POLITICO: And when the dust from Boston Marathon bombing clears, viewers will remember two things about the cable news coverage of this historic event: that John King blew it, and that Pete Williams got it right.
On Wednesday, while CNN was self-destructing after falsely reporting that a suspect has been taken into custody, Williams rightly reported otherwise. Through Thursday, he reported what was known, while resisting the temptation to speculate on what he did not. Then, in the early hours of Friday morning, Williams was among the first to report on the ongoing developments of the search for the suspects — including that one of the suspects was dead and that both suspects were legal residents with foreign military training. [...]
“MSNBC isn’t a news network — they don’t do news,” is something I’ve often heard folks at CNN say.
This week’s coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings demonstrated that that is a false argument. MSNBC doesn’t need to “do news,” because they have the resources of NBC — they have Williams, Michael Isikoff, Richard Espositio and Jonathan Dienst, just to name a few. CNN may have more boots on the ground, but in the chaotic 21st century media environment, viewers want quality not quantity.
On air this evening, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer called attention to the network’s earlier report on two Republican National Convention attendees throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman and saying, “This is how we feed animals.” The attendees were removed from the Tampa Bay Times Forum after the exchange.
Blitzer called the incident “truly shocking” and said it “hit home” for everyone at the network. CNN political analyst Donna Brazile said during the segment she hopes the two attendees have their convention credentials revoked.
How many undecideds and independents will be captured in the GOP’s alluring net of misogynistic racism? I guess we’ll see in November.
And a new CNN/Opinion Research poll finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney nationally by seven points, 52% to 45%.
In light of the polls, Buzzfeed found “a group called “Jews and Christians Together,” which backed Rick Santorum in the Republican primary, is sending a memo to Republican National Convention delegates urging them not to vote for Mitt Romney at the convention, even if they’re bound to him. [...] A press release from the group reads:”
“DUMP ROMNEY” contends that no delegates are actually “bound” by law or GOP rules to vote for Romney and that, to win the White House and toss-up Senate seats, delegates must exercise their right to “conscientiously abstain” from Romney on the crucial first ballot, aiming for a stronger ticket leader in subsequent convention voting rounds.
The core of a hard-hitting new 80,000 word book and incubating Tampa insurgency, the entire memo can be read online free via Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader using the Amazon.com search term “DUMP ROMNEY.” “Were frontrunners simply entitled to the nomination, a convention wouldn’t be necessary,” the texts say, noting that Intrade predictive markets gives Obama odds of about 60-40 over Romney and that New York Times political analyst Nate Silver projects about 300 electoral votes for Obama, rating Romney’s current odds around 21%.
“This is not broadly remarked upon, but have you noticed that Romney’s favorability ratings, after heading the right direction in spring and early summer, are going southward again? This CNN survey from last week is representative of the stuff I’ve seen: According to the Pew Research Center survey, 37% of respondents said they hold a favorable view of the presumptive GOP nominee, compared to 41% in June….”
Yeah, so the awkwardly creepy aristocrat who doesn’t like your garbage bag raincoats or your cheap ass 7-Eleven cookies — or YOU, the help, for that matter (you people have seen as many tax returns as you’re ever going to see!), is wondering what on earth has happened lately, as Buzzfeed reports:
“You’ve got to have something precipitate that sort of sea change, and we haven’t,” said a top adviser. Dumbfounded by three bad polls.
Mitt Romney poo-poos any opinion that suggests it might have something to do with his Gafftastic World Tour, or HIM personally, or the fact that he’s refusing to show us his tax returns yet he’s asking for our votes! Gallup and Rasmussen have him sitting fabulously (!) as they are paid to do, so enough of your backtalk.
Mr. Romney would ask that you go back and do your little polls again. Unacceptable work, my friend. Do them until you get them right.
Anderson Cooper asked John McCain about Harry Reid’s allegation that a Bain Capital source told him that Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes for 10 years. Remember McCain saw 20-22 years worth of Romney’s returns in 2008 and chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. In answering Cooper, McCain never calls Reid a liar or says the allegation is false — McCain’s complaint seems to be that Reid has offered no proof:
McCain: First of all I’ve, I’ve know Sen. Reid for many, many years and occasionally he displays some rather erratic behavior. Uh… to accuse someone of doing something without a shred of proof that… the… the allegation has any substance… is really something I frankly don’t understand. I hope that Harry will, that Sen. Reid will correct that and say — unless he’s willing to come forward with the evidence that he has, that… that is the case that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years — uh… really… uh… this… uh… we’re… uh… not playing bean bag and uh… thi… things… politics are tough and I enjoy the give and take but uh… I think Harry might have gone over the line here.
We’re not playing ‘bean bag‘? So what’s your read on McCain’s extra careful, measured, hemming and hawing, tiptoeing, walking on eggshells, sort of non-response response?
What does it say about our society, our culture, and our country that CNN spent an inordinate amount of time yesterday explaining the difference between Sikhs and Muslims? Or that CNN interviewed a Sikh so that he could explain to their audience what his religion was “about.” For one thing, why don’t most people know that they’re different religions? And for another thing, did that suggest, even a little, that a shooting at an Islamic temple would make more sense?
Recently Michelle Bachmann and four other representatives came out with highly racist, sinister, and completely ridiculous allegations against top State Department official Huma Abedin (who is Muslim-American), suggesting that she is part of a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy to infiltrate the U.S. government. I have to ask if Bachmann’s typically negligent dog-whistling finally crawled inside the sick mind of one of these rightwing “patriots” who support her brand of psuedo-Christian-politicking, and decided to take her phony conspiracy theory to the next level?
More information is coming out about what led the FBI to declare Sunday’s Sikh temple shooting an act of domestic terrorism. According to the Los Angeles Times, tattoos plus “certain biographical details” were the source of that conclusion. A representative of the Sikh congregation, Kanwardeep Singh Kaleka, told CNN that “members described the attacker as a bald, white man, dressed in a white T-shirt and black pants and with a 9/11 tattoo on one arm.” There has already been widespread speculation that the shooter may have intent on committing an anti-Islamic hate crime but confused Sikhs with Muslims because of their turbans. Kaleka pointed out that “maybe it’s because the ladies were fortunate enough to dodge it out, but so far most of the people I’ve heard have been shot and killed were all turbaned males.”
Updated at 4:20 p.m. ET: A gunman opened fire Sunday morning at a Sikh temple outside of Milwaukee, killing six people and wounding at least three others, including a police officer, before being shot to death, police said.
Greenfield Police Chief Bradley Wentlandt, acting as public information officer at the scene, said the shooting was reported at 10:25 a.m. at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, south of Milwaukee along Lake Michigan. The shooting took place shortly before Sunday services were to begin. Read the complete story.
A statement by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation: “The Milwaukee Jewish community stands in solidarity with the Sikh community, and we offer assistance to the community, especially to the families of the victims. While we don’t know many details at this point, this may well be an intentional attack on the Sikhs which would make the massacre even more heinous. Our society is based on freedoms of religion and due process of law. We hope that law enforcement will find and hold accountable all parties involved in this senseless and shocking tragedy.”
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The man who shot six people to death and wounded three others during a rampage at a Sikh temple in a Milwaukee suburb was an Army veteran who may have been a white supremacist, according to a law enforcement source involved in the investigation. Law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation named him Monday as Wade Michael Page, 40. One law enforcement official said he owned the gun used in the shooting legally. He had apparently served on active duty, a U.S. official familiar with his record said. The source declined to give further details. The officials asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak on the record about the shooting investigation. — Sources name alleged gunman in Wisconsin temple shooting – CNN
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“An unnamed federal official told the Los Angeles Times tonight that the shootings in Wisconsin are being treated as domestic terrorism because of the gunman’s tattoos and biographical details. ‘Tattoos on the body of the slain Sikh temple gunman and certain biographical details led the FBI to treat the attack at a Milwaukee-area temple as an act of domestic terrorism, officials said Sunday.’” — Little Green Footballs
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thebengalcat: Mourners take part in a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin shooting, in Milwaukee, on Sunday August 5, 2012. A white gunman killed six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee in a rampage that left terrified congregants hiding in closets and others texting friends outside for help. The suspect was killed outside the temple in a shootout with police officers. AP
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Family members of the Sikh Temple president have confirmed that he was among those killed – @NewsHub http://t.co/QmWuTQQ8
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The Washington-based Sikh Coalition has reported more than 700 incidents in the U.S. since 9/11, which advocates blame on anti-Islamic sentiment. Sikhs are not Muslims, but their long beards and turbans often cause them to be mistaken for Muslims, advocates say. — Fox News
Jesse Taylor: Pandagon– The actual statistics:“About 34 percent of food-stamp recipients are white, while 22 percent are African Americans and 16 percent Hispanic, with the rest being Asian, Native American or those who chose not to identify their race, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie engaged in a game of semantics, during an appearance on CNN yesterday. He compared Bain Capital sending jobs overseas while Mitt Romney was the CEO to President Barack Obama’s campaign “outsourcing” telemarketing to places like Omaha, Nebraska.
“The reporter confused the notion of outsourcing — now a lot of American companies outsource,” Gillespie explained. “They outsource domestically as well. For example, the Obama for America campaign outsources from its own campaign telemarketing services.”
“To Omaha or wherever it is,” CNN host Candy Crowley pointed out. “But we’re talking about foreign jobs here.”
Pat Garofalo and Igor Volsky at Think Progress acknowledge there is a difference between “outsourcing” and “offshoring” but:
[...] “This simply doesn’t change the fact that Bain, under Romney, invested in companies whose sole purpose was to move jobs to other countries, directly countering the narrative that Romney has been trying to set.”
…work that could have been done here. American jobs lost forever, for the financial gain of a few.
During an interview with CNN’s John King on Monday evening, Romney campaign surrogate Newt Gingrich defended Mitt Romney’s resistance to hiring “more firemen, more policemen, more teachers” and admitted that the former Massachusetts governor’s policy would lead to less teachers in the classroom:
[...] We have to come to grips with how big the challenge is, and does that mean there will be fewer teachers? The honest answer is yes. Does it mean that you’re not going to get quite the same pension plan people have been getting? The honest answer is yes. President Obama may say well, we can borrow our way out of that decision. I don’t think the American people agree with him.
Mitt Romney slammed President Obama last week for wanting to hire “more firemen, more policemen, and more teachers,” making a clear assertion that those workers belong among the 700,000 public sector workers who have lost their jobs in the last three years… [D]uring an appearance on Fox News Tuesday morning, Romney contradicted his own remarks, saying that the Obama campaign was making “a very strange accusation” when it claimed he didn’t want to hire more teachers:
[...] That’s a very strange accusation. Of course, teachers and firemen and policemen are hired at the local level and also by states. The federal government doesn’t pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen. So obviously that’s completely absurd. He’s got a new idea, though, and that is to have another stimulus and to have the federal government send money to try and bail out cities and states. It didn’t work the first time. It certainly wouldn’t work the second time.
I think we can all agree that what Romney said and meant originally was “completely absurd.” But apparently he’d like to revise history a little and say we’re all “completely absurd” for believing that’s what he said. Nice try, Etch-a-sketch.
WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————
Yes, Republicans are stepping on the economy for political gain — The Republican line is that, even in current conditions of mass unemployment, zero interest rates and low inflation, higher short-term deficits harm the economy rather than help it. Republicans embraced this unorthodox line of thinking suddenly, after maintaining the opposite when their party held the White House. I used to reject the accusation that Republicans reversed their thinking out of a conscious decision to sabotage the economy in order to regain power. [...] I was shaken of that belief not long ago, when Mitt Romney said off the cuff that cutting spending in his first year would retard the recovery… Conservatives mounted zero pushback whatsoever, suggesting that their newfound attachment to contractionary fiscal policy is a pure shift of expediency, to be discarded immediately if their party wins power and suddenly has an incentive to speed up rather than slow down the economy. — Jonathan Chait | image: phroyd
Romney Energy Plan Includes Drilling ‘Virtually Every Part’ Of U.S., No Protections For National Parks — As the [Washington] Post reports: Asked whether any place would be off limits for oil drilling, campaign spokesman Andrea Saul said, “Governor Romney will permit drilling wherever it can be done safely, taking into account local concerns.” [...] Presumably, if there was oil and gas found there, Romney would allow drilling in places like the Grand Canyon, Arches National Park, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and Isle Royale National Park in the Great Lakes, regardless of its impacts on them. In essence, he would take lands that belong to all Americans and turn them over to oil companies. – Think Progress
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “AMERICAN” OIL — The oil or gas is drilled by corporations of various sizes ranging from wildcat, low-budget start up operations through Exxon/Mobil. [...] The thing is, the stuff that comes out of a successful well doesn’t belong to you and me. Or the state or federal government. It’s owned by the company that drilled for it, produced it, and shipped it to market. It’s not “America’s oil.” It’s Exxon’s. And BP’s. And Shell’s. And believe me: Exxon doesn’t think of it as “American oil.” They think of it as a commodity sold on a hyper-competitive global market. — PoliticalProf
Just to reiterate: Romney’s “jobs” plan is to fire government workers, he mocked President Obama for wanting to hire more teachers, firefighters and police officers – Mitt Romney once again made it clear that his jobs plan is to fire government workers: “[the President] wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” — Greg Sargent via: DailyKos
Mitt Romney Thinks High Private Sector Growth and 4.3 Million New Jobs is a “Moral Failure of Tragic Proportions” – Mitt Romney today declared that the floundering economy under President Obama is not just a “failure of policy” but a “moral failure of tragic proportion,” though he offered few new details as to what he would do differently as president. [...] “When you look around at America’s economy, three-and-a-half years into this presidency, it’s painfully obvious that this inexperienced president with no experience as a leader was simply not up to the task of solving a great economic crisis,” said Romney. “This is not just a failure of policy; it is a moral failure of tragic proportion. Our government has a moral commitment to help every American help himself. And that commitment has been broken.” – ABL
All employees: total private industries image: Bob Cesca
The private sector IS doing fine — According to the Wingnutosphere, yesterday was a day that will live in infamy. Why? Because President Obama said the private sector is “doing fine.” They are doing fine, actually. [...] Business Insider’s glorious collection of charts also covers the president’s words on the slump in public sector employment, but that’s not in dispute by the Republicans. They may even gloat about it. You know, because those aren’t real jobs. – Bob Cesca
Libertarians work through the five stages of grief over Rand Paul’s endorsement of Romney – The Libertarian Party issued a blistering statement through the party’s website, in which they called Rand a turncoat, a traitor to his father’s legacy and a sellout. “(N)o true libertarian, no true friend of liberty, and no true blue Tea Partier could possibly even consider, much less actually endorse or approve of, the Father of Obamacare, Big Government tax and spender, Republican Mitt Romney,” the statement said. [...] “WHY RAND WHY?!” wrote one angry Reddit poster, who included the climactic scene of George Lucas’s third “Star Wars” prequel, in which Anakin Skywalker is betrayed and abandoned by Obi Wan Kenobi. “He bowed to the neocons!!!” wrote another, “WELL LISTEN RAND!!! WE WON’T BOW!!! WE WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AS YOU BOWED TO THE KILLER GLOBALISTS!!!” On Facebook, one Ron Paul supporter wrote, “Rand Paul you disgust me.” – Raw Story || Stage one: ALL CAPS
WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————
Tell Congress we can’t wait — The President’s jobs plan would put teachers, firefighters, police officers, and construction workers back to work right now. And it’s paid for by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more, but Congress refuses to act. Tell Congress we can’t wait: JobsNow – YouTube
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Sen. Sherrod Brown on JP Morgan’s trading mess: ‘These banks are not just too big to fail, they’re too big to manage‘ – Brown (D-OH) said that JP Morgan’s trading mess proves banks are not only too big to fail — meaning they are explicitly backed by the government and will be rescued if they blow themselves up — but simply “too big to manage”: [...] “Jamie Dimon’s smart, he’s articulate, he’s probably a good manager, he’s probably a good CEO. I don’t like his public persona in terms of what he’s done to weaken these regulations and to undercut them. They lost their fights in Congress, now they’re organizing to win them in the regulatory agencies. But I think, if he can’t manage a bank this size, it probably isn’t manageable. I think these banks will be stronger and healthier and probably more profitable if they’re smaller.” – Think Progress
Well played, Senator:
"Sen. Brown, do you have time for a question?" – me "Not from you I don't." – Sen. Sherrod Brown #nn12— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 09, 2012
Kudos to Sen. Sherrod Brown for giving CNN contributor/Breitbart.com loon Dana Loesch exactly the amount of respect she deserved, when she popped up like a malevolent jack-in-the-box at the Netroots Nation conference. — LGF
Harry Reid said he will likely push for changes to filibuster rules if the Democrats retain control next year – “I’ll just bet you … if we maintain a majority, and I feel quite confident that we can do that, and the president is reelected, there is going to be some changes,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “We can no longer go through this, every bill, filibusters [even] on bills that they agree with. It’s just a waste of time to prevent us from getting things done.” It remains unclear, however, if Reid would have the votes to change the Senate’s rules, which would require a simple majority vote at the start of the new Congress. Should Democrats retain control of the Senate, they will likely have a razor-thin majority in 2013. Only one or two defections could lead to defeat of the motion, as all Republicans are united against such a change in rules. –The Hill image: abaldwin360
Paul Krugman at Netroots Nation: solving this depression isn’t an economic problem, it’s a political problem – The Nobel Laureate said that the current state of the U.S. economy is “incredibly awful,” and dinged Romney’s exorbitant wealth, saying, “If you don’t know multiple people who are suffering, then you must be living in a very rarefied environment. You must be maybe a member of the Romney clan, or something.” Krugman underscored the fact that the current economic crisis has been created by deregulation and poor policy decisions. “None of this has to be happening,” he said, “We didn’t have a plague of locusts, we were not hit by a tsunami, there wasn’t some act of God that created this terrible situation. It was acts of man.” [...] “Solving this depression is not fundamentally an economic problem,” he said, “it’s a political problem.” – Raw Story
Things you never imagine Dick Cheney doing: Joe Biden had an epic waterfight with kids today – The Vice President invites the press and their families to his home at the Naval Observatory every year. — Buzzfeed (more photos at the link)
WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY—————————–—
The Romney-Trump RACISTHON in Vegas last night… Romney greeted by Trump’s plane in Las Vegas. (Photo credit AP) | TPM
Donald Trump steals limelight from Romney campaign — Romney was scheduled to raise as much as $2 million with Donald Trump at two events Tuesday evening, but his public schedule was designed to avoid highlighting his relationship with the controversial mogul, who continues to espouse disproven theories that Obama was not born in the United States. That was a challenge from the moment Romney landed at Las Vegas-McCarran International Airport. As Romney’s chartered plane taxied down the runway, a private plane emblazoned with Trump’s surname sat parked near the terminal. Romney’s staffers tried to move photographers and reporters into a position where they could not see Trump’s shining-black aircraft as Romney alighted from his plane. They were not successful, and the first images of Romney arriving in Las Vegas and quickly beamed around the nation showed Trump’s plane over his shoulder. – latimes.com
“Beginning?” “A LITTLE?!” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer tells Trump: ‘You’re beginning to sound a little ridiculous’ – During an argumentative interview on Tuesday [and just hours before the fundraiser Trump was throwing for Mitt Romney in Vegas], CNN’s Wolf Blitzer told real estate mogul Donald Trump that he was being “ridiculous” by continually questioning President Barack Obama’s birthplace. […] After arguing about the long-form birth certificate last year, Blitzer told Donald he was “beginning to sound a little ridiculous.” “No, I think you are, Wolf,” Trump shot back. “Let me tell you something. I think you sound ridiculous.” Trump complained that he wanted to talk about China and OPEC, but Blitzer continued to press Trump on why he believed Obama was not a natural born citizen. – Raw Story | image: Buzzfeed
Trump also visited CNBC yesterday to talk about the President’s birth.
And Trump visited Fox News to talk about how birtherism would be ‘a great issue’ for Mitt Romney. He also boasted about the size of his Twitter earlier in the interview saying “my Twitter is very large.”
The Romney campaign tossed a little dog-whistle to the birthers yesterday too – The same day Romney planned to appear with noted birther Donald Trump at a Las Vegas fundraiser, the campaign released a copy of Mitt’s birth certificate.
So how’d the Romney-Trump RACISTHON in Vegas turn out last night? After a day consumed by coverage of Donald Trump’s birther crusade, the much-hyped Mitt Romney fundraiser at Trump International Hotel appears to have ended rather anti-climactically. [...] “This has really been a special day and a special evening,” Trump told attendees. “It’s been amazing the amount of money we have raised.” [...] As Romney stood to Trump’s left, his face obscured by Trump’s shadow in the harsh lighting, Trump tore into China, and into Obama’s handling of relations with China. “They look at us. They laugh at us. They think we’re stupid. When he’s president they will no longer think we’re stupid,” Trump said of Romney. Trump also made a few interesting comments about U.S. war policy: “We have wars. We get nothing from them … We leave Iraq. What do we get out of it? They’re having a field day with the second largest oil reserves in the world. We get nothing.” In total, Trump spoke for only three and a half minutes. The campaign declined to say how much money was raised at the event. – Buzzfeed
GOP Groups Plan $1 BILLION Push for Romney (that’s billion, with a B) — “Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives — including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress,” Politico reports. “That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states… Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections — twice what they had been expected to commit.” – Political Wire
Right-Wing Billionaires Behind Mitt Romney (and the GOP’s capitulation to Big Money) – In the primary season alone, Romney’s rich friends invested $52 million in his Super PAC, Restore Our Future – a number that’s expected to more than double in the coming months. This unprecedented infusion of money from America’s monied elites underscores the radical transformation of the Republican Party, which has made defending the interests of 0.0001 percent the basis of its entire platform.“Money buys power,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman observed recently, “and the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties.” In short, the political polarization and gridlock in Washington are a direct result of the GOP’s capitulation to Big Money. – Tim Dickinson | Rolling Stone
Mitt Romney is meeting with Sheldon Adelson — the billionaire casino magnate and big Newt-Gingrich supporting super-PAC donor — in Las Vegas on Tuesday, according to CBS News and CNN. …Adelson and his wife, Miriam, gave $20 million to Winning Our Future, the pro-Gingrich super PAC. — HuffPo
WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————
President Obama chats in the Blue Room of the White House with author Toni Morrison, who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom yesterday.
Obama honors Bob Dylan, Toni Morrison, Madeleine Albright and more at Medal of Freedom ceremony — In a ceremony honoring 2012 recipients of the Medal of Freedom, President Obama on Tuesday said he was “extremely grateful” to be able to personally thank the honorees “for the great work they have done” in America and worldwide. – CBS News
Team Obama shifting focus to Romney’s record as Massachusetts governor – The Obama campaign is opening a new front in its war against GOP rival Mitt Romney, ABC News has learned, with planned attacks to begin this week on Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts and the campaign promises Democrats say he left unfulfilled. Team Obama will point to Romney’s rhetoric on job creation, size of government, education, deficits and taxes during the 2002 gubernatorial campaign and draw parallels with his presidential stump speeches of 2012. The goal is to illustrate that Romney has made the same promises before with unimpressive results, officials say. [...] During a Boston debate, Romney said, “I have experience in the private sector building and creating thousands of good jobs, and I want to bring that skill for you here in Massachusetts” – a theme he regularly reprises today. But the Obama campaign notes, citing a report from the independent fact-checker Politifact, Massachusetts was 47th out of 50 states in job creation under Romney. In manufacturing jobs, Democrats point out, Romney presided over a net loss of 40,000 jobs, a drop of 12 percent according to Labor Department data. — ABC News
Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter released a statement charging Romney with a “complete lack of moral leadership:”Mitt Romney’s continued embrace of Donald Trump and refusal to condemn his disgraceful conspiracy theories demonstrates his complete lack of moral leadership. Now he’s even standing by silently as Trump assails John McCain’s courage in standing up to the most extreme and hateful voices in the Republican Party—all in order to raise money for himself. If Mitt Romney lacks the backbone to stand up to a charlatan like Donald Trump because he’s so concerned about lining his campaign’s pockets, what does that say about the kind of President he would be? – Raw Story
Romney is out of touch and wrong for women — When women hear about Mitt Romney’s plans for women’s health — in his own words — they are appalled. Mitt Romney is out of touch and harmful for women’s health in America. Planned Parenthood Action Fund will be making sure voters know exactly where Mitt Romney stands and will be mobilizing our more than 6 million strong network to fight for women’s health come November. Tell him you’re watching, take the pledge: http://womenarewatching.org
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Meet The 91-Year-Old WWII Veteran Targeted By Florida’s Voter Purge – Three weeks ago, Bill received a letter from Broward County Florida stating “[Y]ou are not a U.S. Citizen” and therefore, ineligible to vote. He was given the option of requesting “a hearing with the Supervisor of Elections, for the purpose of providing proof that you are a United States citizens” or forfeit his right to vote. This decorated World War II veteran is just one of hundreds of fully eligible U.S. citizens being targeted by Governor Scott’s massive voter purge just prior to this year’s election, according to data obtained from Florida election officials by ThinkProgress. The purge list, according to an analysis by the Miami Herald, targets mostly Democrats and Hispanics. Voting rights groups in Florida have asked the Justice Department to investigate, alleging that Scott’s voter purge violates federal law. – Think Progress
Rick Scott Will Now Purge Florida Further into Madness – You may recall the 2000 presidential election. Huge and loud? Lots of ill-feeling and incivility abroad in the land? Produced someone who finally got James Buchanan into a photo finish for Worst President Ever? It became a big honking deal at least in part because the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris (R-Max Factor), contracted with an Atlanta company to “purge” the state’s voter rolls of convicted felons and, coincidentally, of anyone with a name that was similar to that of a convicted felon. [...] This time, of course, it’s Governor Rick “Bat Boy” Scott doing all this, and not a presidential candidate’s little brother, and it’s about illegal immigrants and not about convicted felons, and one Secretary of State already has resigned. In related news, Republicans continue their assault on the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which, as we can plainly see by the governor’s actions in Florida, is a superannuated relic of a bygone era. – Charles P. Pierce
Budgeting lies — “I actually lay out a plan to get us to a balanced budget within eight years.”Mitt Romney to Mark Halperin Uh. No. Greg Sargent: The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has taken a close look at this question. It has determined that relative to current policy — that is, if you keep the Bush tax cuts in place, as Romney wants to do — Romney’s tax cutting plans would increase the deficit by nearly $5 trillion over 10 years. That’s on top of keeping the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Romney has promised to close various loopholes to pay for his tax cuts, but he hasn’t specified which ones. Until he does, the Tax Policy Center concludes, his plan would cost $5 trillion — which would be added, yes, to the deficit. […] Bottom line: relative to current policy, Obama’s plan would reduce the deficit by bringing in $180 billion or more in revenues a year, or approximately $2 trillion over 10 years; Romeny’s plan would increase the deficit by nearly $500 billion a year — $5 trillion over ten years. The Tax Policy Center’s Roberton Williams summed it up perfectly in a quote to me: “The bottom line is that whatever baseline you use, until Romney makes good on his promise to pay for his tax cuts, he would increase the deficit far more than Obama would.” – Bob Cesca
Put gently, as usual, by the Times: “Like Fox News, MSNBC now has hosts with clear political points of view at key times of the day. CNN promotes itself as the top source for nonpartisan news on television.” In other words, it’s boring and basic, so people only watch when they need primary results or Whitney Houston dies. Cenk Uygur of Current TV’s The Young Turks has the following advice:
… for the love of God, stop doing “he said, she said” crap that doesn’t actually deliver the news to anyone. Democrats said this and Republicans said that — who cares? What is the reality?! Your job is supposed to be to bring us facts, not what official spokespeople told you in their press releases and talking points.
I agree that the ‘he said, she said’ bullshit has to go — in fact Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein recentlywrote an excellent op-ed, practically begging the media, like CNN, to stop being such complete failures on this issue. But to have CNN bill itself as the “top source for nonpartisan news” is a joke. Please. Let’s not forget this is the cable news network which decided it would be a great idea to add political commentary from such glorious wingnuts as Erick Erickson and Dana Loesch. If I wanted to listen to rightwing nutjobs (which I don’t), I’d turn to Fox News (which I won’t). CNN is losing on many fronts.
CNN contributor and rightwing shithead Erick Erickson offered his opinion on the recent debate about Augusta Nation Golf Club’s policy of not allowing women:
For years, the exclusive club has made a practice of offering an invitation to IBM’s CEO, which sponsors the Masters tournament. But on Tuesday, Augusta chairman Billy Payne refused to say if they would break from nearly 80 years of tradition to invite Ginni Rometty, IBM’s first female CEO.
“Who cares?” Erickson, who founded the blog Redstate.com, asserted on his Friday radio show. “Who cares that she wasn’t invited into the club? She’s a woman! Women aren’t allowed!”
“See, the president is trying to make everything political. President wants to have it both ways. He wants to go play at the Masters. Oh, you’re darn right the president wants to go play at the Masters, but he thinks women should be allowed, they should be members. Why must women be members of Augusta National? Why? Because it’s the last bastion of sexism. I thought the Republican Party was the last bastion of sexism and misogyny in America. Oh, wait. They nominated Sarah Palin to be vice presidential nominee.”
Erickson added: “And of course, Mitt Romney, ‘Well, I think women should be allowed too.’ At least, he’s smart enough to know that we don’t want to wade in to the war on women with Augusta. It is striking to me just how political the president wants to make everything. The war on women coming home to the Masters. Who freaking cares?”
“I would love to be a member of Augusta National one day after I get my private jet, but at the same time I don’t really care. And I don’t care that the Masters is a male-dominated event. I don’t care that women aren’t members of the Masters. Frankly, I kind of like the idea that women aren’t members of the Masters. Good lord, I don’t want to hang out at some women’s event.”
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Meet The 91-Year-Old WWII Veteran Targeted By Florida’s Voter Purge – Three weeks ago, Bill received a letter from Broward County Florida stating “[Y]ou are not a U.S. Citizen” and therefore, ineligible to vote. He was given the option of requesting “a hearing with the Supervisor of Elections, for the purpose of providing proof that you are a United States citizens” or forfeit his right to vote. This decorated World War II veteran is just one of hundreds of fully eligible U.S. citizens being targeted by Governor Scott’s massive voter purge just prior to this year’s election, according to data obtained from Florida election officials by ThinkProgress. The purge list, according to an analysis by the Miami Herald, targets mostly Democrats and Hispanics. Voting rights groups in Florida have asked the Justice Department to investigate, alleging that Scott’s voter purge violates federal law. – 
