A Liberal's Hit List: Jun 16, 2009

Court Throws Out Ban on Exposing Children to Gays

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

By Bill Rankin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday threw out a judge’s order that prohibited children in a divorce case from having any contact with their father’s gay and lesbian friends.

The ruling was hailed by gay rights groups who said the decision focuses on the needs of children instead of perpetuating a stigma on the basis of sexual orientation.

The state high court’s decision overturned Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards’ blanket prohibition against exposing the children to their father’s gay partners and friends.

“Such an arbitrary classification based on sexual orientation flies in the face of our public policy that encourages divorced parents to participate in the raising of their children,” Justice Robert Benham wrote.

The Fayette County judge’s prohibition “assumes, without evidentiary support, that the children will suffer harm from any such contact,” Benham wrote. But there is no evidence that any member of the gay and lesbian community has engaged in inappropriate conduct in the presence of the children or that the children would be adversely affected by being exposed to members of that community, he said.

The ruling stems from the 2007 divorce of Eric Duane Mongerson and Sandy Kay Ehlers Mongerson, who had been married 21 years and had four children....(Remainder.)

Fox Nation Asks: "Will Widespread Global Cooling Reports Freeze Gore's Credibility"

By Media Matters

Unravelling

By Ed Stein
Ed Stein Ink

Discussing Obama and DOMA, The Oxy-Moron Litters Monologue With Anti-LGBT Innuendo

By Media Matters

From the transcript of Limbaugh's June 16 Morning Update, as posted on his website [subscription required]:

A filing by the Obama Justice Department last week surprised hardcore supporters. Despite candidate Obama promising the gay community that he would work to overturn the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), his lawyers urged dismissal of the first same-sex-marriage case to reach federal courts.

The plaintiffs are two guys who tied the knot when same-sex marriages were legal in California. They claim DOMA violates the Constitution's "full faith and credit" clause, the "due process" clause, equal protection, their free speech rights and right to privacy.

Obama's legal beavers attacked. They cited Catalano v. Catalano, involving a man who married his niece in Italy and sought to have the marriage recognized in Connecticut. The courts told him to stuff it. They cited the case of an Indiana marriage of an underage woman that New Jersey courts red-lighted. The third cite involved the marriage of first cousins in New Mexico, which got blown out by Arizona courts.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexers, and Transgenders are fuming that Obama is not dismantling DOMA -- and are livid that his beavers would cite cases involving incest and people marrying children. They're also furious at Obama's limp action on the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

Look, boys and girls (and undecided): right now Obama's getting busy... finishing off the economy and destroying heath care. So for the moment you have to bend over and grab the ankles. But don't doubt him. Your turn is coming. (So to speak.) He's a flaming lib, and he's on your side of the aisle. I promise! You just have to be patient; you're not yet a priority. How does it feel?

LSDM Hosts "Disenfranchised Democrat"...Who's Also Apparently an Anti-Obama Conspiracy Theorist

By Media Matters

On the June 15 edition of his Fox News show, Glenn Beck hosted Nancy Armstrong -- whom he described as a "disenfranchised Democrat" who "has a blog called MsPlacedDemocrat.com" -- in order to assert that it wasn't "only Republicans" who have hosted tea parties. One topic that didn't come up during the discussion is the numerous posts on Armstrong's blog advancing the falsehood that President Obama has not released a valid copy of his birth certificate.

For instance, a December 29, 2008, post titled "51 Things We Know About Obama And None Of Them Are Important!" asks, "Where is his [Obama's] 'real birth certificate and selective service registration?" A March 23 post reads:

Dr Orly Taitz, both a lawyer and naturalized citizen has personally taken on the issue of Obama's eligibility. There is nothing wrong with her questioning this issue because Obama has literally hidden every evidence of his past. What has he hidden? All school records, passport records, employment records ( forget his stupid story about ice cream and an ice cream shop....I believe it is another one of Obama's lies.) and his REAL birth certificate.

Armstrong's site has also linked to various articles trafficking in birth certificate theories, including in a March 5 post that took excerpts from a WorldNetDaily.com article quoting a "U.S. soldier on active duty" who wrote that Obama "has absolutely refused to provide to the American public his original birth certificate, as well as other documents which may prove or disprove his eligibility. ... In fact, he has fought every attempt made by concerned citizens in their effort to force him to do so."...(Remainder.)

Is Fox News Big Enough for Shep Smith and Glenn Beck?

By Eric Boehlert
Media Matters

It must have been an awkward elevator ride for Shep Smith over at Fox News headquarters last Friday, heading up to the 12th-floor studio where his Fox Report program originates. I'm just imagining the nasty looks he must have gotten from co-workers -- if any of them even agreed to ride between floors with him -- on the day that liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman praised Smith in print. Krugman actually referenced him by name as somebody inside Fox News who refused to go along with the "big hate": the right wing's anti-Obama rhetoric -- almost bloodlust -- that now dominates conservative discourse.

Talk about putting a target on the back of a Fox News anchor. A shout-out from the hated Times op-ed page? Things only got worse for Smith over the weekend when the Times' Frank Rich also singled out the Fox News anchor for praise. I mean, c'mon. Were Krugman and Rich trying to get the guy fired?!

In fact, even before being name-dropped by Times liberals, right-wing bloggers had already teed off on Smith ("Shep sucks"; "Shepard Smith has got to go") for having the nerve to call out the "crazies" on the fringe who were targeting President Obama and feeding off conspiratorial hate.

The truth, of course, is that Smith's job isn't in danger. He's considered an untouchable (ratings) golden boy within Fox News who has the backing of his boss, Roger Ailes. (Not to mention a gargantuan $7 million salary.)

Yet by pushing back on the air against the same right-wing hatred that others at Fox News now regularly foment, I wonder if Smith feels increasingly uncomfortable or alienated within Fox News. If he feels like a stranger within the cable news channel he's been with since its inception, as it now rushes headlong into the GOP fever swamps and does it with Glenn Beck, and his conspiratorial ranting, as the new face and voice of Fox News.

I'm starting to wonder if Fox News is big enough for Shep Smith and Glenn Beck....(Remainder.)

Fox Nation Wonders if "Obama Nationalizing Health Care" Will Be "the Last Straw"

By Media Matters

Beneath picture of Iranian election aftermath, "non-biased" Fox Nation asks if "Obama's 'Apology Foreign Policy'" is "failing"

Quinn On if Obama Dialogues With Ahmadinejad: "Where's his birth certificate? We could have two illegitimate leaders"

Despite Front-Page Coverage, the Oxy-Moron Suggests HuffPo Ignoring Protestor Shootings in Iran

President Obama: “The Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected”

President Obama Pushed Health Care Reform at AMA Meeting

TN RepubliCON Staffer Caught Forwarding DISGUSTING Racist Picture

By GoldnI
Daily Kos

Here in Tennessee, our politicians (Republican and Democrat) still have not yet figured out that anything they do or say will be subject to scrutiny in the blogosphere, and that nothing they put online is private anymore.

Further adding to the tragicomedy that is Tennessee politics, we are forced to deal with some of the most vicious racism you'll ever see without a white hood. Whether it's implying that African-American Senate candidate is "going to steal all the white women," or implying that your African-American Presidential candidate is an anti-Semitic Muslim (whose middle name, by the way, is "Hussein"), Tennessee Republicans have truly mastered the art of the dogwhistle.

But this new one takes the cake.

Earlier today, a legislative staffer forwarded well-known West Tennessee blogger Newscoma a picture they had been sent from another staffer. It's supposed to be an "historical keepsake photo" of the Presidents. But no picture of President Obama--instead, just a "spook."

Because, haha, in addition to being another word for a ghost, "spook" is also a racial slur against African-Americans! Funny! Not.

The staffer who originally sent around the picture has now been revealed to be Sherri Goforth, an executive assistant for Republican State Senator Diane Black of Gallatin (a suburb of Nashville). When contacted by Nashville Is Talking/WKRN Channel 2 (our ABC affiliate) blogger Christian Grantham, not only did Goforth refuse to apologize, all she could do was claim that she had simply sent it "from the wrong email address. In other words, not sorry that she sent out a blatantly racist email, only sorry that she got caught.

Well, yes, she did get caught. And now it's all over the TN blogosphere, and will be on the news tonight....(Remainder.)

Andrew Breitbart: Still an Idiot

By BarbinMD
Daily Kos

For reasons that are clear only in his addled brain, Andrew Breitbart decided to reprise the comical, profanity-laced tirade he unleased last week to John Cook at Gawker for his column in today's Washington Times ... sans the profanity.

It's hilarious.

In its obvious zeal to create a one-party state, the Democrat-Media Complex (the natural coalition of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media) last week seized upon the horrific murder of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington as an opportunity to ascribe blame to the American conservative movement and to further marginalize the Republican Party.

First, that's Democratic-Media Complex to you, bub. Second, the beauty of the marginalization of the Republican Party is that you really don't have to do anything except sit back and enjoy the show. And third, what Breitbart and his band of fellow-whiners seem to miss is that it isn't about blaming the conservative movement for the shooting at the Holocaust Museum, it's pointing out their idiocy for dismissing the Department of Homeland Security report (pdf) that warned of increasing violence from rightwing extremists - a report that Republicans, for reasons only they can explain, took as a personal attack on them....(Remainder.)

Loofah Boy Still Falsely Suggesting He Was Only Reporting That Tiller was "known" as "Tiller the Baby Killer"

By Media Matters

CNN's Campbell Brown Highlights Mr. Bouncy-Bouncy's Dog/Health Care Arguement

Via Media Matters

A Bad Call on Gay Rights

By The New York Times

The Obama administration, which came to office promising to protect gay rights but so far has not done much, actually struck a blow for the other side last week. It submitted a disturbing brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which is the law that protects the right of states to not recognize same-sex marriages and denies same-sex married couples federal benefits. The administration needs a new direction on gay rights.

A gay couple married under California law is challenging the act in federal court. In its brief, the Justice Department argues that the couple lack legal standing to do so. It goes on to contend that even if they have standing, the case should be dismissed on the merits.

The brief insists it is reasonable for states to favor heterosexual marriages because they are the “traditional and universally recognized form of marriage.” In arguing that other states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, the Justice Department cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece.

These are comparisons that understandably rankle many gay people. In a letter to President Obama on Monday, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization, said, “I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones.”...(Remainder.)

Lying Sack of Dog Mess Declares American Community Survey "Unconstitutional"

By Media Matters

Iranian (Florida) Election Fraud

By Jeff Parker
Florida Today

Huckabee: A Right-Wing True Believer

By Kyle
Right Wing Watch

When Mike Huckabee was seeking the Republican Party's nomination during the last election, the Religious Right's DC powerhouse insiders wanted nothing to do with him, forcing him to seek support from a variety of second and third-tier activists and leaders who inhabit the fringes of the movement.

When John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson all wisely chose to skip the Values Voter Debate organized by Janet Porter and other such activists (though they were grilled by the organizers nonetheless) on stage stood Mike Huckabee, smiling as a choir sang "Why Should God Bless America?" and assuring the organizers that though "many [other candidates] come to you. I come from you."

Huckabee's appearance led Porter to declare him the "David among Jesse's sons" and not long thereafter she became co-chair of the Huckabee campaign's Faith and Family Values Coalition where she was joined by the likes of Rick Scarborough, David Barton, Mat Staver, Don Wildmon, and Star Parker.

When Huckabee wrote a book following the end of his campaign, he singled out these supporters as a "new wave of leaders…[with] prophetic voices…[who are] determined to follow their convictions instead of the conventional wisdom."

In the months since President Obama's election, many of these people have gone completely off of the deep-end and, whenever I have written about them, I have included a mention of the fact that they once served as part of Huckabee's campaign coalition. I did so because I was operating under the assumption that, given how radical his one-time supporters have become in recent months, his first order of business were he to make another run for the GOP nomination would be to distance himself from these people....(Remainder.)

Fox Nation Comment Includes Obama Death Threat

By Priscilla
News Hounds

I included it in my thread about the dichotomy between the Fox Nation commerical and the Fox Nation rhetoric; but I think it deserves a thread of its own. The comment was posted, today, at 9:46PM and it's still there. And lo and behold, the same poster agreed with himself an hour later. It's ironic that "conservatives" were outraged about the Homeland Security Report, which talked about the need to monitor right wing hate groups, because it appears that there's less than six degrees of separation between the beliefs of one Fox Nation resident (who, one assumes is a "conservative" given the Obama hatred) and white supremacists who advocate killing blacks and who hate Barack Obama. Sounds familiar, doesn't it!

Update – 6/15/2007 7:02 PM. The above cited article seems to have disappeared off of the homepage of Fox Nation. Googling it brings up two citations. One has “the requested page could not be found” and the other links to the American Thinker article with no comments (which is also the result if you enter the title on Fox Nation search). This is what happened to the original Fox Nation article about the Tiller shooting. I reported that the comments on this thread “celebrated” Tiller’s death. The thread was removed (same day) from the homepage and the article was replaced with an updated article (new title) with no comments and which was not found on the homepage but the result of a Fox Nation search.

And BTW, the thread is "Barack Obama's OTHER Controversial Church," which links to the conservative American Thinker. It discusses how Barack Obama, as a boy, attended Sunday School at a Unitarian Church which gave sanctuary to Vietnam military deserters and how this helped to form Obama's worldview. Not suprisingly there are a couple of thread comments about how the Unitarian Church isn't really a true church. Worth noting is that it was only last year that parishoners, at a Tennessee Unitarian Church, were shot (one killed) by a man who hated liberals and who read books by Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Once again, way to stay classy Fox Nation. Why do you hate America?...(Original.)

The Lying Sack of Dog Mess Sees U.S., Iranian Parallels

By Steve Benen
Washington Post

Fox News' Glenn Beck participated in an online chat with the Washington Post today, and was asked whether he "really" believes the United States is "facing destruction." His response was, well, rather Beck-like. (thanks to reader K.T. for the tip.)

"Yeah, I said on Sept. 11 that we should fear no outside force, the only that would destroy America is us, from the inside. I look at what's happening in Iran, and they are arquing [sic] on who is going to be a better leader in their theocracy. Both candidates were picked buy [sic] the mullahs, neither candidate can do anything without the mullahs telling them it's okay.

"I think we're in the same situation here. Bill Mahr [sic] said this weekend that Barack Obama was George Bush Lite. What are we fighting over? What is the difference between these two parties? There are reasons to speak out, but tearing ourselves apart over these scraps of freedom is odd. We've stopped melting together. Our strength was that we were a melting pot."

It's rather unusual to hear comparisons between the United States' system of government and Iran, but Beck is a rather unusual person. I'm not sure exactly how this parallel works in his mind -- Obama and McCain, for example, were chosen by voters, not mullahs, and offered completely different policy agendas -- but I don't really grasp how Beck arrives at most of his conclusions.

As for that Bill Maher reference, Beck might want to watch it again. Maher's point wasn't that Obama and Bush are effectively the same; his point was his frustration that Obama hasn't been able to make more sweeping, progressive changes more quickly. Indeed, Maher said specifically he wants to see the president have more, not less, success on universal health care, combating global warming, and taking on the banking industry....(Remainder.)

The Lying Sack of Dog Mess: "The Fringe Groups Hate My Guts"

By Jason Linkins
The Huffington Post

If you follow Glenn Beck carefully, you'll see that he's savvy enough to know that it's smart to temper his outsized weirdness to fit his audience. Especially since he's basically a man of many wealth-accruing gimmicks. That's why his chat today with the Washington Post is annoyingly tame by Beckian standards -- no wishing California would burn or dire warnings of X-Files plots come to life. Here's a clear example: His only criticism with regards to health care is this one:

"As for health care, the idea that my company is going to be taxed higher because I provide coverage for my employees is an insult and should tell you what direction this country is going."

See, that's a perfectly mainstream criticism (and it's one that Obama savaged McCain for proposing on the campaign trail). But this is Glenn Beck, for Pete's sake! Where's the broad fear and plainly stated warnings of THE SOCIALISMS that we who receive his lovely newsletter have come to expect? Banished, along with the Classic Glenn Beck Persona, for the time being, because if that creature reared its head here, who would buy Beck's shiny book? Beck, to his credit, is a man of fundamental priorities!...(Remainder.)

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Says He Lied to CIA Under Torture

By Julian E. Barnes and Greg Miller
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington -- Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told U.S. military officials that he had lied to the CIA after being abused, according to documents made public Monday. The claim is likely to intensify the debate over whether harsh interrogation techniques generated accurate information.

Mohammed made the assertion during hearings at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was transferred in 2006 after being held at secret CIA sites since his capture in 2003.

"I make up stories," Mohammed said, describing in broken English an interrogation probably administered by the CIA concerning the whereabouts of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "Where is he? I don't know. Then, he torture me," Mohammed said of his interrogator. "Then I said, 'Yes, he is in this area.' "

Mohammed also appeared to say that he had fingered people he did not know as being Al Qaeda members in order to avoid abusive treatment. Although there is no way to corroborate his statements, Mohammed is one of the militants whom the CIA repeatedly subjected to the simulated-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The newly released information could amplify calls for the Obama administration to make public more details about the treatment of terrorism suspects or allow a broader inquiry into the George W. Bush administration's interrogation policies. Monday's disclosure represented a rare allegation by a detainee that he had lied while being subjected to harsh practices....(Remainder.)

Neocons, House GOPers Demand Obama Take Mousavi's Side

President's Hawkish Critics Say U.S. Should Be Aligned With Reformists in Iran

By David Weigel
The Washington Independent

Before voters went to the polls in Friday’s elections in Iran, critics of President Obama’s Iran policy — and of his outreach to the Middle East in general — attempted to pre-empt the possible defeat of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by pronouncing it meaningless. John Bolton, the former United Nations Ambassador for George W. Bush, warned that a victory for the president’s chief opponent Mir-Hossein Mousavi would “not change the fundamental direction of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs or its support for terrorism.” Daniel Pipes, the president of the Middle East Forum, wrote that he was “rooting for Ahmadinejad” because it would be “better to have a bellicose, apocalyptic, in-your-face Ahmadinejad who scares the world than a sweet-talking Mousavi who again lulls it to sleep.”

But in the wake of the contested election and the surging rallies against Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs who rule Iran, the president’s more hawkish critics are changing the tune. The president, they argue, has an opening — if not a responsibility — to make a statement on the elections that aligns the United States with reformist elements inside of Iran. Monday began with a few disconnected critiques of the president’s silence, and ended with calls for a bold Obama statement from leading neoconservatives and one of the Republican Party’s most prominent leaders in the House.

“The president should be questioning the legitimacy of the elections,” said Kim Holmes, former assistant secretary of state in the Bush administration who is now vice president of foreign policy and defense studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “He doesn’t need to go into any great detail. He needs to show that, in the long run, the United States is on the side of the Iranian people.”

Critics of the Obama White House are very much aware of the fears that have, up to now, forestalled a statement from the president. As one official told TWI over the weekend, there is great caution about appearing to favor one side over another. On Monday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs would only say that there was “concern” about the election results and that “Iranians are looking into this.” After news that one man had been killed at a massive Tehran rally, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly would only say that the administration was “deeply troubled” by events. At the end of the day, the president responded to events with a four minute-long statement that recognized the nation’s “sovereignty,” credited the nation with “looking into” the election results, and pleased few critics of Iran....(Remainder.)

Keith Olbermann & Bill Maher Talks About Taking on Obama

Rachel Maddow Takes on Obama Over Defense of Marriage Act

The Good Soldier: Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State

By Peter Keating
New York Magazine

How is Hillary Clinton doing as secretary of State? Two recent quotes tell you all you need to know.

On May 27, frustrated by unusually thoroughgoing U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Benjamin Netanyahu complained, “What the hell do they want from me?” They: Clinton and Barack Obama.

A couple of months earlier, Colin Powell, asked to comment on Clinton’s attempt to redirect American foreign policy toward diplomacy and foreign aid, said: “We all know we ought to be moving in this direction, but it takes money.” We: Clinton, Powell, and the foreign-policy establishment.

Just over a year ago, Clinton was bottoming out in her doomed presidential race, telling reporters she was soldiering on against Obama because, after all, "we all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." Now, she has turned herself into Obama’s greatest asset, on Capitol Hill as much as around the world, in fashioning a national-security policy that has closed off all policy differences between the former Democratic rivals, co-opted many Republicans, and left the rest of the administration’s opponents astoundingly marginalized.

On the inside, Clinton has steadily accumulated power while expending hardly any political capital. For one thing, she has stirred an effective mix of politicos and diplomats into the top tiers of the State Department. Hillary has Cheryl Mills, a lawyer best known for defending Bill Clinton during impeachment, running her staff. And she has divided the position of Deputy Secretary of State into two jobs: supersmart Jim Steinberg, who was deputy national security adviser under Bill Clinton but supported Obama in 2008, is her policy maven, while Jack Lew is her management chief. Lew helped Hillary secure a 10 percent increase in the State Department’s budget from Obama while Tim Geithner was still figuring out how to turn the lights on in his office.

Further, Clinton hasn’t made mistakes. There have been no Joe Biden–like gaffes, Tom Daschle–like embarrassments, or Judd Gregg–like turnarounds coming from Hillary. Or from her husband — these days, Bill Clinton would have us believe he spends his time shopping for trinkets, unable even to get Hillary on her cell phone....(Remainder.)

POLITICO Dismisses Iran Uprising: "Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over it"

By Metavirus
Library Grape

Wonkette highlights a piece of reporting at the POLITICO that reminds me why I deleted them from my feed reader months ago (be sure to hover your mouse over the image):

As Wonkette opines:

Let’s see, sham election resulting in much Western/Israeli War Lust, voters beaten and shot at and murdered in the streets, global crisis, etc. So what’s famously amoral “win the afternoon” sleaze dealer The Politico got to say about it all? Ah, right …. [Link Ban Back On]

Is 'Conservatism' in Ascendancy?

By Steve Benen
Washington Monthly

Gallup has a new poll pointing to an uptick in the number of Americans who describe themselves as "conservative."

Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. The 21% calling themselves liberal is in line with findings throughout this decade, but is up from the 1990s.

Looking over the yearly totals, the lines are pretty stable, though the number of self-identified conservatives has gone up a bit over the last 17 years, from 36% to 40%. Liberal numbers, while trailing by considerable margins, have also crept upwards, from 17% to 21%. And while moderates were out in front for most of the past couple of decades, Gallup shows their numbers slipping from 43% to 35% since 1992.

The results are clearly heartening to the right, as evidenced by the predictable refrain from Peter Wehner: the poll "demonstrates ... that America remains a center-right nation."

Well, that's one way to look at it. But the right shouldn't get too excited about the advantage reported today.

The results have been pretty steady for a couple of decades now. Conservatives now outnumber moderates and liberals, but we're still dealing with modest fluctuations. For that matter, as Ed Kilgore explains, the traditional model of throwing everyone into one of these three categories doesn't reflect a diverse ideological landscape.

There's also the practical effect to consider. Self-described liberals have trailed badly for a very long time, but it hasn't translated into Republican victories at the ballot box. Democrats, for example, still easily outnumber Republicans, despite the ideological breakdown....(Remainder.)

Fox Nation "Statement of Purpose" Doesn't Match "Nation's" Rhetoric

By Priscilla
News Hounds

The Examiner has an excellent analysis of the new Fox Nation commercial which has Fox News personalities each reciting a line from the “mission statement” of the Fox Nation. After quoting the line and who said it, the article then posts hateful statements of “Nation” inhabitants which totally contradict the flowery rhetoric of the ad. I’ve seen the commercial and I’ve thought, WTF? What really disappointed me was seeing Geraldine Ferraro, a Fox correspondent, touting the party line. Ms. Ferraro, you were, along with Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Shirley Chisholm, one of my feminist heroes. How can you articulate support for a website that stands against the things that we fought, and continue to fight, against – particularly racism? It’s hard to believe that you, our first female vice-presidential candidate, are touting a website that promotes vacuous and anti-gay ex beauty pageant queens. But you have the right to free speech, so use it and be well.

Anyway, check out the article (which links to one of my threads, thank you very much) for the lofty lines of the Fox Nation ad (video below the fold) which discusses “mutual respect” – a concept that is missing in the quotes which are standing on the site where “mutual respect” isn’t a family value!...(Original.)

Note - Comment encouraging "skinhead" violence towards Obama has been sent to the FBI.

Iran Does Have Some Fishy Numbers

By Renard Sexton
FiveThirtyEight

A most strange storyline has emerged with regard to the provincial vote totals for the Iranian election. Around 1600 GMT Sunday, the ministry of Interior released the official vote totals by province. As others have mentioned, by law candidates have three days following voting to contest the result, before the final totals are approved by the Supreme Leader. As such, it is notable that both the aggregate totals and provincial totals were certified, approved and released before the three day deadline.

Another curious turn of events was that somewhere between 1600 and 2000 GMT, the provincial vote totals mysteriously disappeared from the English language (and all other languages other than Persian) versions of www.presstv.ir and other Iranian news outlets, where the interior ministry had distributed the results. As such, we are in debt to Daniel Berman and his colleagues for their translation of the official provincial numbers.

Although widespread allegations of fraud, manipulation, intimidation and other all too common elections tactics have been be common, statistically detecting fraud or manipulation is a challenge. For example, while mathematicians have been evaluating vote returns for irregularities in normal situational random number distribution, determining what the "correct" results should be is very difficult.

However, given the absolutely bizarre figures that have been given for several provinces, given qualitative knowledge - for example, that Mahdi Karroubi earned almost negligible vote totals in his native Lorestan and neighboring Khuzestan, which he won in 2005 with 55.5% and 36.7% respectively - there is room for a much closer look....(Remainder.)

Excusing Outrages of the Right

Part of America’s ongoing political crisis is that Official Washington remains cowed by the angry Right, even as it engages in subtle and not-so-subtle appeals to bigotry and invitations to violence. As the outrages mount, most of the national press corps prefers to look the other way, a pattern that now stretches back many years.

By Robert Parry
Consortium News

For instance, when the Republicans were stealing Election 2000 in plain sight – dispatching rioters from Washington to disrupt a Miami vote count and finally having five partisan justices on the U.S. Supreme Court stop all vote tabulations – the U.S. news media acted as if it were no big deal.

There was almost a sense of relief about the GOP theft, that perhaps acquiescence to these riotous right-wing white guys would calm things down, that maybe the Establishment gods of the proper order would be pleased by a restoration of Republican (and Bush Family) control of the White House.

So, George W. Bush paid no real price for stealing the election, which he lost both nationally in the popular vote and in the key state of Florida. Bush wasn’t even called to account when a lengthy journalistic study of Florida ballots showed Al Gore winning regardless of what standard of chad was used in assessing legally cast votes.

To protect Bush’s “legitimacy” – when the count was completed after the 9/11 attacks – the news organizations that had sponsored the recount did all they could to conceal their own discovery of Gore’s rightful victory. When they released the results in November 2001, the news outlets focused on hypothetical partial recounts and buried the actual will of the Florida voters deep in the stories....(Remainder.)

DNC Gay Fundraiser Starting to Fall Apart Over Rupture Between Obama and Gay Community

By John Aravosis
AMERICAblog

Note to our friends in the media. This is a story deserving a little national attention. It seems the Obama folks have gotten to the mainstream media - you'll note that practically none of the corporate media are covering the growing rupture between Obama and the gay community other than on their blogs, even after HRC sent probably the first chastising letter to a Democratic president since 1996 (and reporters always have told me in the past, it's not a story until HRC weighs in - well now they have, twice). Guess that means we'll just have to ramp up the pain.

Speaking of pain, I contacted top gay blogger Andy Towle today to ask if he'd be attending the big gay fundraiser the DNC was holding later this month with VP Biden as the special guest. Andy was on a list I'd seen of already committed attendees. Andy told me that he had already contacted the DNC to say that he wouldn't be attending at this time (yet another reason we like Andy and his blog). The DNC had planned to raise a lot of money from gay A-listers by coinciding this fundraiser with the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. Instead, the DNC may be about to witness Stonewall 2.0.

(Oddly, we've heard nothing in four days, since the DOMA brief scandal broke, from gay congressional leaders - Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, and Jared Polis - all of whom are hosting this rather ill-timed and inappropriate Democratic effort to milk money from our community at the same time Democrats are equating us with incest and not lifting a finger on any of our legislation priorities in Congress or the White House. It's not awfully clear why any gay person would give a Democrat a dime ever again. Check back, we'll be updating you daily on whether Barney, Tammy and Jared ever decide to say boo about the hate brief and their role in this fundraiser that is quickly turning into a major fiasco for the Democratic party.)...(Remainder.)

Holocaust Museum Killer Had Links to German Neo-Nazis

AP/ Talbot County Sheriff Office

By Spiegel

James von Brunn, the American white supremacist charged with shooting a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, had ties with a prominent German neo-Nazi. In an e-mail to notorious lawyer Horst Mahler, he called hate "natural, normal and necessary."

James von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist who killed a security guard at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum had links with German right-wing extremists.

Among his contacts was Horst Mahler, an infamous far-right extremist who for a time served as a lawyer for the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). Von Brunn once wrote to Mahler: "If you don't hate that which seeks to destroy you…you yourself will be destroyed." He added that "compassionate nations" would "die."

Mahler, who has been in and out of jail for his extremist views, most famously for greeting a Jewish journalist with "Heil Hitler," responded to von Brunn's e-mail, arguing: "Hate… blinds you to possibilities to destroy the enemy."

Aside from his links with Mahler, von Brunn had also voiced support for the notorious Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, who is currently serving time in a German prison for incitement to racial hatred. "Free Ernst Zündel, a great man," he wrote....(Remainder.)

Neo-Nazi Museum Shooting Jerkoff's Hearing Delayed

By Carol Cratty
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The man charged with killing a security officer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum remains in critical condition and will be unable to take part in any court proceedings this week, officials said Monday.

James von Brunn, 88, was “in critical but stable condition,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Waid said in a brief court hearing.

Magistrate Judge John Facciola of the U.S. District Court conferred with Waid and federal public defender A.J. Kramer before ending the hearing. Facciola scheduled the next status hearing in the case for June 22.

Kramer told reporters he visited von Brunn on Sunday at George Washington University Hospital, but he provided no details on his client’s condition....(Original.)

Stay the Course

By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

The debate over economic policy has taken a predictable yet ominous turn: the crisis seems to be easing, and a chorus of critics is already demanding that the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration abandon their rescue efforts. For those who know their history, it’s déjà vu all over again — literally.

For this is the third time in history that a major economy has found itself in a liquidity trap, a situation in which interest-rate cuts, the conventional way to perk up the economy, have reached their limit. When this happens, unconventional measures are the only way to fight recession.

Yet such unconventional measures make the conventionally minded uncomfortable, and they keep pushing for a return to normalcy. In previous liquidity-trap episodes, policy makers gave in to these pressures far too soon, plunging the economy back into crisis. And if the critics have their way, we’ll do the same thing this time.

The first example of policy in a liquidity trap comes from the 1930s. The U.S. economy grew rapidly from 1933 to 1937, helped along by New Deal policies. America, however, remained well short of full employment.

Yet policy makers stopped worrying about depression and started worrying about inflation. The Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy, while F.D.R. tried to balance the federal budget. Sure enough, the economy slumped again, and full recovery had to wait for World War II....(Remainder.)

Despite Own Iran Follies, Mittens Romney Tries to Slam Obama

By Jon Perr
Crooks and Liars

That Richard Perle and Frank Gaffney, two of the neocon cheerleaders for the disaster in Iraq, would blame President Obama for the election fraud in Iran is unsurprising. That once and future Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney of all people would parrot the charge is hilarious. After all, from his repeated conflation of Shiite and Sunni to his aborted crusade for disinvestment from Tehran and other jaw-droppers, Mitt Romney's pronouncements on Iran have been a comedy of errors.

Just days after he slammed President Obama's unprecedented and widely praised address in Cairo, Romney appeared on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopolous to lay Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's apparent sham reelection at Obama's feet:

"The comments by the president last week, that there was a robust debate going on in iran, was obviously entirely wrong-headed. What has occurred is the election is a fraud, the results are inaccurate, and you're seeing a brutal repression of the people as they protest. ... It's very clear that the president's policies of going around the world and apologizing for America aren't working. ... Look, just sweet talk and criticizing America is not going to enhance freedom in the world."

Of course, comic pandering to the Republican Party's conservative base won't enhance freedom in the world, either. And to be sure, it certainly hasn't helped candidate Mitt Romney in the United States....(Remainder.)

Howard Dean Shoots Down Norah O'Donnell's Republican Talking Points on Health Care

By Heather
Crooks and Liars

Howard Dean does a great job on MSNBC shooting down every Republican talking point on health care reform that Norah O'Donnell throws at him. Here are the questions she asked him.

Is a public option a stalking horse for this government control?
Doctors don't support this plan--then proceeds to read a quote that doesn't say doctors are against a public plan.
Medicare and Medicaid waste money.
Doctors don't like it because they only get 80% of what they would under private insurance plans.
How do you stop employers from dropping employees from their coverage?

As Media Matters has reported, this is nothing new for Norah O'Donnell: Hardball for Dean, softball for Allen: MSNBC's O'Donnell echoed Republican attacks, misleading statements.

As Think Progress noted, Dean also did a good job of explaining why Kent Conrad's co-op proposal is a really bad idea and won't work:

He’s wrong about this. The co-ops are too small to compete with the big, private insurance companies. They will kill the co-ops completely by undercutting them, using their financial clout to do it. In the small states like mine and like Senator Conrad’s, you’re never gonna get to the 500,000 number signed up in the co-op that you need to in order for them to have any marketing [power]....

Neo-Nazis are in the Army Now

Why the U.S. military is ignoring its own regulations and permitting white supremacists to join its ranks.

Editor's note: Research support for this article was provided by the Nation Institute's Investigative Fund.

By Matt Kennard
Salon.com

Iraq veteran Forrest Fogarty sailed through recruitment despite his neo-Nazi tattoos. Photo: Matt Kennard

June 15, 2009 | On a muggy Florida evening in 2008, I meet Iraq War veteran Forrest Fogarty in the Winghouse, a little bar-restaurant on the outskirts of Tampa, his favorite hangout. He told me on the phone I would recognize him by his skinhead. Sure enough, when I spot a white guy at a table by the door with a shaved head, white tank top and bulging muscles, I know it can only be him.

Over a plate of chicken wings, he tells me about his path into the white-power movement. "I was 14 when I decided I wanted to be a Nazi," he says. At his first high school, near Los Angeles, he was bullied by black and Latino kids. That's when he first heard Skrewdriver, a band he calls "the godfather of the white power movement." "I became obsessed," he says. He had an image from one of Skrewdriver's album covers — a Viking carrying a staff, an icon among white nationalists — tattooed on his left forearm. Soon after he had a Celtic cross, an Irish symbol appropriated by neo-Nazis, emblazoned on his stomach.

At 15, Fogarty moved with his dad to Tampa, where he started picking fights with groups of black kids at his new high school. "On the first day, this bunch of niggers, they thought I was a racist, so they asked, 'Are you in the KKK?'" he tells me. "I said, 'Yeah,' and it was on." Soon enough, he was expelled.

For the next six years, Fogarty flitted from landscaping job to construction job, neither of which he'd ever wanted to do. "I was just drinking and fighting," he says. He started his own Nazi rock group, Attack, and made friends in the National Alliance, at the time the biggest neo-Nazi group in the country. It has called for a "a long-term eugenics program involving at least the entire populations of Europe and America."...(Remainder.)

Eliminationist Gear at Cafe Press: Scott Roeder is an American Hero and Shoot Obama Stuff for Sale

By John Amato
Crooks and Liars

The Eliminationists are having a nice time over at Cafe Press. Here's some of Mad Max Market's designs. The man who murdered Dr. Tiller, Scott Roeder is an American Hero now and Having a high powered rifle signaling the impeachment of Barack Obama holds a similar meaning for this nutcase.

I'm sure there are dozens of offensive stuff being sold on Cafe Press just like these. This is a pattern of behavior that's only going to escalate unfortunately for America and more violence is sure to follow....(Original.)

Clean Coal: Fuel of the Future or a Fallacy?

By John Gartner
The Huffington Post

In a surprising reversal of a reversal, the Department of Energy has announced new funding for the "FutureGen" clean coal project, less than 18 months after the previous DOE Secretary pulled the plug. DOE Secretary Stephen Chu, who previously called coal "very, very bad," said the government will spend more than $1 billion on research on a prototype coal power plant that will capture and sequester the CO2 produced.

That's more than double the amount that the private sector will spend on the joint venture.

Though the DOE's plan has turned plenty of heads, down under they are acting even more decisively on clean coal technologies. German company Direct Invest will put $1.5 billion into clean coal development in Australia. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is also reportedly working on a deal on a clean coal plant in Australia.

The use of the words "clean coal" has sparked an advertising war between the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a consortium of coal industry companies, and The Reality Coalition, whose participants include the Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters.

"Clean coal" is a bit of a misnomer since most of the technologies being developed aren't really cleaning the coal burning process but capturing and storing the CO2. Clean diesel was introduced into the marketplace a few years ago with much less contention because the EPA standards required cleaning up diesel fuel's environmental impact in many aspects. Since CO2 is only one of many pollutants generated, for the clean moniker to be applied to coal, a future generation of coal power plants should also greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen oxides, mercury, sulfur dioxides and particulates....(Remainder.)

Chaput, Polis Push 'Mutual Interest' Immigration Reform

By Wendy Norris
The Colorado Independent

In a case of the world’s strangest bedfellows, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis and Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput set aside their vast political differences to join forces Saturday to promote federal immigration reform at a Northglenn church Saturday.

Those competing world views weren’t lost on the Catholic News Agency’s awkwardly worded press release citing Polis as “openly homosexual and a supporter of abortion rights” in which the archbishop and Boulder congressman “would disagree ‘vigorously’ on ‘some very serious social issues.’”

No kidding.

The brief, one-page statement also inexplicably referenced abortion no less than four times though Polis and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who both support reproductive freedom, accompanied the controversial archbishop on the Northglenn leg of the nationwide immigration town hall series “Familias Unidas.”...(Remainder.)

A Letter to the President from HRC President Joe Solmonese

Ed. Note: This morning HRC President Joe Solmonese sent a letter to President Barack Obama responding to the administration’s brief that argues for the Defense of Marriage Act to be upheld in court. The letter follows and is available in PDF:

June 15, 2009

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I have had the privilege of meeting you on several occasions, when visiting the White House in my capacity as president of the Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization representing millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people across this country. You have welcomed me to the White House to express my community’s views on health care, employment discrimination, hate violence, the need for diversity on the bench, and other pressing issues. Last week, when your administration filed a brief defending the constitutionality of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,”[1] I realized that although I and other LGBT leaders have introduced ourselves to you as policy makers, we clearly have not been heard, and seen, as what we also are: human beings whose lives, loves, and families are equal to yours. I know this because this brief would not have seen the light of day if someone in your administration who truly recognized our humanity and equality had weighed in with you.

So on behalf of my organization and millions of LGBT people who are smarting in the aftermath of reading that brief, allow me to reintroduce us. You might have heard of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. They waited 55 years for the state of California to recognize their legal right to marry. When the California Supreme Court at last recognized that right, the octogenarians became the first couple to marry. Del died after the couple had been legally married for only two months. And about two months later, their fellow Californians voted for Proposition 8.

Across this country, same-sex couples are living the same lives that Phyllis and Del so powerfully represent, and the same lives as you and your wife and daughters. In over 99% of U.S.[2] counties, we are raising children and trying to save for their educations; we are committing to each other emotionally and financially. We are paying taxes, serving on the PTA, struggling to balance work and family, struggling to pass our values on to our children—through church, extended family, and community. Knowing us for who we are—people and families whose needs and contributions are no different from anyone else’s—destroys the arguments set forth in the government’s brief in Smelt. As you read the rest of what I have to say, please judge the brief’s arguments with this standard: would this argument hold water if you acknowledge that Del and Phyllis have contributed as much to their community as their straight neighbors, and that their family is as worthy of respect as your own?

Reading the brief, one is told again and again that same-sex couples are so unlike different-sex couples that unequal treatment makes sense. But the government doesn’t say what makes us different, or unequal, only that our marriages are “new.” The fact that same-sex couples were denied equal rights until recently does not justify denying them now.

For example, the brief seems to adopt the well-worn argument that excluding same-sex couples from basic protections is somehow good for other married people:

Because all 50 States recognize hetero-sexual marriage, it was reasonable and rational for Congress to maintain its longstanding policy of fostering this traditional and universally-recognized form of marriage.

The government does not state why denying us basic protections promotes anyone else’s marriage, nor why, while our heterosexual neighbors’ marriages should be promoted, our own must be discouraged. In other words, the brief does not even attempt to explain how DOMA is related to any interest, but rather accepts that it is constitutional to attempt to legislate our families out of existence.

The brief characterizes DOMA as “neutral:”

[DOMA amounts to] a cautious policy of federal neutrality towards a new form of marriage.

DOMA is not “neutral” to a federal employee serving in your administration who is denied equal compensation because she cannot cover her same-sex spouse in her health plan. When a woman must choose between her job and caring for her spouse because they are not covered by the FMLA, DOMA is not “neutral.” DOMA is not a “neutral” policy to the thousands of bi-national same-sex couples who have to choose between family and country because they are considered strangers under our immigration laws. It is not a “neutral” policy toward the minor child of a same-sex couple, who is denied thousands of dollars of surviving mother’s or father’s benefits because his parents are not “spouses” under Social Security law.

Exclusion is not neutrality.

Next, the brief indicates that denying gay people our equal rights saves money:

It is therefore permitted to maintain the unique privileges [the government] has afforded to [different-sex marriages] without immediately extending the same privileges, and scarce government resources, to new forms of marriage that States have only recently begun to recognize.

The government goes on to say that DOMA reasonably protects other taxpayers from having to subsidize families like ours. The following excerpt explains:

DOMA maintains federal policies that have long sought to promote the traditional and uniformly-recognized form of marriage, recognizes the right of each State to expand the traditional definition if it so chooses, but declines to obligate federal taxpayers in other States to subsidize a form of marriage that their own states do not recognize.

These arguments completely disregard the fact that LGBT citizens pay taxes ourselves. We contribute into Social Security equally and receive the same statement in the mail every year. But for us, several of the benefits listed in the statement are irrelevant—our spouses and children will never benefit from them. The parent who asserts that her payments into Social Security should ensure her child’s financial future should she die is not seeking a subsidy. The gay White House employee who works as hard as the person in the next office is not seeking a “subsidy” for his partner’s federal health benefits. He is earning the same compensation without receiving it. And the person who cannot even afford to insure her family because the federal government would treat her partner’s benefits as taxable income—she is not seeking a subsidy.

The government again ignores our experiences when it argues that DOMA § 2 does not impair same-sex couples’ right to move freely about our country as other families can:

DOMA does not affect “the right of a citizen of one State to enter and to leave another state, the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than an unfriendly alien when temporarily present in the second State.”

This example shows the fallacy of that argument: a same-sex couple and their child drives cross-country for a vacation. On the way, they are in a terrible car accident. One partner is rushed into the ICU while the other, and their child, begs to be let in to see her, presenting the signed power of attorney that they carry wherever they go. They are told that only “family” may enter, and the woman dies alone while her spouse waits outside. This family was not “welcome.”

As a matter of constitutional law, some of this brief does not even make sense:

DOMA does not discriminate against homosexuals in the provision of federal benefits…. Section 3 of DOMA does not distinguish among persons of different sexual orientations, but rather it limits federal benefits to those who have entered into the traditional form of marriage.

In other words, DOMA does not discriminate against gay people, but rather only provides federal benefits to heterosexuals.

I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones:

And the courts have widely held that certain marriages, performed elsewhere need not be given effect, because they conflicted with the public policy of the forum. See e.g., Catalano v. Catalano, 170 A.2d 726, 728-29 (Conn. 1961) (marriage of uncle to niece, though valid in Italy under its laws, was not valid in Connecticut because it contravened public policy of th[at] state.” [3]

As an American, a civil rights advocate, and a human being, I hold this administration to a higher standard than this brief. In the course of your campaign, I became convinced—and I still want to believe—that you do, too. I have seen your administration aspire and achieve. Protecting women from employment discrimination. Insuring millions of children. Enabling stem cell research to go forward. These are powerful achievements. And they serve as evidence to me that this brief should not be good enough for you. The question is, Mr. President—do you believe that it’s good enough for us?

If we are your equals, if you recognize that our families live the same, love the same, and contribute as much as yours, then the answer must be no.

We call on you to put your principles into action and send legislation repealing DOMA to Congress.

Sincerely,

Joe Solmonese

[1] Smelt v. United States of America, Case No. SACV09-00286, Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support Thereof (June 11, 2009).

[2] Gates, Gary G. and Jason Ost. The Gay & Lesbian Atlas. District of Columbia: Urban Institute Press, 2004.

[3] In fact, in the majority of relevant cases, courts have recognized the out-of-state marriage. See e.g. Pearson, 51 Cal. 120 (1875) (recognizing the marriage of a white man and black woman entered into in Utah that would have been invalid under California’s anti-miscegenation statute), see also McDonald v. McDonald, 58 P.2d 163 (Cal. 1936) (recognizing in Nevada marriage between a husband and his wife although the husband was only eighteen, a violation of California marriage laws).

Another Day, Another Republican Parroting Frank Luntz

By Heather
Crooks and Liars

As John noted, when is someone going to challenge one of these guys when they spew this garbage on these Sunday shows? Can a sister get a follow up question around here? Just askin'. Sorry if it's expecting just a little too much to think that you might actually consider something like doing your job, and not allowing guests to lie to you if you want to call yourself an anchor on a "news" channel.

Here we go again with another Republican being allowed to repeat the Frank Luntz list of talking points for health care on national television, unchallenged. Wouldn't it be nice if we could make them all have to debate Bernie Sanders instead, so the public is not misinformed day after day?

How many Luntz talking points can you spot in this interview?

SCHIEFFER: So, is he being straight with us?

MCCONNELL: Well, let’s start at the beginning. They teach every first-semester medical student, “Do no harm.” And what the president did not talk about yesterday is his ambitious plan to have a government insurance plan, in effect, that essentially crowds out of the private market all the competition that we have among insurance companies today to have a national rationing board which would determine what kind of treatments would be available for American citizens.

Those, typically, in single-payer countries like Canada and Britain involve delays in treatment, denial of care, that kind of thing. All of that really ought to be put aside if we want to get a truly bipartisan proposal.

The Medicare cuts that the president was talking about yesterday were not in the context of making the current program more sustainable, Bob. We have an unsustainable Medicare and Medicaid now.

The president is talking about looking at those cuts in the context of expanding coverage far beyond what we have....

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