RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- A federal judge on Thursday declared the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional and said she will issue an order to stop the government from enforcing the ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy nationwide.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips said the ban violates the First and Fifth Amendment rights of gays and lesbians. ''Don't ask, don't tell'' prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or are discovered engaging in homosexual activity, even in the privacy of their own homes off base.
In her ruling, Phillips said the policy doesn't help military readiness and instead has a ''direct and deleterious effect'' on the armed services.
The Log Cabin Republicans, a 19,000-member group that includes current and former military members, filed a lawsuit in 2004 seeking an injunction to stop the ban's enforcement. Phillips will draft the injunction with input from the group within a week, and the federal government will have a week to respond.
After-hours e-mails requesting comment from U.S. Department of Justice attorney Paul G. Freeborne and from the Pentagon were not immediately returned Thursday.
The lawsuit was the biggest legal test of the law in recent years and came amid promises by President Barack Obama that he will work to repeal the policy.
The Log Cabin Republicans said more than 13,500 service members have been fired since 1994.
''This decision will change the lives of many individuals who only wanted to serve their country bravely,'' said the group's attorney, Dan Woods.
Woods argued during the nonjury trial that the policy violates gay military members' rights to free speech, open association and right to due process as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
He said the ban damages the military by forcing it to reject talented people as the country struggles to find recruits in the midst of a war. Lawyers also submitted remarks by Obama stating ''don't ask, don't tell'' weakens national security.
Freeborne had argued the policy debate was political and that the issue should be decided by Congress rather than in court.
The U.S. House voted in May to repeal the policy, and the Senate is expected to address the issue this year.
Government lawyers also said Phillips lacked the authority to issue a nationwide injunction.
Six military officers who were discharged under the policy testified during the trial. A decorated Air Force officer testified that he was let go after his peers snooped through his personal e-mail in Iraq.
The officers who participated in the trial were ''reacting emotionally because they're so proud that they were able to play a part in making that happened,'' Woods said after the ruling.
''It'll be an interesting decision for our president to decide whether to appeal this case. He's said that 'don't ask, don't tell' weakens national security, and now it's been declared unconstitutional,'' Woods said. ''If he does appeal, we're going to fight like heck.''
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Britney Spears denies JUST what I thought!
Britney Spears denies child mistreatment allegations,
saying L.A. County already investigated them
Britney Spears is denying allegations in a sexual-harassment lawsuit filed by a former bodyguard alleging that she mistreated her two children, saying L.A. County social workers investigated and found no wrongdoing.
In the lawsuit filed in L.A. County Superior Court, Fernando Flores claims Spears sexually harassed him and also mistreated her children. Among the allegations, Flores claims Spears fed the children a type of fish they were allergic to and then refused to call for medical help.
But in a statement on her website, Spears described Flores as someone "trying to take advantage of the Spears family and make a name for himself."
She added: "The Department of Children and Family Services conducted a proper investigation surrounding Mr. Flores' accusations and have closed the case without any further action. Ms. Spears and her attorneys have every expectation that this matter will be dismissed by the courts."
County family services officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mark Vincent Kaplan, an attorney for Spears' ex-husband, Kevin Federline, also cast doubts on the lawsuit. "He is satisfied that the allegations are a product of economic motives," Kaplan told the Associated Press. "They are as baseless as they seem."
-- Shelby Grad LA TIMES
saying L.A. County already investigated them
Britney Spears is denying allegations in a sexual-harassment lawsuit filed by a former bodyguard alleging that she mistreated her two children, saying L.A. County social workers investigated and found no wrongdoing.
In the lawsuit filed in L.A. County Superior Court, Fernando Flores claims Spears sexually harassed him and also mistreated her children. Among the allegations, Flores claims Spears fed the children a type of fish they were allergic to and then refused to call for medical help.
But in a statement on her website, Spears described Flores as someone "trying to take advantage of the Spears family and make a name for himself."
She added: "The Department of Children and Family Services conducted a proper investigation surrounding Mr. Flores' accusations and have closed the case without any further action. Ms. Spears and her attorneys have every expectation that this matter will be dismissed by the courts."
County family services officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mark Vincent Kaplan, an attorney for Spears' ex-husband, Kevin Federline, also cast doubts on the lawsuit. "He is satisfied that the allegations are a product of economic motives," Kaplan told the Associated Press. "They are as baseless as they seem."
-- Shelby Grad LA TIMES
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
MAY I HAVE THIS JOB? PLEASE!!
Britney Accused of Sexual Harassment
Britney Spears' former bodyguard Fernando Flores alleges that the pop star sexually harassed him, repeatedly exposing herself to him and abusing her kids. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Flores says Spears made "repeated unwanted sexual advances." He says that, once, "She was wearing a white lace, see-through dress. She walked over close by [Flores], intentionally dropped her cigarette lighter on the floor, bent over to retrieve it and thereby exposed her uncovered genitals to [Flores]." Another time Flores says the singer called him to her room, where she was standing naked. After an awkward silence, Flores asked Spears if she wanted anything. She replied she would like two bottles of 7-Up. Flores claimed Spears even uttered the classic defense of a harasser: "You know you liked it." Flores also says Spears beat her kids and fed them crabmeat despite their allergies. TMZ reports that Flores reported Spears to the family services department, which found the claim without merit.
Britney Spears' former bodyguard Fernando Flores alleges that the pop star sexually harassed him, repeatedly exposing herself to him and abusing her kids. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Flores says Spears made "repeated unwanted sexual advances." He says that, once, "She was wearing a white lace, see-through dress. She walked over close by [Flores], intentionally dropped her cigarette lighter on the floor, bent over to retrieve it and thereby exposed her uncovered genitals to [Flores]." Another time Flores says the singer called him to her room, where she was standing naked. After an awkward silence, Flores asked Spears if she wanted anything. She replied she would like two bottles of 7-Up. Flores claimed Spears even uttered the classic defense of a harasser: "You know you liked it." Flores also says Spears beat her kids and fed them crabmeat despite their allergies. TMZ reports that Flores reported Spears to the family services department, which found the claim without merit.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
The GOP has no shame! They just lie & lie .........
Gov. Barbour's civil rights fairy tale
Eugene Robinson Washington Post
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who may seek the Republican nomination for president, is trying to sell the biggest load of revisionist nonsense about race, politics and the South that I've ever heard. Ever.
He has the gall to try to portray Southern Republicans as having been enlightened supporters of the civil rights movement all along. I can't decide whether this exercise in rewriting history should be described as cynical or sinister. Whichever it is, the record has to be set straight.
In a recent interview with Human Events, a conservative magazine and Web site, Barbour gave his version of how the South, once a Democratic stronghold, became a Republican bastion. The 62-year-old Barbour claimed that it was "my generation" that led the switch: "my generation, who went to integrated schools. I went to integrated college -- never thought twice about it." The "old Democrats" fought integration tooth and nail, Barbour said, but "by my time, people realized that was the past, it was indefensible, it wasn't gonna be that way anymore. And so the people who really changed the South from Democrat to Republican was a different generation from those who fought integration."
Not a word of this is true.
Barbour did not attend "integrated schools," if he's referring to his primary and secondary education. Mississippi ignored the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that was meant to end separate-but-unequal school systems. Eventually, officials implemented a "freedom of choice" desegregation plan -- but black parents who tried to send their children to white schools were threatened and intimidated, including by cross-burnings. Finally, in 1969, the Supreme Court ordered Mississippi to integrate its schools immediately. The long-stalled change took place in 1970.
That was long after Barbour had graduated from high school in Yazoo City and gone on to attend the University of Mississippi -- the "integrated college" he mentioned in the interview. The federal government had forced Ole Miss to admit its first black student, James Meredith, in 1962; he had to be escorted onto the campus by U.S. marshals as white students rioted in protest.
The following year, a second black student was admitted. In the mid-1960s, when Barbour was attending Ole Miss, it's no wonder that he "never thought twice" about integration. There were only a handful of black students, and by all accounts -- except Barbour's -- they were isolated and ostracized by their white peers.
The governor's assertion that segregation was a relic of the past "by my time" is ludicrous. He was 16, certainly old enough to pay attention, during the Freedom Summer of 1964, when civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia, Miss. He was a young adult, on his way to becoming a lawyer, when the public schools were forced to integrate. I'll bet Barbour could remember those days if he tried a little harder.
Equally wrong -- and perhaps deliberately disingenuous -- is his made-up narrative of how the South turned Republican. Barbour's fairy tale doesn't remotely resemble what really happened.
As he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law, Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said that the Democratic Party had "lost the South for a generation." Among those who voted against the landmark legislation was Sen. Barry Goldwater, who became Johnson's opponent in the presidential race that fall.
Johnson scored a landslide victory. Goldwater took his home state of Arizona and just five others: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. It was the first time those Deep South states had voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Reconstruction -- and marked the moment when, for many Southern voters, the GOP became the party of white racial grievance. It wasn't "a different generation from those who fought integration" that made the switch. Integration was the whole reason for the switch.
Now, Haley Barbour is not stupid. Why is he telling this ridiculous story?
Maybe this is the way he wishes things had been. You'll recall that earlier this year, when asked about a Confederate history month proclamation in Virginia that didn't mention the detail known as slavery, Barbour said the whole thing "doesn't amount to diddly." Most charitably, all this might be called denial.
It's much more likely, however, that Barbour has a political purpose. The Republican Party is trying to shake its image as hostile to African Americans and other minorities. It would be consistent with this attempted makeover to pretend that the party never sought, and won, the votes of die-hard segregationists.
One problem, though: It did.
Eugene Robinson Washington Post
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who may seek the Republican nomination for president, is trying to sell the biggest load of revisionist nonsense about race, politics and the South that I've ever heard. Ever.
He has the gall to try to portray Southern Republicans as having been enlightened supporters of the civil rights movement all along. I can't decide whether this exercise in rewriting history should be described as cynical or sinister. Whichever it is, the record has to be set straight.
In a recent interview with Human Events, a conservative magazine and Web site, Barbour gave his version of how the South, once a Democratic stronghold, became a Republican bastion. The 62-year-old Barbour claimed that it was "my generation" that led the switch: "my generation, who went to integrated schools. I went to integrated college -- never thought twice about it." The "old Democrats" fought integration tooth and nail, Barbour said, but "by my time, people realized that was the past, it was indefensible, it wasn't gonna be that way anymore. And so the people who really changed the South from Democrat to Republican was a different generation from those who fought integration."
Not a word of this is true.
Barbour did not attend "integrated schools," if he's referring to his primary and secondary education. Mississippi ignored the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that was meant to end separate-but-unequal school systems. Eventually, officials implemented a "freedom of choice" desegregation plan -- but black parents who tried to send their children to white schools were threatened and intimidated, including by cross-burnings. Finally, in 1969, the Supreme Court ordered Mississippi to integrate its schools immediately. The long-stalled change took place in 1970.
That was long after Barbour had graduated from high school in Yazoo City and gone on to attend the University of Mississippi -- the "integrated college" he mentioned in the interview. The federal government had forced Ole Miss to admit its first black student, James Meredith, in 1962; he had to be escorted onto the campus by U.S. marshals as white students rioted in protest.
The following year, a second black student was admitted. In the mid-1960s, when Barbour was attending Ole Miss, it's no wonder that he "never thought twice" about integration. There were only a handful of black students, and by all accounts -- except Barbour's -- they were isolated and ostracized by their white peers.
The governor's assertion that segregation was a relic of the past "by my time" is ludicrous. He was 16, certainly old enough to pay attention, during the Freedom Summer of 1964, when civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia, Miss. He was a young adult, on his way to becoming a lawyer, when the public schools were forced to integrate. I'll bet Barbour could remember those days if he tried a little harder.
Equally wrong -- and perhaps deliberately disingenuous -- is his made-up narrative of how the South turned Republican. Barbour's fairy tale doesn't remotely resemble what really happened.
As he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law, Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said that the Democratic Party had "lost the South for a generation." Among those who voted against the landmark legislation was Sen. Barry Goldwater, who became Johnson's opponent in the presidential race that fall.
Johnson scored a landslide victory. Goldwater took his home state of Arizona and just five others: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. It was the first time those Deep South states had voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Reconstruction -- and marked the moment when, for many Southern voters, the GOP became the party of white racial grievance. It wasn't "a different generation from those who fought integration" that made the switch. Integration was the whole reason for the switch.
Now, Haley Barbour is not stupid. Why is he telling this ridiculous story?
Maybe this is the way he wishes things had been. You'll recall that earlier this year, when asked about a Confederate history month proclamation in Virginia that didn't mention the detail known as slavery, Barbour said the whole thing "doesn't amount to diddly." Most charitably, all this might be called denial.
It's much more likely, however, that Barbour has a political purpose. The Republican Party is trying to shake its image as hostile to African Americans and other minorities. It would be consistent with this attempted makeover to pretend that the party never sought, and won, the votes of die-hard segregationists.
One problem, though: It did.
Army base gunman threatened to kill Obama
EDITOR NOTE: Is this the dividend of all the hate broadcasters?
SAVANNAH, Ga. -- A former soldier accused of demanding mental treatment as he took hostages at gunpoint at a Georgia Army hospital later told investigators he planned to kill President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, federal prosecutors said in court documents filed Tuesday.
Federal charges filed in U.S. District Court in Savannah identified the accused gunman as 29-year-old Robert Anthony Quinones. The Army says he took three hospital workers hostage early Monday in a two-hour standoff at Winn Army Community Hospital at Fort Stewart, 40 miles southwest of Savannah. Army officials say the gunman surrendered. No one was injured.
Federal prosecutors charged Quinones with kidnapping and assault with deadly weapons in connection with the hospital hostage standoff. He was also charged with making threats to kill Obama and Clinton.
An initial court appearance for Quinones was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
Quinones' mother, Janet Gladwell, said she had no idea her son had slipped out of their home in the early hours and gone to the hospital. She said he was medically discharged from the Army months ago because he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"The reason he was at the hospital the other night was to seek some treatment," Gladwell told The Associated Press. "He's been diagnosed as being ill and this was a desperate cry for help."
Quinones' mother said her son was diagnosed after serving a 15-month tour in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 with an Army Stryker brigade based at Fort Lewis, Wash. She said he moved to Hinesville, next to Fort Stewart, to live with her after his discharge.
Gladwell declined to discuss her son's history in detail. She said he did not yet have a lawyer.
But Gladwell sounded stunned to hear prosecutors had charged her son with threatening to kill Obama and Clinton.
"I know nothing about that," she said. "That's totally off the wall for him."
Court documents say Quinones told FBI, Secret Service and Army investigators after his arrest that as part of his assassination plots he had studied Secret Service protocols, sniper techniques and ways to disguise himself and conceal weapons.
Investigators said a search of the suspect's home turned up at least 15 guns, including high-powered rifles with scopes, as well as books and DVDs on Secret Service protocols, Israeli sniper techniques, Osama Bin Laden and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
An affidavit by FBI and Secret Service agents who interviewed Quinones, filed in court, says the suspect was asked if he would kill Obama and Clinton given a chance.
"Yes. On a scale of 1 to 10 about being serious, I am a 10," Quinones responded, according to the affidavit.
The court documents say Quinones was discharged from the Army in February and worked a civilian job at Fort Stewart.
A neighbor, Jerry Franklin, said Quinones worked at one of the post-exchange stores on Fort Stewart. Franklin said he'd last seen Quinones at a neighborhood cookout last weekend.
"Generally, he was really nice - you talk to him and he's happy," Franklin said. "If you needed help, he'd help you."
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Phillips, a senior Fort Stewart commander, said the former soldier told hostages he needed help for mental problems "connected, I'm quite certain, to his past service."
The suspect walked into the hospital's emergency room at about 4 a.m. carrying two handguns, a semiautomatic rifle and a semiautomatic version of a submachine gun, Phillips said. He took a medic hostage and headed to the building's behavioral treatment wing on the third floor.
An Army psychiatric nurse spotted the gunman and approached him to talk, Phillips said. That nurse was then taken hostage along with a behavioral health technician who refused to allow the gunman through a locked door to the patient area.
Phillips said the nurse, an Army major, was able to start calming the gunman down before Army investigators trained in hostage negotiations arrived and persuaded him to drop his weapons and surrender.
Fort Stewart, the largest Army post east of the Mississippi River, is home to the 3rd Infantry Division. Most of the division's 19,000 soldiers are deployed to Iraq. It's the 3rd Infantry's fourth tour in Iraq since the war began in 2003.
Phillips said he'd seen nothing to indicate the former soldier had previously sought treatment at the Fort Stewart hospital. RUSS BYNUM Associated Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. -- A former soldier accused of demanding mental treatment as he took hostages at gunpoint at a Georgia Army hospital later told investigators he planned to kill President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, federal prosecutors said in court documents filed Tuesday.
Federal charges filed in U.S. District Court in Savannah identified the accused gunman as 29-year-old Robert Anthony Quinones. The Army says he took three hospital workers hostage early Monday in a two-hour standoff at Winn Army Community Hospital at Fort Stewart, 40 miles southwest of Savannah. Army officials say the gunman surrendered. No one was injured.
Federal prosecutors charged Quinones with kidnapping and assault with deadly weapons in connection with the hospital hostage standoff. He was also charged with making threats to kill Obama and Clinton.
An initial court appearance for Quinones was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
Quinones' mother, Janet Gladwell, said she had no idea her son had slipped out of their home in the early hours and gone to the hospital. She said he was medically discharged from the Army months ago because he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"The reason he was at the hospital the other night was to seek some treatment," Gladwell told The Associated Press. "He's been diagnosed as being ill and this was a desperate cry for help."
Quinones' mother said her son was diagnosed after serving a 15-month tour in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 with an Army Stryker brigade based at Fort Lewis, Wash. She said he moved to Hinesville, next to Fort Stewart, to live with her after his discharge.
Gladwell declined to discuss her son's history in detail. She said he did not yet have a lawyer.
But Gladwell sounded stunned to hear prosecutors had charged her son with threatening to kill Obama and Clinton.
"I know nothing about that," she said. "That's totally off the wall for him."
Court documents say Quinones told FBI, Secret Service and Army investigators after his arrest that as part of his assassination plots he had studied Secret Service protocols, sniper techniques and ways to disguise himself and conceal weapons.
Investigators said a search of the suspect's home turned up at least 15 guns, including high-powered rifles with scopes, as well as books and DVDs on Secret Service protocols, Israeli sniper techniques, Osama Bin Laden and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
An affidavit by FBI and Secret Service agents who interviewed Quinones, filed in court, says the suspect was asked if he would kill Obama and Clinton given a chance.
"Yes. On a scale of 1 to 10 about being serious, I am a 10," Quinones responded, according to the affidavit.
The court documents say Quinones was discharged from the Army in February and worked a civilian job at Fort Stewart.
A neighbor, Jerry Franklin, said Quinones worked at one of the post-exchange stores on Fort Stewart. Franklin said he'd last seen Quinones at a neighborhood cookout last weekend.
"Generally, he was really nice - you talk to him and he's happy," Franklin said. "If you needed help, he'd help you."
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Phillips, a senior Fort Stewart commander, said the former soldier told hostages he needed help for mental problems "connected, I'm quite certain, to his past service."
The suspect walked into the hospital's emergency room at about 4 a.m. carrying two handguns, a semiautomatic rifle and a semiautomatic version of a submachine gun, Phillips said. He took a medic hostage and headed to the building's behavioral treatment wing on the third floor.
An Army psychiatric nurse spotted the gunman and approached him to talk, Phillips said. That nurse was then taken hostage along with a behavioral health technician who refused to allow the gunman through a locked door to the patient area.
Phillips said the nurse, an Army major, was able to start calming the gunman down before Army investigators trained in hostage negotiations arrived and persuaded him to drop his weapons and surrender.
Fort Stewart, the largest Army post east of the Mississippi River, is home to the 3rd Infantry Division. Most of the division's 19,000 soldiers are deployed to Iraq. It's the 3rd Infantry's fourth tour in Iraq since the war began in 2003.
Phillips said he'd seen nothing to indicate the former soldier had previously sought treatment at the Fort Stewart hospital. RUSS BYNUM Associated Press
Police actions in U.S. rarely ruled criminal?
CORONER'S INQUEST: Police actions in U.S. rarely ruled criminal
Experts: Laws protect police in officer-involved shootings
Moments after a coroner's inquest jury ruled her fiance's death at the hands of a police officer justified, Sequioa Pearce cradled her infant daughter as she waited for an elevator to whisk her out of the Regional Justice Center.
Was she surprised by the verdict?
She paused. "I hoped for a different outcome."
A Clark County inquest jury hasn't ruled a fatal officer-involved shooting "criminal" in 34 years, a fact that many in the community have used as an indictment against the much-maligned process.
But the truth is that juries in courtrooms across the country are extraordinarily reluctant to find officers' actions in shootings criminal, experts say.
And if the inquest process were changed to become more adversarial, as activists push for, that wouldn't necessarily mean more criminal verdicts.
"It may be that the dearth of findings of criminality is appropriate," said Gary Peck, a longtime critic of the inquest process and police practices.
During last month's inquest into the death of 21-year-old Trevon Cole, the physical evidence and testimony of nearly everyone else at the scene was at odds with what officer Bryan Yant said. His testimony sometimes even contradicted what he told police shortly after he shot Cole.
Yet the jury forewoman later told the Review-Journal that she and others on the seven-member jury found Yant's testimony the most credible, and they deemed his actions justified.
With two inquests scheduled this month, including an unusual three-day session on the July 10 shooting of Erik Scott at a Summerlin Costco store set to begin Sept. 22, Nevada's coroner's inquest system and the use of deadly force by police will again be in the spotlight.
Ever since police officers on the East Coast started carrying guns in the mid-19th century, the public has been outraged by police shootings, said David Klinger, a professor at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.
But rarely are officers charged with a crime when they shoot, and even less often do juries find them guilty. One of the most famous officer-involved shootings ended up just that way, in 1881, when Wyatt Earp and "Doc" Holliday were charged but not convicted in the killings at the OK Corral.
Legislatures and courts tend to create laws that protect officers, experts say. But society as a whole has difficulty calling officers criminals.
"In the mind of the public, there is a strong sentiment that officers don't get up in the morning to commit crimes," said Cal Potter, a Las Vegas attorney who has sued police numerous times.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in its 1989 ruling in Graham v. Connor, determined that officers are allowed to make "reasonable" mistakes when using force.
The language in the decision "gave a tremendous amount of latitude to officers, given the fact they have to make split-second decisions," said Thomas Aveni, executive director of The Police Policy Studies Council, a New Hampshire-based training and consulting company.
But because of the court's "reasonableness" standard, "it's very difficult to charge an officer ... and they're even more difficult to convict because they're very easy to defend," Aveni said.
Even apparently open-and-shut cases against officers are difficult for prosecutors.
In January 2006, a San Bernardino County, Calif., sheriff's deputy shot an off-duty Air Force military policeman who was complying with the deputy's orders. The military policeman was lying on the ground when the deputy, Ivory J. Webb Jr., yelled repeatedly for him to "get up." When the military policeman complied, Webb shot him three times.
The shooting, caught on videotape by a bystander, sparked outrage in Southern California and brought felony charges against the deputy. Yet a jury later found Webb not guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
An exasperated deputy district attorney later told the Riverside newspaper, "The only thing we can take away from this is the question: Is it impossible to convict a police officer?"
But should it be easier to convict officers for shootings? Experts say no.
"I too worry a little about the long-term effects about making it easier to prosecute cops," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School Los Angeles. "A lot of them will just go find another job."
Nevada's coroner's inquest, officially deemed a "fact-finding" process, cannot end with any criminal charges against anyone. The inquest jury can reach three conclusions regarding an officer-involved death: justified, excusable or criminal. The attorney general's office, through an agreement with the Clark County District Attorney's Office, can choose whether to press charges without regard for the inquest jury's verdict.
Advocates such as Peck say the process should at least be opened up to allow a representative of the deceased's family to cross-examine the officer, but law enforcement representatives say that would prompt officers to refuse to testify.
But criticizing the process for the lack of "criminal" verdicts is attacking it for the wrong reasons, say Peck and Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. They say they want a fair process, regardless of the verdict.
Lichtenstein said the "criminal" option should be removed from the process.
"I'm not sure the coroner's inquest process is really the place to decide where a cop says, 'I'm going to go out and kill somebody,' " he said.
Instead, the jury should have just two options -- justified and unjustified, he said.
There are no plans to overhaul the process, but Lichtenstein said he believes it inevitably will be changed.
"I think that within the community and even within government, there's a growing realization that ... the current system that we have isn't really working for the public or even the police, for that matter," he said.
LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL by LAWRENCE MOWER
EDITOR NOTE: We invite your comments and personal stories. Please POST here:
Experts: Laws protect police in officer-involved shootings
Moments after a coroner's inquest jury ruled her fiance's death at the hands of a police officer justified, Sequioa Pearce cradled her infant daughter as she waited for an elevator to whisk her out of the Regional Justice Center.
Was she surprised by the verdict?
She paused. "I hoped for a different outcome."
A Clark County inquest jury hasn't ruled a fatal officer-involved shooting "criminal" in 34 years, a fact that many in the community have used as an indictment against the much-maligned process.
But the truth is that juries in courtrooms across the country are extraordinarily reluctant to find officers' actions in shootings criminal, experts say.
And if the inquest process were changed to become more adversarial, as activists push for, that wouldn't necessarily mean more criminal verdicts.
"It may be that the dearth of findings of criminality is appropriate," said Gary Peck, a longtime critic of the inquest process and police practices.
During last month's inquest into the death of 21-year-old Trevon Cole, the physical evidence and testimony of nearly everyone else at the scene was at odds with what officer Bryan Yant said. His testimony sometimes even contradicted what he told police shortly after he shot Cole.
Yet the jury forewoman later told the Review-Journal that she and others on the seven-member jury found Yant's testimony the most credible, and they deemed his actions justified.
With two inquests scheduled this month, including an unusual three-day session on the July 10 shooting of Erik Scott at a Summerlin Costco store set to begin Sept. 22, Nevada's coroner's inquest system and the use of deadly force by police will again be in the spotlight.
Ever since police officers on the East Coast started carrying guns in the mid-19th century, the public has been outraged by police shootings, said David Klinger, a professor at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.
But rarely are officers charged with a crime when they shoot, and even less often do juries find them guilty. One of the most famous officer-involved shootings ended up just that way, in 1881, when Wyatt Earp and "Doc" Holliday were charged but not convicted in the killings at the OK Corral.
Legislatures and courts tend to create laws that protect officers, experts say. But society as a whole has difficulty calling officers criminals.
"In the mind of the public, there is a strong sentiment that officers don't get up in the morning to commit crimes," said Cal Potter, a Las Vegas attorney who has sued police numerous times.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in its 1989 ruling in Graham v. Connor, determined that officers are allowed to make "reasonable" mistakes when using force.
The language in the decision "gave a tremendous amount of latitude to officers, given the fact they have to make split-second decisions," said Thomas Aveni, executive director of The Police Policy Studies Council, a New Hampshire-based training and consulting company.
But because of the court's "reasonableness" standard, "it's very difficult to charge an officer ... and they're even more difficult to convict because they're very easy to defend," Aveni said.
Even apparently open-and-shut cases against officers are difficult for prosecutors.
In January 2006, a San Bernardino County, Calif., sheriff's deputy shot an off-duty Air Force military policeman who was complying with the deputy's orders. The military policeman was lying on the ground when the deputy, Ivory J. Webb Jr., yelled repeatedly for him to "get up." When the military policeman complied, Webb shot him three times.
The shooting, caught on videotape by a bystander, sparked outrage in Southern California and brought felony charges against the deputy. Yet a jury later found Webb not guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
An exasperated deputy district attorney later told the Riverside newspaper, "The only thing we can take away from this is the question: Is it impossible to convict a police officer?"
But should it be easier to convict officers for shootings? Experts say no.
"I too worry a little about the long-term effects about making it easier to prosecute cops," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School Los Angeles. "A lot of them will just go find another job."
Nevada's coroner's inquest, officially deemed a "fact-finding" process, cannot end with any criminal charges against anyone. The inquest jury can reach three conclusions regarding an officer-involved death: justified, excusable or criminal. The attorney general's office, through an agreement with the Clark County District Attorney's Office, can choose whether to press charges without regard for the inquest jury's verdict.
Advocates such as Peck say the process should at least be opened up to allow a representative of the deceased's family to cross-examine the officer, but law enforcement representatives say that would prompt officers to refuse to testify.
But criticizing the process for the lack of "criminal" verdicts is attacking it for the wrong reasons, say Peck and Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. They say they want a fair process, regardless of the verdict.
Lichtenstein said the "criminal" option should be removed from the process.
"I'm not sure the coroner's inquest process is really the place to decide where a cop says, 'I'm going to go out and kill somebody,' " he said.
Instead, the jury should have just two options -- justified and unjustified, he said.
There are no plans to overhaul the process, but Lichtenstein said he believes it inevitably will be changed.
"I think that within the community and even within government, there's a growing realization that ... the current system that we have isn't really working for the public or even the police, for that matter," he said.
LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL by LAWRENCE MOWER
EDITOR NOTE: We invite your comments and personal stories. Please POST here:
Health Care Wastefulness Is Detailed
EDITOR NOTE: America quit screwing around and get a single payer system for all like
extention of MEDICARE for all and get care at a much cheaper price for ALL not a luckey few at a high cost which no sane person can be happy with!! HKirch
**************************
Now here is the Kevin Sack story on the current study.
In a snapshot of systemic waste, researchers have calculated that more than half of the 354 million doctor visits made each year for acute medical care, like for fevers, stomachaches and coughs, are not with a patient’s primary physician, and that more than a quarter take place in hospital emergency rooms.
The authors of the study, which was published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, said it highlighted a significant question about the new federal health care law: can access to primary care be maintained, much less improved, when an already inadequate and inefficient system takes on an expected 32 million newly insured customers?
The study is the first to quantify the problem, according to Dr. Stephen R. Pitts, the lead author and an associate professor of emergency medicine at Emory University. Examining records of acute care visits from 2001 to 2004, the researchers concluded that 28 percent took place in emergency rooms, including almost all of the visits made on weekends and after office hours.
More than half of acute care visits made by patients without health insurance were to emergency rooms, which are required by federal law to screen any patient who arrives there and treat those deemed in serious jeopardy. Not only does that pose a heavy workload and financial burden on hospitals, but it means that basic care is being provided in a needlessly expensive setting, often after long waits and with little access to follow-up treatment.
“More and more patients regard the emergency room as an acceptable or even proper place to go when they get sick,” Dr. Pitts said, “and the reality is that the E.R. is frequently the only option. Too often, patients can’t get the care they need, when they need it, from their family doctor.”
The new federal law is expected to bolster primary care by increasing reimbursement for practitioners, luring students into the field with incentives, expanding community health centers and encouraging new models known as accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes.
The authors warn that it might not be enough. “If history is any guide, things might not go as planned,” they wrote. “If primary care lags behind rising demand, patients will seek care elsewhere.”
A separate study in the same issue of Health Affairs illuminates another source of waste in the health care system — medical liability and defensive medicine.
The paper by three Harvard professors and a colleague at the University of Melbourne in Australia estimates that the medical-liability system added $55.6 billion to the cost of American medicine in 2008, equal to 2.4 percent of total health spending.
More than 8 of every 10 of those dollars — $45.6 billion — was attributed to defensive medicine by physicians who order unnecessary tests and procedures to protect themselves from malpractice claims.
While the dollar amount is “not trivial,” the authors noted that the fraction of total health spending “is less than some imaginative estimates put forward in the health reform debate.”
The authors, led by Michelle M. Mello of Harvard’s School of Public Health, estimated the cost of various components of the medical liability system, including payments to malpractice plaintiffs, defensive medicine, administrative costs like legal fees and lost time by clinicians. Rigorous estimates have been scarce in the past, they wrote, while adding that their own calculations “should be interpreted cautiously.”
The new health law did not make substantial changes to the medical liability system, despite Republican calls for restrictions on malpractice claims.
“Reforms that offer the prospect of reducing these costs have modest potential to exert downward pressure on overall health spending,” the study concluded. “Reforms to the health care delivery system, such as alterations to the fee-for-service reimbursement system and the incentives it provides for overuse, probably provide greater opportunities for savings.”
extention of MEDICARE for all and get care at a much cheaper price for ALL not a luckey few at a high cost which no sane person can be happy with!! HKirch
**************************
Now here is the Kevin Sack story on the current study.
In a snapshot of systemic waste, researchers have calculated that more than half of the 354 million doctor visits made each year for acute medical care, like for fevers, stomachaches and coughs, are not with a patient’s primary physician, and that more than a quarter take place in hospital emergency rooms.
The authors of the study, which was published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, said it highlighted a significant question about the new federal health care law: can access to primary care be maintained, much less improved, when an already inadequate and inefficient system takes on an expected 32 million newly insured customers?
The study is the first to quantify the problem, according to Dr. Stephen R. Pitts, the lead author and an associate professor of emergency medicine at Emory University. Examining records of acute care visits from 2001 to 2004, the researchers concluded that 28 percent took place in emergency rooms, including almost all of the visits made on weekends and after office hours.
More than half of acute care visits made by patients without health insurance were to emergency rooms, which are required by federal law to screen any patient who arrives there and treat those deemed in serious jeopardy. Not only does that pose a heavy workload and financial burden on hospitals, but it means that basic care is being provided in a needlessly expensive setting, often after long waits and with little access to follow-up treatment.
“More and more patients regard the emergency room as an acceptable or even proper place to go when they get sick,” Dr. Pitts said, “and the reality is that the E.R. is frequently the only option. Too often, patients can’t get the care they need, when they need it, from their family doctor.”
The new federal law is expected to bolster primary care by increasing reimbursement for practitioners, luring students into the field with incentives, expanding community health centers and encouraging new models known as accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes.
The authors warn that it might not be enough. “If history is any guide, things might not go as planned,” they wrote. “If primary care lags behind rising demand, patients will seek care elsewhere.”
A separate study in the same issue of Health Affairs illuminates another source of waste in the health care system — medical liability and defensive medicine.
The paper by three Harvard professors and a colleague at the University of Melbourne in Australia estimates that the medical-liability system added $55.6 billion to the cost of American medicine in 2008, equal to 2.4 percent of total health spending.
More than 8 of every 10 of those dollars — $45.6 billion — was attributed to defensive medicine by physicians who order unnecessary tests and procedures to protect themselves from malpractice claims.
While the dollar amount is “not trivial,” the authors noted that the fraction of total health spending “is less than some imaginative estimates put forward in the health reform debate.”
The authors, led by Michelle M. Mello of Harvard’s School of Public Health, estimated the cost of various components of the medical liability system, including payments to malpractice plaintiffs, defensive medicine, administrative costs like legal fees and lost time by clinicians. Rigorous estimates have been scarce in the past, they wrote, while adding that their own calculations “should be interpreted cautiously.”
The new health law did not make substantial changes to the medical liability system, despite Republican calls for restrictions on malpractice claims.
“Reforms that offer the prospect of reducing these costs have modest potential to exert downward pressure on overall health spending,” the study concluded. “Reforms to the health care delivery system, such as alterations to the fee-for-service reimbursement system and the incentives it provides for overuse, probably provide greater opportunities for savings.”
Monday, September 06, 2010
Book explains creation of universe minus God
Why stop with just arguing about God?
Describing the creator as "not necessary" in his
latest book is just another day at the office for that
whimsical scamp Stephen Hawking, better known as
"one of the foremost theoretical physicists of this
century" in the words of the Oxford Dictionary of
Scientists.
In his latest book, , out Sept. 7, Hawking and his
co-author, Caltech physicist Leonard Mlodinow,
also lay down their views on intelligent design
(bad), string theory (good) and philosophy ("dead").
"We're not saying there is no God, we're saying there
is no need for God to explain the universe," says
Mlodinow. "The views in the book are scientific
ones."
The scientific views in the book are the ones
Hawking developed after he wrote 2005's , with
Mlodinow. That book updated (and condensed)
Hawking's Brief History of Time, the 1988 best-
selling tome that made him a household name,
laying out how modern "standard model" physics
explained how stars and galaxies grew from the
early moments of the universe.
Hawking, now 68 and confined to a wheelchair
because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou
Gehrig's disease), also discussed his own work
showing how black holes may emit radiation over
time.
That's all. The Grand Design instead hunts bigger
game.
"The book was really written to address two
questions. Where did the universe come from and
why are the laws of the universe so finely tuned to
allow our existence," Mlodinow says.
Chiefly, Hawking says in the new book that
is criticizing his own approach in his 1988 book)
with "the usual assumption in cosmology that the
universe has a single definite history," which he
calls a "bottom-up" approach. "Instead, one should
trace the histories from the top down, backward
from the present time," he writes.
How do we do that? In the last few decades,
physicists have seen the 13.7 billion-year-old
signature of the Big Bang, the Cosmic Microwave
Background Radiation, filling space. And they have
grappled with a unifying theory explaining both
gravity and nuclear forces (now unreconciled by
standard theories), often called superstring theory
or " M-theory," that suggests the universe has many
"hidden" dimensions besides the familar up-down,
sideways and back-and-forth ones that most of us
experience while sober. Both of these advances,
Hawking suggests, point to a surprising
understanding of our origins.
Taking M-theory's hidden dimensions seriously and
tracing the history of our universe backwards in
time ("top-down") points to our universe being just
one of gazillions of universes spawned at the time
of the Big Bang, Hawking writes. Some of those
universes would have completely different physical
laws. "In some universes electrons have the weight
of golf balls and the force of gravity is stronger than
that of magnetism. In ours the standard model, with
all its parameters (rules), applies."
So there's nothing special about our universe that
needs explaining for why gravity or electromagnetic
forces have their particular strength, values which
allowed life to evolve on our planet. We got the one
we got.
Also in this view, the universe blasted itself into
existence spontaneously, following M-theory's rules
to create physical laws that we call gravity,
magnetism and so on, purely by chance. "He's
pointing to a crucial and fascinating feature of
Einstein's general relativity (law of gravity):
universes are free!" says Caltech physicist Sean
Carroll in an e-mail. He's the author of From Eternity
to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time.
"It costs precisely zero energy (and zero anything
else) to make an entire universe. From that
perspective, perhaps it's not surprising that the
universe did come into existence."
The pronouncements about God also aren't all that
surprising coming from Hawking, says science
journalism professor Declan Fahy of American
cosmologists have made a mistake (and implicitly heUniversity in Washington D.C., who has written
about the history of the celebrity scientist. "A Brief
History of Time has a catchphrase about physicists
'knowing the mind of God'," Fahy says.
"Some people criticize this as using God as a
marketing technique. There is some validity to that
view, but also some unfairness," Fahy adds. "I think
what has really captured the public mind about
Hawking is the image of this great scientist
overcoming real physical challenges to do his
work."
"I just hope a reader comes away from the book
thinking 'Wow, the universe is really a cool place',"
says Mlodinow, a well-regarded science writer who
also wrote episodes of . "I hope people really can
feel some of the awe in the beauty of nature that
scientists feel, and understand where they come
from."
Describing the creator as "not necessary" in his
latest book is just another day at the office for that
whimsical scamp Stephen Hawking, better known as
"one of the foremost theoretical physicists of this
century" in the words of the Oxford Dictionary of
Scientists.
In his latest book, , out Sept. 7, Hawking and his
co-author, Caltech physicist Leonard Mlodinow,
also lay down their views on intelligent design
(bad), string theory (good) and philosophy ("dead").
"We're not saying there is no God, we're saying there
is no need for God to explain the universe," says
Mlodinow. "The views in the book are scientific
ones."
The scientific views in the book are the ones
Hawking developed after he wrote 2005's , with
Mlodinow. That book updated (and condensed)
Hawking's Brief History of Time, the 1988 best-
selling tome that made him a household name,
laying out how modern "standard model" physics
explained how stars and galaxies grew from the
early moments of the universe.
Hawking, now 68 and confined to a wheelchair
because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou
Gehrig's disease), also discussed his own work
showing how black holes may emit radiation over
time.
That's all. The Grand Design instead hunts bigger
game.
"The book was really written to address two
questions. Where did the universe come from and
why are the laws of the universe so finely tuned to
allow our existence," Mlodinow says.
Chiefly, Hawking says in the new book that
is criticizing his own approach in his 1988 book)
with "the usual assumption in cosmology that the
universe has a single definite history," which he
calls a "bottom-up" approach. "Instead, one should
trace the histories from the top down, backward
from the present time," he writes.
How do we do that? In the last few decades,
physicists have seen the 13.7 billion-year-old
signature of the Big Bang, the Cosmic Microwave
Background Radiation, filling space. And they have
grappled with a unifying theory explaining both
gravity and nuclear forces (now unreconciled by
standard theories), often called superstring theory
or " M-theory," that suggests the universe has many
"hidden" dimensions besides the familar up-down,
sideways and back-and-forth ones that most of us
experience while sober. Both of these advances,
Hawking suggests, point to a surprising
understanding of our origins.
Taking M-theory's hidden dimensions seriously and
tracing the history of our universe backwards in
time ("top-down") points to our universe being just
one of gazillions of universes spawned at the time
of the Big Bang, Hawking writes. Some of those
universes would have completely different physical
laws. "In some universes electrons have the weight
of golf balls and the force of gravity is stronger than
that of magnetism. In ours the standard model, with
all its parameters (rules), applies."
So there's nothing special about our universe that
needs explaining for why gravity or electromagnetic
forces have their particular strength, values which
allowed life to evolve on our planet. We got the one
we got.
Also in this view, the universe blasted itself into
existence spontaneously, following M-theory's rules
to create physical laws that we call gravity,
magnetism and so on, purely by chance. "He's
pointing to a crucial and fascinating feature of
Einstein's general relativity (law of gravity):
universes are free!" says Caltech physicist Sean
Carroll in an e-mail. He's the author of From Eternity
to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time.
"It costs precisely zero energy (and zero anything
else) to make an entire universe. From that
perspective, perhaps it's not surprising that the
universe did come into existence."
The pronouncements about God also aren't all that
surprising coming from Hawking, says science
journalism professor Declan Fahy of American
cosmologists have made a mistake (and implicitly heUniversity in Washington D.C., who has written
about the history of the celebrity scientist. "A Brief
History of Time has a catchphrase about physicists
'knowing the mind of God'," Fahy says.
"Some people criticize this as using God as a
marketing technique. There is some validity to that
view, but also some unfairness," Fahy adds. "I think
what has really captured the public mind about
Hawking is the image of this great scientist
overcoming real physical challenges to do his
work."
"I just hope a reader comes away from the book
thinking 'Wow, the universe is really a cool place',"
says Mlodinow, a well-regarded science writer who
also wrote episodes of . "I hope people really can
feel some of the awe in the beauty of nature that
scientists feel, and understand where they come
from."
Congressional Charities Pulling In Corporate Cash
WASHINGTON — Representative Joe Baca has achieved near celebrity status in his suburban Los Angeles district, as much for his record of giveaways — Thanksgiving turkeys, college scholarships, spare boots for firefighters — as for anything he has done in Congress.
That generosity is made possible by the Joe Baca Foundation, a charity his family set up three years ago to aid local organizations. It provides another benefit, too: helping the Democratic congressman run something akin to a permanent political campaign.
Joe Baca T-shirts and caps are given out at the charity’s events, where banners display his name. Local newspapers mention the charity’s donations, and cable stations show appearances by Mr. Baca and his family at functions his foundation supports.
“It’s great,” said Laura Goodloe, 36, as she watched her 8-year-old son, Jordan, play at the arena in San Bernardino, Calif., where the Baca Foundation offered a free basketball clinic last month. “He is giving back to the community.”
But unlike most private foundations, Mr. Baca’s gets little of its money from its founders’ pockets. Instead, local companies and major corporations that have often turned to Mr. Baca’s Washington office for help, and usually succeed in getting it, are the chief donors.
A review by The New York Times of federal tax records and House and Senate disclosure reports found at least two dozen charities that lawmakers or their families helped create or run that routinely accept donations from businesses seeking to influence them. The sponsors — AT&T, Chevron, General Dynamics, Morgan Stanley, Eli Lilly and dozens of others — contribute millions of dollars annually in gifts ranging from token amounts to a check for $5 million.
Since 2009, businesses have sent lobbyists and executives to the plush Boulders resort in Scottsdale, Ariz., for a fund-raiser for the scholarship fund of Representative Steve Buyer, Republican of Indiana; sponsored a skeet shooting competition in Florida to help the favorite food bank of Representative Allen Boyd, Democrat of Florida; and subsidized a spa and speedway outing in Las Vegas to aid the charity of Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada.
Just last month, they touted their largess with flags bearing their names near the tees at a golf tournament benefiting the foundation of Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina.
Despite rules imposed in 2007 to curb the influence of special interests in Congress, corporate donations to lawmakers’ charities have continued, thanks to a provision that allows businesses to make unlimited gifts to them. And while business executives say they want to give to a good cause, their pattern of spending — contributions that often are not disclosed, in apparent violation of ethics rules — suggests another reason.
Altria, the cigarette maker, for example, sent at least $45,000 in donations over a six-week period last fall to four charitable programs founded by House members — including Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, and Mr. Clyburn, the Democratic whip — just as the company was seeking approval of legislation intended to curb illegal Internet sales of its cigarettes. An Altria spokesman said the donations were not related to the measure, which all four congressmen backed. (The other two are Mr. Boyd and Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan.)
Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy, acknowledged that the company participates in lawmakers’ charitable events in part to get access to them and push its agenda. “We are not apologetic about it at all: it is part of our overall effort to work with policy makers,” he said. “Social settings are always a good way to get to know people.”
Like Mr. Baca, other members of Congress benefit from the good will that their corporate-financed philanthropy generates among voters. The lawmakers defend the donations, saying they have no influence on the politicians’ positions on legislation or policy. They also say that they typically do not serve on the charities’ governing boards or solicit contributions themselves.
“There is nothing improper here at all,” said Mark Hayes, a spokesman for Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, who helped found two Indiana nonprofit groups that are supported by corporate contributions. “They are simply causes he believes in.”
But some current and former lawmakers, as well as ethics officials on Capitol Hill, find the charitable donations troubling, calling them one of the last major unregulated fronts in the “pay to play” culture in Washington. The donations typically far exceed what companies are permitted to give to candidates in campaign contributions.
The Office of Congressional Ethics, a House oversight group, twice last year investigated lawmakers’ charities, but took no action, in part because the House granted waivers exempting the congressmen from prohibitions against soliciting donations from companies with business before their committees.
The donations by corporations and lobbyists to politicians’ favorite causes can create expectations that the lawmakers will return the favor, said Mickey Edwards, an Oklahoma Republican who served 16 years in the House.
“Almost all of these foundations, they were set up for a good purpose,” Mr. Edwards said. “But as soon as you take a donation, it creates more than just an appearance problem for the member of Congress. It is a real conflict.”
A Time for Giving
In August, with Congress in recess, the charity fund-raising effort goes into overdrive, and last month was no exception.
¶At a mountaintop resort spa in Utah, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Republican, hosted a golf tournament to raise money for the Utah Families Foundation, which he helped establish. Companies willing to donate at least $20,000 got to meet privately with the senator and received other perks.
The guests included executives from Cephalon and Watson Pharmaceutical, drug companies that have sought Mr. Hatch’s help in protecting them from federal regulators who have accusedthem of conspiring to delay the sale of lower cost generic drugs.
(Seven drug makers and big corporate players like Morgan Stanley, Qwest and Chevron donated enough last year to earn an invitation to the private reception, helping the charity raise a total of $900,000.)
¶In Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski, whose family began the Waterfall Foundation to finance breast cancer screening in rural Alaska, appeared at an exclusive fishing resort on Prince of Wales Island, reachable only by boat or seaplane. The guest list of nearly 100 was a who’s who of the global oil and coal industries, with lobbyists and executives from Exxon Mobile, ConocoPhillips, BP, Duke Energy and Royal Dutch Shell. (David Lawrence, Shell’s executive vice president for oil exploration, pulled in one of the biggest fish, a 105-pound halibut.)
Ms. Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee who just lost her re-election bid, has been a staunch advocate for the companies, which variously are seeking drilling rights off Alaska, federal assistance for new nuclear projects and a halt to efforts to impose a cap on carbon dioxide emissions.
Ms. Murkowski’s sister, Eileen Van Wyhe, the charity’s executive director, called the event a huge success. It brought in about $500,000, half of which was donated to the foundation and the rest largely covering the resort bill.
“Nothing about this is political,” she said. “Everyone is here just to support the charity.”
¶In Santee, S.C., Mr. Clyburn buzzed around glistening Lake Marion in a golf cart, hobnobbing with some of the 600 players at an annual tournament benefiting the James E. Clyburn Research and Scholarship Foundation.
The event pulls in more than $500,000. At a gala dinner, the charity gave out more than 100 scholarships worth $1,000 and free laptop computers, together worth more than $400,000, to students who otherwise might not be able to attend college.
“This is not about promoting Jim Clyburn, but about filling a real need in the community,” said Hope Derrick, the congressman’s spokeswoman.
But the donors were not there simply to help needy youngsters, several acknowledged in interviews. In addition to drug makers, telecommunications firms and tobacco companies, nearly a dozen nuclear industry companies served as sponsors.
“When it comes to nuclear power, Jim Clyburn is always on our side,” said Robert Eble, a nuclear safety manager from Shaw Areva Mox Services. It has a multibillion-dollar federal contract to convert plutonium from old weapons into nuclear fuel, a South Carolina project Mr. Clyburn has pushed. “Whatever we can do to help him in return, we are there.”
It is difficult to determine how much corporate money flows into the lawmaker-affiliated charities. They are not required to disclose their donors or the amount of their gifts, and few of them do. After scandals involving Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican and former House majority leader, and the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Congress adopted rules requiring corporations with lobbyists to report donations to charities established by a lawmaker.
The Times review, however, found at least a dozen companies that appear to have violated the requirements. A spokeswoman said the Senate Office of Public Records was barred from routinely checking lobbyist filings to ensure that they were honoring the rules.
It is illegal for lawmakers to use government resources — including letterhead or staff members — to help run their charities. But the lines are often blurred. For example, Dalton J. Tresvant, a full-time House aide to Mr. Clyburn, also organizes, as a volunteer, Mr. Clyburn’s annual golf tournament.
The fine print of ethics rules allows lawmakers to be closely associated with fund-raising appeals, even if they do not solicit donations themselves. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, founded two nonprofit groups and has long ties to a third, the Washington Bach Consort. While the senator, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, has donated significant amounts of money to the charities, they still seek gifts from companies that regularly appeal to him as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
At a May fund-raiser, Mr. Rockefeller made fun of the ethics restrictions that forced him to become an “honorary” member of the board of the Bach Consort. While aides say that Mr. Rockefeller does not personally ask for donations and that any gifts do not influence his stands, officials at one of the groups said he regularly invoked Mr. Rockefeller’s name when making fund-raising calls to businesses. The senator also sometimes thanks donors in person.
“This is a major, major — the major event for us,” Mr. Rockefeller told lobbyists and corporate executives at the May fund-raiser. “Many of you are here, and who have contributed, you are special to us.”
Overlapping Agendas
Perhaps nowhere is the mixing of charitable and political agendas more evident than with Mr. Baca and his family-run charity. It is not particularly large, taking in only about $200,000 in contributions this year, according to Joe Baca Jr., the lawmaker’s son. But the list of corporate donors and supporters serves almost like a road map to Mr. Baca’s major legislative actions.
Coca-Cola, which donated $40,000 in the last two years, is preparing to fight a proposal to prohibit the use of food stamps to buy high-calorie sodas, an issue that could be before the agriculture subcommittee that Mr. Baca leads.
The Lewis Group of Companies, a local development firm and a frequent sponsor of Baca Foundation events, is preparing to start construction on a 2,000-unit housing project built on land that Mr. Baca helped deliver by steering legislation through Congress to close the Rialto Municipal Airport, the current occupant. Mr. Baca last year helped secure a $500,000 budget earmark for Telacu, another local housing group that donates to his foundation.
Another donor to his foundation is Rentech, a California-based biofuels company that wants to build a new fuel plant in Mr. Baca’s district. After it made two donations last year, Mr. Baca’s son, who serves on the Rialto City Council, voted to endorse federal assistance for the project — even before the company had completed the local environmental permit reviews. Then the congressman sent a letter to the Energy Department on his office stationery urging approval of the assistance.
Mr. Baca’s office in Washington declined to address questions about the charity, or about positions the congressman has taken that appear to benefit donors. “They do a lot of great work,” said Stephen Wall, a spokesman for Mr. Baca, referring to the foundation. “But as far as what we do, it is separate.”
Mr. Baca’s son, who handles administrative matters at the charity, said many of the other donors were small California businesses with no issues before lawmakers in Washington. “We have always been about giving back,” he said.
Scott Folkens, a Republican who is fighting what he acknowledges is an uphill battle to replace Mr. Baca, said the charitable work by his opponent was smart politically, but unfair.
“I have no problem with a congressman doing good for the community,” Mr. Folkens said. “But this is a way for him to campaign for himself and his family, with the bills being paid by corporate sponsors.”
Rebecca Cathcart contributed reporting from San Bernardino, Calif., and Ron Nixon from Washington.
That generosity is made possible by the Joe Baca Foundation, a charity his family set up three years ago to aid local organizations. It provides another benefit, too: helping the Democratic congressman run something akin to a permanent political campaign.
Joe Baca T-shirts and caps are given out at the charity’s events, where banners display his name. Local newspapers mention the charity’s donations, and cable stations show appearances by Mr. Baca and his family at functions his foundation supports.
“It’s great,” said Laura Goodloe, 36, as she watched her 8-year-old son, Jordan, play at the arena in San Bernardino, Calif., where the Baca Foundation offered a free basketball clinic last month. “He is giving back to the community.”
But unlike most private foundations, Mr. Baca’s gets little of its money from its founders’ pockets. Instead, local companies and major corporations that have often turned to Mr. Baca’s Washington office for help, and usually succeed in getting it, are the chief donors.
A review by The New York Times of federal tax records and House and Senate disclosure reports found at least two dozen charities that lawmakers or their families helped create or run that routinely accept donations from businesses seeking to influence them. The sponsors — AT&T, Chevron, General Dynamics, Morgan Stanley, Eli Lilly and dozens of others — contribute millions of dollars annually in gifts ranging from token amounts to a check for $5 million.
Since 2009, businesses have sent lobbyists and executives to the plush Boulders resort in Scottsdale, Ariz., for a fund-raiser for the scholarship fund of Representative Steve Buyer, Republican of Indiana; sponsored a skeet shooting competition in Florida to help the favorite food bank of Representative Allen Boyd, Democrat of Florida; and subsidized a spa and speedway outing in Las Vegas to aid the charity of Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada.
Just last month, they touted their largess with flags bearing their names near the tees at a golf tournament benefiting the foundation of Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina.
Despite rules imposed in 2007 to curb the influence of special interests in Congress, corporate donations to lawmakers’ charities have continued, thanks to a provision that allows businesses to make unlimited gifts to them. And while business executives say they want to give to a good cause, their pattern of spending — contributions that often are not disclosed, in apparent violation of ethics rules — suggests another reason.
Altria, the cigarette maker, for example, sent at least $45,000 in donations over a six-week period last fall to four charitable programs founded by House members — including Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, and Mr. Clyburn, the Democratic whip — just as the company was seeking approval of legislation intended to curb illegal Internet sales of its cigarettes. An Altria spokesman said the donations were not related to the measure, which all four congressmen backed. (The other two are Mr. Boyd and Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan.)
Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy, acknowledged that the company participates in lawmakers’ charitable events in part to get access to them and push its agenda. “We are not apologetic about it at all: it is part of our overall effort to work with policy makers,” he said. “Social settings are always a good way to get to know people.”
Like Mr. Baca, other members of Congress benefit from the good will that their corporate-financed philanthropy generates among voters. The lawmakers defend the donations, saying they have no influence on the politicians’ positions on legislation or policy. They also say that they typically do not serve on the charities’ governing boards or solicit contributions themselves.
“There is nothing improper here at all,” said Mark Hayes, a spokesman for Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, who helped found two Indiana nonprofit groups that are supported by corporate contributions. “They are simply causes he believes in.”
But some current and former lawmakers, as well as ethics officials on Capitol Hill, find the charitable donations troubling, calling them one of the last major unregulated fronts in the “pay to play” culture in Washington. The donations typically far exceed what companies are permitted to give to candidates in campaign contributions.
The Office of Congressional Ethics, a House oversight group, twice last year investigated lawmakers’ charities, but took no action, in part because the House granted waivers exempting the congressmen from prohibitions against soliciting donations from companies with business before their committees.
The donations by corporations and lobbyists to politicians’ favorite causes can create expectations that the lawmakers will return the favor, said Mickey Edwards, an Oklahoma Republican who served 16 years in the House.
“Almost all of these foundations, they were set up for a good purpose,” Mr. Edwards said. “But as soon as you take a donation, it creates more than just an appearance problem for the member of Congress. It is a real conflict.”
A Time for Giving
In August, with Congress in recess, the charity fund-raising effort goes into overdrive, and last month was no exception.
¶At a mountaintop resort spa in Utah, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Republican, hosted a golf tournament to raise money for the Utah Families Foundation, which he helped establish. Companies willing to donate at least $20,000 got to meet privately with the senator and received other perks.
The guests included executives from Cephalon and Watson Pharmaceutical, drug companies that have sought Mr. Hatch’s help in protecting them from federal regulators who have accusedthem of conspiring to delay the sale of lower cost generic drugs.
(Seven drug makers and big corporate players like Morgan Stanley, Qwest and Chevron donated enough last year to earn an invitation to the private reception, helping the charity raise a total of $900,000.)
¶In Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski, whose family began the Waterfall Foundation to finance breast cancer screening in rural Alaska, appeared at an exclusive fishing resort on Prince of Wales Island, reachable only by boat or seaplane. The guest list of nearly 100 was a who’s who of the global oil and coal industries, with lobbyists and executives from Exxon Mobile, ConocoPhillips, BP, Duke Energy and Royal Dutch Shell. (David Lawrence, Shell’s executive vice president for oil exploration, pulled in one of the biggest fish, a 105-pound halibut.)
Ms. Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee who just lost her re-election bid, has been a staunch advocate for the companies, which variously are seeking drilling rights off Alaska, federal assistance for new nuclear projects and a halt to efforts to impose a cap on carbon dioxide emissions.
Ms. Murkowski’s sister, Eileen Van Wyhe, the charity’s executive director, called the event a huge success. It brought in about $500,000, half of which was donated to the foundation and the rest largely covering the resort bill.
“Nothing about this is political,” she said. “Everyone is here just to support the charity.”
¶In Santee, S.C., Mr. Clyburn buzzed around glistening Lake Marion in a golf cart, hobnobbing with some of the 600 players at an annual tournament benefiting the James E. Clyburn Research and Scholarship Foundation.
The event pulls in more than $500,000. At a gala dinner, the charity gave out more than 100 scholarships worth $1,000 and free laptop computers, together worth more than $400,000, to students who otherwise might not be able to attend college.
“This is not about promoting Jim Clyburn, but about filling a real need in the community,” said Hope Derrick, the congressman’s spokeswoman.
But the donors were not there simply to help needy youngsters, several acknowledged in interviews. In addition to drug makers, telecommunications firms and tobacco companies, nearly a dozen nuclear industry companies served as sponsors.
“When it comes to nuclear power, Jim Clyburn is always on our side,” said Robert Eble, a nuclear safety manager from Shaw Areva Mox Services. It has a multibillion-dollar federal contract to convert plutonium from old weapons into nuclear fuel, a South Carolina project Mr. Clyburn has pushed. “Whatever we can do to help him in return, we are there.”
It is difficult to determine how much corporate money flows into the lawmaker-affiliated charities. They are not required to disclose their donors or the amount of their gifts, and few of them do. After scandals involving Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican and former House majority leader, and the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Congress adopted rules requiring corporations with lobbyists to report donations to charities established by a lawmaker.
The Times review, however, found at least a dozen companies that appear to have violated the requirements. A spokeswoman said the Senate Office of Public Records was barred from routinely checking lobbyist filings to ensure that they were honoring the rules.
It is illegal for lawmakers to use government resources — including letterhead or staff members — to help run their charities. But the lines are often blurred. For example, Dalton J. Tresvant, a full-time House aide to Mr. Clyburn, also organizes, as a volunteer, Mr. Clyburn’s annual golf tournament.
The fine print of ethics rules allows lawmakers to be closely associated with fund-raising appeals, even if they do not solicit donations themselves. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, founded two nonprofit groups and has long ties to a third, the Washington Bach Consort. While the senator, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, has donated significant amounts of money to the charities, they still seek gifts from companies that regularly appeal to him as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
At a May fund-raiser, Mr. Rockefeller made fun of the ethics restrictions that forced him to become an “honorary” member of the board of the Bach Consort. While aides say that Mr. Rockefeller does not personally ask for donations and that any gifts do not influence his stands, officials at one of the groups said he regularly invoked Mr. Rockefeller’s name when making fund-raising calls to businesses. The senator also sometimes thanks donors in person.
“This is a major, major — the major event for us,” Mr. Rockefeller told lobbyists and corporate executives at the May fund-raiser. “Many of you are here, and who have contributed, you are special to us.”
Overlapping Agendas
Perhaps nowhere is the mixing of charitable and political agendas more evident than with Mr. Baca and his family-run charity. It is not particularly large, taking in only about $200,000 in contributions this year, according to Joe Baca Jr., the lawmaker’s son. But the list of corporate donors and supporters serves almost like a road map to Mr. Baca’s major legislative actions.
Coca-Cola, which donated $40,000 in the last two years, is preparing to fight a proposal to prohibit the use of food stamps to buy high-calorie sodas, an issue that could be before the agriculture subcommittee that Mr. Baca leads.
The Lewis Group of Companies, a local development firm and a frequent sponsor of Baca Foundation events, is preparing to start construction on a 2,000-unit housing project built on land that Mr. Baca helped deliver by steering legislation through Congress to close the Rialto Municipal Airport, the current occupant. Mr. Baca last year helped secure a $500,000 budget earmark for Telacu, another local housing group that donates to his foundation.
Another donor to his foundation is Rentech, a California-based biofuels company that wants to build a new fuel plant in Mr. Baca’s district. After it made two donations last year, Mr. Baca’s son, who serves on the Rialto City Council, voted to endorse federal assistance for the project — even before the company had completed the local environmental permit reviews. Then the congressman sent a letter to the Energy Department on his office stationery urging approval of the assistance.
Mr. Baca’s office in Washington declined to address questions about the charity, or about positions the congressman has taken that appear to benefit donors. “They do a lot of great work,” said Stephen Wall, a spokesman for Mr. Baca, referring to the foundation. “But as far as what we do, it is separate.”
Mr. Baca’s son, who handles administrative matters at the charity, said many of the other donors were small California businesses with no issues before lawmakers in Washington. “We have always been about giving back,” he said.
Scott Folkens, a Republican who is fighting what he acknowledges is an uphill battle to replace Mr. Baca, said the charitable work by his opponent was smart politically, but unfair.
“I have no problem with a congressman doing good for the community,” Mr. Folkens said. “But this is a way for him to campaign for himself and his family, with the bills being paid by corporate sponsors.”
Rebecca Cathcart contributed reporting from San Bernardino, Calif., and Ron Nixon from Washington.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
MEDIA THAT MATTERS WEEKLY FOCUS
Will Glenn Beck's The Blaze follow Breitbart's trail?
Glenn Beck has a three-hour radio show, a one-hour television show, regular guest slots on Fox News and Fox Business, and a subscription website. Still, he doesn't have enough hours in the day for some of the "stories that matter most."
"I hired some journalists because there are stories I don't have enough broadcast hours in a day to cover them and somebody has got to cover them," Beck told viewers on September 1 while discussing his new online media site, The Blaze.
Anyone remotely familiar with Beck knows he's notoriously thin-skinned, resulting in copious amounts of time defending himself and his brand. So it's little surprise that the topic most important to Glenn Beck's The Blaze is Glenn Beck.
Within several days after launching, some of the site's stories include such page-scrollers as "NY Times Columnist on Beck: 'I Underestimated the Man,'" "Columnist: Sharpton, Not Beck, Distorts MLK's Legacy," and "Slideshow: Newspaper Coverage of 8/28."
If Beck confines his website to "Glenn is great" stories, then there's ultimately no harm, no foul. But in an "exclusive" press release -- or what Mediaite refers to as an "article" -- about the site, Beck said he envisions The Blaze as having "reporting, insightful opinions and engaging videos about the stories that matter most ... I look forward to keeping [editor] Scott [Baker] and his team busy by sending countless ideas at 3am every morning." (So far, "insight" and "reporting" have been lacking.)
As Media Matters has documented, the conservative web has tried its hand at "reporting, insightful opinions, and engaging videos" -- and done it badly.
Exhibit A comes in the form of Andrew Breitbart, who -- in the words of Shep Smith -- runs a "widely discredited website" that posts "inaccurate" and "edited" videos. Breitbart, of course, was widely criticized for posting misleading videos about ACORN, and then came back for an encore by posting another deceptive tape, this time wrongly accusing former USDA official Shirley Sherrod of racism. Those two incidents are the most high-profile of a long rap sheet against Breitbart.
How does Glenn Beck feel about Andrew Breitbart? You don't have to read between any lines to see that Beck views him as an inspiration -- one of the "great journalists of our time" and a future chapter in history books:
"You [Andrew Breitbart] are in instrumental in changing America. I think the history books will - I mean, assuming that our side wins - the history book will reflect your service to the country." (February 12, Fox News)
"Thank goodness, BigGovernment.com and Andrew Breitbart are always watching, as are we." (December 7, 2009, Fox News)
"You know where the great journalists of our time are? Andrew Breitbart. I was just thinking when I was listening to this, I mean this Andrew. You are the only one -- you were the only one, besides watchdogs, that were really aggressively working behind the scenes with us on Van Jones." (September 10, radio)
"Andrew Breitbart brought this to my attention. He called me the other day. And I wanted to bring it to your attention - the National People's Action group. This action group - this is yet another community organizing group that makes ACORN look like a Sunday morning, you know, knitting clutch." (May 4, Fox News)
"Well, Andrew Breitbart from Breitbart.com brought this video to my attention, and I've got to show it to you. We'll show it all tomorrow. But this is SEIU's president Andy Stern on the real motives of the unions." (March 2, Fox News)
As Media Matters has documented, Beck has frequently turned to Breitbart for stories and inspiration. Indeed, Beck was perhaps the media figure most responsible for pushing the ACORN story into the mainstream.
So when it came to launching his own site, Beck turned to one of Breitbart's top lieutenants, Scott Baker, who co-founded Breitbart.tv and served as vice president for business development at Breitbart.com. Under Baker, Breitbart.tv launched a litany of false and misleading videos and stories against progressives, such as smearing Department of Education staffer Kevin Jennings and posting a doctored video falsely claiming community organizers were "praying" to Obama.
Breitbart also hired Pam Key who, as Terry Krepel noted, is the activist behind the Breitbart-promoted operation Naked Emperor News. Key's videos are notorious for attacking the Obama administration while omitting necessary context (a la Breitbart).
After the Sherrod fiasco blew up in Breitbart's face, MSNBC.com's First Read blog wrote, "you would have thought that all of us in the ACTUAL news business would have learned this lesson about Andrew Breitbart and his protégés: They're not out for the truth; they're out for scalps."
Similarly, if Glenn Beck's track record on television and radio isn't enough to disqualify his new website as anything other than a dubious exercise in new media, surely his Breitbart-infused vision of "great" new media journalism is.
Dick Morris: Fox News' traveling GOP salesman
Fox News "political analyst" Dick Morris is a busy man. According to The Hill, Morris plans "to campaign for some 40 Republican congressional candidates in 2010."
Last month, for instance, Morris hit the campaign trail for Ohio congressional candidates Bill Johnson, Bob Gibbs, and Tom Ganley. The event reportedly featured a 5 p.m. "private reception and roundtable discussion with Morris, costing $2,400 a person. The cost also includes a photo with Morris and an autographed copy of his latest book, '2010: Take Back America.' It costs $500 a person for a private reception, photo and book signing at 5:45 p.m."
Morris also headlined a fundraiser for congressional candidate Scott Tipton, costing a minimum of $50 per person, with a "special VIP reception" at $500 per person.
None of the GOP fundraising and advocacy would be possible -- or even relevant -- if not for one important party: Fox News.
Consider, for instance, how Morris' appearance at an event for West Virginia congressional candidate David McKinley was described this week at the very top of a local TV station's 6 p.m. newscast:
"A Fox News commentator is here in the mid-Ohio valley for a local candidate."
The station then aired video of McKinley explaining why he brought in Morris: "I think people that have followed Fox News and get a lot of their news that way, maybe this is something that they can relate to. But this man has a national voice that understands this economy."
Indeed, throughout events across the country, Morris is often sold by touting his Fox News affiliation.
Morris' off-air boosterism is only compounded by the fact that he continues it on-air. Recently, Morris suggested that viewers donate to the anti-Harry Reid group Americans for New Leadership -- a group for which Morris is currently fundraising and helping with ad strategy. In February, the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania paid Morris $10,000 for speaking at its 2010 Lincoln Day Dinner. Following the payment, Morris repeatedly appeared on Fox News to discuss Pennsylvania politics and shill for Pennsylvania Republicans and causes. And Morris appeared on Fox News twice to tout then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum -- after hosting a pricey fundraiser for him. In none of the previously mentioned incidents did Morris disclose his ties.
Still, Fox News doesn't appear to care about any of Morris' GOP activism despite the fact that he's one of the channel's most frequent on-air commentators. According to a Nexis search of available Fox News programs -- this typically excludes Fox & Friends and daytime programming -- Morris has appeared on Fox News a whopping 110 times in the past year.
This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Media Matters research fellow Eric Hananoki.
Glenn Beck has a three-hour radio show, a one-hour television show, regular guest slots on Fox News and Fox Business, and a subscription website. Still, he doesn't have enough hours in the day for some of the "stories that matter most."
"I hired some journalists because there are stories I don't have enough broadcast hours in a day to cover them and somebody has got to cover them," Beck told viewers on September 1 while discussing his new online media site, The Blaze.
Anyone remotely familiar with Beck knows he's notoriously thin-skinned, resulting in copious amounts of time defending himself and his brand. So it's little surprise that the topic most important to Glenn Beck's The Blaze is Glenn Beck.
Within several days after launching, some of the site's stories include such page-scrollers as "NY Times Columnist on Beck: 'I Underestimated the Man,'" "Columnist: Sharpton, Not Beck, Distorts MLK's Legacy," and "Slideshow: Newspaper Coverage of 8/28."
If Beck confines his website to "Glenn is great" stories, then there's ultimately no harm, no foul. But in an "exclusive" press release -- or what Mediaite refers to as an "article" -- about the site, Beck said he envisions The Blaze as having "reporting, insightful opinions and engaging videos about the stories that matter most ... I look forward to keeping [editor] Scott [Baker] and his team busy by sending countless ideas at 3am every morning." (So far, "insight" and "reporting" have been lacking.)
As Media Matters has documented, the conservative web has tried its hand at "reporting, insightful opinions, and engaging videos" -- and done it badly.
Exhibit A comes in the form of Andrew Breitbart, who -- in the words of Shep Smith -- runs a "widely discredited website" that posts "inaccurate" and "edited" videos. Breitbart, of course, was widely criticized for posting misleading videos about ACORN, and then came back for an encore by posting another deceptive tape, this time wrongly accusing former USDA official Shirley Sherrod of racism. Those two incidents are the most high-profile of a long rap sheet against Breitbart.
How does Glenn Beck feel about Andrew Breitbart? You don't have to read between any lines to see that Beck views him as an inspiration -- one of the "great journalists of our time" and a future chapter in history books:
"You [Andrew Breitbart] are in instrumental in changing America. I think the history books will - I mean, assuming that our side wins - the history book will reflect your service to the country." (February 12, Fox News)
"Thank goodness, BigGovernment.com and Andrew Breitbart are always watching, as are we." (December 7, 2009, Fox News)
"You know where the great journalists of our time are? Andrew Breitbart. I was just thinking when I was listening to this, I mean this Andrew. You are the only one -- you were the only one, besides watchdogs, that were really aggressively working behind the scenes with us on Van Jones." (September 10, radio)
"Andrew Breitbart brought this to my attention. He called me the other day. And I wanted to bring it to your attention - the National People's Action group. This action group - this is yet another community organizing group that makes ACORN look like a Sunday morning, you know, knitting clutch." (May 4, Fox News)
"Well, Andrew Breitbart from Breitbart.com brought this video to my attention, and I've got to show it to you. We'll show it all tomorrow. But this is SEIU's president Andy Stern on the real motives of the unions." (March 2, Fox News)
As Media Matters has documented, Beck has frequently turned to Breitbart for stories and inspiration. Indeed, Beck was perhaps the media figure most responsible for pushing the ACORN story into the mainstream.
So when it came to launching his own site, Beck turned to one of Breitbart's top lieutenants, Scott Baker, who co-founded Breitbart.tv and served as vice president for business development at Breitbart.com. Under Baker, Breitbart.tv launched a litany of false and misleading videos and stories against progressives, such as smearing Department of Education staffer Kevin Jennings and posting a doctored video falsely claiming community organizers were "praying" to Obama.
Breitbart also hired Pam Key who, as Terry Krepel noted, is the activist behind the Breitbart-promoted operation Naked Emperor News. Key's videos are notorious for attacking the Obama administration while omitting necessary context (a la Breitbart).
After the Sherrod fiasco blew up in Breitbart's face, MSNBC.com's First Read blog wrote, "you would have thought that all of us in the ACTUAL news business would have learned this lesson about Andrew Breitbart and his protégés: They're not out for the truth; they're out for scalps."
Similarly, if Glenn Beck's track record on television and radio isn't enough to disqualify his new website as anything other than a dubious exercise in new media, surely his Breitbart-infused vision of "great" new media journalism is.
Dick Morris: Fox News' traveling GOP salesman
Fox News "political analyst" Dick Morris is a busy man. According to The Hill, Morris plans "to campaign for some 40 Republican congressional candidates in 2010."
Last month, for instance, Morris hit the campaign trail for Ohio congressional candidates Bill Johnson, Bob Gibbs, and Tom Ganley. The event reportedly featured a 5 p.m. "private reception and roundtable discussion with Morris, costing $2,400 a person. The cost also includes a photo with Morris and an autographed copy of his latest book, '2010: Take Back America.' It costs $500 a person for a private reception, photo and book signing at 5:45 p.m."
Morris also headlined a fundraiser for congressional candidate Scott Tipton, costing a minimum of $50 per person, with a "special VIP reception" at $500 per person.
None of the GOP fundraising and advocacy would be possible -- or even relevant -- if not for one important party: Fox News.
Consider, for instance, how Morris' appearance at an event for West Virginia congressional candidate David McKinley was described this week at the very top of a local TV station's 6 p.m. newscast:
"A Fox News commentator is here in the mid-Ohio valley for a local candidate."
The station then aired video of McKinley explaining why he brought in Morris: "I think people that have followed Fox News and get a lot of their news that way, maybe this is something that they can relate to. But this man has a national voice that understands this economy."
Indeed, throughout events across the country, Morris is often sold by touting his Fox News affiliation.
Morris' off-air boosterism is only compounded by the fact that he continues it on-air. Recently, Morris suggested that viewers donate to the anti-Harry Reid group Americans for New Leadership -- a group for which Morris is currently fundraising and helping with ad strategy. In February, the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania paid Morris $10,000 for speaking at its 2010 Lincoln Day Dinner. Following the payment, Morris repeatedly appeared on Fox News to discuss Pennsylvania politics and shill for Pennsylvania Republicans and causes. And Morris appeared on Fox News twice to tout then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum -- after hosting a pricey fundraiser for him. In none of the previously mentioned incidents did Morris disclose his ties.
Still, Fox News doesn't appear to care about any of Morris' GOP activism despite the fact that he's one of the channel's most frequent on-air commentators. According to a Nexis search of available Fox News programs -- this typically excludes Fox & Friends and daytime programming -- Morris has appeared on Fox News a whopping 110 times in the past year.
This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Media Matters research fellow Eric Hananoki.
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