An 11-year-old boy who sang the national anthem before game three of the NBA Finals on Tuesday in San Antonio, Texas found himself on the receiving end of several racist taunts disseminated over Twitter.
After Sebastien De La Cruz performed his rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner prior to the game between the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat, some Twitter users mocked him for his heritage. De La Cruz is a Mexican-American and was donning a mariachi outfit at the game.
“This lil Mexican snuck in the country like 4 hours ago now he singing the anthem,” read one.
“Can’t believe they had the nerve to have a beaner sing the national anthem of AMERICA #smh,” read another.
De La Cruz, a San Antonio native, seemed to brush off the insults in an interview with CNN that aired Thursday.
“I think that the people who were talking bad was because of what I was wearing. And it’s not my fault. It’s what I love,” he said.
A man arrested in Miami last Thursday who confessed to the killing of a New York restaurant owner 26 years ago was caught thanks to the persistence of a daughter who never forgot the man’s name.
Justo Santos was just 16 years old when he shot New York restaurant owner Jose Martinez in the chest in front of his eatery in 1986, according to CNN. He fled the country for the Dominican Republic and was subsequently imprisoned for a year on an unrelated crime. It was during that time the NYPD improperly closed the case on Martinez’s killing.
Joselyn Martinez was just 9 years old when her father was shot and killed, and her family told her to never forget the killer’s name. She didn’t, and about a year ago Martinez began searching online for Santos, starting with background checks and moving on to social networks.
Then in November 2012, she found her father’s cold case file in the NYPD’s 34th precinct archives. Martinez worked furiously for three months before approaching police again with evidence she’d collected online, paying less than $300 to track the man down. Armed with this new information, police acted swiftly and alerted officers in Miami that a fugitive was in their midst.
Santos was arrested last Thursday by police in Miami-Dade County. He’s reportedly confessed to the killing and will be brought to New York later this week to face charges. “She’s the person most responsible for finding her father’s killer,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told CNN. “She did outstanding work.”
This video is from CNN, aired Wednesday, June 12, 2103.
In my opinion, Darrell Issa is the lowest form of a living organism.
He has hammered the Attorney General and spread lies and innuendos about the POTUS and the AG for political purposes which nearly half the country believe.
Now that he is about to be exposed for the fraud that he is, he has decided to play hardball. I expect an outcome that will result in Issa being exposed for the lies he has told during the IRS “scandal” hearings and on Sunday talks shows…
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is refusing to release transcripts of interviews with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents that allegedly prove how political officials in the Obama administration directed the IRS to target conservative groups applying for 501 (c)(4) status.
The California congressman, whose committee is conducting an investigation into the agency’s behavior, provided CNN excerpts of interviews with IRS agents on June 2 and assured host Candy Crowley that “the whole transcript will be put out.” The portion purported to show an IRS official conceding that “directions” for to treat Tea Party groups “emanated from Washington,” though Issa himself conceded that that excerpt was not definitive.
But in a letter to the top Democrat on the Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Issa appeared to back away from his pledge, arguing that releasing the transcripts would “needlessly jeopardize the integrity of the investigation and hamper the Committee’s ability to get to the truth.” Experts, he contested, are useful and “serve to provide important updates to the public” and “empower other witnesses to become whistleblowers.”
During his appearance on CNN, Issa called White House Press Secretary Jay Carney a “paid liar” and claimed that the spokesperson is “making up things about what happens in calling this local rogue,” leading several Republicans to speak out against his tactics. A week later, Cummings appeared on CNN to challenge the Chairman. “I want those transcripts to be released,” Cummings said. “I’m willing to come on your show next week with the Chairman with the transcripts if he agrees to do that. If he doesn’t I’ll release them by the end of the week.”
Cummings insisted that the full interviews will demonstrate that “the White House was not involved in this,” pointing out that the Cincinnati IRS manager of the screening group, a career veteran at the agency who identified himself as Republican, told investigators that Washington did not direct the targeting. “I do not believe that the screening of these cases had anything to do other than consistency and identifying issues that needed to have further development,” the individual told investigators according to a portion of the transcripts released by the Democratic staff on the House Oversight Committee.
Cummings condemned Issa’s refusal to release the full transcripts in a statement on Tuesday. “Chairman Issa changes his mind so fast that even when I agree him, we’re not on the same page,” he said. “I fully support responsible oversight, but cherry picking transcript excerpts to fuel partisan and unsubstantiated claims is not a credible or effective way to investigate.”
To paraphrase a famous quote: The reports of MSNBC’s demise are greatly exaggerated.
We’ve seen this before, but in reverse. Last fall, MSNBC was beating Fox News in certain demographics. Ratings go up and down and with that thought, there’s no doubt in my mind that MSNBC is here to stay…period.
There has been a lot of virtual ink devoted to the two months of dismal ratings that MSNBC has just endured, some of it sincere, some of it concern-trolling, and much of it tinged with Schadenfreude. There has even been talk that the network might never recover, at least not unless it abandons its Lean Forward identity. In order to figure out how to fix MSNBC’s problems, you have to understand what went wrong in the first place, and you have to actually want the network to thrive.
Before I even start, and more importantly, before any of you even start, let me set the record straight: I hate everything about TV ratings. I hate writing about them, reading about them, and I especially hate getting PR pitches about them. ratings are a terrible way to measure quality, especially in news programming, there are a million ways to slice and dice them, and just looking at them gives me a headache. This is not an invitation for you to email me about how your show is #1 with carpentry aficionados age 63-97. My concern for ratings is confined to their effect on whether I can continue watching programming that I enjoy.
That’s why I took notice when Salon‘s Alex Pareene, in an otherwise excellent column, suggested that MSNBC’s bad stretch has put the network’s progressive-leaning orbit into fatal decay. Are the ratings really that bad?
Well, they are pretty bad, from what I can see, and as Pareene notes, lots of people are taking this opportunity to beat up on All In host Chris Hayes. The launch of the former Up star’s 8 pm show just happened to coincide with an extended series of news cycles that played to rivals CNN and Fox News’ strengths, along with the climax of the HLN-owned-and-operated Jodi Arias trial. Here’s how Pareene describes it:
Meanwhile, CNN’s been given gift after gift by whichever minor demons are responsible for the creation of cable news stories. The channel’s new Zucker-approved softer focus and lack of dignity allowed it to capitalize on Jodi Arias nearly as much as its trashy sister station HLN did. The Boston bombings were a perfect CNN story, even if CNN botched the hell out of its coverage. The Dzhokhar Tsarnaev manhunt was precisely the sort of story that makes people go through their channel guides trying to remember which one CNN is. And then there was the West, Texas, explosion. CNN capitalized on all of this because CNN’s brand is “breaking news.” Fox capitalized because there are simply a whole bunch of people out there whose TVs are tuned to Fox basically all the time. MSNBC’s brand is “people either talking calmly or yelling at you, or each other, about politics.” These weren’t stories that made people think, “What does Chris Matthews have to say?” (Another problem: During huge stories, like the Boston bombing and subsequent manhunt, MSNBC frequently finds itself in the odd position of competing with its own sister network, when NBC News takes over the broadcast network.)
Ironically, MSNBC was alone among its cable news competitors in getting the Boston manhunt story right, a good deed for which they appear to be being punished. Fox News, meanwhile, has been carb-loading like Jabba the Hutt with ringworm on the three-headed Scandalabra™, and bloating its endlessly voracious audience in the process.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pushed back Monday on comments by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who said that White House press secretary Jay Carney lied about the IRS controversy.
“I never like to use that word,” McCain said on CBS’ “This Morning.” “I think that we should let these investigations take their course, let the facts come out.”
Issa charged Sunday that the IRS agents who targeted tea party groups had been following orders from the White House. “Their paid liar, their spokesperson — picture behind — he’s still making up things about what happens and calling this a local rogue,” Issa said Sunday on CNN’s “State of The Union.”
On May 22, Carney pointed to a Treasury Department Inspector General report finding no evidence of influence or pressure from higher-ups. Issa has released excerpts – but not the full transcript — of an interview with a Cincinnati IRS employee saying that directions for more tea party scrutiny came from Washington.
McCain, nevertheless, criticized the IRS for its response to the targeting. “They’re not covering themselves with distinction here. But I think these hearings are what we should rely on to a significant degree,” he said.
He also said that the president’s credibility was “at stake” over the IRS targeting.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) claimed on Sunday that political officials in the Obama administration directed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents in Cincinnati to target conservative groups applying for 501 (c)(4) status, but his charge fell apart when probed by CNN host Candy Crowley.
Relying on interviews the Committee staff conducted with IRS officers who applied the additional scrutiny to Tea Party and patriot groups, Issa claimed “the indication is they were directly being ordered from Washington.” “The reason Lois Lerner tried to take the Fifth [Amendment], it’s because this was a problem coordinated in all likelihood right out of Washington headquarters and we’re getting to proving it,” Issa told Crowley, referring to the the embattled head of the IRS’ exempt organizations division who refused to testify before Congress and has since been placed on administrative leave.
To substantiate his claim, Issa provided CNN with selected excerpts from his staff’s interviews with IRS agents. But as Crowley quickly pointed out, the portion Issa cherry picked did not definitely prove that officials in Washington D.C. directed IRS officers to target conservative groups. In fact, after hearing Crowley read the transcript of an interview, Issa himself admitted that he has yet to uncover evidence that demonstrates IRS coordination with Washington:
CROWLEY: The investigator said “So is it your perspective that ultimately the responsible parties for the decisions reported by the [Inspector General] that is the decision that target tea party and patriot applications, are not in the Cincinnati office?
The employee says, ‘I don’t know how to answer that question. I mean, from an agent standpoint, we didn’t do anything wrong. We followed directions based on other people telling us what to do.’
Investigator, ‘And you ultimately followed directions from Washington, is that correct?
The employee, ‘if direction had come down from Washington, yes.’
The investigator, ‘But with respect to the particular scrutiny that was given to tea party applications, those directions emanated from Washington, is that right?’
The employee answers, ‘I believe so.’ It’s totally not definitive.
ISSA: This one isn’t. But I will tell you, one of the agents asked for and got a transfer because that person was so uncomfortable that they wanted out of it.
Watch it:
“You don’t have that direct link,” Crowley continued. “You have the frontline agents going, yeah, we figured it was from Washington or I believe it was, but as of yet you don’t have that definitive, yeah, this guy called me and said, people, go look for tea party and patriot applications.” Issa claimed his investigation would eventually turn up direct evidence of his charges and described White House Press Secretary Jay Carney as a “paid liar” for claiming that Washington officials did not direct IRS agents.
The Inspector General’s report into the matter concluded that the IRS relied on “inappropriate criteria” while vetting groups applying for nonprofit status by using a BOLO—”Be On the Look Out”—list and blamed IRS officials in Washington, DC, for “insufficient oversight” of lower-level staffers. However, it specifically concluded that “All of these officials stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS.”
On Thursday night’s edition of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow discussed the swirl of questions around the shooting of Ibragim Todashev, an associate of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the two men charged with the bombing of the Boston Marathon.
FBI officials have given conflicting accounts of the questioning and killing of Todashev, who knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev through Mixed Martial Arts fighting. Todashev, who, like the Tsarnaevs, was Chechen, lived in Boston for a time before moving to Florida. Agents from the FBI traveled to Florida to question Todashev repeatedly about the bombing.
“Last week while being questioned again in Florida,” said Maddow, “something went very, very wrong and he ended up dead.”
Law enforcement officials were interviewing Todashev in his apartment in Orlando on Wednesday, May 22, when something occurred that resulted in the young man being shot multiple times.
On Thursday, Todashev’s family held a press conference in Moscow, where they showed autopsie photos of their slain son. Ibragim Todashev was shot six times in the torso and once in the back of the head.
“We have not been able to authenticate these photos,” said Maddow. “No one has.”
But, she said, if they are genuine, “something weird is going on.”
“How does that comport with the FBI’s story that he was killed during questioning by armed agents who were only acting in self defense?” she asked. “Shot seven times, including in the back of the head?”
Todashev was questioned because of a possible connection to a bizarre 2011 murder in Waltham, Massachusetts in which three men were found with their throats cut, covered in marijuana, with $5,000 in cash untouched nearby. Law enforcement officials theorize now that Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have murdered the men with the help of some other person or persons.
“That cold case got hot again” after the marathon bombing, Maddow said. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was close friends with one of the victims, but, after his murder, Tsarnaev declined to attend his friend’s funeral.
After Todashev was shot during questioning, Maddow said, law enforcement officials “leaked an elaborate story” that purported to justify the killing. The officials also claimed that Todashev had implicated himself in the Waltham murders prior to being shot. They said that just before the man was about to sign a confession, he snapped, and “lunged at the interrogator with a blade.”
“That initial story has fallen apart,” Maddow said. Within 12 hours of the shooting, two of the three law enforcement officials who were talking to the media about the case changed their story, saying they were no longer sure whether Todashev had a knife.
Now, multiple sources have come forward to papers like the Washington Post to say that, in fact, Todashev was unarmed. NBC News reported on Thursday that Todashev may have been brandishing some kind of “metal rod.”
“So they shot him seven times?” Maddow asked, “Including in the back of the head?” She added that no one actually knows right now if that was the actual number of gunshot wounds on Todashev’s body since officials will neither confirm nor deny that the post-autopsy photos are accurate.
“What we’re left with here is a baffling mess and a story that does not make sense,” she said.
The Obama administration started Tuesday mired in three scandals the GOP seemed able to tie “into one ‘Big Brother Obama’ storyline,” in the words of Greg Sargent, and ended it appearing to face political culpability on only one, the Department of Justice’s broad subpoenas obtaining phone records from the Associated Press. It’s not to say Benghazi or the IRS mess went away, but the GOP’s creepy plot line got a whole lot less plausible.
The Benghazi “scandal” lost velocity thanks to CNN’s Jake Tapper reporting that an email key to the notion that the White House doctored talking points to protect the State Department didn’t at all read the way ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported it. Karl quoted White House national security communications advisor Ben Rhodes’ email specifically saying the talking points should “reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department,” but the actual email obtained by Tapper didn’t mention the State Department at all. Karl ended the day with the shocking admission that while he’d reported on air that he’d “obtained” the emails in question, and wrote online that he’d “reviewed” them, in fact he’d only heard about them from the notes of a source – presumed to be a House GOP staffer.
Amazingly, Karl insisted Tapper’s reporting didn’t challenge the basic facts of his story, even though he acknowledged for the first time that he hadn’t actually “obtained” or “reviewed” the actual emails, but rather had notes about them read to him by his source. The fact that Karl put the purported email from Rhodes within quotation marks – which in actual journalism means you’re reading a direct quote from someone – seriously damages his credibility. But the ABC reporter reported concluded his self-defense by blaming the White House for failing to release all the emails – rather than blaming his source for misleading him, or himself for misleading his readers by using quotes around the Rhodes email.
Here’s hoping ABC News explains why the paraphrased depiction of notes about an email from a hostile source wound up within quotation marks attributed to Rhodes, and whether that’s the news organization’s policy.
On the IRS mess, the day closed with the release of the Inspector General’s report on the improper review of applications by Tea Party-related groups for tax-exempt “social welfare” status. The report blamed “inadequate management” for the review process, which began under Bush-appointed leadership, and it reads like everyone’s worst nightmare of incompetent government. But it finds no evidence that anyone higher than middle management was responsible for the review. Moreover, although it’s clear that groups with Tea Party or Patriot in their names came in for more scrutiny and delay than most liberal groups, more than two thirds of the groups flagged for review had nothing to do with the Tea Party. And none of the conservatives were denied tax-exempt status, though many faced long delays. Ironically, the only group that saw its status denied (for 10 of its chapters) was Emerge America, which works to elect Democratic women to office.
Within hours, President Obama sent a scathing statement about the IG’s findings, calling them “intolerable and inexcusable” and promising that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew would make sure all of its recommendations to correct the flaws in the IRS’s review process were implemented.
It’s the DOJ’s subpoena of phone records for 20 AP phone lines used by at least 100 reporters, in pursuit of a government official who leaked information about the U.S. foiling another al Qaida underwear-bomb plot, that has the capacity to damage the Obama administration. This White House is already shadowed by the fact that it has prosecuted more government “leakers” – also known as whistleblowers – than all previous administrations put together.
As Marcy Wheeler explained in Salon, the DOJ’s own guidelines require it to go directly to the news agency in question with its subpoena, which would have given AP the right to negotiate over it, or challenge it in court. The DOJ may subvert that requirement if going to the news agency would “pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.” Since the investigation into the identity of the leaker was already big news – in fact, congressional leaders in both parties had demanded it – it hardly constituted a secret operation that would be blown by negotiating with the AP.
So did Tuesday’s developments on the Benghazi and IRS fronts break scandal fever in the Beltway? Sadly, no. On Wednesday MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” remained scandal central, setting the day’s agenda. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank’s wispy, fact-light “President Passerby” seems to be the top talking point: Even if some of the smoke is clearing, Obama hasn’t done enough personally to put out the fires. That’s leading the Drudge Report as I write.
Obama is not without blame here; the AP scandal particularly seems to stem from his administration’s overall approach to secrecy. With hindsight, he probably should have directed Jack Lew to take bolder steps on Friday night, when the IRS story broke. On Benghazi, the Beltway is determined to punish the president for insisting the talking points scandal is a “sideshow” – when that’s exactly what it is.
As I wrote Monday, before the AP news, some of the same bad actors who paralyzed the country during the Clinton years over phony scandals are getting ready to do it again. It’s too bad the genuine overreach by the DOJ is going to give some progressives understandable pause about wholeheartedly defending the administration. But people need to acknowledge that two of these three scandals were concocted by the GOP outrage machine.
Meanwhile, the headline crawl on “Morning Joe” announced: “U.S. deficit shrinks far faster than expected.” But the words sat there silently, drowned out by noise about mostly made-up scandals.
Israeli strikes in Syria continue, the California wildfires calm down, and more
1. SYRIA CALLS ISRAELI ATTACK AN ACT OF WAR
A Syrian official called Israel’s attack against its military research facility a “declaration of war” on Sunday. Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad told CNN that the attack, which followed an airstrike late last week, represented an alliance between Islamic terrorists and Israel. Neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor the Israeli military commented on the U.S. claim of an airstrike, but Israel has long said it would target any transfer of weapons to Hezbollah or other terrorist groups. [CNN]
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2. TSARNAEV PARENTS REQUEST SECOND AUTOPSY
An independent autopsy on the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is scheduled to be performed Sunday, a step requested by Tsarnaev’s parents, who believe their sons were framed by the U.S. government. The Tsarnaevs say the autopsy results could undermine the U.S. officials’ account of Tamerlan’s death by showing that he was not run over by his brother, Dzhokhar. That, the parents believe, would throw into question law enforcement officials’ entire account of the case. [Boston Globe]
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3. EIGHT WESTERN SOLDIERS KILLED IN BLOODY DAY IN AFGHANISTAN
Eight soldiers with the American-led military coalition in Afghanistan were killed Saturday, making it the bloodiest day this year for Western troops fighting in the country. Two were shot in an insider attack, one died in a small-arms attack and five Americans were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb, according to statements from the International Security Assistance Force and Afghan officials. Seven of the slain soldiers were American. [New York Times]
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4. COOL AIR TAMPS DOWN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES
A big cool-down calmed a huge wildfire burning in Southern California’s coastal mountains Saturday. High winds and witheringly hot, dry air were replaced by the normal flow of damp air off the Pacific, significantly reducing fire activity. “The fire isn’t really running and gunning,” said Tom Kruschke, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesman. Despite the favorable conditions, evacuation orders remained in place for residents of several areas. [Washington Post]
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5. NRA REACHES RECORD MEMBERSHIP LEVEL
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told organization members during a fiery speech Saturday that the “political and media elites” have tried to use Sandy Hook and other recent shootings “to blame us, to shame us, to compromise our freedom for their agenda.” He also said the proposed gun-control bill “got the defeat that it deserved.” The speech took place at a meeting that is part of the yearly NRA convention being held this weekend in Houston.LaPierre also said the NRA now has a record 5 million members. [ABC News]
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6. DURBIN USES BOSTON TO PUSH IMMIGRATION BILL
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin is using the terrorist bombings in Boston to push for his immigration reform bill. On Sunday’s State of the Union, Durbin said poor information sharing between federal agencies that came to light after the attacks would be fixed in the Senate’s immigration bill. ”There’s not enough coordination between these different agencies so that we know someone should not have been readmitted to the United States,” the Illinois senator said. “Our bill addresses that directly.” The Senate begins work on its immigration bill this week. [Politico]
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7. MALAYSIANS TURN OUT FOR HISTORIC VOTE
Voting has ended in Malaysia in what is widely expected to be the most closely contested general election in the country’s history. It will be several hours before the first results are known. PM Najib Razak’s National Front coalition is up against Pakatan Rakyat, a three-party alliance headed by Anwar Ibrahim. Voters were faced with returning the ruling party, in power for 56 years, or choosing an untested opposition. Ahead of the polls, allegations of various forms of fraud emerged. [BBC]
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8. ORB WINS 139TH KENTUCKY DERBY
On a wet and muddy track at Churchill Downs on Saturday, Orb came from behind to win the 139th Kentucky Derby. It was the first Derby win for Shug McGaughey, Orb’s trainer, and Joel Rosario, Orb’s jockey. Orb, the co-favorite with Revolutionary at 6-1, will go on to attempt a Triple Crown victory. [CBS Sports]
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9. NEW YORK TO HAVE NATION’S LARGEST BIKE SHARE PROGRAM
Public transportation-friendly New York City plans to introduce the nation’s largest bike-sharing system, called Citi Bike, later this month. City officials say the nation’s largest bike-sharing system will begin with 6,000 bikes at 330 stations in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, with plans to expand eventually to 10,000 bikes and 600 docking stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. [Wall Street Journal]
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10. MAYWEATHER RETAINS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
After a year off from boxing and two months in jail, Floyd Mayweather Jr. easily retained the world welterweight championship with a masterful one-sided beatdown of interim champ Robert Guerrero on Saturday night before a crowd of 15,880 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena. [ESPN]
