"War is peace. And more war is 'mellowing out'," according to the U.S. corporate mainstream media. War is now the default. Peace is "extremist" and we can't have it breaking out in Iran.

I explain in this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio.

Plus, we take tons of listener calls, details some more GOP lies about 'Obamacare' and much more. And, of course, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

Most of the attention that will be paid today to this interview by NBC's Savannah Guthrie will, no doubt, focus on Sen. Rand Paul's dismissive and somewhat condescending treatment of the female Today anchor. It does echo, after all, a similarly condescending and arrogant tone he struck last February during an interview with CNBC's Kelly Evans when he, literally, "shushed" her and told her to "calm down a bit", as she asked him uncomfortable questions.

But what caught my eyes and ears in this latest video (posted below) was something else entirely. And it's something which reflects far more poorly on Guthrie and the corporate media in general than it does on the junior Senator from Kentucky and now 2016 Republican Presidential candidate.

While it's true Paul appears to have trouble dealing respectfully with female interviewers and is now wildly reversing many of his previously strongly held foreign policy positions in hopes of wooing GOP voters, it's the mindset behind Guthrie's opening question which disturbs me far more. And it's one that we've seen before in the supposedly "mainstream" media...

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

The longtime former host of the Fox 'News' media critique program, Fox News Watch, took to CNN on Sunday to blast both Fox and his former colleague Bill O'Reilly during an appearance on Brian Stelter's weekend media show, Reliable Sources.

Eric Burns, who worked at Fox for years before finally leaving in 2008, described the channel as a "cult" of "extreme right", and described O'Reilly as both the leader of that cult and a "liar."

"I think it's astonishing that that's the way they operate," Burns said, describing Fox' failure to take any action against their prime time star in light of documented evidence that O'Reilly wholly mischaracterized and/or blatantly lied about his coverage of the Falklands War, bombings in Northern Ireland, the murder of nuns in El Salvador, and the suicide of a key player in the JFK assassination saga, to name just a few cases recently brought to light by others in the non-wingnut media.

Burns went on to describe [video posted in full below] how O'Reilly has been caught telling "numerous lies" over the years by, among others, former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann who used "all the evidence possible" to detail the fabrications. But, he explained, because the lies were told at Fox, nobody cared.

"No one expects much out of O'Reilly as a Fox News host," said Burns. "No one expects the truth."

The way to understand what is going on right now at Fox in the wake of the allegations against O'Reilly, Burns explained, "is to make a distinction between the words 'culture' and 'cult'"...

Idiot former "family values" Congressman and deadbeat dad Joe Walsh (R-IL) helps world understand why he was run out of Congress...

Let's hope that when the Islamists next strike they first behead the appeasing cowards at CNN, MSNBC, etal who refused to show the cartoons.

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) January 14, 2015

Because nothing says "courage" like calling for people to be beheaded! Am I right, Congressman?

Apparently, Freedom of the Press applies to the publication of offensive cartoons, but not to the decision to not publish them, according to the idiot Walsh. If you choose to not publish such things, you should be beheaded.

It's that sort of question I asked about in my "Why?" piece following the Charlie Hebdo massacre last week, and that Glenn Greenwald speaks to even more specifically in his own must read piece on the issue.

I'll also be talking a bit more about all of this (and taking calls on it) on The BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio later today. (6-7p ET/3-4p PT, streaming live right here. If you'd like to call in, please do: 818-985-5735.)

The Daily Beasts's Scott Bixby tweeted the following side-by-side screen captures earlier today, with the caption "U.S. cable news vs. Canadian public news"...

Heather "Digby" Parton posted the photo and added adding: "How embarrassing". Indeed.

James West at Mother Jones offers more on this theme, noting "Canada's coverage of the Ottawa shootings put American cable news to shame". Pretty easy though. As West writes, along with examples, "The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation today gave a master class in calm, credible breaking news reporting."

Well, we'd hate to have that.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Tide turns against climate change deniers, as even Rupert Murdoch dumps rightwing policy front group ALEC; Climate change now a defining campaign issue in races around country; 35k walruses start their own sad climate march in Alaska; PLUS: Tide turns against King Coal: Canadian coal mine sells for just $2 ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Northern “biopirates” gobbling up resources of the Global South; Renewables take top share of German power supply for 9 nine straight months; August 2014: Greenland is the New Black; Duke Energy to keep ratepayer money for canceled nuclear plant; WV: Mountaintop removal again nixed by court; Fracking: TX residents challenge open sludge pits near schools; Solar on your parking lot; Negative 'Windfarm study' didn't study windfarms ... PLUS: Future generations will ask "Where were you?" for the People's Climate March... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Green News Report Special Coverage: President Obama's EPA unveils historic new proposed standards to cut carbon pollution from power plants nationwide, to take action on climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Controlled burn planned after oil spill in Delta National Wildlife Refuge; Whales Saved by Ship Speed Limits; The implications of Google's self-driving car; WSJ’s shameful climate denial; Green Energy Investment Set To 'Explode'; Here’s How Much U.S. Summers Have Warmed Since 1970; IEA Report calls for huge investment in energy development; Solar Farmers in Japan to Harvest Electricity With Crops.... PLUS: Conservatives Searching for New Reasons Not to Save Planet ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama ups the rhetoric on action against global warming; Speaker Boehner says he's 'not qualified to debate climate science', but knows pollution regulations are bad; Majority of Americans support reducing emissions; Victory for fossil fuels over clean energy in Boehner's Ohio; PLUS: Solar. Freakin'. Roadways!!!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Wall St. Journal's 'shameful' climate denial; U.S. power plants already succeeding in reducing emissions; Something is killing baby puffins in the North Atlantic; Debunking the Chamber of Commerce's bogus claims; Coal industry export dreams withering away; Climate CoLab wants you to solve climate change; Exxon CEO: “No viable pathway” to reduce carbon emissions; Germans digging 'home-made' electricity.... PLUS: Corporate consolidation of farmland a risk to world food security: study ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Pope Francis calls on Christians to protect Creation --- or else!; Evangelical environmentalists organizing to address climate change; CNN's chief says climate change too boring to cover; PLUS: Meet your newest national monument: Organ Pipes Desert Peaks, in NM... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Pat Sajak, newest climate denial scientist; Innovation: A new way to harness waste heat; China’s global search for energy; Japan court rules against nuclear restart in rare ruling; USDA: Honeybee death rate too high for long-term survival; Heatwave in Australia breaks new records; Oil spills up 18% in US over last year alone; NC GOP pushes bill to punish fracking disclosures as a felony; Germany: clean energy success story or cautionary tale? ... PLUS: I Don’t Want to Be Right: Why people persist in believing things that just aren't true ... and much, MUCH more! ...

This week's KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast is chocked full of important news and insightful analysis that actually matters and that you simply won't hear anywhere else.

Among the items covered on the show this week:

• Today's mass stabbing at a PA high school; How it stacks up against recent mass shootings; and what Archie Bunker might have to say about it;
• Emmy award-winning journalist, media activist and BRAD BLOG contributor Sue Wilson of the Media Action Center joins us to discuss the FCC's surprising recent vote to de-consolidate corporate TV outlets; The millions minted for mainstream media by the Supreme Court's McCutcheon decision; Her FCC complaint, due to be heard soon, with potential broad consequences, over whether rightwing talk radio campaigning in Wisconsin leading up to the Scott Walker recall was "bonafide news", or whether it violated federal law and/or the Zapple Doctrine.
• The new Heart Bleed bug and how that massive, newly discovered Internet security vulnerability further underscores the insanity of Internet Voting (and the various elected officials and candidates calling for it.)
• Good news rulings in the DoJ's federal challenges to polling place Photo ID restriction laws passed by Republicans in TX and in NC, as reported recently by The BRAD BLOG's legal analyst Ernie Canning.
• Bill O'Reilly's personal hypocrisy knows no bounds (wait until you hear what he said about Tesla in 2011 and then in 2014), as Desi Doyen joins us for that and the latest Green News Report.

And all of that in less than an hour! That oughta hold ya until next week!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Study finds CNN and Fox 'News' FAIL on climate change; CNN looks for missing plane, finds an ocean full of garbage; PLUS: Energy company to pay record fine for 85 years of toxic waste dumping and they couldn't be happier about it... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): GOP climate skeptic's on-air conversion in Showtime's 'Years of Living Dangerously'; Waters to flood part of CO River for just a few weeks; Final chapter of IPCC report to be published this week; Low-tech 'living fences' drastically reduce lion killings; Another oil spill on public lands ... PLUS: Scientists Focus on Polar Waters As Threat of Acidification Grows ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Normally, I wouldn't waste your time by covering a story like this. It's a ridiculous wedge issue that extremist Rightwingers are trying to mainstream, and the bill that allows for their hoped for discrimination against gay people in Arizona (which is already allowable under existing law in AZ) is probably going to be vetoed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R) anyway, if reports today are reliable and if she has any interest in taking the advice of some of the most powerful and influential Republicans from the state. Even three of the Republican state Senators who voted for the bill are now asking Brewer to veto it. [Update 2/26/1: Brewer has now vetoed the bill, as expected.]

But given that three-term state Sen. Al Melvin (R) is also running for Governor of AZ in 2014, I suppose it's important to help folks understand how extreme and --- mostly --- stupid this clown really is.

I'd normally ignore this story even on that basis, on the premise that this guy is obviously too stupid to be elected to any office, much less governor of the state.

However, Arizona is also the state that, remarkably, managed to re-elect the similarly daft Jan Brewer as the state's chief executive. So, I suppose anyone who gives too much credit to the voters of AZ to save themselves (or to have the ability to oversee their own election results determined by computer tabulators instead of human beings) does so at their own peril.

With all of that in mind, please watch the video of his interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper (who deserves credit here) and take note of how unapologetically dumb state Sen. Al Melvin --- candidate for Governor of AZ --- actually is. The only defense I can manufacture in his favor: if he's not incredibly stupid, he's just indescribably dishonest. So, take your pick...

[Hat-tip RAW STORY...]

As the government shutdown began, the corporate U.S. media played its usual unhelpful role by not taking sides in what was clearly a one-sided argument.

"In shutdown blame game, Democrats and Republicans united: It's the other side's fault," declared Washington Post's headline. "Shutdown: Obama and Republicans Trade Blame as Deadline is Crossed," TIME unhelpfully noted, sounding much like the pretend news outlet Fox "News", which declared similarly "Partial shutdown begins: Can Congress, White House compromise?"

Never mind that Democrats had already compromised by agreeing to "Sequestration" level budget cuts, the only question was how would the two sides "compromise" on the Affordable Care Act which had nothing to do with the budget resolution itself, but has long been a bete noir for Republicans.

Meanwhile, the non-U.S. news outlet, The Guardian in the UK, accurately reported that the U.S. government shutdown occurred because Democrats refused to give into the Tea Party's extortion-like demands. Specifically, they wrote, it occurred after "Republicans staged a series of last-ditch efforts to use a once-routine budget procedure to force Democrats to abandon their efforts to extend U.S. health insurance."

Was that so hard? Apparently so, for the U.S. corporate media anyway...

Earlier this week we detailed The Guardian investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald's dismantling of CNN/New York's Jeffrey Toobin in regard to the Bradley Manning verdict, and Toobin's vigorous defense of the U.S. surveillance state, long and cruel sentences for patriot whistleblowers and his support of the elitist establishment media who often publish "approved" administration leaks of Top Secret material to great aplomb from folks like Toobin.

Greenwald was back with Toobin on CNN Wednesday night, this time to talk about NSA leaker Edward Snowden. And this time, they were joined by New York Times investigative journalist James Risen, who is being forced to testify concerning his reporting on an alleged U.S. cyberattack against the Iran nuclear program.

It didn't go well for Toobin...

This debate between Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and New York's Jeffrey Toobin, both legal experts, is very enlightening and much worth watching. As those who know me may guess, I tend to side with Greenwald here...

By the way, since Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg is invoked in the above, please see what he had to say about Bradley Manning when I interviewed him in 2010, as I quoted him yesterday here. My entire 2010 Ellsberg interview (text transcript and audio), including more of his thoughts on Manning is posted here.

UPDATE 8/3/2012: Greenwald and Toobin returned for Round 2 on CNN. This time with New York Times investigative journalist James Risen as well. It didn't go any better for Toobin. Details, video here...