FOX is on the defensive

More from HuffPost Hill:

Neil Cavuto, on Fox News this afternoon, defended his network by arguing that there was no cable bickering in 1865, yet John Wilkes Booth was still mad enough to shoot Abraham Lincoln. That was the most cogent argument that would be heard for the next hour, as Glenn Beck came before the camera to say that Cupid and Christ on the cross are symbols of violence, too, and so should share in the blame.

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Limbaugh says Democrats support assassin who shot Rep. Giffords

Once again, the head of the Republican party throws gasoline on an already volatile situation. But his advertisers won't leave, and the Republicans will all continue to go on his show. (From Media Matters)


Ben Smith has the transcript:

"What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail. He knows what's going on, he knows that...the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America...That smiling mug shot -- this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder - but something lesser."

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Tea Party freshman congressman claims both sides do it

Sorry, but our VP candidate, unlike yours, did not put a bullseye on someone's district. Our leaders in Congress don't accuse the opposition of having a secret plan to exterminate millions of elderly Americans, a la Germany circa 1940. We did not urge our followers to bring guns to the other party's presidential rallies. You folks embrace your nuts and elevate them to the highest levels of your party and your propaganda organs. Our nuts are low-level aberrations, your nuts are nominated for VP. Sarah Palin is not akin to an anonymous commenter on a liberal blog. Both sides don't do it.

NYT:

Representative Raul Labrador, a freshman Republican from Idaho, who had Tea Party support, cautioned the host, David Gregory, about drawing connections between the anti-big government rhetoric of the fall campaign and inexplicable acts of violence.

“We have to be careful not to blame one side or the other because both sides are guilty of this,” Mr. Labrador said. “You have extremes on both sides. You have crazy people on both sides.”

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, went further in suggesting that Republicans commentators bore greater responsibility for increasingly incendiary rhetoric.

“Those of us in public life and the journalists who cover us should be thoughtful in response to this and try to bring down the rhetoric, which I’m afraid has become pervasive in our discussion of political issues,” Mr. Durbin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Then, in a clear jab at former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Tea Party groups, Mr. Durbin said, “The phrase ‘Don’t retreat; reload,’ putting crosshairs on congressional districts as targets, these sorts of things, I think, invite the kind of toxic rhetoric that can lead unstable people to believe this is an acceptable response.”

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Illinois may implement 75% state tax increase to fix budget

It's not pretty, but neither is ignoring an even larger financial deficit as they are doing in Texas. The state of Illinois has been working on cutting costs plus raising taxes whereas Texas prefers to continue doing exactly what they've been doing as their state deficit has grown out of control.

Crippled by a massive deficit, Illinois has seen its bills pile up and its bond ratings fall. Now the state's Democratic leaders are making a desperate effort, and fighting the clock, to fill the budget hole with an equally massive tax increase.

They want to boost the personal income tax rate temporarily by up to 75 percent, pushing the current rate of 3 percent as high as 5.25 percent.

In sheer percentage terms, the Illinois proposal could be the biggest tax increase on the long list of increases states have passed as they grappled with recent economic woes.

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Why the Right uses hate speech and violent rhetoric

The Tucson shootings, the reaction to them, and a private conversation with an otherwise intelligent right-wing follower, have made clear for me the dynamic of right-wing hate speech. It's complicated, more than our own reaction shows. And there's a danger in ignoring this complication.

The situation — there is not one right wing, but two. There are right-wing leaders (for example, Rush Limbaugh) and right-wing followers (all of his listeners, along with Michelle Malkin's readers, Atlas Pam's droolers, Peter King's voters and supporters, and on and on).

The interests of the leaders is different than the interests of the followers, and each should be treated differently.

As illustration, consider the following. Here's Glenn Beck on murdering Michael Moore:

Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong?

And now Rush Limbaugh on the firestorm surrounding the Tucson murders:

Do not kid yourself. What this is all about is shutting down conservative media. That’s what this is all about. Shutting down any and all political opposition.

And finally my right-wing friend, a smart high-tech professional, in the course of a software discussion:

ME: Did you know that the GoodStuf software program is now developed in India? They fired the whole San Jose engineering department and rebuilt it in Bangalore. That's why they can make such big changes to that old code; it's now cheap to do it."

FRIEND: "We are so screwed, aren't we." [Huh? My ears pick up.]

ME: "What do you mean?"

FRIEND: "All of us, the whole country. All our money's going to Asia, and all our jobs. I don't think we'll ever get it back."

ME: "Can't argue with that. So, where do you think the problem is?" [I'm fishing for her economic awareness, so I know where to start.]

FRIEND: "Why, the Democrats of course." [I stare at my coffee in shock.]

In the ensuing conversation, she agreed with all of the economic analysis I offered, all the historical analysis about entrenched aristocracies going back to Hammurabi, and after a dozen Yesses at all the right places, she still couldn't get past tort reform (for some ungodly reason) and the damn liberals. But she got part way. I had made a dent.

Thanks to right-wing media, my well-meaning friend — who is deathly afraid that the future of her developmentally disabled child and his socially struggling sibling is going to crash and burn on the shores of the South China Sea — is almost fully confused.

And this is why we have to separate these two groups, if we're going to respond effectively.

She cares about what we care about, the economic future of her family, her children and eventually, grandkids. There are millions like her, and millions like us. We're all victims, and it's wrong not to see that.

Rush and the Glenns care about keeping her confused and adrenaline-laced, so that Bankers & Barons (Inc.) can keep its boot on both of our necks, hers and ours. And so that the servants of the Barons (the Rushes and Glenns) can continue to feast with the king (or at least write about it in the royal newspaper).

Most of the Erik Son-of-Eric types don't even believe their own spill; it's just a job that pays well. And we shouldn't treat them like they do believe. They're predators, not prophets. And me and my friend are both victims.

Bottom line — This violent rhetoric is just a tactic with a goal, cynically executed by a small group to influence a large group. We need to see both groups, and see them as different. In my opinion, we cannot respond effectively until we do.

The leaders deserve all the scorn and public humiliation we can hand them. They not only deserve it, but it drives them crazy, takes them off their game, and makes them dig the hole even deeper; good. (And I strongly advise always calling them out as cynical manipulators, and denying them true-believer status.)

The followers deserve sympathy for suffering in the same boat that we're in (yes, sympathy) and deserve all the attempts at patient education we can muster. There are obvious and common connecting points — China and Asia in general, loss of jobs, loss of wages, children who obviously won't better their parents, and parents who will die, leaving those children to struggle alone in the modern dystopia.

Treating the followers with respect is not only humane, but good tactics as well. Doing otherwise confirms everything the leaders say about us — that we're scornful, high-handed, dismissive. Remember, prolonging this fight enables and strengthens the leaders. Defusing this fight weakens them.

The conversation is not hard to have. After all, if you think the answer to the problem of low wages is "Dems", what's the response to this:


and this:


You don't have to talk about Dems to talk about that.

(Thanks to Juan Cole for the right-wing quotes above; and to masaccio for the low-hanging graphical fruit.)

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Chamber of Commerce pleased with new White House

Is this new team really that much different from the last team or is the Chamber just gloating? The new team is obviously center-right but so was the last team. The President has been center-right on the economy from the beginning. The Hill:

"To be sure, November's election results, the tax package, progress on Korea trade agreement, and a new tone coming out of the White House have addressed some of the business community's immediate concerns,” Donohue said Tuesday. “Yet uncertainty among companies, lenders, and investors still abounds.

"Our approach in Washington will be to call them as we see them. We'll continue to have our differences with the White House on some issues but we'll work together on other issues. We'll support the new House leadership on many occasions, and we'll work with Democratic legislators as well, but no one should expect the Chamber to march in lock step with anyone."

The business lobby fought against healthcare and financial services reform legislation pushed by President Obama in 2010, and then campaigned against vulnerable Democrats in the House who supported those initiatives. In the months before the election, the White House suggested the group was using foreign-sourced money for its electioneering, a charge the Chamber said the administration offered no proof to support.

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Paul Begala to right wing: Why so defensive about Arizona shooting?

From Greg Sargent:

Paul Begala -- who was in the trenches with Bill Clinton in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing and remembers how quickly the promises of civility vanished -- gets in touch to say that he hopes Dems and Republicans alike do a much better job this time around of showing some restraint in the wake of the Arizona shooting.

Begala has a simple question for those on the right: Why are you reacting so badly to those who are insisting that we all exercise some judgment going forward?

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Texas deficit may be even worse than previously believed

Well, they do say everything in Texas is bigger. It looks like that also includes financial problems. Let's see how Governor Perry tax-cuts his way to even with this.

Texas is expected to collect $72.2 billion in taxes, fees and other general revenue during the 2012-13 budget, down from the $87 billion used in the current two-year budget, Comptroller Susan Combs announced Monday.

That puts the shortfall at $27 billion given that maintaining services would run $99 billion for biennium.

Collections for the current budget will come in $4.3 billion less than budgeted.

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With Volcker gone, who will counter-balance the bankers?

At the moment, Obama's team is a bankers dream and it doesn't look like any change is on the way. It's so bad, even the Republicans like the team. Fortune:

"Bankers are like 5-year-olds," said Barry Ritholtz, a New York money manager who writes the Big Picture economics blog. "If you leave them unsupervised with a bowl of candy, they will eat it all and throw up all over everyone. Volcker got that."

But having proposed a tough rule -- shares in Goldman Sachs (GS) and other big banks got walloped the day of the announcement -- the administration then stood aside as the language got watered down in Congress.

Though this is hardly unusual in itself, it meant Obama punted on what now looks like his last chance to reform the big banks. After all the damage bankers did with their bonus-boosting high-stakes gambling, this doesn't exactly register as a profile in courage.

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Isolated act? Read this.

The NYT has a blockbuster piece detailing the threats and violent GOP innuendo leading up to the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords. Read this, and tell me that this was an isolated act. There was a clear pattern of increasing threats of violence, fed in part by the GOP and the Teabaggers, which ended up in a bullet going through her brain. Yeah, isolated.

[T]he shootings came after a disconcerting run of episodes in this district of mountains and desert, raising temperatures here in a way that some of Ms. Giffords’s friends argue fed an atmosphere that might encourage violence.

Several of them pointed back to the smashed door of her district headquarters at 1661 North Swan Street last March as a turning point; a time when a cloud of unease settled over Ms. Giffords and her staff.

She and aides began expressing worry about what they saw as an escalation of threats after a year of brutal town hall meetings over health care. They began to take precautions. “When we did a swing through the district, we began telling the police what we are doing: We let them know where we were going to be,” said Rodd McLeod, her campaign manager.

And Ms. Giffords made no secret at that time of saying she owned a handgun.

“She was extremely concerned about it,” said Thomas Warne, a friend and fund-raiser. “She was concerned about various threats that the office had received: they were general threats on the office itself, on her life.”

There have been no arrests related to the attack on her district office, said Sgt. Diana Lopez of the Tucson Police Department. It came after months in which Ms. Giffords, like other Democrats, found herself being battered at loud town hall meetings on health care. At one of her public meetings on health care, a man with a gun showed up. “There was a sense, even in ’09, that there was a real anger in the district,” Mr. McLeod said.

Last summer, Ms. Giffords found herself challenged by Jesse Kelly, a Republican candidate with Tea Party backing, who assailed Ms. Giffords on health care and immigration. He held a “targeting victory” fund-raiser in which he invited contributors to shoot an M-16 with him. This was playing out against a backdrop of a souring national economy and rising unhappiness with Democrats everywhere.

Mr. Kelly, who won the nomination after defeating a moderate Republican, offered tough-worded attacks on the establishment and Ms. Giffords. “These people who think they are better than us, they look down on us every single day and tell us what kind of health care to buy,” he said at a rally in October. “And if you dare to stand up to the government they call us a mob. We’re about to show them what a mob looks like.”

Let's not forget the GOP inspired Teabagger mobs that stormed the healthcare reform town hall meetings. The GOP intentionally got people enraged, organizing as they themselves described it, "mobs," and finally someone snapped.

The culture of violence was established, and fed, until someone finally got the message. Read the rest of this post...

Tom DeLay is 'defiant' -- but he's going to jail for three years

There's was obviously a lot of news about the massacre in Tucson yesterday. But, we would be remiss if we didn't do a post on the news that the former GOP Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, was sentenced to three years in jail yesterday. AP reports that DeLay remains defiant. Whatever. He's a convicted criminal now:

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay remained defiant as he faced a judge's sentence to three years in prison for a scheme to illegally influence Texas elections, insisting he committed no crime and was the victim of selective prosecution by authorities targeting his politics.

"Everything I did was covered by accountants and lawyers telling me what I had to do to stay within the law," the Houston-area Republican said. "I can't be remorseful for something I don't think I did."

But Senior Judge Pat Priest disagreed with DeLay, saying those who write laws should be bound by them, and sentenced the man once considered one of the nation's most powerful and feared lawmakers to three years in prison.

This all played out in state court. There's already pressure on Texas Governor Perry, who wants to run for President, to consider a pardon. But, the San Antonio Express-News blog, Texas Politics, explains why that's not possible.

The Hammer is going to the slammer. Read the rest of this post...

Sheriff Dupnik blasts Limbaugh: 'he is irresponsible'

As John wrote yesterday, Rush Limbaugh was spewing his usual incendiary language yesterday and aimed some of it at Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. Unlike many elected officials, particularly Republicans, who cower when Limbaugh attacks them, Dupnik went on ABC News and criticized Limbaugh by name for his role in inciting hatred and violence:

The Arizona sheriff investigating the Tucson shooting that left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded had harsh words today for those engaging in political rhetoric, calling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh "irresponsible" for continuing the vitriol.

"The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, sometimes wrong information," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said today. "[Limbaugh] attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials and that kind of behavior in my opinion is not without consequences."

Limbaugh today railed against the media and Dupnik for trying to draw a link between the heated political climate and the shooting rampage, calling the sheriff a "fool." But Dupnik stood by his assertions.

"The vitriol affects the [unstable] personality that we are talking about," he said. "You can say, 'Oh no, it doesn't,' but my opinion is that it does."

This, of course, makes Dupnik vulnerable to attacks from the entire GOP. They'll all do anything to protect Rush. But, Dupnik is absolutely right. And, most of the GOPers know it.

Here's the video:
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White House oil spill commission to suggest more regulation offshore

Of course that makes sense and of course the GOP will ignore it. The GOP cares much more about the oil industry making even higher profits and sees anything else as a distraction.

In a chapter released ahead of today's report, the commission blamed the disaster on systemic management failures by BP, Transocean and Halliburton – and said the companies had made a series of risky decisions with a view to saving time and money.

The commission turns its sights today on the shortcomings of a government regulatory regime. The commission, in its early chapter, said a failure of government oversight allowed one such disaster in the BP spill and could allow another unless there are sweeping reforms.

The commission is expected to urge the White House and Congress to bring the offshore oil industry in America in line with Norway and Britain in terms of its safety regulations and capabilities in case of an oil spill.

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British banks cleared to pay unlimited bonuses

As if there were any doubts that the bankers won. What crisis will they trigger next and then be excused from when the economy tanks?

After months in which a series of government ministers of all parties have threatened a toughening in the stance over City bonuses, Downing Street said the government did not intend to intervene in the pay of the UK's top bankers.

Ministers are instead hoping for a face-saving deal in which the banks agree to lending targets and improve the way they disclose their pay deals. One of the options being discussed is releasing information on the five highest paid individuals at each bank.

"We've made a broad statement which is about the need to see some restraint and some responsibility from the banks, but we are not going to set bonus pools for individual banks," the prime minister's spokesman said.

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