked to Climate Change Deniers, and although exhaustive analysis later proved that the emails merely revealed scientists' anxiety that Climate Data and Research were being properly handled and studied, the Deniers have treated those emails as if they were a kind of Holy Grail of fraud.
They claim the emails not only disproved all of climate change, but also that they proved that scientists had doctored data in order to exaggerate the urgency of an international conference on climate change coming up the next month in Copenhagen in Denmark.
As the corporations and lobbyists who sought to feed the myth that there is no man-made climate change disseminated, exploited and deliberately misinterpreted the stolen e-mails -- and used Fox News and other Murdoch enterprises as their principle venues -- the victims, the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, decided they'd better hire a public relations pro to help them fight back.
They hired… Neil Wallis.
The Murdoch editor who had supervised electronic hacking at "The News Of The World," but then went to work for Scotland Yard, but then spied on the Scotland Yard hacking investigation for Murdoch's men, but then tried to suppress media coverage of the Scotland Yard hacking investigation, now found himself in exactly the same kind of candy store over climate change denial.
And he was the chief kid!
As it was phrased in a gushing review last year in "Music Week Magazine" of Neil Wallis and his PR firm "Outside Organization": "Wallis led on the University of East Anglia's 'Climategate' job, when Outside was drafted in to help the university's Climatic Research Unit defend itself against charges of scientific misconduct."
Climate change scientists and outside experts agree that, with Neil Wallis at the helm, the Climatic Research Unit couldn't have done a worse job defending itself. The myth that its emails "disprove" Global Warming persists today.
In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Wallis has already been shown to have been undermining the efforts of the people for whom he'd been hired to work -- the police.
In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Wallis has already been shown to have been feeding information from the investigators, to those being investigated.
In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Wallis has already been shown to have been working for Rupert Murdoch, long after he claimed he wasn't working for Rupert Murdoch.
And in the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Wallis was an executive editor in charge of having people illegally hack phones, voicemails, and other electronic communications, and then publicizing the data and details that the hacking had produced.
And yet it was to him that climate scientists turned… to defend themselves against hackers.
What, if anything, Neil Wallis had to do with the original hacking of the climate emails at the University of East Anglia, is still speculative… just as whether or not he was a double-agent for Murdoch in this hacking case, just as he had been a double-agent for Murdoch during Scotland Yard's hacking investigation.
But it may not be speculative for long.
There is the news from The Financial Times: a possible FBI / DOJ investigation of a Murdoch subsidiary hacking the computers of a business rival.
And earlier today, PC World Magazine reported that while we've all been working with a number of 3,870 hacking victims in the Murdoch Scandal, data released by Britain's Home Affairs Committee suggests the number may actually be as high as 12,800.
Only 170 of the victims have yet been notified.
If any of the others among the "Hacked Twelve Thousand" turn out to be scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, Rupert Murdoch may be in a lot bigger trouble than he is, even tonight.
He may be the man ultimately responsible for the illegal and inaccurate attempt to dismiss climate change as a scientific fraud.
Worst Persons:
First, because no "Defense Act" blunts the impact of the Nation's seemingly inexhaustible supply of The Stupid...
Here are Countdown's top three nominees for today's Worst Persons In The World.
The bronze to Steve Smith, yet another crazy state senator from Arizona.
Even though illegal border crossings from Mexico have now slowed to a trickle...
Mr. Smith has a great new plan, to raise both fears, and money.
He has launched a website that will accept contributions that will go towards building a fence between Arizona and Mexico. The fund-raising goal: 50 million dollars.
Well, more, really.
"It's not my end goal. If we can raise $50 million, we're off to a fabulous start."
Mr. Smith was elected to office for the first time last year.
Public records show that for his campaign, the total contributions he raised... 37-thousand 800 bucks.
Mr. Smith may have spent too much time outside in Arizona without his hat on.
The runner-up: Billo the Comb-Over.
He has actually addressed the Murdoch scandal on his Fixed News comedy show. And comedy it is...
"...here in the United States, there isn't any intrusion of this story thus far on News Corp. Properties."
What has happened here, he added... "that was allegedly done by the News of the World British people. Not any American people. There's not one American employee of the News Corporation implicated in any of this.
Oops.
Les Hinton, the man who ran Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal for Murdoch, has been an American citizen for 26 years.
James Murdoch has joint citizenship, here and in the U-K. He went to Harvard, and to the Horace Mann prep school here in New York. By the way, for all of us who went to Hackley School or Dalton or Rye Country Day or Riverdale - that explains everything.
And then there's another News-Corp guy implicated in any of this, who also became an American citizen in 1985. His name is Rupert Murdoch.
Nice work, Billo the Comb-over.
But our winner: speak of the Devil...
James Murdoch.
As William Hurt famously said in "Body Heat," Sometimes the crap comes down so heavy I feel like I should wear a hat.
As a result, I missed this entirely yesterday.
He and his father spend two hours tap-dancing away from any responsibility, knowledge, or fore-knowledge of the absolute journalistic corruption in their newspaper.
Then Daddy Rupe gets hit in the pie-hole with a shaving cream pie and according to British reporters, James Murdoch turns to the police and asks about the attack, quote:
"Why didn't you see what was happening?" Pre-ject much, Jimmy?
James "I didn't say 'Why didn't I see what was happening?'" Murdoch -- today's Worst Person In The World.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
One episode and one special for this date.
Click to go directly to:
Special Report: Murdoch Testifies, 9:15 AM
Countdown, 8 PM
Click to go directly to:
Special Report: Murdoch Testifies, 9:15 AM
Countdown, 8 PM
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: Murdoch takes the blame but not the responsibility, is humbled but knows he's the man to resolve it all
ShowPlug2: The Murdochs' Day In Parliament w/ @JohnWDean and the impact on the scandal with @MichaelWolffNYC
ShowPlug3: The Debt Debate: Clinton says he'd have used the 14th Amendment; Pres. Obama still negotiating. Latest w/ @SamSteinHP
ShowPlug4: Bachmann gains, then blows, sympathy. Smeared by RWNJ site; then her goons rough up reporter asking about story, w/ @KenVogel
ShowPlugLast: And breaking Worsts News: Rep. Allen West's threatening letter to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Tonight on @Current
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Not Responsible?', John Dean
YouTube
'Not Resigning', Michael Wolff
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Real Deal?', Sam Stein
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons: Hermon Raju (the woman on the train), Rep. Allen West, local politicians of Cicero, Illinois
Current.com, YouTube
'Bachmann's Headaches', Ken Vogel
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: Murdoch takes the blame but not the responsibility, is humbled but knows he's the man to resolve it all
ShowPlug2: The Murdochs' Day In Parliament w/ @JohnWDean and the impact on the scandal with @MichaelWolffNYC
ShowPlug3: The Debt Debate: Clinton says he'd have used the 14th Amendment; Pres. Obama still negotiating. Latest w/ @SamSteinHP
ShowPlug4: Bachmann gains, then blows, sympathy. Smeared by RWNJ site; then her goons rough up reporter asking about story, w/ @KenVogel
ShowPlugLast: And breaking Worsts News: Rep. Allen West's threatening letter to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Tonight on @Current
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Not Responsible?', John Dean
YouTube
'Not Resigning', Michael Wolff
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Real Deal?', Sam Stein
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons: Hermon Raju (the woman on the train), Rep. Allen West, local politicians of Cicero, Illinois
Current.com, YouTube
'Bachmann's Headaches', Ken Vogel
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Countdown Special Report: Murdoch Testifies' for Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
A special report lasting from 9:15 AM to 2:30 PM EST on the testimony of Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in the UK Parliament, on the subject of the phone hacking scandal. Keith Olbermann hosting, John Dean guesting.
Members of Parliament on the select committee:
John Whittingdale MP, Conservative, Maldon (committee chair)
Therese Coffey MP, Conservative, Suffolk Coastal
Damian Collins MP, Conservative, Folkestone and Hythe
Philip Davies MP, Conservative, Shipley
Paul Farrelly MP, Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme
Alan Keen MP, Labour Co-op, Feltham and Heston
Louise Mensch MP, Conservative, Corby
Adrian Sanders MP, Liberal Democrat, Torbay
Jim Sheridan MP, Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North
Tom Watson MP, Labour, West Bromwich East
Check out the Current live blog and tweet-up
Unofficial video:
Prelude, including Keith's essay 'The Fall of the House of Murdoch':
YouTube
Testimony of Rupert and James Murdoch:
watch whole playlist
full transcript at The Guardian
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5,
part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10
part 11, ending with interruption
part 12, break after interruption
part 13, testimony resumes
part 14, including Rupert Murdoch's closing statement
Testimony of Rebekah Brooks:
watch whole playlist
part 1, including break for analysis
part 2, part 3
part 4 with special bonus interruption
part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8
Post-testimony analysis:
YouTube
Video from Current:
Break after interruption of testimony:
Keith and John Dean: Murdochs Well-Rehearsed in Testimony
Current.com
Keith and John Dean: Are the Murdochs Really This Out of Touch?
Current.com
Stunner: Jailed Investigator's Legal Fees Still Paid By News Corp
Current.com
Break before Brooks' testimony:
Keith and John Dean: Murdoch Insists He Won't Resign
Current.com
The Focus On Soccer Executive Gordon Taylor
Current.com
Murdoch Has No Intention of Toning Down News Corp Headlines
Current.com
Murdoch Plays Fast and Loose With the Facts
Current.com
Post-testimony analysis:
What Did Rebekah Brooks Know and When?
Current.com
If Nothing's Wrong at News Corp, Why All the Resignations?
Current.com
A special report lasting from 9:15 AM to 2:30 PM EST on the testimony of Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in the UK Parliament, on the subject of the phone hacking scandal. Keith Olbermann hosting, John Dean guesting.
Members of Parliament on the select committee:
John Whittingdale MP, Conservative, Maldon (committee chair)
Therese Coffey MP, Conservative, Suffolk Coastal
Damian Collins MP, Conservative, Folkestone and Hythe
Philip Davies MP, Conservative, Shipley
Paul Farrelly MP, Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme
Alan Keen MP, Labour Co-op, Feltham and Heston
Louise Mensch MP, Conservative, Corby
Adrian Sanders MP, Liberal Democrat, Torbay
Jim Sheridan MP, Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North
Tom Watson MP, Labour, West Bromwich East
Check out the Current live blog and tweet-up
Unofficial video:
Prelude, including Keith's essay 'The Fall of the House of Murdoch':
YouTube
Testimony of Rupert and James Murdoch:
watch whole playlist
full transcript at The Guardian
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5,
part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10
part 11, ending with interruption
part 12, break after interruption
part 13, testimony resumes
part 14, including Rupert Murdoch's closing statement
Testimony of Rebekah Brooks:
watch whole playlist
part 1, including break for analysis
part 2, part 3
part 4 with special bonus interruption
part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8
Post-testimony analysis:
YouTube
Video from Current:
Break after interruption of testimony:
Keith and John Dean: Murdochs Well-Rehearsed in Testimony
Current.com
Keith and John Dean: Are the Murdochs Really This Out of Touch?
Current.com
Stunner: Jailed Investigator's Legal Fees Still Paid By News Corp
Current.com
Break before Brooks' testimony:
Keith and John Dean: Murdoch Insists He Won't Resign
Current.com
The Focus On Soccer Executive Gordon Taylor
Current.com
Murdoch Has No Intention of Toning Down News Corp Headlines
Current.com
Murdoch Plays Fast and Loose With the Facts
Current.com
Post-testimony analysis:
What Did Rebekah Brooks Know and When?
Current.com
If Nothing's Wrong at News Corp, Why All the Resignations?
Current.com
Monday, July 18, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Monday, July 18th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: 10 arrests, the heads of Scotland Yard resigned, now a dead whistleblower. Murdoch-gate explodes again
ShowPlug2: @MichaelWolffNYC with the latest; @JohnWDean on the American investigations + how Jude Law may be the key in this country
ShowPlug3: Plus Robert Moore, Washington Correspondent of UK's great ITV News At Ten, on what to expect as Murdoch testifies to Parliament
ShowPlug4: Moody's to Republicans: Grow Up - there shouldn't BE a debt limit. Crisis is over, BS continues; Guest: @RyanGrim of HuffPo
ShowPlug5: Another would-be GOP Prez claims God told him to. That means at least 3 of them are hearing things. @Markos Moulitsas joins me
ShowPlugLast: Worsts: Bachmann predicted end of world in '06 + Ohio's Driver's License Voter ID guy, didn't HAVE a Driver's license!
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Scandal Spreads', Michael Wolff
YouTube
'Scandal Spreads', John Dean
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Cut, Cap & Veto', Ryan Grim
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Oh My GOP!', Markos Moulitsas
YouTube
Worst Persons: Robert Mecklenborg (R-OH), Rep. Michele Bachmann, Gov. John Kasich
Current.com, YouTube
'Murdoch Testifies', Robert Moore
YouTube
Worst Persons:
Time for Countdown's Viewers' Nominees for Today's Worst Persons In The World.
The bronze to good old Ohio State Representative Robert Mecklenborg.
That's **ex**-Representative Robert Mecklenborg. He's resigned.
You remember him. After sponsoring a bill requiring a Driver's License in order to vote, he lost **his** Driver's License, when he was pulled over in this D-U-I stop in Indiana, complete with viagra in his system, and a stripper in his front seat.
Well, there's something **new** about this.
Four days after this arrest in Indiana -- on **Good Friday** -- he signed a driver's license application in which he swore that he did not have any outstanding vehicle citations.
In other words, when he was pulled over for D-U-I...
In fact, apparently when he introduced the Driver's License Voter ID bill...
Mecklenborg didn't **have** a driver's license.
He was working to suppress... himself.
Representative Mecklenborg, can I introduce you to Marcus Bachmann?
Speaking of which, it's the Missus, in second place. The intrepid Dave Weigel has dug up this little gem from 2006...
For those of you who don't speak Religious Delusion, this is Michele Bachmann, five years ago, predicting the imminence of the end of the World and the Rapture and stuff.
"Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are a Jehovah God. We know that the times are in your hands. And we give them to you…The day is at hand, Lord, when your return will come nigh. Nothing is more important than bringing sheep into the fold. Than bringing new life into the kingdom… You have weeded that garden and the harvest is at hand."
Just to round this out, as part of this prophesy, she asked God to protect and expand the ministry of a psycho named Bradlee Dean, who runs a quote "ministry" unquote called "You Can Run But You Can't Hide" and believes gays and lesbians should be put in prison and that it is quote "moral" to execute them.
As to that crap about the world ending in 2006? Well, on November 7th of that year... she **was** elected to Congress.
But our winner: Union-busting thug governor and Koch Brothers employee John Kasich of Ohio...
We've already seen what this guy on loan from the roster of Murdoch's Fixed News has done to that wonderful state: reneging on union contracts, vote suppression -- it's a mess. But Kasich let his guard down on national television yesterday and something ugly came out. He was asked about the Murdoch scandal, and then veered off into **this**
"Look, I don't think we just have a crisis in Washington of leadership. I think it's across all the sectors. I think we see it in sports where we let-- sometimes these thugs go out on the field and play on Sunday 'cause they can score a touchdown. We see it in our pop culture. There is a crisis of leadership in America and we are witnessing it now in politics."
Hmmm.
Crisis not just in Washington... "Thugs" who "play on Sunday 'cause they can score a touchdown"... Football players, mostly African-Americans.
Crisis of leadership...
Witnessing it now in politics... where the president in an African-American.
Did the Governor of Ohio just call out black people? How did the host ask him to clarify his apparent racist remark?
"I want to focus things a little bit" -- and he switched topics.
Governor John "Nice Talking In Code" Kasich of Ohio, today's Worst Person In The World.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: 10 arrests, the heads of Scotland Yard resigned, now a dead whistleblower. Murdoch-gate explodes again
ShowPlug2: @MichaelWolffNYC with the latest; @JohnWDean on the American investigations + how Jude Law may be the key in this country
ShowPlug3: Plus Robert Moore, Washington Correspondent of UK's great ITV News At Ten, on what to expect as Murdoch testifies to Parliament
ShowPlug4: Moody's to Republicans: Grow Up - there shouldn't BE a debt limit. Crisis is over, BS continues; Guest: @RyanGrim of HuffPo
ShowPlug5: Another would-be GOP Prez claims God told him to. That means at least 3 of them are hearing things. @Markos Moulitsas joins me
ShowPlugLast: Worsts: Bachmann predicted end of world in '06 + Ohio's Driver's License Voter ID guy, didn't HAVE a Driver's license!
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Scandal Spreads', Michael Wolff
YouTube
'Scandal Spreads', John Dean
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Cut, Cap & Veto', Ryan Grim
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Oh My GOP!', Markos Moulitsas
YouTube
Worst Persons: Robert Mecklenborg (R-OH), Rep. Michele Bachmann, Gov. John Kasich
Current.com, YouTube
'Murdoch Testifies', Robert Moore
YouTube
Worst Persons:
Time for Countdown's Viewers' Nominees for Today's Worst Persons In The World.
The bronze to good old Ohio State Representative Robert Mecklenborg.
That's **ex**-Representative Robert Mecklenborg. He's resigned.
You remember him. After sponsoring a bill requiring a Driver's License in order to vote, he lost **his** Driver's License, when he was pulled over in this D-U-I stop in Indiana, complete with viagra in his system, and a stripper in his front seat.
Well, there's something **new** about this.
Four days after this arrest in Indiana -- on **Good Friday** -- he signed a driver's license application in which he swore that he did not have any outstanding vehicle citations.
In other words, when he was pulled over for D-U-I...
In fact, apparently when he introduced the Driver's License Voter ID bill...
Mecklenborg didn't **have** a driver's license.
He was working to suppress... himself.
Representative Mecklenborg, can I introduce you to Marcus Bachmann?
Speaking of which, it's the Missus, in second place. The intrepid Dave Weigel has dug up this little gem from 2006...
For those of you who don't speak Religious Delusion, this is Michele Bachmann, five years ago, predicting the imminence of the end of the World and the Rapture and stuff.
"Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are a Jehovah God. We know that the times are in your hands. And we give them to you…The day is at hand, Lord, when your return will come nigh. Nothing is more important than bringing sheep into the fold. Than bringing new life into the kingdom… You have weeded that garden and the harvest is at hand."
Just to round this out, as part of this prophesy, she asked God to protect and expand the ministry of a psycho named Bradlee Dean, who runs a quote "ministry" unquote called "You Can Run But You Can't Hide" and believes gays and lesbians should be put in prison and that it is quote "moral" to execute them.
As to that crap about the world ending in 2006? Well, on November 7th of that year... she **was** elected to Congress.
But our winner: Union-busting thug governor and Koch Brothers employee John Kasich of Ohio...
We've already seen what this guy on loan from the roster of Murdoch's Fixed News has done to that wonderful state: reneging on union contracts, vote suppression -- it's a mess. But Kasich let his guard down on national television yesterday and something ugly came out. He was asked about the Murdoch scandal, and then veered off into **this**
"Look, I don't think we just have a crisis in Washington of leadership. I think it's across all the sectors. I think we see it in sports where we let-- sometimes these thugs go out on the field and play on Sunday 'cause they can score a touchdown. We see it in our pop culture. There is a crisis of leadership in America and we are witnessing it now in politics."
Hmmm.
Crisis not just in Washington... "Thugs" who "play on Sunday 'cause they can score a touchdown"... Football players, mostly African-Americans.
Crisis of leadership...
Witnessing it now in politics... where the president in an African-American.
Did the Governor of Ohio just call out black people? How did the host ask him to clarify his apparent racist remark?
"I want to focus things a little bit" -- and he switched topics.
Governor John "Nice Talking In Code" Kasich of Ohio, today's Worst Person In The World.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Friday, July 15th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
Guest host: David Shuster
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Two Down', Michael Wolff
YouTube
'Spinning the Scandal', Eric Boehlert
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Debt Plans Derby', Alex Bolton
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Outing the Bachmanns', Craig Crawford
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Play Ball!'
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Clemency', Richard Justice
YouTube
video 'podcast'
screencaps
Guest host: David Shuster
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Two Down', Michael Wolff
YouTube
'Spinning the Scandal', Eric Boehlert
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Debt Plans Derby', Alex Bolton
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Outing the Bachmanns', Craig Crawford
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Play Ball!'
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Clemency', Richard Justice
YouTube
Thursday, July 14, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Thursday, July 14th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown @Current 8ET: FBI to probe possible Murdoch hacking of 9/11 victims' phones. Murdoch says all going well
ShowPlug2: Threatened w/ jail, he will testify to Parliament. Another editor arrested. Rupert's Bottomless Pit Day 11 w/ @MichaelWolffNYC
ShowPlug3: Did he see it coming? @JohnWDean :Murdoch's $1M donation to Chamber of Commerce + its bud to soften up laws against int'l bribery
ShowPlug4: The Debt Debate as Dems say to Cantor "Get Out!" and the namecalling reaches symphonic proportions; TPM's @BrianBeutler joins us
ShowPlug5: If Voting Rights Act lets DOJ investigate State Voting Suppression Laws, why haven't they done it? @RevJJackson is my guest
ShowPlug6: Fox's New Glenn Beck says something even Beck would vomit over, Martial Law in Quartzsite, AZ, and how do you pronounce...
ShowPlugLast: ..the word "Chutzpah"? Michele Bachmann doesn't know, but my guest Janeane Garofalo does.
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Investigating the Empire', Michael Wolff
YouTube
'Paying Bribes', John Dean
YouTube
'GOP Debt Turmoil', Brian Beutler
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Voting Rights', Rev. Jesse Jackson
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons: Andrea Peyser, Jeff Gilbert, Eric Bolling
Current.com, YouTube
'Wrongs Of The Right', Janeane Garofalo
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's viewers' top three nominees for today's Worst Persons In The World.
The bronze to Andrea Peyser of Murdoch's New York Post, who made up a story today about me calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a pig.
"Keith Olbermann suggested on Current TV last week that Bachmann was a pig. "Yeah, should you smell ham burning, she has a fire in her."
No, I called her a ham.
Ham -- a rather typical American euphemism for a corny actor or actress. Publicity addict. Ham.
I've been called a ham myself.
Here's the tape.
Linda Zermeno: she has a fire in her, it's going to take that kind of person blah blah Me: should you smell ham burning, she has a fire in her.
This idea that I called her a pig has spread around the internet by a lot of sloppy pretend media reporters and the assorted right wing paranoids.
My ad lib invoked a famous Hollywood story.
During the filming of the scene in their movie "Jane Eyre" in which the character played by Orson Welles is burned to death, Welles shouted to his co-star Joan Fontaine, quote: "I now know what Joan of Arc endured!"
Fontaine shouted back: "Keep your spirits up. We'll let you know if we smell burning ham!"
I'm sorry the English Language is so difficult for Ms. Peyser. Fortunately, since she works for Rupert Murdoch, she won't have to worry about writing it for a living for very much longer.
The runner-up: Police Chief Jeff Gilbert, who is, right now, in charge of what amounts to an emergency government which has imposed martial law on the town of Quartzsite, Arizona.
This all came to a head when a woman identified as Jennifer Jones was arrested and dragged out of the city council meeting at Quartzsite...and the video posted to You Tube.
The only obvious interpretation is that they arrested her for claiming the council was violating open-meetings laws, while Mayor Ed Foster defends her right to say that.
After this, the Council declared a State of Emergency and ruled Mayor Foster was no longer in charge.
That's when the Police Chief supplanted him, and when the Council voted to give itself the right to meet without public notice and suspend public comments at the meeting
Foster says this is about money.
He was elected last year on a platform to investigate corruption charges, and says that he's discovered that during every municipal pay period since 1991, 8 to 10 paychecks have been issued to unnamed individuals, to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars a year.
Where is Arizona Governor Jan Brewer in all this?
Presumably out wandering the desert looking for illegal headless immigrants threatening to rise from the dead and muss up her wig.
But our winner: Eric Bolling of Fixed News.
This is one of the ten usual suspects shoved out on stage by Roger Ailes in hopes of filling the time slot occupied by the disapparated Glenn Beck.
Bolling has devoted most of the last month to making, then apologizing for, racist remarks about the President, claiming he was quote "chugging 40's" and claiming that entertaining the President of Gabon at the White House meant, quote, "It's not first time he's had a hoodlum in the hizzouse."
But even that stuff was relatively limited in scope.
Last night Bolling managed to offend... everybody.
Two months before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, he either forgot about it, or tried to claim it didn't happen during the Bush Administration.
The topic was the imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Still trying to understand the feeding frenzy against Rupert Murdoch on all sides of the Atlantic?
It's because of clowns like that one...
Eric "I don't remember any terrorist attacks on American soil between 2000 and 2008" Bolling... Today's Worst Person In The World.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown @Current 8ET: FBI to probe possible Murdoch hacking of 9/11 victims' phones. Murdoch says all going well
ShowPlug2: Threatened w/ jail, he will testify to Parliament. Another editor arrested. Rupert's Bottomless Pit Day 11 w/ @MichaelWolffNYC
ShowPlug3: Did he see it coming? @JohnWDean :Murdoch's $1M donation to Chamber of Commerce + its bud to soften up laws against int'l bribery
ShowPlug4: The Debt Debate as Dems say to Cantor "Get Out!" and the namecalling reaches symphonic proportions; TPM's @BrianBeutler joins us
ShowPlug5: If Voting Rights Act lets DOJ investigate State Voting Suppression Laws, why haven't they done it? @RevJJackson is my guest
ShowPlug6: Fox's New Glenn Beck says something even Beck would vomit over, Martial Law in Quartzsite, AZ, and how do you pronounce...
ShowPlugLast: ..the word "Chutzpah"? Michele Bachmann doesn't know, but my guest Janeane Garofalo does.
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Investigating the Empire', Michael Wolff
YouTube
'Paying Bribes', John Dean
YouTube
'GOP Debt Turmoil', Brian Beutler
YouTube
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Voting Rights', Rev. Jesse Jackson
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons: Andrea Peyser, Jeff Gilbert, Eric Bolling
Current.com, YouTube
'Wrongs Of The Right', Janeane Garofalo
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's viewers' top three nominees for today's Worst Persons In The World.
The bronze to Andrea Peyser of Murdoch's New York Post, who made up a story today about me calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a pig.
"Keith Olbermann suggested on Current TV last week that Bachmann was a pig. "Yeah, should you smell ham burning, she has a fire in her."
No, I called her a ham.
Ham -- a rather typical American euphemism for a corny actor or actress. Publicity addict. Ham.
I've been called a ham myself.
Here's the tape.
Linda Zermeno: she has a fire in her, it's going to take that kind of person blah blah Me: should you smell ham burning, she has a fire in her.
This idea that I called her a pig has spread around the internet by a lot of sloppy pretend media reporters and the assorted right wing paranoids.
My ad lib invoked a famous Hollywood story.
During the filming of the scene in their movie "Jane Eyre" in which the character played by Orson Welles is burned to death, Welles shouted to his co-star Joan Fontaine, quote: "I now know what Joan of Arc endured!"
Fontaine shouted back: "Keep your spirits up. We'll let you know if we smell burning ham!"
I'm sorry the English Language is so difficult for Ms. Peyser. Fortunately, since she works for Rupert Murdoch, she won't have to worry about writing it for a living for very much longer.
The runner-up: Police Chief Jeff Gilbert, who is, right now, in charge of what amounts to an emergency government which has imposed martial law on the town of Quartzsite, Arizona.
This all came to a head when a woman identified as Jennifer Jones was arrested and dragged out of the city council meeting at Quartzsite...and the video posted to You Tube.
The only obvious interpretation is that they arrested her for claiming the council was violating open-meetings laws, while Mayor Ed Foster defends her right to say that.
After this, the Council declared a State of Emergency and ruled Mayor Foster was no longer in charge.
That's when the Police Chief supplanted him, and when the Council voted to give itself the right to meet without public notice and suspend public comments at the meeting
Foster says this is about money.
He was elected last year on a platform to investigate corruption charges, and says that he's discovered that during every municipal pay period since 1991, 8 to 10 paychecks have been issued to unnamed individuals, to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars a year.
Where is Arizona Governor Jan Brewer in all this?
Presumably out wandering the desert looking for illegal headless immigrants threatening to rise from the dead and muss up her wig.
But our winner: Eric Bolling of Fixed News.
This is one of the ten usual suspects shoved out on stage by Roger Ailes in hopes of filling the time slot occupied by the disapparated Glenn Beck.
Bolling has devoted most of the last month to making, then apologizing for, racist remarks about the President, claiming he was quote "chugging 40's" and claiming that entertaining the President of Gabon at the White House meant, quote, "It's not first time he's had a hoodlum in the hizzouse."
But even that stuff was relatively limited in scope.
Last night Bolling managed to offend... everybody.
Two months before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, he either forgot about it, or tried to claim it didn't happen during the Bush Administration.
The topic was the imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Still trying to understand the feeding frenzy against Rupert Murdoch on all sides of the Atlantic?
It's because of clowns like that one...
Eric "I don't remember any terrorist attacks on American soil between 2000 and 2008" Bolling... Today's Worst Person In The World.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday, July 13th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: GOP Rep. Peter King joins chorus demanding US investigation of Murdoch's phone hacking. He writes FBI
ShowPlug2: Menendez says DOJ, Lautenberg SEC, Rockefeller: Senate Committee. @JohnWDean on investigation chances, @MichaelWolffNYC on Day10
ShowPlug3: Debt Ceiling + GOP Fissure: DeMint blasts McConnell 'compromise.' Contributor @Markos Moulitsas on latest
ShowPlug4: Wisconsin Real Dems beat Fake Dems in Recall Primary, but did GOP win by stalling? John Nichols of @TheNation in Madison joins us
ShowPlug5: Worsts: the REAL blowback of Minnesota shutdown about to swamp GOP. The Great Republican Beer Crisis of 2011
ShowPlugLast: And why Fracking is personal for @MRuff221 - actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, my special guest tonight.
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Murdoch's US Mess', John Dean
YouTube
'Murdoch's US Mess', Michael Wolff
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Debt Duelers', Markos Moulitsas
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Wisconsin Recall Primaries', John Nichols
YouTube
Worst Persons: Ann Coulter, Cynthia Davis (R-MO), Amy Koch (R-MN)
Current.com, YouTube
'Frack No', Mark Ruffalo
YouTube
Web Extra: Countdown Contributor Mark Ruffalo on Fracking
Current.com, podcast
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's viewers' nominees for today's Worst Persons In The Worrrrrrld.
The bronze to Coulter-Geist... Failed Author.
In 2003, one of the first of her fiction-based paranoid screeches about Liberals, called "Treason"...sold 400-thousand hard cover copies.
The next one, the next year, sold 300-thousand.
"Godless" - in 2006 - 279-thousand.
A follow-up in 2007... 130-thousand.
2009's "Guilty"...120-thousand.
Her new book "Demonic" - and yes, the irony of a picture of Ann Coulter with the word "Demonic" superimposed on it, was lost on her - has, in four weeks, sold 67-thousand copies. It is selling at a 15% slower rate than the previous bomb.
Coultergeist **will** make up for it, of course, by getting hundreds of copies sold for 25 cents each as part of subscriptions for perverse Right-Wing websites.
Incidentally, Bristol Palin's audio book of her tome "Not Afraid Of Life" has sold 58 copies, nationwide. **58**.
The runner-up: Cynthia Davis, former representative to the Missouri State House, from the city of O'Fallon.
She is now **also** the former chairwoman of the St. Charles County Republican Committee.
She claims she's going to concentrate on a private anti-gay marriage group.
Other members of the St. Charles County Committee say she quit before they could fire her.
Her crime, according to another leading County Republican? " She's a narcissist... the whole thing was set to help her, not the Republican Party."
So?
Some local wingnut lost her job amid a flowering delusion of grandeur?
Remember that name? Cynthia Davis?
Two years ago the Missouri Department of Health announced it would be providing free breakfasts and lunches at schools for the 20% of Missouri kids who live with hunger.
Then Representative Davis saw through that scheme, writing in her newsletter to constituents:
"Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another...
"Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can't they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals?
"Tip: If you work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break."
Having lost her seat in the State House, and now her County Republican Chairwomanship, and having actually failed to be elected to a seat on the County **Ambulance Board**... a tip for Ms. Davis: if **you** work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break.
But our winner: Minnesota Republican Senate Majority Leader Amy Coke.
She was the genius behind the political standoff there that has led to Minnesota's state government shut-down.
And she is about to become a victim of the Law Of Unforseen Consequences.
Because of Senator Coke's shutdown, Minnesota... Is running out of beer.
Miller-Coors, the nation's second leading brewer, has to pull its **39 brands of suds** from stores, bars and restaurants in the state because it failed to renew its brand-label registrations, and with Minnesota's government closed, it won't be able to renew them in the immediate future.
But wait, there's more.
Hundreds of **bars** and restaurants and stores, are running **out** of **all brands** of brewskies.
**Their** state-issued licenses to **buy** beer expire, and there's no government to give them **new** licenses.
As an example, there is "The Ugly Mug," a bar near the new baseball stadium, which says it will run out long before the season does.
But wait - there's even **more.**
Minnesota has also stopped issuing tobacco tax stamps.
As of Labor Day - no cigarettes.
This is how bad it is: a state Senator has urged Governor Mark Dayton to use his executive powers to arrange for alcohol sales to continue. The Senator is a Republican and the Governor is a Democrat.
The Senator's no dummy.
This is not to endorse drinking or smoking... But he sees what's ahead: hundreds of thousands of beer and cigarette deprived Minnesotans storming the State House.
Think "Night Of The Living Dead."
Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch - who just cut off beer and smokes in her state - today's Worst Person In The Worrrrld.
video 'podcast'
screencaps
ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: GOP Rep. Peter King joins chorus demanding US investigation of Murdoch's phone hacking. He writes FBI
ShowPlug2: Menendez says DOJ, Lautenberg SEC, Rockefeller: Senate Committee. @JohnWDean on investigation chances, @MichaelWolffNYC on Day10
ShowPlug3: Debt Ceiling + GOP Fissure: DeMint blasts McConnell 'compromise.' Contributor @Markos Moulitsas on latest
ShowPlug4: Wisconsin Real Dems beat Fake Dems in Recall Primary, but did GOP win by stalling? John Nichols of @TheNation in Madison joins us
ShowPlug5: Worsts: the REAL blowback of Minnesota shutdown about to swamp GOP. The Great Republican Beer Crisis of 2011
ShowPlugLast: And why Fracking is personal for @MRuff221 - actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, my special guest tonight.
Segments:
watch whole playlist
'Murdoch's US Mess', John Dean
YouTube
'Murdoch's US Mess', Michael Wolff
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
'Debt Duelers', Markos Moulitsas
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)
Time Marches On!
YouTube
'Wisconsin Recall Primaries', John Nichols
YouTube
Worst Persons: Ann Coulter, Cynthia Davis (R-MO), Amy Koch (R-MN)
Current.com, YouTube
'Frack No', Mark Ruffalo
YouTube
Web Extra: Countdown Contributor Mark Ruffalo on Fracking
Current.com, podcast
Worst Persons:
Here are Countdown's viewers' nominees for today's Worst Persons In The Worrrrrrld.
The bronze to Coulter-Geist... Failed Author.
In 2003, one of the first of her fiction-based paranoid screeches about Liberals, called "Treason"...sold 400-thousand hard cover copies.
The next one, the next year, sold 300-thousand.
"Godless" - in 2006 - 279-thousand.
A follow-up in 2007... 130-thousand.
2009's "Guilty"...120-thousand.
Her new book "Demonic" - and yes, the irony of a picture of Ann Coulter with the word "Demonic" superimposed on it, was lost on her - has, in four weeks, sold 67-thousand copies. It is selling at a 15% slower rate than the previous bomb.
Coultergeist **will** make up for it, of course, by getting hundreds of copies sold for 25 cents each as part of subscriptions for perverse Right-Wing websites.
Incidentally, Bristol Palin's audio book of her tome "Not Afraid Of Life" has sold 58 copies, nationwide. **58**.
The runner-up: Cynthia Davis, former representative to the Missouri State House, from the city of O'Fallon.
She is now **also** the former chairwoman of the St. Charles County Republican Committee.
She claims she's going to concentrate on a private anti-gay marriage group.
Other members of the St. Charles County Committee say she quit before they could fire her.
Her crime, according to another leading County Republican? " She's a narcissist... the whole thing was set to help her, not the Republican Party."
So?
Some local wingnut lost her job amid a flowering delusion of grandeur?
Remember that name? Cynthia Davis?
Two years ago the Missouri Department of Health announced it would be providing free breakfasts and lunches at schools for the 20% of Missouri kids who live with hunger.
Then Representative Davis saw through that scheme, writing in her newsletter to constituents:
"Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another...
"Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can't they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals?
"Tip: If you work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break."
Having lost her seat in the State House, and now her County Republican Chairwomanship, and having actually failed to be elected to a seat on the County **Ambulance Board**... a tip for Ms. Davis: if **you** work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break.
But our winner: Minnesota Republican Senate Majority Leader Amy Coke.
She was the genius behind the political standoff there that has led to Minnesota's state government shut-down.
And she is about to become a victim of the Law Of Unforseen Consequences.
Because of Senator Coke's shutdown, Minnesota... Is running out of beer.
Miller-Coors, the nation's second leading brewer, has to pull its **39 brands of suds** from stores, bars and restaurants in the state because it failed to renew its brand-label registrations, and with Minnesota's government closed, it won't be able to renew them in the immediate future.
But wait, there's more.
Hundreds of **bars** and restaurants and stores, are running **out** of **all brands** of brewskies.
**Their** state-issued licenses to **buy** beer expire, and there's no government to give them **new** licenses.
As an example, there is "The Ugly Mug," a bar near the new baseball stadium, which says it will run out long before the season does.
But wait - there's even **more.**
Minnesota has also stopped issuing tobacco tax stamps.
As of Labor Day - no cigarettes.
This is how bad it is: a state Senator has urged Governor Mark Dayton to use his executive powers to arrange for alcohol sales to continue. The Senator is a Republican and the Governor is a Democrat.
The Senator's no dummy.
This is not to endorse drinking or smoking... But he sees what's ahead: hundreds of thousands of beer and cigarette deprived Minnesotans storming the State House.
Think "Night Of The Living Dead."
Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch - who just cut off beer and smokes in her state - today's Worst Person In The Worrrrld.
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