Sure enough, Sen. Chris Bond (R-Mo.) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees, insisted that Brennan never specifically told them the FBI would Mirandize Abdulmutallab. “If he had I would [have] told him the Administration was making a mistake,” Bond said. The entire Republican leadership, including fact-averse Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) echoed Bond’s claims in one form or another. Apparently these men, who claim leadership on national security, know less about FBI procedure than the average movie-goer. Obviously the FBI Mirandizes suspects in their custody.
Its because while we have serious issues in this country, people covering up murder by death penalty, health care reform, climate change, unemployment, etc, our mainstream media would rather run stories about whether the President is playing golf or basketball enough with women. What makes it so bad is that they KNOW this isn't a real story. Take Jake Tapper for example.
On one level, this is much ado about nothing.
That is the first sentence in the 6th graph of his posting. Unfortunately he writes 19 or so grafs after that to prove how much this admittedly non story is still a story if you really stretch it far enough.
I swear I can't wait for some of these idiots in the media to lose their jobs and have to find something else to do because right now they are making their profession into a joke.
Who would have imagine a few months ago that Senator Arlen Specter would be on a Sunday show, selling the public option and debunking health care myths coming off like a Dirty Fuckin Hippie?
Although I have my problems with Jake Tapper, he did a pretty good job of pushing back on Orrin Hatches' bull this morning.
It looks like the White House might be bringing back the fight the smears site for health care reform after all.
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
It seems like the administration is going to be building up a database of lies and misinformation so maybe, just maybe, we will actually have a tool from the Obama administration to correct the record during the month of August. I can hope at least can't I?
That is perhaps the most important line amongst others in OMB Director Peter Orszag's letter about the new CBO study on the IMAC proposal. Of course he had to respond to the study in the first place because GOPolitico ran a story with the screaming headline "CBO deals new blow to health plan". But if the point was never to reach long term savings with the IMAC proposal then in reality its not a big blow at all. The point was cost containment, not savings.
But then you have Jake Tapper doing a story this morning and although he links to Orszag's and quotes from it, he omits the most important sentence in the letter in his analysis and he makes it out to be a food fight pitting Orszag against OMB director Doug Elmendorf. I asked Tapper about this omission on twitter and his response was.
i have only heard WH discuss IMAC in terms of cost containment
Now that, to me, sounds like Tapper is calling Peter Orszag a liar. To be honest with you I don't have a problem with it if that's what he is doing. However it would seem to me that he should have had the courage to say that in the post itself rather than ignore Orszag's statement in his analysis. Don't get me wrong, he did link to the letter so people were free to go and read the letter themselves. However we all know that its rare for people to go to the source material. They rely on the journalist to provide them with the truth. And it would seem in this situation that because Tapper was predisposed to believe that Orszag wasn't being truthful he omitted pretty much the most important sentence in that letter from his analysis.
Here is what I feel are the most important parts of the letter.
CBO noted that this type of approach could lead to significant long-term savings in federal spending on health care and that the available evidence implies that a substantial share of spending on health care contributes little, if anything, to the overall health of the nation. This supports what President Obama has said all along: we can reduce waste and unnecessary spending without reducing quality of care and benefits.
In part because legislation under consideration already includes substantial savings in Medicare over the next decade, CBO found modest additional medium-term savings from this proposal -- $2 billion over 10 years. The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. (Indeed, under the Administration’s approach, the IMAC system would not even begin to make recommendations until 2015.) Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term. In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset.
With regard to the long-term impact, CBO suggested that the proposal, with several specific tweaks that would strengthen its operations, could generate significant savings. (The potential modifications included items such as providing mandatory funding for the council, rather than having the council rely on the annual appropriations cycle, and requiring independent verification of the expected reductions in program spending rather than relying only on the Medicare actuaries for such verification, along with other suggestions, such as including an across-the-board reduction in payments as a fallback mechanism if the council did not produce proposals that generated adequate savings.) And if you look back at recent history, one can see why an empowered advisory council would be useful. For example, for the better part of this decade, MedPAC has recommended reducing overpayments to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage plans – to equate those payments with the cost of covering the same beneficiary under traditional Medicare. Yet, nothing happened, costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. We can’t afford that type of inertia.
Basically what it boils down to is Orszag is saying "move along folks, nothing to see here" in response to the CBO study. Now the truth is for all I know Orzag is full of it and the CBO analysis really IS a huge blow to health care reform. But it would be nice if a journalist who was skeptical of Orszag statement was either earnest enough or brave enough to put that in their post on the subject rather than avoiding it all together.
Jake Tapper has a very good write up on President Obama's trip to Ghana. Especially this part about his visit to the "door of no return":
At one point in his family’s tour of the facility, the guide showed them the Door of No Return, through which slaves would pass, never to return to Africa again. Mr. Obama had his arm around his 8-year-old daughter Sasha, while First Lady Michelle Obama held hands with 11-year-old Malia. In remarks to children during February’s celebration of black history month, the First Lady noted that “African American slaves helped to build this house” in which the first African-American First Family of the United States now resides.
The president said today that “symbolically to be able to come back with my family, with Michelle and our children and see the portal thru which the Diaspora began -- but also to be able to come back here in celebration with the people of Ghana of the extraordinary progress that we’ve made because of the courage of so many black and white to abolish slavery and ultimately win the civil rights for all people -- I think is, is, a source of hope.”
The president seemed to be overcome with emotion as his made these remarks, pausing to collect his composure.
“It reminds us that as bad as history can be, it’s also possible to overcome,” he said.
How embarrassing should it be for a member of the mainstream media to be called out by name on right wing radio as someone who will easily fall for and spread their propaganda? Just ask Jake Tapper.
Step 2: Right-Wing Pressures White House Reporters To Take Up Its Attack
After the story was cooked up by right-wing hate radio, it was peddled to members of the White House press corps, at least one of whom took the bait. On his radio show on Friday, right-wing talker Mark Levin discussed Lauria’s claims against Obama, and then called on his listeners to pressure the White House press corps — specifically ABC’s Jake Tapper — to report the story:
LEVIN: Somebody needs to pursue what’s going on in the White House behind the scenes! And stop playing games and making nice! American citizens — whatever walk of life they’re in — should not be threatened by the White House! Should not be told we’re going to drag you through the mud with the White House press corps! So confident is the White House that they have the White House press corps wrapped around their little finger! Maybe Jake Tapper will take a look at this. Ask that doofus — Gibbs.
Jake Tapper is now official the go to guy for the wingnutosphere. I can only imagine how proud that makes him.
President Obama did a fantastic job in his press conference last night. Here are a few choice excerpts and I will follow up with some key points:
Jake Tapper tries to get President Obama to admit that the Bush Administration sanctioned torture which would then cause a feeding frenzy over the issue but Obama doesn't fall into the trap.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. You've said in the past that waterboarding, in your opinion, is torture. Torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?
Obama: What I've said -- and I will repeat -- is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.
I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.
I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "We don't torture," when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.
And then the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.
Mark Knoller tries to carry water for Dick Cheney but President Obama ain't having it.
Question: Thank you, sir. Let me follow up, if I may, on Jake's question. Did you read the documents recently referred to by former Vice President Cheney and others saying that the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" not only protected the nation but saved lives?
And if part of the United States were under imminent threat, could you envision yourself ever authorizing the use of those enhanced interrogation techniques?
Obama: I have read the documents. Now they have not been officially declassified and released. And so I don't want to go to the details of them. But here's what I can tell you, that the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques, which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques, doesn't answer the core question.
Which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?
Chip Reid asks about Arlen Specter switching parties but President Obama is able to transition in his answer to talking about how bipartisanship should be defined between himself and the GOP. I think his point about compromise was huge because its something that's hardly ever taken into account on cable news.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. On Senator Specter's switch to the Democratic Party, you said you were thrilled; I guess nobody should be surprised about that.
But how big a deal is this, really? Some Republicans say it is huge. They believe it's a game-changer. They say that, if you get the 60 votes in the Senate, that you will be able to ride roughshod over any opposition and that we're on the verge of, as one Republican put it, "one-party rule."
Do you see it that way? And, also, what do you think his switch says about the state of the Republican Party?
Obama: Well, first of all, I think very highly of Arlen Specter. I think he's got a record of legislative accomplishment that is as good as any member of the Senate.
And I think he's always had a strong independent streak. I think that was true when he was a Republican; I think that will be true when he's a Democrat.
He was very blunt in saying I couldn't count on him to march lockstep on every single issue. And so he's going to still have strong opinions, as many Democrats in the Senate do.
I've been there. It turns out, all the senators have very strong opinions. And I don't think that's going to change.
I do think that having Arlen Specter in the Democratic caucus will liberate him to cooperate on critical issues, like health care, like infrastructure and job creation, areas where his inclinations were to work with us, but he was feeling pressure not to.
And I think the vote on the recovery act was a classic example. Ultimately, he thought that was the right thing to do. And he was fiercely berated within his own party at the time for having taken what I consider to be a very sensible step. So -- so I think it's, overall, positive.
Now, I am under no illusions that suddenly I'm going to have a rubber-stamp Senate. I've got Democrats who don't agree with me on everything, and that's how it should be.
Congress is a co-equal branch of government. Every senator who's there, whether I agree with them or disagree with them, I think truly believes that they are doing their absolute best to represent their constituencies.
And we've got regional differences, and we've got some parts of the country that are affected differently by certain policies. And those have to be respected, and there's going to have to be compromise and give-and-take on all of these issues.
I do think that, to my Republican friends, I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine. I can't sort of define bipartisanship as simply being willing to accept certain theories of theirs that we tried for eight years and didn't work and the American people voted to change.
But there are a whole host of areas where we can work together. And I've said this to people like Mitch McConnell. I said, look, on health care reform, you may not agree with me that I -- we should have a public plan. That may be philosophically just too much for you to swallow.
On the other hand, there are some areas like reducing the costs of medical malpractice insurance where you do agree with me. If I'm taking some of your ideas and giving you credit for good ideas, the fact that you didn't get 100 percent can't be a reason every single time to oppose my position.
And if that is how bipartisanship is defined, a situation in which basically, wherever there are philosophical differences, I have to simply go along with ideas that have been rejected by the American people in a historic election, you know, we're probably not going to make progress.
If, on the other hand, the definition is that we're open to each other's ideas, there are going to be differences, the majority will probably be determinative when it comes to resolving just hard, core differences that we can't resolve, but there is a whole host of other areas where we can work together, then I think we can make progress.
Ed Henry asks a classic Republican talking point question on abortion. President Obama turns the talking point on its head.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. In a couple of weeks, you're going to be giving the commencement at Notre Dame. And, as you know, this has caused a lot of controversy among Catholics who are opposed to your position on abortion.
As a candidate, you vowed that one of the very things you wanted to do was sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which, as you know, would eliminate federal, state and local restrictions on abortion. And at that it was above -- quote, "above my pay grade."
Now that you've been president for 100 days, obviously, your pay grade is a little higher than when you were a senator.
(LAUGHTER)
Do you still hope that Congress quickly sends you the Freedom of Choice Act so you can sign it?
Obama: You know, the -- my view on -- on abortion, I think, has been very consistent. I think abortion is a moral issue and an ethical issue.
I think that those who are pro-choice make a mistake when they -- if they suggest -- and I don't want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women's freedom and that there's no other considerations. I think, look, this is an issue that people have to wrestle with and families and individual women have to wrestle with.
The reason I'm pro-choice is because I don't think women take that -- that position casually. I think that they struggle with these decisions each and every day. And I think they are in a better position to make these decisions ultimately than members of Congress or a president of the United States, in consultation with their families, with their doctors, with their doctors, with their clergy.
So -- so that has been my consistent position. The other thing that I said consistently during the campaign is I would like to reduce the number of unwanted presidencies that result in women feeling compelled to get an abortion, or at least considering getting an abortion, particularly if we can reduce the number of teen pregnancies, which has started to spike up again.
And so I've got a task force within the Domestic Policy Council in the West Wing of the White House that is working with groups both in the pro-choice camp and in the pro-life camp, to see if we can arrive at some consensus on that.
Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not highest legislative priority. I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that's -- that's where I'm going to focus.
BET gets a question. How's that for change? LOL
Question: Thank you, Mr. President.
As the entire nation tries to climb out of this deep recession, in communities of color, the circumstances are far worse. The black unemployment rate, as you know, is in the double digits. And in New York City, for example, the black unemployment rate for men is near 50 percent.
My question to you tonight is given this unique and desperate circumstance, what specific policies can you point to that will target these communities and what's the timetable for us to see tangible results?
Obama: Well, keep in mind that every step we're taking is designed to help all people. But, folks who are most vulnerable are most likely to be helped because they need the most help.
So when we passed the Recovery Act, for example, and we put in place provisions that would extend unemployment insurance or allow you to keep your health insurance even if you've lost your job, that probably disproportionately impacted those communities that had lost their jobs. And unfortunately, the African-American community and the Latino community are probably overrepresented in those ranks.
When we put in place additional dollars for community health centers to ensure that people are still getting the help that they need, or we expand health insurance to millions more children through the Children's Health Insurance Program, again, those probably disproportionately impact African-American and Latino families simply because they're the ones who are most vulnerable. They have got higher rates of uninsured in their communities.
So my general approach is that if the economy is strong, that will lift all boats as long as it is also supported by, for example, strategies around college affordability and job training, tax cuts for working families as opposed to the wealthiest that level the playing field and ensure bottom-up economic growth.
And I'm confident that that will help the African-American community live out the American dream at the same time that it's helping communities all across the country.
I give Michael Scherer a hard time on a regular basis over at Swampland but I believe he had the question of the night. The question he asked about States Secrets is a major issue on progressive and liberal blogs and other media but you hardly ever hear the right talking about it so really this was just about the only question in the whole press conference which came from almost a purely left wing orientation. President Obama's answer probably didn't end the issue for civil libertarians but he at least made the case that he hasn't changed his mind about the need to reform the states secrets issue and that he is working to do that.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. During the campaign, you criticized President Bush's use of the state secrets privilege, but U.S. attorneys have continued to argue the Bush position in three cases in court. How exactly does your view of state secrets differ from President Bush's? And do you believe presidents should be able to derail entire lawsuits about warrantless wiretapping or rendition if classified information is involved?
Obama: I actually think that the state secret doctrine should be modified. I think right now it's overbroad.
But keep in mind what happens, is we come in to office. We're in for a week, and suddenly we've got a court filing that's coming up. And so we don't have the time to effectively think through, what exactly should an overarching reform of that doctrine take? We've got to respond to the immediate case in front of us.
There -- I think it is appropriate to say that there are going to be cases in which national security interests are genuinely at stake and that you can't litigate without revealing covert activities or classified information that would genuinely compromise our safety.
But searching for ways to redact, to carve out certain cases, to see what can be done so that a judge in chambers can review information without it being in open court, you know, there should be some additional tools so that it's not such a blunt instrument.
And we're interested in pursuing that. I know that Eric Holder and Greg Craig, my White House counsel, and others are working on that as we speak.
My observations.
I think one of the major things that President Obama did was take the opportunity to swat down wingnut memes in the course of answering the questions. He addressed the "pro abortionist" meme, the "socialist" meme, the "he's doing too much" meme, and the "torture made us safe" meme. I think its important to push back on these false cannards just as he did during the campaign season so that reasonable people who watch FoxNews will hear him say out of his own mouth that the stuff they have heard and read in emails aren't true.
Its nothing new but just seeing President Obama answer each question thoughtfully and have a well informed answer to every question is just so impressive to me. It shows that he is on top of everything and that inspires confidence.
Even when he was clearly being baited by Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd and Ed Henry, President Obama stayed calm and didn't allow himself to show any emotion. Could you imagine John McCain trying to answer those questions?
I still can't believe Fox though it was a good idea not to carry the presser.
I expect that his approval numbers will get a bump for the next few weeks or so.
I have been watching Morning Joe and have been posting on Swampland at TIME this morning and I just want to know, where are the pool reports. You see the WingNut tools of destruction (the RNC, FoxNews, Matt Drudge, Jake Tapper, Michael Scherer, and Joe Scarborough) are hell bent on making David Axlerod's missstatement about PEOTUS Barack Obama meeting with Governer Rod Blagojevich a major news story and perhaps even a scandal. But excuse me, isn't there a pool reporter going everywhere with Barack Obama these days?
And hasn't that pool reporter generated such riveting news that we now know when and where and how long our President elects gets his pilates on? Or via the jerk Ben Smith, how many times our President elected has declined to attend church since election day? So its simple folks, if the media really want to prove Obama is lying, just produce the pool report where he met with Blago. If not I think we should ALL be handing them a big cup of STFU!
There is one thing that is going unspoken here. Whether this will be or won't be an issue for Barack Obama going forward will lie directly with the press. Either they can choose to cover this non issue relentlessly or they can actually focus on stuff that matters. And thats the point. Jake Tapper/Drudge are trying like hell to make it seem like Obama was lying yesterday when he said he didn't meet with Blagovich because of something David Axlerod said on FoxNews some weeks ago. But if you go to the tape Axlerod himself said he hadn't talked to PEOTUS Obama about the Senate seat and didn't know who he preferred right before he made the comment that Obama had met with Blagojevich. If you want to see the full exchange that Tapper nor Drudge nor FoxNews themselves will show here it is. . Axlerod on Fox . Mind you EVERYTHING released Tuesday in reference to the case against Blago shows that he was PISSED that Obama wouldn't pony up. So imagine this for a moment, lets say a GOOD journalist reads the indictment, sees that Blago calls Obama a mutherphucker for not being willing to give him anything but appreciation in exchange for naming Valerie Jarrett to the Senate seat. Subsequently Valerie Jarrett removes her name from consideration and joins Obama's staff in the White House. A reasonable person would take that to mean that Obama said if there was going to be some kind of pay to play scheme he wasn't going to be involved and he would bring her to Washington with him. So lets go REAL worst case scenario. We find out Obama met with Blago, Obama said he wasn't playing ball, to prove it Obama gives Jarrett a job himself. So where would the "he did or he didn't" meet with Blago register on the richter scale in that scenario to the average person? Hell most of them would think he was a HERO for saying no and not playing ball. But instead the triumverate of Drudge Tapper Scherer and I am POSITIVE soon to be Jonathan Martin from Politico, have decided that Axlerod talking on FoxNews is whats MOST important about this story so I guess it is huh?
Now here is the relevant factor when judging if this was good journalism or not, there is a frikkin pool reporter with Obama around the clock these days, thus Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin of Politico fame's running post about Obama not attending church since the election. So how hard do you think it would have been for Tapper to go back and look to see the pool reports? But now because of Drudge to Tapper to of course Scherer this looks like somebody is lying or trying to hide something. Hell Mikey Scherer could have looked up those pool reports too, but he didn't. I mean shit do you think he wanted to kill his own story gifted to him by Tapper? Of course not.
Lets, for a moment, take as truth that Obama met with Blago. Here is what the imperical evidence would show in my opinion.
1. Obama meets with Blago to recommend Valerie Jarrett
2. Blago says he wants Obama to pay to play
3. Obama says thanks but no thanks.
4. Blago starts making threats about naming other people if Obama doesn't pony up
5. Obama says phuck you to Blago and names Valarie Jarrett to his White House Staff.
I mean its Blago's own words that tell us that Obama's people weren't playing ball.
ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that he is "struggling" financially and does "not want to be Governor for the next two years." ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that the consultants (Advisor B and another consultant are believed to be on the call at that time) are telling him that he has to "suck it up" for two years and do nothing and give this "motherfucker [the President-elect] his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him."
And we do know that he was referring to Valerie Jarrett. And we do know that she took her name out of consideration and joined Obama's WhiteHouse team. I am really anxious to see how Sean Hannity can twist those simple facts into a negative light. Its almost impossible. But of course he probably won't touch it because, well, they are FACTS. He and every other two bit talking head will just focus on the bogus "Obama's lying" meme without taking the next step of trying to explain WHY he might lie about talking to a guy when its pretty easy to find out whether he did or didn't and when he obviously refused to bow to Blago's demands.
On the other hand nobody in the media thought the outing of Valerie Plame, pretty much an act off treason if not cowardice, by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove was too much of a big deal. Nor did they think it a big deal that after Scooter Libby was thrown under the bus and was rightly tried and convicted that he never served a day in prison because George Bush decided to commute his sentence. Now people are STILL pissed about Bill Clinton pardoning Marc Rich because he was selling oil to Iran. But NOBODY is pissed that Bush and his cronies outed a woman who was tasked with helping keeping America safe. So you see the press has the power to decide what is relevant and what isn't and if the last few weeks is any indication all of a sudden the press are going to try to find their inner Sherlock Holmes now. Just like with Whitewater and Gennifer Flowersin the last Democratic presidency.
Now of course Jake Tapper, Joe Scarborough et all are now also trying to make an issue out off Obama campaigning for Blagojevich in 2006. Funny but I don't remember any of them waving their finger at the Republicans who made Tom Delay their leader, or a those Senators who gave, convicted of 7 felonies, Ted "Hulk" Stevens. Of course they also didn't point out that Blago never did any campaign appearance for Obama, nor did he have a speech at the Democratic National Convention, or was he at Grant Park for the celebration after Barack Obama won. And finally of course they didn't point out that John McCain used Blagojevich in an attack ad and so EVERYBODY already knew the guy was under investigation.
Of course not, that would TOTALLY kill their whole guilty by assocication meme!
What I want to know is when any of those bastards will write a story about the many lies of George Bush. But I'm not holding my breath.
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