This is from an actual newsletter sent from the Republican party in Ohio. It’s referencing the OH-13 House race, where the incumbent is Betty Sutton.
I know I keep seeing polls that show Democrats are in trouble in November. Sometimes, though, I have a hard time taking it seriously – specific Republicans are a lot more insane than the generic Republican.
Have you ever sat at home and thought to yourself, “Man, I can’t stand all this liberal garbage on FOX News. I wish someone would start a real conservative network”? If so, you’re apparently not alone. Enter, RightNetwork. RightNetwork is a newly-launched online network that plans on launching a television version later this summer. It seems to be positioning itself as an even more conservative competitor to FOX News. As one major investor put it:
We’re creating a welcoming place for millions and millions of Americans who’ve been looking for an entertainment network and media channel that reflects their point-of-view. RightNetwork will be the perfect platform to entertain, inform and connect with the American majority about what’s right in the world.
Now, here comes the painful part for me. As both a lifelong liberal anda devout Flyers fan (Go orange and black!), it pains me to inform you that the previously quoted “major investor” is none other than Comcast-Spectacor Chairman and Flyers founder Ed Snider. I was never very aware of his political leanings until he had Sarah Palin as his guest at a Flyers game during the campaign. But, since he’s a wealthy businessman, it really shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
But, getting back to RightNetwork, among the network’s programming are such gems as:
The above quotes were taken from online videos featuring another of RightNetwork’s investors, actor Kelsey Grammer. I’m sure Mr Grammer’s investment capital smoothed over any misgivings anyone might have had over the fact that he’s currently appearing on Broadway as a gay nightclub owner, in a revival of La Cage Aux Folles. Grammer was long ago outed publicly…as a conservative.
One other issue attached to this story is the fact that at one point, it was reported that Comcast (which owns Mr. Snider’s Comcast-Spectacor) was a partner in the venture. Comcast officials have denied that report, which is especially important as they are currently in the process of obtaining government approval for their purchase of NBC Universal.
From all appearances, RightNetwork looks to be to the Tea Party what FOX is to the Republican Party. For example, the candidates featured in the “Running” program seem to be Tea Party-affiliated, and Crooks and Liars reports that “When they launch, they’ll have lots of content, since they’ve been embedded with the Tea Party Express for its tour across the country.”
This reminds me of a line I remember hearing back in the 80’s, when someone said they hoped that someday someone would make a black version of the Cosby Show. Well, now someone is making a conservative version of FOX News. It sounds like what FOX would be if they dropped the last little pretense of being Fair and Balanced. I wonder if they’ve contacted Sarah yet?
Angel Clark over at delawarepolitics.net posted an interview she did with Matthew Walsh, who is running for Mayor of Georgetown.
Now if I was running for mayor of Georgetown, or any other city in Delaware or the US for that matter, I’d address things that I believed the voters would be concerned about, such as police protection, street maintenance issues, land use, you know, the bread and butter issues of local politics. But the Matt half of “Matt & Crank” doesn’t do that. Instead, our “Sussex County Angel” questions Walsh, and he responds to, these hot-button issues affecting everyday life in the Sussex County Seat: handguns in state-run public housing, school district consolidation, HCR, HB 353 (which Clark claims to be about “state sovereignty”), and immigration. Needless to say, Walsh, who hosts a morning show on a local station, gives answers that would warm any teabagger’s heart.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but what does HCR, immigration, school district consolidation, yada, yada, yada, have to do with keeping a town of 4600 people running? Absolutely nothing! I don’t know what Walsh’s long-term plans are for politics, but I’d start by addressing what you’re going to do to make Georgetown a better place to live instead of issues you’re not going to have any control over if you happen to fool enough people to vote for you next month.
Twitter points us to a fun little survey at Chris Cillizza’s The Fix, a fantasy political draft. Cillizza is asking what current politician is a future star. Our very own governor, Jack Markell, is one of the choices.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled blogging.
Is it Thursday already? This week is really flying by fast. Frankly, I’m exhausted by all the chicken jokes. Who knew there were so many? Let’s open this open thread and you share what’s on your mind.
Michael Steele strikes again! This time with what we call a political gaffe, when a politician accidentally speaks the truth.
Why should an African-American vote Republican?
“You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night.
…
“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans,” Steele said. “This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties, Their parties walk away from them.
“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”
Republicans are doing nothing to bring African-Americans to their party right now. Their tea party protests often contain outright racists and they didn’t help themselves by declaring Civil Rights leaders liars. Now Republicans are busy working on alienating latino voters as well. Great job guys!
Iranian President Ahmadinejad has some cockamamie plan to evacuate Tehran to save people from a devastating earthquake there. An Iranian cleric has an explanation for why earthquakes happen in the first place.
In the best both-sides-of-every-issue newsmedia tradition, Reuters reports a different opinion on the best way to preserve Tehran:
Leading Friday prayers, the focal point of Iran’s religious week, Ayatollah Kazem Sadighi said better observance of Islamic rules on modesty would help ward off an earthquake. “Those women who dress inappropriately will tempt youngsters and it will finally lead major sins being committed and in that case the wrath of God will be sent upon us,” he said.
Isn’t always the woman’s fault?
I think we’re all pretty familiar with the wingnut welfare system. The Republican party nurtures their young leaders by providing them jobs in bogus think tanks, where they can publish books nobody reads, send out press releases and appear on TV as a ubiquitious “Republican strategist.” Apparently Republicans have found an even newer way to shovel money at themselves – health care reform legal challenges.
For example, the Republican Lt. Governor of Missouri is frustrated because his Attorney General is a Democrat and won’t sign up for the states’ legal challenge. That doesn’t stop him though, he’s hiring a private attorney:
A Republican operative who was behind a sophisticated effort to make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote is back in the news. He’s handling Missouri’s lawsuit against the health-care reform law.
Mark “Thor” Hearne has been hired by Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder to challenge the law’s constitutionality. Several other states are bringing similar claims. Kinder is mounting a fundraising effort — even launching a website — to pay for the challenge to the law because the state’s Democratic attorney general has declined to get involved.
Pataki launched his organization, Revere America, with the lofty initial goal of collecting one million signatures on a petition to repeal “ObamaCare.”
The petition is full of tea party dog whistles: The law (or “bill”): “ignores the will of the majority of Americans who vigorously oppose government controlled national health care;” “tramples on the Constitution” and “represents an arrogant disregard for the personal freedom of the people of the United States.”
But the petition’s real purpose, as Pataki admitted in a C-Span interview, is to “get over a million e-mail addresses of people who would support us in working to repeal ObamaCare.” And, presumably, of people who would support a Pataki for President campaign.
I assume Pataki will use this organization to fundraise as well as building his supporters’ list. I’m pretty unclear on what Pataki’s organization will actually do besides allow Pataki to travel and to give speeches to excite the base.
My parents have volunteered to become census workers in Sussex County.
Today is the one day a year set aside to honor our host planet, Earth. Today is officially called Earth Day and it’s the 40th annual one. Here’s a short history, from our friends at the NRDC (National Resources Defense Council):
On April 22, 1970, some 20 million people across the country rallied to protest the state of the planet. Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, a dump for steel mills and other industries, had caught fire. A massive oil spill swamped the coast off Santa Barbara, and concerns about smog, DDT and water pollution were rising. The very first Earth Day was a grassroots revolution that spurred Congress to create America’s core environmental protection laws, and continues to be a day of celebration and activism worldwide.
The city of Wilmington is hosting an Earth Day celebration in Rodney Square from 11 am – 2 pm.
The Cagle Cartoon blog at MSNBC has a round-up of Earth Day cartoons.
Joe at Climate Progress has a darkly humorous essay about renaming Earth Day:
Arguably, concern over the earth is elitist, something people can afford to spend their time on when every other need is met. But elitism is out these days. We need a new way to make people care about the nasty things we’re doing with our cars and power plants. At the very least, we need a new name.
How about Nature Day or Environment Day? Personally, I am not an environmentalist. I don’t think I’m ever going to see the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I wouldn’t drill for oil there. But that’s not out of concern for the caribou but for my daughter and the planet’s next several billion people, who will need to see oil use cut sharply to avoid the worst of climate change.
I used to worry about the polar bear. But then some naturalists told me that once human-caused global warming has completely eliminated their feeding habitat — the polar ice, probably by 2020, possibly sooner — polar bears will just go about the business of coming inland and attacking humans and eating our food and maybe even us. That seems only fair, no?
So what, if anything, are you doing for Earth Day this year?
I don’t know if you caught the story in the News Journal this morning featuring the work that Senator Kaufman is doing on financial reform. He talks passionately about dismantling Too Big To Fail and reinstating much of the Glass-Steagall act.
By contrast, Tom Carper (the one we are stuck with) is already back-pedaling on important provisions of the bill. And he isn’t alone. Even the President is backing down on some of this.
What Carper is against, it seems, is making financial institutions (think AIG, Lehman and hedge funds) pay for insurance. Perhaps Carper had lunch with Mitch McConnell or something, but he is deluding himself if he thinks that Mitch is dealing in good faith here. The insurance that the bill proposes is in the form of a $50B fund with money collected by banks and other financial institutions that is used to pay for financial institution funerals. We never want to spend that money to send a bank or insurance out on a burning raft, viking-funeral style. But if there is no money for it, guess who pays? You and me in the form of unplanned government expenditure.
Currently, if a company like AIG goes belly-up, the government doesn’t have resolution authority. They can’t wind down the company in an orderly fashion and let the market buy their assets. Instead, we have to cover the AIG losses or risk total financial collapse. That is when we bail them out.
I’m not sure why Senator Carper is so damn willing to take banks and hedge funds at their word on this after the way that banks have behaved in a lax regulatory environment. The banks can only be trusted to do what they can get away with. If they can use the leverage of a total system failure to prevent their own failure, they will. And apparently, Tom Carper is willing to let them do it in the name of bipartisanship.
Here’s what we can do, first call his office. You know that the banks are going to have their people calling, so we have to make sure that Carper knows where the rest of us stand. Second, consider putting your name on this petition in support of the legislation. Let Carper and the rest of the Congress know that this isn’t OK. We can’t let the US Chamber of Commerce get their claws into our elected officials.
Via kos:
OKLAHOMA CITY—The Oklahoma Senate approved several bills Monday that opponents say would make it more difficult or uncomfortable for women to get abortions, including one that would require women seeking the procedures early in their pregnancies to undergo an invasive form of ultrasound…[The law] would require doctors to use a vaginal probe in cases where it would provide a clearer picture of the fetus than a regular ultrasound.
“You’re going to force someone to undergo an invasive medical procedure,” objected state Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, who voted against the bill. “You have to invasively put an instrument inside the woman. This could be your 15-year-old daughter who was raped.”
Maybe we could subject women seeking an abortion to electro-shock therapy while we’re at it. I’m really sick of this crap, and wish Anti-abortionists would stop treating abortion like an impulse buy. They act like a woman approaches getting an abortion with the same impulse as buying a pair of shoes – as if they were strolling past an abortion clinic and think, Hey, I should get one of those. I was going to have the baby, but now…
It’s the same mindset that’s behind the 24 hour waiting period.
Doctor: Before you have an abortion you have to wait 24 hours.
Patient: Why?
Doctor: You should think about it.
Patient: OMG! I knew I forgot to do something! Thank you so much for reminding me to think!
Here’s the deal. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have one. And if you’re male and concerned you won’t have a say in whether your partner has an abortion – don’t have sex. These are things you can control, but this isn’t really about personal control – it’s about controlling other people, mainly women.
Carper, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said that he thinks a bipartisan deal can be reached on financial regulatory reform legislation, and argued it should be done by dropping the most contentious areas of the bill.
“At the end of the day…we agree on about 80 percent of the stuff here,” Carper said during an appearance on Fox News. “I think what we need to do is focus on the 80 percent on which we agree and set aside the 20 percent for another day.”
Among those provisions creating friction is a $50 billion, industry-funded pool of money to help wind down financial institutions if they begin to fail. Republicans have derided this provision as a pool for endless bailouts, though they’ve also maintained other objections to the legislation.
Democrats are actually on the verge of winning this one without dropping this provision. Senator Corker (R-TN) has defended the fund from the “permanent bailout” rhetoric of Mitch McConnell and Goldman Sachs gave a big boost to the prospects of reform by being giant douches. Even the media is calling out Republicans on their bogus talking points ripped straight from a Luntz memo.
I’ll give you a one guess on why Tom Carper is ready to throw in the towel on the provisions Big Wall Street hates most…
RSmitty, Dave Burris and Michael Stafford have teamed up and launched Delaware Tomorrow – a new perspective on policy and politics.
Hmmm… the rebirth of moderate Republicans… or the last hurrah? We shall see.
(Psst… notice how I gave you top billing, Smitty.)
Welcome to your Wednesday open thread. What’s on your mind? What can you share with dozens of virtual friends?
I love this idea, I wish I could attend – a Kenyan tea party.
The Kenyan government is taking on the Tea Partiers head on — hosting a “Real Tea Party” in the Capitol next Tuesday to promote the country’s status as the world’s number one exporter of tea. And they are explicitly contrasting it with the other tea parties that have been held of late on the Hill.
“The Government of Kenya, the world’s #1 tea exporter, cordially invites you to a proper Kenyan Tea Party on Capitol Hill (one without a political agenda),” the invitation boasts. (Click link to see the invitation.) “Please join Kenyan Deputy Prime Minister, the Honorable Uhuru Kenyatta, at Kenya’s tea tasting event, complete with food pairings and tea leaf readings.”
Oopsie! Club for Growth and Tea Party poster boy Marco Rubio is in some trouble for using the state party’s credit card for personal expenses.
In a development that could change the dynamics in one of the most closely-watched races of the year, the Miami Herald reports that federal investigators have begun several probes into spending and tax records at the Florida Republican party — including an investigation into the finances of Senate candidate Marco Rubio.
That investigation, run by the IRS, stems from an existing scandal surrounding the use of Florida GOP-issued American Express cards by elected officials and members of the party organization. The list of officials under investigation includes Rubio, and is essentially a search for evidence that could lead to future charges.
Rubio charge the state party for car repair, groceries and music from the Apple iTunes store. He charged $14,000 in personal expenses to the state party card. Some fiscal watchdog.