2012 Presidential Election

Providing Washington Post Metro section readers a review of the just-closed legislative session of the Virginia General Assembly, staff writers Rosalind Helderman and Fredrick Kunkle today deployed some colorfully loaded language that portrayed conservative Republicans in an unfavorable light. For example [emphasis mine], the “divided legislature reached a compromise on budget amendments that mollified Republicans bent on paring government to its core services and Democrats eager to restore spending on schools, health care and other priorities as the economy improves.” But what really struck me was the part a few paragraphs later where Helderman and Kunkle described the successful effort Republicans waged to pass a bill opposed by pro-choice activists and politicians [emphasis mine]: [T]he session ended with a dramatic fight over the emotional issue of abortion rights, as Republicans maneuvered the Senate into an unwanted late vote on a bill that requires abortion clinics to be regulated as hospitals. Unwanted by whom? The vote on passage in the upper chamber was 20-20 , with all 18 Republicans and two Democrats voting for the bill. Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R), who presides over the state senate, broke the tie in favor of passage. The vote was certainly unwanted by the 20 Democrats who voted “no,” including Majority Leader Richard Saslaw (D) , whom some liberal bloggers are excoriating for being out-manuevered by conservative Republicans on parliamentary procedure.

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WaPo Describes Vote by Va. Senate to Regulate Abortion Clinics as ‘Unwanted’

Hair of the Dog : We’ve got three — count’em, three – GOP governors on the Sunday chat shows, and David Gregory conducts the Worst. Interview. Ever. Bonus: Christiane Amanpour’s excellent Libyan adventure.

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It’s the Worst Sunday Morning Since Last Week

In an item on dueling ad buys from Planned Parenthood and the Susan B Anthony List (SBA) on defunding Planned Parenthood, the Washington Post’s Felicia Sonmez presents Live Action’s work as though it were comprised of only one heavily edited videotape. That’s a clear mischaracterization. Given that the whole of Live Action’s work in this regard is directly related to the move to defund, it should be characterized appropriately. “With America drowning in debt, why is Washington spending millions on Planned Parenthood?” the narrator of the 30-second TV ad backing Buerkle says. “This corporation has shown a willingness to aid sex traffickers, covered-up statutory rape of young girls, and is America’s number on abortion provider. Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle courageously said no to taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. Thank you, Congresswoman Buerkle, for standing up for women, young girls, and taxpayers. The references to “sex traffickers” and statutory rape cover-ups are a nod to a video taped last month as part of an undercover sting by the Los Angeles-based anti-abortion group Live Action. Planned Parenthood has contended that the heavily-edited video, which showed a Planned Parenthood employee counseling a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute, is part of a larger effort to smear the organization because of its role as an abortion provider. In fact, SBA can reference over a dozen videos released over the past 3.5 years. The video released last month, which led to a Planned Parenthood staffer being fired , is only one of seven recent videos. Furthermore, Live Action insists the video in question was not “heavily edited” and that four of the videos were not edited at all. The Planned Parenthood employee caught on tape giving inappropriate advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute has been fired, the organization announced Wednesday.

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WaPo Misleads In Planned Parenthood, Live Action Debate

Virginia will again be a presidential battleground state in 2012, according to Gov. Bob McDonnell (R). President Obama won Virginia in 2008, but he’s seen his popularity there dip as the economy has remained stagnant. Recent poll numbers from Gallup show Obama’s popularity dropped by double-digits during the past year in a number of key states the president won in 2008, including Virginia, where Obama’s approval rating is below 50 percent. Virginia’s top Republican offered his take on the state’s campaign dynamics during a briefing for reporters ahead of the Republican Governors Association’s annual gala Monday. Asked if he thought Virginia will be competitive in 2012, McDonnell offered a slightly nuanced assessment.   “Probably, but I think it’s going to swing right,” he said. “The president won Virginia by seven points [in 2008] and I was fortunate the next year to win by 18.” He noted that Republicans picked up three House seats in 2010 and now control eight of the 11 in the delegation. “It’s a right of center state,” McDonnell said. “But it’s competitive in the Northern Virginia area.” The GOP’s prospects in the state will be closely tied to politics in Washington, the governor added. “I think that Virginia is a very fiscally conservative state,” said McDonnell. “If the fiscal situation stays where it is with Washington, they will see that this is not the way to govern and it will go Republican.”

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Virginia will remain a battleground, says Gov. McDonnell

The campaign by pro-union demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin to silence Fox News and prevent it from reporting continued over the weekend. Protesters did their best to prevent FNC's Mike Tobin from reporting on the protests, all the while shouting – apparently oblivious to the irony – “Fox News lies!” A few protesters even struck Tobin, though he later downplayed the assault, and said he had declined to press charges. Another protester threatened to break Tobin's neck, he said during one report. “I find the whole thing a terrific distraction, and terribly frustrating, because I want to cover the story,” Tobin told Fox News Radio host Scott Allen Miller on Monday. Tobin brushed off the physical abuse he says he has endured from a few protesters, and insisted that the real frustration was being “harassed with every live shot” (video below the break via J$P ). While reporting from Madison over the weekend, Tobin told Geraldo Rivera Gregg Jarrett that someone had “just hit me!” (Video of that segment below.) Tobin also tweeted on Sunday: “Demonstrator just hit me twice.” During the Monday interview with Miller, Tobin seemed to refer to his being struck twice by one of the protesters, saying “it amounted to a charlie horse.” He stressed that his inability to effectively report from Madison troubled him more than the physical harassment from protesters there. The perception that Fox is institutionally opposed to union demonstrators is the source of the harassment, Tobin explained. “The whole organization lies” is the sentiment Tobin says he heard from demonstrators – “if you can get that much of a coherent sentence,” he added. Tobin noted that he has seen a number of protesters with professionally-printed anti-Fox slogans on them, but that demonstrators' hatred of the channel seemed to be more of a “collective mentality.” I elaborated on that mentality last week in the context of other efforts to shut down Fox's reporting. Miller expressed a similar sentiment in his interview with Tobin. Protesters, he said, are “not trying to shut down your quote-unquote message, they're trying to stop you from reporting period. They don't care what you're saying.” That fact is made plain by the complete lack of interest in what Tobin was actually saying during the segments protesters attempted to shut down. Indeed, as he noted in his Miller interview, none of the protesters shouting Tobin down even knew who he was, let alone anything about his political leanings. Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik has been one of the few non-Fox media personalities who has unequivocally condemned efforts by pro-union demonstrators to shut down Fox's field reporting operation. He called the efforts “ugly, bully-boy, thug tactics,” and said that the anti-Fox demonstrators “should be ashamed.” But Zurawik's comments notwithstanding, the media has been, on the whole, deafeningly silent on these efforts to stifle reporting from Madison. Exit question: what would the media reaction be if a protester struck, say, an MSNBC reporter at a Tea Party rally?

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Pro-union Demonstrators Assault FNC’s Mike Tobin, Attempt to Shout Down Field Reports

Bank sends a mixed message to shareholders as it increases its dividend but cuts targeted profitability by a fifth because of new global capital rules

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New bank rules hit HSBC’s outlook

ContributorNetwork – COMMENTARY | Ohio Senate Bill 5 protests over collective bargaining laws have cause the annual Ohio Statehood celebration at the state house to be canceled. Native son and astronaut John Glenn will not be speaking in observance of Ohio’s 208th birthday on Tuesday. Instead, we will likely be hearing more whining from Ohio Senate Minority Leader Capri Cafaro about why Democrats failed to offer proposals to the controversial bill.

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Ohio Senate Bill 5: Democrat Minority Leader’s Disingenuous Complaints
(ContributorNetwork)

On Monday's Newsroom, CNN's Don Lemon helped film director Qasim Basir promote his new film “Mooz-lum,” which he hopes will ” clear up some of this ignorance ” about Muslims and their religion. Basir, whose last project “aimed at supporting presidential candidate Barack Obama,” claimed that ” in an average person's mind, who does not know anybody that's Muslim, it's like you see Muslim, you think terrorist .” Anchor Suzanne Malveaux introduced Lemon's segment, which ran 39 minutes into the 12 pm Eastern hour, as part of her network's “What Matters” series, which is a partnership with Essence magazine . Malveaux played up the film's “strong African-American cast and director,” and stated that her colleague “sat down with the director Qasim Basir to talk about the movie, and the state of Muslims in America.” An on-screen graphic signaled the primary focus of Lemon's interview: ” Religion + Intolerance: Don Lemon, Qasim Bair discuss 'Mooz-lum .'” Basir's “average person” claim led the segment and he continued with how he hoped to combat this supposed viewpoint: BASIR: In an average person's mind, who does not know anybody that's Muslim, it's like you see Muslim, you think terrorist. You hear terrorist, you think Muslim, and what we're trying to do with this film is separate the two, and get people to realize there are Muslims and there are terrorists. There are extremists. There are people that do horrible things, and then there are Muslims. Instead of asking why many people might think that way, or citing examples of Islamist terrorism, the CNN correspondent followed up by asking, “Why should I see this movie?” The director answered by making his first claim about “ignorance” about Islam and Muslims: BASIR: Because, most likely, it is a view that you have not seen before of Muslims in America, and given what we're facing today, the amount of ignorance surrounding Muslims and Islam, I feel it's necessary for people to see this, and for people to say, like, you know, I've never looked at it that way before. After playing a brief clip from the movie, where two veiled Muslim women are cornered by a mob armed with hockey sticks (part of the same scene is shown 22 seconds into the teaser trailer for the film ), Basir continued that ” this ignorance is what creates fear, and fear, there's so much more that happens when that is in the picture. So, we're just trying to erase, clear up some of this ignorance .” Lemon threw a softball at a director in his final question: ” So Tariq is a character. Is he kind of like you? Is it semi-autobiographical? Did you experience some of the things that he does? ” After he gave his answer, Malveaux came back and complimented the movie: ” Looks like a great film .” Basir's own personal website notes his strong support of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and the amount of effort he took to get him elected: Next Qasim went on to create a short film series aimed at supporting Presidential candidate Barack Obama. The series, The Inspiration of Barack: “Yes We Can” Film Series , is a compilation of seven short films all dealing with different people who become inspired by Obama to take essential steps forward in their lives …he took the series to theaters around the country, urging attendees to get involved with the Obama campaign . “My whole purpose is to help change the world. Obama getting in office will be a huge step in that direction .” Besides this film series, the director voiced his support for Obama on Huffington Post. In a November 3, 2008 post , Basir went so far to claim that the Democrat needed to be elected because Republican candidate John McCain would become a second Ronald Reagan: All you have to do is look back forty years ago….There were movements ranging from anti-war, black power, women's rights, sexual revolution, etc. It was a time when the American people realized that it was not only OK to question government, but it was our right. Those who lived it can speak on it much better. But for those of us who didn't, all we have to compare it to is the movement of now…. The protests, marches, sit in's, etc. got us very far in terms of this countries progress, but they scared the right & center so much that they also got us Reagan. We won't let this happen again . This time we are not scared, more people than ever understand exactly what has to happen. That we cannot afford to let the progression of this movement end with another Reagan, or in this case, McCain . As you might expect, CNN didn't mention any of this about Basir during the segment, and the director helped them revisit their months-old charge that Islamophobia is now “mainstream” in America . — Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here .

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CNN Touts Liberal’s Film Targeting Supposed ‘Ignorance Surrounding Islam’

Khyra Ishaq weighed just 2st 7lb when she died in May 2008 – despite living in a house with a well-stocked kitchen Angela Gordon, the mother, is complaining of not having enough to eat while in prison. Beotch has gained weight. DailyMail Khyra suffered for months at the hands of Gordon and her schizophrenic boyfriend Junaid Abuhamza – who was given an indefinite sentence for manslaughter – before her death. She was beaten with a bamboo cane, forced to stand outside in her underwear for hours and had lost 40 per cent of her body weight when she died She and five other children in the house were fed ‘like puppies’ from bowls in their upstairs bedroom in Handsworth, Birmingham, the court heard. This was part of a code introduced by Abuhamza, a Muslim convert, to teach them the ‘Islamic perspective about being dutiful to your parents ‘. He cut down portions and then denied them meals altogether when he felt they misbehaved. Khyra died in a ‘skeletal condition’ in a house with an ‘abundance of food’, despite being monitored and visited by at least nine social workers, education officers, teachers and police .[ More.. ] Gawd, is this PC gone wild? or what.. RIP little one.

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ROPMA Abusive Parenting: Mother jailed for starving her seven-year-old daughter to death

AP – SPENDING LAGS: Consumers increased their spending in January by 0.2 percent in January, the weakest showing in seven months.

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Summary Box: January spending lags despite tax cut
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