Bad Deeds for 5-27-2010

 

Palin Endorsee Plagiarized President Obama’s Speech – Vaughn Ward, a GOP candidate for Idaho’s First Congressional district who is endorsed by Sarah Palin, is facing charges that he swiped key passages from Barack Obama’s iconic 2004 Democratic National Convention speech for his own campaign kickoff speech in January.

 

Fox News Falsely Reports That Elena Kagan Filed Brief to Support Vatican Immunity – Fox News reports, “The office, headed by Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, argued that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — which lifted the Vatican’s immunity in the Oregon priest case — should not have treated the case as an exception to a 1976 federal law that limits when foreign countries can face charges in the U.S. judicial system.”
But Kagan’s name doesn’t appear anywhere in the brief, since she stepped aside over two weeks ago, as the Associated Press noted last week.

 

Fox News Edited Out Applause During Obama Speech to Military Cadets – Fox News video broadcast May 22 as President Barack Obama delivered a speech to military cadets at West Point, appears to omit applause Obama received during the speech.

 

Fox News Lie Is So Bad That Republican Rep. Slams Them : ‘I Don’t Know What They’re Doing At Fox News, But They Should Stop Smoking It’ – Fox and Friends characterized Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-PA) Create Jobs & Save Benefits Act as a “$165 billion bailout” of union pensions. “It has been decades since you’ve seen an administration so prone to the influence of unions as this one is. I’m not going to say this is owned by the unions, but their influence on this administration is simply enormous,” Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney claimed of the legislation, which is actually designed to partition “specific types of union pensions that are deemed to be insolvent.” Later in the day, the network went after House Republicans for co-sponsoring similar legislation in the House. On America Live with Megyn Kelly, the network showed a chart of the nine Republicans supporting the measure and questioned their sanity.

This didn’t go over well with Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), a co-sponsor of the House measure, who took to the floor this afternoon to criticize Fox for its coverage. “I think as a Republican, I’m supposed to love Fox News and hate MSNBC,” he began. “Now, I’m going to tell you, I do hate MSNBC, but something just happened on Fox News that compelled me to come to the floor”:

LATOURETTE: They’ve run this diagram and it really is a, I think, blaspheming my good friend Pat Tiberi from Ohio and indicating that there are nine Republicans supporting a bill that will bail out unions. Well, that’s nonsense and I don’t know who the pin head and weenie is at Fox News that decided to put that story together. But the true facts of this piece of legislation are as follows. This bill will save the taxpayers by saying to those corporations that have union pension plans, if you find yourselves in a bind, rather than thrusting that upon the taxpayer, it spreads out over five years the ability to bring those pension plans up to speed. That’s good government, it’s a good bill. It’s a good Tiberi bill and I don’t know what they’re doing at Fox News, but they should stop smoking it and get back to reporting the facts.

 

Republicans Say No to Fund Health Program for 9/11 Rescue Workers – Republicans argued Tuesday that it would put the nation’s finances at risk if Congress gave aiing Sept. 11 responders a permanent, guaranteed program to ensure they get health care. Republicans want the responders to come back to Congress every year to make their case

The whole debate over whether the program should be mandatory or an annual discretionary program misses the point, said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn-Queens), saying it was Congress’ obligation to help the people who answered the call almost nine years ago.

And, he noted, the health fund could not be an endless and growing entitlement like Medicare.
“There’s a finite number of people,” Weiner said. “That finite number of people is getting smaller and smaller every day because they’re dying.”

“Coming back and forth every year is not easy for people who are ill,” said William Romaka, the Uniformed Firefighters Association’s sergeant at arms.

 

Rush Limbaugh Fill-in Walter Williams Tells Caller: “I believe in keeping wives under control” – On the May 25 edition of Premiere Radio Network’s The Rush Limbaugh Show, fill-in host Walter E. Williams, in order to prove he’s a real conservative, said, “I believe in keeping wives under control.”

 

Fox News Commentator Asks Viewers to Contribute to Republicans – Political consultant Dick Morris took advantage of an appearance as a commentator on the Fox News program Fox & Friends on Wednesday to appeal for viewers to donate to Republican candidates through his own website.

 

Congress Tells FCC to Halt All Efforts to Protect Internet Users – Net Neutrality – the principle that would keep users in control of the Internet – was the top communications policy of President Obama when he came into office last year. Obama has repeated his support for an open Internet on several occasions since, and last summer appointed Julius Genachowski to lead the FCC and fulfill this presidential promise.

But, Congress just sold you out to Comcast, Verizon and AT&T.

Big phone and cable companies are so determined to dismantle consumer protections on the open Internet that they’ve spent millions to flip Congress against you. Earlier this week, many in Congress delivered.

On Monday, 74 House Democrats joined 37 Senate Republicans to sign an industry-written letter that tells the Federal Communications Commission to halt all efforts to protect Internet users and stop big companies from blocking Internet traffic.

Their letter warns Chairman Genachowski against pursuing a plan that would enable the FCC to act as a watchdog and serve the public interest over the Internet, preventing phone and cable companies from blocking access to websites and services, while promoting policies that ensure universal and affordable access.

In response, Free Press is urging hundreds of thousands of people to sign our own letter telling the FCC that Congress doesn’t speak for you, President Obama or the millions of other Americans who support a fast, open and affordable Internet. Please sign it.

 

It’s Happened Before; Will We Ever Learn? – On 3 June 1979 (31 years ago), the Ixtoc oil well in the Gulf of Mexico suffered a blowout and is recognized as the second largest oil spill and the largest accidental spill in history. The blowout preventer failed. An explosion resulted and the rig sunk into the Gulf. A top-hat device (called sombrero) did not work to stop the leak. It took 10 months before the well was capped.

Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. Eventually, in the US, 162 miles of beaches and 1421 birds were affected by 3,000,000 barrels of oil. The oil company spent only $100 million to clean up the spill and avoided paying compensation by asserting sovereign immunity.

The oil slick surrounded Rancho Nuevo, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which is one of the few nesting sites for Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles.

 

Drug Plant That Recalled Children’s Tylenol Had Cut Staff – A Pennsylvania drug plant plagued by quality-control problems that prompted a nationwide recall of children’s Tylenol and dozens of other pediatric medicines drastically reduced its workforce in recent years, according to local government tax records.

And a Food and Drug Administration inspection report earlier this year cited failure to properly train contract and temporary employees as part of a catalogue of problems at the plant run by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a subsidiary of pharmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson.
Other deficiencies included bacterial contamination of raw materials, shoddy equipment maintenance and failure to investigate 46 consumer complaints “regarding foreign materials, black or dark specks” stretching back almost a year before the recall, the FDA reported.

 

Rand Paul Suggests Law of Gravity Be Left to States 😉 – In a recent interview with Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, Senatorial candidate Rand Paul (R, Ky) expressed controversial views concerning a number of issues thought to be a matter of settled law. While his statements concerning civil rights received the most attention, his position on a heretofore unchallenged law seems to have escaped media analysis … the law of gravity.

“I’m not in favor of discrimination in any form. I would never belong to any private club that denied gravity for any race of people,” Paul said. “But we still have plenty of American space rockets where gravity does not exist. Are we to tell our country’s hard working astronauts that they are no longer allowed to spend time in areas that might discriminate against gravity?”

Paul told Maddow that he agrees with most parts of the law of gravity; however, people who want to float away should have the freedom to do so.

Regards,

Jim