UPDATE: FIRST THINGS FIRST:
Today’s featured architect is Paul Revere Williams, a LEGEND IN ARCHITECTURE.
Photo and write up credit here
Wiki: Paul Revere Williams, FAIA (February 18, 1894 – January 23, 1980) was an American architect based in Los Angeles, California. He practiced largely in Southern California and designed the homes of numerous stars including Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Lon Chaney, and Charles Correll. He also designed many public and private buildings.[1][2]
Orphaned at the age of four, Williams was the only African American student in his elementary school. He studied at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design and at the Los Angeles branch of the New York Beaux-Arts Institute of Design Atelier, subsequently working as a landscape architect. He went on to attend the University of Southern California, School of Engineering, designing several residential buildings while still a student there. Williams became a certified architect in 1921, and the first certified African-American architect west of the Mississippi.
He married Della Mae Givens on June 27, 1917, at the First AME Church in Los Angeles. They had three children: Paul Revere Williams, Jr. (born and died June 30, 1925, buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles); Marilyn Frances Williams (born December 25, 1926); and Norma Lucille Williams (born September 18, 1928).
Theme Building at LA-X Los Angeles Intenational Airport was one of Willimas’ many building designs.
Black pastors group launches anti-Obama campaign around gay marriage
By Dan Merica, CNN
Washington (CNN) – A group of conservative black pastors are responding to President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage with what they say will be a national campaign aimed at rallying black Americans to rethink their overwhelming support of the President, though the group’s leader is offering few specifics about the effort.
The Rev. Williams Owens, who is president and founder of the Coalition of African-Americans Pastors and the leader of the campaign, has highlighted opposition to same-sex marriage among African-Americans. He calls this campaign “an effort to save the family.”
“The time has come for a broad-based assault against the powers that be that want to change our culture to one of men marrying men and women marrying women,” said Owens, in an interview Tuesday after the launch event at the National Press Club. “I am ashamed that the first black president chose this road, a disgraceful road.”
At the press conference, Owens was joined by five other black regional pastors and said there were 3,742 African-American pastors on board for the anti-Obama campaign.
When asked at the press conference for specifics about the campaign – funding, planned events and goals – Owens said only that the group’s first fundraiser will be on August 16 in Memphis, Tennessee. But Owens insisted that “we are going to go nationwide with our agenda just like the president has gone to Hollywood.”
In May, Obama announced on ABC News that he thought “same sex couples should be able to get married.” The president had previously said that he opposed gay marriage, but said in May that his views were personal and did not represent a policy change.
In a fiery Tuesday press conference at the press club, Owens said Obama was taking the black vote for granted and decried the idea of similarities between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement, an assertion made by the NAACP following Obama’s same-sex marriage support.
Owens has long been an opponent of gay marriage and consults with the National Organization for Marriage as a liaison to the black churches.
At the press conference, Owens said that Obama’s support of same-sex marriage tantamount to supporting child molestation.
……………………………..
Earlier this year, memos obtained by The Human Rights Campaign in a Maine civil actions suit revealed that NOM aims at making gay marriage a wedge issued “between gays and blacks,” according to the released confidential plans.
“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two key Democratic constituencies,” one NOM memo states. In light of the release, Brian Brown, president of NOM, said that he is proud of the group’s “strong record” on minority partnerships.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/31/black-pastors-group-launches-anti-obama-campaign-around-gay-marriage/
The Larger Question About Romney’s Taxes: Why?
Alec MacGillis
July 31, 2012 | 5:16 pm
Mitt Romney arrives back stateside and just like that, his refusal to release more than a year or two of tax returns is back in the news. Harry Reid is telling people that a big Bain Capital investor told him that Romney told him that he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years. OK, that sounds like something out of a junior-high cafeteria, but then again there’s also an easy way for Romney to knock it down. Which again raises the question: What can possibly be in the returns to make them so dicey to release? Lurking behind that question, though, is a related one that has gotten less attention: Why in the world did someone who has been running for president since late 2006 not years ago rid his personal finances of anything that could cause problems in a campaign—Swiss bank accounts, Cayman Island shelters, questionable IRAs, and whichever even more troublesome features lurk in the unreleased returns? After all, Romney is nothing if not a cautious, details-oriented fellow—this is someone who held a videotaped family summit before deciding whether to run for president. Why would he not have fixed his finances as carefully as his coiffure before venturing out onto the stage?
Well, one plausible theory was offered me recently by someone who served alongside Romney in Massachusetts government: Romney may be cautious, but he is also, famously, a penny-pincher. Consider the story that got him in some hot water when he returned from running the Salt Lake City Olympics to run for governor in Massachusetts in 2002. To do so, he first needed to prove his Massachusetts residency, which is why his lawyer played up Romney’s attendance at Boston-area business meetings between 1999-2002, claims somewhat at odds with his disavowal of any role at Bain Capital post-1999. But his assertion of having kept Massachusetts as his primary home even while running the Olympics was undermined by the revelation that Romney had claimed a property tax break for his Utah home that was reserved for people who make Utah their primary residence. From the 2002 Boston Globe report (no link):
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/105602/the-larger-question-about-romneys-taxes-why
The Real GOP Record
by BooMan
Tue Jul 31st, 2012 at 07:32:42 PM EST
George W. Bush came into office and immediately gave everyone who pays income taxes a tax break. For some people on the lower end of the pay-scale, this amounted to a few hundred extra bucks a year. For people on the high end of the pay-scale, however, this amounted to few extra hundred thousand bucks a year, or even millions of extra bucks a year for the very top earners. We quickly ate through what had been a large projected surplus in revenues and began to go trillions of dollars into debt. Then Bush sent our troops off to fight a war of choice in Iraq that turned into an expensive quagmire. For the first time in our history, no one was asked to pay for this war, or the one in Afghanistan. Look at the history. Taxes went way up in 1917 to pay for our entry into World War One. The top marginal rate hit 94% during the last two years of World War Two. Taxes hit 91% in 1950, to pay for the Korean War. Taxes went up again in 1968-69 to help pay for the Vietnam War. And taxes went up in 1990, to help pay for the Persian Gulf War. If you want less taxation, demand less war. But that’s not what Republicans do. They do the opposite and demand less taxation.
But they really only care about taxes on rich people. That’s why they just submitted a tax plan that raises taxes on ten times as many people as receive cuts. Middle class folks will see cuts in the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit that helps them pay for their children’s higher education, but rich people will see their Bush tax cuts extended. In other words, they want the middle class to retroactively pay for the Bush wars (with interest). Then they are going to ask you to work longer to receive less from Social Security and Medicare. Why? Because they want the middle class to pay for the huge hole Bush’s handouts to the rich blew in the country’s budget.
Remember this, too. Other than six and seven-figure annual tax cuts for rich people, the other thing that killed our fiscal situation was the lack of regulation and oversight of Wall Street. That was another gift to rich people, the smartest of which developed schemes to game the housing market and make a fortune for themselves, while the rest of us were left with properties that were worth less than we borrowed to move into them. They took away our money and then they took away our jobs and then they took away our freedom to move to find a new job.
And then they convinced the Supreme Court to allow them to contribute any amount, even into the billions, to corrupt and influence our politicians and misinform us about the real deal that has been going down in this country.
The Republicans did all this and then they pissed on our legs and told us it was raining. They had the gall to actually complain that taxes on the rich were too low and that the budget deficit they created was too big. They offered to lower taxes but then gave us a plan that raises taxes on ten times an many people as it cuts taxes for.
They always lie. They never tell the truth.
http://www.boomantribune.com/
As Romney Runs Away From Palestinian ‘Culture’ Line, Right Embraces It
Benjy Sarlin-July 31, 2012, 5:22 PM
Mitt Romney’s remarks that Israel’s GDP is superior to the Palestinian territories’ because of its “culture” — and his subsequent confusing walk back — are putting his defenders in an awkward position.
Top Palestinian officials decried Romney’s comments as “racist,” because they appeared to compare their economy to Israel’s based on “culture” or “providence” while ignoring the effect of decades of military occupation. Romney, while not exactly retracting his initial statement, insisted on Tuesday that he didn’t mean to put down Palestinian culture or imply that they were inferior to Israelis. But high-profile neoconservative Republicans immediately claimed Romney’s speech was exactly what it sounded like to Palestinians — a tough condemnation of their values.
In one awkward example, Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin praised the candidate’s speech as proof that Romney was not the “calculating” politician his critics alleged, and in fact “blunt and thoughtful,” giving the Palestinians a dose of hard truth about the importance of capitalism.
“If this is the Romney we’re going to see during the balance of the campaign Obama is in deep trouble,” Rubin wrote. “This Romney is unapologetic.”
Almost immediately after her post went up, Romney told FOX News that he “did not speak about the Palestinian culture or the decisions made in their economy” and that “I certainly don’t intend to address that during my campaign.”
Former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, meanwhile, took to Twitter after Romney’s Jersualem speech to condemn Palestinians for everything from homophobia to support for terrorism, claiming that Romney’s initial remarks were not a “gaffe.”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/mitt-romney-palestine-israel-culture-gdp-providence.php
Official In Charge Of Pennsylvania Voter ID Law: ‘I Don’t Know What The Law Says’
Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Carole Aichele, testifying Tuesday during a state trial on the state’s controversial voter ID law, said she wasn’t sure about the details of the law, but stood by her unsupported claim that 99 percent of voters had valid identification.
“I don’t know what the law says,” Aichele said under questioning, according to CBS.
Aichele also couldn’t provide any evidence that 99 percent of voters already have a valid form of ID, as the state has claimed. CBS reported that when lawyers cited testimony from a Department of State official calling the number likely inaccurate, Aichele responded “I disagree.”
Aichele also said that ID cards issued by the state’s Department of Transportation are the best choice for voters, though a lawyer seeking to block the law said other valid IDs may be easier to obtain.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/carole_aichele_in_charge_of_pennsylvania_voter_id_law_i_dont_know_what_the_law_says.php?ref=fpa
Harry Reid: Bain Investor Told Me That Mitt Romney ‘Didn’t Pay Any Taxes For 10 Years’
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has what he says is an informed explanation for why Mitt Romney refuses to release additional tax returns. According a Bain investor, Reid charged, Romney didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Huffington Post from his office on Capitol Hill, Reid saved some of his toughest words for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Romney couldn’t make it through a Senate confirmation process as a mere Cabinet nominee, the majority leader insisted, owing to the opaqueness of his personal finances.
“His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son,” Reid said, in reference to George Romney’s standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s.
Saying he had “no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy,” Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.
“Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.
“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/harry-reid-romney-taxes_n_1724027.html?1343764012
I don’t know what’s in them, but I’m surmising:
1. he didn’t pay taxes for some years
2. when he did pay taxes, it wasn’t even close to a 10% rate
3. he’s on that amnesty list of 2009 – which means the shyt he was involved with was ILLEGAL.
don’t nobody doing LEGAL shyt NEED AMNESTY.
4. he’s got a whole lot more foreign accounts.
5. the pay for the job he didn’t do because he was retired retroactively
a) he never gave back that money retroactively
b) it wasn’t remotely close to $100,000….try probably 8 figures
6. he did some shady shyt for that 100 million dollar IRA
7. still hasn’t explained how he gave his sons 100 million WITHOUT PAYING ANY TAXES
I’m just sayin’.
I am now completely convinced that the Prudential Building knows EXACTLY what’s in those returns.
When culture, context, and cowardice collide
By Steve Benen – Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:34 PM EDT.
Mitt Romney caused quite a stir this week, appearing at an Israeli fundraiser where he argued Palestinians have a weaker economy because of its “culture.” The comments have drawn sharp rebukes on both sides of the Atlantic and made an already-disastrous foreign trip even worse.
What’s more, as Kevin Drum explained this morning, it wasn’t a gaffe. “This was a deliberate pander to the conservative base in the U.S., which pretty strongly believes that the Palestinian culture is indeed corrupt, indolent, and sullen,” Kevin noted. “Romney knows this perfectly well. He was demonstrating once again, in a very concrete way, that he’s no RINO.”
Today, however, Romney insisted with Fox News that he didn’t say what he actually said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aanwycWF7Qc
“I’m not speaking about it, did not speak about the Palestinian culture or the decisions made in their economy,” Romney told Carl Cameron. “That’s an interesting topic that deserves scholarly analysis, but I actually didn’t address that. Certainly don’t intend to address that in my campaign. Instead, I will point out are that the choices that a society makes has a profound impact on the economy and the vitality of that society.”
As far as the Republican is concerned, the media is simply engaged in a coordinated effort to “divert from the fact that these last four years have been tough for our country.”
Apparently, Romney’s foreign screw-ups are the result of a pro-Obama media conspiracy.
As you might have noticed, there are a few problems with this.
——————————————————————————–
First, when Romney told Fox he “did not speak about the Palestinian culture,” he’s simply not telling the truth. NBC’s Mark Murray and Garrett Haake, relying on the transcript released by the Romney campaign itself, published a report that removes all doubt. The presidential hopeful was talking about the relative size of national economies, and he made the direct connection to competing cultures.
It’s not even a close call. The relevant portion of the speech is a little long, but since Romney is denying the facts, it’s worth setting the record straight:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/07/31/13052868-when-culture-context-and-cowardice-collide?lite
Political AnimalBlog
July 31, 2012 10:58 AM
Latest Ballot Lie From California
By Ed Kilgore
This is the sort of thing you can get away with if you have unlimited corporate money and no conscience, per this L.A. Times report:
Two of California’s leading good-government groups joined with some of the state’s most powerful labor unions Monday to denounce Proposition 32, the November ballot measure that promises to eliminate special-interest money in politics.
At a morning news conference, representatives of the League of Women Voters of California and Common Cause urged voters to oppose the initiative, calling it a deceptive measure that would disproportionately harm unions and expand the influence of businesses. “Prop. 32 is not what it seems, and it will hurt everyday Californians,” said Trudy Schafer of the League of Women Voters of California.’
Although the initiative would ban corporations and labor unions from directly contributing to candidates, good-government advocates said the measure exempts limited liability companies, or LLCs, and business trusts. They also argue that another key provision — banning the practice of political contributions by payroll deduction — hobbles the primary method labor unions use to raise political cash. The result, the groups said, would be the rise of more business-fueled super PACs, which are already playing an outsized role in elections this year.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_07/latest_ballot_lie_from_califor038919.php
Posted at 09:16 AM ET, 07/31/2012
TheWashingtonPost
The Morning Plum: Yes, government is important to our economic lives
By James Downie
A new web ad released by the Romney campaign stars an Ohio businessman named Dennis Sollman. Like other Romney ads, it rips Obama’s “you didn’t build that” line out of context, and then has Sollman, as the face of the American businessman, criticize the president as out of touch. The problemis that Sollman’s company has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government contracts, somewhat undercutting the “government didn’t help me” message. And Sollman is not the first Romney-supporting business owner who’s been caught in this contradiction.
Many commentators have described the broader “didn’t build that” debate as a philosophical clash between two views of government. But focusing on the abstract distracts from the reality that, factually speaking, government from the federal to the local level is, in fact, hugely important in people’s economic lives.
That’s illustrated by two major stories out this morning. In the Post, Zachary Goldfarb reports:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-yes-government-is-important-to-our-economic-lives/2012/07/31/gJQAjfscMX_blog.html
Posted at 12:36 PM ET, 07/31/2012
In 2010 book, Romney ascribed Israeli-Palestinian economic disparities to culture
By Greg Sargent
Mitt Romney, under fire for suggesting to a group of donors that culture explains the economic disparities between Israelis and Palestinians, has been blaming the media for micharacterizing his remarks. This morning, he continued pushing back, insisting on Fox News that he hadn’t criticized Palestinian culture.
But in his 2010 book, No Apology, Romney made almost precisely the same point about Israelis and Palestinians, even using the same language: “culture makes all the difference.” Romney’s previous making of this point was caught by my Post colleague Scott Wilson, who talked about it in his story today on Romney’s trip abroad.
In chapter 10 of No Apology, Romney writes of his travels
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Wanker of the Day: Drew Westen
by BooMan
Tue Jul 31st, 2012 at 11:26:07 AM EST
I’m tired of Drew Westen’s act. He’s little more than a professional nitpicker. And he’s not a good nitpicker. In attempting to explain how President Obama might conceivably lose his bid for reelection, Westen lists three main causes. First, he tried to work with Republicans. Second the stimulus act of 2009 was not big enough. Third, the health care bill didn’t have a public option and was too phased-in.
Do we really have to refight the stimulus battle over and over again? It passed the Senate with 61 votes, with only Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter supporting it among Republicans. The vote would ultimately cost Specter his career, as he defected to the Democrats in a desperate last-ditch effort to survive. The uniform opposition of the Republicans was shocking considering that the economy was shedding 700,000 jobs a month and they were completely responsible. But, as the New York Times reported in March of 2010, the GOP had a plan:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/7/31/11267/6033
US women win gymnastics team gold
The Americans lived up to the hype and then some, winning their first Olympic gold medal in women’s gymnastics since 1996.
Won it in a rout, too. Their score of 183.596 Tuesday night was a whopping five points ahead of Russia. Romania won the bronze medal.
The Americans had come into the last two Olympics as world champions, only to leave without a gold. But this team is the strongest, top to bottom, the Americans have ever had, and the rest of the world never stood a chance. The U.S. opened with a barrage of booming vaults, held its own on uneven bars and pulled away on balance beam.
By the the time they got to floor exercise, the Russians were in tears on the sidelines, and the Americans turned the final event into a victory party
http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/gymnastics/story/US-womens-gymnastics-wins-gold-Jordyn-Wieber-Aly-Raisman-Gabrielle-Douglas-073112
YEAH! Can’t wait to watch the games tonight. Go Gabby!
Screwing the Pooch
by BooMan
Mon Jul 30th, 2012 at 11:52:21 PM EST
This is some of the most strained, desperate spin I have ever encountered in American politics. Imagine trying to argue that Mitt Romney’s foreign adventure has been a triumphant success! Still, what I hear from my liberal friends is skepticism that any of it will matter. My answer is that of course it will matter. I received a really lame email from Paul Begala asking me to donate money to the DCCC. He told me that 96% of the electorate has already made up their mind who they are going to vote for. That is complete bullshit. People’s political opinions are nowhere near as set in stone as these analysts would like you to believe. I did a lot of canvassing in 2004 and I talked to a lot of voters in July and August of that year. I heard all kinds of crazy things. I can’t tell you how many soft Democrats I met who planned to vote for Bush because they wanted him to have to clean up the mess he created in Iraq. “Why should a Democrat have to do that job?”, they asked. People make their decisions about who to vote for in weird ways.
People do not throw out incumbents lightly. They must be convinced not only that the incumbent is doing a bad job, but that someone else will do a better job. That’s the test Romney needs to pass, and his foreign adventure was supposed to help him make that case. It did anything but.
And he won’t get another chance. Just as in 2008, a lot of Republicans took a long look at Sarah Palin and decided that they couldn’t pull the Republican trigger, Romney lost Republican votes by demonstrating total incompetence during his trip abroad.
This trip hurt him in a vital way.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/7/30/235221/945
Bill Press calls corporate CEOs ‘ungrateful bastards’
July 31, 2012
Web Exclusive – Bill is fired up about the latest NBC poll that shows Fortune 500 CEOs favor Mitt Romney to President Obama. Bill calls the CEOs “ungrateful bastards.” He points out the ways business has flourished under President Obama and is upset that corporate America has not responded positively.
http://current.com/shows/full-court-press/videos/bill-calls-corporate-ceos-ungrateful-bastards/
Who is Julian Castro?
by BooMan
Tue Jul 31st, 2012 at 01:06:15 PM EST
I’m feeling pretty clueless because I had never heard of Julian Castro when I learned that he will be delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. He is a graduate of Stanford and Harvard Law who is serving his second term as mayor of San Antonio, Texas. An interesting biographical note is that he has an identical twin brother who went to Stanford and Harvard, too. In his last election, Mayor Castro was reelected with 83% of the vote. He’s also young. He was born in 1974.
We all remember that Barack Obama was the keynote speaker at the 2004 Convention, and we know how that turned out.
Regardless of what this means for the political future of Julian Castro, his selection is an honor for the Latino community. The Republicans will almost certainly highlight Florida Senator Marco Rubio at their convention. However, that seems to be the extent of their Latino outreach. And it is showing in the polls:
New polling data out from the firm Latino Decisions today finds that President Obama still has a huge advantage among Hispanic voters around the country.
Across five swing states with large Hispanic populations — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia — Obama leads Mitt Romney 63-27 among Hispanic voters. The gap is even more pronounced in a handful of those states: Obama’s ahead by 52 points in Arizona, for example, and by 48 points in Colorado. It’s a closer race in Florida, though, with Obama taking 53 percent of Hispanic voters compared with Romney’s 37 percent.
If anything, Mayor Castro is going to help make those numbers grow. I’m excited to see him perform.
Does anyone know more about Mayor Castro?
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/7/31/13615/6188#2
MORE NEWS 3 CHICS CAN USE!
Elizabeth Warren will have a key role at this year’s Democratic National Convention, speaking before Bill Clinton: http://abcn.ws/Nittvt
And First Lady Michelle Obama and San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro will headline the opening nightof the Democratic National Convention in September, organizers have announced. Michelle Obama to Open Dem Convention: http://abcn.ws/NSq1Lf
Mitt Romney completed the final leg of his trip abroad, with more of the same type of headlines he received in Israel and the UK:
Steve Benen: “As it turns out, Mitt Romney’s trip abroadcan get worse.” Never let ’em see you sweat: http://on.msnbc.com/OH0dTf
ABC: Oh, Mitt! Romney’s Awkward Foreign Tour: http://abcn.ws/NitmA7
Politico: Mitt Romney should have stayed home from Europe: http://politi.co/OzFGy5
Judge clears Arizona late-term abortion ban
By David Schwartz
PHOENIX | Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:38pm EDT
PHOENIX (Reuters) – A federal judge refused on Monday to block an Arizona law banning most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, saying it does not impose a “substantial obstacle” to the procedure, and cleared the way for the statute to take effect on Thursday.
The ruling marked a stinging legal defeat for abortion-rights advocates who cited the Arizona law as the most extreme example of late-term abortion prohibitions enacted in more than half a dozen states, and they vowed to immediately appeal the decision.
U.S. District Judge James Teilborg ruled that the measure, passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed into law in April by Republican Governor Jan Brewer, was consistent with the standards that federal courts have set on limits to late-term abortions.
http://www.reuters.com/
article/2012/07/31/us-usa-abortion-arizona-idUSBRE86T1DY20120731
‘Stepping up and standing up’
By Steve Benen – Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:35 AM EDT.
After Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and a handful of right-wing colleagues launched an anti-Muslim witch hunt, there’s been a debate about the impropriety of the crusade, but it’s been largely an intra-party discussion. The dispute hasn’t been between Democrats and Republicans, but rather, between Republicans and other Republicans.
That changed a bit yesterday. Of particular interest to Bachmann and her cohorts is Huma Abedin, a Muslim American and a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Yesterday, as Ali Gharib noted, Clinton obliquely referenced the controversy during remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Though the Secretary of State did not specifically reference the right-wing conspiracy theorists, there could be no doubt what she was referencing when she said, “Leaders have to be active in stepping in and sending messages about protecting the diversity within their countries…. We did see some of that in our own country. We saw Republicans stepping up and standing up against the kind of assaults that really have no place in our politics.”
It’s worth noting that Clinton is entirely correct — several Republicans, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), showed some leadership and did the right thing. But many more prominent GOP voices — Romney campaign advisor John Bolton, Rush Limbaugh, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) — have done the opposite.
Indeed, at a Romney campaign event in Virginia yesterday, Gingrich not only doubled down on the witch hunt, he specifically defended Bachmann’s preoccupation with Abedin. “Who’s offering advice to Secretary Clinton?” he asked. “I think it’s totally legitimate to ask that question.”
——————————————————————————–
Though Gingrich was speaking at a Romney campaign event, the Republicans’ presidential nominee has not yet said a word about the proposed anti-Muslim witch hunt.
Leaders have to be active in “stepping up.” Some have heard this call louder than others.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/07/31/13049953-stepping-up-and-standing-up?lite
Kiss my Ass & Shove it
Romney aide loses cool, curses at press in Poland
Source: CNN.com
Warsaw, Poland (CNN) – The traveling press secretary for Mitt Romney lost his cool and cursed at reporters who attempted to ask questions of the Republican presidential candidate in a public plaza near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw Tuesday.
After Romney paid his respects to Poland’s war dead and shook hands with a small gathering of the nation’s military veterans, the GOP contender walked approximately 100 yards away from the memorial as he chatted with Warsaw’s mayor.,b>
Read on
Read more: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/31/romney-aide-loses-cool-curses-at-press-in-poland/
Romney tour ’12 — gaffepalooza
By Eugene Robinson, Published: July 30
The Washington Post
How is Mitt Romney’s summer vacation going? Fine, except for frequent pauses to remove foot from mouth.
He began his “Look At Me, I’m a Statesman” overseas tour by offending the people of the United Kingdom. To put it mildly, Romney is no genius at reading the mood of an audience. But even he realized things were not going well when he saw tabloid headlines such as “Mitt the Twit” and “Nowhere Man.”
Romney’s offense — he said there were “disconcerting” signs that London might not be ready to host the Olympics — was silly but not inconsequential. It actually revealed quite a lot about how the candidate sees himself and his place in the world.
What Romney knows about running the Olympics is exceeded only by what Romney thinks he knows about running the Olympics. As Prime Minister David Cameron obliquely noted, staging the games in London isn’t the same as staging them in Salt Lake City. British organizers are working amid the bustle of one of the great cities of the world, Cameron said, not out in “the middle of nowhere.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-romney-stumbles-through-his-world-tour/2012/07/30/gJQAdJJILX_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
July 30, 2012 06:00 PM
Froomkin to media: Tell people the truth about voter ID laws
By Susie Madrak
Dan Froomkin really lets the media establishment have it for not pointing out the nefarious agenda behind voter ID laws. I live in a city where the two local papers have been aggressively covering the issue, but I’m not seeing it on the national news. Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with protecting their own corporate interests?
This is not simply another gratuitously partisan act by the GOP. This is an attack on the very notion of democracy. The voter ID push, along with intimidation of voter registration groups and purges of voter rolls have only one goal: blocking legitimate but probably Democratic voters from exercising their constitutional rights. It is a poll tax with a new twist.
And the pursuit of this goal ostensibly in the name of voter fraud is an outrageous deception that only works if the press is too timid to call it what it really is.
For reporters to treat this issue like just another political squabble is journalistic malpractice. Indeed, relating the debate in value-neutral he-said-she-said language is actively helping spread the lie. After all, calling for someone to show ID before voting doesn’t sound pernicious to most people, even though it is. And raising the bogus issue of voter fraud at all stokes fear.
“Even if you say there is no fraud, all people hear is ‘fraud fraud fraud’,” said Lawrence Norden, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.Think about it. If you were covering elections in another country, and one political party was actively trying to limit voting in the name of a problem that objectively didn’t exist, would you hesitate for a moment to call out that tactic — and question that party’s legitimacy? Hardly.
Modern American journalists strive for impartiality, but there is a limit.
Mainstream journalistsshouldn’t be afraid of being accused of taking sides when what they’re doing is standing up for basic constitutional rights. Indeed, the greater danger is that readers condemn them — or even worse, stop paying attention to them — for having no convictions at all, and no moral compass.
The GOP has taken increasingly radical positions, confident that the media’s aversion to taking sides will protect it from too much negative coverage. But failing to call out the voter ID push is like covering the civil rights movements and treating “separate but equal” as if it was said with sincerity.
All reporters should get every candidate they can on the record about the issue of ballot access, make it clear to readers whether those candidates want to make voting easier or harder, and then assert the simple truth that there is no plausible justification for making it more difficult to vote, other than partisan trickery at the expense of the rights of minorities and the poor.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/froomkin-media-tell-people-truth-abou
just trying to cover for Willard…..if it had gone well, they’d be claiming all sorts of how Presidential Willard looked.
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Mitt Romney’s foreign trip didn’t go well. Does it matter?
Posted by Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake at 06:30 AM ET, 07/31/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney later today wraps up his foreign tour, a trip that drew a series of negative headlines and has left many Republicans wondering what exactly the GOP presidential nominee was hoping to accomplish.
The assessments of the trip, which saw Romney visit London, Israel and Poland over the past week, ranged from scathing to resigned among the Republican professional political class.
I find this entire trip borderline lunacy,” said one senior Republican strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Why on earth is he seeking to improve his foreign policy cred when there will not be a single vote cast on that subject?”
Ed Rogers, a longtime Republican operative, was more measured, but acknowledged that the trip was something short of a unqualified success.
“Romney abroad is the same as Romney at home,” said Rogers. “His performance is uneven at times, but overall, pretty good.” Added Rogers: “Let’s face it, Romney can’t win, but Obama can lose.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/mitt-romneys-foreign-trip-didnt-go-well-does-it-matter/2012/07/30/gJQA5rudLX_blog.html
Never let ’em see you sweat
By Steve Benen
Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:00 AM EDT.
As it turns out, Mitt Romney’s trip abroad can get worse.
Romney is traveling with a large contingent of American journalists as part of his trip abroad, but so far he’s largely ignored them — he’s fielded exactly three questions from reporters during his week-long trip.
Given the relative silence, the media has no choice but to ask questions of Romney whenever he’s within earshot. For example, today Romney was walking away from Pilsudski Square in Warsaw, Poland, and as he approached his car, journalists asked questions that the candidate chose to ignore. But the fact that questions were even being asked was apparently enough to enrage Romney’s traveling press secretary
After several questions involving Romney’s missteps on the trip, including comments he made in Israel, Romney spokesman Rick Gorka shot back.
“Show some respect,” he said after being challenged for not taking questions, according to pool reports.
“We haven’t had another chance to ask a question,” a New York Times reporter said.
“Kiss my ass,” Gorka said back. “This is a Holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect.”
Soon after, the Romney aide told Politico’s Jonathan Martin to “shove it.”
It’s hard not to marvel at the combination of Gorka’s sentences. If it’s a Holy site and people should show some respect, why did he tell reporters, “Kiss my ass”?
Now, the point isn’t that Team Romney is wrong to snap at media professionals; reporters are adults and they can take it. The larger point is that the Romney campaign, with increasing frequency, is losing its composure.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/07/31/13049520-never-let-em-see-you-sweat?lite
I bought a coffee table book about Paul Williams years ago. the man was so ahead of his time.
Yes Mr. Williams was a creative GIANT. He used his God given talents, skills, and intelligence to leave his legacy of GREATNESS in America.
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)
Good Morning, Ametia and Everyone :)