Kennedy Blocks Media

Or a Tempest In A Tea Pot or Much Ado About Nothing...
 
Greta: Caroline Kennedy, State Dept. get an 'F' in transparency | Off the Record | On the Record | Fox News:

...And it gets worse. At a reception for Ambassador Kennedy later in the day, she made brief remarks to the press, but then reporters were not allowed to ask questions. Yes, of course, over the years, Ambassador Kennedy and her family have been hounded by the media, who sometimes have been brutal and even mean, and never because she asked for it...

 In a related story...

A reporter covering Sarah Palin at a book signing on Thursday said that she and other members of the press were kept in a guarded room and prevented from talking to Palin and customers in the store... 

Weekly Idiot Quote Sampler

The 6 Worst Quotes From Republicans This Week : Political Moll

Screech Harpy At It Again

Ann Coulter: Still Racist:

Rightwing columnist Ann Coulter continued vilifying immigrants as criminals Wednesday in a column poking fun at people with “comically foreign” names...

Yellen Rebuffs Committee

Janet Yellen Shames Congress For Austerity, Being Terrible:

It looks like Janet Yellen will have no problem tackling one of Ben Bernanke's most important jobs: shaming Congress for ruining the economy.

Yellen reminded lawmakers of their sheer terribleness during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday about her nomination to replace Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve when his term ends in January. Republican senators moaned and groaned, as usual, about the Fed's extreme easy-money policies. Yellen reminded everybody that Congress has forced the Fed to act by constantly imposing harsh austerity measures on an economy still recovering from a financial crisis and deep recession...

More CBS Questions

What Is CBS Hiding? Who Is CBS Protecting at 60 Minutes? | Blog | Media Matters for America:

Journalism veterans and media observers continue to strike the same chord while launching a chorus of criticism at CBS News in recent days: The network needs to be transparent and explain exactly what happened with its botched Benghazi report, and start detailing how such an obviously flawed report made in onto the most-watched news program in America.

And yet it's silence from CBS, which is now stonewalling press inquiries, as well as the calls for an outside review of its Benghazi reporting. CBS' refusal to undergo a public examination in the wake of such a landmark blunder stands in stark contrast to how news organizations have previously dealt with black eyes; news organizations that once included CBS News...

Pay Attention, Stupid Liberals!

The so-called Democrats with CDS have already swarmed several sites, threatening everyone over supportin' another trianglulatin' Clinton-- yes, complete with fake Southernisms and rancid hillbilly, redneck swipes. (Obama is just so cool, dontcha know?). If you want a Democrat in the White House, Clinton is a sure thing. Anyone else is a maybe. So please go crawl up Nader's dress.

The Clinton vs. Warren fantasy: Why progressives shouldn’t get distracted - Salon.com:

Let me be clear: I’m Ready for Hillary – and for Elizabeth Warren, too. I think a 2016 Democratic presidential primary process that featured both women would be epic. I don’t expect to see it, but I don’t think it’s a disastrous prospect, a terrific idea or impossible. It’s November 2013. Almost anything can happen.

What interests me right now is the outsize reaction to Noam Scheiber’s New Republic piece on Warren as “Hillary’s nightmare.” It makes me think about something I realized back when disgruntled progressives were (briefly) making fretful noises about needing to find someone to challenge President Obama in a primary. Progressives are just way too invested in using the primary process every four years to get the country to take big leaps forward that probably could be better pursued in other ways...

Bill O Whines

Bill O'Reilly: Politics in America getting even more bitter | Talking Points | The O'Reilly Factor | Fox News:

...But there comes a point when people who hold strong beliefs have to make a decision. If the Republican Party remains divided, they'll be defeated in the midterm elections next year and lose the presidency in 2016.

The GOP situation is exacerbated word of the day "exacerbated" by the media. The liberal mainstream media which despises Republicans encourages the civil war. Talk radio and some on table news stoke the fires of conservative ideology by labeling people that compromise RINOs, Republicans In Names Only.

With President Obama on the ropes, Republicans have a huge opportunity right now but it looks like that opportunity may slip away.

And that's "The Memo."

Dems Fed-Up With GOP Filibusters?

Patrick Leahy Slams GOP For Blocking Another Nominee, Demands Filibuster Reform:

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Tuesday tore into Republicans for filibustering another one of President Barack Obama's judicial picks, and warned that Democrats are dangerously close to changing Senate rules to strip the minority of the power to block certain nominees.

"If the Republican caucus continues to abuse the filibuster rule and obstruct the president's fine nominees to the D.C. Circuit, then I believe ... a rules change should be in order," Leahy said on the Senate floor, just before Republicans blocked Nina Pillard's confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals...

Comment Of The Day: Palin As Quayle Edition

Palin Compares Federal Debt To Slavery - Dimwits We Have Heard On High - Esquire
Ed Tracey · Top Commenter · Pace University

And also Charlie: she "went there" in a taped tribute for Billy Graham's 95th birthday salute. She allowed that "My mom was raised Catholic, and she … was yearning for something more .... she became a Christian, led the rest of the family to Christ". I thought that was a thing of the past; with the entente between the evangelical fundies and the Bill Donoghues .... apparently not.

Lying Honkie Burns Black Voters

White guy wins after leading voters to believe he’s black | khou.com Houston:

Dave Wilson chuckles as he talks about his unorthodox political campaign.

"I'd always said it was a long shot," Wilson says. "No, I didn't expect to win."

Still, he figured he'd have fun running, because he was fed up with what he called "all the shenanigans" at the Houston Community College System. As a conservative white Republican running in a district whose voters are overwhelmingly black Democrats, the odds seemed overwhelmingly against him.

Then he came up with an idea, an advertising strategy that his opponent found "disgusting." If a white guy didn't have a chance in a mostly African-American district, Wilson would lead voters to think he's black...

Deceit. Funny ha-ha.

Klingon Wins Seat

Star Trek Did You Know A Klingon Won on Election Day?:

It may have gotten lost in the shuffle the other day, as the media focused on the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, but a Klingon was voted into office, too. John Hertzler – better known as J.G. Hertzler – won a two-year term to serve on the Town Board in Ulysses, New York, near Ithaca. Star Trek fans will recall that he played more than a half-dozen different roles across Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, making his greatest mark on the franchise in his recurring DS9 role as the Klingon general, Martok...

Comment Of The Day: CBS Benghazi Edition

Negative Effects From 60 Minutes' Failed Benghazi Story Continue | Blog | Media Matters for America

Wallace Bray• 3 hours ago

CBS News lost their credibility when they fired Dan Rather for telling the truth about GW Bush's military record. Now they have gone and hired former Security Advisor and former Secretary Of State under the Bush 2 administration Condoleezza Rice as a news correspondent. She looked the other way on intelligence information from more than 50 security sources from around the world months before 911 and was a major cheerleader in the illegal war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Howard K. Smith, Eric Sevareid and Douglas Edwards are all rolling over in their graves right now. If its truth telling you want you won't get it from any of the major media outlets. Wait you'll see. In a couple weeks they will still lie to us about a lone gunman in a schoolbook building that killed the 35th President of the United States Of America 50 years ago.

McCain vs. NSA

John McCain: Keith Alexander Should Resign As NSA Head:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is calling on Keith Alexander to resign as director of the National Security Agency...

The UnDoing Of Democracy

'Dollarocracy': How Special Interests Undermine Our Democracy | Money & Politics, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com:

...The United States has experienced fundamental changes that are dramatically detrimental to democracy. Voters’ ability to define political discourse has been so diminished that even decisive election results like Barack Obama’s in 2012 have little impact. That’s because powerful interests — freed to, in effect, buy elections, unhindered by downsized and diffused media that must rely on revenue from campaign ads — now set the rules of engagement. Those interests so dominate politics that the squabbling of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, is a sideshow to the great theater of plutocracy and plunder. This is not democracy. This is dollarocracy...

States Rights For Reefer

Bipartisan Marijuana Bill Appears To Have One More Big Supporter In Its Corner: The NAACP:

A bipartisan bill advocating for states rights on marijuana appears to have one more big supporter in its corner.

Marijuana Majority said Saturday in an email that the NAACP's Board of Directors passed a resolution last month in support of H.R. 1523 -- the Respect States Marijuana Laws Act. Introduced in April by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the legislation is designed to protect both medical and recreational pot users from federal prosecution for following state laws...

The Daily Flashback: Skippy Church Edition

USATODAY.com - Democrats voted out of church because of their politics, members say:

Democrats voted out of church because of their politics, members say

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Some in Pastor Chan Chandler's flock wish he had a little less zeal for the GOP.

Members of the small East Waynesville Baptist Church say Chandler led an effort to kick out congregants who didn't support President Bush. Nine members were voted out at a Monday church meeting in this mountain town, about 120 miles west of Charlotte...

Weiner Rehab Begins

Anthony Weiner Comes Out Strong On Bill Maher | Firebrand Progressives:

...But on Friday night, during an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, an all but forgotten articulate, confident, and poised Anthony Weiner—the same Anthony Weiner many of us so fondly remember from his days in congress— sparred with fellow panelists GOPAC president David Avella and political scientistDr. Victoria DeFransceco Soto on the topic of Obamacare.

While I could use this space to quote and summarize the discussion and ensuing argument that took place during the exchange, nothing I say will paint as vivid of an image as simply watching the video. What I will say instead is that as I watched this, I realized two things: I am now even more saddened that Anthony Weiner fell so far from grace, and I’m not sure I would ever count him out. Time has a funny way of healing things, and in spite of all the bizarre comments and behavior that we saw and heard from him during the past year, he still has that fire that immediately endeared him in the hearts of so many progressives when he was in congress...

Tea Learning

Four years later, the Tea Party has learned nothing - Salon.com:

The Tea Party is no longer a brand-new movement in American politics. So, more than four years in, what do they appear to have learned? How about: nothing. And they seem to want it that way...

The Nut Didn't Fall Far From The Cruz Tree

Ted Cruz's Dad Declares God Is Pro Death Penalty:

Evangelical pastor Rafael Cruz, father of shutdown dramatist Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), served up a stemwinder this week, laying out God’s positions on the death penalty, guns in schools, gay marriage, communism and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), all in an impassioned 45 minutes...

The Daily Flashback: Skippy Vet Edition

Dan Rather is right | Research | Media Matters for America:

...Now, I realize the accepted Beltway media takeaway from CBS' National Guard controversy is supposed to be that the network was guilty of a colossal, historic newsroom blunder from which there is no possible defense or redemption. (Personally, I'll leave that category to the Judy Millers of the world.) But the dirty little secret that bloggers and mainstream journalists don't want to discuss is that Rather is right -- the National Guard story was true...