It turns out the IRS was investigating conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status. Duh! And the TSA has been looking at people seeking to get on airplanes. None of the conservative organizations that the IRS was "targeting" were denied tax-exempt status. If this was a conspiracy, it's even more difficult to figure out than President Obama's so-called "cover up" of Benghazi. No wonder Republicans spend so much time looking at these so-called scandals—they're so hard to see.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press is angry that the Justice Department secretly seized phone records for several AP reporters and editors. The AP is more upset about the Justice Department under Obama getting a subpoena to look at their phone records than they were about the Justice Department under Bush looking at everybody's phone records without a subpoena.
President Obama called the obsession over Benghazi a "sideshow." He said "We don't have time to be playing these kinds of political games here in Washington." Maybe you don't have time, Mr. President, but the Republicans in Congress certainly do—these kinds of political games are all that they do. The President also said "Suddenly, three days ago this gets spun up as if there's something new to the story. There's no 'there' there." There's no there anywhere—Republicans have been looking for it everywhere.
There are currently five separate committees investigating Benghazi. They're putting more energy into investigating Benghazi than is put into researching cancer. If Republicans allocated as many resources into investigating extra-terrestrial life as the do into investigating Benghazi, we would already be communicating with space aliens. In all, one-third of House committees are engaged in investigating some aspect of the Obama administration! This is no longer a legislative body—it's become a grand jury!
Oversight is a legitimate function of Congress—but this has gone way past oversight and straight into overkill. The legislative branch it trying to destroy the executive branch! This is like one of those diseases where the body's immune system starts to attack the body itself. The Founding Fathers set up separate branches of government to so that they could check and balance each other, not so they could kill and eat each other. This is the same Whitewater and Lewinsky approach they used to derail the Clinton administration—just keep slinging mud. At the very least, Obama will have to spend a lot of his time dodging mud instead of advancing his agenda.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show weekdays 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL AM 1600.
Attorney General Eric Holder earlier today addressing the AP phone records subpoena...
Last night President Obama and Mitt Romney took a break to deliver jokes at the Al Smith dinner (video). Mitt Romney isn’t very good at delivering jokes—he was much funnier the other night at Hofstra, when he was doing pratfalls. President Obama made a lot of jokes at his own expense, and Mitt Romney also made a lot of jokes at President Obama’s expense. You know that phrase “He’s not afraid to make fun of himself”? Well Mitt Romney is evidently terrified to make fun of himself. Mitt just copied the cadence of comedy and pretended that this was something he was comfortable doing. I have a feeling that’s the same way he approaches a conversation. Mitt did do a joke about the formal attire for the evening being what he and Ann wear around the house. He didn’t specify what house.
As Paul Krugman points out, Mitt is blatantly lying about his jobs plan, starting with his claim that he has a jobs plan. Does Mitt Romney have a plan for jobs? No, Mitt has a plan for job—his job. Mitt thinks the mere fact of him being elected would cause confidence to soar and the economy to rebound. Mitt doesn’t provide solutions because he is convinced that he IS the solution.
Ann Romney took Mitt’s place on “The View.” According to Ann, the choice voters face is between reproductive rights and economic issues. It’s one or the other, ladies, so choose wisely! You can have control over your own body... or you can have a job—but you can’t have both. Oh, and that job will not pay the same as a man’s job. Ann divides the electorate into those who want abortions, and those who want economic freedom. For Ann, this election comes down to a battle between baby killers and job creators! Evidently the only way to guarantee a better future for your children is to have absolutely no control over how many children you have.
Jerome Corsi is travelling with Mitt Romney’s campaign on their airplane. Corsi is the guy from World News Daily, which covers “news” like the fact that President Obama is secretly a gay Muslim. So, the “World” in World News Daily is not the same world that normal people inhabit. Corsi claims that Obama is secretly gay. Corsi’s informant from the Chicago gay scene told him that Obama is “very much into older white guys.” Sounds to me like that’s more wishful thinking on Jerome Corsi’s part than anything else.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday thorugh Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
Now is about the time for Republican Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Darryl Issa, to offer an apology to Attorney General Eric Holder. Back in June, House Republicans voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt after Congressman Darryl Issa held a series of witch hunt hearings trying to implicate Holder in the non-existent Fast and Furious conspiracy.
Now, a new report out by the DOJ’s Inspector General confirms that the case against Holder was completely baseless. The report was focused on Fast and Furious and found no evidence of wrongdoing or misleading on the part of Attorney General Holder.
Similarly, there was absolutely no evidence that Fast and Furious was a secret plot to flood Mexico with guns, spark violence, and give the Obama administration good reason to confiscate everyone’s gun, which was an actual theory presented by Issa and other Republicans.
Republicans spent huge amounts of taxpayer money trying to embarrass the nation’s first black Attorney General and the President. Now we know all that money was wasted on a political sideshow.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program live Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Hacktivists working within the group “Anonymous” are claiming they’ve caught the FBI spying on more than 12 million Apple customers. On Monday night, the hacktivists released FBI files that contained over 12 million Apple UDID’s – which are specific numbers exclusively assigned to apple products like Iphones and Ipads. Along with the UDIDs, Anonymous is saying the FBI database also included user names, cell phone numbers, and addresses.
The FBI has yet to comment on the story. In a statement on the discovery, Anonymous said, “For the last few years we have broke [sic] into systems belonging to Governments and Big corporations just to find out they are spending millions of tax dollars to spy on their citizens. They work to discredit dissenting voices.”
It’s true, we are being spied on. The emerging surveillance state is a consequence of corporations taking over our government. One major difference between democratic rule and corporate rule – there is no transparency or individual privacy when corporations are in control.
Listen to me live Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
The answer to the above question is…..yes. When you do this kind of work long enough, the same bad penny can turn up many years after you first hear about it. Such is the case with a guy named Frank Borzellieri. Back in the day he was a member of Local School Board 24 in Queens. His record there is worth examining. Among other things, he tried to ban a biography on Dr. Martin Luther King (he thinks it was un-American), he voted to reject all federal government monies (unconstitutional), and tried to fire a gay teacher (unsuccessfully).
He once referred to the increase in black and Latino populations in the US as “The New Dark Age”. That comes from a book he wrote that I won’t bother to publicize by writing its title here. And yet, Frank Borzellieri never seems to have trouble finding work. What’s interesting is that he finds the work in schools that are predominately composed of students he labels “The New Dark Age”. He taught at the St. Barnabas School in the Bronx, and then, two years ago, he was hired as principal at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, also in the Bronx.
The pastor who hired him, the Rev. Eric Rapaglia said he knew about Borzellieri’s views, but didn’t seem them as a problem. He apparently managed to also overlook his ties to the publication American Renaissance, a white supremacist rag that he remains affiliated with. Now, imagine for a moment what kinds of protests there would be if a teacher at a predominately white school, public or parochial, had public ties with the New Black Panther Party. Or the Nation of Islam, or La Raza. Would the Catholic Church sign off on such a thing?
Don’t get me wrong, Frank Borzellieri has every right to live his life as he chooses. I simply wonder what fascination this man has with young children of color, children who, if his writings are to be believed, barely deserve an education at all. Parents at Mt. Carmel are starting to ask questions. One outraged resident of Queens actually came to the Bronx this past Sunday and interrupted Mass to protest. He was kicked from behind by church ushers and later arrested. He ought to get a medal.
If anyone ought to face sanctions here, it is Rev. Eric Rapaglia. He not only hired Borzellieri, but all but endorsed his views as well. This is nothing less than a stain on the Catholic Church, which can ill afford any more than they’ve already endured. Fire Frank Borzellieri now, and send Rev. Rapaglia to a parish the serves a gated lily white community. Communities of color deserve better than these two.
