Kathy Shaidle
Kathy Shaidle blogs at FiveFeetOfFury, now entering its 11th year online. Her latest book is Acoustic Ladyland
Baby boomer narcissism has officially reached a new level, well beyond the reach of satire.
As noted briefly by Sean Hannity on his FOX News program last night, major Democratic Party donor, far-left activist and sometime actress Jane Fonda appeared outside the posh Mr. Chow restaurant in Hollywood earlier this week, wearing a t-shirt with her own picture on the front.
Not just any picture, either, but her semi-iconic mugshot, taken in 1970.
In November of that year, the actress was returning to the United States from Canada, where she’d addressed an anti-Vietnam War fundraiser. Customs officials wrongly accused Fonda of drug smuggling after finding vitamins in her luggage. She was fingerprinted, and the now-famous mugshots were taken at the same time.
“Earlier this year,” reports the UK Daily Mail in a July 14, 2009, “Fonda gave her permission for her teen pregnancy charity the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention to raise money using her mugshot on T-shirts, mugs and tea towels.”
The mugshot is not as famous as other photographs of Jane Fonda, such as those depicting her “giving aid and conmfort” to America’s Communist enemies during a visit to North Vietnam in 1972. Those infamous photos show a giddy Fonda striking childlike poses while sitting atop an anti-aircraft gun that was normally aimed at U.S. fighter planes.
The trip earned Fonda a lasting nickname from her detractors: “Hanoi Jane.”
A secret internal Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report by commissioner Michael Copps may offer clues regarding coming changes to what Americans will be allowed to hear on the airwaves.
An anonymous FCC official told CNS News that the report examines “the decline of traditional broadcast journalism”, and the rise of the (largely unregulated) internet.
The report examines the possibility of instituting “behavioral rules†for broadcasters, which might include guidelines requiring broadcasts to “serve the public interest” — with “public interest” left undefined.
In a May 14 address to Free Press (a tax-exempt “media reform†organization whose chief objective is to move the media ever-farther to the political left), Copps said:
“Reform is never on auto-pilot, and in spite of all the marvels of twenty-first century technology, there is no GPS system that can deliver us to a new, progressive promised land.”
He added:
“It is time to say ‘Good-bye’ to post-card renewal every eight years and ‘Hello’ to license renewals every three years with some public interest teeth.â€
Copps seems to want broadcasters to answer to government bureaucracies about their programming decisions, and face losing their licenses if they don’t measure up.
As reported last week at NewsRealBlog, the FCC’s ties to Free Press include new Chairman Julius Genachowskis’ appointment of former Free Press employee Jen Lewis to serve as his press liason and spokesperson.
Back in February, Michael Copps’ FCC staff held meetings with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman’s advisors, to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the “Fairness Doctrine” without actually calling it such.
Yesterday, NewsReal Blog was obliged to revisit Al Sharpton’s history of disturbing, not to mention felonious, activities — none of which has prevented him from becoming and remaining one of the most famous men in American public life.
Most recently, of course, he wasted no time insinuating himself into the coverage surrounding Michael Jackson’s death; as reported here, Sharpton used his eulogy of Jackson to deliver another of his screeds against “racist” white America which was dutifully broadcast, without criticism, by the major television networks to an audience of millions.
This week, however, a remark made on Al Sharpton’s radio show failed to make the news.
Radio Equalizer’s Brian Maloney snagged an audio clip of Sharpton’s July 6 broadcast, which featured this exchange with a surprisingly sane sounding female caller:
FEMALE CALLER (31:50): He (Michael Jackson) is truly the soundtrack of my life. I also have a theory about Sarah Palin as well and I’m going to put it out there on radio, hopefully someone can investigate.
But, I think maybe she did something to Michael Jackson. Maybe there’s a scandal there. Maybe she’s stepping down because something’s about to come out. I don’t know, but I’m gonna just put it out there on your show so we’ll see.
SHARPTON: All right, thank you for your call, Ashley. That’s interesting. I’ll put it out, we’ll see. I don’t know.
As Maloney says, “It’s probably the wackiest Sharpton moment since The Reverend called Somali pirates a “voluntary coast guard”.
Note that Sharpton doesn’t challenge the caller’s deranged theory, but calls it “interesting”.
“Sure, why not?” writes Maloney. “No theory is too bizarre for the king of conspiracies.”
No word on whether or not Keith Olbermann will take Sharpton to task for letting the conspiracy pass; after all, Olbermann wasn’t in a forgiving mood after Glenn Beck “nodded” at one of his guest’s contentious observations.
Former sportscaster turned low-rated MSNBC talking head Keith Olbermann managed a two-fer last night.
First, without bothering to show clips of the original exchange, Olberman slammed FOX News host Glenn Beck and his June 30 guest, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer.
Scheuer had told Beck that “the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to detonate a major weapon in the United States.” It was clear from the context that Scheuer believes only another large-scale attack will shake what he sees as American complacency.
Olbermann mischaracterized Scheurer’s remark by saying that he had “called on the head of al Qaeda to attack America,” and had committed “treason”. Whatever the merits of Scheuer’s observation, Olbermann should have at least presented it more accurately.
No word on why Olbermann waited a whole week to condemn this supposedly explosive act of “treason.”
Olbermann also called upon the government to “legally stop people like Glenn Beck.”
Such remarks are especially troubling in light of the recent appointment of leftist “media reformers” at the FCC.
Olbermann’s toxic hatred for high profile conservatives is nothing new, of course. Neither is his own tendency to make ambiguous statements concerning Osama bin Laden on-air (In January 2006, Olbermann interviewed author William Blum shortly after Osama bin Laden had praised Blum’s Rogue State as a “useful” book. Blum attributed bin Laden’s approval of his work to the al Qaeda leader’s conviction that “anti-American terrorism arises from the behavior of U.S. foreign policy.” Olbermann praised Blum for explaining the “logic behind the behavior behind Osama bin Laden.
However, it’s difficult not to wonder if some of Olbermann’s animus towards Glenn Beck stems from the latter’s far higher ratings, not to mention Beck’s current status as a #1 New York Times bestselling author.
Julius Genachowski, the new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has chosen Jen Howard to serve as his spokesperson and liaison with the press.
For the past three years, Howard has worked at Free Press, a tax-exempt “media reform” organization whose chief objective is to move the media ever-farther to the political left. Free Press was co-founded in December 2002 by radical Professor Robert McChesney (former co-editor of the Marxist journal Monthly Review);  John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine (which has long provided a media platform for far-leftists and Marxists); and campaign finance-reform advocate Josh Silver.
The work of Free Press has been praised by the likes of the radical professor and Marxist, Howard Zinn. Speakers at Free Press conferences have included such luminaries as Al Franken (the new U.S. Senator who detests conservatives); Jane Fonda (who openly sided with America’s communist enemy during the Vietnam War); Bill Moyers (the television personality who has long promoted leftwing groups and causes); and Medea Benjamin (the pro-Castro antiwar activist who founded Code Pink: Women for Peace).
“Of special concern to talk radio,” explains Randall Bloomquist at Talk Frontier in his post about the Howard appointment, is that “Free Press is a big proponent of diversity of media ownership and ‘inclusiveness’ in broadcast news and content.”
Given her background, it’s likely that Jen Howard is sympathetic to plans aimed at censoring conservative talk radio, such as “localism” (which has been called President Obama‘s “New Fairness Doctrine”).
