March 3, 2015

BIBI WATCH: Rangel Changes His Mind, Will Attend Netanyahu Speech After All

A day after he said he would stay away, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) declared on Tuesday he would attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the U.S. Congress.

He explained his reversal on Tuesday morning to CNN anchor Carol Costello.

"I thought this idea was so outrageous that if a number of us indicated that we would not be present, that those who thought of this would give it second thoughts and withdraw either those that thought of inviting and breaching protocol, or the invitees," Rangel said.

"Having said that, the damage has already been done," he added. "I have a been asked by friends and constituents not to add to the controversy and so I'm going to be attending."

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/charlie-rangel-netanyahu-attending

March 3, 2015

Flashback: Keith Olbermann has been calling out Bill O’Reilly’s lies for a very long time

With new allegations questioning Bill O’Reilly’s reporting on Monday, a segment late last year by ESPN’s Keith Olbermann can be seen in a new light.

On Nov. 19, Olbermann named the Factor host his daily “Worst Person In The World,” but not because of their long-standing political differences. Instead, a smiling Olbermann tore into O’Reilly’s public statements inflating his athletic prowess.

At the time, O’Reilly had given a radio interview talking about his days as a “varsity” football player at Marist College.

“We were undefeated our senior year,” O’Reilly told ESPN radio host Dan LeBatard. “That was a pretty good deal.”

But Olbermann had debunked that claim as far back as 2005, pointing out that Marist did not field a varsity team until 1978 — seven years after O’Reilly graduated.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/flashback-keith-olbermann-has-been-calling-out-bill-oreillys-lies-for-a-very-long-time/

March 3, 2015

Ben Carson Has Formed A Presidential Exploratory Committee

Source: TPM

Neurosurgeon and conservative darling Ben Carson has taken another step toward running for president by announcing the formation of a presidential exploratory committee.

Dr. Ben Carson ✔ @RealBenCarson
Follow
I am pleased to announce that I have established a Presidential #ExploratoryCommittee http://www.bencarson.com #BenCarson
9:17 AM - 3 Mar 2015

Carson is actually one of the first Republicans in the likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate field to form an exploratory committee. Most other candidates have just formed political action committees in preparation for running for president.

If Carson does decide to run for president, Terry Giles, an attorney and Carson's campaign chief executive, will likely manage the campaign. At the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference Carson placed fourth in the CPAC straw poll, behind Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-carson-exploratory-committee

March 3, 2015

Cardinal Dolan finally makes sense: Comparing ISIS to Christian terrorists is an ‘accurate’ analogy

Cardinal Dolan, one of the most conservative and outspoken Catholic leaders in the U.S., on Tuesday echoed President Barack Obama by drawing a “parallel” between ISIS and Christian terrorists.

-snip-

“These extremist do not represent genuine Islamic thought,” Dolan told CNN host Chris Cuomo on Tuesday. “Even the majority of temperate, peace-loving Muslims would say, ‘I’m afraid they have a particular strand of erroneous Islam.’ But I do think they are. They are distorting it.”

“You know the parallel I’ve drawn?” he continued. “And enough people have been kind enough to tell me they think the analogy is accurate. Remember 30-35 years ago with the IRA in Ireland? The IRA claimed to be Catholic. And they were baptized, they had a Catholic identity. What they were doing was a perversion of everything the church stood for.”

“The analogy I think is somewhat accurate. These are not pure — these are not real Muslims.”

more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/cardinal-dolan-finally-makes-sense-comparing-isis-to-christian-terrorists-is-an-accurate-analogy/

March 3, 2015

Jeb Bush Takes A Swipe At Hillary Clinton Over Private Emails

Source: TPM

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) took a shot at Hillary Clinton early Tuesday over a report that she exclusively used her personal email account to conduct business at the State Department.

The potential 2016 Republican presidential contender took to Twitter to challenge Clinton to release her official correspondence and trumpet his own transparency efforts:

Jeb Bush ✔ @JebBush
Follow
Transparency matters. Unclassified @HillaryClinton emails should be released. You can see mine, here. http://jebbushemails.com
11:05 PM - 2 Mar 2015

Bush set up a website last month to release about 275,000 personal emails from his time as governor as he ramped up his likely presidential campaign. But Bush's team quickly scrubbed many of those emails after an independent audit of the documents found the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of more than 12,000 people were exposed.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-hits-hillary-emails

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March 3, 2015

5 Points On The Nasty Politics Surrounding A Missouri GOPer's Suicide

The circumstances surrounding Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich's (R) sudden death last week remained a mystery even as the state's political establishment prepared to pay its respects today to the man who was the GOP's leading gubernatorial candidate. Schweich died Thursday of an apparent suicide, just minutes after arranging a meeting with reporters to go public with allegations that the state Republican Party's top official had been spreading misinformation about his religion.

-snip-

One thing is for sure: Schweich was convinced that there were anti-Semitic remarks being made about him with the aim of derailing his gubernatorial campaign, and the Post-Dispatch revealed even more thorny aspects of the Republican primary race over the weekend.

Here are five of the ugly political currents that were swirling beneath the surface of the state's Republican gubernatorial primary prior to Schweich's death.

1. An alleged anti-Semitic "whisper campaign"

-snip-

2. An attack ad comparing Schweich to Barney Fife

-snip-

3. Lies spread about Schweich on social media

-snip-

4. Pending Sunshine Law requests for Schweich's files

-snip-

5. Rancor over deep-pocketed donors

-snip-

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/tom-schweich-suicide-political-attacks

March 3, 2015

DHS Shutdown Looms Again: GOP Leaders Scramble To Avert Crisis

WASHINGTON — Call it a déjà vu week for Republican leaders.

They returned to Capitol Hill for the second Monday in a row staring down the possibility of a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security on Friday — and without a politically viable plan to avoid it.

DHS funding expires at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, after Congress scrambled to pass a one-week extension of the deadline in a chaotic day last Friday, when President Barack Obama signed the bill just 10 minutes before a shutdown.

The day featured 52 House Republicans voting down their leaders' three-week stopgap bill, a rather public embarrassment for Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). The saga has led to bitter recriminations and intra-party divisions both within the House GOP and between House and Senate Republicans — the latter are eager to put this fight to rest.

House Republicans still have no good options as they prepare to meet on Tuesday morning and discuss the path forward.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/dhs-shutdown-fight-part-two

March 2, 2015

How the DHS Stalemate Ends: In Total Defeat for the GOP

By Josh Voorhees

Congress returned to work this week in the same position it did last week: facing a Friday deadline to extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security or watch as the federal agency partially shuts down. But while this week is shaping up to be a repeat of the same intraparty GOP showdown, there are a number of telling signs that this round is likely to have a more conclusive ending—one that will come in the form of the long-term funding bill that President Obama and his congressional allies have been demanding for weeks

First, a quick reminder of how we got here: Last Friday, House Speaker John Boehner attempted to avoid the looming partial shutdown of DHS with a three-week funding bill that would have simply ensured that Congress found itself right back in the middle of this same immigration fight three weeks down the road. Boehner’s bid, however, unexpectedly and embarrassingly failed when he couldn’t wrangle the support of enough of his party’s rank-and-file, a solid chunk of whom are refusing to fund the department unless President Obama abandons his high-profile immigration reforms. Democrats, who have demanded a long-term deal without strings, were in no mood to help Boehner, and the measure failed 203–224. Then, with the midnight funding deadline fast approaching, Boehner pushed through a one-week funding bill, avoiding the shutdown but prolonging the showdown.

But here’s why this week’s drama may not end with a similar cliffhanger: Boehner wouldn’t have been able to pass the one-week bill without the help of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. All but 12 Democrats voted against the original three-week bill; hours later, all but five voted for the one-week bill. Without those Democratic votes, the one-week bill meets the same fate as the three-week one. Why the reversal, then? What did Democrats have to gain?

The most obvious answer is that Boehner promised Pelosi what Democrats have wanted all along: a no-strings funding bill that keeps the DHS funded through the end of the fiscal year. While Boehner’s office is denying any such assurances were made, Democrats are treating it like an open secret. “Your vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full funding next week,” Pelosi told her caucus in a letter shortly before Friday’s roll call on the one-week measure. Asked about a deal on Monday, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, dodged the question with a rhetorical one of his own: “Why do you think that Democrats voted for a one-week [bill]?

more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/03/02/dhs_immigration_stalemate_why_the_homeland_security_fight_ends_in_total.html?

March 2, 2015

There are now 51 members of Congress not attending Netanyahu's speech tomorrow

Still More
— Josh Marshall

There are now apparently 51 members of Congress not attending Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech tomorrow. Seven Senators and 44 members of the House. The latest is Sen. Al Franken (D). The list is heavily weighted toward African-Americans but also toward Jews. By my count, Franken is the 6th Jewish member of Congress to sit it out.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/still-more--4

March 2, 2015

BUSTED - O’Reilly’s Own Video Shows No ‘War Zone’

Mother Jones found the television news report Bill O'Reilly filed from Argentina and it doesn't mention any massacre of civilians that he later claimed to have witnessed. While O'Reilly claimed to have covered the Falklands war from the islands, he admitted after an earlier Mother Jones report that he was never actually in the war zone. O'Reilly has claimed that soldiers were "gunning down" protesters with "real bullets" and that an M-16 was pointed at him—and that he saved a cameraman's life. None of that drama or his self-proclaimed heroics were mentioned in the 1982 report.



Read it at Mother Jones

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/03/02/o-reilly-s-report-contradicts-his-story.html