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In New ‘Bombshell’ Video, Obama Criticizes Federal Response To Hurricane Katrina

By Judd Legum on Oct 2, 2012 at 10:00 pm

All day, the right-wing media have teased an “explosive” new video that exposes the “real” Barack Obama. The video turned out to be a speech from June 2007 at Hampton University, which was widely reported at the time. The full transcript of his prepared remark has been available for years.

The “explosive” news, according to the Daily Caller, is that Obama briefly deviated from his prepared remarks to comment on Hurricane Katrina. Obama said the federal government should do more to rebuild New Orleans, including waiving some requirements of the Stafford Act as the federal government did after 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew. Fox News, apparently, thinks this statement is outrageous and controversial. Here’s a screen shot from Sean Hannity’s show, which featured the video:

Drudge bills Obama’s 2007 remarks as a “race speech” because of the suggestion that the rebuilding of Katrina is connected to a history of racial discrimination. There was another President who made the same connection, George W. Bush:

That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets.

During his Hampton University speech, Obama also recognized his former pastor, Jerimah Wright. Video of those comments has been available since at least 2008.

Update

CBS News’ Jan Crawford follows Drudge’s lead, says Obama’s comments about Katrina have news value.

NEWS FLASH

Poll: Massachusetts Voters Support Medical Marijuana Initiative More Than 3 To 1 | A new University of New Hampshire poll finds overwhelming support for a ballot initiative to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes — the supporters of this initiative lead opponents 69 percent to 22 percent. To be fair, this number may be artificially inflated somewhat because the polling question emphasized many of the potential benefits of medical marijuana without discussing the arguments against the ballot initiative: “If passed, Issue 3 would eliminate state criminal and civil penalties for the medical use of marijuana by patients who have been diagnosed with a debilitating medical condition such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis and other debilitating
diseases.” Nevertheless, this poll is corroborated somewhat by another poll showing 59 percent of Massachusetts voters support the ballot initiative.

Economy

Goldman Sachs CEO: Some Wall Street Reforms May Be ‘Inadequate’

By Rebecca Leber on Oct 2, 2012 at 6:15 pm

Wall Street has spent millions lobbying to weaken many features of Dodd-Frank financial reform law that are not yet in place. Goldman Sachs, for instance, has spent $15 million lobbying since 2009.

CEO of Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein, who has said before that he thinks the “vast bulk” of the Wall Street reform law is good, suggested there are even parts of Dodd-Frank that might not go far enough:

Overall we needed to have reform. A lot of the reforms contained in Dodd-Frank look good to me and some of them look excessive and some of them may even turn out to be inadequate. But we’ll be able to tell — we’re still in the process of trying to get it right. And unavoidably, I’m sure, we’ll make the system, the regulators, and the people who are having these regulations enforced will make some mistakes along the way, and we’ll try to get it right.

Blankfein didn’t point to any specific areas of the law that could use strengthening, and noted that because of Dodd-Frank’s “skeletal” framework, “I don’t know if you can make a judgment yet whether it’s too much or not enough because we don’t really know what it is.” Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is working alongside other banks to fight for loopholes that could exempt half their trading business in derivatives from new regulation. (HT: Huffington Post)

Security

Geller Calls D.C. Metro’s Decision To Delay Anti-Muslim Ads ‘Absurd’

By Hayes Brown on Oct 2, 2012 at 6:00 pm

American Freedom Law Center A hearing on Thursday will decide whether a set of controversial advertisements that refer to Muslims as “savages” will be posted in Washington, D.C.’s subway system. The injunction hearing comes following Pam Geller’s complaint that that the ads, funded by her American Freedom Defense Initiative, have been blocked by the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) system in violation of her freedom of speech.

The move to temporarily block the ads came in light of the current tensions around the world due to the infamous “Innocence of Muslims” video that sparked worldwide protests. WMATA Police Chief Michael Taborn in court documents asserted that he himself recommended the delay, after consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, due to the “unique target” the Metrorail system poses. Geller — who features prominent in CAP’s report last year on the Islamophobia network in the U.S. — said the delay “grows less timely and more absurd by the day.”

The American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) is representing Geller and claims on its website that “Sharia-adherent Islamists are waging a war against our Nation and its Judeo-Christian principles reflected in our Constitution.” Waging war on the non-existent Sharia threat seems to be the primary cause of the AFLC, as seen in this interview with the “Sharia Awareness Action Network”:

In their District Court filing to overturn WMATA’s delay, AFDI and the AFLC refer to “‘barbaric and uncivilized’ acts” by Muslims and accuses WMATA of being racist themselves:

[T]he WMATA apparently considers adherents to Islam to be violent and incapable of responding to critical, political speech in our country in a civilized manner. When the WMATA ran an advertisement critical of Israel, urging the United States to end its military aid to its long-time ally in the Middle East, there was no concern about violence and passenger safety. What message is the WMATA sending about Islam by restricting Plaintiffs’ core political speech? And what message will this court be sending if it affirms that position? Indeed, whether intentionally or not, the WMATA is essentially siding with the Muslim Brotherhood leader of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, who condemns speech critical of Islam.

Geller’s attempts to turn the tables come in the face of concerted interfaith opposition to AFDI’s ad. The ads have already gone up in San Fransisco and New York City, where they’ve been the target of constant defacement, being labeled as “racist” and “hate speech.”

Health

Some GOP Officials Balk At Setting Up Obamacare Requirements

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Oct 2, 2012 at 5:43 pm

Monday was the deadline for states to report what their “essential health benefits” packages will look like under Obamacare’s newly-created insurance exchanges, which go into effect in 2014. But dozens of states are either unprepared or are refusing to set up their own exchanges, leaving it up to the federal government to set up the exchanges there.

Some Republican governors are refusing to make a decision about the programs in their states until after the election in case Mitt Romney, who has promised to repeal Obamacare on his first day in office, is elected. If it becomes clear that the health care reform law will not be repealed, those states will have to work quickly after the November election to meet the deadlines:

Some experts believe a larger number of states will eventually set up their own exchanges if President Obama is reelected. Their timetable is short, however, because the exchanges must be operating in time for open enrollment in October 2013.

States must declare their plans to the Department of Health and Human Services by Nov. 16. In addition to the 13 states that have expressed their intent to set up marketplaces, three states have decided to partner with the federal government in forming the exchanges. Eight have opted to leave the task exclusively to federal authorities.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) wrote a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to say that his state will not set up the minimum benefits because Bentley claims “that the law does not make health insurance affordable and negatively affects consumer choice.” For Alabama and the other states that do not set up the required minimum benefits, Kaiser Health News reports that the federal government will step in to set the benchmark at “the largest small group plan in the state.”

Justice

Disgraced Ex-Federal Prosecutor Turned Failed Tea Party Senate Candidate Reemerges As Anti-Marijuana Crusader

By Ian Millhiser on Oct 2, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Weld County, Colorado District Attorney Ken Buck has an inglorious history as a prosecutor. His career as a federal prosecutor reached an abrupt end after he received an official letter of reprimand for showing a “reckless disregard of [his] obligation to keep client information confidential.” Four years later, as a state prosecutor, Buck refused to prosecute a man who was recorded admitting that he raped a woman. Buck later told the victim that “[i]t appears to me . . . that you invited him over to have sex with him.”

Buck has now reemerged, this time as a staunch opponent of a Colorado ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana under that state’s law:

Ken Buck, the Weld County district attorney, said the federal government could crack down if Colorado legalized marijuana. But, even if it didn’t, more liberalized marijuana laws would hurt the state’s reputation.

“Our brand will go from business-friendly and healthy to Rocky Mountain high,” Buck said.

Buck, of course, is best known for his ill-fated attempt to unseat Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). In 2010, Buck was one of the vanguard of Tea Party U.S. Senate candidates who proved so extreme that they lost their races in a year when Republicans seem virtually invulnerable. Buck proclaimed the U.S. Department of Education to be unconstitutional, and he said that he does not know whether Social Security is constitutional — adding that “it is certainly a horrible policy.”

NEWS FLASH

Insurance Giant AIG May Be First Non-Bank To Be Regulated Under Wall Street Reform Law | Insurance giant American International Group (AIG) — which was at the center of the financial crisis in 2008 and received hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in a series of bailouts — announced that it is the first non-bank to be considered for regulation under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law of 2010. Dodd-Frank allows regulators to identify certain non-banks as “systemically significant,” and therefore subject to heightened regulation, if they pose a systemic threat to the U.S. economy.

Climate Progress

Under The Election-Season Radar, Signs Of Bipartisan Support For Clean Energy

By Climate Guest Blogger on Oct 2, 2012 at 4:44 pm

by Clint Wilder, via Clean Edge

On the eve of the first 2012 presidential debate, I’m not optimistic that our nation’s clean-energy future will suddenly turn into the campaign issue that it should be. But looking beyond the November 6th election, I’ve seen some recent signs that a more bipartisan push for clean-tech growth might be possible.

The first sign came about a month ago when DBL Investors issued a terrific report called Red, White & Green: The True Colors of America’s Clean Tech Jobs. The report’s early September release date and the theme coincided nicely with the launch of my new book Clean Tech Nation, co-authored with Clean Edge co-founder and managing director Ron Pernick, in which we discuss some of the same themes. The jobs report, by DBL managing partner and veteran clean-tech investor Nancy Pfund and Yale MBA candidate Michael Lazar, details the surprising leadership in clean-tech jobs in several politically conservative southern and western states. Since it’s election season, these are better known as red states and swing states. Of the 10 states with the fastest growth in clean-tech jobs from 2003 to 2010, only two (Hawaii and New York) are solid Democratic blue states. All the others are either solid red (Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming) or swing (Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Carolina).

“We all need to understand,” write the report’s authors, “that green jobs and clean tech are not merely the idle dreaming of a small group of partisan activists and insiders, but a source of livelihood for millions of Americans, literally in all parts of the country.” The report also highlights the efforts of five current or former Republican governors to attract and grow clean-tech jobs in their states, most notably Mississippi’s Haley Barbour and Kansas’s Sam Brownback.

This is a point I make in nearly all of my public appearances, particularly to call out the inexcusable stance of the national Republican party (and presidential candidate Mitt Romney) in opposing the extension of the federal production tax credit (PTC) for wind power, which expires at year’s end. Brownback, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin are among the GOP governors who have spoken out in favor of extending the PTC. Last week, Fallin told the newspaper Tulsa World, “I agree with Governor Romney on 99 percent of the issues. But on this one, I’ve got to do what’s best for our state.” Bottom line: this is not about ideology, it’s about jobs. And thanks to the insane political fight over the PTC – Congress adjourned last week without taking action – jobs are already disappearing as wind companies announce layoffs due to the PTC uncertainty.

Read more

Security

Study: Thousands Would Die In Attack On Iran’s Nuclear Facilities

By Ben Armbruster on Oct 2, 2012 at 4:36 pm

An Iranian nuclear scientist at Natanz (Photo: Reuters)

The University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics and the NGO Omid for Iran has concluded in a new report that bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in an attempt to delay its nuclear progress would kill thousands of Iranians and severely injure tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands more.

The study assumed a “conservative” estimation that any attack would likely occur at four main Iranian nuclear sites — Isfahan, Natanz, Arak and Bushehr — and based on discussions with Iranian and Western experts, the report concludes:

[W]e have estimated the total number of people — scientists, workers, soldiers and support staff — at Iran’s four nuclear facilities to be between 7,000 and 11,000. It is highly likely that the casualty rate at the physical sites will be close to 100 percent. Assuming an average two-shift operation, between 3,500 and 5,500 people would be present at the time of the strikes, most of whom would be killed or injured as a result of the physical and thermal impact of the blasts. If one were to include casualties at other targets, one could extrapolate to other facilities, in which case the total number of people killed and injured could exceed 10,000.

The report, titled The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble, added that “[t]ens, and quite possibly, hundreds of thousands of civilians could be exposed to highly toxic chemical plumes and, in the case of operational reactors, radioactive fallout.”

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Golnaz Esfandiari reports that while several experts said that the Bushehr site is not likely to be attacked (because it’s not of critical concern to the International Atomic Energy Agency) some say the report has filled a vacuum in the public discussion on whether war is necessary to delay Iran’s nuclear program.

“People talk very callously about the prospect of military strikes, and they frame it in the geopolitical fallout, the geo-economic fallout, what will happen to the oil price and all of these issues. But nobody has ever talked about the humanitarian consequences of a military strike on Iran,” said Afshin Molavi, an Iran expert at the New America Foundation.

The humanitarian fallout is just one of the many potential negative consequences of a military attack on Iran. At the same type, the Obama administration has said that it takes the threat of an Iran armed with a nuclear weapon seriously and has said it leaves no options off the table in preventing the Islamic Republican from acquiring one. These factors, coupled with U.N., U.S. and Israeli assessments that Iran has not yet decided on whether to build a nuclear weapon, leads the administration to pursue a diplomatic solution with Iran, a track the it deems the “best and most permanent way” to solve the nuclear crisis.

Alyssa

Joss Whedon’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Show Will Feature A Lot of Women

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Oct 2, 2012 at 4:32 pm

An agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show may not have been what I would have chosen for Marvel’s foray into television in cooperation with Joss Whedon, but it is a logical move, a way to build out the Marvel universe with relatively low special effects requirements and in a procedural framework that will be familiar to audiences who aren’t used to watching superhero shows. But I’m optimistic about the character lineup that’s been announced for the show for a couple of reasons:

SKYE | This late-20s woman sounds like a dream: fun, smart, caring and confident – with an ability to get the upper hand by using her wit and charm.

AGENT GRANT WARD | Quite the physical specimen and “cool under fire,” he sometimes botches interpersonal relations. He’s a quiet one with a bit of a temper, but he’s the kind of guy that grows on you.

AGENT ALTHEA RICE | Also known as “The Calvary,” this hard-core soldier has crazy skills when it comes to weapons and being a pilot. But her experiences have left her very quiet and a little damaged.

AGENT LEO FITZ and AGENT JEMMA SIMMONS | These two came through training together and still choose to spend most of their time in each other’s company. Their sibling-like relationship is reinforced by their shared nerd tendencies – she deals with biology and chemistry, he’s a whiz at the technical side of weaponry.

First, given the huge imbalance in the Marvel universe, it’s really nice to have three female characters to two male ones. I like great male characters, and I’m always curious to see what Whedon does with men and masculinity, a rather under-discussed element of his work, but if we’re seeing this show as part of a larger whole, this is a welcome course correction.

And second, it’s nice to see that, at least from the initial descriptions, we’re going to have different kinds of women in the show, too, from a charismatic heroine, to an action hero, to a lab rat. Particularly in the high school years of Buffy, Whedon did a nice job of showing how women with different personalities and styles could click as friends, grate up against each other, hurt each other, and work together. It was fascinating to Buffy, not a day-to-day academic whiz (though a good test-taker), and Willow, who made up in smarts what she lacked in fashion sense, form an extremely effective and for the most part, emotionally balanced partnership. The “Lovers Walk” episode of Buffy‘s third season, where Cordelia catches Xander cheating on her with Willow was interesting in part because it upset Cordelia’s understanding of her appeal and social standing relative to Willow. And in later seasons, Tara’s gentleness was a strong counterpoint to Buffy and Willow’s personalities: whether in magical practice or in terms of her relationship with Buffy’s younger sister Dawn, kindness can be even more effective than authority or strength.

Whedon did this kind of conflict of styles and surprising complementarities extremely well in The Avengers. Steve Rogers’ everyman values and old-fashioned perspectives on duty and teamwork clashed with Tony Stark’s ego and individualism. Tony may have goaded Bruce Banner, but in his fellow scientist, he recognized a kindred tinkerer and a man with some of the control problems that have plagued Tony in the past, if with more significant consequences. Thor sees in Bruce a man who needs a rumble sometimes. The final action sequences in the movie, though they have flaws, wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying without the friction that preceded it. These were men who could work together so effectively because they’d probed all of each other’s weak points and figured out all the places where their skills could complement each other. I’ll be excited to see Whedon use this part of his skill set again with a mixed group of men and women, and in an extended narrative on television.

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