Justin's Political Corner
(via Tom Coburn On Disaster Relief: Status Quo Means People ‘Don’t Have To Be Responsible’ For State)
WASHINGTON — Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) reiterated on Sunday that he won’t support additional disaster relief funding without spending cuts elsewhere — even after tornadoes ripped apart his own state last week.
“We’ve created kind of a predicate, that you don’t have to be responsible for what goes on in your state,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” while discussing the success Oklahoma has had in using state and private funds after the tornadoes.
Coburn said he doesn’t oppose any federal money going toward the state, however.
“Big storms like [Hurricane] Sandy, or like this tornado — there’s certain things that we can’t do that we need the federal government to do,” he said.
The Oklahoma senator has been consistently opposed to disaster funding without offsets, but some expected that to change in the wake of the devastation to his state. But Coburn’s office quickly confirmed after the tornado that he would not be supporting disaster aid without offsetting the spending.
“That’s always been his position [to offset disaster aid],” Coburn spokesman John Hart said Monday in a statement. “He supported offsets to the bill funding the OKC bombing recovery effort.”
On Thursday, Coburn responded to critics of his decision by saying they simply want to increase disaster funding so they can give it to their home states.
“It’s just typical Washington B.S.,” Coburn said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “There’s $11.6 billion sitting in a bank account waiting to help people in Oklahoma … It’s a crass political game, because I was being asked these questions before we even pulled the dead people out of the rubble.”
He criticized the current system again on Sunday, saying that the way damage is calculated should be changed instead.
“It disproportionately hurts the more populous states the way we do it, the economic indicator, the economic damage indicator, the way it’s calculated,” he said on “Face the Nation.” “So a large state like New Jersey or New York is disadvantaged under the system that we have today. Then, we ought to have priorities about how we fund it, instead of borrowing the money. And then we ought to make sure the money is actually for the emergency at hand, not for four or five years later, and not allow bills to be loaded up with things that actually have nothing to do with the emergency at hand.”
Fox News figures are dismissing the voices of the families who suffered in a mass shooting in Newtown, CT by claiming they’re being used and exploited by Democrats, discounting the efforts they have made to encourage Congress to pass stronger gun laws.
On April 11, the Senate overcame a Republican-led filibuster that tried to block the beginning of debate on stronger gun laws with a 68-31 vote. The impetus for the new gun proposals was driven by the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that left 26 victims dead, most of them young children. President Obama had been urging Congress to act to strengthen guns laws in response to the shooting for some time.
According to several Fox News figures, Obama has been using the families of the Newtown shooting victims as props for a political agenda.
On April 11, Fox News host Sean Hannity called the effort to strengthen gun laws “naked exploitation of dead children and grieving families,” while his guest Ann Coulter said that Democrats are “play[ing] with these victims.” The previous night, Hannity stated that the president “is once again using families of tragedy as props for his agenda.” Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said on his April 11 radio show that Obama is “using the Newtown families to push for background checks.” Fox News White House reporter Ed Henry similarly said on April 9 that “for the second straight day, the White House used the victims of the Newtown tragedy to make their case.” On his April 9 radio show, Fox News host Mike Huckabee suggested that taking some of the relatives of the Newtown shooting victims to Washington, DC on Air Force One to make their case for stronger gun laws was “an exploitation of those parents.”
Such an attitude does a disservice to the many Newtown families that want tougher gun laws in the wake of their tragedies. Several of the families appeared on CBS’ 60 Minutes on April 7 to discuss what kind of gun violence prevention measures they would like to see signed into law, saying that universal background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazines were important. After the vote that broke the GOP’s threatened filibuster, more than 30 families of Newtown victims released a statement criticizing those who tried block an up-or-down vote on new gun legislation, saying that “[t]he senators who have vowed to filibuster this bill should be ashamed of their attempt to silence efforts to prevent the next American tragedy.”
h/t: MMFA
PPP’s annual poll on TV news finds that there’s only one source more Americans trust than distrust: PBS. 52% of voters say they trust PBS to only 29% who don’t trust it. The other seven outlets we polled on are all distrusted by a plurality of voters.
When it comes to asking Americans which single outlet they trust the most and least out of the ones we polled on, Fox News once again wins both honors. 34% say it’s the one they trust the most, compared to 13% for PBS, 12% for CNN, 11% for ABC, 8% for MSNBC, 6% for CBS, and 5% each for Comedy Central and NBC. Fox News is the choice of 67% of Republicans, while Democrats basically split their allegiances four ways between ABC and CNN, both at 17%, and MSNBC and PBS, both at 16%.
Even more Americans identify Fox News as the outlet they trust the least- 39% give its that designation to 14% for MSNBC, 13% for CNN, 12% for Comedy Central, 5% for ABC and CBS, 3% for NBC, and 1% for PBS. 60% of Democrats give it their lowest marks while Republicans split between MSNBC (24%), CNN (19%), and Comedy Central (14%) on that front.
Bob Schieffer announced on Sunday that Condoleezza Rice is joining CBS News as a contributor.
“Everybody knows Condoleezza Rice was President Bush’s Secretary of State but I’m highly pleased to announce she has a new job. As of today, she’s joining CBS News as a contributor,” Schieffer said at the top of the roundtable discussion on “Face the Nation.” Rice was a member of the show’s panel.
h/t: Huffington Post
Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation this morning, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) enthusiastically called for a government shut down:
SALMON: I was here during the government shutdown in 1995. It was a divided government. we had a Democrat [sic] President of the United States. We had a Republican Congress. And I believe that that government shutdown actually gave us the impetus, as we went forward, to push toward some real serious compromise. I think it drove Bill Clinton in a different direction, a very bipartisan direction. In fact, we passed welfare reform for the first time ever, and we cut the welfare ranks in the last decade and a half by over 50%. These are good things. We also balanced the budget for the first time in 40 years in 1997, 1998, 1999. And when I left we had an over $230 billion surplus. This was with a Democrat [sic] president, A Republican —
SCHIEFFER: You think that’s a good idea?
SALMON: Yes, I do. I really do. I think it’s about time!
Watch it:
Salmon’s theory, that the government shutdown somehow led to balanced budgets during President Clinton’s second term, was floated by Newt Gingrich in 2011, and it was no more true then than it is now.
Gingrich claimed that the shutdown led to the misleadingly named Balanced Budget Act of 1997, but the law was so laden down with conservative pet projects that it actually increased the budget deficit.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has not hesitated to voice his distaste towards U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who may be nominated to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. On Face the Nation Sunday morning, McCain went even further than simply opposing Rice’s nomination and said that, “until we find out all the information” on the Benghazi consulate attacks, he would not support any Secretary of State nominee.
McCain at first said it “might be a beginning” if Rice could come on the program to explain her position. But when pressed by host Bob Schieffer, the Arizona senator dug in and refused to support any nominee “under the present circumstances”:
SCHIEFFER: Until then, you will remain opposed to her nomination?
MCCAIN: Under the present circumstances, until we find out all the information as to what happened, I don’t think you would want to support any nominee right now. Because this is very very serious and it has even larger implications than the deaths of 4 Americans. It really goes to the heart of this whole light foot print policy that this administration is pursuing.
(via Grover Norquist: “Obama Won By Calling Romney ‘A Poopy Head’”)
Appearing this morning on CBS, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist said Obama won reelection because he called Romney “a poopy head.”
Setting aside alleged scatological name-calling, the election was an overwhelming rejection of the the political philosophy advocated by Norquist and his allies. 24 Republican Senate incumbents and candidates signed Norquist’s anti-tax pledge and lost.
55 Republican House incumbents or candidates who signed Norquist’s pledge also lost.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) implied he would block anyone President Obama appointed to lead the Department of State — especially current U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice — if they were at all involved with the handling of the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation, Graham called the consulate “a death trap for months” and suggested he would prevent anyone involved in the Administration’s response to the attack from taking the top job at State:
GRAHAM: I do reserve unto myself and other members of congress the ability to say no when justified. I cannot imagine promoting anybody associated with Benghazi at this point. …
SCHIEFFER: Well, I mean, would you try to lead a move to block her [Ambassador Rice] from getting the nomination if in fact she is nominated?
GRAHAM: I’m not entertaining promoting anybody that I think was involved with Benghazi debacle.
While it’s certainly true that Benghazi was a terrible tragedy, there’s simply no evidence that it was the sort of massive, disqualifying scandal that Graham says it is. Detailed, exhaustive reporting on the issue has shown that there was no “smoking gun” of a coverup nor any massive failure to respond to the attack with proportionate force. This wealth of evidence has led former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, no Democratic partisan, to say that the massive overreaction from people like Graham is overblown and that “it’s probably better to let the relevant bodies do their work.”
Fox host Eric Bolling insisted that there is no video of Mitt Romney saying that we should “let Detroit go bankrupt,” when, in fact, Romney repeated those very words during a 2011 appearance on CBS’ Early Show.
During the Friday edition of The Five, Bolling played a clip of President Obama saying that Romney has run away from his opposition to the auto rescue, despite the fact that Romney is “on videotape saying the words ‘let Detroit go bankrupt.’ “
Bolling said that Obama was wrong and that Romney had merely written a 2008 op-ed that The New York Times headlined “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” and that Romney has never actually said those words.
From the 06.03.2011 edition of CBS’s The Early Show:
Before the nation even learned the full extent of an attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, Republicans raced to politicize this tragedy. GOP presidential candidate Romney released a much maligned — and entirely discredited — statement claiming President Obama “sympathize[d] with those who waged the attacks.” A month later, Romney received an embarrassing live fact check during the second presidential debate after he falsely claimed that the president did not label the attack an “act of terror” the day after it occurred.
On CBS’ Face the Nation, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took this effort to politicize the attacks to a new level, claiming it was “either cover-up or the worst kind of incompetence”, worse even than the scandal that forced President Nixon to resign:
MCCAIN: Also, by the way, he said he immediately ordered action to be taken, no action was taken over seven hours. Now we find out the Secretary of Defense decided not to take any action. You know what, somebody the other day said to me that this is as bad as Watergate. Well, nobody died in Watergate. But this is either a massive cover-up or an incompetence that is not acceptable service to the American people.
Similar statements were made by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on other shows, all focused on the Defense Department’s supposed inaction.
The new GOP claims of cover-up are part of a long-line of attempts to label the shifting narrative as a policy failure. These latest claims build on a Fox News ‘exclusive’ that the CIA was denied a request to aid in countering the assault, while watching the attack in “real-time.” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday that intelligence on the ground during the assault in Benghazi was not clear enough to warrant sending U.S. forces potentially into harms way.
Yet this new line of attack is unlikely to prove any more grounded in reality than previous ones. Indeed, even former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice tried to hit the brakes on the idea that the Obama Administration reacted improperly to the attack, telling Fox News earlier this week that “it’s probably better to let the relevant bodies do their work” rather than “jump to conclusions about what might have happened here.”
CBS News has reportedly hired Frank Luntz, the Republican strategist and pollster best known for helping Republicans craft often-deceptive messaging to torpedo liberal policies. In his post announcing the move, Politico media reporter Dylan Byers writes that Luntz will “make a number of appearances across the network between now and Election Day.” Luntz’s hiring comes only a few months after New York Times Magazine contributor Robert Draper reported that Luntz orchestrated a 2009 meeting where prominent Republicans formulated a plan to win back Congress and the White House.
In his book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives, Draper reported that Luntz “organized a dinner” on Obama’s inauguration night featuring a handful of “the Republican Party’s most energetic thinkers.” The attendees — which included current vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan — reportedly emerged from the nearly four hour dinner “almost giddily” after having agreed on “a way forward.”
Luntz’s influence in GOP politics isn’t limited to organizing high-level strategy dinners — he’s been credited with coining some of the most infamous lines from conservative media figures and politicians.
Luntz has been a regular fixture on Fox News for years. His appearances have featured him praising dishonest conservative ads and asking focus groups questions about whether Obama is a socialist. During a 2010 appearance on The O’Reilly Factor, Luntz praised the Chamber of Commerce for having “done some of the best advertising across the country” without disclosing that the Chamber was one of his corporate clients.
h/t: Ben Dimiero at MMFA
TOM Livewire: Ryan & Romney on CBS’s 60 Minutes: “We’re Out To Save Medicare”
In their first joint interview, airing Sunday on 60 Minutes, the freshly-minted Republican presidential ticket push back on Democratic claims that they are out to destroy the social safety net – and take pains to reassure seniors they’re not interested in touchingtheir benefits.
Paul Ryan’s GOP budget plan would change Medicare into a voucher system for those 55 years of age and younger, a structure Democrats have derided as fundamentally altering the Medicare guarantee.
A day after making the case for tolerance of gays and Muslims, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) defended his colleague Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) Islamophobic quest to root out supposed Muslim Brotherhood “deep penetration” of the U.S. government. Cantor lent credence to Bachmann’s claims by saying her accusations came from her “concern about the security of the country,” and then professed ignorance about her allegations.
CBS host Charlie Rose asked Cantor about his comments to BuzzFeed on Thursday that “It’s a bad thing to look at a Muslim and think bad things.”
From the 07.26.2012 edition of CBS’s This Morning:This isn’t Cantor’s first brush with Islamophobia — and, just like the last two days, he’s ended up on both sides of the story before. In 2011, Cantor endorsed fellow Virginia Republican David Ramadan, a practicing Muslim whose successful bid for a seat in the state House of Delegates was opposed by the Islamophobe Frank Gaffney, the progenitor of Bachmann’s charges. Earlier that year, though, Cantor co-hosted a Capitol Hill screening of a film by the Islamophobic Clarion Fund, where Gaffney sits on the board.
(via David Edwards at The Raw Story: On CBS’s Face The Nation, Clay Aiken confronts Tony Perkins: “You’ll be ‘ashamed’ for opposing LGBT rights” | The Raw Story)
Gay country music star Clay Aiken on Sunday told the leader of a Christian think tank that he would eventually be “ashamed” over his opposition to rights for LGBT Americans.
During a discussion about President Obama’s support of same sex marriage, Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins explained that “civil rights are rooted in natural law: Americans just don’t see same sex marriage as being natural.”
“When you look at [the ban on] interracial marriage, that was wrong,” Perkins admitted. “There was no reason to be opposed to that because you had two people who met the definition of marriage between a man and a woman. And that’s consistent with natural law, which our civil rights are based on. When you look at same sex marriage, that’s counter to natural law.”
Sitting directly next to Perkins on CBS’s Face the Nation, American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken, a Southern Baptist who announced he was gay after having his first child in 2008, confronted the Family Research Council president.
“Between the time of 2003 and today, we’ve seen — as we’ve seen with gay marriage polling — we’ve seen minds changing,” Aiken explained. “We’ve seen people become more open and understanding of homosexuality.”
