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CBS News' Bob Schieffer defended himself against Fox News Sunday on CNN's “Reliable Sources.”

Schieffer, who interviewed Attorney General Eric Holder last weekend on “Face the Nation,” came under fire from Fox News' Megyn Kelly for not asking Holder about the New Black Panthers scandal that Kelly has spent so much air-time covering:

Attorney General Eric Holder sit downs with CBS' “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer for a half hour, a one-on-one interview. And not one question about the now-infamous New Black Panther voter intimidation case….

I'm telling you one of two things happened. You tell me if I'm wrong. Number one, Schieffer doesn't care about the story and just decided to punt on it, even though you can find facts about it on CBS.com. So, the Web site over there is doing its job, but Schieffer apparently isn't interested in the story. Or, number two, the DOJ sent guidelines for this interview and told him you can't ask about that.

Schieffer denied both of Kelly's accusations, telling Howard Kurtz that he simply hadn't heard of the story by the time he interviewed Holder.

“Frankly, had I known about that, I would have asked the question,” Schieffer said. “I was on vacation that week. This happened — apparently, it got very little publicity. And, you know, I just didn't know about it. I mean, you know, God knows everything, but I'm not quite that good. Every once in a while, something will slip by me. And in this case, it just slipped by me. If I'd have known it, I would have asked about it.”

WATCH:

Responding specifically to Kelly's implication that Schieffer and “Face the Nation” agreed not to ask Holder about the scandal, Schieffer said “that's not true. We never ever make deals with anybody that's on 'Face the Nation.'”

Schieffer also disagreed with Bill O'Reilly, who said that the major broadcast network newscasts haven't covered the New Black Panthers story because they are trying to protect President Obama.

And Now For The Rest Of The (Beginning Of The) Story …

If you saw that 30-second teaser on Thursday and wondered what the heck was going on with Batman's costume and Superman's lack of a shave, this six-minute video setting up DC Universe Online's story should answer a lot of questions.

Thanks to Antiterra for the tip.

Send an email to the author of this post at owen@kotaku.com.

Let’s face it. There’s plenty of folks out there that love iTunes, but don’t have an iPod, or some other iDevice. Not that there’s a problem playing your iTunes library somewhere else, considering all of the music is now DRM-free, but there’s still that desire to get that music to as many places as possible. So how about your TV? Well, if you’ve got a Roku Box, then you’ll soon be free and clear to enjoy all of your music right from your TV.

In a deal inked today, Roku is teaming up with MP3Tunes. The latter company is designed to provide people with a secure cloud-based location for their music, with the ability to also listen to music in an “unlimited” capacity. The site gives customers the ability to sync their music to the cloud, so that they can later enjoy it from any web browser, as well as a large variety of mobile products, and home entertainment devices. That last bit is the most important part, as the Roku Box definitely fits in there.

You will be able to access 10GB of storage for absolutely no charge, just as long as you can stand the ads that they’ve installed. But if you want to pay to get rid of them, or you just need more storage up there in the ethereal, then you’ll be able to start paying your way all the way up to 200GB of storage. We love options, especially those that let us pick and choose where we play our music, but we’re not sure how excited to get our iTunes library on our TV. We’ll probably have to give it a shot before we can make a final judgment.

Press Release

MP3tunes and Roku Partner To Bring Personal iTunes Music Collection To TVs

An Industry First: No PC or home server required to play iTunes music libraries on Home Entertainment Systems
San Diego, CA – For the first time, music lovers can play their personal iTunes music collection on their TV without a home server. Roku, the market leader in streaming entertainment devices has added expanded support for personal music collections with the addition of MP3tunes. Available now on all Roku players, the MP3tunes channel connects securely to a customer’s personal music stored online in their MP3tunes Locker. After a few simple steps to connect and sync music to a web-based locker, any Roku becomes a rich music player.

“Now customers can get their music library to their TV without the complexity or cost of a home server,” said Michael Robertson, CEO of MP3tunes. “For less than $100, iTunes users or any music enthusiast can turn a TV into a home stereo and take advantage of the best speakers in their house.”

Roku customers can find the free MP3tunes channel in the Roku channel store. By adding this channel to their Roku, customers can access their song libraries and playlists which have historically been available only on their PC in iTunes or portable players which they sync. The MP3tunes channel defaults to a one-click shuffle mode, which immediately plays a random mix of music along with a visual display of accompanying cover art. Customers may choose to browse their music and select artists, albums or playlists to hear.

All Roku customers receive 10GB of free storage space for their music which, on average, will store music libraries up to 2,500 songs. Additional storage for larger music collections is available with MP3tunes premium locker accounts up to 200GBs. For a limited time, customers may also buy a Roku player with a $20 discount and get a free MP3tunes Premium Locker. See www.mp3tunes.com/rokubundle for more information.

“Roku customers are increasingly taking advantage of streaming music services, and now with MP3tunes we are giving them access to their full iTunes music library right on the TV,” said Jim Funk, vice president of business development for Roku, Inc. “In addition to being a terrific video player with support for Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, and a whole host of other great sports and entertainment content, the Roku player is also a gateway to rich audio entertainment thanks to MP3tunes.”

By choosing Roku as its first launch partner in the home entertainment category, MP3tunes joins major streaming services like Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), Amazon Video On Demand (Nasdaq: AMZN), MLB.TV, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship®. The Roku digital video player joins a growing family of devices that play music from a secure MP3tunes locker including Apple iPhone, iTouch, Google Android and Logitech radios. MP3tunes’ unique open music API (www.mp3tunes.com/api) allows any net aware device for car, home, mobile to play a personal music collection.

A video tour of the service can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/user/mp3tunes#p/u/6/ctn4Dx0IGPE

Music Unites has joined with Rolling Stone magazine this summer to present the “In Tune” concert series featuring unplugged performances by emerging and established bands. Brooklyn-based, critically acclaimed indie veterans The Fiery Furnaces, led by brother and sister duo Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, will kick off the series with an intimate performance this Tuesday overlooking New York City from The Cooper Square Hotel Penthouse. On the road for 12 months, this is the last stop on their tour and the final chance to hear them before they began working on their new album.

“We're honored to have The Fiery Furnaces be part of Music Unites and welcome them to our community,” says Michelle Edgar, founder and executive director. “It's exciting to work with a New York based group that shares the same vision as we do and we're excited to work together and support their charitable endeavors.”

Proceeds from the event benefit Music Unites Youth Choir, made up of children from the city and its five boroughs in partnership with Young Audiences New York. Members practice weekly and are given access to well-known cultural venues for performances and the support they need to follow their dream and form their talent. Music Unites is proud to announce that the first year has been successfully funded for the choir and the organization is hoping to reach its goal of funding it for three years by fall.

“We haven't done a lot of charitable work or fundraisers. When something really special comes along its nice to be able to say yes,” Eleanor says of joining with Music Unites. “The last benefit we did was for Obama before the election so we try to choose carefully. It was hard to say no to this since it's such a great cause.”

Music has always held a special place for the Friedbergers and they have a deep understanding of the importance of choirs. They started Fiery Furnaces in 2000, but were actually involved in music much younger being raised within a musical family. Their 2005 album “Rehearsing My Choir” features their grandmother Olga Sarantos reflecting on her life and interacting with her younger self. “Our grandmother was a choir director of her church for forty years and music was always something that was very normal. It wasn't something reserved for a special occasion. We sang at family holidays. I think it's a really important part of growing up.”

Along with sponsoring a choir, Music Unites also works to keep music education in schools, something that had a deep impact on Eleanor. Despite being four years apart, she and her brother had classes together. “My brother and I both really valued our public school education especially in terms of the music. We were lucky we went to a public school where we had music classes when we were really young from the age of five to sixth grade. We had them every day or three days a week,” she continues, recalling the affect her teacher had on her. “I'll never forget him. He was this old guy who had polio as a child and had a cane and braces on his legs. You would think the kids would be scared of him but we all loved him so much.”

With the Music Unites Youth Choir children are given the opportunity to have this same kind of influence on their lives, helping them develop and grow their skills and give them direction.

“It's a shame that all kids don't have someone like that in their lives who can make music seem fun and not scary, not corny, not–just seem really natural. Our teacher was so encouraging to everyone. I think having a role model like that is really important,” says Eleanor.

Prior to the Fiery Furnaces, Matthew was a special education teacher and incorporated music into his lessons. “My brother's great gift is as a musician so when he worked in Special Ed it came naturally to him to try and use music as a tool for teaching. Some of the kids were nonverbal so music worked to get things across to them. It was a big part of the curriculum.”

Another main focuses of Music Unites is to offer children opportunities for music education, but to engage them in different genres and expose them to the many varieties of music. Eleanor still listens to the music she grew up on, noting memories of Classic Rock Record in Chicago. “I still love Led Zeppelin and the Beatles and The Who and Rolling Stones and all that stuff I've always loved.”

When asked what advice she would give to kids trying to make it in the music industry, Eleanor humbly stated that she thinks they can probably teach adults something. “Things are so confusing right now. Young kids probably have an advantage on us. They are born into this new technology that we knew nothing about. We're trying to get our heads around it still. They're going to be Twittering out of the womb. They're going to be recording on their computers and uploading it instantly to MySpace whereas to us it still feels weird to do that. We're still stuck in the old model of the music industry. I think young people have a lot to teach us in the way that the industry is going.”

Being through management companies in the past and currently without a manager, the brother and sister have even semi-seriously debated hiring a youth. “We were half joking about hiring a really young kid to be our manager, like a 12-year-old. I think that would be really cool. The young kid manager would decide everything from what our album cover would look like to what clothes we were going to wear, what songs we were going to play. Maybe we'll still do that. You have to be on your phone or online constantly. I don't want to do it. I just want to perform and make music.”

The Fiery Furnaces play different from tour to tour, trying to make it a different set. For the last ten shows of the year they have been playing an hour long 30 song medley with quick changes in a way that Eleanor describes to be “like a sporting event.” They days leading up to the charity event, the band had several New York performances at Brooklyn Bowl and Mercury Lounge. They've also moved from using lots of keyboards and synths to just playing guitar, bass, drums, vocals and creating a “rock n' roll dance party.”

For the Music Unites and Rolling Stone event they will be playing an acoustic set. Alexandra Richards will also be performing a DJ set. While Eleanor calls it a “privilege” to play in front of people, the people watching and listening know the privilege is all theirs.

As I wrote a few days ago, I was informed that alleged Russian spy Mikhail Semenko had my business card. Turns out I had his information as well in my personal lap top and had hoped to meet him before my next trip to China — as his blog on the Chinese economy interested me.

There are rumors that Semenko applied for jobs at both the New America Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I've checked with New America's director of human resources, and there is no application — so I can't confirm that he applied. He may have wanted to; New America is a cool place for youngish policy wonks.

But I met Semenko at a meeting I chaired with global strategic risk guru Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, who was speaking about his best-selling new book, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?.

The fundamental thesis of Bremmer's fascinating book is that the biggest, most significant new feature of the global economy is the emergence of “state capitalism”. Bremmer argues that his state capitalism — as manifested in its most potent form in China — threatens both firms and states that practice more traditional laissez-faire market capitalism.

This debate on Chinese vs. American approaches to capitalism is what the handsome alleged Russian agent Mikhail Semenko came to learn about when he visited the New America Foundation on May 27, 2010. Fascinating.

Above is a short clip of my exchange with Ian Bremer on that day — and this is a link to the longer program. It would be interesting to see (I haven't had the chance to check) whether Semenko lodges any questions during the Q&A session.

The Washington Post is reporting that all or most of the alleged Russian spies are going to plead guilty and be deported to Russia as early as tomorrow. I sort of hope that Mikhail Semenko keeps up his blog from Russia — because “agent of influence” or not — his interest in key questions on how the world organizes itself is something we should all be thinking about.

– Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note. Clemons can be followed on Twitter @SCClemons

@iKid

I hope they don't fade away. They are awesome technology but I have one problem with ereaders.

The companies that produce them don't advertise like they should. They are letting Apple get away with telling consumers that the iPad is able to read book and is therefore an e reader, a bold-faced lie. Countless people believe that the iPad is better for reading books than ereaders because it can produce color and do so much more than read books.

It is near-impossible to argue an absurd contrast ratio, battery life, and free data to someone set on an Apple product, but the like of Amazon and Barnes and Noble had better find a way to do it before e readers go the way of the Kin.

One way that I think that e reader companies could cut major costs is by consolidating their online bookstores. I don't want to turn in to Gartenburg and start screaming about fragmentation, but if say, Amazon and Barnes and Noble became the only two ebook retailers, than there would be an awesome uniformity throughout the market that is missing from it now.

People are confused about buying ebooks and companies are wasting money upkeeping ebook retailers.

You could liken this revolutionized market with the Android Marketplace (Android Marketplace being the actual ebooks) and HTC, Samsung and Motorola (These companies being the OEMs). These companies make varying hardware and compete like crazy for profit and mind-share while still allowing you to buy apps from one place.

Having Barnes and Noble and Amazon in a fierce competition should keep prices down and other companies would be left with producing awesome hardware.

i also think that Barnes and Noble, Amazon and all the OEMs should agree on some sort of commission to pay to each OEM every time that OEM's ereader has been used to buy an ebook off Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

I'm sure this won't happen because many companies are convinced that their is a lot of money in purveying their own online book retailers but I am sure that consumers are hurt in this because selection is hurt, as is uniformity.

Arrogant bastards like me love this kind of stuff and it’s what makes me like to read Think Progress so much: they…