You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 293

PLAYS: 121

(Henry Wallace in 1939 - before he was vice-President or Presidential candidate, had the unenviable task of Secretary of Agriculture)

Most everyone interested in Presidential campaigns past is familiar with Henry Wallace, who ran for President on the Progressive ticket in 1948. Prior to that he was a moderately familiar voice as vice-President to FDR in 1940. But in 1939 he was still Secretary of Agriculture, a post appointed by FDR in 1933. It was not a particularly popular place to be, with price controls on cotton and pork and forcing farmers to slaughter pigs and plow under cotton in order to keep prices up. Nonetheless, Wallace did the best with what was handed him and he implemented a number of New Deal programs during his tenure, including the AAA Farm Program and farm subsidies and emerged as one of the best Agriculture Secretaries the country ever had. Here is one of his rare appearances, addressing a Jefferson Day dinner on April 22, 1939.

Henry Wallace: “Problems of Agriculture are not insoluble as long as the machinery is available to farmers to enable them to cope with their problems. Advance indications are that participation in the AAA Farm Program this year will be the greatest it has ever been. Nearly six million farm families, eighty-five percent of all the farm families in the United States will cooperate in 1939 in this program of balanced farming and soil conservation. In the corn and wheat region, the striking increase in interest is evidenced by the fact from fifteen to twenty percent more farmers are taking part this year than last.”

Less than ten years later he would break with the Democratic Party of Harry Truman and forge his own bid for the Presidency. But that's another story.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (50)

PLAYS: (96)

February 23, 2010 MSNBC The ED Show

From The Hill -- Lawmaker wants retirement age lowered to 60 for six months:

Congress could temporarily lower the age at which Americans can claim Social Security benefits as a jobs bill, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said Sunday.

Kucinich, a liberal Democrat from the Cleveland area, said a $15 billion proposal he's floating would create 1 million jobs for the U.S. economy.

The two-time presidential candidate's proposal calls for a six-month period during which people could retire at the age of 60. The program would be funded by $10 billion in bailout funds, and $5 billion in stimulus funds.

According to the corporate media, the Democratic Party is on the way out and the GOP is a well oiled machine, poised to take back control of Congress. Of course, more Republicans are retiring from Congress than Democrats and there are plenty of vulnerable GOP seats this year too, but hey, why let things like facts get in the way of a great media narrative.

Case in point -- the Presidential Straw Poll from this year's CPAC convention. With names like Romney, Palin and Gingrich on the list, you would think this might be a close poll...but you'd be wrong. In fact, Ron Paul didn't just win, he crushed the competition.

In a strong reflection of just how strong his standing remains within the die-hard conservative community, Texas Republican and 2008 presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll on Saturday, earning nearly one-third (31 percent) of the entire vote. The crowd, however, booed heavily when the results were announced.

Paul was far and away the most widely anticipated speaker at the three-day conference, with his base of "Paulites" streaming into the main auditorium to hear him rail against government overreach and neoconservativism on Friday afternoon. In many respects, his win in the CPAC poll seemed pre-ordained -- his band of followers having a well-earned reputation for flooding polls and forums like these. Read on...

Paul was roundly booed, and Palin, Pawlenty and Huckabee all scored in single digits. Now, I don't disagree with everything Ron Paul has to say, but I would never vote for him and boy, did he ever get destroyed by the GOP base during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Talk about the proverbial ship without a rudder. This wasn't some online poll that got freeped, this was taken in person at the GOP's biggest annual event. TPM caught another interesting stat from the poll.

Only 2,395 straw poll votes were cast by what organizers said was 10,000 attendees at this year's CPAC.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (420)

PLAYS: (1253)

I have to say I'm glad David Barstow at the NY Times wrote about the real core of the Tea Party movement being a revival of the militia movement, but it's very annoying too. David Neiwert and I have been writing on this subject ever since Fox News helped launch this extreme conservative coalition into action. The Villager elders all saw it too, but were afraid to put them in proper context. Barstow at least gives them some "official" cover to finally start calling them out.

Tea Partiers may say they are an independent movement, but their values are arch-conservative, and in the end it still benefits the GOP and their corporatist owners. A new CNN poll shows that 87% of them would vote for the GOP if there was no nobody endorsed by the Tea Party movement in their district.

Michael Steele met with 50 Tea Party activists for over four hours the other day because the GOP is very nervous that they would actually start a third-party movement and splinter the vote. If the Tea Party activists were serious, they would run their own presidential candidate in 2012.

Greta Van Susteren interviewed Amy Kremer, a Tea Party activist (who doesn't like the Birthers unlike Palin) about the Steele meeting and she made clear that the Tea Partiers were working strictly with the Republican Party; it hadn't crossed her mind to talk to the Democratic Party, too, until Greta asked her about it as a signal that they were, you know, truly cough cough *nonpartisan* cough hack.

As you can see in the video, Michael Steele was all worried that the Tea Partiers would be concerned that the meeting was about the GOP co-opting the Tea Party movement, which he assured them was far from the truth, as indeed it was. This was kinda like a sea lion assuring a transient killer whale that it had no intention of eating him.

Meanwhile, Andrea Mitchell interviewed another of the Tea Party leaders at the meeting, a woman named Lisa Miller, and she essentially said, as have many others in the Teabagger movement, that they actually want to take over the GOP. No ifs, ands or buts:

Miller: The Republican Party, based on its platform, has much in common with the Tea Party, but local and state parties don't necessarily reflect those values anymore. And so we're going to have to retake, if you will, the Republican Party, as opposed to the Republican Party absorbing us.

If the DNC held meetings with a liberal activist coalition that said the GOP are Nazis, traitors and not born in America, the media would be going crazy, and Fox News would be calling them psychos. (We remember the Senate condemnations of MoveOn.org for daring to criticize Bush's Iraq War general and for a supposed "Hitler ad" it never produced.)

Here's more on the meeting:

Around 50 leaders representing 30 Tea Party groups met with Steele and other GOP advisers to talk about strategies and the importance of conservatism in the 2010 midterm elections.

"The chairman believes it is extremely important to listen to this significant grass-roots movement and work to find common ground in order to elect officials that will protect these principles," RNC spokesperson Katie Wright told the Washington Post.

Not all Tea Party activists supported the meeting, however, as Talking Points Memo reported:

In an email to TPMmuckraker, Robin Stublen, another Florida-based Tea Party activist who has argued previously against working with the GOP, warned of "a back door attempt by the RNC to put their 'stamp' on the movement that welcomes all conservatives regardless of political party."

Oh, they aren't extremists. I mean, wanting to hang Patty Murray is quite normal, isn't it?

So someone from Minneapolis donates one dollar to the GOP Senate Campaign Committee and puts down an expletive taunt as his name. We at Crooks and Liars do not endorse this kind of silly hooliganism. This guy had to donate a dollar to the Republicans to say the Eff Word? Really.

What's totally newsworthy about this contribution is that the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee's website posted the "thank you" above (minus the asterisks we added because guess what? We have editorial standards regarding that sort of thing.) and left it up at their website last night for at least 20 minutes (C&L staffers refreshed the site from 12:32 to 12:55 am Eastern Time and it was there the entire period) perhaps until the next contribution bumped it. [Jamie at Intoxination has the screenshot.] Who knew you'd need to install a net-nanny to protect your children's eyes from a GOP fundraising site? Well, everybody knows now!

I hate to let you in on any of our internet secrets, Mister Steele, but there are filters for that and other dirty words out there. Maybe if someone in your party knew how to use the Google other than to pick a Vice-Presidential candidate, you'd save yourself some family-values embarrassment.

I scratched my head the other day when I heard that Sarah Palin had been invited to be a celebrity guest at a fundraiser for Canadian hospitals. Palin has railed against the Canadian health care system and continues to spread fear and lies about health care reform and lead the right wing rallying cry to keep Americans enslaved to giant insurance companies.

I don't know what genius came up with the idea, but apparently, the backlash was so great that organizers had to rescind their invitation:

HAMILTON, Ont. - Sarah Palin has been given the boot as a celebrity fundraiser for hospitals in Hamilton, Ont., but she will come to town raise money for a local children’s charity instead.

Palin has brought the American health care debate to Canada and it is causing a storm of controversy as concerned hospital supporters have protested her appearance to raise money for two local institutions in April.

The former vice-presidential candidate was supposed to speak at a fund-raising event for the Juravinski Cancer Centre and St. Peter’s Hospital in Hamilton. But a backlash of negative publicity cancelled those plans. Read on...

You may recall Palin being punked last month by Canadian comedian Mary Walsh, who posed as a conservative reporter. Palin told Walsh, “Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit.”

Which made her a perfect candidate to come to Canada to raise money for their hospitals? I'm still scratching my head on this one...

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1152)

PLAYS: (937)

Chris Wallace asks Huckabee what the chances are of him running for President in 2012 and while not ruling it out, one of the reasons he cites for not running is enjoying his wingnut welfare on Fox News too much.

WALLACE: Since you -- since you brought up the election cycle, let's end with a little bit of politics, gentlemen.

Governor Huckabee, I want to show you a couple of polls that I suspect you already know about, but let's put them up on the screen.

Seventy percent of Iowa Republicans view you favorably. That is more than any of the other mentioned likely presidential possibilities for 2012. And a national poll of Republicans last month had you in first place -- national poll -- ahead of Romney, and Palin and Gingrich.

So, Governor Huckabee, why wouldn't you run for president in 2012?

HUCKABEE: Well, there's obviously a lot of smart people in Iowa and the rest of the country. Let me acknowledge that. But the reason I wouldn't is because this Fox gig I've got right now, Chris, is really, really wonderful.

And you know, it's easy to say, "Oh, gee, don't you just want to jump back in it?" But jumping into the pool -- you've got to make sure there's some water in it. And there's a whole different deal of saying some folks take a poll and whether there's the financial support.

Howard and I have both been there, done that. It's a wonderful experience. But I am nowhere near ready to say that that's what I want to do three years from now.

WALLACE: So let me ask you a silly question three years out. What do you -- would you say at this moment are the chances that you will run, 50/50, better, worse, what?

HUCKABEE: It's hard to say. A lot of it depends on how the elections turn out next year and whether Roger Ailes continues to like my show on the weekends. And if all those things factor in, you know, it's less likely than more likely, just because I would have to see that the Republicans would be willing to unite behind me.

The last time out, my biggest challenge was with the establishment Republicans who just never showed their support. And while I think a person can possibly win without them, the Republican Party needs to unite if it's going to win in 2012. And anyone who thinks Barack Obama is an easy mark off, just remember Bill Clinton was just labeled politically dead and came back to win a resounding re-election in 1996.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 184

PLAYS: 11

(John McCormack - rumored to have thrown up and fainted when told he might be President in 1963)

The opening of the 2nd session of the 87th Congress - January 10, 1962. A pretty busy year. Former speaker of the House Sam Rayburn had suddennly died, leaving the seat open. John McCormack was voted to succeed him. McCormack had the dubious distinction of informing the House on November 22, 1963 that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. When told there was a rumor Vice-president Lyndon Johnson may also have been assassinated - the thought he may be next in line as President was a bit too much.

In this broadcast, Senators Eugene McCarthy and Leverett Saltonstall are interviewed to discuss upcoming Legislation. Eugene McCarthy was to become a Presidential candidate in 1968 and 1972 and was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Here he talks about the proposed Medicare Bill - one which didn't pass during this congress, but did eventually pass in 1965.

Eugene McCarthy: “ I do expect that we will have a good fight on the Medical Aid question. This would be drawn I suppose, quite clearly on party lines. In my judgment we can pass a bill which is somehow tied to Social Security, which is the kind of bill I think we ought to pass in the Senate. I’m not sure as to what the response will be in the house, but I do think this is a proposition which the Democratic party and certainly the President are both firmly committed and that we should make a total kind of political fight on this one.”

I am always amazed, listening to these old broadcasts, how civilized two people from opposite sides of the aisle could be towards each other.

Or is it just me?

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1681)

PLAYS: (5570)

David Frum spoke out this weekend about the reckless direction America's right-wing talk-show hosts are taking our national discourse -- embodied by the nuts bringing guns to events featuring President Obama:

Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.

The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is "literally at war with the American people"; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning "death panels" to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he "harbors a deep resentment of America," that he feels a "deep-seated hatred of white people," that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is planning to wipe away American liberties": All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.

And indeed some conservative broadcasters are lovingly anticipating just such an outcome.

Frum notes that conservatives were quick to attack a Homeland Security bulletin warning law-enforcement officers of a looming threat from right-wing extremists -- only to have those warnings come all too true:

Newt Gingrich tweeted: "The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired."

I don't think the former speaker could tweet such a thing today in good conscience. The person who drafted that homeland security memo has gained very good reason to be worried. The guns are coming out. The risks are real.

It's not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric. If Barack Obama really were a fascist, really were a Nazi, really did plan death panels to kill the old and infirm, really did contemplate overthrowing the American constitutional republic—if he were those things, somebody should shoot him.

Frum was on CNN's Reliable Sources this Sunday and talked about it with Howard Kurtz:

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Um, just before I came out here, David Frum, I read a column that you wrote for The Week magazine about people who bring guns to these town meetings or Obama events. And you really took on some on the right, on your side, so to speak -- Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity -- you talked about hysterical talk about violence, you said that we have to tone it down, we have to tone down, excuse me, "the militant and accusatory rhetoric."

DAVID FRUM: Ah, we do. We do. Because --

KURTZ: Is it fair to blame the broadcasters for this atmosphere?

FRUM: Uh, yeah, it's very -- coping with a downward trend in advertising revenues for talk radio, the broadcasters have ramped up what they are saying. When you have broadcasters saying the president is, quote, literally at war with the American people, um -- literally at war is a very serious thing, Al Qaeda is literally at war with the American people.

KURTZ: And has a deep-seated hatred for white people.

FRUM: And has a deep-seated hatred -- so it's inflammatory. And the thing that is so enraging about all this, is obviously people are getting more excited about that, than they do about the details of health insurance.

Interestingly, Kurtz a little later discusses Fox's flaming hypocrisy in backing anti-Obama protesters when previously it had dismissed anti-war protesters as "loons", something they were called out for by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:

KURTZ: [H]asn't Fox, in fact, flipped -- some Fox hosts, I should say -- from slamming liberal protesters to defending these anti-Obama protesters?

That, in fact, is part of the bigger picture: The teabaggers are being inflamed and openly encouraged to act irrationally and disruptively by Fox News and its right-wing radio cohorts, specifically because they know that no matter how crazy they act -- even bringing guns to events featuring the president -- they will be actively defended for it, instead of exposed for the thugs they are.

Transcript below the fold:

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (83)

PLAYS: (346)

From CNN's Political ticker-- Palin says she is not a quitter:

Sarah Palin's not a quitter, she wants the public to know.

"I am not a quitter. I am a fighter," Palin told CNN on Monday while on a family fishing trip, on the heels of her Friday bombshell announcement that she was resigning as Alaska's governor.

Palin did her interview standing on the shores of Dillingham, Alaska, wearing hip waders. She granted 10-minute interviews to CNN and three other news networks Monday.

She resigned because of the tremendous pressure, time and financial burden of a litany of ethics complaints in the past several months, she said. The complaints were without merit and took away from the job she wanted to do for Alaskans, Palin said.

The decision to resign a year and a half before her term ends, and her rambling, often-disjointed resignation speech Friday, fueled days of debate among political analysts.

Speculation has run rampant that Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008, will seek the presidency in 2012.

When pressed about her future, Palin would say only that she would work in public service. She did not rule out a run for the White House or any other political office.

Palin is to leave the governor's office in late July.

The days since her resignation had been exhilarating and she loved being in Dillingham, a town of only a few thousand people and no cell phone service, Palin said.

On Monday, her personal lawyer also spoke about her resignation.

No legal "bombshell" or personal scandal lies behind Palin's resignation, but off-color jokes by talk-show host David Letterman contributed to her decision to step down, Thomas Van Flein said.

The governor needed a break after being "on duty now for two and a half years solid," he said.

"There is no bombshell. There is no shoe to drop. There are no investigations of any type that I'm aware of — no IRS audit, no federal investigation, no state investigation," Van Flein told CNN. "There is no legal reason in terms of a legal problem that compelled the governor to resign."

Friday was "deliberately chosen" for the announcement because of its proximity to the July Fourth holiday, Van Flein said: "She declared her independence from politics as usual."

Palin reiterated that statement in her interview.

Heather: Whatever you say Sarah. Good luck with that Presidential run if you decide to jump in there in 2012. Repeating something over and over doesn't make it true.