PW: Why The Right Hates ACORN, How They Took Them Down, And Why Philly Didn’t Take The Bait

[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY There’s an old joke that goes like this: A pimp and a prostitute walk into an ACORN office and ask for advice setting up a brothel and smuggling in underage Salvadoran girls to whore out for fun and profit. The punchline is the pimp and the prostitute were in fact a pair of twentysomething right-wing media provocateurs armed with a hidden camera. Over the summer James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles visited an undisclosed number of ACORN offices on the East and West coasts—including Philadelphia. While the Philly office didn’t […]

Meet Phil Berg, Alpha Birther Of The Bizarro Nation

BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY In the soft twilight of the first Saturday of August, a gray-bearded man in a dark suit stood on the grassy knoll in front of Independence Hall and declared for the benefit of a film crew on hand that we are, as a nation, through the looking glass, people. Black is white, up is down, cats are dogs and the President of the United States is a fraud and a liar, a “usurper,” a foreign-born alien unqualified to hold office and the fact that he currently resides in the White House represents a constitutional […]

HEAR YE: New Dylan

Fascinating interview with Bob Dylan by Bill Flanagan over at NEWSWEEK’s blog, which is also streaming the track “Feelin’ A Change Comin’ On” from the forthcoming Together Through Life. Here he is explaining his mystical attraction to Obama: Bill Flanagan: You liked Barack Obama early on. Why was that? Bob Dylan: I’d read his book and it intrigued me. “Audacity of Hope”? No, it was called “Dreams [From] My Father.”  What struck you about him? Well, a number of things. He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas […]

THE HATE NOISE: Anthrax Hoaxes Shutdown Obama Campaign Offices In Philadelphia And New York

CBS: PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) — A threatening letter containing a suspicious powder forced evacuations at a Barack Obama campaign office in South Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon. According to police, a letter with a suspicious powder was sent to an Obama-Biden field office in the 1500 block of Christian Street. The letter was apparently opened by a volunteer at the office.”The letter was somewhat threatening in nature and it contained a substance that we believe to be a hazmat,” Captain Mike Gillespie said shortly after the incident. Police, fire and hazmat crews responded to the scene shortly after a 911 call was […]

BREAKING: Obama + Springsteen To Rock Philly

OBAMA/BIDEN CAMPAIGN:  Bruce Springsteen is coming to Philadelphia this weekend to perform an acoustic set at a rally on the Ben Franklin Parkway in order to assist the Obama campaign’s voter registration and volunteer recruitment efforts. The concert will take place on Saturday at Benjamin Franklin Parkway between 20th and 22nd Streets. Gates open at 2:00 and the program will begin at 3:30. DEVELOPING… UPDATE: Rolling Stone just asked me to cover this, and TIME is literally on the other line and wants to know what I think about the bailout. I am not making this up. [Ticket info after […]

BIG TENT: The Knocked Up Teens Of Pro-Life Mothers

REUTERS: The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child. Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin’s five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said. […]

MEDIA: How Chris Matthews Is Hurting America

We are at a loss to explain to exactly what, besides halitosis and hot air, Chris Matthews and David Shuster bring to the table in ANY discussion, let alone one about politics. It beggars disbelief that these two are paid good money — Matthews reportedly makes $5 million a year to spew this drivel! — to handicap a presidential election, but then again, the last eight years simply could not have happened without these mice among men. And just for the above exchange, which is about as inane as it gets, these two get to share ASSHAT OF THE WEEK […]

RAT FUCKING: State Department Fires Two For Unauthorized Snooping On Obama’s Passport File

MSNBC: Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s passport file. Spokesman Sean McCormack Thursday night confirmed instances of what he called “imprudent curiosity” by the State Department employees. McCormack said the department itself detected the breaches, which occurred which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. The three people who had access to Obama’s passport records were contract employees of the department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, NBC News reported. A senior official told NBC News there was “no political motivation” to […]

MAILBAG: Obama, Can You Hear Me Now?

Earlier today the call went out in the blogosphere to urge John Edwards to call for Hillary and Obama to return to Washington to do their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and join Chris Todd in his quest to deny immunity to telecoms caught illegally spying on Americans. And he just did. Kinda. Dear jonathan, When it comes to protecting the rule of law, words are not enough. We need action. It’s wrong for your government to spy on you. That’s why I’m asking you to join me today in calling on Senate Democrats to filibuster revisions to the […]