Showing posts with label mother jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mother jones. Show all posts

Monday, February 23, 2015

Falklands Drama ~ Cornered Narcissist Bill O'Reilly Lashes Out

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Previous Related Posts:
Bill O'Reilly on 50s America: "Unified" and "Innocent" like Mickey Mouse Club
Bill O'Reilly White-Old-Man-Splains Asians

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Recently, talking-head Brian Williams of NBC News was suspended for six months after embellishing past journalistic experiences.

After it happened, Fox News and Bill O'Reilly were quick to gloat about how Williams was a symptom of the Left-Wing Liberal Media they love to hate.

From Mediaite
O’Reilly spoke of how the Founders believed in a free and honest press and bemoaned how the current American press isn’t “half as responsible as the men who forged the nation.”
But O’Reilly didn’t just go after Williams, he said this is about a culture of deception in the liberal media. They need to, he said, “stop the corruption and begin telling the truth without an agenda,” otherwise the public’s trust in them will continue to plummet.
. . . he ended by telling his viewers, “Think about other news agencies that are distorting the facts.”

But it turns out, Bill O has been spinning lies for some time about his reporting in Argentina during the War in the Falklands, making it sound as if he was in the midst of combat when he never even set foot on the islands. At the time, he was covering the remote war for CBS News, a fact he has written about in his best-selling books and discussed on his show many times, saying he was in "fire fights" and "war zones" in Argentina.

But neither he nor any of his CBS colleagues were in the Falklands because the Argentine government wouldn't allow them there.

An article in Mother Jones magazine is calling out O'Reilly for his lies.

Read the Original Article:
Mother Jones: Bill O'Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem with the Falklands War






Here's just one quote from O'Reilly about the Falklands Via Media Matters

O'REILLY: I -- I was in a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands War, OK?

KEVIN: Mm-hmm.

O'REILLY: And I can tell you when the Kool-Aid hits the fan, OK, nobody is locking in on anybody else. Nobody.

KEVIN: And you're right.

O'REILLY: OK, ad --

KEVIN: I know (inaudible; overlapping dialogue)

O'REILLY: -- adrenaline -- adrenaline surges and you veterans out there listening right now, you know exactly what I'm talking about here. Adrenaline surges, your senses become very attune, much sharper than they are ordinarily, and you are locked in, focused in, on your survival and achieving the means of staying alive.


From Mother Jones, the Day After
O'Reilly responded to the story by launching a slew of personal invective. He did not respond to the details of the story. Instead, he called me a "liar," a "left-wing assassin," and a "despicable guttersnipe." He said that I deserve "to be in the kill zone." (You can read one of my responses here.) And in his show-opening "Talking Points memo" monologue on Friday evening, he continued the name-calling.
In a way, it's impossible to win a debate with O'Reilly because he is not bound by reality. In response to the article, he told Fox News' media reporter, Howard Kurtz, "Nobody was on the Falklands and I never said I was on the island, ever." Yet our article included video of O'Reilly saying in 2013, "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us." Note the words "war zone" and "in the Falklands."

UPDATE: CBS News has released their Falklands Coverage:



As Mother Jones points out, this video doesn't support O'Reilly's claims:

. . . rather than bolstering O'Reilly's description of the anti-government protest he says he covered as a "combat situation," the tape corroborates the accounts of other journalists who were there and who have described it as simply a chaotic, violent protest.

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Other correspondents with CBS who were in Buenos Aires with O'Reilly refuted his claims, only to be slammed by Bill-O.

From CNN
Eric Engberg, a CBS correspondent who was also in Buenos Aires at the time, defended Corn in a Facebook post on Friday and said, "It was not a war zone or even close. It was an 'expense account zone.'"
Longtime NBC News correspondent George Lewis, who was also there at the time, agreed with Engberg, writing on Facebook, "Cushiest war I ever covered."
Did O'Reilly's photographer get "run down" and bloodied?
CNN has interviewed seven people who were there for CBS, and none of them recall anyone from the network being injured.
"If somebody got hurt, we all would have known," Alvarez said.
. . . O'Reilly has repeatedly defended his claims, including on Fox News on Sunday morning. "I don't know if he was there," O'Reilly said, implying that Engberg may not have witnessed the riot. He called Engberg "Room Service Eric," alleging he often stayed in his hotel during unfolding news events.

Eric Engberg pushed back in an interview with Huff Post



(My transcript)

Eric Engberg: He's completely nutty. There were five correspondents working that story for CBS. Four of them had been on that remote site for weeks because the Argentine government would not allow us to go to the Falkland Islands. We were hoping we could get in, but when we couldn't we had to stay in Buenos Aires and file stories... When the riot happened, and actually it was a slow-developing riot - O'Reilly has said in one of his books that the "crowd stormed the Presidential Palace." That is not what happened. What happened was the stupid government of Argentina, which was run by a collection - a junta - of murderous generals - they announced that they were going to hold a speech that evening at the Presidential Palace and that the public should come and watch the speech.

In the meantime, the British released the information about how the Argentines surrendered. And as people learned of the fact that the war was over, and that they had lost, they became increasingly angry and more and more of them started coming to the palace. So you had a large assembly of people, 4 or 5 thousand, who were angry at the government. I was one of those who was there. The other three correspondents were there. I frankly don't know where O'Reilly was. But the people who were there for our company will assert that 'yes, Engberg was there with his camera crew.' Does anybody believe that a reporter who is covering a war from 1200 miles away, hearing that there was a riot at the National Palace, would sit in his hotel room?

Engberg: It's ludicrous. It's nutty - He's Nutty! ... Nutty about me - he says I was hiding in my hotel room, which is another one of those classic O'Reilly responses to any kind of criticism of him. It's always to fire back some personal slur at whoever made the criticism, instead of to respond to the criticism.

Next, Bill O'Reilly attacked Bob Schieffer, veteran journalist and moderator of the Sunday news show, Face the Nation, accusing him of stealing and plagiarizing his stories in Argentina. Yeah, that's really going to turn out well . . .

From a Fox interview with Howard Kurtz, Via Crooks and Liars
BillO then blasted CBS's Bob Schieffer for "big footing" his story which happens all the time in the news business.

O'Reilly: If you write an article and send it in and another reporter put there name on the article, what's that called? it begins with a "p."

 Kurtz: I've always called it "big footing" and you're not happy if that happens.

 O'Reilly: What is it called in print? it begins with a "p."

 Kurtz: I'll let you tell me.

 O'Reilly: Plagiarism.

Kurtz: Oh, if it's your colleague and you're working together
O'Reilly:I wasn't working together with these guys.

Hmmm, but he WAS working with both Engberg and Schieffer, because they all worked for CBS News.His lying knows no bounds.






















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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Dick Armey's Literal Armed Coup at FreedomWorks ~ Updated

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From Washington Post

The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall.

Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

. . . “This was two weeks after there had been a shooting at the Family Research Council,” said one junior staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. “So when a man with a gun who didn’t identify himself to me or other people on staff, and a woman I’d never seen before said there was an announcement, my first gut was, ‘Is FreedomWorks in danger?’ It was bizarre.’ ”


From Mother Jones about "Armey's Hostile Takeover"
On December 12, James Burnley IV and C. Boyden Gray, two FreedomWorks board members (and allies of Armey), sent Kibbe a letter informing him that they had received "allegations of wrongdoing by the organization or its employees."
. . . Shortly after receiving the December 12 letter, Kibbe wrote a memo outlining his beef with Armey, Burnley, and Gray....
. . . (From Kibbe's Memo:)
Our favorite "Armey's Axiom" goes something like this: "Every argument in Washington, like in a marriage, is really about something else." So it goes with the attempted hostile takeover of FreedomWorks by three Republican insiders from the old guard. Is it about a book contract, or a pilfered appearance on CNBC? No, it is not. As it turns out, the fight for lower taxes, less government and more freedom is all well and good until it is Republicans—"old friends"— that are the ones needing to be held to account. It is our sense that the irresponsible acts of the so-called Trustees of FreedomWorks—Dick Armey, C. Boyden Gray, and James C. Burnley—on September 4th, and their continued hostile acts today, are all about retribution for our willingness to take a strictly nonpartisan approach to politics, our willingness to hold both Republicans and Democrats to the standards set out by our freedom philosophy and the clear limits on government power delineated in our U.S. Constitution.

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Dick Armey agreed to quit FreedomWorks back in September in exchange for $8 million.
Holy grassroots, Batman. It was worth $8 million to FreedomWorks to make Dick Armey go away.
For Mr. Armey`s part, he says that really his departure from FreedomWorks is just a matter of principle. That was the quote from him.
"My differences with FreedomWorks are a matter of principle." Which means on the $8 million check that you write to me, please put principle in the memo line, because that`s why I`m leaving -- principle.
The right seems to be imploding since the election, which we expected. It turns out though that the unexpected thing is that the implosion is going to happen very, very slowly, day by day by day, with new acrimonious details dripping out in every news cycle.
~ Transcript of Rachel Maddow Show, December 4, 2012

The republicans and the Tea Party are like a bowl of guppies, all swimming around, eating each other AND their young.
I love it. For so long they attacked teachers, fire fighters, police, unions, the American worker, education, and science. Now they get to eat each other, and maybe it will give them indigestion.
~ comment by Clemans on Mother Jones

FreedomWorks: another oxymoron.
~ comment by dennycrane on RawStory

So let me get this straight. If this had been a Joe Nobody, he would have been sent to prison. Yet, because this guy is wealthy and connected, it's viewed as "just" a bizarre act by an eccentric old man? And he extorted a half mil a year for the next 20 years?
~ comment by Christopher O. on Gawker

So Dick nearly unloaded on an army of teabaggers? Fitting.
~ comment by Gadzodilo on Gawker

[military-themed dick joke]
~ comment by NotevaluatedbytheFDA on Gawker

If you put this in script form and took it to Hollywood, they would throw you out of their offices for come up with something totally unbelievable. Unfortunately, nowadays, in order for something about the GOP in Washington to be believed, it must be unbelievable.
~ comment by Its the Supreme Court Stupid on Daily Kos

Ah, the Banana Republic of FreedomWorks.
It's how they want to run everything, isn't it?
Bizarre, truly bizarre.
~ comment by Onomastic on Daily Kos

































UPDATE: Mother Jones Reveals Gunman's Identity
Armey tells Mother Jones that this episode has been hyped up by his FreedomWorks foes, and he says the not-so-mysterious gun-touting assistant was a former Capitol Hill police officer named Beau Singleton, who used to be part of Armey's congressional security detail and who has volunteered his security services to Armey and FreedomWorks for years.

"He was well-known to the people at FreedomWorks," Armey says. "He has provided me personal security on many occasions when I was in Washington." Singleton also oversaw security for FreedomWorks in September 2009 when it organized a large rally in Washington. Singleton, Armey says, is authorized to carry a gun, but he does so in a back holster that cannot be seen by an onlooker. "I was unaware he had a gun [at the meeting]," Armey maintains. "He kept it under his coat in the back....But the news looks like Armey came in there like John Dillinger, all guns a-blazing. That was false."

Armey says that his wife, Susan, and his assistant, Jean Campbell, were concerned about a FreedomWorks official losing his temper at this meeting and suggested that Singleton join Armey and the two of them on this trip to the group's office. But he insists there was nothing odd with him showing up at FreedomWorks with Singleton by his side.

Singleton, 56, confirms Armey's account. He says that he has known Kibbe and Brandon for years and that he had often "been around" at FreedomWorks. He adds that during the meeting between Armey and Kibbe, he "just observed. I was just kind of there....I can't see why they would act like I was menacing."

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UPDATE: Hardball ~ December 26, 2012

David Corn of Mother Jones: It's become very bitter. . . . That story obviously came out because people favorable to Kibbe wanted it out and wanted to make Dick Armey look like a complete madman.
But the Post didn't report who the gunman was. Just an hour ago before coming on the show I spoke to Dick Armey and I spoke to the guy with the gun! He's a former Capitol Hill police officer who Dick Armey has used time and time again as a private security guy when he's in Washington. The guy volunteers his services.
Chris Matthews: Why did he need him in that moment?
Corn: What happened was, they knew it was going to be a contentious meeting.
Matthews: So bring a guy with a gun?
Corn: His wife and his assistant said 'bring Beau along just in case the FreedomeWorks guys go ballistic. And the thing is - Beau Singleton, that's the name of the guy--
Matthews: What was he going to do with the gun?!
Corn: He's done private security at FreedomWorks to begin with. So they knew him. It wasn't like they didn't know who he was. To me a big mystery is why the Washington Post didn't just say who this guy was? They made it sound like a guy in a hoodie brought in off the street. It was a guy who did security at FreedomWorks and he was brought in and it wasn't as menacing as it sounds. But this indicates how bad the blood is between these two sides and there is now people allied with Dick Armey . . .

Joan Walsh: It's the right versus the far right - they're all a bunch of grifters. I love you (Matthews) and David (Corn) to death, but you're both being way too nice to Dick Armey.
Matthews: You're calling Dick Armey a 'grifter'?
Joan Walsh: Yes, I am.
Matthews: Meaning he's stealing money?
Walsh: He walked with - grifting isn't stealing, necessarily. He walked away with 8 million dollars and he's mad at Matt Kibbe because he (Kibbe) got 50 thousand dollars?
. . . and David, for you to say it's not a big deal because they walked in with a guy with a gun and say they supposedly knew the guy. I mean, they're all crazy! A pox on all of their houses!
What's going on you guys? . . . (the guy with the gun) scared some people, and I once sat here while Dick Armey said he was glad he wouldn't have to be married to me. He's a grifter. He's not an attractive or decent guy. . . . I don't have a dog in the fight but I came on TV to talk about politics and I was insulted. I think he's a jerk. I think his wife came with him and she's a big jerk. And I say a pox on all their houses. I'm glad they're shooting at each other and not at the rest of America.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



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Thursday, December 20, 2012

Hilarious Soliloquy About GOP

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Written by Artist Steve Brodner from Mother Jones - "Our Elephant Ouroboros" - all about the Cray-Cray of the GOP

The Hungry, Hungry Elephant

I was delighted to be asked to illustrate a package featuring a piece by the great Kevin Drum about the GOP, the Party of Crazy.

How best to describe a political party taken over by right-wing zealots bent on self-destruction? As Senator Lindsey Graham says: "We're not generating enough angry white guys."

So how about an elephant eating itself? How would that look?

Even after a major defeat the Republicans seem to be having a hard time not pissing off Americans who aren't millionaires or lovers of Fox News.

So what kinds of things have they been telling themselves about Barack Obama?

Well, he's a secret Muslim, speaks Arabic, would bring 100 million Muslims to "Islamify" America. Obama's wedding ring has Koranic verse engraved on it.

Uh, did you know that he's the "Lizard Overlord"? This apparently is in the Bible.

Two reporters from The Daily Caller wrote a book called The Lizard King, a shocking account of Obama's intergalactic ambitions. This makes sense.

He's also seeking dictatorial powers, coming for your guns, your gold. Setting up FEMA concentration camps.

Establishing slave labor. He'll take away your food. Caused Hurricane Sandy - using the Pentagon, of course.

And we know his middle name is Hussein. Obama, you know, is in the pocket of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mmm-hmmm. Once aided the Mujahedin in Afghanistan running weapons.

He also killed his Grandmother so he could steal and hide his true birth certificate. ... issued from Kenya, of course. This is a little-known fact.

In addition he's planning a radical overthrow of the United States. His parents were Communists. He's a devotee of Bill Ayres, who's also his ghost writer.

He was a Black Panther, and also he's the son of Malcom X.

. . . To paraphrase the Greek proverb, "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make go completely stark-staring nuts."


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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Romney Fall-Out Continues from Video-Gate


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 "Mitt Doesn't Disdain the Poor"
~ Name of a video with Ann Romney taking up for Mitt, posted then pulled by the Romney campaign for unknown reasons, via BuzzFeed



"Mitt Romney, Man of Constant Sorrow"
~ Headline on Politico

It turns out that Mitt Romney was right. There is class warfare being waged in the 2012 campaign. It is Mr. Romney who is waging it, not President Obama, and he’s stood the whole idea on its head.
~ The New York Times Editorial

My first reaction was 'can't be true.' The tape must be edited. Somebody must have played games with it. He can't possibly have disparaged almost half of the population of the country with seven weeks to go in the election campaign. Alas, it turns out to be exactly what he said.
~ Legendary anchorman Dan Rather on MSNBC, to Rachel Maddow

There is a reason they did not take back that statement on that tape. They are restating it now in a way that is less blunt, but it is actually their world view and their policy. And that's why this tape has been like a nuclear bomb, not a dirty bomb, in the Republican's campaign for the presidency this year.
~ Rachel Maddow on MSNBC

Mitt Romney’s comments felt as if he were stabbing me in the heart. I stopped breathing for a few seconds with a profound feeling that I was trapped in another world where people have no clue, not one little clue of what it’s like to have to struggle to get through every single day.
~ Roz Levine in NYT

Mitt Romney should be reminded that rights to food, housing and health care are recognized in international covenants that the United States has signed. The federal government is not required to “provide” these goods, but it is legally obligated “to respect, protect and fulfill” these rights.
Mr. Romney’s comments suggest not only contempt for working people and the poor but also for fundamental human rights.
~ ~ Marc Edelman in NYT

Mr. Romney in his current configuration is better suited to serve as king of 18th-century France rather than as president of the United States.
~ Stephen Korn in NYT

What we should strive for, what we have to improve upon, in the inner cities, in the poor rural areas, is to make sure that people get that chance so that they can make the most of their lives. So we should not be looking at people as if they are stuck in some station or stuck in some class or some victim or something like that.
~ Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan, rolling back Romney's remarks on video

We are a big, complicated nation. And we are human beings. We are people. We have souls. We are complex. We are not data points. Many things go into our decisions and our political affiliations.
You have to be sophisticated to know that. And if you’re operating at the top of national politics, you’re supposed to be sophisticated.
I think there is a broad and growing feeling now, among Republicans, that this thing is slipping out of Romney’s hands.
It’s time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one. It’s not big, it’s not brave, it’s not thoughtfully tackling great issues. It’s always been too small for the moment.
. . . An intervention is in order. “Mitt, this isn’t working.”
~ Peggy Noonan on Wall Street Journal

Grim-faced aides acknowledged that it was an unusually dark moment, made worse by the self-inflicted, seemingly avoidable nature of the wound. In low-volume, out-of-the-way conversations, a few of them are now wondering whether victory is still possible and whether they are entering McCain-Palin ticket territory.
It may prove a fleeting anxiety: national polls show the race remains close, even though Mr. Romney trails in some key swing states.
Still, a flustered adviser, describing the mood, said that the campaign was turning into a vulgar, unprintable phrase.
~ The New York Times

Caught! Let's Play Hardball
(Hardball Theme plays)
Hello this is Chris Matthews in New York.
Let me start tonight with:
(singing)
If I were a rich man,
Yubba, Dibby, Dibby
Dibby, Dibby, Dibby, Dibby Dum.
Dumb!!!
~ Chris Matthews on Hardball

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I disagree with Governor Romney's insinuation that 47 percent of Americans believe they are victims who must depend on the government for their care. I know that the vast majority of those who rely on government are not in that situation because they want to be.
~ Linda McMahon, running for a Republican Senate seat in Connecticutt

That's not the way I view the world. As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in. Too many people today who want to work are being forced into public assistance for lack of jobs.
~ Senator Scott Brown, who is running against Democrat Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts

Who else loves the American people as much as Miffed Romney?
  • Leona Helmsley
  • Nikita Krushchev.
  • Dick Cheney.
  • Paris Hilton.
  • Gina Rinehart.
  • Eduardo Saverin.
  • Somali pirates.
~ Wonkette

Oh my God. People think they are entitled to food! Are there no workhouses?
~ comment by PuckStopsHere on Wonkette

He forgot to call them "vermin" and mention his plans for dealing with them once and for all.
~ comment by Chet Kinkaide on Wonkette

This has been another episode of Uncle Rockefeller's Summer Cottage.
~ comment by SayItWithWookies on Wonkette

















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