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Thom Hartmann takes our corporate media and the cheerleaders for war with Iraq to task and ten years after our invasion, asks 'Where are the apologies?'

Via Truthout: How the Media Fueled the War in Iraq:

Yesterday, the U.S. marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. And, over the course of the past ten years, we've learned more and more about how the war with Iraq actually started.

It's incredibly easy to blame the Bush administration for its lies that led us into Iraq. But Cheney, Rumsfeld and company weren't the only ones who played an integral role in convincing this nation that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that WMD's were a forgone conclusion.

In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, corporate media – and even NPR and PBS - were abuzz with the talking points of the Bush Administration, echoing claims that Iraq had its hands on "yellow cake uranium" and that it had a massive arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction."

Thanks to the media's repeated claims that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were immediate threats to our nation, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, nearly three-quarters of Americans believed the lie promoted by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks of 9/11.

One of the biggest proponents of the Iraq War was Bill O'Reilly.

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Apparently Dylan Ratigan inserting himself into the Occupy Wall Street has got the folks over at TeaNN terribly upset, since Howard Kurtz decided to spend a segment carping about it on his show that claims to report on media bias, Reliable Sources. And apparently Kurtz believes someone who was a former Trent Lott staffer and now an anchor on Glenn Beck's GBTV, Amy Holmes, qualifies as some sort of objective "journalist" to weigh in on Ratigan's advocacy of the #OWS protests.

Kurtz's panel also included The Washington Post's Dana Milbank and PBS' Terence Smith, who like Holmes thought it was just awful that someone who appears on a "news network" like Ratigan would openly show support for the Wall Street protesters, also defended the firing of Lisa Simeone from NPR for openly advocating for the protesters as well. So much for free speech. James Fallows at The Atlantic has more on that here as well.

They also discussed the AstroTurf "tea party" being openly supported by pundits over at Fox "News", but what was missing here was any mention whatsoever of the fact that CNN was every bit as big of a cheerleader for that "movement" as anyone at Fox was. They sent their reporters to be embedded on their buses and if you had twenty of these people showing up anywhere, there were CNN reporters there to cover it and make sure those protests or town hall meetings made it into the national spotlight.

And what other network besides CNN has allowed the "tea party" to co-host their presidential primary debates? None. But they're going to talk about Fox supporting them as though that happened in a vacuum and their network wasn't participating in propping up that Koch brothers, FreedomWorks, Dick Armey, and friends corporate sponsored fiasco of that as well.

Matt Taibbi responded to the recent dust-up over the hacked emails from himself, Ratigan and others at his Rolling Stone blog here -- Why Rush Limbaugh Is Freaking Out About Occupy Wall Street.

Full transcript below the fold.

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A broadcaster who hosts several programs that air on NPR was reportedly fired Wednesday for her participation in Occupy DC after conservative websites suggested "apparent ethics violations."

Lisa Simeone said Thursday that she was read NPR's code of ethics as she was fired as the host of Soundprint.

She also works as a freelance host on NPR's World of Opera.

"We recently learned of World of Opera host Lisa Simeone's participation in an Occupy DC group," NPR's Anna Christopher wrote. "World of Opera is produced by WDAV, a music and arts station based in Davidson, North Carolina. The program is distributed by NPR. Lisa is not an employee of NPR or of WDAV; she is a freelancer with the station."

"We're in conversations with WDAV about how they intend to handle this. We of course take this issue very seriously."

NPR had not confirmed the firing and WDAV still had her photograph on their site at time of publication,

In a video posted to YouTube in July, Simeone declared her intentions to participate in the October occupation of DC.

"I'm going to Washington, D.C. on October 6 because our moment has come," she said. "Life, peace, justice. That's what we want. That's what we're going to demand... We're not leaving. We're not just going to go there and march around with signs. We're going, we're going to sit down on that nice cold ground for however long we have to, how ever many days, however many weeks. We're going to stay and we are going to demand that our leaders listen to us."

Simeone's alleged firing comes just one day after conservative websites The Daily Caller and Fox News suggested that she had broken NPR's ethics rules by becoming an activist.

"I find it puzzling that NPR objects to my exercising my rights as an American citizen -- the right to free speech, the right to peaceable assembly -- on my own time in my own life," Simeone told WarIsACrime.org's David Swanson, a noted peace activist. "I'm not an NPR employee. I'm a freelancer. NPR doesn't pay me. I'm also not a news reporter. I don't cover politics."

"This sudden concern with my political activities is also surprising in light of the fact that Mara Liaason reports on politics for NPR yet appears as a commentator on FoxTV, Scott Simon hosts an NPR news show yet writes political op-eds for national newspapers, Cokie Roberts reports on politics for NPR yet accepts large speaking fees from businesses. Does NPR also send out 'Communications Alerts' about their activities?"

The Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik predicted that Simeone would also find herself out of a job as the host of NPR's World of Opera by the end of the day Thursday.

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Keith Olbermann and Sam Seder discuss the latest on the Occupy Wall Street protests. As Fran already mentioned in her open thread post here at C&L, NPR cited these reasons for their lack of coverage of the protests:

The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective.

As Sam and Keith noted, with the arrival of Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon and Cornel West at the protests, there goes one of their excuses. And as they discussed, after the recent police brutality by the NYPD macing non-violent protesters, it appears the number of people coming out to protest has now gone up again.

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Fox News reaired a segment they originally ran on their business channel earlier this week where John Stossel attempted to rehabilitate the reputation of the ambush "journalist" James O'Keefe. All I can say is I hope these two just gave anyone who is suing this hatchet man some extra material to work with.

Media Matters caught this earlier in the week and has more -- Stossel Rehabs O'Keefe In Absurd Segment On Undercover Sting Videos:

On the April 21 broadcast of Fox Business' Stossel, John Stossel hosted disgraced right-wing filmmaker James O'Keefe to debate privacy rights of those targeted by undercover sting videos. During the segment, which was rebroadcast April 23 on the Fox News Channel, Stossel praised the so-called success of O'Keefe's sting videos against ACORN and NPR, but at no point did he mention that O'Keefe's videos were found to be deceptively edited. Moreover, Stossel falsely claimed that O'Keefe is "careful not to go to" states with two party filming consent laws, when, in fact, O'Keefe has conducted his undercover video operations in several states with law prohibiting such activities.

As Media Matters has repeatedly noted, O'Keefe has been widely criticized for deceptively editing his videos. For instance, O'Keefe's ACORN videos were found to be edited to falsely suggest criminal violations by ACORN employees. Then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown's office conducted an investigation into the ACORN videos that concluded there was no evidence of illegal activity by ACORN, and that O'Keefe's videos were deceptively edited to suggest otherwise. According to Brown: "[T]hings are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." Glenn Beck's website, The Blaze, compared the raw video footage of O'Keefe's video hit against NPR executives and found that the video was edited to "intentionally lie or mislead." NPR contributor David Folkenflik also asked independent consultants to review both the edited video and the raw footage, and wrote of their findings: [...]

Given the wealth of real investigative journalists who conduct their important work in an ethical manner, it is simply unfathomable why Stossel would stoop to hosting O'Keefe as a pillar of investigative journalism. After all, this is the same guy who recently was caught trying to frame CNN correspondent Abby Boudreau by attempting to seduce her on a boat filled with sex toys. Stossel has certainly hit some low points during the course of his career, but this one just may take the cake.

More there so go read the rest. I've got to agree with Media Matters' Julie Millican. This very well may be a new low even for the likes of Stossel.

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I guess now that we've decided we can afford to help with air strikes against another country that has a lot of oil that we might be concerned about, we can continue to tell the tax payers that we're broke and cannot afford to pay for those horrible entitlement programs that you working slugs were expecting like your Social Security and your Medicaid programs. And never mind raising taxes on the "job creators" because their needs must be met at all times whether they're creating jobs overseas for slave wages or anywhere for that matter. If you're a corporation that does business in the United States, you must be coddled to.

And you stinking low life union thugs must STFU if you don't like any of this, because you of course are the source of all of our problems and draining the taxpayers in America of their hard earned money. And if you're a dirty f-king hippie organization like NPR, you must be defunded because we can't have our taxpayer dollars being spent on any evil liberal ideology being spread around to the rural areas of the country.

And of course we can afford this -- it never means raising taxes on the rich. From my buddy Scarce who helps me here and shared this with our group.

Deep Thought -- U.S. fires 110 tomahawk missiles, each costs $569,000. That's more than 5 years of NPR federal funding in less than an hour.

We've got to have our priorities, don't you know.

I am really disgusted with what's been going on in Libya and Gadhafi's actions, but am also really cynical about our decision to go in there. We're supporting dictators that are as bad as Gadhaifi and treating their citizens just as badly, but we're not doing anything about that or helping to overturn those regimes.

If the uprisings in the Middle East and Africa don't start a conversation about what's wrong with our foreign policy and what we can and cannot afford to pay for at home and what we should and should not be supporting, I don't know what will.

The interview with Fawaz Gerges is available at CNN's website.

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Bill Maher took a shot at Republicans in his New Rules segment for showing us that they have absolutely no interest in governing and instead just trying to whip their base up into a frenzy fear mongering over the latest faux outrage of the day.

MAHER: New Rule – Fantasies are for sex, not public policy. When you go down the list of useless distractions that make up the Republican Party agenda; public unions and Sharia law, anchor babies and a mosque at ground zero, ACORN and National Public Radio, the war on Christmas, the New Black Panthers, Planned Parenthood, Michelle Obama’s war on desserts…

…you realize that one reason nothing gets done in America is that one of the political parties puts so much more into fantasy problems. Governing this country with Republicans is like rooming with a meth addict.

You want to address real life problems like when the rent is due and they’re saying “How can you even think of that stuff when there’s police scanner voices coming out of the air conditioning unit?”

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Rep. Marsha Blackburn took to the House floor this Thursday during the debate over NPR's government funding and she basically laid out their game plan for rural areas that are going to be harmed by these cuts -- let them start over with new programming instead of airing NPR's content. Anyone else think that content that will be replaced by anything other than the equivalent of Fox "News" and right wing talk?

And she also took a shot at NPR's listeners who are apparently all rich, latte drinking snobby liberals who should be able to afford to keep the network on the air on their own... unless of course you consider those rural areas that are going to be hit the hardest by these cuts.

House Republicans continually cited the discredited tapes from James O’Keefe as a reason to cut off funding for the network during the debate and also pretended that this was done out of some deep concern for our budget deficit woes, even though they haven’t expressed similar concerns for busting the budget with illegal invasions that weren’t even put on the books or tax cuts for the rich.

Blackburn’s assertion that they did this because they have one iota of concern for the budget deficit is laughable. As the Democrats continually pointed out during the House floor debate, this was done purely for ideological reasons and nothing else. They want our public fed a steady stream of right wing propaganda and dumbed down with as little access to news that isn’t influenced by their agenda as possible, and this is just one more step in assuring that happens.

I'd say that Blackburn and her ilk should be ashamed of themselves for this, but they've long ago proven that they just have no shame.

Today's newest effort to de-fund NPR in the House of Representatives came with a debate that had moments which must be seen and savored. On the serious side, there was Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who reminded the House that the airwaves belong to citizens, not corporations.

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His points were well-taken, but of course they fell on deaf ears. Eric Cantor actually managed to come to the floor and cite the O'Keefe NPR slam, which even Glenn Beck's site managed to debunk. So then Anthony Weiner comes to the floor, and spices things up a bit.

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The transcript will not do Weiner's speech justice, but here it is anyway:

Crisis averted, ladies and gentlemen. What a relief. What a relief. I'm glad we got the economy back going, I'm glad we've secured our nuclear power plants, I'm so glad the Americans are back to work. We finally found out our problem. We discovered a target that we can all agree upon.

It's these guys. This is the problem, it's Click & Clack, the Tappet Brothers. We're finally getting rid of them. Thank God we solved this problem for the country. Now let's look at them. Let's look at the record here.

For one, they talk in that Boston accent. Cah tawk? It's a car. It's a car, ladies and gentlemen. I need to call Congresswoman Capuano whenever they're on the air.

Secondly, they talk about master cylinders and slave cylinders. It's kinky! And so I am glad my Republican friends are finally getting to the bottom of this.

And then with all the giggling and snorting they do every week on their show, it's got to be some kind of a code. They're clearly talking to the Russians or the Chinese or something with all that giggling and snorting.

It is why I'm so relieved that we had this emergency session that we waived the rules of the House to require 72 hours so we finally get these guys off my radio. Click & Clack the Tappet Brothers on Car Talk. I know it. Because these guys clearly are political. Well, I don't know if they're political, they make no sense about most of what they say. But you know, I'm glad we're finally not going to have to listen to them. I'm glad the Republican party finally said enough of Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers.

That clearly was what the American people said in campaign 2010, clearly it's in their Contract with America or something, right? Get rid of Click and Clack? It's about time. I have to tell you something, because the last thing we want is informative solutions to how we fix our cars and the Car Talk puzzler. And think about the people we're finally going to put out of work. You know, their customer care rep, Heywouldjoobuzzoff? (I'll tell you how to spell that later, I say to the stenographer) And the director of ethics, Youlyinsack. All of these guys that are finally going to be taken off the public payroll.

The Republican Party. No one can say they're not in touch. They get it. They understand where the American people are. The American people are not concerned about jobs and the economy, what's going on around the world.

They're staring at their radio, saying get rid of Click and Clack. Finally my Republican friends are doing it. Kudos to you.

[applause]

Update: The bill passes 228-192.

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Looks like Chris Wallace was in the mood to give Breitbart's buddy James O'Keefe, another plug this week as his "Power Player of the Week." Wallace's omissions about O'Keefe's record were nearly as bad as O'Keefe's deceptive video editing. Shameful.

Media Matters has more -- Wallace's "Power Player" Designation For O'Keefe Ignores His History Of Deception:

For the second time, Chris Wallace named James O'Keefe Fox News Sunday's "Power Player of the Week." But Wallace ignored O'Keefe's history of discredited claims and allegations that O'Keefe deceptively edits his videos, including the NPR video that earned him the latest "Power Player" designation. [...]

Wallace Touted ACORN Sting, Promoted Upcoming Video Release. Wallace began his "Power Player of the Week" segment by touting O'Keefe's ability to go after "big targets" and get "stunning results," regardless of "[w]hether you admire or condemn his tactics." Wallace went on to tout how O'Keefe's ACORN videos "pushed Congress to cut off federal funding," and concluded by noting that a video from "an undercover sting of a public television executive" would be released by O'Keefe in the coming week. From the March 13 edition of Fox News Sunday: [...]

Wallace Ignored Deceptive Editing Of O'Keefe's Videos

Beck's Right-Wing Website Found "Questionable Editing" In O'Keefe's NPR Video. Citing an examination of the NPR video conducted by Glenn Beck's website TheBlaze.com, Politico's Ben Smith and Slate's David Weigel reported that the video of Schiller released by O'Keefe's Project Veritas was deceptively edited to portray certain statements by Schiller out of context. Smith described the editing as "some really serious, dishonest lily-gilding." [Ben Smith, Politico, 3/11/11; David Weigel, Slate, 3/11/11; The Blaze, 3/10/11]

In Touting ACORN Video, Wallace Ignored That O'Keefe Deceptively Edited Those As Well. Wallace noted that O'Keefe's ACORN videos "pushed Congress to cut off federal funding," but he didn't mention that the videos were edited to falsely suggest criminal violations by ACORN employees. Then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown's office conducted an investigation into the ACORN videos that concluded there was no evidence of illegal activity by ACORN, and that the videos were deceptively edited. According to Brown: "[T]hings are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." [California Attorney General's Office, 4/1/10]

Wallace Plucked Schiller's Statement On NPR's Federal Funding Out Of Context

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Transcript below the fold.

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