By Ben Armbruster
Weeks after BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Politico reported that during the last 20 years, the company and its employees gave more money to President Obama than any other federal political candidate. Yesterday on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Sarah Palin tried to make it into a wider narrative. “I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration,” she said. Palin wondered if there is “any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to…grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico.” Mainstream media outlet the Wall Street Journal did ask and it appears the answer doesn’t give cover to Palin’s charges:
According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.
So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry’s $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000.
Moreover, as Time’s Michael Scherer noted, the Politico article on BP’s donations “fails to provide the context readers need” considering Obama ran for president, and the numbers aren’t adjusted for “campaign inflation.” Even right-wing blogger Ed Morrissey warned the GOP not to “overplay their hand on this issue.”
Update Media Matters notes that Obama did not take any money from BP's PAC during his run for president. All of his donations came from BP employees.
By Ben Armbruster
In his commencement address to graduating West Point cadets on Saturday, the President outlined his upcoming national security strategy that is focused on international cooperation to meet the nation’s security challenges. He also praised American troops for their performance in Iraq. “A lesser Army might have seen its spirit broken,” he said, adding that “through their competence and creativity and courage, we are poised to end our combat mission in Iraq this summer.” At that point, cadets and the audience applauded for at least 12 seconds (starting at roughly the 10:24 mark here). However, as Michael Moore observed, video from the speech on FoxNews.com edits out that applause entirely, making it appear as if Obama is bizarrely staring silently for a long period of time. The audio is cut (starting at the 0:44 mark) for the 12 seconds of applause, and then skips to another part of the speech. Watch it (the first clip is from FoxNews.com, the second clip is from WhiteHouse.gov):
Media Matters’ Jamison Foser asks, “Now, maybe Fox didn’t intentionally remove the audience applause. Maybe Fox’s video used a direct feed from Obama’s microphone, and it simply didn’t pick up audience noise. But if Fox didn’t intentionally try to make Obama look silly, why did it choose a 2-minute clip — out of a 32-minute speech — that portrayed Obama looking silently around the room, seemingly for no reason?”
Politico's Ken Vogel tonight writes that New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt is expected to publish a Sunday column detailing the findings of his investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Times' May 18 front page article about how Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal had previously described his military service. And based on a reported email from Times executive editor Bill Keller to Hoyt, the Times had the full version of a 2008 speech yet chose to focus solely on one comment in the speech while ignoring another comment that was directly relevant to the story of how Blumenthal had described his military service.
At the center of the Times' coverage was a brief video clip of Blumenthal giving a 2008 speech during which he said he had "served in Vietnam." The article and video clip on the Times' homepage only included that Blumenthal quote and omitted his comment earlier in the same speech when he stated that he "served in the military during the Vietnam era in the Marine Corps."
To repeat: In the full video, Blumenthal states both that he "served in the military during the Vietnam era in the Marine Corps" and that he "served in Vietnam." But the Times published an article highlighting only the second comment while totally ignoring the first comment.
That's a horribly misleading framing of how Blumenthal described his military service.
Vogel's article tonight shows that the Times had the full video of the 2008 Blumenthal speech and had "reviewed the entire event" prior to publishing its May 18 article:
Here's Vogel:
Blumenthal's allies got a helpful - if unintentional - boost from their main rival, when McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive, briefly featured on her campaign website a blog post crediting her opposition researchers with passing on to the Times a video recording of a March 2008 speech in which Blumenthal recalled "the days that I served in Vietnam."
That passage, which was prominently mentioned at the beginning of the Times story, was the most compelling piece of evidence against Blumenthal and was featured in a video posted on the Times' website. But both the story and the web video excluded a passage from earlier in the speech in which Blumenthal accurately characterized his military service by saying that he "served in the military during the Vietnam era in the Marine Corps."
McMahon's campaign posted on YouTube a more complete video of the speech including the accurate characterization, which the Associated Press detailed in a story that prompted some liberals to question whether the Times had the full video of the speech and, if so, why the story didn't mention the earlier characterization.
"That's awfully misleading, isn't it?" wrote Jamison Foser, a senior fellow at the liberal press watchdog Media Matters. "Given that Republican Linda McMahon's campaign has taken credit for feeding the Times the Blumenthal story, you have to wonder if it gave the Times the incomplete video, as well. Either way, the Times should explain why it chose to omit Blumenthal's correct characterization of his service."
In his emailed response to ombudsman Hoyt, Keller asserted that "Blumenthal's statement early in the event that he 'served in the military during the Vietnam era in the Marine Corps' says nothing about whether he served in Vietnam or stateside, and says nothing about whether he served in the reserves or active military. It does not contradict his later statement that he served 'in Vietnam.'"
Though Keller conceded that video of the March 2008 speech "were being circulated by a number of people in politics, including McMahon's campaign," he wrote, "we did not rely on that material. Instead, we obtained a DVD of the full Blumenthal speech from a source not connected with the McMahon campaign, and reviewed the entire event and made sure it hadn't been unfairly spliced, edited or doctored."
Media Matters has previously noted numerousproblems with the initial Times article (and its lack of critical coverage of Republican Linda McMahon, who admitted her campaign provided the Times with research on Blumenthal).
But this reported admission by Keller that the Times had the full copy of the speech and didn't mention anywhere in the original article that Blumenthal had described his service differently earlier in the speech is the type of ethical failure that puts a serious dent in the Times' credibility.
Indeed, the story is now about the Times' coverage -- and the Times has nobody to blame but themselves.
M.C.L Comment: Um Bill Maher, Chris Matthews and everyone who jumped aboard the NY Times train better start jumping off at the next stop.. This was the same news paper during the run up to the Iraq war were using Bush white house officials as sources.
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Former White House advisor Karl Rove made a name for himself as President Bush’s “architect” by employing underhanded tactics to win elections and smear opponents. So it was startling that during a book signing in Oklahoma this week Rove declared that Bush “never allowed” staffers to call their opposition “disparaging labels,” or “question their motives“:
“President Bush, for example, never allowed a White House staffer or administration spokesman to go out and do what this administration and our predecessor routinely did — that is to engage in calling the leaders of the opposition party disparaging labels and question their motives,” he said.
As The Oklahoman’s Ryan Dean noted, “In fact, Rove and other members of the Bush administration were routinely critical of opponents to the Iraq war and questioned their patriotism.” In a 2007 speech, Rove directly challenged the “motives” of his political opponents when he implied that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) intentionally used rhetoric that would endanger American soldiers:
”Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”
During the 2008 campaign, Rove cast doubt on now-President Obama’s patriotism by attacking him for not wearing a flag pin — even though Rove wasn’t wearing one at the time — and criticized Michelle Obama for not showing “adequate enough” patriotism after she had given a lengthy speech professing her love of country.
And in the very same speech where Rove touted the honesty of the Bush White House, Rove falsely attributed a statement to President Obama that was actually made by Michelle.
M.C.L Comment: Karl Rove is the same guy that outed a CIA agent because her husband didn't play along with Iraq having WMDs. Let's not forget Rove also got his flying monkeys in the right wing media to attack Bush's critics.
This morning on ABC’s This Week, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele had to address Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul’s recent comments that private business owners should be allowed to discriminate against people of color or anyone else they choose. After a firestorm of criticism, he backtracked and said he would “not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” but the controversy has raised other questions about his views on the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal minimum wage, and the Fair Housing Act. Today, Steele said that Paul’s philosophy is “misplaced in these times” because it’s not “where the country is right now.” However, he defended that position because “it’s a philosophical position held by a lot of libertarians” and refused to condemn Paul:
STEELE: That’s a direct quote, and it’s a philosophical position held by a lot of libertarians, which Rand Paul is. They have a very, very strong view about the limitations of government intrusion into the private sector. That is a philosophical perspective. We have had a lot of members go to the United States Senate with a lot of different philosophies, but when they get to the body, how they work to move the country forward matters. [...]
TAPPER: But do you condemn that view?
STEELE: I can’t condemn a person’s view. That’s like, you know, you believe something and I’m going to say, well, you know, I’m going to condemn your view of it. It’s the people of Kentucky will judge whether or not that’s a view that they would like to send–
TAPPER: Are you comfortable with that?
STEELE: I am not comfortable with a lot of things, but it doesn’t matter what I’m comfortable with and not comfortable with. I don’t vote in that election. The people of Kentucky will. As a national chairman, I’m here to say that our party will move forward in fighting for the civil rights and liberties of the American people, especially minorities in this country, and we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that everyone who’s going to come to the United States Congress or go to state capitals with a Republican label are in that fight with us.
TAPPER: It sounds like you’re not comfortable with it.
STEELE: I just said I wasn’t comfortable.
Watch it:
Transcript:
KAINE: I was a civil rights lawyer for 17 years. Rand Paul wrote a letter about the Fair Housing Act to a local newspaper, saying a free society should tolerate private discrimination, even if it means that hate-filled groups exclude people based on the color of their skin.
TAPPER: That’s pretty much a direct quote.
STEELE: That’s a direct quote, and it’s a philosophical position held by a lot of libertarians, which Rand Paul is. They have a very, very strong view about the limitations of government intrusion into the private sector. That is a philosophical perspective. We have had a lot of members go to the United States Senate with a lot of different philosophies, but when they get to the body, how they work to move the country forward matters, and right now, the federal government is not moving forward on BP and cleaning up that mess; the federal government is not moving forward on the economy and creating jobs. There are a lot of — there are a lot of philosophies, a lot of talk on this hill about folks to get stuff done. What the American people are looking for is what are the concrete steps that this administration has taken to clean up the mess in the Gulf before it gets worse, and to create the jobs that are necessary for people to go back to building the economy the way that everybody wants it to be.
TAPPER: Fair enough, but just one more — one more beat on Rand Paul, and that is do you condemn that point of view? I mean, where would African-Americans be if the federal government hadn’t come in and said, hotels, you have to–
STEELE: Exactly. That’s very much a part of the debate back in the ’60s, as it is going forward. But the reality of it is, our party has stood four-square behind, you know–
TAPPER: But do you condemn that view?
STEELE: I can’t condemn a person’s view. That’s like, you know, you believe something and I’m going to say, well, you know, I’m going to condemn your view of it. It’s the people of Kentucky will judge whether or not that’s a view that they would like to send–
TAPPER: Are you comfortable with that?
STEELE: I am not comfortable with a lot of things, but it doesn’t matter what I’m comfortable with and not comfortable with. I don’t vote in that election. The people of Kentucky will. As a national chairman, I’m here to say that our party will move forward in fighting for the civil rights and liberties of the American people, especially minorities in this country, and we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that everyone who’s going to come to the United States Congress or go to state capitals with a Republican label are in that fight with us.
TAPPER: It sounds like you’re not comfortable with it.
by Matt Gertz
Earlier today, Media Matters' Jamison Foser noted that the Associated Press had discovered a flaw in The New York Times' reporting on Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's description of his military service. The AP noted that the Times story "included quotations and a video of Blumenthal saying at a 2008 event that he had 'served in Vietnam,'" but left out that Blumenthal began that speech by accurately saying that he "served in the military, during the Vietnam era."
In its response to the AP story, the Times stated in part:
The New York Times in its reporting uncovered Mr. Blumenthal's long and well established pattern of misleading his constituents about his Vietnam War service, which he acknowledged in an interview with The Times.
This is extremely misleading.
First of all, the Times did not identify any "long and well established pattern" on Blumenthal's part. In fact, they uncovered exactly one instance in which Blumenthal stated that he had "served in Vietnam" -- which occurred in the speech described above. The Times also identified two instances in which Blumenthal, according to the Times, "intimate[ed]" that he had done so. This out of Blumenthal's innumerable speeches over nearly twenty years as attorney general.
Moreover, Connecticut's reporters almost universally agree that no such pattern exists. The Hartford Courant's Colin McEnroe contacted political journalists throughout the state, and with one exception, none stated that they had ever heard Blumenthal say that he served in Vietnam.
For example, Connecticut Mirror's Mark Pazniokas -- who McEnroe states "may have covered Blumenthal more often than anybody else" -- says that "Every time he talked about his military record, he was quite clear that he had been a military reservist and never came close to suggesting he was in Vietnam."
Additionally, contrary to the Times' statement, Blumenthal did not acknowledge any such pattern in an interview with the Times, according to the Times' own report. The Times reported only that Blumenthal "said that he had misspoken about his service during the Norwalk event and might have misspoken on other occasions," and quoted Blumenthal stating, "My intention has always been to be completely clear and accurate and straightforward, out of respect to the veterans who served in Vietnam."
In yet another hit to the Times' story, one of their star sources for the piece is now stating that she was misquoted. The Times reported:
Mr. Blumenthal has made veterans' issues a centerpiece of his public life and his Senate campaign, but even those who have worked closely with him have gotten the misimpression that he served in Vietnam.
In an interview, Jean Risley, the chairwoman of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial Inc., recalled listening to an emotional Mr. Blumenthal offering remarks at the dedication of the memorial. She remembered him describing the indignities that he and other veterans faced when they returned from Vietnam.
"It was a sad moment," she recalled. "He said, 'When we came back, we were spat on; we couldn't wear our uniforms.' It looked like he was sad to me when he said it."
Ms. Risley later telephoned the reporter to say she had checked into Mr. Blumenthal's military background and learned that he had not, in fact, served in Vietnam.
But ABC is reporting that Risley -- who appeared at Blumenthal's news conference yesterday - says she was misquoted:
"He has always been completely straightforward" about his military service, said Jean Risley, a chairwoman of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial Inc. "I never once heard him say that he was in Vietnam."
Risley was quoted in the Times as recalling an emotional Blumenthal describe the abuse that he and other veterans received when they returned from the war.
She told ABCNews.com today that she was misquoted.
M.C.L Comment: I knew something was fishy with this story when Fox News jumped on this story like a lion on a bloody piece of meat..Remember this is the same New York Times that used Dick Cheney as a source regarding WMDs in Iraq.
KELLY: Rand Paul is a libertarian. You are a libertarian. He is getting excoriated for suggesting that the Civil Rights act -- what he said was, "Look it's got 10 parts, essentially; I favor nine. It's the last part that mandated no discrimination in places of public accommodation that I have a problem with, because you should let businesses decide for themselves whether they are going to be racist or not racist. Because once the government gets involved, it's a slippery slope." Do you agree with that?
STOSSEL: Totally. I'm in total agreement with Rand Paul. You can call it public accommodation, and it is, but it's a private business. And if a private business wants to say, "We don't want any blond anchorwomen or mustached guys," it ought to be their right. Are we going to say to the black students' association they have to take white people, or the gay softball association they have to take straight people? We should have freedom of association in America.
KELLY: OK. When you put it like that it sounds fine, right? So who cares if a blond anchorwoman and mustached anchorman can't go into the lunchroom. But as you know, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came around because it was needed. Blacks weren't allowed to sit at the lunch counter with whites. They couldn't, as they traveled from state to state in this country, they couldn't go in and use a restroom. They couldn't get severed meals and so on, and therefore, unfortunately in this country a law was necessary to get them equal rights.
STOSSEL: Absolutely. But those -- Jim Crow -- those were government rules. Government was saying we have white and black drinking fountains. That's very different from saying private people can't discriminate.
KELLY: How do you know? How do you know that these private business owners, who owned restaurants and so on, would have said, "You know what? Yes. We will take blacks.
STOSSEL: Some wouldn't.
KELLY: We'll take gays. We'll take lesbians," if they hadn't been forced to do it.
STOSSEL: Because eventually they would have lost business. The free market competition would have cleaned the clocks of the people who didn't serve most customers.
KELLY: How do you know that, John?
STOSSEL: I don't. You can't know for sure.
KELLY: That then was a different time. Racism and discrimination was rampant. I'm not saying it's been eliminated. But it was rampant. It was before my time, before I was born, but obviously I've read history, and I know that there is something wrong when a person of color can't get from state to state without stopping at a public restroom or a public lunchroom to have a sandwich.
STOSSEL: But the public restroom was run by the government, and maybe at the time that was necessary.
KELLY: But that's not what Rand Paul said. Rand Paul agreed that if it's run by the government, yes intervention is fine. He took issue with the public accommodations, with private businesses being forced to pony up under the discrimination laws.
STOSSEL: And I would go further than he was willing to go, as he just issued the statement, and say it's time now to repeal that part of the law
KELLY: What?
STOSSEL: because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won't won't ever go to a place that's racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist.
2nd update on bottom: 'I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964...we are sure to hear more wild, dishonest smears during this campaign,' Paul campaign statement says
Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul, fresh off his primary victory in Kentucky, defended his criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Wednesday night.
Paul said that while he supported the overall goals of the Civil Rights Act -- a monumental measure that outlawed discrimination against African Americans in various forms after a decades-long struggle for equality -- he opposed a provision that banned private businesses from discriminating based on race.
"Do you think that a private business has a right to say that 'We don't serve black people?'" Maddow asked.
"I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form," Paul replied. "I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.
"I think what's important in this debate is not getting into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question 'What about freedom of speech?'" Paul countered. "Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from speaking? I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things that freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it."
"How about desegregating lunch counters?" Maddow later asked.
"Well what it gets into then is if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says 'well no, we don't want to have guns in here' the bar says 'we don't want to have guns in here because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each-other?'" Paul replied. "Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? These are important philosophical debates but not a very practical discussion."
"Well, it was pretty practical to the people who had the life nearly beaten out of them trying to desegregate Walgreen's lunch counters despite these esoteric debates about what it means about ownership," Maddow responded. "This is not a hypothetical, Dr. Paul."
Rand Paul says it was 'poor decision' to do Maddow show, slams 'loony left' for making civil rights fuss
At Huffington Post, Sam Stein reports, "The morning after he declined to endorse the totality of the Civil Rights Act in his much-discussed appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show, Dr. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) copped to feeling regret -- not over his comments, but rather his decision to be interviewed by Maddow in the first place."
"Why the heck would you go on the Rachel Maddow Show?" Ingraham asked Paul. "What do you think you're going to get when you go on Rachel Maddow's show?"
"It was a poor political decision and probably won't be happening anytime in the near future," the Tea Party endorsed Senate candidate said on the Laura Ingraham show on Thursday morning. "Because, yeah, they can play things and want to say, 'Oh you believed in beating up people that were trying to sit in restaurants in the 1960s.' And that is such a ridiculous notion and something that no rational person is in favor of. [But] she went on and on about that."
Blaming the messenger is a tactic often used by politicians when the message itself is to blame. And Paul's appearance on the Maddow show on Wednesday night was anything but bland. For 15 minutes, he and the host went back and forth in debating where there should be limits to government efforts to desegregate private institutions (Paul was skeptical that the government should play any role at all). But the notion that the MSNBC host was somehow unloading liberal hostilities on him doesn't jibe with the fact that Paul got the same type of treatment during an NPR interview earlier that morning -- or, for that matter, that a conservative voice on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough, seemed aghast at his answers. "He needs to come up with an answer today, or Kentucky will be Arizona: a battleground for ugly, racial politics," Scarborough said. "He has 24 hours."
Stein adds, "Paul, in fact, chose Maddow's show to initially launch his Senate candidacy a year prior to last night's appearance."
"I’ve never really favored any change in the Civil Rights Act," Paul told Ingraham. "They seem to have unleashed some of the loony left on me."
At Politico, Ben Smith adds, "Paul called the Civil Rights Act 'settled' but suggested he does view federal regulation of private business on matters of racial discrimination as fundamentally unconstitutional."
"The problem with Rachel and most people from the left is they want to make this an issue about you supporting abhorrent practices which I don't support," he said, again pronouncing himself a foe of "institutional racism."
"There was a need for federal intervention to say we can't have segregation," Paul told Ingraham, referring to the elements of segregation that were linked to government services and federal funding.
This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast May 19, 2010.
“I believe we should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person. I have clearly stated in prior interviews that I abhor racial discrimination and would have worked to end segregation. Even though this matter was settled when I was 2, and no serious people are seeking to revisit it except to score cheap political points, I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
“Let me be clear: I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation, which was to stop discrimination in the public sphere and halt the abhorrent practice of segregation and Jim Crow laws.”
“As I have said in previous statements, sections of the Civil Rights Act were debated on Constitutional grounds when the legislation was passed. Those issues have been settled by federal courts in the intervening years.”
“My opponent's statement on MSNBC Wednesday that I favor repeal of the Civil Rights Act was irresponsible and knowingly false. I hope he will correct the record and retract his claims.”
“The issue of civil rights is one with a tortured history in this country. We have made great strides, but there is still work to be done to ensure the great promise of Liberty is granted to all Americans.”
“This much is clear: The federal government has far overreached in its power grabs. Just look at the recent national healthcare schemes, which my opponent supports. The federal government, for the first time ever, is mandating that individuals purchase a product. The federal government is out of control, and those who love liberty and value individual and state's rights must stand up to it.”
“These attacks prove one thing for certain: the liberal establishment is desperate to keep leaders like me out of office, and we are sure to hear more wild, dishonest smears during this campaign."
The Redding News Review reports, "Rev. Jesse Jackson today assailed Rand Paul, the newly elected Republican nominee for Senate in Kentucky, for comments about the Civil Rights Act."
"He is playing with fire you can't have it both ways," Jackson the Democrat told MSNBC.
....
Still, Jackson said that Paul is trying to cover ground that a portion of the Fair Housing Act as already resolved.
"He is arguing backwards," Jackson said. "It is a narrow view of American rights....we all deserve better."
M.C.L Comment: See libs it was you that made Rand said it was ok for private business to deny people entrance based on race.
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Tea party darling Dr. Rand Paul won an upset victory in Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary by running on a “resolute pledge to balance the federal budget and slash the size of government.” In an interview following his win, Paul explained that his campaign was “all about federal spending” and the “tea party message.” Republicans “need to regain our believability as fiscal conservatives,” he added. But as former Bush speech writer David Frum noted, “Paul’s libertarianism stops where his pocketbook starts.” Frum highlighted a Wall Street Journal story from last week in which Paul said he doesn’t want to cut
Medicare payments to doctors like himself, because “[p]hysicians should be allowed to make a comfortable living“:
But on Thursday evening, the ophthalmologist from Bowling Green said there was one thing he would not cut: Medicare physician payments.
In fact, Paul — who says 50% of his patients are on Medicare — wants to end cuts to physician payments under a program now in place called the sustained growth rate, or SGR. “Physicians should be allowed to make a comfortable living.
In an interview on FoxNew.com’s Freedom Watch, Paul vowed he would never give up his “tea party values,” which apparently include pushing for self-serving legislation. As the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky noted, Paul likely already makes a “comfortable living,” as the average salary for an ophthalmologist is $256,320.
The Secret Service is investigating a bar in West Allis, Wisconsin after a bartender burned President Obama in effigy in front of a cheering crowd. A video obtained by local NBC affiliate TMJ4 shows a bartender at the Yester Years Pub and Grill burning a small figurine of Obama “with what looks like duct tape” wrapped around its neck. The crowd can be heard laughing and shouting in the background. Watch TMJ4’s report:
Jerry Ann Hamilton, the President of Milwaukee’s NAACP, was “outraged” by the incident and worried it could be racially motivated. She called the images “very offensive” and said she would push for a full investigation. The town’s mayor and local residents also expressed dismay. The Secret Service confirmed it was investigating, but would not comment further.
M.C.L Comment: I know asking conservatives to show courage is like asking Hollywood to make a good remake but come on everyone knows the real reason the tea party hate this president and it has nothing to do with his policy or what he believes in.. They can say it on their blogs, they can say it among themselves and with a dummy screen names they can post it on a political forums they should have the courage and say you hate that nigger in the White House in public.Look at their so called reasons they opposed this president, they claimed President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and senate leader Reid are spending their kids and grandkids into debt but they didn't hold any rallies when President Bush, House Speaker Hastert and senate majority leader Frist were doing the spending.They also claimed they're angry because of taxes yet 95% of them received tax cuts, the only group of people who saw their taxes raised are the wealthiest elite that fund the tea party. And finally they scream about their civil liberties are being threaten yet they didn't protest the passage of the Patriot Act, the suspension of Haebas Corpus hell they didn't post a nasty comment regarding the warrant less wiretaps
Throughout Glenn Beck's meteoric rise to become king of all right-wing media, a once-obscure Santa Monica peddler of gold coins called Goldline International has been along for the ride. The support of Beck and other radio hosts -- mainly conservatives like Mark Levin and Fred Thompson -- who spend 55 minutes creating fear of an economic collapse and then five minutes telling you why coins from a company like Goldline are the only safe haven has helped Goldline become a $500 million company.
This, for example, is what 2 million TV viewers who clicked on Beck's nightly Fox News Channel show heard on Oct. 6, 2009:
You don't have any gold, right? This is you. This is you. This is your savings. How much did you lose if you had any money in your 401k? Did you lose, let's say, I don't know, 40 percent of it? So, that's gone. Now, did you know that the dollar has lost nearly 29 percent of its value in the last seven years? Twenty-nine percent. OK, that's gone. Just gone.
This isn't an advertisement, although it may sound like one. It's the editorial content of the show, although at some point during the hour viewers are sure to see an ad for Goldline with their "800" number prominently displayed. Meanwhile, visitors to GlennBeck.com see a big ad for Goldline, while visitors to Goldline.com can see testimonials from Beck for Goldline. It's hard to know sometimes where Beck -- who famously told his viewers to get behind "God, gold, and guns" -- ends and Goldline begins.
Never mind that anxiety-drenched radio listeners never got to hear the other side of the gold coin, which is that the industry is plagued by high-pressure sales tactics as well as high commissions which mean that gold -- already at a record high (although not when adjusted for inflation) -- would have to rise well beyond its current highs to see a reasonable return on their investment.
Finally, a grown-up has stepped in to try to clean up this mess -- Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York.
At this hour, Weiner is holding a news conference not only to call out Goldline as "a company that uses conservative rhetoric, high pressure sales tactics and tall tales about the future of gold to sell over priced coins that can be bought somewhere else for cheaper," but to ask regulators from the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate its tactics.
Weiner's staff investigated Goldline and found that the coins it sells are not the good investment that its salesmen -- who are not licensed investment advisers -- claim that it is to consumers, because the price of gold would essentially have to double beyond its current high to begin seeing any gains. Specially, the investigators found Goldline coins selling for 90 percent above the melt value of the coin, that is, its value by weight. The largest markup seen on a coin, Weiner said, was 208 percent above the melt value.
"In the past there is always the "product" that is either the next big thing (the dot com boom) or the investment that will never go down in price (the housing market), and in the past much of the media has failed in its duty to conduct due diligence, but never before have they worked so hand in hand to cheat consumers," Weiner said in his prepared report. "Commentators like Glenn Beck who are shilling for Goldline are either the worst financial advisers around or knowingly lying to their loyal viewers."
Adds Weiner:
Goldline's high pressure sales tactics and fear mongering about big government as well as their ability to hire sales staff and spokespeople who misrepresent their roles are case studies in why entities like the SEC and FTC are necessary.
The Brooklyn congressman sent letters to the heads of the FTC and the SEC requesting that some of Goldline's more questionable tactics be investigated. In addition, he says he will propose legislation requiring full disclosure of hidden fees, the purchase price/Melt value/Resale value, and how much the cost of gold will need to rise in the value for the customers' investment to be profitable. All common sense ideas.
Look, no one but Beck himself -- whose made a career out of gaining trust from his listeners only to sell them a bad investment that also enriches him through endorsement fees -- and Goldline International are to blame for this mess. But of course, Beck is doing what he does best and blaming the messengers, accusing them of "McCarthyism" by going after his sponsors. That has nothing to do with this -- it's about consumer protection. If Beck endorsed companies that didn't use questionable sales tactics, there would be no story. And frankly, Weiner wouldn't even be involved if the SEC and the FTC had been doing their jobs in the first place.
As I mentioned in a post yesterday about Beck's sponsor LifeLock, I became interested in Beck's relationship with the type of products he endorses when I was researching my pending book, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Hi-Def Hucksters and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. It's not a tangential issue at all; instead, Beck works hand-in-hand with these companies to create a non-stop whirlwind of anxiety, fear and gimmicky solutions that enriches both him and the companies, even though the side effect of all the excess paranoia is quite harmful to American politics.
Funny that Beck would talk so much about Joe McCarthy today. When McCarthy-inspired paranoia finally reached the level where the damage to the American body politic was clear, the adults finally stepped in and put an end to the circus. I wonder if the same thing is finally happening here, whether it's finally time to say "good night and good luck" to Glenn Beck's influence.
The public editor of a newspaper in Michigan called out online news portal Drudge Report today, accusing the site of being "constantly on the lookout for making mountains out of molehills."
Wednesday afternoon the huge top headline on the news site read: "Students asked for 'citizen status' prior to Obama commencement."
Drudge linked to an article published by the Kalamazoo Gazette two days earlier, Monday morning, about routine background checks performed ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama to Kalamazoo Central High School.
"K-Central students are not being asked to provide proof of citizenship status," Kalamazoo Gazette public editor Joyce Pines writes. "They have been asked to fill out the same paperwork and answer the same questions throughout their entire public school career."
Von Washington Jr., the principal of Kalamazoo Central High School, said he has been told this will not stop any senior from participating in the graduation ceremony, and it's also his understanding that this is standard operating procedure for audiences who will be close to the president.
K-Central found out May 4 that the school won a national competition, for which the school submitted a video, that will bring Obama to its commencement as graduation speaker. The ceremony will be held at 7 p.m. June 7 at Western Michigan University’s basketball arena.
"The students in the Drudge photo are not K-Central students, by the way," she added.
In fact, the photo used by Drudge Report to suggest the Secret Service is looking for illegal immigrants in the mix of the winning school's students was taken in November. According to Politico, that was when President Obama launched the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, a $260 million public-private investment to improve American science and math education.
Despite the new article, and an added update at the top of the page Drudge is linking to, the headline remained atop the Drudge Report web site Wednesday evening.
M.C.L comment: I'm shocked that the head douche of the right wing online media twisted a headline to fit in what his right wing sugar daddies want.
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Last month, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele caused a media firestorm when he candidly confessed that African-Americans “really don’t have a reason” to vote Republican. “[W]e haven’t done a very good
job of really giving you one,” he added, before admitting that the GOP has employed a race-based “southern strategy” for the past forty years. “[H]ere you have the chairman of the Republican National Committee saying, in effect, that liberals are right to have argued that Republicans have used race for political gain for the last four decades,” the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent noted.
But Steele struck a completely different tone in a recent interview with the Atlanta Post, saying the GOP is “the political home” of African-Americans:
And so that idea of President Lincoln as one of the founders of the party, to me, ties us back to those very roots. It is the birthplace of black political activism. It is the political home, if you will, for African-Americans. So as much as you want to go out and dance with Democrats, you do that all day long, but at the end of the day, you still have that place called home.
Steele also denied that the tea party movement is “hostile to the black community,” saying that claim is “unfortunate and it’s just plain wrong.” Steele said the notion has been “perpetrated by some in the media,” and explained, “I’ve met with a number of African- American Tea Party members.”
Steele went on to praise civil rights leader Malcolm X, saying, “I also relate to Malcolm X and that style and that side that says ‘by any means necessary’”:
I can work with conventional wisdom up to a point. I can work with the Washington sages up to a point. But then I get to a point where [I feel] we need something different by any means necessary. We need to do something that’s going to shake us to our roots and wake us up to the new reality we are in.
It’s worth noting that the right would likely find offense if President Obama made a similar remark. Malcolm X is considered “extreme” by many conservatives. Right-wing pundits like Fox News host Glenn Beck and radio host Rush Limbaugh have referenced
Malcolm X to suggest Obama is a “radical,” “angry black guy.”
M.C.L Comment: One group of people shouldn't give 100% support to one party, but in this case no one black, white, middle class and working poor shouldn't be supporting the Republican party. Going back to the subject a black person voting Republican in this day of age will be like a person at Crystal Lake giving out their location to Jason.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the greatest accomplishments of the twentieth-century, banning whites-only lunch counters and similar discrimination in hiring, promotions, hotels and restaurants. Yet, in a recent editorial board interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul explained why he believes that this landmark law should not apply to private business owners:
INTERVIEWER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I’m all in favor of that.
INTERVIEWER: But?
PAUL: You had to ask me the “but.” I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.
Watch it:
After adding that he is also a fan of Dr. Martin Luther King, Paul dug in deeper, explaining that he he believes that in a “free society,” private lunch counters must be allowed to refuse service to Dr. King because of his race:
INTERVIEWER: But under your philosophy, it would be okay for Dr. King not to be served at the counter at Woolworths?
PAUL: I would not go to that Woolworths, and I would stand up in my community and say that it is abhorrent, um, but, the hard part—and this is the hard part about believing in freedom—is, if you believe in the First Amendment, for example—you have too, for example, most good defenders of the First Amendment will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things. . . . It’s the same way with other behaviors. In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior.
For the record, here is an example of the “boorish people” that Paul thinks a free society must tolerate:
Last night, fringe tea party Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) sailed to victory in his primary over Trey Grayson, the GOP candidate favored by Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell and much of the Republican establishment. Not only did heavyweight Republicans like Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani stump for Grayson, but shadowy GOP front groups, like the American Future Fund — which casts itself as a tea party group — ran harsh attack ads hitting Paul. Paul’s success comes shortly after tea party candidates defeated incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) in the Utah primary, and tea party candidate Marco Rubio (R-FL) forced Charlie Crist out of the Republican Party.
Republican operatives orchestrated the tea party movement to lay the foundation for Republican electoral gains. However, the far right tea parties have been uncontrollable, demanding that Republican candidates support extreme positions like eliminating Social Security, Medicare, the Department of Education, and even the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Paul’s success has already sent ripples throughout the GOP establishment, with other ramifications in Kentucky and for upcoming GOP primaries:
– Todd Lally, an extremist who has said that President Obama wouldn’t be able to get a security clearance, road Paul’s coattails to defeat the establishment-backed candidate Jeff Reetz in the primary for Kentucky’s third congressional district. Reetz is a Pizza Hut franchise owner who received financial support from the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC).
– Vauhn Ward, Sarah Palin endorsed Republican candidate in Idaho’s first congressional district, is quickly losing favor with the Republican primary voters. The tea party-backed candidate, State Rep. Raul Labrador, is surging in the polls against Ward. NRCC leaders like chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) has hosted a fundraiser for Ward.
– In Pennsylvania’s third district yesterday, voters chose tea party candidate Mike Kelly over NRCC-endorsed candidate Paul Huber.
– In the Colorado U.S. Senate race, far right tea party candidate Ken Buck is surging in the polls against Jane Norton, the longtime Republican politician chosen by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to run.
As ThinkProgress reported earlier this year, extreme tea party candidates have sought to purge Republican incumbents and handpicked GOP candidates in races all over the country.
From AP/Huffy Post
Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln failed to win the majority of votes in the Democratic primary Tuesday and now faces a three-week fight with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter for her party's nomination.
Already one of the most vulnerable incumbents seeking re-election this year, Lincoln will run against Halter alone in a June 8 runoff. A third candidate, Little Rock businessman D.C. Morrison, drew enough votes Tuesday to force the extra campaign but will not progress.
Lincoln had said she would be ecstatic with either a runoff or a clear-cut victory, but Halter has said forcing overtime would be close to a win.
With just over half the state's 2,516 precincts reporting, Lincoln had received 44 percent of the vote to 42 percent for Halter.
Lincoln, 49, portrayed herself as a centrist in her re-election fight. But she faced anger from both the left and right, particularly over the health care debate. When Halter joined the race in March, he was embraced by groups on the left that had grown frustrated with Lincoln's positions on issues such as health care and trade.
Outside groups on both sides, including the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have pumped millions of dollars into the race. The candidates themselves swapped attacks on a daily basis.
Organizations on the left criticized Lincoln for opposing efforts to create a new government-run
insurance program as an option in the health overhaul. Republicans criticized her for voting to support the Senate health care bill that was signed into law. Lincoln, however, voted against a companion bill that was also approved through a simple majority vote in the Senate.
The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Lincoln had taken steps over the past year to distance herself from the Obama administration and national Democrats on key issues. In her first television ad touting her re-election bid, Lincoln had proclaimed that she answers to Arkansas, not her party.
But facing the challenge from Halter, Lincoln embraced national Democrats and ran radio ads featuring President Barack Obama endorsing her bid. She also had the backing of former President Bill Clinton, who remains popular in his home state.
Halter, a one-term lieutenant governor, is a former Clinton administration official, having served as a deputy commissioner and acting commissioner of the federal Social Security Administration. He was elected lieutenant governor in 2006 after briefly considering a run for governor against Mike B... more
From Huffy post/Ap
U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter on Tuesday was defeated in a Democratic primary in his bid for a sixth term after taking the risky step of switching from the GOP.
Voters picked U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak as the party's nominee and rejected the 80-year-old Specter in his first Democratic campaign since his Republican Party defection.
With 79 percent of precincts reporting, Sestak received 435,630 votes, or 53 percent; Specter received 384,027 votes, about 47 percent.
The vote also was a defeat for President Barack Obama, who supported Specter when he abandoned the Republican Party last year. In speaking to supporters at a downtown Philadelphia hotel after the race was called, Specter thanked Obama for his support.
Specter said he had called Sestak to congratulate him and tell him "I think it's vital to keep this seat in the Democratic Party and I will support him."
Specter left while holding hands with his wife, Joan. He didn't answer questions from reporters.
The moderate Specter had cast his switch as a decision of principle after inflaming the GOP by voting for Obama's economic stimulus bill. But many Democratic voters questioned his motives.
Sestak faces Republican Pat Toomey in the fall election.
Specter has been a fixture in American politics for three decades and served in the Senate since 1981, and his switch to the Democrats was a theme that dominated the race.
Obama and other top Democrats embraced Specter, who used his willingness to cross party lines on key votes to bolster his clout in Congress.
Sestak, a retired Navy vice admiral who has represented a suburban Philadelphia district since 2007, accused Specter of switching parties to save his
job. He said Specter couldn't be trusted to support Democratic Party values.
In the days before the primary, Specter and Sestak also argued over who had the best chance of beating Toomey in the fall.
Specter leaned heavily on Obama's endorsement, repeatedly citing a television ad that used footage from a September rally in Philadelphia at which Obama spoke and get-out-the-vote efforts by the key unions backing him.
Sestak tried to harness voter anger over political gridlock and the recession, with Pennsylvania's unemployment rate at 9 percent, its highest in more than a quarter-century.
While the Tea Party movement has tried to portray itself as organic and grassroots, it has had, in reality, several powerful, well-funded interests backing it up. Two of those entities have been Fox News host Glenn Beck and Dick Armey’s corporate front group FreedomWorks. Beck regularly cheerleads for the protests, often broadcasts live from their events, and has even helped them raise money. FreedomWorks staffers have given valuable logistical and administrative astroturf support to the Tea Parties.
The tweet links to a video on the YouTube page of FreedomWorks Action — the c4 advocacy arm of the organization — of Beck explaining the partnership:
BECK: I have to tell you, this was a hard decision for me to take on FreedomWorks, and here’s why: because I don’t want to send the message to you that the way to restore our republic is through the political process only. And I was afraid that you would hear “FreedomWorks” and you would say, “Well, wait a minute, what does that mean? I think you do. I think you do. I think you need to get onto every bandwagon you can get onto right now.”
I want to send you the message that FreedomWorks is the only– and we’ve looked — the only organization that we have seen that really truly has the organizational power (the other one is like the NRA is also like this). They have the infrastructure, they have the organizational power, they have the ability to get information to people quickly, en masse.
And we must, must, must link arms with people. Everybody plays a different role. My message to you is to shore yourself up personally, with history, with faith, and with your own personal finances. That is my course that I am charting. I’ve got to move away from the political stuff. That is what kept me up last night. But political stuff has got to be done. You have to pay attention. There are things that are happening in Washington that you have to know about. We need the Tea Party protests to continue. We need to organize and reach out to each other. So I want you to go to Freedomworks.org, because freedom works.
Listen here:
Beck’s pairing with FreedomWorks is a perfect marriage of their economic interests. Both groups are Tea Party profiteers, exploiting the fears of the conservative base to enrich themselves personally. Beck may do more than just promote the Tea Parties: FreedomWorks Action has made clear that it has a list of “targets” in the 2010 elections — all of whom happen to be Democrats or Independents — that it will be going after. The candidates the group is supporting are far-right conservatives like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Pat Toomey. Despite the everyman, outsider image he likes to portray, Beck’s partnership means that he will be working even closer with a bevy of DC insiders.
In the past, Beck has picked up the opposition research and talking points of another corporate-funded front group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP). His character-assassination campaign directed at Van Jones was fueled by AFP’s policy effort to kill green jobs. Beck also followed AFP’s lead in calling net neutrality an attack on freedom of speech.
By Alex Seitz-Wald
The Secret Service investigated a teacher in Jefferson County, Alabama after “he picked the wrong example” and used a hypothetical assassination of President Obama to teach angles to his geometry students, the Birmingham News reports:
The teacher was apparently teaching his geometry students about parallel lines and angles, officials said. He used the example of where to stand and aim if shooting Obama.
“He was talking about angles and said, ‘If you’re in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president,’ ” said Joseph Brown, a senior in the geometry class.
The Secret Service questioned the math teacher, but decided not to arrest him or charge him with a crime after they determined he was not “a credible threat,” an agency spokesperson said. Superintendent Phil Hammonds called the incident “extremely poor judgment” and “a poor choice of words,” but said he has no plans to fire the teacher. “We are going to have a long conversation with him about what’s appropriate,” Hammonds said. The Birmingham News was unable to reach the teacher for comment. (HT: TPM)
M.C.L Comment: Again those on the political right wonder why I hate them so much, I remember during the Bush era a dude with a screenname that had dead and kill with Bush got arrested some pencil dick douchebag teacher can ask his students what angle they would used to kill Obama and nothing happens to him..
Come on now we all know what would happen if you replace the teacher ideology probably conservative to liberal and you change the president name from Barack Obama to George W. Bush Mr. Math teacher would be sitting in a nice hot cell in Gitmo.
Once again the right proves if they can't beat their opponents via the voting process they want them dead.
By
Weeks after BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Politico reported that during the last 20 years, the company and its employees gave more money to President Obama than any other federal political candidate. Yesterday on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Sarah Palin tried to make it into a wider narrative. “I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration,” she said. Palin wondered if there is “any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to…grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico.” Mainstream media outlet the Wall Street Journal did ask and it appears the answer doesn’t give cover to Palin’s charges: 
