Congratulations to friend of C&L Ben Mankiewicz for landing a job as co-host of the nationally syndicated show “At the Movies”!  

Open thread below…

I confess:  I found Eleni Mandell through a random Wiki search.  Her song “Makeout King” is just delightful.  

  Recognizing the interest in Barack Obama’s speech in Germany today, the McCain campaign came up with a photo-op that would have captured at least some attention — John McCain would hop on a helicopter and give a speech from an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Louisiana coast. The campaign knows how important oil prices are to voters, so McCain assumed he could fool a few of them into thinking coastal drilling would give them relief at the pump.

But just an hour after the photo-op was finalized and the media was alerted, the event was off. The campaign said the weather just wasn’t cooperating. Jonathan Martin noted, “The campaign declined to comment any further about the quick decision to spike the trip other than to cite the weather.â€

Was the weather the real reason for the cancellation? Maybe, or perhaps the McCain gang didn’t want to visit the rig if the reporters on hand might notice the smell of diesel wafting through the French Quarter.

Nothing says “drill safely now†like an oil spill that closes 29 miles of the Mississippi River near New Orleans.

  This is some of the best news I’ve heard in a while. Matt Stoller at OpenLeft has compiled statements from every major Democratic Senate candidate on net neutrality and is happy to report that they all support it and plan to fight hard to make it law.

OpenLeft:

Make sure to go over and read all the responses and consider dropping a dime in the coffers of these great candidates. Many, many important issues are going to be decided during the next Congress and we can’t afford to have them decided by the likes of Norm Coleman and Ted “Tubes” Stevens.

You have to marvel at the creativity spurred by the internet.

Digg It!

ORIGINAL: Bill O’Reilly Gone Wild: Drops F-Bombs on the set. 

Rick Warren snagged Obama and McCain to attend a leadership and compassion forum in CA:

That Rick Warren sure is a moderate thinking preacher who doesn’t identify with the reigious right, or does he?

It may only be July, and Election Day may still be 104 days away, but we’ve reached the point at which the McCain campaign is even willing to attack Barack Obama’s remembrance of the Nazi Holocaust.

Speaking today at Yad Vashem, Obama said, “Let our children come here and know this history so they can add their voices to proclaim ‘never again.’ And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us and who have become symbols of the human spirit.â€

Soon after, the hopelessly tasteless McCain campaign alerted reporters to a news item from a year ago.

In other words, the McCain campaign wants Americans to believe that Obama is weak on genocide. Asked for clarification, McCain aide Michael Goldfarb told the Huffington Post, “Today he says ‘never again.’ A year ago stopping genocide wasn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces in Iraq. Doesn’t that strike you as inconsistent?â€

Not for those of us with cerebral cortexes.

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Hip hop star Nas joined forces with grassroots organization Color of Change and yesterday delivered over 620,000 petitions to FOX News, demanding an end to the daily on-air racism. Last night he joined Stephen to talk about the fight against FOX (particularly Bill O’Reilly, who Nas says is “scared”) and performed the first single off his new untitled album, “Sly Fox.”

 Download | Play  Download | Play

You can check out Part 1 of the interview here to see Nas call out BillO.

UPDATE: Hat Tip to Color of Change. Sign their petition: Demand Fox stop race baiting and fear mongering

Jack and Jill says: Nas Joins Color of Change to Deliver Petitions to Fox News

Brave New Films says: Sorry FOX, We Won’t Let You Trash Michelle Obama

Full lyrics below the fold. May not be safe for work.

Digg It!

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And he’s supposed to be a lefty pundit. Sometimes I think we need to clean out the whole crew.

Say, what?

We should love him because he’s nice to the MSM. Please make it stop. A flashback to an old Digby post reveals much more wankery.

  Senator Obama delivered a soaring speech today in Berlin before an estimated crowd of over 100,000 200,000 in which he called for a renewed trans-Atlantic — indeed, trans-global — alliance to fight the common threats we all face. Appealing the ideals America was founded on and has tried to promote since it’s inception, Senator Obama stated that whether it’s terrorism and global warming, or genocide and disease, there is no problem we cannot overcome nor enemy we cannot defeat when we are united in common purpose. Watch a few of his remarks below.

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

Watch the entire speech here.

UPDATE:  German papers put the crowd at over 200,000

UPDATE II: Wow. It looks like US Foreign Service personnel were banned from the speech. And not by Senator Obama.

Full transcript below the fold:

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He suggests a Fairness Doctrine for Republicans in Hollywood. Something like that.

In Berlin today, Barack Obama capped his European tour with an address to an audience whose numbers reached tens of thousands. But while the media will focus on Obama’s call to strengthen America’s trans-Atlantic alliance with France and Germany, no doubt absent from the coverage will be John McCain’s essential role in undermining it. As it turns out, back in 2003 John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with the Berlin-bashers and Paris-hating purveyors of “freedom fries” and “old Europe.”

As President Bush prepared to pull the trigger on the Iraq war in February 2003, John McCain was at the forefront of those browbeating the Chirac government for France’s refusal to back the U.S. at the United Nations. On February 10, 2003, McCain declared on MSNBC’s Hardball:

The next day on February 11, 2003, McCain co-sponsored a Senate resolution praising 18 European nations backing U.S. enforcement of UN demands for Saddam’s disarmament. In his press release, McCain echoed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in thundering at the France and Germany of “old Europe:”

McCain’s venom towards the French and Germans was on full display two days later during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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BillO’s peeps sandbag Rep. Wexler. Nice going Bill. Not everyone can handle it like Bill Moyers.

 Download | Play   Download | Play  (h/t Bill W)

BillO’s act of sandbagging people with a camera crew who he disagrees with where they live is unseemly. He’s such a frustrated man that he has to harass them with the Jesse Watters type idiots if they won’t appear on his show. I think it’s about time a group of people count up all of these BillO stakeouts and then camp out at his house, cameras in hand and stay there while O’Reilly comes home and jump out of the bushes and ask him about Andrea Mackris and Shawn Hornbeck until he gives up this farce. Let’s see how you like it, Bill.

He really has crossed the line.

Here’s my complete guide for all those that might have occasion to combat this jackass:

Prometheus 6: This is pure evil and McCain will love it!

FP Passport: Europe is Obama country

The Cunning Realist: Growing Gills

Threat Level: Anti-Robocall crusader pushes for a crackdown on political phone droids

Each week until the election the producers of Uncounted - The New Math of American Elections, will release a clip from the film because now, more than ever, people need to see stories that will motivate them to stand up and help save our democracy.

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: The Hacktacular Mickey Kaus…The History Commons - an online tool for journalists…Austin paper pulls, apologizes for, article on Netroots…Obama (and Big Media) turn a blind eye to Israeli apartheid…Pre-programmed ideological idiots continue to be welcomed on WaPo op-ed page…Usury is quaint…He’s exotic, dammit…MSNBC prez on Fox “You can’t trust a word they say“…McCain’s bid should’ve ended last week…The decline of newspapers is about the rise of the corporate state, the loss of civic reponsibility to inform the public…Stephanopoulos also hacktacular…Nas delivers…He wants journalism, but journalism doesn’t want him…The year the L.A. Times died…What traditional media can learn from blogs…Israelis accused of abusing journalist…

It seems hard to imagine a presidential candidate, running in the midst of two wars, openly speculate about cutting back on veterans’ healthcare. And yet, here we are.

Well, that’s not good at all.

The Washington Monthly ran a terrific cover story a couple of years ago, heralding the success of the VA system, and the quality of the medical care veterans receive. McCain may hold some kind of ideological grudge against the VA system — it is, after all, a form of socialized medicine — but even raising the prospect of rationing veterans’ health care seems like a remarkably bad idea. It’s not good policy, and it’s certainly not good politics.

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