Posts by Jennifer Fox

Jennnifer Fox is an AlterNet intern.

...And now for something completely different
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 18, 2006 at 10:40 AM.

Don't even pretend like you're not going to try and recreate this the next time you're in the gym.

O'Reilly interviews Marilyn 'threat to children' Manson
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 18, 2006 at 10:11 AM.

School marm Bill O'Reilly has probably never been more afraid than the day he interviewed Marilyn Manson.

O'Reilly introduces the segment with a little graphic titled "Children at Risk" and asks awesomely thought provoking questions such as:

"You're a minister in the Church of Satan, right?"

"Are you an exhibitionist?"

"They tell me you engaged in a sex act with another man in a stage in Miami...why did you do that?"

"Do you encourage kids to have sex?"

"What do your parents think of you?"

Homosexuality, sex and satan--oh my! I guess O'Reilly is just too damn wholesome to understand such a perverse individual.

No, no...wait. Check out this article from the The Smoking Gun, detailing the sexual harrassment suit O'Reilly was slammed with. Thailand sex shows? Phone sex? Vibrators? Creating a hostile work environment?

Sounds a little perverse, don't you think?

Cohen brings satire of Americans to big screen
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 18, 2006 at 9:43 AM.

Sacha Baron Cohen, famous for his satirical style of comedy, is releasing a movie, Borat: Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

The basic premise: Cohen is Borat, a Kazakhi journalist sent to America to study its people and cultures.

No Americans were harmed in the filming of this movie--but many were embarrassed. An article on contactmusic.com states:

In other offending scenes Cohen - himself Jewish - spits out food from Jewish owners of a bed-and-breakfast fearing poison, while in another he tells black presidential candidate ALAN KEYES he has a "chocolate face."

If you're still not excited about seeing this movie yet, just check out the trailer.

O'Reilly: let the racial profiling begin
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 17, 2006 at 1:36 PM.

Bill O’Reilly made racial profiling the subject of his ‘talking points.' As if it wasn't enough to hear FOX contributor Mike Gallagher call for a 'muslim-only security line, now we have to hear O'Reilly's equally ignorant take on the situation. O’Reilly demands that the U.S. “stop the nonsense and institute profiling at airports.” He makes one ridiculous point after another:

“Trained security people should receive the passenger list of every flight, and interview those people most likely to be terrorists. Folks who have traveled to Muslim countries, people who have criminal records, passengers who are Muslims ages 16-45--all should be spoken with. And if the ACLU doesn’t like it, tough. This isn’t racial profiling, this is criminal profiling.”

Great plan, Bill. Lets just bypass that whole ’presumption of innocence’ clause and start criminallyprofiling innocent people. Pure genius.

Not to mention that O’Reilly hasn’t done his research. Check out this list of anti-American terrorist incidents from wikipedia.org. There are men and women from all ethnicities, racial groups and religious affiliations on that list. Would O’Reilly’s racist theories have caught Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a Christian, ex-military, caucasian guy?

Daily Show: fear propaganda targets USA
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 17, 2006 at 8:48 AM.

Ever since the airline terror plots were foiled, the media has been spoon feeding the public special reports of fear, anxiety and suspicion. NOWHERE IS SAFE, NOBODY IS SAFE AND EVERYTHING IS A POTENTIAL WEAPON.

If terrorists need to find a new target, learn how to build a bomb or even breech the United States borders, all they need to do is…turn on CNN, sit back, and watch and learn.

Thankfully, we have The Daily Show to string together a montage of CNN’s finest 'Terror: Target USA' to prove just what a theatre of the absurd their newscasts have become as of late.

Bush: Harley riding badass
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 17, 2006 at 7:40 AM.

Evidently the President was up to some hijinxs recently when he toured a Harley Davidson plant in York, Pa. He was there to talk about the economy and free trade…but we all know he just wanted to saddle up on a Harley and wear silly sunglasses.

…so what if its stationary? He pretends its moving, and that’s all that matters.

According to ThinkProgress::

Bush jumped on top of a motorcycle. After he was finished, “he ripped off blue-tinted safety glasses that he insisted made him look like rock star Bono and jokingly struck a pose intended to show a hip side.”

Democracy Now! War & Peace Report - August 17
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 17, 2006 at 7:21 AM.

-Lebanese Troops Enter South Lebanon
-Lebanon Toll Nears 1300
-Hezbollah Promises War Recovery Effort
-Lebanon Complains of Small US Aid
-US Sees Growing Iraq Insurgency
-Pakistani Intel Officials Question Al Qaeda Links
-UK Deputy PM: Bush Admin Mideast Policy "Crap"
-UN Warns of Worsening Darfur Crisis
-Post-Katrina Immigrant Workers Sue Hotel Chain
-Colombia Uses US Planes To Fumigate National Park

Write up and video courtesy of DemocracyNow!.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

Snow: Bush not frustrated by Iraq
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 16, 2006 at 11:13 AM.

Tony Snow had a bone to pick with the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times for publishing articles that suggested President Bush is frustrated about Iraq.

Snow (shockingly) singles out the NY Times more so than the LA Times. Both newspapers had published articles regarding a recent meeting that Bush had with four Iraqi scholars. Below are quotes from the NY Times article, courtesy of ThinkProgress:

“I sensed a frustration with the lack of progress on the bigger picture of Iraq generally — that we continue to lose a lot of lives, it continues to sap our budget,” said one person who attended the meeting.

“I do think he was frustrated about why 10,000 Shiites would go into the streets and demonstrate against the United States,” said another person who attended.”

Snow could not have made it any clearer that the President is not frustrated, in any way, over Iraq. In fact, Snow even talked to the note taker at the meeting, others who attended the meeting and even the four scholars and they all (another shocker) corroborated with him and 'take exception' to the President being cast as frustrated.

Which is worse—a President frustrated by the death and destruction in Iraq, or a President who wants to make it perfectly clear that he’s not frustrated by it at all?

Scarborough: Is Bush an idiot?
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 16, 2006 at 11:11 AM.

On Scarborough Country, a segment asked the question “Is Bush an idiot?”...No, it’s not a rhetorical question—evidently some people still have their doubts. The premise of the segment: Is Bush actually a bumbling fool—or a smart man with some speech issues? You be the judge.

The segment opens with a lengthy segment of what appears to be every Bush speech slip-up ever caught on camera. Some are old favorites such as, “Fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me--Can’t get fooled again.”

There are also some less widely known clips, such as, “I know that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully,” as well as one from only a few days ago, “The United States is engaged in a war…against a--a extremist group o’ folks.”

No wonder he’s flustered—human beings are threatened by fish AND extremist folk.

Then, as if nobody is convinced enough, Scarborough shows a Daily Show clip of Bush at a press conference, where instead of focusing on the Middle East crisis, he keeps referencing some bizarre ‘pig feast’ that Chancellor Merkel is evidently holding for him.

…The answer to the above question is ‘bumbling fool,’ in case you’re slow on the uptake.

FOX News: Airports need Muslim only lines
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 16, 2006 at 7:56 AM.

FOX News has showcased some really sound opinions lately. If Sean Hannity's suggestion that Israel should have just nuked Hezbollah wasn't insane enough for you, check out the opinion FOX contributor Mike Gallagher had when it came to racial profiling:

"It’s time to have a Muslims check-point line in America’s airports and have Muslims be scrutinized. You better believe it, it’s time."

Gallagher says this quietly at first, but the second time, when he says it loudly enough for everyone to hear, some of the audience members--evidently never having heard of civil rights or civil liberties--actually feel compelled to clap in agreement.

Credit should be given to Gallagher’s ‘opponent’ constitutional lawyer Michael Gross for giving the rational side of the argument and saying that it’s behavior that should be looked at—not ethnicity. Something tells me that argument is over Gallagher’s head

Hannity: Drop one nuke and it was all over
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 15, 2006 at 11:04 AM.

Mark Rosenblum, founder of Americans for Peace Now, must be a brave man to step into the ring with raging conservative lunatic Sean Hannity.

While discussing the Israeli/Hezbollah cease-fire, Hannity pulls his classic ‘freak out and stop letting the guest talk routine’ after Rosenblum states that Israel “was not prepared to deal with the counter-insurgency.” Queue the meltdown:

“They could have OBLITERATED them had there not been world pressure.”

Damn the decent people of the world that objected to the excessive civilian death toll and demanded a cease fire. Damn. Them.

At this point, Alan Combes attempts to reel in his colleague by calling for a commercial break, but if you listen carefully, you hear Hannity exclaim…

“Drop one nuke and it was all over.”

For some reason, Hannity has a hard time understanding why other nations interjected to end the carnage. However, he seems to think that dropping a nuke on an abstract target would have been a perfectly viable solution.

Bill Clinton: Republicans weak on National Security
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 15, 2006 at 9:04 AM.

In an interview on Good Morning America, former President Clinton had some harsh advice for Republicans attempting to spin the foiled London terror plots in their political favor:

"...Why has the administration and Congressional leadership consistently opposed adequate checks on cargo containers at ports and airports? I think Republicans should be very careful in trying to play politics with this London airport thing, because they are going to have a hard time with the facts."

…A Democrat that can do the math is a dangerous thing for Republicans.

Ricks: the 'Fiasco' of the Bush administration
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 15, 2006 at 8:30 AM.

Thomas Ricks, author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq appeared on The Daily Show to talk about his book, the military, and how the Bush administration screwed up.

Ricks: “When I first wrote this book, people would say ‘are you sure you want to call it that?’ Nobody says that to me anymore.”

Stewart:“No, I’m sure there’s another F-word that comes to mind.”

Ricks, who reports on the pentagon for The Washington Post, has unique insight into how the military is coping from the stress of Iraq. He says:

“It's pretty rough…especially the lack of accountability, the lack of real genuine support for giving troops what they need to get the job done right, not just in terms of equipment but often in terms of training and understanding what they're doing out there.”

One of the many ironies that Ricks addresses is the fact that, the four people he sees as the main culprits for this ‘fiasco’--Paul Bremmer, Tommy Franks, Donald Rumsfeld and of course the President--receive accolades and honors for their incompetence, while those who are in the field and doing their job are largely ignored or fired.

Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 14, 2006 at 11:51 AM.

Jill Carroll endured 82 days of uncertainty while being held hostage in Iraq. As this clip states, “In her last hours of captivity, Jill’s kidnappers warned her to forget everything she had seen or heard: she couldn’t.”

Carroll instead chose to detail her experiences. Working with The Christian Science Monitor, she began releasing her story on their Web site. Carroll’s journey, from her capture until her release, is documented as an 11-part series . The first part of the series was released August 13. Along with Carroll's experiences, the series also includes what her family, friends and the Monitor were doing to attempt to secure her freedom.

The first two parts of the series, '82 Days in Captivity' and 'The Kidnapping', are available for viewing. The next part, 'A Spy with a Homing Device' will be available August 15.

Huffington: 'real battle for soul of Democratic Party'
Posted by Jennifer Fox on August 14, 2006 at 8:00 AM.

Arianna Huffington appeared on CNN‘s Reliable Sources to discuss the liberal blogosphere’s impact on the Lamont campaign and the implications of Lieberman running as an independent.

“It's stunning to me that there isn't even more outrage at the fact that a candidate who lost an election is trying to get a do-over and re-run, effectively, in a new way. This is a democracy. He lost the primary. So to try and get another attempt to keep his seat is completely unprecedented, and I'm surprised there wasn't even more outrage and amazement.”

Host Howard Kurtz, along with the other guest, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, attempt to downplay the importance of Lamont’s victory.

Kurtz reads an excerpt from an article by Time magazine’s Joe Klein that states that the reach of ‘blog nut extremists’ is minor and not lasting. Johnson says that the emerging idea that the Democratic Party may be led by the antiwar left is a ‘fluke.’

However, Huffington remains undeterred, calling Klein ‘out of touch.’ As far as Lamont’s victory being a ‘fluke’, she gets in the last, ominous, word:

“This is incredibly significant. This is finally a real battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. Are they going to stand up to the Republicans on national security or are they going just fall as they did in 2002 and 2004 and buy into the attacks on them as being timid on the war on terror?”