Olbermann: 'Reagan's Dead and He Was a Lousy President'..Call This Moron.

On Wednesday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann responded to an Ohio Republican quoting Ronald Reagan by mocking Reagan as "dead," and calling him a "lousy President." After reading a quote from Warren, County, Ohio commissioner Mike Kilburn proclaiming his intention not to use any of the federal stimulus money on his county, as he quoted Reagan's famous line that "government is the problem," Olbermann shot back: "Uh, Commissioner Kilburn, Reagan's dead and he was a lousy President."

The MSNBC host also slammed moderate Democratic Senator Ben Nelson as the day's "Worst Person in the World" because the Nebraska Democrat dared to lump him and fellow liberal MSNBC host Rachel Maddow in with conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, as Nelson charged that both conservative and liberal talk show hosts spread misinformation to their audience.

Olbermann, who has a history of repeating incorrect or distorted information on his show, and who also once depicted an image of Rush Limbaugh as a target of gunfire, charged that Limbaugh "supports racism and encourages violence," and that FNC's Glenn Beck "makes up stuff," as the MSNBC host indignantly complained: "Thanks for the opportunity to tell you you don't know what the hell you're talking about. I am fed up with this equating of what we do here to circus performers like Limbaugh and the Fox crowd. We don't make up stuff like Beck does, we don't stalk people like O'Reilly does, we don't support racism and encourage violence like Limbaugh does, we don't recite talking points like Hannity does."

[This item, by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth, was posted Thursday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

Referring to his recent criticism -- from the left -- of President Obama for announcing his administration would not try to prosecute CIA interrogators who used waterboarding against terrorists, Olbermann claimed that his show does not really have a left-wing slant: "Rachel caught you out to lunch on the stimulus, and she called you on it, and I slammed a Democratic President last week. We believe first, Senator, in right and wrong over here, not right and left. Let me know when you start believing in something besides re-election."

From the April 22 "Worst Person in the World" segment:

KEITH OLBERMANN: But first, time for Countdown's number two story, "Worst Persons in the World." The bronze goes to Mike Kilburn, county commissioner of Warren County, Ohio. You remember Warren County? Part of the still unexplained terror threat lockdown on election night 2004. The commissioners there are rejecting $373,000 in stimulus money for three new buses and vans meant to get the county's rural residents to health care and educational opportunities. Kilburn said, "I'll let Warren County go broke before taking any of Obama's filthy money. I'm tired of paying for people who don't have. As Reagan said, government is not the answer, it's the problem." Uh, Commissioner Kilburn, Reagan's dead and he was a lousy President.

Dick Cheney: Obama’s Acting Like a Weak President

Former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed the Obama administration Monday night for what he described as a disturbing tendency to criticize America abroad and embrace avowed enemies like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez while not praising the nation’s success in the war against terrorism.

As an example, Cheney revealed that he had pressed for the release of documents that would show how the Bush administration’s allegedly harsh interrogation techniques had thwarted major terrorist attacks. Instead, President Barack Obama only ordered the release of memos detailing the controversial techniques, not the results.

Cheney made the statements in a two-part interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity. The first part was broadcast Monday night; the second will be broadcast Tuesday night at 9 p.m.

“What I find disturbing is the extent to which he has gone to Europe, for example, and seemed to apologize profusely in Europe, and then to Mexico, and apologize there, and so forth,” Cheney told Hannity.

“And I think you have to be very careful. The world outside there, both our friends and our foes, will be quick to take advantage of a situation if they think they're dealing with a weak president or one who is not going to stand up and aggressively defend America's interests.”

“The United States provides most of the leadership in the world… I don’t think we have much to apologize for.”

Cheney also said that:

# the release of CIA memos detailing interrogation techniques was a “little bit disturbing” because the administration hadn’t released documents detailing how those techniques were successful in thwarting terrorism.

# the Bush administration’s policy of ignoring Chavez and other leftist leaders like Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua was more effective than embracing a dialogue with them. That only serves to validate their anti-democratic tendencies at home.

# Obama’s habit of traveling abroad – to Europe and Mexico – and apologizing “profusely” for American actions signal weakness to friends and foes alike.

# criticizing the previous administration is nothing new, and is to be expected from a new president. “We did it. I'm sure the Obama administration is not the first one ever to do that.”

Cheney told Hannity that he had “formally asked” for the declassification of documents he says would “lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”

# he had no substantive policy discussions with Vice President Joe Biden, who never asked Cheney for his insight on policy. They only met once after the election.

Cheney explained the Bush administration's interrogation methods in terms of the situation after 9/11. The Bush administration knew little about al-Qaida, and had to quickly get up to speed with much of New York City already in ruins.

“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” the former vice president said. “And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.”

“I formally asked that they be declassified now,” Cheney said. “I haven't announced this up until now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”

“And I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.”

The handshake between Obama and Chavez was not good because it only serves to undermine the cause of democratic oppositions in countries like Venezuela, where the Chavez regime has moved to crush dissent.

“You have millions of people all across South America who are watching how we respond,” Cheney said. “And if they see an American president sort of cozying up to somebody like Daniel Ortega or Chavez, I think it's not helpful. I think it sort of sets the wrong standard.”

“I've seen Hugo Chavez in operation before, and Daniel Ortega down in Nicaragua,” Cheney said. “These are people who operate in our hemisphere, but who don't believe in and aren't supportive of basic fundamental principles and policies that most of us in this hemisphere adhere to.”

“Basically, the position we took in the Bush administration was to ignore it. I think that was the right thing to do.”

One of the biggest temptations for a new administration is to focus on being liked rather than respected, Cheney said.

“The United States provides most of the leadership in the world. We have for a long time. And I don't think we've got much to apologize for. You can have a debate about that. But the bottom line is that, you know, when you go to Europe and deal with our European friends and allies, some things they do very well, some things they don't.”

“Sometimes it's important that a president speak directly and forthrightly to our European friends. And you don't get there if you're so busy apologizing for past U.S. behavior.”

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Supreme Court Limits Warrantless Vehicle Searches

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Supreme Court Limits Warrantless Vehicle Searches
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
By Staff, Associated Press

Washington (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police need a warrant to search the vehicle of someone they have arrested if the person is locked up in a patrol cruiser and poses no safety threat to officers.

The court's 5-4 decision puts new limits on the ability of police to search a vehicle immediately after the arrest of a suspect.

Justice John Paul Stevens said in the majority opinion that warrantless searches still may be conducted if a car's passenger compartment is within reach of a suspect who has been removed from the vehicle or there is reason to believe evidence of a crime will be found.

"When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee's vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant," Stevens said.

Justice Samuel Alito, in dissent, complained that the decision upsets police practice that has developed since the court first authorized warrantless searches immediately following an arrest.

"There are cases in which it is unclear whether an arrestee could retrieve a weapon or evidence," Alito said.

Even more confusing, he said, is asking police to determine whether the vehicle contains evidence of a crime. "What this rule permits in a variety of situations is entirely unclear," Alito said.

The decision backs an Arizona high court ruling in favor of Rodney Joseph Gant, who was handcuffed, seated in the back of a patrol car and under police supervision when Tucson, Ariz., police officers searched his car. They found cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

The trial court said the evidence could be used against Gant, but Arizona appeals courts overturned the convictions because the officers already had secured the scene and thus faced no threat to safety or concern about evidence being preserved.

The state and the Bush administration complained that ruling would impose a "dangerous and unworkable test" that would complicate the daily lives of law enforcement officers.

The justices divided in an unusual fashion. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, David Souter and Clarence Thomas joined the majority opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy were in dissent along with Alito.

Minuteman Founder to Challenge McCain for Senate Seat in 2010 GOP Primary

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer


(CNSNews.com) – Chris Simcox, founder of the pro-border enforcement group the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, will announce on Wednesday his plans to challenge Sen. John McCain in the Arizona Republican Senate primary in 2010.

Simcox, who spoke with CNSNews.com on Tuesday, said he has voted for McCain – the GOP presidential nominee in 2008 – in the past despite his many concerns about McCain’s politically moderate leanings.

“I had no choice” but to vote for McCain in the past, Simcox told CNSNews.com. “This is what this campaign is about, to give conservatives in the state an alternative to John McCain. … John McCain has been wrong about immigration. He has been wrong on border security, and he has attacked our First Amendment rights with campaign finance reform. He has acted like a big government bully.”

After losing the presidential race to Barack Obama last fall, McCain announced in December he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2010.

Among several issues McCain has faced criticism for from conservatives has been his sponsorship of legislation to establish a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens, allowing them to stay in the United States if they learn English and pay back taxes. Opponents of these measures, such as Simcox, call the proposals “amnesty.”

Illegal immigration has been a major issue in Arizona where the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was founded in 2005 as a citizens group to help patrol the southern border in lieu of federal support.

Its mission statement reads: “It is the mission of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps to see the borders and coastal boundaries of the United States secured against the unlawful and unauthorized entry of all individuals, contraband, and foreign military. We will employ all means of civil protest, demonstration, and political lobbying to accomplish this goal.”

“There is one simple solution, and that is to deploy our troops to the border,” Simcox told CNSNews.com, but Simcox stressed that he did not want to be pigeon-holed as a single issue candidate.

As a former school teacher, he said he would be campaigning for education reform. Further, he said he supported doing away with obstacles to more energy resources.

Simcox noted that, as an incumbent and former presidential nominee, McCain has a clear fundraising advantage. Simcox also said that his campaign “is starting off with nothing.”

“I have a state base in Arizona, and I am nationally known, so that will help in fundraising,” Simcox said. “We have grassroots and foot soldiers and many, many people in the state.”

It is unusual for incumbent senators to be defeated in primaries. However, it has happened in recent years. Most notably in 2006, millionaire businessman Ned Lamont defeated Sen. Joe Lieberman in a Connecticut Democratic primary. However, Lieberman kept his seat by running as an independent.

The loser of the Arizona primary will not have that option, said Arizona Assistant Secretary of State Jim Drake.

“We have a law that says if you ran in the primary election and failed to be nominated, then you cannot file in the general,” Drake told CNSNews.com.

In another example, in 2002, U.S. Rep. John Sununu beat U.S. Sen. Bob Smith in a New Hampshire Republican primary. Then-U.S. Rep. Pat Tooney came close to beating Sen. Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary in 2004, but lost. Toomey, no longer a member of Congress, is reportedly going to challenge Specter again this year.

Leah Geach, a spokeswoman for McCain’s Senate office, did not respond to inquiries for this story.

Obama Welcomes America-Bashing

Obama Welcomes America-Bashing
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
By L. Brent Bozell III

Of all the bizarre fictions that the media have spread about Barack Obama, the strangest is that’s he non-ideological. The supreme purveyor of this fantasy is Obama himself.

During his trip to Tobago to meet with Latin American leaders, the president claimed “we can make progress when we're willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies.” That’s a pretty funny sentence when your foreign policy reeks of Jimmy Carter, fermented since 1977.

In a room stuffed with Marxist crackpots like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Obama came not to lecture, but to charm. America’s just one country among many, and he was “inclined to listen and not just talk.”

There were no “junior partners” in the Americas, just partners. He came not to defend America, but to calmly hear it trashed, and win people over with his charisma. Obama believes in his charisma far more than he believes in America.

“I didn’t come here to debate the past,” Obama declared. “I came here to deal with the future.” He explicitly claimed his own biracial skin displayed a new openness on America’s part: “As has already been noted, and I think my presence here indicates, the United States has changed over time.”

Now there’s a powerful defense of your country, President Obama.

Obama’s so egotistical he thinks America has two historical eras, Before Obama and the Glorious Now.

After sitting through a 50-minute diatribe from that communist thug Daniel Ortega, who ranted that America had unleashed a century of expansionist aggression, Obama’s response wasn’t national, just personal: “I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old.”

Apparently, that sorry act of aggression was John F. Kennedy’s failed Bay of Pigs attempt to rid Cuba of Fidel Castro.

Few corrected Obama’s mistake – that lost battle occurred a few months before the world was transformed by his birth. The president was asked later what he thought about Ortega's speech, and he said, "It was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought."

There’s another powerful way to defend your country, President Obama.

Obama was just as non-confrontational with that other thug Chavez, who pressed him with a copy of a book-length anti-American diatribe called “The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of Pillage of a Continent.”

Its author, Eduardo Galeano, typically described America under President Bush as a terrorist war machine in a 2006 Pacifica Radio interview: “This $2,600 million spent each day to kill other people, this machine of killing peoples, devouring the world resources, eating the world resources each day. So this is a terrorist structure indeed, and we are in danger, so President Bush is right, I think. We are suffering a terrorist menace.”

But when Chavez handed him Galeano’s thirty-year-old communist diatribe, Obama could only say "I think it was, it was a nice gesture to give me a book. I'm a reader." Being obsessed with himself, Obama also said he should have given Chavez his books. He added that Chavez’s harsh rhetoric didn’t mean they couldn’t engage in civil dialogue.

There’s only one thing wrong with that sentiment: it’s not civil dialogue for Chavez to demand that Obama read about how his country is bleeding the Americas to death.

Yet one more powerful – oh, never mind.

American reporters saw this as a glorious moment. Time’s Tim Padgett said the hate-America gift was appropriate, because Obama “proved at the Trinidad summit to be the first U.S. President to get it.” Obama “gets” the America-haters.

But how would he respond to the charge that Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” or John Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress” was just more imperialistic aggression? Is it simply inappropriate to defend American presidents, even when they’re Democrats? The “evil empire” narrative must always be listened to with respect – and without rebuttal?

Only Obama deserves respect, apparently. Padgett thought the Latin leftists should show respect by reading the president’s own masterful books in order to admire his “common-sense, post-ideological political philosophy.”

To glimpse at the warped worldview of our media elite, look no further than a news “analysis” by Steven Hurst of the Associated Press, who compared Obama favorably to ... Mikhail Gorbachev.

Apparently, like Gorbachev, Obama presides over a corrupt and crumbling empire: “During his short – by Soviet standards – tenure, he scrambled incessantly to shed the ideological entanglements that were leading the communist empire toward ruin. But Obama is outpacing even Gorbachev.”

The leftist media look at Obama and see themselves. There are no “ideological entanglements.” They’re just out to make the world a better place, insisting that America needs to shrink itself into a smaller, quieter, less “judgmental” partner, and do so while the Western hemisphere goes off a left-wing cliff.

Hugo Chavez Says Venezuelan Socialism Has Begun To Reach U.S. Under Obama

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com) - Inspired by his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the Americas Summit, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared on Sunday that Venezuelan socialism has begun to reach the United States under the Obama administration.

“I am coming back from Trinidad and Tobago, from the Americas Summit where, without a doubt, the position that Venezuela and its government has always defended, especially starting 10 years ago, of resistance, dignity, sovereignty and independence has obtained in Port of Spain, one of the biggest victories of our history,” Chavez said.

“It would seem that the changes that started in Venezuela in the last decade of the 20th century have begun to reach North America,” he added.

Chavez made the comments Sunday to a crowd gathered for the 199th Commemoration of the Independence Declaration of Venezuela.

“In one year we will be celebrating 200 years of ‘April 19,’ the day that ... initiated this revolution that is underway 200 years later at the forefront of the people of our America, at the forefront of change, at the forefront of a new world, at the forefront of a new century that will construct Bolivarian socialism,” said Chavez.

“Bolivarian socialism” is the term Chavez uses to refer to his 21st century Latin American form of socialism, which he claims originates from the revolution launched by Simon Bolivar, a Venezuelan and Latin American revolutionary leader of the 19th century.

“We have assumed the commitment to direct the Bolivarian Revolution towards socialism and to contribute to the socialist path, with a new socialism; a socialism of the 21st century which is based in solidarity, in fraternity, in love, in justice, in liberty and in equality,” Chavez said in a speech in mid-2006, according to the Venezuelan government’s official Web site.

Last Friday, during the Americas Summit, Obama greeted Chavez before the first plenary summit, the first time the two presidents had met.

“I want to be your friend,” Chavez said to Obama as both of them shook hands. After the encounter, Chavez told reporters, “It was a good moment.”

At the United Nations in September 2006, Chavez referred to then-President Bush as “the devil."

The Venezuelan president has also suggested that he would “use oil” to fight U.S. influence, which he often refers to as “the imperialist power.” Venezuela is one of the world’s major oil producers.

Prior to the Americas Summit, Chavez had even attacked the Obama administration.

In January, Chavez accused the not-yet-inaugurated president of "throwing the first stone," after Obama called Chavez a "disruptive force in the region."

Chavez responded by calling Obama "ignorant" and inviting him to look over the realities of Latin America.

At their meeting last week, Chavez gave Obama a copy of the book, “The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of Pillage of a Continent,” written by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. The book is about alleged U.S. and European exploitation of the region.

“I think it was a nice gesture to give me a book. I’m a reader,” Obama told reporters. Obama and Chavez spoke once again--in private--during the final day of the summit. Chavez told reporters that they talked about a new era in U.S.-Venezuela relations.

“I told Obama that we have decided to appoint a new ambassador (to the U.S.),” said Chavez.

President Obama, defending himself against criticism coming from those in the U.S. who disapprove of talks with Chavez, said, “Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably one six-hundredths of the United States. They own Citgo [oil refinery and retailer].

“It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having polite conversation with Mr. Chavez, we are endangering the strategic interest of the United States,” Obama told reporters.

“You would be would be hard pressed to paint a scenario in which the U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela,” he added.

Venezuelan opposition to the Chavez administration criticized President Obama on Sunday for warming up to Chavez before demonstrating concern about Venezuela’s democracy, apporrea.org, a Venezuelan news outlet reported.

“The president’s (Chavez) authoritarianism, which grows by the day, has to be discussed,” Milos Alcalay, former Venezuelan ambassador to the U.N., who resigned in 2004 due to differences with Chavez, told aporrea.org.

The U.S. needs to talk to “the opposition, church representatives and others, who are really concerned about the democracy in Venezuela,” added Alcalay.

According to the U.S. State Department and other official government sources, the Venezuelan government has been guilty of numerous human rights violations under Chavez's rule.

“Politicization of the judiciary and official harassment of the political opposition and the media characterized the human rights situation during the year,” said the State Department's Country Report on Human Rights in Venezuela for 2008 that was released last month.

The report credits the Chavez regime with unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, discrimination based on political grounds, widespread corruption at all levels of government, official intimidation and attacks on the independent media.

“According to HRW [Human Rights Watch], ‘Government officials have removed scores of detractors from the career civil service, purged dissidents employees from the national oil company, denied citizens access to social programs based on their political opinions, and denounced critics as subversives deserving of discriminatory treatment," says the State Department report.

A recent report by the Congressional Research Service also outlined human rights concerns in Chavez's Venezuela.

“Under the populist rule of President Hugo Chavez … Venezuela has undergone enormous political changes, with a new constitution and unicameral legislature, and a new name for the country, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” states a Feb. 5, 2009 CRS report.

“U.S. officials and human rights organizations have expressed concerns about the deterioration of democratic institutions,” the report adds, “and threats to freedom of expression under President Chavez, who has survived several attempts to remove him from power.”

Last February, Venuzuelan voters approved a constitutional amendment that eliminates presidential term limits, thus allowing Chavez to run the country for an unlimited succession of 6-year terms as long as he can win a majority of the vote in a Venezuelan election.

Card Issuers Brace For Stern Warning

Obama to Press Executives to Adopt New Rules or Face Action by Congress

By Michael D. Shear and Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

President Obama will meet directly with credit card executives this week and plans to tell them to support strict measures that curb lending abuses or face the wrath of angry consumers and a determined Congress, according to banking industry officials.
This Story

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Card Issuers Brace for Stern Warning
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Congress Takes Aim at Credit Card Lending

The heads of the credit card divisions at 14 major banks are set to meet with the president and his top economic officials at the White House on Thursday, administration aides confirmed yesterday. They are bracing for a warning that the president will join the chorus of condemnation if they resist efforts to protect their credit card customers from unfair practices.

The high-profile meeting comes as members of Congress launch new efforts to crack down on credit card companies for such practices as arbitrarily raising interest rates on existing balances, charging late fees when enough time was not given between the billing and due dates, and charging interest on debt that was paid on time.
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Lawmakers in the House plan to begin work tomorrow on a bill that would codify new Federal Reserve regulations aimed at curbing those practices. A separate bill in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), would go even further, prohibiting companies from applying a variety of charges. The measure includes capping over-limit fees at one per billing period, allowing no interest charges on fees and no fees to make a payment. The legislation also would prevent companies from raising interest rates at any time for any reason and limit aggressive marketing by card issuers aimed at borrowers under 21.

Industry sources said the president will tell the executives on Thursday that he wants to go further than the House bill without specifically endorsing all of the provisions of Dodd's bill. Administration officials confirmed that the president will push for stronger rules in some areas than those proposed in the legislation but is "broadly supportive" of the bills working their way through Congress.

Obama has been calling for new regulation of credit card lending since the campaign trail. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner endorsed curbs on the credit card companies in remarks several weeks ago.

White House aides declined to discuss the specific agenda for Thursday's meeting. A senior White House official described it as an "outreach meeting" and said "any assumption that we would invite representatives in to simply stomp our feet and lecture about what they must do or else is simply inaccurate."

Press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that administration officials will make clear to the executives that Obama would like them to take action voluntarily but that he supports legislation to force restrictions on their lending practices if they refuse.

"The administration and, I think, the public in general would be happy if some of the practices that they and others find offensive are ended -- would be a good step in the right direction. That I don't doubt," Gibbs told reporters.

He added that the White House will not be shy about "pursuing a course through Congress that would provide fairness and transparency to this process."

White House officials are hoping to avoid a repeat of the situation that followed disclosure of the multimillion-dollar bonuses at insurance giant American International Group, when a public outcry led to congressional action that Obama felt went too far. In that case, Obama initially expressed his outrage about the bonuses, but later was forced to ratchet back his rhetoric to keep lawmakers from taking actions that might threaten the government's efforts to bail out the banks.

Gibbs made clear yesterday that Obama shares the public's frustration -- and even anger -- about credit cards. Asked whether the president is angry at the practices of credit card companies that have received government lifelines, Gibbs said the emotions are directed more broadly.

"Well, I don't think the anger just is for bailed-out companies," he said. "I mean, there are companies that aren't getting money from the federal government that are involved in practices where people see their credit card rate skyrocket unbeknownst to them or contained in paragraph 14 of some very small writing at the very end of a credit card contract."

Representatives of some credit card companies have been tight-lipped about what they expect at the meeting.

"We hope there to be a useful dialogue about the state of the economy, the ability of lenders to make loans in this challenging environment, and the potential negative impact that further policy initiatives may have on the provision of credit to consumers and small businesses," said Kenneth J. Clayton, senior vice president and general counsel of the American Bankers Association Card Policy Council.

Card issuers argue that the restrictions imposed by the Fed already will reduce the availability of credit, particularly to marginal customers, and will force them to hike interest rates. They say additional limits will only heighten both trends at a time when the government is trying to increase lending.

"We're decreasing the availability and increasing cost when we want to be moving in the opposite direction," said Scott Talbott of the Financial Services Roundtable.

But members of Congress hailed the White House's involvement.

"I welcome President Obama's support for our efforts to crack down on abusive and predatory credit card practices," Dodd said. "We will only fully recover from this economic crisis when we put an end to the abusive practices that continue to drive so many Americans deeper and deeper into debt."

Consumer advocates said the White House's support could add momentum to congressional efforts to crack down on the industry.

"Many families who have been hit by unjustified and financially destabilizing credit card interest rate increases recently are asking why their taxes are supporting these practices," said Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America. "The White House could be decisive in prodding Congress to enact a proposal that curbs a wider array of abusive practices than the Federal Reserve rule and takes effect more quickly."

Staff writer Binyamin Appelbaum contributed to this report.

Civil Rights: 'Use 'em Or Lose 'em'

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

WND columnist Janet Porter is warning Americans if they want to keep their civil rights, they'd better be using them right now.

Porter in her newest column took on the issue of the recent "extremist" report from the Department of Homeland Security.

The federal agency's report is called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

It already has generated a lawsuit by talk radio host Michael Savage and multiple calls for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to be removed.

According to the federal government, characteristics of members of the suspect group of people include those who:

* Oppose restrictions on firearms

* Oppose lax immigration

* Oppose the policies of President Obama regarding immigration, citizenship and the expansion of social programs

* Oppose continuation of free trade agreements

* Oppose same-sex marriage

* Has paraonia of foreign regimes

* Fear Communist regimes

* Oppose one world government

* Bemoan the decline of U.S. stature in the world

* Is upset with the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China and India

Porter wrote, "The only way we can keep our freedoms is if we'll use them – now."

"One thing's for sure – we aren't going to stand by while they profile good, law-abiding citizens as terrorists and take away constitutional freedoms," she wrote.

"Therefore, we, the law-abiding citizens of America, demand:

1. "The resignation or removal of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano for her partisan political profiling of veterans and conservatives and her abuse of power.

2. "An apology from President Barack Obama to ALL Americans for his administration's call for domestic spying.

3. "The immediate retraction of the "Rightwing Extremism" report for labeling law-abiding citizens as "terrorists" because of their political views."

"If you'd like to help sound the alarm before you're monitored as a potential terrorist, please help. Go to www.f2a.org and click the first blinking alert to fight "hate crimes" and click the link to www.NoPoliticalProfiling.com to help us place a newspaper ad and sign the petition to fight the new definition of "terrorist," she said.

"DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has labeled law-abiding citizens as 'right-wing extremists' and potential 'terrorists' … and has instructed state and local law enforcement to monitor, investigate and 'report information concerning suspicious or criminal activity to DHS and the FBI,'" she wrote.

Under the DHS plan, she said, among those who would be listed as terrorists would be:

1. George Washington (military veteran and gun owner)
2. Mother Teresa (pro-life)
3. Ronald Reagan (pro-life and staunch advocate for less government), and
4. The pope (supports life and traditional marriage)

Pentagon official blames U.S. for al-Qaida attacks

Worked for George Soros, argued for government control of media:

Rosa Brooks

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


She believes al-Qaida was an "obscure group" turned into a massive threat due to U.S. policies.

She's referred to former President Bush as "our torturer in chief" and a "psychotic who need(s) treatment" while comparing Bush's arguments for waging a war on terrorism to Adolf Hitler's use of political propaganda.

She's worked on behalf of George Soros' philanthropic foundation.

Meet Rosa Brooks, the Obama administration's new adviser to Michelle Fluornoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, a position described as one of the most influential in the Pentagon.

"I prefer to think of (my new position) as my personal government bailout," Brooks wrote in a departing piece at the Los Angeles Times, where she served as a regular columnist.

Brooks' new boss earlier this month briefed Congress on U.S. policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two countries for which she has enormous power concerning drafting future military doctrine.

"Brooks will wield an extraordinary degree of influence in helping shape U.S. policy. Her extreme views should therefore be closely scrutinized," wrote Nile Gardiner, a contributor to the London Telegraph's online blog.

Indeed, Brook's recent L.A. Times columns evidence views some may find concerning.

Get "Shut Up, America! How to fight the end of free speech"

In 2007, she labeled al-Qaida as "little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs, well financed and intermittently lethal but relatively limited in their global and regional political pull. On 9/11, they got lucky. … Thanks to U.S. policies, al-Qaida has become the vast global threat the administration imagined it to be in 2001."

Also that year, she called the surge in Iraq a "feckless plan" that is "too little too late" with "no realistic likelihood that it will lead to an enduring solution in Iraq." The surge was widely credited with helping to stabilize Iraq.

Brooks wrote Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney "should be treated like psychotics who need treatment. … Impeachment's not the solution to psychosis, no matter how flagrant."

She also penned a column about Bush entitled "Our torturer-in-chief" in which she inferred attacks against the U.S. were a result of torture policies.

"Today, the chickens are coming home to roost," she fumed, but "the word 'accountability' isn't in the White House dictionary."

In another column she referred to the regimes of Iran and North Korea as "foreign authoritarians," while calling the Bush administration a "homegrown" authoritarian regime.

In a column last month, Brooks claimed the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel arguments for prosecuting the war on terrorism were similar to tactics used by Hitler.

According to Brooks: "How did such dangerously bad legal memos ever get taken seriously in the first place? One answer is suggested by the so-called Big Lie theory of political propaganda, articulated most infamously by Adolf Hitler. Ordinary people 'more readily fall victim to the big lie than the small lie,' wrote Hitler."

Last week, FoxNews.com highlighted Brook's departing column in which she argued for more "direct government support for public media" and government licensing of the news.

Wrote Brooks: "Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off."

In response, L. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, countered, "The day that the government gets involved in the news media you see the end of the democratic process, because an independent news media is absolutely essential to the success of a democracy."

Brooks is also a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where she serves as director of Georgetown Law School's Human Rights Center. She previously served as special counsel to the president at Soros' Open Society Institute. She has consulted for Human Rights Watch and served as a board member of Amnesty International USA.

ABC Defends Obama's 'New World View,'

In the midst of conservative criticism that President Barack Obama, at the summit in Trinidad over the weekend joked around with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and was uncritical of a 50-minute anti-American screed from Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, ABC decided to defend Obama's foreign policy mettle -- with his only failure coming where he has followed Bush's policy. Martha Raddatz began by trying to undermine the pictures of a jovial Obama with Chavez: "Today, cell phone video images emerged of a stern and serious President Obama during a brief encounter with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The image counters the cordial hand shake with Chavez who once called Mr. Obama an 'ignoramus' and George Bush 'a devil.'"

She noted that "it should not be a surprise that President Obama is reaching out to friend and foe after promising a stark change," before she recited, interspersed with Obama soundbites, how in a mere 90 days "he has reached out to the Iranian people...Muslims worldwide...And the Russians." She asked: "And where has all this gotten him?" Her one expert, former Chicago Sun-Times and New York Daily News executive James Hoge, who now runs Foreign Policy magazine, hailed Obama's approach: "I think he's doing it very sequentially, so that he's got a better chance of getting deals with people, getting some of the things we want to have done, done."

Referring to Cuba, Raddatz then touted how "already there has been one concrete change," though only in rhetoric, as she relayed how Obama's policy change has "prompted Cuban President Raul Castro to excitedly declare he would now talk about 'everything, everything, everything,'" She balanced that with a failure, where Obama has continued Bush's approach: "But President Obama has gotten nothing, nothing, nothing from his efforts with North Korea and his reaction to the recent missile launch echoes the Bush administration, stern words and a UN Security Council condemnation that have done little good."

Of course, Obama has also gotten nothing, nothing, nothing from Cuba nor anything from any of the European nations he asked to help with troops in Afghanistan. And after his outreach to Iran, that regime has imprisoned an Iranian-American journalist.

[This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

The story on the Monday, April 20 World News on ABC:

CHARLES GIBSON: The President has taken a number of steps in recent days to overhaul America's foreign policy. He said as a candidate he'd talk to America's enemies, a stark departure from the policy of his predecessor. And this weekend that new attitude was on display during a summit in Latin America. Martha Raddatz tonight on the new Obama foreign policy.

MARTHA RADDATZ: Today, cell phone video images emerged of a stern and serious President Obama during a brief encounter with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The image counters the cordial hand shake with Chavez who once called Mr. Obama an "ignoramus" and George Bush "a devil."
SENATOR JOHN ENSIGN (R-NV), ON CNN ON SUNDAY: You have to be careful who you're seen joking around with and I think it was irresponsible of the President to be seen kind of laughing, joking with Hugo Chavez.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands, or by having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez, that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States.
RADDATZ: It should not be a surprise that President Obama is reaching out to friend and foe after promising a stark change. In just the first 90 days, he has reached out to the Iranian people-
OBAMA, IN WEB VIDEO: You and all of your neighbors in the wider world can live in the greater security and greater peace.
RADDATZ: Muslims worldwide.
OBAMA, INAUGURAL ADDRESS: To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward.
RADDATZ, OVER VIDEO OF SECRETARY CLINTON LAUGHING WITH RUSSIA'S FOREIGN MINISTER: And the Russians. And where has all this gotten him?
JAMES HOGE, EDITOR OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS MAGAZINE: I think he's doing it very sequentially, so that he's got a better chance of getting deals with people, getting some of the things we want to have done, done.
RADDATZ: Already there has been one concrete change, Cuba. Lifting a half century of restrictions on Cuban-Americans, a move that prompted Cuban President Raul Castro to excitedly declare he would now talk about "everything, everything, everything" with President Obama. But President Obama has gotten nothing, nothing, nothing from his efforts with North Korea and his reaction to the recent missile launch echoes the Bush administration, stern words and a UN Security Council condemnation that have done little good. And that is the problem with foreign policy, sometimes no matter how far you reach out, there's no one on the other end to take your hand.

(From 1984 to 1991 Hoge served as Publisher and President of the New York Daily News, following a long career -- 1958-1984 -- as a Washington correspondent, the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times. His bio: www.cfr.org )

New Google Browser Raises Privacy Concerns

By Personal Liberty News Desk • Nov 5th, 2008 •

Personal Liberty News, Privacy

Can Google respect people's privacy?The group Consumer Watchdog is calling on the Justice Department and state attorneys general to protect consumer privacy amid concerns about Google’s new Chrome browser.

It has raised a red flag about the danger of Google selling information about people’s web usage to third parties, saying that the company has "a financial interest in knowing ever more about who we are" online.

Chrome’s features include easier access to bookmarked pages, desktop shortcuts to web applications, and warnings if surfers are about to access an unsafe website. Chrome also includes an "Incognito" mode that allows surfers to prevent pages from showing up in their browsing history.

However, Consumer Watchdog urges Google to "ensure that Incognito mode has the full meaning the word implies when users opt for it." The group wants Google to protect consumer privacy with a single, instant Incognito button that remains in default mode and keeps information from outside servers.

"If Google won’t solve its own privacy problems, the company must be prepared for regulators to put the brakes on its unprecedented growth," said Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court.

The UGLY TRUTH

THE UGLY TRUTH

If you haven't watched this video, please do so before continuing, as my comments will make references to the statements made in it.

As a history buff, I take exception to Ms. Garofalo stating that we have no concept of history, or the reasons behind the Boston Tea Party. It was more than just a demonstration of dissent or disgust over "taxation without representation" (even though that is currently the case with this Congress), but apparently she read a different history book than the rest of us. And to state that this entire movement is based on "hating a black man in the White House" is ludicrous at best. To further state that we will believe anything but the truth, and when confronted with the "truth" we become confused and angry and highly volatile" is purely rubbish. It is THEY who will not accept the truth, this movement is one of non-violent demonstration intended to send a message to the current administration and Congress that we are tired of big government interfering with our lives, spending two and three times what is collected in revenues annually, stripping away the rights of our states, and us, as guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and flagging us as subversives, extremists, or domestic terrorists simply because we have the courage to stand up and say enough is enough!!

Why was it permissible for people like Ayers and Dorn and their associates, the Black Panthers, etc., to practice violent means in a desire to change the status quo, but we are targeted for practicing our rights of protest peacefully? Would she go so far as to call our Founding Fathers "rednecks", racists, bigots, or "white supremacists" for their stance against an oppressive government, and the actions they took? And because our "limbic brain" (more commonly called the limbic system, a system of functionally related neural structures in the brain that are involved in emotional behavior) is larger than normal? What absolute nonsense!! While it is true that the limbic system is slightly larger in women than in men, hence they tend to be a bit more emotional, to say that the several hundred thousand people (not "literally tens of people" as she stated) who attended the TEA parties are "afflicted" somehow shows her complete misunderstanding of brain function. She is an actress (though that is questionable after seeing her performances), an "activist", and wannabe reporter (having been rejected twice in her applications to FOX). She is NOT a doctor, a psychiatrist, a physiotherapist, or any other medical professional, so her making any factual, let alone believable, comment about what the makeup of anyone's brain is can only be laughable at best, and is an affront to all thinking people anywhere.

Excuse me? "Teabagging rednecks"? From wikipedia, "Teabagging" is a slang term for the act of a man placing his scrotum in the mouth or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person, often in a repeated in-and-out motion as in irrumatio. The practice vaguely resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea." Is she then saying that all rednecks are gay, or that they practice dominance over other men or women? I'm sure that would come as a real surprise to the fellas I know, and their ladies as well (most of which would knock anyone flat on their butts for even suggesting such a thing)!! And all this time I thought rednecks were against open homosexuality, or laws that give anyone special favors over the rest of us!! Now, I personally don't care if someone is gay, I just don't want it rubbed in my face like a lot of other minority issues. If there's a job to be done, and they can get it done, so what if they're gay, black, Hispanic, disabled or made of green cheese and turn orange in the sunlight? As long as they follow the laws, including coming into our country legally, and don't make a big stink about stuff that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, who cares? So who are they to equate our frustration with all of Washingtoon (no, that's not a typo, as our nation's capital is more like Looney Tunes everyday) with being gay? Or, for that matter, "rightwing extremism", or racism, bigotry or "white supremacy"?

There are many minorities who don't like who we have as a POTUS, including many blacks, because of his socialist tendencies, so to continue stating that we all hate the fact the "a black guy is in the White House" misses the point entirely. And to state openly that those minorities, which must include women, suffer from "Stockholm syndrome" (psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed) only goes to prove that she also fails to understand the malady or psychological reflexes caused by it, or how it is implemented. Again, without proper medical training, she can only be considered to be talking out of the wrong end of her anatomy. Who is it that held these minority individuals hostage, or abused them? Who forced them to participate in the protests? Did they not attend out of a desire to exercise their freedom of speech, their right to gather, to seek redress from their government?

And Olberman's comment, "...they weren't near the cameras, which was bad strategy on the part of the people who were staging this at FOX." Pleeeeaaasssse!! FOX didn't stage anything, FOX attended to cover the protests, with Hannity even broadcasting his show from one site. The very fact that the rest of the MSM tried to ignore the fact that these protests were even being held shows their cowardice and lack of journalistic integrity, as well as their agendas. And if the minorities wanted to be near the cameras, they would have moved to a position in front of the cameras! That's what free people do, go where they want to go, something that Olberman, Garofolo, and the rest of the ultra-left-wingers will never understand or accept!! "FOX news loves to foment this anti-intellectualism, because that's their bread and butter. if you have a cerebral electorate, FOX News goes down the toilet, you know, very, very fast." (Does she mean like her career?) "That's why Roger Railes and Rupert Murdoch founded this venture, is to dis-inform (Did she mean misinform? Hmmm, lack of cerebral ability there?) and coarsen and dumb down a certain segment of the electorate." "...as I said, the Republican-the conservative movement has now crystallized into the white power movement." Talk about bigotry and racism! If you are a conservative, or a Republican, you are now a member of the white power movement? I'm sure that will surprise ALL of the conservative, Republican, Christian, free thinking minorities everywhere around this land, just as it surprises the majority of those Caucasians and mixed race (myself included) who fit that same mold!!

Back to the reference about us not knowing our history, or what the Boston Tea Party was all about. Over the last few months, Congress has passed spending legislation and bailed out the banks against the wishes of the majority of people in this country, that according to any number of different polls taken. If that isn't taxation without representation, I don't know what is, because they certainly weren't representing those who elected them and didn't want that legislation passed! The rest of the comments made by these two inane, self-proclaimed experts are so revolting that I won't continue to state my objections to their very way of thinking, for to do so might actually legitimize their ideology to those who follow and support that belief. Rather, I will address the title I have chosen for this post, "The Ugly Truth". That truth is that is you disagree with their ideology, or with the direction the current POTUS (PINO) and Congress are leading this nation, you will be branded a bigot, racist, anti-intellectual, white supremacist (or Uncle Tom or Oreo if you are black, and a dozen other similar references if you are of any other race), anti-government, subversive, domestic terrorist, Klansman, or any number of other derogatory and inflammatory slurs. And what is it that will bring down their wrath? If you believe in your First Amendment, Second Amendment, or Tenth Amendment rights (For that matter, if you believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights). If you oppose another amnesty, or believe that "illegal" immigration is just that, illegal. If you are against abortion, gay marriage, higher taxes, more Federal government control, Federal interference in private industry, reaching out to enemies like Castro, Chavez, Ahmenijhad, Hezbollah, Hamas, or changing our monetary system. If you are for capitalism and against socialism, support Israel, question the "Patriot Acts", or the "GIVE Act", the "Serve America Act", "TARP", or any of the hundreds of cost-ineffective, overburdening legislation that gets passed every year by those elected to represent us. If you want a "Fair Tax", any reasonable version of a consumption tax, or would like to see a balanced budget amendment. You don't have to believe in all of them, just one is enough to get you labeled as a "right-wing extremist". But if you happen to believe in more than one, you can expect to be targeted if the government finds out over the next few months. Even if you're a Democrat, or a member of any party who openly speaks out against the same things you believe in.

How do we combat it? Stay focused. Keep to the message. Help schedule a TEA Party in your community for July 4th, or work with the organizers of those being held nearby. Encourage others to attend. Get and stay informed. Maintain a constant attitude of respect, even in the face of name callers or agitators. Be respectful at all times when attending any event intended to further our desires toward setting this nation back on the right course. Create signage that is direct and to the point, but not any more derogatory than necessary. Let's try to have two million people participate in the next TEA Party, and five million in the one after that!! But whatever you do,

WAKE UP, AMERICA!!!

WE'RE BEING SOLD DOWN THE RIVER!!!

WE CANNOT ALLOW PEOPLE LIKE THE TWO IN THIS VIDEO TO GET THEIR WAY IF WE WANT TO CONTINUE TO BE FREE!!!



P.S. Remember how those in Congress actually voted on all the spending bills, and those bills intended to usurp our freedoms. We know they will be chanting that they didn't support them come time for the primaries next year. We need to vote them out in favor of those who will support our ideals. It's time to take our government back and return it to a system "of the people, by the people, and for the people"!!!

EXCLUSIVE: Senator's Husband Cashes In On Crisis

Washington Times:
April 21,2009

Feinstein sought $25 billion for agency that awarded contract to spouse:

EXCLUSIVE:

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

Documents reviewed by The Washington Times show Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures. Her letter was sent just days before the agency determined that CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE) - the commercial real estate firm that her husband Richard Blum heads as board chairman - had won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that FDIC had inherited from failed banks.

About the same time of the contract award, Mr. Blum's private investment firm reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it and related affiliates had purchased more than 10 million new shares in CBRE. The shares were purchased for the going price of $3.77; CBRE's stock closed Monday at $5.14.

Spokesmen for the FDIC, Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum's firm told The Times that there was no connection between the legislation and the contract signed Nov. 13, and that the couple didn't even know about CBRE's business with FDIC until after it was awarded.

Senate ethics rules state that members must avoid conflicts of interest as well as "even the appearance of a conflict of interest." Some ethics analysts question whether Mrs. Feinstein ran afoul of the latter provision, creating the appearance that she was rewarding the agency that had just hired her husband's firm.

"This clearly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest," said Kent Cooper, a former federal regulator who specializes in government ethics and disclosures. "To maintain the people's trust in government, it is incumbent on a legislator to take the extra steps necessary to ensure that when she introduces any legislation that it does not cause people to question her motives or the business activities of her spouse."

Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum, a wealthy investment banker, are a power couple in both Washington and California who sat behind President Obama during his inauguration in January. Mrs. Feinstein also is mentioned as a candidate for California governor.

The FDIC contract "highlights the problem of a senator with a spouse who has extensive business interests that intersect frequently with the federal government," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). "Even if there is no actual conflict of interest, it often has the appearance of a conflict."

A 'very sweet deal'?

Real estate specialists also question the government's generosity in the CBRE contract.

The firm, known for its commercial real estate services, is to be paid monthly maintenance fees for each foreclosed property it handles, as well as commissions and incentives. The total compensation can range from 8 percent of the sales price on many residential properties to 30 percent for properties worth $25,000 or less. A smaller firm also won a slice of the work with similar terms, records show.

Most real estate agents earn no more than 6 percent on residential, even on foreclosed properties, and CBRE doesn't have as much experience in foreclosure sales as other firms, the experts said.

"From everything I know about it, it is a very sweet deal and went to somebody who is less than qualified in dealing with foreclosed residential properties. Their expertise is in commercial real estate," said Cynthia Kenner, a Colorado real estate agent who specializes in selling bank-owned residential properties and last year helped sell more than 600 foreclosed properties.

"There are companies that are more experienced in selling such properties than CB Richard Ellis," she added.

FDIC and Feinstein respond

The FDIC said politics was not involved in its decision, noting the contract was awarded after a six-month competition run by career staff who determined that CBRE was "deemed to be technically qualified and their fee structure fair and reasonable." That means the competition did not mandate the contract go to the lowest bidder necessarily, officials said.

The agency said the above-market incentives were designed to encourage quick sales of the growing number of foreclosed properties the FDIC has inherited during the recession. "The longer the asset is held, the more costly it is for the FDIC, and more expenses are incurred for the assets," the agency said in a statement to The Times.

Feinstein spokesman Gil Duran said there was no conflict of interest between Mr. Blum's firm getting the contract and the senator's legislation. He said she introduced the legislation because it would help prevent home mortgage foreclosures at a time when many Californians were in danger of losing their homes.

"She was not aware of the contract before she introduced the legislation," Mr. Duran said. "There is no evidence of any relationship or conflict between this foreclosure relief bill and the contract. Senator Feinstein complies with the rules and guidelines of the Ethics Committee."

Mr. Duran also said Mr. Blum "is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the company, nor does he have any involvement in the company's contracting." Mr. Blum declined through a spokesman to comment.

CBRE spokesman Robert McGrath said the firm had $5 billion in revenues last year and was "well positioned" to help the FDIC as the nation's largest commercial real estate services company. Its pricing was at market rates after a highly competitive bid process, he said.

"We believe the FDIC will realize significant value from all the work we perform on their behalf," he said.

The contract process

In May, the FDIC began the formal process of looking for help to manage and market its growing portfolio of foreclosed real estate acquired from failed financial institutions nationwide. It sent letters to 33 real estate firms and received proposals from 18.

In November, the FDIC signed a contract with CBRE that could be worth tens of millions of dollars or more at a time when real estate firms are scrambling for business in the distressed economy.

CBRE said it was hired to act "as a primary adviser" to the FDIC for its real estate portfolio nationwide, according to a press release announcing the contract. The firm called the FDIC a "major account."

Mr. Blum became chairman of CBRE in 2001 and has played a major role in its corporate business strategies. He led a buyout of the company, first taking it private and then a few years later taking it public again. He runs an investment management firm called Blum Capital Partners, which controls the second largest block of publicly traded CBRE stock - 38 million shares or 14.4 percent.

Mr. Blum, whose position as chairman of CBRE is not full time, sets up partnerships through Blum Capital Partners that invests money for its clients and its owners. He reported owning more than $3 million in CBRE stock through various partnerships at the end of 2007, according to Mrs. Feinstein's personal financial disclosure statement.

CBRE's initial contract is for three years. The FDIC has the option to extend it for three two-year periods, records show. The contract calls for the real estate firm to be used "as needed."

In March, the FDIC said it had assigned CBRE 507 properties for disposal, valued at $221.7 million. In March, the company already had 23 FDIC properties valued at $11 million under contract to be sold.

Over the past 16 months, 50 banks have failed and more are expected to close. As a result, nobody knows how much CBRE will be able to earn over the life of the FDIC contract.

Blum and the stock offering

The FDIC contract came at a good time for CBRE. Even though it remains the world's largest commercial real estate services firm, it was hit hard by the economic downturn. The company saw its revenues and income slide in 2008 and its stock price tumbled from $24.50 in May to below $4 in November.

"Our third quarter results reflected the extremely challenging market conditions, which continued to deteriorate globally," Brett White, president and chief executive officer of CBRE, said in early November.

A few days later, CBRE raised $207 million through a stock offering that sold for $3.77 a share. Mr. Blum's investment partnerships bought 10.6 million shares at the market price of $3.77. The stock offering was announced a couple of days before the signing of the FDIC contract.

In its November prospectus for the stock sale, CBRE warned potential investors that the company could be hurt by the money problems of its clients, noting that federal regulators had recently taken over one of its "significant" clients, Washington Mutual, the nation's largest savings and loan.

The terms of the contract

CBRE won a highly favorable contract, according to real estate experts who reviewed the terms at the request of The Times.

CBRE is to be paid under a three-tiered system with sliding rates, according to a rate proposal provided to The Times under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. For starters, CBRE gets to charge a setup fee of $450 for each residential property and $600 for each commercial property it takes over from the FDIC.

"That is highly unusual," said Ms. Kenner, the Colorado-based foreclosure expert. She said she does not collect a separate setup fee and was expected to do such work as part of her commission.

The FDIC said: "The setup fee is for setting up the assets in the contractor's database and the FDIC database. In the private sector, a similar fee is usually charged as an administrative fee, document preparation fee, or asset handling fee."

Milt Shaw, senior vice president of LPS Asset Management Solutions, which manages nearly 20,000 foreclosed properties for banks and other clients, said his firm did not charge setup fees. Others in the industry also called the fee unusual.

CBRE also gets to collect a monthly administrative management fee of at least $200 for each residential and $1,600 for each commercial property in its inventory. Ms. Kenner and Mr. Shaw said fees for management services often come out of the sales commissions at closing.

But the biggest fees for CBRE will come from the sales.

CBRE charges commissions of 6 percent of the sales price on residential and 7 percent on commercial properties worth up to $1 million. It also is entitled to an incentive fee of as much as 2 percent of the sales price for properties it sells within six months. The incentives start at two percent for residential properties worth between $25,001 and $500,000 and for commercial properties worth between $25,001 and $1 million before dropping to 1.5 percent. The percentages for both the commissions and incentives become smaller as prices get higher.

Six percent commission is a standard rate for residential property in the private sector, but some experts said many buyers negotiate a lower fee.

Ms. Kenner, who deals in foreclosed residential properties, said she charges 5 percent to 6 percent, depending on the market, adding that she shares the fee with the buyer's agent and often with the asset management company.

Mr. Shaw said incentive fees are not that frequent in the private sector, but when he sees them they are usually smaller than 2 percent and pegged for a specific market.

The FDIC defended the fees, saying they were "intended to incentivize the contractors to sell the assets as quickly as possible for the benefit of the FDIC and to protect the insurance fund."

"The private sector normally does not have an urgency to sell assets quickly and thus do not normally have any incentive to do so," the agency said.

Mr. Shaw disagreed and said his private sector clients - banks and loan servicers - also wanted their properties sold quickly.

CBRE has the chance to collect the largest percentage of the sales price for properties worth $25,000 or less, under a flat fee agreement far more generous than the private sector.

Under the FDIC contract, CBRE charges a $5,000 sales commission for each property and can collect an additional $2,500 incentive fee if they sell it in under six months. In other words, they can collect as much as $7,500 on the sale of a property worth $25,000 or less - which works out to a sales commission of 30 percent or more.

Ms. Kenner said she charges $2,000 to $2,500 to sell properties worth $25,000 or less. Another firm, Prescient Inc., which won a similar FDIC contract at the same time as CBRE, charges a $1,948 commission and a $485 incentive fee.

"I think it is a little egregious," Mr. Shaw said of the CBRE compensation deal for small properties.

CBRE said its rates were market and commission money would be shared with other agents who co-listed the properties or represented the buyers.

Feinstein and the legislation

Mrs. Feinstein introduced her bill Jan. 6, seeking $25 billion from the government's bailout fund know as the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help bankroll an FDIC proposal to systematically prevent home mortgage foreclosures by expediting loan workouts and expanding federal loan guarantees.

The proposal was a pet project of FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair, who wanted expand a program the agency had used successfully with borrowers of the failed IndyMac bank to help reduce foreclosures.

Records show Mrs. Feinstein's public support for the Bair proposal surfaced Oct. 30 in letter to Mrs. Bair as CBRE was still competing for the FDIC contract. Mrs. Bair responded in late November pointing out that she had not been able to get the Treasury Department to adopt her program and authorize bailout funds for it, according to the correspondence released under FOIA.

Mrs. Feinstein's legislation would have required the government to finance Mrs. Bair's foreclosure plan.

"The FDIC estimates that roughly 2.2 million home loans, worth $444 billion, could be modified under this plan, with 1.5 million foreclosures avoided," she said in her statement on the bill.

Her spokesman said she introduced the foreclosure relief bill not at Mrs. Bair's request but after becoming aware from news accounts of the effect of the mortgage crisis, especially on California homeowners.

"California has one-third of all foreclosures in the nation, and the need to provide relief to struggling American families is the sole motivation for this bill," Mr. Duran said.

FDIC spokesman Andrew Gray said the agency's proposal got bipartisan backing.

Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, twice introduced a similar bill in the House. Both bills by Mrs. Feinstein and Mrs. Waters have been superceded by Mr. Obama's economic stimulus plan to aid homeowners, which adopts parts of the FDIC concept.

Mr. Gray said none of the FDIC board members such as Mrs. Bair played a role in the selection of CBRE because there is a fire wall between them and contracting decisions. He said Mrs. Bair first learned of the contract by reading the newspaper.

A question of ethics

As for Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Duran said she did not learn of the contract until The Times asked her office about it in late January, even though the contract was publicly announced by the company and had been mentioned in an article in the Los Angeles Times in late November. Her spokesman said her office was not aware of the article.

Ethics analysts question whether Mrs. Feinstein had an obligation to track her husband's business dealings with the government to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

"I find it amazing that they did not know that CB Richard Ellis had gotten the FDIC contract," said Mr. Cooper, the ethics expert and former regulator. "Why wasn't she or a staff person regularly watching for possible conflicts?"

Other experts said they do not think that the Senate Ethics Committee will take any action because Mrs. Feinstein's legislation did not directly financially benefit her husband and was aimed at solving a problem affecting a broad section of America.

Robert L. Walker, a former chief Senate Ethics Committee counsel, said the Senate conflict rule is so narrow that it "almost requires a senator's sponsorship of a private bill resulting in some personal or family benefit before a violation of the rule would be found."

Mr. Walker added that the Senate usually relies on the senator to police against improper appearances, but the policy "assumes that a senator and his or her staff will know about and remain alert to investments and other financial ties, including family financial ties, that could be the basis of such appearance concerns."

Mr. Duran said Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum make "an intensive effort" to maintain a wall between their financial interests.

"Her staff carefully reviews all votes," he said. "Senator Feinstein complies with all required congressional disclosure requirements. She follows the guidance of the ethics committee and its requirements."

Mrs. Feinstein, who declined to answer detailed question about the steps she takes to avoid conflicts, is one of the wealthiest members of Congress, mainly from Mr. Blum's holdings. Together, they are worth at least $52.3 million, according to her 2007 personal financial disclosure forms filed with the Senate and analyzed by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors money and politics.

"When a spouse has so many business interests, it will always raise questions about how contracts are acquired or decisions made," said Ms. Sloan, CREW's executive director.

Axelrod Suggests 'Tea Party' Movement Is 'Unhealthy'...LAST I looked..We Lived In The United States

From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Senior White House adviser David Axelrod on Sunday suggested the "Tea Party" movement is an "unhealthy" reaction to the tough economic climate facing the country.

Axelrod was asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" about the "spreading and very public disaffection" with the president's fiscal policies seen at the "Tea Party" rallies around the country last week.

"I think any time you have severe economic conditions there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that's unhealthy," Axelrod said.

Axelrod appeared to backtrack when pressed on whether the movement is unhealthy.

"Well, this is a country where we value our liberties and our ability to express ourselves, and so far these are expressions," he said.

"The thing that bewilders me is that this president just cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people," Axelrod argued. "I think the tea bags should be directed elsewhere because he certainly understands the burden that people face."

Democratic strategist James Carville disagreed with Axelrod on CNN's "State of the Union" when John King asked him if it's unhealthy for "an American to go out and hold a sign and say 'I think my taxes are too high.'"


Carville said, "No." He called the Tea Party movement "harmless and damaging to Republicans."

On CBS, Axelrod also responded to Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent insinuation that his state could secede from the union in response to government overreach under President Obama.

"I don't think that really warrants a serious response," Axelrod said. "I don't think most Texans were all that enthused by the governor's suggestion."

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano MUST BE FIRED!

Center For Individual Freedoms:

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano MUST BE FIRED!

And just so it's perfectly clear, we aren’t talking about her resigning (either gracefully or in disgrace). And it’s way too late for backhanded apologies, like the 'slap-in-the-face' she already gave the brave men and women who have wore a uniform and proudly served this country.

Janet Napolitano must be FIRED... and it should have been done yesterday!

You see, the problem is not just that Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) put together a so-called anti-terrorism security assessment that targets mainstream Americans as dangerous extremists.

We're talking about millions of people who believe that our government is too large and taxes us too much, like those who participated in the TEA Parties on tax day. We are talking about everyday Americans who believe that the 2nd Amendment actually gives people the right to bear arms; people who are pro-life; the millions of people who believe that our nation’s immigration laws should be strictly enforced.

And the problem is not simply that this so-called security assessment targets patriotic Americans - and they are talking about YOU - as "right wing extremists," or, as Peter Kirsanow with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights put it:

“That DHS report warning about all manner of ‘right-wing extremists’ could be considerably shortened if it simply alerted law-enforcement officials to be on the lookout for people from ‘small towns (who are) bitter (and) cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment.’”

The problem is that this is the same Janet Napolitano who just recently told us that horrendous, unspeakable acts committed by actual terrorists, dead set on destroying our country and killing Americans, should be called “man-caused disasters."

Specifically she told Der Spiegel:

“In my speech, although I did not use the word 'terrorism,' I referred to 'man-caused' disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.”

So... when it comes to actual acts or threats of terrorism against mainstream Americans, we should move beyond the "politics of fear."

But patriotic Americans like YOU – who exercise your Constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights – pose a threat to the government.

Is it actually possible that Napolitano and Barack Obama and even some within the Obama Administration are so twisted as to believe that Islamic Terrorists are the good guys and that you are the bad guys?

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin in Thursday's Washington Times wrote:

“What and who exactly are President Obama’s homeland security officials afraid of these days? If you are a member of an active conservative group that opposes abortion, favors strict immigration enforcement, lobbies to protect Second Amendment rights, protests big government, advocates federalism, or represents veterans who believe in any of the above, the answer is: You.”

If what is contained in this leaked DHS security assessment does not bring you to the realization that it is time for all patriotic Americans who love freedom to stand up and shout that we're not going to take it anymore... it is quite possible that nothing will.

So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to make it very clear that we want drastic action. We're going to make it very clear that Janet Napolitano needs to go. We're going to make it very clear that we want her FIRED - PERIOD... no resignations will be allowed... no meaningless apologies will be accepted.

We're going to bang this issue like a gong.

Let's get to work.




The DHS Report Targets All Of You Bitter People Out There Who Cling To Guns And Religion.

Malkin is not alone. Syndicated radio talk-show host Michael Reagan went so far as to ask the following:

“Have we really come to this? Has Adolf Hitler's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels been reborn and recruited by the Obama administration to scare the heck out of the American people with absurdities such as this whacked-out document?"

Lance Fairchok writing for AmericanThinker.com hits the nail squarely on the head.

Calling this so-called security assessment "a shot across the bow" he plainly states that DHS is NOT simply referring to individuals living on society's fringe.

The assessment is, in fact, referring to YOU and patriotic Americans like you.

Moreover, Fairchok believes this assessment was hastily and sloppily written in order to fit a sick and disgusting preconceived notion:

"This 'assessment' is not an analysis of a national trend or an examination of existing evidence or even recent radical literature; it is targeting those whose politics fall within the broad insinuations contained within its pages, namely mainstream conservatives."

Judge Andrew Napolitano with FOX News essentially says the same thing:

"The summary contains few proper names, has no footnotes of any significance, lists very few sources, and is drafted with a prejudice against anyone who criticizes the role of the federal government in our lives today. It lumps together in its definition of 'rightwing extremism' hate groups, anti-government groups, and single issue groups 'such as opposition to abortion or immigration.'”

Let's state it more plainly. As far as Janet Napolitano's DHS is concerned, if you are pro-life or believe in strict enforcement of our immigration laws, or if you attended one of those TEA parties, you're the same as a neo-Nazi, or a member of the KKK. You are dangerous and pose no less a threat than the real terrorists trying to destroy our great country. Is it possible that when Barack Obama spoke of bitter people from small towns who cling to God and their guns that he was not just simply being derisive?

Is it possible that pointing out that Barack Obama sat in a Church for years listening to a lunatic pontificate, "Not God Bless America... God D___ America" WAS relevant after all?

There's only one way to find out.




You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.

What purpose can be served by a document that classifies mainstream Americans as "extremists" who pose a clear and present danger to our nation’s security?

Fairchok again:

"It is a manipulative information tool intended to paint the loyal opposition as reactionary kooks who are prone to violence and a danger to the country. ... This is part of a more widespread ongoing information campaign to plant and reinforce critical themes into the American official, and broader public psyche, a continuation of the 'clinging to guns and religion' message so frequently found in the rhetoric of President Obama and his acolytes."

And Fairchok concludes by issuing a very somber warning.

"And we ain't seen nothin’ yet."

But what is even more disturbing is that DHS NEVER intended the public to see this so-called security assessment. It was a secret.

Reagan again:

“Obviously recognizing that public knowledge of the nonsense alleged in this document is very undesirable, the weirdoes who prepared it did not want you to see it. ... They warn: ‘No portion of the LES (Law Enforcement Sensitive) information should be released to the media, the general public, or over non-secure Internet servers.’"

Judge Napolitano again:

"The document itself cautions the reader that the document is 'not to be released to the public, the media, or other personnel who do not have a valid need-to-know without prior approval' of the DHS. The document refers to itself as one of a series of intelligence assessments intended to 'deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States.'”

But there’s even more.

Are you ready for this?

The portion of this so-called security assessment that was leaked is only a SUMMARY.

The bulk of it remains CLASSIFIED. We have no idea what's in it.

Judge Napolitano continues:

"The summary (unclassified) document is terrifying. One can only imagine what is contained in the classified version. This document runs directly counter to numerous U.S. Supreme decisions prohibiting the government from engaging in any activities that could serve to chill the exercise of expressive liberties. Liberties are chilled, in constitutional parlance, when people are afraid to express themselves for fear of government omnipresence, monitoring, or reprisals. The document also informs the reader that Big Brother is watching both public and private behavior."

But whatever else is in there... it cannot be pretty.

Judge Napolitano yet again:

"My guess is that the sentiments revealed in the report I read are the tip of an iceberg that the DHS would prefer to keep submerged until it needs to reveal it. This iceberg is the heavy-hand of government; a government with large and awful eyes, in whose heart there is no love for freedom, and on whose face there is no smile."

There is no time to lose, we must act now.




Yours In Freedom,




Jeffrey Mazzella




Center for Individual Freedom
917-B King Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-535-5836
Fax:703-535-5838


CFIF is a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit constitutional advocacy organization with
the mission to protect and defend individual freedoms and individual rights.

Contributions to CFIF are
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Contributions may be deductible as a business expense.

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Otto Reich: Obama’s Encounter With Chavez Damaged U.S. Foreign Policy..Birds Of A feather!

Monday, April 20, 2009 1:27 PM

By: Jim Meyers

Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich tells Newsmax that Hugo Chavez is calling President Barack Obama’s “hobnobbing” with the Venezuelan leader the “greatest triumph in Venezuelan diplomacy ever.”

Reich, who also served as a special envoy and diplomat under President Reagan and both Presidents Bush, said it was an embarrassing mistake for Obama to be photographed accepting an America-bashing book from the Venezuelan strongman.

Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella noted that photographs snapped at the weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago showed Obama hobknobbing with Chavez, shaking hands, and smiling with the Venezuelan, and asked for his take on that.

[Editor's Note: Watch former Ambassador Otto Reich discuss Venezuela, Cuba and Obama’s foreign policy - Go Here Now]

“I think it’s very unfortunate. I don’t think President Obama really understands, perhaps out of lack of experience in international affairs, the importance of symbolism,” said Reich, who was policy adviser on Latin America for John McCain’s presidential campaign.

“You don’t go around slapping the back of a foreign dictator, a would-be dictator in the case of Chavez, who has done everything in his power to undermine U.S. interests in the region and who calls himself an enemy of the United States.”

Martella asked whether people will “misinterpret” those photos.

Reich responded that the pictures certainly are being misinterpreted in Venezuela “despite what President Obama wishes. I think he probably realizes now that he made a mistake.

“But in Venezuela Hugo Chavez said last night this is the greatest triumph in Venezuelan diplomacy ever. Because what he is trying to do is to portray this as an endorsement of his policies, which is calls 21st century socialism but which is really just retread 20th-century fascism.”

Chavez is seeking to “portray this warm handshake, and a slap on the back which came later, as an endorsement of Chavez, which I’m sure President Obama did not intend,” Reich said.

“That is the way it is being portrayed not only in Venezuela but in the rest of the continent, all of Latin America.”

Martella referred to photos of Chavez giving Obama an anti-American book entitled “Open Veins of Latin America,” which Obama accepted and posed with for the cameras, and asked whether that was a mistake on Obama’s part.

“Absolutely it was a mistake,” Reich declared.

“It was also frankly a mistake by the staff. They should have prevented that.

“I worked for three presidents. I don’t think that would have happened with President Reagan or either one of the President Bushes. They should not have put President Obama in that embarrassing situation because this is very much an anti-U.S. book. Anti-Europe as well.

“It’s a book that’s about 30 years old, written by a far-left Latin American, a very unknown author. And now Chavez has put this book on top of, I’m told, the Amazon sales list.”

Reich, who was born in Cuba, was asked to comment on assertions from opponents of the trade embargo with Cuba that hurting the Cuban people is counter-productive.

“Hurting the Cuban people is counterproductive, and that’s why we should do everything we can to see a regime change in Cuba,” Reich said.

“The Cuban people have been hurt by 50 years of Marxist-Leninist dictatorship. It’s not the U.S. embargo that has hurt the Cuban people. Castro can trade with 175 countries in the world. It’s only the United States that doesn’t trade with him directly.

“In fact we are the single largest provider of food to Cuba. We provided $700 million in food to Cuba last year, more than anybody else — in fact more than the next several countries combined.

“So the United States is not hurting Cuba. What’s hurting Cuba is the Castro dictatorship — the last military dictatorship in this hemisphere.”

[Editor's Note: Watch former Ambassador Otto Reich discuss Venezuela, Cuba and Obama’s foreign policy - Go Here Now]

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Notable Quotables From The Drive By Media On Tea Parties

* Reporter Derides Anti-Tax Tea Parties: "Not Family Viewing"

CNN's Susan Roesgen: "You know, Kyra, this is a party for Obama
bashers. I have to say that this is not entirely representative of
everybody in America....[to protester] You're here with your two-year-
old and you're already in debt. Why are you here today, sir?"
Man holding child on his shoulder: "Because I hear a president say
that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln's primary thing
was he believed that people had the right to liberty and they had the
right-"
Roesgen, interrupting: "Sir, what does this have to do with
taxes?...Do you realize that you're eligible for a $400 credit?...Did
you know that the state of Lincoln gets $50 billion out of these
stimulus? That's $50 billion for this state, sir....We'll move on
over here. I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-
government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right wing
conservative network, Fox. And since I can't really hear much more
and I think this is not really family viewing, I'll toss it back to you."
-- Live coverage of anti-tax protests during the 2pm ET hour of CNN
Newsroom, April 15.


Tea Parties = "Group Therapy" for Crazy Conservatives

"All of these tax day parties seemed less about revolution and more
about group therapy. At least with the more widely known protest
against government spending, people attending the rallies were
dressed patriotically and held signs expressing their anger, but
offering no solutions."
-- New York Times reporter Liz Robbins in an April 15 online article
about that day's anti-tax "tea parties." The paragraph was taken out
of the version that appeared in the Times' April 16 print edition.


Just a Front for Corporate Interests

"Cheered on by Fox News and talk radio, the hundreds of tea parties
today were designed to protest the bailouts, the stimulus plan, and
President Obama's budget....But critics on the left say this is not a
real grassroots phenomenon at all, that it's actually largely
orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests....While the
Boston Tea Party in 1773 was about taxation without representation,
critics point out that today's protesters did get to vote -- they
just lost. What's more, polls show most Americans don't feel overtaxed."
-- ABC's Dan Harris on World News, April 15.


CBS's Dean Reynolds: "They came to vent their outrage in big
gatherings and small groups over what they see as runaway government
spending, and the tax hikes they suspect are right around the
corner....While he [national organizer Eric Odom] insisted these
events were non-partisan, a fistful of rightward leaning Web sites
and commentators-"
Clip of FNC Host Glenn Beck at rally: "Everything is big in Texas."
Reynolds: "-embraced the cause."
-- CBS Evening News, April 15.


Announcing His Disdain in Advance

"There's been some grassroots conservatives who have organized so-
called 'tea parties' around the company, country, hoping the
historical reference will help galvanize Americans against the
President's economic ideas. But I tell you, the idea hasn't really
caught on. The RNC has jumped in. A few other talk radio hosts have
jumped in, but it hasn't galvanized the party the way they would hope."
-- NBC's Chuck Todd on Today, April 15, hours before the anti-tax
rallies began.


* Juvenile Journalist Turns Tax Protests Into Dirty Joke

CNN analyst David Gergen: "Republicans are pretty much in
disarray....They have not yet come up with a compelling alternative,
one that has gained popular recognition. So-"
Anchor Anderson Cooper: "Teabagging. They've got teabagging."
Gergen: "Well, they've got the teabagging....[But] Republicans have
got a way -- they still haven't found their voice, Anderson. They're
still -- this happens to a minority party after it's lost a couple of
bad elections, but they're searching for their voice."
Cooper: "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging."
-- CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, April 14. "Teabagging" is a vulgar
slang term for a certain variety of oral sex.


Lauer "Worried" Obama Won't Be Able to Dictate to Business

"I'm worried if you think if that's a good thing [for Goldman Sachs
to pay back its bailout money early]. Are they doing this because of
financial stability, or might they be talking about that simply to
get out from under the thumb of the federal government and be allowed
to go back to running the business the way they want to run it, as
opposed to the way the government wants them to run it?"
-- NBC's Matt Lauer to Obama economic adviser Christina Romer, April
14 Today.


Obama's Week Through ABC's Prism: "Cool Kid in the Class"

"George, as we wrap up the week we wanted to take note of these
images we've been looking at, particularly this one where other heads
of state are seemingly trying to get close to the head of the class,
or the cool kid in the class, if you will, President Obama."
-- ABC anchor David Muir, over a photo of Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arm-in-arm
with President Barack Obama during the G-20 group photo session,
April 4 World News.


"The last President we had that went to Europe, I mean no one wanted
to see him. There was great hostility. This President's changed the
tone. Just changing the tone was a great plus for the United States."
-- Retired ABC News veteran Sam Donaldson on HBO's Real Time, April 3.


Washingtonians Flocking to YouTube to Watch Obama

"He spoke of the modern realities and the modern difficulties that
we've had in our relations with other countries. How many times have
you heard people say 'I'm going to go on YouTube and watch the
President's speech because I heard it was so good'? And I heard that
all over Washington this week. And that is just an amazing thing."
-- NPR's Nina Totenberg on Obama's speeches in Europe, April 11
Inside Washington.


Impossible to Mock Near-Perfect Prez

"Obama, so far, seems to occupy a place in the popular culture beyond
humor. Ridicule doesn't touch him. His personality defies easy
categorization. Of the few running gags to emerge from the Obama
administration -- aides not paying their taxes, Treasury officials
rewarding fat-cats -- the only one that pertains to the President
himself is the straight-faced devotion he inspires. Obama may not
actually be perfect, but so many poor souls out there think he is."
-- Boston Globe Washington Bureau Chief Peter Canellos, in his April
7 "National Perspectives" column, "In a Stroke of Brilliance, Obama
Defies Easy Caricature."


Drooling Over Michelle -- "She's Almost Overtaking Oprah!"

"Michelle is so authentic, and so real, and so today, and so, you
know, J. Crew, and the whole price point thing and not designer
clothes....With Michelle, you can almost feel those warm arms. You
know, there's a kind of real red-blooded feel to her. But there's
also -- I mean she's almost, like, overtaking Oprah, I think, as the
kind of inspirational 'it' girl at this point."
-- Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown on CBS's Early
Show, April 3.


Katie Pushes Holder from the Left on Guns

"What about reinstating the assault weapons ban and closing the gun
show loophole? Do you think that would stop the flow of weapons into
Mexico from the U.S.?...Did someone tell you to back off?...It's been
reported that Democrats on Capitol Hill are getting increasingly
chummy with the NRA and receiving more campaign contributions from
that organization than in previous years, and nobody wants to get the
NRA riled up."
-- Anchor Katie Couric to Attorney General Eric Holder, April 8 CBS
Evening News.


CNN Cheap Shot: Blaming Fox News for Cop Deaths

"That weekend tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed
three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced --
after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio --
that quote, 'Our rights were being infringed upon.'"
-- Anchor Rick Sanchez during the 3pm ET hour of CNN Newsroom, April 8.


Anchor Derides "Nut Case" Conservatives, Then Slams MRC's "Partisan Agenda"

"Who is the real nutcase? North Korea's Kim Jong-Il or any
conservative who wants to bomb him?...Former House Speaker Gingrich
says we should have bombed North Korea before the launch. Is Gingrich
crazy to talk like that, or is it dangerous to hope sanctions will do
the trick?....And back to crazy talk for a moment. How in the world
do you explain people like Chuck Norris calling for a second American
Revolution to defeat President Obama's policies? And what about
conservative Congresswoman Michele Bachmann appearing to tell her
constituents to start stockpiling weapons and ammunition....Now
Bachmann claims she was talking about information. In any case, folks
we just had and election and guess what? Obama won! And yet the
rhetoric from the wing-nuts is getting crazier by the week."
-- Substitute host David Shuster on MSNBC's Hardball, April 6.

"[In David Shuster's] 'Hypocrisy Watch' segments this year, the
conservative Media Research Center points out, 34 of the targets have
been Republicans or conservatives -- including Rush Limbaugh twice
and Karl Rove five times -- and only four have been Democrats or
liberals. Shuster says the group is funded and run by die-hard
conservatives with a clear partisan agenda' and that his work on the
now-defunct program 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was hard hitting on
both parties.'"
-- Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, April 13.


* Prime Time Drama Pushes Wacky 9/11 Conspiracy

"9/11? Inside job, plain and simple....I am talking about a massive
neo-conservative government effort. It's been in the works for over
twenty years....One problem: How you going to put it into action? I
mean, the American people are never going to go for s**t like that,
right? You're damn straight. No, what you need is an event, an event
that gets everyone's heads turned around the right way. What you need
is a new Pearl Harbor. That's what they said they needed. You're
looking at a guy who went to 58 funerals in 26 days, I can tell you
that is sure as s**t what they got."
-- New York City firefighter "Franco Rivera," played by Daniel
Sunjata, on FX's Rescue Me, April 14.


* Even NBC Now Mocking Matthews' Obama Infatuation

"A new comic is being published this summer called 'Barack the
Barbarian' which features the President in a loin cloth. Also
featuring the President in a loin cloth: Chris Matthews' daydreams."
-- "Weekend Update" news anchor Seth Myers, April 11 Saturday Night
Live.


PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III

EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham

MEDIA ANALYSTS: Geoffrey Dickens, Brad Wilmouth, Scott Whitlock,
Matthew Balan, and Kyle Drennen

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE: Michelle Humphrey

END Reprint of April 20 Notable Quotables

- Brent Baker