The maker of Supersize Me has targeted advertisers who are increasingly muscling in on films and TV shows He took on fast-food giant McDonald’s in the documentary Supersize Me . Then he targeted the “war on terror” in Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? Now hit film-maker Morgan Spurlock has a new target: the advertising industry. Spurlock, whose cinéma-vérité style has made him one of the world’s best-known documentary-makers, has decided to take on the increasingly active phenomenon of product placement, whereby advertisers pay to have products used in films and TV shows. His new film , called The Greatest Movie Ever Sold , was a smash at the Sundance festival earlier this year and will be released in the US next month. It follows Spurlock as he tries to get funding for his film from numerous corporations – an endeavour that results in a sort of exploration of the way advertisers have increasingly started to place their brands in films and television programmes. “What I want to do is make a film about product placement, marketing and advertising where the entire film is funded by product placement, marketing and advertisement,” Spurlock explains in the movie. He managed to persuade 15 brands to stump up cash. Testament to his success, the film’s full-length title is POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold ; a California-based pomegranate juice drink agreed a hefty sponsorship . The film is coming out at a time when product placement is becoming increasingly controversial amid huge changes in the advertising industry. The rise of devices like Tivo – which allows people to record shows and skip adverts – and the increasing number of viewers who watch films and TV through the internet has meant that fewer people are exposed to traditional advertising. One recent statistic estimated that perhaps 90% of prime-time TV viewers in the US aren’t prepared to watch the adverts. “People record shows or watch them online. I haven’t watched a TV commercial in a long time,” said Jeff Greenfield, the publisher of Product Placement News . That situation has placed huge pressure on advertisers to get their products in front of viewers’ eyeballs in more subtle ways. American Idol judges now sit with Coke in front of them. Car chases have the hero driving certain makes of vehicle. Actors wear clothes from particular fashion labels. Key scenes take place in well-known coffee stores. The product placement industry has become such a key part of entertainment that the BrandChannel blog doles out annual awards. In 2010 it proclaimed Apple the most successful product placement brand, noting that its products featured in 10 of the 33 number one box-office movies in the US that year. The film with the most placements was Iron Man
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Tory peer accused of using ‘meaningless’ comparisons to try to make his argument against the need to tackle global warming Lord Lawson, the former chancellor, has been privately accused by the government’s chief scientific adviser of making “incorrect” and “misleading” claims in his book on climate change . The charge against Lawson, the country’s most prominent global-warming sceptic, was made during an extraordinary and at times fractious exchange of letters between the men following a meeting over coffee at the Lords. Sir John Beddington wrote to Lawson to tell him that his book, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming , had made “a number of points related to the underlying science of climate change that are incorrect or presented in a misleading way”. An appendix to his letter accused Lawson of making “meaningless” comparisons to prove his thesis. In response, Lawson wrote back to accuse Beddington of attempting to “trump” his arguments without evidence or quantification. He also confessed to being baffled by Beddington’s criticisms, adding that the government adviser had committed a “gross misuse of language” in claiming that the Earth has warmed “dramatically” in the past 150 years. Lawson, who is chairman of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation , is the most prominent critic of the government’s policies on climate change. While not denying that there is evidence of a change in the climate, he has announced himself unconvinced that it has been caused by greenhouse gases. Lawson is set to represent the climate sceptics at a debate hosted by the Spectator magazine, entitled “The Global Warming Hysteria Is Over: Time for a Return to Sanity”. But Christian Hunt of the website Carbon Brief , who, along with investigations website Spinwatch , uncovered the letters, said they showed Lawson did not have a grasp of the science: “It is worrying that a prominent figure like Lord Lawson is seen as a credible commentator on this issue, when his understanding of appears so flawed.” “His climate-sceptic thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation claims a charitable aim ‘to advance the public understanding of global warming’, but they seem to spend most of their time casting doubt upon well-established science.” Speaking from his home in Gascony, Lawson denied to the Observer that he had been “upset” by Beddington’s criticisms and said he had failed to find a single factual inaccuracy in his book, which was first published in 2008. “We got on well in personal terms, but it wasn’t a meeting of minds,” he said.”I wasn’t upset in the slightest, because I seem to recall that I thought that he had missed the point. “I am chiefly concerned with what is a sensible policy. I seem to recall that none of the things in that appendix really affected the question of what policy one should pursue. Moreover, so far as my book is concerned, he was … unable to find a single thing in it that was factually inaccurate.” Of his first meeting with Beddington, before their correspondence began, Lawson added: “He had been recently appointed and he seemed to me to be a reasonably sensible fellow, and I said come along and have a cup of coffee at the Lords and discuss this together.” Beddington’s first letter to Lawson was written a month after their meeting last March. To Lawson’s claim in his book that there has been no “further global warming since the turn of the century”, Beddington wrote: “Short-term temperature trends are meaningless in the context of global warming.” To Lawson’s claim that calculating average global temperature is not straightforward and data from the developing world and former Soviet Union were not reliable, Beddington claimed those issues were taken into account and warming could be seen in other ways, such as in the decrease of Arctic sea ice. To Lawson’s claims that urbanisation raises near-surface temperatures and might be responsible for the recording of global temperature rises, Beddington said it has been studied and found to have a “negligible effect”. And to Lawson’s claim that “neither scientists nor politicians serve either the truth or the people by pretending to know more than they do”, Beddington wrote: “It is clear from the scientific evidence … that the risks are real and, I believe, it is not going too far to say, potentially catastrophic in the absence of strong global action to reduce emissions.” A month later Lawson wrote back thanking him for his “very full response”. But he warned Beddington, as a scientist, against the “journalistic” phrase “catastrophic climate change”. He then described his use of statistics as arbitrary, and his facts as carefully selected. A month later, Lawson again wrote to Beddington demanding that he write to the Guardian to deny a report that the civil servant had been highly critical of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Beddington refused, claiming he had not criticised Lawson and stood by his criticisms about those who rely on anecdotal evidence to disprove climate change. Climate change scepticism Green politics Climate change House of Lords Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk
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The CDU’s hold on the state may give way to a Green-SPD coalition after the chancellor’s U-turn on nuclear power Baden-Württemberg in south-west Germany is one of Europe’s richest regions. For almost 58 years, it has been governed by Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). But from 6pm tonight, when the first results from the state’s elections start to come in, this region of plenty might well be heading into the clutches of the opposition. If the pollsters are correct, the risk-averse burghers of Baden-Württemberg – with their locally assembled Mercedes in their garages and their jobs for life – may end up electing, by a narrow vote, Germany’s first Green regional prime minister. Even more shocking is the slim chance that the ultra-socialist Linke (Left) party might win enough votes to be represented in the state parliament. The election might be a local one, but the consequences will reverberate in
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Click here to view this media Bill Maher talked to Canadian actress Ellen Page on Real Time about her work on the vanishing of the bees and their importance to our very survival and our ability to feed ourselves. Maher quoted Einstein during the segment who said this: If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man. If you would like to find out more about Page’s work her web site is here — Vanishing of the Bees .
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Turnout for generally good-natured rally exceeds organisers’ expectations, but mood marred by violent minority March for the Alternative – as it happened Thousands march against spending cuts – in pictures More than a quarter of a million people have marched through central London to deliver a powerful message about the government’s cuts in public spending. The generally good-natured mood was soured by violent and destructive attacks on symbols of wealth including the Ritz, banks and a luxury car dealer; and an occupation of the upmarket food store Fortnum and Mason. Trade union organisers said that the turnout had exceeded their expectations, and thousands had travelled by coach and by train from as far away as Edinburgh to vent their anger at the government’s cuts by marching through London to a rally in Hyde Park. Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, the public service trade union, said that the turnout was “absolutely enormous and showed the anger of ordinary working people”. But the day was marred by a violent minority of anarchists who went on the rampage, smashing windows and attacking property around Oxford Street. Prentis said he regretted that the actions of “a few hundred” risked diverting attention from the message that the “political heat is rising on the government”. At one stage 13 shops in Oxford Street were closed following skirmishes between activists and riot police. Topshop – owned by Sir Philip Green, who has been accused of tax avoidance – and HSBC had windows smashed, while paint and bottles were thrown at a Royal Bank of Scotland branch. A dozen police officers were surrounded and beaten by a masked mob in Sackville Street, off
Continue reading …Hannity goes all-in on the Birtherism, keeps insisting Obama hasn’t produced a legal Hawaiian birth certificate
March 26, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Fox News is pretty rapidly becoming the Conspiracy Nutcase Network, what with Glenn Beck going all-in as a John Bircher , along with Sean Hannity’s headfirst dive into the swamps of Birtherism. After Hannity’s initial foray into Birtherism in defense of Donald Trump on Wednesday , he devoted both of his subsequent “All American Panel” segments to defending Birtherism again. On Thursday, the panelists included former Maryland Gov. Rob Ehrlich, poli-sci prof Caroline Heldman, and ex-Imus producer Bernard McGuirk. It went like pretty much like the first foray: HANNITY: First of all. What’s the deal? Produce the birth certificate it is over and done with. Chris Matthews wants it. MCGUIRK: This is why Donald Trump should throw his hair into the ring. He legitimized this issue. People say why not just show it. The other thing it took away is that Joy Behar was conspicuously silent. She is a bully she will go over — she will go after Sharron Angle, Donald Trump she has nothing to say. … HANNITY: If I asked for the birth certificate, can I get it? HELDMAN: I assume that you could, Sean. HANNITY: Is it go all the way back to 1975? HELDMAN: Sure. HANNITY: Could you get your birth certificate? MCGUIRK: In a heartbeat. HANNITY: Look, what I like about this, every pejorative, birthers and this and that. Chris Matthews was the guy — why don’t we get rid of it and move the issue aside so it never comes up again? HELDMAN: How about common sense takes over and it never comes up again. HANNITY: Wait a minute, but he did talk in his book prayers and he went to a Muslim school and he talk all about all these and he studied the Koran and prayers at sunset were most beautiful things he saw in life. He spent a lot of his youth in Indonesia. HELDMAN: And? MCGUIRK: Show the birth certificate and get it over with. HELDMAN: Wait, what does – have to do with being born in the United States? How is that material to whether or not he was in the United States? What is the logic? HANNITY: Why won’t they release the birth – HELDMAN: What is the logic? HANNITY: Why don’t they just release it and get it over with. The only reason they don’t release it is because it insults him. Last night, it was more of the same, with a different panel, including civil-rights activist Ron Daniels, Fox contributor Peter Johnson, and Republican “strategist” Dee Dee Benkie. Daniels tried pointing out, repeatedly, that Obama has in fact produced his birth certificate — but that seemed to fly right over everyone else’s head: HANNITY: Do I think he was [born in America]? Yes. Do I think this is odd that they won’t produce the birth certificate? It’s beginning to get odd to me. … BENKIE: Yeah, but why not produce it? It’s so easy. Here it is — on TV, on billboards, whatever. Why not just bring it out? Why not show it? DANIELS: It’s shown time and time again. Do we trust the Hawaiian authorities or not? I don’t understand this. There is a problem here. There’s something going on here, that people keep talking about this birth certificate, and there’s a significant amount of people believe in it. HANNITY: Why haven’t they just produced the certificate? DANIELS: They have! They’ve shown it! You can go see it — anybody can go see it, just like you can go see a copy of — HANNITY: That’s not true! BENKIE: That’s not true. It’s never been out. HANNITY: Because they’ve never allowed anybody to see it. That’s the point. BENKIE: It’s never been out. HANNITY: It’s never — see, you’re agreeing with me that it’s odd. BENKIE: It is odd. It’s very odd. Yes, very odd, very odd indeed. Odd that no matter how plainly the evidence is given to people like Hannity, they keep insisting that it hasn’t been presented. OK, I’m going to write this verrrrry slooooowwly, just so Hannity and his panelists and the likeminded Trump fans don’t miss anything: 1. President Obama has in fact presented for public viewing his legal birth certificate from the State of Hawaii. It was released in 2008. Here it is. enlarge 2. A lot of people have in fact examined this birth certificate, including the fact-checkers at Fact Check.org : FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as “supporting documents” to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said. 3. This birth certificate is the same birth certificate anyone born in Hawaii would present as proof of citizenship. “Our Certificate of Live Birth is the standard form, which was modeled after national standards that are acceptable by federal agencies and organizations,” Okubo said. “With that form, you can get your passport or your soccer registration or your driver’s license.” 4. The director of Hawaii’s Department of Health confirmed that Obama was born in Honolulu. “There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawaii Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. “Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures. “No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii.” The continued dispute that Hannity and Trump seem to think is so significant is so important, in fact, is over the privacy-protected medical records of Obama’s birth — what the Birthers are calling his “long form birth certificate,” but are in fact the private medical records of his birth kept at the hospital, containing large amounts of personal medical information about Obama’s mother, including gynecological data. And as Hawaii officials have explained numerous times, these records are protected by privacy laws, and for perfectly sound reasons: Hawai’i’s disclosure law (Hawai’i Revised Statutes 338-18) states that “it shall be unlawful for any person to permit inspection of, or to disclose information contained in vital statistics records, or to copy or issue a copy of all or part on any such record … ” The law further states that the Health Department “shall not permit inspection of public health statistics records, or issue a certified copy of any such record or part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant has a direct and tangible interest in the record.” Those who have “direct and tangible interest” are generally limited to the person named in the record, the spouse, parent, descendant, or personal representative, or by someone who is involved in marital, parental or death litigation involving the named person’s vital record or other legal reason established by a court order, and various official agency or organization representatives, including the state director of health, according to the law. Here are a coupla questions for Sean Hannity and Donald Trump and their acolytes: Is a birth certificate acceptable to every known authority for every other citizen of that state somehow unacceptable proof of citizenship for presidential candidates? Or do they believe that every candidate for president should have to release for public review the private medical records, including personal medical information about their late mothers, of their own births? If the answer to either of these is “no,” then why are they demanding it only of Barack Obama — while simultaneously talking about his five years spent in Indonesia? And they wonder why the rest of us consider Birtherism, at its core, profoundly racist.
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The hardline government has been left reeling by fresh clashes on the streets and criticism from UN and US Syria’s hardline regime was grappling to contain new flare-ups after an uprising that has sharply eroded its repressive rule for the past week and led to the deaths of at least 55 protesters. There were fresh clashes in the port city of Latakia, where two people were reported to have been shot dead, as well as in the southern towns of Tafa and Deraa. They came as burials took place across the country amid international condemnation at the uncompromising force shown by the Ba’athist government that has ruled Syria for more than 40 years. Despite the show of strength, President Bashar al-Assad has been unable to free himself from the most sustained threat to his 11-year rule, which has seen protesters attack posters of him and statues of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled for 30 years. Such acts have been almost without precedent throughout four decades of totalitarian rule. Assad had tried to stay ahead of the revolts sweeping the Arab world as they rumbled towards Syria, considered less likely to be affected than its neighbours. He had offered a string of concessions, such as heating fuel subsidies, access to previously banned social media and a three-month cut in military service. However, his regime now appears to be facing a momentum that not even the Arab world’s most feared police state could prepare for. There were reports of between 70 and 260 political prisoners being released, in what was being seen as the latest concession. The concessions offered so far have shown no sign of containing the restive streets, which are feeding off the success of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt as well as still simmering uprisings in Libya and Bahrain. “These are unprecedented events in Syria,” said Rime Allaf, a Syrian analyst at the Chatham House thinktank in London, “especially as they came in the wake of governmental promises of reform on Thursday night.” International criticism has been strident. The United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, urged Assad to show “maximum restraint”, while the US said it was deeply concerned by “the Syrian government’s attempts to repress and intimidate demonstrators”. While anger continues to grow, many Syrians remain unwilling to declare their loyalties, according to analysts in Damascus. “There is not yet the critical mass needed,” said one activist, who asked not to be named. Counter-demonstrations have been manned by loyalist groups and Syria’s tightly controlled state media is not covering the protest activity in detail. Official media have continued to blame unrest and shootings on armed gangs. Some observers said Assad is trapped. “The regime is stuck. The less they offer, the more protests there will be; the more they offer, the faster the regime changes its dictatorial nature, and this would be the start of the end,” said Bilal Saab, a Middle East analyst at the University of Maryland. Meanwhile, clashes continued on the other side of the Arabian peninsula, with Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, on the brink of negotiating a deal for his departure, according to the country’s foreign minister, Abubakr al-Qirbi. Saleh, in power for 32 years, has been confronted by two months of youth-led street protests demanding his resignation as well as a string of defections by top military and tribal leaders. Demonstrations continuedon Saturday, but without the violence of nine days ago, which saw 53 protesters shot dead by government snipers perched on rooftops in a neighbourhood of the capital, Sana’a. “I hope [the resignation] will be today,” said Abubakr al-Qirbi, who is serving as caretaker foreign minister, adding that the timeframe for a peaceful transfer of power by Saleh was “up for negotiation”. The sticking point seems to concern the fate of his family – his sons and nephews occupy powerful positions in the military – as well as the exact timing of his departure. On Tuesday an offer by Saleh to leave by the end of 2011 was snubbed by the opposition who demand his immediate resignation. Sana’a remains a tense and divided capital. Rival pro- and anti-government demonstrators swept through the city on Friday as Saleh told supporters he would conditionally step aside and hand the nation to “safe hands” to avert further bloodshed after weeks of protests. The sticking point of any discussions “is the subject of his departure”, said Sakhr Wajih, an independent member of the parliament and former member of the committee for national dialogue. “It still seems, though, that the president is unwilling to seriously deal with the demands of the protesters themselves and persists in trying to draw the official opposition into a cynical deal.” In Bahrain, where a three-month state of emergency is in force, another demonstrator reportedly died on Friday night after suffocating from the effects of tear gas. He was among a gathering in a Shia village that had been dispersed by government troops. The death takes to 21 the number of people killed in a two-month uprising that has deeply unsettled the Gulf states and led to a serious standoff between two of the region’s greatest foes, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Katherine Marsh is the pseudonym of a journalist based in Damascus. Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Protest Middle East Martin Chulov Tom Finn guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Last week we observed — especially after the arrest of a neo-Nazi in Spokane for a planned bombing of a parade the next day — that Bill O’Reilly owed Mark Potok a big apology for smearing him after he offered the opinion that, as domestic-terrorism threats go , the extremist right remains a much more potent problem than homegrown Islamic radicals. (OReilly repeated the smear even after the Spokane arrest.) Of course, we knew that wasn’t gonna happen. But last night on The O’Reilly Factor , we got to see the next best thing: Potok pinning O’Reilly’s ears to the wall for the smear. O’REILLY: Now a few weeks ago, Mr. Potok, you said on CNN the biggest terrorist threat is coming from the radical right community. Do you still stand by that? MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: That is false as I think you know. I said the biggest domestic threat to America was from domestic radical right not domestic jihadists, in other words, not home-grown American Muslims. That was twisted on your show by you. (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: All right. So you — it wasn’t twisted by me — no, no, it wasn’t twisted because your statement is dubious. It wasn’t well — with all due respect because we like you as a guest — your statement was not well put. Let me read your exact statement ok. It’s not our biggest — this is talking about Muslim jihadists. “It’s not our biggest domestic threat. I think that pretty clearly comes from the radical right in this country.” Now I’ll dispute that. I think that Muslims jihadists are a much bigger threat than the radical right and the numbers back me up: Fort Hood and Fort Dick. POTOK: Bill, can I just have one — O’REILLY: Yes. Go ahead. POTOK: One thing I want to say, immediately afterwards you said, Muslim terrorists or jihadists have killed tens of thousands of people all over the world. Well, that is true. I don’t disagree with that at all. I certainly think that as an external matter, Al-Qaeda is far greater threat. I don’t think there’s much question about that. But that’s not what I said. O’REILLY: All right. I’m glad you are saying that. In fact, it might be helpful to remember exactly what it was that Potok actually said on CNN : MALVEAUX: If you can from your study of tracking radical groups, potentially hate groups, what do you think of this hearing? Is al Qaeda radicalizing Muslims? Is that our biggest homegrown terrorism threat right now? POTOK: Well, I think it’s not our biggest domestic terror threat. I think that pretty clearly comes from the radical right in this country. Although I would certainly not minimize the threat of jihadist terrorism in this country. Obviously, we have seen a fair amount of it. Clearly, Potok was drawing a distinction between jihadist terrorism of the international kind and the (so far) quite limited threat of homegrown Islamic radicalism. But O’Reilly refuses to recognize the distinction: O’REILLY: But you put — no, you yourself in a position, of criticizing Peter King’s hearings on what domestic terror threat is from the jihadists. In the context of where you were it seemed to me diminishing that in favor of saying the right wing radicals are a bigger threat. I don’t believe the right wing radicals are a bigger threat. And I don’t believe Americans see it either. I could be wrong. One thing you do have going for you in Spokane where a nut named Karen Hartman with ties to white supremacists has now been indicted for putting a bomb on the road during a Martin Luther King Day parade — thank God it didn’t go off. You do have those isolated incidents and there are white supremacist groups who are a bunch of idiots and FBI are all over them. Ah yes, the famous “isolated incidents”. So far, just in the past two-and-a-half years, we’re up to 24 of them and counting : But O’Reillyesque ignorance is widespread — and so is O’Reillyesque arrogance, as we saw this week when a group of Minutemen in Iowa managed to bring a halt to a terrorism-training exercise because the scenario involved white supremacists attacking immigrants. Indeed, as Potok mentions, the resulting threats forced authorities to call off the exercise. O’Reilly somehow thinks this makes the people who dreamed up the scenario look bad, and not the hate callers whose ignorance shut the drill down. Perhaps that’s because it’s an ignorance they share with O’Reilly, who only a couple of weeks before hosted a segment in which he and his guests dismissed the cold-blooded murder of 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father at the hands of a group of killer Minutemen — white supremacists who were targeting Latinos for murder. That, too, was — you guessed it — just another “isolated incident”. OREILLY: Now, in Iowa, this thing was cancelled because, basically they wanted to run a drill that right wing terrorists were coming down from the corn fields and shooting children. I think most Americans go, that is stupid, it’s a waste of money why are you bothering. POTOK: Well, are you going to tell our viewers why it was cancelled. O’REILLY: Yes, because they had threats. POTOK: It was cancelled because they had enormous number of threats. O’REILLY: Not enormous, they had threats. POTOK: I just talked to a reporter out there. The threat that really made them shut the exercise down was a call to the school that said if you go through this, something like you envision will happen or may happen. So who is to say? Sounds like the people you’re — (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: Yes, it’s terrible. It’s awful. And I ceded to you that there are white supremacist groups that the FBI should be watching and they do anything like this, they should arrest them. But at this juncture — (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: Mr. Potok, you are not going to convince the American public that these far right kooks are more dangerous than the jihad? You’re not going to do that. And I’ll give you the last word. POTOK: Well, Bill, that is not what I said once again. So I think it would be good if you paid attention to what was actually said rather than going on television and calling me a lot of names. I’m a member — (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: I didn’t call you any names Mr. Potok. I used your own words — POTOK: I saw the transcripts. What name — I don’t appreciate that kind of mischaracterization. O’REILLY: What name did I call you? POTOK: You said we were part of the radical left, the nuts on the left, who were coming up with this kind of lunatic — O’REILLY: I don’t think I called you that. POTOK: — which you have utterly misinterpreted. Just for the record, here’s exactly what O’Reilly said while disparaging Potok and Ezra Klein: It all goes back to America being the world’s biggest villain. The far left believes that the United States has provoked Muslim extremists by backing Israel and doing business with the oil sheiks. To radicals on the left, the jihadists are simply misguided and would stop their terrible killings if only we understood them and changed our foreign and domestic policies. That’s what the far left truly believes, and that’s why you’re hearing all of this absurd nonsense. Potok didn’t get the apology he deserved. But he did get his pound of flesh.
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Click here to view this media Last week we observed — especially after the arrest of a neo-Nazi in Spokane for a planned bombing of a parade the next day — that Bill O’Reilly owed Mark Potok a big apology for smearing him after he offered the opinion that, as domestic-terrorism threats go , the extremist right remains a much more potent problem than homegrown Islamic radicals. (OReilly repeated the smear even after the Spokane arrest.) Of course, we knew that wasn’t gonna happen. But last night on The O’Reilly Factor , we got to see the next best thing: Potok pinning O’Reilly’s ears to the wall for the smear. O’REILLY: Now a few weeks ago, Mr. Potok, you said on CNN the biggest terrorist threat is coming from the radical right community. Do you still stand by that? MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: That is false as I think you know. I said the biggest domestic threat to America was from domestic radical right not domestic jihadists, in other words, not home-grown American Muslims. That was twisted on your show by you. (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: All right. So you — it wasn’t twisted by me — no, no, it wasn’t twisted because your statement is dubious. It wasn’t well — with all due respect because we like you as a guest — your statement was not well put. Let me read your exact statement ok. It’s not our biggest — this is talking about Muslim jihadists. “It’s not our biggest domestic threat. I think that pretty clearly comes from the radical right in this country.” Now I’ll dispute that. I think that Muslims jihadists are a much bigger threat than the radical right and the numbers back me up: Fort Hood and Fort Dick. POTOK: Bill, can I just have one — O’REILLY: Yes. Go ahead. POTOK: One thing I want to say, immediately afterwards you said, Muslim terrorists or jihadists have killed tens of thousands of people all over the world. Well, that is true. I don’t disagree with that at all. I certainly think that as an external matter, Al-Qaeda is far greater threat. I don’t think there’s much question about that. But that’s not what I said. O’REILLY: All right. I’m glad you are saying that. In fact, it might be helpful to remember exactly what it was that Potok actually said on CNN : MALVEAUX: If you can from your study of tracking radical groups, potentially hate groups, what do you think of this hearing? Is al Qaeda radicalizing Muslims? Is that our biggest homegrown terrorism threat right now? POTOK: Well, I think it’s not our biggest domestic terror threat. I think that pretty clearly comes from the radical right in this country. Although I would certainly not minimize the threat of jihadist terrorism in this country. Obviously, we have seen a fair amount of it. Clearly, Potok was drawing a distinction between jihadist terrorism of the international kind and the (so far) quite limited threat of homegrown Islamic radicalism. But O’Reilly refuses to recognize the distinction: O’REILLY: But you put — no, you yourself in a position, of criticizing Peter King’s hearings on what domestic terror threat is from the jihadists. In the context of where you were it seemed to me diminishing that in favor of saying the right wing radicals are a bigger threat. I don’t believe the right wing radicals are a bigger threat. And I don’t believe Americans see it either. I could be wrong. One thing you do have going for you in Spokane where a nut named Karen Hartman with ties to white supremacists has now been indicted for putting a bomb on the road during a Martin Luther King Day parade — thank God it didn’t go off. You do have those isolated incidents and there are white supremacist groups who are a bunch of idiots and FBI are all over them. Ah yes, the famous “isolated incidents”. So far, just in the past two-and-a-half years, we’re up to 24 of them and counting : But O’Reillyesque ignorance is widespread — and so is O’Reillyesque arrogance, as we saw this week when a group of Minutemen in Iowa managed to bring a halt to a terrorism-training exercise because the scenario involved white supremacists attacking immigrants. Indeed, as Potok mentions, the resulting threats forced authorities to call off the exercise. O’Reilly somehow thinks this makes the people who dreamed up the scenario look bad, and not the hate callers whose ignorance shut the drill down. Perhaps that’s because it’s an ignorance they share with O’Reilly, who only a couple of weeks before hosted a segment in which he and his guests dismissed the cold-blooded murder of 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father at the hands of a group of killer Minutemen — white supremacists who were targeting Latinos for murder. That, too, was — you guessed it — just another “isolated incident”. OREILLY: Now, in Iowa, this thing was cancelled because, basically they wanted to run a drill that right wing terrorists were coming down from the corn fields and shooting children. I think most Americans go, that is stupid, it’s a waste of money why are you bothering. POTOK: Well, are you going to tell our viewers why it was cancelled. O’REILLY: Yes, because they had threats. POTOK: It was cancelled because they had enormous number of threats. O’REILLY: Not enormous, they had threats. POTOK: I just talked to a reporter out there. The threat that really made them shut the exercise down was a call to the school that said if you go through this, something like you envision will happen or may happen. So who is to say? Sounds like the people you’re — (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: Yes, it’s terrible. It’s awful. And I ceded to you that there are white supremacist groups that the FBI should be watching and they do anything like this, they should arrest them. But at this juncture — (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: Mr. Potok, you are not going to convince the American public that these far right kooks are more dangerous than the jihad? You’re not going to do that. And I’ll give you the last word. POTOK: Well, Bill, that is not what I said once again. So I think it would be good if you paid attention to what was actually said rather than going on television and calling me a lot of names. I’m a member — (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: I didn’t call you any names Mr. Potok. I used your own words — POTOK: I saw the transcripts. What name — I don’t appreciate that kind of mischaracterization. O’REILLY: What name did I call you? POTOK: You said we were part of the radical left, the nuts on the left, who were coming up with this kind of lunatic — O’REILLY: I don’t think I called you that. POTOK: — which you have utterly misinterpreted. Just for the record, here’s exactly what O’Reilly said while disparaging Potok and Ezra Klein: It all goes back to America being the world’s biggest villain. The far left believes that the United States has provoked Muslim extremists by backing Israel and doing business with the oil sheiks. To radicals on the left, the jihadists are simply misguided and would stop their terrible killings if only we understood them and changed our foreign and domestic policies. That’s what the far left truly believes, and that’s why you’re hearing all of this absurd nonsense. Potok didn’t get the apology he deserved. But he did get his pound of flesh.
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• Estimated 500,000 march in London against public sector cuts • Police say protest was overwhelmingly peaceful: nine arrests • Hardliners attack Top Shop and occupy Fortnum and Mason • Read our latest summary • Read our latest news story on the march 7.01pm: There are reports on Twitter that Lilly Whites is now on fire. 6.59pm: Paul Lewis has called in with a report of a fire in Piccadilly that appears to be getting out of control. The fire is on Jermyn Street next to Piccadilly. It began about 15mins ago when clashes broke out between the police cordon and protesters. The protesters ripped up scaffolding and planks of wood, filled a waste bin and set it alight. That fire has now spread with flames reaching 11ft high, and from where I’m standing it looks like it is getting out of control. There’s a thick plume of black smoke rising into the sky. I’m about 30ft away and can feel the heat from where I’m standing. Riot police have cleared the immediate vicinity but the whole area around Piccadilly is becoming something of a magnet for people looking to cause disruption. The situation is now getting dangerous. You can see a photo of the fire here . 6.46pm: Met police saying that Fortnum and Mason is now being treated as a crime scene and threatening UKuncut with arrest. 6.40pm: My colleague Matthew Taylor has said that UKuncut have ended their occupation at Fortnum and Mason and are now being detained by police. 6.10pm: The Metropolitan police press office has said that today’s march has been largely peaceful and well ordered, with a small number of violent disruptions and just nine arrests. This is the police statement: Today’s TUC March for the Alternative has been peaceful and well-stewarded. However, there have been a number of separate incidents including the throwing of missiles in the Oxford Street area and criminal damage in Shaftesbury Avenue. Police are on the scene and dealing with this. There have been a small number of arrests made for various public order offences, criminal damage and violent disorder. We can confirm police have not advised businesses in central London to close. 6.00pm: Good evening and welcome to our continuing coverage of the March for the Alternative in London, and the aftermath. You can read our earlier live blog here. • Around 500,000 people have joined the anti-cuts march through central London . The figure was higher than originally hoped for by the organisers. • Police said the protest had been “peaceful and well-stewarded”. But there have been a few clashes between police and activists not associated with the main march, and nine arrests have been made. • More than a dozen stores on Oxford Street were occupied by Ukuncut . The group has also occuplied the upscale department store Fortnum & Mason. Riot police have set up a kettle around the area. Public sector cuts Cuts and closures Rowenna Davis guardian.co.uk
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