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Conservative Fox News contributor Dick Morris is asserting that the news media "ruined" President George W. Bush's presidency because coverage of the Iraq war was "too harsh."

During a Wednesday morning segment with Morris, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy pointed out that Arthur Brisbane, ombudsman for The New York Times, recently complained that the paper had been more critical of President George W. Bush while he was in office than it had been of President Barack Obama.

"It's terrific that he said that," Morris explained. "There are two factors that make the media liberal. One is that the reporters are liberal. But the other fact is that the media tends to react to what it last did badly. So for example, it was relatively mild toward Bush during the early years of his administration after 9/11, and then it over compensated by being too harsh during the Iraq war."

"And then when Obama got elected they said, 'Oh, wow. We just ruined a presidency with Bush. Maybe we'll be nicer to Obama,'" he added. "And I think you will begin to see a bit of pendulum swing against Obama even though the media itself is liberal."

A 2003 study by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) found that 71 percent of guest on U.S. television news programs were pro-war, while only 3 percent were against the Iraq war -- a ratio of almost 25 to 1.

A recent analysis by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that coverage of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was twice as favorable as the coverage of Obama during the primary season.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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During Tuesday's online edition of The Young Turks, co-host Ana Kasparian had this response to the "humor" of Fox's Greg Gutfeld that NOW (the National Organization of Women) is superfluous because women do have the right to shop.

KASPARIAN: "I'm going to make an argument that misogyny doesn't exist. That women have all the rights they want, by making a sexist comment about them. Fuck you! But that's what Fox News is, right? They hire clowns to make clownish arguments."

And while Cenk Uygur did point out Gutfeld was just joking the fact that it is just this type of knuckle-dragger humor, as practiced by Limbaugh and others of a conservative bent, that is losing votes for Republicans.

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MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell invited Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke to respond to Rush Limbaugh's latest attack on her, this time for daring send out a tweet on the fact that interest rates are going to to up on student loans if Congress fails to act shortly. Fluke was gracious as usual and discussed how ridiculous it was to accuse her of some kind of "coordinated" attack with the Obama administration.

As she noted, if she wants to know what the President is doing, she finds out like most of the rest of us and uses Google. Fluke pointed out that the changes were not doing to directly affect her, but they would greatly impact incoming students and fellow students she interacts with daily, who really cannot afford the rate hikes, which might make the cost of going to college prohibitive for those just on the edge of being able to afford it right now.

Here's more from the Huffington Post on Limbaugh's latest attack -- Rush Limbaugh Attacks Sandra Fluke Again (AUDIO) :

Rush Limbaugh went after Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke again on Tuesday for what he called "coordinating" with President Obama to "scare students about the interest rates on their loans."

During his Tuesday radio show, Limbaugh read a tweet Fluke sent, which said, "#DontDoubleMyRate. Many students will see the interest rate on Fed #StudentLoans increase if Congress doesn't act by 7/1."

Limbaugh called Fluke's tweet a coincidence since she allegedly sent it thirty minutes before Obama told students at the University of North Carolina that their federal student loans will double if Congress doesn't act by July 1.

Limbaugh laid into the law student, saying that "contraception isn't enough" and that "some people want their education paid for by other people too." He also seemingly mocked Fluke as the person his listeners all knew for "courageously and bravely fighting for contraception at Georgetown and wherever else it can be provided at no charge."

I guess we can add college students and their parents to the list of those the Republicans and Rush Limbaugh are determined to help alienate before the upcoming election. John Boehner's spin on the House Republicans refusing to keep the loan rates low -- it's all the Democrats' fault of course.

Steve Benen did a great job of breaking that down here -- The problem with Boehner's logic:

This tweet from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) probably wasn't intended to be important, but it's an astonishing message. [...]

Let's back up for a moment. At issue is a 2007 law, set to expire on July 1, which keeps the interest rate for federal Direct Stafford Loans at 3.4%. If Congress fails to act, the rate will double, affecting more than 7.4 million students, who'll face, on average, an additional $1,000 in debt. President Obama and congressional Democrats are fighting to keep the rates where they are, and Mitt Romney agrees with them.

Congressional Republicans have balked at the proposals, and today, Boehner is arguing that this is all Democrats' fault anyway -- they're the ones who "included an expiration provision that placed the looming increase in the middle of an election year."

Democrats wanted to lower student interest rates. Now, they want to keep the lower student interest rates. As far as Boehner is concerned, this means Dems "voted to double" interest rates.

Mr. Speaker, you really should have thought this one through a little more.

First, voting to cut interest rates in half is the opposite of voting to double interest rates. Second, when the law passed in 2007, it enjoyed strong bipartisan support. This wasn't a Democratic bill; it was a bipartisan effort to give students and their families a break.

And third, and arguably more important, is the fact the Bush tax cuts included an expiration provision that placed a looming tax increase in 2010 -- an election year. Thanks to a Republican plan, they were extended until 2012 -- another election year.

In other words, by Speaker Boehner's logic, taxes are set to go up for practically every American worker because Republicans voted for a massive tax increase.

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More trouble for Uncle Rupert and his son James as the inquiry into the hacking scandal continues.

British Cabinet Minister Becomes Focus in Murdoch Inquiry:

The long-running tabloid newspaper scandal that has shaken Rupert Murdoch's global media empire delivered a new jolt on Tuesday as its powerful and lucrative television operations moved to the center of a British judicial inquiry with disclosures that a senior cabinet minister, or at least an aide claiming to speak for him, worked covertly to help win approval for a $12 billion takeover of the BSkyB network.

A trove of newly released e-mails pointed to hand-in-glove collaboration between a lobbyist for Mr. Murdoch's News Corporation and the office of Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt, the official designated to pass judgment on the BSkyB bid. That deal, which would have crowned Mr. Murdoch's 60-year media career, was scuttled last year as the scandal over illicit phone hacking exploded, and now appears out of his reach for years, if not permanently. Read on...

James Murdoch on the defensive over BSkyB bid:

James Murdoch came to the Leveson inquiry to defend his reputation, and ended up spending much of the remaining six and half hours on the stand in effect defending the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

But his robust defence of News Corporation's insider lobbying tactics was not matched by such a sure touch elsewhere, as his evidence revealed him to be incurious about phone hacking and uninterested in newspapers.

The media mogul said that his chief lobbyist, Frédéric Michel, was simply "doing his job" in his briefings again and again on titbits obtained from ministers and their special advisers with regard to the BSkyB bid. For all the information he received, Murdoch remained sceptical.

Rather than seeing the information that came out of Jeremy Hunt's team as particularly useful, he told the inquiry that he took all ministerial communications with a "grain of salt" and that, if anything, he was as sceptical about politicians.

Under questioning from Robert Jay QC, Murdoch argued that Hunt simply wanted political cover from News Corp during the critical time of January 2011 when the company was negotiating with the culture secretary over how to get the Sky deal through. He said he took Hunt's decision to co-operate with him as a reflection of the fact that "he didn't want to take any heat alone" because he had "never met a politician who did".

Murdoch said he had expected Hunt, and Cable before him, to take into account appropriate evidence when determining the outcome of News Corp's £8bn bid for BSkyB.

The sometimes fissile 39-year-old showed only one flash of anger. It was reserved for the business secretary, Vince Cable, for having shown "acute bias" once it emerged that he had told two undercover Telegraph reporters that he had "declared war on Murdoch". [...]

On 24 January, at 3.21pm while the stock market was still open, Michel managed to get information about the timetable next day for Hunt's parliamentary announcement at which he could consider concessions from News Corp to help get the bid through: the lobbyist added for colour that this was "absolutely illegal..>!"

Amid laughter around the courtroom Murdoch said simply that he "thought it was a joke", noting the unusual punctuation, which he described as "a wink".

Jay wondered why, Cable excepted, Murdoch was getting such help.

It was obvious why Hunt was being so helpful; it was because the Sun had backed the Conservatives before the election, the barrister said.

Murdoch argued differently, saying: "I simply wouldn't make that trade. It would be inappropriate to do so and I simply don't do business that way." It was a sentiment that had his wife, Kathryn, strongly agreeing from the public gallery. Read on...

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From the man whose policies are what amounts to "the Robin Hood story — only in reverse" for the poor, a man whose time at Bain represents everything most Americans hate about capitalism, we had him trying to "pivot" for the general election tonight with a message against government"unfairness" after this Tuesday evening's primary wins.

Mitt Romney Kicks Off The General With Crusade Against 'Unfairness':

Finally able to acknowledge what's been plain for weeks, Mitt Romney seized the mantle of his party's presumptive nominee after winning a series of primaries in the Northeast Tuesday night. Billed as one of his first major general election speeches, Romney pledged to combat government "unfairness" and challenge President Obama with a relentless focus on the economy.

"Tonight I can say, 'Thank you, America,'" Romney told supporters in New Hampshire. "After 43 primaries and caucuses, many long days and more than a few long nights, I can say with confidence and gratitude that you have given me a great honor and solemn responsibility. And, together, we will win on Nov. 6."

Romney warned that "because [Obama] has failed, he will run a campaign of diversions, distractions, and distortions."

"That kind of campaign may have worked at another place and in a different time," he said. "But not here and not now. It's still about the economy — and we're not stupid."

Romney outlined an agenda aimed at combating what he called "unfairness" in government, spinning a phrase often employed by Democrats as they make the case that wealthier Americans and corporations should pay higher taxes. Earlier Tuesday, Obama said the rich should "pay their fair share" in a speech to college students in North Carolina. While other Republicans often debate these arguments by emphasizing "opportunity," Romney adopted the "fairness" language to criticize federal spending.

As TPM noted, Romney was still attempting to run on his father's resume:

"I'll tell you about how much I love this country, where someone like my dad, who grew up poor and never graduated from college, could pursue his dreams and work his way up to running a great car company," Romney. "Only in America could a man like my dad become governor of the state in which he once sold paint from the trunk of his car."

More there with the Obama campaign's response to the speech. Text of the portion of Romney's speech in the video above below the fold.

If the answer were "yes" to those questions, then President Obama would be running for re-election based on his achievements…and rightly so. But because he has failed, he will run a campaign of diversions, distractions, and distortions. That kind of campaign may have worked at another place and in a different time. But not here and not now. It's still about the economy …and we're not stupid.

People are hurting in America. And we know that something is wrong, terribly wrong with the direction of the country.

We know that this election is about the kind of America we will live in and the kind of America we will leave to future generations. When it comes to the character of America, President Obama and I have very different visions.

Government is at the center of his vision. It dispenses the benefits, borrows what it cannot take, and consumes a greater and greater share of the economy. With Obamacare fully installed, government will come to control half the economy, and we will have effectively ceased to be a free enterprise society.

This President is putting us on a path where our lives will be ruled by bureaucrats and boards, commissions and czars. He's asking us to accept that Washington knows best – and can provide all.

We've already seen where this path leads. It erodes freedom. It deadens the entrepreneurial spirit. And it hurts the very people it's supposed to help. Those who promise to spread the wealth around only ever succeed in spreading poverty. Other nations have chosen that path. It leads to chronic high unemployment, crushing debt, and stagnant wages.

I have a very different vision for America, and of our future. It is an America driven by freedom, where free people, pursuing happiness in their own unique ways, create free enterprises that employ more and more Americans. Because there are so many enterprises that are succeeding, the competition for hard-working, educated and skilled employees is intense, and so wages and salaries rise.

I see an America with a growing middle class, with rising standards of living. I see children even more successful than their parents – some successful even beyond their wildest dreams – and others congratulating them for their achievement, not attacking them for it.

This America is fundamentally fair. We will stop the unfairness of urban children being denied access to the good schools of their choice; we will stop the unfairness of politicians giving taxpayer money to their friends' businesses; we will stop the unfairness of requiring union workers to contribute to politicians not of their choosing; we will stop the unfairness of government workers getting better pay and benefits than the taxpayers they serve; and we will stop the unfairness of one generation passing larger and larger debts on to the next.

In the America I see, character and choices matter. And education, hard work, and living within our means are valued and rewarded. And poverty will be defeated, not with a government check, but with respect and achievement that is taught by parents, learned in school, and practiced in the workplace.

This is the America that was won for us by the nation's Founders, and earned for us by the Greatest Generation. It is the America that has produced the most innovative, most productive, and the most powerful economy in the world.

As I look around at the millions of Americans without work, the graduates who can't get a job, the soldiers who return home to an unemployment line, it breaks my heart. This does not have to be. It is the result of failed leadership and of a faulty vision. We will restore the promise of America only if we restore the principles of freedom and opportunity that made America the greatest nation on earth.

Today, the hill before us is a little steep but we have always been a nation of big steppers. Many Americans have given up on this President but they haven't ever thought about giving up. Not on themselves. Not on each other. And not on America.

In the days ahead, join me in the next step toward that destination of November 6th, when across America we can give a sigh of relief and know that the Promise of America has been kept. The dreamers can dream a little bigger, the help wanted signs can be dusted off, and we can start again.

And this time we'll get it right. We'll stop the days of apologizing for success at home and never again apologize for America abroad.

There was a time – not so long ago – when each of us could walk a little taller and stand a little straighter because we had a gift that no one else in the world shared. We were Americans. That meant something different to each of us but it meant something special to all of us. We knew it without question. And so did the world.

Those days are coming back. That's our destiny.

We believe in America. We believe in ourselves. Our greatest days are still ahead. We are, after all, Americans!

God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

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Anti-LGBT rights televangelist Pat Robertson on Tuesday told Christian students that bullying their gay and lesbian classmates was wrong even if they "think that these practices are an abomination."

A CBN viewer named Douglas posed this question to the TV preacher: "What would you say to a school that has gay and LGBT students being bullied by the Christian kids?"

"Well I think that's terrible and Christians shouldn't do that," Robertson explained. "I mean, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, blah, blah, blah. You know, Christians shouldn't do that. They ought to act in love."

"You might disagree, you may think that these practices are an abomination, you can think all sorts of things, but you need to love. And you need to reach out to these kids in love," he added.

"Bullying is wrong. Period," co-host Terry Meeuwsen agreed.

"Amen," Robertson said. "Schools shouldn't permit that either."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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The author of a controversial anti-immigration bill in Arizona said on Tuesday that young children could simply get state-issued identification to prove they are in the U.S. legally.

Appearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, former Arizona state Senate president Russell Pearce (R) defended the state's SB 1070 law, which requires police to check the immigration status of suspects during traffic if there is a "reasonable suspicion" that they undocumented immigrants.

Committee Chairmen Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pressed Pearce on why the law's official training manual instructed officers that the way a person was dressed could constitute a "reasonable suspicion."

"Do you think that dress is an inappropriate measure?" Schumer asked. "Is there a reason to stop somebody because of their dress, and I would ask you if it's not inappropriate, what does an illegal immigrant dress like?"

"This is just a list of things that lead you to ask questions," Pearce explained. "You have to respond to reasonable suspicion to do your job, Mr. Chairman. And this is just a list of things to look for."

"Under federal law, under the U.S. Constitution and the Arizona Constitution, you know, we have the Equal Protection Clause," he added. "I knew those kinds of issues would be raised by those open-border folks that are against any enforcement. We've been sued on everything we've done from voting fraud -- to stop voting fraud -- to welfare fraud to going after illegal employers who compete illegally, immorally and have a competitive advantage over the honest employer. Doesn't seem like no matter what we do, Mr. Chairman, we're attacked for simply enforcing the law, trying to protect American citizens and jobs for Americans. ... We simply wrote the bill to preempt those kinds of silly arguments and try to protect everybody's rights."

Schumer also wondered why the bill did not exempt minors from having to produce proof of citizenship.

"Again, reasonableness is the thing," Pearce said.

"All the children can be checked and should be checked under the law and its regulations," Schumer pointed out. "What are the children supposed to show?"

"Mr. Chairman, if they don't have ID then they're not supposed to show anything," Pearce replied. "You're not required to have ID unless you're a driver or -- In Arizona, we allow parents to go and get an Arizona ID at any age if a parent so choses."

"So you think under this law, children, to prevent themselves from being sent to a detention center or whatever, would have to carry some kind of ID?" Schumer observed.

"Mr. Chairman, that's not accurate," the former Arizona Senate president insisted. "Mr. Chairman, there's a reasonableness, again, inferred. You know, you're taking the extreme and I understand trying to make a point, but, Mr. Chairman, it's just not accurate. It's just not so."

"This makes exceptions to law enforcement, you know to make reasonable decisions based on the circumstances at the time. I think it's demeaning to law enforcement to assume they don't know how to do their job in a respectful proper manner," he remarked.

"I'm just going to submit for the record Section 3B, and it doesn't make any exceptions at all," Schumer pointed out.

According to the Arizona Department of Transportation, official state photo identification cards are "available to all ages (including infants) for a fee of $12."

Arizona requires that infants have a birth certificate, a Social Security card and a parent with a valid Arizona ID to receive a photo identification card.

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Stephen Colbert's most excellent takedown of the faux journalism practiced (or malpracticed) at Fox News. In this instance Fox & Friends' Steve Doocy decides to paraphrase President Obama with words he figured the President might have meant to say, but didn't you know, actually say them. He meant them, which is more than enough these days at Fox to report him as saying them.

Here's a partial transcript:

Folks, I gotta tell ya, the general election campaign is barely underway, and President Obama is already resorting to ad hominem attacks, trying to divide the country just when the Republicans are trying to unite us against him.

Fortunately, Fox & Friends' chief friend Steve Doocy isn't letting him get away with it. Talking with Mitt Romney on Thursday, Doocy quoted the President's blatant attack on Mitt.

STEVE DOOCY (4/19/2012): He said, "Unlike some people, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth."

(awkward Romney laughter)

"Unlike some people", oh gee, who could Obama possibly mean? We all know when you're talking about someone born into privilege, it can only mean Mitt Romney. So petty! And it is bound to backfire on the President, because being born rich is Mitt Romney's greatest accomplishment.

And I believe it is a cowardly statement by the President, made all the more cowardly by the fact that he never actually said it.
..
But, folks, that does not mean it was poor journalism. Doocy was practicing journalism plus, by quoting the subtext. It works like this:

I don't give out handjobs at the bus station... (massive audience laughter and applause) ... unlike some people.
...
So excellent reporting, Steve Doocy. And I know good reporting. I am an independent newsman, not some smug, self-satisfied brownnoser toting to the Republican establishment... unlike some people.

Meanwhile, this morning Steve Doocy offered the Fox brand of non-apology we've become accustomed to hearing from this fake news organization.

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DOOCY: "Last week, President Obama talked about not being born with a silver spoon in his mouth. That was interpreted as a big dig at Mitt Romney. When I was interviewing Governor Romney on this show, I asked him about it. However, I did some paraphrasing that seemed to misquote the president. So to be clear, the President's exact quote was 'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.' And I hope that clears up any confusion."

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In the wake of Mitt Romney soon having to choose a running mate of his own, former presidential candidate John McCain was asked by PBS's Charlie Rose about his lack of regret for now infamously picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.

McCain stuck to his ground with his choice of Palin, despite the recent revelations that have come out after the release of Game Change, where much of McCain's former staff spilled the beans that they did not think she was remotely qualified to be president.

Par for the course when conservatives are backed up against the wall with bad decisions they've made, McCain chose to play the victim card for Palin as one of the reasons he's continuing to defend her. Because heaven forbid she and he should be rightfully criticized for the fact he should have never let this woman come "one heartbeat" away from the presidency if McCain had won the last election.

McCain asked "what the point was" that his former running mate was continuing to be savaged in the press. I guess it might have something to do with the fact that she's still fully willing to interject herself into that conversation by joining Uncle Rupert's wingnut welfare brigade over at Fox and the fact that she is more than happy to have the media reporting on whatever her latest ghost writer was posting on her Facebook page. Given the fact that Palin is apparently still craving the limelight, his protests here ring pretty hollow.

McCain can complain all he wants about how unfairly he thinks his former running mate has been treated in the media, but that will never excuse him for his maleficence and responsibility for inflicting that woman on the rest of us and on the fact that someone in our corporate media is going to pay to have her on the air even if it's not Fox. McCain has helped to dumb down the American electorate by putting Palin in the spotlight to begin with and with giving her a format for the right to be listening to her in the first place.

After hearing this interview with Charlie Rose among a number of others where he's expressed the same sentiments, it's apparent inflicting Sarah Palin on the rest of us is something he's never going to admit he was wrong for doing, much less apologize for.

Rough transcript below the fold.

ROSE: Why do you say that? Not that you shouldn't...

MCCAIN: Because she continues to be attacked. I mean...

ROSE: So you're doing that because she's attacked? You just want to stand up and say...

MCCAIN: I want to defend her. I think she's a fine and great person...

ROSE: And if you had it to do over you would choose Sarah Palin? Would you?

MCCAIN: Yes. (crosstalk) Yes.

ROSE: Even though people around you think it was a big mistake. You know that.

MCCAIN: I think in retrospect a few people around me did, but hind sight's twenty twenty.

ROSE: But Steve Schmidt was not a few people. He was a principle campaign official.

MCCAIN: But let me point out to you the following facts. We were behind before she gave her speech at the Republican convention […] She was in a debate with a very experienced politician in Joe Biden, and she beat him in the debate. She galvanized people all over America and we were three points ahead, I'll show you the pollster... we were three points ahead the day the stock market went down 700 points. The end of that day, we were down seven points.

ROSE: In other words the stock market collapse is what killed the McCain campaign.

MCCAIN: The economy has to play a role just as the economy is going to play a role in this campaign. I make no... I'm not excusing anything I did or anything I said... that will be for the historians to judge. But facts are stubborn things and that is we were doing very well, our team. I thought and still believe to this day that she had all of the qualifications.

ROSE: She'd be a heartbeat away.

MCCAIN: Let me just say this too. I have never in my life seen someone attacked as consistently and with the fervor that the left continues to attack Sarah Palin. I mean, what's the point? It's over, you know. I defend her when asked about it, but look, I think the world of her. Her husband is a fine person. She has a fine family. She was a good governor of her state. I mean... I will always appreciate the fact that Sarah Palin was willing to serve with me.

ROSE: Okay.

MCCAIN: We had to get through that.

ROSE: Yeah, I know.

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman did some follow up to Al Jazeera's reporting on the state of the Gulf of Mexico and the fishing industry there, two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Gulf Oil Spill: BP Execs Escape Punishment as Fallout from Disaster Continues to Impact Sea Life:

Two years since the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, we look at its impact on the Gulf of Mexico's residents and wildlife even as no BP officials have faced criminal prosecution for the disaster. Eleven workers died when the Deepwater Horizon well exploded, and almost five million barrels of crude oil leaked into the ocean before the well was plugged after 51 days. BP maintains the Gulf is rapidly recovering thanks to the company's efforts, but Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail describes how scientists say shrimp, fish and crabs in the Gulf of Mexico have been deformed by oil and chemicals released during the spill cleanup effort. Meanwhile, ProPublica's environmental reporter, Abrahm Lustgarten, says the company failed to learn from past mistakes that could have helped avoid the explosion. He is the author of the new book, "Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster."

Full transcript is available at the link above. Our corporate media actually did a small amount of reporting on this news after Al Jazeera broke their story on the diseased fish and shrimp coming out of the Gulf, but I'll be surprised to see much more follow up from sources other than those like Al Jazeera and Democracy Now.

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Earlier this month we were treated to Rep. Allen West throwing around the "communist" insult for his fellow House members in the Progressive Caucus. As Ed Schultz reported here, now West has found himself being uninvited to speak at a Florida NAACP event. Not long after West's remarks, Fox host Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs decided to follow West's example, calling former Labor Secretary and professor Robert Reich a communist for some of his statements during an interview on The Daily Show earlier that week.

This Monday evening on MSNBC, Ed Schultz gave Robert Reich a chance to respond.

REICH: It's like being back in the 1950's, this communist witch hunt that suddenly has been launched. And the irony Ed is that there are not even many communists left in the world today. It would be one thing if we were back in the 1950's, but there's not a Communist threat. What are these conservatives, these right-wingers like Bill O'Reilly – they have nothing else to say. They have nothing else to do. They don't have arguments. They don't have logic. They don't have any analysis. What do they have? They don't have facts. What do they have? They just simply have the same old epithets and slurs they've been using for the last sixty years. […]

And for Bill O'Reilly to say that simply because I a suggesting that it is a role for government to invest in schools and infrastructure and basic R&D, that makes me a communist? Bill O'Reilly, you don't know what you are talking about. You have absolutely no sense of history. You have no understanding of government. You have no understanding of our society. Debate me, head to head, person to person, like a man! Or a woman.

As Reich noted, he's told O'Reilly he's willing to debate him anywhere, any time, name the place and O'Reilly won't do it. Reich also slammed the Republicans for wanting to take us back to the "dark ages" in America where anyone had even a modicum of economic security. Reich said he hadn't seen anything like the extremism we're seeing from the right in the modern ages and expressed his hopes that not only President Obama is reelected but that the Democrats get the Congress back from these extremists as well.

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For anyone trying to keep track of all of the lies Mitt Romney has been telling out on the campaign trail, and the list is a long one, one of the best references you're going to find out there is Steve Benen's weekly series, the latest of which you can find here -- Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XIV:

Campaigning in Ohio yesterday, Mitt Romney told supporters, without smirking or sounding sarcastic, "If I'm president of the United States, with your help, I will tell the truth."

Ordinarily, those seeking national leadership positions don't vow to tell the truth if others help them, but since I am nothing if not helpful, I thought I might give the presumptive Republican presidential nominee a few examples of instances in which he fell short of honesty this week.

Indeed, if Romney intends to "tell the truth," he can start by reading the 14th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. Speaking to the NRA, Romney said, "The Obama administration has decided that it has the power to mandate what Catholic charities, schools, and hospitals must cover in their insurance plans.... Here we are, just getting started with Obamacare, and the federal government is already dictating to religious groups on matters of doctrine and conscience."

In Massachusetts' governor for one term, Romney took the same position Obama has adopted. He somehow forgot to mention this.

2. Romney also told the NRA audience, "We need a president who will enforce current laws, not create new ones that only serve to burden lawful gun owners. President Obama has not, I will."

The grammar in this sentence makes it hard to understand, but the implication seems to be that Obama has created new restrictions on gun laws. That's a lie.

3. Romney also claims to be a "lifetime" member of the NRA.

In reality, Romney used to oppose the NRA, but became a "lifetime" member fairly recently by buying the honor from the group.

[...]

The Obama campaign, by the way, seems well aware of the fact that Romney lies with unnerving frequency, but seems reluctant to say so in harsh terms, fearing media and voter pushback. Instead, as of yesterday, Team Obama is resorting to an interesting euphemism: "Why does [Romney] have such an aversion to the truth?"

Whether the political mainstream is comfortable using the word "lie" or not, that question seems increasingly unavoidable.

You can read the rest of last Friday's edition at the link above (there is a total of 21 lies he chronicled just last week) and as he noted at the end of the post:

Previous editions of Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity: Vol. I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII.

Steve started the project while he was still writing for The Washington Monthly, before Rachel Maddow hired him. I've included the first couple of examples in a portion of his speech at the NRA earlier this month.

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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney declared on Monday that "young voters in this country have to vote for me."

During a press conference in Aston, Pennsylvania, the candidate told reporters that young Americans should reconsider their support for President Barack Obama.

"I think young voters in this country have to vote for me if they're really thinking about what's in the best interest of the country and what's in their personal best interests," he explained. "Because the president's policies have led to extraordinary statistics. And when you look at 50 percent of the kids coming out of college today can't find a job or can't find a job that is consistent with their skills. How in the world can you be supporting a president that's led to that kind of economy?"

"I think that young people will understand that ours is the party of opportunity and jobs," the former Massachusetts governor continued. "If they want to have a president that can create good jobs and can allow them to find them a bright and prosperous future for themselves and for their families then I hope their going to vote for me."

"I think this is a time when young people are questioning the support they gave to President Obama three and a half years ago. He promised bringing the country together. That sure hasn't happened. He promised a future with good jobs and good opportunity. That hasn't happened."

After the press conference ended, Romney returned the the microphone and added that he "fully" supported an extension of low interest rates on student loans, a position that puts him in opposition to House Republicans.

"There was some concern that that would expire halfway through the year, and I support extending the temporary relief on interest rates for students as a result of student loans, obviously, in part because of the extraordinarily poor conditions in the job market."

A recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 48 percent of voters aged 18 to 24 support a second term for Obama, compared with 41 percent who would like to see a Republican in the White House.

In 2008, Obama won the age group by 34 points over Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

What will I write about when I don't have any debt??

Another slip-up month. I was going to cheat and not post until next month, but I realized I have to be honest with myself (since the updates are mid-month now, I skipped March and went right to April). I have to post regularly scheduled updates. Between the big East Coast trip and taking care of a few annual expenses, I fell behind by quite a bit this month. My goals for the month were under $32,000 in debt and $500 in savings. Well, I missed the debt mark and have just over $400 in savings. The cool thing has been transferring little amounts of money to my savings. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything and I don’t want to make any withdrawals from savings again, which I haven’t done since January.

I have been working a lot, which is why I haven’t been writing as much, but I’m happy to be working. However, it’s still painfully obvious to me that I do not have enough income. I am not ungrateful for what I have, but I see a dizzying stretch of sameness if I do not push myself to the next income level. I’ve cut expenses as far as I can: I track my spending, I don’t drink or smoke and I spend most of my extra time feverishly working on something that could be big. But right now I’m just tired. I’ve been at this for a year and I still feel like I can’t get ahead. The worst part is that while my overall debt level has gone down, my credit card balances have stayed high, and the high balance card just stays in the same thousand-dollar range.

I could have said no to my friend and not been a bridesmaid in her wedding. That would have saved me around $1,000. But then I would have spent the rest of my life seeing my friends’ pictures and remembering that I wasn’t a part of that wedding. Just another snapshot in the alumni magazine of someone else’s joy. But I shared in that joy and this is one couple who I am not worried about making it. Their relationship and friendship has been a source of strength for our little circle and I love them and I wouldn’t have missed that wedding unless I’d gotten shot, and even then, I would have tried to make it if the bullet hadn’t hit any vital organs. I only have a handful of friends that would ask me to be bridesmaids in their weddings, and this was the first of those. And let’s be honest, the other three have all told me they’re either not having a wedding or are going to ask me to be present with them when they go to a Justice of the Peace (and maybe a Denny’s afterwards). So was this a once-in-a-lifetime event? Probably!

So right now, right in this moment, I’m a little tired of all the hustling and tracking and planning and managing. But if I let myself relax and just do them anyways, they don’t seem so stressful. So my goal for May is to get under $32,200 in debt and work on increasing my income. I’ll report next month on specific things I did to increase my income and how it turned out. I’m not going to set any savings goal for the month because I am comfortable with my savings rate. With my income just barely meeting my expenses, I have been committed to saving whatever I can and will continue with that until I break this threshold. That’s what I have been seeing this as: I’m hovering at a certain income level and I need to break this threshold to get to the next level where I envision that small cushion between income and expenses as the most comfortable, microsuede-upholstered chaise lounge ever. I’ve been here for nearly six months (at this income level) and I’ve been telling myself to keep going and not get discouraged. I have to believe that and believe in myself. I have the skills, the enthusiasm and the ability to make more money. It’s going to happen. But if I get down on myself, I won’t be able to figure out how. A wise rapper named Too $hort once said:

I know you tired of being broke just hanging out
You gotta lot a dreams but you can’t get out
The first thing you need to do is set yourself some goals
Think positive, everything else is old
and work hard, never stop hustlin’

I will be gettin’ it! On with the bad news:

Smallest Debt (February/March 2012): $4,169

Smallest Debt (April 2012): $4,343

Next month will be better.

Total Debt Update:

April 2012: $32,872

% Change from February/March: 1.0% Increase (Bad Girl!)

I’m not beyond reproach, but I don’t pretend to be that way.

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Former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman on Monday blasted the media and insisted he was taken out of context he after compared the Republican Party to the Communist Party of China.

Speaking at the 92nd Street Y in New York on Sunday, Huntsman recalled that he had been disinvited to a Republican fundraiser in Florida because he called for "some sort of third party movement," according to Buzzfeed.

"This is what they do in China on party matters if you talk off script," President Barack Obama's former ambassador to China explained.

Huntsman told MSNBC on Monday that his comments had been taken out of context because there was a lack of "responsibility in media."

"You get these blogs out there, you know, Bottom-feeder, Buzzsaw, Buzzfeed, whatever they are, and they take a sentence out of context and it becomes a headline and pretty soon mainstream newspapers pick up on that," he told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough. "Give me a break."

"Last time I was on the show, I basically talked about a duopoly, and if the Republican Party doesn't go big and go bold and go visionary during a time of need, you know, you're likely going to have an alternative voice or a separate angle of attack that's going to knock it down. That's just the way the free market of politics works."

Huntsman continued: "Shortly thereafter, I was disinvited from a Republican fundraising event, [at] which I was to be a guest speaker. And so as we were talking about that last night, I said you know, if you're not on script and you get knocked out of an event like that -- the parties are supposed to be big tent, you're supposed to bring in all ideas. And I thought for a moment about what they do in China if you're off script, the party. They knock you out. We shouldn't be doing that here."

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While discussing the potential choices for vice president and who Mitt Romney may eventually pick, ABC This Week regular George Will expressed his support for the Republicans' poster-boy for privatizing Medicare and Social Security, for that very reason. Apparently Will believes a full-throated debate over eliminating our social safety nets as we know them would be a good thing for the GOP.

BRAZILE: You know, George, I would pick George Will, because he's a reliable, consistent conservative. I've known George for many, many years. He could stand up to the scrutiny, and he's solid on all of those things that matters to conservatives. Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What are you going to do with that endorsement, George?

WILL: I would pick someone 30 years younger than I am, which is Paul Ryan or Bobby Jindal, who's been a governor. I think Mr. Romney needs some kind of excitement, that is, go young, go conservative, and go someone who's so deeply in the weeds on the entitlement crisis that the country's having, and, finally, look forward to, say, Paul Ryan debating Joe Biden.

I think the selection of either Rep. Paul Ryan or Gov. Bobby Jindal would go over just as well as Brazile's kidding about Mittens picking George Will, although the media does love Paul Ryan and continually praises him as very, very serious for wanting to lead us to a "path to poverty" with that cruel budget proposal of his.

Regardless of the media's love affair with Ryan, his budget proposals did not go over well with the public or with senior citizens, who Republicans cannot afford to lose in the upcoming presidential election. I don't see how they'd want to add that demographic to the women and Hispanic voters that are already leaving them in droves right now.

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This weekend on PBS's The McLaughlin Group, we were treated to host John McLaughlin hoping for the return to the days of special prosecutor Ken Starr investigating another sex scandal. McLaughlin asked his panel what the probability that another special prosecutor would be assigned to investigate the recent sex scandal with members of the Secret Service hiring prostitutes and was met with a resounding "No!" by every one of his guests.

Pat Buchanan, who is still a weekly regular on this show on PBS despite his firing from MSNBC, told McLaughlin that there's no need for a special prosecutor unless the government is failing to do their job and investigate the matter themselves, which is not the case here. And Mort Zuckerman, who they had placed on the wrong side of the aisle as usual with Eleanor Clift, responded that "one Ken Starr was enough" in his lifetime.

That did not deter McLaughlin from proclaiming that there was an 80 percent chance that one would be assigned.

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From TPM -- Cummings On Secret Service: "You Can't Legislate People Not Being Stupid":

Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, discussed how the Secret Service can make sure the behavior that took place Colombia doesn't happen again, admitting to CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday that "you can't legislate people not being stupid."

"You don't necessarily change behavior, but you certainly set the tone of what you want," Cummings said. In response to Sen. Harry Reid's comments that what the agents did was stupid, Cummings added: "You can't legislate people not being stupid, but certainly you can uphold the high standards of this organization… We're going to make sure that it remains the great organization that it is."

Republicans and their allies like Joe Lieberman are dying to pin this scandal on President Obama. We know how the GOP loves a good sex scandal if it involves a Democratic president.

Full transcript below the fold.

CROWLEY: Joining me now, Congressman Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which this week has had its hands full.

CUMMINGS: We've been busy.

CROWLEY: Yes you have. And not in great ways.

The Secret Service scandal with the prostitutes, you know, almost two dozen we're told and almost a dozen Secret Service men, do we now know the scope of what went on?

CUMMINGS: Candy, we don't know the full scope. The Secret Service, I believe, they're investigating themselves and they're doing I think a very good job. And they acted on it very quickly. They got in there within a matter of a few hours, got those folks out of there, took away their security clearance, and suspended them. Now we know that six of them are gone, and others are being investigated.

So -- but -- and they have it -- and the thing that Director Sullivan has assured us of is he will go wherever the evidence leads. And he has expanded his investigation from the initial 11, and that's why the most recent person who came up on Friday I think it was has been included.

So I think we're going to have to wait and see.

CROWLEY: And it is your understanding it's exactly what we've been told, which is a group of Secret Service men sort of barhopping, picking up women along the way, prostitutes along the way, coming back to the hotel, and it all came to light because of a dispute over money and how much they'd be paid.

CUMMINGS: That's exactly right.

CROWLEY: OK.

CUMMINGS: And it's a sad situation, but, you know, our committee, the Government Reform Committee, we take this very seriously. This is our watch. The Secret Service is a phenomenal organization. It's an elite force.

And I have said to the director, look, it's not only important that you be excellent, but we also don't want people to even imagine, imagine that they can pierce the shield of the Secret Service because that's --

CROWLEY: Is that what bothers you most?

CUMMINGS: Not the most but it bothers me a lot because I know that there are a lot of folks who are perhaps looking for opportunities to do harm to the president or others that the Secret Service, you know, guard.

And you never know what they think that is a moment of weakness, Candy, that's the time that they may think that they can act. But I want to make sure that we get this matter resolved. I want it resolved fairly, I want it thoroughly investigated, and make any changes that might be necessary.

CROWLEY: How do you change the behavior of folks? I mean, in some ways you -- you know, Senator Reid said this is just stupid, you know, and it's hard to fix stupid.

CUMMINGS: Yes, well, I think that you don't necessarily change behavior, but you certainly set the tone of what you want, and when --

CROWLEY: Surely they must have known that going down to Cartagena in advance of the president to set up security down there and movements down there, you probably shouldn't get drunk and pick up prostitutes.

CUMMINGS: Exactly right, and I think we have some bad actors here. I don't think that we judge the Secret Service by its weakest link. They are gone, half of them, and I think others will be leaving shortly.

So, you know, you can't, you know, legislate people not being stupid, but certainly you can uphold the high standards of this organization. Keep in mind, the Secret Service has been around since 1865, and we're going to make sure that it remains the great organization that it is.

CROWLEY: So you're suggesting that the other -- there are now another six that are still on leave or have been suspended, whatever we call that, that you suspect may well resign or be --

CUMMINGS: I would not be surprised.

CROWLEY: OK. And let me ask you, will higher heads roll? That is, we know the supervisors that were down there and involved in this are gone, but what about the Secret Service director? How do you feel about him, because very often, when these things happen, GSA, something else you have been involved in, the head goes.

CUMMINGS: Yes. I'm very confident that what happened here was limited to these folks, but we'll find out. But the thing that impressed me about Sullivan is that he acted quickly. Keep in mind, the head of the region down there in South America was on that situation immediately.

CROWLEY: Immediately.

CUMMINGS: Got those folks out there immediately. And she, of course, was acting on behalf of Sullivan. So I think Sullivan has done a very good job. A lot of us on Capitol Hill, most of us have a lot of confidence in him, both sides of the aisle, by the way.

CROWLEY: Let me ask you as a final question, you have mentioned a couple times that folks in your district ask you with regularity about the safety of this president.

Do you have more concerns with the safety of this president because he's African-American than you would have had for, say, George Bush or those that --

CUMMINGS: First of all, let me say I have concern about all presidents and everybody that the Secret Service guards.

(CROSSTALK)

CUMMINGS: But the fact is that African-American people have always expressed concern to me about this president. They see, Candy, folk around this president with guns strapped on their legs. And they say, you know, how can that be?

And they're just -- they worry. They're concerned, but, again, I believe that the Secret Service is going to get through this. I think this is a time that they have to take a look at themselves.

By the way, the other thing we're doing is we're also going to be taking -- our committee is going to be looking at DOD. We're sending a letter to them, trying to figure out what role they played in all of this, too.

CROWLEY: OK. Thank you so much, Congressman, for stopping by. We really appreciate it.

CUMMINGS: Thank you. It's my pleasure.

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Liberal commentator Keith Olbermann on Sunday suggested that the price of gas had been artificially manipulated since President Barack Obama took office to hurt his chances at re-election.

In an appearance on ABC, Olbermann noted he had become suspicious after gas prices increased from $1.61 a gallon when Obama took the oath of Office in January 2009 to nearly $4 a gallon earlier this month.

"The lowest gas prices in the last six years, the nadir of gas prices at the pump, was the day of this president's inauguration in 2009," Olbermann explained. "There has to be some connection between that being the least-busy political moment of a president's career -- when you're not going to hurt him and you're not going to harm him that way -- and the price of gas."

"There has to be an almost deliberate or at least a side-effect quality to that. There must be."

Last week, the president proposed measures that would give regulators more power to limit manipulation of the oil markets.

"We can't afford a situation where some speculators can reap millions while millions of American families get the short end of the stick," he told reporters.

But Republicans like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) quickly dismissed the proposal.

During a recent interview with the blog Shark Tank, Bachmann insisted that new legislation wasn't necessary because Obama "already has the tools and he knows it."

"This is just about waving a tar baby in the air and saying that something else is the problem. I have never seen a more irresponsible president who is infantile in the way that he continually blames everybody else for his failure to, first, diagnose the problem and, second, to address the problem. It's always everyone else's fault."

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In yet another round of the "both sides" are equally terrible game, former George W. Bush chief campaign strategist Matthew Dowd made this ridiculous statement during part of the panel discussion on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos where they were discussing the GSA and Secret Service scandals that erupted this week:

DOWD: Well, to me -- to me, both political parties -- for the last 20 years, both political parties -- the only difference between both political parties today is one says cut taxes and grow government, the other one says increase taxes and grow government. Both of them are saying -- both of them are growing government.

Whatever the pace happens to be during -- I worked for President Bush -- during President Bush's presidency, the level of government grew, though we didn't fund as well as it should have been, because taxes were cut, and that I think is one of the problems that we have is nobody -- or very few people are willing to tell the American public that we have to do two things here.

And if we're going to restore faith and trust in government -- and it's -- one of the faults I have with President Obama, who I greatly respect, is that he came into office, and one of the major things we had is people did not have faith and trust that the government could effectively, efficiently do their job. And what he did immediately was grow the size of government without ensuring that it was going to do its job effectively.

This coming from the man who made these admissions back in 2007 -- Key Bush Insider Speaks Out, Calls for Iraq Withdrawal:

The chief campaign strategist for President Bush's re-election has broken with the President on a series of issues including the war in Iraq. In an interview with the New York Times, Matthew Dowd called for a US withdrawal from Iraq. Dowd said: "If the American public says they're done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want. They're saying, 'Get out of Iraq.'" Dowd said he began having doubts on Iraq even as he was orchestrating the President's election race against former Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry. Dowd said he later wrote but never submitted an op-ed entitled "Kerry Was Right" after Kerry called for an Iraq withdrawal. Dowd said his change of heart was sparked in part by Bush's refusal to meet the peace activist Cindy Sheehan at his Crawford estate in the summer of 2005. He also cited the expected deployment of his own son to Iraq. Dowd also criticized the President's re-nomination of former UN ambassador John Bolton after his rejected confirmation. And he said he was shocked when the President did not immediately fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld following the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. On Sunday, White House counselor Dan Bartlett responded by saying Dowd's comments should be evaluated in light of his "personal turmoil."

He did admit that they didn't fund the government properly because of the Bush tax cuts, but then he spins right around and attacks President Obama for the deficit spending that was necessary to try to get out of the recession that his former boss caused, where the economy was falling off a cliff as he left office.

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Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday refused to explain how a potential Romney administration would be different from George W. Bush's administration, but insisted that the last Republican president "did a fantastic job" and his brother, former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL), would be a "fantastic vice president."

"I haven't gone through the comparison," Rubio told CNN's Candy Crowley. "I think that presidents serve in different times with different challenges. And so I think that George W. Bush, in my opinion, did a fantastic job as president over eight years, facing a set of circumstances during those eight years that are different from the circumstances that a President Romney would face."

Last week, Jeb Bush told Newsmax that he would "consider" a vice presidential nomination, but suggested Rubio was "probably the best" choice.

"Well, that's very nice of Jeb," Rubio said on Sunday. "I hope he'll say yes if future President Romney asks him," adding that the former Florida governor would be a "fantastic vice president."

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Once again this Sunday, we were treated to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels hoping the audience forgets about the fact that he was George W. Bush's budget director. This week he was blaming President Obama for not properly cleaning up the mess he helped to leave him, and trivializing how bad it was as well.

When Wallace asked him about the Obama administration's argument that that he inherited a mess from George W. Bush, here's part of how Daniels responded:

DANIELS: First of all, the president did inherit a mess but it's not the first time it's ever happened. He's done less with the mess than anyone else ever did. Ronald Reagan inherited a bigger one and had a roaring economy already by this stage.

H/t to our regular Sunday show commenter Mugsy for pointing out why that's not true:

1: Unemployment rose only 1% Carter's last year in office. Under Bush, unemployment rose nearly 3% (2.9%) his last 11 months.

2: Carter added just $200B to the National Debt (22%). Bush added 45% (almost doubling the Debt).

3: Carter came in on the heels of the Ford Recession, which was more severe than what Reagan inherited from Carter.

4: By October of Reagan's SECOND year in office, unemployment peaked at 10.8%.

5: Republicans swept into Congress in 2010 promising "jobs, jobs, jobs". Now in 2012, they are criticizing "the president's economic polices" for the struggling economy. How do they then make the case for their own reelection?

Daniels also ignores the fact that Republicans in the Congress have done everything in their power to either obstruct or water down any stimulus or efforts to get Americans back to work at every turn and at the state level Republican governors have been laying off government workers and busting their unions and helping to make the unemployment numbers worse, but they want to lay this all on the feet of the current administration. Daniels was also touting the Paul Ryan budget as a better solution to fix the economy than anything the administration has proposed, which as we've covered here again and again is nothing but another tax giveaway for the rich and Wall Street paid for by the working class.

Transcript below the fold.

WALLACE: Let's turn to the economy, which you touched on earlier and where it is right now. There seemed to be signs for last few months that the economy and the recovery was picking up, more jobs were being created each month. The employment rate was steadily coming down.

But now, in the last month, there seems to be a sense from a variety of signs -- job creation, housing -- that the recovery is stalling.

What's your sense of where the national economy is now?

DANIELS: That it's stalling and it never had much momentum. Even when consumption seem to be going up, if you look one level deeper, people were digging in savings to make those purchases. Last year, income in America rose slower than inflation. People actually lost purchasing power. You know, our state happens to be one where the workforce is growing, but all around us there are states, Chris, where people have simply given up looking for work. Everyone now knows if we had the same size workforce we had when this all started, unemployment as reported would be 11 percent. Not 8.x.

So, you know, this is still a very tough slog in most of America. And honestly, I can't name one thing that this administration has done that hasn't leaned against jobs and against growth. So, to that extent -- to the extent national policy has an affect, it's not really a surprise.

WALLACE: Well, let me pick up on that, though. What about the Obama argument that he inherited a mess from George W. Bush, and that if Romney gets in to office and enacts the policies he's espousing, that he will simply return us to that mess?

Governor Romney has endorsed Paul Ryan's budget. In principle, Ryan cuts tax rates for the rich without specifying which loopholes he would close. Ryan cuts nondefense discretionary spending by 19 percent in 2014, which the Obama campaign says would mean major cuts in Head Start, medical research and healthcare for the poor.

So, how about the Obama argument, what Romney will do is give tax cuts to the rich and spending cuts to the poor and the middle class?

DANIELS: First of all, the president did inherit a mess but it's not the first time it's ever happened. He's done less with the mess than anyone else ever did. Ronald Reagan inherited a bigger one and had a roaring economy already by this stage.

This is the weakest recovery, at least in the post-war period, if not ever, given the depth of the recession that we were in. With regard to how we get out of it, you can start by saying we couldn't do worse than the policy mix of this president -- gigantic new spending, gigantic new taxes, a takeover of 18 percent or 19 percent of the economy in the Obamacare bill. Anything would be better than that.

Now, with regard to the Ryan budget, it's certainly a much better starting point than what we have now. Yes, fill in the blanks. Yes, let's describe exactly where or at least the extent to which the tax loophole should be closed.

But you know, the president -- apparently, nothing in his life has acquainted him with where jobs and wealth come from. He has no ear at all for the small business of this country. They're the ones on the receiving end of all of his new taxes. And, you know, frankly, I guess he never is going to get it.

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Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod on Sunday explained that President Barack Obama had not accomplished comprehensive immigration reform because the tea party had driven mainstream Republicans so far to the right.

"I think a lot of Republicans in Congress want to cooperate, know better -- but they're in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right that has dragged the party to the right," Axelrod told CNN's Candy Crowley.

"I was in the room when he called together Republicans and Democrats who had been for immigration reform in the past," the top aide recalled. "President Bush, to his credit, had pushed for immigration reform. In the Senate, 11 members supported it. Those members and members who have been supportive in the past were there along with Democrats, and the president said, 'I will work with you to get this done.' Not one of those Republicans was willing to stand up and work with him to pass the bill."

"We tried to pass the DREAM Act through the Congress. It was blocked by the Republican legislature," he added.

"The nature of Washington is not monolithic opposition to everything the chief executive wants to do as a political strategy, and that is what happened here. ... To say because you have an implacable group of Republicans in the Congress, who simply aren't going to let that move, that the president hasn't kept his promise is a little bit disingenuous."

A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll found that Obama had an enormous lead over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney among Hispanics, 69 percent to 22 percent.

Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels on Sunday dismissed the idea that Romney needed a specific strategy to win over Latino voters.

(h/t: The Hill)

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Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is dismissing the idea that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney needs a specific plan to win over women and Latino voters.

During a Sunday interview, Fox News host Chris Wallace noted that President Barack Obama had a significant lead among women, Hispanics and low-income workers.

"During the campaign, Romney said he opposes the DREAM Act, he supports the Arizona crackdown on illegals, he said illegals should self deport," Wallace pointed out. "A lot of Hispanics express concern about those positions. He can't just say, 'I didn't mean it.'"

"I don't think he has to at all," Daniels replied. "He gives away nothing here with regards to the president who has been, I believe, very duplicitous sometimes on this very same subject, but I think he's got to speak the language honestly, not narrow broadcasting -- narrow-casting, let's say -- to individual groups, as much as the language of unity that talks about the issues the unite us all, the threats that menace us all."

Daniels added that Romney's economic policies were good enough that he didn't need to cater directly to groups like women and Hispanics.

"Gov. Romney is already getting good marks for his superior point of view on the thing that bothers Americans most. It bothers everyone, all those groups you just mentioned as much as anyone. So, he's got a great opening, and I think he'll seize it."

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)

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Independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman on Sunday insisted that President Barack Obama and the White House should be held accountable for a sex scandal within the Secret Service and for lavish spending at the General Services Administration (GSA).

"It would be unfair to hold President Obama responsible for this outrageous behavior at the Secret Service and the GSA, but it is fair to hold the president accountable," Lieberman told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "What do I mean when I say the president should be held accountable? The buck stops at the president's desk. He's the leader of our government. He now has to be acting with a kind of relentless determination to find out exactly what happened and to make sure the people who work for him at the Secret Service and the GSA and everywhere else in the government don't let anything like this happen again."

The Connecticut senator also called for an investigation to determine whether White House staff were involved in the incident where Secret Services agents allegedly solicited prostitutes in Columbia ahead of the president's recent visit there.

"I'd say it's a reasonable question," Lieberman explained. "I think the White House ought to be conducting its own internal investigation of White House personnel who were in Cartagena just to makes sure that none of them were involved in this kind of inappropriate behavior."

"I understand a White House advance person doesn't have quite the same range of responsibility as a Secret Service agent does. On the other hand, a White House advance person knows exactly where the president is going to be at any time. ... So, that's an important question and the White House ought to be taking [Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck] Grassley's inquiry not defensively, but making sure they answer the questions."

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On this Friday's Real Time, Bill Maher highlighted another segment with his "Real Time reporter" Alexandra Pelosi, this time focusing on the media and their hyping of a potential race war in Sanford, Florida, because all of about the three members or so of the New Black Panther Party and a handful or so of Neo-Nazis decided to show up in town.

It was nice to see someone point out just how overblown the coverage on either has been, but it's too bad Maher did not also point out the fact that Fox has been flogging the New Black Panthers as though they're a group to take seriously and fearmongering over them for a lot longer than just this story. They've been hyping this tiny group for a lot longer than just their coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting. I would hope he continues to go after them for their overblown coverage of that small fringe group and points that out in the future to his audience as well.

I'll settle for the him pointing out how horrid it is that the media looked like they were praying for a race war when it's fairly obvious there was not going to be one, so they'd have some ambulances to chase for now since sadly, he's one of the few I've seen doing it since this case finally got some national media attention.

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The Republican Party decided to bring out the author of the controversial Blunt Amendment, that thankfully was killed in the Senate last month, which would have allowed employers to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of personal moral objections, to give their weekly address this Saturday.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt continued with the GOP's series of attacks on the Obama administration for the rising price of gas, of course conveniently omitting the fact that they soared to record heights after Republicans deregulated oil speculation back in 2008.

Blunt was also still flogging the Keystone pipeline project as some great "job creator" even though, as Media Matters' Political Correction noted, the numbers given by Republicans on the number of jobs created have been highly inflated and a lot of those jobs would be temporary or go to workers in other countries.

And like his buddy John Boehner over in the House, Blunt was calling the Buffett rule a "gimmick" because we all know that anything a Democrat proposes that might lower our deficit but doesn't fix the problem completely is a cheap trick, but when Republicans propose to go after the funding for Planned Parenthood, they're being completely serious about reducing the deficit and not just playing partisan politics.

Transcript of Blunt's remarks below the fold.

Hi, I'm Roy Blunt; I represent Missouri in the United States Senate.

With Election Day less than seven months away, we've heard a lot from President Obama lately about so-called 'economic fairness.'

If we're going to talk about economic fairness, or about fairness, one of the most pressing economic issues facing families, seniors, and job creators in Missouri and across America is the strain of skyrocketing gas prices.

Fuel costs are on track to hit an average of $4 a gallon by summertime—that's more than double what they cost when President Obama took office, and it marks a record high for the last two months.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. As a candidate, the President said, that energy costs, his quote, he said, 'would necessarily skyrocket' under his plan. Well that's probably one promise the American people wish he hadn't kept.

Unfortunately, instead of working together to pass bipartisan solutions that would relieve pain at the pump and pressure on jobs, this administration is focused on the wrong things.

The latest example was the Senate's vote this week on the so-called Buffett Tax—a gimmick that would do nothing to jumpstart jobs or lower fuel prices for average Americans who are really struggling to make ends meet and has a lot of negative consequences.

My colleagues across the aisle readily admit that this bill would not help our struggling economy. In fact, the lead sponsor of the Buffett Tax admitted on the Senate floor this week, that according to him, 'the aim of this bill is not to lower the unemployment rate or the price of gasoline.'

Now the real question that Americans should be asking is 'why not?' Why would the Senate be talking about things that wouldn't have impact on energy prices or our economy? Why would we have wasted the week on something like that? There's really no excuse for not doing things that would lower gas prices and encourage private sector job creation.

Four out of five people hit by the new tax are business owners. With nearly 13 million Americans unemployed, the last thing we need is to raise taxes and create greater uncertainty for our nation's job creators.

According to a recent survey by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, uncertainty and gas prices are the top concerns for small businesses.

More than half of all small businesses said they weren't hiring because they said they 'weren't confident in the recovery,' and a third said they weren't hiring due to the 'uncertainty driven by Washington.' Well we didn't do anything this week about either of those problems and some of them can only be solved by government doing its job.

Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of small businesses reported that gas prices were their top concern.

Unfortunately, for years this administration and Democrats in the Senate continue to dismiss bipartisan solutions that would help put people back to work and encourage more economic energy development.

Ten years ago, when gas prices averaged $1.45 a gallon, Senate Democrats blocked legislation that would have produced more domestic energy here in the United States and lowered the price today. They said their reason was well we wouldn't have that energy for 10 years—10 years later that's a pretty hallow excuse.

In addition, the Administration continues to block the Keystone XL Pipeline—that's the nation's largest shovel-ready project, no taxpayer money involved, it would create thousands of American jobs and deliver more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day to our refineries from our best trading partner and our closest neighbor, Canada—all without costing taxpayers.

The Keystone Pipeline is one common-sense step in the right direction to help put more people back to work, reduce prices at the pump, and position our nation for greater energy security now and in the future.

Jobs, jobs, and jobs should be the number one, two and three domestic priorities of the federal government. The shortest path to more American jobs is more American energy.

We should do the right the thing for American jobs and American families and by the way, we should do it now!

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The panel on Up With Chris Hayes this Saturday of Sam Seder, Bob Herbert, Josh Barro and Victoria Defrancesco Soto had a discussion on the growing wealth inequality and lack up social mobility which are being made worse by things like Republicans wanting to cut a billion dollars in food assistance for the poor in their proposed Farm Bill.

Bob Herbert made a really great point late into the first clip when they were discussing the fact that SNAP, which used to be called food stamps, is subsidizing corporations that don't want to pay a living wage and that we ought to be raising the minimum wage among other things to remedy that. I think that's a point that is not mentioned nearly often enough when we see the likes of Paul Ryan demagoguing the needed expansion of the program. A good deal of those people using the program to keep from starving are not unemployed, but are the working poor.

More great discussion on the Romney's trying to rewrite the fact that they inherited great wealth instead of admitting they were born with huge advantages that most Americans are never going to be lucky enough to have below the fold.

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And here's the last part of their discussion which starts out with Rep. Paul Ryan pretending we don't have a problem in America with a lack up upward mobility, despite the fact that the United States has fallen well behind other industrialized nations in that category and on how hard it is right now for anyone who was born into poverty to even make it into the middle class, much less become rich.

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Communist, Socialist, Marxist... it's all apparently the same if you're Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs out there lobbing insults at former Secretary of Labor and professor Robert Reich for daring to say the United States should be investing in things like education, research and development and infrastructure and that we can't expect big corporations to do it, during his appearance on The Daily Show this week.

Naturally O'Reilly and Dobbs use the opportunity to attack government as somehow 'draining the resources" of corporations, even though they're making record high profits and hoarding cash right now. And although they admit there are a number of things that the government is the only entity capable of managing, neither will admit Reich's point that there are investments government should be making into the private sector such as investing in alternative energy, since both of them are carrying water for the big oil companies, which is what they spent the beginning of the segment doing before the portion in the clip shown above.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I thought Dobbs couldn't get much worse back when he was ranting and raving about illegal immigration day after day on CNN. His move over to Fox's business channel and guest appearances like this one on O'Reilly's show have proven me wrong.

h/t Media Matters

Democracy Now did a follow up this Friday on their previous segment I posted here -- James Bamford: NSA is Building the World's Largest Spy Center. This story of course is being ignored again by our corporate media and is terrifying quite frankly as to the amount of data they're collecting and the abuses and potential abuses that are inevitable when you allow anyone access to this much personal information about their fellow citizens.

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance:

In his first television interview since he resigned from the National Security Agency over its domestic surveillance program, William Binney discusses the NSA's massive power to spy on Americans and why the FBI raided his home after he became a whistleblower. Binney was a key source for investigative journalist James Bamford's recent exposé in Wired Magazine about how the NSA is quietly building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah. The Utah spy center will contain near-bottomless databases to store all forms of communication collected by the agency, including private emails, cell phone calls, Google searches and other personal data.

Binney served in the NSA for over 30 years, including a time as technical director of the NSA's World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. Since retiring from the NSA in 2001, he has warned that the NSA's data-mining program has become so vast that it could "create an Orwellian state." Today marks the first time Binney has spoken on national television about NSA surveillance. This interview is part of a 4-part special. Click here to see segment 2, 3, and 4.

You can read the full transcript which is way too long to post here at the link above along with links to and descriptions of the three other segments that followed this one, from Friday's show on the same topic.

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Teaching young girls to marry rich makes S. E. Cupp "an embarrassment to women":

Cenk and Ana Kasparian lay into conservative commentator S. E. Cupp's recent op-ed praising Ann Romney decision to "marrying well." Ana says, "She makes the assumption that women are worthless and they are unable to be independent, so they need either a wealthy man or the government to take care of them, which is not the case at all."

Digby flagged Cupp's op-ed as well the other day. I would not be surprised at all if Cenk found out about it from reading her post here -- Study hard for your M.R.S., girls. After quoting a good deal of the post from Cupp she added this:

Somebody's been watching too much Mad Men, I'm afraid.

Seriously, it's been a while since I read such retrograde drivel even from a right winger. She's literally saying that if women want stability and security they should marry rich. Which is, I think we can all agree, nice work if you can get it. But the 1 percent is only 1 percent and unless we are going to require wealthy men to marry more than one wife (which I'm sure ole Mitt wouldn't be averse to either --- his grandfather wasn't anyway) we have a little math problem here.

But I have to say that I'm depressed by the notion that the only valid choices for a woman to gain security and stability is to be dependent on welfare or marriage is still in circulation anywhere. Presumably, Cupp is aware that the vast majority of women don't depend on anyone for those things. Not even the conservative married ones. They work at jobs, just like she does. Are they irresponsible gadabouts for failing to properly secure a millionaire?

Evidently Cupp is looking for a wealthy, patriarchal throwback to take her away from all this and there are probably a few available. Sadly, being in her 30s she's pretty much out of the running for anyone younger than 60 or so. (Rich male "providers" of all ages tend to prefer the younger ones.) She missed her "Romney window" a long time ago.

More there so just go read the rest.

As the second-largest public school district in the country, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has one of the worst reputations around in nearly every respect. There’s the dismal graduation rate (around 56%), poor academic performance, way-too-easy teacher tenure (most other school districts in California have a more comprehensive evaluation process) and an insane $19 billion construction bond program.  That $19 billion (spread across several bond measures) has created some impressive architecture (like the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools that cost $578 million and looks like it belongs on the Las Vegas Strip or the Visual and Performing Arts School at a comparatively cheap $228 million) but little in the way of academics.

LAUSD proudly unveils its newest hotel...I'm sorry, I meant school

In fact, I’ve never seen a school district care so little about academics as LAUSD. They proved it again this week with their announcement that the Board will seek to lower graduation requirements in the number of credits required (from 230 to 170 units) and eliminate requirements to take elective courses. Some of the news was misreported, as their Facebook page points out. The current passing grade for college-prep courses at LAUSD is a ‘D’ and the proposal would raise the passing grade to a ‘C’ in 2017, which is well overdue as I seriously doubt the value of being a high school “graduate” with a GPA between 1.0 and 1.9. But under the new proposal, students could theoretically be done with all of their graduation requirements sometime around junior year. Unless we’re questioning the entire system and shortening high school by a year (which I have nothing against), this new proposal will solve little: it makes an already easy curriculum easier for the above average students, and it coddles the below average students who would benefit from better instruction and a focus on developing critical skills, like reading comprehension, critical thinking and maybe even some basic personal finance skills. As a product of a California public school myself, I can tell you one thing: it’s already way too easy. I graduated among the top 50 in my 900-student senior class, and I’m not that smart. To quote Joe Rogan, “I know I’m stupid, but yet I’m smarter than almost everybody I meet.”

California public schools mean well, they really do, but dumbing it down and lowering requirements will just send graduates into the real world or college completely unprepared for the normal rigor and pace of things. Take the CAHSEE (California’s high school exit exam) for example. It was implemented the year after I graduated so I never had to take it, but the thing is frighteningly simple. Parents have described it as being at the 6th-7th grade level. Let’s look at its description straight from the California Department of Education website:

Students first take this test in grade ten. If they do not pass the test in grade ten, they have more chances to take the test. In grade eleven, they can take the test two times. In grade twelve, they have up to five times to take the test.

Yes, you read that right. You can take the “exit exam” beginning your sophomore year and you can take it EIGHT TIMES to get a passing grade. Come on! It’s just another requirement that was implemented by the state that meant well but ended up becoming more bureaucratic nonsense. Hey everybody, here’s a high school exit exam that is neither timed to be an exit nor much of an exam because you can retake the same damn test seven more times to pass it. This goes to the heart of my love-hate relationship with California. California wants so desperately to give everyone an equal chance and I admire that because I want that too, but it doesn’t happen like this. You either give the test or you don’t. You either have graduation requirements or you don’t. Don’t water it down.

LAUSD is claiming the new classes will be more rigorous, but only time will tell. The district is a behemoth that serves 900,000 students, has 80,000 employees and more than 1,000 schools. It’s just too big and unwieldy to manage effectively. The Board is a huge power play and its members are career politicians. I want the best opportunities for these students and not just improved statistics. Smaller districts with more focused priorities would make a greater difference for the students. $19 billion is an awful lot to spend on a school district with a less than 60% graduation rate and plans to set the bar even lower for its students.