Fox News has been promoting Sarah Palin’s first episode of “Real American Stories,” set to air on Thursday, with “In Their Own Words” segments featuring celebrities talking about their lives. Last night on Twitter, rapper LL Cool J objected to being included in the show, saying that Fox was “misrepresenting” one of his interviews from 2008 (which was not conducted by Palin). LL Cool J’s spokesperson said that the interview “was being repurposed without LL’s permission.” Fox ended up cutting LL Cool J’s interview out of Palin’s show. Now, country singer Toby Keith, another person featured in the “In Their Own Words” segments, is also upset at being caught off guard:
In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Elaine Schock, a publicist for Mr. Keith said: “I have no idea what interview they are using. Toby’s talked to Fox a number of times, and I had no idea that this was going to be on Sarah Palin’s special. Fox has never contacted me — not now, not when they were putting this together, not at all. I have no idea what they’re using.” [...]
In a subsequent email message, Ms. Schock said that the interview with Mr. Keith likely happened in early 2009. Asked if Mr. Keith was ever interviewed by Ms. Palin, Ms. Schock said, “Absolutely not.”
A Fox News executive is claiming that the network e-mailed Schock on Monday “to report our show is finally going to air,” but Schock says she never received the message. “The last email I have from them is from January, 2009,” she said, adding, “I’m not saying Fox did not email me. Maybe they spelled my name wrong. I’m just saying I never got an email or a phone call from them.”
In recent congressional hearings, some top U.S. military brass debated the effectiveness of a moratorium on military discharges related to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. “I would recommend against it, it would complicate the whole process … implementing while we were studying it,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said. However, Army Secretary John McHugh said today that the Department of Defense has basically implemented a de facto moratorium on discharges as the Army working group considers its review of the DADT. He said that while Defense Secretary Robert Gates hasn’t explicitly stated so, it was a “reasonable assumption” to make. He added that although several active-duty servicemembers have told him they are gay, he hasn’t taken any action:
“The secretary of the Army is probably not going to go out and initiate an action against an individual soldier who, in the conversation about how do you feel about ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ identified themselves as gay,” McHugh said during a breakfast with reporters. “I just thought it would be counterproductive … in engaging the force to take disciplinary action against someone who had spoken to me openly and honestly.”
McHugh himself agreed with Casey last month during the hearings, saying that “any number of current cases would be greatly complicated” by a moratorium. Top Democrats, who support repealing DADT, have questioned whether a review of the policy would be effective if discharges were to continue. They have also signaled their willingness to draft a legislative solution should the problem remain unaddressed.
President Barack Obama has made comprehensive energy reform a key issue of his presidency, with massive investments in clean energy, initial efforts to confront climate change, and a commitment to “ending our addiction to foreign oil.” Today, Obama announced a sweeping new offshore drilling policy, opening “vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling” for the first time. This plan would also restore the ban on drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay and the West Coast. White House officials “pitched the changes as ways to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and create jobs,” the Associated Press reports. For years, however, Obama has correctly explained that new offshore drilling would do nothing to “reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil”:
“The days of running a 21st century economy on a 20th century fossil fuel are numbered – and we need to realize that before it’s too late.”
“The truth is, an oil future is not a secure future for America.”
“We could open up every square inch of America to drilling and we still wouldn’t even make a dent in our oil dependency.” 9/15/05
“It would be nice if we could produce our way out of this problem, but it’s just not possible.” 2/28/06
“Instead of making tough political decisions about how to reduce our insatiable demand for oil, this bill continues to lull the American people into thinking that we can drill our way out of our energy problems. ” 8/1/06
“Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.” 8/28/08
This expansion in offshore drilling leases, the Energy Information Administration has found, will have no effect on gas prices or dependence on foreign oil. Nor will it increase jobs, as oil companies aren’t really interested in new drilling — they are already sitting on existing leases instead of drilling them, in order to inflate their bottom lines by claiming the value of leased oil reserves as an asset. Furthermore, a Center for American Progress study has found that money that goes into the oil sector instead of the clean energy economy means a net loss of 14 jobs per million dollars.
In the beginning of August 2008, as Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign overlapped the presidential campaign, and oil and gas prices were skyrocketing to record levels, Obama dropped his “blanket opposition to expanded offshore drilling,” saying that he would be willing “to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage” in order to get Republican votes for comprehensive climate and energy reform.
In 2005 and 2006, Obama talked about the “tough decisions” of “how to reduce our insatiable demand for oil” and “investing in more hybrids and renewable energy sources, raising CAFE standards and helping our auto industry transition to a fuel-efficient future,” instead of drilling. In his first year in office, Obama made tremendous down payments on the clean-energy transition, the cash-for-clunkers program, and ninety billion dollars of Recovery Act funds for hybrid cars, efficiency, and renewable energy technologies, and momentous new CAFE standards that will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil demand. That accomplished, Obama took a step back, saying in his 2010 State of the Union speech that “clean energy jobs” means “making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.” America’s oil addiction can only be broken with comprehensive climate legislation that puts a real cap on carbon pollution.
Conservatives are treating the announcement with disdain — Gingrich’s ASWF said the president’s plan “is likely to be an attempt by Obama to seduce the public (into) believing that he will do something in the future on offshore drilling,” but amounts to little more than window-dressing. Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity vice president Phil Kerpen commented that “the idea that this is a big concession in exchange for which Congress should jumpstart climate legislation is ridiculous.”
NPR Senior News Analyst Cokie Roberts recently moderated a panel discussion with women serving in the U.S. Senate “about how they differ from their male counterparts.” Specifically, Roberts asked the senators — including Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison and New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand — about why there are fewer scandalous affairs involving women in public life:
Q: So is Sen. Hutchison right? Are women more focused on their jobs — at least the women politicians you’ve covered?
ROBERTS: Let’s put it this way, we don’t see a lot of scandals among women. And her [Hutchison's] point — oh my lord, you try to keep the kids straight and the job straight, and get back and forth between houses. And of course, she is a Republican woman from Texas, who —
She actually, interesting Michelle — as a senator, and now she is in her mid- to late-60s, adopted two little children, who are really young enough to be her grandchildren. So this was a new balancing act for her to have these children.
But she was echoed by Kirsten Gillibrand, the young senator from New York, who has an 18-month-old baby and others. And Sen. Gillibrand says, “You’re in the middle of diapers and bottles and bills and votes and markups, how could you possibly think about doing anything else?” They’re joking on the one hand, but on the other hand they’re not. They take care of their families and take care of business.
Roberts also commented on Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace’s recent comments that he was hoping former Alaska governor — and fellow Fox News contributor — Sarah Palin would sit on his lap during their interview on his show. Roberts said his remarks were “appalling.” “You know, it’s the last place that men feel that they can just make jokes,” she said. “They would never make such jokes about a minority, you’d be in terrible trouble. But you can still make sexist jokes about women and get away with it.” Listen here:
In reaction to South Carolina Mark Sanford’s (R) extramarital affair last year, former Bush press secretary Dana Perino said the answer was to “[e]lect more women. No woman I know has the time for such trysts, nor do I know any who say the desire one. They’re too busy trying to keep all the plates spinning at home, at work, and at the gym to make sure none fall and break.”
Since the Affordable Care Act passed last week, some of the country’s largest companies have complained about a provision that preserves a federal subsidy they receive for providing retirees with prescription drug coverage, but prevents them from deducting the subsidy from their taxes. Republicans and right-wing media have latched on, claiming health care reform is going to hurt American businesses.
Today, Boeing Co. is the latest corporation to complain, announcing that it expects to take a $150 million tax hit because of the new law:
“Boeing will no longer be able to claim an income tax deduction related to prescription drug benefits provided to retirees and reimbursed under the Medicare Part D retiree drug subsidy,” the company stated in a release. “Although this tax increase does not take effect until 2013, accounting standards require that a deferred income tax asset be written down in the period legislation changing the tax law was enacted.”
An association representing 300 of the largest U.S. corporations is pushing for a repeal of the provision that ends the tax break on the government subsidy, something the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky called “the worst kind” of taxpayer waste and “the most egregious form of corporate welfare.” These companies will still receive their subsidy, but they’ll no longer be able to take the tax deduction as well (so-called “double dipping“).
But Boeing’s complaint further rings hollow because the industry giant is among the largest U.S. companies that pay the least in corporate taxes. Conservatives complain about the high 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate, but because of corporate welfare such as the prescription drug deduction, Boeing’s tax rate was just 3.2 percent averaged over the last 4 years and just 0.7 percent averaged from 2002 to 2007. And Boeing’s three-year effective tax rate from 2001-2003 was -18.8 percent.
But also, according to Boeing’s 2009 annual report, the company paid no federal income tax in 2009 and actually received $132 million back from the IRS. And in 2008, Boeing paid just $44 million in federal income taxes while netting $2.7 billion in earnings that year.
Therefore, it’s difficult to take Boeing’s whining seriously. After all, if they had any complaints, they could have aired them back in September when the Senate Finance Committee inserted the provision to end the tax break in the health care reform bill. And even then, the measure won approval from many business interests, with the chairman of Business Roundtable saying “it’s very closely aligned to [our] principles.”
Recently, the Catholic Church — and even the Pope himself — have been coming under increasing criticism for failing to appropriately discipline church officials who had sexually abused thousands of children. On March 24th, the New York Times characterized “Pope Benedict XVI’s latest apology for the emerging global scandal of child abuse by predatory priests,” as inadequate, noting that Benedict “
The Catholic League responded the op-ed by running an ad in the New York Times criticizing the paper for its editorial and blaming the scandal on homosexuality:
The argument itself is confusing and contradictory. If “homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior” then why is is the “pedophilia crisis” a “homosexual crisis”? Most of the molesters were also over the age 30 but the Catholic League does not rename the “pedophilia crisis” an “older man crisis” or an “white older man” crisis or anything of the sort. But all this misses the point. What the Catholic League is trying to do is imply that there is a connection between homosexuality and molestation, just like segregationists once accused African Americans of raping white women, and Jews were accused of murdering Christian babies.
In reality, pedophilia has little to do with the gender of the child or the orientation of the molester; pedophiles are attracted to youth and control. “Accessibility is more the factor in who a pedophile abuses,” psychotherapist Joe Kort writes. “This may explain the high incidence of children molested in church communities and fraternal organizations, where the pedophile may more easily have access to children.”
Last night on Larry King Live, Catholic League President Bill Donohue tried to dismiss this argument by claiming that “it’s not a pedophilia” because “most of the victims were post pubescent,” as old as 12 or 13 years of age. Anything older than that is the fault of gays.
The Obama administration announced today that it will be approving “significant oil and gas exploration off America’s coasts.” One possible reason for the administration’s policy shift may be that it is seeking Republican votes for comprehensive energy reform. In the summer of 2008, then-candidate Obama explained that he saw allowing offshore oil drilling as a compromise necessary to “get something done“:
“The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling,” Obama said in the Post interview. “And so we don’t want gridlock. We want to get something done.” The freshman Illinois senator and presidential nominee-to-be added: “If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”
During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, former Bush official Dan Bartlett said that the move is unlikely to get any Republican votes for an energy bill. While saying that he thinks it is a “shrewd move” that will “demonstrate…that the Democratic Party doesn’t just cater to the extreme aspects of their base,” Bartlett conceded that it will likely not win any Republican votes because “Republicans have made a calculation that cooperating with this administration at this time is not necessary for them to pick up seats“:
BARTLETT: This is a shrewd move by the White House this announcment they’re doing on energy and offshore oil drilling. … These are the things they need to demonstrate to their constituents that the Democratic Party does not just cater to the extreme aspects of their base … Now, do I think that this measure here will help grease the path for a climate change bill and bring Republicans on board? No. Republicans in the Congress have made a calculation that cooperating with this administration at this time is not necessary for them to pick up seats. So if this is more of a legislative maneuever in order to get a broader bill on climate change, unfortunately this is going to come up short.
Watch it:
Indeed, Republicans have thus far indicated that they are unwilling to compromise in exchange for the administration’s lifting of offshore oil drilling bans. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) immediately “dismissed the president’s plan as not going far enough in opening up U.S. waters for exploration,” even going so far as to accuse Obama of defying “the will of the American people” because he didn’t open up even more territory for offshore drilling. Meanwhile, Chairman of the House Republican Conference and the American Energy Solutions Group Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) derided the plan as a “smokescreen” and a “feeble attempt to gain votes” for comprehensive energy legislation.
Yesterday, the University of Washington held a debate about the constitutionality of the recently passed health care reform bill. The Seattle Times reports that none of the panelists at the debate argued that the bill was unconstitutional because the organizers of the event couldn’t find any law professors who held that view:
The University of Washington billed it as a debate among distinguished law faculty over whether the new federal health-care law is constitutional.
But while the four panelists at a packed event Tuesday may have differed on some of the finer points, they all agreed on the big question: They said the new law passes constitutional muster and that various lawsuits arguing the opposite — including the one joined last week by state Attorney General Rob McKenna — have little merit or chance of success. Even John McKay, the former Republican U.S. attorney for Western Washington (who was forced out in 2006 under contentious circumstances) said that while he sympathized with some of the political issues in play, he thought the lawsuits lacked merit. In fact, he questioned the timing and thrust of the cases: “One way to say it is, that this has to be seen as a political exercise,” he said.
Moderator Hugh Spitzer noted the lack of a vigorous dissenting voice. “I will say that we tried very hard to get a professor who could come and who thinks this is flat-out unconstitutional,” he said. “But there are relatively few of them, and they are in great demand.”
(HT: TPM)
Yesterday, the guest host of Glenn Beck’s radio show, Doc Thompson, talked himself into an absurd racial discussion when he declared that a tax on tanning salons makes health care reform “racist” because “most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans.” Today, another Beck guest host, Chris Baker, launched into racially questionable commentary, declaring that Vice President Joe Biden is “turning Japanese.” “Look at that cat’s eyes, man, he’s turning into Joe Biden-son,” said Baker. Listen here:
Soon after making the comment, Baker responded to someone off-air, saying, “What do you mean racist? That’s not racist, it’s an observation. He’s the guy changing himself. Not me.”
Yesterday, Fox News announced that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will host the first edition of her “Real American Stories” show on Thursday, which “will feature stories about a Marine who died to save his fellow soldiers and a stock broker who helps underprivileged students pay for college.” According to numerous press reports and a Fox promo, Palin’s program will also showcase “In Their Own Words” segments with Toby Keith, Jack Welch and LL Cool J. Watch the promo:
But don’t be confused. The segment with LL Cool J is not an interview conducted by Palin. On his Twitter page, the rapper and actor said that Fox was “misrepresenting” an old interview “in order to promote Sarah Palin’s show”:
Fox News “did not immediately return requests for comment” from NBC Washington and the New York Times. Palin’s supporters are already lashing out at LL Cool J. Conservatives4Palin responded to LL, saying, “don’t flatter yourself” and arguing that Fox “never stated that Palin interviewed LL Cool J. It’s not Fox’s fault that others in the press misconstrued what the press release actually stated to mean that you and Palin talked.”
Watch LL Cool J’s “Real American Stories” segment here, which was not conducted by Sarah Palin.
“The Obama administration will approve significant oil and gas exploration off America’s coasts” in a move expected to bring widespread opposition from his own party’s environmentalists. “It is not a mechanism that actually fights climate change,” said the Sierra Club’s executive director, Michael Brune, in response to the move. “You don’t make the problem worse in order to solve it.”
Frustration with Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele is growing within the GOP in the wake of the committee’s payments for a visit to an L.A. strip club. One GOP lawmaker said Steele’s relationship with Republican leaders in Congress is “not good at all.” Over the past year, top donors have abandoned the RNC and are instead giving to other GOP campaign arms.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) signaled yesterday “that he won’t support the financial regulation reform bill he helped craft.” “I couldn’t support the bill in its current form,” Corker told the Wall Street Journal. “I have no plans to support the current legislation. I hope we’ll get back to the negotiating table.”
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is “contemplating” a lawsuit “challenging the federal mandate that states create exchanges, which are marketplaces for purchasing health insurance.” Utah already has an exchange and Shurtleff believes the federal government can’t tell them how to run it. “We think that’s unconstitutional, for elected federal officials to tell state elected officials what to do,” said Shurtleff.
A new investigation by the environmental group Greenpeace has found that U.S. oil company Koch Industries donated nearly $48 million “to climate opposition groups between 1997-2008.” The Greenpeace report also finds that the company spent $5.7 million in donations to political campaigns and $37 million “on direct lobbying to support fossil fuels.”
ProPublica reports today that the Department of Health and Human Services has hired the massive PR firm Ketchum to help win consumer trust about electronic medial records with funds from the stimulus. But, as ProPublica’s Sebastian Jones and Michael Grabell note, Ketchum has a controversial history of pushing propaganda during the Bush administration:
The irony? The firm chosen for the job — Ketchum Inc. — was hip-deep in controversy a few years ago for producing a series of fake TV news stories that violated a federal ban on propaganda. The company also drew fire for channeling taxpayer funds to a conservative pundit to promote the Bush administration’s education policies.
In 2004, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that video news releases developed by Ketchum to tout changes to Medicare under Bush’s prescription drug benefit were “covert propaganda” because they did not identify that the government was the source of the news reports. A 2005 GAO report found that similar video releases developed by Ketchum to promote No Child Left Behind also constituted “covert propaganda.”
Nancy Szemraj, a spokeswoman for the government’s health IT initiative, defended Ketchum’s $25.8 million contract, which calls for a “comprehensive campaign for communications and education,” to encourage doctors and hospitals to adopt health IT and to assure the public that their information will be safe:
Company spokeswoman Alicia Stetzer declined to answer questions about the $25.8 million contract, funded by the federal stimulus package. Nancy Szemraj, a spokeswoman for the government’s health IT initiative, said the PR firm won the contract over four other companies because of its ability to attract public acceptance.
“Ketchum has a long rich history of doing outstanding communication outreach work for large social marketing endeavors,” Szemraj said. “They are very capable of moving the needle, with has to happen here.”
She noted that Ketchum’s work helped HHS enroll 35 million people in the Medicare prescription drug program. And she said all of the firm’s marketing ideas would be reviewed by senior managers at HHS.
Szemraj’s assurance that all of Ketchum’s ideas will be “reviewed by senior managers at HHS” doesn’t guarantee that the firm’s old tactics won’t be used again. According to GAO, the “propaganda” videos produced by Ketchum for the prescription drug benefit were “reviewed and approved by CMS and HHS.” That said, Ketchum is a huge, award-winning firm that “has continued to draw government work” since the “propaganda” scandal, so their hiring does not necessarily mean that the Obama administration is expecting, seeking or will tolerate misleading work like the Bush administration did.
PRNewser first reported on Ketchum’s contract on March 25, noting that it will include “paid media support” and the creation of “communication products.”
About a month before health reform passed last week, health insurance giant WellPoint announced record premium rate hikes all over the country, some as high as 39 percent. As an HCAN report detailed, the premium increases largely fed into insurer profits, rather than paying for actual health care costs. Democrats pointed to the hikes as a evidence of the need for reform, with President Obama and Democrats in Congress citing the massive hikes as another reason to pass sweeping legislation.
Today on Fox Business, WellPoint VP Brad Fluegel appeared to talk about the impact of health reform. But instead of a discussion of the legislation and its ramifications for business and customers, the hosts of Fox Business spent a large portion of the interview skewering Fluegel for helping to pass reform through rate hikes. Of course, WellPoint lobbied (directly and through front groups) aggressively against the bill.
The Fox Business hosts pointed to the hikes and whined, “you guys threw it. … [Y]ou had to know this was going to push this legislation over the top.” Fox host Charles Payne argued that WellPoint enjoys plenty of profits and could have held off the hikes “until maybe after the November elections” for Republicans to win enough to stop reform. Stu Varney, another Fox host, was more direct. Varney looked at the WellPoint executive and muttered, “it was a bad public relations move. … [Y]ou are one of the primary reasons why we did get a vote in favor of health reform”:
PAYNE: When I look at all the different operating margins in your industry, looks like WellPoint, you guys are enjoying one of the healthier, I mean you guys doubled year after year from the year before. Is there any regret about this rate hike at this time? I mean if this was a boxing match, I say you guys threw it. I mean you had to know this was going to push this legislation over the top.
FLUEGEL: Well again our premiums are reflecting underlying medical costs. So we’re not the only ones —
PAYNE: But I mean some of your rivals, Aetna, some of these other guys, I think they make net on a bottom line percentage wise less than you. Seems like everyone was willing to suck it up until maybe after the November elections. Do you think it was a strategic mistake?
FLUEGEL: We need those premium increases to remain solvent within those geographies. […]
VARNEY: It was a bad public relations move at a very bad time. Because that brought down demonization on you and all the other private health insurers. And you are the one of primary reasons why we did get a vote in favor of health reform.
Watch it:
Before health reform passed, Fox Business hosts had cautioned WellPoint that hiking rates might energize health reform advocates. In a segment on the hikes in February, Fox Business spent the entire program ignoring how the hikes would impact customers; instead focusing on how it might help Democrats politically.
On April 19, the pro-gun group Second Amendment March (SAM) will lead a demonstration to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, “to remind America that the Second Amendment is necessary to maintain our right to self defense.” The group has sponsored several rallies across the country already, including ones last weekend in Frankfort, KY and Helena, MT. Second Amendment March founder Skip Coryell explained the group’s motives:
“I saw a lot of our freedoms being stripped away,” he said. “I was concerned about what the present Congress and administration were going to do. So were a lot of other people. [...]
“If you look at Barack Obama, he’s got the most anti-Second Amendment voting record of anyone who ever served. I just don’t trust him.
He said when George W. Bush was president, he didn’t feel as threatened.
Coryell claims he chose April 19 “because it is the 235th anniversary of Lexington-Concord.” However, the date also carries a rather unfortunate significance: the day militia sympathizers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. A reader of Andrew Sullivan’s blog The Daily Dish wrote in to express concern:
As a person from Oklahoma City, I find the entire idea upsetting beyond belief. These protests are going to take place on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. The idea of a bunch of armed right-wingers parading around on that day — especially here — makes me *ill*. Do any of these people know what actually happened here on that day?
Even some commenters on the Tea Party Patriot-linked SAM web page for the march in Oklahoma were troubled about any potential gun rights rally in Oklahoma City. “Everyone should *implore* the Oklahoma coordinator to schedule this march on a date that is NOT the anniversary of the Murrah Building attack,” said one commenter.
April 19 also marks the end of the weeks-long siege of the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, TX. Dan Casey of the Roanake Times reported that “[s]ome activists in the gun-rights movement have tried to talk Coryell out of organizing” the march, fearing that the “political timing is bad” or that it “might lead people to believe the gun movement is a paper tiger with a few loud voices.”
Of course Coryell’s fears are completely baseless. Obama has no intention of taking any anyone’s gun rights. In fact, during his campaign for president, Obama said, “I believe in the Second Amendment, and if you are a law-abiding gun owner, you have nothing to fear from an Obama administration.”
The New York Times reported in January that President Obama, who deeply believes banning gay men and women from serving openly in the military is “just wrong,” was finally spurred to push for repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by the realization that “if he did not change the policy, his administration would be forced to defend publicly the constitutionality of a law he had long opposed.”
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the Justice Department is doing, defending the constitutionality of DADT against a lawsuit filed by the Log Cabin Republicans in 2004. This brief, submitted yesterday, notes that Congress is considering repealing the policy, but quotes “from retired Gen. Colin Powell’s statements nearly two decades ago in favor of the gays-in-the-military ban without noting that Powell has since reversed himself on the issue.” The brief also regurgitates numerous conservative talking points:
- General Colin Powell similarly testified that, “[t]o win wars, we create cohesive teams of warriors who will bond so tightly that they are prepared to go into battle and give their lives if necessary for the accomplishment of the mission and for the cohesion of the group and for their individual buddies.” Id. Congress found that unit cohesion is improved by reducing or eliminating the potential for sexual tension to distract the members of the unit, and by protecting the personal privacy of service members.
- General Powell testified that homosexual conduct in units “involves matters of privacy and human sexuality that, . . . if allowed to exist openly in the military, would affect the cohesion and well-being of the force.”…He further testified that “it would be prejudicial to good order and discipline” if the military required heterosexuals and persons who demonstrate that they do or are likely to engage in homosexual acts “to share the most private facilities together,” id. at 283, and that “[c]ohesion is strengthened or weakened in the intimate living arrangements we force upon our people.
- Among other things, Congress determined that the statute was necessary because “[t]he presence in the Armed Forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.
Gen. Collin Powell officially announced his opposition to DADT back in February, noting that “attitudes and circumstances have changed.” Yet DOJ continues to cite his outdated views to justify a policy that the government is supposed to be unraveling.
All this puts Obama and repeal advocates in a strange position. It’s difficult to push for reform and push back against supporters of the policy when the federal government is using their arguments to defend it. If anything will motivate the president and his national security team to begin working directly with Congress to get repeal legislation into this year’s defense authorization bill, this is it.
Last night on CNN, Larry King discussed the growth of the Tea Parties and their effect on the Republican Party. While Nancy Pfotenhauer, a Republican strategist who has worked in the past for David Koch, the oil billionaire funding the top groups organizing the Tea Parties, praised the development as “phenomenal,” other Republicans were doubtful. David Frum, a speech writer in the Bush White House, and Scott McClellan, the former press secretary to Bush, decried the Tea Parties for their extreme views, like seeking to abolish Social Security. McClellan explained that the Tea Parties have “limited appeal” because they are simply a “divisive protest movement” that “plays too much to people’s fears and hatred”:
FRUM: When you bring on two people on to an important show like this, and they represent themselves as leading a conservative and libertarian uprising against the president, and you say what you would really like to do, and they say, we would like to abolish Social Security, if given half a chance, is that helpful to the Republican Party? There probably aren’t even two percent of the members of the Republican Party who think that way. But that — those are the people on television. That’s not helpful. [...]
MCCLELLAN: And then you also had the comments from the one Tea Party activist that was at the rally over the weekend in Searchlight, referring to President Obama as a terrorist. I mean, that’s just outrageous. You know, I think that there are probably many decent people in the Tea Party movement that have some legitimate concerns about their economic security. [...]
But this is a divisive protest movement that plays too much to people’s fears and hatred. And it’s got limited appeal. I think that after the 2010 elections, you’re going to see this party or the Tea Party movement dissipate to a great degree. … It has limited influence. It really hasn’t shown itself to be a strong, powerful force, even within the Republican Party. However, it is pushing Republicans too far to the right.
Watch it:
As ThinkProgress has documented, rather than lead the Tea Parties into a responsible direction, GOP lawmakers have sought to inflame the movement with violent rhetoric, outlandish conspiracy theories, and hate towards Democrats. The Tea Parties are providing loyal protesters and campaign volunteers to Republican campaigns though, so it is unclear if the Republican Party is even capable of separating from them.
At a town hall meeting on March 13 in Nashua, NH, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) talked about the war in Iraq, celebrating the fact that “there has not been a single American service member killed or wounded in Iraq”:
There’s a lot of other issues that I, we’d like to [inaudible], but I’d just wanted to say again because our veterans are here, that I’m happy to tell you that elections in Iraq went okay. Look, democracy is a hard thing, but it was a contested election and there’s no other country in the Middle East besides Israel where there’s a contested election. And the most importantly than that, now for three months, there has not been a single American servicemember killed or wounded in Iraq.
Watch it:
As BarbinMD at DailyKos points out, 12 U.S. servicemembers had died in Iraq in 2010 as of March 13, and at least 93 had been wounded. Since that time, there have been four more deaths and six more people wounded.
Last night on CNN, Larry King discussed the rise of the tea parties with a variety of guests and featured footage from last weekend’s lobbyist-organized Tea Party Express rally in Searchlight, NV. Dana Loesch, a tea party organizer from Missouri, and another tea party organizer, Wayne Allyn Root, joined King for the discussion. Root and Loesch decried the “unprecedented” and “unconstitutional” reach of a health care mandate. However, King noted that programs like Social Security are mandatory and asked if the tea parties would like to “do away with” that program as well. Both tea party organizers enthusiastically said “yes, absolutely” and added that a compromise would be at least privatizing the system:
KING: Would anyone turn away Social Security now? Would you do away with it?
LOESCH: I would, yes.
KING: You would?
LOESCH: Yes, absolutely.
KING: Would do you away with it, Wayne?
ROOT: I’d certainly like to. At best, I do away with it because I could find better ways to spend and save my own $15,000 a year.
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As many observers have noted, tea party fervor has infected the modern Republican Party. The Republican Budget Road Map, championed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and a growing number of GOP lawmakers, would appease the tea parties by slashing entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security through cuts and privatization. Unfortunately, King did not discuss the billionaire-backers of the tea parties, like David Koch, who similarly wants to do away with Social Security.
In an interview with President Obama today, NBC’s Matt Lauer wondered how the historic health care reform legislation that Obama signed last week “could be good for the American public in general when it didn’t receive one single Republican vote.” Obama responded by noting “that the Republican party made a calculated decision, a political decision, that they would not support whatever we did.” He then added that the bill “incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas” and is similar to what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts:
OBAMA: And I think that’s unfortunate because when you actually look at the bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas. I mean a lot of commentators have said this is sort of similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts. A lot of the ideas in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market. That originated from the Heritage Foundation and…
Noting the “middle of the road, centrist approach” of the reform legislation, Obama said that he was “frustrated that Republicans” who “had an opportunity to help shape this bill declined that opportunity.” “The overall architecture of it was actually something that was right down the middle,” said Obama. Watch it:
Obama’s reference to RomneyCare will undoubtedly cause discomfort for Romney, who has unconvincingly tried for months to distinguish his plan from Obama’s. Just yesterday in Iowa, Romney was on the defensive over the distinction between the two plans. “We solved our problem at the state level,” said Romney. “Why is it that President Obama is stepping in and saying ‘one size fits all?’’’
In an interview with the Boston Globe, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who advised the Romney and Obama administrations on their health insurance programs, attested to the plans’ similarities. “Basically, it’s the same thing,’’ said Gruber, adding that Obama’s national reform wouldn’t have happened if Romney had not made “the decision in 2005 to go for it. He is in many ways the intellectual father of national health reform.’’ Gruber also called Romney’s claims about the different ways that he and Obama finance their plans “disingenuous.’’
Transcript: More »
The recently passed health care reform act includes a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning salons to help pay for expanded insurance coverage for millions of Americans. Radio host Doc Thompson, subbing in for Fox News host Glenn Beck on his radio show today, used the tax to make the absurd accusation that the health bill is somehow “racist”:
For years I’ve suggested that racism was in decline and yeah, there are some, you know, incidents that still happen with regards to racism, but most of the claims I’ve said for years, well, they’re not really real. But I realize now that I was wrong. For I now too feel the pain of racism. Racism has been dropped at my front door and the front door of all lighter-skinned Americans. The health care bill the president just singed into law includes a 10 percent tax on all indoor tanning sessions starting July 1st, and I say, who uses tanning? Is it dark-skinned people? I don’t think so. I would guess that most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans. Why would the President of the United Stats of America — a man who says he understands racism, a man who has been confronted with racism — why would he sign such a racist law? Why would he agree to do that? Well now I feel the pain of racism.
Listen here:
The real motivation behind the tanning tax is to disincentive the carcinogenic practice of indoor tanning. Later in the show, when asked about real racism — Congressional Black Caucus members being spit upon and yelled at — Thompson refused to believe their testimony, despite the presence of new video evidence. Thompson suggested that the congressmen should be given a lie detector test to see if they are telling the truth. Thompson also began the show by saying that he can be heard regularly “in the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia.” It’s not surprising that Beck would hand off his show to someone with Thompson’s views, considering Beck has called President Obama “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” (HT: Atrios)
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