The Hollywood Liberal

Late Late Night FDL: Hooked Bear
Humphrey the Bear and Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore — Hooked Bear. This Walt Disney Studios cartoon was released on April 27, 1956.

Humphrey the Bear and Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore — Hooked Bear.  This Walt Disney Studios cartoon was released on April 27, 1956.

Directed by Jack Hannah.  Produced by Walt Disney.  Story by Al Bertino and David Detiege (as Dave Detiege).  Animation by Bob Carlson, Al Coe, Bill Justice, and John Sibley.  Backgrounds by Claude Coats.  Layouts by Yale Gracey.  Visual Effects by Dan MacManus.  Voices by (in alphabetical order) James MacDonald (Humphrey the Bear) and Bill Thompson (Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore). Original Music by Oliver Wallace.

Grab your popcorn, put your feet up on the seatback in front of ya, and aim your spitballs at the ushers please. This is Late Late Night FireDogLake, where off topic is the topic … so dive in.  What’s on your mind?

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Sunday Talking Heads: July 17, 2011
Happy morning! I hope your pancakes are almost ready. Hmm, I wonder what our Marion has to offer. Our friend Cindy Kouril is hosting Book Salon today, don’t miss it. The book is The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror. Our Book Salon scheduler Bev has an uncanny sense of timing for things, note that FBI Director Muellar is currently up confirmation for a continuation of his tenure. So join in the discussion, 5pm ET. And tomorrow, Lisa has a special Movie Night, as you can see from the poster on the right. Personally, I have some serious doubts about Celebrity Rehab, what with the recent and most unfortunate death of Jeff Conaway, perhaps if he had been encouraged/allowed to detox and go clean out of the limelight, he’d be alive today. But Bob Forrest is a *Monster* in the recovery community, so it will be a Movie Night to remember, Lisa scores once again.

(click to embiggen)

Happy morning! I hope your pancakes are almost ready. Hmm, I wonder what our Marion has to offer.

Our friend Cindy Kouril is hosting Book Salon today, don’t miss it. The book is The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror. Our Book Salon scheduler, Bev, has an uncanny sense of timing for things, note that FBI Director Muellar is currently up for (re?)confirmation for a continuation of his tenure. So join in the discussion, 5pm ET.

And tomorrow, Lisa has a special Movie Night, as you can see from the poster on the right. Personally, I have some serious doubts about Celebrity Rehab, what with the recent and most unfortunate death of Jeff Conaway, perhaps if he had been encouraged/allowed to detox and go clean out of the limelight, he’d be alive today. But Bob Forrest is a *Monster* in the recovery community, so it will be a Movie Night to remember, Lisa scores once again.

Susie Madrak hosts Virtually Speaking this evening with Culture of Truth, who weekly gives us the Bobblespeak Translations of the Sunday Talking Heads.

Lastly, best of luck to the USA ladies in the FIFA World Cup finals this afternoon.  USA! USA! USA!  As Scarecrow notes: “Hurray!  Finally, something worthwhile on Sunday.  The Women’s World Cup final will be on ESPN, with prelims starting about 2:45 p.m. Eastern.  Until then, none of the people on the Sunday talk shows will say anything that will make you feel better.”

On to the listings:

Washington Journal.

ABC’s This Week: Debt ceiling – Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jacob Lew. Then, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ). Debt Ceiling Roundtable: George Will, Cokie Roberts, Matt Dowd, Jonathan Karl, as well as freshman Tea Party member Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID). Also, he Murdoch scandal with The New Yorker’s media columnist Ken Auletta. Ending with a preview of the women’s World Cup final by ESPN analyst and 1999 World Cup star Brandi Chastain.

CBS’ Face the Nation: Debt ceiling – Democratic Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

CNN State of the Union: Debt ceiling – Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jacob Lew. Then, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The presidential ambitions of
Rudy Giuliani.  Ending with former Biden chief of staff, Ron Klain, and former GOP Rep. Tom Davis.

Chris Matthews: Big Irony: If the GOP Denies Barack Obama A Debt Package, Does It Boost Obama For 2012?  Michele Bachmann and Her Family Clinic’s Therapy For Gays.

Fareed Zakaria – GPS: Debt ceiling – Larry Summers.  [“Few people understand the American economy better than Larry Summers”] Egypt, Syria, Brazil, and global warming also.

Fox News Sunday: Debt stuff and some 2012 horse racing. Roundtable: Bill Kristol, John Podesta, Liz Cheney, Juan Williams.

NBC’s Meet the Press: Debt ceiling – Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jacob Lew. Then, “Tea party favorite” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Assistant Majority Leader Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). Roundtable: Gov. John Kasich (R-OH); Chairman and CEO of Honeywell, David Cote; former mayor of New Orleans, now president of the National Urban League, Marc Morial; Chief Economist for Mesirow Financial, Diane Swonk; CNBC’s David Faber.

Newsmakers: Gov. Christine Gregoire (D-WA) said on Newsmakers that governors are concerned about proposed federal budget cuts’ impact on the states. She said cuts to Medicare are a particular concern.  “You have to know the consequences of that,” she said.  She also said she is concerned about federal budget cuts’ impact on education, which she said will have a negative long-term impact on the country.  “We can’t cut education too much,” the Governor said.  And more. …

Q & A: Photographer Carol Highsmith. In 1980, when the historic Willard Hotel was being renovated, Carol Highsmith asked to photograph the rundown icon of Washington, DC. In doing so, she discovered the work of Francis Benjamin Johnston, who had photographed the then lavish hotel in 1901. Johnston’s photographs were being used by contractors in the renovation process. In researching her work, Highsmith found that Johnston had photographed several presidential administrations, treaty signings, etc.  And more. …

Religion & Ethics.

60 Minutes: Silver or Lead – Report on the murder of the mayor of a Mexican city, where powerful drug gangs seem to be giving authorities a choice of “silver or lead” – join us and we will pay you or don’t and we’ll kill you. The Gambler – Las Vegas sports betting legend Bill Walters has never had a losing year — a winning a streak that’s made odds makers call him the “most dangerous sports bettor in Nevada.” In Search of Jaguars – “60 Minutes” went in search of the most elusive of all of nature’s big cats, the jaguar, and captured amazing footage of them in the Brazilian jungle.

To The Contrary: Topics: How the debt ceiling negotiations impact women. A controversial proposal to remove severely obese children from their homes. The effect gender selection in Asian countries will have worldwide.  Panelists: Conservative Commentator Dana White; Citizen Engagement Laboratory’s Erica Williams; National Organization for Women President Terry O’Neill; and Conservative Commentator Wendy Wright.

Univision’s Al Punto: Claudia Paz y Paz, Attorney General of Guatemala; Javier Sicilia, Mexican Writer and Poet, Leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity; Michelle Rhee, Former Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools and Founder of StudentsFirst.org; Luis Enrique, Award-winning Artist.

Virtually Speaking: Culture of Truth and Susie Madrak “consider developments of the week, highlighting issues neglected or misrepresented on the Sunday morning broadcasts of traditional media.”

C-SPAN’s Book TV.

FDL’s Book Salon: The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror. “The story of a small group of FBI agents who believed that they could confront a new generation of international terrorists like al Qaeda without sacrificing America’s moral high ground. At the heart of this classic good versus evil battle are decades of tensions between the FBI and the CIA, which repeatedly fell short as America’s eyes overseas.”
Chat with Garret M. Graff about his new book, hosted by Cynthia Kouril. Join in, 5pm ET.

FDL’s Movie Night Monday: Bob and the Monster, “with guests writer/director Keirda Bahruth, producers Rick Ballard and Austin Wilkins, editor Joshua Altman, and the film’s subject, musician cum world-renown drug counselor Bob Forrest, who joined us in March 2009 to chat about his careers in both music and rehab.”  It all happens Monday evening at 8pm ET, join us.

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Peas Talks

By RJ Matson, Cagle Cartoons, The St. Louis Post Dispatch

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On Fox, Wash. Post ‘s Lane Asks For Its Emails About Obama — We Deliver

While participating in a panel discussion about new emails purportedly showing “White House Bias” against Fox News, Washington Post editorial writer Charles Lane commented that he’d “like to see the internal emails here at Fox about the Obama administration” as a contrast. Lane is in luck. Internal emails obtained by Media Matters have shown attempts by Fox News executive Bill Sammon to slant news coverage against President Obama and his policies.

Judicial Watch Claims Emails Show White House “Attacked, Excluded” Fox

Judicial Watch: Obama White House “Attempted To Exclude” Fox From Interviews “Executive Pay Czar.” From a July 14 Judicial Watch press release headlined “Documents Show Obama White House Attacked, Excluded Fox News Channel”:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered documents from the Obama Department of Treasury showing that the Obama administration, contrary to its repeated denials, attempted to exclude the Fox News Channel (FNC) from a round of interviews with Treasury’s “Executive Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The documents, which include email exchanges within the Department of the Treasury and between Treasury and White House staff, also provide colorful evidence of an anti-Fox News bias within the Obama White House. [PRNewswire.com, 7/14/11]

On Fox, Lane Says He’d “Like To See The Internal Emails Here At Fox” About Obama

Wash. Post‘s Lane: “Frankly, I’d Like To See The Internal Emails Here At Fox About The Obama Administration. Maybe A Few Things Would Turn Up That Wouldn’t Look So Great.” From Special Report with Bret Baier:

SHANNON BREAM (guest host): This is a White House — they made a decision regarding access to interviewing a senior Treasury official. It’s their decision. Ethically, though, how should they go about deciding who’s in and who’s out?

LANE: Well, this goes back to ’09, the first year of the administration. David Axelrod attempting to get the rest of the quote-unquote mainstream media to kind of ostracize Fox News. That really failed very badly, and they’ve since backpedaled off of that.

So I think Jay Carney is right. This is, in a way, old news. A couple of emails? Frankly, I’d like to see the internal emails here at Fox about the Obama administration. Maybe a few things would turn up that wouldn’t look so great.

And you know, they — they are very — any kind of press coverage that they don’t like really gets under their skin. I can tell you that from my experience at the Post. This to me is not that big a deal as Tom Fitton seems to describe it. Somebody calls Bret a lunatic, which of course is not true, in an email. So I pronounce it a non-story. [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 7/14/11]

Fox Emails Show Attempts To Slant News Against Obama And His Policies

Fox News Executive Admitted To Lying Obama Advocat[ing] Socialism” — As Referenced In Internal Email

Sammon Email Stresses “References To Socialism, Liberalism, Marxism And Marxists” In Obama’s Memoir. From a 2008 email sent by Bill Sammon, then Fox News’ deputy Washington managing editor and now its Washington managing editor, and obtained by Media Matters:

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 1:02 PM
To: 069 -Politics; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com)
Subject: fyi: Obama’s references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists in his autobiography, “Dreams from My Father.” Plus a couple of his many self-described “racial obsessions”…

* “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.” (Obama writing about his time at Occidental College in “Dreams.”)

* After his sophomore year, Obama transferred to Columbia University. He lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for “thesocialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union,” he recalled, adding: “Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother, who to the end of her life would proudly proclaim herself an unreconstructed liberal.”

* After graduating from Columbia in 1983, Obama spent a year working for a consulting firm and then went to work for “a Ralph Nader offshoot” in Harlem. “In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia. At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature.”

During this period, according to Obama, he began a serious romantic relationship.

* “There was a woman in New York that I loved. She was white,” Obama wrote in “Dreams.” “We saw each other for almost a year. On the weekends, mostly. Sometimes in her apartment, sometimes in mine. You know how you can fall into your own private world? Just two people, hidden and warm. Your own language. Your own customs.” But Obama said their relationship was doomed by the racial difference. “I pushed her away,” he recalled.”The emotion between the races could never be pure; even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing from ourselves. Whether we sought out our demons or salvation, the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”

* In June 1985, Obama was interviewed in New York by Marty Kaufman, a community organizer from Chicago. Obama recalled: “There was something about him that made me wary. A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.” [Media Matters, 2/1/11]

Show Notes Written In Preparation For Fox & Friends The Next Day Included The Subject Line Of Sammon’s Email Word-For-Word. Sammon also appeared on that episode. [Media Matters, 2/1/11]

Sammon Later Admitted That He Had Lied On-Air “About Whether Barack Obama Really Advocated Socialism.” Speaking on a 2009 Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Sammon described his attempts the previous year to link Obama to “socialism” as “mischievous speculation.” Sammon acknowledged that “privately” he had believed that the socialism allegation was “rather far-fetched.” [Media Matters, 3/29/11]

Sammon Email Instructed Fox Journalists To Use GOP Term To Describe “Public Option”

Sammon’s “Friendly Reminder”: “Please Use The Term “Government-Run Health Insurance.” From Media Matters:

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM
To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Subject: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”

1)      Please use the term “government-run health insurance” or, when brevity is a concern, “government option,” whenever possible.

2)      When it is necessary to use the term “public option” (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon), use the qualifier “so-called,” as in “the so-called public option.”

3)      Here’s another way to phrase it: “The public option, which is the government-run plan.”

4)      When newsmakers and sources use the term “public option” in our stories, there’s not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct. [Media Matters, 12/9/10]

Michael Clemente, Senior VP For News, Replied That Sammon’s Third Phrasing Was “The Preferred Way To Say It, Write It, Use It.” From Media Matters:

From: Clemente, Michael
To: Sammon, Bill; 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Sent: Tue Oct 27 08:45:29 2009
Subject: RE: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”

Thank you Bill

#3 on your list is the preferred way to say it, write it, use it.

Michael Clemente

SVP-News

212.XXX.XXXX [Media Matters, 12/9/10]

Sammon Email Became Major Anti-Obama Talking Point For Fox’s Coverage Of Cairo Speech

After Obama’s 2009 Speech In Cairo, Sammon Wrote That The President Hadn’t Used Any Iteration Of The Word “Terror.” From Media Matters:

From: Sammon, Bill 
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 9:23 AM
To: 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 036 -FOX.WHU; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Cc: Clemente, Michael; Stack, John; Wallace, Jay
Subject: FYI: My cursory check of Obama’s 6,000-word speech to the Muslim world did not turn up the words “terror,” “terrorist” or “terrorism” [Media Matters, 2/8/11]

But Sammon’s Criticism Was Misleading: Obama Talked At Length About Taking On Al Qaeda, Other “Violent Extremists.” Obama devoted a significant section of his remarks to denouncing and confronting Al Qaeda and other “violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security.” Sammon’s criticism also disregarded the analyses of Middle East and terrorism experts who viewed Obama’s word choice as an effort to remove as a source of tension terms that, through overuse and misuse, have become incendiary in the Muslim world. [Media Matters, 2/8/11]

Fox Hosts And Reporters Repeatedly Used Sammon’s Talking Point. Shortly after Sammon sent his email, he appeared on America’s Newsroom, and host Megyn Kelly asked him what he made of Obama not mentioning “terror, the war on terror, or terrorism.” Sammon responded, “Well, I make of it that he has taken us off a war footing as a nation.” Kelly also hosted former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, who commented that Obama “didn’t mention the word ‘terrorism’ once in the speech.” Fox personalities Shepard Smith, Bret Baier, Wendell Goler, Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, and Steve Doocy subsequently used Sammon’s “terror” framing to discuss and analyze Obama’s speech. [Media Matters, 2/8/11]

Fox Has Repeatedly Covered Judicial Watch Emails As Evidence Of “White House Bias”

Camerota Said Emails Represented “The Obama Administration’s Handling Of The Media.” From America Live, guest-hosted by Alisyn Camerota:

[Fox News, America Live, 7/14/11]

Fox & Friends Graphics Claim Emails Are Evidence Of “Bias” Against Fox, Suggest Fox Is A White House “Target.” From Fox & Friends:

[Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/14/11]

Goldberg: Obama Administration “Not The First” To “Go To War With The News Media, But I Don’t Think This Administration Wants To Be Compared To Richard Nixon.” From The O’Reilly Factor, featuring Fox News contributor Bernie Goldberg:

[Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, 7/14/11]

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With Arctic Ice at Record Low, NSIDC Director Serreze says ?we are on track to see an ice-free summer by 2030. It is an overall downward spiral.?
Ice extent (from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 2011 in red). We’re at a record low Arctic sea ice extent and volume: The area of the Arctic ocean at least 15% covered in ice is … lower than the previous record low set in 2007 – according to satellite monitoring by the US National Snow […]

Ice extent (from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 2011 in red).

We’re at a record low Arctic sea ice extent and volume:

The area of the Arctic ocean at least 15% covered in ice is … lower than the previous record low set in 2007 – according to satellite monitoring by the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado. In addition, new data from the University of Washington Polar Science Centre, shows that the thickness of Arctic ice this year is also the lowest on record.

In the past 10 days, the Arctic ocean has been losing as much as 150,000 square kilometres of sea a day, said Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC.

“The extent [of the ice cover] is going down, but it is also thinning. So a weather pattern that formerly would melt some ice, now gets rid of much more. There will be ups and downs, but we are on track to see an ice-free summer by 2030. It is an overall downward spiral.“

The trend is painfully obvious to all who aren’t blinded by ideology.  Indeed, many, including me, believe we’ll see virtually ice-free summers within a decade.

What do the experts — and deniers — predict for the September sea ice extent minimum?  The Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) has released its second Sea Ice Outlook report for July.  Just about all the cryo-scientists think the Arctic will easily beat last year’s minimum:

We received 16 responses for the Pan-Arctic report (Figure 1), with estimates in the range of 4.0 to 5.5 million square kilometers for the September arctic mean sea ice extent. The median value was 4.6 million square kilometers; the quartile values were 4.3 and 4.7 million square kilometers, a rather narrow range given the intrinsic uncertainty of the estimates on the order of 0.5 million square kilometers. It is important to note for context that all 2011 estimates are well below the 1979–2007 September climatological mean of 6.7 million square kilometers.

It’s good that SEARCH has clearly posted the anti-science site WattsUpWithThat projection.  WUWT have been insisting for years that the ice has been getting thicker, when it has in fact been thinning, and last year they tried to rewrite history and claim that they hadn’t guessed wildly too high (see “Disinformers puzzled by reality, try to game prediction contest“).  Doesn’t look like they will be any closer to reality this year.

Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice Blog has more details on what’s going on up North.  He ends his post:

July 2011 could match or even beat July 2007.  Somebody call the UN. We are witnessing cryocide. 😉

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