Rove-Linked Crossroads GPS Launches $650,000 False Ad Campaign On Gas Prices (VIDEO)

Think Progress

By Josh Israel  on Mar 23, 2012 at 4:00 pm

This week, Crossroads GPS announced a $650,000 nationwide television adcampaign called “Deflect.”  The 30-second spot falsely blames Obama administration actions for the rise in gasoline prices since 2009.

Crossroads GPS is a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) group, affiliated with the American Crossroads super PAC. Karl Rove has been linked to both groups.

The spot begins by noting gas prices “then and now” — going up from the unusually low prices of January 2009 to the higher prices of today.  A narrator asks what has made the difference.

The narrator then claims the reasons for higher gas prices are:

– “President Obama’s administration restricted oil production in the Gulf”

– Limited development of American oil shale

– Obama personally lobbied to kill a pipeline bringing oil from Canada

VIDEO AND MORE HERE

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Republicans Attack Obama For Not Cutting Medicare Advantage

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Now Republicans are attacking Obama for not cutting Medicare Advantage

by Jed Lewison for Daily Kos

Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 08:10 AM PDT

AP:

Obama administration eases pain of Medicare cuts

Millions of seniors in popular private insurance plans offered through Medicare will be getting a reprieve from some of the most controversial cuts in President Barack Obama’s health care law.

In a policy shift critics see as political, the Health and Human Services department has decided to award quality bonuses to hundreds of Medicare Advantage plans rated merely average.

As you may recall, the health reform law cut subsidies for ineffective Medicare Advantage plans by about $150 billion over ten years because those plans cost more than traditional Medicare without delivering better care. Ending the subsidies was an obvious move to reduce spending on Medicare without compromising the quality of care, but Republicans like Karl Rove have attacked the policy shift as an attempt to pull the plug on grandma.

So now that the administration is granting a reprieve to many—though not all—of the Medicare Advantage plans that Republicans were so proudly defending, you’d think they would celebrate having saved grandma’s life. Except now that the administration is doing what they had said they wanted it to do in the first place, they’re still on attack:

In a recent letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, two prominent GOP lawmakers questioned what they termed the administration’s “newfound support” for Medicare Advantage.The shift “may represent a thinly veiled use of taxpayer dollars for political purposes,” wrote Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan. Camp chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees Medicare. Hatch is his counterpart as ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

Republicans won an election in part by attacking the Obama administration over cuts to Medicare Advantage subsidies, but now that they have gotten their way, they are once again on the attack. For Hatch and Camp, this isn’t a matter of principle. It’s about opposing Obama because he’s their political enemy. They aren’t fighting for their ideas, or for what they think is right. They are fighting to save their own political ass. And it’s pathetic.

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How The U.S. Rapidly Froze Libyan Assets

How the U.S. rapidly froze Libyan assets

Washington Post

By Robert O’Harrow Jr., James V. Grimaldi and Brady Dennis
Thursday, Mar 24, 2011
The Treasury Department team had been working nonstop on a plan to freeze Libyan assets in U.S. banks, hoping they might snare $100 million or more and prevent Moammar Gaddafi from tapping it as he unleashed deadly attacks against protesters who wanted him gone.

Now, at 2:22 Friday afternoon, Feb. 25, an e-mail arrived from a Treasury official with startling news. Their $100 million estimate was off — orders of magnitude off.

The e-mail said there was in “excess of $29.7 Billion — yes, that’s a B.”

And most of the money was at one bank.

It was a piece of extraordinary good fortune for the Obama administration at a crucial moment in the efforts to address the bizarre and deadly events unfolding in Libya.

Never before had U.S. officials so quickly launched economic sanctions affecting so many assets of a targeted country.

The frenetic 72 hours leading up to the Executive Order 13566 illustrate how a process of identifying and freezing assets — something that customarily has taken weeks or months — has become one of the first tactical tools to employ in the midst of fast-breaking crises.

It also shows that government officials have learned from other recent economic sanction efforts, including against Iran and North Korea. Instead of being a secondary measure, as in the past, economic sanctions have become a centerpiece of national security policy.

MORE HERE- 9 pages in this story

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DOJ Meeting Shows Obama Is ‘Serious’ About Combatting Gun Violence

Brady Campaign: DOJ Meeting Shows Obama Is ‘Serious’ About Combatting Gun Violence

TPMMuckraker

Ryan J. Reilly | March 16, 2011, 3:20PM

A coalition of pro gun-control groups met with Obama administration officials at the Justice Department Tuesday to discuss ways to prevent gun violence.

The meeting at DOJ headquarters, the first in a series of meetings the administration is trying to schedule to address the issue, was led by Christopher H. Schroeder, Assistant Attorney General for DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy. Representatives of the White House, the Vice President’s office, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were also in attendance.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign on Gun Violence, told TPM that the government representatives didn’t tip their cap for what direction they planned on taking to combat gun violence.

“We asked a lot of questions, and they indicated they don’t have any particular policies that they’re pushing or any particular legislation that they’re pushing, right now they’re basically out gathering pieces of information,” Helmke said.

The White House had invited the National Rifle Association (NRA) to the meeting, but NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre told the New York Times that he didn’t see a reason to “go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States.”

In a letter to President Barack Obama, LaPierre and NRA Executive Director Chris Cox wrote that for Obama “to focus a national dialogue on guns – and not criminals or mental health issues – misses the point entirely”. The said gun laws aren’t the problem.

MORE HERE

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President Obama Prays For Peace In The Middle East

President Prays for Peace in the Mideast

The Caucus – The Politics and Government blog of The New York Times
By- HELENE C. COOPER
February 3, 2011, 12:06 pm

WASHINGTON — President Obama, in wide-ranging remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, said Thursday that he was praying for the violence in the Middle East to end, and separately called on the country to move beyond polarizing debate to remember that few people are right all of the time.

Mr. Obama told an audience of lawmakers, religious leaders and heads of state (from Equatorial Guinea and Macedonia) that in the middle of strife, it is important to “go back to the Scriptures to remind ourselves that none of us have the answer.”

Mr. Obama spoke for around 15 minutes about his upbringing, which he said was not religious. His father, he recounted, was a “nonbeliever,” and he said his mom, “whose parents were Baptists and Methodists, grew up with a certain skepticism.”

“She only took me to church at Easter and Christmas … sometimes,” Mr. Obama said.

Still, Mr. Obama said his mother “nagged me consistently about the homespun values of her Kansas upbringing,” and credited her with helping him to “understand the equal worth of all men and all women.”

MORE HERE

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Gun Rights Battle Heads To Bars, Churches, Doctors’ Offices And Day Care

Gun Rights Battle Heads To Bars, Churches, Doctors’ Offices And Day Care

TPM Muckraker

Ryan J. Reilly and Melissa Jeltsen | January 28, 2011, 9:40AM

After ignoring the issue of gun control for his entire presidency to date, aides to President Barack Obama said Wednesday he’d take up the issue within the next few weeks. Even former Vice President Dick Cheney has said he’d be okay with banning high-capacity clips in the wake of the mass shooting that nearly killed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and left six others dead.

But there’s a whole other lot of Second Amendment supporters who, instead of discussing middle-of-the-road measures to curb gun violence, are advocating to rescind or roll back even current restrictions.

In state legislatures around the country, conservatives lawmakers are introducing some of the most enthusiastic right-to-bear-arms bills to date. Here’s TPM’s round up.

Florida

Physicians often ask patients about risky behaviors, like drinking, smoking and even if they dutifully wear a seat belt. But asking about gun ownership? That topic should be off-limits, says freshman state Rep. Jason Brodeur (R) who wants to make it a felony for physicians to ask patients or their families if they own or store guns at home.

Brodeur says he’s worried that doctors might report gun ownership information to a patient’s insurance company. “What we don’t want to do is have law-abiding firearm owners worried that the information is going to be recorded and then sent to their insurance company,” Brodeur said, as reported by the News-Press. “If the overreaching federal government actually takes over health care, they’re worried that Washington, D.C., is going to know whether or not they own a gun and so this is really just a privacy protection.”

Doctors who fail to obey the proposed law could face up to $5 million in fines — or prison time.

Michigan

State Sen. Mike Green (R-Mayville) doesn’t believe there should be anywhere in Michigan where you can’t carry your gun. On Tuesday, he introduced legislation to repeal the state’s no-carry zones — places where concealed weapons are banned. Under the new proposal, which has been sent to the state Senate’s judiciary committee, it would be legal to carry concealed weapons into day care centers, stadiums, schools, churches, bars and hospitals.

Green told The Detroit News he introduced the bill to prove “there are no places that should be gun-free.”

According to his website, Green was one of the authors of Michigan’s 2000 “shall issue” concealed pistol license law, which drastically changed the state’s gun regulation. State and local authorities in states with “shall issue” laws must issue gun licenses to people as long as they meet specific criteria set by the state. This differs from “may-issue” states, where individuals need to show a compelling need to carry a concealed weapon and the ultimate decision is left up to the granting authority.

MORE HERE

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Obama’s Israel Policy: Speak softly and carry a very big carrot

by Maidhc Ó Cathail, Foreign Policy Journal, December 4, 2010

Even those familiar with the long and shameful history of America’s appeasement of Israel were taken aback by the Obama administration’s extraordinary offer to Netanyahu.

In exchange for a paltry one-off 90 day freeze on illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), Israel will get 20 F-35 stealth fighter jets worth $3 billion and a slew of other goodies. Yet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly gave up to eight hours with Netanyahu trying to persuade him to accept “one of the most generous bribes ever bestowed by the United States on any foreign power.” Praising the Israeli Prime Minister for eventually agreeing to put the offer to his security cabinet, President Obama took it as “a signal that he is serious.”

Continues >>

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Biden Visits Iraq To Mark Formal End To U.S. Combat

Biden Visits Iraq To Mark Formal End To U.S. Combat

LARA JAKES and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA | 08/30/10 11:22 AM |

BAGHDAD — Vice President Joe Biden returned to Iraq Monday to mark this week’s formal end to U.S. combat operations and push the country’s leaders to end a six-month postelection stalemate blocking formation of a new government.

Wednesday’s ceremony will signal a shift toward a greater U.S. diplomatic role as the military mission dwindles seven years after the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Underscoring the shift, officials said Biden will make a new appeal to Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to end the political deadlock and seat a new government. March 7 parliamentary elections left Iraq without a clear winner, and insurgents have exploited the uncertainty to hammer Iraqi security forces in near-daily attacks.

Biden and al-Maliki will meet Tuesday morning “to discuss the political situation and withdrawal, and Iraqis taking over responsibility for security,” the prime minister’s adviser, Yasin Majeed, told The Associated Press.

It was the vice president’s sixth trip to Iraq since he was elected and, officially, he came to preside over a military change-of-command ceremony. On Wednesday, Gen. Ray Odierno ends more than five years in Iraq and hands over the reins as commander of U.S. forces here to Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin. Austin also has served extensively in Iraq, most recently as commander of troop operations in 2008-09.

But the Sept. 1 ceremony also marks the start of the so-called “Operation New Dawn” – symbolizing the beginning of the end of the American military’s mission in Iraq since invading in March 2003.

Just under 50,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq – down from a peak of nearly 170,000 at the height of the 2007 military surge that is credited with turning the tide in Iraq as it teetered on the brink of civil war. Additionally, U.S. troops no longer will be allowed to go on combat missions unless requested and accompanied by Iraqi forces.

MORE HERE

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BP Disaster Continues Despite Cheerful Happy Talk

A poet once wrote: “When you’re chewing on life’s gristle, don’t grumble. Give a whistle. And this’ll help things turn out for the best.” This famous Python ditty appears to be the government, BP and media spin on the oil disaster at this point, and it could be the biggest display of wishful thinking, denial and deception in the face of a serious crisis since Chris Matthews and G. Gordon Liddy swooned over President Bush’s crotch bulge aboard the U.S.S. Lincoln when the Iraq war was apparently “over.”

For several weeks now, the traditional media, and especially cable news, has been wondering, “Where’s all the oil?” as if to suggest the biggest water-based oil disaster in history is over and the oil is gone. And while it’s easy to pick on the press, its short attention span and the superficial reporting typical of TV news, it’s only right to underscore who specifically is to blame for downplaying the size and scope of the disaster.

Remember the first time this “where’s the oil?” question was raised? Back on May 16, Brit Hume asked, “Where’s the oil?” on Fox News Sunday. Days later, the oil washed ashore and no one dared repeat the same question. Until now.

Patient zero in the most recent “where’s the oil?” analysis appears to be Thad Allen:

“What we’re trying to figure out is where is all the oil at and what can we do about it,” said US spill response chief Thad Allen.

Coincidentally, my next book is titled: Where Is All The Oil At? (And What Can We Do About It). I’m joking, of course, because we know precisely where the oil is. And there’s very little we can do about it, other than to stop candy-coating the post-kill status of the disaster.

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Dan Ellsberg on WikiLeaks & the Essential Democratic Question: Who Will Tell the People?

John Nichols, The Nation, July 29, 2010

The Obama White House was quick to condemn the publication Sunday evening of more than 91,000 secret documents detailing the monumentally misguided and frequently failed attempt by the United States to occupy Afghanistan.

National Security Adviser James Jones took the lead in attacking WikiLeaks for making the details of the war available to the American people—who are, ultimately, supposed to define the direction of US foreign policy—by declaring: “The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.”

Despite the fact that the “Afghanistan War Logs,” which are being published by the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Speigel, detail the mess in Afghanistan, and point to the bigger mess that will be made if the occupation is expanded as the Obama administration proposes, Jones offered a classic don’t-confuse-us-with-the-facts response. “These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.”

Continues >>

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