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When a group of conservatives -- angered by a video showing kindergartners singing a song praising President Obama -- announced last week that they'd be protesting outside a Burlington Township, N.J., school today, school officials asked them to reconsider, since the school -- which houses kindergartners to second-graders -- would be in session:

The planned rally has school district officials planning to beef up security at the B. Bernice Young School in Burlington Township, which houses kindergartners through second-graders.

The song drew national attention last month after a video of the performance was posted on YouTube. Conservatives say it shows how schoolchildren are being indoctrinated to idolize Obama, allegations school officials have denied.

The Obama song initially was performed during a Black History Month assembly in February and was repeated in March when author Charisse Carney-Nunes, who wrote the children's book "I Am Barack Obama," visited the school.

Someone apparently with Carney-Nunes videotaped that performance and posted it at the author's Web site without the approval of school officials. A copy of that video appeared in September on YouTube, titled "School Kids Taught to Praise Obama."

Citing concerns for the safety of students and staff, Superintendent Christopher Manno has asked organizers to reconsider the protest because classes will be held that day. Manno said protesters will not be allowed on school property and additional district staffers will be on hand.

The protesters refused, of course, to reconsider:

Bill Haney, a rally organizer, said members of several groups would take part in the protest, although it was not clear Sunday how many people would be involved.

"Consider this a protest to squelch this trend to politicize our youth," organizers said in a prepared statement. "We are supporting the constitutional rights of our children and protest against the progressive social agenda promoted by the New Jersey Education Association and the National Education Association."

So there they were today, frightening children and their parents needlessly. Of course, rather than harass schoolkids, these protesters would have been more effective if they had gone, say, to a school-board meeting where decisions like these are dealt with.

At least one of the parents whose 7-year-old daughter was in the video spoke to Fox reporter Laura Ingle at the scene, and relayed her thoughts in a brief snippet:

My child's image has been hijacked, to produce -- I'm sorry, to promote a political agenda.

Now, Ingle makes this sound as if the parent is concerned about the school "indoctrinating" her child, which was what the protesters were there about. But what's clear from reading news accounts -- as well as Ingle's own reportage -- is that the parents were upset that the right-wingers had transformed a harmless school song into a cause celebre promoting the right-wing anti-Obama agenda.

This cropped up in local news accounts too:

The school district, in a statement, said that it "does not believe that protesting in front of an elementary school in session with four to seven year old children is appropriate."

The statement says that on Oct. 8, Manno contacted one of the protest's organizers personally and offered to meet with this person, who declined to meet. "It is unfortunate," the statement continued, "that an innocent, well-intentioned classroom activity by a well-respected teacher has become the object of so much debate."

Well, who were these protesters? Local parents upset with the district? -- You know, people who actually have something at stake with the conduct of their local schools?

Erm, largely no. The Courier-Post was only able to find one local couple who actually had a child at the school among the protesters (and they were more concerned with the video's release than with its content). According to the NY Daily News, they were a bunch of Glennbeckians who arrived at the school from elsewhere:

Haney's group, the 912 Project Burlington Group, is an offshoot [of] the national 912 Project founded by conservative radio and TV host Glenn Beck.

Haney said he hopes the rally will force the reassignment of school principal Denise King and will result in a reprimand of Schools Superintendent Christopher Manno by the state Board of Education.

Classy bunch, these folks.

Those right-wing anti-ACORN activists tried their little trick in several cities that didn't provide them with the response they wanted - and yet, I haven't heard FOX News mention this. Hmm.

It's hard out here in Philly for a pimp.

At least, it appears that's the lesson that self-described filmmaker-activist (and graduate student at Fordham University, a Jesuit institution) James O'Keefe learned when he and cohort Hannah Giles showed up at the Philadelphia ACORN headquarters on July 24 in the middle of a probe that has touched off a conservative-media firestorm.

O'Keefe and Giles were dressed as a pimp and prostitute, just as they were during undercover visits to ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, Brooklyn and San Bernardino, Calif., over the summer. ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Those visits were part of an investigative probe into the anti-poverty group - as ACORN staffers were secretly videotaped giving O'Keefe and Giles advice on how to hide illegal sex businesses in low-income housing. ACORN has fired three workers implicated in the films.

Giles, in a post on the Web site Biggovernment.com, said she and O'Keefe had been driven by their belief that "ACORN is corrupt" and are on "a quest for truth unraveling the mystery of organized corruption."

But when the phony pimp and prostitute tag team visited ACORN's local office, on Broad Street near Parrish, on July 24, they were apparently shown the door.

Philadelphia ACORN president Carol Hemingway said in a statement on Monday that "after causing a major disturbance, they were asked to leave the office, and a police report was filed."

Hemingway e-mailed copies of the incident report to the news media. No charges were filed against O'Keefe or Giles, and their visit to the City of Brotherly Love has not been part of a series of reports aired on the Fox News Channel.

I'm sure this will be prominently mentioned on Glenn Beck's show tonight. Right?

From today's Times:

In a statement over the weekend, Bertha Lewis, the chief organizer for Acorn, said the bogus prostitute and pimp had spent months visiting numerous Acorn offices, including those in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, before getting the responses they were looking for.

“I cannot and I will not defend the actions of the workers depicted in the video, who have since been terminated,” Ms. Lewis wrote. But she defended the group’s overall record and said it had become “the boogeyman for the right wing and its echo chambers.”

Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America’s Future, called the tactics used to go after Mr. Jones and Acorn “McCarthyite,” and said the critics were harping on minor failings and distorting records that over all were admirable. “This is dangerous stuff,” Mr. Borosage said. “I don’t think progressives will sit back and let this gain momentum.”

Until progressives learn to speak in plain language and effectively call out racism when they see it, of course it will gain momentum. It already has.

In the meantime, I've filed an ethics complaint against our young filmmaker friend at his school. I'll let you know what happens.

Ezra Klein on the real reason Chuck Grassley is trying to sandbag healthcare reform:

The more plausible argument is that Grassley fears his fellow Republican senators. I'm hearing that Grassley is getting reamed out in meetings with his colleagues. The yelling is loud enough that staffers in adjacent offices have heard snippets. But the real threat isn't the yelling of his colleagues. It's their capacity to deny Grassley his next job. Ruth Marcus hints at this in her column on Chuck Grassley today, but it's worth explaining in a bit more detail.

This is the final year that Grassley is eligible to serve as ranking member — the most powerful minority member, and, if Republicans retake the Senate, the chairman — of the Senate Finance Committee. His hope is to move over as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, or failing that, the Budget Committee. But for that, he needs the support of his fellow Republicans. And if he undercuts them on health-care reform, they will yank that support. It's much the same play they ran against Arlen Specter a couple of years back, threatening to deny him his chairmanship of — again — the Judiciary Committee. It worked then, and there's no reason to think it won't work now.

So once again, I ask the question: Why are we negotiating with Republicans at all?

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Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the latest in GOP talking points trying to take the conversation off what health care reform really means to Americans:

MCCONNELL: Well, look. I think attacking citizens in our country for expressing their opinions about an issue of this magnitude may indicate some weakness in their position on the merits.

That makes sense. If you are troubled by being likened to Nazis, being shouted down and mobbed by people bussed in to be disruptive or having you or your staffers threatened, then it's your position that's weak.

Really? Um, how about if you're so scared of honest facts (as opposed to scare tactics about euthanasia) that you need to shut down discussion, maybe it's your position that's weak? Of course, there was no discussion of weakness of merits when Bush required loyalty oaths during his Social Security-palooza tour. Consistency, the GOP rarely knows ye.

And let it not go unmentioned that Wallace focuses solely on the Democrats calling these mobs "Nazi-like" without acknowledging the full blown mob materials in all its Godwin-esque glory (link goes to LGF). What was that about the liberal media again?

Transcripts below the fold:

Continue reading »

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Rachel reports on the lastest information on the John Ensign affair from the Las Vegas Sun: Emails between Ensign NRSC lieutenants, Hamptons show affair was known inside organization more than a year ago. Those emails can be read here and here.

Now, who is responsible for the Republican Party‘s fiasco in the Senate in the 2008 election? Who was in charge of the Republican Party‘s efforts to hold on to its seats in the Senate, efforts that failed so epically?

Hey, it was Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. He was in charge of the National Republican Senatorial Committee for 2007 and 2008. That‘s the campaign arm of the Republican Party responsible for the Senate.

While he was supposedly getting busy then overseeing the run-up to his party‘s 2008 shellacking in the Senate, you may recall he was also getting busy with one of his staffers, putting her son on the NRSC payroll, finding jobs for her husband, and asking his own parents to give financial gifts, lots of them, to his mistress‘s family. That‘s a lot to do while you‘re trying to get folks elected to the U.S. Senate. I wonder if he‘s a good multi-tasker.

Well, tonight there is new evidence that Sen. Ensign was not the only one at the National Republican Senatorial Committee who might have been distracted by his extramarital affair while preparing for that ill-fated election.

Continue reading »

So they're rolling out the heavy guns, hiding behind yet another astroturf front. I wonder why they're always hiding behind these fake grassroots organizations? Could it be they don't want people to know the kind of money the massive financial interests against health care reform are spending to stop it?

The new anti-health reform front group known as the Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights, is being managed by the lobbying firm known as the DCI Group. After being contacted by ThinkProgress this afternoon about its sponsorship of CPPR’s press conference last week, DCI Group staffers acknowledged that they coordinate PR for the front group. Not be confused with Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, another front group opposing health reform, CPPR has been organizing lobbying efforts against health reform and publishing op-eds across the country with misinformation about the public option.

Tom Synhorst, a former staffer to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Bob Dole, joined fellow right-wing operatives Doug Goodyear and Tim Hyde to form DCI Group in 1996. The firm quickly flourished working for the tobacco industry, coordinating a sophisticated astroturf campaign to build public opposition to tobacco regulations. Ironically, before helping to manage this “patients’ rights” campaign, DCI founded “Smokers’ Rights” groups across the country for the tobacco lobby. Indeed, DCI has specialized in manufacturing “grassroots” support — using telemarketers, PR events, and letter writing campaigns — to achieve policy results for narrow corporate interests:

– The DCI Group was retained by the pharmaceutical industry to whip up public opposition against House legislation that would permit the reimportation of FDA-approved drugs from Canada and elsewhere. [Washington Monthly, December/2003]

– The DCI Group worked with Republicans to form various “grassroots” front-groups to amplify President Bush’s call to privatize Social Security. [Center for Media and Democracy, 3/18/05]

– Chris LaCivita, a former DCI Group staffer, took a lead role in organizing the Swift Boat Veterans campaign to smear John Kerry and his war record. [CommonDreams, 8/31/04]

– The DCI Group was behind spoof videos mocking Al Gore and global warming. The firm has been retained by ExxonMobil to lobby. [Wall Street Journal, 8/3/06; Exxon Secrets, accessed 7/28/09

While it is unclear who is funding this latest CPPR front group, DCI has in the past worked for health insurance companies. In 2002, the American Prospect reported that DCI had been hired by the Health Benefits Coalition, a trade association of for-profit HMOs trying to “thwart congressional action on the patients’ bill of rights."

Sunlight Foundation Blog: The health care industry, in its attempt to influence the debate over health care reform, has hired at least 350 former government staffers and former members of Congress, opreating with bottomless funding, to lobby against meaningful reform.

Amygdala: Nixon, Vietnam, and the phony 'stabbed in the back' theory

Feministe: Ross Douthat tries to understand teh sexism

Ta-Nehisi Coates: What the right means when they say "America"

Jesus' General: Keepin' the rich, white, Christian man down with political correctness

The Aristocrats: gun

Nice guys don't always finish last, and Dave Grohl is living proof.

Foo Fighters, one of the only rock acts to consistently deliver gimmick-free platinum records, has become such a welcome staple of rock radio (and my iPod) that I sometimes forget that Grohl was once in another band that was, you know, kind of awesome.

Tomorrow, the happiest man in rock and roll (and the three luckiest, his bandmates) will be playing at the doggone WHITE HOUSE.

The Foo Fighters will take a short break from their extended hiatus when they play a very special Fourth of July party this Saturday — at the White House! Rolling Stone has learned that the band will perform a short set as part of the annual festivities on the South Lawn, which has an unblemished view of the capital’s elaborate fireworks display. Earlier this week, President Obama invited staffers and their immediate families to the official First Family celebration; and it should be noted that back in January, it was many of those same staffers who campaigned for the Arcade Fire to play their much-deserved victory ball on inauguration night.

Will we see a picture of Dave flashing a toothy grin with the President? I hope so.

Here's a great old MTV News clip of another great band playing at the White House during the Clinton years.

So I'm skimming my bookmarked sites for post ideas and on CongressMatters (which, if you don't read regularly, you should), David Waldman blogged about this ridiculously slanted article in today's Washington Post:

Health-Care Activists Targeting Democrats
Sniping Among Liberals May Jeopardize Votes Needed to Pass Bill

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 28, 2009

Hmmmm....interesting spin. It's the liberals' fault. Not the obstructionist Republicans or centrist Democrats standing in the way of what the people want. Of course. It goes on:

Provided that the Democratic legislators in question were actually pressing for, you know, legislation that these constituencies actually agreed with and wanted to see passed. There's nothing "natural" about it, in the sense that support should be assumed or taken for granted. But that's the implication. I'm not the "natural" ally of anyone who insists that something supported by 76% of the population is really just some sort of "left-leaning" nonsense, and that we need to find "centrist" compromise with the other 24%.

But that's the underlying premise of the entire article, helped along by quotes from Democratic lawmakers and staffers who repeat the mantra, especially when it comes to the pressure being put on them (or rather, that they claim is not actually being put on them, because they all "ignore" ads and other "unhelpful" input from the grassroots).

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), for example:

"I do not think this is helpful. It doesn't move me one whit," she said. "They are spending a lot of money on something that is not productive."

That's a hell of a thing for a Member of Congress to say, don't you think? Spending a lot of money on something that is not productive? You don't say! At least it's private money, Senator. Gosh, sorry to bother you, Di!

Next graf:

Much of the sparring centers around whether to create a government-managed health insurance program that would compete with private insurers. Obama supports the concept, dubbed the "public option," but he has been vague on details. Left-of-center activists want a powerful entity with the ability to set prices for doctors and hospitals.

76% support for a public option. But only "left-of-center activists" want it.

But it gets better. Adam Green, with whom we've worked on his "Demand a Public Option" campaign, is one of the few liberals quoted for the article, and Connolly distorts that too:

When asking me about the Progressive Change Campaign Committee's TV ads (which begin airing Monday in DC) holding Senate Dems accountable for taking millions from insurance interests and being on the verge of opposing a public option supported by 76% of Americans, Connolly would ask me ridiculous questions like, "Why are you attacking your friends? Wouldn't you agree that these Democrats are better for you on most health care issues than Republicans?"

I had to patiently explain to her that the public option is the defining issue of the health care debate -- if Senators like Baucus and Nelson aren't with us on that, they are not our friends.

Connolly listened, and then chose to dismiss silly activists who are fighting for what 76% of Americans want:

Activists say they are simply pressing for quick delivery of "true health reform," but the intraparty rift runs the risk of alienating centrist Democrats who will be needed to pass a bill.

As if passing the bill is the goal, regardless of what's in it. Notice how she wrote "Activists say" for the side of an argument representing what 76% of Americans want and simply stated the other side as truth.

But just in case you weren't sure for whom Connolly was advocating:

Connolly then asked me why progressives were picking a political fight on the public option, as opposed to another issue. I guess the fact that it's the #1 domestic issue of the day -- one that affects millions of American families -- wasn't explanation enough.

I figured she was looking for a quote summarizing the political stakes, so I thought for a moment and said, "The public option has become a proxy for the question of whether Democrats will stand on principle and represent their constituents."

I was quite proud of that answer. It summarizes what a lot of people are feeling -- the public option is the "line in the sand" issue for Democrats, something Chris has written about here on OpenLeft several times.

Connolly's take on that quote:

Green, in an interview, was hard-pressed to articulate a substantive argument for the public plan but said that it "has become a proxy for the question of Democrats who stand on principle and represent their constituents."

WHAT? Connolly asked me a question on the politics, and when I gave her an answer on that, she said I didn't answer on the substance?

The Washington Post disinforming the public once again. You can email Ceci Connolly to give her feedback at connollyc@washpost.com or tweet her at @postdailydose.

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Just how bad does a Republican sex scandal have to get before one of these guys resigns? Rachel Maddow fills us in with the latest news on John Ensign's problems, and for anyone that would like to follow all the sordid details, I'd highly recommend reading TPM's coverage on the subject. I would imagine Rachel or her staff are reading there as well to keep up on the latest twists and turns of this story.

From TPM:

Tangled Web Of Jobs, Money, Illicit Sex Links Ensign, Former Staffers

EXCLUSIVE: Son And Husband Of Ensign's Girlfriend Work For Company Run By Ensign Backer

Is Ensign Walking Back Extortion Claim?

Ensign Has Close Ties To Second Firm That Employed Hampton

Ensign Admits He Helped Girlfriend's Husband Get Jobs

Husband Of Ensign's Girlfriend To Fox's Kelly: Help Me Expose Senator's "Relentless Pursuit Of My Wife"

Timeline Suggests Ensign's Help For Hampton Was Hardly Routine

Fox: We Didn't Tip Off Ensign About That Crazy Letter To Kelly

The Pics John Ensign Doesn't Want You To See

Ensign Lover's Hubby Wanted Money -- But Through His Lawyer

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Up until December of 2007, most on Edwards' staff didn't believe rumors about the affair.

But by late December, early January of last year, several people in his inner circle began to think the rumors were true.

Several of them had gotten together and devised a "doomsday" strategy of sorts.

Basically, if it looked like Edwards was going to win the Democratic Party nomination, they were going to sabotage his campaign, several former Edwards' staffers have told me.

They said they were Democrats first, and if it looked like Edwards was going to become the nominee, they were going to bring down the campaign.

Dang. While I remain uninterested in the extramarital goings-on of anyone, it was ridiculously shortsighted and stupid for Edwards to not think there would be repercussions from his thinking with Little John. I guess we should be grateful to not have reached the point of hitting the nuclear option--that could have very likely hurt the Democrats for several election cycles.

Meanwhile, may I express some exasperation at the investigation of the money paid to Rielle Hunter by the Edwards campaign for videotaping as something critical to our democracy and yet we've known that the Bush administration lost NINE BILLION dollars in Iraq and there has been not one investigation? It's not an either/or proposition, but c'mon, there has to be some economies of scale working here when a $100K paycheck takes precedence over $9 billion.