DOWNLOADS: (166)

PLAYS: (1575)

Embed

Just after the President released his gun safety proposals this morning, the NRA doubled down on yesterday's propaganda piece exploiting the Obama daughters. In this 4 1/2 minute video, Wayne LaPierre shakes his fist at the mysterious "elites" that the media represents. Via Media Matters:

The ad opens with a montage of criticisms in media of the NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre's December speech calling for armed guards in schools in a response to the massacre at a Newtown, CT, school earlier that month. A narrator then states, "The media speaks for elites. America speaks for itself."

The ad also highlights the number of armed guards at the school attended by President Obama's daughters to make the claim that the President is a hypocrite for stating that he is "skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools." This attack follows up on a similar one made by the NRA in a recently released ad. The release of the White House's gun violence prevention plan today calls for federal funds to be used on school safety programs, including hiring more school resource officers, in addition to a number of proposals for stronger gun laws.

LaPierre may be leading the charge, but there are some generals backing him up. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips let his Birch Society roots show today with a post entitled "Waiting for Adolf" which I won't link to but I will quote:

We are waiting on Adolf.

America has shed the trappings and protections of a Constitutional Republic and is now a democracy.

Democracies eventually have the same end. The people discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. The greed of the people is like the greed of the politician. It has no limits and is unsustainable.

These wingnuts are about to find out they're spitting into the wind. Indeed, there is a majority of people who want tighter gun laws, and we're about to discover whether they'll fight for them. OFA members are idling on the sidelines, waiting for the call to action. I believe they will activate that behemoth, organize, and get this done. It will take that kind of engagement to keep this issue from being hijacked by the likes of the NRA.

Bonus stories:

TruthOut: The Second amendment was added to allow landowners to put down slave rebellions.

Washington Post: How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby

Amy Goodman talks to David Kirby, journalist and author of the book Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy and Poultry Farms on Humans and the Environment about his recent article in the Huffington Post -- Lessons From the Egg Recall: Cheap Food Makes You Sick.

Americans currently "enjoy" the cheapest animal protein in history. Such a monumental achievement could only have been attained through the industrialized mega-production of meat, milk and eggs -- which now cost about $1.56 on average for a large white dozen in the nation's supermarkets.

At just 13 cents apiece, even the poorest American can afford a two-egg omelet in the morning: It will set them back by less than four-percent of the Federal hourly minimum wage

But now Americans are finally coming to terms with the true cost of their wondrous 26-cent breakfasts: a gargantuan recall of mass-produced eggs -- 380 million of them -- contaminated with deadly salmonella bacteria. Hundreds of people have reportedly been sickened, and the true number could be higher. Read on...

I'm not sure how many more people have to get sick before this bill finally gets passed which is stalled in the Senate.

Egg crisis piques interest in food-safety bill:

The outbreak of salmonella in eggs is energizing efforts to pass a long-stalled food-safety bill that could prevent or mitigate such problems, according to federal officials, congressional supporters and independent experts.

The bill, designed to overhaul a fractured food-safety system that hasn't been updated in decades, would expand federal regulators' powers to police food manufacturers. The House passed a version in 2009, but the legislation has stalled in the Senate, despite bipartisan support.

Among other things, the legislation would require more frequent government inspections of food manufacturing facilities and the creation of stronger mechanisms for tracing food-borne illness outbreaks back to their source. The bill also would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to order recalls of food that may be tainted with salmonella, E. coli O157:H7 and other contaminants.

"The pending legislation is absolutely critical," Jeff Farrar, associate FDA commissioner for food protection, said in a call with reporters. "There are just numerous important measures in that bill that will give us new authorities and resources. " About 550 million eggs have been recalled in the salmonella outbreak, which federal investigators have linked to two Iowa production facilities: Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tied as many as 1,300 illnesses to the outbreak. Officials say there could be as many as 30 unreported illnesses for each documented case. The outbreak comes amid a push by the Obama administration to toughen food-safety rules.

USA Today lists some of the key provisions in the bill so go read the whole article. You can read the full transcript of Amy's interview with David Kirby here.

This is what happens when people who don't believe in government regulation do their best to make sure their point is proven that regulation doesn't work by dismantling the ability of government to do its job and regulate industries that can't be trusted to regulate themselves.

DOWNLOADS: (320)

PLAYS: (501)

Embed

Given the fact that many Republicans over the weekend when asked about why so many people in their party believe that our president is a Muslim were feigning ignorance on what's actually going on with who and why these rumors about President Obama started, I thought Touré's rant from this past Friday's Dylan Ratigan show was worth going back for and sharing.

Anyone paying attention to the "summer of racial resentment" from Fox and the GOP already knew this, but it was nice to hear someone say it out loud on national television. The GOP's plan is to drum up racial resentment in order to gain seats in the upcoming mid-term elections.

The misinformation is coming from right wing web sites, email chains, right wing radio and sadly from our "mainstream" media outlets as well.

Touré did a great job of calling out the Dr. Lauras and the Newt Gingrichs and the Franklin Grahams of the world in this segment.

They all were more than aware of the dog-whistles they were setting off to the Republican right wing base and he lays out very clearly just what they'd like to be calling President Obama when they call him a Muslim, but can't do in polite company. I grew up dealing with a father who was and sadly still is racist as hell but doesn't think he is and the cognitive dissonance with some of his opinions and trying to digest them is always something that makes my stomach churn.

I listened to him for years blather on about the lazy blacks he worked with when apparently they never had a lazy white worker as well that they couldn't get rid of, the terrible black drivers he'd encounter on his way to work while I'm sure there was never a bad white driver on the road anywhere around him. He, like Stephen Colbert did have at least one or two black friends, so how could he be a racist? And he was very sad when Lou Dobbs went off the air.

He used to send me some of his right wing emails that his buddies sent him until I did a few replies to all and debunked the hateful junk he was sending me, and that put a stop to those mass emails coming my way. Imagine that.

I know all to well just who the right wing is trying to appeal to with their "Obama is a secret Muslim" bull pucky and Touré is spot on with his commentary. I've had the unfortunate circumstance of knowing who it plays to and what they are willing to say out loud when they think it doesn't matter who hears them first hand.

I'm sure I'm not alone with this experience. I'd love to hear back from others who have had to deal with people they love just being so wrong headed with their prejudices as well.

In the mean time, here's Touré's rant, and rough transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (240)

PLAYS: (281)

Embed

Former Mitt Romney Communications Strategist Kevin Madden insists that the Republican Party is being unfairly painted as the "Party of No" and that they have "put on the table substantive alternatives for the American public", but when pressed by Juan Williams about just what those ideas are, I only heard him give one specific, tax cuts. What I wish Williams would have asked him is why he thought Republicans should have been opposing the health care bill when it was basically nothing but his old boss' "Romney-care". That used to be one of their Republican "substantive alternatives" that they decided to obstruct because a Democrat proposed it.

MADDEN: The Democrats have spent the better part of almost two years now saying that the Republicans are the “Party of No” and it has not worked. It is also... it's a false argument because throughout the entire set whether it was the stimulus debate or the healthcare debate, the Republicans have put on the table substantive alternatives for the American public. They said at a time when the public is very angry about spending, we want to reduce spending. They've said in a time of a lot of uncertainty in the markets, they want more certainty with tax cuts and spur the private sector versus the government. And that is the contrast that we're seeing right now in a lot of these races, and it gives the Republicans a decided advantage.

And I'm not saying that in a -- I'm saying it in a clinical fashion. When you look at the anger about spending right now and the Democrats, every answer they have is a big government solution that has a huge price tag on it. And it puts them in very, very a difficult position. [crosstalk]

WILLIAMS: When I look at the numbers, here is what I see. Americans think less of Republicans than they do of the Democrats in Congress and much less than they do of President Obama. And when you are thinking about economic policy, Americans aren't about, oh, yeah, keep cutting taxes. No, people are saying let's be responsible in terms of how we spend money, let's reduce the deficit, let's get serious about our economic future. Let's not take radical steps, like oh, throw more money to the rich.

MADDEN: There is absolutely no credibility to that argument when you look at the Democrats... when you look at the spending bills they've passed in these last two years. They have no credibility.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (909)

PLAYS: (2841)

Embed

We've got an economy that's a mess, people who have been unemployed forever that need jobs, massive flooding in Pakistan, millions of gallons of oil and dispersants still floating in the water in the Gulf of Mexico and what is the media spending hours upon hours covering? That ginned up non-controversy over the Islamic center near ground zero and now a new poll that shows about one in five Americans think that President Obama is a Muslim. I wonder where they got that idea?

I hate that they're spending this much time on this nonsense that most people don't care about but if they're going to do it, we need to be pushing back against the lies and point out who's helping to spread them and hold the corporate media accountable when they help to push the latest right wing meme of the day and give it legitimacy.

During John King's show on CNN, Paul Begala says it's not CNN that is attributing to those poll numbers.

BEGALA: Mostly, no. You're right to just observe that as contrasted with Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter for that matter or certainly George W. Bush, this Christian president talks about his Christianity less. That perhaps makes him more like say George Bush's father, a devout Christian, a fine man who just didn't like to wear it on his sleeve as much as maybe some others.

No, in that survey, the Pew poll, most, the vast majority of people who think he's a Muslim. When you ask them why do you think that they say because of the media. And not to put too fine a point on it, they don't mean CNN, John. They mean the kook right wing media that has been attacking this president. It's fine to attack him on issues. But they're trying to attack him with any kind of crazy conspiracy theory they can.

I'd beg to differ.

A little later in the show John King brings on evangelical leader Franklin Graham who suggests that the "confusion" is being caused because President Obama was "born a Muslim" and of course if he says he's a Christian now (wink... wink) we'll just have to take him at his word that he is (but he might really be a dirty Kenyan Muslim usurper... you never know).

There are plenty of places where these rumors are being spread such as email chains, on right wing talk radio and on Fox News, but interviews like this aren't helping matters any. We got zero push back from John King against Graham's nonsense. He's really good at the false equivalency "you decide" game where he lets his viewers figure out for themselves who's telling the truth and who's spouting nonsense that should have been stopped in their tracks for telling lies but wasn't. Heaven forbid that might not make for a polite interview and we couldn't have that sort of incivility now could we?

Does anyone think John King didn't know exactly what he was going to get from Franklin Graham before he came on the air? Here's some of what happened during his encounter with then presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama back in 2008.

Franklin Graham to Obama: Are You A Muslim? (And How Obama Courted Hagee's Publisher):

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (980)

PLAYS: (1801)

Embed

Bloody Bill-I'm-always-wrong-about-everything Kristol continues his track record on Fox News Sunday this week when he predicts that the Republicans will play a game of chicken with President Obama and decide its better for them politically to block extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class if they can't keep them for the upper earners as well. As Jennifer Loven from the AP points out, that ain't gonna' happen. Even Chris Wallace seems stunned that Bill Kristol would think that's a good election strategy for the fall.

Kristol: Look, the President has a couple of interesting choices to make over the next two months. They're pushing, the FED to announce some quantative easing next week at its meeting to print more money. In fact they seemed to be toying with the idea, Treasury has a big meeting on Fannie and Freddie on August 17th, and they're toying with the idea of forgiving some mortgages for those who owe more than their house is worth, which would be an attempt at stimulus, very much like the mortgage proposal about a year and a half ago that was announced by Rick Santelli and actually launched the Tea Party. That was helping those that can't afford the houses they have.

And then... so we should see whether... that would be staying the course, government stimulus proposals. I don't think the markets will like it but they're toying with that and then in September they're going to have a big tax debate in Congress and the President I think will ulimately have to decide is he willing to accept the extension of all the current tax rates for a year or two, or is he going to go... or Republicans I think will not accept the part, the hike in taxes on the well-to-do and small businesses. I think the President if he did pivot, actually if he said enough of the stimulus for now and lets just at least not raise taxes, I think that's the one thing that could help him a little bit now politically over the next couple of months and I think the markets would welcome it.

Can you imagine if the President stood up in September and said look at this fresh data, it's too fragile of a recovery...

Wallace: Let me bring in Jennifer. Is there any possibility that this President would say ,you know what, we're going to keep all the tax cuts for the middle class and for the wealthy for a couple of years because this recession and this recovery is not going the way we thought it would?

Loven: Short answer, no. He's not going to accept that. They've been very clear about it and at this point to go back on that would cause him so much trouble with his own base and his own party, he has said he wants to extend them for the middle class, but extending them for the wealthy, no. It's not going to happen.

Kristol: Even if the choice is no extensions? Because I think Republicans will block the partial extensions.

Loven: I don't think so.

Kristol: You think he won't accept it?

Wallace: Why would Republicans block an extension for the middle class? You're going to be in a position of saying if we don't get it for the wealthy, we're not going to give a tax cut, or continue the tax cut to the middle class?

Kristol: We're in the position of saying elect Republicans and we'll give... we'll extend the current tax rates for everyone, so the middle class will get its lower tax rates and we won't put this huge burden on small business.

DOWNLOADS: (665)

PLAYS: (511)

Embed

Candy Crowley does her best to paint Sen. Lucy van Pelt Lindsey Graham as someone who is interested in bipartisanship. I guess Crowley thinks that saying you're willing to work with the Democrats but then refusing to vote on that same legislation is somehow reasonable and being bipartisan. Looks more like snake oil to me.

Lindsey Graham might talk a good game but far too often like some of his other "moderate" cohorts all he does is get legislation he's not going to vote for anyway pushed further to the right and watered down. What I don't understand is why the Democrats continually cater to these people if they're not going to get their votes in exchange for their compromises. At the end of the interview Graham claims that they could get immigration reform passed if the Democrats just sat down and did "some good old-fashioned horse trading".

Uh... Lindsey, they already did that when you guys tried to get that immigration bill passed back when Bush was in office and your base and the talking heads on right wing radio went crazy and killed any chance of anything being passed. The problem is not the Democrats willingness to negotiate with Republicans. The problem is your party wants to obstruct for obstruction's sake. That and your party's nativist base that would vote you out during a primary in a heartbeat if you help pass a bill on immigration.

Here's Crowley's lead-in and the second half of her interview with Graham today.

CROWLEY: Senator Lindsey Graham is from South Carolina, one of the most conservative states in the country. He scores an 88 on a scale of 100 from a leading conservative group. He is also one of a handful of Republicans who have worked periodically with Democrats on major issues. Graham has been at the Obama White House some 20 times, and it has cost him. Glenn Beck calls Graham "Obama lite."

Graham supports a secure border, but also bucked party orthodoxy supporting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here. Rush Limbaugh labeled him Senator Gramnesty. Though he eventually walked away from the table, Graham teamed up with Democratic John Kerry and independent Joe Lieberman to put together climate legislation, and he was the lone Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote to confirm President Obama's two nominations for the Supreme Court. Limbaugh theorizes Graham has been trying to make up for having been a manager on the Clinton impeachment bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, TALK SHOW HOST: He is groveling, he's hoping they will forgive him. They never will, but this is what happens to you when you leave your integrity at the cloak check.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: When we come back, a conversation with Senator Lindsey Graham in his office.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (682)

PLAYS: (1265)

Embed

Following the release of 92,000 war log files, Liz Cheney is calling for WikiLeaks to be shut down and says that the founder has "blood on his hands."

"I would point out that although you've got the news about the WikiLeaks documents that that came out this week and clearly Julian Assange's effort was to change course for the US policy in Afghanistan," Cheney told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

"He was unsuccessful in that. He does clearly have blood on his hands potentially for the people whose names were in those documents who helped the US and I think that's something he will have to live with now," she continued.

"I would really like to see President Obama to move to ask the government of Iceland to shut that website down. I would like to see him move to shut it down ourselves if Iceland won't do it. I would like to see them move aggressively to prosecute Mr. Assange and certainly ensure that he never again gets a visa to enter the United States," said Cheney.

"What he's done is very clearly aiding and abetting al Qaeda. And as I said, he may very well be responsible for the deaths of American soldiers Afghanistan," she concluded.

DOWNLOADS: (972)

PLAYS: (4982)

Embed

I wonder if Sean Hannity fed Elisabeth Hasselbeck her talking points before President Obama appeared on The View this week? Hasselbeck got taken to school over jobs saved and unemployment by the President in this segment.

Hasselbeck: I want to get to something that’s really important to so many Americans. You had promised that the stimulus bill would cap unemployment at 8 percent. We’re at near 10 percent across the country, 12 percent in my home state of Rhode Island. We are in a state of chronic joblessness. Yet, and we heard in the beginning of the show as well, you claimed that there’s "saved jobs", something, a standard that’s not been used before by any administration. [Sigh]

It’s frustrating to hear that saved jobs boasting, because it doesn’t feel that way to Americans when they don’t have jobs and they’re losing jobs. How can you continue and your administration continue saying you’re saving jobs when in fact people are losing jobs?

Obama: Well, actually Elisabeth what’s happened is that we’ve gained private sector jobs for the last five months. So, we were losing jobs when I was sworn in, as I said 750,000 jobs per month. We’ve now gained jobs for five consecutive months in the private sector. You’re absolutely right that it’s not enough. And if you don’t have a job right now, the only answer you want to hear is "I’m hired".

Hasselbeck: Right.

Obama: So, the frustration that people have is entirely justified. Now, I have to tell you though, this isn’t just my standard, Elisabeth, or my administration’s standard. There was a report that came out by a couple of economists just today, including John McCain’s former economist, that said had we not taken the steps that we had took, you would have actually seen millions of more jobs lost and we would be in a Great Depression. So, I know that’s not satisfying and it’s not good enough. But...

Hasselbeck: I think it’s the word ‘saved’ is what’s troubling people cause they don’t feel it.

Obama: Well, it makes a difference though if your job is one of the one that was one of the ones that was saved.

Someone needs to ask Hannity in a skirt if she's seen Steve Benen's monthly jobs chart if she thinks that nothing's been done to improve things since President Obama came into office. Most on the left would argue that not enough has been done and we had a reversal in the trend last month but we're definitely moving away from the bottomless pit Bush was taking us into.

DOWNLOADS: (510)

PLAYS: (789)

Embed

Mike Pence repeats the Republican lie that getting rid of the Bush tax cuts is going to raise taxes on small businesses. As our own Jon Perr noted only about 2% are impacted by the return to higher rates for incomes over $250,000:

Lie #1: President Obama will raise taxes on small businesses.

John McCain introduced this fraud along with Joe the Plumber during the 2008 campaign. McCain proclaimed Obama's plan to restore 1990's tax rates for taxpayers making over $250,000 meant "the small businesses that we're talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now." In February, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) regurgitated the long-debunked talking point:

"I don't think raising taxes is a great idea, and when our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they are really talking about is small business."

Of course, they're not talking about small business. As CNN concluded in October, "fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama's plan." But in case there was any doubt about the Republicans' deception on the point, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center quickly put it to rest:

Out of 34.7 million filers with business income on Schedules C, E or F, 479,000 filers fall into the top two brackets, according to an analysis of projected 2009 filings by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

The other 34.3 million - or 98.6% - would be unaffected by Obama's proposed rate hike.

Somehow Mike Pence thinks that 2% equals "more than half". So either he's really bad at math, or he's lying. I'm in the camp of the latter.

Continue reading »