DOWNLOADS: (55)

PLAYS: (1122)

Embed

Republican Texas Rep. Joe Barton on Wednesday dismissed concerns that the Keystone XL pipeline could contribute to climate change, citing the biblical flood myth described in the book of Genesis as evidence that climate change was not man made.

BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski obtained video of Barton speaking to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power in support of the Northern Route Approval Act, a bill that could allow Congress to override President Barack Obama if he refuses to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline extension.

"I don't think it's a secret that I'm a proponent and supporter of the Keystone pipeline," Barton explained.

In contrast to Barton's past insistence that global warming science is "pretty weak stuff," the Texas Republican took a different tack in Wednesday's hearing.

"I don't deny that the climate is changing," he said. "I think you can have an honest difference of opinion on what's causing that change without automatically being either all-in that it's all because of mankind or it's all just natural. I think there's a divergence of evidence."

"I would point out if you're a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change. And that certainly wasn't because mankind overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy."

DOWNLOADS: (261)

PLAYS: (4580)

Embed

A spokesperson for the Department of State recently seemed to be really enjoying his job as called out Fox News correspondent Justin Fishel for asking an "asinine" question that suggested Secretary Hillary Clinton had faked her illness to avoid testifying about September attacks in Benghazi.

Officials revealed last month that Clinton's testimony would be postponed after she became sick, fainted and suffered a concussion. Just two days later, Fishel showed up at a State Department press briefing and seemed to question the official story.

"Toria, can you expand on why Secretary Clinton can’t testify on Thursday about this?" the Fox News correspondent asked department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, according to a transcript. "It seems that she has not been available to testify on the Benghazi situation on some very key dates, including the Sunday after 9/11 and now this Thursday."

"As we put out on Saturday, she is still under the weather," Nuland calmly explained. "She was diagnosed as having suffered a concussion, and her doctors have urged her to stay home this week. So it’s on that basis that she’s asked for the committees’ understanding... But it was her intention to be there. If she had not been ill, she would be there."

In an email obtained by The Washington Post and published on Wednesday, Clinton Senior Advisor Philippe Reines took a much snarkier tone with Fishel.

"We owe you an apology," Reines wrote. "I’m almost embarrassed to even admit this – but somehow your question at today’s Daily Press Briefing was somehow completely mauled and transcribed in the release."

"I just called them and read them the riot act for putting such misleading, accusatory, and absolutely asinine words in your mouth. Because after what we and her doctors explained over the weekend regarding her health, you couldn’t possibly have been insinuating the ulterior motives that question implies. No way. No credible journalist would do that without any basis whatsoever."

Reines continued by pointing out that there was no way "an informed reporter" would compare testifying before Congress with appearing an Sunday morning talk shows as Fishel seemed to do by asking why Clinton had "not been available to testify" in an interview on Fox News on the Sunday after the attacks instead of United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.

"I don’t know Chris Wallace all that well, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t place his television show on par with one of the three branches of our government," Reines insisted. "And therefore, saying that this has happened on multiple ‘key dates’ is simply a blatant lie and grossly misleading to the public."

"Anyway, our sincere apologies," he concluded. "If you send us what you really said, I’ll make sure it’s properly reflected."

Last year, Reines had taken a less-subtle approach with BuzzFeed correspondent Michael Hastings, telling him to "fuck off" and "have a good life."

DOWNLOADS: (258)

PLAYS: (3087)

Embed

I would imagine that Piers Morgan and the producers at CNN were expecting BuzzFeed's Michael Hastings to be pretty harsh on the now scandal ridden Gen. David Petraeus, because I find it hard to believe they would have invited him on the air without reading his recent article here -- The Sins Of General David Petraeus.

What they probably didn't expect was for him to go after the other guest, their own Barbara Starr for taking dictation from the Pentagon and the media in general for their worship of Petraeus. Whatever the case, it was well worth the time watching the segment just to see Piers Morgan squirm in discomfort with his response to Hastings.

MORGAN: Paula Broadwell calling David Petraeus a role model. How things have changed. Joining me now is General Mark Kimmitt who has known General Petraeus for 25 years, also Michael Hastings, Buzzfeed reporter and writing for "Rolling Stone." He says America should have never trusted Petraeus in the first place. And Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, a former Defense Intelligence officer who also served with the CIA. Welcome to you all.

General Kimmitt, let me start with you. You've known General Petraeus for 25 years. Do you recognize the man that you've been reading about for the last 24 hours?

GEN. GEORGE KIMMITT, FMR. DIRECTOR, PLANS & STRATEGIES, CENTRAL COMMAND: Well, in many ways, I do, because with this one exception of this incident that he had with Paula Broadwell, I think the fact that this was a guy that stood up when the facts became known, did the honorable thing and resigned. That's the David Petraeus that I know.

MORGAN: Should a general in his position, who has moved on to run the CIA, have to resign his post over an affair, which is really what this seems to have been about?

KIMMITT: My opinion, yes. Any commander of an organization who is caught in that kind of compromising behavior, someone who is supposed to set the standards and enforce the standards for that organization, when he is caught in a compromising position, he's got to do the honorable thing and step down. I think Attorney General Mukasey mentioned that as well. And I stand behind those comments as well.

Any commander that has lost the trust and confidence of his unit has to stand down. MORGAN: Michael Hastings, in your Buzzfeed article, "The Sins of General David Petraeus," you argue that Petraeus was a master of deception. Do you think he should have resigned?

MICHAEL HASTINGS, "ROLLING STONE": I think there's many other reasons Petraeus should have resigned besides who he's sleeping with that's not his wife. But I just want to make a point here. The larger point that I've been making is that essentially the media has played a role in protecting David Petraeus and promoting David Petraeus and mythologizing David Petraeus.

We saw it here tonight. General Kimmitt, who was a spokesperson in Baghdad, who was a roommate of Petraeus, who was involved in one of the biggest debacles in recent foreign policy history, is on TV defending David Petraeus without actually addressing the real problems with David Petraeus' record.

Those are the fact that he manipulated the White House into escalating Afghanistan. He ran a campaign in Iraq that was brutally savage, included arming the worst of the worst, Shiite death squads, Sunni militiamen. And then you go back to the training of the Iraqi army program that also had similar problems.

So for me, all the while, he's going around the country talking about honor and integrity. So for me the questions of honor and integrity -- I was raising those earlier. A number of other journalists who were actually covering David Petraeus were raising those concerns. You might not get that from someone like Barbara Starr at CNN, who essentially is a spokesperson for the Pentagon in many ways.

So I think I just want to step back and have my piece, because this -- even the way the scandal is being covered is so different than how usual sex scandals are being covered, where they hammer the guy mercilessly. Now everyone is saying oh, my God, he just went to the CIA; how could he be -- you know, he was susceptible to being seduced by this woman.

Give me a break. Petraeus now has all his allies coming out to defend him, where Paula Broadwell is there yet again -- where are her protectors?

MORGAN: Barbara is not a spokesperson for him, obviously. Let's move to --

HASTINGS: Not too obviously. I have followed her coverage pretty closely as she has covered my work before, too.

MORGAN: Just because she's written naughty things about you doesn't make her a spokesperson.

HASTINGS: No. What makes her a spokesperson is repeating without question a lot of Pentagon claims.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (253)

PLAYS: (8426)

Embed

At least one conservative Fox News commentator isn't blaming Mitt Romney's loss on Hurricane Sandy.

On Thursday, tea party-backed radio host Michael Graham told Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly that President Barack Obama scared voters by claiming that women would be "forced into rape camps" under the Republican presidential nominee.

Graham explained that Obama was not elected with a mandate because "he didn't run on an affirmative campaign."

"He ran on the Republicans are Satan incarnate and if women vote for them, they're going to be forced into rape camps," the radio host insisted. "And when that's your campaign, you can't be surprised when the people you ran against don't want to work with you and you don't have an issue to rally people around."

(h/t: BuzzFeed)

DOWNLOADS: (134)

PLAYS: (1207)

Embed

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) on Monday said that GOP hopeful Mitt Romney's ad suggesting that Chrysler was moving Jeep production to China was "100 percent correct and accurate" -- even though fact checkers have determined the claim is false.

"I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China," the Republican presidential candidate told supporters in Defiance, Ohio last week.

In an ad released on Sunday, the campaign repeated the claim, saying that Obama "sold Chrysler to Italians, who are going to build Jeeps in China."

The candidate apparently picked up idea that Chrysler was going to move all production to China from conservative bloggers who twisted an otherwise-accurate story from Bloomberg News.

And even Gualberto Ranieri, Chrysler’s vice president of communications, has said that the claims are just not true.

"Despite clear and accurate reporting, the take has given birth to a number of stories making readers believe that Chrysler plans to shift all Jeep production to China from North America, and therefore idle assembly lines and U.S. workforce," Ranieri wrote on Oct. 25. "It is a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats."

"A careful and unbiased reading of the Bloomberg take would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments," he added.

After reviewing the ad on Sunday, BuzzFeed's McKay Coppins tweeted: "There's really no good explanation or excuse for it. Mitt Romney's Jeep ad is misleading. Full stop."

"Ads that mislead or stretch the truth are nothing new for presidential campaigns," Business Insider's Grace Wyler explained. "But this ad — and Romney's comments last week — has prompted harsh criticism from the media, likely because it strikes reporters as not only disingenuous, but irresponsible. For Romney to suggest that the livelihoods of specific voters — namely workers at the Jeep plant in Toledo — are in danger in order to win an election comes across to many as the type of fear-mongering that no one wants in a president. "

During an interview on Monday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell asked Chaffetz if the Romney campaign should stop running the ad.

"No!" Chaffetz replied. "It's 100 percent correct and accurate. The Romney campaign stands behind it."

For its part, President Barack Obama's campaign released an ad on Monday calling Romney's assertion an outright "lie."

"When the auto industry faced collapse, Mitt Romney turned his back," the Obama ad says. "Even the conservative Detroit News criticized Romney for his ‘wrong-headedness’ on the bailout."

"And now, after Romney’s false claim of Jeep outsourcing to China, Chrysler itself has refuted Romney’s lie."

Speaking to supporters in Youngstown, Ohio on Monday, Vice President Joe Biden said Romney's ad was "absolutely, patently false" and he had "never seen anything like that."

"Have they no shame?" the vice president wondered. "Romney will say anything, absolutely anything to win it seems."

(h/t: Political Carnival)

DOWNLOADS: (309)

PLAYS: (4538)

Embed

Actress Tiny Fey was seething on Wednesday as she try to express her outrage at recent comments by several Republican politicians about rape.

"I wish we could have an honest and respectful dialogue about these complicated issues," the comedienne told the Center for Reproductive Rights Inaugural Gala. "But it seems like we can’t right now. And if I have to listen to one more gray-faced man with a two-dollar haircut explain to me what rape is, I’m gonna lose my mind!"

Last month, Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin had asserted that women could not get pregnant through “legitimate rape.” And then Republican Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock claimed on Tuesday that pregnancy from rape “is something that God intended to happen.”

"I watch these guys and I'm like, what is happening? Am I secretary on Mad Men?" Fey said on Wednesday. "What is happening?"

"Todd Akin. Oof. This guy," she continued. "Todd Akin claims that women can’t really get pregnant from a legitimate rape because the body secretes hormones. Now I can’t even finish this sentence without getting dumber; it’s making me dumber when I say it—but it’s something about the body not being able to get pregnant when it’s under physical stress."

"Mr. Akin, I think you are confusing the phrase ‘legitimate rape’ with the phrase ‘competitive gymnastics.’”

(h/t: BuzzFeed)

DOWNLOADS: (171)

PLAYS: (850)

Embed

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Friday refused to condemn Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) suggestion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, had infiltrated the U.S. government on behalf of radical Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) accused Bachmann and four other Republican lawmakers of “specious and degrading attacks” after they called on inspectors general in the State, Homeland Security, Defense and Justice departments to investigate “potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration” of the Obama administration by Abedin, an aide to Secretary Clinton and wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY).

McCain was just the first in a series of Republicans -- including House Speaker John Boehner, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner and former Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins -- who spoke up to condemn the anti-Muslim accusations.

Although Cantor had recently said his party needed to be more tolerant of LGBT people and Muslims, he seemed on Friday to legitimize Bachmann's call for an investigation.

"If you read some of the reports that have covered this story, I think that her concern was about the security of the country," the Virginia Republican insisted to CBS host Charlie Rose. "So, that's about all I know."

In an interview with BuzzFeed last week, Cantor called on Republicans for an "acceptance of diversity."

"I’ve always said we need to be a party of inclusion not exclusion," Cantor explained. "We need to be promoting tolerance and, you know, as someone who is a religious minority, I sort of grew up with having that mindset, knowing full well that I am in a very distinct way from a religious background, separate and apart from the mainstream of this country."

He added that it was "absolutely wrong to stereotype or look badly at anyone because of their religion."

(h/t: Think Progress)

Here's a little bit of entertainment for a slow news day when most of our politicians and pundits have taken the day, the week, or more off for the holiday. The Young Turks Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian had a bit of fun with this Buzzfeed article featuring pictures of politicians and political figures from their high school days.

I think it's fair to say that Buzzfeed has their post incorrectly titled, since you should not be calling Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow "politicians," but here's the link to the post with all the photos: 69 Politicians As They Were In High School.

I was really amused by David Axelrod's photo, who looked like some long haired stoner in the picture they posted. Eric Cantor reminds me of the James Spader character in Pretty in Pink. And I don't even know what to say about Rick Santorum and those plaid pants with the white socks, or Rand Paul happily dissecting a cat. On the other end of the spectrum, Nancy Pelosi was absolutely gorgeous. The woman really looked like she could have been a leading actress in a Hollywood movie.

All in all, I think these photos reinforce notions about what these public figures might have been like as a kid.

H/t Raw Story