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:
Radical Right Wing Agendas
Incompetent Establishment
Donald J. Trump
Corporate Malfeasence
We are for:
Global and Econmoic Security
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Media Accountability
THE RESISTANCE
Don’t attempt to take a courthouse hostage and conduct citizen’s arrest.
Birther Oathkeeper convicted in attempted courthouse takeover.
Darren Huff Fails Tea bag 101
Georgia birther and Oathkeeper Darren Huff was convicted Tuesday of attempting to take over a Tennessee courthouse and conduct citizen’s arrests on officials.
After a week-long trial, a jury convicted Huff of knowingly carrying a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to use it in a civil disorder, but acquitted him of using a firearm in relation to another felony, CBS News reports.
The decision came after the jury announced last night that it was hung.
Huff will be sentenced in February. He faces up to five years in prison.
In his trial last week, Huff teared up on the stand when he said: “my government has called me a potential domestic terrorist.”
“It’s hard to get employment when you’re under federal indictment,” Huff also said. “I refuse to be intimidated. All I can do is still have a voice.”
As the story goes:
Huff’s troubles began in April 2010, when Walter Francis Fitzpatrick was arrested in Madisonville, Tennessee for attempting to conduct a citizens’ arrest on Monroe County Grand Jury Foreman Gary Pettway. “I’m charging you with official misconduct,” Fitzpatrick told Pettway. “I’m placing you under arrest. You must now come with me.” Fitzpatrick was charged with inciting a riot, disrupting an official public meeting, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Beforehand, Fitzpatrick, who is a leader of the birther and Patriot group American Grand Jury, had written up 24 citizens’ arrest warrants for officials at the federal, state and local levels, calling them “domestic enemies” and describing President Obama as an “illegal alien, infiltrator and impostor.” His grievance with Pettway, it seems, was that Pettway would not agree to convene a grand jury to investigate the AGC’s belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen.
Fitzpatrick’s allies called for supporters to storm the courthouse and conduct their own citizens’ arrests in retaliation for Fitzpatrick’s arrest, and Huff — carrying a Colt .45 and an AK-47 — responded to the request.
Huff, a former U.S. Naval officer from Georgia and a member of the OathKeepers, made his way to the courthouse on April 20, 2010, the day Fitzpatrick was supposed to stand trial.
Huff told the troopers that he was not planning in resorting to violence unless provoked, but he was ready to die for his rights and what he believed in, according to court documents. He was arrested a few days after, and was eventually indicted knowingly “carrying a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to use it in a civil disorder” and “using a firearm in relation to another felony,” according to the AP.
The menatality of those whom dawn the "Don't tread on me" flag. Gen Gadsden would be appalled!
According to the new CBS News/New York Times poll, Herman Cain remains on top of the GOP field, capturing 25 percent of Republican primary voters, with Mitt Romney winning 21 percent. With his arrival at the forefront of the race for the Republican nomination for president, it’s important to reiterate that the former pizza czar holds some unconventional and extreme views. So, in honor of his particular numerical preference, a compilation video on the nine craziest positions Cain has staked out since his arrival in the public eye.
Gingrich suggests Obama is ushering ‘Defeat’ In Iraq, two days after saying he’s ‘right’ to withdraw.
The GOP presidential candidates came out swinging at President Obama after he announced last week that he would follow through with President Bush’s 2008 agreement to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Further validating the point that the Republican party is completely lost on foreign policy issues, their attacks haven’t really made much sense. Rick Santorum said Obama lost the Iraq war and Michele Bachmann charged that Obama is a failure because the Iraqis don’t respect him.
Newt Gingrich took the charade a bit further this weekend. On Friday, Gingrich told a reporterin Florida that Obama’s decision was the right one:
“This is not about Obama,” he continued. “This is about the general effort that far transcends Iraq. That we have to really reassess our strategies in the region and what we think we’re accomplished. The president is right. You can’t just leave 3,000 or 5,000 troops there. They would simply become targets. If you’re not going to occupy the country, you have to withdraw.”
Yet two days later, in a speech at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition’s presidential candidate forum, Gingrich suggested that Obama is ushering defeat by withdrawing:
GINGRICH: The president has announced what will be seen by historians as a decisive defeat for the U.S. in Iraq. … After eight years, thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, we will leave in defeat. Don’t kid yourself, it is defeat. Iran is stronger.
In 2006, Gingrich decided that it was an “enormous mistake” to occupy Iraq after taking Baghdad in 2003, despite the fact that up until that point, he’d been a vocal supporter of the war. And now, Gingrich is again trying to have it both ways, staking out the popular position in saying that Obama was “right” to pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq, but then pandering to the right-wing base, suggesting that his decision means defeat.
Twelve racist or crazy quotes from Pat Buchanan’s new book.
Pundit and MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan’s new book, “Suicide Of A Superpower,” is a veritable treasure trove of eye-popping assertions about the decline of America at the hand of increased diversity and multiculturalism.
Here are some highlights from the racist, I mean Pat Buchannan.
From the Preface:
When the faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, the people die. That is the progression. And as the faith that gave birth to the West is dying in the West, peoples of European descent from the steppes of Russia to the coast of California have begun to die out, as the Third World treks north to claim the estate. The last decade provided corroborating if not conclusive proof that we are in the Indian summer of our civilization.
From the chapter, “The Death Of Christian America”:
Obama’s White House thus enlisted in the long and successful campaign to expel Christianity from the public square, diminish its presence in our public life, and reduce its role to that of just another religion.
From the chapter, “The End Of White America”:
The white population will begin to shrink and, should present birth rates persist, slowly disappear. Hispanics already comprise 42 percent of New Mexico’s population, 37 percent of California’s, 38 percent of Texas’s, and over half the population of Arizona under the age of twenty. ……. Mexico is moving north. Ethnically, linguistically, and culturally, the verdict of 1848 is being overturned. Will this Mexican nation within a nation advance the goals of the Constitution—to “insure domestic tranquility” and “make us a more perfect union”? Or has our passivity in the face of this invasion imperiled our union?
Half a century after Martin Luther King envisioned a day when his children would be judged ‘not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character,’ journalists of color are demanding the hiring and promotion of journalists based on the color of their skin. Jim Crow is back. Only the color of the beneficiaries and the color of the victims has been reversed.
Also from the chapter, “The End Of White America”:
Those who believe the rise to power of an Obama rainbow coalition of peoples of color means the whites who helped to engineer it will steer it are deluding themselves. The whites may discover what it is like to ride in the back of the bus.
From the chapter, “Equality or Freedom?”:
Not until the 1960s did courts begin to use the Fourteenth Amendment to impose a concept of equality that the authors of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, The Federalist Papers, and the Gettysburg Address never believed in. Before the 1960s, equality meant every citizen enjoyed the same constitutional rights and the equal protection of existing laws. Nothing in the Constitution or federal law mandated social racial, or gender equality.
From the chapter “The Diversity Cult”:
Americans who seek stricter immigration control have been charged with many social sins: racism, xenophobia, nativism. Yet none has sought to expel any fellow American based on color or creed. We have only sought to preserve the country we grew up in. Do not people everywhere do that, without being reviled? What motivates people who insist that America’s doors be held open wide until the European majority has disappeared?
What is their grudge against the old America that eats at their heart?
On crime:
If [conservative political commentator Heather] Mac Donald’s statistics are accurate, 49 of every 50 muggings and murders in New York are the work of minorities. That might explain why black folks have trouble getting a cab. Every New York cabby must know the odds, should he pick up a man of color at night.
From the chapter “‘The White Party’”:
What the above points to is a strategy from which Republicans will recoil, a strategy to increase the GOP share of the white Christian vote and increase the turnout of that vote by specific appeals to social, cultural, and moral issues, and for equal justice for the emerging white minority. If the GOP is not the party of New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci and Cambridge cop James Crowley, it has no future. And although Howard Dean disparages the Republicans as the “white party,” why should Republicans be ashamed to represent the progeny of the men who founded, built, and defended America since her birth as a nation?
From the chapter “The Last Chance”:
Our intellectual, cultural, and political elites are today engaged in one of the most audacious and ambitious experiments in history. They are trying to transform a Western Christian republic into an egalitarian democracy made up of all the tribes, races, creeds, and cultures of planet Earth. They have dethroned our God, purged our cradle faith from public life, and repudiated the Judeo-Christian moral code by which previous generations sought to live.
From the same chapter:
For the Left to concede that white anger is a legitimate response to racial injustices done to white people would be to concede that the Left is guilty of the very sin of which it accuses the right.
On the segregation era:
Perhaps some of us misremember the past. But the racial, religious, cultural, social, political, and economic divides today seem greater than they seemed even in the segregation cities some of us grew up in.
"Back then black and white lived apart, went to different schools and churches, played on different playgrounds, and went to different restaurants, bars, theaters, and soda fountains. But we shared a country and a culture. We were one nation. We were Americans."
If it walks like a duck and..........................
Radical Tea Bags urges small businesses ‘Not To Hire A Single Person’ to hurt Obama.
Congressional Republicans have acted shocked and offended at Democrats’ suggestions that they are intentionally sabotaging the economy to try to win back the White House in 2012. Republicans have refused to pass President Obama’s jobs plan — which experts estimate will create at least 1.9 million jobs — and proposed an alternative plan that Moody’s says “will likely push the economy back into recession.”
Now influential Tea Party leaders are throwing caution to the wind and openly lobbying business owners to stop hiring in order to hurt Obama politically. This week, Right Wing Watch picked up on a message Tea Party Nation sent to their members from conservative activist Melissa Brookstone.
In a rambling letter titled “Call For A Strike of American Small Businesses Against The Movement for Global Socialism,” Brookstone urges businesses “not hire a single person” to protest “this new dictator”:
Resolved that: The current administration and Democrat majority in the Senate, in conjunction with Progressive socialists from all around the country, especially those from Hollywood and the left leaning news media (Indeed, most of the news media.) have worked in unison to advance an anti-business, an anti-free market, and an anti-capitalist (anti-individual rights and property ownership) agenda.
I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped.
Brookstone cites Democrats’ support of the Occupy Wall Street movement as proof that Obama, media elites, and the like are “against business, private property ownership and capitalism.” Although she fails to explain how a freeze on hiring would send a bold pro-business message, given that such a boycott would further damage the economy and exacerbate high national unemployment.
But these Tea Partiers are only too happy to put politics ahead of the well-being of 14 million unemployed Americans, not to mention the businesses who are looking for qualified workers.
In a post on his Twitter feed, Adam Levine, lead singer of pop rock band Maroon 5, commanded Fox News to stop playing its music on air, writing: "Dear Fox News, don't play our music on your evil f****** channel ever again. Thank you." From the post:
Indeed, on the October 17 edition of Fox News' early morning show, Fox & Friends, Fox played an excerpt from the 2004 Maroon 5 hit "She Will Be Loved" from the band's album Songs About Jane. The song can be heard playing as co-host Steve Doocy teases a story about a cheerleader who fell into a swimming pool at the Pan Am Games in Mexico. As the song is playing, text on the top-left corner of the screen reads: " 'She Will Be Loved' Maroon 5." The show then went to commercial.
Rolling Stone reported today that “when reached by Rolling Stone, Levine's representative declined to comment."
Levine has previouslylashed out at Fox. In August, Out Magazine reported Levine's criticism of the top-rated Fox program American Idol for allegedly talking contestant Adam Lambert out of coming out publicly during the show's run:
"What's always pissed me off about Idol is wanting to mask that, for that to go unspoken. C'mon. You can't be publicly gay? At this point? On a singing competition? Give me a break. You can't hide basic components of these people's lives. The fact that The Voice didn't have any qualms about being completely open about it is a great thing."
Levine called Fox "immature" in a November 2009 tweet and the "most poisonous network on earth" in August 2010. In that latter tweet, he added: "I think I need a shower."
Fox isn't the only network Levine has lambasted on Twitter. Before MTV's Video Music Awards in August, he accused the channel of caring about music only "one day a year."
After confusing himself, Cain decides that rape victims should be forced to carry pregnancies to term.
Newly emerged GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain does not do well under public scrutiny. He has “no idea” how his gimmicky 999 tax plan works in practice. He mixes up our nation’s founding documents. And his weak grasp of foreign policy even inspired his fellow GOP contender Newt Gingrich to worry that Cain is “not ready for prime time.”
So it probably should be surprising that last week Cain actually managed to confuse himself — and everyone at Fox Business’s Stossel show — over a much more basic yes or no question: Should abortion be legal?
At first, Cain offered a simple answer: “I’m pro-life from conception, yes.” But when host Stossel asked whether there are any cases in which abortion should be legal (such as rape or incest), Cain then declared, “I don’t think government should make that decision.” Recognizing the conflict, Stossel endeavored to clear up exactly where Cain stood on abortion — an attempt that led Cain to completely contradict himself by offering three different positions. He began with his anti-choice stance.
CAIN: “Even if she is raped or she is the victim of incest because there are other options. We must protect the sanctity of life and I have always believed that.”
Cain has tried to have it both ways on an issue before. But his struggle to fully reject a sexual assault victim’s freedom offers a window into just how radical this increasingly common position among the right-wing is. Not only does such a blind position defy the constitution, it callously robs a victim who had no choice in whether or not to be assaulted her last remaining choice in regards to her own body. It is also important to note that Cain’s “life at conception” policy could criminalize pregnancy prevention methods for women as well.
Cain is no closer to figuring out exactly how he feels about this ludicrously radical position. On NBC Sunday, he declared that abortions should be illegal “under any circumstance” even in cases of rape or incest. However, when asked about whether the procedure should be allowed to save the life of the mother, he once again deviated from his position. “If it’s the life of the mother, that family is going to have to make that decision.”
Herman Cain claimed that a ‘Liberal Court’ killed Jesus.
Daily Kos’s bernardpliers recalls a Herman Cain column from December 2010 where the GOP presidential primary candidate appears to complain that Jesus was killed by liberals.
In a column and blog post titled “The Perfect Conservative,” Cain makes the claim that Jesus was politically conservative and that he “helped the poor without one government program.” After running through a list of reasons Cain believes Jesus to be a model right-winger, the presidential contender concludes that the “liberal court” was responsible for his death:
The liberal court found Him guilty of false offences and sentenced Him to death, all because He changed the hearts and minds of men with an army of 12. His death reset the clock of time. Never before and not since has there ever been such a perfect conservative.
Cain does not explain why he finds the Roman court that sentenced and executed Jesus to be “liberal.” But his claim is baffling for all kinds of reasons, only one of which is the fact that liberals tend to be ideologically opposed to capital punishment while conservatives tend to favor it.
AIPAC Gives Koch A Pass For Flouting Iran Sanctions.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Koch Industries had been flouting U.S. sanctions with Iran when the company sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to the Islamic Republic over several years. But the powerful pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC — which has for years been one of themost vocalproponentsof tougher sanctions on Iran — has given the conservative mega-corporation a pass for dealing with the country.
As Politico’s Ben Smith reports, in a memo AIPAC sent to members of Congress with suggested questions for Obama administration officials, the Israel lobby suggests it is uninterested in holding Koch accountable (the memo presents questions lawmakers could use, so “I” represents the congressman):
“Every single chance they had to do business with Iran, or anyone else, they did,” said George Bentu, a former employee of Koch-Glitsch, a German Koch subsidiary which did much of the company’s business with Iran. The company “took elaborate steps” to sidestep the sanctions, Bloomberg reported.
Last week, the Bloomberg Markets Magazine ran a story titled, “Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales.” The article alleges that a foreign subsidiary of the U.S.company, Koch Industries Inc., sold petrochemical equipment to Iran. My concern today is not with the Koch Brothers. That company did the right thing in 2007 and voluntarily ended all of its subsidiary’s business in Iran. However, I am concerned that other American companies continue to use foreign subsidiaries to profit from sales to Iran, and it is completely legal.
Do you know which American companies have foreign subsidiaries conducting business with Iran that would be illegal for their parent companies to do? Do you do anything to discourage this practice?
But apparently to AIPAC, Koch is off the hook because they stopped trading with terror-sponsor Iran in 2007. This seems a little disingenuous, since U.S. companies have been banned from trading with Iran since 1995. One would think AIPAC would condemn any company that did business with Iran, especially after elements of the country’s government have been tied to a potential assassination plot against Israeli and Saudi officials, instead of going out of their way to defend them.
Ignoring world wars and 9/11, Perry says ‘the world has never been as dangerous as it is today’ because of Obama.
Appearing on Bill Bennett’s radio show yesterday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) lambasted President Obama’s foreign policy as “incredibly naive,” saying, “the world has never been as dangerous as it is today, because of this administration”:
PERRY: So, you’ve got a president of the United States that I think is either incredibly naive about foreign policy or I don’t know else to take out of it. They’re aimless, they’re wavering, and I know this — the world has never been as dangerous as it is today, because of this administration’s lack of focus on dealing with these rogue nations.
It’s unclear how Perry sees today as more dangerous than any other point in the nation’s history, which has experienced foreign invasion, two world wars, the threat of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War, and the 9/11 terror attacks. Moreover, the number of armed conflicts globally is low and falling. It’s also unclear how Perry thinks — the day after the Obama administration foiled a terror plot from Iran — that the president has been too soft on rogue nations. It’s hard to see how Perry isn’t the “incredibly naive” one here.
FACT: Americans support occupy Wall Street, oppose tea party.
The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that Americans support the Occupy Wall Street protests by a two-to-one margin (37 percent in favor, 18 percent opposed) while more Americans view the Tea Party negatively (28 percent in favor, 41 percent opposed). This means the Occupy Wall Street protests have a net favorability of +19 percent while the Tea Party has a net favorability of -13 percent, as this chart produced by ThinkProgress shows:
Chart by thinkprogress.com
A new Time Magazine poll found an even more positive results for Occupy Wall Street, showing 54 percent held a favorable view of the movement, compared to just 27 percent with a favorable view of the Tea Party. In the Time poll, just 23 percent had an unfavorable view of Occupy Wall street, for a net rating of +31 percent. Meanwhile, 33 percent had an unfavorable view of the Tea Party, giving it a net rating of -6 percent.
Rush “the drugster” Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Dana Loesch all step out before DOJ’s Eric Holder completes press conference.
Attorney General Eric Holder hadn't even stepped away from the podium of his press conference about an alleged Iranian terror plot before right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, CNN contributor Dana Loesch, and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin began politicizing the announcement.
Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller took to the microphone this afternoon to deliver details about an alleged terror plot in which, according to a Justice Department press release, two individuals were "directed by elements of the Iranian government to murder the Saudi Ambassador to the United States with explosives while the Ambassador was in the United States." One of the plotters allegedly attempted to hire what he thought were members of a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the murder.
Limbaugh started smearing the event before the conference even began, telling his audience that Holder's announcement was "a great way to sidestep the fact that he's being delivered a subpoena on Fast and Furious," the failed ATF operation that is currently under DOJ and congressional investigation. Limbaugh added that the announcement was "all about" trying to give Holder "something to distract everybody away from Fast and Furious."
The press conference ended at 2:29 p.m. EST, but by 2:22 p.m., Loesch, too, was already politicizing Holder's comments on Twitter, trying to tie the alleged terrorists to Fast and Furious.
Malkin joined in as well, on Twitter and her blog, calling the announcement a "diversion" from Fast and Furious and saying she was not "fooled":
Sadly, this kind of rapid-reaction politicization of grave, apolitical events is well-worn territory for commenters on the right. Right-wing media rushed to attack the Obama administration in 2010 after an attempted New York City car bombing and reports of an attempted shoe bombing on a domestic flight over Denver. And in January 2010, Limbaugh said that President Obama wanted to use the devastating Haiti earthquake to boost credibility with the "light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country."
There are not three louder radical tea bags in America than these three. NFTOS has logged many hours researching ““the drugster” and Loesch’s radical rants. Malkin is one of many in to ooze out of Faux News’ pig sty. Malkin comes from the same mold as Ann Coulter (minus the Adams apple of course).
H.Y. Nahm is quoted as saying “Is Michelle Malkin a political thinker with a weakness for name-calling or an ambitious show woman selling righteous bitchery to titillate right-wingers”? Apparently Malkin has been pissing off many for years as a website created in 2006 shows a huge distaste for the radical loudmouth.
Of coarse what Faux News contributor wouldn’t come without theatrics? Maklin back in 07 had a riff with Geraldo over statements made.
Faux News had been grooming her for a long time. Faux News doesn't develop what they think is an asset and then suddenly drop it. This most extreme right wing blogger out there doesn't bite her tongue for no one, and like most radical tea bags, she has learned her craft and trade well.
Two-Thirds Of Americans Want Higher Taxes On Wealthy:
More than two-thirds of Americans, including 53 percent of Republicans, want wealthier people to pay more in taxes to help pay down the deficit, according to a new Bloomberg-Washington Post poll. (The two news organizations are sponsoring tonight’s GOP debate.) “Even larger numbers think Medicare and Social Security benefits should be left alone.” As former Reagan official Bruce Bartlett has written, more than 20 recent polls show Americans favor raises taxes on the wealthy, despite conservative claims otherwise.
Tax the poor people’s food to finance massive tax break for the rich.
The centerpiece of former pizza czar Herman Cain’s presidential campaign is his “999″ plan, which would slash taxes on the wealthy, drive up deficits to the worst point since World War II, and force low-income Americans to pay a massive nine times their current tax rate. In an interview this morning with CNN’s Candy Crowley, Cain even said food and clothing would not be exempt from the 9 percent national sales tax he would put in place if elected president. Indeed, he said it would be “fair” for a poor person to pay as much in sales taxes as Crowley does:
CROWLEY: Is there any exception, as you see it, in this consumption tax? Except for clothing, perhaps? Except for food?
CAIN: Nope, you don’t have to do that. Nope, you don’t have to do that.
CROWLEY: So a poor person is paying the same amount of taxes on groceries as I am? Does that sound fair to you, just in a vacuum?
CAIN: Yes, it does sound fair because of the other point I’m about to make. If they need to buy a car or a home or some hard goods that are used, they pay no taxes.
Because he says his plan would lower the income tax for some Americans — and, by his calculations, leave people with more money to spend — Cain seems to think his plan would leave low-income Americans with more money. He is wrong. Presently, the bottom quintile of earners pays about 2 percent of their income in federal taxes. Under Cain’s plan, their taxes would increase all the way up to 18 percent.
Taxing poor people’s food is considered so beyond the pale that even the Tea Party group FreedomWorks assumed that the final version of Cain’s tax plan would exempt food from the sales tax. Only two states, Mississippi and Alabama, charge sales tax on food.
This week, Cain said his plan would not be regressive because “It expands the base so that everybody has a lower rate. And it is not regressive on the poor.” Clearly, he is ignoring how his tax plan would actually affect hardworking Americans, especially when it comes to the food they buy so that they can feed their families.
Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes did not hire Sarah Palin as an on-air commentator because of her lacerating wit or insight into domestic and foreign affairs.
“I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings,” Ailes, 71, said of the former vice presidential candidate in an interview with the Huffington Post published Wednesday.
At least one Ailes confidant has previously said the media honcho doesn't think much of Palin's intellect.
"He thinks Palin is an idiot," a Republican close to Ailes told New York magazine at the time. "He thinks she's stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven't elevated the conservative movement."
Palin, whose will-she-won't-she potential 2012 presidential run kept politicos' tongues wagging this season, signed a multi-year contract with Fox News in 2010, and has remained front-and-center in the media following her failed 2008 campaign alongside Sen. John McCain.
In McGinniss' book, "The Rogue," the author details Palin's supposed sexual tryst with basketball star Glen Rice and even claims that the once-White House hopeful dabbled in marijuana and cocaine.
Ailes the influential Republican, who gave a wide-ranging interview on the occasion of his cable news channel’s 15th birthday, denied that Fox, which he founded, exhibited political bias. Then he unleashed a variety of amusing salvos in a wide-ranging interview with television writer Frazier Moore.
Ailes strafed network competitors by saying he hadn’t counted on them “screwing up as much,” which helped him win ratings battles. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, he sniffed, “is an excellent reporter, but he’s not a star.”
He also shot down any connection to his operation and the hacking scandals that have tormented Fox News’ parent company, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. “It’s not a Fox issue,” Ailes said. “I don’t discuss it with Rupert.”
The blunt and bombastic septuagenarian revealed that when his contract expires in 2013 he may enjoy an encore performance in America’s national pastime. He has always, he said, wanted to buy the Cleveland Indians. Of course, “the politically correct crowd” would clamor for him to change the team’s name. “They’d be all over my ass because I bought the Indians!” he said.
We at NFTOS wonder how Saranoya feels about being used for beauty instead of brains?
“Stop Snitchin”: Faux News and Wall Street banks hustle to kill new whistleblower protections.
A few years go, a media firestorm erupted over the urban “Stop Snitchin” campaign promoted by gangs and a few hip hop icons. Stop Snitchin refers to the effort to intimidate informants to prevent them from cooperating with police about gang violence or drug trafficking schemes. Rapper Cam’ron received heavy scrutiny for endorsing the trend during an interview on the issue for CBS’s 60 Minutes.
A new Stop Snitchin campaign to deter would-be informants, in this case against people speaking up against crimes on Wall Street, is quietly taking shape, this time far from the media’s eye.
Financial experts and academics agree that strong whistleblower regulations could have prevented the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and indeed much of the financial crisis if employees at firms engaged in fraudulent activity had spoken up early or had reported complex crimes to the appropriate authorities. Employees at firms at the center for the financial crisis, including troubled lender Countrywide, have cited intimidation and other illicit tactics as the reason few people spoke up as whistleblowers. Since the old whistleblower laws provided for weak legal protections for informants and relatively rare rewards, the Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed last year revamped the system with new rights for informants blowing the whistle on financial crimes.
Bank lobbyists and Faux News, however, have made such protections enemy number one.
Faux News, part of a company known for its legal harassment tactics against whistleblowers, has promoted a smear campaign against financial whistleblower protections for months. In this recent segment, Fox Business reporter Charlie Gasparino, who refers to financial whistleblowers as “rats,” claimed that the new Dodd-Frank whistleblower protections are hurting the big banks:
GASPARINO: If you create all these incentives to sue. Well it seems like we’re increasing litigation at a time against businesses at a time when you know lets face it, all these banks, they’re getting hammered. You just saw that ugly chart of Goldman Sachs. Yes, there’s a sort of slimyness about this. Its not like someone just coming forward, remember they’re getting paid to do this, you know yea those are all the counter arguments. Under Dodd Frank this thing is here to stay until you know they repeal Dodd Frank!
Trade associations for the big banks, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, lobbied aggressively against the new rules, but failed to stop them. Now, bank lobbyists are attempting a rollback.
Freshman Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) sponsored a bill specifically to repeal the whistleblower law. Grimm’s legislation is a wish-list for corrupt banks: it would not only reduce rewards for reporting fraud, but would force whistleblowers to report crimes to their supervisors before notifying authorities. Consumer groups have decried Grimm’s proposal as an “extreme approach that would silence would-be whistleblowers, endanger critical inside informants, undermine investigations, hamstring enforcement at the [Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission], and provide law-breaking financial firms with an escape hatch from accountability.”
Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH), a lawmaker-turned bank lobbyist-turned lawmaker again, is among the team of four legislators working to whip up support for the legislation. Stivers and Grimm have been showered with contributions from top Wall Street firms, including JP Morgan and Bank of America.
Point of Law, a blog hosted by a think tank run by far right billionaire investors, has promoted attacks on the new whistleblower laws. The Chamber, which counts firms like Fidelity and AIG as major contributing members, has testified in support of Grimm’s bill.
While it is unlikely that Grimm’s measure is passed and signed into law as a stand-alone bill under President Obama, it could be forced through by the Republicans using a budget stand-off or another debt ceiling hostage situation.
Tea Party Nation stands with Hank Williams after he gets pulled from ESPN for comparing Obama to Hitler.
Hank Jr when times were better
ESPN dropped Hank Williams Jr.’s well-known “Are You Ready for Some Football?” opening song for Monday Night Football last night after the country singer compared President Obama to “Hitler” earlier in the day and called the president and vice president “the enemy.” Shortly after Williams made the comments on Fox & Friends yesterday morning, ESPN said in a statement, “We areextremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”
“Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My analogy was extreme – but it was to make a point.”
Williams Jr. adds, “Every time the media brings up the tea party it’s painted as racist and extremists – but there’s never a backlash – no outrage to those comparisons.”
Watch Williams’ uncomfortable appearance on Fox & Friends, in which he also seemed to make a pass at host Gretchen Carlson,via Media Matters:
But not everyone was offended. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Philips tweeted this morning, “I stand with Hank,” and suggested he will boycott the sports network of the incident. “If ESPN will not have Hank Williams because of his political beliefs I will not watch ESPN.” “No Hank, no football!” he added. There’s also a petition circulating on a conservative activist website calling on conservatives to “boycott ESPN and their sponsors just like the libs did to Glenn Beck.”
It certainly isn’t the radical republican teas, as John Boehner’s district suffers from e. coli outbreak as house republicans try to gut food safety.
Despite yet another outbreak of food-borne illness — this time stemming from listeria infected cantaloupes — congressional Republicans are still trying to cut back on the nation’s food safety regulations. The tainted melons have caused 16 deaths so far, making this the deadliest outbreak in more than a decade, and it comes just a month after salmonella-tainted turkey forced food-giant Cargill into the third-largest food recall on record.
Lost in the well-deserved focus on the listeria outbreak is the fact that another giant food-producer, Tyson Fresh Meats, was forced this week torecall more than 130,000 pounds of ground beef due to E. Coli contamination. And this particular breakdown in food safety should earn the attention of the man leading the GOP in its slash-and-burn approach to the budget, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), as four children in his districtwere sickened by the meat:
The recall of 65 tons of ground beef that might be contaminated with E. coli has hit close to home for House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.
The meat, recalled today by Tyson Fresh Meats, was shipped to 16 states…WCPO, ABC’s affiliate in Cincinnati, reported today, “four children became ill after eating the meat with their family in Butler County, Ohio, in the second week of September.” “A 9-year-old child was hospitalized for about 10 days with severe diarrhea,” the station reported.
It’s been pointed out time and time again, one in six Americans is sickened by food-borne illness each year, and more than 3,000 die. The annual cost to the country of food-borne illnesses is $152 billion, according to Georgetown University’s Produce Safety Project. However, the GOP has not only refused to fund the implementation of a landmark food safety law passed last year, but has said that the current rules on the books are too onerous, because the food industry “self-polices.” But as the current slew of recalls shows, that it clearly not the case.
The last time prominent Republicans took the stage at the Ronald Reagan Library in California, the crowd at a GOP debate came under fire for cheering at the mention of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s execution record. Republican debate crowds have since booed a gay soldier and cheered at the thought of letting a sick man die instead of providing him with health care.
The other night, the focus of the presidential race again turned to the Reagan Library for a speech given by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). Again, the crowd proved its indifference to those in dire straits, cheering when Christie mentioned Reagan laying off thousands of American workers:
CHRISTIE: In August 1981, the air traffic controllers, in violation of their contracts, went on strike. President Reagan ordered them back to work, making clear that those who refused would be fired. In the end, thousands refused, and thousands were fired.
The fact that Republicans would cheer laying off anyone at a time when unemployment is at 9 percent and the economy is reeling may seem out-of-touch, but the party has repeatedly made it clear that it sees a fundamental difference between workers in the public and private sectors. The GOP’s insistence on steep budget cuts has forced more than 500,000 workers to lose their jobs at the local, state, and federal levels.
To presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R), those workers aren’t part of the “real economy,” and he’s promised to layoff even more. And now, the GOP is threatening to enact massive cuts to the U.S. Postal Service, a move that would put even more people out of work.
The facts belie the Republican argument that reducing public sector employment will spur growth. According to the Brookings Institution, 19 of the 20 metropolitan areas that have had the strongest economic recovery since the recession have added government jobs, while 13 of the 20 worst suffered significant public sector losses. Despite overwhelming evidence against their position, conservatives continue to ignore the fact that their small government ideology is impeding the nation’s economic recovery.
This disturbing trend of choke and puke politics continues.
NFTOS
Bachmann says she imagines a new Cuban missile crisis, worries Hezbollah is giving Castro missiles.
GOP presidential contender Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) has a history of flubbing basic foreign policy facts, like when she claimed that Americans still live in fear of the Soviet Union. She made another whopper yesterday when she claimed that Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim political and military organization, is equipping communist Cuba with missiles. It would be “foolish” to normalize trade relations with Cuba, Bachmann told a crowd in Iowa, because Hezbollah could soon have “missile sites” there:
BACHMANN: Why would you normalize trading with a country that sponsors terror? There’s reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with another terrorist organization called Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is potentially looking at wanting to be part of missile sites in Iran and, of course, when you’re 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don’t want to entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hezbollah could have training camps or perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites in Cuba. This would be foolish.
To date there is absolutely no evidence to support her claim, which seems to be based on spurious reports in an Italian publication that did not even mention missiles.
Paranoid NRA chief says: Obama leaving gun owners alone is ‘Conspiracy’ to take away guns.
Paranoid and baseless accusations that Democrats are trying to destroy the Second Amendment is nothing new for Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association. This is the man who, after the January Tuscon shooting claimed six lives, rejected President Obama’s offer to come to the White House for a closed door meeting to discuss solutions to gun violence in America.
“Why should I or the N.R.A. go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?” he asked. LaPierre conveniently ignores the fact Obama is a supporter of the Second Amendment who, much to the chagrin of his liberal base, has actuallyexpanded gun rights.
But as Crooks and Liarspoints out, you just can’t please some people. Last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, LaPierre took his paranoia about the president to new heights, claiming that the fact that Obama has not pursued gun control actually proves he’s orchestrated a “massive conspiracy” to take away guns:
LAPIERRE: They’ll say gun owners — they’ll say they left them alone…In public, the president will remind us that he’s put off calls from his party to renew the old Clinton ban, that he hasn’t pushed for new gun control laws…The president will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he’s actually been good for the Second Amendment. But it’s a big fat stinking lie!…It’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country…Before the president was even sworn into office, they met and they hatched a conspiracy of public deception to try to guarantee his re-election in 2012.
LaPierre’s iron-clad logic is that Obama’s failure to take any action against gun owners in his first term means he is conspiring to launch an all-out assault on their rights in his second term. Equally ridiculous is LaPierre’s suggestion that he somehow has secret knowledge that the president “makes fun of gun-owners” when he’s in private or had a conspiratorial meeting with advisers before he took office where he plotted the Second Amendment’s downfall.
“Our freedom is at risk at this election like never before,” LaPierre claimed at the beginning of his speech, using the same fear-mongering the NRA hasdepended on since Obama took office to enhance their own membership and financial contributions.
It’s unclear, however, why anyone should believe the NRA’s paranoia. By LaPierre’s logic, Obama also has a secret plan to launch a manned mission to Uranus, convert the nation to Pastafarianism, and wipe out the pink flamingo. After all, Obama has done exactly as much to accomplish these three goals as he has done to undermine gun owners’ rights.
Herman Cain to house GOP: Fund FEMA now, find offsets ‘later’ — ‘stop playing with peoples’ tragedies’.
Despite making promises not to do so, House Republicans are holding disaster relief funding hostage, demanding the money be offset by spending cuts elsewhere so as to not increase the deficit, even though this has never been done in the past. House Republicans finally passed a bill to fund FEMA and the rest of the government last week, but only days after the Senate passed their own version without offsets and after House conservatives killed an earlier version with slightly fewer spending cuts.
But speaking yesterday on CNN, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain said Congress should fund FEMA now and worry about the offsets later, drawing a sharp line against lawmakers using the funds as a “political football” while people are suffering:
CAIN: I would make sure that FEMA got the money it needed, and if I had to go find the offsets later, go find it later. Stop playing with peoples’ tragedies — these are real people we’re talking about.
HOST: So you’re saying, right now we should just fund FEMA and forget about the offsetting spending cuts, and maybe later, if we find them, then go back and get the deal done that way.
CAIN: Yes. … We’re going to have a gentleman’s agreement that we will find the offsets, rather than finding the offsets right in the middle of it and making it a political football.
Asked about Sen. Mark Warner’s (D-VA) comments yesterday that the Tea Party faction in the House is to blame for the hold up, Cain said the conservative lawmakers need to pick their battles better. “I would not make this a battleground, Cain said. “This is one that I would basically try to, you know, fall on my sword for — go ahead and do what’s right for the people.”
Cain added that Congress “should put politics aside” and fund FEMA because “people should not have to suffer because of the political bickering.” Congress returns to work today to try again, with FEMA money running out soon and funding for the rest of the government ending Friday.
Former President Bill Clinton blasted the “non-fact-based political debate” surrounding the Republican primary race and Tea Party economic policies which advocate for limited government services and low taxation by saying:
‘There Is Not A Single Solitary Example’ Of A Country That Has Succeeded With A Tea Party Philosophy."
Clinton, who met with a small group of bloggers on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting in New York City today, responded to a question from ThinkProgress about Texas Gov., and GOP presidential frontrunner, Rick Perry’s position that Social Security is unconstitutional, and about the Tea Party’s anti-social spending sentiment more generally. Clinton blamed the “continuing dominance of non-fact based political debate,” saying:
You can stand up and say anything and nobody rings a bell if the facts are wrong. There’s no bell ringing. It’s crazy, we’re living in a time when it’s more important than ever to know things. And not just to know facts but to put them in a coherent. sensible pattern. And we live in a time, if you just want to talk about the economy, where the model that works for economic growth and prosperity is cooperation. But the model that works in politics is conflict.
Clinton went on to challenge the emerging GOP consensus that government size and spending require dramatic cuts, observing that the most prosperous parts of the U.S. “look nothing like the anti-government ideal of the Tea Party crowd”:
You know, there’s not a single solitary example on the planet, not one, of a country that is succesful because the economy has triumphed over the government and choked it off and driven the tax rates to zero, driven the regulations to nonexistent and abolished all government programs, except for defense, so people in my income group never have to pay a nickel to see a cow jump over the moon. There is no example of a successful country that looks like that.
While blasting the Tea Party’s economic policies, Clinton also acknowledged that the media plays an increasingly dangerous role in fanning the flames of partisan rancor.
When Clinton left office he left our country with a 236.2 billion dollar surplus. How soon the radical teas forget.
Clinton's surplus bookmarked by republican negative surplus
These are the facts and they are undisputed!
The execution of Troy Davis in Georgia has sparked worldwide protests as far away as London and Rome, with people demanding his life be spared because there is “too much doubt” regarding his conviction. Well as we know now that didn't happen.
Six retired Georgia corrections officials — including the director who oversaw executions for the state — sent a letter to Georgia corrections officials and Gov. Nathan Deal (R) asking them to urge the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider their Tuesday decision to deny Davis clemency, and, if that fails, to “allow any personnel so inclined to opt-out of activities related” to Davis’ execution. The officers’ statement centered on the “awful lifelong repercussions” that result from participating in executions, particularly those who maintain their innocence until their death. From the statement:
We write to you today with the overwhelming concern that an innocent person could be executed in Georgia tonight. We know the legal process has exhausted itself in the case of Troy Anthony Davis, and yet, doubt about his guilt remains. This very fact will have an irreversible and damaging impact on your staff. Living with the nightmares is something that we know from experience.
Former President Jimmy Carter said “this tragedy will spur us as a nation toward the total rejection of capital punishment.” He added, “If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated.”
This story has me angry as hell. America, a country that profoundly and emphatically expects the world to adhere to human rights throughout the world and yet allows state sponsored murder of an individual who's case has more holes in it than Swiss cheese!
To often the case in America we allow the tail to wag the dog and allow emotions to drive our laws!
Seven of the nine prosecution eyewitnesses have recanted all or part of their testimony, with many citing pressure from the police to make false statements. An exception is Sylvester "Redd" Coles, who made the initial report of Davis’s guilt, and is regarded by the defense as the chief suspect. New witnesses have sworn affidavits that Coles confessed the crime to them. An array of figures called for a stay of execution, including death-penalty supporters Senator Bob Barr and former FBI director William S. Sessions.
One female witness took her family into hiding after Coles told her he would kill her if she dropped the dime on him with regards to his confession of killing the "off duty" officer.
Affidavits Recanting Earlier False Testimonies or Statements on Davis:
Kevin McQueen:
"The truth is that Troy never confessed to me or talked to me about the shooting of the police officer. I made up the confession from information I had heard on TV and from other inmates....I need to set the record straight." Monty Holmes:
"I told them I didn't know anything about who shot the officer, but they kept questioning me....I was scared (so) I told them what they wanted to hear....I signed a statement saying that Troy told me that he shot the cop."
Jeffrey Sapp:
"I got tired of them harassing me, and they made it clear that the only way they would leave me alone is if I told them what they wanted to hear. I told them that Troy told me he did it, but it wasn't true. Troy never said that or anything like it."
Darrell DD Collins:
"After a couple of hours of the detectives yelling at me and threatening me, I finally broke down and told them what they wanted to hear....It is time that I told the truth. I am not proud for lying at Troy's trial, but the police had me so messed up that I felt that's all I could do or else I would go to jail."
Michael Cooper:
"I have had a chance to review a statement which I supposedly gave to police officers on June 25, 1991. I remember that they asked a lot of questions and typed up a statement which they told me to sign. I did not read the statement before I signed. In fact, I have not seen it before today....What is written in that statement is a lie."
Moreover, Davis is Black. Officer McPhail was white and a cop. Georgia's law enforcement establishment wanted revenge. As a result, anyone poor and Black is vulnerable anywhere in America. It's the cross they bear for their race, ethnicity, and economic status in a nation long known for racism, as virulent now as ever.
I leave you with this thought on our "great judicial system":
A once shinning star in the eyes of many while stomping the grounds of the frozen tundra committed a most heinous of crimes. Orenthal James Simpson decapitated two human beings, one being the mother of his children. Much evidence (DNA) was attributed to Simpson and the crime. Simpsons DNA (RFLP Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism analysis) was done from a blood drop found on the driveway that was large enough to be tested on through the procedure and found this to be a 1in 170 million match of Simpson's. (Meaning it could only be OJ's blood) and yet this monster walked free.
To date not one piece or shred of evidence (DNA) was ever linked to Troy Davis, other than the testimony which was recanted - yet Davis was murdered because a police department, State, and family had to have some poor black mans ass to make them feel vindicated for their loss, all the while the facts where stacking up that there is a huge probability that Mr. Davis was wrongly convicted.
Today, America is the only Western country still enforcing capital punishment. Moreover, since 1990, 30 nations abolished it, and among 74 still executing, four are the main abusers - America, China, Vietnam and Iran. It's long past time for us review what's becoming no longer tolerable. If capital punishment is to exist in America it must be adjusted to reflect our times and certainly not the times of the stone age.
If we are to continue to have State sponsored murder, lets at least ensure that DNA matches the crime and lets not continue to judge capital murder cases on eyewitness accounts - for God knows humans often and error frequently, especially when being threatened and coerced by police .
Capital punishment can be barbaric, unjust, and unacceptable for any number of reasons in modern societies. No wonder Amnesty International (AI) calls it "the ultimate denial of human rights. It is often premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state. This cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is done in the name of justice." So if we are going to demand State supported murder, lets make sure we have got the right guy or gal before doing so!
The lesson that I learned from this is that the South is no better today than it was during slavery...If your poor and black in the South and your within 500 miles of a capital offense your chances are high you'll be accused of this crime, and what a travesty!
I say to all whom dropped the ball in this case - what a sad "State" of affairs and shame on you!
