When Roger West first launched the progressive political blog "News From The Other Side" in May 2010, he could hardly have predicted the impact that his venture would have on the media and political debate. As the New Media emerged as a counterbalance to established media sources, Roger wrote his copious blogs about national politics, the tea party movement, mid-term elections, and the failings of the radical right to the vanguard of the New Media movement. Roger West's efforts as a leading blogger have tremendous reach. NFTOS has led the effort to bring accountability to mainstream media sources such as FOX NEWS, Breitbart's "Big Journalism.
Roger's breadth of experience, engaging style, and cultivation of loyal readership - over 92 million visitors - give him unique insight into the past, present, and future of the New Media and political rhetoric that exists in our society today.
What we are against:
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THE RESISTANCE
“They’re playing Russian roulette and all the chambers have a bullet.”
Echoing his colleague Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) teed off on House Republicans’ brinkmanship on the debt ceiling, saying intransigent GOP congressmen are willing to risk destroying the county’s economy to get what they want. Voinovichtold Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson:
“They’re playing Russian roulette and all the chambers have a bullet.” “They’re flamethrowers. ‘We’re going to get what we want or the country can go to hell.’”
Meanwhile, Bruce Bartlett, a former policy adviser to Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush, lambasted House Republicans yesterday on MSNBC’s Hardball for playing with fire on the debt ceiling:
I think at this point, there’s nothing that can pass the House of Representatives. … I think a good chunk of the Republican caucus is either stupid, crazy, ignorant or craven cowards, who are desperately afraid of the tea party people, and rightly so.
Even House Speaker John Bohener (R-OH) admitted that “a lot” of his caucus members are willing to unleash economic “chaos” to get their way on the debt ceiling.
Majority whip: "House will not vote tonight on Speaker John Boehner's latest proposal to raise debt ceiling, and cut spending."
House Republicans called off a vote late Thursday night on Speaker John Boehner's plan to raise the nation's debt ceiling while enacting sweeping cuts in government spending, but the possibility remained that the measure could come up on Friday.
The delay in voting on the proposal revealed a deep rift within the GOP that could undermine the party's latest attempt to avoid an unprecedented national default and stave off potential economic catastrophe.
Boehner was unable to muster sufficient support from his own caucus to guarantee his proposal would pass in the face of expected unified Democratic opposition.
Whether Boehner can push the measure through remains an open question. Tea party-backed conservatives staged a virtual revolt against the bill over the past two days, complaining that it doesn't do enough to shrink the size of government and stem the tide of Washington's red ink
Mr. Boehner can't control his radical banshees, so no vote tonight. Mr. President invoke your exec power and slam the 14th amendment down their throat. The rubber just doesnt meet the road for Johnny, and his party is in complete disarray!
The majority leader can't pass a bill with his own party, what does this say? Radical teas whom never ever held office before now hold the world at bay, and time is ticking toward economic disaster. Have we learned our lesson yet about voting republican? We have a obligation to our debt readers, whether you like it or not its reality.
We here at NFTOS hear the thunder of the 14th amendment walking the halls of justice or at least the halls of the White House - how aprapo is this, as republcians always invoke a amendment or two in their daily screed....not sure they ever heard this one before, as its hard for them to count pass that second amendment.
Bachmann: "Invoking 14th Amendment Would Effectively Make Obama A Dictator."
In an interview with CNN’s Kiran Chetry on American Morning, GOP candidate Michele Bachmann dismissed the idea that President Obama could simply move to raise the debt ceiling by invoking the 14th Amendment, saying to do so would make him effectively “a dictator.” Bachmann described any move to unilaterally end the immediate debt crisis unconstitutional. “Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes,” Bachmann said. “It’s Congress that does the spending. The President is prohibited to do that. If he had the power to do that he would effectively be a dictator.”
NFTOS Editor -In- Chief Roger West says: "Now envision this; if the tables where turned, and this was a rightie POTUS (President of the United States) invoking the14th amendment - this would be his or her God given right to do so, and he/she better damn well invoke it, becasue our fore fathers said we could....all this while waving the Gadsden flag (Don't tread on me) which has literally nothing at all to do with radica teas and their ideology!"
We have written many stories on the teas and their obsession with the Gadsden Flag.
Boehner: ‘A Lot’ of republicans want to force default, create ‘Enough Chaos’ to pass balanced budget amendment.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said yesterday that some members of his own caucus who are refusing to agree to a compromise debt ceiling deal are hoping to unleash “chaos” and thus force the White House and Senate Democrats to make bigger concessions than they’re already offering. As many as 40 House Republicans, especially Tea Party members and freshmen, have demanded nothing short of changing the Constitution to include a balanced budget amendment before they would vote to raise debt ceiling, even though that has zero chance before the U.S. faces potential default on Aug. 2.
Speaking on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show this morning, Boehner agreed that failing to raise the limit before the deadline would be devastating, and said the “chaos” plan won’t work when asked by Ingraham what’s motivating the recalcitrant Republicans:
BOEHNER: Well, first they want more. And my goodness, I want more too. And secondly, a lot of them believe that if we get past August the second and we have enough chaos, we could force the Senate and the White House to accept a balanced budget amendment. I’m not sure that that — I don’t think that that strategy works. Because I think the closer we get to August the second, frankly, the less leverage we have vis a vis our colleagues in the Senate and the White House.
Listen here:
Boehner offers only political calculus for why this Tea Party plan wouldn’t work. He completely ignores the devastating effect a downgrade in U.S. debt and potential default would have on the American people and the global economy, who happen to be innocent bystanders to this high-stakes hostage negotiation.
Many on the left have been arguing all along that some Republicans are more interested in extorting concessions than addressing the debt issue, and are willing to blow up the economy if they don’t get their way — it’s refreshing, if troubling, to see that their leader agrees.
How Boehner’s debt plan produces ‘The Greatest Increase In Poverty And Hardship’ in American history.
Picture courtesy of Taylor Jones
John Boehner’s debt ceiling proposal would add $1 trillion to the current $14.3 trillion debt limit (which would be expected to allow the government to continue borrowing into April of 2012), reduce spending immediately and cap future spending to save $1.2 trillion over 10 years, and establish a 12-member joint committee of Congress charged with reporting back to both chambers by Nov. 23 with recommendations to reduce the deficit by an additional $1.8 trillion over 10 years. The plan also calls for a vote on a constitutional balanced budget amendment before the end of 2011.
It’s a plan that the usually “mild-mannered” Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is describing as “tantamount to a form of ‘class warfare’” that “if enacted, it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.” Since Boehner’s blueprint contains no tax increases and his first round of cuts targets discretionary spending, the joint committee will have no choice but to achieve its $1.8 trillion in budget reductions by cutting entitlement spending, Greenstein explains:
As a result, virtually all of that $1.8 trillion would come from entitlement programs. They would have to be cut more than $1.5 trillion in order to produce sufficient interest savings to achieve $1.8 trillion in total savings.
To secure $1.5 trillion in entitlement savings over the next ten years would require draconian policy changes. Policymakers would essentially have three choices: 1) cut Social Security and Medicare benefits heavily for current retirees, something that all budget plans from both parties (including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s plan) have ruled out; 2) repeal the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions while retaining its measures that cut Medicare payments and raise tax revenues, even though Republicans seek to repeal many of those measures as well; or 3) eviscerate the safety net for low-income children, parents, senior citizens, and people with disabilities. There is no other plausible way to get $1.5 trillion in entitlement cuts in the next ten years.
In short, the Boehner plan would force policymakers to choose among cutting the incomes and health benefits of ordinary retirees, repealing the guts of health reform and leaving an estimated 34 million more Americans uninsured, and savaging the safety net for the poor. It would do so even as it shielded all tax breaks, including the many lucrative tax breaks for the wealthiest and most powerful individuals and corporations
Congressional Quarterly’s Richard E. Cohen also reports that Boehner’s powerful panel has “no precise parallel” and will have to overcome severe logistical hurdles. “The panel would then be required to complete its work before Thanksgiving — a period of less than four months that includes the monthlong congressional August recess, two additional weeks of scheduled House breaks and three other weeks when the Senate is slated to be gone.”
It would also “have to work with existing House and Senate committees with longstanding jurisdictional claims on the issues in play and build majority support in both chambers of a divided Congress. The GOP has already cautioned that it “will not appoint any members who will approve tax hikes,” a selection criterion that “Reid and Pelosi would most certainly not follow.” The committee’s recommendations would then face up-or-down floor votes in the House and Senate without additional amendments.
After Boehner releases plan that doesn’tcCut entitlements, he rejects Reid plan for not cutting entitlements.
Just days from a potential default, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) this afternoon rejected Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV)plan for raising the debt ceiling, saying he can’t support any plan that doesn’t cut entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. Reid’s plan, just hours old when Boehner aimed to kill it, essentially called the GOP’s bluff, giving them exactly what they have been asking for all along — spending cuts matching the increase in the debt ceiling and no new revenues.
The White House hadalready signed onto Reid’s conservative plan, making it the best hope of averting a crisis since Boehner walked out of negotiations Friday. “This is an offer that Republicans can’t refuse,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY).
Apparently not. The Reid plan “makes no changes to the biggest drivers of our deficit and our debt and that would be entitlement programs,” Boehner said at a late afternoon press conference, flanked by other GOP leaders. This demand seemed to be a brazen moving of the goal posts, as entitlement cuts never appeared to be red-line demand for Republicans for raising the debt ceiling.
Boehner put forwardhis own debt plan this afternoon, which presumably would address his newly discovered demand. But Boehner’s office told staff members of his own caucus that his plan wouldn’t touch Social Security, Medicare, or the Affordable Care Act. RedState blogger Erik Erickson — who has been fielding calls for “absolution” from GOP members all day —obtained “bullet points from one of the individuals who got briefed at the staff level on John Boehner’s proposal” that make this very clear:
In a way, this makes sense, as the Boehner and Reid plans havenearly identical methods for making entitlement reforms — a 12 member committee to make deficit reduction proposals. From a fact sheet on Reid’s plan:
Establishes Joint Congressional Committee to Find Future Savings. In addition to $2.7 trillion in concrete savings, the Senate package will establish a joint, bipartisan committee, made up of 12 members, to present options for future deficit reduction.
From a fact sheet on Boehner’s plan:
The framework creates a Joint Committee of Congress that is required to report legislation – by November 23, 2011 – that would produce a proposal to reduce the deficit by at least $1.8 trillion over 10 years. The committee would be made up of 12 members, three each appointed by the Speaker, House Minority Leader, Senator Majority leader and Senate Minority Leader.
It’s beyond troubling when, just eight days from a potential default, the Speaker of the House is rejecting plans he apparently can’t accurately characterize based on demands that didn’t exist just days earlier.
Cantor opposed short-term debt ceiling increase, now calls Obama’s opposition to short-term increase ‘Indefensible’
Last Friday, Speaker John Boehner told the House GOP caucus that he is preparing a short-term bill that would raise the debt ceiling for about six months, despite Obama’s pledge to veto such a measure. On the call, Majority Leader Eric Cantor blasted Obama for opposing it. The Wall Street Journal reports:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor indicated in his remarks during the conference call that Republicans don’t want to give President Barack Obama a debt-ceiling deal that lasts past the 2012 elections. Mr. Cantor called the president’s insistence on a deal that carries through the election purely political and indefensible.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pushed back hard Tuesday against Senate Republican suggestions of a scaled-back, short-term debt deal, saying it’s “crunch time” in White House budget talks and “if we can’t make the tough decisions now, why … would [we] be making those tough decisions later.”
“I don’t see how multiple votes on a debt ceiling increase can help get us to where we want to go,” the Virginia Republican told reporters. “It is my preference that we do this thing one time. … Putting off tough decisions is not what people want in this town.”
Fox Host: Free Birth Control Is Liberal Conspiracy To ‘Eradicate The Poor’
You have got to be kidding right?!?!?!
Greg Gutfeld Faux News
Public health officials and women’s rights groups are cheering therecent recommendation of the Institute of Medicine that “health insurers should pay for a range of services for women at no cost, including birth control, counseling on sexually transmitted diseases, and AIDS screening.”
But unsurprisingly, many on the right immediately lashed out at the decision, denouncing it as “feminist pork” ortantamount to government-sponsoredabortion. Some particularly vile reactions came from Fox News, where host Greg Gutfeld said eliminating birth control co-pays was part of a much more sinister leftist plot:
GUTFELD: If you’re talking about free birth control, who’s going to use free birth control? The people who can’t afford it. So the left has figured out a way to eradicate the poor, and it’s by eradicating the poor!
On another Fox Newssegment, the contributor and host decided that birth control wasn’t necessary if women would “just stop having irresponsible sex.” Fox News’ America’s Newsroom’s Heather Childers discussed the IOM recommendation with Sandy Rios, president of Family-PAC Federal. Rios personally attacked a female physician who supported the decision as “a disgrace to our gender.” She then proposed that women don’t really need birth control, saying, “Let women stop having irresponsible sex - Let’s stop making excuses and providing a way to get women out of trouble when they should be responsible in their behavior.”
Childers quickly agreed that it’s “not too much to ask for everyone to stop having irresponsible sex.”
In the U.S., 15.3 million women use hormonal birth control, which is one of the most frequently-prescribed medications in America. Rios’ accusation is ironic given that most women think they are behaving responsibly precisely by using birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But Fox News apparently believes those 15.3 million just need to stop sleeping around.
Contraception improves women’s health and reduces the need for abortions, but the cost is often prohibitive for low-income women. The IOM’s ruling opens the door for government-subsidized birth control, which a recent national poll found 78 percent of Americans support.
We here at NFTOS are never amazed of the chatter that comes from Faux News, but even this rheotric is over the top.
It takes a special kind of arrogance to play chicken with our economy just to satisfy your personal quest for political power. Unfortunately, Virginians already know that if anyone is capable of doing just that, it’s Congressman Eric Cantor....
Cantor standing in background...where he belongs
For years now, Cantor has been an embarrassing fact of life for the people of this Commonwealth. From his patented sneer to his condescending tone and his record of putting right-wing special interests ahead of working Virginia families, he has made a career of climbing the political ladder by any means necessary without regard for what’s best for our state or our country.
While serious leaders in Washington are working to reach a deal to cut spending and raise the federal debt ceiling, Cantor is standing in the door, defying the President and even his own party in pursuit of his own personal agenda. If Cantor succeeds in sinking a deal, the United States could default on its debt and we could sink right back into another recession. We can’t allow that to happen.
Why is Mr. Cantor so pompous you ask?
Perhaps it’s because he rose to the top so quickly. Eric Cantor was elected to the House of Representatives in 2000. After only one term, he was appointed Chief Deputy Republican Whip. This made him a major Washington insider while still in his thirties.
Or, it might be the fact that the Seventh District of Virginia was designed as a safe district for Republicans. Eric has been reelected four times, never getting less than 63% of the vote cast. The district has been represented in the Congress by Republicans since 1971. In the last three presidential elections, the district has voted Republican.
Or, maybe it’s because Representative Cantor has led a charmed life in Washington. Although he was closely connected with the corruption of Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay, Mr. Cantor came away unscathed.
I guess it’s not surprising that Eric Cantor radiates an aura of arrogance. He is the golden boy. He is destined to rise to higher positions of power in Washington. And Eric Cantor is not going to let a little thing like debt ceilings get in his way.
Does Eric Cantor like to talk to his constituents? Sure, he will gladly talk with any constituent so long as he or she is committed to his position. Those constituents are bound to further inflate his ego. But he doesn’t want to see or hear from those who oppose him. First of all because anything they might say is obviously wrong. Second because he doesn’t want any of the real voters in Washington to think that he is anything but the most beloved favorite son of the Seventh District.
One other thing—because he is a golden boy and his constituents are mere mortals, Eric Cantor doesn’t expect anyone will notice if he says a few things that are very radical. For example, Eric has the chutzpah to be the lone guy in this debt ceiling debate. Here’s a guy who has been a Washington insider for at least the last eight years and he thinks we won’t notice if he portrays himself as an outside reformer. Eric also portrays himself as a fiscal conservative. When exactly did this transformation take place? When he lusted for advancement in the party and therefore voted consistently with the Bush Administration, Eric Cantor voted to cut taxes and to significantly increase federal spending. During the years when George W. Bush was president, Eric Cantor voted to increase our federal debt by an outrageous four trillion dollars. Eric Canter a Fiscal Conservative?
Eric is like most radical teas, clueless of reality, and delusional on his visions of hardcore choke and puke republican politics.
A long-standing feud between South Florida House members Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Allen West turned to insults Tuesday after an exchange of speeches on a debt-reduction bill.
Wasserman Schultz chastised West on the House floor for supporting a bill that would cut Medicare and other spending. Wasserman Schultz said:
"The gentleman from Florida, who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries -- unbelievable from a member from South Florida," said Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat.
Rep. Allen West (R-FL) wrote a scathing personal email to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) calling her “vile” and “not a lady.” The email, obtained by Politico, appears to be in response to criticisms of the congressman made by Wasserman Schultz. “The gentleman from Florida,” Wasserman Schultz said of West recently, “who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries.”
See entire email below:
From: Z112 West, Allen
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 04:48 PM
To: Wasserman Schultz, Debbie
Cc: McCarthy, Kevin; Blyth, Jonathan; Pelosi, Nancy; Cantor, Eric
Subject: Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman-Schultz
Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up. Focus on your own congressional district!
I am bringing your actions today to our Majority Leader and Majority Whip and from this time forward, understand that I shall defend myself forthright against your heinous characterless behavior……which dates back to the disgusting protest you ordered at my campaign hqs, October 2010 in Deerfield Beach.
You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!
Steadfast and Loyal
Congressman Allen B West (R-FL)
It is well documented that radical teas want to balance the budget on the backs of seniors, children and the middle class."
This latest squabble generated considerable attention because of Wasserman Schultz's role as chair of the Democratic National Committee and West's prominence in the new "tea party" crop of freshman Republican lawmakers.
We here at NFTOS have posted many blogs on the radical out of control Allen West, maybe its time for some one at camp tea bag to wrangle in this loose cannon!
Bachmann Predicted The World Would End In 2006: ‘We Are In The Last Days’
As GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN) surges in the polls, more information is coming to light about her past that reveal the depths of her political and religious extremism. The Bachmanns’ counseling clinic practices discredited and damaging ex-gay therapy to “cure” homosexuality.
Slate’s Dave Weigel has reported an audio recording of Bachmann praying for the notoriously anti-gay ministryYou Can Run But You Can’t Hide, run by the radical preacher Bradlee Dean. Bachmann offered the prayer in 2006 (though the recording was uploaded in 2008). In it, Bachmann predicts, “We are in the last days,” and says, “The harvest is at hand” — a Biblical allusion to the Rapture when some believe God will take saved Christians from the earth and leave the non-believers to face several years of torment and tribulation before the second coming of Christ:
BACHMANN: Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are a Jehovah God. We know that the times are in your hands. And we give them to you…The day is at hand, Lord, when your return will come nigh. Nothing is more important than bringing sheep into the fold. Than bringing new life into the kingdom…You have weeded that garden. The harvest is at hand.
As Weigel noted, it’s not terribly surprising that Bachmann is among those evangelical Christians who believe the end of the world is imminent. But it’s still disconcerting that someone campaigning to lead America into the future believes that its days are numbered and millions of its citizens are doomed. Bachmann has toned down her religious rhetoric considerably since hitting the campaign trail.
Also jarring is Bachmann’s belief that “nothing is more important than” converting people before the world ends. As she weighs in on critical debates like whether or not to let the U.S. default on its obligations, it’s troubling that Bachmann is rooting for the apocalypse.
During the prayer session Bachmann asked God to expand the anti-gay ministry of Bradlee Dean. Dean has been described as “Bachmann’s Jeremiah Wright” since his radical statements pose a political problem for the candidate. Dean has repeatedly called for gays and lesbians to be put in prison and has said executing gays is “moral.” He also directs his invective at Muslims and Democrats.
What is this fascination between the radical republican and the end of day’s rhetoric? Bachmann must have been Glenn Beck’s first graduate.
Michele Bachmann Preemptively Ditches Her Church To Avoid Association With Its Radical Views.
GOP presidential contender Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and her husband Marcus preemptively left their church of more than ten years just weeks before she announced her candidacy to avoid association with its extremist views. Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minnesota, has faced criticism this week for its anti-Catholic views, including preaching that the Pope is the Antichrist.
Bachmann has long been a favorite of religious conservatives for her outspoken views on her faith, but her decision to sever ties with her church for the sake of her presidential campaign is surprising many:
According to CNN, the church that Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus had attended for more than a decade, Salem Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn., granted the couple’s request to be released from their membership last month, a week after Bachmann told a national audience that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination.
The Bachmanns had approached their pastor and verbally made the request “a few weeks before the church council granted the request,” said Joel Hochmuth, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the governing body for the church.
Bachmann had apparently been distancing herself from the church for some time. Hochmuth said the couple had not been worshiping with the congregation in more than two years.
“We identify the Antichrist as the Papacy,” the denomination’s website says. “This is an historical judgment based on Scripture.” Bachmann has been questioned about her church’s beliefs for years and denounced their anti-Catholicism when she was running for Congress in 2006.
“It’s abhorrent, it’s religious bigotry,” Bachmann said then. “I love Catholics, I’m a Christian, and my church does not believe that the pope is the antichrist, that’s absolutely false.” She remained a member of the church for years after, but as Bachmann’s political ambitions got bigger, she began to distance herself. When she decided to run for president, Bachmann seemed to realize she could no longer belong to an organization that formally endorses intolerance.
The highly convenient timing of the move clearly indicates this was a shrewd political calculation on Bachmann’s part. It remains to be seen how religious “values voters” will feel about the candidate choosing political opportunism over her church. On the campaign trail Bachmann frequently invokes her faith and proudly speaks about coming to Christ at the age of 16.
CNN notes that Salem Lutheran Church still maintains some ties with the Bachmann family. “It lists a Christian counseling center operated by Bachmann’s husband on its website under special member services for confidential counseling.”
Bachmann must still account for her ongoing connection with other radical preachers and churches, especially Bradlee Dean of the notoriously anti-gay You Can Run But You Can’t Hide ministry. Dean has been described as “Bachmann’s Jeremiah Wright,” and has repeatedly called for gays and lesbians to be put in prison and has said executing gays is “moral.”
Many journalists have observed the parallels between Bachmann leaving her church for political expediency and Barack Obama’s decision to do the same in 2008 after his church’s preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, faced a barrage of criticism for his rhetoric. However, since Bachmann has left one church but still not denounced the teachings of Dean, the analogy has yet to come full circle.
Fox And Friends Defends News Corp’s Hacking Scandal: ‘We Should Move On’
Fox News finally addressed their parent company’s hacking scandal head on this morning, with Fox and Friends launching a comically sycophantic and pathetically inaccurate defense of News Corp. Host Steve Doocy and guest Robert Dilenschneider, a media consultant, agreed News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch has done “all the right things” and argued that the scandal is way overblown. “For some reason, the public, the media, keep going over this, again, and again, and again” the guest said. “It’s too much,” he added, “We should move on.” Doocy agreed, scolding the media for not devoting its time to covering more important issues. (His show later featured a segment on actress Mila Kunis and a performance by second-tier boy band Lifehouse, popular in 2001.)
But their defense of News Corp. really got embarrassing when Dilenschneider and Doocy engaged in some stunning subject/object slight of hand, comparing News Corp. to companies that have been hacked, while failing to note it was News Corp. that did the hacking in this case. “We know it’s a hacking scandal, shouldn’t we get beyond it and deal with the issue of hacking? We have a serious hacking problem in this country,” Dilenschneider reminded us. Listing several companies like CitiGroup that “have been hacked into,” Dilenschneider asked, “Are they getting the same kind of attention for hacking that took place less than a year ago that News Corp is getting today?” “Right,” Doocy said, before noting the Pentagon was also recently hacked.
Prior to this morning, Fox News has done a fairly decent job of covering its parent company’s hacking scandal, giving the story just enough coverage to avoid being accused of ignoring it. According to a Media Matters report, while the network mentioned the story far less than CNN or MSNBC, it did cover it 30 times in the past two weeks and has generally disclosed its relation to News Corp. But this seems to be the first time the network has offered a vigorous defense of the company.
“It’s really very, very scary, and I think we should be very concerned as a public about our privacy and about people getting access to what we have,” Dilenschneider added. Indeed, starting with News Corp.
You can always count on a tea to claim this when an issue doesn't align with their ideology. Which is more often the case of late.
Earlier this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) proposed an odd way to end the debt ceiling crisis: Republicans will stop holding the economy hostage and effectively allow the debt ceiling to be raised without requiring any budget cuts, if Obama gives them 12 opportunities to bash his fiscal policies.
Sarahnoya Palin
McConnell’s plan to accept political theater as an alternative to drowning the federal government in a bathtub does not please the far right, so they’ve once again fabricated an utterly nonsensical argument why something they don’t like is unconstitutional. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) laid out this argument last night on Fox News:
We will not hand over more power, which I think is unconstitutional, to President Obama to further manipulate our economy. You know, Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution spells out that Congress has the power of the purse strings, so this plan of McConnell’s I think makes no sense because it does cede power to our president and takes away that authority that is inherent in Congress to control the economic decisions that have to be made when it comes to debt.
Here we go again. When President Obama signed a health care law they don’t like, the far right immediately invented an utterly meritless constitutional argument against it. They don’t just support the House GOP’s plan to phase out Medicare, they embrace an absurd claim that Medicare violates the Constitution. If a waiter brings these people a steak that is slightly overcooked, they demand that he take it back because it’s unconstitutional.
So it’s pretty obvious that Palin’s kneejerk attack on the McConnell plan is wholly without merit. First of all, the debt ceiling fight has absolutely nothing to do with whether Congress retains the “power of the purse strings.” Congress exercises this power by passing appropriation bills that authorize the executive branch to spend money, and President Obama is still forbidden from spending money in excess of a congressional appropriation regardless of whether or not we have a debt ceiling.
Similarly, there is absolutely nothing radical about Congress delegating authority to the executive branch. The power to delegate authority is one of Congress’ most well established powers, and it is the reason why federal agencies are allowed to both write regulations and administer funds. Without this power, a functioning federal government cannot exist.
There is no modern Supreme Court case striking down this kind of delegation of power from the legislature to the executive, and the Supreme Court permits such delegations so long as “Congress clearly delineates the general policy, the public agency which is to apply it, and the boundaries of this delegated authority.” McConnell’s plan easily meets this test, it designates the president as the sole authority possessing the delegated authority. It allows him to raise the debt ceiling only in designated intervals and only if he proposes very specific spending cuts, and it places very strict limits on this authority. Because the president is forbidden to spend money in excess of a congressional appropriation, Obama’s delegated power to raise the debt ceiling would be limited by the amount of congressional appropriations.
NFTOS asks why bother to actually read the Constitution when you can just pretend that it says whatever you want, also invoke the founding fathers as well, that seems to get radical teas through anything!
I found this article on the web to be very insightful and enlightening, especially with all the hoopla over Rupert Murdoch and News Corp phone tapping scandal.
Allegations are that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bribed police officers and tapped phones, both abroad and potentially in the U.S., may violate U.S. law.
British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed the other day to look into whether 9/11 victims were targeted in Britain's phone hacking scandal, as lawmakers were poised to demand that Rupert Murdoch give up his goal of taking over a lucrative U.K. broadcaster.
The fallout from a phone hacking and police bribery scandal at Murdoch's U.K. newspapers roiled unabated across Britain's political landscape this week and grew near to striking its hardest blow yet at the media baron's global empire.
Many oppenents of Murdoch and News Corp are asking for his head and below is a letter addressed to Attorney General Eric Holder and SEC Chair Mary L. Schapiro demanding a full and immediate investigation into any potential illegal acts by News Corporation and their subsidiaries.
Attorney General Holder:
We are writing to express our concerns of potential corrupt practices by News Corporation. Specifically, there are credible reports that News Corp subsidiaries bribed police offers to obtain information about former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others. Further, there are reports that News Corp subsidiaries hacked into voicemails of politicians, celebrities and murder victims. Some of this activity may have even occurred on U.S. soil. Although initial reports focused on the UK paper News of the World, recent reports suggest that this disturbing conduct extended to several other News Corp properties.
Given the seriousness of these allegations, we ask that you immediately begin an investigation of all entities controlled by News Corp, including domestic subsidiaries such as Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
The purpose of the investigation should be to determine whether any conduct by News Corp, domestically or abroad, violated The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et seq.), the Electronic Privacy Communications Act (18 U.S.C. § 2510-2522) or any other applicable U.S. laws.
cc: SEC Chair, Mary L. Schapiro
We can only imagine that this ugly disgusting modus operandi of Murdoch and News Corp is just the birth of major woes for them. NFTOS has been saying since its inception that News Corp plays by it’s own rules, and now its time to pay the piper!
Pro-Voucher Tea Party Group Admits It Wants To ‘Shut Down Public Schools And Have Private Schools Only’
As we have documented, a tightly-knit group of right-wing Political Action Committees (PACs) and corporate foundations have unleashed an assault on public education, pushing school voucher schemes nationwide that would funnell taxpayer dollars away from public schools and toward private schools instead. In doing so, many of these voucher advocates claim they simply want to expand school choice and improve the quality of education for all.
Yet one group that has been influential in the school voucher push — the Independence Hall Tea Party, which has run a major PAC that operates in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — is finally admitting that its true goal is to abolish public education.
In a series of e-mails and interviews, Teri Adams, the president of the Idependence Hall Tea Party Association, explains that her organization is involved in its voucher advocacy because it believes “public schools should go away.” Adams said that their ultimate goal is to “shut down public schools and have private schools only“:
“We think public schools should go away,’’ says Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea Party and a leading advocate — both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania — of passage of school voucher bills. The tea party operates in those two states and Delaware. They should “go away,” she says, because “they are hurting our children.’’ [...] Adams says the current voucher program “discriminates” against wealthier students by providing public subsidies only to inner-city children in allegedly failing schools. Her group’s e-mails pushing vouchers caught the attention of James Kovalcin of South Brunswick, a retired public school teacher who asked Adams for clarification. She responded via email: “Our ultimate goal is to shut down public schools and have private schools only, eventually returning responsibility for payment to parents and private charities. It’s going to happen piecemeal and not overnight. It took us years to get into this mess and it’s going to take years to get out of it.”
“It’s refreshing to see a vouchers promoter who is honest about her real intent — to destroy public education,” responded Julia Rubin, a spokeswoman for Save Our Schools, a New Jersey organization that is opposing the voucher push in the state. “Fortunately, most New Jersey residents understand how devastating vouchers would be for our excellent public schools.”
Bachmann was a tax collector for what She’s Called ‘The most heartless organization that anyone knows of" .
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a 2012 GOP presidential hopeful, has continually touted her time as a “federal tax attorney” to bolster her economic credentials. “I’m a former federal tax litigation attorney. My husband and I started a successful company. We’re business people. We’re job creators,” Bachmann has said.
You’ll never guess what Michele Bachmann, the rabble-rousing, tax-reviling, government-bashing idol of America’s tea party movement, used to do for a living. Sue tax scofflaws for the Internal Revenue Service.
As she flexes her credentials as a Republican presidential candidate in a field of former governors and corporate executives, Bachmann is more likely to describe herself as a “former federal tax litigation attorney’’—as she did in her first nationally televised debate—than as a three-term member of Congress. But she rarely, if ever, mentions the one and only employer of her legal services: the U.S. Department of Treasury.
During an interview with the conservative publication Newsmax, Bachmann derided the IRS as “the most heartless organizationthat anyone knows of.” At other times, she has called the IRS a “new social welfare agency,” that will have “the right to confiscate our tax refunds.” But an Associated Press report during
Bachmann’s 2006 Congressional campaign “cited Bachmann’s (now-defunct) web site, http://www.keepitpositive06.com, where she saidshe was proud of her work for the Treasury Department.”
Bachmann has also used the IRS as a whipping boy during her crusade against the Affordable Care Act, falsely claiming that the ACA would empower IRS agents to enforce the law. Factcheck.org called this claim “flat-out wrong.”
Bachmann is taking a rabidly anti-tax position during the campaign, saying that she favors the highly regressive Fair tax (even as she advocates for a tax plan that would raise taxes on low- and and middle-income households). And once upon a time, she helped the government agency that she now ceaselessly attacks collect the very taxes she now rails against.
Bachmann: ‘I Hope’ Higher Unemployment Will Help My Campaign.
Appearing on CNBC this morning, presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was asked about this morning’s dismal jobs report and whether higher unemployment rates might help her chances of winning in 2012. “Does it strike you that as the unemployment rate goes up, your chances of winning office also go up?” host Carl Quintanilla asked. “Well, that could be. Again, I hope so,” Bachmann replied. Watch it here at NFTOS:
While it’s of course acceptable for Bachmann to campaign on wanting to turn the economy around, it’s another matter entirely when she activelypursues policies that make the economy worse — while hoping it will help her campaign.
While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.
Scott "Koch Whore" Walker
As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.
The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse.
The Washington Examiner called Racine’s move “another success story” and “all great news for Wisconsin taxpayers. Hopefully, we’ll see more of it.” So far, it appears no other jurisdiction has followed Racine’s example — for now. It may just be a matter of time to allow existing union contracts to expire. The spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office of Dane County, which includes Madison, said, “Nobody in our jail will be benefiting…at this time” from the new law, but the left the door open for future changes.
While giving prisoners more work and activity options is generally positive, using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is a disturbing trend.
Ohio GOP Weakens Election Law By Allowing Poll Workers To Refuse To Inform Voters Where They Can Vote.
Last week, the GOP-led House passed an election law overhaul without the highly restrictive voter ID provision. However, the House tweaked the bill to weaken a law mandating poll workers to direct voters in the wrong precinct to their correct voting location. Under the new language, a poll worker need not direct a voter to where they are eligible, adding that “it is the duty of the individual casting the ballot to ensure that the individual is casting that ballot in the correct precinct.”
Allowing poll workers to refuse to help those who are legitimately confused about where they should vote opens the door for increased voter suppression. As state Sen. Nina Turner (D) pointed out, “Voting in the wrong precinct led to over 14,000 registered voters statewide to lose their vote in 2008.” Rating the statement “true,” Politifact reports:
The second most common reason the ballot was not counted was because while the person was properly registered to vote in Ohio, they cast the ballot in the wrong county or precinct. In all, 14,335 such ballots were not counted for this reason, according to the Brunner report.
Of those 14,000-plus ballots, 3,423 were cast in Cuyahoga County, home to Turner’s district and by far the county with the most uncounted provisional ballots during the November 2008 elections due to wrong place filings.
As the Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out, mixing up precincts “most often occurs” in “urban and impoverished areas of the state,” leading Turner to sarcastically suggest of Republicans, “I guess the loss of votes for some doesn’t matter.” The bill now heads to Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) for signature.
If you can't win honestly....cheat and deceive at all costs!
Bachmann Fails Economics 101: ‘A Dollar In 2011 Should Be The Same As A Dollar In 1911′
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) officially kicked off her presidential campaign this week with a three-state tour through Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Her South Carolina swing culminated in a town hall event Wednesday evening at Winthrop University in Rock Hill. A thousand people came out to see the Congresswoman field softball questions like “Where do you stand on abortion?” from audience members and via Facebook, with 500 people spilling into an overflow room.
No one questions Bachmann’s conservative bona fides, but when she tried to appeal to goldbugs in the audience, she seemed more uncertain of her footing. In response to an audience question, Bachman proudly said she has signed on to Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) plan to audit the Federal Reserve. In an apparent attempt to prove she’s on board with people who believe gold is a more stable and reliable form of currency than the dollar, she then made a series of laughably uninformed economic claims:
BACHMANN: The shorthand way of describing to you what quantitative easing is is a license to print money without any value behind it…In the last two years of the Obama administration, if you pull a dollar out of your pocket, you have lost 14 percent of the value of that dollar. That means the federal government has stolen that money from you… They’ve been printing essentially valueless money and flooding it into the money supply. I don’t stand for that. A dollar in 2011 should be the same as a dollar in 1911. A dollar should be worth a dollar.
A dollar in 1911 had the same buying power as slightly more than $23 today. Bachmann doesn’t seem to understand that the dollar’s value naturally changes over time and accompanies economic growth — and that’s a good thing. Furthermore, the U.S. experienced inflation even when it was on the gold standard (which ended in 1971). Additionally, gold’s value isn’t fixed and also fluctuates over time — for instance, price of gold is currently at a record high.
So being on the gold standard and keeping a constant dollar value are inconsistent proposals. To achieve 0 percent inflation — which is itself an absurd idea, even according to Republican economists — a country would need an independent central bank.
As we have reported, gold bugs in the Tea Party have been playing an important role in the early states, and have made returning to the gold standard a litmus test for GOP candidates. Republican politicians have increasingly pandered to the far-right base by endorsing loony gold schemes, such as when presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty derided the U.S. dollar as a “fiat currency” — “a signal to a narrow constituency of voters who believe that America’s woes began when it abandoned the gold standard.”
26 Percent Of Americans Don’t Know U.S. Declared Independence From Great Britain.
According to a new poll by Marist, more than a quarter of Americans couldn’t correctly identify the country from which the United States declared its independence. While 74 percent correctly named Great Britain, 20 percent said they weren’t sure and six percent named other countries. In the South, 32 percent of respondents either responded incorrectly or weren’t sure. The poll comes on the heels of test scores that showed few American students gaining proficiency in U.S. history, a problem presidential candidate Rick Santorum blamed on the “conscious effort” by “the left” to keep Americans uninformed.
Minnesota Government Shuts Down As Republicans Refuse To Raise Taxes On Millionaires.
Minnesota’s government will be shutdown over the Fourth of July weekend as the state’s Republican-controlled state legislature and Democratic governor failed to reach an agreement to close a $5 billion budget deficit before midnight. To close the deficit, Gov. Mark Dayton (D) proposed raising taxes on people making over $1 million a year. Republicans, who took control of both houses last November and campaigned on a platform of no tax increases, are digging in their heels and insist on reducing the deficit through major budget cuts.
Without a two-year budget agreement in place, state parks and the Minnesota Zoo will be shut for the July 4 holiday weekend, nonemergency road construction will halt and thousands of state workers will be furloughed.
Government functions deemed critical by a county judge on Wednesday will keep operating, including the state patrol, prisons and the Medicaid health-insurance program for the poor. Courts will stay open, and welfare and food-stamp payments will continue.
Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, a Republican, said late Thursday that the state’s health and human-services budget was a sticking point in the negotiations.
Ms. Koch was interrupted several times by protestors in the Capitol chanting, “Tax the rich
The effects were reportedly already being felt hours ahead of the deadline, as people rushed to get driver’s and fishing licenses, and “park officials began warning campers to pack their gear and leave.”
Dayton is standing by his plan to raise taxes on millionaires in order to spare cuts in services to the most vulnerable residents. He told reporters late Thursday, “This is a night of deep sorrow for me because I don’t want to see this shutdown occur. But I think there are basic principles and the well-being of millions of people in Minnesota that would be damaged not just for the next week or whatever long it takes, but the next two years and beyond with these kind of permanent cuts in personal care attendants and home health services and college tuition increases.”
This is Minnesota’s second government shutdown in the last six years. The first occurred in 2005 under then-Governor Tim Pawlenty (R), and lasted only a few days. However, this year’s shutdown is “expected to become the broadest shutdown of state services in its history.”
Hopefully America has learned its lesson about voting for radical righties, we are now paying a severe price
everywhere we turn due to the mid-term landslide. Republican choke and puke politics, a ideology better left in your nearest landfill!.
