Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Black Voter Turnout Exceeded White Voter Turnout


America's blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.

Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.

Census data and exit polling show that whites and blacks will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. Last year's heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting, outweighed by the desire to re-elect the first black president.

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, analyzed the 2012 elections for the AP using census data on eligible voters and turnout, along with November's exit polling. He estimated total votes for Obama and Romney under a scenario where 2012 turnout rates for all racial groups matched those in 2004. Overall, 2012 voter turnout was roughly 58 percent, down from 62 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2004.

The analysis also used population projections to estimate the shares of eligible voters by race group through 2030. The numbers are supplemented with material from the Pew Research Center and George Mason University associate professor Michael McDonald, a leader in the field of voter turnout who separately reviewed aggregate turnout levels across states, as well as AP interviews with the Census Bureau and other experts. The bureau is scheduled to release data on voter turnout in May.

Overall, the findings represent a tipping point for blacks, who for much of America's history were disenfranchised and then effectively barred from voting until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

But the numbers also offer a cautionary note to both Democrats and Republicans after Obama won in November with a historically low percentage of white supporters. While Latinos are now the biggest driver of U.S. population growth, they still trail whites and blacks in turnout and electoral share, because many of the Hispanics in the country are children or non-citizens.

In recent weeks, Republican leaders have urged a "year-round effort" to engage black and other minority voters, describing a grim future if their party does not expand its core support beyond white males.

The 2012 data suggest Romney was a particularly weak GOP candidate, unable to motivate white voters let alone attract significant black or Latino support. Obama's personal appeal and the slowly improving economy helped overcome doubts and spur record levels of minority voters in a way that may not be easily replicated for Democrats soon.

Romney would have erased Obama's nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey's analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black voting lower.

More significantly, the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same.

"The 2012 turnout is a milestone for blacks and a huge potential turning point," said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University who has written extensively on black politicians.

"What it suggests is that there is an `Obama effect' where people were motivated to support Barack Obama. But it also means that black turnout may not always be higher, if future races aren't as salient."

Whit Ayres, a GOP consultant who is advising GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a possible 2016 presidential contender, says the last election reaffirmed that the Republican Party needs "a new message, a new messenger and a new tone." Change within the party need not be "lock, stock and barrel," Ayres said, but policy shifts such as GOP support for broad immigration legislation will be important to woo minority voters over the longer term.

"It remains to be seen how successful Democrats are if you don't have Barack Obama at the top of the ticket," he added.

In Ohio, a battleground state where the share of eligible black voters is more than triple that of other minorities, 27-year-old Lauren Howie of Cleveland didn't start out thrilled with Obama in 2012. She felt he didn't deliver on promises to help students reduce college debt, promote women's rights and address climate change, she said. But she became determined to support Obama as she compared him with Romney.

"I got the feeling Mitt Romney couldn't care less about me and my fellow African-Americans," said Howie, an administrative assistant at Case Western Reserve University's medical school who is paying off college debt.

Howie said she saw some Romney comments as insensitive to the needs of the poor. "A white Mormon swimming in money with offshore accounts buying up companies and laying off their employees just doesn't quite fit my idea of a president," she said. "Bottom line, Romney was not someone I was willing to trust with my future."

The numbers show how population growth will translate into changes in who votes over the coming decade:

_The gap between non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black turnout in 2008 was the smallest on record, with voter turnout at 66.1 percent and 65.2 percent, respectively; turnout for Latinos and non-Hispanic Asians trailed at 50 percent and 47 percent. Rough calculations suggest that in 2012, 2 million to 5 million fewer whites voted compared with 2008, even though the pool of eligible white voters had increased.

_Unlike other minority groups, the rise in voting for the slow-growing black population is due to higher turnout. While blacks make up 12 percent of the share of eligible voters, they represented 13 percent of total 2012 votes cast, according to exit polling. That was a repeat of 2008, when blacks "outperformed" their eligible voter share for the first time on record.

_Latinos now make up 17 percent of the population but 11 percent of eligible voters, due to a younger median age and lower rates of citizenship and voter registration. Because of lower turnout, they represented just 10 percent of total 2012 votes cast. Despite their fast growth, Latinos aren't projected to surpass the share of eligible black voters until 2024, when each group will be roughly 13 percent. By then, 1 in 3 eligible voters will be nonwhite.

_In 2026, the total Latino share of voters could jump to as high as 16 percent, if nearly 11 million immigrants here illegally become eligible for U.S. citizenship. Under a proposed bill in the Senate, those immigrants would have a 13-year path to citizenship. The share of eligible white voters could shrink to less than 64 percent in that scenario. An estimated 80 percent of immigrants here illegally, or 8.8 million, are Latino, although not all will meet the additional requirements to become citizens.

"The 2008 election was the first year when the minority vote was important to electing a U.S. president. By 2024, their vote will be essential to victory," Frey said. "Democrats will be looking at a landslide going into 2028 if the new Hispanic voters continue to favor Democrats."

Even with demographics seeming to favor Democrats in the long term, it's unclear whether Obama's coalition will hold if blacks or younger voters become less motivated to vote or decide to switch parties.

Minority turnout tends to drop in midterm congressional elections, contributing to larger GOP victories as happened in 2010, when House control flipped to Republicans.

The economy and policy matter. Exit polling shows that even with Obama's re-election, voter support for a government that does more to solve problems declined from 51 percent in 2008 to 43 percent last year, bolstering the view among Republicans that their core principles of reducing government are sound.

The party's "Growth and Opportunity Project" report released last month by national leaders suggests that Latinos and Asians could become more receptive to GOP policies once comprehensive immigration legislation is passed.

Whether the economy continues its slow recovery also will shape voter opinion, including among blacks, who have the highest rate of unemployment.

Since the election, optimism among nonwhites about the direction of the country and the economy has waned, although support for Obama has held steady. In an October AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of nonwhites said the nation was heading in the right direction; that's dropped to 52 percent in a new AP-GfK poll. Among non-Hispanic whites, however, the numbers are about the same as in October, at 28 percent.

Democrats in Congress merit far lower approval ratings among nonwhites than does the president, with 49 percent approving of congressional Democrats and 74 percent approving of Obama.

William Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, says that in previous elections where an enduring majority of voters came to support one party, the president winning re-election _ William McKinley in 1900, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 _ attracted a larger turnout over his original election and also received a higher vote total and a higher share of the popular vote. None of those occurred for Obama in 2012.

Only once in the last 60 years has a political party been successful in holding the presidency more than eight years _ Republicans from 1980-1992.

"This doesn't prove that Obama's presidency won't turn out to be the harbinger of a new political order," Galston says. "But it does warrant some analytical caution."

Early polling suggests that Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton could come close in 2016 to generating the level of support among nonwhites as Obama did in November, when he won 80 percent of their vote. In a Fox News poll in February, 75 percent of nonwhites said they thought Clinton would make a good president, outpacing the 58 percent who said that about Vice President Joe Biden.

Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP, predicts closely fought elections in the near term and worries that GOP-controlled state legislatures will step up efforts to pass voter ID and other restrictions to deter blacks and other minorities from voting. In 2012, African-Americans were able to turn out in large numbers only after a very determined get-out-the-vote effort by the Obama campaign and black groups, he said.

Jealous says the 2014 midterm election will be the real bellwether for black turnout. "Black turnout set records this year despite record attempts to suppress the black vote," he said.

AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Obama as Daniel Day-Lewis as Obama in Spielberg's Obama

By Jason Kottke

Steven Spielberg is doing a sequel to Lincoln called Obama, and he got Daniel Day-Lewis to play the lead. I knew Day-Lewis was good, but this is bonkers.

Created for the 2013 White House Correspondents Dinner

Sandra Day O'Connor: 'Maybe' Bush v. Gore Was a Mistake

By Brad Friedman on 4/29/2013, 1:22pm PT  

"Maybe"? Ya think?! From Chicago Tribune, on their recent interview with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor about 2000's infamous Bush v. Gore case...
Looking back, O'Connor said, she isn't sure the high court should have taken the case.

"It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue," O'Connor said during a talk Friday with the Tribune editorial board. "Maybe the court should have said, 'We're not going to take it, goodbye.'"

The case, she said, "stirred up the public" and "gave the court a less-than-perfect reputation."

"Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision," she said. "It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn't done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day."

"Probably"?! Ya think?! The paper goes on to explain that O'Connor's "vote in the 5-4 Bush v. Gore decision effectively gave Republican George W. Bush a victory over his Democratic opponent, then-Vice President Al Gore." That, after the U.S. Supreme Court had stopped the public hand-counting of the votes cast by the people of Florida.

Had O'Connor and friends not stopped the state-wide hand count, they would have found, as a consortium of media and academics did afterwards, that Gore defeated Bush by every conceivable counting standard in the state of Florida.

Contrast O'Connor's thoughtful, if ridiculously-too-late response to the question of the controversial Bush v. Gore, with that of the still-serving U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was seen over the weekend yucking it up with Bill O'Reilly of Fox "News" at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. When asked, in 2007, about the case which allowed five Supreme Court justices to install a U.S. President over the will of the people, he responded that it was "water over the deck", and Americans just need to "get over it."

Four years after Bush v. Gore, in 2004, Democrats vowed not to let that happen again, of course. Their Presidential nominee that time, then Senator John Kerry, promised he would not concede until every vote was counted. Despite massive reports of fraud, particularly in Ohio, and Exit Polls finding he had won in swingstate-after-swingstate, countering the still-unverified electronic results reporting that he had lost in many of those same states, Kerry flip-flopped and conceded the day after the election.

Remarkably, now that an unverified and unverifiable election in Venezuela has recently resulted in the U.S. Government's favored candidate being announced the loser, Kerry, now serving as Sec. of State, is calling for a full hand-count of "paper receipts" in that country because he claims to be concerned about the "confidence of the Venezuelan people in the quality of the vote," as our own Ernie Canning detailed earlier today. Yes, that's what Kerry really said.

Do you suppose he, like O'Connor, may someday realize that "maybe" he made a mistake too?

Rick Perry can't handle the truth

By

Cartoon by Jack Ohman, from The Sacramento (CA) Bee

When Jack Ohman, a cartoonist for The Sacramento (CA) Bee and his editor, Stuart Leavenworth, ran the above cartoon in Sunday’s paper, they must have felt like a couple of kids who’d just set off a stink bomb on their mean and ornery neighbor’s porch, and run somewhere to hide, snigger up their sleeves, and wait for the fun to begin. 

The cartoon shows Texas Governor Rick Perry bragging about his state’s low taxes and lax business regulations (“Business is BOOMING in Texas!”) while something – presumably the fertilizer plant that exploded in West, TX on April 18 — goes “BOOM!”

Sure enough, Perry took the bait and fumed in a letter to the editor:
It was with extreme disgust and disappointment I viewed your recent cartoon. While I will always welcome healthy policy debate, I won’t stand for someone mocking the tragic deaths of my fellow Texans and our fellow Americans.
Leavenworth sharply retorted:
Jack Ohman’s cartoon of April 25 made a strong statement about Gov. Rick Perry’s disregard for worker safety, and his attempts to market Texas as a place where industries can thrive with few regulations. It is unfortunate that Gov. Perry, and some on the blogosphere, have attempted to interpret the cartoon as being disrespectful of the victims of this tragedy. As Ohman has made clear on his blog, he has complete empathy for the victims and people living by the plant. What he finds offensive is a governor who would gamble with the lives of families by not pushing for the strongest safety regulations. Perry’s letter is an attempt to distract people from that message.
Um, HELLO? Nobody’s mocking the 15 peoplemostly firefighters and other emergency responders — who died fighting flames from the atom bomb-like blasts. We’re mocking YOU, Governor Perry, for being a callous, uncaring jerk who cares more about the well-being of your state’s businesses than about the people who live there.

When the West Fertilizer Plant exploded, it leveled a four block radius, and witnesses reported that the blast was “like a tornado” or “like a nuclear bomb went off.” Yet, this could have been prevented: The plant was cited for a serious violation back in 2006, after receiving complaints about “a strong ammonia smell.” The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality investigated, but apparently nobody followed up. Furthermore, Theodoric Meyer from Salon reports that plant failed a partial inspection in 2011, and hadn’t had a full inspection by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 1985. Nor did anyone from the facility bother to tell the Department of Homeland Security — as required — about all that potentially explosive fertilizer.
 
Perry loves talking about getting the government off our backs. In fact, Perry ran a series of radio advertisements throughout California back in February, sneering at the Golden State’s higher taxes and regulations, and urging business owners to move to the Lone Star State:
Building a business is tough, but I hear that building a business in California is next to impossible. This is Texas governor Rick Perry, and I’ve got a message for California businesses. Come check out Texas. There are plenty of reasons Texas has been named the best state for doing business for eight years running. Visit TexasWideOpenForBusiness.Com, and see why our low taxes, sensible regulation, and fair legal system are just the thing to get your business moving … to Texas.
Yet this hypocrite still has no problem with getting help from the Federal Government when it suits him. After cutting the state’s fire department funding by 75% in 2011 — causing unprecedented levels of fire destruction and loss of life — Perry asked for federal funds to combat wild fires back in 2011.

Yep, everything’s cheaper in Texas. Maybe that’s because 33% of people there are uninsured; two of your counties — Cameron and Hidalgo — have the highest poverty rates in the United States (41%); and your legislature cut $5.4 billion from education two years ago (your House’s new budget proposal will barely make a dent in them). Apparently, pro-business folks have forgotten about the old adage, “It takes money to make money.”

Last Thursday, April 25, the president attended a memorial for victims of the explosion, gave a moving speech, and promised that the nation would help the town recover and rebuild. Strange, how you don’t hear Perry and his cohorts howling about government spending now.

Here’s the video:

 

Perry also spoke, but his eulogy would have felt more convincing, had he — and his Republican cohorts — cared enough to have performed the due diligence that would have prevented the explosion in the first place.

Here’s the video:



Elisabeth Parker Elisabeth Parker is a writer, Web designer, mom, political junkie, and dilettante. Come visit her at ElisabethParker.Com, “like” her on facebook, “friend” her on facebook, follow her on Twitter, or check out her Pinterest boards. For more Addicting Info articles by Elisabeth, click here.

Monday, April 29, 2013

The GOP's Bad Case of Sequestration Amnesia

‘The Ed Show’ returns to MSNBC on May 11

By
ED Show
 
We are proud to announce The Ed Show hosted by Ed Schultz will return to MSNBC starting Saturday, May 11 at 5 p.m. ET.

The Saturday and Sunday show will debut as a one-hour long program expanding to a two-hour format from 5-7 p.m. ET later this summer.

James Holm who is currently the Executive Producer of The Ed Schultz Radio Show will serve as acting Executive Producer of The Ed Show.

Karen Finney’s new program will also debut on May 11 from 4-5 p.m. ET. More information on that program will be announced in the coming days.

As previously announced, the move is an expansion MSNBC’s live weekend programming.

“MSNBC will be expanding its weekend programming and this opens a big opportunity for The Ed Show and my brand,” says Ed. “I raised my hand for this assignment for a number of personal and professional reasons. My fight on The Ed Show has been for the workers and the middle class. This new time slot will give me the opportunity to produce and focus on stories that I care about and are important to American families and American workers.”

“I’m thrilled for Ed and happy to be expanding our weekend programming,” MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement. “It’s an exciting time for MSNBC and I’m looking forward to having Ed’s powerful voice on our network for a long time.”

On Finney, Griffin said “Karen’s rich background in both education policy and politics will add a unique point of view to our expanding live weekend programming.”

For further updates and announcements, be sure to LIKE The Ed Show on Facebook and FOLLOW us on Twitter! 

Sunday, April 28, 2013

2013 White House Correspondents Dinner

President Obama addressed journalists and guests at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner. Conan O'Brien provided the entertainment for the occasion.

Your Weekly Address

Weekly Address: Time to Replace the Sequester with a Balanced Approach to Deficit Reduction

President Obama says that because Republicans in Congress allowed a series of harmful, automatic budget cuts—called the sequester—to take effect, important programs like Head Start are now forced to reduce their services.

After travelers were stuck for hours in airports and on planes this past week, members of Congress passed a temporary band-aid measure to stop the cuts that impact airlines — but they must do more to stop cuts to vital services for the American people.

That’s why it’s time for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that makes smarter cuts and reforms in the tax code, while creating jobs and strengthening the middle class.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

We need an honest conversation about the Bush years

About the stupidest President we ever had, George W. Bush.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Senate helps themselves, ends FAA furloughs

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tax cheats pony up $5.5 billion in amnesty programs

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service has recouped more than $5.5 billion under a series of programs that offered reduced penalties and no jail time to people who voluntarily disclosed assets they were hiding overseas, government investigators said Friday.

In all, more than 39,000 tax cheats have come clean under the programs.

But there's more.

Government investigators suspect that thousands of other taxpayers have quietly started reporting foreign accounts without paying any penalties or interest. The number of people reporting foreign accounts to the IRS nearly doubled from 2007 to 2010, to 516,000 accounts, a report by the Government Accountability Office said.

The sharp increase suggests that some people are simply starting to report their accounts without taking part in the disclosure programs, the report said.

"IRS has detected some taxpayers with previously undisclosed offshore accounts attempting to circumvent paying the taxes, interest and penalties that would otherwise be owed," the report said. 

"But based on GAO reviews of IRS data, IRS may be missing attempts by other taxpayers attempting to do so."

Some taxpayers try to avoid penalties through a technique the IRS calls "quiet disclosure," in which they file amended tax returns that report offshore income from prior years. Others simply declare existing offshore accounts for the first time with their current year's tax return, the report said.

"If successful, these techniques result in lost revenue for the Treasury and undermine the offshore programs' fairness and effectiveness," the report said.

Peter Zeidenberg, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper in Washington, said it's pretty obvious that people are starting to report foreign accounts that probably existed for years.

"I don't think you get an increase like that from people just all of a sudden getting the idea I'm going to open an account in Switzerland," Zeidenberg said.

Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said catching overseas tax dodgers is a top priority of the agency. In a written response to the report, he said the agency is working to improve the way it identifies people who are still trying get around the agency's disclosure programs.

The IRS has run four voluntary disclosure programs since 2003. The last three — in 2009, 2011 and 2012 — have yielded almost all of the $5.5 billion in back taxes, penalties and interest. The latest program is still open.

The agency stepped up its efforts in 2009, when Swiss banking giant UBS AG agreed to pay a $780 million fine and turn over details on thousands of accounts suspected of holding undeclared assets from American customers.

The GAO's report looked at data from the 2009 program. More than 10,000 cases from that program have been closed so far. The median account balance: $570,000.

U.S. taxpayers can hold offshore accounts for a number of legitimate reasons, the report says. They may want to diversify their investments, facilitate international business transactions or get easier access to money while living or working overseas.

But, the report notes, "some use them to illegally reduce their tax liabilities, often by not reporting the income earned on these accounts."

Taxpayers with foreign accounts totaling more than $10,000 must report them to the IRS or face stiff penalties.

The IRS has long had a policy that certain tax evaders who come forward can usually avoid jail time as long as they agree to pay back taxes, interest and hefty penalties. Drug dealers and money launderers need not apply. But if the money was earned legally, tax evaders can usually avoid criminal prosecution.

Fewer than 100 people apply for the program in a typical year, in part because the penalties can far exceed the value of the hidden account, depending on how long the account holder has evaded U.S. taxes.

The disclosure programs offered reduced penalties, but they were not a complete amnesty. In the 2009 program, most of the tax cheats were required to forfeit 20 percent of their accounts, the report said.

Miller said the agency is using information from people who have come forward to target banks and financial advisers.

The disclosure programs helped build political momentum to pass a law in 2010 that will require foreign banks to report U.S. account holders to U.S. authorities, said Ian Comisky, partner at Blank, Rome, a law firm based in Philadelphia.

If foreign governments refuse to disclose the information, U.S. banks must withhold 30 percent of certain payments to financial institutions in those countries — a big incentive for countries to cooperate.

Together, the disclosure programs and the new law offer a powerful incentive for tax dodgers to come clean, Comisky said.

"They are more scared, and they are coming in where they might have been sitting out in the cold," Comisky said. "Now they're trying to come in, even if there's a penalty to do so."

Friday, April 26, 2013

Racial profiling helps terrorists

By Rev. Al Sharpton

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Mitt and Ann Romney, here's why you lost the election

Martin Bashir explains to Mitt and Ann Romney, whose latest interview shows they still don’t know why they lost, that America rejected a family who believed they were entitled to the White House.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

How Chained CPI Will Screw Over Seniors

Robert Reich on Chained CPI (the proposal to cut Social Security benefits)

InfoWars host Alex Jones capitalizes on Tsarnaev brothers attention by denying he’s trying to do that

Cenk Uygur and TYT producer Shana Naomi Krochmal dig into conspiracy theories following the arrest of Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev.

Plus, “InfoWars” host Alex Jones makes confusing attempts to disassociate himself from rumors that Dzhokar’s older brother, Tamerlan, may have been a fan by talking about it constantly.


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Mark Sanford’s hubris, downfall on full-page display

By
Martin Bashir

Polls show Sanford badly trailing Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch — and a new full-page newspaper ad addressed to voters shows why.


Just a few months ago, were someone to ask which toxic Republican—Mark Sanford or Todd Akin—had the better chance at a political comeback, the automatic answer likely would have been “Mark Sanford.”

Sanford was a former governor, with powerful financial connections, running for a reliably conservative South Carolina congressional seat.

Akin, on the other hand, said “legitimate rape.”

How quickly things change, though. Because now, Sanford is sinking in the polls—his Democratic opponent is leading by nine points with the special congressional election just two weeks away—while Akin is the one reportedly talking “comeback” in his first, post-Election Day interview.

How did Sanford manage this amazing feat, of almost certainly handing Democrats a reliably GOP congressional seat? Well, in a word, “hubris.”

Take Sanford’s latest eye-rolling misfire: his response via a full-page newspaper ad to news he’ll have to appear in court—two days after the special election—for trespassing in his ex-wife’s house.

In a week dominated by terror headlines, it’s only appropriate for Sanford to begin this letter to voters, “It’s been a rough week.” What’s inappropriate is that Sanford was talking about himself.

“It’s been a rough week”—for him, he goes on to say—what with facts of the case marring the careful version of a comeback he’s spun for voters.

Well, facts and the media:
“Though we may be public figures, we are still human figures who struggle just as so many other families and divorced couples do in getting childrearing right as best you can. It’s hard enough on its own and it’s nearly impossible when the media is sensationalizing things. I would also respectfully submit that they do a real disservice to the truth when they are grabbing for headlines.”
The Daily Caller is reporting that a D.C. fundraiser for Sanford—featuring Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott among others — has been canceled in the wake of the trespassing story. And that follows news that the National Republican Congressional Committee—the group charged with helping elect GOP candidates—won’t help him.

Apparently, not everyone believes his “but he was my son and it was the Super Bowl” defense carries water.

In fact, one Southern Baptist preacher is already using Sanford as Sunday sermon fodder.
Mac Brunson of conservative megachurch First Baptist in Jacksonville had this to say to his congregation Sunday:
If he dealt treacherously with his wife BEFORE—and the state, and the people who worked for him—do you think character has changed that much that he’s not going to deal treacherously at some point in the future? That’s a white man, GOP conservative. I’m an equal offender, brother. I don’t care who it is: If it ain’t right, it ain’t right for nobody.”
Testify!

Former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer: ‘Washington isn’t broken, it’s bought’

Cenk Uygur talks to former Louisiana governor and presidential candidate Buddy Roemer about why he was kept out of national debates during the 2012 presidential race. The reason? Money.

“Here’s what they finally told me,” Roemer says. “Governor, you haven’t raised half a million dollars in the last 30 days… American politics, unlike 25 years ago, has gotten [to the point] where money is the most important thing.”

Monday, April 22, 2013

Splinter Cell: Blacklist Wii U Features Trailer

Take control of the battlefield like never before with the Wii U Gamepad in Splinter Cell: Blacklist on the Wii U!

All in favor of pissing on Sean Hannity raise your hand

Faygo Kid (20,168 posts)
View profile

Ed Asner appreciation thread. He's 83, after all.

Had health troubles in March, and I'm not waiting until he leaves us to recognize what a great liberal, moral voice he has been. Last month, he had problems at a performance. Here's hoping he's OK, but thanks for all his great performances. I was inspired to remember him because another thread noted Carroll O'Connor - another great humanitarian.

I don't want Ed and all he has done to be neglected, then remembered when he's gone.

He has always had spunk. And I HATE spunk.

Wall Street betting billions on single family homes in distressed markets

By Michael A. Fletcher, Published: April 21

Erik Wesoloski and his partner Scott Kranz pose for photos at their agency Title Capital Management in Miami. Wall Street investors and other big institutions account for 70 percent of home sales in some Florida markets, raising doubts about the state’s housing recovery. Marc Serota/For The Washington Post

MIAMI, FL — Big investors are pouring unprecedented amounts of money into real estate hard hit by the housing crash, bringing those moribund markets back to life but raising the prospect of another Wall Street-fueled bubble that won’t be sustainable.

Drawn by the prospect of double-figure profit margins on rents and the resale of homes whose prices plummeted in the crash, hedge funds, Wall Street investors and other institutions are crowding out individual home buyers.


If the chain of easy credit and dangerous leverage that started on Wall Street fanned the housing bubble and eventual crash, some analysts find it disturbing that major investors are the ones snapping up the bargains — and eventual big profits — left in its wake.

“There is the possibility that Wall Street and the banks and the affluent 1 percent stand to gain the most from this,” said Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant based in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

“Meanwhile, lower-income Americans will lose their opportunity for the American Dream of building wealth through owning a home.”

Real estate executives say institutional investors — who in some cases are bidding on hundreds of homes a day — account for as much as 70 percent of sales in some Florida markets. Over the past two years, analysts say, they also have accounted for a majority of purchases in other parts of the country where housing prices are rebounding sharply.

The influx of investors may explain why home prices have been rising in parts of the country most affected by the housing crash, despite high jobless rates and relatively few new mortgages being issued by lenders. In the past year, prices have risen 23 percent in the Phoenix area, 15 percent in Las Vegas, 9 percent in Tampa and 11 percent in Miami, according to the Case-Shiller home-price indices . Nationally, prices are up more than 8 percent over the past year.

“I don’t know whether things are as good as they seem to be. A lot of properties are being occupied by institutional investors, not the end-user,” said Scott Kranz, co-principal of Title Capital Management, a firm that helps big investors scout, buy and manage homes in Florida. 
 
“The end-user would need to see a great increase in jobs, availability of mortgage money and a loosening of the reins that have been holding them back. But all the economic indicators are that we are not at that point.”

The ability of investors to make cash deals is helping them buy a large portion of the distressed homes that continue to flood the market. Property brokers and others in Florida say traditional buyers — even those able to qualify for financing in a still-tight mortgage market — are finding it difficult to compete with the cash and market savvy of large investors.

“The investors are making it hard for a regular homeowner to buy a property,” said Robert Russotto, a broker with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate in Fort Lauderdale. “They are getting outbid by people with cash.” Russotto noted that out of the 20 home sale contracts he is the process of completing, 17 of the buyers are major investors.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

A desperate bid for attention and relevance

In a desperate bid for attention and relevance, professional imbecile Glenn Beck has come up with a brand new conspiracy in hopes that the lunatic fringe will revere him as King Psycho again.

 By


Right-wing nut job and president of Crazyland Glenn Beck has given the U.S. government an ultimatum: come clean on the Benghazi-Boston bombing connection before Monday or he will expose it. You know, sometimes you just have to wonder – really wonder – about this man’s sanity.
“I don’t bluff,” Beck stated, “I make promises. The truth matters. I’ve had enough of what you’ve done to our country. I thought I had heard and seen it all. I thought I didn’t trust my government. Oh no, no, no. There is no depth that these people will not stoop to. They have until Monday and then The Blaze will expose it.” (source)
Well, gosh. I sure hope that President Obama is paying attention. Because, wow, if The Blaze is going to expose this… well, it’s just too scary to think about (insert massive amount of sarcasm here).

But he’s not alone in thinking (if one can use that word to describe this crap) that there is some kind of conspiracy going on. It all traces back to that Saudi national who was detained by Boston authorities on Monday. The man was cleared of any kind of suspicion. But that’s just not following the narrative that the right-wing crazies have created. Here’s what they think, voiced by Fox News head conspiracy guy, Steve Emerson:
“Remember the Saudi that they initially had arrested, or at least detained? … Well I just learned from my own sources that he is now going to be deported on national security grounds next Tuesday, which is very unusual… This is the way things are done with Saudi Arabia, you don’t arrest their citizens, you deport them, because they don’t want them to be embarrassed and that’s the way we appease them.” (source)
Man, that tin foil hat must be on too tight. These guys believe that there is some kind of connection between that Saudi – who was not arrested but merely questioned – the Boston marathon bombing and Benghazi. I know, right?! These guys, Beck and Emerson, both say that they have “sources” that tell them the Saudi man, whom they identify as Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, is being deported on Tuesday after his visa was revoked. And, according to Beck, he is a “bad, bad man.”

Congressional sources say that there has been a file created for the Saudi man and Sen. Rand Paul (oh, you knew it had to be him, dincha?) has promised to “look into” the reports. But Immigration officials and Secretary Janet Napolitano have called the conspiracy claims “categorically false.” Rep. Jeff Duncan even asked Secretary Napolitano about the connection Thursday morning. Her response was curt:
“I’m not going to answer that question,” she shot back after being pressed by Duncan… “That question is so full with misstatements and misapprehensions that it is not worthy of an answer.” (source)
So I guess we’ll have to wait until Monday to see what Beck has up his sleeve. Though I’m pretty sure that it’s just more of the same: crazed blatherings about things he has made up in his tin-foil-covered head. As usual. He really should see a therapist. Maybe Emerson should join him. Now there’s a group therapy session to make your hair stand on end!

Photobucket      T. Steelman is a life-long Liberal. She has been writing online about politics since 2007. She lives in Western Washington with her husband, daughter, 2 cats and a small herd of alpacas. How can anybody be enlightened? Truth is, after all, so poorly lit…

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Captured

Boston Bomb Suspect Captured Alive in Backyard Boat

PHOTO: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is seen being arrested in Watertown, Mass., on April 19, 2013, in connection to the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, 2013.

The alleged Boston Marathon bomber who hid from authorities for more than 20 hours was captured tonight by police, sending cheers up through the Watertown neighborhood where he was found.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was discovered by a homeowner lying in a boat in the man's backyard around 7 p.m. The man noticed blood on the boat, spotted a body inside the boat and called 911, according to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.

According to police, a helicopter with infrared technology then located Tsarnaev in the boat and noted that he was moving about within it. The helicopter directed officers on the ground to the boat, where they briefly exchanged gunfire shortly before 7 p.m.

Police halted their gunfire and sent hostage negotiators to try and talk Tsarnaev out of the boat Davis said.

But the suspect was not responsive, and after about an hour and 45 minutes, officers went to the boat and took Tsarnaev into custody.

His arrest sparked a spontaneous celebration in Watertown with people high fiving police, chanting Boston strong and USA.

"We got him," Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted immediately after Tsarnaev was arrested. "I have never loved this city & its people more than I do today. Nothing can defeat the heart of this city .. nothing."

The Boston police department also sent out a tweet in the aftermath trumpeting, "CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody."

Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, are believed to be behind the bombing of the Boston Marathon on Monday that killed three individuals and injured more than 170.

Tsarnaev was then transported away from the scene in an ambulance, as law enforcement officials and onlookers clapped and cheered.

The alleged bomber had been shot by police during gunfire nearly 24 hours earlier, when he and his brother allegedly shot and killed an MIT police officer and then engaged in a shootout with cops.

Police said tonight that there were some 200 rounds of ammunition, as well as improvised explosive devices and homemade hand grenades found at the scene of the shooting. Tamerlan was killed in the gunfire, but Dzhokhar fled on foot into Watertown.

Police locked down a 20-block section of Watertown today and searched door-to-door with heavily armed SWAT team members.

But police said at a press conference after the standoff ended that Tsarnaev had escaped their manhunt and hid himself in the boat just one block outside of the perimeter they were searching.

"We know he didn't go straight to the boat," said Watertown police chief Edward P. Deveau. "We found blood in the car he abandoned and we found blood in a house inside the perimeter. We had no information that he had gotten outside the perimeter, but it was very chaotic this morning. We had a police officer who was shot and bleeding."

Friday, April 19, 2013

Salmon and Herring in Oil Recalled for Listeria Risk


A New York firm is recalling certain imported sliced salmon and herring products because they may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

Prime Food USA of Brooklyn issued a voluntary recall of its Latis brand Herring Fillet “Mateij,” Herring Fillet “Forelka” in Oil and Salmon Fillet Slices Wednesday after testing by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets revealed Listeria monocytogenes in a sample of product.

The products were imported from Latvia and sold in New York State.

Products subject to the recall include:

- Latis Brand Herring Fillet “Matiej,” packaged in 17.64 oz (500 grams) plastic containers. The 17.64oz (500gram) container has a partial code: 01.14 and UPC Number 7541004076916.

- Salmon Fillet Slices packaged in a 7.5 oz plastic container marked with code.15.07.13(17JL).

- Herring Fillet “Forelka” in Oil, packaged in 11.64 oz (330gram) plastic oval containers. The 11.64oz (330gram) container is marked with code 07.01.14(09JR).

No illnesses have been connected to consumption of these products to date, according to the recall announcement.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Scarborough: GOP Headed to Extinction

JOE SCARBOROUGH: You don't ignore -- you do not ignore 90% of the American people on an issue of public safety. You don't do it. They did it yesterday, and I've got to say, mark it down, this is going to be a turning point in the history of the Republican party as well. And let those out there chattering, let them chatter away all they want to and scream like hyenas. Let them do what they want to do.

This party that killed this background check yesterday, this party is moving toward extinction. A new Republican party is going to replace it and this is going toe a vote people will look back on and say that party, that extremism that was unsustainable. (Morning Joe, April 18, 2013)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Suspect Arrested In Ricin Letters Case

By Colmes

       Federal authorities have arrested Kenneth Curtis suspected of sending letters to Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker and to President Obama.

Both letters carried an identical closing statement, according to an FBI bulletin obtained by NBC News on Wednesday.

According to the FBI bulletin, both letters, postmarked April 8, 2013 out of Memphis, Tenn., included an identical phrase, “to see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance.”

In addition, both letters are signed: “I am KC and I approve this message.”

Senate Gives Big Middle Finger To Newtown and 91 Percent Of America

By

Yet again Republicans  chose to kowtow to their NRA puppet masters and a mentally unstable assortment of wannabe Rambo shitkickers  by voting down basic background checks that 91 percent of America support. Due to procedural obstructionism, Republicans were able to prevent the 60 votes needed for the Manchin-Toomey Amendment to pass, with a final vote of 54 in favor and 46 opposed.

It should be noted that Four Republicans voted in favor of the measure, including Sens. Collins, McCain, Toomey and Kirk. But, even more importantly, 4 Democrats voted against it, including Sens. Heitkamp, Pryor, Baucus, and Begich.

Thus, proving my point that both Republicans and Democrats  are married to guns. But regarding the gun marriage, while Democrats have a typical marriage where they rarely have sex anymore, Republicans are on still on their honeymoon and that honeymoon is in freaking Gitmo: indefinite and with no end in sight.



The Tea Party poorly co-opted the esprit de corps of the founders by mistakenly protesting ‘No Taxation With Representation’ (They’re really against Big Prepositions), because with 91 percent of Americans calling for gun background checks and Republicans–including Four Democrats–proudly giving them the middle finger, then we have no representation in the first place.  What we essentially have are a bunch of idiot man-children taking their cues from equally idiotic man-children in NRA  brass due to the fact that they fear getting Primaried by even dumber man-children.

In short, the majority of Republicans and four Democrats who voted against the bill have confirmed the ‘revolving door’ system that infects America more than Honey Boo Boo; that is, their time in Congress is merely a public internship for when they get the real good paying job as a lobbyist down the line.

 Michael is a comedian/VO artist/Columnist extraordinaire, who co-wrote an award-nominated comedy, produces a chapter of Laughing Liberally, wrote for NY Times Laugh Lines, guest-blogged for Joe Biden, and writes a column for MSNBC.com affiliated Cagle Media. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook, and like NJ Laughing Liberally Lab if you love political humor from a progressive point-of-view. Seriously, follow him or he’ll send you a photo of Rush Limbaugh bending over in a thong.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The sound and the fury (and the facts) over Obama’s 18.4% tax rate

By
Martin Bashir


A few conservatives are having a good time hitting President Obama over the 18.4% tax rate he paid in 2012. However, a little context is in order.
  • VIDEO: Joe Scarborough said “the hypocrisy is mind boggingly” on his show. (Morning Joe)
  • Matt Drudge got in a tax-related punch, too. (Matt Drudge)
  • Our friends at Fox News handled the issue in their usual, button-down manner. (Mediaite)
  • The one “conservative” not willing to bite on the tax “hypocrisy” charge? Donald Trump. (Mediaite)
  • So how did the Obamas do it? Via tax deductions. Mostly the ones for charitable causes. (NPR)
  • In fact, they gave about 25% of their income to charity. (The New York Times)
  • Obama’s federal budget would impose a 28% cap on deductions. “If the deduction cap were in place, the value of their charitable contributions — their biggest deduction — would have declined by about $7,500.” (NPR, interestingly, puts that figure at about $18,000) (Politico)
  • But here’s the rub. By one estimate for the previous tax year, people in the Obamas’ tax bracket — the top of the very top (call it “The 5%”) — paid an average rate of 16.4% in individual income tax. (Tax Policy Center)
  • Here are the Obamas’ and Bidens’ 2012 tax returns. (White House)
  • Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas preferred to attack the President over using taxpayer dollars to … fly Air Force One!! (Sen. Ted Cruz)
  • “Fun fact: The Biden-negotiated fiscal cliff deal raised tax rates on couples earning $450K+. Obama wanted $250K+. The Bidens made $385K.” (Steven Dennis)

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

'You Can't Yadda Yadda Yadda The Last 60 Years'

Jon Stewart began Thursday's "Daily Show" with a look at Rand Paul's visit to Howard University

After announcing that people told him he was either "brave or crazy" to go speak at the traditionally black school, Paul attempted to convince the students that the Republican party has always been on the right side of civil rights history... if you disregard the last 60 years, of course.

 

14 Theories for Why Kermit Gosnell's Abortion Case Didn't Get More Media Attention

Every one of them amounts to someone saying, "This is how I think American journalism works." 

By Conor Friedersdorf


The trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist charged with killing babies and neglecting women in his care, is now national news. There's no bigger story on the web. Anderson Cooper covered it thoroughly Friday on CNN. The Washington Post's executive editor pledged to send a reporter to file dispatches from the Philadelphia courtroom. My contribution, "Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Trial Should Be a Front-Page Story," distilled the Philadelphia grand jury report and argued that those horrific, detailed allegations are thoroughly newsworthy by any reasonable standard. That premise is now conventional wisdom. The trial is likely to remain national news.

My article didn't speculate about why the story didn't play bigger in the national media prior to late last week. I didn't want that debate to overshadow Gosnell's actions or the failure to stop him.

But the debate about coverage is important and fascinating.

Journalists, news junkies, and casual news consumers are all offering theories of what drives the media. Wildly divergent theories. And every last one amounts to a fellow member of our polity saying, "This is my notion of how America's primary means of civic communication works."

There is, of course, no single explanation for why any news story unfolds one way instead of another. "The media" is an abstraction. It encompasses TV, radio, print, and digital; editors, reporters, and bloggers; the Drudge Report, The New Yorker, USA Today, and Feministing. Many of the factors that shape how a story is covered are seemingly random or just plain undiscoverable. But it's possible to refine our understanding of factors that did and didn't shape coverage.* With that in mind, let's scrutinize some of the wildly divergent theories of American media.

Keep in mind that my inclusion of a theory doesn't necessarily mean that I endorse it.


1) Matt Frost's Unified Theory
This theory accounts for the fact that social conservatives and progressive feminists both wrote about the story more than "mainstream" outlets.

For late-term abortion opponents, what more powerful demonstration of its brutality than an abortionist who severs the spines of already delivered babies? If you think the culture surrounding abortion destroys respect for human life, what would bolster your belief more than the fact that multiple employees willingly assisted Gosnell? And for progressive feminists, who worry that restricting abortion causes women to seek out horrific black-market procedures at great risk to their lives, what better confirmation than hundreds of women paying to receive treatment from a man whose office was filled with severed baby feet, blood spattered blankets, and cat feces?

Folks in the mushy middle are there precisely because they're persuaded by arguments from both sides, but are uncomfortable adopting the final position of either. This is true on the rare occasions when they think about the abortion debate. But the Gosnell case doesn't even permit us to think abstractly. The babies with severed spines and the immigrant woman dead from a botched abortion are both right there, described by the grand jury report in brutal detail. It makes sense, if social conservatives and progressive feminists both think their world views are vindicated by this case, that abortion "centrists" would find it particularly awful to fully confront.

And for what? Many centrists aren't sure that whatever position they've calibrated is correct. They worry advocating for it would make them feel culpable for the inevitable babies or women hurt as a result. (If the king of a benevolent monarchy emailed to say that he'd implement in detail whatever abortion policies I suggested as soon as I wrote back, my first impulse would be to close my laptop, wrap it in duct tape, motor out to the deepest part of the Pacific and drop it overboard.)

Writing about this is uncomfortable and unpleasant for everyone. But if you're confident in the lesson to take from this case and believe some specific change to abortion policy would definitely improve the world, of course you'd feel that covering it is less uncomfortable and more rewarding. Notably, this theory implies that most mainstream-media reporters aren't die-hard abortion-rights advocates. If they were, they'd have reacted like some progressive feminists, proceeding as if this case clearly demonstrates the need for, say, publicly funded, safer, legal abortions. Instead, this theory implies that the Gosnell case makes the average journalist feel conflicted. In my experience, most journalists, like most people, are deeply conflicted about abortion. Media capitals like New York and D.C. are also places where being conflicted about expanding abortion rights is more socially comfortable than being conflicted about restricting them.

2) The Poor, Black Victims Theory

This theory holds that sparse coverage shouldn't surprise us, despite the sensationalistic details of the Gosnell case, because horrific things happen to poor black people in urban areas all the time, and the press ignores them. Why should this be different? This theory is at odds with the counter-theory that the liberal media typically obsesses over stories about poor, black victims, at least when they're subjected to blatant racism like the women in the Gosnell case. Sparse coverage, despite the provocative racial angle, proves a media coverup, according to the counter-theory.

Setting aside the conclusions, neither premise is completely wrong.

Horrific things do happen in poor, minority neighborhoods all the time without anyone in the press (or elsewhere) seeming to care. Newspapers cover rich neighborhoods better than poor ones, in part because that's where a disproportionate number of subscribers live. Journalists are surrounded by educated, comfortably middle-class people. When they get a story tip from a friend, neighbor, or acquaintance, it is seldom a poor person. Blacks are underrepresented in newsrooms.

At the same time, direct evidence of racism sometimes fuels viral stories. If a doctor in Newport Beach gave white women botox in a sanitary office, but treated black women in a room filled with blood and cat feces, killing one of them through malpractice, would that be national news? I think so. It wouldn't have surprised me at all if the racial angle in the Gosnell case had made it go viral.

I don't know how to reconcile a news media that routinely and unapologetically ignores black kidnap victims while making a fetish of blue-eyed, blond-haired kidnap victims and that regards racial justice as an editorial imperative that explicitly shapes numerous stories, except to say that it's complicated. There are both blind spots that touch on race and class, and a desire among journalists to be champions of racial and class justice. The results are often unpredictable.

3) We Treat Newborn Deaths As If They Don't Matter As Much As Kid Deaths

This theory holds that if a pediatrician had killed seven 5-year-olds at the request of their mothers, it would be the story of the year. But because the Gosnell's victims were voiceless babies (or because the culture of abortion makes us think killing babies, however awful, is also different, or because wanting to kill newborns is more common), his case wasn't the story of the year.

4) The Covering-Abortion-Is-Miserable Theory

It goes beyond the unpleasantness-of-subject-matter and personal conflictedness. Writing about abortion, like writing about the Israel-Palestine conflict, guarantees (a) extreme abuse from readers no matter where you come down; (b) extreme, tedious scrutiny of every word you write; (c) certain knowledge that personal friends and family members will find themselves in strong, emotional disagreement with you; (d) the discouraging impression that no fact or argument presented will change anyone's mind; (e) the accusation that you are complicit in something even worse than what Hitler did, or else that you hate women and want to control their bodies, or both.

There's also the feeling that, by raising the subject, you're bringing out the very worst in some people. The way they behave to one another in comments and characterize people on the other side of the debate over email is unsettling. Perhaps there's a journalistic analogue of deliberately avoiding abortion at dinner parties, even ones where political debate is valued and encouraged.

5) The Gag Order Matters
This theory points out that the judge in the Gosnell case imposed a gag order on all involved. It is almost certainly true that doing so had some effect on the amount of news generated from the case.

6) Politicians Drive Political News


News items are often pegged to national politicians speaking out. If Tea Party senators or the Congressional Black Caucus or President Obama or John McCain and Lindsay Graham had really wanted to make the Gosnell case a big story, they could have. But no elected official was behaving in the way that they do when they want to make a piece of news into a big political story.

7) Journalists Live in a Pro-Choice Bubble

As articulated by Dave Weigel of Slate, political journalists "are, generally, pro-choice. Twice, in D.C., I've caused a friend to literally leave a conversation and freeze me out for a day or so because I suggested that the Stupak Amendment and the Hyde Amendment made sense. There is a bubble. Horror stories of abortionists are less likely to permeate that bubble than, say, a story about a right-wing pundit attacking an abortionist who then claims to have gotten death threats ... a reporter in the bubble is less likely to be compelled by the news of an arrested abortionist."

Says Erick Erickson, "networks focus on the things people along the coast are interested in and not what people along the American river valleys are talking about. In churches, local restaurants, and small town hair salons a lot of people across the country are talking about the terrible trial of Kermit Gosnell in Pennsylvania. It's just not the people who interact with those who produce the news in New York City."

8) The Media Has a Bias Against Graphic Descriptions and Imagery

After I filed my Gosnell story, an editor sagely added a warning I should've thought to include myself: "Please note: This post contains graphic descriptions and imagery." Conveying the reality of this story demanded words and images more graphic than any newspaper or magazine typically includes. For that reason, journalists (or producers) who relied on, say, an Associated Press or New York Times dispatch understandably underestimated its newsworthiness. Once producers, editors, and reporters started reading the grand jury report, as conservative and progressive bloggers had, they finally realized, "Whoa, the newspaper stories really didn't do this justice. The most graphic bits in them weren't just cherry-picking the most sensational parts. If anything, they left out numerous gruesome details and extremely uncomfortable angles."

Newspapers almost certainly weren't sanitizing the story just because it was about abortion. They sanitize everything. Have you ever seen the dead body of a child killed in American drone strikes? Or what a cafe in Israel looks like after a suicide bomber attacks? How much blood do you see in the photographs curated by your local daily from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? If you saw all the wire photos you'd get a much different impression of modern war. And if the CBS Evening News aired a Gosnell story while you were eating you'd probably have turned it off. (That is one reason why dinner-hour news shows don't air certain gruesome stories.)

9) Pro-Choice Journalists Are Willfully Ignoring the Story to Avoid Giving an Advantage to Pro-Lifers
Folks in the pro-life community earnestly believe this theory. My interactions with journalists have never given me reason to think that any significant number would ignore what they knew to be a newsworthy story for blatantly political reasons. Admittedly, I've interacted with a small subset of all journalists, and the very nature of this theory is that it cannot be definitively proven or disproved. But it seems to me that, for example, David Shaw's "Abortion Bias Seeps Into The News" offers a much more plausible account of how ideological bias might creep into newsroom behavior. I do not know if his account was correct in 1990 when published or if it is correct now.

10) Ideological Bias Distorts the Crusades Journalists Are Willing to Embark Upon
This theory is advanced by Ross Douthat in his New York Times column. As he sees it, outlets that aspire to "objective" news coverage are pursuing two different goals that are in tension with one another: on one hand, they try to report and write every story in a fair, balanced, non-partisan manner; on the other hand, they believe a core duty of journalists is "fighting for the powerless against the powerful and leading America toward enlightenment." On culture war issues, "an official journalistic commitment to neutrality coexists with the obvious ideological thrust of a thousand specific editorial choices," Douthat writes. "What kinds of questions are asked of which politicians; which stories get wall-to-wall coverage and which ones end up buried; which side is portrayed as aggressors and which side as the aggrieved party, and on and on and on." As the sparse coverage of the Gosnell trial suggests, he continues, "the problem here isn't that American journalists are too quick to go on crusades. Rather, it's that the press's ideological blinders limit the kinds of crusades mainstream outlets are willing to entertain."

In comments, a reader retorted, "When it comes to human rights, there is only one right side. When it comes to women's rights, which after all are human rights, there is only one right side. When it comes to abortion, there is only one right side (it's the side that says women are people and have the right to bodily autonomy). The story of Kermit Gosnell, the abortion provider you mentioned, isn't about abortion per se. It's about the lack of access to safe abortion in this country. It's about how substandard health care *is* the standard in poor areas. But it is NOT about the morality of abortion." If enough decision-makers in the media agree with that perspective (an impossible question to answer), coverage of the Gosnell case was affected by it. Douthat is certainly correct that there is no such thing as strict neutrality when editorial decisions must be made about what to cover, how much coverage to extend, and which stories merit efforts to "start a larger conversation." There aren't clearly articulated, consistent standards for any of those judgment calls, and I'm not sure that it would be possible to create them.

11) The Case Doesn't Map onto a Specific Legislative Debate

Writing in The Daily Beast, Josh Dzieza argues, "When Trayvon Martin (to use the standard comparison) went from local to national story, it was partly because there was a debate over stand-your-ground laws and whether his killing constituted murder or self defense. There's no such dispute here. The question isn't whether what Gosnell is accused of doing should be illegal: he's on trial because it clearly is. Gosnell could become a useful pro-life bogeyman, but it's not clear what policies the antiabortion movement would use his case to push for." Meanwhile, he adds, abortion rights activists are both wary of passing more abortion clinic regulations (lest access decrease) and mortified by the regulatory failures that enabled Gosnell.

Perhaps there's something to the notion that neither side in the abortion debate could use the Gosnell case as a clear cut argument for passing a specific piece of legislation they're currently prioritizing. The fact that much of what he did was already illegal changes the political implications of the case. And political implications often drive coverage more than a story's importance.

12) Conservatives Are Engaged in a "Work the Refs" Hustle
Kevin Drum makes the case by reviewing coverage in The Washington Times:
On March 18, they ran an AP dispatch about the start of the trial. Since then, they haven't published a single additional piece. However, they have published the following:
  • March 27: An op-ed by Christopher Harper about the media's "shameful" silence concerning the Gosnell case.
  • April 8: A news story about the "media blackout" of the Gosnell trial for "political reasons."
  • April 11: An editorial deploring the fact that "this grim story was not something for the morning papers or the evening news, at least not for those reading the 'mainstream' newspapers or watching ABC, CBS or NBC."
  • April 11: A news story reporting that conservative House members "took to the floor to denounce what they call a 'national media cover-up' of the sensational case."
  • April 12: A news story reporting that "conservatives and other pro-life advocates who are upset with the lack of coverage of the case are taking to social media sites in droves."
  • April 13: A weekly news recap headlined, "Abortion doctor on trial, but media not interested."
  • April 14: An op-ed about our "undistinguished press corps," listing all their recent shortcomings. "Most egregious of all, though, has been the lack of coverage on the 'House of Horror' trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell."
And that brings us to today. Adding it all up, we have a grand total of one story about the trial itself and seven stories complaining that other media outlets aren't covering the trial. It's pretty obvious what the priorities are here.
There are, as I've mentioned, conservative outlets like National Review that have always treated the Gosnell story as if it's important. Certain writers, like Mark Steyn, don't fit Drum's theory. But there are definitely outlets and writers who gave Gosnell less coverage than, say, the New York Times, and are now expressing outrage at the lack of coverage. Media Matters accuses the New York Post of doing this. Said Paul Mirengoff in an April 12, 2013 post at Powerline:
I don't believe we have commented on the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. I guess that's because, although some, if not all, of us at Power Line are pro-life (I haven't taken a full survey), none of us has the abortion beat. Or maybe it's because we have had nothing of particular interest to add to the discussion of this gruesome affair, in which a child screamed after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure, the spinal cords of babies were snipped, and fetuses "rained" (in the words of one witness). Power Line does, however, handle the media beat. Therefore, we should at least note the lack of coverage the Gosnell trial has received.
Movement conservatives spend a lot more time covering "the media beat" than the abortion beat. Or any other beat, for that matter. Would this story have attracted more attention sooner if, rather than writing media-bias columns, conservatives just kept rendering details of the grand jury report? Hard to say. My account of the grand jury report was widely shared on social media. And writing it didn't require a travel budget or "mainstream media" pixie dust. The whole thing is online.

13) Horrific as It Is, This Case Doesn't Speak to Anything Larger About Abortion

This theory runs through a lot of left-of-center commentary. Way back in 2011, for example, when William Saletan used the Gosnell case as a vehicle to discuss late-term abortion generally, a writer at Feministing argued doing so was inappropriate because "If this doctor delivered these infants, live infants that were breathing and then killed them? Let's make something clear: That is not abortion."

She continued:
Only 1.5% of abortions occur after 21 weeks of pregnancy. And what do you think the overwhelming majority of those cases are? Women who might die if they don't have one. Fetuses who wouldn't survive outside of the womb. Fetuses with such extreme abnormalities that they'd suffer during what would be a very brief time on this earth. The fact that people assume women actually want to have an abortion in the third trimester is beyond me -- not to mention unbelievably offensive to the women who have had to make these very difficult decisions.
If I can interject here, if you want to understand why the debate over the media coverage of Gosnell is so polarized, it's important to remember that some people, like the writer above, emphatically believe Gosnell is an aberration that says nothing larger about abortion in America. And other people, like Peter Wehner, emphatically believe that what he calls the "lethal logic" employed by Gosnell cannot be entirely disconnected from policy debate over abortion.

He cites this exchange in which a lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates speaks to Florida legislators:

I'd actually love to see the Feministing writer and Wehner debate the question.

14) Lots of Horrific Stories Don't Get Covered

Here's a list of children who have been killed in drone attacks approved by George W. Bush and Barack Obama. How many of their stories have you read about? Could you say how many kids we've killed in Pakistan and Yemen? I have theories about why those dead kids haven't ever been treated as a major national story. What's certain is that neither liberal media bias nor pro-choice bias are among the reasons ... which may or may not tell us anything about Gosnell coverage.

This is, by no means, an exhaustive list of theories. In fact, you'll most likely find more in the comments. The only conclusions I'll offer are these: If you think any one theory completely explains how this case has been covered, you're almost certainly wrong. (Personally, I find it plausible that parts of almost all of these theories and many more affected coverage.) And like the abortion debate itself, the debate over Gosnell coverage has earnest, smart, well-meaning people on all sides. If you think otherwise, you haven't engaged enough people with the perspective you're demonizing. The abortion debate can't be avoided. Part of its unpleasantness can.
*To avoid confusion, let's be explicit about what that coverage actually entailed. Prior to late last week, the Gosnell trial generated significant local coverage within metropolitan Philadelphia. As for outlets outside Philly, there was coverage back in 2011 from Katha Pollitt in The Nation, Lori Adelman at NBC's The Grio, Will Saletan in Slate on three separate occasions, the Associated Press, NPR, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Rich Lowry in National Review, the editors of that publication, Mark Steyn on various occasions, Joseph Bottum of The Weekly Standard, niche sites dedicated to feminism, abortion rights, and anti-abortion advocacy, and others I'm missing. After 2011, the next time that multiple prominent outlets covered the subject was in March 2013 when the trial started. Here's the New York Times story noting that news. It ran on page A17 of the New York edition. That rundown shows there wasn't a mainstream media "blackout" or a literal conspiracy to keep the case secret. At the same time, many outlets failed to cover the story, and most outlets that covered it didn't give it the depth or prominent play that I've argued it deserved.