Thursday Open Thread

1 Mar 2012 Author: rikyrah

Auto workers applaud as U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the United Auto Workers conference in Washington February 28, 2012.
—REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

A person holds up four fingers for four more years as President Barack Obama spoke at the United Auto Workers conference in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012.
—-AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Good Morning.

As you make it through your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And always, have a peaceful day.

From The Plum Line Blog:

Posted at 12:58 PM ET, 02/28/2012
Obama hits Romney with withering mockery as he makes case for reelection
By Greg Sargent
In a speech to the United Auto Workers just now, Obama defended his decision to bail out the auto industry, lacing into Mitt Romney with withering derision. But this speech was about more than the auto-bailout. It was Obama’s case for reelection.
This speech constituted Obama’s most ambitious effort yet to weave his defense of the auto rescue into the larger contrast he will try to draw between his vision and the “you’re on your own” ideology he will accuse Republicans of representing.
Romney is likely to be a formidable general election opponent, particularly if the recovery doesn’t accelerate. And the voters at stake in the argument over the auto bailout — blue collar whites, independents, struggling swing state voters — are very much up for grabs.
But today’s speech was important: It revealed that the alternate reality Romney has been functioning in throughout the GOP primary is soon going to give way to another reality entirely, a general election reality — and Romney, presuming he will be the nominee, will soon collide with it.
In recent days, that alternate reality has meant that Romney has been speaking to audiences who nod along when he tells them that he got the auto-bailout right, even though he predicted that it would lead to the auto industry’s demise. It has meant speaking to audiences who cheer when Romney makes the convoluted case that things would be better still if we hadn’t pursued the auto-bailout, and that government intervention accomplished nothing more than a giveaway to “union bosses.”
Things will soon change rather abruptly.
In his speech, Obama — without naming Romney — went out of his way to ridicule his justifications for opposing the auto-bailout and his current dissembling about how he got it right.

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 28: U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the United Auto Workers’ National Community Action Program Legislative Conference at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel February 28, 2012 in Washington, DC. As primary voters went to the polls in Michigan and Arizona, Obama told the union members that his administration’s decision to save the auto industry was good for the economy and, “As long as you?ve got an ounce of fight left in you, I?ll have a ton of fight left in me.”
—Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 28: U.S. President Barack Obama gets a standing ovation while addressing the United Auto Workers’ National Community Action Program Legislative Conference at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel February 28, 2012 in Washington, DC. As primary voters went to the polls in Michigan and Arizona, Obama told the union members that his administration’s decision to save the auto industry was good for the economy and, “As long as you?ve got an ounce of fight left in you, I?ll have a ton of fight left in me.”
—- Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 28: U.S. President Barack Obama (R) embraces members of the United Auto Workers’ executive board during their National Community Action Program Legislative Conference at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel February 28, 2012 in Washington, DC. As primary voters went to the polls in Michigan and Arizona, Obama told the union members that his administration’s decision to save the auto industry was good for the economy and, “As long as youâve got an ounce of fight left in you, Iâll have a ton of fight left in me.”
—-Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Anonymous
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Anonymous
‘I’m not for the bill’
By Steve Benen
Thu Mar 1, 2012 8:00 AM EST.
The Senate is likely to vote today on the anti-contraception Blunt Amendment, championed by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt (R), which would allow all private-sector employers to deny any health services that businesses might find morally objectionable. Despite the controversy surrounding the measure, Mitt Romney hasn’t taken a position on the bill.
Yesterday, that changed. Jim Heath, a reporter with the Ohio News Network, asked the Republican presidential candidate about the anti-contraception proposal, and got an unexpected response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94nMnSnGFw&feature=player_embedded
It was pretty straightforward. Heath even explained what he was referring to: “Blunt-Rubio is being debated, I believe, later this week. It deals with banning or allowing employers to ban providing female contraception. Have you taken a position on it? He [Santorum] said he was for that. We’ll talk about personhood in a second, but he’s for that. Have you taken a position?”
Romney said, “I’m not for the bill,” and proceeded to argue that presidential candidates shouldn’t get into “questions about contraception.”
For all of the shameless pandering Romney has done to the far-right Republican base, this unambiguous answer reflected remarkable bravery on the candidate’s part. Republicans have been hyperventilating for weeks about the issue, and here was the likely GOP presidential nominee announcing, on camera, his opposition to his party’s legislative remedy.
Like too many of Romney’s positions, it didn’t last.
——————————————————————————–
Just one hour after saying he’s “not for” the Blunt Amendment, the presidential hopeful announced, “Of course I support the Blunt Amendment.” Romney added that he “didn’t understand” Heath’s question, and his campaign spokesperson issued a statement, complaining that the question was “confusing.”
As the afternoon progressed, Romney backers even began complaining that reports documenting the candidate’s actual words were somehow unfair — as if quoting what presidential candidates say on television is now evidence of irresponsible reporting.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/01/10548075-im-not-for-the-bill
Anonymous
I can’t stand Milbank, but funny is funny.
……………………………….
Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech, in (mostly) his own words
By Dana Milbank, Published: February 28
“I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners.”

— Mitt Romney, Feb. 26
.
“Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually.”
— Mitt Romney, Feb. 24

Fellow Republicans, as I stand here tonight to accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States, I feel like a million bucks. Actually, I feel as if I am worth between 150 and about 200 some-odd million dollars. It is difficult to say with certainty because some of it is in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Luxembourg and a Swiss bank account.
It is particularly meaningful to accept your nomination in Florida, a state where so many of my friends own so many things. The Miami Dolphins. The Orlando Magic. The Jacksonville Jaguars. The Doral country club. In fact, I have great friends who own some of Florida’s finest hotels, resorts, yachts and most valuable tracts of real estate, from Palm Beach to Naples.
To reach this day, I feel as if I have lived the American Dream. I grew up on the real streets of America, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. My father, a public servant, scrimped and saved enough of his earnings as CEO of American Motors to send me to the Cranbrook prep school, France and Harvard Business School.
From those humble beginnings, I was able to pull myself up by my bootstraps and become part of the great middle class of this country. As part of the American middle class, I have been able to buy various homes, four cars and several horses. Sure, there are government workers who make more than I do, but I am not complaining. I, like millions of Americans, have been unemployed.
To reach this stage tonight, I have crisscrossed this great land by chartered jet, from the cul-de-sacs of Greenwich, Conn., to the hills of La Jolla, Calif. Along the way, I have felt a kinship with my fellow Americans — not just those in East Hampton and Aspen, but also those in Grosse Pointe and Kenilworth. I have met unfortunate Americans, struggling to get by on less than the $374,000 I made in speaking fees — which, I can tell you, is not very much. I’m proud to say I got to where I am today without temporary little Band-Aids such as cuts in the payroll tax.
And though I am not concerned with the very poor, I have a good sense of the indignities working people face, because I have enjoyed firing a number of them myself. I have seen a checkout line at Wal-Mart. I have worn clothing from the Gap. I have stood with Americans forced to wear plastic ponchos at sporting events because they do not have big bucks. I know that terrible feeling of struggling to find a Lincoln in my wallet because it was hidden behind a Franklin.
On my path to the nomination, I survived many false and misleading attacks. My opponents accused me of quadrupling the size of my $12 million home in California, but this was a lie. I was only doubling the square footage, if you don’t count the basement and garage. There was also that woman in New Hampshire who asked me to give up some of my four houses. But I only have three — and that’s counting the little place with the guest house and boathouse on Lake Winnipesaukee.
I am accepting your nomination tonight on behalf of the millions of Americans who fear they will get the pink slip — a fear I have felt as well. I may not have struggled to make a mortgage payment, but my great friends the Marriotts run many lodging facilities. I know what it’s like to be an office worker because my colleagues and I used to be owners of Staples. I know people can have trouble sleeping at night because we had a stake in Sealy. I know how hard it can be to put food on the table, because we were owners of Domino’s Pizza. I understand American ingenuity because we owned part of Brookstone.
Corporations are people, my friends, and I’d particularly like to thank a few very special people — Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse — for allowing me to survive the Newt Gingrich scare in South Carolina and the Rick Santorum scare in Michigan.
So let us go forth from this convention to win the White House. To those who say that we cannot win, I have a simple reply: I’ll bet you 10,000 bucks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romneys-acceptance-speech-in-mostly-his-own-words/2012/02/28/gIQAfHk0gR_story.html
Anonymous
From Strength to Strength
Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie have it all wrong. Americans believe in President Barack Obama’s foreign policy competence — and picking a fight just makes the GOP candidates look lame.
Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie’s recent article in Foreign Policy urges the Republican presidential aspirants to attack President Barack Obama more vigorously on his national security record. It’s a debate that the president and Democrats should welcome.
At the outset, leave aside the source of the counsel — listening to top aides to President George W. Bush proffer advice on foreign policy is a bit like hearing Mrs. O’Leary and her cow lecture about urban planning, after they’ve burned down Chicago.
The real problem with their advice is that it badly misreads both the president’s record and how the public assesses it. Americans may be sharply polarized on many issues, but they are relatively aligned on their confidence in Obama as commander in chief. Over 60 percent approve of the job Obama is doing handling terrorism — and this was true even before the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. According to a February ABC/Washington Post survey, voters trust Obama to handle international affairs more than the Republican Party’s likely standard-bearer, Mitt Romney, by an outsized 19-point margin.
What explains these strong ratings?
Historically, Americans are fairly non-ideological on foreign policy. Above all, they want results, and that is what Obama has produced.
Bin Laden is dead, along with 22 of al Qaeda’s other top 30 leaders, including Anwar al-Awlaki, who encouraged Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing U.S. soldiers at Fort Hood. Obama ended America’s war in Iraq, as he pledged, while waging the war in Afghanistan with far greater focus and intensity, enabling the United States to plan for a handover to Afghanistan’s own security forces.
The president skillfully supported the democratic uprisings of the Arab Spring and helped build a NATO-led force that put an end to Muammar al-Qaddafi’s dictatorship. Squarely recognizing the danger Iran’s nuclear program poses — to the United States, Israel, and the entire Middle East — Obama has persistently worked to put in place the toughest-ever international sanctions on Iran, significantly undercutting Tehran’s economic resources and its ability to build nuclear weapons, while also being clear that he is leaving all options, including the use of force, on the table.
Even as military spending falls with the winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration is ensuring America’s military strength remains unrivaled, increasing support for veterans and their families, and using precision drones, Navy SEALs, and other special operations forces to sustain the U.S. military edge against diverse new threats around the globe.
Reliance on foreign oil is at a 16-year low, making it harder for oil producers in the Middle East or elsewhere to hold U.S. foreign policy hostage. And America’s image abroad has bounced back from the historic lows it reached under Bush. In declaring America “the one indispensable nation in world affairs,” Obama has refuted any notion that he is a declinist or apologist for American strength and leadership.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/29/from_strength_to_strength?page=full
Anonymous
Obama leads Republicans on health care issues
President Obama has a big advantage over any of his potential Republican rivals when it comes to issues involving health care and Medicare, a new poll shows.
The survey, taken by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, shows that 58% of Americans trust Obama to make the right decisions on the 2010 health care law and on Medicare. By contrast, only 43% trust his closest Republican rivals on those issues.
Among Republicans surveyed, Rick Santorum does the best on health care issues. He was trusted by about 70% of Republicans, compared to about 65% for Mitt Romney and 60% for Newt Gingrich.
The survey also ranked the relative importance of health care issues among presidential election voters. Two issues topped the list: the cost of health insurance and Medicare, deemed “extremely important” by more than 1 in 3 voters. The health care law and birth control were deemed crucial by 24%, abortion by 21%.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/02/obama-leads-republicans-on-health-care-issues/1#.T09wxcyQ2GM
Anonymous
Romney Wins, the Middle Class Loses
Published: February 29, 2012
Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum fought each other to nearly a draw in the Michigan primary and may actually have to split its delegates, but together they may have lost Michigan for their party by running campaigns that were completely disconnected from the lives of middle-class voters and pushed ever farther to the right margins of American politics.
A month ago, the state was rated a tossup in this November’s general election. But after voters got a taste of the Republican field, Michigan seems to be on President Obama’s side of the ledger, along with Wisconsin. Both elected Republican governors in 2010, but large numbers of blue-collar voters have turned away from the party after realizing how little regard it has for their interests.
Mr. Romney was unable to generate any enthusiasm in the state where he was born and where his family is well known. In fact, polls around the country have suggested that Republican primary voters are not thrilled with any of their choices so far. He won largely because of Mr. Santorum’s blunders, including his inexplicable decision to denigrate the value of college and to declare his contempt for John F. Kennedy and the Constitution’s mandate for an absolute separation of church and state.
Mr. Romney’s victory speech Tuesday night was unlikely to do much about the Republican electorate’s disappointment. Like his lightweight stump speeches around Michigan, he rattled off a long list of things he opposes: taxes (mostly on the rich), government spending (mostly on the poor), health care reform (for everyone).
There was next to nothing about what he supports, with the exception of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. A blue-collar family that has suffered a job loss (or fears one) heard nothing that offered the promise of a more stable, hopeful future.
“We will abolish, finally, the death tax,” he announced. That’s great news to those with estates of $5 million or more. It was a slap in the face to those whose unemployment insurance is about to run out because his party has insisted on getting tough with jobless government freeloaders.
Middle-class voters did learn that Mr. Romney still opposes the auto-industry bailout that has saved the jobs of more than a million workers in Michigan and the region. (He called it a giveaway to unions, ignoring worker sacrifices that are well-known in the upper Midwest.) They learned how the 14 percent of Michigan residents who have no health insurance would be left on their own once the candidates get a chance to repeal health care reform. And they learned that Mr. Santorum is far more concerned about the menace of birth control and liberal college professors than he is about their struggles.
If they listened to Mr. Obama’s fiery speech to the United Auto Workers on Tuesday, however, they heard a very different set of priorities: using government action to bring an entire industry back to life, raising taxes on the rich to avoid cutting programs for the poor, keeping insurance companies from cutting off the sick.
“Since when are hard-working men and women who are putting in a hard day’s work every day — since when are they special interests?” the president asked, addressing the contempt for labor demonstrated by the candidates and several Republican governors in the Midwest. The answer explains why Mr. Obama was up by 18 points over Mr. Romney in a recent Michigan poll, and why Republican leaders are worried about their presidential field.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/opinion/romney-wins-and-the-middle-class-loses.html?_r=1&hp
Anonymous
Ad War Update: Cranking Up The Fear
A paranoid and sinister spot from the Romney campaign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C2j2X27FXh0
The clip insinuates that Obama’s reelection campaign put large sums of money behind anti-Romney efforts. (While affiliated groups did, the Obama campaign was not involved.) It also plays up the now infamous line from an anonymous “Democratic strategist aligned with the White House” that they’d have to pursue a “kill Romney” strategy unless the economy improved. … There’s no mention of former Sen. Rick Santorum, Romney’s chief Republican rival, in the spot.
The second [reason the ad is telling] is the overt plea for cash. In both the text below the video on the Romney campaign’s landing page and in ads that pop up while it plays, the campaign solicits donations. Having asked supporters to visit his website and help the campaign in any capacity during his victory speech last night, it’s becoming more and more evident that Romney is strapped for cash.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/
Anonymous
Michigan and the Great Humbling of Romneybot 2.0
By Charles P. Pierce
at 8:25AM
Well, it appears that, when it comes to staving off cataclysmically embarrassing public collapses, Willard Romney’s our boy. He managed to stave off Rick Santorum in Michigan last night by just enough that, together with Romney’s big win in Arizona, where he was supported by John McCain, Jan Brewer, and other less famous mummies, people aren’t going spend all their time over the next week talking about what a complete stiff he is. Granted, the jury is still very much out on that one. After Rick Santorum gave a heartfelt, weepy performance of almost transcendental mendacity, complete with props, Romney came out and appeared to be attempting to sell his audience some handy home-cleaning products. He even plugged his website and begged for some small-money donations. The guy makes the average Amway salesman sound like Demosthenes.
(Can we pause right here and speculate that, some time in the past four years, Romney must have shot Chris Matthews’s dog? I have never seen a single politician get on a single pundit’s last nerve the way Romney apparently jumps on Matthews’s. There’s something very tribal going on here. It’s like listening to my grandparents talk about the No Irish Need Apply signs.)
Nevertheless, it was a big night for what is laughingly referred to as the “Republican establishment.” This is just enough traction to keep the Romneybot 2.0 rolling through Super Tuesday, even though he’s going to get crisped in the South as N. Leroy Gingrich rolls back the stone one more time, and even though he could lose Ohio (and Tennessee) to Santorum’s suitcoat full of miracles. (“Is that Marcellus shale in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”) It’s still easy to picture how Romney can blow this thing. His campaign really does seem to be wheezing a bit; having counted on an early blowout, it seems in its own way to be as ill-suited to the long haul as Santorum’s is. After last night, however, it’s awfully hard to see how any of these other guys can win it now. And, if they did nothing else, last night’s results probably buried forever any scenario that depended on the late entry of a white knight, or, dammit, the possibility of a brokered convention in Tampa, where the nomination could get parceled out over lap dances at Mons Venus.
What also is obvious is the fact that Rick Santorum blew his main chance over the past couple of weeks, primarily by being a colossal dick, and have I mentioned recently what a colossal dick he is? He couldn’t resist a chance to let his freak flag fly on the proper use of other people’s ladyparts and on his peculiar vision of what the separation of church and state actually means. He picked a fight with John F. Kennedy on the latter issue, which may be the most singularly stupid thing I’ve seen a candidate do in 50 years. And last night, after spending a month channelling Pius XII, according to the exit polls, he lost decisively among Catholic voters to a Mormon bishop.
This proves three: one, that there is no such thing as a “Catholic vote”; two, that the Catholic laity remains completely convinced that contraception is their own damn business and that the clan of the red beanie should butt out of it; and three, that picking on the sainted Jack Kennedy (God be good to him) is generally considered far more mortal a sin than using the Pill is. Santorum could have avoided all of these unforced errors, but that would require that he not be a colossal dick, and you might as well expect to see Willard Romney on stage with Parliament-Funkadelic.
And it sounded last night like Santorum knew it, too. Why else would he spend the whole first third of his speech talking about all the empowered working women — mom, wife, daughter — who have surrounded him in his life? Oh, he moved on to some serious lying about the president, particularly on the issue of health care, and I think his waving around that hunk of rock is going to be immortal in the annals of campaign video. But mainly, you saw a guy who’d been humbled, and who knew exactly why he’d been humbled. You also saw a guy who knew he’d let his last best chance go a’glimmering.
There’s bound to be a great settling beginning right about now. Romney’s gotten about as much out of his relentless pandering as he’s likely to get — He talked last night about both “the Death Tax” and “a Democrat Congress.” His wingnut jargon coach deserves a raise — and so we are likely to hear more of what we heard last night, which was some preposterous jaw-flapping about how honest and steadfast he always has been in his principles. This is what will constitute “a move to the center.” Romney can’t shift any of his actual positions to the center without looking even more ridiculous than he has over the last year. So he will shift his rhetoric in that general direction in the hopes that, by November, enough people will have forgotten what a complete political ‘ho he’s been since 2007 to give him a shot in the general election. He will survive Super Tuesday by winning in New England and out west while Santorum and Gingrich vainly carve up the delegates elsewhere. (And in Virginia, Romney’s on the ballot only with his invaluable wingman, Ron Paul, a masterpiece of abject fail on the part of both the Gingrich and Santorum campaigns that’s going to allow Romney to collect somewhere north of 40 of the state’s delegates.) What we saw last night, finally, was the end of the beginning. Nobody else has enough rocks in their pockets any more.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/michigan-primary-results-6975149#ixzz1nsIChRVn
Anonymous
Obama’s Most Dangerous GOP Opponent: Netanyahu, Ctd
Some new details on the Israeli prime minister’s recruitment of US senators to push back against their own president and chairman of the JCOS

Netanyahu and his advisers briefed a group of senators and senior congressmen during the past two weeks on the Iranian issue, and asked them to pressure Obama on the matter. Last week, Netanyahu met a group of five senior senators over lunch, headed by Sen. John McCain, who ran four years ago against Obama for president. Netanyahu reportedly told the senators he was not interfering in U.S. politics and expected U.S. officials not to interfere in Israeli politics either.
So Netanyahu gets McCain – the president’s last electoral opponent – to make the following public statement:
There should be no daylight between America and Israel in our assessment of the [Iranian] threat. Unfortunately there clearly is some.”

And the “unfortunately” is clearly, in McCain’s view, Obama’s fault.
What to make of all this? I’d say, as I did earlier today, it’s a further escalation of Netanyahu’s attempt to use US domestic politics to back a war on Iran. First we get McCain et al on Israeli soil backing the Israeli prime minister against the US president and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Then we get the report that Israel is preparing to strike alone. Now we hear via Haaretz that Netanyahu is demanding that Obama threaten a US military strike if Iran does not back down on its secluded nuclear research, rather than repeat the “all options are on the table” diplo-speak. Could this confusing set of signals have something to do with this:
A new poll of Israeli public opinion found surprisingly low levels of support for a military strike against Iran — and especially if Israel has to go it alone. Just 19 percent of Israelis believe that Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear facilities if it must do so without American support. A significantly higher number — 42 percent — support a military strike if Israel has American support. Thirty-four percent do not support a military strike at all.

So Israelis are deeply conflicted on this – something you won’t find reported every day on the op-ed page of the Washington Post. That’s why Netanyahu desperately needs US cover for an attack; and is furious he cannot simply push them around as he was once wont to do. Nonetheless, he has a united Republican front in Romney, Santorum and Gingrich, funded by Greater Israel fanatics like Sheldon Adelson, and in desperate need of a way to ignite the Christianist base. He will have a chunk of Democrats as well – and next week’s AIPAC conference to beat the drums for war. He also has the potential to send oil to $7 a gallon by election day – and tip Europe and the world into both a new terror crisis and a deeper, longer recession. All of this is leverage to get Obama to do something of enormous risk to the Middle East, the West and the wider world, and launch a war that America, rather than Israel, would have to own.
That’s the card Netanyahu will come to Washington to play against the president next week. It’s not a weak one. But it’s a brittle one, given Israeli public opinion, the huge potential costs and minimal security benefits.
One can only hope Obama has the cool to respond: “Remember Suez, prime minister. Remember Suez.”
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/02/obamas-most-dangerous-gop-opponent-netanyahu-ctd.html
Anonymous
Hoax? Breitbart dead???
http://biggovernment.com/lsolov/2012/03/01/draft/
Anonymous
James Murdoch Resigns, But Phone-Hacking Crisis Shows Little Sign of Abating
by Mike GiglioFeb 29, 2012 4:35 PM EST
The news of the younger Murdoch’s departure from News International has prompted speculation over succession plans within the Murdoch empire.
Ever since the phone-hacking scandal forced Rupert Murdoch to shutter his News of the World tabloid last summer, there had been a general consensus among London’s media observers: James Murdoch, Rupert’s youngest son and heir apparent, wouldn’t last long at the helm of News International, the U.K. arm of the family’s News Corp. media empire. But few expected he would go so soon. It was announced today that James had stepped down as News International’s executive chairman, leaving behind a tempest of succession rumors and speculation over how deeply the phone-hacking crisis has affected the Murdoch family and their prized U.K. newspaper chain.
According to News Corp. the resignation is part of a longstanding plan to move James to the company’s New York headquarters and have him focus on pay-television business and international operations. “We are all grateful for James’s leadership at News International,” Rupert Murdoch said in a statement announcing the move. James was named News Corp.’s deputy chief operating officer last year.
Analysts say today’s move suggests deep changes in the elder Murdoch’s succession plan, as well as increasing concern over News International’s mounting public-relations problems. The Leveson inquiry—which convened in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal to investigate press ethics—has been unearthing damning testimony about what Scotland Yard’s lead investigator called a “culture” of wrongdoing among Murdoch journalists, and police have recently arrested several top reporters and editors at News of the World’s sister paper, The Sun, as part of an investigation into illegal payments to public officials. These tremors, as well as nascent staff unrest at The Sun, seem have put Rupert Murdoch on the defensive: he flew to London to reassure his employees and to announce the rushed launch of a Sunday version of the paper, in what seemed like a bid to display his strength. Some experts suspect that James’s resignation reflects these recent woes—while others say the younger Murdoch’s move could also suggest that more damning information could be about to surface.
Says a Westminster source who has been following phone hacking closely for years: “Maybe they know there’s worse stuff to come.”
Of late, the crisis gripping Murdoch’s tabloids has shown no sign of abating.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/29/james-murdoch-resigns-but-phone-hacking-crisis-shows-little-sign-of-abating.html
Anonymous
Confirmed!
(CNN) – Andrew Breitbart, a well-known conservative blogger, has died, his attorney confirmed Thursday. He was 43.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/01/andrew-breitbart-dies-at-age-43/?hpt=hp_t2
Anonymous
It’s a damn shame he died…before he could get his comeuppance.
http://theothertwofifths.blogspot.com/ ProfGeo
From the AP story, the “hoax” part that people won’t quite believe:
Breitbart’s website bigjournalism.com announced Thursday he died of natural causes in Los Angeles in the early morning hours.
Even if he ate/drank/drugged himself to death at a young age, is that natural causes?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/01/national/w063936S63.DTL
Mkscrabble
Regarding Breibart’s Death: Hopefully before he left this
world he was able to “pull over on the side of the road and text his
letter of redemption” to the Lord. AND STILL WE RISE SHIRLEY SHERROD
http://theothertwofifths.blogspot.com/ ProfGeo
Probably my last Breitbart comment: Shirley Sherrod supporters won’t miss him, nor will Anthony Weiner supporters. First instinct is to react more strongly, but I know a semi-conservative black man who was a friend of his. So I have to back off (as the media didn’t for our celebrity deaths, MJ and Whitney) and let friends and family take care of things. He will be a footnote in the history and analysis of the Obama years and it won’t matter in the long run.
Daisy Kingston
I’ll follow your example, and take the high road as well.
Anonymous
43 years old, wife and kids – my condolences to the family.
Anonymous
Federal judge struggles with allegations of racism
By Steve Benen
Thu Mar 1, 2012 9:22 AM EST.
U.S. District Chief Judge Richard Cebull admitted yesterday to sending a racist email about President Obama from his courthouse chambers. His apology left much to be desired.

The subject line of the e-mail, which Cebull sent from his official courthouse e-mail address on Feb. 20 at 3:42 p.m., reads: “A MOM’S MEMORY.”
The forwarded text reads as follow:
“Normally I don’t send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
“A little boy said to his mother; ‘Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?’ ” the e-mail joke reads. “His mother replied, ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!’ ”

Cebull, an 11-year veteran of the federal bench, was a George W. Bush nominee. He’s served as Montana’s chief federal judge for nearly five years.
After his email worked its way to a reporter at the Great Falls Tribune, Cebull was asked for an explanation. The judge admitted having sent it, acknowledged the message’s inherent racism, but denied being a bigot. Cebull said, “I apologize to anybody who is offended by it.”
That’s not an uncommon line, but it’s also not a real apology. Genuine regret in a situation like this means apologizing for sending racist garbage, not apologizing to those who happen to be offended by racist garbage.
Cebull added the email was intended to be a private communication and “was not intended by me in any way to become public.” This, too, is unhelpful. The judge is effectively arguing, “Sure, I sent along an ugly, racist message, but don’t worry, you weren’t supposed to know about it.”
Cebull insists he’s not a racist, and only sent the message because of his hostility towards the president.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/01/10548697-federal-judge-struggles-with-allegations-of-racism
Liza
The federal judge revealed something about himself that should disqualify him from even being a judge. I suppose he would tell us that when he is wearing his judge suit he is totally impartial. However, in the “privacy” of the Internet when he is joking around with his buddies, being a racist asshole is acceptable because it is private. What a stupid prick. I love that he got busted.
Anonymous
The Sickness On The Right
This email, forwarded by a District Judge, tells you all you need to know:
“Normally I don’t send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
“A little boy said to his mother; ‘Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?’” the email joke reads. “His mother replied, ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!’”
What strikes me is not the hideous joke – but the sarcastic premise that it “touched his heart”. Try to get your head around that for a minute. The suggestion that the president was conceived in a mass gang-bang of a white woman that included animals “touched his heart.” He pretended to find it moving and poignant.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/
Liza
It would “touch my heart” if the Obama Administration fired his sorry ass. He has no business being a federal judge.
RobM
The problem w. dealing w/ the interference in domestic politics is something no US President has been willing to confront openly. I do not expect President Obama to do so either. It is what is needed.
RobM
Considering who is mother is I suspect the media will be in overdrive about him so the idea of ignoring him is not possible.
The world is a better place w/ him leaving it.
RobM
Unfortunately short of an impeachement the only way Federal judges leave is on their own.
Anonymous
AFTERNOON OPEN THREAD IS UP!
Liza
That certainly explains his arrogance and the lame “apology” because he has no fear of losing his job.
Booky
President Clinton was impeached for trying to conceal getting a BJ, remember?
http://africanamerica.org/forums Noir Jenkins
Totally agree. He has shown his impartiality to be questionable. I hope people start filing all sorts of appeals and reviews of the cases over which he has presided.
Booky
Why was Alycee Hastings impeached?
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