Fox's Juan Williams: Romney and Ryan Appear on
Fox News More Than "Any Other Network" Because "They Feel Comfortable Here"

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 22 August 2012 08:43:22 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

From the August 22 edition of Fox News' The Five:

Previously:

The Coddled Candidates: Hume's Ryan Interview Reveals The Romney-Ryan Media Strategy

Fox's Hume Continues His Paul Ryan Praise: "Very Cheerful And Very Pleasant," "Remarkably Personable And Disarming"

Fox's Brit Hume: Paul Ryan Is "Strikingly Cheerful" And "Personally Quite Appealing"

Dick Morris Praises "Jackpot" Paul Ryan Pick Despite Warning Against Him

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Why Rove's Column Is A Problem For The Wall
Street Journal

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 22 August 2012 08:41:12 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

The Wall Street Journal's failure to regularly disclose Karl Rove's glaring conflict of interest in his weekly column is an ongoing problem for the paper.

Today, several current and former editorial page editors from the nation's top newspapers criticized the Journal for not consistently disclosing Rove's ties to American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, two political groups that are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help Republicans in the fall elections.

Though Rove occasionally mentions his involvement with those groups, the connection often goes undisclosed. In his recent columns, Rove is identified by the paper only as "the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush."

By any reasonable measure, Rove's involvement with two political groups spending hundreds of millions of dollars to swing the fall elections is a more important biographical detail than the fact that his public affairs firm counted the Moderate Party of Sweden as a client more than a decade ago.

But in the extended bio WSJ sometimes attaches to Rove's columns online, the latter detail -- along with things like a link to the Amazon page for his 2010 autobiography -- is included, while Crossroads goes unmentioned.

Rove, much like he does in his role as a Fox News "political analyst," often treats his Wall Street Journal column as an extension of his job to get Mitt Romney and other Republicans elected.

Most weeks, Rove's column is about the presidential race that the groups he founded are actively trying to win for Mitt Romney.

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"NEGLIGENT": Top Newspaper Editorial Editors Slam
WSJ 's Lack Of Rove Disclosure

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 22 August 2012 08:27:12 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

The Wall Street Journal's failure to disclose op-ed columnist Karl Rove's ties to political organizations raising hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat President Obama and other Democratic candidates is drawing harsh criticism from editorial page editors at America's top newspapers.

Even as he writes regular columns on the 2012 election for the Journal, Rove serves as what Vanity Fair calls "the defacto leader of the Republican Party." As the co-founder of the super PAC American Crossroads and its related organization Crossroads GPS, Rove is helping to assemble a massive war chest to run attack ads against Democrats this fall -- an obvious conflict of interest.

While Rove occasionally (but not consistently) discloses his connection to the political organizations in his columns, the description of Rove on the WSJ.com website and with each print column states only that "Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush." The ties are also absent from the 171-word bio of Rove that is occasionally appended to his columns on the Wall Street Journal website.

Howell Raines, a former editorial page editor and executive editor at The New York Times, says that description is woefully inadequate during the current election season. "His role at American Crossroads is, if anything, more relevant to this campaign than his Bush ties, given the importance of PAC commercials in this campaign," Raines told Media Matters in an email.

According to Raines, who served as the Times' editorial page editor in the mid-1990s, "full disclosure of a contributor's ties and interests is a threshold requirement," and the Journal's description fails to provide the reader with "information relevant to the issue at hand."

Rove often appears to use his Journal column to further his efforts to defeat Democratic candidates. In one recent column, Rove suggested that the Romney campaign would be better off running positive ads on their own candidate, writing that attacking Obama is "a job better left (mostly) to outside groups." Neither Rove nor the Journal disclosed Rove's own role in working to raise at least $240 million before Election Day to fund such ad buys.

Raines is not alone in his critique. More than a dozen current and former editorial page editors at major newspapers told Media Matters that they were uneasy with the Journal's practice. Many stated outright that the Journal should be disclosing Rove's ties and some said they would not publish such columns with or without such disclosure.

The Wall Street Journal and Journal Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot did not respond to requests for comment.

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Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday

post from Daily Kos on 22 August 2012 08:25:31 AM. © Daily Kos

C&J Banner

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE?

"It ain't the years, it's the mileage. If by mileage you mean years."

The annual Beloit College Mindset List is generating the usual gasps and titters as it reflects on how the mental cards are stacked in the collective minds of the Class of 2016, meaning you whippersnappers born in---ugh, do I have to say it?---1994. Welcome to their world?

They watch television everywhere but on a television.
They have come to political consciousness during a time of increasing doubts about America?s future.
Carpe diem, yo.Robert DeNiro is thought of as Greg Focker's long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway.
The paradox "too big to fail" has been, for their generation, what "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" was for their grandparents'.
Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge.
Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles.
White House security has never felt it necessary to wear rubber gloves when gay groups have visited.
Genomes of living things have always been sequenced.
A bit of the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, has always existed in space.
Despite being preferred urban gathering places, two-thirds of the independent bookstores in the United States have closed for good during their lifetimes.

And for future reference, the first class of students who will have lived through none of the Bush, Jr. presidency will be the class of 2031. Lucky ducks.

Cheers and Jeers grabs its walker and shuffles below the fold while sucking on hard candy and daring (romney)-RYAN to take away my Medicare... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

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esday

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Cartnoon

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 22 August 2012 08:17:14 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Another goner now replaced. Originally appeared May 2, 2011.Bowery Bugs [...]

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http://www.docudharma.com/diary/30666/cartnoon-by-ek-hornbeck

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Aug. 21: Romney Showing Improved Results in Swing
State Polls

post from FiveThirtyEight on 22 August 2012 08:03:49 AM. © FiveThirtyEight

Mitt Romney has held the lead recently in quite a few swing state polls. That wasn't the case in June or July, when Barack Obama held leads in those polls more often than Mr. Romney did.

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d-results-in-swing-state-polls/

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Surprise! Who Actually Votes

post from The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks! on 22 August 2012 08:01:15 AM. © The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

I’ve always wondered who those people were that voted:

Register to Vote Here
Votes for 16-year-olds: Government gives sign voting age could be lowered (mirror.co.uk)
If We Ever Needed To Vote….We Sure DO Need To Vote Right NOW!!! (theobamacrat.com)
Just wondering: Could Congress pass the Voting Rights Act now? (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
Jacksonville councilman after human rights vote: He was ‘confused’ but ‘voted the way I chose to vote’ (jacksonville.com)

Share/Bookmark

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Draining the Medicare pool

Insurance is all about risk. Medicare is an insurance program, and it works because it pools together everyone in the Medicare-eligible age group?whether they?re healthy or sick. By doing that, Medicare spreads the risk around: Some people are sick and need reimbursement, but the risks represented by those people are offset by the lower risk [...]Related posts:

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http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2012/08/22/draining-the-medicare-pool/

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This Is No "Yes, But" Year

Bracing for two weeks of convention goo, voters must face up to the hardest fact of 2012?-that every name on the ballot has become an ideological test.

In that sense, Republicans and their Tea Party masters have succeeded in transforming American politics from rational choices among human beings into litmus tests for wall-to-wall prejudice.
Those with old-fashioned sensibilities may see a difference between Scott Brown and Todd Akin in the Senate next year. Indeed Brown has called for Akin to quit his race, but Brown?s opponent Elizabeth Warren makes a hard-to-dispute point:
?What he [Akin] said was dangerously and deliberately ignorant. But it did not fall out of the sky.
?There?s a large Republican agenda here that has to do with access to birth control, with access to health care screening, to the ability of women to determine control over their bodies, to the definition of rape.
?He [Brown] is part of that agenda. He is working to get Republicans in control of the United States Senate so they can pursue that agenda.?
Warren?s contention gets instant credibility from the Republican Platform Committee?s stand against abortion even in cases of rape and incest or to save the life of the mother. Even if he disagrees, reelection of Scott Brown will be another vote to give such people control of the Senate.
As we reach that point this election year, it is the saddest commentary of all on the state of American democracy.

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http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-is-no-yes-but-year.html

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Justiceline: August 22, 2012

Welcome to Justiceline, ThinkProgress Justice?s morning round-up of the latest legal news and developments. Remember to follow us on Twitter at @TPJustice

Virginia Attorney General and Tea Party crusader Ken Cuccinelli (R) surprised absolutely no one by trying to force the Virginia Board of Health to shut down more abortion clinics in that state.
Arizona’s SB 1070 enters round two of litigation after the Supreme Court struck down much of the anti-immigrant law last June.
A Maryland task force picks up the task of figuring out how to set policy concerning firearms and the mentally ill.
Jane Mayer summarizes much of what’s wrong with American politics in one article: Obama is at a disadvantage because he is bad at sucking up to billionaires.
And, finally, for the 2/3s of Americans who cannot identify a Supreme Court justice, Andrew Cohen provides a helpful cheat sheet. It even includes obscure Justice Stephen Breyer!

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http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/22/724301/justiceline-august-22-2012/

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