Talon News go dark

For a "real" news outfit, the loss of one single reporter seems to have shut them down.



"Top-to-bottom review of staff"? Not touching it. Read More......

And the Gannon editorials keep on coming

The Tampa Tribune:

Still, it is incredible to think that a man with Gannon's unusual background could wrangle press credentials while using an assumed name. The White House should let us in on how that happened.

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Open thread

Another busy Gannon day. Read More......

Detroit Free Press editorial on Gannon

The editorials have begun.

How is it that an administration that screened thousands of people for attendance at Bush campaign rallies repeatedly let a fake reporter into the sanctorum of the White House pressroom under a false name? Who was running that background check? How could a president who declares that national security is his prime concern be so ill served for nearly two years by his own security detail?

And it just gets better from there.... Read More......

Ann Coulter likes hookers too

Man, even Ann Coulter is running to the defense of GOP male prostitutes now. The religious right better do something, and fast, cuz when they were voting for the GOP, I doubt they were thinking Grand Old Prostitute.

PS Note to Ann. You concluded your article by saying "Gannon didn't write about gays." If you actually did a Google search on Gannon, you'd see he wrote a slew of articles about gays. But hey, no one ever accused you of being a big fan of the truth. Big fan of hookers, however... Read More......

New Yorker on Guckert

Money quote:

The unusually blatant sycophancy of the question naturally drew attention to the questioner, and in the weeks since a curious story has emerged. Jeff Gannon, the reporter for the news service called Talon News, turns out to be “Jeff Gannon,” a “reporter” for a “news service” called “Talon News.” His real name is James Guckert. He is not a reporter but a propagandist and (even though his “news reports” have often featured appeals to anti-gay bigotry) apparently a part-time male escort, whose registered Internet domains include hotmilitarystud.com. Talon News is not a news service but a front for gopusa.com, a Texas Republican Web site.

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$10,000 reward offered for info linking Gannon to top administration officials?

I'm told this Web site is for real. Anyone have any more input on that? Read More......

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid joins call for Gannon investigation - but...

Excellent.

But, check out this part of the story:

As late as Wednesday, Sen. Reid’s office was sending emails directing constituents frustrated with a lack of inquiry into Gannon to the White House. The following email was dispatched to those who wrote to him.

Thank you for contacting me regarding the White House press corps. I appreciate hearing from you.

The White House is in charge of ensuring proper credentials for the press corps. Should you wish you make your views known, I encourage you to contact them by telephone at (202) 456-1111…

The email message also gave the White House mailing address.

Get a friggin clue. Read More......

WorldNetDaily savages GannonGuckert

Jesus. One of the best, BEST, stories ever about GannonGuckertGate and what it means, and why it matters, comes from one of the most - MOST - conservative pro-Bush news sources on the Internet. This guy spells out exactly why this is a story. Exactly why this is so outrageous. And note, his column doesn't even criticize us, the liberal bloggers. It is pure and simple an article about how outrageous Gannon's and Talon's AND THE WHITE HOUSE'S actions were in this entire affair.

These guys are one of the top right-wing news sources. Now, for them to savage GannonGuckert and Talon News/GOPUSA is downright wild. It suggest to me that either WorldNetDaily actually has some scruples, and/or that they are scared shitless about the potential damage this scandal is causing and/or will cause the administration.

I have to say, I was impressed by the piece - it's written by the founder, editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily. I have never been a big fan of theirs - I've been known to call them WingNutDaily - and have always just assumed that they were yellow journalists like FOX and the rest. I'll give them another look, to see if the editor is being truthful when he says they want to print the truth, no matter who it helps or harms. I'd like to think that's true, and am impressed by what he wrote (I'd actually like to meet him, maybe he's on the up and up, ideological differences aside), but sincerely hope it's not just an attempt at White House damage control.

Anyway, GannonGuckertGate is clearly getting the right's attention. And isn't it sad that even a top conservative new source does a better job of presenting this story and implications than the mainstream media. Never thought I'd say it, but two points for WorldNetDaily.

Who knows why this symbiotic relationship succeeded for as long as it did? Perhaps Gannon-Guckert knew something about people in the Bush administration. Or, perhaps some inside the Bush administration knew the truth about Gannon-Guckert. We may never know the full truth....

However, what the political activists pretending to be journalists never understood ? and still do not understand to this day ? is that you can't fool everyone....

There is no substitute for good journalism. There is no substitute for seeking the truth. There is no substitute for upholding high ethical standards. There is no substitute for fierce independence.

What the pretenders did backfired. They have hurt their own ideological cause more than they know. They have tarnished the image of the administration they championed. They have undermined the cause of the responsible New Media and the free press in America.

You might remember the two-year fight WorldNetDaily waged to become credentialed by the Senate Press Gallery. Meanwhile, an activist organization ? pretending to be a journalistic one and ensnared in personal scandal ? pranced into the White House and secured access to the president of the United States.

It raises serious security questions. It raises questions of propriety. It raises questions of judgment. And it raises questions about the role of a free press in a free society.

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Open thread

I've been negligent Read More......

DKos Gannon posse has some research requests

See if anyone can help them. And if you can help them, please click through to their site and post your findings:

Greetings, Kossacks. There are a couple of issues we need some help with regarding the Propagannon research.

1). If you remember, the GOPUSA, Talon News as well as other web sites were scrubbed. We are putting together a time line of when those sites were scrubbed.

We think there is a huge story there. We would like to distribute that story about the specifics of the scrubbing. We are also looking to see when those sites were scrubbed in relation to when the sites were first mentioned in the Plame diary threads which can be found:

here

If anyone has the screenshots of the scrubbed sites as well as archived versions of the Talon News articles and the GOPUSA bios that were scrubbed, please let me know.

2). We are also looking for the quotes from Jeff Gannon concerning what he said he did in order to aquire day passes into the White House briefing room. We would like to be clear about the process he said he went through to gain access. This is important because we have some plans regarding that process.

If you were part of this research initially and have the info or can find it, please post it here so we can proceed with the story and action. I'm asking for help on this issue because many hands make light work.

The story is gaining momentum, thanks to your efforts. We want to keep it going and these details will help us in a big way.

Again, I'm asking for you to recommend so we can get as many people working on this as possible. Thanks, NYBri

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This is cute

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BREAKING NEWS: Top House Judiciary and House Rules Dems ask GAO to investigate Gannon scandal, suggest Fitzgerald subpoena Gannon's daily journal!

Now both the House and Senate Dems are getting involved in the scandal.

Today, Reps. John Conyers (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee) and Louise Slaughter (Ranking Member, House Rules Committee) have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to include Jeff Gannon/James Guckert in an investigation of "whether the Administration violated the ban on prepackaged news stories by siphoning print stories to James D. Guckert, also known as "Jeff Gannon."

You can see a pdf of the letter here.

And just as good, Conyers and Slaughter wrote to US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, today letting him know that he might want to subpoena Gannon's daily diary, the existence of which became known yesterday, thanks to Editor & Publisher.

You can see that letter here.

This totally rocks. Read More......

ACTION ALERT: Tell your US Senators to sign the Durbin letter about Gannon

FURTHER UPDATE: Senator Reid has now decided to sign the letter, so no good Democrat has any reason not to. Also, you might suggest the Dems read this article by WorldNetDaily, a VERY conservative news source, talking about what a big scandal this really is.

UPDATE: Still sensing some cold feet among the Senate Dems. True, they are on recess this week, so it can be hard to get the boss to sign-off, but still. They'd better not flake out this time.

I'm reposting this because it's important (please share this info on other blogs, post it as your own alert, I don't care). Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) is asking his colleagues in the US Senate to join him in sending a letter to President Bush demanding an investigation of the entire Gannon affair.

This is EXCELLENT. This is newsworthy. Why? Because Durbin is the #2 guy in the Senate Democratic leadership, he's the next in line after Harry Reid. If he is doing this, it means the Democratic leadership is jumping on the Gannon issue.

How can you help?

Durbin is now circulating the letter to other Senate offices, asking them to add their signatures. The Republicans likely won't, though some mods just might. The Dems hopefully will, though some troublemakers might not.

TAKE ACTION

Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to contact your two Senators NOW and urge them to "sign Senator Durbin's 'Dear Colleague' letter about Jeff Gannon, the fake GOP journalist who was wrongfully given access to the White House."

Find your Senators' contact info here - call and email them. Please call the Senators from your home state, and let them know what town you live in, so they know that you really are a constituent. And be nice, as always. Read More......

From the mouths of bloggers...

In a nutshell, what the GannonGuckert story is about and why it matters, from RackJite.com:

This is one of those stories that I don't like writing about as it works on its own. A $200 a night born-again Christian x-Marine male prostitute and right-wing loon who writes anti-gay columns for Talon News were not enough, without credentials and using a false name (his real name is Jim Guckert) he has spent two years in White House Press conferences asking conservative push/pull questions for Scott McClellan and the President.

Forget the horrendous hypocrisy involved, that takes care of itself, the real story is in these days when we are all losing our rights because of exaggerated concerns over terrorism and security, that we are not going to find out how he managed this coup over the FBI, CIA and SECRET SERVICE to so often get in knife throw range of the President. Congress being also controlled by right-wing loons and male prostitutes (I am also going to have to check their names to see if they are false too) they sure don't want to throw it into committee who could hire an independent prosecutor (like maybe Michael Moore) to find God only knows what was going on in the White House.

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CREW says Soc Sec Administration broke the law in not responding to FOIA

First the White House Hooker, now this. What has family values come to?

Not to mention, the PR/media misinformation saga thickens:

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, said “although we know that the Social Security Administration has been actively promoting the idea that Social Security is facing a crisis and we know that SSA has paid Fleischman-Hillard nearly $1.8 million since September 2003, we don’t know what role, if any, Fleischman-Hillard has played in manufacturing that crisis. This is what we first tried to learn by filing the FOIA request and what we are now trying to learn by filing a lawsuit.”

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Good Salon story too

From Eric Boehlert, Salon.com

This is not how the White House press office has traditionally worked. "When I was there we didn't let political operatives in. It was completely contrary to what the press room should be used for," says Joe Lockhart, who served as White House press secretary to President Clinton during his second term. Asked what would have happened if a reporter from a clearly partisan operation, say "Democrats Today," had requested a White House press pass, Lockhart said that if the chief of the Democratic National Committee were attending an event at the White House, then perhaps the Democrats Today reporter might be allowed in for that one day. "But to be admitted as a reporter and sit in a chair and act like a reporter" for months on end the way Guckert did? "No," said Lockhart, "that's not within the realm of what [is] proper."....

The White House, in contrast, said that as long as Talon News or GOPUSA "existed," Guckert was free to attend its press briefings. Yet, in the past, a reporter seeking a permanent White House press pass has had to first secure credentials to cover Capitol Hill. Without those, the White House would not submit the application for a background check. But even though Guckert failed to secure Capitol Hill credentials, the White House waved him into press briefings for nearly two years using what's called a day pass. Those passes are designed for temporary use by out-of-town reporters who need access to the White House, not for indefinite use by reporters who flunk the Capitol Hill test.

To obtain a day pass during the Clinton administration, a reporter "had to make the case as to why that day was unique and why [he] had to cover the White House from inside the gates instead of outside," [former Clinton spokesman Joe] Lockhart says....

So the mystery remains: How did Guckert, with absolutely no journalism background and working for a phony news organization, manage to adopt the day-pass system as his own while sidestepping a thorough background check that might have detected his sordid past? That's the central question the White House refuses to address. And like its initial explanation that Guckert received his press pass the same way other journalists do, the notion first put out by White House officials that they knew little or nothing about GOPUSA/Talon News, its correspondent Guckert or its founder Eberle has also melted away. Instead, we now know, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer personally spoke with Eberle about GOPUSA, so concerned was Fleischer that it was not an independent organization. (Eberle convinced Fleischer that it was.) Additionally, Guckert attended the invitation-only White House press Christmas parties in 2003 and 2004, and last holiday season, in a personal posting on GOPUSA, Eberle thanked Karl Rove for his "assistance, guidance, and friendship."

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Chicago Trib, top of the home page

Excellent placement of the story. Yes, it's an opinion piece. But it's good. And it's the top thing on the Trib home page. And who cares that they didn't include the hooker angle - the story is great. A snippet:

The question is what the White House knew and when?

Based on my own experience with the Bush people, I have some discomfort about what I have heard so far, lots of little comments about things being checked out and how confusing it is to keep the media straight (whoops! my Freudian slip) in these hectic days of websites and blogging.

Why the doubts?

Because I have dealt with these people.

They are the most diligent people on earth when it comes to finding out where genuine reporters are and what they are doing.

Here is my story about that.

During the campaign last year, I made an attempt to get a ticket as a normal person, not as a reporter writing the Gleaner, to a Bush rally in Holland, Mich. I made exactly one call to an old guy at the local Republican committee to cop a ticket.

Before you knew it, local Republicans, regional Republicans and National Republicans were all over me. No! You can't go as a normal person. You must go as a reporter and sit where the reporters sit.

You may not ramble around.

Well, what fun is that?

I made a half-hearted attempt to follow the rules, got my credentials and went to the event outside of Holland. Once I cleared security, I dashed off to freedom to ask a guy in a funny hat what he was up to.

It took less than two minutes for a woman in a nice blue suit to rush up to me with some "security" in tow and announce I couldn't do that, that I had to sit in the press section and stay there.

Since the "press" wasn't even going to arrive for another two hours, I thought that would be kind of limiting, so I respectfully said, "No @#$%#$ way in hell."

They held a meeting and affixed a tour guide to my side, a nice young woman who turned out to be a good interview because of the details of her life and why they made her think like a Republican.

Soon, she was withdrawn, probably for being too communicative, and was replaced by a fat guy who spent the entire event following me around and asking me if I was "getting what I needed."

That, I thought, was a very personal question.

Think about it this way. The Bush people were so efficient and focused they could reach all the way out to Holland, Mich. and try to put a choke collar on an innocent Rambling Gleaner.

Given that, can there be any doubt about what they knew about the ringer sitting in the middle of the press room for the briefings just about every day?

I don't think so.

Time to come clean.

Did you put him there?

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OP/ED: Pope Ignores Jesus, Casts Stones

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

-- John 8:7 (KJV)

Seriously, I think that the Pope might need to spend more time reading the Bible and less time writing books. From Reuters:

Homosexual marriages are part of "a new ideology of evil" that is insidiously threatening society, Pope John Paul says in a new book published Tuesday.

In "Memory and Identity," the Pope also calls abortion a "legal extermination" comparable to attempts to wipe out Jews and other groups in the 20th century.

He's kidding, right? Gay couples who want to commit themselves in love is an ideology of evil? Perhaps he should look in his own organization if he wants to talk about evil. Thanks to a number of brave victims, and the commitment of The Boston Globe, we know this:

For decades church leaders kept horrific tales of abuse out of the public eye through an elaborate culture of secrecy, decepetion, and intimidation. Victims who came forward with abuse claims were ignored or paid off, while accused priests were quietly transferred from parish to parish or sent for brief periods of psychological counseling.

Far from being unaware of abusive behavior, Cardinal Law and his deputies had detailed information on many of the archdiocese's most serious molesters. Yet it was not until decades of allegations had accumulated against them that many abusive clergymen were removed from parish ministry. Despite reports of child rape and other criminal behavior by clergymen, church leaders made no apparent effort to inform law enforcement authorities.

The scandal began brewing in Boston, but it was not isolated here. As public furor grew, other dioceses began confronting abusive clergy in their ranks. By the end of 2002, some 1,200 priests had been accused of abuse nationwide, according to a study by The New York Times. Over the course of the year, five US prelates resigned in connection with sex scandals, including Boston's Cardinal Law -- joining four others who had resigned in previous years. The crisis was also felt worldwide, with accusations of abuse or the mishandling of scandals forcing the resignation of bishops in Argentina, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Wales, Scotland, Canada, Switzerland, and Austria.

In 2002 1,200 priests had been accused of abuse. By 2004, that number had grown to over 4,300. Again, from the Globe:

The Catholic bishops of the United States have removed about 700 allegedly abusive priests and deacons from ministry over the last two years, a dramatic housecleaning at the end of a half-century in which 4,392 priests allegedly abused 10,667 minors.

In my mind, that nearly 11,000 children were abused by men of God is pure evil. The Church's organized-crime-style response to pay off victims, cover it up, and move the priests to new parishes, that, Your Holiness, is unadulterated evil. So spare me, Your Holiness. This former Catholic has decided to stop standing there while you throw stones and start throwing them back. Two people of the same gender who love each other is not evil, it is love, and God is love.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

-- 1 John 4:7-8 (NRSV)

To call two adult human beings who live in a relationship of love evil is an attempt to deny them participation in one of the most fundamental human experiences -- the experience of loving someone and being loved in return. That is where God is found.

I, for one, am done listening to "men of God" tell me that because I am a gay man I should be denied love, and by extension, God. God is not yours to take away.

-- Rob in Baltimore Read More......

Axis of Evil expanding, courtesy of Bush team

Brillant plan in action here. Let's see what we have from those brillant neo-cons who knew better than everyone else. After almost 1500 American deaths, thousands and thousands of dead Iraqis, a tarnished international reputation, a country divided and well over $100 Billion spent to date, we now have a close friend of Iran ready to take charge in Iraq. One can only imagine the outrage if such an event happened under a Clinton administration but somehow the MSM is going soft on this issue. Is this incredible or what? Read More......

Bush Agrees To Disagree...With Himself

What great diplomacy Bush Inc. is demonstrating in Europe. First Condi went over there and said, The US is willing to stand with Europe and Europe MUST be ready to stand with the U.S. (Talk about an olive branch.) Then Bush came to Europe and magnanimously said he's willing to forgive it for being right about those Weapons of Mass Destruction. Gee thanks.

Now today, Bush cautions Europe not to jump to conclusions about our intentions towards Iran.

According to the Washington Post (which is hardly a reputable paper since it has nary a whore on its staff), "President Bush said Tuesday that concern about possible U.S. military action against Iran 'is simply ridiculous.'"

Wow, a strongly worded statement if ever there was one. But then Bush immediately added: "all options are on the table" in dealing with suspected Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. Uh, "all options" means exactly that -- everything up to invasion is possible, Mr. President, so if you say it's under consideration, and your staff has been beating the drums of war ever since the election (with Condi and Rummy and burst-of-sunshine Cheney all speaking about Iran in dire terms not heard since, oh, we got ready to invade Iraq), then why oh why is it "ridiculous" for Europe to be concerned? Read More......