Author: Jonathan Schwarz

As the Foleypalooza rages in America, life continues elsewhere:

1. Seth Ackerman has a post you should read at Maxspeak! about the shift toward pragmatism within Hamas, which the U.S. media has kept to itself because they know it would confuse us. Seth lays this out in excruciating detail in an excellent new article for FAIR.

2. Nir “World’s Bravest Person” Rosen has a new piece for TruthDig about Hezbollah. As with Hamas, the regular U.S. media has decided not to tell us these things because we wouldn’t be sophisticated enough to understand.

Sure, it may be unfair, possibly to both men. But you can’t deny this pairing of Bernard Law and Dennis Hastert (by Jeffrey Feldman’s Frameshop) has some real visual zing.

(If it’s slipped your mind, Bernard Law was forced to step down as Archbishop of Boston for helping cover up the molestation of children by priests.)

At the end of a rough week for everything good and nice, Dennis Perrin has combed through YouTube to bring us some of the best sketches from Mr. Show, Exit 57, The Dana Carvey Show, and Fridays.

Chris Floyd:

Who are these people? Who are these useless hanks of bone and fat that call themselves Senators of the United States? Let’s call them what they really are, let’s speak the truth about what they’ve done today with their votes on the bill to enshrine Bush’s gulag of torture and endless detention into American law.

Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
Sold our liberty to keep their coddled, corrupt backsides squatting in the Beltway gravy a little longer.

Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
Cowards and slaves, giving up our most ancient freedoms to a dull-eyed, dim-witted pipsqueak and his cohort of bagmen, cranks and degenerate toadies…

Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
Traitors to the nation, filthy time-servers and bootlickers, turning America into a rogue state, an open champion of torture, repression and terror.

Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
Threw our freedom on the ground and raped it, beat it, shot it, stuck their knives into it and set it on fire.

More. My favorite part is “their coddled, corrupt backsides squatting in the Beltway gravy,” but it all helps.

Billmon is going to be on the radio tonight:

I’m supposed to be on a program called Open Source Radio this evening talking about one of my personal heroes — the late, great independent journalist I.F. (“Izzy”) Stone…

Open Source’s host, Chris Lyndon, tells me tonight’s guests will include former Washington Post reporter Myra MacPherson, who just published a biography of Izzy, and former Washington Post national editor (and Stone intern) Peter Osnos, who’s edited a new compilation of Izzy’s articles, The Best of I.F. Stone…

MacPherson and Osnos are supposed to discuss Izzy’s life and times, then I’ll come on for a few minutes and bloviate about Izzy and the blogisphere — i.e. are bloggers the true and legitimate heirs to Stone’s stubborn independence, or just a feral pack of blogfascists in search of a few cheap thrills?…

Anyway, if you want to listen in, here’s a list of public radio stations that carry the program. The podcast link is on the same page (itunes required).

I’m genuinely curious to hear what Billmon sounds like. What I think would be great is if everyone listens and it’s clear he’s actually Joe Lieberman, filling an anonymous blog with all the razor-sharp progressive political analysis his handlers won’t let him say out loud.