NBC Sports:

Though ESPN’s decision to yank Hank Williams, Jr. from the opening theme music to Monday Night Football initially seemed to be a one-week suspension, it’s a little more permanent than that.

OK, it’s a lot more permanent than that.

ESPN has parted ways with Williams. The network announced the decision on Thursday, via John Ourand of SportsBusiness Journal.

“We have decided to part ways with Hank Williams, Jr.,” ESPN said in a statement. “We appreciate his contributions over the past years. The success of Monday Night Football has always been about the games and that will continue.”‬‬

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Hank Williams Jr. was on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning and said this:

He was promptly sacked from last night’s broadcast of Monday Night Football:

Hank Williams, Jr., the voice famous for asking millions of football fans whether they’re ready for some football, has been pulled from tonight’s broadcast of “Monday Night Football” over a comment he made on Fox News this morning.

Williams, who sings the lead-in song to the game each week, criticized the president for his golf summit with House Speaker John Boehner this summer.

“It would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyahu,” Williams told “Fox & Friends.”

USA Today, among others, picked up the quote, speculating on whether the comparison would get Williams booted from the broadcast .

This afternoon, ESPN released a statement to the affirmative:

“While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”

ESPN was fine when its Las Vegas radio affiliate joked about, and seemingly advocated for, the rape of Sarah Palin just a few weeks ago.

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…And congratulations to me, for I have won the BIG office pool.

Here at the BIGS, we all picked squares to back up our prediction of who would be the first member of the MSM to compare the upcoming Sarah Palin documentary”The Undefeated” to Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous pro-Nazi propaganda film. “Triumph of the Will.”

Looking oh-so sincere and innocent in black and white…

Personally, my gut told me this person would have to be uncommonly angry and cruel; someone willing to stoop to a level of partisan inhumanity where few fear to tread, someone so despicably desperate to destroy another they would use a political figure’s own children as weapons of attack.

Well, according to my Google Alert… Ladies and gents, Mr. Andrew Sullivan:

“If someone gives it a chance and watches it, watches the film, I think they will be surprised at the caricature that’s been drawn and the contrast to reality. I just think every aspect of it is so powerful, you cannot walk away from this film looking at Sarah Palin the same way. You just can’t,” – Meg Stapleton, on the upcoming propaganda movie, “Triumph Of The Will” “The Undefeated.”

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So David Evans is a scientist who worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office, as one of the country’s leading climate change experts.

But once a global warming alarmist, he’s now a skeptic.

He now believes that “The debate about global warming…is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings.”

And he blames it all on greed, vanity and careerism.

Because, he says, “the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome.”

So rather than admit exaggeration, the alarmists chose the path to hysteria.

This reveals a truth I’ve tried to explain to my global warming pals. That the only experts you can trust are the ones who keep their traps shut.

As a health journalist – I learned that the good doctors were the quiet ones. And those guys always viewed the blabbermouths as opportunists who sacrificed science in favor of ego and influence.

And this is why two decent people can read the same article, and reach two different conclusions.

For a person unfamiliar with the professional and personal motives behind the science, you will buy into the dire predictions.

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So it’s almost Springtime 2011, and Gitmo’s still open.

I’m beginning to think our President likes the damn place.

Either that, or he realizes it’s necessary- especially when a fair portion of the men released end up back at war with us.

And the rest are just fat.

True, these jerks eat well at Gitmo. Along with 21 TV stations and great medical care – they live better than me.

And, right on the water.

My apartment window looks over a fat man urinating.

Almost, the same thing.

Now I used to think Obama saw these suspects as criminals. Which meant they get all the rights that go with it.

But maybe now he sees them as enemy combatants on a strange new battlefield – where the victims can be found in Manhattan, London and Ft. Hood. I dunno.

So with Gitmo open, and our Prez okay with indefinite detention and military tribunals, you’d think someone might say, “I was wrong.”

I can.

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Recently New York Times blogger and humanities professor Stanley Fish referenced my Big Hollywood review of the Coen Brothers’ remake of John Wayne and Henry Hathaway’s True Grit. Though I have reviewed a film or two for various publications I’ve never thought of myself as a film critic. So Professor Fish referring to me as such was certainly interesting, if not flattering.  Agree with my review or not, I am glad a western is making money, but Professor Fish had more heady matters on his mind.

Fish’s main point is that in the new True Grit, purposely there is no relationship between physical heroism and virtue. To the professor physical heroism is displayed by almost everyone in the new film, “‘good’ and ‘bad,’ and the universe seems at best indifferent, if not hostile.” He sees young Mattie Ross as far more heroic for her acceptance of the world as random and brutal, Jeff Bridges Cogburn’s heroism is merely an after thought. The professor didn’t in the least misunderstand my desire to instead see the kind of heroics John Wayne displayed in the original film when he takes on the outlaw gang single-handedly with his “Fill your hands, you son-of-a-bitch!” charge to glory.

Justifiable violent responses to real life threats are often not random. America has always had common men heroes and well trained professionals who can reach down deep into themselves and find the kind of inner courage needed to risk life and limb to save the life of another or stand up to the evil and power hungry. The elitist left who for the time being control most of the public debate on popular culture would have us believe that all is relative. Despite the current “no tolerance” foolishness in American schools, sometimes you have to hit back, and hard, or else the bully will take far more then just your lunch. You’re own personal dignity is indeed something worth fighting for. (more…)

Bad history is bad history and Rob Reiner is a student of some seriously bad history. One would be pressed to find a case where bad history lead to good decisions concerning the present. Case in point: On Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher Rob Reiner spewed his bad history as fact at the expense of smearing one of the largest political grassroots movements in our nation’s history. What’s even more disappointing is that Bill Maher agreed with Reiner multiple times during his factually-challenged rant. I realize Rob, that you probably weren’t a history major, but when you’re accusing the Tea Party of being like Hitler, please try to get your facts straight.

—–

Hitler promised health care, said that Germany’s business infrastructure needed a total government reform, and promised that all of the Germans would have jobs. Also, Hitler may have been elected by less than 40% of the people in Germany, but he was elected by 98.8% in Austria. After becoming Chancellor of Austria he took over the health care system, the car company (Austria had one major car manufacturing company at the time), and the business infrastructure.

Hitler did not sell fear and anger, he sold fundamental change of the nation’s infrastructure. He sold the hope of everyone having a job and that everyone had a right to be given medical treatment at the government’s provision.

That is definitely not what the Tea Party is selling. The Tea Party is selling a return to the constitutional principles that our country was founded upon. It is selling less government intrusion into our lives and that people can make better decisions for themselves than the government can. In other words, the Tea Party is selling the exact opposite of what Hitler promoted. (more…)

Michael C. Moynihan in Reason:

In a recent blog post upbraiding Glenn Beck for his reckless invocations of Nazism and Communism, Roger Ebert, the boring movie critic turned heavy-breathing political blogger, laments the “increasing tendency of the extreme right to automatically describe its opponents in negative buzz words.” Couldn’t agree more, Roger. But wait! Here he is, offering a warm encomium to American Taliban and Moulitsas, who “alerts us to a clear and present danger in America: radical zealots who disregard our Constitution and our freedoms and who disguise themselves as patriots.”

In Ebert’s post on Beck, he rightly bemoans the lazy use of Nazi references, “This whole argument is described by a term widely familiar on the internet (sic), the (sic) reductio ad Hitlerum. It is also known, Wikipedia explains, as playing the Nazi card.” But that’s only when the other side calls people fascists; when Ebert does it, it’s with a certain measure of precision and élan. So in a more recent post, Ebert writes that, in her silly effusions on the so-called Ground Zero mosque, Sarah Palin “employs the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that ‘no one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.’” No need to explain the implication. (more…)

Roger Ebert is nothing if he isn’t a knee-jerk leftist, absolutely without a single original political or cultural thought in his head and his latest meandering post on the Sun-Times hosted Roger Ebert’s Journal is a perfect example. His piece is titled “Ten things I know about the mosque” but it doesn’t seem like there really are ten things. One is tempted to believe that the only reason he posted it was to find an excuse to attack Sarah Palin.

The Past

Let’s deal with Ebert’s off-topic attack on Palin first. For a piece that is supposed to be about the Ground Zero Mosque (and by the way, he never once calls it the Ground Zero Mosque, even though the Imam planning the thing has called it that) Palin’s appearance at point six on his list makes no sense. Not only that, but Ebert goes off on a tangent of a tangent by discussing Palin’s interaction with Dr. Laura and her “N” word controversy. What do Palin and Dr. Laura have to do with the mosque?

Even more absurdly, Ebert’s first few points are filled with his ruminations on the First Amendment. Then he attacks Palin for employing her own freedom of speech? It’s a whiplash-inducing tangent, for sure.

Plus, in essence, he calls Palin a liar by assuming that some right-wing “anonymous genius” is writing all her Tweets and Facebook posts. Ebert has to reach into the dim corners of his conspiracy-laden mind for that one because there is no hint anywhere in the rest of the world that Palin isn’t writing her own stuff. It’s just Ebert’s hatred of Palin informing his belief that she’s too stupid to put two words together. (more…)

“In Dachau we were forced to look at the so-called gassing installations. They really put on a great show for us there…They showed us normal shower installations that were supposed gassing installations. They showed us two ovens used for 6,000 people who were supposedly gassed.  But there were enough people in prison who knew Dachau intimately.  Who told us that this was all a big show intended to generate a conspiracy of hatred towards Germany.  In Dachau people worked.  In Dachau no one was gassed.  The two ovens were there to burn those who had died naturally.  There were several thousands in the camps and it did happen sometimes.  The whole business was laughable to us and proved to us it was just a show going on.

“In any case, it was never intended to kill the Jews.  This was a development which came when the war was at its peak–which cannot be justified and God help us, it made many enemies for us after the war.  The result?  Hardly anyone nowadays thinks of the positive accomplishments brought to Germany and Europe by Hitler.” –Anonymous Munich citizen, 1974 

“I would say that if we were not all guilty of crimes, then we were at least accomplices.” –Ostheer Soldier Roland Kiemig, 1991 

“We cannot and should not be allowed to win this war.” –Oberstleutnant Helmuth Groscurth in  letter to wife after execution of 90 orphaned Jewish children, 1941    (more…)

I have to admit, when I first heard about the Oliver Stone interview where he accused the Jewish Lobby of controlling the Media and US foreign policy, an uneasy chill ran down my spine.  In editorials across the Arab world, Stone was praised as being accurate and scholarly.

Although this news initially horrified me, I now realize that the time to be horrified is over. It is high time to fess up and tell the world the truth: We Jews do control US policy; in fact we run the world. And we’ve been running things for a very long time, manipulating world events for our own needs.

It’s time to reveal the truth that many famous people throughout history were actually Jewish — part of the plot to perpetuate the myth and keep us in charge.

Martin Luther – yep, a Jew! But that one was pretty obvious. After all, he is famous for quitting his church to form a new one. Ever talk to a Jew about where he prays?  He will tell you about the Synagogue he goes to and the one he would never set foot in. (more…)

Patrick Goldstein and much of the butt-boy entertainment media have either outright ignored director Oliver Stone’s anti-Semitic comments or have dug a deeper hole for their credibility in attempting to explain why they shouldn’t have to hold their favorite anti-American director to the same standard as the director of the “The Passion of the Christ” after his 2006 incident. Unfortunately for them, this ploy might not be working. According to some excellent reporting in The Wrap, media mogul and Clinton confidante Haim Saban is showing some moral consistency, and he’s claiming that WME Chairman Ari Emanuel is as well.

Like the Anti-Defamation League, Saban is far from satisfied with Stone’s “clumsy association with the Holocaust” apology, calling it “sooooo transparently fake.” And as a money-where-his-mouth-is supporter of Israel, my guess is that Saban’s taking issue with all this crazy talk coming from Stone about how his January miniseries will prove Hitler was a “scapegoat” who deserves to be put in “context.”

A furious Haim Saban has mounted a campaign to get Showtime to cancel its planned airing of Oliver Stone’s 10-part series, “A Secret History of America,” in the wake of anti-Jewish remarks by the outspoken director.

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Oliver Stone can stays stuff like this because he didn’t direct “The Passion of the Christ.”

NewsBusters:

Stone said that his upcoming Showtime documentary series for “Secret History of America,” seeks to put Hitler and Communist dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.”

“Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support,” Stone told Sunday Times’ reporter Camilla Long.

Stone said that, “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed].”

The Sunday Times interviewer then asked why there was such a focus on the Holocaust.

“The Jewish domination of the media,” responded Stone. “”There’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.” (more…)

The Best Years of Our Lives was on TCM today.

Even when the Good Guys and Bad Guys all seemed incontestably defined, World War II still created a certain amount of what we now call “post-traumatic stress” … and, of course, the world, even then, could not or would not … or simply refused to understand.

Then there was the film’s 1940’s, unsavory version of a war protestor who so provoked the veterans that the character Dana Andrews portrayed punched the Axis sympathizer into and virtually through a display case and, of course, our hero lost his job.

Then the double amputee and his fear of marriage … well, I cried through the whole film, particularly the wedding ceremony we thought would never happen.

During it, of course, hope springs eternal and Dana Andrews renews his commitment to new beginnings, goes over and kisses Theresa Wright … right there! (more…)

In many ways George Ciampa is like any other documentary filmmaker. He’s passionate about his work and constantly searching for funds to complete his next film. But Ciampi also is racing against time. The World War II veteran will be 85 next month and some of the interview sources in his next planned film are even older.

A quick chat with Ciampa tells you not to bet against him. Ciampa, a veteran of five campaigns in Europe including the Normandy Invasion and the Battle of the Bulge, already has two documentaries under his belt.

He might have gotten a late start on filmmaking, but he’s making up for lost time now.

“It went from mission to passion to obsession. I’m obsessed with this,” he says.

Both “Let Freedom Ring: Lesson is Priceless” and “Let Freedom Ring: Memories of France” have been shown on PBS stations nationwide, and the latter played at the 2009 G.I. Film Festival. But he also wants them to be shown in classroom across the globe. (more…)

So as you know, I often end my Gregalogues with the phrase, “if you disagree with me, then you’re worse than Hitler.” At times I’ve changed it to “You’re probably a racist,” “You’re probably a homophobe,” and my favorite “you’re probably a racist homophobe who wears denim cutoffs.”

A lot of people get it, some don’t. Especially clueless – those lefties outraged that I would compare people to Hitler, amazingly ignorant that I was mocking them for doing the same thing with Bush or Cheney.

Anyway, I assumed that by now, the left would finally stop with this crap, now that they’ve got their Prog-God in charge.

But no.

Check out TheRoot.com, a blog owned by the Washington Post, which, in its list “Black Folks We’d Like To Remove From Black History” includes Clarence Thomas and Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele alongside Idi Amin, the “DC Sniper” John Allen Muhammad, Zimbabwe thug Robert Mugabe and Haitian dictators “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier. (more…)

I was a mere teenager in the fifties when it was broadcast widely that the Chinese “don’t really have the same love of life that we do.”

Apparently the Americans at Jonestown were part Chinese, eh?

Here is the Last Will and Testament of Jonestown: 

Dear Comrade Timofeyev, 

“The following is a letter of instructions regarding all of our assets that we want to leave to the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 

Enclosed in this letter are letters which instruct the banks to send the cashiers checks to you. I am doing this on behalf of Peoples Temple because we, as communists, want our money to be of benefit for help to oppressed peoples all over the world, or in any way that your decision-making body sees fit. 

The letters included listed accounts with balances totaling in excess of $7.3 million to be transferred to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 

Hmmm …. Communism. (more…)

So every other year or so a documentary bubbles up, focusing on racist groups around the world – usually skinhead types in derby jackets, Doc Martens and tight, rolled-up jeans. Essentially they look like roadies for Erasure. That’s because when it comes to neo-Nazi villains, they only come in one flavor: vanilla. Without question, Jew haters are always white, pathetic, despicable losers with tiny penises.

However most – if not all – of them – are powerless. They don’t run governments. They’re lucky if they run laundromats.

But in Iran, you’ve got a full-blown neo-Nazi running the government. You’ve got a modern day Hitler boasting about nuclear capability. He shares so much in common with Adolf it’s eerie – his envy-driven hatred, horrible hair and an irrational love for animals. All that’s missing is the funny mustache. (more…)

Epic.

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Because he is a good and gracious man, George W. Bush worked with Ted Kennedy on No Child Left Behind. He held his hand out across the aisle (something Obama has yet to do), and brought the Senator on board to help craft and put his stamp on that piece of legislation.

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Just a couple years later, in the middle of a tough war in Iraq, Kennedy would play the scorpion to Bush’s frog when his ugly, ungrateful, unpatriotic, selfish, leftist default position would rear its ugly partisan head when he accused Bush of being a fraud who cooked up the war for personal political gain.

Today, let us celebrate the delicious irony that Kennedy the Horrible’s Senate seat is about to be occupied by a rock-ribbed conservative who believes in and campaigned on everything Kennedy the Horrible opposed. Yes, a pro-water-boarder will sit where “The Lying of the Senate” once did.  (more…)