ReBelle Nation

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon

Jon Stewart Discusses Lou Dobbs's Decision To 'Go Palin'

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Lou Dobbs Goes Rogue

Anita Dunn Takes Parting Shot At Fox, Hannity And Beck

In a parting shot at Fox News, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn mocked the conservative-leaning network on Friday and laughed off its controversial host Glen Beck for calling her a Mao enthusiast.

The outgoing administration spokeswoman took a clear and enjoyable dig, first at Sean Hannity for recently airing spliced footage designed to make a crowd of anti-health care protesters seem bigger than reality.

"A fun fact from this week is that an opinion show on a certain news network was using edited footage to make it appear that a rally last week, and political opposition to the president, was much larger than it appeared," said Dunn. "Some of you may have heard about it. The people who went in and did fact checking on that, and actually exposed the spliced edited was... Jon Stewart of the 'Daily Show' on Comedy Central. Well that is where you are getting fact-checking and investigative journalism these days folks. It is a different media environment."

Showing an even greater appreciation for the "Daily Show"'s Fox News fact-checking abilities, Dunn referenced another Stewart triumph later in her question-and-answer session.

"Jon Stewart actually did one of the most amazing pieces of journalism last week or a couple of weeks ago," she said, "in which he looked at the way Fox, on their opinion shows, raises some issue that then gets reported on by their news division as 'a controversy.' ... Now, that's a point of view. That's fine. That's entertainment. It helps their ratings. But I think if you go downstairs and walk through the Newseum that's not traditionally what you think of as traditional news -- to some extent inventing the story."
LinkHere

Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care?

In recent days, heated policy discussions in Washington have largely focused on two topics: a possible escalation of the war in Afghanistan and health care legislation. Both a troop escalation and health care legislation carry significant price tags: roughly $100 billion and $80-$100 billion a year respectively. (It should be noted that health care reform, unlike a troop surge, would cut the deficit.)

In his New York Times column today, columnist Nicholas Kristof asks why hawks claim health reform is “fiscally irresponsible” while enthusiastically supporting a troop surge in Afghanistan, given the fact that fixing our broken health care system is, unlike a troop surge, essential to the health and well-being of Americans:

The health care legislation pays for itself, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term economic security.

So doesn’t it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger deployment of troops in Afghanistan?

Meanwhile, lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional insurance system?

Indeed, hawkish legislators have lined up to both demand a costly surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan while at the same time claiming that deficit-cutting health care legislation would simply be too expensive:
LinkHere

RNC employee health insurance plan covers abortion.

Last week, 176 House Republicans joined with 64 Democrats in voting for the so-called Stupak amendment, which could “could effectively stop many employer-provided health insurance plans from covering abortions for tens of millions of Americans” and restrict any private plan in the insurance exchange from offering abortion coverage. However, Politico reports today that the RNC’s own employee health care plan covers elective abortion — “a procedure the party’s own platform calls ‘a fundamental assault on innocent human life’”:

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.

Informed of the coverage, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO that the policy pre-dates the tenure of current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

“The current policy has been in effect since 1991, and we are taking steps to address the issue,” Gitcho said. [...]

According to several Cigna employees, the insurer offers its customers the opportunity to opt out of abortion coverage — and the RNC did not choose to opt out.

Recently it was also revealed that the health insurance plan used by the right-wing, anti-choice organization Focus on the Family also covered “abortion services.” LinkHere

Cao: Obama Administration ‘Has Been Tremendous’ For New Orleans On Katrina Recovery Effort

Last month, President Obama visted New Orleans for the first time since taking office and touted his administration’s focus on assisting the area’s still on-going recovery effort four years after Hurricane Katrina. “I’m pleased to report that we’ve made good progress,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve made progress.”

But conservatives such as Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) criticized Obama’s visit calling it a “drive-through daiquiri summit,” while others “criticized the president for not touring the battered wetlands.”

Yesterday during an interview with Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) — the lone Republican to vote for the House health care bill last week — Washington Times radio channeled the GOP criticism. “He didn’t even stick around very long during his trip,” the host said. But Cao defended what the administration has done for the area:

CAO: Well, I just want to set the record straight, that even though the President only visited New Orleans once since his election, it was a brief stay, but this administration has been tremendous for the people of the 2nd district. Secretary Napolitano has been down here three or four times, the secretary of HUD, the secretary of Education, they have been down here numerous times. [...]

So I guess for me, it’s not that important to have the visit of the President, its much more important for me that I have a good working relationship with the administration and have the commitment…from the administration to push all the recovery issues of the 2nd District forward and they have been doing that in the last 9 months.
LinkHere

Paul Rainwater, the executive director of the state-run Louisiana Recovery Authority, agrees with Cao’s approach. “I would say it’s more important to have your cabinet secretaries down here,” he said last month. Indeed, the White House said there were 22 visits by senior administration officials to the area from March to August, 13 of them by cabinet secretaries.

Business Groups ‘Worried’ About The Effects Of Banning The Importation Of Goods Made With Child Labor

One of the worst abuses in the international labor markets is the use of child labor. The most recent report on the issue by the International Labor Organization found that as of 2004 more than 218 million children were engaged in illegal work, as defined by international treaties. It’s estimated that 126 million of these children were engaged in hazardous work such as “mining or handling chemicals.”

In order to combat the issue, the Senate Finance Committee has included sections in S.1631, the Customs Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act of 2009, that would ban the importation of goods made “with convict labor, forced labor, or indentured labor under penal sanctions.” Such a measure by the world’s largest importer would strike a crucial blow against the use of child and slave labor.
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MSNBC host Rachel Maddow covered the story last night. Addressing the business interests opposing the measure directly, she said, “You think that child labor and slave labor and forced convict labor are cheap and therefore cool with you? Go ahead, make your case. I would love to hear it …. you child labor-endorsing, pro-slavery freaks.” LinkHere

Scozzafava Maddow Interview: Purging Party Of Independent Thinkers Leads To Minority Status

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I sure as hell hope this is wrong!!!!!

Owens-Hoffman Race Tightens: NY-23 Election Will Depend On Absentee Ballots

ALBANY, N.Y. — It turns out that the special election in New York for a U.S. House seat may not be over after all.

After last week's election, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman conceded and Democrat Bill Owens was sworn in.

The routine recanvassing of votes, however, shows Owens' lead has narrowed to 3,000 votes. The outcome will depend on how not-yet-counted absentee ballots break.

If the count overturns the election, Owens could be removed from office.

The Syracuse Post-Standard first reported that problems in some counties resulted in underreporting of votes for Hoffman on the night of the election.

Hoffman's campaign is monitoring the recanvassing. Owens' spokesman didn't immediately return a message left by The Associated Press.
LinkHere

Massive Media Fail: Female Cop Did Not Bring Down Fort Hood Killer

With the publication of an interview with Sgt. Mark Todd, the actual cop who gunned down the killer at Fort Hood -- following its account of an unnamed eyewitness last night -- The New York Times finally underlined what some of us noticed from nearly the start: the media fell hook, line and sinker once again for a military account of what happened during the tragedy.

First, it was the "death" of Major Hasan, not corrected for many hours. Then, for days, the story of how a white female cop brought down the shooter, even as she was receiving serious wounds. Yet I noticed just hours after the attack that scattered eyewitnesses, via the Web and Twitter, were saying that the killer re-loaded after Kimberly Munley went down.

How could he have done that if she had just plugged him four times, supposedly ending the rampage? Some of those witnesses said they yelled at the second cop to shoot Hasan--which he did, and then went up and kicked his gun away. Yet for almost a week the media rarely questioned the military's "official" story of Munley as savior. The New York Times was one of many who put Munley on the front page and declared that she was the person who nailed Hasan. Its headline: "She ran to gunfire, and ended it." It said flatly that she "brought down the gunman."

To its credit: The Times much later did help bring out the truth.

Most news outlets for days labeled Munley "the" (singular) Fort Hood hero. She was the "Mighty Mouse." It wasn't until two days ago that Sgt.Todd got feature billing, although in a secondary role. Now, in the past day, he is finally getting his due as the original account begins to fall away. The cop who saved the day is a black man, not a white woman.
LinkHere

KBR improperly billed ($103 million) for security guards, senator says

Source: Houston Chron/Bloomberg

KBR, the largest contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, improperly billed the Pentagon and was paid about $103 million for armed security guard services, a U.S. senator says.

In a Nov. 6 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who chairs a contracting oversight panel, wrote that the Pentagon has recovered $42 million of the payments.

McCaskill said she was concerned the Defense Department "is not moving quickly enough to recover the remaining $61 million” and asked Gates for a status report by Dec. 1.

KBR officials have not seen the McCaskill letter but “the assertion KBR has engaged in 'improper' billings is false,” said company spokeswoman Heather Browne in an e-mail. “KBR has previously addressed billing issues and worked with the government to answer questions raised,” she said.

The billings were part of the Houston-based company's $34 billion contract to provide housing, food, laundry, mail delivery and fuel. The Defense Contract Audit Agency first identified the billings in August 2007. McCaskill said the failure to recover all the money by now “raises questions about the sufficiency” of Pentagon efforts “to recover disapproved costs on other contracts.” LinkHere

Jon Stewart Catches Sean Hannity Falsifying Footage To Make GOP Protest Appear Bigger

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage

The Men Who Stare at Votes

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The Men Who Stare at Votes