Scarborough: Just Because I Don’t Hate Obama, Conservatives Think I’m Liberal
February 15, 2011 No Comment
A defensive Joe Scarborough showed up on Tuesday's Hardball, to tell off all his Republican doubters as he defiantly declared: “I'm more ideologically conservative” than most on Capitol Hill “but because I don't hate the President…that makes me a liberal.” The MSNBC host of Morning Joe was pressed to place himself on the ideological spectrum as even Chris Matthews wasn't sure where he stood, which gave Scarborough the opportunity to write-off those who question his conservative credentials as “sad and pathetic” Obama haters. The following exchange was aired on the February 15 edition of Hardball: CHRIS MATTHEWS: Where do you think you are? I think you're sort of center right-right. I'd say you're about two-thirds of the way over, not all the way over. Where would you put yourself? Honestly? Talking to you I think you're not, you're not far right certainly. You're not a liberal. You're not, what I'd call a moderate, which is sort of milquetoast. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well Chris it's, it's fascinating. You've known me since 1994. I went on Hardball all the time in '95, '96, '97 and I was saying the same thing then that I'm saying now. I don't think, if you just want to talk about where the Republican Party is economically, I don't think they're conservative enough. They are talking about slashing 12 percent of the budget but they're not talking about Social Security- MATTHEWS: Touching 12 percent! They're not slashing 12 percent! SCARBOROUGH: Touching 12 percent. So I'm telling them you need to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Pentagon spending, get out of Afghanistan — do all of these things that would help us become, become, get out of this debt crisis, and yet my Republican party — just like they did during the Bush era — is not stepping forward and making those courageous cuts right now. So I don't know — I mean, it used to be that, that position would make me more conservative than where establishment Republicans are in Washington, DC. But I guess since I don't run around talking about where the President was born, and because I say that he's a Christian because he says he's Christian, I suppose that's the new measuring stick for what makes you conservative. I guess these days for a lot of people online, and on cable TV, you've got to actually hate the President or [Matthews laughs] — no, I'm dead serious, Chris. MATTHEWS: I'm laughing because of the truth of what you said. SCARBOROUGH: I'm dead serious, Chris. I'm dead serious. It has nothing to do with ideology any more, because I'm more ideologically conservative on budget matters than anybody I know on Capitol Hill, other than Rand Paul, Ron Paul and a handful of people. But because I don't hate the President, because I think he's a good man and I think he's a good father and I just disagree with his policies, I guess by 2011 standards that makes me a liberal. I don't get it. MATTHEWS: It makes you a great colleague. SCARBOROUGH: It has more to do with personality than what you believe, and I think that's sad and pathetic and why the Republican Party is where it is right now. —Geoffrey Dickens is the Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here
Continue reading …CNN's Suzanne Malveaux complimented a media colleague on Tuesday's Newsroom who hit President Obama from the left that morning. April Ryan cited the liberal Congressional Black Caucus's criticism of Obama's proposed budget , that ” rebuilding our economy on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans is something that is … not acceptable .” Malveaux stated that Ryan ” brought up a very good point .” Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, twice raised Mr. Obama's past as a community organizer in her two questions to the President during his 11 am press conference. The reference to the Congressional Black Caucus came in her first question: RYAN: You started your career of service as a community organizer, and now, we are hearing from people like- organizations like the CBC, saying rebuilding our economy on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans is something that is simply not acceptable, like the cuts to community service block grants, Pell Grants, heating oil assistance, and freezing salaries of federal workers. Now, Roderick Harrison of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Study says it's not good to make these type of cuts at a time of recession, instead of doing it in a time of recovery. After the President defended his proposed budget, the American Urban Radio Networks correspondent followed up with her second reference to the Democrat's past occupation: ” But do you understand when they say, 'is the President feeling our pain?'- especially as you were a community organizer? ” About a half hour later, just after the top of the 12 noon hour, Malveaux made her compliment of Ryan as she asked correspondent Jessica Yellin a question about the press conference: MALVEAUX: Jessica [Yellin], what did you think about the argument he [President Obama] made? He kept talking about, 'I'm going to use a scalpel as opposed to a machete here,' because a lot of people are looking at it- and April Ryan brought up a very good point – is that those suffering the most are dealing with some pretty severe cuts here in some of these programs . On the July 16, 2009 edition of Anderson Cooper 360, the CNN personality gushed over the President's speech to the NAACP , which the Democrat had made earlier that night: “When we saw President Bush go before this group [the NAACP] in 2006, a lot of tension, he ignored this group for five years or so. But his message was similar. He talked about the need for accountability, responsibility. He did not have the same kind of credibility that President Obama does .”
Continue reading …South Dakota’s "Murder Bill" Against Abortion Providers Would Make Scott Roeder Proud
February 15, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media We’ve witnessed some pretty insane things coming out of South Dakota for a long time now including the creepy Bill Napoli and his ‘ Virgin Rant” of 2006 on the only acceptable scenario to allow for an abortion: BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life. South Dakota is now taking it a step farther in their attempts to outlaw abortion. This one might top the list. A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of “justifiable homicide” to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171 , has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote , and is expected to face a floor vote in the state’s GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon. The bill , sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights , alters the state’s legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person “while resisting an attempt to harm” that person’s unborn child or the unborn child of that person’s spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman’s father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one. — UPDATE: Jensen spoke to Mother Jones on Tuesday morning, after this story was published. He says that he disagrees with this interpretation of the bill. “This simply is to bring consistency to South Dakota statute as it relates to justifiable homicide,” said Jensen in an interview, repeating an argument he made in the committee hearing on the bill last week. “If you look at the code, these codes are dealing with illegal acts. Now, abortion is a legal act. So this has got nothing to do with abortion.” Greg Sargent interviewed Jensen and he used an insane analogy to defend his bill: When I asked Jensen what the purpose of the law was, if its target isn’t abortion providers, he provided the following example: “Say an ex-boyfriend who happens to be father of a baby doesn’t want to pay child support for the next 18 years, and he beats on his ex-girfriend’s abdomen in trying to abort her baby. If she did kill him, it would be justified. She is resisting an effort to murder her unborn child.” I wonder how many of these cases have landed in SD’s court system? I’d like to call this the South Dakota-Scott Roeder bill since Roeder, who murdered Dr. Tiller in Kansas, used a very similar argument as his defense his horrific violent act. He had to kill so others could live. That’s the argument defense attorneys are set to make Dec. 22 for Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion activist accused of shooting abortion doctor George Tiller. This is an about face in strategy from their previous statement back in November when Roeder seemingly confessed to the Associated Press that he murdered the prominent and controversial abortion doctor “because of the necessity defense,” saying that he was defending “preborn children.” Can you image how many Randall Terry Lunatic Zombies would descend upon our nation if justifiable homicide became lawful in this way? PFAW is condemning this bill too.
Continue reading …
Campaigning in Uganda is entering its final phase ahead of Friday’s general election. Many candidates are wooing voters in the country’s northern region for the first time. It’s been enjoying relative calms since the departure of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army. But some locals doubt the polls will bring any real benefits to their lives. Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reports from the town of Gulu.
Continue reading …
enlarge Credit: @cruiskeen Wisconsin workers are marching on the capital today to protest Governor Scott Walker’s effort to crush their bargaining rights through the back door. Their newest ally? The Green Bay Packers , past and present, who signed a letter in support of the workers. The statement reads: “We know that it is teamwork on and off the field that makes the Packers and Wisconsin great. As a publicly owned team we wouldn’t have been able to win the Super Bowl without the support of our fans. “It is the same dedication of our public workers every day that makes Wisconsin run. They are the teachers, nurses and child care workers who take care of us and our families. But now in an unprecedented political attack Governor Walker is trying to take away their right to have a voice and bargain at work. “The right to negotiate wages and benefits is a fundamental underpinning of our middle class. When workers join together it serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising community standards. Wisconsin’s long standing tradition of allowing public sector workers to have a voice on the job has worked for the state since the 1930s. It has created greater consistency in the relationship between labor and management and a shared approach to public work. “These public workers are Wisconsin’s champions every single day and we urge the Governor and the State Legislature to not take away their rights.” Excuse me while I go pull our cheeseheads out of the garage and wear them in solidarity with the Packers and the Wisconsin workers. Update: Wisconsin police and firefighers have joined the protest in solidarity, despite being exempt under Walker’s proposal. Also, 400 students walked out of class today to protest suppression of their teachers’ bargaining rights. Private sector unions have also offered support . enlarge Credit: Twitter: AlGardM
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media Dick Armey makes me want to punch myself in the face every time I have to be subjected to his “Why can’t I opt out of Medicare and Social Security?” lament. In his latest appearance on CNN’s Parker/Spitzer yesterday, he did it again: ARMEY: I think they will do that. If it’s going to happen, if will come out of the energy of the newly elected Republicans. But quite frankly there is so much work that has to be done, start with rolling back the new commitments that can’t be fulfilled, which we did with the vote on Obamacare. But the fact of the matter is, on social security, just let it be voluntary on Medicare. I’ll give you one, Eliot. SPITZER: All right. OK. ARMEY: A simple little thing. SPITZER: It’s not going to work, but that’s — ARMEY: Why can’t the United States government allow Dick Armey, a 71-year-old fellow — SPITZER: Right. ARMEY: — who makes a darn good living — SPITZER: Right. ARMEY: — opt out of Medicare without being punished? Just let Medicare be voluntary. I promise you there are a lot of wealthy old geezers and their wives in America — PARKER: I don’t think there are enough. ARMEY: — that would say to the federal government don’t let us be a burden to you, we’ll take care of our own health care. But this government is so devoted to the requirement that we be submitted to their dictatorship of our health care that they can’t even let rich people out of Medicare. It’s goofy. Why can’t Eliot Spitzer just pick up the ball and run with it, instead of giving an anemic response about how Mitt Romney understands mandates? It would have been simple enough to answer him with the truth, which is that Medicare and Social Security work because they are NOT optional? Can you imagine what a mess Medicare would be if “rich old guys” like Dick Armey who makes a “darn good living” were optional? The adverse selection is bad enough now because it only covers the disabled and elderly, but allowing opt-outs would destroy it. Which is Dick Armey’s ultimate goal, of course. I keep thinking that if we actually had the same decibels on the left shouting out for Medicare for All as the “Obamacare” replacement, the country would at least start to become more informed about the underlying principles of health care risk pools and why rich old geezers can’t “opt out” of it. I would also say this: Dick Armey might just change his mind about opting out of Medicare if he were to be diagnosed with a chronic illness that would force him to spend all his ill-gotten gains on health care the way many people in this country do already. Just to reiterate some statistics as the House continues to focus on abortion and health care, personal bankruptcies are at an all-time high, and in 2009, 60% of them were because of medical bills . I will give Dick Armey this much. At least he’s honest about wanting the rich to be treated differently than everyone else. It’s not much, but hey, when you’re a corporate shill for Koch Industries it’s always good to throw just enough truth into the spin to sound credible. After Armey’s ridiculous rant about those terrible “entitlements”, he launches into a bunch of word salad about the fledgling Republican party. It’s almost like he’s confirming Michael Steele’s comment from 2009 when he said Republicans weren’t ready to govern yet. Oops, the Republican speech police will come after him for that comment, just like the NRCC did . Full transcript follows. SPITZER: It’s impossible for a budget to please everyone, but the budget proposed today by President Obama seems not to be pleasing anyone. This should make our next guest very happy, but does it? Dick Armey helped spearhead the Tea Party movement. His battle cry is for government to get small. Welcome, Dick. Great for you to come back and join us. DICK ARMEY, FMR. HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Thank you. PARKER: Welcome back. ARMEY: Thank you. PARKER: A friend of the show, are you happy? Did this make you happy? Is this the budget you’ve been dreaming about? ARMEY: What? PARKER: This budget of President Obama’s? ARMEY: No. No, you know, as — you know, I’ve observed for a long time the biggest problem with the president he just doesn’t get it. And what’s kind of distressing us and an awful lot of grassroots activists across the country and has for a long time is the haunting fear that frankly may be nobody in either party gets it. PARKER: Well, apparently not because nobody will talk about the big cuts that have to be made. ARMEY: Right. PARKER: The spending cuts, entitlements, defense. ARMEY: Right. PARKER: All this. And so what does that say to you that President Obama didn’t even mention cutting entitlements in this budget? ARMEY: Well, first of all, I think — let me take you back to the defining phrase of this grassroots revolution we’ve just seen bring to maturity and we in representation in the Congress of the United States. The defining phrase is constitutionally limited government. Now basically what they’re saying, what we hear in — we have many government programs, some of which ought to be trimmed back and some of which ought not to be trimmed back and some that are social security, we won’t even talk about them. What the grassroots activist is saying, we need you to examine the constitution of the United States, look at the legitimate history of the United States government at work with the private sector, discern what in fact has been productive for the overall community and what has not and then begin the process of returning the government to its excellent job of performance and its legitimate and necessary duties and a restraint to stay out of things that are none of its damned business. SPITZER: Can I ask you a question though, because first of all, I just got a, you know, footnote here describing the Tea Party as mature. I’m not sure I’d go with that one, but that’s a separate issue. ARMEY: The average age — SPITZER: I’m not talking about age. I’m talking about it measuring it another way. Here’s the thing that bothers me. You’ve been on the show a lot. It’s always good fun. Time and time again, you said wait until we win, we’re going to come out with a budget. We the Republican side that shows you we are serious about it. Put aside my personal views on this, now your side is only talking at most about $100 billion which is six percent of this year’s deficit. ARMEY: No. SPITZER: Doesn’t go anywhere near — let me finish — doesn’t go anywhere near the entitlements, doesn’t go near defense. I’m going to be bipartisan in my criticism here, I’m not seeing from your side of the aisle the integrity that you said we would see if you guys won. ARMEY: No. Actually what the Republicans in the House are now saying primarily in response to the requirement that they make some kind of peace with their new members, is $106 billion reduction in the continuing resolution for the last, let’s see, what is it? SPITZER: It’s $100 billion for the fiscal year. ARMEY: Seven months of this year. SPITZER: That’s six percent — six percent of the deficit. ARMEY: But that’s just for the continuing resolution. You also have Jeb Hensarling working on serious budget reform. You also have many, many members of Congress making a point very clear when it comes to that moment when indeed you feel like it is imperative that we raise the debt limit. Be prepared to show how serious budget reforms for the future and reforms that include the elimination of not only major programs but even full agencies of the government. SPITZER: Look, I have here what was in the continuing resolution that was passed by the House Budget Committee. Paul Ryan, everybody acknowledges, extraordinarily smart, he is your budget whiz. None of it goes to what is the serious dollars. It all comes out of the nondefense discretionary budget which is only 12 percent of our total budget. So what I’m saying here is when will your side, and I’m quoting our side to the fire as well, stand up on social security, Medicaid, Medicare and defense with serious change in the trajectory of the budget? ARMEY: I think they will do that. If it’s going to happen, if will come out of the energy of the newly elected Republicans. But quite frankly there is so much work that has to be done, start with rolling back the new commitments that can’t be fulfilled, which we did with the vote on Obamacare. But the fact of the matter is, on social security, just let it be voluntary on Medicare. I’ll give you one, Eliot. SPITZER: All right. OK. ARMEY: A simple little thing. SPITZER: It’s not going to work, but that’s — ARMEY: Why can’t the United States government allow Dick Armey, a 71-year-old fellow — SPITZER: Right. ARMEY: — who makes a darn good living — SPITZER: Right. ARMEY: — opt out of Medicare without being punished? Just let Medicare be voluntary. I promise you there are a lot of wealthy old geezers and their wives in America — PARKER: I don’t think there are enough. ARMEY: — that would say to the federal government don’t let us be a burden to you, we’ll take care of our own health care. But this government is so devoted to the requirement that we be submitted to their dictatorship of our health care that they can’t even let rich people out of Medicare. It’s goofy. SPITZER: You know what? Mitt Romney is going to answer that question for you because he, the conservative Republican understood the necessity of the individual mandate and why health insurance care won’t work without it. Mitt Romney got that. We have embraced a very conservative concept when it comes to that. But anyway — PARKER: Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, said today that they will be wading into the entitlements when the House Republicans put out their budget in the spring. But then Paul Ryan backed off of that a little bit and said, well, first we have to have a family conversation to decide where to go with these things. I don’t understand what they’re talking about in the conversation because the Tea Party movement grew out of this understanding that we’ve got to have this. ARMEY: I understand the Republican Party in the eyes of most grassroots activists including myself, fell into disrepute. I mean, they became careless, reckless and so forth and self-indulgent and shortsighted. They’re frankly almost as bad as the Democrats. I mean, it was quite frightening because this movement is a movement that was born out of despair on both sides of the aisle. And to a large extent this movement was devoted to the proposition that if you wanted to ever once again get to constitutional limited government, you had to rehabilitate the Republican Party. Now the rehabilitation of the Republican Party in office is just beginning and even people that within the context of the standards one might hold for the Republican Party in office, relative to their past performance of the last five, six, seven, eight years, Paul Ryan is a hero. Today, he’s taking baby steps but we’ll bring him along. PARKER: All right. Coming up, Dick Armey. Thanks so much for joining us. I hate to interrupt but we have to go.
Continue reading …A better way to push democracy, but the west’s love-bombing has risks too | Jonathan Freedland
February 15, 2011 No Comment
The pressing question is what those outside the Middle East can do if they want to see reform spread across the region They say that if failure is an orphan, then success has many fathers – and Egypt’s revolution has proved the truth of that aged wisdom all over again. The latest to file a paternity claim is Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary to George W Bush. Out hawking his new memoir, Known and Unknown, Rumsfeld reckons it was Bush’s “freedom agenda” that paved the way for the current revolutionary spirit sweeping the Arab world. “What President Bush has done in Iraq and Afghanistan is to give the people in those countries a chance to have freer political systems and freer economic systems. There’s no question that the example is helpful in the region.” In this, Rumsfeld was a little late to the party. His neoconservative outriders had already been making the case even more forcefully. In the Washington Post Charles Krauthammer took the near-universal admiration for the crowds in Tahrir Square as belated endorsement of the Bush programme. Where once Bush, Tony Blair and the neocons stood alone, now “it seems everyone, even the left, is enthusiastic for Arab democracy”, wrote Krauthammer, adding generously: “Fine. Fellow travellers are welcome.” In Britain Melanie Phillips has expressed astonishment at the sight of progressives backing the Egyptian demands for regime change: hadn’t these same “bien-pensants” denounced the Bush-Blair pursuit of regime change in Iraq? There could only be one explanation for this sudden change of heart: the left opposed the removal of Saddam because he was anti-western, but supported the ejection of Hosni Mubarak because he was pro-western. Er, no. That’s not quite it. Those who cheered last week’s upheaval in Cairo did so because it was a revolution from within, driven entirely by the Egyptian people, and because it was conducted by peaceful means. To put it too mildly, neither of those two conditions applied in Baghdad in 2003. A foreign invasion and an internal, grassroots uprising are not the same thing: it is perfectly possible to oppose one and support the other. Nor can the Bush defenders get away with rewriting the history of the former president’s “freedom agenda”, pursued most vigorously in the first two years of his second term. Those who criticised it did not do so because they believed that Arabs were, in Krauthammer’s words, “uniquely allergic to democracy”. The objection was to a Bush mission fatally tainted by the conquest of Iraq: after the 2003 war, any talk from him of spreading democracy sounded like a threat of invasion. People yearned for freedom, to be sure; they just didn’t believe it was best imposed down the barrel of a gun. What’s more, the “freedom agenda” was always damagingly selective. While Bush urged democracy in, say, Iran, Dick Cheney was lavishing praise on the dictator of Kazakhstan . To those despots who favoured the west Washington showed a blind eye – with Mubarak himself the prime example. Indeed, some of us were arguing in the Guardian in February 2003 that if Bush were serious about spreading democracy to the Middle East, he needn’t go to the trouble of invading Iraq : he could start with Egypt, tying America’s billion-dollar handouts to the country to “democratic performance”, making the cash conditional on Cairo allowing a free press, independent judiciary and real elections. Besides, the Bush team itself didn’t truly believe in the “freedom agenda”. Already cooling on the idea when Mubarak responded to Washington’s pretty tame requests for reform with a middle finger, they gave it up once they saw where democracy could lead: having called for Palestinian elections in 2006, they recoiled at the sight of a Hamas victory. We heard a little less about freedom and democracy after that. All of which makes it a little rich for Rumsfeld and friends to claim that Tahrir Square provides them with delayed vindication. If Bush and Bushism had any role in last week’s upheaval it was negative, continuing to prop up a dictator so hated his people rose up to remove him. Who then has a better paternity claim for the change in Cairo and beyond, besides, of course, the people in the streets themselves? Julian Assange could make a decent case, arguing that it was his WikiLeaks revelations of the Tunisian first couple’s corruption and luxury lifestyle that inspired revolution in that country, sparking the fire that spread next to Egypt and appears to have taken hold in Yemen, Iran and Bahrain , where the same chant that once rang around Tahrir Square has been heard once more: “We demand the fall of the regime.” The most starry-eyed Democrats will want to notch this up as a win for Barack Obama, pointing to his landmark 2009 speech in Cairo and to the simple chronological fact that these revolutions have taken place on his watch. More neutral participants give him credit for making it as clear as he could to a longstanding ally that Mubarak had to go – even over the opposition of some of his own team, including the US special envoy to Egypt. Still, those mixed signals alone ensure that few will recall last Friday’s event as the Obama revolution. More pressing than the allocation of credit is the question of what those outside the region can do if they want to see reform entrenched in Tunisia and Egypt and spread beyond. We know that bombing doesn’t work too well – but nor does love-bombing. If the west, especially the US, backs dissenters too loudly, that allows a regime to cast them as foreign agents and traitors. That was one lesson of the crushed uprising in Iran in the summer of 2009. Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House , told me he’s reached the glum conclusion that if western governments want to help the Iranian opposition, the best they can do is stay well away. “I wouldn’t even touch Iran. All you do is strengthen the regime.” Instead, the west should look to enable, rather than to do, exercising what foreign policy circles think of as soft or smart power, rather than hard, military might. The aim should be to nurture what Niblett calls “the infrastructure of representative government” – the rule of law, a free press and judiciary, parliament – in countries that currently lack the democratic basics. That way, if and when revolution comes, it will have a chance to dig in, take root and survive. Obviously that won’t work with avowedly hostile regimes: Iran and Syria won’t allow foreign teams to come in and start training police or judges. But the west has leverage over the likes of Morocco or Jordan: as allies, they will find it harder to say no. This can’t be a task for the US alone. The European Union can contribute too: after all, soft power is what we’re meant to be good at. Right now, it is the peoples themselves who are rising up and demanding freedom. Our job is to stop backing the tyrants who have oppressed them – and to lend a hand where we can help. That would be a freedom agenda worthy of the name. Egypt Middle East Protest George Bush Donald Rumsfeld Hosni Mubarak Barack Obama United States US foreign policy European Union Jonathan Freedland guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …There are very few Americans who believe that the maintenance of the American republic literally depends on their continued relevance. Journalists comprise a large portion of that relatively small group. So as technology has enabled public figures to circumvent traditional media, those journalists have raised the alarm that without the proper “filters” (them, of course) constitutional republicanism itself is at risk. ABC News's Devin Dwyer reported on Tuesday: But while these innovative communications tools [used by the Obama White House] ostensibly offer greater transparency and openness, critics say they have come at a troublesome expense: less accountability of the administration by the independent, mainstream press. Over the past few months, as White House cameras have been granted free reign behind the scenes, officials have blocked broadcast news outlets from events traditionally open to coverage and limited opportunities to publicly question the president himself. Obama's recent signing of the historic New START treaty with Russia and his post-State of the Union cabinet meeting, for example, were both closed to reporters in a break with tradition. And during a recent question and answer session with the president and visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the White House imposed an unusual limit of just one question each from the U.S. and Canadian press corps. “The administration has narrowed access by the mainstream media to an unprecedented extent,” said ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton, who has covered seven administrations. “Access here has shriveled.” The consequence of reduced access, from the perspective of traditional media, is that the president's statements cannot be vetted by reporters. But as was so clearly demonstrated in the run-up to the 2008 elections – and in post-mortems since then – journalists will only vet people they want to vet. Obama was not scrutinized by the traditional media so fond of their own roles in preserving political accountability and transparency. From exhortations of Obama's demigod status to the maintenance of CNN's ” Revered Wright-free zone ,” the press, on the whole, decided that it didn't feel like vetting Obama. Dwyer quotes one media scholar: “They're opening the door to kicking the press out of historic events, and opening the door to having a very filtered format for which they give the American public information that doesn't have any criticism allowed,” said University of Minnesota journalism professor and political communication analyst Heather LaMarre. But the press demonstrated its own willingness to filter out information damaging to then-candidate Obama. Reporters of course apply more scrutiny to the White House than the White House does, but to simply bestow the mantle of neutral arbiter upon the press that was so derelict in its duty as a political watchdog would be an exercise in willful blindness. While the “filter” provided by traditional media has for so long been given the presumption of political neutrality and granted unique credibility accordingly, the White House's new media messaging must necessarily compete on equal footing with billions of other messages swirling around the Web. Another media scholar in Dwyer's piece made this comparison: “If Nixon had announced he was going to start the 'Nixon channel' and said they were only going to put up stuff he approved of, people would have said, 'Oh my God, this is like Communist Russian state media,'” said David Perlmutter, director of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication. (No word on whether Perlmutter considered the ” Barack Obama's Plan for America ” Dish Network channel Soviet-esque.) That comparison would only have been accurate if a total of four websites were currently in existence. After all, a Nixon channel would only have had to compete with the networks and PBS. There is no comparing that dynamic with our current digital media environment. By removing traditional media filters from the equation, the White House is forcing its messaging to compete on a far more level playing field. That doesn't make the information coming from the White House any better or more honest, but it can no longer be given a rubber stamp of legitimacy by a press that has routinely incorporated its own political preferences into its role as an information “filter.”
Continue reading …Jersey’s Biggest Hypocrite– The New Blue America Ad Leonard Lance Forced Us To Make
February 15, 2011 No CommentLast night Forbes Magazine summed up our dilemma : because technically our first ad was inaccurate– we didn’t mention that Lance was still taking government-subsidized healthcare paid for by New Jersey taxpayers through the state plan instead of the far less costly federal congressional plan– we had to stop running it on WCTC, 1450AM in Somerset. “[T]he reason Rep. Lance turned down the federal benefits,” explains Forbes “is because he’s already getting a better policy at a much better deal from the State of New Jersey. As a retiree from the state senate, he qualified for a free Cadillac style health care plan the state provides for retirees and their families (he does have to pay co-pays but no premiums) for life.” That would be one of the programs that have come under attack by conservative Governor Chris Christie in his battle with public employee unions over the unusually lucrative benefits paid to retiring public servants. Oops. So much for sacrificing to make a point. …What is important here is that Rep. Lance and his family are in great shape when it comes to their own health care thanks to the generosity of the taxpayers of New Jersey. As for the Americans who would be denied health coverage by Lance’s repeal vote– coverage that does not even begin to approach the quality of what the good Congressman is receiving for free– well, I guess that’s a personal problem for Americans that Rep. Lance cannot be bothered about. So… our new ad (above) is ready to go and we’re getting it up on WCTC this week. And we’d like to get it on some other stations as well. Can you help us do that through our ActBlue page ? Ed Potosnak, the Blue America-endorsed candidate from 2010, who is looking like Lance’s likely challenger in 2012 as well, is demanding that Lance “come clean with New Jerseyans and admit the radio ads run on WCTC were essentially correct.” We agree . Lance claimed ads educating listeners to the fact that he voted to deny everyday Americans the benefits, protections, and security he gets through Government provided healthcare for him and his family were false. After Congressman Lance requested the ad be pulled because he forwent federal insurance, what Mr. Lance was attempting to conceal was then uncovered. Congressman Lance’s family health insurance is being paid for by New Jersey taxpayers, to the tune of $1,906.42 per month, or $22,877.04 per year, more than twice the cost of the federal plan. —- “If we are going to get our edge back in America we need to change the people in Washington because our families are taxed enough and deserve some honesty,” Potosnak added. “I am committed to creating jobs for unemployed Americans by simulating innovation, research and development and improving education,” he concluded. When Lance’s clueless bully of a Chief of Staff, Todd Mitchell, insisted WCTC stop running the ad because of the technicality, he stepped in it big time. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut,” he moaned to the Cherry Hill Post-Courier when Lance was exposed trying to mislead his own constituents by making them believe he was paying for his own healthcare without any government subsidies, the way he insists they do. We’ll look forward to helping Democrats win back this seat, one that President Obama won in 2010, next year and replacing a hypocritical and dishonest career politician with a forward-thinking progressive, hopefully Ed Potosnak. Somehow I have a feeling New Jersey residents are sick and tired of being represented by Snooki and Leonard Lance. Again, give us a hand if you can with the ad here and… listen to it again: John Amato : Here’s my quote form Blue America’s press release: “Governor Christie,” said Amato, “claims he’s opposed to these Cadillac style plans for state retirees. Well Lance’s plan is a Rolls Royce, not a Caddy and he didn’t need to be burdening New Jersey taxpayers with his family healthcare. He could have done what almost every other member of Congress did– including all the other Republicans in the New Jersey delegation– and accepted the federal plan. Or is Christie’s opposition just for public employee unions– teachers, firefighters and policemen– and not for career politicians like Lance?”
Continue reading …
Following Monday’s protests, in which at least two protesters died, the Iranian government is moving to hold the two opposition leaders who called for the demonstration to be held accountable.
Continue reading …