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GOP Talking Heads Try to Score Political Points by Stoking Resentment About Accusations of Racism
Biden condemned white supremacy, so why are some Republicans disingenuously describing it as an attack on the entire GOP? I would like to assume that most Americans in both parties oppose hate groups and violence.
Jan 29, 2021
President Biden recently became the first president to condemn white supremacy by name in an inaugural address. Then some Republicans got mad because, they say, it's an attack on them.
He's "calling us racists," Rand Paul complained. "According to the left, supporting border security and celebrating July 4 could make you a white supremacist," Tucker Carlson claimed. "I was offended" by "the racism thing," Karl Rove added.
These complaints are disingenuous.
First, consider President Biden's exact words. After alluding to the racial justice protests over the summer, Biden turned to warn of "a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat."
It seems clear that Biden was referring to the people who recently attempted a coup at the U.S. Capitol, where the presence of white supremacists has been well documented.
"Members of Several Well-Known Hate Groups Identified at Capitol Riot," read a ProPublica headline. A New York Times headline offered help "Decoding the Hate Symbols Seen at the Capitol Insurrection."
Biden was not talking about rank-and-file Republicans who voted for Trump but are not members of hate groups. That's not at all consistent with his message of unity. These talking heads are just stoking outrage among Republicans to gain cheap political points.
However, I think this issue is worth breaking down a little more.
Historically, racists almost never see themselves as racists. And actual racists often hide their racism to attract more followers to their cause.
For example, former Klan leader David Duke once explicitly said that he was moving from a message of hating non-white people to a message of love and pride for white heritage in order to attract more followers. He combined this tactic with accusations of "reverse racism" to anyone who disagreed with him.
Racism rebranded to sound less racist in order to recruit more racists is still racism.
In the early 1970s, Richard Nixon introduced the "Southern strategy" to bring white Southerners and others upset by Democrats embracing civil rights legislation over to the Republican Party. However, because it was no longer publicly acceptable to openly espouse racism, they employed "racial dog whistles."
"By 1968 you can't say [the N-word]--that hurts you, backfires," Republican strategist Lee Atwater later explained. "So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff.... Now, you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a by-product of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites."
Today, alt-right personality Jordan Peterson takes an even trickier approach. He says he is in favor of individual autonomy. Where's the bigotry in that?
"The collective doesn't suffer," he says. "Individuals suffer." Therefore the only type of injustice that is wrong is injustice perpetrated against individuals, not entire groups. Peterson is essentially arguing that the very thing Atwater described--policies that benefit white people over other groups, or hurt people of color disproportionately--is fine.
Republicans' response to Biden appears to be a newer tactic: stoking resentment about the mere accusation of racism.
Paul, Rove, and Carlson all know the difference between a Trump voter who opposes abortion and wants tax cuts and coup plotters with white supremacist tattoos. But they're telling Republicans that Biden's condemnation of the latter group meant the entire Republican Party.
Meanwhile, someone put two pipe bombs in the U.S. Capitol. I would like to assume that most Americans in both parties oppose hate groups and violence. Working against both could be an easy bipartisan win when we agree on little else.
To do that, we'll need a lot less resentment theater.
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Corporate Media Turns to Warhawks, Including Former Bush Officials, to Beat Drums of War on Iran
"Nothing's been learned from 2003. Nothing."
Jan 02, 2020
Trump critics and peace advocates watched in horror Thursday night and Friday morning as some of the top architects of the Iraq War took to the corporate media to spin a narrative aimed at retroactively convincing Americans that the killing of Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani was essential to the safety of the U.S.--a replica of the run-up to the Iraq War nearly two decades ago.
Following reports that President Donald Trump ordered the airstrike that killed Soleimani, the major general of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, former George W. Bush administration officials were among those who media outlets called on to make a case for the act.
"CNN is allowing a parade of Republican lawmakers to go on air and cheerlead for war with Iran, and barely bothering to ask any of them how the U.S. keeps the region safe or what the plan is. We've learned much less since 2003 than we should have."
--Matthew Chapman, Raw StoryFormer White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer suggested, as conservatives did in 2003 regarding Iraqi civilians, that Iranians would likely celebrate the killing of Soleimani--presuming to speak for demonstrators who have decried economic hardships in the face of U.S. sanctions and government mismanagement in recent weeks.
"The Iranian people have been leading a revolution, a rebellion against their government, knowing what a dictatorship it is," Fleischer told Fox News. "So I think it is entirely possible this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate the killing of Soleimani."
Journalist Judd Legum wrote that Fox is "getting the band back together" as right-wingers rework their 2003 claims to apply to Iran, joined by Trump administration officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Pompeo appeared on CNN Friday to claim that Iranian civilians "will view the American action last night as giving them freedom"--even as thousands of people took to the streets in Tehran and other cities in Iran to protest the Trump administration's actions.
A number of observers denounced cable news networks for offering a platform to pro-war extremists while ignoring the voices of peace advocates and critics.
"Former Bush appointees who thought the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a good idea?" tweeted journalism professor and Guardian columnist Christian Christensen. "Maybe not be the most objective commentators on US interests in the region."
"It's War Inc. all over again," wrote Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation. "No voices calling for peace. No voices critical of empire. Just establishment media and current and former Pentagon officials who feed off the trillion-dollar war machine."
News networks demonstrated their eagerness to present an uncritical view of the Trump administration's reasoning for the airstrike, which came days after the president, without evidence, accused Iran of orchestrating an attack at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
CNBC's declaration that the U.S. had "just [taken] out the world's number one bad guy" was condemned as "journalistic malpractice" by writer Kelsey Atherton.
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote about the contrast between the Trump administration's sudden escalation in Iran and the run-up to George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of iraq--prior to which the president, his top advisers, and other conservative commentators spent more than a year insisting the U.S. military should defeat Saddam Hussein.
Trump ordered the airstrike that killed Soleimani before "99 percent" of Americans had even heard of the official, wrote Bunch.
"Within minutes, the same people who brought us the endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere suddenly showed up on TV to declare [Soleimani] was the worst person in the world," he tweeted.
"Where is the speech to the American people that lays out to the everyday citizen 1) who was Soleimani 2) what are his crimes against the U.S. 3) how does killing him make us safer 4) what is our plan for the messy aftermath?" Bunch asked, calling the administration's unilateral move without lawmakers' knowledge--much less congressional approval--"imperialistic and authoritarian."
Filmmaker and activist Michael Moore added that with a steady stream of commentary from Fleischer, Rove, Pompeo, and other conservatives clamoring to move ahead with war in Iran, Americans will be "trained to hate" Soleimani by the end of the week--even if they had never heard of him before Thursday night.
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With Supreme Court Decision on Dark Money "We're About to Know a Lot More About Who Is Funding Our Elections"
"We are about to drive a lot of dark money donors into the light—it's gonna look like the climax of a Harry Potter movie where the creatures shrivel in the sun."
Sep 19, 2018
In a win for increased transparency and those demanding an end to the so-called "dark money" eating away at U.S. democracy, the Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a previous stay on a lower court ruling by rejecting the argument by right-wing advocacy groups who said they should not have to reveal the identity of big-dollar donors who fund their issue-based campaign ads.
Crucially, the ruling means that groups that in the past have been able to hide the source of their funding before, during, and after campaigns will have now have to make that information available before voters go to the polls--in this case, that means before the upcoming mid-term elections. Effective immediately, any group or individual making more than $250 in express advocacy ads -- ads that tell viewers who to vote for or against -- must now disclose the identities of all contributors who gave more than $200 in a year.
As the Huffington Post reports:
The decision came about after Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group, fought for the past six years to get the Federal Election Commission to enforce campaign finance laws against Crossroads GPS, a conservative nonprofit group founded by Karl Rove, a senior adviser to George W. Bush when he was president. CREW finally won its battle on Tuesday.
As of Sept. 18, any group that runs an independent expenditure -- election ads that expressly call for the election or defeat of a candidate -- in excess of $250 will have to disclose all political donors above $200.
Norm Eisen, the chairperson of CREW, celebrated the decision on Twitter: "We are about to drive a lot of dark money donors into the light--it's gonna look like the climax of a Harry Potter movie where the creatures shrivel in the sun."
Writing for the Center for Public Integrity, Dave Levinthal and Sarah Kleiner report that "secret money in politics will soon be a lot less secret."
And while Levinthal and Kleiner quoted Federal Election Commission Vice Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, who said it won't be surprising to see some groups "come up with clever ways of getting around the rules," champions of disclosure said the ruling is a major crack in the armor of the forces of those using shadowing groups and their vast fortunes to undermine democracy.
"This is a great day for transparency and democracy," said Noah Bookbinder, CREW's executive director. "Three courts, including the Supreme Court, have now rejected Crossroads' arguments for a stay, meaning we're about to know a lot more about who is funding our elections."
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I'd Like to Offer This Sanity Quiz to All #NeverTrump Conservatives
Nicolle Wallace, David Frum, Joe Scarborough, Bill Kristol: Step right up.
Apr 15, 2018
I am told regularly by people I admire and respect to hold my cynical tongue about all the career conservatives and television flotsam from the late and unlamented Avignon Presidency who now are all over the airwaves deploring the terrible things being done to the Republic by the president* and his dwindling band of loyalists down at Camp Runamuck. Be nice, I am told. These are valuable allies.
Try not to say so loudly that, as soon as the Republican Party casts off the First Millstone, these people all will be right back to promoting the ideas and the policies that made him possible in the first place--voodoo economics, wars of choice based on deceit, ticking-bomb excuses for torture, and night sweats over the impending rise of the liberal power elite. Keep that stuff to yourself, they say.
I am nothing if not coachable, so I've laid off as best I can. But, on Thursday night, kindly Doc Maddow hosted Nicolle Wallace to talk about the Comey book and other symptoms of our current attack of virulent political botulism. Wallace has proved to be a great--not, good, but great--TV host qua TV host. She's smart and she's personable and she comes across wonderfully on camera.
That said, on Friday night, if I had a firearm, I'd have Elvis-ed my electric teevee screen over something Wallace said to KDM concerning the Trump camp's attacks on good ol' James Comey, Man of Immutable Integritude. To wit:
WALLACE: Look, I just think it's another illustration of the complete decimation of the Republican Party's standing for anything that it was supposed to stand for. And I know you've never been a fan, but I'm a former practicing member of the party, and it never stood for character assassination of a man like Jim Comey, who served Republican presidents. And you may disagree with every single policy that George W. Bush advanced, but Jim Comey was a faithful and loyal servant in the George W. Bush Justice Department. So to have today's RNC crafting a plan and staff a war room to smear him is a disgrace.
Bold face mine, indicating the exact point in the show when I had a stroke.
Instead of venting my anger, and in my usual attempt to calm the roiling political sea, I offer the following test questions to all the Republican Penitents currently d/b/a Never Trumpers. These questions are based on Wallace's remarkable assertion above as to what Republicanism is and is not, and what it has been and has not been, over the course of my life of political observation.
So, Nicolle, and Steve Schmidt, and Michael Steele, and Rick Wilson, and Joe Scarborough, and Butcher's Bill Kristol, and Andrew Sullivan, and David Frum, and the rest of you. Please take out your No. 2 pencils, open your test booklets and begin. We start with an easy one.
1) Many of you have expressed your dismay at how Sinclair Broadcasting forced its local anchors to read a canned statement about the curse of "fake news," divining, correctly, that this was the company's way of delegitimizing serious coverage of the many and varied corruptions of the current administration*. In 2004, when Sinclair forced its local stations to run a meretricious fake documentary slandering John Kerry's service in Vietnam, were you as offended as you are today? Were you public with your disapproval? Did you take your concerns to upper echelons in the Bush campaign and the Bush White House? To whom did you take them?
2) Please provide an example of how you pushed back against the entire Swift Boating of Kerry? Did any of you upbraid the people who were peddling Purple Heart Band-Aids at the 2004 Republican Convention?
3) Please explain in detail how you, because of your deep concern for political civility and an open marketplace of ideas, pushed back against the vicious attacks by Bush administration officials, and conservative journalists, who were critical of Americans who doubted the phony case for the invasion of Iraq. Please explain Andrew Sullivan's famous "Fifth Column" essay in light of how Donald Trump talks about his political opponents. Bonus Question: Please discuss the Bush Administration's assaults on the UN weapons inspectors in the context of the Trump Administration's assaults on the credibility of the FBI?
4) In one sentence or less, please describe the political style and impact on the nation of the following: Newt Gingrich, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Mercer family, the Koch Family, the Bradley Family. Please include details of the positive contributions of each of these to the political life of the nation.
5) True or False: Ronald Reagan was correct in referring to Michael Dukakis as a "mental patient" from a White House podium.
6) Please explain, in detail, all efforts you made within the Republican Party during election seasons, to counter the influence of radical conservative splinter Protestantism on the party's policies toward the following: reproductive rights, public schools, the rights of LGBTQ citizens. Bonus Question: Please write in detail the complaints you made when gay marriage bans were specifically targeted.
7) In 1983, Ronald Reagan told Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir that he personally had been part of a film crew at the liberation of the concentration camps in Europe. In 2018, Donald Trump said he wished he'd have been in Parkland, Florida so he could have rushed school shooter Nikolas Cruz. Compare and contrast.
8) Ronald Reagan once said that, "Trees cause more pollution than humans do." Donald Trump once tweeted that, during a cold snap, the "East Coast could use a little of that global warming." Compare and Contrast.
9) Given your concern about ratfcking in political campaigns, please explain all the steps you took to fight the Republican party's voter-suppression campaign in Florida in 2000.
10) Please explain how close you came to resigning from the party when George W. Bush's campaign slandered John McCain's child during the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina.
11) Please explain in detail how you pushed back against the lies and half-truths lobbed at Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign. Please define the salience to the 2000 campaign of the following phrases: Love Canal, Internet, Fairfax Hotel, Love Story.
12) True Or False: Bill Clinton ran drugs out of a small airport in rural Arkansas.
13) True or False: Bill Clinton had two teenagers murdered along a set of railroad tracks in rural Arkansas.
14) True or False: White House counsel Vince Foster's death was "mysterious."
And, finally, write a 500-word essay on one of the following topics:
1) Donald Trump's attempted politicization of the Justice Department is different than Karl Rove's attempted politicization of the Justice Department.
2) Donald Trump's corrupt Cabinet is different than Ronald Reagan's corrupt Cabinet.
3) Michael Cohen is a thug while Karl Rove is a visionary political philosophe.
You have two hours.
Begin.
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One Percenters Get Their Own Special Social Welfare Deal
One percenters have it all, extra houses, extra cars, even an exclusive legal defense if they kill, "affluenza," to keep them out of jail.
But until last week, they felt unfairly denied access to the benefits of social welfare organizations, United Way, Habitat for Humanity and the like. Now, these are rich people, so they wanted special social welfare groups, ones that would solely benefit rich people. And that's exactly what they got.
Feb 15, 2016
One percenters have it all, extra houses, extra cars, even an exclusive legal defense if they kill, "affluenza," to keep them out of jail.
But until last week, they felt unfairly denied access to the benefits of social welfare organizations, United Way, Habitat for Humanity and the like. Now, these are rich people, so they wanted special social welfare groups, ones that would solely benefit rich people. And that's exactly what they got.
The Internal Revenue Service gave it to them. The IRS declared that an association called Crossroads GPS is a nonprofit social welfare group. That makes Crossroads GPS a sibling to agencies like Little Sisters of the Poor, the American Red Cross, and the Humane Society. Except that Crossroads, spawned by Republican strategist Karl Rove, spends every clandestine million dollars it collects to benefit the rich, not to help hurricane victims or homeless veterans or abandoned puppies.
The IRS took five years to review the Crossroads GPS application for nonprofit social welfare status. This seems very odd since Crossroads GPS spent every donated dollar - about $330 million - on politics, either to fund its own campaigns to smear liberal candidates and causes or to fund other organizations devoted to smearing liberal candidates and causes.
Most Americans would need only five minutes to determine that such a group is about politics, not social welfare. And, as a political group, it should not receive the tax breaks that are justly awarded to organizations that serve society by mentoring foster kids and delivering hot meals to elderly shut-ins.
But now, because of the IRS decision, Crossroads GPS doesn't have to pay taxes on the hundreds of millions it spends to influence elections for the benefit of the one percent. But, probably more important to Crossroads GPS, it can keep its fat cat donors' names secret because nonprofit social welfare groups are donor disclosure exempt as well as tax exempt.
For actual social welfare groups, this may come from the admonishment in the New Testament that, "when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you."
But Crossroads donors don't give a damn about charity. Their only interest is self-interest. They are attempting to elect politicians who will implement policy to further enrich the rich.
They don't want to sound a trumpet about their bribes, sorry, political gifts, because they don't want anyone to know who they are. For these donors, there could be repercussions if the public discovered them.
For example, if the CEO of a corporation whose primary customers were Latinos gave millions of dollars to a presidential candidate who said undocumented immigrants were rapists and drug dealers, the stock might suffer.
But now the CEO can surreptitiously slide money to Crossroads GPS with the absolute assurance that his name will never be revealed.
Also, some of this dark money is drawn directly from corporate coffers, not from CEO pockets. Stockholders may be generally unhappy with the amount of corporate money spent on politics but enraged if they knew it went to groups they loathe like Crossroads GPS.
One percenters expect a return on these political investments and have made that increasingly clear. Here's what Republican lobbyist and donor Theresa Kostrzewa told the New York Times, "Donors are demanding a lot these days, man, and they want answers and they want results. . . Donors consider a contribution like, "Well, wait, I just invested in you. Now I need to have my say; you need to answer to me.'"
Tens of millions of dollars secretly "invested" with Crossroads GPS will buy a few answers. Three clandestine Crossroads GPS donors in 2012 gave more than $10 million each. Fifty-three secret donors gave more than $1 million.
Five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court set this in motion with the democracy-killing Citizens United decision, which handed the one percent license to buy elections. In October, the New York Times reported that one result is that not since before the Watergate scandal have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a presidential campaign. The total, the Times found, was $176 million from just 158 one percenters and their companies.
That was the reported money from the reported donors. The American public will never know the rest of the story on "nonprofit social welfare" groups' political spending.
Even before Crossroads GPS, the IRS had granted social welfare status to virtually every political group that sought it, from the right wing Koch network to the liberal David Brock American Bridge 21st Century Foundation. The decision on Crossroads GPS is significant only because of the group's enormous wealth.
In the last presidential election, right-wing dark money groups like Crossroads GPS spent $125 million and liberal groups spent $35 million.
The IRS tried to write rules governing these groups, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did the bidding of right-wingers and inserted in last year's spending bill two provisions to stop that.
One of Mitch's provisions prohibits the IRS for the next two years from issuing rules defining social welfare. The other blocks the Securities and Exchange Commission from forcing corporations to disclose their donations to dark-money groups.
So thanks to Mitch, one percenters can continue for at least two more years to depend on their dark money to feed politicians like foie gras geese, with every expectation of the same rich return.
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With Corbyn at Helm, Labour Party Would Apologize for Iraq War
Under his leadership, he says the party 'will never make the same mistake again, will never flout the United Nations and international law'
Aug 21, 2015
Twelve years after he voted against UK involvement in the Iraq war, Labour Party leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn has said that if elected, he will apologize to the British people for the "deception" in the run-up to the 2003 invasion and to the Iraqi people for their subsequent suffering.
"It is past time that Labour apologized to the British people for taking them into the Iraq war on the basis of deception and to the Iraqi people for the suffering we have helped cause. Under our Labour, we will make this apology," Corbyn wrote in a statement to the Guardian.
With him as leader, he said the party "will never make the same mistake again, will never flout the United Nations and international law."
The Guardian notes: "This effectively rules out Labour under Corbyn from supporting David Cameron's government in a proposed House of Commons vote to expand to Syria the current UK air strikes in Iraq against Islamic State."
Polls continue to show Corbyn, whose surging candidacy is seen as a backlash against what Guardian columnist Seumas Milne described as "a disastrous austerity regime," in the lead.
"Corbyn represents a break with City-backed austerity and a powerful commitment to public investment," Milne wrote on Thursday. "Add to that his opposition to Trident renewal and endless British war-making, and the challenge he represents to the establishment consensus is obvious enough."
Earlier this month, Corbyn suggested former Prime Minister Tony Blair should stand trial on charges of war crimes if the evidence suggests he broke international law by sending British troops into Iraq. "It was an illegal war," Corbyn said. "I am confident about that."
Blair, who has been strident in his opposition to Corbyn's candidacy, did not apologize when he gave evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry into the war in 2011, only expressing regret for the loss of life. Former Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose resignation spurred the current leadership race, did not apologize either, though in 2010 he described the war as "wrong."
Meanwhile, as Common Dreams reported at the time, the former adviser to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove, also refused to apologize in April when pressed by a U.S. Iraq war veteran at a speaking event.
In his statement, Corbyn said: "As a party, we found ourselves in the regrettable position of being aligned with one of the worst right-wing governments in U.S. history, even as liberal opinion in the U.S. was questioning the headlong descent into war."
Ballot papers were sent out on August 14. Voting can be done by post or online. All ballots must be returned by September 10, and the result will be announced on September 12.
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Asked by Veteran to Apologize for Horrors of Iraq War, Karl Rove Says No
'I'm not going to apologize for our government having done the right thing by having removed Saddam Hussein from power,' Rove insists
Apr 03, 2015
Karl Rove may be a lot of things, but being sorry for the 2003 invasion of Iraq is not one of them.
A 32-year-old Iraq war veteran confronted Rove at the University of Connecticut this week, calling on the former senior advisor to President George W. Bush to apologize for the horrors of that war and its lingering effects both at home and abroad.
"I've taken responsibility for my actions and dealt with my demons while advocating for a peaceful resolution for a war that was an act of aggression with no clear goal," said Ryan Hemowitz, who said he served as a medic with the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Infantry Regiment, at an event sponsored by the UConn College Republicans. "Can you take responsibility and apologize for your decision in sending a generation to lose their humanity and deal with the horrors of war, which you have never had the courage to face? Will you apologize to the millions of fathers and mothers who lost their children on both sides of this useless war?"
Rove, who helped lead the disinformation campaign that led to the 2003 Iraq invasion, refused to say he was sorry.
"We should be proud of what we were able to achieve in Iraq," Rove said, citing the alleged dangers posed by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein--the same justification war hawks offered in the lead up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Hussein was a "state sponsor of terrorism" who "thumbed his nose at the international community," Rove said. "Fourteen times he gave the finger to the United Nations."
"I'm sorry, we have a fundamental disagreement," he concluded. "I appreciate your service, but I'm not going to apologize for our government having done the right thing by having removed Saddam Hussein from power."
Watch the full exchange below:
According to the Hartford Courant:
Also during his address to the audience at UConn, Rove commented on the 2016 presidential campaign, saying he hoped Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts would enter the race. "We should be so lucky," he said, calling her "Pocahontas," a reference to her claims of Native American ancestry.
Rove was not available for comment Thursday, but Kristin Davison, chief of staff for Karl Rove & Company, said the comment about Warren was "simply making light of the fact that Sen. Warren continuously over-embellished her heritage for political benefit during the course of her 2012 campaign."
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Bush 'Intimately Involved' with CIA Torture, says Rove
Dec 14, 2014
Former President George W. Bush knew and was "intimately involved" in the CIA's practice of torture, former Bush adviser and Republican strategist Karl Rove confirmed on Fox News Sunday.
Despite arguments made in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's report that the CIA had not alerted Bush and other top officials about the extent of the abuses until 2006, Rove told the morning show: "He made the decision."
"He was presented, I believe, 12 techniques, he authorized the use of 10 of them, including waterboarding," Rove added.
The Senate report, released on Tuesday, documented such abuses as "rectal rehydration" and "water dousing," as well as threatening to kill or sexually abuse family members of detainees--acts which the committee said were beyond the scope of what was portrayed by the CIA to congressional overseers and the Bush administration.
Rove argues that this alleged inaccuracy indicates that the report authors had insufficiently consulted Bush administration officials when researching the torture program.
Citing the former president's recent book Decision Points, Rove confirmed that Bush was fully briefed on all of the CIA's tactics in 2002, early on in the torture program. "He was briefed and intimately involved in the decision," said Rove.
The Republican insider's admission comes as a growing number of rights groups and others are calling on President Obama and lawmakers to prosecute those responsible for the abuses.
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Report: How GOP Operatives Clandestinely Used Twitter to Bypass Election Laws
Practice exposed by CNN reveals quest by political operatives to exploit murky world of campaign finance laws in age of Citizens United
Nov 17, 2014
According to reporting by CNN on Monday, it appears that during this year's mid-term elections shadowy outside Conservative campaign groups and official Republican Party campaigns may have used public, though "hidden in plain sight," Twitter accounts and secret codes to communicate with one another in a clandestine scheme designed to get around campaign finance laws that make direct communication and coordination between the two illegal.
If accurate, the report bolsters arguments made by critics of the enormous role that outside money has played in recent elections. In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizen United decision, which has flooded the electoral landscape with hundreds of millions of unaccountable dollars, independent groups--including SuperPACs or independent 501(c)4 groups like Karl Rove's American Crossroads--are not allowed to coordinate with the political parties running candidates. Experts have said the courts have been niave to believe that such coordination is not going on.
In this case, according to CNN's Chris Moody, it appeared that the Twitter accounts of at least two Conservative groups--American Crossroads and the American Action Network--were among a small group of users accessing an account that was also being monitored by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). In the course of its investigation, CNN reached out to the NRCC for comment about the account. Minutes later, the outlet reported, the Twitter account in questions, as well as others under suspicion, were all deleted.
Moody reports:
The Twitter accounts were hidden in plain sight. The profiles were publicly available but meaningless without knowledge of how to find them and decode the information, according to a source with knowledge of the activities.
The practice is the latest effort in the quest by political operatives to exploit the murky world of campaign finance laws at a time when limits on spending in politics are eroding and regulators are being defanged.
The law says that outside groups, such as super PACs and non-profits, can spend freely on political causes as long as they don't coordinate their plans with campaigns. Sharing costly internal polls in private, for instance, could signal to the campaign committees where to focus precious time and resources.
Watch the report:
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GOP Candidates Relying on Dark Money Infusions for Midterm Ad Blitz: Analysis
'It seems like presidential-year levels in some of these races,' says researcher.
Oct 15, 2014
Just a few weeks out from the November midterm elections, a new report revealed on Tuesday that over a quarter of the nearly $1 billion spent so far has been paid for by outside groups, the majority of which do not disclose their donors.
According to the Wesleyan Media Project analysis (pdf) of Kantar Media/CMAG data, the top three outside spenders--The Republican Governor's Association, Crossroads GPS, and the NRA Political Victory Fund--all largely back Republican candidates in upcoming congressional and gubernatorial races.
Crossroads GPS, a 501c4 started by conservative strategist Karl Rove, outspent all others, pouring $3.8 million into advertising for GOP candidates in key Senate races in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina.
The volume of advertisements favoring Democratic candidates slightly outnumbers those favoring Republicans. However, researchers note that because Republicans are "more reliant on outside groups," they must pay more for advertisements.
"Because Republicans are relying on outside groups to pay for their ads, they are not getting as much bang for the buck as Democrats," said Michael Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project. As Franz explains, "Sixty days before an election, candidates are entitled to the lowest unit rate from television stations," however, that does not apply to Super PACs (Political Action Committee) and other outside funding groups.
"Still," Franz reasons, "because political science research suggests outside spending can be more persuasive than ads from candidates, this strategy may pay off for Republicans."
Overall, spending has dropped when compared to the same two-week period during the 2010 midterm elections, with the only notable exception being pro-Democratic advertising for Senate candidates, which is up over 34 percent.
According to the analysis:
Since the start of the 2013-14 election cycle, $337 million has been spent to air 728,000 ads in Senate races. Spending on gubernatorial races has been even higher, at $426 million, which has purchased just over 700,000 ads. Another $154 million has been spent on House races. All told, across Senate, House and gubernatorial races, spending this election cycle is over $917 million.
"Ad spending this election cycle will easily break the $1 billion mark in the next week or two," said Wesleyan Media Project co-director Travis Ridout. "We also expect to see at least 2 million ad airings in House, Senate and gubernatorial races by Election Day."
"It seems like presidential-year levels in some of these races," Ridout added.
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