One senator holding up vets bill

Nov 04, 2009 - Thirteen major military and veterans groups have joined forces to try to force one senator — Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — to release a hold that he has placed on a major veterans benefits bill. Coburn has been identified by Senate aides as the lawmaker preventing consideration of S 1963, the Veterans’ Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act of 2009, by using an informal but legal practice of putting a hold on a bill. Coburn’s staff did not respond to questions, but Senate aides said the first-term senator has expressed concern about creating new and unfunded benefits and wants the opportunity to amend the measure. - 13 Comments

Spiro Agnew must be laughing from his grave.

Nov 15, 2009 - Agnew speeches sparked move toward soft news Michael Socolow (Bangor Daily News) It remains the most influential indictment of American journalism ever made. Forty years ago today, this famous figure began railing against the corporate media. “A broader spectrum of national opinion should be represented among the commentators of the network news,” he argued, explaining that “men who can articulate other points of view should be brought forward, and the American people should be made aware of the trend toward the monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands.” American democracy's perilous dependence on the corporate, capitalist media had previously been detailed. - 1 Comment

Coal Group Misrepresents Veterans

Nov 10, 2009 - The coal front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity has been in hot water lately for employing an astroturf group that forged letters to Congress opposing the House climate bill—and then for possibly lying under oath about their position. Now ACCCE is in trouble again—for misrepresenting the views of two major veterans groups in an email hyping coal's role in energy security. The email, sent in anticipation of Veterans' Day, argues that coal can play a vital role in reducing America's dependence on foreign oil and cites two groups—VoteVets and Operation Free. - 1 Comment

Popular animal shelter shut down after inspection

Oct 05, 2009 - The Marin Humane Society shut down an animal rescue group's San Rafael operations and seized 19 animals for treatment after uncovering "shocking conditions" at the center. The Milo Foundation was forced to close its adoption center and animal holding site at 2060 Fourth St. on Friday, one day after an unannounced early-morning inspection by the Marin Humane Society. - 13 Comments

Tom Brokow's World Implodes

Sep 15, 2009 - http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/15/media-malpractice-tom-brokaws/   Media Malpractice: Tom Brokow's World Implodes By Jeffrey Lord on 9.15.09 @ 6:08AM Tom Brokaw. With the passing of Walter Cronkite, Mr. Brokaw is considered perhaps the new "dean" of journalism. As such the former NBC News anchor is periodically summoned forth to assess the current world, an occasion that presented itself recently on the venerable NBC Sunday newser Meet the Press. - 15 Comments

RNC’s “Bill of Rights”

Aug 28, 2009 - http://factcheck.org/2009/08/rncs-bill-of-rights/ Summary The Republican National Committee this week posted a “Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors,” which RNC Chairman Michael Steele and others have taken to the airwaves to publicize. It contains a number of claims we’ve seen and criticized before, but also contains one new one that has some truth to it, and another fresh one that has very little. The RNC says that cuts proposed by Democrats "threaten millions of seniors with being forced from their current Medicare Advantage plans." - 24 Comments

Liberal Lies About National Health Care: Third in a Series (Commemorative Plates On Sale Now!)

Sep 10, 2009 - by  Ann Coulter 09/02/2009 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33390     (9) If you like Medicare, you'll love national health care, which will just extend Medicare's benefits to everyone.     Hey -- I have an idea: How about we make everyone in America a multimillionaire by pulling Bernie Madoff out of prison and asking him to invest all our money! Both Medicare and Bernie Madoff's investment portfolio are bankrupt because they operate on a similar financial model known as a "Ponzi scheme." - 2 Comments

Glenn Beck's Attack On Van Jones: Fantasies and Falsehoods

Sep 04, 2009 - Eva Paterson President and Founder, Equal Justice Society,   Posted: August 28, 2009 02:56 PM After smearing White House special advisor Van Jones for days on his show, Glenn Beck said on August 27, 2009: "I want to point out the silence; no one has challenged these facts -- they just attack me personally." Well, the White House is wise to stay above the fray but someone has to set the record straight. And as the person who first hired Van Jones, initially as a legal intern and later as a legal fellow, I am in a unique position to know the truth. - 117 Comments

Was the Climate Bill Actually Written When House Voted?

Jul 15, 2009 - Thought this provided interesting context to a claim that keeps coming up In Washington, it's not unusual for lawmakers to get as heated about the arcane rules of Congress as they do about the substance of a bill. Such was the case with a plan to slow climate change passed by the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009. Republican lawmakers not only opposed cap-and-trade because they fear it will be too expensive, but they were angry that they'd had only a few hours to vet 300 pages of last-minute changes to the already massive legislation. - 1 Comment

A Failure of Capitalism

Aug 20, 2009 - Richard A. Posner (Atlantic Magazine) A Failure of Capitalism Aug 18 2009, 3:16PM Honesty about the Stimulus On August 6, Christina Romer, the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, gave a talk entitled "So, Is It Working? An Assessment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at the Five-Month Mark." - 1 Comment