During CNN Appearance, Al Franken Calls On CNN To Fire Glenn Beck

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Appearing last night on CNN’s Larry King Live, Al Franken said that firing Don Imus was the “right decision,” but pointed out that CNN has its own anchor who regularly spews hateful and bigoted remarks.


“CNN has Glenn Beck on,” Franken told King. “Glenn Beck asked my congressman, Keith Ellison, who is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, you know, I just want to ask you, how do I know that you’re not working with the enemy? … I don’t know why that wasn’t grounds for CNN thinking, well, maybe Glenn Beck shouldn’t be on. I mean, how dare he say that to a congressman who has just been elected?”


King asked Franken, “With a lot of [controversial remarks] going on, are you calling for other dismissals?” Franken said, “No, I’m not. Just Glenn Beck on your network.” Watch it:



Screenshot


Some recent low-lights from Glenn Beck:


The anti-gay slur “faggot” is nothing more than “a naughty name.” [1/23/07]


“[Hillary Clinton is] the stereotypical bitch.” [3/15/07]


“What happened to the Duke lacrosse team was practically a lynching without the rope. And for the first time in my life, Mr. Oreo Cookie without the chocolate on the outside can understand why people celebrated when O.J. Simpson was acquitted.” [1/15/07, using a racial slur for African-Americans that refers to “being black on the outside and white on the inside]


“I wonder if I’m alone in this — you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims’ families? Took me about a year.” [9/9/05]


“And that’s all we’re hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we’re seeing on television are the scumbags.” [9/9/05]


(HT: My Two Sense)


Digg It!


Transcript: (more…)

(Via Think Progress.)

Second Life Hype Taken To New Levels

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This past year has seen a wave of companies enter Second Life, ostensibly for the purpose of doing business there, but mainly because it's an easy way of garnering some free publicity. However, some companies are actually drinking their own Kool-Aid, as they argue that Second Life represents the future of customer service. One consulting firm is trying to pitch the idea that Second Life offers many advantages to traditional phone-based customer support, noting, for example, that customers can amuse themselves in the virtual world while waiting for a representative to deal with their issue. Of course, it's not clear how this is superior to the status quo, since it's easy enough to put the phone on speaker, place it on your desk and continue about your business, unrestrained from the limitations of the virtual world. Furthermore, for any company that has to deal with a high volume of customers, it's ridiculous to think that things would be more efficient if only operators communicated through avatars, not to mention the disruption to business that would occur if prank-making griefers were to show up. There's no doubt that there's a lot of room for innovation in the world of customer service, which remains dreadful at many companies, but it's highly doubtful that Second Life holds the key.

(Via Techdirt.)

RIAA Still Can’t Understand That The Product Is More Important Than The Price

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Despite some universities refusing to act as the RIAA's henchmen in its campaign against their students, the group says the effort to bully students into paying "discounted settlements" is working to help stop file-sharing. Of course, it says that about everything it tries (even when it's not true), but you'd imagine if any of these attempts really were successful, it wouldn't need to keep coming up with new ones. Anyhow, just in case there was any doubt as to how out of touch the RIAA is with the market and its customers, its general counsel and EVP wonders why students would continue to download from file-sharing networks when they have access to discounted or free subscription services. Uh, maybe it's because students realize how lame those services are? When students choose to keep illegally downloading even though they have free legal alternatives available, it illustrates that this isn't just an issue of them wanting to not have to pay for music, as the RIAA would like you to believe. It's an issue of the RIAA and its member labels not being able to deliver an attractive product to consumers. But why bother to innovate and come up with something people would want to buy, when you can just sue all your customers instead?

(Via Techdirt.)

Goodling may be offered immunity.

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“The House Judiciary Committee is ’strongly considering’ offering former DoJ official Monica Goodling immunity in exchange for her testimony in the U.S. Attorney matter, according to one very solid congressional source. Goodling had preemptively asserted her Fifth Amendment rights and has declined to be interviewed or to testify before Congress. … Per Pete Williams, Goodling’s attorney, John Dowd, has no comment on the immunity question.”


UPDATE: Time magazine has a similar report.

(Via Think Progress.)

Perino ‘Defends’ Email Statements: I Didn’t Lie, I Just Had No Idea What I Was Talking About

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In this afternoon’s press briefing, the White House press corps confronted spokeswoman Dana Perino about her previous misstatements regarding the White House’s use of RNC email accounts. On March 27, Perino claimed that there were only a “handful” of staffers with such accounts. Today, Perino claimed that her earlier statement was made despite her ignorance of what was actually going on. “Well, I didn’t know how many there were,” Perino said. “I grant you, it’s a very large handful.”


CNN’s White House correspondent Ed Henry then pressed her on why she had earlier stated that RNC emails had been archived for a very long time when the White House now claims that those emails have been lost. On March 27, Perino said RNC archiving was “something that was in place” for years. Today, she backed off that statement and said, “We have developed a better understanding of how the RNC archived or did not archive certain e-mails.” She refused to further elaborate.


Watch it:



Screenshot


Perino defended herself, arguing, “When I said a ‘handful,’ I was asked based on something that I didn’t know.” Apparently, Perino believes if you don’t know the truth, you’re allowed to make up whatever you want.


Transcript: (more…)

(Via Think Progress.)

White House lost 5 million emails.

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“CREW learned that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over FIVE MILLION emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel’s office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records.” Read the full report HERE.

(Via Think Progress.)

White House withholds the evidence

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that proves it acted against federal law. Dan Froomkin writes in his online Washington Post column:


[W]hen I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: “Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff,” says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.


“As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication.”


The handbook further explains: “The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements.”


And if that wasn’t clear enough, the handbook notes — as was the case in the Clinton administration — that “commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements.”


Stanzel refused to publicly release the relevant portions of the White House staff manual and denied my request to make public the transcript of the call, which lasted more than an hour but which — due to Stanzel’s refusal or inability to provide straight answers on many issues — raised more questions than it answered.

(Via Think Progress.)