Obama Must Reject Bush’s Imperial Bequest

The legacy of George W. Bush lives on in the form of executive powers that he invented in order to pursue his extra-Constitutional agenda. The risk of setting his megalomania into precedent was amongst the best reasons to prosecute and/or impeach him and his accomplices.

In Washington, it has been long understood that no one willingly cedes power. Now President Barack Obama finds himself in command of the regime that was built by Bush, replete with Imperial perks that defy Constitutional law. Obama must now reject them.

Bruce Fein, a conservative lawyer and author who courageously joined those calling for Bush’s impeachment, has written an outstanding article that enumerates the danger of doing nothing about Bush’s excesses. On matters from state secrets to extraordinary rendition to torture, Fein calls for a return to the rule of law, and he cautions that Democrats must not be so enamored of their shiny new president that they permit him to get away with retaining the tyrannical powers established by Bush.

Since most of the violations of the Bush administration were executed from the Oval Office, it is up to Obama to set the ship of state aright. And it is up to the people to make sure that he does so.

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Rush Limbaugh’s Ego Is Fatter Than He Is

President Barack Obama reiterated today that he is does not support the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. He said so previously, during the campaign, and has been consistent in this regard. That hasn’t stopped the hysterical ranting of rightist fear mongers who seek to use the issue to stir panic amongst the peasants, and to shake them down for contributions.

There are even reports of clandestine meetings between mysterious plotters in Congress and the FCC. The purpose of these cabals is to impose the evil specter of fairness on America. Never mind that the alleged FCC and congressional participants flatly denied that any such meetings took place – and, of course, that the President wouldn’t sanction it anyway.

It is, however, no longer sufficient for one to unequivocally state opposition to the Doctrine. The anti-Fairness fanatics now insist that such proclamations are simply not to be believed. The plotters are purposefully prevaricating to permit them to proceed with their plot. What’s more, they contend, without any evidence, that the threat now extends to cable TV and the Internet, mediums for which the Doctrine never applied. None of these accusations are supported by facts – or reality – they are just regurgitated repeatedly by right-wing conspiracy theorists.

At the top of that heap is Rush Limbaugh. On his radio program today, he rambled through all of the usual delusional blather about the Fairness Doctrine, but strayed into territory even further from sanity. He now says that ACORN is “gearing up to enforce the same type of restrictions on broadcasting that the Fairness Doctrine would require.” He doesn’t bother to explain when ACORN got into the media business. I guess they are just a proxy for anything these braying asses feel like wailing on. After falsely accusing ACORN of voter fraud, and blaming them for the mortgage meltdown, and asserting that they are behind the return of the Fairness Doctrine, I expect the next startling revelation will be their membership in Al Qaeda (A-Qaorn?).

But Limbaugh is not off the crazy train yet. In a grand feat of self-obsessed paranoia, Limbaugh imagines that his thoughts on the Fairness Doctrine are being stolen:

“The Wall Street Journal, two days ago, asked me for an op-ed on this. I submitted the op-ed this morning. It is an open letter to President Obama asking for clarity and definitive answer on — on censorship of the media. Now, I’m wondering. I am just wondering if somebody along the line did not leak my op-ed and the White House heard of it coming and they want to preempt its publication.”

That’s the Wall Street Journal – Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda rag – that Limbaugh is accusing of sabotaging his op-ed.

“And outta nowhere, out of nowhere, on Fox, some spokesman says Obama’s not even considering it? Why now? I mean that didn’t come up at the housing meeting today. It didn’t come up in Denver yesterday. It hasn’t come up on Air Force One. Where did it come up from? I didn’t tell anyone. I mean, I told, you know, a couple friends that I was going to write this thing. It’s fascinating stuff going on there. The intrigue, ladies and gentlemen.”

That’s Fox News – Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda cable net – that Limbaugh is accusing of invading his mind.

The only problem with this exhibition of ego gone wild is that the issue of the Fairness Doctrine has been coming up for weeks. It has been written about in numerous conservative publications and web sites (see Human Events and World Net Daily). Robert Gibbs, the President’s Press Secretary, has taken questions about it in White House briefings – TWICE. It seems to be the most talked about issue in the media other than the Stimulus Bill. Just ask Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and even Rush Limbaugh. Yet Limbaugh says that it hasn’t come up, and some unseen enemy with access to his dementia is leaking his brain droppings to Fox News and the White House. The dark forces are descending upon him even as he laments that he must refrain from speaking it aloud:

“I’m reluctant to talk about this, because I don’t want to sound like a victim. I don’t want to sound like, ‘They’re coming after me! They’re coming after me! (crying).’ But they’re going after any area there is dissent.”

For a guy who doesn’t want to sound like a victim, he sure seems to be focusing a lot on how the world is conspiring against him.


Racist New York Post Continues A Murdoch Theme

In today’s New York Post, and on their website, is a cartoon that shows two cops shooting an ape and saying “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” I’m not going to help the Post out by linking to it. You can find it on your own if you’re interested. But here’s my response:

New York Post Parody

I suppose there will be apologists for the Post who will deny the obvious racist intent, but it’s hard to find another interpretation when the Stimulus Bill is so closely associated with President Obama and the cartoon depicts the author as a dead ape. In the best light, it is still an overtly hostile response to the serious issues facing our nation.

It is not however the first time a Rupert Murdoch property “joked” about assassinating Obama. Last year Fox News contributor Liz Trotta said:

“…and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh… Obama … well, both if we could.”

Very funny, huh? And then there was the time Bill O’Reilly declared that he didn’t want to “lynch” Michelle Obama. That was considerate of him.

Bill O'Reilly's Lynching Party

This recurring theme of racism and violence directed at the President and his family is just more proof that News Corp is not a legitimate news enterprise and should not be taken seriously or supported by consumers.


Bill O’Reilly Can’t Get No Respect

In a segment preposterously misnamed “Reality Check,” Bill O’Reilly has once again tread on territory that only highlights his hypocrisy and dishonesty.

For months O’Reilly has berated General Electric and its CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, for the poor performance of the stock. O’Reilly, with an undisguised disgust, asserts that Immelt is a “despicable human being” who should not be running any business due to his incompetence. But O’Reilly conveniently neglects to mention that News Corp, the parent of his employer, Fox News, has performed even worse in the stock market, presumably placing Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes lower on the scale of competence than Immelt. We already know they are more despicable.

Yesterday, O’Reilly attacked GE and Immelt again, citing a Barron’s article with the results of their survey of the 100 Most Respected Companies in the World. The article noted that GE had slipped from its top 10 position in each of the last four years (#1 in 2005), to #43 this year. O’Reilly summarizes saying…

“In short, Barron’s is saying Immelt is a disaster. But the fact that man has remained in his position for eight years says our financial system is rigged and Americans should be very wary about buying stocks in this environment.”

Actually, Barron’s isn’t saying anything. It is a survey of the opinions of money managers, most of whom have been severely burned by the recent market collapse. Even so, if Immelt is a disaster for placing his company at #43 out of 100 companies worldwide (not bad, really), what does that make Murdoch and Ailes for not making the list at all? It certainly makes O’Reilly a propagator of misinformation for failing to tell the whole story.

Perhaps worse than O’Reilly’s faulty reporting is his admonition that Americans “be very wary about buying stocks.” Not that that isn’t always safe advice, but O’Reilly is associating it with what he calls a “rigged” system. He is using fear to dissuade the folks from investing in an already troubled market. The problem here is not whether his financial analysis is sound, it is his hypocrisy. He often assails others for bad-mouthing America, which he asserts will do harm to the nation. But he doesn’t have any problem with his own rhetorical assault, which if heeded, could worsen or prolong our current economic crisis.

Why does Bill O’Reilly hate America? Maybe because most of the country has no respect for him whatsoever.

Update: Immelt has declined to take bonuses for 2008 due to the performance of the company. I wonder if Murdoch or Ailes will do the same.


Who Wants To Be Bipartisan?

Who Wants To Be BipartisanFor the past week, Congress has been embroiled in a debate over solutions to the nation’s current economic crisis. Hundreds of proposals for the Stimulus Bill have been considered, from tax cuts to infrastructure spending to mortgage relief to banking reform. But to hear the media tell it, the most pressing issue in Washington was whether the administration could achieve the fabled goal of bipartisanship.

But who really wants to be bipartisan?

The short answer to that question is “the losers.” The minority in Congress wants desperately to wield some measure of influence over legislation and policy. The problem for them is that they didn’t earn it at the ballot box. The American people, in overwhelming numbers, elected Democrats to Congress and the White House. They could have voted for Republicans but, after listening to both sides, expressed a distinct preference for Democratic candidates and solutions. Consequently, the pursuit of bipartisanship by Democrats is an outright betrayal of the will of the people.

The idiocy of elevating bipartisanship as a goal unto itself is a fabrication conceived by Republicans and the right-wing dominated press. It is a battlefield that the minority party prefers because they can control it. All they have to do is enforce party discipline, instruct their members to vote against the majority, and then claim to be the victims of a partisan process that they themselves contrived.

The media goes along with this deceit for reasons of their own. For one, it produces the sort of drama they relish for boosting ratings. For another, they use it to defend themselves from false right-wing criticisms that they are a liberal leaning institution (though they never seem bothered by liberals who complain that they lean to the right). So in pursuit of controversy, reporters re-frame the debate from the substance of the bill to a manufactured desire for unity – a confounding unity of programs of the popularly elected majority with those of the recently rejected minority.

Throughout this process, it should be noted, the definition of bipartisanship has congealed into a rather useless, and perhaps harmful, mush. To be productively bipartisan would be to incorporate ideas from both sides. But what has evolved is more of a stew wherein everything is blended together until it is unrecognizable and ineffective. It’s as if a disagreement over whether to order some Japanese take-out or a bucket of chicken resulted in picking up some Kentucky Fried Sushi. Mmmm. That’s what Congress is doing and it’s going to make a lot of people sick.

Compromise, in and of itself, is not necessarily a desirable goal. Especially if one side is intent only on sabotaging the other. After all of the concessions that Democrats made on the Stimulus Bill, in the hopes of appealing to Republicans, the Republicans still stiffed Democrats, providing only three votes. Nonetheless, Republicans succeeded in diluting the bill, increasing the odds that it will fail – a result they favor as it would help them politically, albeit at the expense of millions of suffering citizens. This is both unconscionably uncaring and an affront to democracy. Americans are entitled to the government they elected, not one that is held hostage by parliamentary shenanigans.

To be sure, Barack Obama and his administration contributed to the frenzied discussion of bipartisanship. It has been a priority for them that goes back to the campaign. But they seem to have learned their lesson, as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel admitted that the White House placed an over-emphasis on process and may have neglected reinforcing the message. Message discipline is more important than ever in the modern media environment that will pervert and distort events and intentions if left to their own devices.

The self-serving maneuvering of Republicans, however, is almost never reported by the media. So when a bill is passed with a massive majority (House: 246-183; Senate: 60-38), the media still describes it as a “Bipartisan Bust,” rather than an historic legislative victory. Every headline that says that the bill was passed along party lines fails to to make clear that one party just happens to far outnumber the other due to the voters preference.

The negative framing of these stories is purposefully at odds with the public who continue to support the Democratic program. Americans deserve more from the press. We deserve reporting that addresses issues substantively, rather than trivialized by shallow, political, pseudo-analysis. It is long past time for the press to honestly portray bipartisanship as nothing more than a partisan tactic to delay and obstruct the will of the people.


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Are Artists Real People?

Believe it or not, there are actually living relics of the Dark Ages who have the audacity to publicly wonder as to whether artists are real people. One of them is Georgia’s Republican Congressman Jack Kingston who, addressing what he felt were wasteful provisions of the stimulus bill, said the following:

“We have real people out of work right now and putting $50 million in the NEA and pretending that’s going to save jobs as opposed to putting $50 million in a road project is disingenuous.”

Someone needs to tell Rep. Kingston that some of the real people who are out of work are artists, and that artists are more than the celebrities whose fame creates thousands of jobs. They are people who write textbooks as well as novels. They design ads for local businesses to help them to prosper. They create products in every industrial field, which puts other people to work manufacturing them. What’s more, some of those who are out of work are real people who have labored in jobs that support the arts like electricians, caterers, carpenters, truck drivers, seamstresses, ushers, janitors, printers, and accountants.

Arts = JobsKingston should surf over to the web site of AmericansForTheArts.org, where he would learn that 5.7 million people are employed in the arts; that the arts occupy a $166 billion chunk of our economy; that the arts generate almost $30 billion in taxes.

Kingston might then be able to figure out that $50 million is a pretty cheap way of putting millions of real people to work and boosting local economies across the country. Then he could tell his pal Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to stop asking stupid questions like this one:

“…what does $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts have to do with creating jobs in Indiana?”

The stimulus bill, as passed by the House, contained the NEA grant. In the Senate, however, it was removed by an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that lumped arts funding in with a bunch of other projects. The amendment passed 73-24 with the votes of some supposedly art-friendly members such as Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Bob Casey, and Russ Feingold. It stipulated that…

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project.

At this point I think it would be appropriate to note that Coburn’s daughter, Sarah, is a budding opera singer. She will be opening in November at the Los Angeles Opera playing in Handel’s “Tamerlano” opposite Placido Domingo. The LA Opera has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NEA over the years, but today, like so many arts enterprises, they are in dire straits. Domingo, the Opera’s general director, deferred his salary to reduce costs. Last month they announced that they would have to…

“…lay off 17 employees, stage fewer performances and reduce its operating budget by a quarter to cope with falling donations and reduced endowment income.”

For now, Tamerlano is still on the Opera’s calendar. But by November it may be a different story. I’m sure the Senator’s daughter/diva will be fine. I’m not so sure that the same can be said of the workers laid off by this facility, or hundreds of others – to say nothing of the related workers and small businesses that depend on these venues and other artistic enterprises. They number in the millions and, contrary to the insensitive blathering of Pence, Coburn, and Kingston, they are real people.

Update: Arts Recovery Funds Restored in Economic Stimulus Bill [Woo hoo]


Confirmed: Fox News Is The PR Arm Of The Republican Party

As if it weren’t already abundantly clear, Fox News has generously demonstrated just how intertwined they are with the Republican Party. This item from Media Matters about the stimulus bill requires no further commentary from me:

Fox News / Republican PRIn tracking how and when the bill purportedly ‘grew,’ [Fox News host Jon] Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods. However, all of the sources and cost figures Scott cited, as well as the accompanying on-screen text, were also contained in a February 10 press release issued by the Senate Republican Communications Center. One on-screen graphic during the segment even repeated a typo from the GOP document, further confirming that Scott was simply reading from a Republican press release.

Wow!

Update 02/11/09: Jon Scott issued an apology on today’s program. However, he only apologized for the typo. He didn’t say anything about the fact that the whole segment was him reading from a Republican press release and presenting it as if it were independently produced news.

Scott and Fox News actually seem to believe that the problem here is an incorrect date and not that a so-called news enterprise is acting as the broadcast press agency for Republican Party propaganda.

Double Wow!


Bill Sammon Of Fox News Pimps Republican Press

One of the most visible faces on Fox News is Bill Sammon. He is the Washington, D.C., deputy managing editor and is prominent on Fox broadcasts throughout the news day. His senior post places him at the most high profile events, particularly at the White House.

Yesterday he covered Barack Obama’s first prime time press conference, and today he published his observations in an article on the Fox News website. The most significant revelations Sammon drew from the event appear to be related to the press pool’s guest list and the seating chart. Here is how Sammon described the game of political chairs:

“He seated a left-wing radio host in the coveted front row. He called on a liberal blogger from the Huffington Post. He even brought far-left columnist Helen Thomas out of the wilderness and let her ruminate about ‘so-called terrorists.’ […] Clearly, President Obama was making a point of showing deference to the Left at his first prime-time press conference.”

Clearly? I wonder if Sammon is just perturbed that the “coveted front row” was no longer reserved for right-wing media elitists like himself. Perhaps Ed Schultz took his seat. Or maybe he thinks that he would have asked a better question than Sam Stein of the Huffington Post (the first online journalist ever called on at a presidential presser). No doubt Sammon would have asked something important like, “Mr. President, how come I didn’t get a seat in the front row?” And how petty do you have to be to whine about Helen Thomas, the 88 year-old dean of the Washington press corps, getting to ask a question of the tenth president she’s covered in her unparalleled career?

Sammon has the nerve to describe this article as an analysis of the press conference. But in over 500 words he never addresses a single subject touched on by the press or the President. He is consumed with the layout of the room and its occupants. Of particular concern is the ideology of the gathered reporters. Unfortunately, all his squinted eyes can see are liberals for miles and miles.

Sammon asserts that George Bush would never have allowed a right-wing partisan into the press room. Someone should introduce Sammon to Jeff Gannon, who was given press credentials by Bush despite being a radical rightist who wasn’t even a reporter. And if Sammon had bothered to peruse the room yesterday, he would have seen John Gizzi of the uber-conservative Human Events. And had he done some research, he would have learned that there was a seat reserved for a reporter from conservative Salem Radio – right in the front row – who never even bothered to show up.

But seriously, what should we expect from this hack? Before his stint with Fox, he was the White House correspondent for the Moonie Washington Times. And he is the author of these brazenly partisan books:

  • At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
  • Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the White House
  • Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias and the Bush Haters
  • Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media.
  • The Evangelical President: George Bush’s Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World

That’s a pretty one-sided collection of prose. And now he is one of the top editorial decision makers for a so-called news network. His position is not one of commentary, like Sean Hannity. He is supposedly a journalist and a practitioner of hard news. Fox CEO, Roger Ailes, often insists that…

“…it’s a mistake to look at Fox News Channel’s primetime opinion shows and say they represent the channel’s journalism.”

Mr Ailes is partly correct. He just needs to expand this comment to say that it’s a mistake to look at anything on Fox News and say it represents journalism. The fact that Sammon holds a senior position as an editor shows that Fox has dropped all pretense of being a news provider. They can no longer claim that it’s just the night time guys who dabble in opinion. Sammon’s hackery is just as biased as anything that Hannity spits out.


Fox News Lies About Census Coverage

When Barack Obama nominated Republican Senator Judd Gregg to be Commerce Secretary, there was a well deserved outcry from Democrats and minority advocates. This is a man who twice voted to eliminate the cabinet position he now hopes to occupy.

Amongst the responsibilities of the Commerce Secretary is the Bureau of the Census. The prospect of having a far-right Republican running an agency for which he has shown contempt spurred the Obama administration to announce that the Director of the Census would work closely with the White House. Now, that announcement has sparked complaints from Republicans, who accused the President of politicizing the Census.

There are plenty of reasons to regard these accusations with ridicule. First of all, the Census has always been political. Any process that determines the party apportionment in Congress is going to have partisan ramifications. George Bush installed the manager of his presidential campaign, Don Evans, as his Commerce Secretary. Would anyone be foolish enough to assert that that wasn’t political?

Fox News, however, takes hypocrisy to new levels. Bill Sammon, Deputy Managing Editor for Fox, reported today on the move to have the Census be overseen by the White House. Predictably, he demeaned the proposal as a Democratic power grab. Then he went on to brag that only Fox News was reporting this critical story. He specifically said that he had checked for other news reports and found none.

Well, apparently he didn’t check ABC or MSNBC or CNN or the Washington Post or the New York Times.

It’s bad enough that Fox is misreporting this story on a substantive basis; that they fail to provide context or balance by showing what previous administrations have done; and that they load up their broadcast with an ignorance-fueled outrage. Do they also have to demonstrate such deliberately shoddy research skills so that they can pretend to be a lonely clarion for their pseudo-truths?

Watch for this issue to consume more and more airtime at Fox News. After the Sammon report, anchor Martha MacCallum and chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle repeated the boast. They are already running promos on the subject for Bret Baier’s Special Report. This will be Fox’s first official, post-inaugural disinformation campaign. They are now intent on doing to President Obama what they did to candidate Obama with Rev. Wright, Bill Ayres, ACORN, and the rest of their phony smears.

Fox is fortifying their position with sustained attacks from Glenn Beck to Bill O’Reilly to Sean Hannity, in support of their colleagues on the “news” team. Enough of the electorate was wise to the Fox propaganda assault last November to produce an Obama victory. We can only hope that people continue to pay attention and recognize lies when they hear them.