Danger! Bus Parking For Beck’s 8/28 Rally Is Outside The Recommended ‘Safe Zone’
Danger! Bus Parking For Beck’s 8/28 Rally Is Outside The Recommended ‘Safe Zone’
Yesterday, a Maine tea party blog posted some handy advice for activists coming to Washington Saturday to attend Fox News host Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally. Among warnings about how to deal with “African immigrants” — do not “assume they are African Americans” and “especially do not…guess they are from a neighboring country” — the guide advised rally-goers to stay out of the vast majority of the city, and cautioned which portions of Metrorail system are safe. While the entire Green and Yellow lines are off limits, the guide allowed for travel on the Blue and Orange lines, as long as attendees do not stray West of the Eastern Market stop. As for areas outside this tiny safety zone: “you should not explore them.”
Unfortunately, the only official parking location for group buses is two stops beyond the last safe stop on the Blue and Orange line at RFK stadium, deep in the forbidden zone:
Buses will not be permitted to drop anywhere near the Lincoln Memorial.[...]
Bus parking is available at RFK Stadium for groups. RFK Stadium is adjacent to the Stadium Armory Metro Rail station on the Orange & Blue Rail lines. Walking distance from the bus parking area to this Metro is approximately 0.7 miles. The RFK Stadium Armory station connects to the Smithsonian Metro Rail Station, approximately 1 mile from the Lincoln Memorial event site.
DCist created a map illustrating the guide’s recommendations, which ThinkProgress has modified to demonstrate the danger facing the rally’s attendees when they unload from their buses to find themselves far in the unsafe zone:
- Comments
- 275
Steele, Rubio, And Diaz-Balart Soften GOP’s Immigration Rhetoric On Spanish Language Television
Steele, Rubio, And Diaz-Balart Soften GOP’s Immigration Rhetoric On Spanish Language Television
Earlier today, the Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel reported that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele “distanced the Republican Party from SB-1070″ in an interview with Univision. Steele attempted to reassure Latino viewers that Arizona’s new immigration law is not “a reflection of an entire country, nor is it a reflection of an entire political party.” Wonk Room oberved that, over the past week, at least two other Republicans have appeared on Spanish-language television echoing Steele’s remarks: Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Florida senatorial candidate Marco Rubio (R).
Watch this week’s Spanish-language interviews:
Despite shying away from it in English-language press a couple weeks ago, Rubio took to the Spanish-language airwaves to unambiguously affirm that he does not support gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum’s (R-FL) efforts to bring SB-1070 to the state of Florida. Diaz-Balart also frowned on McCollum’s Arizona copycat bill in an interview with Al Punto’s Jorge Ramos. However, Diaz-Balart insisted that such efforts have “bipartisan support.” More specifically, Diaz-Balart stated outright that Sink has said she is in favor of SB-1070 and, that as governor, she and McCollum would be pretty similar on the issue. However, Wonk Room could only find evidence that suggests otherwise.
Tea Party Leaders Criticize Beck’s 8/28 Rally: ‘All He’s Doing Is Trying To Use Us To Promote Himself’
Tea Party Leaders Criticize Beck’s 8/28 Rally: ‘All He’s Doing Is Trying To Use Us To Promote Himself’
This Saturday in Washington, DC, Fox News host Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally will take place at the Lincoln Memorial on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Beck has claimed that the rally — meant “to recognize our First Amendment rights and honor the service members who fight to protect those freedoms” — is “going to be one for the history books” and will be “a turning point in America.”
Beck has been a fervent supporter of the Tea Party, having previously promoted its events and rallies and even provided a forum for various Tea Party factions to work out their differences. While many local Tea Party chapters are helping to turn out attendees for the rally, some Tea Party leaders aren’t interested in helping Beck:
At least one tea party group rejected Beck’s entreaties to assist with the march, concluding he was offering little in return for its organizational know-how and credibility, while giving preferential treatment to FreedomWorks, which is paying to sponsor Beck’s radio show. The group’s leader, who requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing Beck, said, “All he’s doing is trying to use us to promote himself.” [...]
“I call it ‘Beckaplooza,’ because it seems to be all about Beck,” said Andrew Ian Dodge, the Maine state coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, a coalition of local groups that has helped stage several big rallies. … [W]hen the Patriots were deciding whether to help with Saturday’s rally, Dodge said there was internal queasiness over the M.L.K. link and Beck’s inflammatory rhetoric, including his blasting of Obama as a racist. … “Beck takes it outside of the realm of fiscal conservatism into issues that are more emotional and make you wonder if we really want to be associated with this guy,” [Dodge said].
RedState.com’s Erick Erickson said Beck is going to have to “be careful” or his gimmicks are “going to start becoming a punchline.”
Fox executive Bill Shine told Politico that “there is no organized promotion planned for the rally on Fox News and the network has nothing to do with it.” But as Media Matters notes, Fox has in fact been the “unofficial corporate sponsor” of Beck’s event. Perhaps that’s why Beck is expecting such a high turnout, recently suggesting that it will be similar in size to President Obama’s inauguration. “This will be a thing that your children will remember,” he has said. “I expect a miracle on 8/28.” Organizers are anticipating 300,000 participants. The country anxiously awaits.
Road To Stem Cell Decision Paved By Bush-Era Activism
Road To Stem Cell Decision Paved By Bush-Era Activism
Yesterday, Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed trial judge in DC, suspended all federal funding for embryonic stem cell (ESC) research — a decision which limits such research in a way that even President George W. Bush found untenable. But yesterday’s decision did not occur in a vacuum. It is the product of many right-wing activists working very, very hard for a very long time.
Indeed, as Michael Tomasky explains in the Guardian, the road to yesterday’s deeply radical decision was paved by Bush-era fights over the judiciary:
This case was not only about the new NIH guidelines, but about the legal standing of the plaintiffs, who were representatives of conservative Christian advocacy groups and research agencies that opposed the Obama NIH proposals. The plaintiff Alliance Defense Fund has a history of anti-gay activism. The group’s standing to sue was in question. In fact, on a previous occasion, Lamberth tossed the suit, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing.
That was appealed, and the question of standing was returned to a three-judge panel on the DC Circuit. This is the most important federal circuit court in the country. On June 25, a three-judge panel overturned Lamberth’s earlier decision and ruled that the plaintiffs did have standing. . . . Now, here’s the question. Who sat on this three-judge panel? They were: Janice Rogers-Brown, Brett Kavanaugh and Douglas Ginsburg. All Republicans. The first two very ideological Republicans. Rogers-Brown, whose nomination was contentious in 2005 and blocked by Democrats for a time until a deal was brokered . . . .
Brett Kavanaugh was an associate counsel for Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation. He then joined Starr’s firm. He was also active for Bush-Cheney 2000, and was rewarded with this plum assignment.
If anything, Tomasky understates just how deeply ideological these three judges are. Judge Brown, who was a central figure in 2005’s nuclear war over the filibuster, once compared liberalism to “slavery” and Social Security to a “socialist revolution.” Judge Ginsburg is a leading “tenther” who once called for America to return to a discredited era when child labor laws were considered unconstitutional. Judge Kavanaugh’s career of right-wing legal activism speaks for itself.
Nor is yesterday’s decision an isolated incident. Earlier this month, a Bush-appointed judge in Richmond threw an unnecessary lifeline to right-wing activists challenging President Obama’s single greatest accomplishment — health reform. Although the law is quite clear that this judge should have dismissed the case, the right is clearly hoping that it has stacked the courts enough to dismantle Obama’s entire legacy.
These decisions, and others like them, need to be a wake-up call to progressives. For decades, the right has manipulated the Senate rules and thrown their full political support behind deeply radical judicial nominees, while progressives been far less engaged in this fight. Is it any wonder, then, that the Senate has only confirmed half as many of Obama’s judicial nominees as it did for all other recent presidents?
Glenn Beck’s ‘Non-Political’ Rally — Sponsored By The Right Wing
Glenn Beck’s ‘Non-Political’ Rally — Sponsored By The Right Wing
This weekend, Glenn Beck will hold a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that is being billed as a “non-political event that pays tribute to America’s service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.” The “Restoring Honor” rally will feature speeches from Beck and Sarah Palin, but Beck has repeatedly stressed that it’s “not a political event.” Last Thursday, Beck told Bill O’Reilly — who openly questioned how an event featuring Sarah Palin couldn’t be political — that “[t]his isn’t political. This is about restoring honor in our own selves. We will never fix our country unless we stand in the shadows of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.”
Despite Beck’s claims, however, it is clear that right-wing groups and politicians are helping organize, promote and subsidize the event. Adele Stan at Alternet reported last week that the Koch-funded front group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which advocates for a number of conservative causes, is subsidizing bus and hotel packages for attendees of Beck’s rally, though not specifically advertising the rates as being for Beck’s event.
A search of the Restoring Honor website, however, shows that AFP is organizing buses for the event. A section on the website allows potential attendees to see if a bus is leaving from their area, and displays contact information for the bus organizer. In Georgia, there are three different buses with the contact Joel Foster, who is the grassroots organizer for AFP’s Georgia chapter. (He even lists his AFP e-mail address). A bus leaving from Raleigh, NC, and another in Baltimore County, Maryland, both appear to be organized by local AFP chapters.
In addition, several other right-wing groups are promoting the event and organizing travel. Among them:
– Grassfire.org, a conservative “grassroots” group with ties to the powerful Republican public relations firm Shirley & Banister, is an approved travel coordinator for the event, and has agreements with 30 area hotels.
– The American Family Association, Kentucky Chapter is running a bus to the event.
– Americans Against Immigration Amnesty advertises a bus, hotel, and event transportation package.
The map of bus organizers also belies Beck’s claim that “[t]he Restoring Honor Rally is neither a 9/12 nor a Tea Party rally.” A vast majority of the buses heading to DC appear to have been organized by local Tea Party chapters; for example, of the 51 bus pickups in Pennsylvania, over 30 are organized by either a Tea Party or 9/12 group. In Georgia, every bus stop but one is organized by either AFP or a local tea party group.
Beck’s insistence that “Restoring Honor” isn’t political is not simply a public relations effort. Funding for the event is provided by an organization called the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which is a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt, federally registered charity. In order for that charity to preserve its tax-exempt status, the “Restoring Honor” rally must be non-political. Perhaps Beck’s message this weekend will not be political — but the right-wing is clearly coordinating the rally.
Marine Corps Commandant Conway Reiterates: Marines Should Not Have To Share Quarters With Gay Troops
Marine Corps Commandant Conway Reiterates: Marines Should Not Have To Share Quarters With Gay Troops
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway
On a different, but related subject, Conway suggested that if the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” law is repealed, the Marines may consider allowing Marines not to share quarters with homosexuals.
Conway said the Marines may make such housing arrangements “voluntary” to accommodate any “moral concerns.” He said many Marines are “very religious” and because of their moral concerns “don’t want to room” with homosexuals.
But Conway stressed that if the law is repealed, the Marines would take the lead in implementing it. “We cannot be seen as dragging our feet. We’ve got two wars to fight. We’ll implement it and move on,” said Conway.
Conway came under intense criticism in March when he told Military.com he will insist that the Marines have the option of not living alongside gay servicemembers. The Wonk Room looks back at his comments and what they would mean for the forces.
Dick Armey Questions President Bush’s Qualifications On The Economy: Bush Wasn’t ‘A Big Thinking Guy’
Dick Armey Questions President Bush’s Qualifications On The Economy: Bush Wasn’t ‘A Big Thinking Guy’
Former House Majority Leader and FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey is making the rounds this month to promote his new book, “Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto.” In proselytizing for the conservative agenda of the “leaderless” Tea Party, Armey touts the humble foundations of the movement’s agenda, saying the “best practices come from the ground up, around kitchen tables, from Facebook friends, at weekly book clubs, or on Twitter feeds.”
In trying to reestablish the conservative brand, Armey is attempting to throw President Bush under the bus. In an interview aired last night on the O’Reilly Factor, Armey dismissed the qualifications of Bush who pushed for the 2008 financial bailout funds. When right-wing pundit Bill O’Reilly tried to defend Bush’s decision, Armey told O’Reilly that “Bush isn’t a big thinking guy” and he lacked “adult discipline,” unlike Armey, who knows better because “he read Hayek and Mises”:
O’REILLY: So you think the federal government should just step back and let it go?
ARMEY: Yeah the whole notion of too big to fail is simply a rationale for government intervention mostly.
O’REILLY: Bush isn’t a Big government guy..
ARMEY: No Bush is… Bush isn’t a big thinking guy either. Quite frankly He’s not well-schooled on economics. [...] Look I’m an economist by training, I studied it all my life. I have an advantage over them because I read Hayek and Mises. But the fact of the matter is the most critical affliction that came to the economy for those few days was the nations see in the secretary of treasury and the president in a total panic. If they would’ve had an adult discipline.
O’REILLY: So if you were there, you wouldn’t have done anything, no intervention. You would’ve let whatever happen happen
ARMEY: Absolutely right. You’ve got to let..you can’t privatize profits and socialize loss.
Watch it:
Armey is not shy about his current contempt for the former president. At a Christian Science Monitor lunch last month, Armey dubbed Bush the “quickest, biggest bitter disappointment.” But, during Bush’s administration, Armey found plenty of policies to praise Bush about. In 2001, Armey even touted Bush’s “rare ability to ‘tune out the noise’” to get things done:
House Majority Leader Dick Armey said yesterday President Bush has a rare ability to “tune out the noise,” which is helping him define and organize the new initiatives of this administration. “There’s a new demeanor in Washington,” Mr. Armey told a group of constituents at a breakfast coffee klatch. Mr. Bush “knows what he wants to accomplish and is busy going about it.”
While he now slams Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy, Armey published an op-ed in the Washington Times in 2001 to congratulate Bush for “finally changing the way Washington views education.” Blaming President Clinton for “simply talking about a failed education system,” Armey said Bush “is doing something about it.” When Bush pushed to privatize Social Security in 2004, Armey saluted Bush’s “strong leadership” in “clearly understand[ing] the profound issues at stake.”
Toomey: ‘I’ve Never Said I Favor Privatizing Social Security’
Toomey: ‘I’ve Never Said I Favor Privatizing Social Security’
Last week, Pennsylvania’s Republican candidate for Senate, Pat Toomey, touted his plan for privatizing Social Security, saying, “I’ve got a whole chapter in a book that I wrote that deals with how I think, one of the ways I think we could reform Social Security to make it viable.” A section of the chapter which Toomey referenced is called “Personal Accounts Lead to Personal Prosperity.” And when President Bush released his plan for privatizing Social Security, Toomey said, “I have been arguing for many years in favor of Social Security personal retirement accounts. “I’m thrilled that the President is taking up this critical issue,” Toomey added. But when directly asked at the Pennsylvania Press Club yesterday whether he still favors privatization, Toomey actually replied, “I’ve never said I favor privatizing Social Security”:
Q: Do you continue to favor privatizing Social Security?
A: I’ve never said I favor privatizing Social Security. It’s a very misleading — it’s an intentionally misleading term. And it is used by those who try to use it as a pejorative to scare people…[T]hat doesn’t mean that we must perpetuate exactly this structure for future workers and for very young workers. So I’ve advocated that we consider offering young workers an alternative — a reform within Social Security that would give them the opportunity to take a portion of their payroll tax and actually save that and own that and allow that to accumulate over the course of their working years and for that to provide a portion of their retirement benefit. I think that’d be a very constructive reform, and that’s what I’m going to advocate.
Watch it:
As The Wonk Room explains, Toomey’s plan is most certainly privatization, and the majority of Americans oppose it.
Anti-Mosque Coalition’s Website Owned By Neo-Conservative Islamophobe Frank Gaffney
Anti-Mosque Coalition’s Website Owned By Neo-Conservative Islamophobe Frank Gaffney
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called for “transparency” about who is funding the ugly attacks against the construction of a proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City. “There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she told KCBS radio.
Naturally, right-wing opponents of the mosque blasted Pelosi for the comments, claiming the opposition is an organic, spontaneous uprising of concerned Americans. However, the coalition leading the charge against the mosque, the Coalition to Honor Ground Zero, appears to be funded by a major neo-conservative advocacy group, with deep-pocketed donors, and extensive connections to the conservative establishment. As Glenn Greenwald noted, the coalition’s website StopThe911Mosque.com is registered to the Center for Security Policy, a neo-conservative think tank and advocacy group run by Reagan defense official and far-right hawk Frank Gaffney:
The coalition’s partners include a who’s who of far-right pundits, politicians, and neo-conservative advocacy groups, such as Keep America Safe, the attack group formed by Liz Cheney and hawkish Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. Another coalition partner is 911FamiliesForAmerica.org, a group run by Tim Sumner and Debra Burlingame, who also happens to be a founding board member of Keep America Safe.
The Center for Security Policy, of which Gaffney is the founder and president, appears to be leading the charge, thanks to its network of big-time right-wing funders like the Bradley Foundation and, presumably, its board of directors. Gaffney’s board includes the vice president of Van Scoyoc Associates, which touts itself as the “largest independent lobbying company in Washington, D.C,” with numerous defense clients and $15.93 million in lobbying revenue over the first six months of 2010. Other members of Gaffney’s board include the former vice president of Boeing’s missile defense division, and the head of the investment firm American Securities LP, which is invested in, among other companies, Potbelly’s Sandwich Works. The group paid Gaffney $288,300 in 2008, according to its most recently available 990 form.
Another partner in StopThe911Mosque.com is the anti-Muslim hate group ACT! For America, whose “radical Islamophobe” founder Brigitte Gabriel has said that Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office, and that an American Muslim “cannot be a loyal citizen” because Islam is the “real enemy.”
Gaffney himself has long history of advocating outrageous and bigoted positions about Islam, and has repeatedly questioned President Obama’s birthplace and religion.
The StopThe911Mosque.com campaign reflects Gaffney’s radical views, declaring that it is not opposed to only the “mega-mosque and Islamic Center at Ground Zero,” but to many mosques, because they may be “‘Trojan Horses,’ masquerading as places of worship when they in fact have proved to be sources of extremist activities and terror plots against America.” The New York mosque is just “a prominent example of this kind of ‘Trojan Horse.’” Indeed, the website also targets mosques in Boston and London.
Pickens Laments That He Failed To Convince Bush And Obama To Take Iraq’s Oil
Pickens Laments That He Failed To Convince Bush And Obama To Take Iraq’s Oil
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens made headlines late last year as he openly advocated to members of Congress that the United States seize the oil fields of Iraq and use them for its own benefit, arguing that our country is “entitled” to the oil.
Speaking at the American Renewable Energy Day conference in Aspen, Colorado, last week, Pickens once again lamented the fact that the United States failed to take Iraq’s oil, and even revealed that he personally lobbied former President George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama to seize the country’s natural resources. The oil baron explained that President Bush, though interested in how such a plan would be structured, ultimately failed to agree to enact Pickens’ scheme, fearing that it would make people “think we’re there for the oil.” Pickens also said he told Obama to stay in Iraq to appropriate the country’s oil fields, but failed to convince the president of the merits of his idea:
“I’ve heard people accuse President Bush of going to Iraq for their oil,” he began, in a public conversation with CNN founder Ted Turner and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “That didn’t happen. We didn’t get the oil.”
Pickens argued that the American blood shed in the war was reason enough to take the oil. But, he said, Bush was too concerned about his image and appearing as if the war were a ploy to get the oil to follow Pickens’ plan. [...]
The 82-year-old Texan recalled a conversation with President Bush as his days in office waned, in which Bush asked about how they could bring the oil to market and battle the public perception that Operation Iraqi Freedom was a war for oil.
“He said, ‘People will think we’re there for the oil.’ And I said, ‘That was eight years ago, a lot’s happened since then — a lot of money spent, a lot of lives lost.’ And he said, ‘How would you price it?’ I said, ‘Price it on the market every day.’”
Bush then asked more detailed questions about the pricing structure, and Pickens recalled pushing those concerns aside and telling the president, “That’s a high-class problem. We can figure out how to get it in the hands where it’d do best for America.” He made a similar plea to Obama, Pickens said, with similar results. “I went to Obama and said, ‘Don’t leave Iraq.’ Look where we are now.”
It is difficult to understand how Pickens squares his view that the United States should have continued to indefinitely occupy Iraq to take its oil with his much-touted “Pickens Plan” designed to “break America’s addiction to foreign oil.” If what Pickens says about his lobbying of two American presidents to try to seize Iraq’s oil is true, it calls into question his sincerity in pursuing his stated goal of energy independence.
New Mexico GOP Candidates Are Global Warming Deniers
New Mexico GOP Candidates Are Global Warming Deniers
NM GOP candidates (clockwise from top left): Susana Martinez, Jon Barela, Steve Pearce, and Tom Mullins
Even though New Mexico is facing a future of perpetual drought, killer heat waves, water scarcity, and wildfires, the crop of Republican candidates for major office in the state are in denial about the threat of global warming pollution. Gubernatorial nominee Susana Martinez and all three congressional candidates — former representative Steve Pearce, oil engineer Tom Mullins, and corporate lobbyist Jon Barela — believe scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to destroy our economy:
“[T]here is disagreement in the science community concerning the causes of global warming.” — Susana Martinez, GOP nominee for governor
“I don’t mean to be flippant about this, but only God knows where our climate is going.” — Jon Barela, GOP nominee for the first Congressional district
“I think we ought to take a look at whatever the group is that measures all this, the IPCC, they don’t even believe the crap.” — Steve Pearce, GOP nominee for the second Congressional district
“The science is not settled regarding climate change, temperature records have been falsified, and the assumptions used in computer models have large degrees of error.” — Tom Mullins, GOP nominee for the third Congressional district
The Wonk Room notes that New Mexico’s fragile frontier is already experiencing a wide range of debilitating climate change events, with extreme storms doubling and bark beetles killing tens of millions of trees in the now water-starved state.
Fox Shareholder Prince Alwaleed Meets With News Corp Execs To Discuss How To ‘Strengthen The Alliance’
Fox Shareholder Prince Alwaleed Meets With News Corp Execs To Discuss How To ‘Strengthen The Alliance’
Yesterday morning on Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Dan Senor observed that The Kingdom Foundation, whose chairman Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (Fox News-parent company News Corp’s second-largest shareholder), is a funder for the Cordoba House Initiative. “The Kingdom Foundation, so you know, is this Saudi organization, headed up by the guy that tried to give Rudy Giuliani $10 million after 9/11 that was sent back, funds radical madrassas all over the world,” Senor said. “And he funds this imam,” Fox host Brian Kilmeade chimed in. Watch it:
Last night on The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart — who last week labeled Fox News a “terrorist command center” — mocked the Fox network for its own association with Prince Alwaleed:
This is the proposed “terror mosque.” We know that it’s a “terror mosque” because the money may be coming from a bad guy, who definitely owns part of Fox News. Now, we know that he’s a bad guy because we just heard it on Fox News.
And by hearing it on Fox News, watching Fox News, I’m increasing their viewership. And their advertising rates go up. Now, part of that money goes to the bad guy we learned about on Fox because he’s their part owner – Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, allowing him then to make it rain, so to speak, on the “terror mosque.”
My point is this: If we want to cut off funding to the “terror mosque,” we must – together as a nation — stop watching Fox. It’s the only way!
Watch it:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Parent Company Trap | ||||
|
||||
Prince Alwaleed has grown close with the Murdoch enterprise, recently endorsing James Murdoch to succeed his father and creating a content-sharing agreement with Fox News for his own media conglomerate, Rotana. As irony would have it, the Arab News just published this picture today of Prince Alwaleed meeting with News Corp executives to discuss how to “further strengthen the strategic corporate alliance between Rotana and News Corp”:
Indeed, the terror politics that the right wing and Fox News like to play can easily be turned against them, revealing that their hyperbolic fear-mongering concerns are lacking substantive merit.
ThinkFast: August 24, 2010
ThinkFast: August 24, 2010
Iowa RNC member Kim Lehman said yesterday that she believes President Obama is a Muslim. “Call the president,” she said. “Say, ‘Are you a Christian or not?’ If I’m wrong, I’m more than happy to say, ‘Oh, I’m wrong.’” Referring to Obama’s Cairo speech, Lehman said on Twitter last week that he “told the muslims that he IS a muslim.” The “transcript shows he makes no comment about being Muslim.”
An alarming number of children who survived Hurricane Katrina now have serious emotional or behavioral problems, according to a new study. More than one in three children studied have been diagnosed with mental health problems, and nearly half of the families studied reported household instability.
In their first face-to-face meeting since her controversial ouster, Shirley Sherrod will meet with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today to discuss a job offer as the Deputy Director of the Office of Advocacy and Outreach. Sherrod was forced to resign in July “after misleading and incomplete video footage of a speech she gave was posted on the internet” by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart.
North Korea has agreed to let an American prisoner who crossed into the country illegally go free, if former President Jimmy Carter visits the country and brings the man home. Carter is expected to spend one night in the country and return home Thursday with the freed prisoner.
“The number of U.S. troops in Iraq has fallen below 50,000 — the lowest level since the U.S-led invasion in 2003,” after the final American combat brigade pulled out of the country last week. “Some said that our drawdown would bring about more violence. Well, they were wrong,” Vice President Biden said at a gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Indianapolis.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas warned that a failure to extend a freeze on settlements in the West Bank by Israel could cause the Palestinians to “abandon recently announced direct peace negotiations.” Abbas’s statement comes at a time when the U.S. has brokered the “first direct negotiations between the sides in 20 months.”
First Lady Michelle Obama and former First Lady Laura Bush will appear together at a 9/11 memorial event in Shanksville, PA, next month. The Shanksville site marks the location where United 93 “went down after the crew and passengers fought back against terrorists.”
The State Department said yesterday that Xe Services Inc., formerly known as Blackwater, “violated U.S. export control laws nearly 300 times, ranging from attempts to do business in Sudan while that country was under U.S. sanctions to training an Afghan border patrol official who was a native of Iran.” Xe will continue to receive government contracts after a $42 million settlement with the State Department.
The American International Group is paying back over $3.9 billion of the $182 billion in federal bailout loans it received during the financial crisis last year. The repayment is AIG’s “single biggest repayment of bailout loans so far” and trims its balance with the Federal Reserve to about $21 billion, including interest.
And finally: A tea party blogger from Maine has offered some very useful tips on how to stay safe for those coming to Washington to attend Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, including avoiding two entire Metro lines and staying within a tiny safe zone near the National Mall. More disturbingly, “the guide’s author also lists the home addresses of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ex-Sen. Tom Daschle, and White House counsel Bob Bauer and his wife, former White House communications director Anita Dunn, writing, ‘Feel free to protest!’”
ThinkProgress is hiring! Details here.
Charles And David Koch Exposed For Insidious Role In Crafting The Modern Right
Charles And David Koch Exposed For Insidious Role In Crafting The Modern Right
Fred Koch
Mayer’s piece builds off the original reporting conducted by ThinkProgress since the very beginning of the Tea Party movement. Here’s a review of what we’ve reported:
– In April 2009, ThinkProgress revealed that Americans for Prosperity, a group founded by David Koch, was helping to plan dozens of the first national Tea Party rallies. Americans for Prosperity staffers organized events, from making reservations, to providing talking points and signs, to calling activists to encourage them to participate.
– In August 2009, ThinkProgress obtained an exclusive memo from a Tea Party group supported by Koch’s Americans for Prosperity. The memo outlined various ways for Tea Party activists to intimidate Democratic lawmakers and disrupt their town hall meetings on health reform. ThinkProgress published half a dozen articles exposing the role of Koch-funded groups like “Patients United” in encouraging opposition to health reform. For instance, in Virginia, a Koch-funded operative Ben Marchi assisted a birther who followed Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) around, yelling at him at town hall meetings.
– In May 2009, the Wonk Room published a detailed history of Tim Phillips, an astroturf lobbyist Koch appointed to run his Americans for Prosperity front. Phillips had served as a business partner to Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed.
– Writing in the Boston Globe, ThinkProgress commented on the similarities between David and Charles’ Tea Party movement to their father’s efforts to attack President John Kennedy through the John Birch Society.
– The Wonk Room reported on thirty years of Koch Industry environmental front groups. The timeline showed how Koch tried desperately to smear the cap and trade system set up to address acid rain with a “grassroots” group without a single grassroots member.
– At Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) “House Call” rally, ThinkProgress produced a video report exposing Koch for paying for dozens of buses for anti-health reform activists to reach DC. We also captured the picture of a large banner comparing health reform to the Holocaust.
– The Wonk Room investigated Koch Industries’ role in the effort to repeal AB 32, the landmark California climate change clean energy law. The Wonk Room’s video report revealed how Koch Industries’ reliance on high-carbon Canadian crude would become less profitable if similar laws like AB 32 are enacted around the country.
– ThinkProgress reported how a variety of right-wing fronts supported by the Koch family and its political deputies not only helped overturn nearly a hundred years in campaign finance law in the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, but also is lobbying aggressively against the DISCLOSE Act, which would provide transparency into the campaign spending for plutocrats like the Koch family.
– The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson reported extensively on the multiple climate-denying campaigns orchestrated by the Koch family. Johnson has lampooned some of the Koch family’s more ridiculous attempts at billionaire populism.
– ThinkProgress partnered with Climate Progress to investigate David Koch’s funding of the Smithsonian Institute. We spoke to the Smithsonian director, who continued to express gratitude to Koch, and whitewashed Koch’s role in distorting public knowledge of climate science. Similarly, we have long chronicled the “Swift Boat” style attack campaign conducted by Koch’s various anti-science fronts.
– The Wonk Room reported on how Koch-backed groups and media outlets spread the myth that the so-called “Climategate” e-mails showed that scientists had concealed climate data from the public.
Mayer’s article sheds light on many other ways in which the Koch family has intertwined its business interests with its investment in right-wing groups. She also exposes a serious conflict of interest with David Koch’s position as a board member to the National Cancer Institute, an honor granted to him by President Bush. Mayer notes that while David Koch has been “casting himself as a champion in the fight against cancer, Koch Industries has been lobbying to prevent the E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde, which the company produces in great quantities, as a ‘known carcinogen’ in humans.”
Judge Suspends All Federal Funding of Embryoic Stem Cell Research
Judge Suspends All Federal Funding of Embryoic Stem Cell Research
Earlier today, a federal trial judge in D.C. suspended all federal funding of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research during ongoing litigation, claiming that such funding is illegal. According to Chief Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, such funding violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed”:
ESC research is clearly research in which an embryo is destroyed. To conduct ESC research, ESCs must be derived from an embryo. The process of deriving ESCs from an embryo results in the destruction of the embryo. Thus, ESC research necessarily depends upon the destruction of a human embryo.
Despite defendants’ attempt to separate the derivation of ESCs from research on the ESCs, the two cannot be separated. Derivation of ESCs from an embryo is an integral step in conducting ESC research. Indeed, it is just one of many steps in the “systematic investigation” of stem cell research. Simply because ESC research involves multiple steps does not mean that each step is a separate “piece of research” that may be federally funded, provided the step does not result in the destruction of an embryo.
Essentially, Judge Lamberth claims that all ESC research cannot be funded because it requires scientists to build upon previous research that involved the destruction of an embryo, but it’s difficult to square this decision with Supreme Court precedent. Under Chevron v. NRDC, judges are normally supposed to defer to an agency’s reading of a federal law unless the agency’s interpretation is entirely implausible, and the Obama administration quite plausibly read the Dickey-Wicker Amendment to only prohibit federal funding of the actual destruction of an embryo — not federal funding of subsequent ESC research.
Indeed, Lamberth’s decision moves the law to a worse position than it was during the Bush administration. President George W. Bush allowed federal funding for research on existing embryonic stem cell lines, but would not allow new lines to be created. Today’s opinion even forbids such entirely uncontroversial research.
Gingrich Won’t Explain Why He’s Backing Out Of Participating In 9/11 Anti-Mosque Rally
Gingrich Won’t Explain Why He’s Backing Out Of Participating In 9/11 Anti-Mosque Rally
Last week, the right-wing group Stop Islamization of America announced that former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich was a “confirmed” speaker for the group’s September 11th protest against the proposed Park 51 Islamic center near ground zero, in New York City. Other speakers included former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, right-wing media tycoon Andrew Breitbart, and, notably, the far-right Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, best known for his self-described “hate” towards Islam.
Last week, however, Gingrich spokesperson Joe DeSantis told Politico that the Gingrich — who has been an outspoken opponent of the Islamic center — “is not scheduled to be at this rally. He is not speaking.” DeSantis said Gingrich’s staff had only agreed to send a video message, not make an appearance, but that too has now been canceled, but Gingrich won’t say why:
But a spokesman for Gingrich, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, told The Hill that the former leader of the House had never confirmed his appearance. Instead, one of Gingrich’s staff had agreed to send a video message from him to be shown at the Sept. 11 rally.
That has since been canceled.
“The confusion is at least partially our fault,” said Joe DeSantis, a spokesman for Gingrich. “A staff member mistakenly promised a video message, though not an appearance. However, we are not sending a video. We informed them earlier this week.”
DeSantis did not comment on why Gingrich was no longer planning to send a video message to the rally, and attempts to contact the organizers of the rally were unsuccessful.
Given Gingrich’s extreme rhetoric on the issue and self-appointed leadership role in the opposition, it’s surprising that he would pass up this opportunity.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is also listed on the event’s website as an “invited speaker,” but a spokesman for King said he was not planning to attend because he “will have so many 9/11 commemorations [to attend] in his district.” King has also spoken out against the Islamic center, but his rhetoric has been more temperated than Gingrich’s, and he even publicly condemned the former Speaker for “making a Nazi comparison” about the center. “It was wrong,” King said of Gingrich’s comment that the center’s organizers are “radical Islamists” who are seeking “supremacy,” much like “Nazis.”
However, protesters will still hear from Wilders, who tweeted, “I booked a flight and a hotel. Great feeling. Important speech. No one can stop me. No mosque at ground zero!” On Wilders’ website, he touts the would-be appearance with Gingrich, calling the duo “two eagles” who will come together to heighten awareness and stop the mosque.
Cuccinelli Authorizes Same Anti-Abortion Regulations He Failed To Enact As State Senator
Cuccinelli Authorizes Same Anti-Abortion Regulations He Failed To Enact As State Senator
As a state senator, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli consistently “supported bills that would have treated abortion clinics as ambulatory surgery centers and required them to meet hospital-type regulations with regard to equipment and space,” but none of these bills ever became law. Now that he is Attorney General, however, Cuccinelli has decided that he does not need such legislative authority to act. In an opinion issued late last week, Attorney General Cuccinelli determined that the state already has the power to do what State Senator Cuccinelli failed to accomplish in the legislature:
In addition to applying regulations governing medical facilities and health care providers in general, the relevant agencies are authorized to impose regulations particular to abortion services. … In this circuit, the parameters within which states may constitutionally regulate first trimester abortion services were articulated by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Greenville Women’s Clinic v. Bryant. The Court upheld South Carolina legislation and regulations that, in essence, extended the rules already imposed on facilities offering second trimester abortions to establishments in which five or more first trimester abortions were performed. The regulations at issue concerned licensing requirements; staffing rules; specified drug, equipment and laboratory availability; detailed record keeping and reporting duties; maintenance, safety and emergency policies; sterilization procedures; and design and construction standards.
At the very least, Cuccinelli’s opinion opens the door for Virginia to enact the very same kind of restrictive regulations that are already the law in South Carolina. Moreover, as Igor Volsky points out at the Wonk Room, Cuccinelli’s opinion could lead to even more aggressive use of the kind of “so-called TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) legislation that’s been passed in states across the country.” In a nutshell, TRAP laws attempt to cut off a woman’s constitutional right to choose an abortion by driving up the cost of the procedure through intentionally burdensome regulations.
Last week’s opinion is also only the latest example of Cuccinelli suddenly discovering that the law must agree with whatever his personal views are on an issue. When Congress enacted a health care law that Cuccinelli disagrees with, he immediately concluded — contrary to the Constitution and a wealth of legal precedent — that the law must be unconstitutional. When the EPA began long-overdue steps to prevent global warming, Cuccinelli suddenly decided that EPA’s actions were illegal. When a UVA scientist conducted research contradicting Cuccinelli’s global warming denialism, Cuccinelli suddenly found that he has the legal authority to pursue a witchhunt against that professor. When a federal judge struck down Arizona’s unconstitutional anti-immigrant law, Cuccinelli responded two days later with an opinion authorizing Virginia to mimic Arizona’s failed law. And, of course, it goes without saying that Cuccinelli forbids any kind of action which protects gay Virginians.
In other words, either the law magically bends to fit Ken Cuccinelli’s whims, or Cuccinelli doesn’t really care what the law says — he’ll just claim it does whatever he wants it to do.
Kasich clueless about the cost of his budget-busting tax cuts: ‘I don’t have the revenues.’
Kasich clueless about the cost of his budget-busting tax cuts: ‘I don’t have the revenues.’
John Kasich, the “former state senator, congressman, Fox News talk show host, and financial firm manager” running on the Republican gubernatorial ticket in Ohio, has taken to calling the Ohio budget a “disaster,” and plans to reinvigorate the state’s economy by completely eliminating both its income tax and its estate tax. But when asked how much his tax plan would cost the state in terms of lost revenue, Kasich admitted that he has absolutely no idea, as the Toledo Blade reported:
Ask specifics about how and when he’d follow through with his plan and where he’d reduce state spending to offset the potential loss of revenue, and the path becomes less clear. “All the specifics on this are all being constantly worked,” he told The Blade in a recent interview in his downtown Columbus campaign headquarters. “I will lay out a program whenever I feel I’m satisfied with the program, when we understand the revenue, when we’ve worked this effectively,” he said.
Kasich was even more forthcoming about his cluelessness two weeks ago, saying “people want to know the details of my plan. I don’t have the revenues.” The Wonk Room pulled up tables from the Ohio Department of Taxation to find just how much of a hole Kasich is ready to blow in his state’s budget.
Rep. Jordan: If GOP wins the House, we won’t get anything done except frame the 2012 election.
Rep. Jordan: If GOP wins the House, we won’t get anything done except frame the 2012 election.
Last Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) held a town hall with his constituents in Shelby, Ohio, and fielded questions on a variety of topics ranging from health care to the economy. At one point, a constituent asked him about Republicans’ plans to throw “a monkey wrench in the gears of everything Obama does” if they re-take the House of Representatives. Jordan replied by saying that “most of what [the GOP] can get done” if they happen to capture the House is “have the big fight, have the big debate, and have the framework for the 2012 election”:
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Assuming it’s accurate that Republicans will get the House, how effective will that be in throwing a monkey wrench in the gears of everything Obama does?JORDAN: If we win, what will we get done? Mostly, I’ll be honest, most of what we can get done is have the big fight, have the big debate, and have the framework for the 2012 election.
Watch it:
Jordan’s comments are the latest piece of evidence that suggests that the GOP does not have a substantive policy agenda it plans to implement if it makes gains in the 2010 congressional elections. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said that if the GOP wins, “all we should do is issue subpoenas.” And Rep. Peter King (R-NY) argued the GOP shouldn’t lay out an agenda because it might become “a campaign issue.”
In Calling For Islamic Center’s Relocation, Former Bush Official Ignores Message She Touted Abroad
In Calling For Islamic Center’s Relocation, Former Bush Official Ignores Message She Touted Abroad
In stoking the paranoid hysteria over the Cordoba Initiative, right-wing opponents to the proposed Islamic center are cleaving to the sensitivity talking point: while Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center, they would be offending Americans if they did.
Yesterday, another Republican voice joined the chorus calling for relocation. President Bush’s Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes penned an op-ed in the Washington Post asserting that the Islamic center is “contentious because it goes to the heart of who is to blame for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.” Hughes, who promoted the center’s sponsor Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as an ambassador of Islamic faith in America under the Bush Administration, claims his current project would be a “searing reminder of terrible deaths at the hands of murderers calling themselves Muslims” and ultimately allow terrorists to “celebrate its presence as a twisted victory over our society’s freedoms.”
But, during her tenure with the Bush administration, Hughes cited American commitment to “our society’s freedoms” as a key difference between American and Saudi Arabian society. During a week-long Middle East tour “to improve the image of the United States” in 2005, Hughes spoke to several hundred Saudi women about the non-discriminatory right of driving in America. Saudi Arabia’s ban on female drivers is “one of the more controversial” issues in Saudi Arabia that “many high ranking officials maintain” is “a societal issue.” In fact, paralleling the increasingly vitriolic debate over the center here at home, the idea of Saudi women drivers spurred Saudi conservatives and religious scholars to argue that “that giving women the right to drive will lead to a ‘Western-style’ erosion of morality and a loss of traditional values.”
Going “significantly further” than then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on the subject, Hughes told the audience in ‘05 that its society’s unwillingness to allow women to drive flouted an important “symbol” of the freedoms Americans take “very seriously”:
“We in America take our freedoms very seriously,” Hughes said. “I believe women should be free and equal participants in society. I feel that as an American woman that my ability to drive is an important part of my freedom.”
Women in the audience applauded after she also mentioned that they should have a greater voice in the Saudi political system, including eventually receiving the right to vote.[...]
Asked about the contrast between her comments and Rice’s, Hughes said her remarks were part of a U.S. policy of “slowly advancing ideas” with the Saudis. “My job is to raise issues in, I hope, a respectful way, to help other countries understand concerns Americans have,” she said.[...]
“It is important for them to understand that for many American women, driving is a symbol. We can’t imagine not being able to drive ourselves to work,” she told reporters traveling with her.
Hughes went further in warning against American backlash against Muslims while speaking at the Islamic Society of North America convention in 2005. Seeing that her role was to “respond to civil liberty concerns within the United States from Muslims whose lives and travel have been disrupted,” Hughes urged “people of all faiths to speak out against the ‘backlash and widespread demonization of Islam and Muslims’ that followed the 9/11 attacks.” “It is important that we be mindful of speaking out against all voices of hate and incitement including those raised against Muslims themselves,” she said. “We want to be a welcoming country.”
Hughes’ current position hardly reflects the tone she projected in 2005. It is wrong to believe that we honor the 9/11 victims by rejecting the values they cherished while succumbing to the very fear and hatred their murderers were trying to provoke.
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll