Randi Rhodes' Interview with John Nichols of the Nation Magazine on Tuesday's elections (AUDIO)

Randi Rhodes' interview with John Nichols after the Wisconsin Election (AUDIO)

UPDATE 10:57am, Pacific: Important point to remember, and it come about eight minutes into the interview. Dale Schultz is a Republican Moderate who voted against the Union-stripping bill. He is a pro-Labor Republican, and still has his seat.  (We did not even attempt to recall him.  Why?  He did the right thing.)  He has taken pains to kick the holy @#$^ out of Walker whenever he gets the chance.

So the upshot of it is, on Labor issues, the Democrats now have the majority in the Wisconsin State House.

I know what I said, and I stand by most of it (particularly the part about if people had bothered to show up in 2010)...but hearing this made me feel a whole lot better about the state of play in Wisconsin. This was a victory. Mea culpa!

Randi Rhodes Interview with David Cay Johnston (VIDEO)

Because we talk Economics at this blog:

President Obama's Open Mic Moment (AUDIO)

I never know what's up with CBS Feeds. I apologize if it looks weird. However if you click on the far left (hee-hee!) of the image, about in the middle (where it says WS VIDEO) it still plays.



Somehow, I doubt this was as accidental as Huffington AOL is suggesting.

Randi Rhodes: The Paul Ryan Medicare Ad (AUDIO)

Thanks, Duffy! (He's the voice in the ad):

Methinks John Nichols is just getting warmed up, and serious trouble may lay ahead for Scott Walker (AUDIO)

Because he's pissed off...and curious.

Yesterday, John Nichols of the Nation Magazine dropped a phone call to the Randi Rhodes show to talk about how Scott Walker may have committed a serious ethics violation in a State that has, in his words, the "toughest ethics Laws in the country":



Whoops.

Here's the opening bit from Mr. Nichols Nation piece that was mentioned:

When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker discussed strategies to lay off state employees for political purposes, to coordinate supposedly “independent” political expenditures to aid legislatures who support his budget repair bill and to place agent provocateurs on the streets of Madison in order to disrupt peaceful demonstrations, he committed what the former attorney general of Wisconsin says could turn out to be serious ethics, election law and labor violations.

While much of the attention to the “prank” call that the governor took from a blogger who identified himself as billionaire David Koch [1] has focused on the bizarre, at times comic, character of the discussion between a blogger posing [2] as a powerful political player on the right and a governor whose budget repaid bill has sparked mass demonstrations in Wisconsin communities and a national outcry, the state’s former chief law-enforcement officer described the governor’s statements as “deeply troubling” and suggested that they would require inquiry and investigation by watchdog agencies.

“There clearly are potential ethics violations, and there are potential election-law violations and there are a lot of what look to me like labor-law violations,” said Peg Lautenschlager [3], a Democrat who served as Wisconsin’s attorney general after serving for many years as a US Attorney. “I think that the ethics violations are something the [state] Government Accountability Board should look into because they are considerable. He is on tape talking with someone who he thinks is the funder of an independent political action committee to purchase advertising to benefit Republican legislators who are nervous about taking votes on legislation he sees as critical to his political success.”

Lautenschlager, a former legislator who has known Walker for many years and who has worked with many of the unions involved in the current dispute, says: “One of the things I find most problematic in all of this is the governor’s casual talk about using outside troublemakers to stir up trouble on the streets, and the fact that he only dismissed the idea because it might cause a political problem for him.”

You can find the rest here. (It's not behind a paywall, but don't be surprised if they ask you for your Email and zip code).

I've got to say, reading the piece, Nichols didn't write much more than was in the interview. Sometimes, you listen to a journalist on the TeeVee or the Radio, and hear about what they're working on, and you go in expecting a universe's worth of difference between what he or she wrote, and what they said...

...and there wasn't a universe's worth of difference.

That being said, one gets the distinct feeling that Mr. Nichols is just getting warmed up.

The original Faux David Koch call is here:

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok's had himself a busy day (AUDIO and VIDEO)

First, Mark's Interview with Randi Rhodes:




And his second interview with Keith:

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What the hell...do you wanna listen to Ryan Seacrest interview the President of the United States? (AUDIO)?

Not quite up to Daily Show standards, but...yeah...it happened.

Don't go expecting serious, heavy-fare here.

But did the President get it wrong?

I would say...no.

Right wingers...do you stand behind this??

Below, you'll find a compilation audio, courtesy of Crooks and Liars, of Pastor Steven Anderson rambling on about a variety of subjects, but the key for this website is the part where he directly advocates and prays for the death of Barack Obama.

Yeah, God appointed him to destroy this country for the wickedness of the United States of America. God appointed him because that's what our country has turned into. That's who we deserve as a president.

But let me tell you something: I don't love Barack Obama. I don't respect Barack Obama. I don't obey Barack Obama. And I'd like Barack Obama to melt like a snail tonight. Because he needs to recompense, he needs to reap what he's sown.

You see, any Christian will tell you that someone who commits murder should get the death penalty. Because that's what it says in Genesis Chapter 9, that's what it says in the Mosaic Law, that's what it teaches us throughout the Bible. 'Who so sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' 'From the image of God created he Man.'

And when Barack Obama is gonna push his partial birth abortion, his salty saline solution abortion, hey, he deserves to be punished for what he's done. I'm not going to pray for God to bless Barack Obama. This is my prayer tonight to Barack Obama.

...Now, look, if somebody wants me, it somebody twisted my arm and tells me to pray for Barack Obama, this is what I'm going to pray, because this is the only prayer that applies to him: 'Break his teeth, O God, in his mouth. You know, as a snail which melteth, let him pass away. Like the untimely birth of a woman, that he thinks -- he calls it a woman's right to choose, you know, he thinks it's so wonderful. He ought to be aborted. It ought to be, 'Abort Obama.'

He continues:

Let me tell you something: Barack Obama has wrought lewdness in America. America has become lewd. What does lewd mean? L-E-W-D? [Pause] Obscene. Right? Dirty. Filthy. Homosexuality. Promiscuity. All of the -- everything that's on the billboard, the TV. Sensuality. Lewdness! We don't even know what lewdness means anymore! We're just surrounded by it, inundated with it!

... And yet you're going to tell me that I'm supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth abortion and all these different things -- you're gonna tell me I'm supposed to pray for God to give him a good lunch tomorrow while he's in Phoenix, Arizona.

Nope. I'm not gonna pray for his good. I'm going to pray that he dies and goes to hell. When I go to bed tonight, that's what I'm going to pray. And you say, 'Are you just saying that?' No. When I go to bed tonight, Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.

You say, 'Why would you do that?' That our country could be saved.

It's a fair question to ask at this point, if you are of a Conservative Persuasion, if you are a Republican, if you just don't like the President, do you stand behind this kind of rhetoric??

Okay fine. Odds are, you don't. Then why are you silent??

Going back eight years, I'll admit, I loathed President Bush. I hated his freakin' guts...but at no time did I pray or advocate for his death, or any sort of harm to come to his family.

Never.

I wanted to kick his ass at the ballot box.

I put up what stories I can find showing Republicans standing up this kind of stuff because frankly, I want to encourage more of it. But I got to tell you, it's kinda rare. It's disturbingly rare.

It's time to start calling this for what it is. It's time to face to facts. There are a number of Religious leaders, a number of Politicians, and certainly a number of Television Hosts (Glenn Beck comes immediately to mind), that are frankly trying to get the President killed.

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I'd like to thank Dan Savage, who appeared on last night's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and became the first white person I know of to say this publicly, on national TV. He says so at the 7:13 mark.

Dan is good people, and really fine journalist. He's was also the first journalist (much less, a Gay American) to come out an say that African-Americans were not to blame for the passage of California Prop. 8.

Media Matters: Excuse me?!?!?

Racist Glenn Beck, today:

They think they -- and they -- they -- you know what? At this point, gang, I'm not sure, they may be able to because they are so far ahead of us. They know what they're dealing against; most of America does not yet. Most of America doesn't have a clue as to what's going on. There is a coup going on. There is a stealing of America, and the way it is done, it has been done through the -- the guise of an election, but they lied to us the entire time.

Let's be honest. Rather than let a black man be elected President, we are being subjected to rhetoric like this.

National Faith Community Call To Action call with the President

It may be a little...churchy, for some; but their hearts are certainly in the right place, and since this blog is committed to putting up everything (mediawise) I can find with the President.

And let me add, that when they say interfaith, they mean interfaith. Jews and Muslims are in this organization as well.

Click on the Play (the triangle) Icon to play the call. I'm listening to it as I type this, so it's going to take a while to get to the President. Anything else will get the contributions page (which isn't a bad thing, but I felt it best to warn you).