Archive for audio – Page 2
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics and Washington has asked the FBI to investigate whether or not Mitch McConnell is in hot water. CREW is asking if “Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), violated federal law and Senate rules by misusing Senate staff or resources to conduct opposition research on potential campaign opponents.”
(CNN) – One of the questions to emerge from that secret recording of a Mitch McConnell campaign strategy session is whether it proves the Senate Minority Leader is caught on tape misusing his congressional staff. [...]
In the Mother Jones transcript, a campaign strategist at the McConnell meeting in February is quoted as thanking “LAs” or legislative assistants (legislative assistant being a title for a specific congressional staff position) for their work in developing opposition research on potential opponents, including actress Ashley Judd, who has since decided against a run for the Kentucky seat.
“So I’ll just preface my comments that this reflects the work of a lot of folks: Josh, Jesse, Phil Maxson, a lot of LAs, thank them three times, so this is a compilation of work, all the way through,” the unidentified strategist is quoted as saying in the liberal magazine’s transcript.
Yes CNN, “the liberal magazine’s transcript” is making all kinds of biased liberal assumptions in its biased liberal transcript. Good thing unbiased “liberal media” source CNN pointed that out.
The question CREW is asking is whether the adviser said, “thank them for their free time.” You can hear that part in the first few seconds of the audio above, starting at about :25, ending at about :33.
As CNN notes, Congressional staffers are allowed to volunteer their personal time to political activities. Socialists!
Before I read the full post or anything that would sway me one way or the other, I listened to the recording several times, and each time I thought I heard “three times,” with an S at the end. Then I read the rest of the report to understand that the conclusion wouldn’t favor Team McConnell. Fine by me.
Listen carefully yourselves and let me know what you think.
Oppo research meeting against Ashley Judd. Recorded February 2, 2013 in Louisville, KY. Read the full story here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2…
Last year, David Corn at Mother Jones helped derail Mitt Romney’s campaign by releasing bartender Scott Prouty’s secret recording of Romney’s offensive, tone deaf ”47 percent” comments at a fundraiser.
Presenting David Corn tapes: The sequel.
Back in February, good old family values Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) discussed Ashley Judd’s history with depression and how it might be used in a campaign. (As you know, Ashley Judd has said she will not run for Senate.) But oops, his little opposition research meeting was secretly taped, and now he wants to turn the smears into a Watergate Moment. Team McConnell wants the FBI to investigate.
But David Corn said in his Mother Jones report that the recording “wasn’t the product of a Watergate-style bugging.” In fact, on MSNBC just now, he called the accusations an attempt to distract by McConnell, and also said that the Senator has yet to respond to the substance of his reporting.
Ironically, it’s the McConnell audio that sounds Nixonian. Just ask former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, or rather, read his tweet above.
The McConnell aides, though, raised the possibility of doing more than calling attention to Judd’s well-known history; they discussed how they could make her seem a true weirdo.
Ashley Judd has responded. Via TPM:
“This is year another example of the politics of personal destruction that embody Mitch McConnell and are pervasive in Washington, D.C,” Judd said in the statement. “We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter.”
Here’s how they talked about the “weirdo” who they found so amusing. This is the voice of an aide, who David Corn refers to as the meeting leader:
“She’s clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it’s been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s.”
You can find Corn’s entire piece here, including more details, audio, and his response to McConnell’s accusations.
Please listen to the audio on the battle over the proposed tar sands pipeline, it’s not that long.
“This energy and environmental fight is to put pressure one man, President Obama, to influence those who influence him.”
There are still more questions than answers. Shouldn’t that alone be a reason to nix this insane project?
(CNN) – President Obama alone has the power to approve or reject the application for the Keystone XL pipeline. [...]
This is a careful and intense push behind-the-scenes to pressure and influence the president. Pro-pipeline members of Congress have indicated they could try to pass a law overriding the president should he rule against them, and a side skirmish is evolving on Capitol Hill.
This is the time to use your voice, to call, email, and tweet President Obama and members of Congress. Tell them to do the right thing, the common sense thing, the healthy thing. I have.
Remember, 20 scientists pulled out of the Canadian Keystone tar sands pipeline project for a reason. Via The Guardian:
Canada’s tar sands deposits contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in human history, according to James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
“If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate,” Hansen famously wrote. It would elevate global temperatures to levels not seen since the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, he added. [...]
A 2011 report commissioned by the EU from Adam Brandt, an Assistant Professor at Stanford University, found that the lifecycle emissions of fuel from tar sands – also known as oil sands – were between 12-40% higher than conventional crude, with the most likely barrel being 22% more carbon intensive.
The tar sands pipeline would bring the dirtiest oil on earth through America.
It would also create very few long term jobs, gas prices would increase, dependence on foreign oil would not lessen, and, again, Bill McKibben and NASA’s Jim Hansen both warn that it would be “essentially game over for the climate” if this crackpot project gets the go ahead.
How can we continue to be so shortsighted? How can we continue to ignore the impact this would have on future generations? In light of the recent Shell oil rig disaster, a project that those of us with common sense expected to go so badly, “the only company given the go-ahead by the U.S. government,” this should be a no-brainer.
And don’t get me started on the two tar sands spills just this week:
The Keystone XL pipeline would carry almost nine times the barrels of oil as the Pegasus pipeline.
What does it take?
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