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Weekend Talk Shows Past – Capitol Cloakroom – Sargent Shriver – 1961

Click here to view this media ( Sargent Shriver and Peace Corps Volunteers – an abundance of optimism ) Editors Note: As way of tribute on the passing of Sargent Shriver today at the age of 95, I am reposting this entry, originally from August of 2009 – Gordon The Peace Corps came about as the result of The New Frontier – the brainchild of the Kennedy administration. In 1961 a program was set up to get Americas youth involved in the world by going overseas to help set up schools, libraries, infrastructure – anything to be of service where it was needed. A nice idea, and one which captured the imaginations of thousands of young adults wanting to be part of the optimistic change that was so prevalent in the 1960s. R. Sargent Shriver was given the task of setting the agency up. He was its first architect. He was also given the task of having to explain just what it was he planned on doing. And so he went on the talk show circuit to lay out in plain terms, just what the Peace was and what it wasn’t.One of those talk shows was CBS News’ Capitol Cloakroom from October 1961. Nancy Hanschman (CBS News) : “Are your Peace Corps men expected to proselytize to Democracy in any way at all? What is the briefing you give them on this? Sargent Shriver: “ Well we give them a lot of instruction in American history and government and theory in government and political life and we expect that when they’re asked questions by the people in their foreign country they’ll be able to give them intelligent, informed answers. We don’t go out there and tell them ‘now here is Course Number 101 in American Government – sell this, if you can to the people in the Philippines.’ They’re not out there as traveling salesman, they’re not out there to get up on a soapbox and give a speech. But they are supposed to be out there as well informed, intelligent Americans, able to respond to questions, and even to tough questions from people in foreign countries.” The Peace Corps became a great success and did a lot to improve our somewhat sagging reputation throughout the world. And considering the number of “yanqui go home” placards from demonstrations around the world that graced most newspaper front pages and nightly newscasts through the 1950s, that was a good thing.

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Glenn Beck Just Couldn’t Hold It Back Any Longer

Click here to view this media I had heard that Glenn Beck had been quite muted after the president’s speech last week. But today the dam broke. He just couldn’t hold it back any longer, and let fly with a segment worthy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . Jack Nicholson couldn’t do it any better. He aims at CNN’s John King, who discusses a conversation he had about the Chicago mayoral race, where a colleague used the term “in the crosshairs”. King says they’re trying to get away from that language, but sometimes falter, and for viewers to “hold us accountable when we don’t meet your standards.” This is all it takes to push Beck over the edge. For the next 5 minutes, 49 seconds, he completely loses whatever tenuous hold on sanity he may appear to have. Citing old Bugs Bunny cartoons, he goes on and on about how we’ve raised an entire generation who understand the difference between make-believe and reality. Well, no. What Beck intentionally misses here is the obvious, which is that most people are attuned to what is rhetoric and what is real, and are smart enough to separate them. It’s that group who live on the unraveling edges because of their own mental health state who may not be able to. But of course, that would sort of intrude on Beck’s own stroll down the river of illogic and venom. I do have one observation of my own on his casual dismissal of violent rhetoric. There is a desensitizing effect on sane people. Crosshairs the first time can become a shrug the sixth or seventh time. That doesn’t mean it’s not deleterious. It just means people become that much less sensitive to expressions of harm and violence toward others. I don’t view that as a good thing, even if they don’t act upon the idea. I don’t take Glenn Beck seriously. I know most people here don’t, either. I also don’t believe we have to sugar-coat everything we say, but surely there’s a place for reasonable, respectful verbal exchanges that don’t involve wishing some form of death upon those with opposite viewpoints? (h/t C&L community member PissedOffPatricia )

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Alabama’s new GOP governor: Only Christians are my brothers

Click here to view this media Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley was sworn in Monday and wasted no time in offending his constituents. Speaking to Dexter Street King Memorial Baptist Church, a church once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Bentley declared himself to be the governor of all Alabamians, but added that non-Christians were not his brothers and sisters . “I was elected as a Republican candidate,” he said. “But once I became governor … I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind.” “There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit,” Bentley continued. “But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.” “Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother,” he added. Bentley was later asked if he was trying to be insulting to non-Christians. “We’re not trying to insult anybody,” he replied. “I don’t think he was trying to disenfranchise me, I just think he needs to be a little more sensitive to the fact that there are many different types of Alabamians,” Sheldon Rosenzweig, a member of the Tuscaloosa Jewish synagogue Temple Emanuel, told Tuscaloosa News . “I have real mixed feelings about it. I just hope this is not going to be done in repetition. Many of the people in Alabama who are not Christian are good people.” The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Tuesday was shocked by Bentley’s remarks. “His comments are not only offensive, but also raise serious questions as to whether non-Christians can expect to receive equal treatment during his tenure as governor,” ADL regional director Bill Nigut said. He expressed concern that the new governor may be using his position to evangelize. “If he does so, he is dancing dangerously close to a violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which forbids government from promoting the establishment of any religion,” Nigut noted. Bentley was the second Republican governor who found himself in hot water during the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday. After the NAACP complained that Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a tea party favorite, was not attending their events, the governor responded to a reporter by saying: “Tell ‘em to kiss my butt.” “They are a special interest. End of story … and I’m not going to be held hostage by special interests. And if they want, they can look at my family picture. My son happens to be black, so they can do whatever they’d like about that,” he said.

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Race Card: Schultz Claims Republicans Have ‘Pre-Civil Rights Attitude’ On ObamaCare

If Barack Obama is going to win re-election, he's going to have to count on massive, overwhelming, support from his base.

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Petty Woman

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Petty Woman

Click here to view this media After yet another pathetic performance on the Sean Hannity show the other night, where both Hannity and Palin were trying to paint her as the victim of this Tucson madness, The Daily Show decides to lower the boom on the thing that is known as Sarah Palin. After complaining (actually whining is more accurate) about the politicization of the shootings, Palin a few minutes later refers to Loughner as “an apolitical or perhaps even left-leaning criminal. “There must to be a word for complaining vociferously about a wrong being done to you whilst casually committing said wrong without even realizing it,” Stewart said. “For now let’s call it an ‘Anchorage Steamer.’” Stewart ends with what the rest of us had concluded long ago: “You have become a lighting rod less for your clarity of vision, but more for your ability to turn any criticism of you of into persecution of you.”

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After two days of debate which mostly felt like a replay of the mind-numbing debate we watched in 2009 and 2010, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. All of the Republicans were joined by 4 3 Democrats (Ross, Boren, McIntyre) (List here ). Here are some of the provisions already in effect which they voted to repeal: Excluding children under age 19 with pre-existing conditions Lifting lifetime and annual limits on benefits paid. No longer can a price be put on someone’s life. Allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ policies. Closing the Medicare Part D donut hole for seniors. Some notable quotes from the debate: Michelle Bachmann: Obamacare is the crown jewel of Socialism…We will vote to repeal the President…We will vote to repeal the Senate… Rep. Steve King , who thinks pre-existing conditions exclusions are a ‘minor thing’: It will not work for us to say there’s a certain component of Obamacare that has some merit and so therefore we want to leave that in place and repeal the rest. This is too many pages, it’s too cluttered, it’s too big an argument to allow it to turn on one or two minor things. Rep. Phil Gingrey , whose rhetoric was one of the most odious throughout, in his mockery of yesterday’s report saying that 129 million Americans would be deemed to have pre-existing conditions: One hundred and twenty nine million people with pre-existing conditions! They would all have to have hang nails and fever blisters to have pre-existing conditions and if you believe those statistics, I’ve got a beach to sell you in Pennsylvania. Anthony Weiner, warning anyone playing drinking games during the debate: “If you take a shot whenever Republicans say something that’s not true, please assign a designated driver.” Yes, we all know it’s political theatre, since Harry Reid has already said he won’t bring it before the Senate. Of course it is. But it exposes quite clearly the cynical and ugly Republicans for who they are, and sets the stage for the true debate yet to come: appropriations for the different provisions of the bill, including the insurance exchanges.

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WikiLeaks Banker Fined by Swiss Court

A Swiss judge fined the former banker who gave confidential files to WikiLeaks roughly $6,250, but spared the whistle-blower a prison sentence. Rudolf Elmer was found guilty of violating Switzerland’s confidential banking laws, which have protected such people as tax-dodging Americans and the Nazis . BBC: Judge Sebastian Aeppli fined Rudolf Elmer, 55, more than 6,000 Swiss francs ($6,250; £4,000). But he rejected prosecution demands to give Elmer an eight-month prison sentence. Elmer also said that he had handed confidential Julius Baer banking files to tax authorities, and later the Wikileaks website run by Julian Assange, because he had wanted to expose tax evasion by businessmen and politicians. Read more Related Entries January 18, 2011 What It Was Like to Be John F. Kennedy January 18, 2011 Tucson, Juarez and an Assault Weapons Ban

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Suicides Double Among National Guard, Reserves

The Army’s investment in suicide prevention appears to be paying off, with the first drop among active duty soldiers in five years. However the number of National Guardsmen and reservists who killed themselves—half of whom never saw combat—nearly doubled in the last year. The Washington Post: The officials said they were puzzled by the significant increase in the number of suicides in National Guard and Reserve units, which almost doubled from 80 deaths in 2009 to 145 deaths in 2010. “If you think you know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know, because we don’t know what it is,” [Army vice chief of staff Gen. Peter] Chiarelli said. About half of the National Guard and Reserve soldiers who killed themselves last year had never deployed to a combat zone; by contrast, about two-thirds of the active-duty soldiers who killed themselves had previously deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, or were there when they took their lives. Read more Related Entries January 18, 2011 What It Was Like to Be John F. Kennedy January 18, 2011 Tucson, Juarez and an Assault Weapons Ban

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In Spokane, they know that MLK Day bomb wasn’t an ‘isolated event’

Click here to view this media [H/t Heather ] Well, as Nancy Goldstein points out at The Nation, the national media were pretty reluctant at first to identify Monday’s thwarted bombing of the MLK Day parade in Spokane as domestic terrorism — but not only was I not fooled, neither were the folks in Spokane, particularly not the FBI agents who know the territory. As the Spokesman Review story points out, Spokane has a long and unfortunate history — being the largest city close to what used to be the Aryan Nations compound in northern Idaho, 40 miles east — of having to deal with domestic terrorism — the kind committed by right-wing extremists who hate the government and hate nonwhites: City Council President Joe Shogan praised the people who found the backpack and the officials who defused it. He noted the 1996 bombing of City Hall and said citizens must still be vigilant to prevent attacks. “It would be nice to think that all this kind of activity was in the past, but obviously, it’s not,” Shogan said. “Too often, there’s that attitude that it can’t happen here. Well, it is happening.” A pipe bomb packed with nails and screws exploded outside Spokane City Hall on April 29, 1996. There were no injuries, but the blast blew out a window in one of the doors and sent shrapnel flying into Riverfront Park. Federal prosecutors later indicted white supremacists Chevie Kehoe, of Colville, and Danny Lee, of Yukon, Okla., for the bombing. Both also were later convicted for a 1996 triple murder in Arkansas. The two were accused of working to overthrow the government to set up a whites-only nation. That was hardly the only time domestic terrorists have struck Spokane. Some of the earliest crimes committed by The Order in their 1984 crime spree occurred in Spokane — mostly robberies. As it later turned out, the perpetrators were based in Metaline Falls, about an hour’s drive north of the city. Then there was the 1996 crime spree of the self-proclaimed “Phineas Priesthood” gang , which included a couple of bank robberies, the bombing of a Spokesman Review newspaper plant, and the bombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic. This might be another “isolated incident” unconnected to any political agenda to the folks at Fox. But people in the Northwest know better. Will Bunch raises the right question : Has right-wing carping killed media coverage of major “domestic terrorism” case in Spokane? An explosion and the potential for multiple murders that a shrapnel bomb could have caused to those celebrating Dr. King’s legacy would have been a staggering blow to a nation that is still reeling and feeling the aftershocks of the first assassination attempt against a member of Congress in nearly 33 years. Even though the bomb didn’t explode, the episode raises deeply troubling new questions about the extent of violent politically fueled anger in America in 2011, and why it seems that liberal targets like Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and now King Day marchers like the children pictured at top are the ones in the crosshairs, to use the controversial word of the day. In other words, it’s what Joe Biden might call a BFD. But you wouldn’t know that if, for example, you visited the two websites that — in my own 30 years of experience as a journalist, for better or worse — do more than any other to set the agenda on national coverage in newsrooms across the country. One of those (note I said “for better or worse”) is The Drudge Report, which ultimate Beltway insider Mark Halperin has said “rules our world.” In the 16 or so hours since the FBI went public with the “domestic terrorism” angle, Matt Drudge has spotlighted articles about things like a man arrested for taking photos at Miami airport, a blogger who may lose his firearms permit for a post related to the Tucson massacre, and laser incidents against airplanes — but nothing about the thwarted Spokane bombing. OK, so that’s Matt Drudge — but the silence of the leading mainstream news website — that of the New York Times — is a little harder to explain. I’ve checked their home page at least a half-dozen times since last night, and I have yet to see a featured story on the FBI investigating “domestic terrorism” in Washington State. The lack of Times coverage may explain while for the most part, the coverage of this story on cable TV — the people who routinely hyped run of the mill car chases and blown-tire airplane landings — has been very minimal. I say for the most part because there have been a couple of exceptions. “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC featured the Spokane story as major breaking news at the top of its broadcast last night, and for a time it was the lead story on the Huffington Post. Major news outlets — but with a liberal orientation.

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Today Show Brings Back Glenn Beck to Bash Him Some More

Say what you will about NBC's Today show but they recognize a ratings winner when they see one and they demonstrated that, when they invited Fox News host Glenn Beck back for a second appearance on Wednesday's show. However with that second guest spot came another opportunity to accuse him of fomenting hate. In the 7am half hour Today co-anchor Meredith Vieira accused Beck of contributing to “a dialogue of hate ” that led to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and in the 9am hour it was her colleague Natalie Morales' turn to make that ugly inference as she pressed Beck: ” How do you respond to the accusations…that people make” since the Tucson shooting “that you maybe somewhat to blame?” This time around, Beck took a back seat to his co-author psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow who offered this professional diagnosis for those critics that blame Beck and other conservatives like Sarah Palin for the tragedy in Arizona:

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