Eric Alterman: Think Again: Michael Moore, Cause for War?

Oh boy. The media certainly seem to have developed a backbone when it comes to factchecking Michael Moore. So why can't they be this questioning of the Bush administration? That's a rhetorical question, but one that saddens me. Why a filmmaker is held to higher standard of truth and accuracy that the President of the United States is simply beyond me. It's quite telling, though, don't you think. And, BTW, remember all this the next time one of your dumbass friends or coworkers dare speak of "the liberal media."

Read Eric Alterman's article here.

The New York Times: Clicking Into the Kerry Coffers for a One-Day Online Record

From The New York Times:

"Senator John Kerry collected more than $34 million in June, including $3 million raised online on Wednesday, setting a record for single-day Internet fund-raising and causing the campaign's computers to crash."

I was extremely happy, with my $25 contribution, to have been a part of this.

The New York Times: Moore's Public Service

Paul Krugman, in The New York Times, writes:

"Since it opened, "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been a hit in both blue and red America, even at theaters close to military bases. Last Saturday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took his Nascar crew to see it. The film's appeal to working-class Americans, who are the true victims of George Bush's policies, should give pause to its critics, especially the nervous liberals rushing to disassociate themselves from Michael Moore."

Read it here.

Two insightful quotes:

"There has been much tut-tutting by pundits who complain that the movie, though it has yet to be caught in any major factual errors, uses association and innuendo to create false impressions. Many of these same pundits consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration's use of association and innuendo to link the Iraq war to 9/11. Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?"

"And for all its flaws, "Fahrenheit 9/11" performs an essential service. It would be a better movie if it didn't promote a few unproven conspiracy theories, but those theories aren't the reason why millions of people who aren't die-hard Bush-haters are flocking to see it. These people see the film to learn true stories they should have heard elsewhere, but didn't. Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven't been doing their job."

" ... Mr. Moore's greatest strength is a real empathy with working-class Americans that most journalists lack. Having stripped away Mr. Bush's common-man mask, he uses his film to make the case, in a way statistics never could, that Mr. Bush's policies favor a narrow elite at the expense of less fortunate Americans -- sometimes, indeed, at the cost of their lives."

Read it here.

Support the Freedom to Read Amendment

Within the next few days, Congress will vote on a bipartisan proposal to protect the freedom to read threatened by the USA PATRIOT Act.

When the USA PATRIOT Act was rushed through Congress soon after 9/11, one of the little noticed provisions was section 215 which severely expands the scope of materials the FBI can access with a warrant from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. In short, the FBI can demand that bookstores and libraries hand over lists of all of their patrons and what books they’ve purchased or borrowed. Adding insult to injury, it also prevents bookstore owners and librarians from telling patrons they're being watched or searched.

The proposed amendment would prohibit the Department of Justice from using any money in their budget to search a library or bookseller using the wide-sweeping powers granted under section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. The amendment would restore and protect the privacy and First Amendment rights of library and bookstore patrons which were in place before the USA PATRIOT Act.

The vote on the Freedom to Read Amendment will happen as early as the afternoon of Wednesday July 7. Click here to send a message to your US Representative.

NPR: Neo-Radio Succeeds by Cutting the Noise

From NPR's All Things Considered:

A new style of commercial FM radio station -- based on eclectic music and informed commentary -- represents a backlash against the rest of the industry's consolidation, narrow playlists, and copycat sounds. Stations that have tried the new format have shot up the charts.

Listen to Wade Goodwyn's report here.

Tips: You will need to have RealOne Player installed and have your sound up, but not too loud. :)

The music in the intro, BTW, is The Call - "I Still Believe." Neat.

Los Angeles Times: CIA Felt Pressure to Alter Iraq Data, Author Says

A former CIA official has announced the upcoming release of a new book entitled, "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror." The book is the work of an anonymous author who has held a number of high-ranking agency positions, including serving as the head of a special unit tracking Osama bin Laden for three years.

Chillingly, the author states that after the 9/11 attacks, CIA analysts were repeatedly ordered to rewrite any intelligence assessments that disputed a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. "We on the Bin Laden side were required repeatedly to check, double-check and triple-check our files about a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq," he says, although he maintains that the CIA never altered their conclusions.

"They knew the answer [they wanted] before they asked the question," he concluded.

Read about it here.

The Washington Post: Budget Impasse Reflects GOP Schism

Remember when Republicanism used to be about fiscal restraint? Hint: it was sometime before Reagan. Well now Republicans have split into two camps over the budget: those who want to curb tax cuts and those who assert that tax cuts are now more important than budget constraints.

Read about it here.

Note to Dems and Bush haters: divide and conquer (wink wink).

Associated Press: Drug Makers Increased Prices Just Ahead of Discount Card, Study Says

Remember how President Bush touted all the savings that would be available under his new Medicare discount drug card? You should, he spent some of your tax dollars in television commercials to do it.

Well, it turns out that senior citizen customers won't save nearly as much money as the administration predicted. Why won't seniors save money? Because drug makers hiked the price of their products by three times the rate of inflation in the first three months of this year - just before the government began the discount card program. Popular drugs that battle osteoporosis, cholesterol, and general pain all increased more than average.

"Manufacturers are offsetting discounts with prices that are higher than they otherwise would have been," said AARP Policy Director John Rother. The end result is that consumer prices for drugs like Lipitor (a cholesterol reducer) are essentially unchanged from the pre-discount card days.

Nice.

Read about it here.

Salon.com: The Dark Side of Ralph Nader

From Salon.com:

He's made a career of railing against corporate misdeeds. Yet he himself has abused his underlings, betrayed close friends and ruled his public-interest empire like a dictator.

Read about it here.

Salon.com: Now and Zen

From Salon.com:

On the 20th anniversary of its release, Husker Du's landmark album "Zen Arcade" proves there was way more to '80s music than kitsch, camp and bad haircuts. Read about it here.

Tom the Dancing Bug: More Fist-Flyin' Justice from Judge Scalia

Check out this week's Tom the Dancing Bug. I hate Antonin Scalia. He should get cancer. Seriously. I mean, what kind of world is it when Johnny Ramone gets cancer and Antonin Scalia doesn't?

City Pulse: Lounge-punk is born — Sinatra rolls in his grave

Check out this glowing piece on my friend Anne's band, Skatey-Eight.

FactCheck.org: Anti-Kerry Ad Misses Context, Distorts Facts

From FactCheck.org:

Bush ads released April 26 recycle some distortions of Kerry's voting record on military hardware. We've de-bunked these half-truths before but the Bush campaign persists.

The ads -- many targeted to specific states -- repeat the claim that Kerry opposed a list of mainstream weapons including Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Apache helicopters, and also repeat the claim that he voted against body armor for frontline troops in Iraq. In fact, Kerry voted against a few large Pentagon money bills, of which Bradleys, Apaches and body armor were small parts, but not against those items specifically.

Read about it here.

Salon.com: A-pillaging we will go

From Salon.com:

And you thought Iraq was bad. A new book, "Bush Versus the Environment," details an assault on our air, water and natural resources that beggars the imagination. Read it here.

Le Show: A new pronunciation of Abu Ghraib

Harry Shearer, in his terrific NPR program, Le Show, reports on Bush's THIRD (mis)pronunciation of "Abu Ghraib." Listen to it here.

Tips: You will need to have RealOne Player installed and have your sound up, but not too loud. :)

Salon.com: Nader's "illegal" GOP backers

While the Greens may have taken a pass on Nader this election cycle, this now-brewing scandal remains interesting for what is says about Nader and his usefulness to Bush-Cheney '04. Salon.com's Joe Conason reports that right-wing groups, and Bush-Cheney '04, may have violated federal campaign law to help get Ralph Nader on the ballot in Oregon. Read about it here.

Contraband Reminder

Hi there!

You probably remember my last post about the return of the Contraband program on Modern Rock 91.5. Well, I’ve done three shows so far and they keep getting better...unless you like hearing me screw up. In that case then, maybe it’s not quite as entertaining as the first week might’ve been. :)

But anyway, this is just a reminder of the show’s time and frequency. You can tune in this and every Wednesday night, from 9:00 to 11:00 Eastern, at 91.5 FM in the greater Mount Pleasant area, or here if you are located anywhere else (you need to have Quicktime installed).

I’m playing all your faves from the pre-Nevermind era. Last week I played Wire, Cocteau Twins, Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper, Les Rita Mitsouko, The Minutemen, The Cramps, The Sundays, The Pastels, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Smiths (natch), and New Order.

Also, you can email me requests anytime, though particularly during showtime, at contrabandradio@hotmail.com.

Cheers,

Andy

Wing!

Oh my gosh! You simply MUST listen to Wing! Pick any song. They're ALL brilliant!

Salon.com: How the Democrats Lost the Heartland

Thomas Frank, in this insightful Salon.com interview, discusses how and why worsening economic conditions on the Midwestern plains have only driven voters further to the right, into grass-roots antiabortion activism, campaigns against the teaching of evolution, obsessions with cultural indecency and other largely symbolic crusades, the result being an entire region of the country dominated by an energized, rejuvenated Republican Party that "represents the material interests of the powerful and the cultural obsessions of the powerless, that thumps the Bible with one hand and shreds the tax code with the other."

My favorite quote:

"...there's this alliance between the blue-collar workers and the capitalist elite, in which the former -- in political terms -- are eagerly sacrificing themselves for the latter."

Yeah, that's exactly it! It's what has been puzzling me for so long. I simply don't understand why so many people support the Republican party when it does not support them. I mean, really, if you're not a millionaire or a CEO, why would you vote for these guys? The sad answer, I think: You've been suckered.

Los Angeles Times: Hand-Over Is Political Gamble for Bush

Here (registration required) is a good, thoughtful examination of today's surprise turnover of Iraqi sovereignty.

The Washington Post: Iraq Occupation Erodes Bush Doctrine

From BushRecall.org:

A must-read piece (registration required) in today's Washington Post outlines the four main pillars of the prewar Bush doctrine, and explores how each has been plowed under in the wake of the ongoing struggle in Iraq.

Preemptive strikes, unilateralism, and the belief that Iraq was the next cornerstone in the global war on terror have all been publicly debunked. "Of the four principles, three have failed, and the fourth - democracy promotion - is hanging by a sliver," said Geoffrey Kemp, a National Security Council staff member during the Reagan administration.

"There's already been a retreat from the radicalism in Bush administration foreign policy. You have a feeling that even Bush isn't saying, 'Hey, that was great. Let's do it again,"' said Walter Russell Mead, a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow.

"It's a lesson in hubris. The administration thought it had all the answers, but it found out through painful experience that it did not," said Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the conservative Cato Institute.

For a White House that has repeatedly demonstrated a dangerously flat learning curve, let's hope it's a lesson learned.

The Boston Globe: Billions of Iraqi funds missing

The US-led coalition was placed in charge of $20 billion generated from Iraq's oil and other sources, but financial records have gaping holes. The next Bush scandal? Maybe. Read about it here.

Richard Roeper: 'Fahrenheit 9/11' can't get better buzz than this

Read Richard Roeper's sassy column here.

Roeper is involved in yet another attempt on the part of the MPAA to stifle this film. Because Fahrenheit 9/11 has been rated R, the MPAA told Lion's Gate, the film's distributor, that its ads for the film cannot contain Roeper's quote that "Everyone should see this film." I don't think he was talking about five-year-olds, you stupid motherfuckers. Geez.

Of course, Roeper notes that the MPAA gave Fahrenheit 9/11 an R rating for language and images of real-life violence, while "death-fest action flicks such as 'The Chronicles of Riddick' and 'Van Helsing' have been blessed with the more commercial-friendly PG-13 rating." The thing I don't get is why the MPAA is (seemingly) pro-Bush. Entities like Haliburton and Enron I can understand. But the MPAA? What's their angle?

A rare non-political post from Andy P.

So June is almost over. And so is the first half of 2004. And here I sit, amazed. Listening to Wire. And eating chocolate soy milk ice cream. How are you? :)

I haven't blogged much about the old personal life lately, mostly because there hasn't been one to speak (blog?) of. I am deep into four different books and I am spending every wonderfully, unusually temperate day out on the deck, reading said books. I did, however, go out again last Thursday night, something that looks to become a summertime habit. I've got it down to a science too. I drink my ass off at the Bird all during happy hour, then head over to Mountain Town to drink Jager Bombs, and then finally back to the Bird. By 2AM, I'm the guy driving strangers home because I've long sobered up. Anyway, we had a blast. I met these two super cool girls through one of Mount Pleasant's several other Sloan fans. It was one of those meetings where everyone is giddily asking each other "what is your favorite [blank]? You know. Like favorite Guided By Voices song, favorite Sloan songwriter, or favorite Chris Crutcher book. Cos like Rob says in High Fidelity, it's not what you're like, it's what you like. And we all liked Sloan. So that was fun. They said they will come to the 91.5 staff meeting this Tuesday to see about maybe grabbgin an airshift, so hopefully I'll get to see them again.

Another neat thing about last Thursday night was getting a deeper peek into the outside life of Rachel from Mountain Town. We are so fond of her, Allan and I. She's probably the true reason we like going there. It's not like they have anything left on the menu that I like. And, forgive me, but I've never really liked their beer. No, I think we just made the place a habit because we like her.

And finally, getting into my car at 2AM, I met a dude badly in need of a ride. He was about to get into his old Suburban and he was pretty gone. So I offered him a lift home. Which felt good, going all the way across town for a stranger. But if he ever remembers me, maybe he'll buy me a drink. Or return the favor and drive my butt home some time. it's actually a kindness I could've used the Thursday prior.

In other, non-Thursday night news, Summer Fest was happening here this weekend. And the RNC (Republican National Committee) mobile home was there. Ha! They're gonna need a lot more than that to win Michigan! It'll take something more along the line of massive election fraud. You know, something like what they did in Florida in '00. :) Of course, the worrisome thing is that with electronic voting machines, that won't be nearly as difficult to achieve as it used to be. I love that California disallowed those machines. We should do the same. I'd gladly take another Florida debacle over never again being able to re-count any votes. I mean, that's nuts.

...Um, how did I get started? Oh yeah. Anyway, I wasn't planning to go down to Summer Fest this year, but hearing that they were there, well, I strongly considered popping by, you know, if they hadn't already been run out of town on a rail, wearing my anti-Bush shirt, and maybe sticking a banana in their tailpipe, ala Beverly Hills Cop. The thought of vandalizing that thing was simply too intoxicating. But, alas, I was too busy to terrorize the GOP. Besides, they have their hands full with the majority of moviegoers this weekend going to see Fahrenheit 9/11. In the words of Nelson Muntz, HA ha!

Finally, one of my favorite Sloan lyrics goes:

The only good thing about the weekend, baby,
is that Monday's two days away.

I kinda feel that way myself. There's something about sitting out on the deck all day during a weekday that just seems more...decadent, like I'm not contributing to the GNP at all and I don't even care. :)

Have a great week...unless I hate you. ;)

Nader Neutralized?

Looks like it. The Green Party did not endorse Ralph Nader for president this week, dealing his campaign a serious blow.

In a word, FUCKYEAH! Now I don't have to fucking shoot him in the face with a sawed off shotgun, the stupid sonofabitch.

NPR's Andrea Seabrook speaks with Ronald Rappaport, government professor at the College of William and Mary, about Nader's candidacy. Listen to it here.

Tips: You will need to have RealOne Player installed and have your sound up, but not too loud. :)

The rise and fall of Jack Ryan

While I am quite happy to see a Republican take a hit, any hit, I'd have to be a massive hypocrite to say that I think that this political sex scandal is really any more our collective business than were those of President Clinton. It's kind of a shame that the details of a man's consensual, albeit mildly kinky, sexual activity with his ex-wife became public knowledge. Even if he IS a Republican. But then again, they sure as fuck seem to keep their noses in everyone else's bedroom business. So maybe turnabout is fair play. Ah, whatever. Fuck him for being a Republican. Simple as that. A win is a win.

Anyway, if you still want to read about it, go here. Interestingly, you might recognize his ex-wife, particularly if you watched Boston Public. :)

Why do you liberals hate America so much?

Here is a fucking hilarious new This Modern World comic by Tom Tomorrow.

Al Gore: "Democracy itself is in grave danger"

Former Vice President, and MY President, Al Gore charges that the Bush administration's use of executive power goes beyond the pale.

Okay, where was THIS fiery Al Gore back in 2000?! THIS Al Gore might not've let them steal the election away from him. And now that it's looking like Kerry's going to win this thing, Al must really be kicking himself for not running again this year. Maybe he'll get a gig in the Kerry cabinet. Frankly, Secretary of State doesn't seem too off the mark. And it'll drive the neocons crazy! :) Man, I can't wait until November 2nd. Four months to go!

Oh. Yeah. Read his latest speech, this time to the American Constitution Society at Georgetown University (on June 24th) here.

Associated Press: 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Sets Documentary Record

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 took in a whopping $21.8 million in its first three days, becoming the first documentary ever to debut as Hollywood's top weekend film. Read about it here.