Daily Archives: August 17, 2012

August 17, 2012 · 9:24 PM

GOP Senate Candidate Suggests The Voting Rights Act Of 1965 Should Be Overturned

Think Progress

Rep. Todd Akin, the GOP’s candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, suggested in an interview that it was time to “look at or overturn” the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Asked directly if seminal federal civil rights legislation that prohibits discriminatory voting procedures needed to be modified or scrapped, Akin said that states — not the federal government — should set voting rules. According to Akin, elections “have historically always been a state thing” and that’s a “good principle.”

Fired Up Missouri has the video from St. Louis Fox 2

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits the states from implementing voting procedures that “discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group.” The law built on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.”

Akin has a reputation for extreme views on a variety of topics.

Fox 2 is scheduled to release more of their interview with Akin on Sunday.

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· 1:46 PM

O’Reilly uses hate group shooting to exonerate himself in abortion doctor’s murder

Bill O'Reilly talks about Dr. George Tiller

Bill O’Reilly always claimed that he had nothing to do with “brainwashing”  the killer of  the late Dr. Tiller, and now he goes further…

The Raw Story

During a Thursday interview where Tony Perkins blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for the recent shooting of a Family Research Council (FRC) employee, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly took the opportunity to insist he did not “exacerbate” the situation that led to the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller by calling him a “baby killer.”

“Now you may remember back in 2009, some in the liberal press accused me encouraging the assassination of late-term abortionist George Tiller in Kansas,” O’Reilly said.

As PBS’ Now noted, O’Reilly had mentioned Tiller’s name on 27 episodes of his Fox News show, often calling him “Tiller the Baby Killer” without attributing the label to anyone.  He also said  Tiller had “blood on his hands,” was guilty of “Nazi stuff” and was “operating death mills.”

“I never called him a killer,” O’Reilly insisted on Thursday, even though PolitiFact found that the Fox News host had used the term “baby killer” to describe Tiller at least 24 times.

“I simply referred to what Tiller was doing in detail and the press hounded me for it,” O’Reilly continued, bringing on Family Research Council President Tony Perkins to talk about the most recent shooting.

“I believe that the Southern Poverty Law Center is responsible for creating an environment that led to this,” Perkins explained. “[Your critics are] saying you are using hate speech — well, the Southern Poverty Law Center — because they disagree with our position on marriage and certain religious issues — have labeled us a hate group, and that gives license to lunatics like this that come in and shoot innocent people.”

“It’s a shocking situation,” O’Reilly agreed. “And as we said in the Tiller situation, there’s no excuse for it. I didn’t exacerbate that situation.”

“And I don’t know about the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the self-proclaimed culture warrior added. “We will check that out. Absolutely.”

In a statement released on Thursday, Southern Poverty Law Center senior fellow Mark Potok said that his organization “deplores all violence” and Perkins was just using the tragedy to “score points.”

“Perkins’ accusation is outrageous,” Potok wrote. “The SPLC has listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people — not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage. The FRC and its allies on the religious right are saying, in effect, that offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic society is tantamount to suggesting that the objects of criticism should be the targets of criminal violence.”

Potok pointed out that Perkins had claimed that that pedophilia is “a homosexual problem” and another official at the Family Research Council had said he wanted to “export homosexuals from the United States.”

“Perkins and his allies, seeing an opportunity to score points, are using the attack on their offices to pose a false equivalency between the SPLC’s criticisms of the FRC and the FRC’s criticisms of LGBT people,” Potok Concluded. “The FRC routinely pushes out demonizing claims that gay people are child molesters and worse — claims that are provably false. It should stop the demonization and affirm the dignity of all people.”

ED note: (Emphasis are mine)

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· 1:34 PM

Paul Ryan Slams Obama For Not Saving Auto Plant That Closed Under Bush

Paul Ryan Slams Obama For Not Saving Auto Plant That Closed Under Bush

It appears that Romney and Ryan are using the “blame it on Obama” strategy,  even when they know he wasn’t responsible for many of their claims…

TPM2012

Paul Ryan slammed President Obama on Thursday for failing to rescue an auto factory in his Wisconsin district — one that closed in 2008, under President George W. Bush.

The latest attack highlights the complicated politics of the auto rescue for Ryan, who was one of only a handful of Republicans to vote in favor of the 2008 bailout that President Bush signed as a stopgap measure to prevent the industry from going under.

“I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he’ll keep that plant open,” Ryan said in Ohio Thursday, describing the shuttered GM factory in Janesville, Wis. “One more broken promise.”

Ryan blamed rising gas prices under Obama for the closing. He echoed the complaint in an interview with a local ABC affiliate, suggesting it showed that Obama’s auto rescue was a sham.

“It didn’t help Janesville,” he said. “They shut our plant down. It didn’t help Kenosha. I represent there; they shut down the Chrysler plant.”

The Detroit News noted that Obama said during a visit in early 2008 that government help and some restructuring could keep the plant open. But after the financial crisis and a collapse in demand for the SUVs the factory produced, it shut down in December 2008 in the waning days of Bush’s second term. It’s still owned by GM, but has been closed ever since.

Both Ryan and Romney have unconventional positions on the auto bailout, although they reached them from different directions. In 2008, Ryan supported the Bush loans that Romney famously opposed in an editorial titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

“What I voted for was to prevent a worse bailout,” Ryan told ABC9, claiming that he was afraid the president would use TARP money to go through with the plan if Congress didn’t direct funding itself. It was a view that few of his fellow Republicans in districts that didn’t include auto plants shared at the time — 150 Republicans voted against the bill, while 32 Republicans, mostly in similar auto-dependent districts, voted in favor of it.

Obama used the time bought by the bill to craft his own 2009 rescue plan, which industry leaders have hailed as the start of their successful turnaround. The president has since made their return to profitability a central theme of his re-election campaign.

But if Ryan’s newest take seems to be that the rescue failed, Romney has offered vague hints that he’d have acted similarly to rescue car companies from liquidation if necessary. He has also attacked Obama for not going far enough in aiding car dealerships.

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