Enjoy Meet the Press, Sunday, November 9, 2008.
Nov. 9: A look ahead at the Obama presidency with Valerie Jarrett, the newly appointed co-chair of the president-elect’s transition team. Plus, former RNC Chair Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) & House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) and a political roundtable with Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham & Mary Mitchell.
After eight years of avoiding-the-press Constitution-shredding George W. Bush, silencing and insulting Helen Thomas, corralling protesters like swine far from W’s view, suspending Habeas Corpus, exposing CIA spy Valerie Plame, and more, now conservatives are claiming President-Elect Barack Obama is suppressing free speech.
From an angry right-wing blogger:
First, there were the repeated references to FOX News during the campaign. Then, three newspapers which endorsed John McCain for President – The Washington Times, The New York Post, and The Dallas Morning News – were booted off the campaign airplane because of overcrowding. Today, President-Elect Barack Obama took a few questions after his statement on the economy at his first news conference since the election. Noticeably, Obama took questions from the AP, Reuters, ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, and both major Chicago papers, the Tribune and Sun-Times — but not FOX News.
Wha-a-a? Obama neglect “Fair and Unbalanced” FOX? Say it ain’t so, Joe! The writer claims there “is legitimate reason for Christians and conservatives to be concerned about an intensified effort to suppress the possibility of dissenting speech.”
We have only experienced a paucity of Presidential press conferences in the past eight years. President-Elect Obama already has one under his belt.
My favorite line is here:
Of course, FOX News is not conservatively biased. It just seems that way to liberals because there is actually a free-flowing discussion of ideas, policies, and news-making events.
That really makes me smile.
This week I had a discussion with a teenager who was bemoaning what she called the “liberal press coverage” the night of the election. How, she wondered, did the networks call states for Obama with 0% of the vote in?
I wondered the same thing for a while, until I remembered that the networks had massive ground operations doing exit polls in every state. Their projections were their own, and they offered them at their own risk.
Liberal media? That’s the conservative rally cry every time the media does it’s job. That’s the cry of the conservatives when the media dares to ask questions. “W” received so many free passes over the past eight years it’s not even funny. The media dropped the ball time and time again.
Did FOX News report that Palin did not know Africa was a continent? Yes, they did. Perhaps the real problem isn’t the “liberal” media after all. Perhaps the problem is the conservative/Republican agenda to suppress the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (The United States Constitution)
I’m looking forward to a President standing before the media again – even far right FOX. Frankly, it will be a delight to have a President who actually knows the language, and isn’t afraid to use it.
And it will be nice to watch as the Constitution, all of it, is restored.
The United States Secret Service has linked remarks by for Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin to subsequent death threats against President-Elect Barack Obama.
Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama’s patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.
The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.
The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.
The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.
True to character, Palin offers not a single apology:
Irate John McCain aides, who blame Mrs Palin for losing the election, claim Mrs Palin took it upon herself to question Mr Obama’s patriotism, before the line of attack had been cleared by Mr McCain.
That claim is part of a campaign of targeted leaks designed to torpedo her ambitions, with claims that she did not know that Africa was a continent rather than a country.
The advisers have branded her a “diva” and a “whack job” and claimed that she did not know which other countries are in the North American Free Trade Area, (Canada and Mexico). They say she spent more than $150,000 on designer clothes, including $40,000 on her husband Todd and that she refused to prepare for the disastrous series of interviews with CBS’s Katie Couric.
In a bid to salvage her reputation Mrs Palin came out firing in an interview with CNN, dismissing the anonymous leakers in unpresidential language as “jerks” who had taken “questions or comments I made in debate prep out of context.”
Palin denied the spending spree claims, saying the clothes in question had been returned to the Republican National Committee.
“Those are the RNC’s clothes, they’re not my clothes. I asked for anything more than maybe a diet Dr Pepper once in a while. These are false allegations.”
Then why did the RNC send a lawyer to Alaska to retrieve the clothes? A lawyer? Are you kidding me? Who is paying that bill?
Palin should take another call from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He seemed to have a sympathetic ear the last time around.
And she better watch her mouth down the road. An investigation by the Secret Service would not look well on her resume.
The sad news hit the Chicago Sun-Times today:
The deaths of Brian Murdock, 15, and Quinton Buckner, 17, brought the total number of people killed to at least 447, according to reports from the Sun-Times News Group wire. At the end of 2007, 443 homicides were recorded in the city.
The total was only 441 through October 31, a 16.4% increase over last year at the same time, according to the Sun-Times. A mere seven days into November, there were six more murders in Chicago.
Why? Again from the Sun-Times:
But since then, a 21-year-old man was shot in the head in Marquette Park, two men were found in a burning car near Hegewisch with multiple gunshot wounds and a 22-year-old man was shot and killed in a dice game in Englewood. Then the two teens were killed Thursday.
Chicago Police are following tips that the shooting was somehow linked to an armed robbery. No one has been charged.
Brian Murdock was found slumped against a fence when his father got to the block where the shooting happened.
According to reports, James Murdock had adopted Brian when the boy was 8 or 9. He was planning on transfering is son out of Robeson High School because dad was worried about gang fights. Brian had recently been talking to his father about his fear of being attacked.
Quinton Buckner was planning on serving this country in the armed forces:
Quinton Buckner was a motivated kid who wanted to play football in college and later become a Marine, said his older brother, Dennis Buckner, 22.
Dennis Buckner described his brother as a “good kid” who didn’t have any gang connections. Buckner said Quinton had two brothers and two sisters.
There has been a tremendous amount of euphoria surrounding the recent presidential election. Chicago shined election night as President-Elect Obama spoke about Ann Nixon Cooper, age 106, a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta.
Barack Obama spoke of the “heartache and hope” Cooper witnessed in the century-plus she’s been blessed to walk this earth:
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
He continued the refrain, “Yes we can,” throughout the rest of his speech, almost reflectively at times.
The night of November 4, 2008, was pure magic in Chicago. The crowd was united in hope. The crowd cheered. The crowd behaved. There were no tragic acts of violence. Instead, there was hope.
“Yes we can.”
Perhaps Brian Murdock and Quinton Buckner heard those words as well. Perhaps they smiled. Perhaps they cheered. Perhaps they even wept with joy, as did I.
Now, we weep for them, two more murders on Chicago’s South Side.
Brian Murdock and Quinton Buckner are dead.
And we are all less for their loss.
From our friend, Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer:
In Colorado, Proposition 48 is up for vote on Tuesday. It is a rather simple statement; here it is in its entirety on the Colorado ballot:
Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as “person” is used in those provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?
Basically, this amendment to the Colorado Constitution would define a person as an legal entity at the moment a human sperm fertilizes an egg.
Prop 48 is ridiculous for any number of legal reasons. For example, if a woman who is pregnant for a day has a few drinks which cause damage to the embryo, can she be charged with reckless endangerment? What if she takes medicine that saves her but endangers the embryo? If I drive a pregnant woman around, can I use the HOV 3 lanes?
Phil has many good points, but the most important thing to remember is this:
The real point is, Prop 48 isn’t about science, and it’s not even about legal issues. It’s about religion. This proposition is obviously based solely on religious beliefs; there is little reason outside of that to even bring the argument up that a fertilized egg is entitled to rights as a human being. It is only the belief that the human soul enters the cell at that moment that this is an issue at all.
Proposition 48 is religion trying to create legislation, pure and simple.
I happen to believe religion is a good thing. However, when “religion” is used to abuse, that’s out of line.
Stand up for what’s right. Vote “NO” on Proposition 49.
UPDATE FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE: A police source said the suspect is in custody and is being questioned. The source said, however, that the boy was not found with the suspect. Police continue to look for the boy.
An amber alter has been issued for seven-year-old Julian King, described by Chicago Police as 5-foot tall, weighs 135 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair. King is believed to be the grandson of Darnell Hudson, 57, mother of actress Jennifer Hudson, found slain today in her home along with the actress’ brother, Jason Hudson, 29.
Family members confirmed the reports from the publicist and the medical examiner’s office, saying they have all been told that the victims are Jennifer Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donnerson, and the singer’s brother Jason. Police have not released the identities of the slain, according to the Chicago Tribune.
According to the Chicago Tribune:
The police said that they are searching for a William Balfour as a suspect in the double homicide. They said he is considered to be armed and dangerous, and may be driving a white 1994 Chevrolet Suburban with Illinois license plate No. X584859 or a teal/green Chrysler Concord four-door with a left front headlight hanging out that is scratched all along its left side. The Chrysler is displaying temporary tags of 332K823.
While police identify Balfour as a suspect in the Amber Alert, he has not been charged.
Public records list one of Balfour’s previous addresses as Donnerson’s home.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Hudson family.
Want to know how to get John McCain and Sarah Palin on the phone?
On Wednesday, Ashley Todd, a 20-year-old college student of College Station, Texas, said she was using an ATM at in Pittsburgh just before 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her and put a knife to her throat. Todd was in Pittsburgh campaigning for John McCain.
Police spokeswoman Diane Richard said Todd told them the robber took $60, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim’s car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using a dull knife to scratch the letter “B” into her face, Richard said.
“She further stated that the male actor approached her from the back again and hit her in the back of her head with an object, she doesn’t know what the object was, causing her to fall to the ground where he continued to punch her and kick her and threaten to ‘teach her a lesson’ for being a McCain supporter,” Richard said.
The story made the national morning shows Thursday. By midmorning, Pittsburgh Police said they were suspicious, and by Friday mid-afternoon, police said Todd had made the whole thing up.
From KDKA (America’s first radio station) in Pittsburgh:
Police say a campaign volunteer confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.
At a news conference this afternoon, officials said they believe that Ashley Todd’s injuries were self-inflicted.
Todd, 20, of Texas, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police.
Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.
Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.
There was more to the story. According to police, Todd also alleged that she was sexually assaulted by this man. While holding her on the ground, he fondled her:
Police spokeswoman, Diane Richard explained,
“She further stated that the male approached her from the back again and hit her in the back of her head with an object, she doesn’t know what the object was, causing her to fall to the ground where he continued to punch her and kick her and threaten to ‘teach her a lesson’ for being a McCain supporter,” Richard said.
“She also indicated she was sexually assaulted as well. She indicated that when he had her on the ground he put his hand up her blouse and started fondling her. But other than that, she says she doesn’t remember anything else. So we’re adding a sexual assault to this as well.”
A Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.
Talk about your blame-it-on-the-black-man 15 minutes of fame.
Here’s what I don’t get. Set aside that we now know that Ms. Todd made the whole thing up, possibly mutilitating herself for effect. Forget for a moment that this is a disturbed young woman who will someday, hopefully, look back on this with rue and wonder, “What the hell was I thinking?”
I simply don’t understand the personal response of two alleged adults from the McCain campaign:
On Thursday, The Obama-Biden campaign released a statement, commenting on the attack. The statement said, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the young woman for her to make a speedy recovery, and we hope that the person who perpetrated this crime is swiftly apprehended and brought to justice.”
The McCain-Palin campaign also released a statement saying, “The McCain campaign is aware of the incident involving one of its volunteers. Out of respect, the campaign won’t be commenting. The campaign also confirms that Senator McCain and Governor Palin have both spoken to the woman.”
McCain and Palin both spoke to her? What did they say to Ashley the Liar?
Is that all it takes to get Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin on the phone? Didn’t the candidates think for a minute that this might be a complete fabrication? Did the candidates investigate this situation at all?
They should have called conservative blogger Michelle Malkin first. While I disagree with Malkin’s blanket reprimand to those of us on the left …
And those of you on the left who are now so interested in debunking despicable hate crimes might show a little more skepticism yourselves next time when similar narratives hit the news pages involving politically correct hoaxers who share your politics.
… I agree with her call for a critical eye and restraint when reports like these surface:
Final lesson: Trust your instincts. Use your brains. Stop jumping every time Drudge hypes something in Armageddon-sized font.
Amen to that!
My final thoughts are for Ms. Todd.
Go home to Texas after you’ve answered the charges you now face in Pittsburgh. Get out of the spotlight. Stay away from the media. Get help if you need it. Someday, hopefully, you’ll find that those of us on the left can be pretty forgiving. You’re actually going to need a real job some day soon, and your future employer, who might even be an African American man, will need to look past this.
But, really, what were you thinking?
Former Chicago police commander Jon Burge was arrested in Florida, “finally,” according to the Sun-Times.
Apparently Burge just saw the seven page indictment when the judge walked in:
Burge put on the glasses, leaned back in his chair and started reading the indictment against him when the judge walked in. The judge asked if he had read the charges against him.
“I just started reading it when you got on the bench, your honor,” Burge answered in a thick Chicago accent.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas B. McCoun III gave him time to read it and explained to him he was charged with crimes “dating back to the city of Chicago police department,” saying the allegations have to do with torture or physical abuse of inmates or detainees.
At that, Burge nodded his head and lifted his hand to indicate he read it.
“John Burge shamed his uniform, and shamed his badge,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said at a press conference.
Burge served as a Chicago Police Officer from 1970 until 1993, according to the three-count indictment. The strongest language is in Count One:
During the time that defendant JON BURGE was assigned to Area Two, JON BURGE was present for, and at times participated in, the torture and physical abuse of a person being questioned on one or more occasions. In addition, during the time he worked as the lieutenant supervising Area Two Violent Crimes detectives, JON BURGE was aware that detectives he was supervising engaged in torture and physical abuse of a person being questioned on one or more occasions.
This is a dark day for police in the Chicagoland area. We recognize the overwhelming majority of officers who serve well do justice to the uniform and the badge.
To those few bad apples who may be tempted to act as Burge allegedly did?
Patrick Fitzgerald does not make his move until he’s ready.
You don’t want to be in his sights when he does.
The Chicago Sun-Times is running three articles today detailing different instances of predatory lending: here, here, and here. Some of these loans financed by supposedly reputable lending institutions.
Take Anna Nelson, age 90:
In 1994, she made her first mistake, she admits.
She and her late husband owed just $5,000 on her house in the Roseland neighborhood. But a mortgage broker called and asked her to refinance — and roll in a few thousand dollars of credit.
She was stuck with something unbelievable — an $83,000 loan.
She didn’t know how it happened or how to repay it.
Another broker told her they’d help her get out of it by refinancing.
The loan grew again.
And that’s how it went for the last 15 years. Nelson had people virtually lined up to sell her new mortgages.
She refinanced at least four times, finally left with $125,000 in debt, of which she said she has only seen $5,000.
Dorothy Davis ended up owing $125,000 on a house worth $40,000:
“He came here and told me: ‘Sign the paper, sign it now.’ He kept insisting me to sign it.” Davis said. “Ever since then, I’ve been with no money.”
She didn’t know then that the loan was saddled with fraudulent fees. She barely made her payments.
Another broker came to the rescue, promising lower loan payments — and new aluminum siding.
Undergoing cancer treatment at the time, she was desperate to get out of a bad situation.
But Davis was scammed again.
The new loan took up to 80 percent of her income. “I couldn’t buy any groceries. I could hardly pay even half of my utility bills,” she said. “I prayed and prayed. Some nights, I couldn’t sleep.”
Before she knew it, she owed $135,000 on a home worth $40,000 that was paid off 20 years earlier.
What possible value would a foreclosure be to a lending institution in a situation like this? According to the Sun-Times, the issue of minority targeting has brought hundreds of lawsuits and the FBI has taken notice.
Perhaps even more tragic is the case of Rosa Dailey, 66, who now owes $154,000 on a loan she took out to repair her garage. “A broker on behalf of Argent Mortgage noticed her garage needed fixing and started calling her incessantly,” the story says. She explained that she couldn’t sign the loan without her sister, who was terminally ill.
Here’s where the broker went for the kill:
“No problem,” she said the broker told her.
He drove Dailey to the hospital with the papers.
“No sooner than did she sign it, she was dead,” Dailey said.
Now Dailey owes nearly $154,000 from a loan she claims was saddled in duplicate fees and a falsified income. The mortgage payments left her with little extra money. So she couldn’t fix her furnace after it went out last winter, and she huddled near a space heater in her bedroom, she said.
Can there be any doubt that deregulation has failed miserably? The unadulterated greed of the lending institutions is ruining people’s lives.
A rather stirring Op-Ed piece in today’s Sun-Times by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart brings home the reality of evictions: the evicted are people, with families and stories all their own.
Dart writes that as Cook County sheriff, he is responsible for running a 10,000-inmate jail, providing patrols to unincorporated areas and securing the courts.
He continues:
But perhaps no part of our job is as difficult as the work done by our eviction units. On any given day, our deputies could be asked to throw a family out of their home, with all of their possessions left on a curb — sometimes pilfered through by those living nearby.
Where mortgage firms see pieces of paper, my deputies see people.
Yet no matter how difficult they are, evictions are part of our job.
Difficult as this work may be, an impossible situation for a family with young children, Dart understands that evictions come with the territory. Sometimes people are left out on the street.
Sometimes, however, the family is not at fault, and this angers Dart, and it should anger all tax payers, in addition to those who care the least about social justice:
What isn’t part of our job, however, is to carry out work on behalf of the multi-billion-dollar banks and mortgage industries.
Too many times, our deputies arrive at a home to carry out a mortgage foreclosure eviction, only to find a tenant — dutifully paying their rent each month — who is unaware their landlord stopped using that rent money to pay the mortgage. They had no fair warning that they were about to be thrown out of their home.
That’s because, in many cases, the banks have done nothing to determine, in advance, who’s living in the building — even though it’s required by state law. Instead, those banks expect taxpayers to pay for that investigative work for them.
Dart and his deputies have found themselves evicting people who have paid their rent in it’s entirety. The sheriff is right on this one. Tenants still may face eviction, but the fault is that of their landlord, and they deserve proper notice that their landlord is doing something else with their rent money besides paying on the mortgage.
Dart says he is willing to be held in contempt for refusing to execute evicting notices. The courts would be wrong to go after Dart. Why go after the sheriff, when the real culprit is a multi-billion-dollar bank or mortgage lender who is forcing local government to spend tax dollars, saving the institution from performing due diligence?
Springfield should take notice. Attorney General Lisa Madigan should take notice. Sheriff Dart, and others in his position throughout the state, need help on this one.
I’ve seen Dart and his deputies do their job, and it isn’t easy. In August in Park Forest, Cook County sheriff’s deputies executed 34 eviction notices. Management from the Lofts of Thorn Creek, currently under receivership, were on hand, as was Sheriff Tom Dart. Working with a crew of about 40 members of the eviction units, deputies spent the morning and early afternoon knocking on doors, and, in some cases, ramming them open. Some units in this development were vacant and had been vacant for some time. While expecting the worst, deputies met with compliant, yet unhappy, residents who were being turned out into the street.
This situation was unique in that it was the first mass test of the Village of Park Forest’s Crime Free Housing Ordinance. In other words, not all of these evictions were for lack of payment on rent.
Still, a day or two before the first school bells summoned students to class, families were losing their homes.
Banks and mortgage lenders dumping their responsibilities on the tax payers is unconscionable, a de facto bailout. There should be some penalty for lending institutions that abdicate their responsibilities.
Imagine turning children out of their homes only to realize the deed was done so the lender didn’t have to pay a few legal bills?
(Photo: ENEWSPF)