Senate GOP Candidate Carly Fiorina Flip-Flops On Unemployment Benefits
After weeks of Republican obstructionism, the Senate — in a 60-40 vote yesterday — cleared the way for the extension of unemployment benefits to millions of struggling Americans. In California alone, where current unemployment is 12.3%, the state’s Employment Development Department reports, “the delay in benefit extension…affected about 260,000 jobless Californians.” In an interview with San Francisco’s KGO-AM radio yesterday, California’s GOP Senate candidate abandoned her former stance on extending unemployment benefits, indicating she would now “probably” support the extension if she was elected:
“I probably would vote for this extension, but I’ll tell you what, I think it is absolutely appropriate for people to stand on their desks and say, ‘When is it that we’re finally going to do what needs to be done and cut government spending?’” Fiorina said.
This statement stands in sharp contrast to the GOP candidate’s previous sentiments. In June, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow asked Fiorina if her time at HP qualifies her “to go after the government payrolls…to make the spending cuts in their salaries and their benefits.” Fiorina said “sure.” And earlier this month, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO told Good Morning America she would not have voted for the unemployment bill “the way it is put together today” and — like many of her Republican colleagues — cited concerns over the deficit to justify her position.
Although the GOP candidate has had a change of heart on unemployment benefits, still, as Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo points out, “Fiorina’s only real solution to anything is to cut taxes. But that doesn’t do much good for those who are already out of work and have no taxable income, and it doesn’t spur demand that will give businesses more customers and thus a reason to expand.”
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Louisiana Bishops Rebuff New State Gun Law: “We Don’t Think It’s Appropriate To Have Guns In Churches”
Louisiana Bishops Rebuff New State Gun Law: “We Don’t Think It’s Appropriate To Have Guns In Churches”
Earlier this month, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) signed a bill into law that allows people to bring concealed weapons into places of worship. Anyone who passes a background check and completes “eight hours of tactical training each year” can be designated “as part of a security force” for “churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship” that allow carriers of concealed weapons. USA Today reported this week that Catholic churches in Louisiana will still not permit congregants to bring guns to their services:
Concealed handguns won’t be allowed in Roman Catholic churches, despite a new state law allowing them.
“We don’t think it is appropriate to have guns in churches,” Danny Loar, executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops — the church’s public policy arm in Louisiana, said Monday. …
Bishops discussed the issue when reviewing bills, Loar said.
“The bishops decided that, if the bill became law, the bishops would let their pastors know that this would not be permissible in Catholic churches,” Loar said.
The previous law let only law enforcement officials carry concealed weapons into churches.
Local faith leaders began speaking out against the proposal even before it became law. In June, Catholic Archbishop Gregory Aymond said, “Church is supposed to be a place of sanctuary. The idea of guns there — I’m pretty skeptical.”
And, even though the bill’s principal champion, state Rep. Henry Burns (R), claimed that the new policy would make houses of worship in “declining neighborhoods” safer, local clergy deny that concealed weapons would be any help. “We’ve been here 29 years, and there’s never been a time that a gun would have solved anything,” said John Pierre, a church elder in “a gritty Central City neighborhood.” Reverend John Raphael, whose congregants “had to duck for cover when gunfire suddenly broke out nearby” after one Sunday service, still “said an armed presence in the sanctuary is incompatible with what a church is supposed to be.”
(h/t TPM)
RNC failed to report over $7 million in debt.
RNC failed to report over $7 million in debt.
Earlier this month, reports leaked suggesting the Republican National Committee had failed to report “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of debt to the FEC. It now appears that the level of debt is much greater than originally estimated and may have been hidden by committee leadership. The Washington Times reports:
In a memo to RNC budget committee members, RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen on Tuesday accused Chairman Michael S. Steele and his chief of staff, Michael Leavitt, of trying to conceal the information from him by ordering staff not to communicate with the treasurer – a charge RNC officials deny.
Mr. Pullen told the members that he had discovered $3.3 million in debt from April and $3.8 million from May, which he said had led him to file erroneous reports with the FEC. He amended the FEC filings Tuesday.
Campaign-finance analysts said that simply misreporting fundraising numbers to the FEC can lead to millions of dollars in fines and that criminal charges can be levied if the actions are suspected to be intentional.
Though RNC aides and officials are strongly denying any wrongdoing or misreporting, the organization has brought on “former [FEC] Chairman Michael E. Toner” as outside counsel, an “unusual and significant move,” according to Heritage Foundation legal pundit Hans A. von Spakovsky. He noted, “The RNC normally uses its own inside counsel to deal with the FEC, but if I had a really serious problem with the FEC, Michael Toner is one of the first guys I would turn to help me out.” It also looks like another serious problem for Steele, who just got done weathering numerous calls for his resignation after suggesting that the U.S. should not be involved in Afghanistan.
(h/t Taegan Goddard)
Breitbart’s New Conspiracy Theory: The ‘Purported’ Farmer’s Wife Is A Plant
Two white farmers who were supposedly discriminated against by former USDA official Shirley Sherrod spoke out on her behalf yesterday, saying “no way in the world” is she racist.
But last night, the right-wing blogger who instigated this faux controversy questioned the white farmers’ honesty and repeated his false racist charges. In interviews with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN, the Iron City, GA couple Roger and Eloise Spooner described Sherrod as a “friend for life” and a “good person” who helped save their farm. Speaking with CNN’s John King, right-wing provocateur Andrew Breitbart challenged Eloise Spooner’s “purported” story, accusing King of trusting Sherrod “that the ‘farmer’s wife’ is the farmer’s wife”:
You tell me as a reporter how CNN put on a person today who purported to be the farmer’s wife? What did you do to find out whether or not that was the actual farmer’s wife? I mean, if you’re going to accuse me of a falsehood, tell me where you’ve confirmed that had this incident happened 24 years ago. [...]
You’re going off of her word that the farmer’s wife is the farmer’s wife?
Watch it (full interview, part one and part two):
Of course, CNN wasn’t just going off Shirley Sherrod’s word, but also the word of Eloise and Roger Spooner themselves. Just for the record, if the “purported” Spooners are a hoax, they’re a quite involved one:
– Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Marcus Garner confirmed to ThinkProgress that the paper independently found Eloise Spooner for her interview.
– Eloise and Roger H. Spooner are listed in the Iron City, GA phone book.
– The Spooners’ 62nd wedding anniversary, according to a blog post of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, was celebrated at the 2009 Tennessee Truck Show.
– Roger Spooner has been cited in “mainstream” news reports, including a 2002 Associated Press story in the Lexis-Nexis database, claiming to be a “survivor” of the USS Yorktown at anniversaries of the Battle of Midway, which purportedly happened in 1942.
– In a 2009 article, USS Yorktown survivor Roger Spooner claimed to have “discharge papers” from the Navy in his “wallet.”
In his desperation to defend his ugly tactics, Breitbart is resorting to dragging an innocent family’s name through the mud.
ThinkProgress At Netroots Nation
ThinkProgress At Netroots Nation
Blogging will be lighter than usual this week, since all of us here at ThinkProgress, the Wonk Room, and Matt Yglesias are going to be in Las Vegas for the annual Netroots Nation conference.
While there will definitely be plenty of fun and games, we assure you we’ll also be working. If you’re also going to be attending the conference, we’d love for you to stop by and check out some of the panels we’ll be on:
THURSDAY, JULY 22
Environmental Conflict and Climate Change: The Grassroots vs Big Green
9:00 AM – 10:15 AM, Brasilia 2
Speakers: Michael Brune (Sierra Club), Majora Carter (Majora Carter Group), Gene Karpinski (LCV), Michael Kieschnick (CREDO/Working Assets), and Amanda Terkel (ThinkProgress)Immigration Reform’s Strange Bedfellows: The Surprising Consensus that Reform will Improve American Jobs and Bolster Our Economy
3:00 PM – 4:15 PM, Brasilia 6
Speakers: Mark Lauritsen (United Food and Commercial Workers), Adam Luna (America’s Voice), Andrea Nill (Wonk Room), State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and Arturo Venegas (former chief of police for the city of Sacramento)Copenhagen to Cancun: Climate Negotiations and the Netroots
4:30 PM – 5:45 PM, Brasilia 2
Speakers: James Henn (350.org), Kate Horner (Friends of Earth), Brad Johnson (Wonk Room), Kate Sheppard (Mother Jones), and Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman (Alliance for Climate Protection)
FRIDAY, JULY 23
Is the BP Oil Disaster the Breaking Point for Communicating about Clean Energy?
10:30 AM – 11:45 AM, Miranda 1-2
Speakers: Kevin Grandia (DeSmogBlog.com), Steve Kretzmann (Oil Change International), Jason Miner (The Glover Park Group), Phil Radford (Greenpeace), Amanda Terkel (ThinkProgress)
SATURDAY, JULY 24
The Obama Doctrine: Successes, Challenges and the Future
10:15 AM – 11:30 AM, Brasilia 1
Speakers: Max Bergmann (Wonk Room), Wendy Chamberlin (Middle East Institute), Paul Eaton (retired general), Lawrence Korb (Center for American Progress)The Filibuster and Senate Reform
4:00 PM – 5:15 PM, Brasilia 6
Speakers: Mimi Marziani (Brennan Center), Dave Roberts (Grist), Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), David Waldman (Congress Matters), and Matthew Yglesias (ThinkProgress)
The Progress Report will also be on break the rest of this week, and returning on Monday, July 26.
Vilsack reconsidering his firing of Shirley Sherrod.
Vilsack reconsidering his firing of Shirley Sherrod.
This morning, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that he is now reconsidering his decision to fire Shirley Sherrod, after taking the bait of a deceptively edited video that appeared on BigGovernment.com meant to make the Georgia USDA official appear racist. From Vilsack’s statement:
I am of course willing and will conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts to ensure to the American people we are providing services in a fair and equitable manner.
This certainly isn’t a promise that Sherrod will get her job back (despite overwhelming evidence that she was set up and is the victim of injustice), but it’s a significant step forward. After all, yesterday afternoon, Vilsack was standing by his decision, saying, “The controversy surrounding her comments would create situations where her decisions, rightly or wrongly, would be called into question making it difficult for her to bring jobs to Georgia.” The NAACP has apologized to Sherrod for initially rushing out a statement saying it was “appalled” by her “shameless” actions and has called on Vilsack to reinstate her.
Ben Stein: The Unemployed Are People With ‘Unpleasant Personalities…Who Do Not Know How To Do A Day’s Work’
Ben Stein: The Unemployed Are People With ‘Unpleasant Personalities…Who Do Not Know How To Do A Day’s Work’
Today, the Senate extended unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans. Despite the terrible shape of the economy, conservatives resisted extending unemployment insurance for weeks for Americans who can’t find work, launching a filibuster to prevent a vote on the benefits.
Writing at the American Spectator yesterday, former Nixon speechwriter and TV personality Ben Stein downplayed the suffering unemployed Americans are experiencing by writing that the people who are unemployed right now are “generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities.” He claims the unemployed are Americans with “unpleasant personalities…who do not know how to do a day’s work“:
The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along — not always easy.
Of course, saying that the 15 million Americans who are unemployed right now are “generally” people with “poor work habits” is as offensive as it is wrong. The current recession is a global phenomenon caused by the collective bad behavior of the world’s largest financial institutions. Before the recession, the unemployment rate hovered around six percent; it is ludicrious to say that millions of Americans suddenly got lazier and less able to work within the span of a few months.
Unfortunately, Stein is a widely respected voice on the American right who regularly appears on cable news to offer his thoughts on politics and policy. Using the Critical Mention media search engine, ThinkProgress finds that the name “Ben Stein” was mentioned 64 times in major television media networks within the past thirty days alone.
NAACP backtracks on criticism of Sherrod: ‘We were snookered.’
NAACP backtracks on criticism of Sherrod: ‘We were snookered.’
Yesterday, following the forced firing of former Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod, the NAACP rushed out a statement saying that it was “appalled” by her “shameless” actions. While the Obama administration is standing by its decision to force Sherrod’s resignation, the NAACP has courageously reversed course, saying it had been “snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart.” The civil rights organization says the incident highlights “the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition.” “This is a teachable moment, for activists and for journalists,” the statement reads. Read it below: More »
White farmers at the center of Shirley Sherrod controversy: ‘No way in the world’ she is a racist.
White farmers at the center of Shirley Sherrod controversy: ‘No way in the world’ she is a racist.
As it becomes increasingly clear that the video that brought down former USDA official Shirley Sherrod’s career was deceptively edited to make her appear racist, the two white farmers she allegedly discriminated against vigorously defended her. The video shows how Sherrod “racially discriminates against a white farmer,” BigGovernment.com owner Andrew Breitbart claimed. But that farmer, Roger Spooner, and his wife Eloise, flatly denied that this afternoon on CNN, telling host Rick Sanchez, there is “[n]o way in the world” Sherrod is a racist:
SANCHEZ: In all your time knowing Shirley Sherrod, has there ever been anything about her, either through her attitude, her words, her opinions or behaviors that would lead you to believe that she is in any way a racist?
ROGER SPOONER: No way in the world. No way. No way. I don’t even want to talk about it. It don’t make sense. She was just so nice to us as — she didn’t — there wasn’t no — there wasn’t no racism attitude at all in it. Heck no. … They don’t know what they’re talking about. Let me say. They don’t know what they’re talking about, if you want to know my opinion.
ELOISE SPOONER: She always treated us really good. She was nice mannered, thoughtful, friendly. Good person.
CNN also reported that Sherrod’s father had been murdered by a white farmer in an apparently racially-motivated crime, which a grand jury refused to pursue. Asked how she dealt with that, Sherrod said, “what I had to do was turn that into a positive. And I did it by devoting my life to working for change.” “I made a commitment the night my father died that I would not leave the South and that I would stay here and work to make a difference,” she added. Watch a compilation:
Rubio’s campaign ‘couldn’t give an answer’ on how he would pay for his proposed tax cuts.
Rubio’s campaign ‘couldn’t give an answer’ on how he would pay for his proposed tax cuts.
This week, GOP U.S. Senate candidate in Florida, Marco Rubio, said he would not support extending unemployment benefits to nearly 3 million Americans unless spending cuts were identified to offset the $33 billion cost. “At some point, someone has to draw a line in the sand and say we are serious about not growing debt,” Rubio said. At the same time, Rubio wants to make the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent — at a cost of nearly $700 billion over the next ten years — with no offset. While Rubio recently claimed they would pay for themselves (they won’t), a local Florida CBS reporter followed up with his campaign:
However, historically speaking, no party has ever opposed extending the benefits when the unemployment rate was higher than 7 percent until the current election cycle. [...]
However, when it comes to offsetting the costs of an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts that Rubio wants made permanent, his campaign couldn’t give an answer to CBS4.com’s Tim Kephart.
In fact, Rubio’s economic platform is basically a re-hash of the Bush tax cuts. “[A]fter perusing the list [of Rubio's plan], the sharp-eyed reader will likely notice a recurring theme: This Rubio guy appears to be a big supporter of tax cuts,” said the Orlando Sentinel’s Jim Stratton. In fact, the cuts Rubio is proposing would cost trillions of dollars while overwhelmingly benefit only the very rich.
White House Uses Misleading Breitbart Video As Basis To Hastily Demand USDA Official’s Resignation (Updated)
White House Uses Misleading Breitbart Video As Basis To Hastily Demand USDA Official’s Resignation (Updated)
Yesterday, right-wing media tycoon Andrew Breitbart posted a video of Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod, who is African-American, telling an NAACP gathering that she withheld help from a white farmer, in part because of his race. “Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism,” Breitbart declared on his BigGovernment.com website. “[H]er federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions,” Breitbart wrote, just days after the NAACP condemned “racist elements” within the tea party movement, of which Breitbart is a key supporter. Right-wing blogs and Fox News quickly picked up the video and demanded blood.
Within less than a day, Sherrod resigned from her USDA post under heavy pressure from the White House, saying she received “at least three” frantic phone calls from superiors demanding her resignation. At first glance, the forced resignation seemed fair — even the NAACP endorsed it, calling her comments “shameful.”
However, new evidence suggests that BigGovernment selectively edited the video to grossly distort what actually happened. “Context is everything,” Breitbart wrote in his hit piece, but he failed mention this key context:
Sherrod [told the Atlanta Journal Constitution] that what online viewers weren’t told in reports posted throughout the day Monday was that the tale she told at the banquet happened 24 years ago — before she got the USDA job — when she worked with the Georgia field office for the Federation of Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund.
Sherrod said the short video clip excluded the breadth of the story about how she eventually worked with the man over a two-year period to help ward off foreclosure of his farm, and how she eventually became friends with the farmer and his wife. [...]
“The story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it’s about the people who have and the people who don’t. When I speak to groups, I try to speak about getting beyond the issue of race.“
Indeed, the wife of the white farmer in question, 82-year-old Eloise Spooner, confirmed the story and called Sherrod a “friend for life.” She told CNN that Sherrod “treated us really good and got us all we could.” “She’s the one I give credit to with helping us save our farm”:
Sherrod also noted that there were several white people in the audience, in addition to the town’s mayor. “Why would I do something racist if they were there?”
None of this context is included in the clip that Breitbart used to smear Sherrod. The production company that shot the video confirmed to TPM that “the entire video matches what Sherrod is saying,” but that they cannot release it at the moment for legal reasons. The AJC is working to have it made public.
BigGovernment has the entire video, but it seems the site chose to exclude the parts that wouldn’t serve their right-wing agenda. Breitbart is “trying to spur racial animosity, [by] taking the remarks of an African-American American official to the NAACP, and removing the context, all in the hopes of generating white resentment,” Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen wrote. Of course, if Sherrod’s story is true, this wouldn’t be the first time Breitbart used deceptively edited videos to bring down his rivals. “They edited the tape to meet their agenda,” a law enforcement source told the New York Daily News of Breitbart’s ACORN investigations, after the Brooklyn DA cleared the group of all wrongdoing.
While Sherrod’s comments did seem worthy of rebuke at first, perhaps the White House should have waited to see the full video before acting so aggressively to get rid of her. Sherrod told CNN that a USDA undersecretary told her the White House was worried the controversy was “going to be on Glenn Beck tonight.”
Koch Industries Takes Credit For The ‘Spontaneous’ Tea Parties: We’re Glad We ‘Helped Stimulate’ Them
Koch Industries Takes Credit For The ‘Spontaneous’ Tea Parties: We’re Glad We ‘Helped Stimulate’ Them
As ThinkProgress has documented, the lobbyist-run Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has been instrumental in orchestrating the Tea Party movement. The group coordinated “grassroots” protests around the country and provided organizations and communications support to the Tea Parties. AFP staffers are also regular presence at Tea Party rallies. The man behind AFP is David Koch, who is one of the richest men in the world thanks to his oil, chemicals, and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries. In 2009, AFP President Tim Phillips said he “launched our organization.”
Koch Industries and AFP have largely tried to keep their distance from the Tea Parties. From a May 2010 interview with the Frum Forum’s Tim Mak:
Most incredibly striking is Koch’s efforts to distance itself from the Tea Party movement. “We’ve been labeled tea party founders or funders – in fact, masterminds – but that’s not consistent with the facts,” said Fink. “To my knowledge, we have not been approached for support by any of the newer ‘tea party’ or other grassroots groups that have sprung up around the country in the past year or so.”
However, now that Tea Parties are becoming institutionalized, Fink is taking some credit. While still calling the Tea Parties “spontaneous,” he says that Koch would be happy to know that he helped “stimulate” these people into action and acknowledged the role of AFP:
Q: What about the accusations that you are driving these activities – that they’re corporate-sponsored ‘astro-turf’ rather than real grassroots movements?
A: That’s nonsense. … Tea parties reflect a spontaneous recognition by people that if they do not act, the government will bankrupt their families and their country. They’re absolutely right about that.
Now, if our work over the past 30 or 40 years has helped stimulate some of those citizens who are becoming more active, that’s great, but it’s a far cry from pulling strings.
What we have done is support the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which has been active in various forms for nearly 30 years. … AFP and its state chapters have begun collaborating with tea party groups, and we’re in favor of any group willing to constructively address irresponsible government policies.
Koch Industries communications director Melissa Cohlmia has also insisted to ThinkProgress that “AFP is an independent organization and Koch companies do not in any way direct their activities.” However, both Koch and Fink serve as directors of the AFP Foundation.
AFP has used the Tea Parties to push causes that fit the agenda of its wealthy backers. Even though the estate tax hits only the very wealthiest estates — 99.8 percent are not subject to this tax — AFP was urging its members to lobby Congress to block a reinstatement of the estate tax.
Sen. Barrasso Calls For Repealing Middle Class Tax Cuts To Finance Tax Cuts For The Rich
Sen. Barrasso Calls For Repealing Middle Class Tax Cuts To Finance Tax Cuts For The Rich
In the last week or so, a dizzying array of Republicans have made it their official stance that $33 billion to extend unemployment benefits must be fully paid for, but financing a $678 billion extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy with deficit spending is just fine. “I think we need to be paying for all the spending that’s going on,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). “But when people can keep more of their own money that shouldn’t be considered a cost.”
Today, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) tackled this topic and started to go down the same road as the likes of Bachmann and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who was the first to set foot in this fiscal fantasy land. But he then pivoted to suggest that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be funded with unspent stimulus funds:
Q: Are you for extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, yes or no? [...] Are you paying for them? Or are you for adding to the deficit to continue those tax cuts?
Barrasso: There is so much unspent stimulus money that we ought to use that in a responsible way, which is to help keep taxes low.
Watch it:
This is problematic on two levels. First, it’s simply not true that there’s “so much unspent stimulus money” just lying around. 
According to the latest data, there is $362 billion in stimulus funding waiting to be allocated (see chart at right), so Barrasso is still $325 billion short of the money he would need to cover the $678 billion cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for just the richest two percent of Americans.
And a longer look at the chart reveals that $125 billion of the unallocated funding is already dedicated to tax cuts. Remember, despite conservative’s constantly portraying it as only federal spending, the stimulus cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. So Barrasso’s plan to repeal the money amounts to a tax increase on the lower- and middle-classes, which Barrasso wants to then turn around and spend on tax cuts for the rich.
Barrasso didn’t explicitly call for raising taxes on the poor and middle class in order to pay for his preferred policy outcome (which is tax rates for the wealthy that are as low as possible), but that’s what his suggestion would do. A similar sentiment was made far more directly by Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member Stephen Moore, who called for raising the rate of the lowest tax bracket in order to bring down tax rates for the rich.
Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.
Bachmann Compares Tea Partiers To WWII Heroes, Tells Americans To Honor Vets By Donating To Hannity’s Friend
Bachmann Compares Tea Partiers To WWII Heroes, Tells Americans To Honor Vets By Donating To Hannity’s Friend
Our guest blogger is Adam Peck, the Editor-in-Chief at Stony Brook University’s Think Magazine and a summer intern with Campus Progress.
On Saturday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was in Long Island to campaign for Sean Hannity’s childhood friend John Gomez, who is running for Congress against Rep. Steve Israel (D) on a platform of spending cuts, deregulation, and removing political names from street signs. During her remarks to the roughly 300 attendees — including many Tea Party members — Bachmann denounced the NAACP’s resolution calling on the Tea Parties to expel the “racist elements” in their ranks. Bachmann said that actually, Tea Party protestors have much more in common with World War II heroes.
For approximately five minutes, Bachmann told the story of the Dorchester, a World War II Army transport ship that was sunk by Germany off the coast of Greenland. The most famous tale to emerge from the demise of the Dorchester centers on four chaplains, who gave up their life jackets to soldiers on board. Their bravery and courage has been retold in books and was honored by Congress in 1960. There is now even an Immortal Chaplains Prize for Humanity awarded to those who have “risked all to protect those of another faith or race.” She then compared the Tea Partiers to these heroes and said that in order to honor U.S. veterans, people must donate to Gomez:
I tell you that story on this hot, beautiful day in July to tell you: That’s the kind of people we are. That’s the greatness that we have descended from in this country. We dishonor the service and the sacrifice of men and women of greatness — those men and women who fought and died for us — so that today we will be free. Without a veteran we would never know freedom in this country. It is veterans that we owe our freedom to.
John Gomez gets that! He loves veterans, he stands for veterans, he stands for our military! And to honor their sacred memory and their sacred sacrifice, is it too much to ask that we would raise the money and go door to door, and drop the literature, and make the phone calls, and plead and beg with our neighbors? Get to the polls, because this is the greatest nation that has ever been in 5,000 years of recorded human history. And for the sake and sacrifice of the heroes that have gone before, for the sake of the yet unborn yet to come, this we must do.
ThinkProgress attended Saturday’s event and recorded Bachmann’s speech. Watch it:
Both Bachmann and Gomez appeared on Hannity’s radio program on Friday. Gomez is a childhood friend of the Fox News host, and Hannity has vowed to do all he can to elect Gomez. So far, Hannity has traveled to the district to meet with county GOP leaders and lobby for Gomez, and he has openly encouraged guests on his show to support Gomez’s candidacy.
NAACP receives racist death threat: ‘The streets will run red with your blood.’
NAACP receives racist death threat: ‘The streets will run red with your blood.’
Last week, the NAACP passed a resolution asking the tea party movement to repudiate any racism within its ranks. Since then, right-wing pundits and politicians have pounced on the civil rights organization, attacking it for pointing out that there is some racism present in the tea party movement. Now, the NAACP reveals that it has “received a number of death threats at local units and chapters around the country” following the passage of its tea party resolution. In one particularly explicit and offensive death threat that the NAACP posted on its blog, a caller references the controversy over the New Black Panthers case and asks, “You want a race war? You got one!” He repeatedly uses the N-word to refer to African Americans, and says that they are a “have-not bunch of bums.” Towards the end of the call, the man warns, “The streets will run red with your blood.” Listen to it (Warning: the language used is disturbing and offensive):
The death threat comes at a time when many conservatives have denied that the NAACP and African Americans face any racism from the far right. Conservative blog Dakota Voice wrote just today, “A whole article full of lies against the Tea Party was presented by [NAACP president] Ben Jealous in his op-ed for CNN online. Since adopting the resolution against the Tea Party, he says they’re getting all kinds of death threats. Yeah, sure.”
Washington Times Runs Another Picture Of Kagan In A Turban To Claim She Will Impose Shariah Law On America
Washington Times Runs Another Picture Of Kagan In A Turban To Claim She Will Impose Shariah Law On America
Less than a month ago, the Washington Times ran a bizarre op-ed by Frank Gaffney, claiming that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is caught up in a conspiracy with the Muslim Brotherhood and the TARP program to impose oppressive tenants of Islamic Shariah law on America. The highlight of that op-ed was a doctored photo of Kagan in a turban.
The Washington Times’ editors must think that their readers have a very short attention span, because yesterday’s Washington Times also featured an op-ed by Frank Gaffney which touts the same tired conspiracy theory…and features yet another graphic of General Kagan in a turban (pictured to the right). Gaffney’s latest screed is largely identical to his first, although it expands slightly on his claim that Kagan’s secret Shariah plot involves a cabal of Muslim bankers:
That is where Elena Kagan’s enabling of the penetration of Shariah into our capital markets through the Harvard Law School’s Islamic Finance Project comes in. The purpose of that project is, according to an excellent essay by Mr. McCarthy, “Elena Kagan’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ Shariah Policy,” published last week in National Review Online “to promote Shariah compliance in the U.S. financial sector.”
This is accomplished via legal support to an industry known as Shariah-compliant finance (SCF). It was invented in the mid-20th century by Brotherhood operatives as a means of facilitating and underwriting the penetration of Shariah into Western societies by mainlining it into their capitalist bloodstreams. . . .
As a new ad by the Center for Security Policy asks, “If Kagan tolerates promoting the injustice of Shariah law on the campus of Harvard, what kind of injustice will she tolerate in America during a lifetime on the Supreme Court?”
Needless to say, Kagan is not involved in a secret conspiracy involving Harvard Law School, TARP, Islamic bankers, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, Harvard’s Islamic Finance Project serves an entirely benign purpose. Because many Islamic nations forbid banks from charging interest at a fixed or predetermined rate, their economies have historically been hindered by inadequate access to credit. The Islamic Finance Project is one of many projects studying how to enable businesses and individuals to effectively borrow money without violating this prohibition. Rather than offering a mortgage, for example, an Islamic bank might purchase the house outright and then sell it to the lender in installments — thus achieving the same effect as a mortgage without charging a forbidden interest payment.
So there’s no secret behind Harvard’s Islamic Finance Project — and certainly nothing there that is relevant to Kagan’s confirmation process. Had Gaffney bothered to cite any real scholars of Islam, instead of bigoted hacks like Andrew McCarthy, he would know this. The only real question is why the Washington Times continues to publish Gaffney’s same laughable claim over and over again.
Rep. King Claims His Comment That Republicans Don’t Need A ‘Complete Agenda’ Was Taken ‘Out Of Context’
Rep. King Claims His Comment That Republicans Don’t Need A ‘Complete Agenda’ Was Taken ‘Out Of Context’
Last week, as ThinkProgress first reported, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told conservative radio host Bill Bennett, “I don’t think [Republicans] have to lay out a complete agenda” for the Fall elections. An embarrassing performance by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Pete Sessions (R-TX) on Meet the Press Sunday suggested that the Republican congressional campaign chiefs were taking King’s advice, as they failed to detail any substantive GOP policy ideas.
King appeared on Fox and Friends today to defend his comments on Bennett’s show, but instead of offering any specific ideas of his own, he attacked the left for supposedly taking his remarks “entirely out of context.” He explained that he simply meant every GOP candidate shouldn’t have the “exact same platform”:
KILMEADE: Congressman, welcome. Do you regret saying that Republicans should not have a formal program, an agenda?
KING: First of all, if anyone saw, all that I said — this is taken entirely out of context. It’s classic what the liberals do. What I’ve said is we should have general principles, such as we did in 1994 with the Contract With America. Make our position clear as far as repealing health care, as far as cutting back spending, as far as standing with our security forces in the war against Islamic terrorism. But we have 435 or 420-something candidates running for office, and you can’t have a one national agenda that fits all 435 districts. Let each congressional candidate go out, argue what they believe is best within the overall Republican platform. … People will know where we stand, but you can’t have every candidate around the country bound to the exact same platform.
Watch it:
King’s defense of his comments is ridiculous in light of what he actually said. Bennett asked him a very straightforward question about whether it was was “enough” for Republicans to oppose Obama, or if they need to present their own “positive proposals.” King’s response could not have been more clear:
BENNETT: Is it enough for Republicans to say we are opposed to what [Obama's] doing — stimulus, health care, we don’t like what he’s doing with the government, and look at the job situation — or do we need to have meat on the bones? And say, this is what we are for? Do we have to have positive proposals? [...]
KING: So, It’s a combination of being against what Obama is for, and also giving certain specifics of what we are for. Having said that, I don’t think we have to lay out a complete agenda, from top to bottom, because then we would have the national mainstream media jumping on every point trying to make that a campaign issue.
Nowhere in the Bennett interview did King say anything about making sure 435 candidates are not “bound to the exact same platform.” King said Republicans shouldn’t have a detailed agenda because it would be subject to media scrutiny and could become a “campaign issue.”
ThinkFast: July 20, 2010
ThinkFast: July 20, 2010
John Aravosis at AmericaBlog uncovers visual evidence that BP photoshopped a fake picture of the crisis command center on the main page of its website. “I guess if you’re doing fake crisis response, you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center,” Aravosis writes. Acknowledging that the photo was altered, a BP spokesman “said that there was nothing sinister” about its intent.
BP is considering a plan that could permanently seal the oil leak on its well in the Gulf of Mexico. Senior Vice President Kent Wells said the company “was studying the possibility of a ‘static kill,’ in which heavy mud would be pumped into the recently capped well.”
The House Administration Committee signed off on Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) request to form — and lead — a House Tea Party Caucus yesterday. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has already said that he will be joining, while Reps. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) are undecided. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said he will not be part of the effort.
Rep. Walt Minnick (D-ID), the only Democrat endorsed by Tea Party Express, rejected the group’s support yesterday over an offensive blog post written by its spokesperson Mark Williams, which Minnick called “reprehensible.” “Since the Tea Party Express refuses to reject and rebuke Mr. Williams, I have no choice but to decline your endorsement,” he wrote in a letter to the group.
A “tug of war is unfolding over” who will direct the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the financial regulatory reform bill, with progressives rallying behind TARP watchdog and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. The Huffington Post notes that Treasury could appoint Warren to head the new bureau as an “interim head” until an official director is voted on by the Senate.
Rep. Lamar Smith Hints At Impeaching Obama Over Immigration: He’s ‘Close’ To Violating His Oath Of Office
Rep. Lamar Smith Hints At Impeaching Obama Over Immigration: He’s ‘Close’ To Violating His Oath Of Office
Since the Justice Department sued Arizona over SB-1070, its harsh new anti-immigration law, Republicans have been blasting the Obama administration, saying officials are showing “contempt for the majority of the American people who support Arizona’s efforts.” Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and David Vitter (R-LA) have even introduced an amendment that would prohibit the federal government from “participating in lawsuits seeking to invalidate the recently enacted Arizona immigration law.”
On Wednesday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) was on Lou Dobbs’ radio show and went a step further. He agreed with Dobbs’ statement that President Obama is “awfully close” to violating his “oath to protect the Constitution of the United States” by not completely securing the border:
DOBBS: The fact that we’ve witnessed both the Bush administration and now the Obama administration…refuse to secure the borders, refuse to enforce immigration law — at what point does this rise to the level of a breach of oath to protect the Constitution of the United States?
SMITH: I think we’re on the verge of being there right now. … Whatever law they’re not enforcing, I think it comes awfully close to a violation of their oath of office.
Listen here:
Neither Dobbs nor Smith mention the word impeachment, but in the past, a violation of the oath of office has been cited as grounds for such a procedure. During President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) said:
The debate about impeachment during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 makes it clear that the Framers of the Constitution regarded impeachment and removal from office on conviction as a remedy for a fundamental betrayal of trust by the President. The Framers had invested the presidential office with great powers. They knew that those powers could be — and would be — abused if any President were to violate, in a fundamental way, the oath he had sworn to faithfully execute the nation’s laws.
For if the President did so violate his oath of office, the covenant of trust between himself and the American people would be broken.
Is Smith really therefore interested in impeaching Obama over the immigration issue?
Local North Carolina Tea Party Group Protests YMCA Community Center Project
Local North Carolina Tea Party Group Protests YMCA Community Center Project
The Tea Party movement gets plenty of attention for its national protests, but the groups are becoming increasingly active at the local level as well. In Currituck County, North Carolina, the local Tea Party Patriots group, led by a man named Charles Carter, is taking aim at county plans to build a local community center in cooperation with the YMCA. The Daily Advance in Elizabeth City, NC reports:
Charles Carter, founder of the Tea Party Patriots, says the agreement between the county and the YMCA is “one sided” and questions the county’s openness in providing information about how the deal was arranged in the first place. “I think it’s an open window to their position on fiscal responsibility,” said Carter. [...]
Carter said he is dissatisfied with the county’s response to his protests so far. … Carter charges that the county has agreed to pay $15 million up-front for the new recreational building, but the YMCA has done little to contribute to the investment.
Like so many of the Tea Party talking points at the national level, these charges are based on misinformation. Carter has charged that the Currituck-YMCA deal was not publicly discussed until after a decision had been made. However, there is video evidence of County Attorney Ike McRee “going over items of the lease agreement at a commissioners’ meeting” as far back as November 2009. Additionally, this deal is far from the “sweetheart deal” and big government spending that Carter alleges:
County plans for building a recreational center abruptly halted in 2008 after the county learned it would cost $28 million. At the time, the county had saved only $11 million and could not afford to move forward, explained Scanlon.
New hope for the center re-emerged after the YMCA offered to build basically the same facility for $15 million. The YMCA can build it for less because it uses the same contractors each time it builds a new facility, a YMCA representative said at the meeting.
Operational costs would also be less, said Scanlon. The YMCA can operate the center for less because it uses the same data base for all its facilities in Hampton Roads.
The editorial staff of the Daily Advance also took Carter to task for dishonestly opposing the deal, stating that the new project is actually a great example of citizen involvement:
Currituck County residents — not their government — have been asking for a wider range of recreational opportunities for more than a decade. Both longtime and new residents have sought the addition of ballfields, parks and other facilities to provide outlets and alternatives for youth and adults in the growing county.
Government in Currituck has responded by looking for opportunities and by appointing citizens to serve on recreation boards to identify recreational needs and help in the planning of facilities. To suggest that citizens have not been involved in the process is not only misleading and unfair to Currituck officials but also to those citizens who have been involved.
The editorial goes on to mock Carter’s attempts to portray the YMCA as evil, stating that the group “is a partner — and a good one — in a worthwhile project, not some middle-man brokering a sleazy side hustle.”
Tea Party and FreedomWorks chapters in Georgia recently also took up an important cause: opposing mandatory trash collection.
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