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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THE RESISTANCE
Deal To Avert Government Shutdown Saves $38 Billion — Bush Tax Cut Deal Spent $150 Billion
Late last night, just minutes from an impending government shutdown, congressional negotiators and President Obama reached a deal to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, cutting $38.5 billion under current funding levels, per Republican demands. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other Republicans hailed the deal as an important step to reining in the deficit. In a speech addressing the deal, Obama compared the compromise to the one he helped broker late last year on extending the Bush tax cuts for two years.
But a look at those two deals suggests Republicans are not as interested in cutting the deficit as they claim. In both cases, Democrats made big concessions on key Republican agenda items — tax and spending cuts — in the face of intransigent opposition from the GOP. But while the appropriations deal from last night cuts $38.5 billion in spending over the next six months (through the end of the fiscal year in September), the tax cut deal deprives the government of roughly $150 billion in revenue over a similar period of time.
Extending the Bush tax cuts “would result in a $200 billion to $300 billion cost to the US Treasury compared to what had been expected” in one year — or $100 to $150 billion in six months. So while they very nearly shut down the government to extract painful spending cuts, Republicans had already wiped out those spending cuts many times over with the revenue lost from extending the Bush tax cuts.
Last night, Republican Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus rocked Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election by claiming that she had suddenly found 14,315 lost votes in the most conservative county in the state. If these newly discovered votes are legitimate, they give incumbent conservative Justice David Prosser a more than 7,500 vote lead — a number that almost exactly matches the margin he needs to avoid a recount at the state’s expense.
Critics are saying there’s only two possible explanations for this bizarre development. One is foul play, the other is incompetence. In an awkward press conference last night, Nickolaus went with option B:
The purpose of the canvass is to catch these types of errors. It is important to stress that this is not a case of extra votes, or extra ballots being found. This is human error. [pause] Which I apologize for. [pause] Which is common in this process. [pause] Which is why the state requires us to conduct a canvass.
Watch it here at NFTOS:
The evidence shows that Nickolaus is a partisan GOP operative, but the evidence also reveals a long history of incompetence on her part. Here is what we know about Kathy Nickolaus:
Prosser is Nickolaus’ Former Boss: Throughout the 1990s, Nickolaus worked for the Wisconsin State Assembly’s Republican Caucus. For much of that time, Justice Prosser was the GOP Minority Leader and then the Speaker of the Assembly. So Prosser was Nickolaus’ boss.
Nickolaus Received Immunity For Testimony On A Campaign Scandal: In 2001, the partisan caucuses in the state legislature were investigated for alleged illegal use of state resources to secretly run campaigns. Nickolaus received immunity in return for her testimony about her role in this scandal.
Nickolaus Has Blown Vote Counts In The Past: Nickolaus once posted the wrong outcome in a local school board race, before her error was caught and the correct outcome was posted.
Nickolaus Was Audited After She Moved Official Data To Her Personal Computers: Her county’s Executive Committee ordered an audit of her office after they discovered that she “removed the election results collection and tallying system from the county computer network . . . and installed it on standalone personal computers in her office.
All of this evidence raises a cloud of uncertainty over any vote counts, and it raises disturbing questions about the legitimacy of this election. If Nickolaus’ newly found votes are upheld, Prosser will serve another ten year term on the state’s highest court. That means that for the next decade, Prosser will cast often-decisive votes in important litigation — even though many of the parties appearing before him will question whether he belongs there in the first place.
No matter who emerges as the winner from this vote counting fiasco, however, the mere fact that this election proved so close is still an important blow to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) anti-union agenda. Last February, Prosser’s challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg placed 27 points behind Prosser in a primary to determine which two candidates would face off in the general election. So even in Kloppenburg ultimately loses, progressives will likely claim a partial victory in her overcoming a massive 25 plus point deficit to give Prosser near-loss.
Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall (R) is resisting a proposal that would allow same-sex couples in the Commonwealth of Virginia to adopt children, telling a local Fox affiliate last night that homosexuality is a “disordered behavior” that is “inconsistent with a 6,000-year-old moral code”:
MARSHALL: There’s no real justification for imposing this on private agencies who believe this is a disordered behavior.
The behavior of the persons adopting is an example to children, it should be a good behavior, consistent with a 6,000-year-old moral code. …
[Former Governor Tim Kaine] wants [Catholic adoption agencies] to be compelled to reject 6,000 years of moral teaching… they should not be required to choose between religious freedom and this.
Morals don’t change. The moral law’s the same 1,000 years ago, 6,000 years ago—civil law can change.
Yesterday, Virginia state delegate Adam Ebbin (D), the first ever openly gay member of the Virginia General Assembly, blasted Marshall’s accusation that gays are “disordered”:
How dare a member of the this body call me intrinsically disordered.
Is it intrinsically disordered to love a child?
Is it intrinsically disordered to ensure that a child has an education?
Gov. Bob McDonnell has also spoken out against the adoption provision, saying he thinks that the current nondiscrimination regulations are “proper,” but should not be expanded to “inhibit the very fine work some faith-based organizations are doing.”
Of course, by not discriminating against same-sex couples or couples of certain religions, the provision would actually expand the work organizations do, assuming they are willing to comply with the policy. Opponents of the policy have referred to it as “mandatory gay adoption.”
This is not Marshall’s first attack on the LGBT community. He recently also attempted to ban gays and lesbians from serving in the Virginia National Guard and spoke out against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
The governor has until the end of next week to act on the bill.
What a glorious day it is! The apocalypse is hear! Break out the champagne, the clown is going down! No it's not April fools day and our national IQ just got 20 points higher!
FOX Stock ALERT...
Dump your chalk and chalkboard stocks..............
FAUX NEWS PRESS RELEASE:
FOX NEWS AND MERCURY RADIO ARTS ANNOUNCE NEW AGREEMENT(New York, NY) Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Glenn Beck's production company, are proud to announce that they will work together to develop and produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News' digital properties. Glenn intends to transition off of his daily program, the third highest rated in all of cable news, later this year.
Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of Fox News said, "Glenn Beck is a powerful communicator, a creative entrepreneur and a true success by anybody's standards. I look forward to continuing to work with him. Glenn Beck said: "I truly believe that America owes a lot to Roger Ailes and Fox News. I cannot repay Roger for the lessons I've learned and will continue to learn from him and I look forward to starting this new phase of our partnership."
Joel Cheatwood, SVP/Development at Fox News, will be joining Mercury Radio Arts effective April 24, 2011. Part of his role as EVP will be to manage the partnership and serve as a liaison with the Fox News Channel. Roger Ailes said: "Joel is a good friend and one of the most talented and creative executives in the business. Over the past four years I have consistently valued his input and advice and that will not stop as we work with him in his new role." "Glenn Beck" is consistently the third highest rated program on cable news.
For the 27 months that "Glenn Beck" has aired on Fox News, the program has averaged more than 2.2 million total viewers and 563,000 viewers 25-54 years old, numbers normally associated with shows airing in primetime, not at 5pm. "Glenn Beck" has dominated all of its cable news competitors since launch.
After weeks of rumors about poor ratings and increasing concern at Fox News headquarters over Beck’s apocalyptic ranting, it’s finally official — Glenn Beck is ending his daily show on Fox. The statement did not indicate an end date for the show.
Last month, Fox News officials told the New York Times anonymously that they were “contemplating life without Mr. Beck.” The Times also reported that “[m]any on the news side of Fox have wondered whether his chronic outrageousness — he suggested that the president has ‘a deep-seated hatred for white people’— have made it difficult for Fox to hang onto its credibility as a news network.”
That seems like a reasonable concern. Just yesterday, here’s what Beck used his show to assert:
Union leaders are communists, socialists, or revolutionaries who want destruction of “western way of life” [04/05/11]
Maybe Obama decided to try suspects at Guantanamo to inflame the Islamic world [04/05/11]
Obama is “merely a player” in a globalist, Islamist show [04/05/11]
Showing images of Obama, SEIU, and others, Beck says he “would put a lot of these people in jail.” [04/05/11]
Beck somehow linked 9/11 to Wisconsin election, budget cuts [04/05/11]
Beck’s rants earlier this year, in which he tried to connect uprisings in the Middle East to a rising Islamic takeover, abetted by liberal groups in the United States, even provoked the ire of fellow conservatives and Fox personalities like Bill Kristol, who characterized Beck’s rants as “fearfulness unworthy of Americans.”
Yesterday on his radio show, Beck foreshadowed this announcement by telling his listeners that if he left Fox News, “don’t you ever believe” that the liberal watchdog Media Matters “caused a victory.” Perhaps that’s true — only Glenn himself is to blame for creating a show so radically divorced from reality that even Fox News couldn’t handle it.
Top nine statements or phrases NFTOS will miss when Beckistan leaves via stage left:
Buy Gold
George Soros is evil
Unions are evil
Wilson was the worst president ever
Coolidge was the best president ever
Cloward and Piven are evil
Cass Sunstein is evil
Van Jones is evil
and the most famous one
Progressives are out to get him.
At any rate, we can all say "Soros" and raise a glass or two when he departs from his fraud-fest on the regularly scheduled Faux Apocalyptic Now Show.
Relax tea bags and chill before you have a stroke. Beck will be fine. He's richer than Croesus and he's been laughing at folks like you for a very long time....... all the way to the bank.
You think republicans care about our troops? As we told you yesterday, republicans behind closed doors where said to be "encouraging a governement shutdown". See how this ideology fits in with the boots on the ground and troops in the theater of war:
The White House, Senate Democrats, and congressional Republicans are currently locked in intense negotiations, trying to find agreement on a plan to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said this week that the Pentagon would still be able “to continue to protect our vital interests around the world, to continue to safeguard the nation’s security, to wage the wars we’re fighting and the operations that we are conducting right now.” However, while U.S. troops will remain engaged in those overseas operations, they won’t get paid for it, the AP reports:
U.S. military troops at war in Iraq and Afghanistan would receive one-week’s pay instead of two in their next paycheck if the government shuts down this weekend due to the federal budget impasse, according to a senior defense official.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues, said the military can’t be paid during a funding lapse until a new appropriations bill or continuing resolution is passed by Congress.
If the funding bill expires on April 8, it will be in the middle of the military’s two-week pay period, so Pentagon would send out paychecks for just the first week of the pay period, said the official.
As the Cable’s Josh Rogin reports, after that initial one-week’s worth paycheck, “all uniformed military personnel would continue to work but would stop receiving paychecks.”
If the federal government shuts down, “you could have forces deployed in the field, with their families back home, and no one’s getting paid.And that could be an issue,” the defense official said.
Last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) introduced a bill that would allow troops to continue to receive pay if the government shuts down. “When we heard that the military was concerned about whether or not they would get paid on time, then we rushed through and we got this bill done,” Gohmert said.
Those that sit far right of center should consider these facts before arriving at the tea bag pep rally on shutting down our government!
Today, President Obama meet with congressional leaders from both parties in an attempt to hammer out a budget deal and prevent the government from shutting down at the end of this week. After initially refusing to commit to attend, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will show up casually late to the White House meeting.
Republican leaders have repeatedly said they don’t want the government to close its doors. “Our goal is to avoid a shutdown,” a spokesman for Boehner said this week. Rep. Hal Rodgers (R-KY) — a powerful House budget negotiator who will attend the meeting –told ABC News yesterday that Republicans in Congress are “serious about trying to prevent a government shutdown.”
Behind closed doors, however, it doesn’t appear they are all that serious:
House Republicans huddled late Monday and, according to a GOP aide, gave the speaker an ovation when he informed them that he was advising the House Administration Committee to begin preparing for a possible shutdown. That process includes alerting lawmakers and senior staff about which employees would not report to work if no agreement is reached.
Republicans have been rallying their Tea Party base with calls for a shutdown for weeks, despite public pronouncements to the contrary. For example, influential Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has repeatedly said that “nobody wants a government shutdown” — but then spoke at a Tea Party rally last week and cried out: “Shut ‘er down!”
Typical republican mentality, screw everyone but thy-self!
If you think cutting the government's budget is as easy as taking the ax to some unpopular federal programs, a new national poll suggests that you should think again.
According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday, most Americans think that the government spends a lot more money than it actually does on such unpopular programs as foreign aid and public broadcasting.
The poll's release comes one week before current funding for the government runs out.
If there is no budget agreement between congressional lawmakers by next Friday, some government programs and offices may shut down.
"The public has a better idea of how much the government spends on programs like Social Security and Medicare, but there is a related problem -- cutting them has little public support," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The result: cutting unpopular programs would probably not cut the deficit very much, and cutting the deficit would probably require cuts in programs that Americans like."
Let's start with international assistance. Sixty percent of people we questioned say they'd like to put foreign aid on the chopping block. So would that make a dent in the deficit?
No -- but try telling that to the American public. According to the poll, on average, Americans estimate that foreign aid takes up 10 percent of the federal budget, and one in five think it represents about 30 percent of the money the government spends.
But the actual figure is closer to 1 percent, according to data from the Office of Management and Budget from the 2010 fiscal year's $3.5 trillion budget.
OK. Let's try more low-hanging fruit -- funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The survey indicates nearly half of all Americans would like to see major cuts.
According to the poll the public estimates that the government spent 5 percent of its budget last year on public television and radio.
Not even close. The real answer is about one-tenth of 1 percent.
Want more examples?
Cutting pensions and benefits for government workers is popular, but once again most Americans overestimate how much that costs the government.
On average, Americans think the federal government spent 10 percent of its 2010 budget on pensions and retiree benefits; the OMB figures indicate the real number is about 3.5 percent.
A sizeable minority would like to see food and housing assistance for the poor on the chopping block, but Americans' estimates of how much the government spends on those programs are three to four times higher than the actual price tag.
Cuts in military spending also have some support -- more than a third of all Americans favor cuts in that area. But the public, once again, overestimates the amount of military spending. They told us 30 percent in the poll. In reality only 19 percent of the 2010 budget went towards military spending, according to 2010 OMB figures.
What Americans got right are the programs they don't want to cut.
When we ask Americans to guess how much Social Security cost the government in 2010, the median estimate was 20 percent. Not bad, given that OMB figures indicate that Social Security represented 20.4 percent of the federal budget in 2010.
"Budget experts agree that cutting a target that big would be a good start toward getting the deficit under control. Problem is, 87 percent of people we surveyed don't want to decrease the amount of money spent on Social Security -- and four in 10 would like to see that figure grow. The same is generally true for Medicare and Medicaid, which combined made up 19 percent of last year's budget," adds Holland.
Note: The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey was conducted March 11-13, with 1,023 people questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Radical Republicans Regulate Requirement For Adequate Rest For Pilots:
In February 2009, Continental flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air, plunged into a suburb of Buffalo, NY, killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground. Pilot error was named as the chief cause of the crash, and investigators focused on pilot fatigue as one of the primary problems. The co-pilot had taken a cross-country, overnight flight the day before the crash, and only slept briefly in an airline lounge before she was required to pilot the flight.
When the plane encountered an ice storm as it attempted to land in Buffalo, the pilots struggled to respond appropriately, and The National Transportation Safety Board found that their “performance was likely impaired because of fatigue.” Both pilots were heard yawning on the cockpit voice recorder.
Families of the victims channeled their grief into action in the following months, launching a 15-month campaign to convince Congress to enact a variety of pilot performance safeguards. The bill passed last summer and, among other things, required the FAA to create tougher rules aimed at controlling pilot fatigue.
But today, the Republican House of Representatives passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) to a Republican-drafted aviation bill that would essentially gut the planned pilot fatigue rules by requiring extensive tailoring to many different segments of the aviation industry, and exempting several others.
Hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger blasted the amendment yesterday before it passed, saying “it creates a huge obstacle to new regulations,” and that, “at some point in the future, we don’t know when, it’s likely people will die unnecessarily.” Last night on the Ed Show, Sullenberger said the bill is a “slap in the face” to the Flight 3407 families. He also decried “special interests only interested in the bottom line.”
Watch it here at NFTOS:
Family members of those killed on Flight 3407 are already speaking out against the Republican vote. “You can try to dress this up however you like, but we all know which special interests that [the amendment] is attempting to help and what it’s attempting to do for them, which is make it more difficult for the FAA to do its job and regulate them,” said Susan Bourque, who’s sister, Beverly Eckert, was killed in the crash.
Eckert’s husband, Sean Rooney, was killed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and in the years following his death, Eckert became a leading 9/11 activist and helped lead the push for the 9/11 Commission. She was flying to Buffalo that evening to attend the unveiling of a scholarship in her late husband’s name.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) has vowed to prevent the Shuster Amendment from becoming a part of the final aviation bill, after the House and Senate versions are reconciled.
GOP Rep. Woodall’s Response To Exxon Paying Nothing In Taxes:
Last week, Rep. Rob Woodall held a tele-town hall meeting with his constituents, allowing them to call in and ask questions. At one point, a constituent called in and challenged Woodall’s belief that all we need is spending cuts to move towards a more balanced budget. The caller pointed out that closing corporate tax loopholes on big companies like Exxon Mobil — which paid zero federal corporate income taxes in 2009 — and Google, which only paid a 4.2 percent rate in taxes, would do a lot to help balance the budget as well.
Woodall replied by saying he’s “not a fan of class warfare” and that the only people who’ve ever employed him are rich people. He then went on to say that corporate taxes are really taxes on the customers of these companies and that we need to get “corporate taxes as low as we can in this country”:
CALLER: I have a quick comment and then a question. I certainly agree with moving towards a balanced budget, and containing costs, and cutting where we can, including the Defense Department, which I think is terribly bloated, but I just don’t think it’s feasible to balance the budget with cuts alone. I think you’ve got to also include income and place a fair tax on the wealthiest two percent and closing corporate loopholes that allow huge corporations like Exxon to pay no taxes. For example, Google earned eleven billion dollars last year overseas and paid 4.2 percent in taxes. So I think a fair tax on the wealthy and those who can chip in a little more has to be part of the bigger picture.
WOODALL: Bill, I absolutely agree with you that we can’t do it on spending cuts alone. [...] Now you talk about raising taxes. Now I’m not a fan of class warfare. Now the only people who’ve given me a job in my life is rich people. I’ve never had a poor man offer me a job. [...] At the end of the day, it’s going to be one of us, individuals, that pays every nickel in corporate taxes. I want use to get corporate taxes as low as we can in this country. Which means businesses don’t want to be here, they don’t want to provide jobs here. [...] We have to attract new businesses to our shores, the way to do that is with the lowest corporate tax rate we can get, to make sure folks want to come here.
Listen too it here @ NFTOS:
One has to wonder how we can possibly get taxes any lower when massive corporations like Exxon Mobil and Bank of America are paying nothing in federal corporate income taxes. Perhaps Woodall would prefer that these companies were like General Electric, which not only paid zero in income taxes in 2009 and 2010, but also received a $3.2 billion tax benefit. When Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was asked about GE’s tax dodging, his response was also that we need to cut corporate taxes.
Typical radical republican ideology, put the tax woes on the poor and working middle class.
Fox News insists that there's a difference between its "opinion" programming and its "news" programming. One top exec has been repeatedly proving his network wrong.
In exclusive new audio, Media Matters for America catches Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon bragging that he repeatedly lied when he speculated on-air "about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism," an allegation he privately found "rather far-fetched."
If you're looking for the walking embodiment of how Fox is a political attack machine disguised as a news network, look no further than Sammon, who has a pattern of using his position as a "news" editor to distort and slant the facts and push an ideological agenda.
Watch the video here and get the word out about Bill Sammon.
Speaking in 2009 onboard a pricey Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Sammon described his public attempts the previous year to link Obama to "socialism" as "mischievous speculation." Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that he had "privately" believed that the socialism allegation was "rather far-fetched."
A review found that Sammon -- then the network's Washington deputy managing editor --linked Obama's "spread the wealth around" remarks to socialism in four separate October 2008 Fox appearances. And Sammon's "mischief" wasn't limited to his on-air appearances. As NFTOS reported earlier, Sammon also pushed Fox News colleagues to play the socialism card.
In addition, multiple leaked emails to Media Matters for America show that Sammon pushes his political agenda into "news" programming on issues like climate change, health care, and the Middle East. He's even gone on right-wing talk radio to claim that President Obama has "controversial" views on "the white race."
Bill Sammon's position directing news coverage is a clear example of how Fox News hurts journalism. By making smears, falsehoods and attacks a higher priority than the facts, Sammon distorts our political process. It's Fox News' problem -- and ours.
It is NFTOS' job to support in fighting Fox News' toxic effect on our national debate.
With its union-busting “budget repair bill”tied up in court and as many as eight recall campaigns looming, the Wisconsin state GOP has apparently abandoned its argument that the fight to end collective bargaining rights was just about closing the state’s budget gap.
State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) has already revealed that the true motivation behind the bill was to defund unions to make it “much more difficult” for Democrats, including President Obama, to get elected in Wisconsin. Now, attempting to fend off efforts to recall eight of his Senate colleagues, he’s mailed out a fundraising letter that removes any doubt about the GOP’s motive:
“(Unions have) ruined California and Illinois, but they’re not going to ruin Wisconsin.
“That is because Republicans faced down Big Labor’s bully tactics and a Democratic walk-out in the state Senate to break the power of unions like WEAC and AFSCME once and for all,” Fitzgerald said in his letter.
Fitzgerald’s letter is in stark contrast from his all-about-the-budget rhetoric after the bill passed, when he said:
“Today’s passage is a momentous step toward getting our state’s fiscal house in order.”
Fitzgerald, however, isn’t alone. In Ohio, where the state senate is expected to vote on a similar union-busting bill tomorrow, state Rep. Joe Uecker (R) made it clear that the bill isn’t merely about the budget, but about “set[ting] the framework” for further anti-union efforts.
Oklahoma has now also joined the list of states considering anti-union legislation. The state Senate passed a bill through committee Monday that would repeal a 2004 law that guaranteed collective bargaining rights for municipal employees in cities with more than 35,000 residents. If the bill passes, 13 cities could collectively bargain with unions but would no longer be required to do so.
In newly uncovered audio, a Fox News executive boasts that he lied repeatedly during the closing days of the 2008 presidential campaign when he speculated on-air "about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism."
Speaking in 2009 onboard a pricey Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Fox Washington managing editor Bill Sammon described his attempts the previous year to link Obama to "socialism" as "mischievous speculation." Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that "privately" he had believed that the socialism allegation was "rather far-fetched."
"Last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to quote, 'spread the wealth around,' " said Sammon. "At that time, I have to admit, that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched."
Indeed, in the weeks leading up to the 2008 election, Sammon used his Fox position to engage in a campaign to tie Obama to "Marxists" and "socialism." A Media Matters review found that Sammon - then the network's Washington deputy managing editor - repeatedly linked Obama's "spread the wealth around" remark to socialism during his October 2008 Fox appearances.
Sammon's "mischief" wasn't limited to his on-air appearances. As Media Matters reported, Sammon also pushed Fox News colleagues to play the socialism card. On October 27, 2008, Sammon sent anemailto staffers highlighting what he described as "Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists" in his 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father. Shortly after sending the email, Sammon appeared on two Fox News programs to discuss his research and also wrote a FoxNews.com pieceabout Obama's "affinity to Marxists."
On October 14, 2008, Sammon said that Obama's "spread the wealth around" remark "is red meat when you're talking to conservatives and you start talking about 'spread the wealth around.' That is tantamount to socialism."
Sammon repeated the "tantamount to socialism" line later that day, stating: "That's anathema to conservatives. That's the same as saying, 'Spread the misery around.' That's basically tantamount to socialism. And that bothers a lot of people. So I think if McCain is going to have any chance of moving ahead, he's got to turn this economic discussion from something that's been hurting him for the last couple weeks to something that can help him by focusing on what to do about the economy in the future."
On October 21, 2008, Sammon appeared on Greta Van Susteren's show, where he referred to Bill Ayers "talking about being a Marxist." Sammon then said, "I have read Barack Obama's books pretty carefully, and he in his own words talks about being drawn to Marxists. ... Now all this stuff's coming out about whether he's a socialist. I don't know why anyone is surprised by it, because if you read his own words and his sort of, you know, orientation coming up as a liberal through college and as a young man, it's not a huge shock."
On October 25, 2008, Sammon said: "As soon as I heard Barack Obama say, and it's gone on almost two weeks ago - two weeks ago -- 'spread the wealth around,' I mean, the red flag went up. I mean, that's just code - and I knew that conservatives would say, 'That is exactly code for income redistribution which is tantamount to socialism.' And I talked about this for several days right after it happened. And the McCain campaign has now picked up this socialism word on their own, and they're running with it."
"I think some of these substantive issues, such as, you know, higher taxes, are we going to head more towards a socialistic government, could play in McCain's favor," Sammon said on October 27, 2008, after Fox aired a clip of Obama responding to McCain's accusations of socialism.
"I do think that when you start talking about 'spread the wealth around,' which is what Barack Obama said to Joe the Plumber, and now this new radio thing that came up today where he talks about redistributing the wealth, you know, those two things together are tantamount to socialism to conservatives," Sammon added later in the October 27 interview. "That's red meat. That'll fire up the conservative base, who had been a little bit dispirited."
Sammon went on to say that Obama "was drawn to Marxists, he was drawn to liberals, he was drawn to socialists by his own admission as a young man, so I think even though he postures as a moderate now as a presidential candidate, I think his heart is really towards the hard left, and we may see whether that comes out as he governs, if in fact he wins."
During an October 28, 2008, appearance on Fox & Friends, Sammon again said Obama "was drawn to Marxist and socialists as a young man" before adding, "Now, let's be clear. I mean people had political ideologies in college that they don't necessarily have later in life, but I do think it indicates that he may be a little bit more liberal than he presents himself."
Later in the interview, Sammon said that "there certainly is a consistency there when you look at the people he was drawn to going to socialist conferences, hanging out with Marxist professors, going to see Stokely Carmichael, even after he got out of college, for inspiration. The former Black Panther. And then you look later at life, where his association with Bill Ayers, the radical. You look at his association with the Reverend Wright. It does make you wonder whether indeed some of his leanings in his college days still carry through today, only are a little bit more fuzzed up because he's a politician who's running for high office. And I think it's worth examining."
Sammon made his startling admission during an August 2, 2009, speech onboard a 12-day cruise sponsored by Hillsdale College. Conservative writers Walter Williams, Paul Johnson, and Victor Davis Hanson also gave lectures. A Hillsdale newsletter states that "in addition to giving lectures, guest speakers also hosted private dinners for invited guests, and joined in the daytime excursions and camaraderie with their fellow 136 Hillsdale friends and nine Hillsdale staff."
Abrochure for the cruise promised attendees a "great opportunity to gather and discuss history and ideas with noted scholars and like-minded friends of Hillsdale." Cabin rates ranged from $11,800 to $37,600 per couple.
The National Review has described Hillsdale as "a citadel of American conservatism," and the conservative Young America's Foundation haslisted Hillsdale as one of the top conservative colleges in the country. Hillsdale PresidentLarry Arnn, Sean Hannity, andMark Levin have issued fundraising appeals touting the college's conservative credentials. Rush Limbaugh has also done on-air radio advertisements for Hillsdale.
During his cruise speech, Sammon said that while he found his own socialism speculation "far-fetched" in October 2008, it was actually proven correct during the first months of Obama's presidency.
"Now imagine my surprise when this year, I witness President Barack Obama standing in the cross hall of the White House and having taken over the American car industry, look into the camera, and announce to the nation essentially, that he would personally vouch for the warranty on your car's muffler," Sammon said on the cruise. "All of a sudden, the debate over whether America was heading for socialism seemed anything but far-fetched."
Yet at the same time, some of the country’s biggest corporations are getting away without being asked to pay anything at all. In 2009, mega corporations like Boeing and General Electric managed to avoid paying a penny in federal taxes — while also netting enormous benefits in tax benefits and subsidies.
Now, with many companies releasing their financial reports for 2010, it appears that Bank of America — the nation’s largest bank — has gone a second year in a row paying absolutely no federal corporate income taxes. In fact, not only did the company use its losses to avoid paying taxes last year, but it actually reported a tax benefit of almost a billion dollars:
After another money-losing year, Bank of America Corp. got the upper hand with Uncle Sam in 2010.
The Charlotte-based bank had no federal income tax expense for a second straight year and actually reported a tax “benefit” of nearly $1 billion. Also, the bank’s billions in accumulated losses could reduce its taxes in future years, a tax expert said.
“Bank of America takes its role as a corporate citizen very seriously, and pays taxes in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations,” bank spokesman Jerry Dubrowski said.
“If you go out and try to make money and you don’t do it, why should the government pay you for your losses?” asked Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice when Bank of America used a similar provision in the tax code to dodge taxes in 2009. Additionally, in one state alone, Connecticut, Bank of America’s state income tax tax dodging cost the state a whopping $500 million.
Over the weekend, the UK-inspired movement US Uncut held demonstrations at Bank of America branches all over the country to protest the bank’s egregious tax dodging. In Washington, D.C., US Uncut protests shut down a major Bank of America branch in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. Watch it:
In a press release from last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) laid out ten corporate tax dodgers who aren’t paying their fair share and called for shared sacrifice. “We have a deficit problem. It has to be addressed,” said Sanders in a press release addressing tax fairness. “But it cannot be addressed on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the poor, young people, the most vulnerable in this country. The wealthiest people and the largest corporations in this country have got to contribute. We’ve got to talk about shared sacrifice.”
Indiana Official Reportedly Advised Scott Walker To Stage A Phony Violent Attack By Union Supporters
During the intense public battle with public employee unions last month, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) received an intriguing email from an admirer claiming to be a deputy prosecutor from Indiana. The email suggested that Walker should fake an attack on himself, in order to create sympathy for his cause and damage the reputation of the unions. The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has the email:
As an aside, I've been involved in GOP politics here in Indiana for over 18 years, and I think that the situation in WI presents a good opportunity for what's called a "false flag" operation. If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' causes to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the public unions. Currently. the media is pointing the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions.
The e-mail was signed by “Carlos F. Lam.” WCIJ did some digging and discovered that indeed, there is a Carlos F. Lam who is a GOP public official in Indiana. He is a deputy prosecutor in Johnson County, Indiana — which is the same area the e-mail was sent from, according to its IP information. Lam also has a history of anti-union comments online: he’s written that Indiana is “an unsustainable public worker gravy train bubble.” In another, he said “unions & companies that feed at the gov’t trough will fight tooth & nail against anything that un-feathers their nests.”
Lam Lies About Knowledge of Email
WCIJ contacted Lam and asked him if the Hotmail address on the email belongs to him. Lam confirmed that it does — but categorically denied sending the email. “I am flabbergasted and would never advocate for something like this, and would like everyone to be sure that that’s just not me,” he said, after being read the email. He said he plans to file a police report about the matter this week.
Oddly, the email was sent on the very same day that another Indiana law enforcement official tweeted out violent plans for the protests. Jeffrey Cox, a deputy attorney general for the state, tweeted that police should “use live ammunition” against the protestors. He was fired the next day – but for now, Lam’s boss is backing him. “He didn’t send it,” he told WCIJ.
Scott Walker Misrepresented Voters’ Support For His Union Busting
Yesterday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) appeared on Fox Business to defend his union-busting crusade, claiming that a majority of his state’s residents were behind him. As evidence, he cited a new analysis from the Associated Press of emails to the governor’s office.
WALKER: And again today, the Associated Press went through the more than 150,000 emails that we have, and found the majority of them, as I’ve said, are people who support our reforms. Who support our reasonable measures.
Watch it here at NFTOS:
Walker has repeatedly made the claim that emails coming to his office were overwhelmingly supportive. Most egregiously, at a February 18 press conference, Walker said, “The more than 8,000 emails we got today, the majority are telling us to stay firm.” But in doing so yesterday, he completely distorted what the AP actually found.
The AP analysis reported that, “for several preceding days, the emails of support Walker received had been vastly outnumbered by those opposed to his plan.” For example, on February 11, the day Walker formally outlined his “budget-repair bill,” emails sent to his office “ran more than 5-to-1 against his plan.” Eventually, the emails turned in his favor, but Walker ignores the nuance in his appearance yesterday.
The AP only obtained the emails through a legal settlement in which Walker was forced to pay $7,000 in legal fees. Under the state’s open record laws, the AP and a local newspaper had requested the emails Walker referenced in his press conference, but he refused to disclose them for sometime, before finally agreeing to the settlement.
NFTOS TRUTH-O-METER
Walker fails truth-o-meter
And beyond the emails,numerouspollshave shown that Wisconsin voters increasingly turned against Walker. In fact, polls show that Walker would lose if he were up for re-election now.
A new Pew poll released today contains some ominous omens for the Republican Party. As national support for the Tea Party declines, support of Republicans by Tea Partiers is also in decline. Only 19% of Americans support the Tea Party now, and within the Tea Party support for the GOP budget plan has dropped from 74% to 52%.
The latest Pew Research Poll has found that the American people are growing disgruntled with divided Congress’ inability to do anything, and they are blaming the Republicans for the lack of progress. The big problem that Republicans face is that they sold their supporters an ambitious and completely politically unrealistic budget and deficit reduction plan that they have not been able to deliver.
After the 2010 elections 35% of Republicans supported their party’s deficit plan, support has now fallen to 22%. Republican candidates used the Tea Party to gain control of the House of Representatives, but there are dangerous signs that these same voters have already grown impatient with the GOP. Support for the Republican Party’s deficit reduction plan among Tea Partiers has plunged from 75% just after the election to 52% now.
Raise your hand if you didn’t see this one coming a mile away. A bunch of political neophytes who have no idea how their government actually works, believed a slew of campaign promises by a Republican Party that promised them things that they had no chance of delivering with a Democratic president in office, and now those supporters feel betrayed and are disgruntled and angry.
The reality is that the Republican Party set itself up for this from day one, by promising things that they knew they could never deliver. Voters have become extremely impatient since 2006. When they vote for change, they want it NOW. Republicans promised a change in spending and deficits that they could never bring about. In fact, the Republican House leadership of John Boehner and Eric Cantor had no interest in delivering their budget and deficit plan.
In a nutshell here is the problem:
53% of Americans say that the deficit should be a top priority, but a sizable number of those same Americans (34%) worry that deficit reduction will hurt job growth, and 61% of Americans support lowering domestic spending, but 65% of them oppose ANY change to the two biggest federal entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare. 67% of Americans oppose raising taxing, and they are split 49%-47% on cutting military spending.
The political dilemma that congressional Republicans face is that the deficit is of top importance to the Tea Party, but America at large is more concerned with jobs (34%), rising prices (28%), and then the deficit (24%). On top of this, national support for the Tea Party has declined to 19%, but this bloc is still a powerful force within the GOP.
Republican incumbents all over the country are nervous, and they should be. They know what happens when the Tea Party is unhappy. The Tea Party candidates elected in 2010 could be facing a slate of Tea Party 2.0 primary challengers in 2012, but what’s even more likely to happen is that presented with a slate of less than inspiring presidential candidates to choose from, these voters simply stay home.
Either way if these voters don’t learn about the legislative process and the limitations of only controlling the House, Republican incumbents are looking at a gloomy situation in 2012, the GOP wanted power and now they are being held accountable. The Tea Partiers naively believed what they were sold in 2010, and they are finding out just how used they were by a corporate AstroTurf movement that exploited their emotions, but had no intention of delivering on their agenda.
The real agenda belongs to the Koch brothers and all the corporate interests who secretly funded the “organic” Tea Party. The Tea Partiers were used and thrown away after Election Day, but they shouldn’t worry; Republicans will come calling again next year speaking the language of deficit reduction and liberty.
All those older white Americans who call themselves Tea Partiers are really Koch whores, and if they break away from the corporate machine, they’ll quickly discover how powerless they really are:
Additionally:
With Fox News host Glenn Beck’s ratings down and the biggest tea party rally eclipsed by a recent pro-labor rally in Wisconsin, could this tea be losing steam - leaving a smattering of radical republican debris in its wake? A great sign this is true:
Tea Party Event
A big tea party convention in Tampa, FL this weekend — headlined by such conservative favorites as Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Fox News Judge Andrew Napolitano, and former GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo — attracted only about 300 people. The Save America Convention’s website lists 25 guest speakers, meaning there was one speaker for every 12 attendees. If one includes the 13 musicians and other performers listed as entertainment, that ratio drops to one for every 7 and a half.
Joseph Farah, the founder of the birther news website World Net Daily, who spoke at the event, promised “lots of opportunities for interactivitybetween participants and presenters.” Indeed, this photo from the convention posted by Saint Petersblog suggests attendees would have little competition to meet Farah and the other speakers:
Aimed at the farthest right of the far right, the three-day eventtouted a sponsorship from the John Birch Society and an appearance by Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia. But this kind of uber-conservative fare has had no trouble attracting bigger crowds not long ago.
They’re the sort of scores that drive high-school history teachers to drink. When Newsweek recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.
Don’t get us wrong: civic ignorance is nothing new. For as long as they’ve existed, Americans have been misunderstanding checks and balances and misidentifying their senators. And they’ve been lamenting the philistinism of their peers ever since pollsters started publishing these dispiriting surveys back in Harry Truman’s day. (He was a president, by the way.) According to a study by Michael X. Delli Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, the yearly shifts in civic knowledge since World War II have averaged out to “slightly under 1 percent.”
But the world has changed. And unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more inhospitable to incurious know-nothings—like republicans.
To appreciate the risks involved, it’s important to understand where American ignorance comes from. In March 2009, the European Journal of Communication asked citizens of Britain, Denmark, Finland, and the U.S. to answer questions on international affairs. The Europeans clobbered us. Sixty-eight percent of Danes, 75 percent of Brits, and 76 percent of Finns could, for example, identify the Taliban, but only 58 percent of Americans managed to do the same—even though we’ve led the charge in Afghanistan. It was only the latest in a series of polls that have shown us lagging behind our First World peers.
For more than two centuries, Americans have gotten away with not knowing much about the world around them. But times have changed—and they’ve changed in ways that make civic ignorance a big problem going forward. Watch the video below of a republican tea bag rally, little if any know why they hate, most have no clue as to real policies. Most republicans are in "lockstep" with the puppet masters:
The current conflict over government spending illustrates the new dangers of ignorance. Every economist knows how to deal with the debt: cost-saving reforms to big-ticket entitlement programs; cuts to our bloated defense budget; and (if growth remains slow) tax reforms designed to refill our depleted revenue coffers. But poll after poll shows that voters have no clue what the budget actually looks like. A 2010 World Public Opinion survey found that Americans want to tackle deficits by cutting foreign aid from what they believe is the current level (27 percent of the budget) to a more prudent 13 percent. The real number is under 1 percent. A Jan. 25 CNN poll, meanwhile, discovered that even though 71 percent of voters want smaller government, vast majorities oppose cuts to Medicare (81 percent), Social Security (78 percent), and Medicaid (70 percent). Instead, they prefer to slash waste—a category that, in their fantasy world, seems to include 50 percent of spending, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.
Needless to say, it’s impossible to balance the budget by listening to these people. But politicians pander to them anyway, and even encourage their misapprehensions. As a result, we’re now arguing over short-term spending cuts that would cost up to 700,000 government jobs, imperiling the shaky recovery and impairing our ability to compete globally, while doing nothing to tackle the long-term fiscal challenges that threaten … our ability to compete globally.
Given our history, it’s hard to imagine this changing any time soon. But that isn’t to say a change wouldn’t help. For years, Stanford communications professor James Fishkin has been conducting experiments in deliberative democracy. The premise is simple: poll citizens on a major issue, blind; then see how their opinions evolve when they’re forced to confront the facts. What Fishkin has found is that while people start out with deep value disagreements over, say, government spending, they tend to agree on rational policy responses once they learn the ins and outs of the budget. “The problem is ignorance, not stupidity,” “We suffer from a lack of information rather than a lack of ability.” Whether that’s a treatable affliction or a terminal illness remains to be seen. But now’s the time to start searching for a cure.
This basis of ignorance, along with the radical republicans number one news source (Faux News) - which is often known to mislead and misinform the republican troglodytes - We can mathematically deduce that it can be considered that one-half of the population has an IQ at or below 100. When you look at the ingredients of the modern day GOP, you find many radical teas who believe the thousands of conspiracy theories out of camp Fox daily- considering these facts, a premise suggests that approximately 65% of the people with an IQ below 100 are probably Republican. This would equate to 117 million people willing to be misled, and to be a dumber lot!
Take Newsweek's quiz on "how dumb are we". if you don't get 20 out of 20 you should be:
1. forcibly sterilized
2. not be allowed to vote.
NFTOS Editor-in-Chief Roger West is quoted as saying:
"If a people do not know where they've been, they will not know where they are going. This is why we have strayed so far from the original intent of the founding of America today".
Hey, you guys out there who are worrying about a deadly mushroom cloud making its way across the Pacific -- you can all just calm down, because we have it on good authority that radiation is good for you. What authority? None other than Ann "PhD" Coulter.
Nuclear physicist and medical expert Ann Coulter has spoken, and it turns out that a giant radioactive plume floating across the Pacific may be just what the doctor ordered for fretting California residents. On O’Reilly Factor, Coulter told host Bill O’Reilly that “radiation is good for you,” and cited a number of articles in the New York Times showing radiation has a positive effect on cancer patients. Then, of course, she blamed “the media” for not covering it.
Yes, it turns out that Coulter can find it in her heart to praise the New York Times– at least for their scientific coverage. “There is a growing body of evidence that radiation in excess of what the government says is actually good for you and actually reduces cancer,” she told a very skeptical O’Reilly, citing her latest column on her website as filled with evidence of this being true. Note: she is not making a political argument about nuclear energy here. She is making a medical point: that radiation is good for the human body in doses larger than what the government regulation standards currently are, not just in the small doses given in processes like chemotherapy (which no one will deny often cure cancer).
“So we should all be sunbathing,” O’Reilly jokes, noting that the current giant plume of radioactive material in Japan is slated to hit the United States by the end of this week. Joking aside, he implored Coulter to be “responsible” and admit that “some radiation will kill you.” She refused, possibly at last settling the debate on whether her political beliefs are based on ideology or contrarianism for its own sake, blaming “the media”– which apparently does not include the New York Times– for not reporting on the great medical uses of radiation “because it’s not sensationalistic.” No word on when Coulter’s new line of Radithor will be released (obviously, “the media” wouldn’t cover it).
What's the opposite of fear-mongering? False-sense-of-security-mongering, probably. Or whatever you'd call Ann Coulter's latest blog post claiming that radiation does a body good: maybe this would explain the man like Adam's apple that Coulter sports?
Coulter truly is a national treasure. Maybe prior to going to the beach we should rub our bodies down with uranium.
We at NFTOS are always impressed how Ann Coulter finds ways to make headlines. Coulter's venture into science journalism the other day, only displays that she is an idiot of epic proportions.
Coulter is always at the forefront of lunatic fringe statements, like:
“Want to make liberals angry? Defend the United States.”
“Never apologize to, compliment, or show graciousness to a Democrat.”
“[The] Spawn of Satan convention in Boston [was attended by] corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons.”
“If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine.”
"We [Christians] just want Jews to be perfected.”
“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
So as the increasingly critical situation in Japan demands more accurate and useful information about radiation, the Faux News Channel's "biggest buffoon show" features the ignorance of Ann Coulter. Just another reason why studies have found Faux News watchers more misinformed on the issues of the day than consumers of other corporate media outlets.
