Home » Posts tagged with » breaking news (Page 799)

NewsBusters asked Saturday if ABC's “This Week” would fully report a Tucson shooting survivor issuing a death threat to a Tea Party leader at a special town hall meeting taped earlier that day. Although host Christiane Amanpour, in a brief, 30 second after-thought at the close of Sunday's program, told viewers J. Eric Fuller's threat was directed at a Tea Party member, she omitted Fuller saying “You're dead” to Trent Humphries (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: As our town hall concluded, one of the victims of the shooting in our audience became agitated and was detained by security. James Eric Fuller, who was shot twice last Saturday, appeared to direct a threat towards a member of the Tea Party in our audience when he spoke. Fuller was charged with a misdemeanor and involuntarily committed according to the Pima County Sheriff's office. And that was it. No mention that Fuller allegedly took a picture of Humphries while he was speaking and said, “You're dead!” Why did Amanpour and Company omit this detail, especially since “This Week” included a rather lengthy, unrelated statement from Humphries in Sunday's program: TRENT HUMPHRIES: Well, I mean, we talk about the other things too is we talk about how come nobody could be aware this man had a medical history of — of that. But HIPAA laws would prevent that. It's not just gun laws that are standing in the way of this happening. There are all kinds of laws that Congress needs to look at and — and I think there is a time for this debate. But for what we saw and felt right now, I'm not sure that applause and things going on are appropriate right now until we've had actually, maybe had the funerals finished for the people that have –that were (sic) suffered and died. My neighbor is one of those people. And — and I loved that man. And — and I want to see — I want to see some introspection maybe from the people before the national debate happens. You know, and those — and — and it's very well to have those things. But something's going to have to happen with — with everybody. And — and I just — I mean, it's — it's something that where as a country, we talk about political discourse and what's appropriate and what's not. I think that — that applies to everybody including the media who's — who's — you know, and not in this — this — this has been a very, very cathartic thing for everybody. Immediately after the shooting to see people jump to political angles. I just don't want to see that right now and I'm a very political person. So I — I would ask that maybe we — we have that discussion and it's a larger discussion and that — and that we have that just a little bit later. This therefore makes it twice in the past two installments of “This Week” that key elements involving the Tucson shootings were intentionally omitted. As NewsBusters reported last Sunday, when ABC's Pierre Thomas interviewed a friend of the assailant, he completely ignored that Caitlin Parker had told people via Twitter Jared Lee Loughner was a liberal. This raises an important question: exactly what kind of credibility does ABC News strive for its flagship Sunday political program if producers feel they can omit pertinent details from stories whenever they're inconvenient to the message? Consider that the transcript of Sunday's “This Week” available at ABCNews.com not only failed to mention the specifics of the death threat, but also ignored the Tea Party component: AMANPOUR: As our town hall concluded, one of the victims of the shooting, who was in our audience because agitated and was detained by security. James Eric Fuller, who was shot twice last Saturday, took offices at what another audience member had said and mumbled what seemed to be a threat. He was charged with a misdemeanor and involuntarily committed according to the Pima County Sheriff's office. To be sure, transcripts are often rushed. But this bears little resemblance to what Amanpour actuallly said. Also curious were changes made to an article about the town hall meeting posted at ABCNews.com Saturday. As NewsBusters reported , the following two paragraphs were at the end of a piece on this subject: Towards the end of an otherwise thoughtful town hall, there was a single incident: James Eric Fuller, who was shot at the Safeway last week, allegedly made a threatening comment to another audience member, Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries. It is unclear whether Humphries heard Fuller and the two never engaged. According to the Pima County Sheriff's Department, Fuller used a cell phone to take a picture of Humphries and allegedly said, “You're dead.” Fifteen seconds after the conclusion of the town hall, law enforcement officials approached Fuller and led him to a side entrance. A moment later, Fuller could heard yelling, “What's the matter–with you–whores!” Fuller was charged with disorderly conduct and threatening and intimidation and taken to a local mental health facility, according to the Sheriff's Department. That is now followed by these paragraphs added some time after NewsBusters filed its report: In a statement Humphries said, “I was asked to give my thoughts on gun control laws and perhaps the passage of new laws. … A gentleman in the audience who I had never met before began booing and made the comment 'you're dead' while taking my picture. I was escorted from the location of the filming and spoken to by several deputies about the incident. I told them I was very hesitant to press any charges against this gentleman, but after they urged me to do so based on the gravity of the situation, and the lessons learned from the recent tragedy. I allowed them to proceed as recommended,” he said. “This is another sad piece to add to an already tragic set of events,” Humphries added in the statement. “My hope continues to remain that we as a community be allowed the ability to heal and focus on those things that will best help our city and its citizens recover from this deadly tragedy,” he said. With all this additional information at her disposal, why did Amanpour give “This Week” viewers such a brief, incomplete description of what happened at the end of her town hall meeting? Would Amanpour have made the same omission if Fuller was the Tea Party leader and Humphries the shooting survivor? Quite the contrary, it seems a metaphysical certitude that if a Tea Partier had issued exactly the same threat to a shooting survivor during this gathering, it would have been a huge focus of Sunday's program, and would likely have been reported by every other news agency in America. Unfortunately, a liberal threatening a Tea Partier just doesn't fit the agenda so-called journalists are advancing today.

Continue reading …

A break in near-constant rain today allowed Brazilian rescue helicopters to deliver desperately needed food and water to neighborhoods buried under tons of earth in mudslides that have killed more than 600. Rain clouds lifted, allowing about a dozen helicopters to buzz around the craggy peaks of the emerald-green mountains…

Continue reading …

John Kerry gave a speech last week at the Center for American Progress that should become the marching song for every liberal in this country. He was clear: The last 10 years have cost us too much, and if the hyper-partisan tone doesn’t change to one of true concern for the direction of this country, we will cede any chance to lead to others. He hits it all: Infrastructure, energy, debt, climate change. Every point. The one that hit home for me was when he talked about where we might have been, had Bush and the Republicans not unwound progress made during the Clinton administration. Here’s an example. We talk about how the Clinton tax rates generated a surplus, but we stop there. We don’t talk about the fact that if the Clinton tax rates had remained in effect, the entire national debt would have been paid off by 2012. Imagine what a difference that would have made in today’s dialogue. And more importantly, why aren’t we hammering this home every single time one of those self-righteous Republican buffoons stands up and talks about how our national debt is killing the country? Kerry points out that we would be at a point where our financial position would be at it’s strongest point ever. What would that have meant when (or if) the bottom fell out of the economy? Most assuredly, we wouldn’t have to be speaking of debt retirement and austerity. We need to start going there. This shouldn’t be swept under the rug. I can’t recommend this highly enough. Take an hour out of your day and watch Kerry’s speech. He really hits hard on the cost of NOT investing in the country and how it puts us behind on a global basis every single day. Check out this headline from January 26, 2000, just 11 years ago: Consumer Confidence Hits an All-Time High; Jobs Called ‘Plentiful’ : Clinton Sees An Early Payoff of U.S. Debt Compare it to today’s headlines ( this one, from the Wall Street Journal , one of the biggest tax-cut pimps): U.S. Ran $80 Billion Budget Deficit in December I think we need to give Republicans full credit for everything they did for to us. We should be at least as loud as the anti-hcr folks are, and we should repeat it every single day in public, especially to anyone who still thinks Republicans are fiscally responsible. (Aside: Here’s a giggle for you…check out the names on the Sunday news shows at the bottom of this Google news clipping . Even then, McCain was front and center.)

Continue reading …

First it was birds, then fish, then more fish. Now, it’s 200 cows lying dead in a Wisconsin field, reports the Rapid-Tribune. But this mass die-off might be a little less murky: The farmer reportedly told local officials he suspected the animals died of one of two viruses common to…

Continue reading …

Tom Delay appeared on The TODAY Show with his lawyer to announce that The Hammer was convicted by a jury of his peers because the case was tried in the most “liberal city in America.” He called it the criminalization of politics . I think when you break the law using politics to launder money to people that actually makes one a criminal, doesn’t it? Delay: first of all, I was tried in the most liberal county in the state of Texas, indeed in the United States. Getting a jury — the foreman of the jury was a Greenpeace activist. I’m not criticizing the jury. The point is, that this is a political campaign, has everything to do that the district attorney used six grand juries before he found one just sworn in to indict me on laws that don’t exist in Texas . [--] Matt, you can’t — to have money laundering, you have to have proceeds from a criminal activity, like drugs or things like that. They never proved that these proceeds were illegal. They were legally raised corporate funds that were send to Washington to be used legally around the country and Washington sent legally raised funds back to Texas. That’s not money laundering . Does that make sense to you? And then he went hog-wild on the issue of gun control. Matt: You would have no different opinion in terms of the ban on assault weapons you didn’t allow to come to a vote in 2004. I’m not connecting dots that don’t exist here, Congressman, believe me. In that law would have prevented the new manufacture of things like this extended magazine used by this alleged shooter in this case. Delay: He still could have gotten an old one. No new thinking of the philosophical idea of that? Absolutely not. Guns and people that carry guns are a deterrent. Happened right here in Texas. We had a situation where people would bump into women in expensive cars and rob them right on the freeway. The day that a “concealed carry” went into law in the state of Texas, that all stopped because the robbers didn’t know if the women they were bumping into had a gun or not. This is all stuff we shouldn’t be talking about. What we ought to be talking about is the rhetoric in Washington , what people ought to be — how people should be treating each other civilly. Gun control and grandstanding doesn’t help anybody. What a fine example of armed citizens stopping crime. Tom Delay belongs in jail with his partner in crime, Jack Abramoff. I only wish we could throw away the key.

Continue reading …
Raw Video: Motorcycle Lovers Gather in Cuba

Cuba’s Karl Marx Theater, best known for staging Fidel Castro speeches, played host to motorcycle enthusiasts Saturday. Thousands gathered for an event featuring vintage Harley-Davidsons, previously seen as symbols of American imperialism. (Jan. 16)

Continue reading …
Death toll from Brazil floods hits 600

Rains that devastated a mountainous region north of Rio de Janeiro have killed at least 611 people, Brazil’s Civil Defense agency said today, as forecasts of more storms and fears of disease outbreaks overshadowed rescue operations. Nearly five days after rains sparked floods and massive landslides in one of…

Continue reading …

Linda Gray Sexton’s mom—Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton—killed herself when her daughter was 21, and Sexton promised she’d never do the same. But that was before her life fell apart just before she turned 45, the age her mother was when she died. In her book Half in…

Continue reading …

While many Americans worry about China’s rising military might and new stealth fighter, they would be better off worrying about “the rise of China’s education system and the passion for learning that underlies it,” writes Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times . He cites how China and Confucian lands like…

Continue reading …
HP promises webOS netbooks to go along with smartphones and slates

Todd Bradley did promise us there’d be more than just slates on HP’s webOS menu and today we can add netbooks to the list of form factors for Palm’s famed OS. This heretofore unknown slice of info comes from a carrier training website HP has set up to educate resellers on the strong points of its forthcoming products. The training video on the site speaks of the great synergies that can result from smartphones, slates and netbooks all running the same OS and “speaking” to one another, which echoes Bradley’s “connected experience” mantra from a couple of days ago. Smartphones are said to be the beginning of a new family of webOS products, with their larger siblings set to come “soon enough.” Is February 9th soon enough? We’d say so. Continue reading HP promises webOS netbooks to go along with smartphones and slates HP promises webOS netbooks to go along with smartphones and slates originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Continue reading …