Notorious PR Firm That Reps Swift Boaters,
Creationists, PhRMA Now Helping Fired IG

A heavy-hitting conservative public relations firm that flacked for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and boasts an impressive array of right-wing clients is now helping Gerald Walpin, who was fired this summer by President Obama as the inspector general for AmeriCorps.

Creative Response Concepts Public Relations (CRC) is representing Walpin, a secretary who answered the phone at the company confirmed to TPMmuckraker today.

The list of CRC's current and former clients reads like a who's-who of the right-wing establishment, from the Republican National Committee to independent groups like Rick Scott's Conservatives for Patients' Rights and authors like David Freddoso, who wrote The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate. Other current and past clients of the Virginia-based firm include the creationist Discovery Institute, the original Swift Boaters who torpedoed John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid, PhRMA, the Federalist Society, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

CRC's president is Greg Mueller, former press secretary for Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign.

The Los Angeles Times had reported Walpin was getting free PR help from a firm that represented the swift boat group.

Walpin was fired in June by the White House, which cited, among other reasons, his behavior at a May board meeting of the Corporation for National and Community Service. At that meeting, a lawyer for the White House has said, Walpin was "confused, disoriented, [and] unable to answer questions and exhibited other behavior that led the Board to question his capacity to serve." Walpin and several GOP congressman charge that the true reason for his firing was his aggressive investigation of Kevin Johnson, the Sacramento mayor and Obama ally, for misuse of AmeriCorps funds, among other charges.

It's not clear when CRC joined the effort, but Walpin has been on the conservative media circuit telling his story for months. His campaign has been characterized by public and strident attacks on President Obama. He spoke of the fight in David-and-Goliath terms in a June interview with Fox, portraying himself as a target of "the most powerful man in this country, with an army of aides."

Meanwhile, an inquiry into the firing, prepared by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), argues that it was politicized and illegitimate, according to early reports.

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Missed Opportunity

Dems should have let President Bush create universal health care when he was in office. [...]

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Palin Going Rogue Planning Alert

via RumpRoast Norah O’Donnell’s reporting of Sarah’s Going Rogue tour as it hit Michigan has created news. First, for what she said about the crowd, which I wrote about earlier this week. It was foreshadowing: ?This is a line that[...]

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Dear Gary Susman

Your defense of Glenn Beck is touching on AOL, but it comes up very short and very sad. You claim that the big bad lefty meanie comedians are picking on Beck even when he is sick. Well, let's get something straight. Glenn Beck is inciting violence and helping legitimizing radical militia and white nationalist movements that otherwise would still be chatting on their MySpace pages. And the hatred that he is helping to unleash on this country is indefensible.

He was the butt of a few jokes by comedians at a time that you disapprove of. OK, are you now saying that the ADL is also being mean to him when they call him the "fearmonger in chief?" Will you weep for him over that too?

What did you think of those gun-brandishing "patriots" who showed up for teabagger protests? Were you happy to see all that vitriol targeted at President Obama by a lot of clueless robots who are out their because of talkers like Beck who have only one goal in mind -- to tear down this president after Bush and conservatism tore down our country for the last eight years?

It's not as though Beck himself hasn't been demonizing people -- his McCarthyite attacks on a number of people have not only been absurdly distorted but viciously personal. And it's not as though Beck is an innocent in the media personal-attack game; indeed, you may recall that he was responsible for one of the ugliest on-air smears in broadcast history: When Beck had a falling-out with a former radio-show partner named Bruce Kelly, who became a competitor in the Phoenix market, Beck embarked on a series of dirty tricks, including an invasion of Kelly's wedding. But Beck hit a new low a little later:

The animosity between Beck and Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" for Halloween -- a recurring motif in Beck's life and career -- Kelly told a local reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest bits in the history of morning radio. "A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a miscarriage,' " remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. "When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a baby."

Two wrongs don't make a right, and here at C&L we've avoided making it personal with Beck (beyond pointing out his utter lunacy). Just because we choose to pitch clean, though, doesn't mean we much mind seeing a toxic clown like Beck face a little chin music.

Please, spare us the tears and defend somebody who truly deserves it.

John Amato...

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http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/dear-gary-susman

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LOL! Palin Booed by her supporters for quitting
book signing halfway through

Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com     Sometimes art imitates life, and as far as fiction goes, "Going Rogue" by Sarah Palin is truly a work of art just as a plate of dinner thrown at the wall can be, in a sense.    "I'm[...]

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Quick Turnaround

John McCain just announced that we can succeed in Afghanistan in a mere 12 to 18 months, if only President Obama would get off his butt and send the 40,000 soldiers. [...]

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Friday Mashup (11/20/09)

(And I also posted here about a political matter close to home.)

As I noted yesterday, ?Holy Joe? Lieberman decided to hold his Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the Fort Hood shootings.

And as noted here, he had a hard time getting people to testify (awwww)?

Mr. Lieberman?s hearing made only limited headway because the Obama administration has refused his requests for witnesses from the F.B.I. and the Defense Department.

Mr. Lieberman said he had spoken with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Mr. Gates, who told him they would cooperate with his inquiry, but did not want to compromise the criminal investigation.

Ah, but he was able to get one ?name? figure anyway?

As a result, Mr. Lieberman proceeded with several nongovernment experts and former officials, including Frances Fragos Townsend, formerly the homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush.

And what did Fran have to say? Well?

Ms. Townsend expressed concern that ?political correctness? and fear of intruding on Major Hasan?s free speech rights might have interfered with the sharing of information earlier this year, when an F.B.I.-led counterterrorism team examined his e-mail exchanges with Anwar al-Awlaki, a well-known radical Islamist cleric, but found nothing amiss.

I guess this is what you can expect from someone who issued a report on Hurricane Katrina that was ?incomplete,? said it was ?offensive and crippling? that she actually had to worry about being subpoenaed in the course of doing her job (horrors!), and said that Osama bin Laden was ?virtually impotent? (all noted here, though I also praised her for going against the wishes of ?Deadeye Dick? Cheney here; I guess such praise was premature).

Actually, if all Lieberman needed was someone to mouth right-wing talking points, he could have called Glenn Beck as a witness. He would have been just as credible as Townsend, and he probably would have gotten better TV ratings on CSPAN from his intended target audience.

Also, I should note that, to probably no one?s surprise whatsoever, Christine Flowers of the Philadelphia Daily News thinks the Stupak-Pitts pro-sepsis coat hanger abortion amendment (here) is hilarious (OK, the reaction to it from those dreaded liberals, I mean).

Sick?

?(and) what I found particularly smirk-inducing was the total silence from these same quarters over recent decades as the Catholic Church threw its weight behind health-care reform. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama could have had no better champion than the leaders of the church who consistently criticized both Republicans and Democrats in Washington for failing to address the needs of the indigent and lower-middle class.

Instead of responding to Flowers? dog-whistle antics and trying to engage her in something close to intelligent dialogue on this (a fool?s errand in her case), I thought it best to link to this post instead from Natasha Chart of Open Left here, who tells us the following?

I remember the day in 1997 when I listened to my doctor tell me that I had a very large ovarian cyst, also, that I was likely to have a miscarriage. She said it was good that my body seemed to be taking care of things on its own, because the cyst could rupture and hemorrhage and they couldn't operate if I was pregnant because it was a Catholic hospital.

My doctor wasn't mean about it, she just couldn't give me this operation that she'd told me about a minute previous I needed to avert a threat to my life.

I was lucky that I miscarried. As the hormone-induced changes in the cyst caused pain that made it hard to stand upright in a matter of days, it's a good that I didn't have to go through the trouble of finding another hospital covered under my insurance. I went quickly from the terror of waiting to know if I could get that operation to the grim realities of going through it and recovering.

It turned out all right, but I've always remembered since then that I once sat helpless in a doctor's office watching her eyes slide away from mine to the floor as she refused to say anything when I pressed her to tell me what would happen if there wasn't a natural miscarriage. She just skipped ahead to how someone with my blood test results wasn't going to be pregnant much longer.

Opponents of abortion like to center their arguments around the fetus and talk about whether it's a person. Which basically means to me that they don't think women are people with the basic right to determine the conditions of their lives and what will happen to their bodies, who can be forced to suffer or die because it will make someone else feel better.

I would ask that you read all of her post, and then tell me what a compassionate, conservative Catholic Flowers supposedly is (I?ll try not to laugh too loudly if you do, but I won?t guarantee anything).

Oh, and another thing, Christine: I should tell you that, in all of the time that I have attended church, I have never heard anyone from the pulpit who ?consistently criticiz(ed) both Republicans and Democrats in Washington for failing to address the needs of the indigent and lower-middle class.?

With that in mind, though, if you want to get an idea of how this country has fared on the poverty issue under Republican versus Democratic presidents, the Census bureau put some numbers together cited in this post, and except for President Carter (though not for lack of trying to combat it, I?m sure), this country fared worse under the Repugs.

And in other faith-related news, Richard Viguerie (someone else who gives Catholics a bad name, IMHO) has been encouraging his brood not to contribute to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development ?because of the pro-abortion and homosexual organizations that are funded by CCHD,? as he put it here.

In response, this editorial tells us the following?

In Baltimore, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development helped the United Workers Association win a salary increase for cleaners at Camden Yards, strengthens the mission of the Maryland Disability Law Center and assists Neighborhood Housing Services to combat predatory "pay day" lending by developing micro-lending in communities that lack access to banks. In other cities, grants have helped groups fighting for better working conditions on behalf of farm workers. McDonald's, Yum Brands, Burger King and other fast food chains now pay tomato pickers more for their backbreaking labor in the fields because of these efforts. Just this year, the campaign awarded more than $7 million to grass-roots community organizations across the country. The campaign's Poverty USA initiative, which raises awareness about the impact of poverty on families, has been recognized as one of the best public service programs in the nation.

For centuries, Catholic social teaching has emphasized the obligation to care for our struggling neighbors on the margins of society. This is why Catholic Charities USA oversees the most extensive social services network for the poor outside of the federal government, and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development provides low-income citizens with the tools to improve their own lives.

As more Americans lose jobs and health care, faith-based community organizers offer critical lifelines to those who are only a layoff or medical scare away from poverty. This work is more important than ever. Census figures show the number of people falling into poverty increased by more than 2 million last year. Nearly 40 million Americans now live below the poverty line, the highest level since 1960.

The ACORN scandals should not define the proud legacy of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. The bishops' initiative has distinguished itself for the past four decades and deserves the support of all Americans who recognize the silent genocide of poverty as a political and moral failure unworthy of a great nation.

Amen to that.

And finally, though this is a week old I know, this communicates another reason why social justice is important as far as I?m concerned; that is, to stand up to the intolerant ravings that are spreading this country faster than the H1N1 virus, particularly when one side is responsible for it, but it is somehow excused because the other side of the ideological chasm is guilty of the dreaded ?partisanship? also.

With that in mind, I would like to state the following for the record?

I never threatened conservative interest groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers or the Chamber of Commerce, organizations that are typically antagonistic towards Democrats in general (here).

I never said any Democrat/liberal/progressive/whatever should ?prepare for war? with conservatives (here).

I never ?prayed? for Dubya?s days to ?be few? (yes, I had my Bush Countdown clock on this site, but that was for the end of his time in office, not the end of his life - here).

And I would have never imagined bringing a gun to a Republican presidential campaign event (here).

And I sure as hell never threatened a police officer (nor would I ever even entertain such a thought) after Dubya was installed as president in 2000 and (arguably) voted back to office in 2004 (here).

And I hope it goes without saying that I would never kill innocent church parishioners either (here).

So the next time you read David Zurawik or some other pundit whining about how MSNBC and Fix Noise are supposed to be equally partisan, remember that Rachel Maddow has never alleged that the president was a mass murderer (here) and Keith Olbermann has never smeared anyone he disagreed with by nicknaming them as ?killer? (here).

And let?s all hope and pray that it doesn?t take anyone else?s death to make that point plainly understood once and for all.

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http://liberaldoomsayer.blogspot.com/2009/11/friday-mashup-112009.html

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I Read Through 160,000,000 Bytes of Hacked Files
And All I Got Was This Lousy E-Mail

It's the global warming scandal of the century, says Michelle Malkin!

The exposure of the warmist conspiracy, says Andrew Bolt!

The final nail in the coffin of anthropogenic global warming, bleats James Delingpole!

A stunning tour de force -- four stars, says Leonard Maltin!

OK, so that last quote is made up. But the others aren't. What is it these conservatives are so excited about?

Apparently, the networks of University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit were hacked into last night, apparently by a team of Russians who deemed their data too important to be kept private. Approximately 160 megabytes of files, containing hundreds or thousands of e-mails and documents were leaked as a result of the security breach, reports The Guardian.

The conservatives are mainly zeroing in on one particular e-mail from the center's director, Phil Jones, dated from November 16th, 1999, which reads as follows:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@[snipped], mhughes@
[snipped]
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@[snipped],t.osborn@[snipped]
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim?s got a diagram here we?ll send that either later
today or first thing tomorrow. I?ve just completed Mike?s Nature
trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20
years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from1961 for Keith?s to
hide the decline. Mike?s series got the annual land and marine
values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N.
The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for
1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers, Phil

There you have it! The smoking gun! Irrefutable proof of the Anthropogenic Warming Global Super-Duper Major-Mega International Socialist Conspiracy!

If you see Al Gore parking his Ford Fusion hybrid near any major bridges, make sure to call the police!

Actually, what you have is a scientist, Dr. Jones, talking candidly about sexing up a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive. This is not a good thing thing to do -- I'd go so far as to call it unethical -- and Jones deserves some of the loss of face that he will suffer. Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens all the time in both academia and the private sector -- have you ever looked at the graphs in the annual report of a company which had a bad year? And it seems to happen all too often on both sides of the global warming debate (I'd include some of the graphics from An Inconvenient Truth in this category, FWIW.)

But let's be clear: Jones is talking to his colleagues about making a prettier picture out of his data, and not about manipulating the data itself. Again, I'm not trying to excuse what he did -- we make a lot of charts here and 538 and make every effort to ensure that they fairly and accurately reflect the underlying data (in addition to being aesthetically appealing.) I wish everybody would abide by that standard.

Still: I don't know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that's literally what some of these bloggers are saying!

Incidentally, 2009 is shaping up to be the 5th warmist year on record, according to the conspiracists at NASA.



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http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/i-read-through-160000000-bytes-of.html

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Over 8 Million Uninsured Children In America

Organizing for America (OFA) has announced the winner of their Health Reform Video Challenge:

video details and more

OFA will:

... air the ad on national cable and in D.C. beginning Monday, in an effort to up the moral and emotional urgency of the health care debate with the message that the lives of an untold number of individual children hang in the balance.

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Michael Winship: New York's Tough Enough for
Terrorist Trials

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Winship

If you want to royally tick off New Yorkers, try telling us what to do.

That's probably why the police stopped trying to enforce the jaywalking laws here years ago (as opposed to Washington, DC, where I once got one too many tickets and was sent to pedestrian school).

And that's why in the weeks after 9/11, my favorite sign was the one that appeared in the windows of Italian-American neighborhoods near where I live downtown. In bright red, white, and blue, it read: "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You got a problem with that?"

So imagine how pleased many of us were when told by conservatives -- most of them from out-of-town -- that we should be very afraid that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his Al Qaeda henchmen will be put on trial here in New York City, just blocks from the scene of their horrific crime, the World Trade Center.

read more

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http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/2128

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