DOWNLOADS: (148)

PLAYS: (937)

Embed

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter says that President Barack Obama has run Washington D.C. like the ranch where African-American pop star Michael Jackson was accused of molesting children.

During a Sunday panel on ABC's This Week, former Obama administration official Van Jones suggested that the middle class would pay more taxes under presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's tax plan.

"Do you want to elect somebody who won't tell you how much money he's making, he won't give you his tax returns, but the only [plan] he's put on paper will cut his taxes and raise yours?" Jones insisted.

"I think the point isn't whether Barack Obama's personal taxes get raised," Coulter argued. "We have to run the behemoth Neverland Ranch of Washington, D.C. And the main point is cutting the size of government. I mean even when Obama famously froze federal government salaries -- remember that? When he first came into office, that's his fiscal austerity. That didn't freeze salaries. They still get their automatic pay increases."

"You have the government running around having these huge conferences in Las Vegas and Mexico," she continued. "That is what Romney is selling. He is the Bain guy. He is going to cut down this ridiculously-sized government."

In 1993, Michael Jackson was accused sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy who repeatedly made overnight visits to his Neverland Ranch in California. Jackson eventually paid out approximately $25 million to the boy's family and lawyers to settle a civil suit.

The pop star in 2003 was also charged with seven counts of sexual abuse of children. A jury unanimously found him not guilty in 2005.

DOWNLOADS: (303)

PLAYS: (929)

Embed

It appears the House Republicans, this time lead by Arizona Rep. Trent Franks are about to give us a sort of a rerun of the Sandra Fluke debacle, only this time the woman they're refusing to allow to testify before a Congressional hearing is D.C.'s only elected representative, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton:

Trent Franks Blocks D.C. Representative From Testifying About Proposed D.C. Abortion Ban:

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) wants to restrict abortions in the District of Columbia, but he refuses to allow D.C.’s delegate from testifying on behalf of the city’s residents during a hearing about his proposal. Franks’ “fetal pain” bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in D.C. even though there is no scientific proof that a fetus can feel pain at that point and a fetus is not viable.

Del. Eleanor Norton (D), D.C.’s only elected represetative, asked Franks last week if she could testify about the bill at an upcoming Thursday hearing. Franks denied her request, which Norton said breaks tradition of allowing members of Congress to testify about a bill that affects their constituents. Similarly, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) prevented women from testifying on a panel about contraception back in February.

Norton told the Huffington Post that her constituents are “up in arms” about the proposed abortion ban:

“This is the first bill in history that attempts to take the residents of the District of Columbia outside of the protection of the Constitution,” she continued. “The right to have an abortion until viability is a mandated right under Roe v. Wade. I think it takes a lot of nerve to single out the constituents of another member’s district for discriminatory treatment, and we deeply resent it.” [...]

D.C. is an easy target for anti-abortion bills, Norton said, because it doesn’t have any elected officials who can vote in Congress.

“Why wouldn’t they put this bill in for the entire country if they feel so deeply about it?”

In December, House Republicans forced a ban on funding for abortion services in D.C. to avoid a government shutdown and even prevented the city from using local taxes to pay for abortion care, reinstating a 13-year ban on abortion funding in D.C. that President Obama overturned in 2009.

Del. Norton spoke to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow about the upcoming hearing in the video clip above.

DOWNLOADS: (1235)

PLAYS: (1469)

Embed

Chris Matthews has been on somewhat of a roll over the last week or so, asking why the labor unions in the United States aren't taking a page from these astroturf tea partiers and showing up in Washington D.C. to protest on the weekends and send President Obama a message that they're concerned about jobs and getting our economy back on the right track.

On this Thursday's edition of Hardball, The Nation's John Nichols pushed back at Matthews assertion that there aren't union members out there hitting the streets and protesting and talked about what's been going on in Wisconsin for months on end now. What he did not really respond to is why we're not seeing massive numbers of protesters in our nation's Capitol. Nor did he ask Chris Matthews why our national media has largely been ignoring the protests that have been going on in Wisconsin and across the country and in our Capitol for weeks and months on end now.

I wish Nichols had asked Chris Matthews why, when unions and other liberal groups have held rallies in D.C., they've been either largely or completely ignored by our national media. The AFL-CIO just held a rally to protest Wal-Mart last week in D.C. in conjunction with some other groups. Did we hear any of these pundits on cable television talking about it? Of course not. But if twenty of these astroturf "tea party" members show up somewhere, we've got at times more from the media showing up to cover the events than we've got protesters.

I think Chris Matthews needs to look himself in the mirror if he doesn't understand why it appears to most people who watch cable television and apparently to himself that there aren't large numbers of working people and union members taking to the streets and holding rallies and why it's completely dishonest and disingenuous to compare real grass roots and union protests who don't have any big money behind them to the astroturf events they love to hype so much.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (96)

PLAYS: (358)

Embed

November 19, 2009 BBC World

Soldiers. Charioteers. Archers. Musicians. Generals. Acrobats. Nearly 2,000 years ago, thousands of life-size clay figures were buried in massive underground pits to accompany China's first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, into the afterlife. Their discovery outside the city of Xi'an in 1974 is one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Now, you can stand face-to-face with these terra cotta warriors. In November 2009, National Geographic Museum will host Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor, an exhibition featuring treasures from the tomb complex including 15 life-size figures, weapons, armor, coins, and more. Don't miss this chance to see the largest collection of significant artifacts from China ever to travel to the United States. Learn more...