TPM Muckraker has found the next late-night sensation - a birther infomercial entitled "Where Was President Obama Born." It's already received the usual 1:00-in-the-morning airing on at least one local TV station in Texas. The United States Justice Foundation, a Birther front group led by the aptly named Gary Kreep, paid $100 to the CBS affiliate in Lubbock for the privilege of gracing their airwaves. That seems like money well spent for the Birthers for reaching a few thousand eyeballs or so and filling them with wingnut ideology. But that's not the true purpose.
For a $30 contribution, viewers also get a fax sent in their name to the 50 state attorneys general and Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that President Obama produce his real birth certificate.
Getting 4 suckers to fork over $30 for nothing covers their whole expense, and looking at the production values, producing the episode didn't cost much more than $100 either. This is pure conservative hucksterism, where a few people make money off of whipping up fears for no real purpose.
And Bill Keller, the host of the birthermercial, is perfectly positioned to be that huckster - he's a fundamentalist preacher:
The program was produced by LivePrayer.com, a Web site affiliated with Bill Keller, a fundamentalist Christian minister who also hosts the infomercial.
Imprisoned in the late 1980s after an insider trading conviction, Keller later committed his life to God, attended Liberty University in Virginia, and founded Bill Keller Ministries, according to his bio. LivePrayer.com was "founded for the sole purpose of having a site on the internet where people can go 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for prayer."
This has about as much of a chance at dislodging Barack Obama from office as the Sham-Wow, but both infomercials have the same goal - to get rich off of selling you garbage. Sadly, there are probably enough morons in America to make Gary Kreep and Bill Keller very wealthy men.
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Rachel Maddow visited the set of the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and talked about her bout with the swine flu, the tea baggers and going to a shooting range on her first date with her partner Susan Mikula.
Later Rachel showed Jimmy and announcer Steve Higgins how to make a White Lady coctail.
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(Alfred W. McCoy, author of A Question of Torture, interviewed on Late Night Live - ABC Radio National, Australia. March 15, 2006)
Note: This is a re-post from May - considering the current events in the torture issue, it seems apropos to take another look at it now.
I'm always amazed at how, in order to get any information about my own country, I have to listen to the radio or watch the news from another country in order to find out what's going on.
If you aren't familiar with it, ABC Radio National is Australias public Radio network - it's the equivalent to the BBC in the UK and CBC in Canada. Like the other two, ABC National offers a massive amount of information and news that just doesn't make the mainstream media here.
Case in point - I ran across this episode of Late Night Live, while downloading a group of podcasts from 2006. It features torture/interrogation expert Alfred W. McCoy. He explains at length our history in the field of torture, the techniques used and the reasons why most of them don't and haven't worked.
It was conducted in March of 2006, shortly after the revelations of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. There are some fascinating insights to be found, especially in light of recent developments and soft peddling to the contrary.
