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It looks like Hannity is still smarting from having his rear end handed to him by Keith Ellison this week, because for the second day in a row after Ellison accused Hannity of "yellow journalism" and being a shill for the Republican party, Hannity's been doing his best to get even.

Hannity brought on Fox regulars, the New York Civil Rights Coalition and ALEC shill Michael Meyers along with FreedomWorks' Deneen Borelli to help launch Hannity's latest Islamophobic attack on Rep. Ellison.

Sean Hannity Launches Islamophobic Attack Against Keith Ellison:

Conservative talk show host Sean Hannity launched an Islampophobic attack against Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) during his Fox News show on Thursday night, implying that the Muslim Congressman is a racist and an anti-Semite. The segment came just days after Ellison and Hannity engaged in a confrontational interview on Tuesday night. “We decided to take a closer look at the man who called me immoral and a liar,” Hannity began. “Now it didn’t take long to prove his hypocrisy, as his past reveals a host of radical connections primarily to Louis Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam.”

The Fox host dug up attacks from Ellison’s 2006 Congressional campaign, criticizing the Minnesota lawmaker for defending Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam in his law school newspaper from charges of anti-Semitism and appearing on stage with Farrakhan aide Khalid Muhammad.

In the late 1990s, Ellison worked with the group to organize the Million Man March, but apologized for failing to “adequately scrutinize the positions and statements” of the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan six years ago in a letter to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.

“I wrongly dismissed concerns that they were anti-Semitic,” he wrote, adding, “They were and are anti-Semitic and I should have come to that conclusion earlier than I did.” “I have long since distanced myself from and rejected the Nation of Islam due to its propagation of bigoted and anti-Semitic ideas and statements, as well as other issues.” Read on...

Media Matters has more on how this is nothing new for Hannity: Sean Hannity's Latest Islamophobic Smear Against Rep. Keith Ellison :

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The latest from the brilliant Mark Fiore. Schoolhouse Rock has been trampled by the new guy in town -- ALEC.

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After Gov. Scott Walker appeared on CBS's Face the Nation, touting the voters looking for someone who's going to lead and "make touch decisions" as the reason he survived his recall election, the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka pointed out that what Walker did was not lead. He was following the same right wing agenda as his Republican counterparts, who are allowing the American Legislative Exchange Conference, known as ALEC, to write their agenda for them.

As Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley pointed out, part of the reason Walker survived his recall election is that the voters did not like the idea of recalling their elected officials for any reason, short of criminal offenses, "And right now Governor Walker has only had three people in his administration indicted." As O'Malley also noted, for all his talk of leadership, Walker's state has the worst job creation record in the country.

Transcript via below the fold.

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Democracy Now's Amy Goodman did some follow up to Al Jazeera's reporting on the state of the Gulf of Mexico and the fishing industry there, two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Gulf Oil Spill: BP Execs Escape Punishment as Fallout from Disaster Continues to Impact Sea Life:

Two years since the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, we look at its impact on the Gulf of Mexico’s residents and wildlife even as no BP officials have faced criminal prosecution for the disaster. Eleven workers died when the Deepwater Horizon well exploded, and almost five million barrels of crude oil leaked into the ocean before the well was plugged after 51 days. BP maintains the Gulf is rapidly recovering thanks to the company’s efforts, but Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail describes how scientists say shrimp, fish and crabs in the Gulf of Mexico have been deformed by oil and chemicals released during the spill cleanup effort. Meanwhile, ProPublica’s environmental reporter, Abrahm Lustgarten, says the company failed to learn from past mistakes that could have helped avoid the explosion. He is the author of the new book, "Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster."

Full transcript is available at the link above. Our corporate media actually did a small amount of reporting on this news after Al Jazeera broke their story on the diseased fish and shrimp coming out of the Gulf, but I'll be surprised to see much more follow up from sources other than those like Al Jazeera and Democracy Now.

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Fox just hates boycotts... or at least they do if they're aimed at the likes of Rush Limbaugh, or the American Legislative Exchange Council, otherwise known as ALEC. Then they really hate anyone interfering with their favorite right wing flame thrower, or with these corporations' "freedom of speech," or their freedom to intervene in our legislative agenda to keep their profit margins up.

Now that it appears Coca-Cola has decided to leave the organization after pressure from Color of Change and other progressive groups, Fox News is out there doing some damage control for ALEC.

What I find humorous about this is I'm pretty sure Fox would prefer that no one even knows who ALEC and their organization are. I'm fairly sure they'd have preferred, as would those who are working for the Koch brothers funded organization, that their name, their agenda or how they operate would never be mentioned in our corporate media. They're worried about some real fallout if they're finally resorting to putting a spokesperson on air.

Here's more from Media Matters on Kelly's interview -- Fox Rushes To Defend ALEC After Coca-Cola Cuts Ties With Group:

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Our own managing editor here at Crooks and Liars, Tina Dupuy, joined The Daily Caller's Caroline May and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, Dan Bongino, to discuss the shooting of Trayvon Martin on Thom Hartmann's "The Big Picture on Russia Today" on Friday.

Hartmann opened up the segment noting that ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), the NRA and Walmart, who were all behind the push for the “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida, haven't taken any responsibility for the content of the legislation, and talked about Geraldo Rivera's ridiculous remarks that lay blame at the feet of the victim for getting shot because of the clothes he was wearing.

May, of course, trotted out the standard line we're hearing from the right: that the "Stand Your Ground" law doesn't apply in this case because Zimmerman was pursuing Martin so discussion of that law should be "taken off the table," and that maybe everyone “just needs to take a deep breath” and wait for “justice to be served.” Hartmann responded by pointing out the obvious here, that it has not been served. The man's still walking free over a month after the shooting.

As Tina rightfully pointed out, one of the saddest things about this incident is that it's not isolated and pointed to the case of Oscar Grant, who was fatally shot by the police in Oakland back in 2009. And when you have a case like Martin's, which draws more public attention, it should open up a wider conversation about our gun laws and the reasons why Zimmerman is not off the street.

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From Democracy Now, more on the latest coming from ALEC thanks to the good work being done by The Nation's Mike Elk -- New Exposé Tracks ALEC-Private Prison Industry Effort to Replace Unionized Workers with Prison Labor:

Many of the toughest sentencing laws responsible for the explosion of the U.S. prison population were drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which helps corporations write model legislation. Now a new exposé reveals ALEC has paved the way for states and corporations to replace unionized workers with prison labor. We speak with Mike Elk, contributing labor reporter at The Nation magazine. He says ALEC and private prison companies "put a mass amount of people in jail, and then they created a situation where they could exploit that." Elk notes that in 2005 more than 14 million pounds of beef infected with rat feces processed by inmates were not recalled, in order to avoid drawing attention to how many products are made by prison labor.

As Susie already noted in her post that's up now, you can read Mike Elk and Mark Ames article at The Nation here -- The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor.

Full transcript below the fold.

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