Michael Moore tweeted within the past hour, in response to yesterday's shooting spree at Fort Hood:

The wingnuts, of course, are out for blood following the shooting. Predictably, they're going after Muslims, under the presumption that the suspect, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was acting out of incitement from Islam.

If that turns out to be true --- and there's no actual evidence to support that at this time, as far as I know --- I'd agree that any person or persons who would incite such violence should be held accountable. Just as those who'd incite similar violence --- for example, in the cases of the murder of Kansas obstetrician Dr. George Tiller or the hanging of Clay County, KY census worker Bill Sparkman --- should be held similarly accountable.

Yet, I heard few such calls from the Right after those incidents. In the case of Tiller, his accused murderer Scott Roeder was regarded by the Right as either a hero or a lone, crazy guy (depending on how far to the Right they happened to be). I've heard no condemnation from the Right, or calls for accountability for the constant, repeated, almost daily characterization of Tiller, to millions and millions of Americans over the air waves by folks like Bill O'Reilly (the most watched man on cable news), as a "baby killer", "executing babies", "death merchant", etc., even though Tiller was a medical doctor performing lawful services.

I heard no wingnut condemnation of Bernie Goldberg --- and certainly not of Christianity as a whole --- even after it was revealed that his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And All Franken Is #37), was a major inspiration for Jim David Adkisson's shooting spree at a Knoxville, TN Unitarian Church in July of 2008 which killed two and injured seven others...

Michael Moore calmly, efficiently and elegantly mopped the floor up with Sean Hannity on Tuesday night. Poor, sad, lost, cowardly Sean never saw it coming and never even knew what hit him. Via RAW STORY...

Via RAW STORY...

So far, it's been almost a full month since Fox "News"/ABC Radio propagandist Sean Hannity volunteered to be waterboarded for charity, claiming it was not torture. Despite MSNBC's Keith Olbermann offering $1000 for the troops, for every second Hannity lasts, the cowardly wingnut torture apologists has failed to revisit the topic since his original act of phony bravado.

See "Mancow" being waterboarded, and then commenting on it, in the two very short videos below. And remember, unlike the detainees that we tortured, he was not being waterboarded by hostile folks, and was able to call it off at any time, on his own...

On a related topic... I was on San Francisco's usually very rightwing radio station KGO last night, with the progressive Christine Craft sitting in as late-night host. Lots of similarly cowardly wingnuts called in to inform us that waterboarding isn't torture at all. Here's the audio. Enjoy.

MP3 Download, or listen online (appx 35 mins)...

Update: My VelvetRevolution.us colleague Kevin Zeese writes in to note that his coverage of the same news item at Voters For Peace, also includes a video of Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens being waterboard in February of 2008, to similar result as "Mancow's." He also lasts about 5 seconds under waterboarding by friendly torturers.

UPDATE 5/23/09: And this just in via ThinkProgress...

UPDATE 5/29/09: Olbermann interviews Mancow after his waterboarding. Video follows below. Here's a bit of the transcript...

No. He's not crazy at all. Glenn Beck pours metaphorical "gasoline" on "himself," his viewers, and his imagined newly-tyrannical America, and his own, and his viewers', rapidly accelerating, self-perpetuated sense of victim-hood. When he/they eventually --- and it shouldn't be long at this rate --- actually light the match and blow themselves/us up, feel free to point back to this item, when we're told "who could have predicted it?"...

Beck's daily hour on governmentally subsidized cable TV, and three hours daily on our publicly owned radio waves, is a tremendously responsible use government welfare, and reflects brilliantly on our Founding Fathers' guarantee to one single industry --- and one single industry only (the press) --- in our U.S. Constitution.

That's a very responsible use of that singular Constitutional dispensation, Glenn. Keep up the bad work.

BTW, in case you missed it on Wednesday, Jon Stewart --- an actually responsible steward of public largess --- spoke directly and brilliantly to the crazies like Beck and Hannity and O'Reilly and Levin and Bachmann et al, by informing them (since they don't seem to know): "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing...that's not tyranny, that's democracy"...

That video --- actually worth watching and taking notes --- follows below...

Imagine, if you will, that the situation had been reversed, and that it had been Norm Coleman who was found to have received more votes than Al Franken for the U.S. Senate seat in MN.

Imagine if Al Franken's campaign, as opposed to Norm Coleman's, had now been found to have disclosed the names and credit card numbers of their donors on their own website, where they also inappropriately stored the unencrypted three-digit security codes of contributor credit cards, violated state law by failing to notify anybody about it, and then lied about it.

Imagine if everything --- actually, if any one of the dozens of improprieties --- that Norm Coleman has pulled since the November election, had been done by Al Franken instead.

Might Sean Hannity be repeating, over and over, something akin to the following for three hours a day on the radio (over our publicly-owned airwaves), and during his hour-long solo Fox "News" freak show, five days a week??...

After all the stuff, nonsense, bullshit, lies, hoaxes, WSJ "editorials", Fox "News" Alerts, Presidential candidate lies, phony "conspiracy" claims, and-wall-to-wall cable and radio garbage that we had to endlessly suffer through, for months on end, leading up to last year's election, about supposed, massive "voter fraud" being committed --- by Democrats, naturally --- it turns out that in one of OH's largest counties, an exhaustive investigation by a Republican Special Prosecutor, appointed by his former GOP prosecutor partner (the Hamilton County Prosecutor who was also a state co-chair for the McCain/Palin campaign), looked into hundreds of "serious" allegations of such "fraud" and found exactly one such case.

One case.

No, it wasn't Ann Coulter. She commits her voter fraud in FL and in CT instead. But it was someone who had already turned himself in. His vote was never counted.

That's it. One case. Out of nearly half a million votes cast in Hamilton County, just one fraudulent vote was found. The Special Prosecutor's report is here [PDF].

After an entire season, using facts and reality-based information to fend off the insidious, America-hating forces of the evil Republican War on Democracy and their attempts to undermine the very core, the very heartbeat of our democracy, of our nation, for little more than attempted, pathetic --- and ultimately futile --- political gain, is anybody gonna apologize here? Anybody?

Rush? Sean? O'Reilly? John Fund? John McCain? John Danforth? Karl Rove? Tom Feeney? "Thor" Hearne? Todd Rokita? Jackasess at Powerline? Jackasses at Redstate? The entirety of the shameful, unpatriotic Fox "News" Channel? Anybody? Any of you liars and cowards and thieves and democracy-hating, facist-loving, Stalinesque, Saddamites have the guts, the courage, the sense of decency --- the love for your country --- to stand up and say you were wrong? That you are sorry?

Anyone? Anywhere?

Of course not. Especially not in Minnesota where not only have they found no such "voter fraud" epidemic --- as committed by Democrats or ACORN or anybody else --- but the Republicans are now trying to include actual fraudulent ballots in the results of the U.S. Senate race. Now that they need them in hopes of "winning".

No apologies, of course, because they'll all be back in two years and the same horseshit will be flowing loud and clear, once again from their democracy-hating souls, out to millions of Americans who are ready to believe --- listening over the corporately-run, though publicly-owned airwaves --- all over again and again and again. And again.

Not that they'll wait that long. Measures claimed to supposedly prevent (non-existent) "voter fraud" --- little more than measures meant to rob minorities, the elderly, students, and anyone else who tends to not vote Republican, of their Constitutional rights --- are moving forward, as John Gideon noted last night, and even as we speak, in TX, in UT, in MS and wherever else you can find depraved, soulless, Republican cretins who despise America, its history, and all that it pretends, and tries desperately, to stand for.

I am ashamed to call you people my fellow citizens.

For those following the nonsense being put forward by the GOP conspiracy theorists (such as Sean Hannity, Norm Coleman, RedState blog, PowerLine blog, and all their fact-free friends), David Brauer at MinnPost.com does a terrific job of debunking the whole "32 ballots driven around in an election director's car for days" nonsense.

They weren't driven around in her car, they weren't all votes for Franken, they weren't "lost" for days, and the claim, which is being used by the national GOP at their conspiracy theory "Minnesota Recount" site to prop up their unsubstantiated claims of a "stolen election," turns out (surprise surprise) to be entirely false...

No, really. He did. So will the rightwing FNC "defenders of Jewish people against slime artists of all persuasions," such as Kristol, Krauthammer, Brooks, McCain or Palin condemn Hannity and company? Todd Gitlin seems to doubt it...

Via Knockville News Sentinel and RAW STORY:

In related news yesterday...The DoJ's Office of the Inspector General issued a 140-page report [PDF] finding that officials at the Bush Justice Department, including Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, broke the law for years by screening job applicants for non-political career civil servant/civil rights jobs based on professed fealty to George W. Bush, sexual orientation, their political views on same-sex marriage and abortion, and Internet searches to determine if they might be "liberal Democrats," as opposed to "good Americans."

Violations of the Rule of Law by Bush's Justice Department include a less-qualified candidate being hired for a counter-terrorism job on the belief that the more-qualified candidate's wife was a Democrat, a career prosecutor kept from promotions on the belief that she was a lesbian, and the firing of the U.S. Attorney with whom she was falsely rumored to be having an affair.

The stain of those illegally hired and fired by the Bush DoJ's Rightwing Affirmative Action Program will continue to spread its toxins throughout the Justice Department and American legal system for years to come.

UPDATE: Jon Ponder has more on Goodling's anti-gay efforts on behalf of Team Bush.

Hat-tip to Pokey Anderson, who shares the above, offering us a Sunday excuse to run a few more such familiar old favorites from the annals of Hannity's America...

Hannity & Colmes' guest lineup tonight, there to give us the inside skinny on tomorrow's "do or die" Democratic Primaries in Ohio and Texas on "America's Election HQ"...

Yup. Rove, Coulter, Morris, and Luntz. Guess they're needed to add balance to the Democratic powerhouse that is Alan Colmes?

BRAD BLOG FLASHBACK: Long time readers may remember the guest lineup announced for H&C's 2004 Presidential Election Eve show, as we reported at the time...

We ran an email campaign back then, haranguing them to add at least something resembling balance, which they eventually did by dumping Weld and adding Terry McAuliffe. Even though the clever little liars at Fox "News" still managed to figure out how to tilt it Right anyway.

In response to critical comments by former Republican Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, rightwing talker and self-proclaimed "Dean of the Limbaugh Institute for Conservative Studies," Rush Limbaugh, offered a fresh and perhaps telling explanation this morning for his ongoing attacks on presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain.

"We're trying to avoid a fifty state landslide!" Limbaugh shouted angrily in reply to the comments from Eagleburger, who had slammed him and fellow Republicanist entertainer Sean Hannity of Fox "News" and ABC Radio.

"I don't know who elected Rush Limbaugh or Hannity as the heads of this conservative movement," Eagleburger says at the beginning of a clip from MSNBC last night that was aired on today's radio show. "They throw that word around as if it was theirs and theirs alone."

"I thought I was a conservative, but that doesn't mean that I have to buy off on everything these poobahs thinks is what's necessary to be a conservative," continued the former Sec. of State, before defending what he sees as McCain's conservative national security credentials.

Eagleburger's slam would lead to a telling outburst in reply from Limbaugh (full audio posted at the end of this article)...

Ron Paul says his exclusion from last night's debate on Fox "News" is an "awful embarrassment" for the Republican propaganda outlet.

The Republican Presidential candidate points out, during an interview this morning on CNN, that he received 10% of the vote in Iowa, where he finished well ahead of Rudy Giuliani --- who was allowed to participate in the Fox debate --- and that he's beating him "2 to 1" currently in New Hampshire. As well, Paul points out that his campaign has "raised more money than any other Republican candidate in the last quarter."

He also notes both the impossible and the obvious in a single sentence when he charges: "I think they're making a mockery of the whole situation...because they've lost all credibility."

Fox claims their criteria on deciding who would participate in the New Hampshire debate was based on who was receiving at least 10% in the national polls. RAW STORY has the story and video.

Paul supporters are seen in this video, chasing Fox "News" and ABC radio propagandist Sean Hannity down the street last night in New Hampshire, chanting "Fox News sucks" and yelling reminders to the Republican party mouthpiece that he is not, in fact, as his fans would otherwise claim, "a great American."

Similarly, Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich was not allowed to participate in Sunday's (capital "D") Democratic debate on ABC. The Ohio Congressman is filing a complaint with the FCC, which points out, among other things, that the Disney-owned network is "violating its obligation to operate in the public interest," and that he "is the only Democratic presidential candidate who has qualified for Federal matching funds who is being excluded by ABC."

Meanwhile American democracy (small "d") gently weeps.

Brad Friedman from St. Louis, MO...

Apparently Texas oil tycoon, T. Boone Pickens, who funded the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" propaganda campaign against John Kerry in 2004 to the tune of $3 million, seems, like the group themselves, to have trouble with the definition of the word "truth".

Earlier this month, at a DC dinner celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Rightwing publication American Spectator, Pickens made a very public challenge (not a bet), offering, as the Republicanist blog, American Thinker reported, "a million dollars to anyone who could prove wrong anything the Swiftboat Veterans charged about Kerry."

The similarly Rightwing blog RedState echoed that the challenge was made to anybody who "can prove anything the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said in 2004 was false."

But it looks like Pickens was lying, as he is now trying to renege on the challenge since Kerry himself decided to take him up on it late last week, writing in a letter to Pickens (posted in full at the end of this article): "While I am prepared to show they lied on allegation after allegation, you have generously offered to pay one million dollars for just one thing that can be proven false. I am prepared to prove the lie beyond any reasonable doubt."

Kerry said that the $1 million should then be given to the Paralyzed Veterans of America, concluding his letter with: "I trust that you are a man of your word, having made a very public challenge at a major Washington dinner, and look forward to taking you up on this challenge."

Pickens, however --- wait for it --- has proven to be less than a man of his word. Who'd have thunk it? Rather than accept Kerry's offer to meet the challenge, he's moved the goal posts and Fox "News" Network stooge, Sean Hannity --- no man of honor either --- is entirely scummy enough to aide and abet Pickens in welching out of the challenge...

Our buddy Mike Rogers (who feels I should call him my Blogfather) of BlogActive.com owned Sean Hannity during his appearance on Hannity & Colmes. Rogers --- whose name is misspelled as RoDgers by Fox "News" --- originally outed Sen. Larry Craig last October, even though the mainstream media ignored him until the Idaho Statesmen picked up the story last week.

Atta boy, Blogfather! Check him out...