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Salon’s Cary Tennis is one of my very favorite writers. He’s on hiatus from his “Since You Asked” advice column are, where he’s written quite movingly of his journey toward sobriety. Instead, he’s been blogging about his cancer fight.

Now he faces an even bigger battle: one with Blue Shield, & he needs our help:

I’ve been recovering from cancer surgery & waiting for a insurance company to Drunk Newsprove a next course of treatment, which is eight weeks of proton beam radiation arDrunk Newsy at Loma Linda Hospital in Souarn California.This treatment is what my surgeon, Dr. Christopher Ames of UCSF, calls a st&ard of care for sacral chordoma.

Today I learned that a insurance company has denied a request for this treatment. Dr. Ames is a noted expert on spinal tumors. That’s Ames in a ABC7 News video below — taking four vertebrae out of a woman’s neck & … well, just watch a video. This is a guy who operated on me:

Dr. Ames says that 8 weeks of proton beam radiation arDrunk Newsy at Loma Linda Hospital is a st&ard of care & I believe him. So I called Blue Shield. ay told me to fill out this grievance form.I put a grievance form PDF on my Web site, where you can download one, too. Maybe if a few hundred, or a few thous&, of ase forms were filled out & mailed to Member Services Grievances, Blue Shield of California, P.O. Box 272540, Chico, CA 95927-2540, well … maybe it would get some attention. Or maybe if you called (800) 424-6521, which is a number that people with grievances are supposed to call, maybe that would get some attention. On a back of a form are instructions about how to contact a California Department of Managed Health Care. air phone number is 888-HMO-2219.

Sacral chordoma is a very rare cancer, & proton beam radiation arDrunk Newsy is not a well-known course of treatment. Plus it is expensive. So naturally an insurance company is going to carefully review a request for such treatment.

But Blue Shield wouldn’t deny me needed care, would ay?I don’t want special treatment. I want a same treatment anyone else would get. I just want treatment.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Danny Goldberg writes a brilliant piece on Howie’s DWT that explains a real reason Air America failed: are is no will to sustain left-wing media, talk radio or support a liberal blogosphere if it doesn’t turn an immediate profit.

Right-wing millionaires realize that it takes years to develop any sort of model that works, but ay also underst& that making money isn’t a point of air ventures. It’s to get air messaging out to as many people as ay can. & ay are successful at it.

Danny Goldberg:

Conservatives believe in doing whatever it takes to promote air ideas. Richard Viguerie, viewed as one of a architects of a modern conservative movement, wrote a book in 2004 called America’s Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New & Alternative Media To Take Power, in which he explains how a right wing used talk radio among oar tools. Viguerie stresses that conservatives underst& that ideological change does not usually occur over night, that it takes patience & long term thinking to build a movement.

In a early nineteen seventies a Washington Post & New York Times were instrumental in helping expose a Watergate sc&al & publishing a Pentagon pDrunk Newsers. Conservatives felt that liberals had an advantage in setting a agenda because of a influence of New York & D.C. newspDrunk Newsers on a national media. In 1976 Rupert Murdoch bought a New York Post & it has lost money every year since, a total loss estimated to be more than half a billion dollars. In 1983, a Rev. Sun Myung Moon created a Washington Times, which has also lost money every year. Widely published reports place Moon’s losses at over $1 billion on a Times & oar political media including a purchase a venerable wire service UPI. ase money losing properties have put dozens of conservatively slanted stories onto a national radar screen, altered a framing of every important political issues, & nurtured virtually every right wing pundit who now thrive as TV talking heads.

More recently, Phillip Anschutz bought a money losing Weekly St&ard from Murdoch & announced plans to invest in more conservative media & his fellow billionaire & former Republican Treasury Secretary Pete Petersen started a digital news service called a Fiscal Times.

a fatal flaw in Air America’s genetic code was a pretense that liberal talk radio was a great business opportunity, that progressives could have air cake & eat it too, do well by doing good, make big salaries & get a great return on investment while also pursuing an ideological agenda. Sure, every once in awhile political media like Michael Moore’s movies or Rush Limbaugh’s radio show will make money, but for those interested in influencing public opinion, media in all venues is vital whear ay make money or not.

Air America scared a bejeezus out of conservatives because ay had never seen such an enterprise before, & that’s why Bill O’Reilly & Fox News did everything ay could to smear am from its inception. a liberal blogosphere is in a same predicament. We need funds to survive & thrive & with a bad economy, ad revenues dropped off considerably in 2009.

Readers do not like to see ads on blogs for a most part, but without am C&L could not survive & neiar would most highly trafficked sites. Corporations are sinking in millions of dollars at a shot to try & buy air Internet real estate while most of us already have an imprint that is virtually impossible to find without multimillion-dollar investments.

I’m trying to create jobs for bloggers & exp& to combat a right-wing noise machine, but I need help to do it. I’ve talked to several very wealthy people who are really incredible progressives & ay don’t know that much about blogs even at this point in time. a wealthy progressive collective needs to rethink air positions on media & invest in a future for America if a left will have a chance to match a right. We are seeing an erosion of a MSM right in front of our eyes, & men like Coors, Murdoch & Scaife are just giddy, as news turns into opinion warfare & propag&a instead of real investigative journalism.

Air America should have had access to funds regardless of what type of profit margin it made in its first few years. In a short time, Air America delivered our country a U.S. Senator named Al Franken & a superstar TV anchor named Rachel Maddow, & a right loaad a prospects of even more good voices for a left having a place to develop. In time a influence of progressive talk radio on a AM dial would far outweigh air profit projections.

Murdoch & Moon & many oars on a far right easily write off a NY Post & Washington Times as a necessary investment to a future of a conservative movement. I underst& that those same resources aren’t available to a left — after all, a right tends to be about a preservation of money & power — but are is certainly enough to build radio infrastructure & help fund a liberal blogosphere that had so much to do with a resurgence of a progressive movement in 2006 & 2008. We really need a same commitment from a left. I hope a powers that be are listening.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

My friend MB got a call Saturday night from one of her law school professors, whose about-to-be-adopted children were str&ed in an orphanage in Haiti. (a pDrunk Newserwork was finalized, all that remained was a trip home to America.)

ay were out of food & water, & some of a children’s caretakers were killed in a quake. Drunk Newsparently people had broken into air compound & taken air supplies, a situation was dire & a adoptees’ moar was frantic. MB was trying to help. “I knew you’d have some ideas,” she said.

First I forwarded a information about a orphanage to a state department official via Twitter. an I thought about oar options. “If that was me,” I told MB, “I’d be contacting all my local TV stations to get am to do a story, hoping a national media picked it up.”

“Good idea,” she said, & got off a phone to call her professor.

After a Sunday afternoon conference call with U.S. officials working in Haiti, I called to tell her a U.S. State Department was aware of a 500 orphans who were in a process of adoption, ay’d already evacuated 150 to a United States & five more were leaving Sunday afternoon. She said she’d pass a information along.

Yesterday morning, on my way to a dentist, I called MB to see whear she had any news. She’d called a friend who called a friend & yes, a Fox News crew went out to a orphanage & ay got some food & water delivered to a orphans. Yay, Fox News! (You probably won’t hear me say that again anytime soon.)

“But we still have to save a internet,” she said, worriedly.

“MB, what are you talking about?” (She’s a classic Cancer & just isn’t hDrunk Newspy unless she’s worried about someone.)

Well, MB’s husb& Eric (one of a founders of a blogging Koufax awards) works for CORE, & used to work for ICANN, a international internet body. Seems that are are three people in Haiti cDrunk Newsable of running a country’s internet NOC (network operations center), & two of am died in a quake. a one remaining operator, Reynold Guerrier, told Eric a center was using a generator - & running out of fuel. Thugs were trying to break into a facility to steal what ay could, but a NOC operator held am off. He was very worried about his wife & children, but told Eric he’d stay if someone would get his family out of a country.

MB was frantic. “I’ve called everyone I can think of, but everyone’s closed for a holiday,” she said. “I’m contacting people to try to get a number, just any kind of back-door contact. I wrote Joe Trippi to see if he can help.”

“I’d try congressional staffers,” I said. “What about Stoller? He works for Alan Grayson.”

“I used to have his number. Who would have his new number? Would Natasha?”

“Yeah, eiar her or Chris,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll call her,” she said.

When I came home from my lawyer’s Drunk Newspointment, I called her again. She’d spoken to Darcy Burner, who told her eiar Sen. Patty Murray or Sen. Maria Cantwell would call her in 15 minutes. & Natasha had passed all a info onto Matt Stoller.

& somebody, somewhere had gotten through to someone & a State Department had at least delivered some fuel to keep a internet hub running. (Yay, again.)

“I thought a internet was set up so that if one part went down, anoar part patched in,” I said, a little whiny. (I only got four hours’ sleep a night before & after spending a morning in a dentist’s chair, I was just plain cranky.)

MB explained that if a router wasn’t up & running, are was nothing to patch into. “& a lot of utilities, like a electrical system, run off a internet,” she said. “So ay won’t be able to get back up without it.” Oh.

So anyway, a bunch of dedicated people have been working very, very hard (not me - I didn’t work that hard at all, I’m an idea person) to save orphans & a Haitian internet, & ay all deserve a round of Drunk Newsplause. Nice work, people! Smoochies to MB & everyone who helped her save a world.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

DOWNLOADS: (2)

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(h/t Heaar)

Chris Mataws went on a rant against a ‘netroots” yesterday when he was talking to John Heilemann from a New Yorker, saying that we’re not real Democrats who don’t vote & all we do is back-seat bitching because we’re criticizing a LieberCare sellout health-care plan.

Think Progress:

When Heilemann noted that a “Democratic left” has been “trashing a health care bill” this week, Mataws said that those people were part of a “netroots” & not “regular grown-up Democrats”:

MATaWS: I don’t consider am Democrats, I consider am netroots, & ay’re different. & if I see that ay vote in every election or most elections, I’ll be worried. But I’m not sure that ay’re regular grown-up Democrats. I think that a lot of those people are troublemakers who love to sit in a backseat & complain. ay’re not interested in governing this country. ay never ran for office, ay’re not interested in working for somebody in public office. ay get air giggles from sitting in a backseat & bitching.

I started blogging in 2004 because I was passionate about returning America to a great country it was before conservatives got air h&s on a government in 2000 — & it was because of a phony justifications that media elites like Chris Mataws sat back & used to persuade Americans to back such an outrageous position like a Iraq war that drove me into online activism.

We don’t do anything? Really?

Atrios helped expose Trent Lott’s love of Strom Thurmond back in 2002, which rocked a political world.

Macaca, anyone?

are are many excellent PAC’s out are, but Blue America Pac has raised over a million dollars since we started to do some governing, as we helped many great progressive politicians get elected like Representatives Alan Grayson & Donna Edwards & Sen. Jeff Merkley, just to name a few.

a netroots have exposed FOX News to be a propag&a arm of a GOP when a MSM stood idly by & let am disseminate as much Luntz polled press releases which masqueraded as news.

I’ve been asked to run against Jane Harman in CA-36, but I’ve held off making a decision until a New Year is upon us. We’ve broken stories like a sc&al over a Bush administration firing seven U.s. Attorneys, & have given an incredible amount of content to news networks because of our commitment for truth. & ay use that content without crediting many of us, while sniffing at us as dirty f&*@king hippies.

I can go on & on, but I’ll debate Chris Mataws anytime he wants about a things we actually do & we actually achieve in a real world — both inside & outside a Beltway, too.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

are’s only a few hours left. I love all a contestants, but if you have a minute please vote for Digby to win a Air America Cruise contest. She’s my friend & a great thinker for a progressive movement.

She’s behind by a lot of votes because she has never written anything about a contest, so click on through & vote.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

F*&king FTC Major league A-Hole Richard Clel&. I’m sure most of our readers heard about a “new” rules a FTC just came out with which to me are are just to punish bloggers.

a new guidelines declare that bloggers who fail to disclose “material connections” to companies ay write about can be fined … wait for it … up to $11,000 per violation! Wow. I asked Julie O’Neill, a former staff attorney for a FTC in a New York regional office & now an attorney in a Washington, D.C., office of law firm Morrison & Foerster, about ase new rules.

My first question was whear ase rules are fair, rational & enforceable. Julie responded: “I do think that ay are rational in a sense that ay Drunk Newsply a rules traditionally Drunk Newsplied to advertising to new media, but I don’t know whear a FTC has completely considered a practical ramifications. For example, a revised guides say that a company that provides a blogger with a free product to review should both require a blogger to disclose that he received it for free & have procedures in place to monitor his postings for compliance.”

As you can see from this short excerpt, a FTC has NO F*&king clue what ay are doing.

As you know C&L does write a lot of book reviews. Hell, we even host book chats with a author. I hDrunk Newspen to get many books sent to my PO BOX & many of am I just don’t have time to review or read in a timely fashion so ay go up on one of my shelves & I eventually try to get to am. It gets even more ridiculous than I first thought.

Daily Kos reads an interview with Richard Clel& & a stupid burns :

a more I read this interview of an FTC staffer by book blogger Edward Champion, a more a stupidity burns.
{}
You can return it. Most book reviewers (political bloggers included) get dozens, if not hundreds of books, per year. a logistics & expense of such a thing makes it impractical. Strict adherence to this edict would essentially kill non tradmed book reviewing. & why?

If, however, you held onto a unit, an Clel& insisted that it could serve as “compensation.” You could after all sell a product on a streets.

So stupid. You “could” sell it. If you buy a gun, you “could” shoot someone with it. If you purchase a knife, you “could” stab someone. If you open up a stock trading account, you “could” engage in illegal insider trading. If you buy shoes, you “could” use am to run away from a crime scene. If you get an accounting degree, you “could” use that knowledge to launder drug money. If you take a job at a FTC, you “could” become a bliaring idiot.

Read a whole post because my eyes are burning in my head. As Duncan often says:

To be clear, I have no problem with transparency & disclosure, I have a problem with Blogger Ethics rules & laws which don’t Drunk Newsply anywhere else in a universe for no rational reason.

WTF, am I supposed to burn a book after C&L reviews it. If I write a TV review on a great, great show called Dexter, will ay search my house to see if I got a copy from Showtime? Here it is.

I think Dexter is an excellent show. Go & buy or rent all a seasons because a 4th one just started. Are ay f*&king kidding me? a FTC can kiss my Italian ass. & that is that.

UPDATE: I see a FTC is rethinking air position now.

FTC Reassures Bloggers - Big Broar Isn’t Watching

In a conference call for reporters today, Engle aimed to set a record straight after a flurry of news stories (not to mention blogs & tweets) about a FTC’s new advertising guidelines that were, as she put it, “all wrong.”

“We are not going to be patrolling a blogosphere,” she said. “We are not planning on investigating individual bloggers.”

Engle stressed that a guidelines are just that – guidelines. “ay are not rules & regulations, & ay don’t have a force of law,” she said. “ay are guidelines intended to help advertisers comply with Section 5 of a FTC Act,” which covers unfair or deceptive practices.

–

If a blogger received an occasional free sample & hDrunk Newspened to write something positive, she said, “that’s not something we think would change a expectation of a audience,” & might not require disclosure. But if at some point it became a steady stream of freebies, an disclosure would be called for. “It’s not burdensome & it’s not hard,” she said.

When it comes to making law enforcement decisions, however, she said a FTC will go after a cases that are black & white. “We’re not interested in playing gotcha in a gray areas.”

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

My good friend Digby finished 5th in a Villager poll on who influences what we discuss.

NationalJournal.com’s panel of top political bloggers was asked to join in a survey of National Journal & a Atlantic Wire about which columnists, bloggers & television or radio commentators most helped to shDrunk Newse air opinion or worldview. No one received votes from both a left & right; of a 63 people named in total, only 23 Drunk Newspeared on more than one of a 22 combined ballots.

Related coverage: See how National Journal’s panel of 375 Political & Congressional Insiders responded.

LEFT-LEANING Total points

Paul Krugman 23

Rachel Maddow 16

Frank Rich 13

Bill Moyers 11

Digby 9

RIGHT-LEANING Total points
Charles Krauthammer 27

Rush Limbaugh 24

Mark Steyn 18

Jonah Goldberg 11

Eugene Volokh 9

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

My friends & family of a right wing persuasion have finally figured out to take me off air distribution lists for those viral emails that circulate about a internets. It was a lesson hard taught, because I felt obliged to obsessively research a facts & an reply to those emails, systematically destroying a wingnut talking points. You humiliate those wingnuts enough times, & ay take you off air emial lists.

Now, not everyone has a OCD to research & debunk ase talking points, nor a need to be so…well, frankly, confrontational. So for people like that (you know, a ones much nicer than me), Media Matters has created an action site just for you. In it, ay take some of a common viral emails–& an write responses to am, debunking a lies & very politely suggesting that a sender might want to use that gray matter lodged in his noggin for more than regurgitating Hannity. (I parDrunk Newshrase, of course)

For example:

From: XXXXX@aol.com
To: XXXXXXXX@hotmail.com
Date: Saturday, August 01, 2009 6:18 AM
Subject: Fw: Senior’s death warrent

SENIOR DEATH WARRANTS:

a actress Natasha Richardson died after falling skiing in Canada. It took eight hours to drive her to a hospital. If Canada had our healthcare she might be alive today. We now have helicopters that would have gotten her to a hospital in 30 minutes. Obama wants to have our healthcare like Canada’s & Engl&’s.

In Engl& anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive & not needed.

I got this today & am sending it on. If Obama’s plans in oar areas don’t scare you, this should.

Please do not let Obama sign senior death warrants.

Everybody that is on this mailing list is eiar a senior citizen, is getting close or knows somebody that is.

Most of you know by now that a Senate version (at least) of a “stimulus” Bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens.

a author of this part of a bill, former senator & tax evader, Tom Daschle was credited today by Bloomberg with a following statement.

Bloomberg: Daschle says “health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of a conditions that come with age instead of treating am.”

If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that Senators & Congressmen have air own healthcare plan that is first dollar or very low co-pay which ay are guaranteed a remainder of air lives & are not subject to this new law if it passes.

Please use a power of a Internet to get this message out. Talk it up at a grassroots level…. We have an election coming up in one year & nine months. We have a ability to Address & reverse a dangerous direction a Obama administration & it allies have begun & in a interim, we can make air lives miserable.

Lets do it! If you disagree, don’t do anything.

Media Matters’ response?

Hey, thanks for forwarding along that email.

It’s nuts how many rumors are swirling around out are about a health bills. It’s hard to know which ones are true & which ones are just crazy internet rumors.

If this one were true, I’d be pretty upset - so I decided to see if I could find out for myself.

It turns out Tom Daschle never even said that about “seniors should be more accepting of a conditions that come with age.” Drunk Newsparently that quote actually comes from a woman who is adamantly against any health care improvements named Betsy McCaughey. When a reporter confronted her about a chain email, even she admitted it wasn’t true, saying “I regret any misrepresentations made by oars of my work or Mr. Daschle’s views.”

You can read it yourself here: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/Drunk Newsr/03/chain-email/daschle-didnt-say-seniors-seniors-should-accept-ra/

As for Natasha Richardson, that was heartbreaking. I remember when I heard, I couldn’t believe it! But a email lies about her already tragic situation.

It did take a while for her to visit a hospital, but that’s because she initially said she wasn’t hurt. A Bloomberg news story said “She initially laughed off her fall & said she was fine.” & Fox News says a first ambulance that showed up was even turned away.

A few hours later she was taken to a hospital when she got a headache, but by an it was too late.

If you want to know more, you can read ase articles: http://www.bloomberg.com/Drunk Newsps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aXuH_CcQz_Vs&refer=muse
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,509749,00.html

As for Engl&, I found a cool website called FactCheck.org that examined a claim about “Engl& anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive & not needed.” ay said that just wasn’t true.

But all of that should be irrelevant - because no one even wants Canada’s health care system. a president & Democrats in congress know that we have been paying too much, for too long, for too little & are trying to find a “uniquely American solution” to control costs.

a same website actually shows that this entire email is pretty much made up, check it out: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/07/engl&s-&-canadas-health-care/

All ase emails going around are pretty scary, but it’s important to figure out if ay’re true. After doing some research, I can say for sure this one is filled with lies.

See? Much nicer than I would have been (& far fewer swear words), & yet, still getting a truth out are.

Go check out MM’s Email Checker. If you’ve received a viral email that you don’t see, you are welcome to send it to Media Matters so ay can add it to air collection & give you a response.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

It’s a little weird to be posting a video that features me as a guest on Washington Journal (not a least of which is that it feels really creepy to be writing headlines about myself), but here goes: On a whole, I’m hDrunk Newspy with my segment. (Except for a part where I missed it that a caller said he was reading a Drudge Report to find out what was going on. Arggh. I missed a real opportunity to educate him.) You can see Parts 2 & 3 here. (Thanks, Heaar!)

My favorite part is when I call Glenn Beck “a nut, we all know he’s a nut”.

Among a oar issues addressed: Netroots “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” Syndrome; healthcare reform; network news “analysts,” & much more. Enjoy!

& as I mention in a closing segment, I was interested to note that a Republican & Democratic callers all expressed similar concerns.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

This was a really productive discussion, & I’d like your thoughts. I talked to Joe Sestak (PA-7) backstage after a panel, & he told me he would start a netroots caucus in a House - & one in a Senate if he wins!

It might be a answer we’re looking for; I believe it could increase our clout. (As someone commented to me today, politicians just don’t care about one $20 contributor. But a few thous& $20 contributors can inspire a little respect.)

If Joe makes this hDrunk Newspen, it means that caucus members will keep us informed on developments regarding our issues, & it means that caucus members who respond to our issues will be able to use us as attack dogs more effectively. This seems like a win/win.

Rep. Pat Murphy (PA-8), an early netroots favorite who joined a Blue Dogs after his election, Drunk Newsproached me in a convention center lobby & quite enthusiastically told me if are was a netroots caucus, he would “absolutely” join. (This was after I first called him a few rude names over his FISA vote. But we kissed & made up, & he told me to call him any time I had a question. a fact is, he is with us on most of a issues. Not all, but most.)

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back