Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett May Keep Pres. Obama Off Ballot

newsvideoclip — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:17:06 +0000

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett spoke to KFYI radio host Mike Broomhead on Thursday, and said he may keep President Obama’s name off the state’s ballot in November if he doesn’t get confirmation from Hawaii that Obama’s birth certificate is valid.

Bennett said he’d received about 1200 requests to verify the birth certificate, and it’s his responsibility to verify the name’s on the ballot.

He told Broomhead he’s not a birther himself, and also denied playing to the birther crowd (given his gubernatorial aspirations). “I believe the president was born in Hawaii – or at least I hope he was,” Bennett said.

Bennett said he requested confirmation eight weeks ago — but hasn’t heard back. (Hawaii, he said, has a system through which they’ll verify a birth certificate in lieu of giving a copy of it.).

(Source: Mediaite.com)

Cornwall Alliance’s Calvin Beisner Compares Pro-Environment Movement to Satan

newsvideoclip — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:54:29 +0000

Anti-environmental activist and pro-big oil advocate Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance appeared on Janet Parshall’s radio show on Monday where he maintained that environmentalists are following the same path as Satan.

Ironically, the big oil-funded Beisner said the presence of “greed” in society,“sexual perversion” and disobedience were part of “the growing depravity in the United States,” which he linked back to the environmental movement.

Beisner also claimed that efforts toward environmental protection are somehow dislodging God and humanity from their rightful place in the bible and turning the natural order “upside down just as Satan did in the Garden of Eden.”

(Source: RightWingWatch.org)

Rep. Steve King Falsely Claims “Everyone in America Has Access to Health Care”

newsvideoclip — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:28:38 +0000

During an appearance on CSPAN’s Washington Journal Thursday morning, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) falsely claimed that “everybody in America has access to health care” and that the Affordable Care Act would increase the number of Americans without health insurance, dismissing analysis showing that 30 million people would gain coverage under the law. King previously lied when he claimed Obamacare had “death panels.”

“Everybody in America has access to health care, and we even have many many organizations that make sure they fill those holes,” King lied. “The effort was to increase the number of insured in America and that number does not look like it will increase under Obamacare.”

(Source: ThinkProgress.org and C-Span)

Fox News Creates ‘Fake’ Obama Scandal to Help Mitt Romney Raise Money

newsvideoclip — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:43:53 +0000

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night slammed Fox News over their “hyped up” coverage of Romney campaign national finance committee co-chair Frank VanderSloot.

VanderSloot, the owner of Melaleuca, is one of biggest donors to Restoring Our Future, the super PAC backing Mitt Romney. Quoting a media report, a blog associated with the Obama campaign said VanderSloot was a “litigious, combative, and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”

Following the blog post, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly claimed the President of the United States was trying to “ruin” VanderSloot. However, VanderSloot had been the subject of negative media coverage for months.

“Mr. VanderSloot is now the star of the new Fox News hyped alternate reality conservative media scandal that makes sense to nobody outside the conservative media sphere,” Maddow said.

“The Romney campaign national finance committee co-chair has re-invented this story, to say all of these repercussions for him in his private life and his business started months after he used to say they started,” she added. “He is now saying the stuff he started complaining about back in March actually didn’t start until late April, after the President got involved.”

(Source: MSNBC and RawStory.com)

Pat Robertson: Gay Relationships Lead to “Disease and Suffering”

newsvideoclip — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:21:29 +0000

Following a segment about President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality, Pat Robertson on the 700 Club today said “the union of two men doesn’t bring forth anything except disease and suffering, and the same thing with the union of two women.” Robertson attacked Obama for allegedly making the marriage issue a “political football” and acting as a “shameless panderer to special interests,” lamenting that the presidential campaign “is enough to make you sick at your stomach.”

(Source: rightwingwatch.org)

Family Research Institute Claims Pres. Obama is Homosexual

newsvideoclip — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:04:12 +0000

Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute is an “expert” cited by groups like the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and the American Family Association, among others in the Religious Right. While his claims have been consistently discredited, Cameron is still a favorite of opponents of gay rights and appeared last week on Crosstalk with Jim Schneider of VCY America (Voice of Christian Youth).

Cameron suggested that President Obama, who recently announced his support for marriage equality, might be gay. He later maintained that “the long term goal of the homosexual movement is to get every little boy to grab his ankles and every little girl to give it a try,” warning that children might be “forced to at least once experience homosexual acts.”

(Source: RightWingWatch.org)

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon Says Losing $2 Billion Was Not “Too Risky”

newsvideoclip — Sun, 13 May 2012 20:25:28 +0000

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon this week announced that the bank he heads lost $2 billion making risky trade under the guise of “hedging” (which is meant to reduce risk). Dimon has been one of the biggest critics of the Volcker Rule, which is meant to prevent banks from making massive bets with federally insured dollars.

Dimon appeared today on NBC’s Meet the Press, where he was asked by host David Gregory if JP Morgan’s massive loss shows that the banking system — just a few years after a financial crisis that nearly brought the global economy to its knees — is still too risky. Dimon replied, “I don’t think so.”

Because J.P. Morgan Chase is a federally-insured depository institution that has been and will continue to be the recipient of massive amounts of public assistance. If the bank fails, someone will reach into your pocket to pay for the cleanup. So when they gamble like drunken sailors, it’s everyone’s problem.

Activity like this is exactly what the Volcker rule, which effectively banned risky proprietary trading by federally insured institutions, was designed to prevent. It will be argued that this trade was a technically a hedge, and therefore exempt from the Volcker rule.

This episode underscores the need either for a strong, loophole-free Volcker rule, or an outright return to the Glass-Steagall Act.

(Source: ThinkProgress.org, NBC News and RollingStone.com)

Rep. Allen West Denies LGBT Workplace Discrimination Happens in U.S.

newsvideoclip — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:33:05 +0000

Tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL) is denying that LGBT people face employment discrimination in the U.S. On Thursday, Think Progress’ Scott Keyes asked West if he would be willing to support a law that bans hiring or firing of people based on their sexual orientation.

“That don’t happen out here in the United States of America,” West insisted.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, it’s legal to fire someone for being gay, lesbian or bisexual in 29 states. And 34 states allow businesses to fire workers for being transgender.

(Source: ThinkProgress.org and RawStory.com)

Mitt Romney Supports Failed U.S. Drug War on Marijuana

newsvideoclip — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:57:09 +0000

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday lashed out at a reporter in Colorado who asked him tough questions about same sex marriage, immigration and marijuana.

“Aren’t there issues of significance that you’d like to talk about?” Romney quipped to CBS 4 reporter Shaun Boyd. “The economy — the economy — the economy, the growth of jobs, the need to put people back to work. The challenges of Iran. We’ve got enormous issues that we face. But, go ahead. You want to talk about medical marijuana.”

“I think marijuana should not be legal in this country,” the former Massachusetts governor opined. “I believe it’s a gateway drug to other drug violations. The use of illegal drugs in this country is leading to terrible consequences in places like Mexico and actually in our own country. I oppose legalization of marijuana. I oppose legalization of other kinds of drugs.”

(Source: RawStory.com)

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm Calls Out Mitt Romney for Lying

newsvideoclip — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:50:09 +0000

On Tuesday night’s episode of Current TV’s The War Room, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm slammed Mitt Romney’s false claim that he saved the auto industry.

“There are politics, there are lies, and then there’s you,” Gov. Granholm began. “You take it to a whole ‘nother level. OK, I admit that I have a particular animus toward you, as a guy that knifed us in the back when Michigan was on its knees, but you simply cannot be our president. It cannot happen.”

She went on to chastise Romney for abandoning the people in the auto industry of his home state, ” where your father and so many of your family members had worked,” and instead, “raised your finger into the air, saw which way the wind was blowing, and followed it.”

(Source: Mediaite.com and Current TV)

President Obama Endorses Same Sex Marriage

newsvideoclip — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:57:53 +0000

In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, President Barack Obama declared that “same sex couples should be able to get married.”

The president told ABC’s Robin Roberts that his views on the issue of marriage equality had been “going through an evolution.”

“I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally,” Obama explained. “I hesitated on gay marriage, in part, because I thought civil unions would be sufficient, that that was something that would give people hospital visitation rights and other elements that we take for granted, and I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth.”

He continued: “But I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are incredibly committed, monogamous, same sex relationships who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and, yet, feel constrained now that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is gone because they’re not able to commit themselves in a marriage. At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think that same sex couples should be able to get married.”

Just in the last few days, both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have also expressed support for marriage equality.

(Source: ABC News and RawStory.com)

Maine Gov. Paul LePage Attacks Unemployed People “Get a Job”

newsvideoclip — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:41:54 +0000

While speaking to the Maine Republican State Convention, Maine’s Governor, Paul LePage (R) attacked unemployed Americans: “There is such thing as a free lunch, but you’re picking up the tab. Maine’s welfare program is cannibalizing the rest of state government. I am compassionate and committed to our children, our elderly, and our disabled. But to all you able-bodied people out there, get off the couch and get yourself a job.”

(Source: ThinkProgress.org)