May 7, 2015

The 7 Conservatives Who Are Standing Up To Anti-Islam Pam Geller

After two gunmen were shot dead on Sunday while attempting to storm an event celebrating cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, many of the nation's prominent talking heads felt compelled to take a side on the work of anti-Islam activist and conspiracy theorist Pam Geller.

For many on the right, this was a no brainer: pundits at Fox News and National Review, as well as blogs like RedState and Hot Air, defended Geller's event and slammed liberals for supposedly blaming the victim. At best, she was a courageous free speech activist; at worst, a "provocateur."

For her part, Geller has repeatedly called out "the Left" for caving in to "savages" on the issue of free speech. But several high profile conservatives have made it clear they don't think too much of her cartoon contest, either.

Here are seven of the more prominent — and surprising — examples:

Bill O'Reilly

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Bill Donahue

Geller may hold the distinction of being the only person to unite the one-man Catholic League, Bill Donahue, with any secular liberal, on any issue.

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Donald Trump

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Martha MacCallum

Which brings us to Martha MacCallum, the Fox host who pressed Geller to answer her conservative critics on Tuesday. In response to Trump's line about "taunting" Muslims, Geller ended up comparing herself to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

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Rev. Franklin Graham

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Greta Van Susteren

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Laura Ingraham

Full article:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/conservatives-pam-geller-texas-shooting

May 7, 2015

Walker’s High Spendin’, Debt Raisin’ Budget

Betsy Woodruff

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker talks a good fiscal conservative game on the campaign trail, but his new budget tells a different story.

Scott Walker isn't a bona fide presidential candidate yet—but he sure is polling like one. But as conservative as his potential 2016 platform has become, his state budget tells a different story.

After being stellified at Steve King’s Iowa Freedom Summit in January, the Wisconsin Republican governor has seen his political stock rise inexorably, with good-news poll after good-news poll.

The latest Quinnipiac poll of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers shows him in first place with a comfy nine-point lead over Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, who are tied for second.

There’s just one itsy bitsy little thing in between the governor and his big announcement: the budget. Since he laid out his budget proposal in February, it’s attracted predominantly negative press attention and stirred up considerable controversy in his home state.

His luck with the budget is almost an inversion of his national political trajectory - in the same way that he’s drawn adulation from conservative crowds in New Hampshire and Iowa, he’s drawn rancor from conservative lawmakers in Madison.

The same day that Quinnipiac released its glowing results, the state’s version of the Congressional Budget Office released a report that had even more bad news for Madison Republicans. Due to these tensions, Walker looks set to wrap up budgeting season not with a bang, but a whimper. And the situation could cast a pall over his campaign rollout.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/07/walker-s-high-spendin-debt-raisin-budget.html

May 7, 2015

FBI Officials: No ISIS Link for TX Shooter

Investigators working to uncover a motive behind the shooting outside a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest have yet to find any connection with ISIS, top law-enforcement officials say. ISIS claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack, but the officials say this is “more rhetoric” and that they do not think that Elton Simpson, the lead shooter, was following orders. “At this point, he’s a lone wolf,” one investigator says.

Read it at Los Angeles Times

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/05/06/fbi-sources-no-isis-link-for-tx-shooter.html

May 7, 2015

Cops: Gay Victim Punched by Football Player, Kept Filming

M.L. Nestel

One 21-year-old was viciously struck in the face, but kept on recording. His bravery led cops to arrest a Marshall University running back.

He’d been attacked before. Maybe that’s why, just before he was pounded in the face by a bigoted bully, he pressed record on his phone.

The 21-year-old man had been locking lips with a 22-year-old man, immersed in a public display of affection after spending time at a local gay bar. It was pre-dawn on April 5 and the couple had stopped for a spontaneous smooch en route to their hotel. All of a sudden, according to detectives, a red Chevy Cobalt screeched to a stop on 5th Avenue and 9th Street in Huntington, West Virginia.

The man riding shotgun got out of the car and darted straight for his targets. “Stu don’t like that shit,” the man allegedly said. “Uh-uh, Stu don’t like that shit.”
The pugilist (who seemed to favor talking in third person) would later be fingered by police as Steward “Stu” Butler, a 23-year-old standout running back at Marshall University.

In the one-minute video, filmed by one of the victims, the attacker yells, “You motherf*cking f*ggots. N*gger-*ss f*ggots,” says Huntington Police Det. Chris Sperry, who described the video to The Daily Beast. “It’s just awful,” the detective said. “They both get hit once in the face.”

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/07/football-player-claimed-gay-bashing-was-self-defense-until-cops-went-to-the-videotape.html

May 7, 2015

Marco Rubio’s Plan to Build a Holy Hollywood in Florida

Olivia Nuzzi

When he was speaker of the Florida house, the Republican wanted to reward ‘family friendly’ productions.

Before senator and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio wanted to transform the country, he had a more modest dream: to transform Florida into Hollywood—but with morals!

In 2006, when Rubio was speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, he released a book, 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future, that featured within its inspired pages 100 ideas Rubio compiled during town hall-like meetings that he cleverly labeled “Idearaisers.”

The book is supposedly about “how every Floridian can enjoy freedom, opportunity, and the pursuit of happiness and leave for their children a better life than their own,” but there is a caveat: Rubio wanted Floridians who were in the entertainment industry to enjoy their freedom, opportunity, and pursuit of happiness in a “family friendly” way.

“IDEA 90”: “Create a Family-Friendly Hollywood in Florida.”

There is a Hollywood, Florida—but not it’s not really what Rubio seems to have had in mind here. It’s sandwiched between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, a cramped seaside waiting room populated by condominiums, motels, personal injury attorneys, and pawn shops. But funnily enough, Hollywood is where I happened to be when I read “IDEA 90” on Wednesday.

It does seem unlikely that if Rubio were to have succeeded in building his own Hollywood in Florida, he could have avoided doing it anywhere except Hollywood, Florida. Where else was he going to build it, Tallahassee? Then you’d have Hollywood, Florida, and Tallahassee, Florida (now with more Hollywood!). It would get confusing. He would have had to spend a lot of taxpayer funds reissuing maps. I asked Rubio’s campaign about this issue and received no response.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/07/marco-rubio-s-holy-hollywood-plan-for-florida.html

May 7, 2015

Rand Paul Paid $100K for RandPaul.com

Days before Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) launched his bid for president, his campaign shelled out more than $100,000 to a domain-buying firm to purchase the domain name RandPaul.com, according to National Journal.

“The payment is an enormous sum even in the murky world of political cybersquatting… Patrick Ruffini, a veteran GOP digital strategist, said that he had never heard of a campaign paying so much for a URL, though he was not shocked.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104898178&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4941875

May 7, 2015

GOP Budget Claims Don’t Add Up

“On paper and in speeches, Republicans boast that Congress’ first budget since they won control of the Senate and House last fall will eliminate red ink within a decade. Actually, it will do nothing of the sort,” the AP reports.

“That’s because the budget itself is nonbinding and, on its own, has no effect on spending. And also because Republicans have decided against using unique budget rules for follow-up legislation to save the trillions of dollars from food stamps, Medicaid and other benefit programs that would be needed to erase red ink. To do that would spark a pitched political battle with Democrats, a veto from President Barack Obama — and a possible backlash from the voters in 2016.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104907777&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4941875

May 7, 2015

Clinton Sets an Immigration Trap for Republicans

Jonathan Chait: “Yesterday, Hillary Clinton surprised immigration advocates, and nearly everybody else, by taking an unexpectedly liberal stance on executive action and comprehensive reform. There’s no reason to doubt that Clinton, like most Democrats, genuinely believes in the humanitarian and economic merits of these policies. But it is also a power play that demonstrates how swiftly the immigration issue has moved in her party’s favor, and how she plans to box in her opponents.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104898176&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4941875

May 6, 2015

Marco Rubio is a troll, not a senator:How the ’16 hopeful went from “serious” legislator to hot mess

Marco Rubio is a troll, not a senator: How the ’16 hopeful went from “serious” legislator to hot mess

His legislative career is basically over. Now Rubio will just spend the next year annoying his colleagues

JIM NEWELL

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was cornered into making a very Harry Reid-like move yesterday: when a couple of Republican senators insisted on thrusting forth “poison pill” amendments to the Corker-Cardin Iran nuclear review bill, and thus sending what had been an orderly, bipartisan amendment process into chaos, McConnell had to shut down debate and file for cloture. McConnell had been doing a decent job of restoring open debate and amendment to the chamber, but it was inevitable he’d run into the same problem as Reid: all it takes is a grandstander or two to bring the gentleman’s club that is the United States Senate to its knees.

While McConnell, Reid, Corker and Cardin were working out the process for amendments — and Democrats, who had filed no amendments, were willing to take votes on some Republican poison pills! — Tom Cotton and Rubio butted to the front of the line to force votes on their own amendments. One of these, from Rubio, would require any Iran deal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. This is the sort of thing that one insists on if his goal is to kill a nuclear deal with Iran.

Democrats lost interest in voting on dumb Republican amendments after Cotton and Rubio’s hijinks, and so McConnell decided to wrap up debate. After only a few months in office, Cotton, who unfortunately will be in the Senate for the next million or so years, has fallen out of favor with his colleagues.

As has Rubio. But Rubio will not be in the Senate for the next million years! Come 2017, he will either be president of the United States, vice president of the United States, or vaguely unemployed while laying the foundation for his next presidential run. Earning the hatred of his colleagues is either a non-concern or something that he actively will be seeking to do. ”For Mr. Rubio,” the New York Times writes, “whom Mr. Cotton represented in his move to force an Israel vote, the stakes are relatively low. Mr. Rubio is leaving the Senate to run for the Republican presidential nomination and needs to curry favor with primary voters, not members of the Senate.”

Translated from Timesspeak: Boy howdy, that Marco Rubio is gonna be a hot mess from now on. Unlike Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, Rubio is a lame duck. His brief tenure as someone who tried to be a practical legislator or maintain productive relationships with his colleagues is well and truly over. The only incentive he has as a member of the United States Senate now is to troll his colleagues for personal political gain, a leg up in the GOP presidential primary, and Sheldon Adelson’s money. Pretty sweet gig, eh? Who wouldn’t love a six-figure job where your duty is to produce nothing of value while maximally annoying your colleagues? (To answer your follow-up: I make five figures and my goal is to maximally annoy readers.)

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/06/marco_rubio_is_a_troll_not_a_senator_how_the_16_hopeful_went_from_serious_legislator_to_hot_mess/

May 6, 2015

CIA's Ex-No. 2 Says ISIS ‘Learned from Snowden’

Shane Harris

The former deputy director of the CIA says in a new book that the NSA contractor’s disclosures allowed the forerunners of the terrorist group to evade electronic surveillance.

Edward Snowden’s leaks about U.S. intelligence operations “played a role in the rise of ISIS.” That’s the explosive new allegation from the former deputy director of the CIA, Michael Morell, who was among the United States’ most senior intelligence officials when Snowden began providing highly-classified documents to journalists in 2013.

U.S. intelligence officials have long argued that Snowden’s disclosures provided valuable insights to terrorist groups and nation-state adversaries, including China and Russia, about how the U.S. monitors communications around the world. But in his new memoir, to be published next week, Morell raises the stakes of that debate by directly implicating Snowden in the expansion of ISIS, which broke away from Al Qaeda and has conquered large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.

“Within weeks of the leaks, terrorist organizations around the world were already starting to modify their actions in light of what Snowden disclosed. Communications sources dried up, tactics were changed,” Morell writes. Among the most damaging leaks, he adds, was one that described a program that collects foreigners’ emails as they move through equipment in the United States.

Terrorist groups, including ISIS, have since shifted their communications to more “secure” platforms, are using encryption, or “are avoiding electronic communications altogether.”

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/06/cia-s-ex-no-2-says-isis-learned-from-snowden.html