The O'Reilly Harassment Machine keeps spinning. Last night on The Factor, O'Reilly called Think Progress "insects," said Center for American Progress CEO John Podesta was "driving the hate industry," and that blogger Amanda Terkel was "harming a rape victim and her family." Let's deconstruct these idiotic insults.
For starters, Think Progress clearly aren't powerless insects, but they have gotten under O'Reilly's skin. They have launched a campaign to compel O'Reilly's leading corporate sponsors (including AT&T, Johnson&Johnson, Capital One, UPS, Audi, Sharp, Hyundai, P&G, Chrysler, Mercedes Benz, Ford, and Bayer) to end his ambush journalism. And as I wrote yesterday, they've got a list chronicling 40 instances of this deplorable practice. This campaign has already been effective; a Ford spokesman agreed with the criticism of O'Reilly, whom he called "hopelessly pig-headed," and Capital One also expressed regret and claimed they don't endorse O'Reilly's views. This is fantastic pressure that hopefully will curb O'Reilly's "gotcha" journalism that he plays off as accurate investigative reporting.
Looks like we might actually get to a full scale Depression after the Senate Republicans, led by southern senators with foreign car companies based in their states, shot down the $14 BillionBig 3 bailout.
Richard Shelby of Alabama cried the crocodile tears for the Repubs saying that the Big 3 didn't know how to be competitive any more and that bailouts don't work.
GM and Chrysler will probably go bankrupt and restructure...but this will put thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people on unemployment for short or long terms.
The anti-union stance of the Republicans will come back to bite them in the ass... the fact that Mitch McConnell and his buddies don't realize this is a sign that the change we have all wished for with Obama will have considerable, short-visioned competition from the old guard right.
So have a Merry Christmas, autoworkers. We'll get back to you in January.
STATE BLOGS
