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Lollapalooza Lookback 1992: Ice Cube Looks To Get ‘Buck Wild’

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

‘I think everybody’s going to come out with an open mind,’ the rapper said before playing for the fest’s mostly white crowds. By James Montgomery Ice Cube Photo: MTV News With the 2010 edition of Lollapalooza set to kick off Friday, MTV News decided to dive deep into our archives and dig up the greatest/ weirdest/ scariest/ downright rocking-est moments in the fest’s rather epic history. We’re calling it “Lollapalooza Lookback,” and we think it’s a pretty fitting tribute to the granddaddy of American music festivals. We’ve already tackled Pearl Jam’s 1992 afternoon set and Nine Inch Nails’ stage-trashing high jinks from 1991 ; now, we’re checking in with Ice Cube, who took the stage in ’92 on a mission. 1992: Ice Cube Aims High, Hits Hard One of Lollapalooza’s greatest legacies is that it was the first touring festival to bring rap music to the suburbs. On the first tour, Perry Farrell fearlessly booked Ice-T (backed by Body Count, who would very shortly be embroiled in controversy over their “Cop Killer” song), and then, in ’92, he followed it up by locking in Ice Cube, who had already shocked and awed many with albums like AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and Death Certificate — and would soon blow away mainstream audiences with The Predator. But, in the summer of ’92, Cube was still largely unknown to white audiences — or, more correctly, they only knew what they read about him. And that tended to be very, very bad. So, really, Farrell was being beyond brave when he inked Cube to the main stage. It was the kind of move that’s commonplace these days, but back in the early ’90s, it wasn’t. Until Lollapalooza, of course. Still, Cube couldn’t have predicted any of this. And, as he told MTV News at an early Lolla date in July 1992, he almost passed on playing the festival — until he got some advice from a friend. “Basically, I talked to Ice-T, and he was telling me about Lollapalooza and how it was good … and I heard they wanted to get me on there, you know, and he was telling me, ‘Fans who have never seen you play before that have been wanting to see you play may be scared to go to a rap concert. It would be cool,’ ” Cube said. “[He said] ‘You should go out and see. … Everything’s done so professionally, and you should go out and experience it,’ so I was like, ‘I’m down, I’m with that.’ ” And so, he signed on. Still, he didn’t quite know what he was in for. After all, these would be the largest white audiences he’d played for in America. But he was up for the challenge. “I was like, ‘You know, I know the crowd is going to be mostly white,’ but [T] said it’s like Europe. And the white kids in Europe go buck wild for rap concerts, so I’m definitely with that,” Cube said. “I think everybody’s going to come out with an open mind, and they’re going to be willing to learn about all the groups out here, including the rap groups. I want people to understand the young black male, how it is living in the United States and the pain and hurt we feel. … I might learn a thing or two, also. I haven’t seen any of these bands play, and you can’t teach until you learn.” Make sure to come back Thursday, when we reveal another Lollapalooza Lookback. Plus, MTV News’ Lollapalooza Live will be streaming Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 5 p.m. right here on MTV.com. Related Videos Lollapalooza Lookback Related Artists Ice Cube

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Taylor Swift To Perform New Single On CMA Special In September

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Swift will sing ‘Mine,’ from her upcoming Speak Now album. By Jocelyn Vena Taylor Swift Photo: Jason Kempin/ Getty Images Fans might be anxiously awaiting the October 25 release of Taylor Swift’s new album, Speak Now , but they shouldn’t have to wait too much longer to hear Swift perform the album’s first single, “Mine.” Swift is expected to perform the track on the TV special “CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night to Rock.” Swift secretly taped the show last month in Nashville when she was performing at the CMA Music Festival, according to People.com . The special, which will be hosted by Tim McGraw, will air on September 1 on ABC. Other performers scheduled to appear include Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley and Reba McEntire. Swift has been busy as of late prepping for the release of the album, a follow-up to her highly successful album Fearless . The video for “Mine” has been shot, with British actor Toby Hemingway playing Swift’s love interest in the clip and Swift donning a wedding dress. As for the song, Swift has said it’s all about her love life. “It’s been sort of a recent tendency, and I think it’s because, for me, every really direct example of love that I’ve had in front of me has ended in goodbye and ended in breakups and things like that. So I think I’ve developed this pattern of running away when it comes time to fall in love and stay in a relationship. The song is sort of about finding the exception to that and finding someone who would make you believe in love and realize that it could work out, because I’m never, ever going to go past hoping that love works out,” she explained. Like the song, the new album will have a theme. “For me, I write everything that I live, so you’ve got to give yourself a little bit of time to live a lot of things so you can write about a lot of things. And my only option is to write about what I’ve been through and what I’ve lived. So thankfully, in the past two years, I’ve experienced a lot of things that I’ve been dying to write about and a lot of things that I wanted to say in the moment that I didn’t,” she explained. “I’ve been working on it for two years, so ever since we put out Fearless, I’ve been writing for this record and sort of conceptualizing it and putting it together in my head and sort of figuring out what I want it to be,” she added. “I like to take a lot of time in between albums to work up the next one and see what it is.” Related Artists Taylor Swift

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Howard Zinn: Hollywood’s Favorite ‘Communist’ Historian

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Don’t expect Matt Damon or Josh Brolin or any of the other celebrities and Hollywood producers behind the History Channel’s The People Speak to issue apologies for their celebration of leftist professor and author Howard Zinn in light of the release last week of file 100-369217 – the FBI’s decades long investigation into Zinn’s alleged communist activities. Already, Zinn’s far-left sympathizers are poking holes, some more credibly than others, in the 430 pages of documents, and trying to draw focus away from Zinn’s alleged membership in the Kremlin-controlled Communist Party USA and onto the fact that a Boston University administrator turned FBI informant once plotted to have him fired in the 1970s. To the radical left, trying to interfere with an extremist professor as he dutifully decries his country as a police state is a far more egregious crime than belonging to a political organization allied with and controlled by the sworn enemy of the United States. It’s all about perspective… Still, Zinn’s apologists are not incorrect in pointing out that the evidence to support the claims that the professor was a card-carrying member of the CPUSA is hardly conclusive, or as J. Edgar Hoover had requested – admissible. Despite the breadth of documentation in the file – the interviews with Zinn, the statements made by confidential informants claiming to have attended CPUSA meetings at which Zinn taught on “Basic Marxism” and encouraged participants to adhere to the tenants of Marx and Lenin, the suggestions that these meetings often took place in Zinn’s own home – proof of the kind the right might hope for is just not to be found. That Zinn was a leftist is clear by his own admission. That he belonged to groups infiltrated by Communists is well-established, but that he was an actual, card-carrying member of the Communist Party is just not proven. Which is not to say there is not a compelling case made. It is just not an iron-clad one. Of course, the right’s desire to prove Zinn’s membership in the Communist Party in the late 1940s and early 1950s is certainly understandable. After all, this was long after the idealistic 1930s when the already liberal American media churned out stories to Americans wrecked by the Great Depression of a Utopian revolution occurring in the east. It was after the subjugation of Eastern Europe, the Russian bomb, and Stalin’s gulags. To prove that Zinn was a member of the organization during this period would go a long way toward validating the animosity and distrust the right has for Zinn’s work, both as an anti-war activist, influential author and professor, and sainted historian of the left. But it is a mistake to focus too closely on Zinn’s status as a member of CPUSA. Proving it is difficult, and even if it could be proven – what does it prove? Undoubtedly many people in their twenties made poor choices and joined organizations that as adults they would shun. To judge Zinn’s life and career by how he spent his youth, the Eddie Vedders and Danny Glovers of the world would argue, ignores the larger question of how he spent the rest of his life. And it is that question – how Howard Zinn spent his life – that the right should desire. The left undoubtedly loves dancing around such myopic questions as, “Was Zinn a member of the Communist Party,” expressly because it detracts from the larger question of, “Was Zinn a communist?” Did Howard Zinn espouse communist philosophy? Did he openly sympathize with America’s communist enemies? Did he seek to use his influence in academia and the media to convert America’s young to the cause of communism? These questions do not require the kind of definitive proof the left can demand of the more precise issue of Zinn’s actual political affiliation. They only require the smell test, and Howard Zinn cannot pass the communist smell test. From his well-known early work on behalf of infiltrated, trans-national labor and civil-rights organizations, to his radical anti-war activism, his seminal and revisionist historical work, The People’s History of the United States, and his lesser known entries into literature, the theater, and television – like his play Marx in Soho, or The People Speak – Zinn continually championed a view of America, capitalism, and the west in general that was utterly sympathetic to the views of Marx and Lenin. Where he departed from their views was only in the nuanced world of implementation, the ultimate fate of the Bolshevik Revolution, and questions regarding the scale – regional or global – of the communist cause. That our Hollywood betters continued to promote Zinn’s work is not a testament to their naivety about his official party membership status; it is a testimony to the fact that they agree with his broader communist views – at least as far as they safely can from their positions in the upper echelon of the bourgeois elite. Consider these words from Zinn’s forward to a compilation of Anarcho-Communist activist and philosopher Alexander Berkman’s work titled Life of an Anarchist. Alexander Berkman is one of those lost heros of American radicalism, a rare pure voice of rebellion against the state, against capitalism, against war. …[He] is an inspiring example of living an honest life, as well as a vision of a better society. It might be worth here noting that Berkman did fifteen years in prison for the attempted murder of businessman Henry Clay Frick in 1892, opposed American intervention in World War One, and was eventually deported to Russia where he was a first hand observer of the revolution. So inspiring… At least to Howard Zinn, who imported hundreds of copies of his work, The ABC of Anarchist Communism into the United States, “for my students to use” and wrote a play about him. It is Zinn’s conclusion to the introduction that is the most illuminating though. [Life of an Anarchist] is a welcome introduction to the ideas of anarchism . . . which appear more and more relevant in this era of bullying governments, corporate ruthlessness, and endless war. Viva la Revolution! In the end, Zinn’s own words damn him, and his Hollywood appostles, far more than anything J. Edgar Hoover ever dreamt of. Crossposted at Big Hollywood .

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China to Build Huge Buses That Cars Can Drive Under

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

China has overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases and biggest energy consumer, the Engadget reports. But the country is also thinking in big and bold ways when it comes to how it will reduce pollution and a new plan to build a “straddling bus” is among the most space-age schemes yet. In an effort to go green and relieve congestion without widening roads, designers at Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd is developing a “3D Express Coach” (also known as a “three-dimensional fast bus”). The innovation will allow cars less than 2 meters high to travel underneath the upper level of the vehicle, which will be carrying passengers. According to China Hush, the 6-meter-wide 3D Express Coach will be powered by a combination of electricity and solar energy, and will be able to travel up to 60 kilometers per hour carrying some 1200 to 1400 passengers. http://www.theblogismine.com/2010/08/04/china-to-build-huge-buses-that-cars-can-… added by: theblogismine

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Happy Birthday, Barack Obama!

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Barack Hussein Obama II, the current President of the United States, turns 49 years old today. Happy birthday to our country’s 44th Commander-in-Chief! Since his historic election in November 2008, Obama’s White House term has produced significant accomplishments amid impossibly high expectations. It has also led many, even those who support him, to believe he’s not doing enough. His critics see him taking the U.S. in the wrong direction entirely. No matter how you see it, you most likely have a strong opinion in what have become turbulent, critical times for our nation. But we are all Americans. Let’s put aside our differences and embrace our differences of opinion. We love a spirited debate, but we can do so more respectively and constructively. Regardless of your political affiliation, we can all wish the man a very happy birthday! But while we’re on the subject of his controversial first term

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Chris Matthews Accuses Fox of Being GOP Shills Then Attacks Sarah Palin

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In today’s “People In Glass Houses” segment, Chris Matthews accused Fox News of being shills for the Republican Party just minutes before he said “the scariest three words in the English language are: President Sarah Palin.” MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Tuesday began with a lengthy segment in which Matthews, with the help of co-conspirators from the Huffington Post and Media Matters for America, made the case that the Fox News Channel was a platform to assist Republican candidates to get elected. Obviously missing the irony, the very next piece dealt with why President Obama ought to replace Vice President Biden with Hillary Clinton to not only assist him in getting reelected in 2012, but also set her up to win in 2016. Still oblivious to the hypocrisy, Matthews ended the program with his take on why the thought of Palin becoming president is scaring “tens of millions of Americans, and not just Democrats.” To give you an idea of the absurdity of this hour of television, let’s start with quotes from the first segment (videos and partial transcripts follow with commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS: I want to ask you a larger thing, Eric, now that I have you on, and also Ryan. We just looked at the Gallup poll, the highest favorabilities among Republican potential candidates — potential candidates — for 2012 — I mean, potentially. We don`t know who`s going to run. Palin, Newt and Mike Huckabee — that`s the top three. ERIC BOEHLERT, MEDIA MATTER FOR AMERICA: Right. MATTHEWS: All three are on the payroll of Fox — BOEHLERT: Absolutely! MATTHEWS: — as commentators. But you have to ask yourself — these people have a lot of options. Are they on there as candidates? Are they using Fox as a platform, the way that Sharron [Angle] thinks she can use it as a candidate — BOEHLERT: Right. MATTHEWS: — for 2010? In other words, is she a little ahead of schedule? They`re looking towards 2012 using Fox, she`s trying to use it openly and flagrantly — BOEHLERT: Right. Right. MATTHEWS: — as a vehicle for reelection — or for election to the United States Senate. BOEHLERT: Right. The Fox Green Room is now sort of the GOP convention in waiting for 2012. They`re all on the payroll. I think they`re all — they want to use it to make a lot of money either on Fox News or with books or appearances. And then they`re just going to sort of wait and see how it — see how it plays out. In the meantime, they`ve got this national audience whenever they want it. They`ve got a paycheck, and they`ve got the Fox News, you know, recommendation or seal of approval. MATTHEWS: Yes. BOEHLERT: It`s perfect for them as they wait.  As a little background, the segment began with a video clip of Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle telling Fox News’s Carl Cameron how she needs the press to be her friend and how her campaign “wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported.” From this, Matthews, Boehlert, and Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim – notice the absence of any conservatives to go against the consensus! – divined that this meant Fox was actively assisting Republican candidates. And that’s where the fun really began, for after a commercial break, Matthews brought on exclusively left-leaning guests to make the case that Obama should replace Biden with Clinton so as to assure his reelection in 2012 and position her to be president the following eight years. Assisting him to put forward this strategy was former Virginia governor Doug Wilder – who wrote a piece about this for Politico Monday – followed by New York magazine’s John Heilemann: JOHN HEILEMANN, “NEW YORK”: The thing that Governor Wilder is right about and I know that you see is that it`s possible that, in 2012, what President Obama will need most of all is to be able to connect to a set of voters, particularly white working-class and rural voters, that he has trouble with. MATTHEWS: Yes. HEILEMANN: And there would be no bigger asset for him than not just Hillary Clinton Enhanced Coverage LinkingHillary Clinton on the ticket, but having both Clintons out full force on his side in 2012. MATTHEWS: Even if it means — even if it means laying the groundwork for a Clinton ascendancy? HEILEMANN: I think she`s going to run in 2016, no matter what. MATTHEWS: OK. MATTHEWS: An interesting thought from you. HEILEMANN: And she`s going to — and she`s going to run in 2016. And she`s going to — right now, the schedule, I think, for her is, she will do four years and four years only as secretary of state. And if she is an outgoing secretary of state, a lame-duck secretary of state in 2012, she won`t be in the political position to really help Obama. She will do thinking about doing something like going and becoming the chancellor of the University of Iowa to set herself up to run for 2016. MATTHEWS: I agree. HEILEMANN: So, Obama is faced with the notion of Clinton following him anyway. So, why not make the best of that situation and put it to his advantage? MATTHEWS: I don`t know. I had never heard this before. All her people deny that, of course, right? HEILEMANN: Well, of course they do. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: I think it`s fascinating. I think she`s done a great job. (CROSSTALK) HEILEMANN: I don`t think there`s almost anybody who believes them. MATTHEWS: And I agree with you. I think she would help him in Pennsylvania, help in Ohio. And, by the way, I think the general election of 2012 now looks like a nail-biter, closely run. It will have to be. You`re right. And they are not going to win much south of the Mason-Dixon Line. They have got to win those old Democratic states that the Clintons are dominant in, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, et cetera, et cetera, New York. She would ground him up. I just think it has to be handled the way you say if it ever does come to pass. HEILEMANN: Well — MATTHEWS: Joe Biden has got to be happy with this. HEILEMANN: Yes. MATTHEWS: He`s got to have a smile on his face. And he`s got to say, I can`t wait to get to Foggy Bottom and be secretary of state, convincingly, if this ever happens. (CROSSTALK) HEILEMANN: And I think he could say that, Chris, because, as you know, before Obama urged him to become vice president, picked him, that was what Biden had his eye on. He wanted to be secretary of state. MATTHEWS: Well, it`s a great job. HEILEMANN: He`s wanted to be secretary of state his whole life. And on the question of what has to happen in 2012, I think you`re exactly right. I think it`s going to be a nail-biter. You remember, Barack Obama won, what, 42 or 43 percent of the white vote, a really high percentage of the white vote, better than John Kerry — MATTHEWS: Yes. HEILEMANN: — better than Al Gore in 2000. He`s right now running at about 35 percent approval rating with the white vote. And if he`s going to — you can`t win the presidency with 35 percent of the white vote. MATTHEWS: No. HEILEMANN: He needs to do something to solve that problem. Joe Biden is good with those people — MATTHEWS: OK. HEILEMANN: — but Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are better. MATTHEWS: Well, this will be the ultimate example of President Obama being a transactional politician. I`ll tell you, it looks a little cold on the outside. You may be able to warm it up, John Heilemann. (LAUGHTER) MATTHEWS: You would have another “Game Change.” Here’s maybe the best part of this sequence – when Matthews says his guest is a liberal writer:  Thank you. Congratulations, the best book on politics. Nancy Reagan — I was just out there at the Reagan Library — she loves your book. And I know this will offend you as somewhat of a liberal writer, but she says, Ronnie would have loved it, too. There`s a — he`s a pol, too.  How nice. So, what we’ve had so far were too liberal guests talking to an admittedly liberal host about how Fox News is a shill network promoting Republican candidates. Next, we had a Democrat introduce an idea specifically designed to assist Obama in his reelection efforts whilst also putting Hillary Clinton in position to win the White House in 2016 thereby ushering in another twelve years of Democrat control of the executive branch of our government. Then, a so-called journalist that Matthews admits is liberal discusses with the host why Wilder’s idea makes sense – all this happening immediately after a segment accusing Fox of being shills for Republicans. Really makes you wonder how everybody involved in the production of this show completely missed the glaring hypocrisy on display.   But don’t leave your seats for the concession stand or the restroom just yet, for really putting the icing on the cake the host concluded the show with a monologue about why the scariest three words in the English language are “President Sarah Palin”: MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with the fact that for tens of millions of Americans, and not just Democrats, the scariest three words in the English language are: President Sarah Palin. Those words could, if events go a certain way, get a hell of a lot scarier. I`ve noticed how Palin has been positioning herself as the Christian woman in national Republican politics. This gives her incredible leg up in the first in the country Iowa Republican caucuses where the Reverend Pat Robertson once triumphed. The shape of the 2012 Republican presidential field in the Iowa caucuses would be Sarah Palin against a field of Republican men. And with the possible exception of Mike Huckabee, all more secular than she is. The results, the Christian woman beats out the four or five men running somewhere to her left. No one gets to her right — and as long as nobody does, this lone woman in the Republican field, the one openly running as a religious fundamentalist beats the competition, hands down. Get this number into your head. Sarah Palin`s latest Gallup Poll favorable rating among Republican voters nationwide is 76 percent, by far the highest of any contender. So she wins Iowa. Next, New Hampshire. Even if Mitt Romney outpolls Palin in the Granite State, it will be a fact dismissed by the national political press. Why? Because New Hampshire is the Boston media market. It`s right in it and therefore seen as home base for the former Massachusetts governor. Next, Palin trucks down to South Carolina where she made Nikki Haley governor and wins among fellow religious fundamentalists. Another win in Palin country, an increasingly wide expansion in Republican politics. Now for the knockout. Palin has said that Michigan where Romney`s father was governor was overlooked by Republicans last time. She started her book tour there. Republican women who lined up to buy “Going Rogue” are her first round of investors. With two or three men besides Romney still appearing on the ballot, she pulls it out in Michigan. Now, anything is possible at this point. Nominated in Tampa, Florida, and the Republican National Convention in an economy that might still be shaky, the political situation of this country becomes frighteningly dicey. All can I say is that I remember how liberals thought Ronald Reagan could never do it. As we learned in 1980, tough times yield surprising — yes, scary election prospects. That`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.  And this guy has the nerve to accuse Fox of being shills. 

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Politico’s VandeHei Takes NAACP to Task for Labeling Tea Party Racist

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Appearing on Wednesday’s Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC to discuss the Shirley Sherrod controversy, Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei pointed out the NAACP’s role in fueling racial accusations: “If you think about this, where this thing started, the NAACP comes out and makes this charge against the tea party movement.” VandeHei rejected the NAACP’s claim of racism in the political movement: “It’s a very, very diffuse group. You cannot say that they are racist anymore then you can say the Republican Party’s racist or the Democratic Party is racist, so it creates this culture and it’s a dangerous topic, it’s a dangerous fire to light, and then when it happens this is the outcome.” Explaining how the NAACP charge led to the accusations against Sherrod, VandeHei observed: “I’m not defending Breitbart. But conservatives are outraged, they feel like ‘listen, you’re – because I’m part of the tea party movement you say, therefore, I’m racist.’ And so what Breitbart’s arguing is ‘I want to push back.'” Opposite VandeHei was Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart, who tried to excuse the civil rights organization: “The NAACP went to great lengths to say they were talking about racist elements within the tea party movement….Very nuanced thing here. He’s not broad-brushing the movement.” VandeHei countered: “…very nuanced but very explosive. They knew exactly once you make that statement, whether you’re trying to add nuance to the statement or not, you know exactly what’s going to happen when you make that charge.” Here is a transcript of the July 21 exchange: 4:18PM JIM VANDEHEI: Can I talk about the NAACP for one second. DYLAN RATIGAN: Go for it. VANDEHEI: Because I do think they’re getting off the hook a little bit. RATIGAN: I agree with you. VANDEHEI: If you think about this, where this thing started, the NAACP comes out and makes this charge against the tea party movement. RATIGAN: Yeah. VANDEHEI: We’ve probably written more stories about the tea party movement than any other organization. We’ve really tried to study this group. It’s a very, very diffuse group. You cannot say that they are racist anymore then you can say the Republican Party’s racist or the Democratic Party is racist, so it creates this culture and it’s a dangerous topic, it’s a dangerous fire to light, and then when it happens this is the outcome. So conservatives- JONATHAN CAPEHART: But Jim- VANDEHEI: I’m not defending Breitbart. But conservatives are outraged, they feel like ‘listen, you’re – because I’m part of the tea party movement you say, therefore, I’m racist.’ And so what Breitbart’s arguing is ‘I want to push back.’ Now I’m not saying what Breitbart did was right because clearly it wasn’t right and the outcome was awful for this woman, but both sides, I think, come off looking very, very bad and that’s why Joe Biden and – and Steny Hoyer both said they didn’t agree with the NAACP’s charge. RATIGAN: Go ahead, Jonathan. CAPEHART: Jim, but here’s the thing. The NAACP went to great lengths to say they were talking about racist elements within the tea party movement and even Ben Jealous said point blank that he did not say – think that the entire tea party movement was racist. He wanted leaders of the tea party movement to disavow those racist elements. Very nuanced thing here. He’s not broad-brushing the movement. VANDEHEI: Very nuanced, but Jonathan – but very nuanced but very explosive. They knew exactly once you make that statement, whether you’re trying to add nuance to the statement or not, you know exactly what’s going to happen when you make that charge, whether it’s elements or how nuanced they’re trying to be. CAPEHART: So then- VANDEHEI: Especially – this is a terrible issue to be talking about. CAPEHART: But then we can- VANDEHEI: And it’s the reason that Barack Obama does not want to talk about it. Barack Obama has tried very- CAPEHART: But then we can never have a conversation about race if – I mean, you have – it’s all about nuance. VANDEHEI: I feel like we’ve been having a conversation p about race for a long, long time in this country- CAPEHART: We always will.

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CNN’s Feyerick Plays Hardball With Ground Zero Mosque Developer

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Wednesday’s Newsroom, CNN correspondent Deborah Feyerick refreshingly asked the developer behind the planned mosque near Ground Zero many hard questions. Feyerick bluntly asked Sharif el-Gamel, “Why not have a prayer space for Buddhists or Jews or Christians… why must it be Muslim? ” The correspondent even brought up how one of the landing gear of one of the planes ended up on the site of the planned mosque . Feyrick conducted her hardball interview of el-Gamel at his New York City office. The CNN correspondent almost immediately launched into her prayer space question. When the real estate developer initially replied, “There are Jewish community centers all over the country,” Feyerick interrupted with a sharp retort: ” But the Jews didn’t take down two towers .” El-Gamel continued that “there are YMCA’s all over the country,” but she gave a similar reply: ” But the Christians didn’t take down two towers .” The journalist followed up with the issue of the planned mosque’s proximity to the Ground Zero and mentioned the plane wreckage that ended up on the site: ” For those who are so- still sensitive and so raw to this, their question- their overriding question is, why here? Why so close? It’s two blocks, but it was close enough that landing gear ended up on the roof. Why? ” Later in the segment, Feyerick mentioned the recent confrontational zoning meeting where supporters and opponents of the mosque faced off and quoted from one of the opponents who used a historical parallel: ” Coming out of that hearing, somebody said, ‘The Japanese would never have dared to build on Pearl Harbor.’ What makes this different? ” Towards the end of the segment, the CNN correspondent asked el-Gamel if he planned to make sure Islamic extremism stays out of the “Islamic community center” and if they would reject funding from Islamist sources: “Can you guarantee that this center will r oot out extremism or completely reject any extremists that try to get into it?…Will you reject any money that comes…from any person, any country, any organization… that has any links to terrorism ? Will you be doing due diligence ?” In her final question, Feyerick asked the developer to directly address a key claim by the opponents of the mosque: ” For those who would say, this is not an olive branch to greater understanding, this is more an act of defiance- how would you answer those people? ” The full transcript of correspondent Deborah Feyerich’s interview of Sharif el-Gamel, which aired 47 minutes into the 12 pm Eastern hour of Wednesday’s Newsroom program: FREDERICKA WHITFIELD: Some say plans to build an Islamic center and mosque near 9/11’s Ground Zero disrespects the victims of the attacks. Others say that attitude is bigoted and intolerant. CNN’s Deborah Feyerick spoke with the developer of the project to get his thoughts. DEBORAH FEYERICK: This is where you sort of conceived of the idea? SHARIF EL-GAMEL, SOHO PROPERTIES: Yes, it is. FEYERICK (voice-over): Meet New York real estate developer Sharif el-Gamel, the man at the center of a controversial plan a stone’s throw from the World Trade Center site. EL-GAMEL: This is an Muslim-led project. This is an Islamic community center that will cater to all of New York. There’s gym and basketball courts. FEYERICK: Plans include a performing arts center, swimming pool, child care facilities, and yes, a Muslim prayer space two blocks from the worst terror attack in U.S. history. FEYERICK (on-camera): Why not have a prayer space for Buddhists or Jews or Christians or- why must it be Muslim? It can’t just be a business decision. EL-GAMEL: There are Jewish community centers all over the country. There are Y- FEYERICK: But the Jews didn’t take down two towers. EL-GAMEL: There are YMCA’s all over the country- FEYERICK: But the Christians didn’t take down two towers. EL-GAMEL: And this is- and this is a need that exists. FEYERICK: For those who are so- still sensitive and so raw to this, their question- their overriding question is, why here? Why so close? It’s two blocks, but it was close enough that landing gear ended up on the roof. Why? EL-GAMEL: There is a need. It’s supply and demand. The community wants it. The politicians are supporting it. FEYERICK (voice-over): Maybe, but many who attended a town hall meeting recently were dead set against it. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have we forgotten what happened at 9/11? EL-GAMEL: What happened that day is not Islam. What happened that day is terrorism. FEYERICK (on-camera): Coming out of that hearing, somebody said, ‘The Japanese would never have dared to build on Pearl Harbor.’ What makes this different? EL-GAMEL: If you were at that hearing the way that I was at that hearing, you come out understanding that there is a great need for dialogue now. FEYERICK (voice-over): El-Gamel says many people don’t understand Islam. But does that make it Islamophobia? EL-GAMEL: One hundred percent. FEYERICK (on-camera): Why? EL-GAMEL: Because the moderate voice of Islam is not coming out. FEYERICK: Can you guarantee that this center will root out extremism or completely reject any extremists that try to get into it? EL-GAMEL: One hundred percent- we will not tolerate extremism. We will not tolerate extremism. FEYERICK (voice-over): And yet, critics say the religious leader, Iman Faisal Abdul Rauf, has links to groups that support terror. EL-GAMEL: Imam Faisal is one of the most moderate Muslims that exists in this country today. FEYERICK (on-camera): Will you reject any money that comes, either directly or indirectly, from any person, any country, any organization, any corporation, that has any links to terrorism? Will you be doing due diligence? EL-GAMEL: We are going to be doing extreme due diligence, and we are going to hire the best security experts in the country to help us walk through the process, and we plan on being very transparent throughout the whole process. FEYERICK: For those who would say, this is not an olive branch to greater understanding, this is more an act of defiance- how would you answer those people? EL-GAMEL: This is an olive branch. FEYERICK: El-Gamel points out there are more than a million Muslims in the tri-state area, and that the American Muslim consumer spends nearly $200 billion a year. So, when he talks about this center as a business, it certainly is that. He also says he wants his two young daughters to have a place where they can feel a sense of cultural and religious pride and belonging- where everyone can learn and share in the mainstream Muslim experience. Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

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CNN’s Feyerick Plays Hardball With Ground Zero Mosque Developer

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Large China oil spill threatens sea life, water

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

China's largest reported oil spill emptied beaches along the Yellow Sea as its size doubled Wednesday, while cleanup efforts included straw mats and frazzled workers with little more than rubber gloves. An official warned the spill posed a “severe threat” to sea life and water quality as China's latest environmental crisis spread off the shores of Dalian, once named China's most livable city. One cleanup worker has drowned, his body coated in crude. “I've been to a few bays today and discovered they were almost entirely covered with dark oil,” said Zhong Yu with environmental group Greenpeace China, who spent the day on a boat inspecting the spill. “The oil is half-solid and half liquid and is as sticky as asphalt,” she told The Associated Press by telephone. The oil had spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers) of water five days since a pipeline at the busy northeastern port exploded, hurting oil shipments from part of China's strategic oil reserves to the rest of the country. Shipments remained reduced Wednesday. State media has said no more oil is leaking into the sea, but the total amount of oil spilled is not yet clear. Greenpeace China released photos Wednesday of inky beaches and of straw mats about 2 square meters (21 square feet) in size scattered on the sea, meant to absorb the oil. Fishing in the waters around Dalian has been banned through the end of August, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. “The oil spill will pose a severe threat to marine animals, and water quality, and the sea birds,” Huang Yong, deputy bureau chief for the city's Maritime Safety Administration, told Dragon TV. At least one person died during cleanup efforts. A 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, drowned Tuesday when a wave threw him from a vessel, Xinhua reported. Officials, oil company workers and volunteers were turning out by the hundreds to clean blackened beaches. “We don't have proper oil cleanup materials, so our workers are wearing rubber gloves and using chopsticks,” an official with the Jinshitan Golden Beach Administration Committee told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper, in apparent exasperation. “This kind of inefficiency means the oil will keep coming to shore. … This stretch of oil is really difficult to clean up in the short term.” But 40 oil-skimming boats and about 800 fishing boats were also deployed to clean up the spill, and Xinhua said more than 15 kilometers (9 miles) of oil barriers had been set up to keep the slick from spreading. China Central Television earlier reported an estimate of 1,500 tons of oil has spilled. That would amount roughly to 400,000 gallons (1,500,000 liters) — as compared with 94 million to 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill off the U.S. coast. China's State Oceanic Administration released the latest size of the contaminated area in a statement Tuesday. The cause of the explosion that started the spill was still not clear. The pipeline is owned by China National Petroleum Corp., Asia's biggest oil and gas producer by volume. Friday's images of 100-foot-high (30-meter-high) flames at China's second largest port for crude oil imports drew the immediate attention of President Hu Jintao and other top leaders. Now the challenge is cleaning up the greasy plume. “Our priority is to collect the spilled oil within five days to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters,” Dalian's vice mayor, Dai Yulin, told Xinhua on Tuesday. But an official with the State Oceanic Administration has warned the spill will be difficult to clean up even in twice that amount of time. Some locals said the area's economy was already hurting. “Let's wait and see how well they deal with the oil until Sept. 1, if the oil can't be cleaned up by then, the seafood products will all be ruined,” an unnamed fisherman told Dragon TV. “No one will buy them in the market because of the smell of the oil.” added by: JanforGore

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AP Touts Stimulus in German Recovery, Ignores Tax Cuts

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

If it worked for Germany, it should work for the United States, right? In a July 21 story , AP writer Geir Moulson praised government stimulus for helping Germany “bounce back” from the recession. Moulson highlighted two government stimulus packages totaling $104 billion and a government-sponsored program that cut back workers’ hours instead of laying them off as reasons for Germany’s endurance: “The various government measures are all part of the upswing.” However, nowhere in Moulsion’s 25-paragraph story did he acknowledge tax cuts over the past decade as a reason for Germany’s success. As reported in Deutsche Welle , a German media outlet, the European Union’s statistical office indicated Germany’s corporate tax rate was cut to 29.8 percent in 2010, a 42-percent decrease from the 51.6-percent rate in 2000. Germany has also cut income taxes by 3.6 percent over the past ten years. Moulson did acknowledge Germany’s role in the world economy as a factor, but for the most part, he took every opportunity to praise the government stimulus: “The main driving force for Germany, a major exporter, remains the growing world economy, the Bundesbank said. Still, there’s general agreement that the way to recovery was paved in part by government spending.” The AP story is only the latest example of media outlets championing government stimulus packages as a solution to economy woes while downplaying the benefits of tax cuts and other conservative solutions.

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AP Touts Stimulus in German Recovery, Ignores Tax Cuts

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