andrew b sheets: 2010

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Radio host marks 50 years, tries to save a nation

Friday, October 1, 2010

Reagan and Goldwater Would Be Considered 'RINOs' Today, Says Meghan McCain; CNN Doesn't Challenge Her Claim

By Matt Hadro (Bio | Archive)
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 15:39 ET

Meghan McCain apparently thinks there will be a "bloodletting" in the GOP in the next election, because the party has no room for controversial socially liberal figures like her.

Appearing on CNN's "American Morning" Thursday, McCain criticized the current state of the Republican Party, which she believes is too conservative and narrow-minded to include more moderate and independent thinkers like herself. This focus, McCain warned, will cut down on the number of party voters.

When the subject of "RINOs" (Republican-In-Name-Only) surfaced, McCain asserted that conservative icons Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan "would both be called that today." In addition, McCain had dark predictions for the GOP in the "next election," predicting a party purge of sorts. "I'm scared of a bloodletting in the next election," McCain worried.

CNN co-anchor Kiran Chetry did not challenge McCain's questionable claims, but rather set up the podium for her to criticize the Republican Party. "Are you afraid that the party is changing or going in a direction that's going to leave it in the dust when it comes to attracting young people?" Chetry asked.

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Chetry also back-handedly criticized Republican female candidates who have avoided the media spotlight. Referencing Meghan McCain's father Sen. John McCain, Chetry noted his openness to interviews in the 2008 campaign.

"These candidates are sort of not doing that in this time around, Christine O'Donnell and others," Chetry complained. "Sharron Angle has been difficult to get to interview, as well. Is that doing a disservice though to finding out what they do if they truly are elected?"

McCain said the GOP needs to have a bigger tent, or the young vote will abandon the party. "If you're throwing out people like me who really want to be here and really want to fight for the Republican Party and I'm considered controversial, there's a lot of people out there, especially young people, that aren't going to beg to be able to be allowed to be in the Republican Party."

A partial transcript of the interview, which aired on September 30 at 8:12 a.m. EDT, is as follows:

CHETRY: One of the things that you talk about in your book is that, you know, the ultimate freedom – you said, once you taste freedom, that's what you seek, and that was a lot of the ideals behind the Republican Party. And you said that some of these people who we hold up – Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan – would be called RINOs, Republican In Name Only, these days, because of candidates – are you afraid that the party is changing or going in a direction that's going to leave it in the dust when it comes to attracting young people?

MCCAIN: Oh, yeah. I'm scared of a bloodletting in the next election. If you're throwing out people like me who really want to be here and really want to fight for the Republican Party and I'm considered controversial, there's a lot of people out there, especially young people that aren't going to beg to be able to be allowed to be in the Republican Party. And I think that's what really dangerous right now.

And if you only want a certain group of people, you're just going to innately have less voters. So, that's where I get confused about what people are actually thinking when they call me RINO or -- you know, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan would both be called that today.

CHETRY: And why is that? Is it social issues? I mean, what is galvanizing people to vote for some of the more conservative and more to the right candidates? Christine O'Donnell, you were displeased that she was talking about, you know, personal sexuality and sort of trying to enforce -- not enforce but sort of insert herself into that whole debate about what you do in the privacy of your own home.

(...)

CHETRY: The other thing that I thought was interesting is there's been a lot of questioning about the intelligence. I mean, Karl Rove got in a little bit of trouble and took some heat for saying "I don't know. She says whacky things. Does she really understand the principles speaking?" of Christine O'Donnell, but people also launch this against Sarah Palin, and said she just maybe doesn't have the smarts to represent our country. Is that a woman thing or are these faults on the part of the individual candidates?

(...)

CHETRY: That's right. But when you say a better job, if candidates aren't granting access -- I mean, I remember during the campaign, I interviewed your dad one-on-one, I interviewed him at campaign events in New Hampshire, he came on our show dozens of times to answer questions that, you know, we were asking but really the broader public wanted to know. These candidates are sort of not doing that in this time around, Christine O'Donnell and others. Sharron Angle has been difficult to get to interview, as well. Is that doing a disservice though to finding out what they do if they truly are elected?

—Matt Hadro is News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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More Free Air Time: MSNBC Maddow Show Airs Almost Ten Minutes of Obama DNC Speech, Obama's NBC PSA

By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive)
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 15:47 ET

While liberals complain that Fox News is too helpful in offering its air time for Republican candidates and campaigns, MSNBC continued the recent string of NBC-Universal properties bowing to President Obama with gobs of unchallenged free air time. On Thursday night's Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC offered two large chunks of a speech Obama gave to the DNC's "Gen 44" initiative for young people. Seconds before the first speech clip, MSNBC aired a 15-second NBC public service announcement starring Obama. (See Mark Finkelstein on that.)
The event was a fundraiser expected to raise $750,000. Two honorary co-chairs of the DNC effort are the actors America Ferrera ("Ugly Betty") and Dule Hill ("The West Wing" and "Psych").
This wasn't a standard presidential press conference or interview. This was a campaign event, aired by Maddow in a four-minute clip and then a five-and-a-half-minute clip, both followed with analysis by liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. In both clips, Obama attacked conservatives for ruining the economy and civil discourse, including claims like this:

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For the last decade, the Republicans in Washington subscribed to a very simple philosophy: You cut taxes, mostly for millionaires and billionaires. You cut regulations for special interests -- whether it's oil companies or banks or insurance companies. You cut back on investments in education and clean energy, and research and technology. And basically, the idea was that if you had blind faith in the market, if you let corporations play by their own rules, if you let everybody else fend for themselves, including young people, including the next generation, then somehow America would grow and prosper. That was the theory. Now, look, here's what we know. The philosophy failed. We tested it. We tried it. We tried it for eight years; it didn't work.

The first clip seemed to be live. The second clip was definitely not -- because the speech transcript puts it before the first clip. This is where Obama says gee, the Democrats wanted to be bipartisan, but the Republicans decided not to say yes to socialism:

When I arrived in Washington about 20 months ago -- some of you were there. It was really cold. It was a cold day. (Applause.) It was a cold day, but the spirit was warm. (Applause.) And our hope was that we could pull together, Democrats and Republicans and independents, to confront the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. What we hoped was that we could get beyond some of the old political divides -- red states, blue states -- that had prevented us from making progress for so long. And we came into this with that spirit because we understood that we're proud to be Democrats, but we're prouder to be Americans. (Applause.)

And instead, what we confronted when we arrived was just politics, pure and simple; an opposition party that was still stuck in the same failed policies of the past -- whose leaders in Congress were determined from the start to just let us deal with the mess that they had done so much to create.

Maybe you could argue that this was both a stem-winder at a DNC fundraiser -- and a news event. But then consider what surrounded Obama on Maddow's show.
She began the show with a long 15-minute segment devoted to one liberal Congressman in Oregon who's upset he's being opposed. Maddow found it incredibly weird that a shadowy group called Concerned Taxpayers of America was running more than $80,000 of ads against Rep. Peter DeFazio. (This first appeared in the Washington Post.) Since she's into Democrat video, Maddow ran DeFazio's own sting video, starring himself, confronting the CTA at an address they use in DC, then interviewed DeFazio so he could express more outrage at being opposed.

After the Obama speech clips, Maddow ran a goofy skit where an orange-skinned man with a cigar pretending to be "John Boehner" handed out checks on the House floor from the tobacco companies, referring back to a Hedrick Smith PBS documentary wailing about the negative influence of corporate money on socialism -- ahem, democracy. Boehner admitted to Smith that he had done that, but would not do it again.
Whatever liberals want to paint Fox as a GOP network ought to watch their own MSNBC stars and wonder just how much of a partisan production they're putting on in the last weeks of an election season.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.

WaPo Editorial Presents Virginia as Armory for Criminals, Proposes More Gun Control As Solution

By Ken Shepherd (Bio | Archive)
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 16:24 ET

In today's print edition of the Washington Post, the top editorial, "Virginia is for gun lovers,"* attacked the Old Dominion as "one of the nation's leading gun-buying bazaars for out-of-state criminals."
"[T]he commonwealth's gun shows -- where criminals can purchase weapons without a background check -- and its gun shops are a regular source of easy-to-get firearms," the Post complained.
While there's no state requirement for purchasers at gun shows to submit to a background check, Virginia state law requires all sellers at gun shows to have undergone and passed criminal background checks and to have filed the appropriate paperwork with the state:

Any person who sells firearms at a licensed dealership or gun show must submit to a national and state criminal history records check by the Department of State Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Firearm sellers must complete form SP-69A and submit a completed fingerprint card to the Firearms Transaction Center.

What's more, many gun shows employ stringent security measures and strongly encourage background checks. For example, Southeastern Guns & Knives Ltd., which runs gun shows throughout Virginia, notes that:

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On-duty police officers are present throughout the show hours to answer questions, provide security, and set the tone of the show by their presence.
[...]
Typically, the state police maintain an office at each show and conduct instant background checks for the purchase of firearms. Undercover troopers usually circulate throughout the show to ensure compliance with all local, state, and federal laws.

A gun show crawling with uniformed and undercover cops? Yeah, that's precisely the place where interstate criminal gun runners love to hang out.
Towards the close of its editorial, the Post laid out its demands:

Virginia should require purchasers to obtain permits to buy handguns and allow local police the option to deny concealed-carry permits on a case-by-case basis, as about half the states do now. The state should also prohibit gun purchases by anyone convicted of a violent or threatening misdemeanor -- meaning assault, battery, harassment and stalking -- and require that gun owners report to the police when their weapons are lost or stolen. In addition, state lawmakers should allow cities and counties to adopt more stringent local weapons laws if they choose.

Of course, even here the Post doesn't get all its facts straight. Contrary to its assertion that "about half the states" permit "local police" to veto concealed-carry permits, in truth, most states (38) have "shall issue" laws governing concealed carry, only two states (Wisconsin and Illinois) ban concealed carry and the remaining 10 states have "may issue" concealed carry, according to USACarry.com.
But why let facts get in the Post's way of hyping a "crisis" the solution for which, predictably enough, is abridgement of gun rights?
*The online edition headline reads "Gun laws make Va. a mecca for felons with credit cards."
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters. You can follow him on Twitter here

Lawrence O'Donnell Draws Parallel Between Extreme Militia Groups and Tea Party

By Alex Fitzsimmons (Bio | Archive)
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 16:54 ET

What do Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a domestic terrorist who was developing a nuclear weapon, and Tea Party activists concerned about lavish government spending have in common? Nothing, unless you're a newly-minted cable news anchor with a liberal agenda.

Interviewing a Time magazine writer who conducted an in-depth investigation into right-wing militias, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on the September 30 "Last Word" tried to draw a parallel between the reported resurgence of extreme militia groups and the rise of the Tea Party.

"The surge in recruits to what could be the training ground of our next Timothy McVeigh parallels the rise of the Tea Party and includes at least one man who had serious plans to kill the president by going nuclear," warned O'Donnell, before enlisting the help of Barton Gellman, author of "Locked and Loaded: The Secret World of Extreme Militias," to connect the dots.

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After laying the groundwork with questions about Holocaust Museum killer James von Brunn and a man who was fashioning a dirty bomb to assassinate President Barack Obama before being killed in his sleep by his wife, O'Donnell peddled his offensive comparison: "Now, do you see any relationship in the parallel rise in time only – I'm only suggesting there's a parallel in time – of the Tea Party and this tripling of the militias?" Just as prefacing an insult by giving someone all due respect does not absolve the critic of the uncouth statement that may follow, O'Donnell's attempt to cover for himself does not excuse his highly objectionable insinuation.

Instead of receiving reflexive agreement for such a shrewd observation, O'Donnell was refuted by the Time editor-at-large: "It's tricky because I do not want to give the impression that I'm associating the Tea Party with these militias. It almost doesn't matter what the anti-government extremists believe. What matters is that they are arming and training and practicing and planning for bloodshed."

Apparently O'Donnell missed the part where Gellman dismissed the comparison between extreme militia members and Tea Party activists: "Theirs is not Tea Party anger, which aims at electoral change, even if it often speaks of war. In the world of armed extremists, war is not always a metaphor. Some of them speak with contempt about big talkers who 'meet, eat and retreat.'"

After only one week on the air, O'Donnell has managed to malign Tea Party supporters as "narcissistic," interview a Rolling Stone "reporter" who insulted them as "incredibly stupid," and compare the conservative activists to the likes of McVeigh and von Brunn.

Classy, Lawrence.

A transcript of the segment can be found below:

MSNBC
Last Word
September 30, 2010

10:20 p.m. EDT

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Locked and loaded. Since Barack Obama became president, the number of heavily-armed anti-government militias has tripled. That's right, tripled. The surge in recruits to what could be the training ground of our next Timothy McVeigh parallels the rise of the Tea Party and includes at least one man who had serious plans to kill the president by going nuclear. Joining me now is the author of Time magazine's special investigation, "Locked and Loaded: The Secret World of Extreme Militias," Barton Gellman, Time magazine's contributing editor at large. Tell us about the guy who was building – really seriously building a nuclear device that he hoped would take the president.

BARTON GELLMAN, Time magazine: Well, a dirty bomb, he hoped – a radiological dispersal device.

O'DONNELL: This is what we fear from al-Qaeda, that there will be some suitcase bomb, there will be some dirty bomb, so called, that will end up on the New York City subway. But we had a domestic terrorist who was working on it.

GELLMAN: Well, two things to say about this guy. One is he probably is the most serious – came the nearest to being able to actually build a dirty bomb of any of the domestic threats we've ever heard about, certainly way more than Jose Padilla, the accused al-Qaeda dirty bomber. On the other hand, he wasn't – he wasn't ready yet. He wasn't there. But it is by the happenstance that he was killed in his sleep by his wife that we found out about it at all.

O'DONNELL: And why was he killed in his sleep by his wife? So, there were things wrong with him as a husband as well as a citizen.

GELLMAN: There were issues. The judge – the judge found that she had suffered so greatly in terms of domestic abuse that he waived any prison sentence at all, even though she killed him in his sleep.

O'DONNELL: Lenient judges have their place in our judicial system. You write that the Holocaust Museum killer, James von Brunn, that he had written, was that on his Web site that he wrote this or?

GELLMAN: No, actually, more chillingly. When he went and killed the guard at the Holocaust Museum, he double-parked his car, got out, raised a rifle and shot the guy point-blank in the chest. In his double-parked car was his planning notebook. And in that notebook, you found evidence of the other targets he had in mind.

O'DONNELL: He had a note there saying "Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do." And he had other names on the card?

GELLMAN: He did have other names. One of them was David Axelrod, the president's closest political adviser. And you don't have to think that one life is more important than another to understand that it would have been a very different kind of event had an assassin killed one of the president's, you know, inner circle members. And a thing that put a jolt through the Secret Service and Homeland Security and FBI was that this is a guy who demonstrated motive, means, intent to kill – actually did kill. And he had a plausible plan to get to David Axelrod.

O'DONNELL: Why didn't he go after the president or Axelrod? Was the Holocaust Museum just easier? All you had to do was walk in?

GELLMAN: Actually, it's not clear to me it that the Holocaust Museum was easier because, you know, having cased the place, he knew there were armed guards all over the place. That does not happen to have been the case at David Axelrod's home and the address was listed. I think that Jews were whole central to this guy's whole concept of evil in the world that he couldn't resist.

O'DONNELL: Now, do you see any relationship in the parallel rise in time only – I'm only suggesting there's a parallel in time – of the Tea Party and this tripling of the militias?

GELLMAN: It's tricky because I do not want to give the impression that I'm associating the Tea Party with these militias. It almost doesn't matter what the anti-government extremists believe. What matters is that they are arming and training and practicing and planning for bloodshed. In most cases, they consider it defensive. They're expecting, you know, Obama to send troops to declare martial law, to seize their guns and round them up in concentration camps and so on. But they are training to kill opposition forces that look exactly like the ATF or the FBI or National Guard unit.

O'DONNELL: Now, having been with these people, is it your sense that the election of President Obama has provoked this increase in the militia, or at the same time the worst economy, you know, since the depression has provoked to this, or something else?

GELLMAN: Well, both. The FBI calls that a perfect storm. You had – you had – look, anytime you have the bottom drop out of the economy, it increases discontent greatly, and it sort of increases the voices of people who think that, for example, special interests are running the world to their own detriment, who were alienated from Washington. And many of the people in this sort of highly alienated, anti-government Right have hated every recent president. They hated the Bushes. But Obama also sort of jolted that movement because in one guy, you united – because of his race, because of what they imagined his religion was, because of what they imagined his, you know, his birthplace was – he united the bigotry of racists and religious bigots and nativists. And so, he was a perfect symbol for all of them.

O`DONNELL: Barton Gellman with the cover story of Time magazine this week, "Locked and Loaded," an amazing story. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.

GELLMAN: Thank you, Lawrence.

Omission Watch: Communist, Socialist 'Partners' of One Nation Protest Left Out of News Accounts

By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive)
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 17:39 ET

An official NAACP video for Saturday's One Nation rally (featuring their leader Ben Jealous, among others) claims that their movement includes "Conservatives and moderates, progressives and liberals." But a look at the actual "endorsing organizations" on the One Nation website doesn't list conservative groups, but it does include the Communist Party USA, the Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (founded as a "moderate" wing of the CPUSA), the International Socialist Organization (publishers of SocialistWorker.org), and the Democratic Socialists of America (as well as its Chicago, Detroit, and New York chapters).
And the liberals get mad when you associate them with socialism. Well, what are these groups doing on this list, then? Where are the media worrying about "fringes" and "extremists"?
These endorsements have been missing from news accounts. AP's pre-protest dispatch by Nafeesa Syeed surgically began "Groups pushing for progressive policies will gather in the nation's capital this weekend for a march aimed at recapturing momentum for their agenda and mobilizing supporters before next month's midterm elections." Krissah Thompson left this angle out in her Washington Post story.
On the National Public Radio show Tell Me More, host Michel Martin welcomed in three liberals on Wednesday, but tried so very hard not to identify them or the march as "liberal" or "left-wing." The issue of fringy endorsing organizations never came up. She began:

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But first, we want to tell you about One Nation Working Together. That's the name of a rally scheduled for Saturday here in Washington. The group spearheading the march includes civil rights organizations, gay rights activists and labor groups, among others.
The rally is pitched as a challenge to Glenn Beck's attention-getting march in August, but it's also scheduled for exactly a month before this year's midterm elections in November, and it's attempting to focus the nation's attention on jobs, justice and education.
We wanted to know more, so we've called two of the many people scheduled to speak at the event. With us now is Janet Murguia, the president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. La Raza is, of course, the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. Also with us is Randi Weingarten. She's the president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has about 1.5 million members. I welcome you both. Thanks for joining us.
And for additional perspective on the midterms, we've also called Karen Finney. She's a former communications director for the Democratic National Committee and a commentator on MSNBC. Welcome to you, as well.

The idea that "progressives" were trying to accomplish political goals did seep in, and Martin professed that this did seem to be about electing Democrats. But reporters aren't finding any reason to see trouble for Democrats in extremist elements in their base.
Perhaps the worst example was Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times on Monday. He began:

Hoping to overshadow last month’s large rally led by Glenn Beck that drew many Tea Party advocates and other conservatives, a coalition of liberal groups plan to descend on Washington on Saturday to make the case that they, and not the ascendant right, speak for America’s embattled middle class...
Organizers of the rally say their demonstration complements, rather than competes with, the Rally to Restore Sanity that the host of “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart, has announced for Washington on Oct. 30. Those behind next Saturday’s rally assert that their event shares themes with Mr. Stewart’s in opposing Tea Party negativism and extremism.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.

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Kathleen Parker: I'm 'Slightly to the Right of Center;' Fan of Obama

By Matthew Balan (Bio | Archive)
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 19:48 ET

On Thursday's Larry King Live, future anchor Kathleen Parker verified her tenuous conservative credentials, as she identified herself as a "conservative," but added, "a pox on everybody's house, as far as I'm concerned." She later confessed that she "would put myself...slightly to the right of center," and that she was "a big fan of Barack Obama as he came into office...I didn't want him to fail."
Anchor Larry King brought on Parker and future co-host Eliot Spitzer of "Client Number Nine" fame during the first half of the 9 pm Eastern hour. Three minutes in, King asked about the format of the show, which begins on October 4. After the two briefly described it, the columnist stated that "Eliot is identified as a Democrat and I'm identified as a conservative." Spitzer replied, "Well, you said Democrat/conservative, not Republican," and the resulting exchange led to Parker revealing how she saw her position politically.

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PARKER: Eliot is identified as a Democrat and I'm identified as a conservative, I want to reiterate what he said. We are both-
SPITZER: Well, you said Democrat/conservative, not Republican (unintelligible)- I mean-
PARKER: Well, I'm trying to be honest here.
SPITZER: But you know (laughs)-
PARKER: I'm not actually a registered Republican. I'm probably going to get fired for saying that. But in any case-
SPITZER: Too smart to be that- I understand it. I appreciate that.
PARKER: You know, a pox on everybody's house, as far as I'm concerned.

A pox on everybody's house, Ms. Parker? By your own admission, you got your Pulitzer Prize for being a "conservative basher." Furthermore, on the April 18, 2010 edition of CBS's Face the Nation, you bashed the Tea Party movement as "dangerous" and compared Internet journalism to terrorism.
Twelve minutes later, King raised the issue of President Obama and how many on the left are frustrated with him. He turned to Parker for her take: "Many liberals are disappointed with this administration. How do you feel about him? If they're disappointed, it means he's more to the center, isn't he? So you should be happier with him, by that reasoning?"
The pseudo-conservative columnist didn't disappoint with her answer, hinting her disapproval at Rush Limbaugh's vehement opposition to Obama. Spitzer even got a word in, defending the President, while hinting that Mr. Obama possibly wasn't liberal enough on one key issue:

KING: As a conservative- liberals, as you know- many liberals are disappointed with this administration. PARKER: Yeah, so I hear.
KING: How do you feel about him? If they're disappointed, it means he's more to the center, isn't he? So you should be happier with him-
PARKER: Well-
KING: By that reasoning?
PARKER: I think everybody's disappointed with him for different reasons, and I would put myself more in this great big center, but slightly to the right of center. But I was a- I'm a big fan of Barack Obama as he came into office, and was not one of those Republicans who wanted him to do badly. I didn't want him to fail.
KING: That was-
PARKER: I do think he made a big mistake, though, by tackling these massive policy overhauls, at a time when we were very vulnerable economically, and I think that's obvious now. We've- you know, looking back, it's pretty easy to see that he should have gone after the economy and jobs, rather than health care.
KING: (to Spitzer) Has he disappointed you?
SPITZER: In certain respects- look, having been in an executive position, I can tell you, it is unbelievably difficult when the world- problems around your plate. He's doing a remarkable job tackling them one by one, and what we should remember- Franklin Roosevelt, two years into his administration, the same place politically. Ronald Reagan, the same place politically that Barack Obama is at. Bill Clinton- same place, and they all emerged, of course, as these stupendous leaders. And so, this is what happens: after the euphoria of victory, there is disappointment. But am I disappointed? On some issues, yes. Wall Street- he hasn't done enough.

Three weeks earlier, on the September 8 edition of Anderson Cooper 360, Parker and Spitzer agreed on the Ground Zero mosque issue, stating that "well-spoken" Iman Feisal Rauf changed few minds with his interview on King's program that night, and forwarded CNN's charge that Islamophobia is a growing phenomenon in the United States.
—Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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Psst! Ford Cuts GM's Lead in Half in Sept.; GM Completes Acquisition of Sub-Prime Car Lender

By Tom Blumer (Bio | Archive)
Fri, 10/01/2010 - 23:06 ET

Government/General Motors saw its total vehicle sales fall in September to 173,031 from 185,105 in August. At the same time, Ford's sales increased from to 157,327 to 160,375.
Thus, what was an almost 28,000-vehicle lead for GM in August shrank by more than half to less than 13,000 in September. No one has a crystal ball, of course, but if GM falls and Ford surges by similar amounts in October, Ford will become top-selling brand in the USA.
Associated Press reporters Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin apparently believe that Ford's move to within clear striking distance of taking over GM is not news that anyone can use. They had their opportunities to mention the situation in their coverage today, and blew right by them.
Oh, and wait until you see what GM is doing to try to keep from losing its Number 1 status.
Here is some of what Krisher and Durbin disseminated (bolds and number tags are mine):

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US auto sales remain sluggish despite new models
New models and Labor Day promotions didn't do much to fire Americans' appetites for new cars in September.
Sales at Chrysler and Ford rose slightly from August. They fell at General Motors and Honda and were flat at Toyota. Car companies say a recovery is still happening, but it's not as strong as they had hoped following a terrible 2009.
Expressed as an annual rate, September sales came in at a 11.76 million pace. That's up from a 11.47 million rate in August, but far below 2007's pre-recession total of 16 million. "We're not going to bust loose as you sometimes see after a downturn, but we'll see steady growth," said Don Johnson, GM's vice president of U.S. sales. [1]
... Sales dropped 4 percent from August to 958,966 cars and light trucks, according to AutoData Corp. While it's typical for sales to decline after Labor Day, this August was one of the weakest on record.
... So far, automakers have refused to pump up sales by offering big incentives, which was the usual tactic earlier this decade. Because car makers are now leaner and producing fewer vehicles, they aren't forced to use big discounts to move cars off lots. Incentive spending fell 3 percent from August to September to $2,683 per vehicle, according to auto pricing site TrueCar.com. [2]
But they'll try winning customers in other ways. GM has a new in-house car financing company and plans to offer new lease programs and target buyers with poor credit, a big part of the car buying market. [3]
Auto loans are still restricted for people with poor or mediocre credit scores, Ford's chief economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick said. It will probably take a few years - and more job creation - for buyers with medium and poor credit to return to the new car market.
But loans are available to people with high credit scores because banks and finance companies are extending credit more easily after last year's all-out freeze, she said. [4]

Notes:
[1] - Of all the people to quote about "busting loose" and "steady growth," Krisher and Durbin picked the spokesman for GM, whose sales from August to September declined by 6.5%.
[2] - According to TrueCar.com's blog, GM vehicles occupied the top four spots in percentage vehicle discounts offered during September. The vehicles involved also appear to have MSRP's that are significantly lower then their direct competition. Additionally, TrueCar's month-earlier comprehensive report (go to Page 3 at this PDF link) indicates that Chevrolet, at 16%, had the highest overall discount level in the industry -- and they're still having a hard time keeping up their sales volume.
[3] - This bad-credit outreach is coming from a company owned by the same government which gave us the Card Act earlier this year.
For those who aren't familiar with it, that law, which is taking effect in gradual, ever more restrictive stages, has placed major restrictions on the amounts and types of credit that can be extended by certain categories of lenders, including the consumer finance arms of department stores and oil companies. It has imposed strict government-mandated credit-granting formulas on those lenders, who in turn have had to severely cut the credit lines of many customers -- not only of those who are clearly overextended, but even of those whose records have never been problematic.
Now GM, in an attempt to preserve what's left of its overall sales lead, has completed its purchase of "non-prime" lender AmeriCredit, is rebranding it as General Motors Financial, and will aggressively pursue granting credit to many of the same consumers/borrowers the government was allegedly trying to "protect" with the Card Act. You can't make this up.
[4] - Krisher, Durbin, and a large swath of the rest of the business press insist on perpetuating the myth of the "all-out freeze" on credit which has supposedly occurred at various times in the past two years (it seems to go all over the place depending on the whims of the reporters involved).
Let's be clear: With the possible (emphasis: possible) exception of a brief period during the fall of 2008, people with high credit scores have had no problem finding lenders willing to consider their applications, and have encountered few if any problems getting their credit applications approved. To prove otherwise, Krisher, Durbin et al owe us a procession -- not a few sob stories, guys, a really procession in the thousands at least -- of people with great credit who will attest to having been turned down, refused or couldn't find lenders who would even take credit apps. I'm still waiting for the proof. I don't believe it will ever arrive, because it's not there.
I haven't been able to determine when October's auto sales announcements are coming out, and of course GM could have a good October and continue to keep Ford at bay. But wouldn't it be something if news that Ford has overtaken GM arrives on November 1, the day before Election Day?
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters

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Outrage Intensifies in Pakistan Over NATO Strikes as Militants Attack Fuel Trucks

Published October 01, 2010

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In the wake of three incursions by NATO helicopters into Pakistani air space in less than a week, protests broke out Friday in Pakistan, with some leaders calling NATO's strikes on militant strongholds "an act of war."

Militants responded Friday by attacking 27 NATO fuel trucks north of Karachi, and two drivers were burned alive in a separate incident. The attacks were seen as retaliation for NATO's latest cross-border helicopter strike, which mistakenly killed three Pakistani border police earlier this week.

Khurshid Ahmed, a member of the opposition party in Pakistan, demanded that the NATO strikes stop.

"We regard it as an act of war, and we have demanded that Pakistan government must take immediate steps," he said, "both stopping supplies to NATO and, No. 2, if our borders are violated we should strike back."

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also hinted at the prospect of further retaliation.

"We have other options, too," Gilani said after meeting with CIA chief Leon Panetta, who flew to Islamabad Wednesday to discuss an unfolding terror plot in Europe, one with roots in Pakistan's tribal areas.

The Pakistani government has closed the main supply route into Afghanistan at the Torkham border in the Khyber pass, leaving 150 NATO supply trucks stuck at the border. Some top Pakistani officials are asking whether the U.S. and Pakistan are allies or enemies.

"People ask questions: If you are being attacked, are you fighting a war or are you in a war together?" Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, said.

Protests broke out in Pakistani cities Friday, with angry mobs blaming the U.S. and NATO for Pakistan's problems. One protest banner carried the message, "Who is responsible for the destruction of Pakistan?"

Even some local truck drivers employed by NATO think Pakistan should stop the supply route.

"The government should stop all these supplies," Fazal Khan, one driver for NATO, said. "It should stop the supplies for two, three months, so that they (NATO forces) feel the pinch and they stop the massacre of Muslims."

Pakistani officials have played a double game in recent years, criticizing U.S. attacks in its tribal areas publicly while encouraging the drone strikes on Al Qaeda leaders in private. According the the recent Bob Woodward book, "Obama's Wars," Pakistan President Asif Zardari told then CIA head Michael Hayden to step up the drone strikes against Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

"Collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me," Zardari is quoted as saying.

U.S. officials downplayed the border closure Friday.

"It is inconceivable to me that the closing of the routes ... would continue more than a short period of time," said Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

U.S. officials are pretty confident the border crossing will be opened shortly because the Pakistanis make so much money off the passage of goods that they will be harming themselves as much as they are harming the U.S. and NATO if it remains closed.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and Justin Fishel contributed to this report.

Rasmussen: All-Time Low of 34.6% Now Call Themselves Democrats

Friday, 01 Oct 2010 03:37 PM

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For the second month in a row, the number of Americans who identify themselves as Democrats has fallen to a record low — and to the smallest percentage of Democrats recorded in nearly eight years of monthly tracking.

In September, 34.6 percent of American adults identified themselves as Democrats. That’s down nearly half a percentage point from a month ago, a full percentage point from two months ago.

At the same time, the number of Republicans slipped from 33.8 percent in August to 33.1 percent last month.

The number of adults not affiliated with either major party is now at 32.3 percent.

As has been the case in every month during the past eight years of tracking, there are more Democrats than Republicans in the nation. The gap is 1.5 percentage points. That’s up from a 1.2-percentage-point gap a month ago. The past two months are the closest the Republicans have been to parity in more than five years — since July 2005.

Things were much better for Democrats heading into the two most recent election cycles. In September 2006, they enjoyed a 4.8-percentage-point advantage. In September 2008, the gap was 5.6 percentage points.

However, things aren’t quite as rosy for the Republicans as they were in September 2004. Heading into the presidential election that year, the Democrats had a 0.6-percentage-point advantage. That was the best single month ever recorded for the GOP.

Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based on telephone interviews with about 15,000 adults a month and has been doing so since November 2002. The margin of error for the full sample is less than one percentage point, with a 95 percent level of confidence.

Compared with one year ago, the number of Democrats is down three percentage points, and the number of Republicans is up a point. Compared with September 2008, the number of Democrats is down four percentage points, and the number of Republicans is little changed.

The biggest advantage ever measured for Democrats was 10.1 percentage points in May 2008. In December 2008, the final full month of the Bush administration, the Democrats held an 8.8-percentage-point advantage.

Between November 2004 and 2006, the Democratic advantage in partisan identification grew by 4.5 percentage points. That foreshadowed the Democrats' big gains in the 2006 midterm elections. The gap grew by another 1.5 percentage points between November 2006 and November 2008 leading up to Barack Obama's election.

The number of Democrats peaked at 41.7 percent in May 2008, and it was nearly as high — at 41.6 percent — in December 2008. The number of Democrats fell below the 40 percent mark in March 2009 and first fell below 36 percent in December of last year. Rasmussen Reports has been tracking this data monthly since November 2002.

Before this month’s data, the lowest level of identification with the Democrats has been 35.1 percent. It was reached twice, in February and May of this year.

For Republicans, the peak was way back in September 2004 at 37.3 percent. For nearly five years, since late 2005, the number of Republicans has generally stayed between 31 percent and 34 percent of the nation’s adults.

Keep in mind that figures reported in this survey are for all adults, not likely voters. Republicans are a bit more likely to participate in elections than Democrats.

Author D'Souza Rebuts Critics of His Obama 'Roots' Book

Friday, 01 Oct 2010 05:08 PM

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By: David A. Patten
Best-selling New York Times author Dinesh D'Souza is firing back at mainstream media critics who are taking shots at his new book "The Roots of Obama's Rage," which explores what really motivates President Barack Obama in his ongoing effort to transform America.

The book has drawn sharp attacks from left-wing bloggers and the White House, in large part based on remarks from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who recently cited D'Souza's work in a blistering critique of Obama.

Gingrich told National Review Online that D'Souza's work offered the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”

Story continues below video.

D'Souza's ideas reveal that Obama “is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president," Gingrich added.

But the thing that really touched off the firestorm was Gingrich’s comment that Obama has a "Kenyan, anti-colonial" worldview.

The day after Gingrich made those remarks, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs ripped into the House speaker, saying he was impugning Obama's citizenship status — despite the fact that nowhere in the book or in a related Forbes magazine cover story does D'Souza question Obama's legitimacy as president.

"He's trying to appeal to the fringe of people that don't believe the president was born in this country," Gibbs said of Gingrich. "You would normally expect better from somebody who had held the position of speaker of the House."

D'Souza tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview that Gibbs' attack "was a red herring, because my article and the book have nothing to do with where Obama was born. It has to do with the ideology that he got, he adopted, from his father. So the birther issue is completely irrelevant."

In the book, D'Souza, the president of King's College in New York City, writes that President Obama's fondness for "spreading the wealth around" stems from an anti-colonial world view revealed in Obama's first book, "Dreams From My Father."

D'Souza believes the president is driven by his father's anti-colonialist ideology.

"His father, it's well known, was an anti-colonialist," D'Souza says. "He came of age in Kenya during the great struggles in Africa for liberation from European rule."

Anti-colonists see the poor nations of the world as being colonized and exploited by powerful, oppressive Western nations.

"I was born in 1961, the same year as Obama," D'Souza tells Newsmax. "And I grew up in India in the aftermath of Indian independence. So anti-colonialism is what my father believed, and my grandfather.

"This is the air that I breathed as a young man growing up in Bombay in the ’60s and ’70s. So the moment I saw Obama talking about all this, I said, 'Wait a minute, I know this world very well! It's my world!"

D'Souza notes that Obama spent very little time with his father, Barack Obama Sr. But anti-colonial sentiment also was very strong in Hawaii and Indonesia, where Obama grew up. And in his quest to understand his father, Obama adopted his father's goals according to D'Souza.

Essentially, D'Souza says, that means Obama is acting out the dream of his father, which was to de-colonize the world. He believes it explains the unusual tenor of the Obama presidency.

"Of course the big power today is not Europe, it's America," D'Souza. "So what is Obama doing? He's in a sense trying to de-colonize American actions in the world, get us out of Afghanistan, out of Iraq, reduce America's energy consumption. And then within America he's targeting the rich, the elites, the corporations, the banks, the healthcare industry, the energy industry.

"And he's not trying to get rid of it, he's not trying to nationalize it kind of like a socialist would do. Rather, he's trying to bring it under the rein of the government. He's trying to decolonize these institutions by basically putting their work to the service of the state — of course, a state run in effect by him. So this is de-colonization, it's not really socialism."

D'Souza says his theory explains many things about Obama's behavior, including his early decision to insist that a bust of Winston Churchill, which had been presented to the United States and placed in the Oval Office, be removed and returned to the United Kingdom. That move drew widespread attention from the British media.

D'Souza recounts that Winston Churchill was prime minister of Britain during the Mau-Mau Rebellion in Kenya, which was then called British East Africa, during which President Obama's father and grandfather were imprisoned.

"In other words," says D'Souza, "Churchill was, from the anti-colonial point of view, a villain, a champion of the empire. And this, of course, would in a minute completely, explain Obama's relentless hostility not only to Churchill, but to the British more generally. He's always insulting the British."

D'Souza says the anti-colonial theory of Obama explains several other actions, including his early effort to repair the U.S. image abroad by embarking on an international apology tour; his support for the controversial mosque located two blocks from the site of the Ground Zero mosque; and his apparent de-emphasis of stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

D'Souza also warns that Obama's failure to appreciate and recognize the exceptional role America plays in maintaining world stability and economic development could have devastating consequences.

"We are in a tough struggle here as Americans," D'Souza says. "But Obama, far from helping us win this fight, I think is actually pulling us down. He's pulling us down in terms of America's influence in the world. He's weakening our economy and reducing our ability to compete in the world. So this is why the Obama dream, in which Obama is in a sense living in the time machine created by his father a half century ago, this has become an American nightmare."

It Was the Democrats’: Jobs Advocate Shocks Ed Schultz With Unemployment Theory

Posted on October 1, 2010 at 10:13am by Jonathon M. Seidl
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Ed Schultz isn’t usually at a loss for words. But he was flummoxed when a guest on his show last night blamed Democrats for not extending jobless benefits, instead of pinning the issue on Republicans as Schultz tried to encourage her to do.
NewsBusters’s Noel Sheppard sets up the clip:

Mignon Veasley-Fields is a 61-year-old Los Angeles grandmother who has been out of work since June 2008. Her unemployment benefits ran out over three months ago.
Since then, she has been bringing attention to the long-term unemployed in this nation referred to as “99ers” signifying the number of weeks they received benefits before they stopped.
In recent weeks, a new group has emerged called the 99er NOVOs: they are so angered by Washington that they are refusing to vote in the upcoming elections.

Schultz began pleading with Veasley-Fields to encourage her group to vote for Democrats and “save the majority” because “President Obama deserves to work with the majority for another 24 months.”
Veasley-Fields wasn’t having any of it, and gives Schultz a history lesson in the process:

Muslim Outreach? NASA Chief Heads to Saudi Arabia

Posted on October 1, 2010 at 9:32pm by Meredith Jessup
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Just months after NASA Administrator Charles Bolden drew public attention for claiming his “foremost” directive from the Obama White House was increased outreach to the Muslim world, he’s embarked on a trip this weekend to Saudi Arabia.
In early July, Bolden told Al Jazeera network that one of President Obama’s directives for him was “to reach out to the Muslim world and engage with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and engineering.” Days later, the White House contradicted Bolden’s remarks; Press secretary Robert Gibbs reported that such activities were not among Mr. Bolden’s assigned duties.
A NASA spokesman told Fox News Friday that Bolden’s trip to Saudi Arabia is part of a “multi-country tour.”

A NASA spokesman said the visit is part of a multicountry tour. Administrator Charles Bolden and a delegation of several other NASA officials arrive in Saudi Arabia on Friday following a trip to Prague. From the Middle East, they will head next to Nepal where Bolden will give a keynote address at a climate change conference.
Though Bolden’s comments about Muslim outreach earlier raised concerns that the White House was squeezing him into an out-of-place diplomatic role, NASA spokesman John Yembrick said the trip “was not initiated” by either the White House or the State Department.
“This trip, including the visit to Saudi Arabia, is driven by specific, appropriate agency-level objectives,” he said in an e-mail.

On Bolden’s itinerary this weekend is an aerospace technology conference and a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the shuttle flight STS-51G, a U.S. mission that carried the first Muslim into space. According to Fox, Bolden may also hold a meeting with King Abdullah during his time in Saudi Arabia.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Bolden makes the trip despite “several top NASA officials” having urged him not to, a likely attempt to avoid re-conjuring criticism from the president’s conservative critics over the changed role for NASA.
At the end of last month, Bolden was publicly reprimanded for violating ethics rules after “inappropriate” communications with a senior Marathon Oil Corp. executive. NASA’s inspector general reported that the 10-minute phone conversation last April was inconsistent with an ethics pledge the Administrator signed when he took office in 2009. Further, the IG said the conversation raised concerns about an appearance of conflicting interests during a time when the space agency was considering an alternative fuels project.

CNN Fires Anchor Rick Sanchez After Remarks About Jews & Jon Stewart

Posted on October 1, 2010 at 6:26pm by Scott Baker
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CNN has moved quickly and cut ties with veteran news anchor Rick Sanchez who made some edgy comments on a radio program Thursday. Sanchez called “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart a bigot and expressed observations about Jewish roles in American media and society. Mediaite’s Steve Krakauer is now reporting that CNN has released this statement:

“Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well.”

Our initial report describes the scenario on the radio show:

Appearing on Pete Dominick’s satellite radio show, Sanchez railed against “elite, Northeast establishment liberals“ who ”deep down, when they look at a guy like me, they see a guy automatically who belongs in the second tier, and not the top tier.” He then lumped the Comedy Central hosts into that group, and especially went after Stewart:

During his attack on Stewart, the radio host pointed out that Stewart is Jewish and pressed Sanchez for examples of bigotry. Sanchez demurred but revealed a possible motivation for the attack: “That‘s what happens when you watch yourself on his show everyday and all they ever do is call you ‘stupid.’”
Sanchez then talked about Jewish influence in the media — even at CNN:

Very powerless people… [snickers] He’s such a minority, I mean, you know [sarcastically]… Please, what are you kidding? … I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they — the people in this country who are Jewish — are an oppressed minority? Yeah. [sarcastically]

TV Newser points out:

It was just last Friday that Sanchez’s boss CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein was shown the door. In his first major personnel decision, Sanchez’s dismissal was handled by new CNN/U.S. president Ken Jautz. Sanchez anchored the 3-5pmET block on CNN called “Rick’s List.” CNN Newsroom will run in its place beginning Monday. Until last Wednesday, Sanchez had also hosted an 8pmET edition of “Rick’s List.”

TV Newser also notes that Sanchez’s appearance on the radio show was part of the PR tour for his new book, “Conventional Idiocy.” Exactly.

No Pressure:’ New Environmental Campaign Glorifies Eco-Fascism

Posted on October 1, 2010 at 8:49pm by Meredith Jessup
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The latest anti-global warming campaign aimed at getting people around the world to reduce their carbon footprint has backfired. Big time.
The people behind the “10:10″ campaign, a movement encouraging people to reduce their carbon consumption by 10 percent in 2010, have been forced to pull their controversial new advertisement from the internet after widespread public outcry. The gruesome 4-minute ad depicts global warming skeptics being literally blown to pieces after their tree-hugging friends insist they’re under “no pressure” to modify their carbon consumption.
Warning (via Sad Hill): “Do NOT watch this video if you wish to avoid portrayals of extreme violence, genocide, child murders, demonic practice and terrorism — all in the name of environmentalism.”
Unfortunately for the “10:10″ folks, the public disgust surrounding the video outweighed its message and its producers pulled it from the web. Equally unfortunate for them, however, is the rampant re-posting of the video by bloggers around the world.
While the video’s message may have backfired, many point out that it gives a scary glimpse into the mind of today’s global warming alarmists. With its “No Pressure” campaign, writes the UK’s Telegraph, “the environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness.”
For more on the environmentalists’ use of disturbing public service announcements, check out Ed Driscoll’s blog where he looks at some other famous examples of “eco-insanity.”

Defected: Cahill’s Running Mate Leaves to Support Opponent in Mass. Gov. Race

Posted on October 1, 2010 at 4:53pm by Jonathon M. Seidl
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BOSTON (AP) — Independent Timothy Cahill, seeking to draw energy from the surprise defections of his running mate and two top staffers, vowed Friday to remain in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race until Election Day and said the “unprecedented insiders’ play” proved he is the true outsider in the race.
Flanked by his wife and father, Cahill jabbed at former running mate Paul Loscocco just hours after he announced he was ending his own independent campaign for lieutenant governor and endorsing Republican candidate Charles Baker.
Loscocco said, “Tim cannot win,” and continuing their campaign would split the anti-incumbent vote and give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick a second term. That echoed a sentiment expressed last week by Cahill senior adviser John Weaver and campaign manager Adam Meldrum when they submitted their resignations.
All three formerly worked on the campaigns of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
“When they try to silence me, they are trying to silence you. This is an unprecedented insiders’ play to try and stop change,” said Cahill, the state treasurer and a former Democrat. “Well Charlie and Paul, if you thought this backroom deal would be the one to push me out of the race and facilitate your desired coronation, then you are sadly mistaken.”
Cahill added: “They don’t understand honor and commitment. I will continue running, and continue honoring my commitment to everyone who believes that we cannot continue business as usual on Beacon Hill.”
The announcement was cheered in a campaign headquarters filled with staffers and supporters.

Despite Loscocco’s defection, the former lawmaker‘s name will still appear alongside Cahill’s as an independent candidate on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.
“The ballots are already printed,” said Brian McNiff, spokesman for Secretary of State William F. Galvin. “Loscocco is locked in as Cahill’s running mate.”
If Cahill were to win, Loscocco would still be entitled to serve as lieutenant governor, a constitutional office whose occupant oversees the Governor’s Council and assumes command when the governor is out of state.
Rather than have the executive branch headed by two open political enemies, however, Cahill said he would demand Loscocco’s resignation, though he cannot compel it even as governor.
“As for not having a lieutenant governor, I don’t plan to die. And we can save money on that useless job,” Cahill said.
The most recent poll in the race showed Baker and Patrick about even, with Patrick at 35 percent and Baker at 34 percent. Cahill lagged at 11 percent, only marginally better than Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jill Stein.
During a news conference with Baker on Friday, Loscocco said, “Our message has not resonated with the voters.” He said it was clear that Baker and his running mate, Richard Tisei, have the best chance of beating Patrick.
“I cannot and will not let my ego get in the way of doing what’s right for Massachusetts,” Loscocco added.
A stern-faced Baker told reporters, “I think at this point, the next governor of Massachusetts is going to be Deval Patrick for four more years of the same, or Charlie Baker for a change and a different direction.”
Loscocco said he told Cahill on Friday morning that he was quitting, after meeting with Baker on Thursday night. Loscocco denied leaving Cahill in a lurch. He said he had been equally responsible for collecting the signatures that qualified them for the ballot.
Cahill said he was surprised to get Loscocco’s phone call, adding, “I don’t know what kind of job he was promised to do this.”
Patrick, a close ally of President Barack Obama, responded through a statement issued by his campaign manager.
“Voters know that this kind of political scheming is a distraction from the issues that truly matter in their lives, like job creation, education and health care,” said Patrick campaign manager Sydney Asbury. “Today’s news is just one more indication that Charlie Baker is a Beacon Hill insider who is more interested in the same backroom deals, and politics as usual that we have worked so hard to change.”
Loscocco denied any deal, but also refused to rule out working in a potential Baker administration.
“I have not been offered anything, nor have I asked for anything,” he said. At another point, he said: “This is not something that we have discussed.

Federal Judge Rejects Lawsuit Against Pledge and ‘In God We Trust’

Posted on October 1, 2010 at 4:32pm by Jonathon M. Seidl
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A federal judge in Wisconsin has rejected a lawsuit by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation seeking to have the phrase “In God We Trust” and the Pledge of Allegiance removed from the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C.
U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled that the group did not have proper standing in the case, since it could not prove that the engravings were connected to a specific Congressional appropriation. As Newsmax reports, Conley reminded the group in his ruling that Supreme Court precedent dictates that taxpayers can’t bring a suit alleging injury unless the injury is tied to such a measure:

“Plaintiffs fail to establish standing because they cannot point to any specific Congressional appropriation for the allegedly unconstitutional concurrent resolution,” he wrote.

Still, Conley didn’t rule on whether or not the phrases, already chiseled into stone at the visitor center, violate separation of church and state. That has left the suit’s authors optimistic.
“We did not lose on the merits, it’s procedural,” FFRF’s presidnet Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNS News. “And the merits we want to address, because the administration did write a brief on the merits and it’s just full of distorted history and the distorted perception of the separation of church and state that is required by our Constitution.”
Gaylord added that the dismissal was “not unexpected” and the group plans to re-file the suit in Washington, D.C.
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, told CNS News that he was “extremely pleased” that the judge agreed that the suit should be dismissed. Sekulow was representing 50 members of Congress who decided to fight the lawsuit.

“This challenge was another misguided attempt to alter history and purge America of religious references,” Sekulow said.
CNS News compiled a list of the 50 Congressional members (47 House members and 3 Senators) who defended the National Moto and Pledge:

Sens Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.); Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA.), the chairman of the the chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus; Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.); Todd Akin (R-Mo.); Rodney Alexander (R-La.); Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.); Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.); Rob Bishop (R-Utah); Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.); Roy Blunt (R-Mo.); John Boehner (R-Ohio); John Boozman (R-Ark.); Dan Burton (R-Ind.); Eric Cantor (R-Va.); Mike Conaway (R-Texas); Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.); Scott Garrett (R-N.J.); Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.); Ralph Hall (R-Texas); Gregg Harper (R-Miss.); Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas); Bob Inglis (R-S.C.); Sam Johnson (R-Texas); Walter Jones (R-N.C.); Jim Jordan (R-Ohio); Steve King (R-Iowa); John Kline (R-Minn.); Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.); Don Manzullo (R-Ill.); Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.); Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.); Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.); Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.); Candice Miller (R-Mich.); Jeff Miller (R-Fla.); Jerry Moran (R-Kan.); Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas); Mike Pence (R-Ind.); Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.); Ted Poe (R-Texas); John Shadegg (R-Ariz.); John Shimkus (R-Ill.); Bill Shuster (R-Pa.); Mark Souder (R-Ind.); Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.); Zack Wamp (R-Tenn.); Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), and Don Young (R-Alaska).

andrew b sheets

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Radio host marks 50 years, tries to save a nation

Friday, October 1, 2010

Reagan and Goldwater Would Be Considered 'RINOs' Today, Says Meghan McCain; CNN Doesn't Challenge Her Claim

Reagan and Goldwater Would Be Considered 'RINOs' Today, Says Meghan McCain; CNN Doesn't Challenge Her Claim

More Free Air Time: MSNBC Maddow Show Airs Almost Ten Minutes of Obama DNC Speech, Obama's NBC PSA

More Free Air Time: MSNBC Maddow Show Airs Almost Ten Minutes of Obama DNC Speech, Obama's NBC PSA

WaPo Editorial Presents Virginia as Armory for Criminals, Proposes More Gun Control As Solution

WaPo Editorial Presents Virginia as Armory for Criminals, Proposes More Gun Control As Solution

Lawrence O'Donnell Draws Parallel Between Extreme Militia Groups and Tea Party

Lawrence O'Donnell Draws Parallel Between Extreme Militia Groups and Tea Party

Omission Watch: Communist, Socialist 'Partners' of One Nation Protest Left Out of News Accounts

Omission Watch: Communist, Socialist 'Partners' of One Nation Protest Left Out of News Accounts

Kathleen Parker: I'm 'Slightly to the Right of Center;' Fan of Obama

Kathleen Parker: I'm 'Slightly to the Right of Center;' Fan of Obama

Psst! Ford Cuts GM's Lead in Half in Sept.; GM Completes Acquisition of Sub-Prime Car Lender

Psst! Ford Cuts GM's Lead in Half in Sept.; GM Completes Acquisition of Sub-Prime Car Lender

Outrage Intensifies in Pakistan Over NATO Strikes as Militants Attack Fuel Trucks

Outrage Intensifies in Pakistan Over NATO Strikes as Militants Attack Fuel Trucks

Rasmussen: All-Time Low of 34.6% Now Call Themselves Democrats

Rasmussen: All-Time Low of 34.6% Now Call Themselves Democrats

Author D'Souza Rebuts Critics of His Obama 'Roots' Book

Author D'Souza Rebuts Critics of His Obama 'Roots' Book

It Was the Democrats’: Jobs Advocate Shocks Ed Schultz With Unemployment Theory

It Was the Democrats’: Jobs Advocate Shocks Ed Schultz With Unemployment Theory

Muslim Outreach? NASA Chief Heads to Saudi Arabia

Muslim Outreach? NASA Chief Heads to Saudi Arabia

CNN Fires Anchor Rick Sanchez After Remarks About Jews & Jon Stewart

CNN Fires Anchor Rick Sanchez After Remarks About Jews & Jon Stewart

No Pressure:’ New Environmental Campaign Glorifies Eco-Fascism

No Pressure:’ New Environmental Campaign Glorifies Eco-Fascism

Defected: Cahill’s Running Mate Leaves to Support Opponent in Mass. Gov. Race

Defected: Cahill’s Running Mate Leaves to Support Opponent in Mass. Gov. Race

Federal Judge Rejects Lawsuit Against Pledge and ‘In God We Trust’

Federal Judge Rejects Lawsuit Against Pledge and ‘In God We Trust’

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