[Photos by TIFFANY YOON] BY JONATHAN VALANIA For most news outlets, an invite from the White House Press office to cover the arrival and departure of Air Force One is old hat, and on this day most didn’t bother sending anyone to document the wheels down/wheels up of the President’s private bird at Philadelphia International. But Phawker was there with bells on. As you may have heard by now, the President of the United States was in town today for a sum total of two hours to make the case one last time for New Jersey to re-elect fellow Democrat […]
BRAVE NEW FILMS: How Fox News Slimed ACORN
PREVIOUSLY: Why The Right Hates ACORN, How They Took Them Down, And Why Philly Didn’t Take The Bait PREVIOUSLY: The Nutcracker Strikes Back! PREVIOUSLY: Cracking The Nutcracker PREVIOUSLY: The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Flow Chart
ADDICTED TO AFGHANISTAN: Karzai’s Brother, Suspected Drug Lord, Is On The CIA’s Payroll
[Artwork by SHEPARD FAIREY] NEW YORK TIMES: KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials. The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home. The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency […]
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS WHO NEEDS ENEMAS: Lieberman To Filibuster Any Bill With Public Option
CBS NEWS: During the 2008 elections, Joe Lieberman attended the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. and pulled a Zell Miller, delivering a rousing speech — for Lieberman, that is — supporting supporting John McCain over Barack Obama for president. Back in the old days, such an act of party disloyalty would have been automatic justification for banishment to political Siberia. But after their election victory in November, the Democratic leadership held its collective nose and cut a pragmatic deal: Lieberman, now a self-styled “independent minded Democrat” got to keep his chairmanship in the caucus, his chairmanship of the […]
IT’S IN THERE: Public Option Added To Senate Bill
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Fueling momentum behind the push for a new government insurance plan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday that his healthcare bill will include a compromise that would create a nationwide “public option,” while giving states the option to “opt out” of such a plan. “The public option is not a silver bullet, (but) I believe it’s an important way to ensure competition and to level the playing field for patients with the insurance industry,” Reid told reporters. “Under this concept, states will be able to decide what works for them.” Reid sent the proposal to […]
Those Who Forget History Are Already Repeating It
The 1930s collection examines America’s response to the unprecedented economic crisis that threatened the nation during one of history’s most tumultuous decades — a decade that is increasingly a touchstone for our own. In a series of five films, this AMERICAN EXPERIENCE explores politics and culture during the Great Depression through eyewitness accounts and rare archival footage. The 1930s (which will air locally on WHYY TV starting tonight at 9 PM and runs for the next five Monday nights) touches on themes straight from the 2009 news headlines — beginning with the problems with banking security, stock market manipulation, and […]
HERSH: Military At War With The White House
THE HERALD SUN: The army is “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have [President] Obama boxed in,” Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh told several hundred people in Duke University’s Page Auditorium on Tuesday night. “They think he’s weak and the wrong color. Yes, there’s racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it’s true and we all know it.” In a speech on Obama’s foreign policy, Hersh, who uncovered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and torture at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraqi war, said many military […]
AL FRANKEN: Kicking Ass In The Health Care Debate
Senator Al Franken kicks ass and takes names in this snippet from a Capitol Hill health care hearing wherein he eviscerates — with little more than the simple facts precisely-modulated sarcasm — an insurance industry shill from the Hudson Institute who claims that universal health care in the U.S. would increase the number of people who go bankrupt because of medical bills. The guy is doing the Lord’s work.
WHAT HE SAID: Cracking The Nutcracker
EDITOR’S NOTE: Footage from Wednesday’s press conference at the National Press Club wherein conservative muckraker Andre Breitbart, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles attempt to expose ACORN’s ‘lies’ about what happened in the Philadelphia office. Blogger Mike Stark let’s the air out of their balloon with the three simple questions any responsible reporter should have asked by now — and that includes you, Stu Bykofsky. MEDIA MATTERS: Following the release of what Fox News itself called “heavily edited tape” of conservative James O’Keefe’s visit to a Philadelphia ACORN office, Fox News ran captions stating, “Exposing ACORN: New Video Shows Unlawful Actions.” […]
MEDIA: The Nutcracker Strikes Back!
[Artwork by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA On Tuesday, Big Government.com, the conservative web site behind the ACORN hooker sting videos, issued a press release that reads in part: After suing Breitbart.com, Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Giles in Maryland over the release of the Baltimore tapes, ACORN has issued public statements denying any wrongdoing in its Philadelphia office and lying about what happened there. Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Giles are now prepared to respond.According to Mr. Breitbart, “ACORN representatives claim James and Hannah were kicked out of Philadelphia. They also said publicly that unlike Baltimore, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino […]
HELP WANTED: Dope Fiend With Word Power
[Artwork by JAMES THORTON] GUARDIAN: An alternative newspaper in Denver, Colorado, Westword, is seeking a marijuana critic. More than 120 people have applied for the job to review the drugs legally available in the state’s medical dispensaries. One condition: the critic must have a medical ailment that allows him or her to buy and use marijuana at one of Colorado’s 100 dispensaries. And the pay, unlike the job, is not expected to be high. There are already several online reviewers of cannabis, such as marijuanareviews.com and weedmaps.com. MORE WESTWORD: All those journalistic scoops are just so much smoke compared to […]
GAMBLOR: Foxwoods Considering ‘Temporary Casino’
INQUIRER: The tight state-imposed deadline for opening Foxwoods Casino by May 29, 2011, has made raising money “more problematic” and prompted the project’s partners to consider putting up a temporary structure before building a permanent gaming hall, an attorney for Foxwoods said yesterday. In a letter to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on Friday, Foxwoods had disclosed the possibility of a temporary casino along the Delaware River in South Philadelphia, citing “unanticipated issues.” It did not elaborate. But attorney Stephen A. Cozen, in a telephone interview yesterday, explained that potential lenders have been concerned about the time constraints on the […]