Why I'm Not Now and Have Never Been the Democrats' "Rush Limbaugh"

From Huffy Post by

Michael Moore

I have watched with mild amusement this week the self-immolation of the Republican Party as it bows before the altar of Rush Limbaugh, begging for mercy, pleading for forgiveness, breathlessly seeking guidance and wisdom from The Oracle.

President Obama and the Democratic Party have wasted no time in pointing out to the American people this marriage from hell, tying Rush like a rock around the collective Republican neck and hoping for its quick descent to the netherworld of irrelevance.

But some commentators (Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, Chuck Todd of NBC News, etc.) have likened this to "what Republicans tried to do to the Democrats with Michael Moore." Perhaps. But there is one central difference: What I have believed in, and what I have stood for in these past eight years -- an end to the war, establishing universal health care, closing Guantanamo and banning torture, making the rich pay more taxes and aggressively going after the corporate chiefs on Wall Street -- these are all things which the majority of Americans believe in too. That's why in November the majority voted for the guy I voted for. The majority of Americans rejected the ideology of Rush and embraced the same issues I have raised consistently in my movies and books.

How did this happen? Considering how, for the past eight years, the Republican machine thought they could somehow smear and damage the Democrats if they said it was "the party of Michael Moore," it appears that the American public heard them loud and clear and decided that, 'hey, if you say Michael Moore is connected to the Democrats, then the Democrats must be OK!' During this past election, a Democrat in Michigan, Mark Schauer, was running against the incumbent Republican congressman, Rep. Tim Walberg. Schauer asked me to endorse him and campaign for him, and I did. The Republicans were thrilled. They acted like they had been handed manna from heaven. They filled the airwaves with attack ads showing pictures of me and asking voters, 'is this the guy you want influencing your congressman?' The voters of western Michigan said "YES!" and threw the Republican out of office. The newly elected congressman told me his poll numbers had gone up once the Republicans started running ads likening him to me.

There have been over a half-dozen attack documentaries on me (Michael Moore Hates America, Fahrenhype 9/11, etc.), plus a feature film starring Kelsey Grammer and James Woods that had me being slapped silly for 83 minutes. Several books have been written by the Right in a concerted attempt to denounce me. One book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, had me listed at #1. The author was so sure people would know why, he didn't even bother to write a chapter on me like he did for the other 99. You just get to the end of the book and all it says is "#1" with nothing but a big picture of me that takes up a full page.

What made the Republicans so sure that Americans would recoil upon the mere mention of my name, or by simply showing a photo of my face?

The result of this was one colossal backfire. The more they attacked me, the more the public decided to check out who this "devil" was and what he was saying. And -- oops! -- more than a few people liked what they saw. Overnight I went from having a small, loyal following to having millions go to movie theaters to watch... documentaries? Wow.

Yes, the more the Right went after me, the more people got to hear what I was saying -- and eventually the majority, for some strange reason, ended up agreeing with me -- not Rush Limbaugh -- and elected Barack Obama as president of the United States, a man who promised to end the war, bring about universal health care, close Guantanamo, stop torture, tax the rich, and rein in the abusive masters of Wall Street.

Think about this road I've traveled. At the beginning of the Bush years, I was pretty much an outsider, referred to as being on the "far left." I usually found myself holding viewpoints that differed from the majority of the people in this country. When I spoke out against the war -- before it even started -- I was marginalized by the mainstream media and then booed off the Oscar stage in "liberal Hollywood" for commenting about a "fictitious" president. Seventy percent of the public back then supported the war and approved of the job George W. Bush was doing.

But I stuck to what I believed in, kept churning out my movies, and never looked back. The Right and the White House spokespeople came after me time after time. President Bush 41 called me an "a**" on TV, and I became a favorite punching bag at both the 2004 and the 2008 Republican National Conventions in speeches by John McCain and Joe Lieberman. On the front page of this morning's Washington Post, Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to George W. Bush, revealed -- for the first time -- the Bush White House strategy of singling me out in the hopes of turning the country against me and the Democratic Party. Here's what the Post said:

Mark McKinnon, a top adviser in President George W. Bush's campaigns, acknowledged the value of picking a divisive opponent. "We used a similar strategy by making Michael Moore the face of the Democratic Party," he said of the documentary filmmaker.

In the end it all proved to be a big strategic mistake on their part. Thanks to the Republican attacks on me, average Joes and Janes started to listen to what I had to say. Contrary to Richard Wolffe's assessment that "there were no Democrats as far as I can remember who were saying they stood with Michael Moore," Democrats, in fact, have stood side by side with me during all of this. Here's the Congressional Black Caucus supporting me on Capitol Hill in 2004. Here's Terry McAuliffe, the head of the Democratic National Committee, enthusiastically attending the premiere of "Fahrenheit 9/11" with two dozen senators and members of Congress. Here's a group of Democratic congresspeople endorsing my film Sicko in the chambers of the House Judiciary Committee in 2007. And here's President Jimmy Carter inviting me to sit with him in his box at the Democratic National Convention. Far from making me into a pariah, the Republicans helped the Democratic leadership realize that to identify themselves publicly with me meant reaching the millions who followed and supported my work.

Though John Kerry lost in 2004, my focus that year had been to get young voters registered and out to vote (I visited over 60 campuses). And so, just a few short months after the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, America's young voters became the only age group that John Kerry won. They set a new record for the largest 18 to 24-year-old turnout since 1972, when 18-year-olds were given the right to vote, thus sending a signal about what would happen four years later with the youth revolution that ignited Obama's campaign.

After Fahrenheit, I kept speaking out, the Republican machine kept attacking me, and two years later, in 2006, the American public sided with me -- not Rush Limbaugh -- and voted in the Democrats to take over both houses of Congress.

And then, finally, two years after that, we won the White House.

That's the difference -- The American people agree with me, not Rush.

The American public believes that health care is a right and not a commodity.

They want tougher environmental laws and believe that global warming is real, not a myth.

They believe that the rich should be taxed more.

They want to go after the crooks on Wall Street who got us into this mess and the politicians who enabled them.

They want more money invested in education, science, technology and infrastructure -- not in more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

They believe that, whether Democrats or Republicans have been in power, wealthy corporations have been calling the shots for the past few decades and the American people's voices have not been heard as their country has slowly been driven into the ground. Our politicians and our media have been bought and paid for by the highest bidders and we don't trust them anymore.

Finally -- they want us to get the hell out of Iraq and to investigate the criminals who sent us there for fictitious reasons.

Obama and the Democrats going after Rush is a good thing and will not do for him what the Republican attack plan did for me -- namely, the majority of Americans will never be sympathetic to him because they simply don't agree with him.

The days of using my name as a pejorative are now over. The right wing turned me into an accidental spokesperson for the liberal, majority agenda. Thank you, Republican Party. You helped us elect one of the most liberal senators to the presidency of the United States. We couldn't have done it without you.

MCL comment:

This one debate I sometime find myself get into with right wingers when the subject of Michael Moore comes up. Since most of them can't defend what Rush or shemale right wing author Ann Coulter say they tried to claim Michael Moore is our left wing fire bomber just like Rush and cross dressing right wing author Ann Coulter are on the right. Here's the difference between Moore, Rush and right wing author Ann Coulter, Moore never said let's execute someone to put fear in conservatives nor make jokes about putting poison in supreme court justice coffee or called any Republican a "fag"like right wing author Ann Coulter has done in the past. Or has Michael Moore hasn't gone out in public and wished the president of the United States to fail. Like Moore said the stuff he talks about is concerns of average person, he doesn't defend the millionaire lifestyle like Rush and his ass plug Sean Hannity do.

Your request is being processed... Democrats blast Limbaugh for comment on Kennedy

WASHINGTON — A Democratic official rebuked conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh on Friday for suggesting a health care proposal will be named in memory of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer. On his radio show, Limbaugh said President Barack Obama's proposed health care revisions will be championed by "the liberal lion Teddy Kennedy."

"Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care bill," Limbaugh said.

Brian Wolff, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called the remark outrageous and reprehensible.

Limbaugh has been at the center of a partisan dispute since telling a conservative group last month that he hoped Obama's economic policies would fail. Democrats have accused Republicans of letting Limbaugh be their de facto leader, which GOP officials deny.

Limbaugh did not respond immediately to a request for comment that was sent to the e-mail address provided on his Web site.

Obama Expected to Reverse Limits on Stem Cells

By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON — President Obama is expected to announce on Monday that he is reversing Bush administration limits on federal financing for embryonic stem-cell research, White House officials said on Friday.

The officials said that advocates of unfettered stem-cell research, as well as lawmakers who support it, have been invited to a White House ceremony scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Eastern time on Monday, where the president is expected to make an announcement.

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama spoke out in favor of the research, so his apparent intention to undo the curbs put in place by former President George W. Bush is not surprising. But it is still momentous, involving a long-controversial intersection of science and personal moral beliefs.

Because stem cells are capable of developing into any type of cell in the body, some scientists believe that they may one day be able to provide tissues to replace worn-out organs or nonfunctioning cells, and thus offer powerful new treatments for diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease and other ailments. Some researchers say the stem cells might even be used someday to treat catastrophic injuries like damage to the spinal cord.

But many people have a moral problem with embryonic stem-cell research, because creation of the cells entails destruction of human embryos. For that reason, President Bush ordered in 2001 that federal research be limited to lines of cells that were already in existence, since the embryo destruction for those had already taken place.

Advocates of unrestricted stem cell research, in touch with one another on Friday afternoon, were being told that President Obama would pledge to “keep politics out of science,” said one research advocate, who asked not to be identified by name until more particulars are known. The advocates have called for lifting all restrictions and letting the National Institutes of Health guide the research.

Among the lawmakers invited to the White House on Monday are Senators Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, both Republicans who support embryonic stem-cell research.

The main suspense about what President Obama would do centered on whether he would seek to undo the Bush-era restrictions through legislation or by executive order. The event set for Monday indicates he has decided on an executive order.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.

Harpers editor: America had a dictator for eight years

From Raw Story by David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster It was a casual refrain near the dawning of former President George W. Bush's political career on the national stage. Most took as a joke. "If this was a dictatorship it'd be a heck of a lot easier," he so memorably said. "Just so long as I'm the dictator." His presidency now a smoldering memory, Harper's contributing editor Scott Horton thinks that perhaps he wasn't kidding after all. In a March 3 column, Horton extrapolated on "George W. Bush's Disposable Constitution," expanding on his thoughts during a Thursday broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Since the Monday release of nine previously-secret Bush administration legal memos claiming that the president has the power to ignore the Constitution when fighting terrorism, experts have almost unanimously denounced both their legal reasoning and their conclusions. "These memos provide the very definition of tyranny," Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. "These memos include everything that a petty despot would want." Olbermann's Thursday guest was just as strident as Turley in his view of the prior administration. "We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship," wrote Horton in his Harper's article. "Bush did not order, at any point, the military seizure of part of Cleveland," said Olbermann. "He did not imprison [DailyKos.com founder] Markos Moulitsas. This was certainly not an active military dictatorship, or a dictatorship of any kind in anybody's tangible perception. "So, what do you say to the idea that these [memos] were just outer parameters, in the event of true internal chaos?" "These memoranda were crafted with specific programs and projects in mind," said Horton. "The question is, exactly what? ... There's a clear focus on the use of the commander in chief powers. On the use of the military domestically in the United States. "John Yoo says the Fourth Amendment presents no impediment. The Fourth Amendment is of course a limitation of surveillance. It creates a requirement of warrants for listening in to people's telephone conversations, for instance. "In this case, I think it's pretty clear that this was designed to authorize the military and military agencies to engage in a sweeping program of surveillance in the United States." In his March 3 column, Horton remarked, "These memos suggest that John Yoo found a way to treat the Posse Comitatus Act as suspended." Further on in his MSNBC interview, he elaborated: "The president, if he wants, can have you squirreled away in the brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and he can have you tortured there. You have no appeal from that in these OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinions. "Of course, that's not the law. It's a ridiculous portrayal of the law. But it's what the OLC told the president he could do." The memos were repealed with a mere five days remaining in President Bush's term. An internal Justice Department investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility has some forecasting potentially "serious consequences" for the authors, including Yoo. Effectively, said Horton, these controversial memos saw President Bush "freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights" during wartime "with respect to anything he chose to label as counter-terrorism operations inside the United States." This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Mar. 5, 2009.

Your request is being processed... Keith Olbermann, Ann Coulter Battle Over Cornell Alumni Status (VIDEO)

from the Huffy Post by Danny Shea

Ann Coulter and Keith Olbermann are engaged in a bizarre but real feud over their alma mater, Cornell University.

Earlier this week, Coulter wrote a column trashing Olbermann and alleging that he didn't attend "the real Cornell" because he went to one of the University's state schools, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (known as the Ag School).

Coulter wrote that Olbermann "is constantly lying about his nonexistent 'Ivy League' education" despite the fact that he "didn't go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell."

She continued:

The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1.01 applicants).

Olbermann's incessant lying about having an "Ivy League education" when he went to the non-Ivy League ag school at Cornell would be like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a "Yale man."

Olbermann responded on "Countdown" Thursday night, naming Coulter one of his Worst Persons in the World and displaying his Cornell degree for all to see. He also corrected the record on the acceptance rate disparity (there is none, he reports), and boasts that he paid much less for the same education as Coulter by attending the Ag School.

Watch:

Side show takes main stage

Gene Lyons

If the economic situation weren't so scary, it'd be amusing watching so many Republicans go crazier than a peach orchard boar, as country folks say.

To the connoisseur of political folly, last week's Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington offered a rich spectacle. Except it wasn't the usual sideshow barkers who provided the most bizarre entertainment; it was the headline speakers, notably Rush Limbaugh and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Between them, they made Louisiana's Gov. Bobby Jindal sound statesmanlike.

Jindal, after all, was merely pitching sweet feed to the cattle. But was it wise to argue that government doesn't work by citing the Bush administration's feckless response to Hurricane Katrina? To mock as wasteful the U.S. Geological Survey's monitoring of volcanoes? The same agency funds river gauges and tidal monitors, of interest to the Bayou State. Heck, why not throw in the do-nothing National Weather Service? Why watch the weather if you can't change it?

Just once I'd like to see one of these Confederate Republicans acknowledge how much more their states receive from the Treasury than they pay in taxes. (For Louisiana, it's $1.45 for every dollar paid; for Mississippi, $1.77, etc.) But then what's a little hypocrisy among free lunch conservatives? Jindal also mocked an (imaginary) $8 billion earmark for a high-speed railway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Then he turned right around and solicited funding for a Baton Rouge-New Orleans line.

Back before free-lunch hypocrisy became gospel, Louisiana had a social structure like Guatemala's-low taxes on the wealthy, a beaten-down middle class and sprawling poverty. Economically, GOP doctrine consists of ignoring the obvious. Show me a low-tax, "pro-business" paradise like the Deep South before World War II, and I'll show you poverty, disease, illiteracy and stagnant opportunity.

Alternatively, try finding a wealthy country anywhere on earth with the economic policies the Jindals, Limbaughs and Huckabees recommend. They simply don't exist. Hence, the current nearhysteria on the right. We haven't seen its like since the 1960s, when many white Southerners panicked over the prospect of racial integration, the John Birch Society flourished, and billboards depicting "Martin Luther King at a Communist training school" lined rural highways.

Historian Richard Hofstadter described it in a seminal 1964 essay: "The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms-he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days."

Which brings us back to Limbaugh and Huckabee. Sweating like a draft horse, and appearing to have gained the hundredplus pounds that Huckabee famously lost, Limbaugh all but anointed himself titular head of the GOP. OK, so he's never held office or participated in open debate. Where an ordinary mind might be daunted by the spectacular economic wreckage left behind by George W. Bush, Limbaugh's is an other-worldly doctrine.

Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed; hence, its patron saint, Ronald Reagan, is remembered only for cutting income taxes during his first term. His subsequent tax increases-nearly doubling the Social Security tax, for example-are never mentioned. This, Bush refused to do, resulting in the near-doubling of the national debt that Republicans have suddenly rediscovered with a Democrat in the White House.

As at the CPAC event, Limbaugh rarely mentions President Obama without talking about how liberals are "gnashing their teeth when I say I want Obama to fail. Because I have violated political correctness. . . . You can't wish the first black president would fail. . . . The dirty little secret is that every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so. I am willing to say it. We want him to fail because we want to preserve our country as we found it. We do not want to see a successful attack on capitalism."

He's so brave, Limbaugh, hiding behind a microphone with a mute button thrashing straw men he invented. Exactly who said Obama can't be criticized because he's black? Nobody. What I hear Democrats like White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel saying is how glad they are to see Limbaugh taking center stage.

Attack on capitalism? Most Americans understand that should Obama's efforts to save the banking system and kickstart the economy fail, we're in a world of hurt. Not Huckabee, however, a pragmatic moderate as Arkansas' governor, but a fire-andbrimstone shouter at CPAC. He claims that Obama's creating a new "Union of American Socialist Republics," adding that "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff."

Lenin? Stalin? Why not Hitler, too?

Evidently, P.T. Barnum never actually said, "There's a sucker born every minute." He'd nevertheless have recognized a carnival act when he saw one.

Your request is being processed... Karl Rove Agrees To Testify

A deal has been reached whereby Karl Rove will finally testify, under oath, before the House Judiciary Committee, according to chairman John Conyers' office.

Rove has long avoided and ignored subpoenas in the past by claiming executive privilege -- his deference now comes as a big victory for many Bush administration critics.

Here is the press release:

In an agreement reached today between the former Bush Administration and Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in transcribed depositions under penalty of perjury. The Committee has also reserved the right to have public testimony from Rove and Miers. It was agreed that invocations of official privileges would be significantly limited.

In addition, if the Committee uncovers information necessitating his testimony, the Committee will also have the right to depose William Kelley, a former White House lawyer who played a role in the U.S. Attorney firings.

The Committee will also receive Bush White House documents relevant to this inquiry. Under the agreement, the landmark ruling by Judge John Bates rejecting key Bush White House claims of executive immunity and privilege will be preserved. If the agreement is breached, the Committee can resume the litigation.

Chairman Conyers issued the following statement:

"I have long said that I would see this matter through to the end and am encouraged that we have finally broken through the Bush Administration's claims of absolute immunity. This is a victory for the separation of powers and congressional oversight. It is also a vindication of the search for truth. I am determined to have it known whether U.S. Attorneys in the Department of Justice were fired for political reasons, and if so, by whom."

Story continues below

Following up on the news, House Speaker Pelosi has released this statement touting a victory for justice: "The agreement for Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify upholds a fundamental principle: no one is above the law and Congressional subpoenas must be complied with.

"As public officials, we take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution. It is the institutional duty of Congress -- as an independent branch -- to ensure against abuse of power through meaningful oversight over the Executive Branch. When there are credible allegations about the politicization of law enforcement, the need for Congressional oversight is at its greatest.

"In upholding our oaths of office, the House of Representatives was determined to preserve checks and balances -- the separation of powers that protects the rule of law. It brought action in court to enforce the Judiciary Committee's subpoenas, and won a major ruling by U.S. District Judge John Bates dismissing the extreme position of absolute immunity from Congressional oversight advocated by the Bush Administration for former Administration officials. Under this agreement, the precedent established by Judge Bates' historic ruling rejecting this extreme Bush Administration doctrine will be preserved.

"Today's agreement is a great victory for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the separation of powers. I appreciate the strong leadership of Chairman John Conyers and the assistance of the Obama Administration.

"Congress now has the opportunity to uncover the truth and determine whether improper criteria were used by the Bush Administration to dismiss and retain U.S. Attorneys."

Despite apology to Rush, Steele's still taking GOP hits

Rachel Oswald Despite his apology to Rush Limbaugh, RNC Chairman Michael Steele is still taking fire from other Republicans who are concerned that some of his recent statements are hindering efforts to rebuild the GOP brand. A month into his job leading the Republican National Committee, Steele is building up a repertoire of wince-worthy statements. For starters, there was the "slum love" comment to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, calling civil unions "crazy," and then a promise of more outreach to "urban-suburban hip-hop settings" with an "off the hook" public relations campaign, reported Politico in an overview article of the situation. Steele also has yet to put in place his office apparatus. Politico notes that he still lacks a chief of staff, a political director, a communications director and a finance director, leaving the RNC's executive suite to be run by two consultants. “There’s frustration that there’s no discipline, no planning,” said a well-known Republican consultant anonymously to Politico. “He’s risking being overexposed by accepting every interview, which makes gaffes more likely.” A perturbed RNC member said “I’m worried that we need someone to manage the chairman.” A "top GOP strategist who has worked for House and Senate Republican leaders" added his voice to the other anonymous sources criticizing Steele, telling U.S. News and World Report's Paul Bedard, "What is amazing is that Steele was elected because of his communications skills, and it is those skills that are damaging the Republican Party." He added, "If his implosion continues, RNC members are likely to call a special session to dump him for an effective chairman. There is not much patience for failure." According to Bedard, some Republicans are concerned that Steele "is dividing the GOP between conservatives who like Limbaugh and moderates who don't and jeopardizing future fundraising efforts, his key responsibility." "The general sentiment of the conference is that Steele needs to step back and get a handle on his role in the party," said another anonymous source, an "influential congressional aide," to Bedard. A senior Republican Party adviser told Bedard,"It is as if [Steele] has a fundamental misunderstanding of the job description. An RNC chairman who attacks Republicans and insults conservative icons is about as counterproductive as any Democrat could hope for." Steele, however, isn't fretting overmuch about the lack of an office staff and the recent public stumbles. He told Politico that the job vacancies are there by design as he looks to streamline the whole structure of his operation. Steele said he plans to have most of his top staff in place by the end of the month. “I know some folks in Washington feel that they’re kind of on the outside of this — that they don’t have the day-to-day blow by blow of what I’m doing,” Steele said to Politico. “And that’s exactly how I like it. I want to be about the business of putting in place a good infrastructure that will enable me to go out and build a better brand, stronger brand, for the GOP. And I won’t get there by tattle-telling every day what I’m doing.”

Military bloggers mock Obama with misleading video

A few military blogs who lean to the right are mocking President Obama with a video that compares how Marines reacted to his recent visit with one by former President George W. Bush. The video includes the observation by a CNN reporter that Obama received only "a tepid response" during his speech to Marines last Friday. "Ouch," Drew M. at Ace of Spades observes. "Why, it's almost like they would follow Bush to Hell and back. Oh wait, they did. It's going to be a very long 4 years." However, while one of the top military blogs is claiming that both visits occurred at the same military base, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the clip of Bush actually was taken from his surprise Labor Day, 2007 visit to Iraq. "President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday, leaving the White House secretly Sunday evening to fly to Al Asad airbase, in Anbar province, for meetings with U.S. military commanders, Iraqi leaders and some of the approximately 10,000 American troops stationed there," Time reported in September of 2007. The picture above clearly shows Bush wearing the same casual shirt as displayed in the video embedded below. Bush even mentions Labor Day at one point in the clip. Blackfive writes, "The Real Revo has put up a video showing the difference between the reactions of the Marines at Camp Lejeune to George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama." Blackfive's post is also entitled "The difference." (Note: Blackfive's post was updated sometime after this article was published: "Some people are now accusing me of a smear job. I corrected the above statement about Lejeune as soon as I could. Besides, I don't think the fact that the party of the President really matters in discussions on whether the troops like him or not.") Nowhere on the video or at the Real Revo blog does it note the difference between the two speeches. That the reaction to Bush was due to his making a surprise visit to a base in the middle of a war on a national holiday. One user at YouTube complained, "Ok you guys I have to say the responces here are disturbing... I am not for Obama but the aganda of the video is doing the same as the Mainstream media. you have to consider the two instances were set in 2 very different settings... one in Iraq, and was not formal. The one with Obama was a formal event.... come on people think!!!" In June of 2005, multiple news networks reported that Bush aides helped prompt Army soldiers to clap during one of his speeches. "After President Bush's June 28 speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, reporters on ABC, NBC and Fox News noted that the only round of applause during the speech was initiated by Bush staffers," Media Matters wrote in 2005. "But CNN and MSNBC made no mention of the staffers' role, instead attributing the outbreak of applause to the troops. CBS' brief post-speech coverage made no mention of the applause." NBC News anchor Brian Williams had observed to correspondent Kelly O'Donnell, "Kelly, some folks at home no doubt were curious about the lack of applause breaks. By pre-agreement between the White House and Fort Bragg, there was no entry applause as the soldiers were at attention. We were 23 minutes into it before the first break for applause. Were the crowd addressed or given instructions in any way before the president walked out?" "I checked with some of those in uniform, and they were told to follow military protocol and to be polite," O'Donnell reported. "It was my observation that that one applause break was actually triggered by members of the president's advance team. They were just a few feet from me. They started to applaud-- applause is contagious, and it then swept through the room. There was applause when the president left the room after the speech was over but people in uniform here told me that they had planned to be polite and to follow protocol. So, that's the explanation behind that, Brian." MCL comment: Could you image what would happen to that soldier if he did that to Bush? The right would demand that soldier head on a platter. It seems these bloggers rather have a president that send them in a war to only enrich their friends. The following video was posted at YouTube:

Rubbing it in, Dems create 'I'm sorry, Rush' site for GOP officials

Ron Brynaert Even if it turns out they don't have a big enough boat to capture their whale, Democrats don't appear to be letting this one go anytime soon. "Democrats will continue Wednesday to portray Rush Limbaugh as the spokesman for the Republican Party by launching a Web page that mocks GOP leaders for apologizing to the radio host for criticizing or publicly disagreeing with him," CNN Political Editor Mark Preston reports at the network's political ticker. Preston adds, "The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is hosting the page — www.imsorryrush.com – which allows visitors to create an apology to Limbaugh on behalf of Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Georgia; South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford; or Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele." The top of the site includes a quote by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: "Whenever a Republican criticizes him, they have to run back and apologize to him." "Ever wonder how Republicans are able to tuck their tail between their legs and apologize to Rush Limbaugh so quickly after they've offended their leader? We've uncovered the secret Republican Apology Machine. Give it a try!" Users can choose to "apologize" on behalf of GOP leaders for calling Limbaugh pre-selected insults such as "an opportunistic brick thrower," "ugly," or "an idiot." "You and I both know that in reality, you simply want President Obama to fail in this time of economic collapse," the mocking fake letter reads. "How can I disagree with that? Please accept my sincere apologies, oh great leader of the Republican Party." CQ Politics noted Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was also doing his best to tie the Republican party to the controversial talk radio host, although perhaps not in a completely explicit or over manner. "The Republicans have made a decision just to say no to everything. It’s very clear they’ve made a decision that they want President Obama to fail," Reid told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “And this smoke that they’ve thrown up for this bill is only an effort to kill the bill, not to improve the bill. It’s simply to damage the bill.” CQ's David Natter asks, "How do we know Reid was talking about Limbaugh? Read on: 'I’m not going to name individual Republicans, but I think it’s very clear, as a result of the actions, since Obama was elected, that people want him to fail. Some have said so, others have just acted accordingly. And I think that as a result of what’s been going on in the press the last few days, we know that there’s a significant number of Republicans out there who want the president to fail.'" "What’s been going on in the press for the last few days?" Natter continues. "Oh, right — the CPAC conference where Limbaugh fired up the crowd and told conservatives to stop apologizing for wanting to block Obama’s agenda." DNC chair Tim Kaine quickly took advantage of Steele's apology Monday night: "I was briefly encouraged by the courageous comments made by my counterpart in the Republican Party over the weekend, challenging Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party and referring to his show as ‘incendiary’ and ‘ugly.’ However, Chairman Steele’s reversal this evening and his apology to Limbaugh proves the unfortunate point that Limbaugh is the leading force behind the Republican Party, its politics and its obstruction of President Obama’s agenda in Washington." On Tuesday, RAW STORY reported that polls by Gallup in February show that Limbaugh has less favorable ratings from the mainstream public than former President George W. Bush. The most recent Gallup poll of Bush's approval ratings, conducted in early January, showed that his favorably rating had risen to 40, while another poll determined Limbaugh's favorable rating was 28. While Bush's unfavorable rating at 59 crushed Limbaugh's 45, previous Gallup polls show that despite a highly unpopular war, myriad political scandals and a recession, the former president's favorable rating never fell as low as Limbaugh's 28. Politico reports that top Democratic operatives hatched the 'go after Rush' strategy late last year. "The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters," Jonathan Martin writes. "Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise." Martin continues, "Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s."

Reid: Congressional Republicans Want Obama To Fail

by. Rachel Weiner

Republicans want President Obama to fail -- at least that's how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sees it. "It's very clear, they've made a decision they want President Obama to fail," the Nevada Democrat told reporters Tuesday.

Reid would not name names, but said "there's a significant number of Republicans out there who want the president to fail."

"I think it's very clear as a result of actions since Obama was elected that people want him to fail," Reid said. "Some have said so. Others have just acted accordingly."

Politico adds that Reid defended Obama, saying the president was right to pursue an ambitious agenda, and warned that he may soon call for weekend votes if Republicans try to filibuster legislation. The $410 billion omnibus spending bill is before the Senate this week; Republicans have called on Obama to veto the package.

Rush Limbaugh has drawn some heat from Republicans for saying he wants the president to fail. But most of those critics have soon recanted and praised the talk show host -- most recently Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele.

Clearly the G.O.P. Does Not Have Balls of Steel When It Comes to Limbaugh

By.Keli Goff

I guess if you were to look up the word "naïve" in the dictionary you might see my picture. See I was one of the people who genuinely applauded Michael Steele's ascension to the head of the Republican National Committee. I had the opportunity to interview him for my book Party Crashing, about the evolving politics of African-American voters and found him to be not only gracious but incredibly forthright -- a quality that journalists (shockingly) don't always encounter in those in politics. But what I admired most about Steele was his willingness to be his own person. Whether you agree with him or not, you have to admit that it takes a strong individual to be willing to be in the ultimate minority, among minorities, and that is what someone who is both black and Republican is -- especially when they take decidedly non-conservative positions in support of affirmative action and in opposition to the death penalty. (Steele's independent streak earned him high profile black supporters, including mogul Russell Simmons and nearly 30% African-American support during his Senate run). During our conversation Steele even joked about the times when his own mother expressed loving consternation at his chosen political path. But something that she and others could be proud of was the fact that he was his own man.

At least that's what I thought until yesterday.

I cheered Steele on when he forcefully reclaimed the reins of the party he was elected to lead by proclaiming that he -- not Limbaugh -- was the Republican Party's rightful leader. On Sunday I expressed a similar sentiment on CNN's Reliable Sources, noting that there are plenty of Republicans who do not think that the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world speak for them. Limbaugh and Coulter may hog the limelight (and yes I cringe at the thought that I am giving them even more right now), and they may still sell books and line up some listeners, but they no longer command the cultural army they once did in their glory days of the Republican Revolution. (If they did then a black guy whose middle name is Hussein would not be going by the salutation "Mr. President" right now). That's the only reason they are so desperate to command even more attention, and ultimately why they are overcompensating by being even louder, more outlandish and in Rush's case larger than life -- literally -- than ever before. So I was incredibly disappointed to read that Steele had called Limbaugh to apologize, for simply telling the truth.

Speaking as an Independent, but more importantly as someone who truly believes that it is in the interests of all voters, of all ages and colors, to have viable political options from a diverse array of qualified candidates from different parties each election cycle, I was hopeful that in Steele we had found someone who could help advance this cause.

Clearly I was wrong.

What's particularly disturbing about this story is that just weeks after Steele spoke about his party's efforts to reach out to minority voters, he became an unfortunate symbol of one of the party's most troubling historic images; the idea of a strong, black man being forced to go hat in hand to a white man, for no other reason than to keep a job that is rightfully his.

Let me be clear. The purpose of this piece is not to kick Michael Steele when he is down. After all, any person who inspires David Duke to near suicidal apoplexy will hold a measure of begrudging respect in my book. I get that Steele finds himself between a rock and a hard place, but it is a rock/hard place of his choosing. He chose to take on the task of leading his party. Now it's time for him to act like the "Man of Steel" he has proclaimed to be, and stand up to Rush Limbaugh and any other voice from the right, that stands in the way of the G.O.P. becoming a party that truly represents America.

Porn in the USA: Conservatives Are Biggest Consumers

By EWEN CALLAWAY

Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red and blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across the nation: the liking for online pornography.

A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.

"When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.

However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.

Political Divide

Edelman spends part of his time helping companies such as Microsoft and AOL detect advertising fraud. Another consulting client runs dozens of adult websites, though he says he is not at liberty to identify the firm.

That company did, however, provide Edelman with roughly two years of credit card data from 2006 to 2008 that included a purchase date and each customer's postal code.

After controlling for differences in broadband internet access between states  online porn tends to be a bandwidth hog  and adjusting for population, he found a relatively small difference between states with the most adult purchases and those with the fewest.

The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. "The differences here are not so stark," Edelman says.

Number 10 on the list was West Virginia at 2.94 subscriptions per 1000, while number 41, Michigan, averaged 2.32.

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election  Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

Old-Fashioned Values

Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays  a 1% increase in a postal code's religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds.

Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don't explicitly restrict gay marriage.

To get a better handle on other associations between social attitudes and pornography consumption, Edelman melded his data with a previous study on public attitudes toward religion.

States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement "I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage," bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behaviour."

"One natural hypothesis is something like repression: if you're told you can't have this, then you want it more," Edelman says.

Ron Paul: 'Pretty sad' that Limbaugh is GOP leader

David Edwards and Rachel Oswald (last post of the night) Demonstrating again his propensity to go out on a limb, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) had some choice words of criticism for Rush Limbaugh, the conservative media talk show host who was the star attraction at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference. In a phone interview Monday morning with CNN’s John Roberts, Paul said of Limbaugh “He is a leader. He does say the right things now and I think a lot of people like to hear what he’s saying but I think it’s also a little bit polarizing and confrontational and I think that’s why the Democrats are bragging that Limbaugh now speaks for the Republicans so I guess the Democrats think its to their advantage if he’s leading the charge.” Responding to a question from Roberts on what it means for the Republican Party that their “spokesperson” is a radio talk show host and not a member of the political leadership, Paul said, “I think it’s pretty said. It’s a good point to make. That means the Republicans are really starving for some type of leadership.” A 2008 presidential contender, Paul was a dark horse candidate for the Republican nomination. His advocacy against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as his criticisms of infringements on civil liberties under the Bush administration have often put him at odds with the majority of his party but have also led to strong support from civil libertarians. “He really doesn’t broaden the base,” said Paul of Limbaugh. “It’s still very narrow and that’s why some of us would like to see an approach that would emphasize personal liberties, civil liberties, looking at the drug war… It’s really the old Republican Party because even Limbaugh was a big supporter of Bush so he doesn’t have anything new either when it comes to bringing our troops homes, not expanding the war in Afghanistan.. In criticizing Limbaugh, Paul joins Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who also had some unflattering remarks to say about the popular talk show host. “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer,” Steele said to CNN's D.L. Hughley on Saturday. “Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes it’s incendiary, yes it’s ugly.” Said Roberts of Paul, “I was fascinated that in terms of expanding the base, Ron Paul is bringing a lot of young people in the door. It’s fascinating. This 72-year-old white guy from Texas is bringing a lot of young people in.” Paul demurred though to Roberts’ enquiries of whether he would run for president in 2012. “I don’t think so. It’s a long way off. I can hardly imagine what [state] the country is is going to be in. Right now I just plan on promoting the cause.” This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast Mar. 2, 2009.

Memo to The Media: Having Rove on to Pontificate on the Economy is like Having Madoff on to Pontificate on Investing

By Arianna Huffington

Yesterday, on Face the Nation, Rahm Emanuel declared that Rush Limbaugh is "the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party."

This is a useful stance for the Obama administration. As David Frum puts it: "With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence -- exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix" to the GOP.

But, in truth, Rush is just a massive shiny object that distracts our attention from the real intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party, Karl Rove.

At the same time Emanuel was on CBS anointing Limbaugh top dog, over on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos Rove was demonstrating why he is the real force and the real danger in the wounded-but-still-destructive GOP.

For starters, there is the fact that he was even on the show. This Week would never have Rush on as a panelist, but there was Rove, amiably chatting about the week's events with Stan Greenberg, Katrina vanden Heuvel, and George Will.

Then there is Rove's decidedly anti-Limbaughian approach, whereby he calmly, lucidly, and shamelessly attempts to whitewash the past and rewrite history. A history he was front and center in making.

There he was yesterday, the picture of reasonableness, trying to eviscerate Obama's proposals to get us out of the economic mess -- without ever once acknowledging that he was one of the prime architects of the mess. (Don't forget that, according to Paul O'Neill, back in 2002, when Bush was having second thoughts about a fresh round of tax cuts for the wealthy -- wondering "Didn't we already give them a break?" -- Rove urged him to "stick to principle.")

Having Karl Rove on to pontificate about the economy is like having Bernie Madoff on to offer advice about investing.

What's next? Inviting Chris Brown on to tsk-tsk about the dangers of domestic violence? Nadya Suleman to lecture about the need for family planning? Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis to hold forth on corporate responsibility?

Rove has studied his Orwell and understands that "who controls the past, controls the future."

That's why we saw Rove lambasting Obama's budget deficit, conveniently skipping over the nearly $1.6 trillion added to the deficit by the administration he helped guide. Not one word about the role the massive tax cuts for the rich he championed played in creating the current economic crisis. Not a peep about the deregulation of Wall Street he held so dear.

Indeed, he tried to lay the Bush administration's fiscal legacy at the feet of "two wars, 9/11, and a recession handed to us by the previous administration."

Notice the chutzpah of sidestepping any accountability for the last eight years. And acting as if the Iraq war just happened -- and wasn't one of the prime goals of the man he was credited with being the brains of. In the Rovian universe, there is no such thing as cause and effect.

To set things right, we have to understand how they went so wrong. And that's hard to do when the truth is under assault, and the past brazenly revised.

During the panel discussion on This Week, Stephanopoulos ran a clip package from CPAC that showed Limbaugh and others repeating tired claims about Obama and "socialism." Rove jumped at the opportunity, happy to brand this over-the-top rhetoric "red meat for the hardcore Republican conservatives," the better to separate himself from the snarling pack and allow his historical revisionism to work its black magic in the background.

Karl Rove is too smart to say he wants Obama to fail. But if Obama's recovery plan doesn't work -- and, if it doesn't, it'll be because it wasn't big and bold enough -- Rove and the gang have a highly polished narrative at the ready, one that succeeds at disconnecting what Obama had to do to stimulate to economy with what happened before he took office. Big government failed, according to this narrative. Let's bring back tax cuts and deregulation.

Rove is like Topher Brink, the amoral programmer on Fox's Dollhouse whose job is to erase the memories from the minds of his charges -- and implant new ones.

Republicans have deservedly lost control of the government. And given the bankruptcy of their ideas for addressing the crisis we face, they realize their only chance to return to power is to try to change reality.

That's what makes Rove so dangerous -- his unbending commitment to derailing our understanding of how we've gotten to where we are.

View debate Rush speech, guess which side the Human talking point was on

Rush Limbaugh's long and fiery speech at CPAC, which was filled with political insults against President Obama and Democrats and where he doubled down on wanting Obama to fail, has everybody talking. The ladies of "The View" waded into the thicket when Barbara introduced the topic by playing devil's advocate, saying that perhaps Limbaugh means he wants Obama to fail because his success would ruin our modern capitalist system.

Elisabeth asked if there was anything wrong with what Limbaugh said, and Sherri replied that there was. Sherri lamented that Limbaugh's comments are causing a lot of divisiveness and referred back to 9/11 when even though not everyone agreed with Bush's response, the country still came together to support him at the beginning. Shepherd said "the man has only been in office 31 days*; I don't think anyone is giving him a chance."

Elisabeth disputed this, at which point Walters broke in to say that if Republicans hoped Obama would fail they needed to offer up their own plan for success.

Elisabeth and Whoopi then got in on the action, with Elisabeth asking why is it wrong to hope that a system you believe is wrong will fail. Whoopi responded that Limbaugh's comments are a "crappy" thing to say after 31 days: "if in a year, you know, you feel this way, that's cool, but to say you want it to fail before we've even tried it seems crappy to me."

The ladies reminded Hasselbeck that comments like Limbaugh's could easily get one tagged as unpatriotic during the Bush years.

Watch the clip of the ladies getting heated below.

The segment ended on a lighter note when Joy snickered "did anyone think that black shirt made him look thin? I don't think so." Sherri disagreed: "I like a man with a black shirt and a black jacket. I think it looks kinda hot." An Incredulous Joy asked Sherri if she is a "chubby-chaser."

MCL comment: I watched the clip and I wished some of the ladies challenge the human talking point of that there were people out there wanting Bush to fail, because I haven't seen or heard anyone on the left saying they wanted to Bush to fail. Even Bill Maher hasn't gone out to wish Bush to fail but hey they can wish the president to fail, because they fear he's a "socialist" a word a vast majority of them don't even know what it means. Human talking point tried the right wing latest defense of wanting the president of the United States to fail well liberals wanted to Bush to fail, I for one who's a liberal and I didn't want Bush to fail because what it would meant to the rest of the country.Bush and the Republicans spend the last eight years screwing up and these "conservatives" defend it while the poll numbers were in their favor now the bottom has fallen out these clowns now want to denounced the events of the past eight years. Enjoy being the minority Republicans and right wingers I got a sense you're going to be there for a while.

CIA admits it destroyed 92 interrogation tapes

While it has been known for some time that the CIA had destroyed tapes of interrogations with terrorism suspects, Monday's news that 92 videotapes had been destroyed by the agency was still shocking. The CIA acknowledged the number of tape erasures in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York. The letter was filed in response to an ongoing lawsuit from the the American Civil Liberties Union that is seeking more details of terror interrogation programs. The ACLU immediately called for the judge to issue a "prompt finding of contempt" against the CIA. Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU and counsel on the case said to Raw Story, “The large number of video tapes destroyed confirms that this was a systemic attempt to evade court orders.” Singh added, "It’s about time, now that the court knows 92 tapes have been destroyed, that it hold the CIA accountable for the destruction of the tapes." The letter was submitted when the court's stay of consideration of the ACLU's contempt motion expired on Feb. 28. John Durham, the acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who is conducting the criminal investigation into the destruction of any interrogation tapes, did not request an additional stay. According to the letter, which can be viewed here, the CIA is now gathering information in response to the Court’s order to provide a list identifying and describing each of the destroyed records, as well as transcripts or summaries from any of the destroyed records and the names of any witnesses who may have viewed the videotapes before their destruction. The CIA requested that it be given until March 6 to provide the court with a timeline for its response to the requested information. In December 2007, the ACLU filed a motion to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of videotapes in violation of a court order requiring the agency to produce or identify all the requested records. That motion is still pending, according to a release from the ACLU. The ACLU contends that the tapes should have been identified and processed in response to its FOIA request for information on the treatment and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. The tapes became a contentious issue in the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, after prosecutors initially claimed no such recordings existed, then acknowledged two videotapes and one audiotape had been made. This latest news of CIA tape erasures dovetails into Senate plans to hold a review of the agency's detention and interrogation program. The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to investigate whether the steps taken by the CIA to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects were properly authorized. With AP.

Steele Takes On Rush Limbaugh: "Ugly," "Incendiary" (VIDEO)

Arthur Delaney

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele took umbrage Saturday night when CNN's D.L. Hughley referred to radio host Rush Limbaugh as "the de facto leader of the Republican party."

"No he's not. I'm the de facto leader of the Republican party," Steele said. The RNC chief went on to call Limbaugh, who that very day delivered the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, a mere "entertainer" whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly."

On his radio show today, Limbaugh fired back, calling the RNC and Michael Steele "so-called Republicans" and saying that they "need a little leadership."

"So I am an entertainer and I have 20 million listeners because of my great song and dance routine," Limbaugh said. "Michael Steele, you are head of the Republican National Committee. You are not head of the Republican party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the Republican National Committee...and when you call them asking for money, they hang up on you."

"I hope that changes," Limbaugh continued. "It's time, Mr. Steele, for you to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do instead of being some talking-head media star."

Some audio from Limbaugh's show:

Bloggers charge 'Tea Party' anti-stimulus protests are corporate front

Muriel Kane When a few hundred protesters showed up in each of some 30 or 40 cities nationwide on Friday to object to President Obama's stimulus plan, they claimed that the well-coordinated protests had arisen spontaneously in response to a tirade against mortgage bailouts, delivered just over a week earlier, on February 19, by CNBC's Rick Santelli. Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin enthusiastically called the "Tea Party" protests "a fledgling grassroot movement" and some of the protesters even described themselves as the vanguard of a "new conservative counterculture." Those claims naturally aroused a certain amount of skepticism, since similar activities in the past have proven to be not genuine grassroots activity but so-called corporate "astroturf." Now fresh revelations suggest that the skepticism may be well-placed. Mark Ames and Yasha Levine allege in their blog at Playboy.com that the protests were planned well in advance, coordinated by old-line anti-tax organizations, and funded by right-wing corporate interests. "What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s 'tea party' rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine," they write, "from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called 'astroturfing') to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that's because it was." As described by Ames and Levine, Santelli's call for a "tea party" in Chicago next summer was quickly picked up by a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com and spread from there to the Drudge Report. However, the ChicagoTeaParty.com domain is not new. It was registered last summer by the producer of a right-wing radio show in Chicago and, the writers allege, is one of several tied to the anti-tax group FreedomWorks, which is among the sponsors of the current protests. FreedomWorks is the latest incarnation of an organization formerly known as Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was founded in 1984 "to anonymously leverage corporate contributions into debates on public policy." CSE had close ties to Koch Industries and became one of the major recipients of grant money from conservative foundations and major corporations such as Exxon, Philip Morris, and General Motors. In 2003, CSE's affiliate, the Citizens for a Strong Economy Foundation, split off and renamed itself Americans for Prosperity. (That group is also a sponsor of the current protests.) CSE itself merged the following year with Empower America -- another fake grassroots group created by Republican Party insiders to promote conservative candidates -- and formed FreedomWorks. Posters at Democratic Underground have found that a number of anti-bailout and anti-stimulus groups are hosted by the dedicated servers of Citizens for a Sound Economy. In addition to cse.org, empoweramerica.org, and freedomworks.com, those servers also host such domains as angryrenter.com (which was registered in March 2008 to oppose bailouts for mortgage holders), destimulus.com, earmarkpledge.com, nowallstreetbailout.com, and usteaparty.com. Any connection ChicagoTeaParty.com may have to this network is not clear, since it is not among the domains hosted on the CSE servers. However, the involvement of FreedomWorks in the protests and the appearance of the apparently related domain "usteaparty.com" suggest that those seeking the origin of the "Tea Party" protests in this area may be on the right track.

DL Hughley: GOP convention 'looked like Nazi Germany

by David Edwards CNN's D.L. Hughley talked to Chuck D and RNC Chairman Michael Steele about the Republican Party's attempts to gain popularity in the black community. Steele tried to establish his credibility with Chuck D by referencing the neighborhood where he grew up. "And what struck me about hip-hop as a genre, as music, as whatever you want to call it, a culture, was the fact that you have guys like yourself who come out of the projects, come off the street. Myself, I grew up on Eighth Street in DC. That's a whole different world from where I am right now," said Steele. Chuck D offered a quick correction to Steele, "I grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island, it's not the projects. It's where black people live." Hughley confronted Steele on the Republican's implementation of their big tent philosophy. "Well, Michael, I agree. I'm telling you, if it were the sign alone -- in other words, the tenets of the Republican Party are amazing and they seem warm and welcome. But when I watch it be applied -- like you didn't have to go much further than the Republican National Convention." "Agreed," replied Steele. "It literally look like Nazi Germany. It literally did. I make that point, not only are we not welcome -- not only are we not welcome, but they don't even care what we think," explained Hughley. This video is from CNN's D.L. Hughley Breaks the News, broadcast Feb. 28, 2009.

AP ignored Democrats' response to earmark criticism: 40% are from Republicans

In a February 26 Associated Press article on the omnibus legislation passed by the "Democratic-controlled House" on Tuesday, David Espo reported that "Republicans assailed the legislation as too costly" and quoted Republicans criticizing the bill as, in the reporter's words, "bristl[ing] with earmarks." While Espo included examples of Democratic earmarks, at no point did he give any indication that many of the earmarks were included in the bill at the request of Republicans. Moreover, Espo cited the Taxpayers for Common Sense as a critic of the earmarks in the bill, without noting that the group cited earmarks by both Democrats and Republicans.

While quoting Republicans attacking the bill for earmarks, Espo did not note a handout distributed on February 24 by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) titled "You can't spell 'earmark' without an 'R,' " asserting that "40% of the earmarks in the omnibus appropriations bill are Republican earmarks." The handout also stated that "[t]he earmarks in the omnibus appropriations bill total less than 1% of the budget," and that they "were reduced by 43% last year, and the omnibus appropriations bill reduces earmarks by another 5%."

Espo also wrote that "[a]fter persuading lawmakers to keep earmarks off the stimulus bill, Obama made no such attempt on the first non-emergency spending measure of his presidency. The result was that lawmakers claimed billions in federal funds for pet projects -- a total of 8,570 earmarks at a cost of $7.7 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense [TCS]." He added: "Majority Democrats declined to provide a number of earmarks, but said the cost was far smaller, $3.8 billion, 5 percent less than a year ago." However, Espo did not note that TCS highlighted both Republican and Democratic earmarks.

Indeed, in its February 24 item on the earmarks in the omnibus bill, TCS reported that Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R-MT) sponsored an earmark designating $300,000 for a "Montana World Trade Center," Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) sponsored an earmark designating $200,000 for an "Oil Region Alliance," and Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY) sponsored an earmark designating $190,000 for the "Buffalo Bill Historical Center."

By contrast, in their reporting on the omnibus bill, several other media outlets have noted the Democrats' response to Republican allegations about earmarks. In a February 24 Congressional Quarterly article on the appropriations bill, staff writer Bennett Roth reported:

House Democrats are working to undercut accusations by Republicans that the omnibus spending bill represents a spending spree on earmarks -- and pointedly noting that the measure includes a healthy number of GOP-sponsored special projects.

Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., distributed a handout Tuesday at his weekly news conference entitled, "You can't spell 'earmark' without an 'R,' " which stated that 40 percent of the earmark dollars included in the bill were sponsored by Republicans.

The appropriations omnibus (HR 1105) is scheduled for a House vote Wednesday.

"Republicans are continuing to try to sweep their history under the rug and convince the American people that they are committed to fiscal responsibility," stated the handout. "But their record on earmarks and the amount of earmarks contained in the omnibus appropriations bill make it clear that Republicans are just using this as another political ploy."

Also, in a February 24 McClatchy article headlined "GOP hates earmarks -- except the ones its members sponsor," David Lightman reported: "Republicans are expected to deliver a daylong rant Wednesday against Democratic spending legislation, yet the bill is loaded with thousands of pet projects that Republican lawmakers inserted." Lightman also reported: "House Democrats estimate that Republicans inserted 40 percent of the earmarks in the bill. An independent budget watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the 60-40 Democratic-Republican ratio followed historical patterns."

Furthermore, Lightman also reported on the earmarks of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), the senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), the top Republican on Senate Appropriations:

Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, would spend $3.8 million on a Needles, Calif., highway.

Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the top Republican on Senate Appropriations, backs earmarks including a $950,000 nature education center in Moss Point, Miss. He defends earmarks.

"You have to take these on a case-by-case basis," he said. "A lot of these projects are justified."

One prominent Republican critic, however, wouldn't relent. When he was asked what Obama should do with a bill full of earmarks, Sen. John McCain of Arizona said flatly: "I would call on him to veto it."

In addition, an AP audio report on Espo's article asserted: "Republicans blasted the measure for including almost 9,000 earmarks at a cost of more than 7 billion dollars," but did not report that some of the earmarks are sponsored by Republicans.

From the February 26 AP article:

The Democratic-controlled House pushed through a $410 billion measure Wednesday that boosted domestic programs, bristled with earmarks and chipped away at policies left behind by the Bush administration.

[...]

After persuading lawmakers to keep earmarks off the stimulus bill, Obama made no such attempt on the first non-emergency spending measure of his presidency. The result was that lawmakers claimed billions in federal funds for pet projects -- a total of 8,570 earmarks at a cost of $7.7 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. Majority Democrats declined to provide a number of earmarks, but said the cost was far smaller, $3.8 billion, 5 percent less than a year ago.

Among the earmarks was one sponsored by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who secured $200,000 for a "tattoo removal violence outreach program" in Los Angeles. Aides said the money would pay for a tattoo removal machine that could help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past, and anyone benefiting would be required to perform community service.

Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said the bill included at least a dozen earmarks for clients of PMA Group, a lobbying company now at the center of a federal corruption investigation.

"It's simply not responsible to allow a soon-to-be-criminally indicted lobbying firm to win funding, all borrowed, in this bill," he said. No charges have been filed against the firm or its principals, although the company's offices were raided earlier this month, and it has announced plans to disband by the end of the month.

Federal prosecutors are investigating PMA Group's founder and president, Paul Magliochetti, who is a former top aide to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds defense programs.

In remarks on the House floor, Republican leader John Boehner urged Obama to veto the legislation, citing earmarks.

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs responded only in general terms whether that was possible.

"There is great concern in this building and by the president about earmarks," Gibbs said. "Without having looked specifically at a piece of legislation, I'm hesitant to throw out that four-letter word, 'Veto.' "

From the AP web audio report:

Republicans blasted the measure for including almost 9,000 earmarks at a cost of more than 7 billion dollars. Democrats wouldn't say how many there are, but insist the cost is about half that amount. One of the earmarks was for a $200,000 program to help gang members erase their tattoos.

Vanden Huevel rips Rove: ‘It’s laughable for you to talk about fiscal responsibility.’

From Think Progress:

Today on ABC’s This Week, Karl Rove slammed the cost of President Obama’s new budget. The Nation’s Katrina Vanden Heuvel quickly fired back at Rove’s newly-discovered sense of fiscal responsibility, observing that Rove and President Bush “helped plunge this nation into trillion dollars of debt”:

VANDEN HEUEVEL: But, Mr. Rove –

ROVE: Call me Karl.

VANDEN HEUVEL: It’s laughable for you to talk about fiscal responsibility from someone who helped plunge this nation into trillion dollars of debt, through tax cuts for the very rich and a war we never should have fought. And also starving the beast. Starving government has been a Republican role in terms of government. And, therefore, when George asks why government hasn’t functioned, people have not seen the role of government improving the conditions of their lives for decades.

Watch it:

Pollster Stan Greenberg also chided Rove. “It’s a remarkable lecture considering the performance,” he said.

2/28/09: Your Weekly Address

Sorry about last week I wasn't feeling well Saturday or Sunday to look up his weekly address.