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Way to go, MSNBC! After this story broke earlier in the day -- BREAKING: Gov. Scott Walker Punked By Blogger Posing As David Koch -- does anyone think their audience might have wanted to hear what he had to say about it? Apparently MSNBC didn't think so because they cut away from his press conference just before he started taking questions from reporters. Neither did CNN or Fox, who also cut away just as questions from the press were coming. You have to expect it of Fox, considering how much they've invested in demonizing the protesters, but CNN too?

I didn't include the entire press conference MSNBC aired, just the last couple of minutes before Thomas Roberts broke in. Walker was explaining how wonderful it was going to be for their workers not to be forced to pay their union dues. In other words, how he's planning to break their unions financially by turning the workers into free-riders. And he claims this is not about busting unions. Every time he opens his mouth he proves this is all it is about.

Digby writes:

I really have to wonder why the national political press is so unwilling to engage on this Walker/Koch story. Both MSNBC and CNN allowed Walker to give his prepared statement (which included an absurd statement that his budget will save workers' money because they won't have to pay union dues!) --- and then cut away from the Q and A when the Wisconsin press tried to ask him about his statements in that prank call today. Have they been scared away from this story by Republicans calling it a "Breitbart" hoax? Or is it that the evocation of the Big Money Koch brothers makes them squeamish. (After all, going after ACORN and Planned Parenthood only affect a bunch of low income women, so who cares?)

I don't know about that but the Wisconsin press is very, very interested.[..]

The bigger question Walker has to answer now is why he's taking calls from millionaire out-of-state donors and coordinating strategy with him. Even if it's not illegal, his constituents might not find it quite as benign as the jaded cable news networks.

And then there's the fact that he admitted that his goal wasn't to balance the budget but to break the unions. You'd think that would be newsworthy.

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BP's COO Doug Suttles apparently thinks that most Americans are completely ignorant or that even if they aren't, it's not going to matter because the media and our government are going to allow them to cover up the amount of damage done by this catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Suttles gave a press conference this weekend where he downplayed the dangers of the dispersants that have been poured into the Gulf and laid it squarely back on the feet of our government for allowing them to poison the waters. He also claimed that he'd eat the seafood coming out of the Gulf and thinks it's safe. I'd like to personally see for myself someone catch some fish from those waters full of chemicals and watch him eat it and feed it to his children if that's true.

Laffy over at The Political Carnival has been keeping in touch with whistleblower and former EPA investigator Hugh Kaufman and here's her latest take on the media coverage of this disaster and the media downplaying the use of dispersants.

“Shame on LSU, shame on Rush Limbaugh, shame on CNN, shame on Anderson Cooper!” + VIDEO

As she noted in this post as well, I'm not sure how much of what BP is being allowed to get away with has to do with fears of what would happen on Wall Street if their company went down and the government's horrid response to this disaster, but it makes about as much sense as anything else I've read and has also been my gut feeling as to why they haven't done more to keep BP in check as well. All I know is that watching what has gone on has made me feel almost as sick as I did when I watched the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The people in the Gulf deserve better than this and it looks like they're being hung out to dry again.

This time they might be poisoning all of us if they want to tell us those waters are safe for fishing now. I want to hear that the fish being pulled out of that water along with the water they're saying is safe to fish in doesn't have Corexit in it or petroleum products from the spill. I don't believe for one minute that millions of gallons of oil and dispersants just disappeared and those waters are now safe to fish in and swim in.

VIDEO: “Clues to the Obama Administration’s Passive Response to the BP Disaster”

Transcript of the Suttles press conference below the fold.

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February 25, 2010 C-SPAN

The House ethics committee has admonished Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) for improperly accepting reimbursement for trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008 and has ordered him to repay the costs of the trip.

Rangel, who chairs the powerful Ways and Means Committee and has served in the House for more than four decades, has been under investigation by the ethics committee for two separate matters for more than two years. From The Hill

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Rep. Peter King thinks the Obama administration's failure to have either the president himself or one of his officials give a press conference on the attempted Delta airline bombing is somehow the same as Bush not showing up in New Orleans right away after Katrina. I guess King wasn't satisfied that Rep. Pete Hoekstra was the only one going out there making a fool of himself immediately politicizing this thing.

Sorry pal but President Obama not rushing out to do a press conference about this attempted bombing that they probably don't even have a lot of answers on yet is not even remotely the same thing as Bush completely ignoring Hurricane Katrina and what was going on in New Orleans to the point where his aides finally had to put together footage on a DVD days later and get him to watch it for him to even have any idea what was happening down there. Unbelievable. And CNN's Drew Griffin was more than happy to help King along with this history revisionism.

For a reminder of how Bush reacted to Hurricane Katrina, here's a timeline put together by Think Progress.

Griffin also pointed out right after King got off the air with him that Janet Napolitano was going to be on State of the Union on CNN Sunday morning. I guess that's not soon enough to suit King and of course Griffin didn't bring that up while he still had him on the air either.

The Political Carnival pointed out another problem with King's hackery here--Pete King's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Memory:

Just now on CNN, Petey said that the ObamAdministration banned the word "terrorism", which is, of course, why Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab managed to smuggle explosives on board a jetliner.

Lose a word, gain a terrorist. See the logic?

Me neither.

No, Obama never eliminated the word "terrorism" from the government lexicon. It was the phrase "war on terror", one of the stupidest phrases ever concocted by any administration ever. That's why this administration is using different words. President Obama, rightfully, wouldn't want any association whatsoever with BushCoSpeak.

See? Some there is some change we can believe in.

So hey, Bogus Petey, check this out. It may jog your "memory".

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Full transcript via CNN below the fold.

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August 25, 2009 News Corp

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Jon Stewart on George Bush's media blitz on his way out the door.

For the past eight years George W. Bush has done his level best to remain entirely unaccountable to the American people. A record number of signing statements, claims of blanket Executive privlidge for aides, forty seven press conferences vs seventy seven vacations. If ever you thought there was a guy who was just going to back out of the room quietly at the end of his term, this is the guy. But apparently, that's not our George.

[snip]

Apparently President Bush will continue to appear on as many television outlets as it takes to convince us that he does not care what we think.

December 14, 2008 C-SPAN

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After watching this latest rant out of Campbell Brown over Barack Obama's refusal to answer a reporter's question about his choice of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, I've got to say I agree completely with our friend GottaLaff over at The Political Carnival:

Campbell "no bull, no bias" (oh, puh-leeze) Brown accused Obama of being flip, avoiding "a legitimate question", and playing games with the press. Whether she's right or wrong about his obligation to answer that particular question, I don't seem to remember her ever ranting about that in regard to the Bush administration, who virtually spit in the faces of anyone daring to ask so much as one "legitimate" question, let alone a follow-up. Nor would (or could) Bush make even a minimal attempt to give an honest, or coherent, response. If evasive, nasty little retorts were middle fingers, Bush managed to blatantly flip off the press on a regular basis... if and when he held any press conferences. Maybe Mrs. Dan Senor should have had the same set of standards, and intestinal fortitude, to face off with the current president before lashing out at the future one.

Where was the outrage for George Bush when he was behaving badly Campbell? No bias, no bull, my butt.

November 05, 2008 News Corp

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has returned to her home state of Alaska, where she was greeted by dozens of supporters encouraging her to run for president in four years.

The crowd chanted "2012! 2012!" as Palin disembarked her airplane at the Anchorage airport. Asked by reporters if she might run for president, Palin said, "We'll see what happens then."

The Alaska governor said she hoped to work with president-elect Barack Obama on energy policy. She was returning to the state after spending Tuesday night in Phoenix, where she watched election returns with her Republican running mate, Arizona Sen. John McCain.