Now, I'm going to assume that you didn't come in during the third act of Newt's career, and therefore you can appreciate just how funny it is when, on This Week, he's whining to Jake Tapper about how hard it is to pin someone down who will just lie about anything!

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (119)

PLAYS: (450)

Embed

I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to give props to Christie, who did a great job convincing people to take this storm seriously. There was serious damage and substantial flooding in New Jersey, and thanks to his blunt statements, he managed to persuade most of the people in harm's way to evacuate. Reports of damage are still coming in from all over the state, which is why I was surprised by phone calls this morning from friends saying, "No big deal." Really? One of my friends, who lives at the beach, had a tornado touch down near her house. It took out a couple of houses, the roof of an apartment building, and threw high-velocity debris all over the area. None of that has appeared on the news. (Oh, and her local beach was completely washed away.)

Here's Gov. Christie, interviewed by Jake Tapper for This Week With Christiane Amanour:

TAPPER: As we've been telling you, New Jersey is getting hit hard by the storm right now. New Jersey's governor, Chris Christie, is monitoring the situation from the Regional Operations Intelligence Center in Ewing, New Jersey. He joins us right now. Governor Christie, thanks for coming onto the show.

CHRISTIE: Thanks for having me, Jake.

TAPPER: So, Governor, the hurricane made landfall in New Jersey shortly before 6:00 this morning. Your state's just beginning to weather the storm. What are the early reports telling you?

CHRISTIE: Early reports are very difficult, Jake. We have over half-a-million people that are now without power. We have 15,000 people in 45 shelters across the state; 250 roads are closed; and we are going to look at a record flooding situation here, both at the shore and inland. And so my message to the people of New Jersey is, the eye of the storm is still over the state. We are far from out of the woods on the storm itself. And I urge people to stay inside their homes. The one report we have this morning of a woman who's missing is someone who went out into their car, drove, got into the water, got out of her car, and was swept away in the water and is still missing. So, please, stay in your homes until the storm has completely left New Jersey. Then we'll be able to get through this together in the aftermath, but I need people to stay at home.

TAPPER: What is your biggest concern right now? What kept you last night?

CHRISTIE: Flooding, Jake, because we had the wettest August on record in parts of New Jersey before this storm. Already, we've had six to eight inches of rain dumped on south Jersey, and the rain is continuing throughout the state. And so what I'm really worried about is flooding at this point and having to evacuate even more people than the 15,000 we've already had to evacuate and shelter. So in the short term, in the next couple of days, my big concern is the inland flooding and the shore flooding and how we're going to deal with folks who maybe have to be evacuated from their homes and need to be sheltered.

TAPPER: Is there anything that the state of New Jersey needs from the federal government that you're not getting?

CHRISTIE: Not at this point, Jake. We have FEMA representatives here at the -- at the Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, been working with us. I'm going to be calling Secretary Napolitano in an hour or two to make a further request of additional needs. But so far, FEMA has been very responsive. I spoke to Secretary Napolitano in the last 24 hours. She's offered to do whatever she needs to do to help us out here in New Jersey. She knows how hard we're going to be hit. So right now, the cooperation between New Jersey and FEMA has been great, and I'm going to be calling Secretary Napolitano shortly to ask for some more help.

TAPPER: I know you were very concerned about the -- at the time, it was 600 seniors in these Atlantic City high rises who were not leaving. What can you tell us about efforts to protect them?

CHRISTIE: Well, our last-ditch efforts that I referenced yesterday afternoon got another 100 or so to leave and to evacuate. So now we're dealing with about 500 seniors who refuse to evacuate. And as soon as it's safe to travel there, I know county OEM, Office of Emergency Management, Atlantic County is already checking on these folks to make sure they're OK. They lost power in a number of the buildings as early as 10 o'clock last night. So the county officials in Atlantic County are going to check on those folks. And as soon as we have some reports, we'll be able to share them with the public.

TAPPER: Why do people not leave their homes at times like this?

CHRISTIE: You know, I think it's a combination of things. You know, Jake, New Jerseyans are especially tough, kind of cynical, hard-edged folks, and they think the "cry wolf" syndrome, you know, it's all over TV, but it's never as bad as they're telling you it will be, that's one of the reasons. Another reason is that people are very scared, they want to protect their property. And thirdly, especially with the elderly, you know, we had one 92-year-old woman say to us yesterday, "I'm 92 years old. If I die, this is where I want to die." And so I think it's a combination of all those things that make people not heed the warnings. But the good news is that we evaluated over a million people from the Jersey shore in 24 hours without incident. And if those people had stayed at the Jersey shore, I think we'd be talking about significant loss of life. And now, hopefully, we're not going to be talking about that.

TAPPER: All right. Governor Chris Christie, thanks for joining us. Stay safe.

CHRISTIE: Jake, thank you very much for having me.

It's absolutely crazy that the one Republican presidential candidate who acknowledges that global warming is a man-made problem is the one least likely to make it through the GOP primary, simply because he told the truth. On This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Jake Tapper interviews Gov. Jon Huntsman:

TAPPER: This was a big week for Texas Governor Rick Perry. He went out on the campaign trail and he raised a lot of eyebrows. He made some comments about evolution and he said this about climate change.

PERRY: "I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven, and from my perspective, is more and more being put into question."

TAPPER: These comments from Governor Perry prompted you to Tweet, quote: "To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." Were you just being cheeky or do you think there's a serious problem with what Governor Perry said?

HUNTSMAN: I think there's a serious problem. The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party - the anti-science party, we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012. When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science - Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position.

The Republican Party has to remember that we're drawing from traditions that go back as far as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, President Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Bush. And we've got a lot of traditions to draw upon. But I can't remember a time in our history where we actually were willing to shun science and become a - a party that - that was antithetical to science. I'm not sure that's good for our future and it's not a winning formula.

DOWNLOADS: (156)

PLAYS: (794)

Embed

Whew! I was a little worried after T-Paw said that a government shutdown for a month or so would be just the lesson we uppity Americans needed to take seriously the austerity measures they want to force on us that we would see a growing chorus of Republicans calling for the shutdown. But Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is deviating slightly from the Republican script to assure Jake Tapper that she doesn't want a government shutdown. After all, the government is a "necessary evil", isn't it?

Facing an oncoming federal government budget crisis, Republican governors Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Jan Brewer of Arizona both agreed that a government shutdown would not be productive for the country.

"I think government is a necessary evil," Brewer said. "But it's necessary to provide services, and they should be able to come to some solution. We need to trim the budget and move on."

"We appreciate our public employees but our job as governor is to look after our taxpayers," Haley added.

I wonder, who exactly do the governors think are the taxpayers? Corporations? Not hardly. The wealthy? No, not so much. No, you nimrods, the taxpayers ARE the teachers, the firefighters, the cops, and the other public employees whose jobs you want the right to cut without union protections.

Nevertheless, it's quite a change for Brewer to go from claiming her position was divinely mandated to saying that government is a necessary evil. Is she saying God put her in charge of evil? I'd guess there's an argument to be made for that.

Like all states, Arizona is facing hard financial times, but this is a question of priorities. While Courtney’s life is on the line, Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses into law last week — cuts that will cost Arizona $538 million by 2018. Yet the governor has dragged her feet in offering the mere $1.36 million needed to save Courtney and her cohort’s lives, and she has consistently ignored 26 possible funding solutions from a member of her own party.

For Brewer, the fact that Courtney’s plight is forced to take a backseat to business tax cuts is “sad but necessary.”

Brewer as a death panel? Evil, yes, but necessary, I don't think so.

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves - Eurythmics featuring Aretha Franklin

I woke up this morning to the sweet, sweet sounds of a shattered glass ceiling. This Week is now being hosted by a woman, Christiane Amanpour. With no disrespect intended to interim host Jake Tapper (who did a fairly decent job, certainly better and more consistently than Stephanopoulos), I am thrilled to get a new voice and new point of view to the Sunday shows. Both as a female and as a person who has lived in other countries, I'm hoping that Amanpour will bring something different to the American macho exceptionalism that spews forth mindlessly on these shows. And who better to inaugurate Amanpour's first show than that other glass ceiling breaker, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi? Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, we have Sarah Palin on yet another "exclusive" interview with Fox News Sunday. Elsewhere on the dial, Ayn Rand's boy toy Alan Greenspan will be on Meet the Press and would-be Fourteenth Amendment Warrior Lindsey Graham is on State of the Union and Tweety's trying to figure out if tying the Republicans to the Tea Party is a good electoral strategy. Like I said, we could sure use a fresh perspective on Sundays.

ABC's "This Week" - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations; Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Mullen; former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan; Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa.; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Kimberly Dozier, Dan Rather, Rick Stengel and Helene Cooper. Topics: The War in Afghanistan: How Long Will the President's Popular Support Last? Can Democrats Limit the Damage By Tying Republicans to the Tea Party?

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - On Sunday, Fareed has an exclusive interview with Senator John Kerry -- the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- to talk about the Wikileaks and, more broadly, the war in Afghanistan; about Iran and whether we should be engaging that nation; and about U.S. politics. Then Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. responds directly to the accusations in the war logs that his intelligence service has been colluding with the Taliban.

"Fox News Sunday" - Former Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky; House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

DOWNLOADS: (643)

PLAYS: (871)

Embed

TAPPER: So, the administration has had a number of successes after big battles, stimulus, health care legislation, new rules for Wall Street, but you have a big battle coming when it comes to the Bush tax cuts. If they remain in place, as Republicans want, it will cost three trillion dollars every ten years. The administration has said it wants to keep the ones for people who make under $200,000 a year, individuals and $250,000 for couples. That will cost $2.5 trillion over 10 years. Ben Bernanke the chairman of the Federal Reserve said that with the economic outlook unusually uncertain, extending the Bush tax cuts would have a stimulative effect on the economy. Is he right?

GEITHNER: I don't think it should be a battle, Jake. You know, what the President's proposing to do is to leave in place, to extend tax cuts that go to more than 95 percent of working Americans and to leave in place tax cuts that are very important to incent businesses to hire new pe -- new employees and to invest in expanding output. We think that's a -- the -- it's a very strong package. We think it's the right package. We think it's fair. We think it's responsible. Now, we also think it's responsible to let the tax cuts expire that just go to 2 percent to 3 percent of Americans, the highest earning Americans. We think that's the responsible thing to do because we need to make sure we can show the world that they're willing as a country now to start to make some progress bringing down our long -- our long-term deficits.

TAPPER: Don't you think it will slow economic growth?

GEITHNER: No. Just letting those tax cuts that only go to 2 percent to 3 percent of Americans, the highest earning Americans in the country expire. I do not believe it will have a negative effect on growth.

TAPPER: This package that you're talking about pushing in Congress to -- to save the Bush tax cuts for people under $200,000 individuals and 250 for couples --

GEITHNER: And in fact, we go beyond that. Because you know, we're proposing to extend the [...] tax cut which also goes to 95 percent of working Americans. And a set of very important business tax cuts targeted for small businesses themselves, expensing, zero capital gains rate for investment in small businesses. These things, we think, are very helpful, very powerful.

Continue reading »

Maybe Jack Tapper and Ruth Marcus will come to their rescue again because I imagine Tapper will just say that FOX News was getting their info from one uncorroborated source inside the prison walls and it's a very dangerous place to do reporting in. As for Ruth Marcus? I'll remain silent on her.

FOX News: Lesbian Prison Gangs Waiting to Get Hands on Lindsay Lohan, Inmate Says

Tamara Haley, 38, is doing time for heroin possession and prostitution. She said Monday: "Everyone will want a piece of her. It will make them famous if they hurt Lindsay Lohan. "Or if you get her to cry, the whole ward will laugh and people will love it -- even the guards."

Haley also warned bisexual Lindsay of the jail's lesbian gangs -- and offered advice on how to avoid their clutches. She said: "The gay inmates wear their shirts inside out to let others know they are available.

"So if Lindsay doesn't want someone to grab her ass she'd better keep her shirt on straight.

"Women grab each other like animals when the guards aren't looking. It's disgusting."

And if the lesbians don't get her, Tamara says she might get it from all the murderers even though she'll be segregated from them.

Haley added: "She'll be segregated from the general population, but where she's going it is even worse. It's the wing where the murderers are. "I don't think they will actually be able to get to her, but you never know. At the very least some of those hard cases will try to scare her. They'll scream stuff to her from their cells.

Yea, prison is tough like that. Now that's real reporting.
Don't miss the FOX411 host saying that Lohan will be subjected to a "full cavity search" too.

We have crazed, angry blacks stealing the election for Obama and wild hordes of lesbian prisoners having their way with you too. We're losing the culture wars. It's all going to hell with your liberal agenda!

DOWNLOADS: (762)

PLAYS: (1176)

Embed

On This Week with Jake Tapper, David Axelrod points out that we already know what Republican ideology does to the economy. I hope they start pounding home that message, because voters really need that reminder:

TAPPER: So the president's popularity among independents is sinking. It's a real problem for him politically. One year ago, he was at 56 percent approval with independents. Now it's 38 percent. Why do you think independents are turning away from the president?

AXELROD: Well, first of all, there are all kinds of numbers out there, so this is one set of numbers. There are other sets of numbers.

But, look, I think I've said this to you before. When I -- when I sat down with the president and his economic advisers, a group of us in the middle of 2008, and they told us what was about to ensure and -- about the recession that we were well into at that point, I said to him, you know, we're going to -- your numbers are going to suffer here, and we're going to have a difficult election, because these are going to be difficult times for the country.

Our job is not, though, to worry about that, Jake. Our job is to worry about how we get people back to work, how we move this country forward, and if -- if we do our job, the rest will take care of itself.

And, remember, elections -- the presidential election is an eternity away. Elections are about choices, though. They're not referendums. And on the other side of the ballot in November will be a party that has an economic theory, and it was tested, and it led to catastrophe.

We lost 3 million jobs in the last six months of 2008. The financial market almost collapsed. They turned a $237 billion surplus that Bill Clinton left into a $1.3 trillion deficit. And they're running on the same policies.

DOWNLOADS: (1331)

PLAYS: (502)

Embed

On This Week with Jake Tapper, John McCain explains how important it is not to have deadlines for leaving Afghanistan. I've often thought that his alleged "expertise" on war, which seems to be grounded only in his personal experience as a prisoner of war, is sort of akin to pronouncing someone who was hit by a car as an expert on automotive engineering. But maybe that's just me!

And by the way, I don't think I've ever heard McCain advocate for less war. So his shilling for open-ended commitment in Afghanistan is not exactly a shock:

TAPPER: Senator, I think a lot of Americans are wondering why, after nine years of war, the Taliban has the momentum in this fight.

MCCAIN: Well, I'm not sure that the Taliban have the momentum right now, Jake. The Taliban obviously are entrenched in places in parts of, actually, the outskirts of Kandahar. There's areas where they are still in control. There has been some progress. It's been hard-fought and with great sacrifice.

But there's no doubt that we spent a lot of time, effort, American blood and treasure on Iraq. And now is the time for us to continue this mission and complete it successfully in Afghanistan.

TAPPER: There are currently 93,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, plus 43,000 NATO troops. You've said we need more troops because it's unlikely that NATO will be able to fill its obligation, its pledge of 10,000 additional troops. Should President Obama tell the Pentagon to send even more U.S. troops than he has already ordered?

MCCAIN: There will be an evaluation, an assessment made in December. I think at that time, we will have a much better idea as to how the mission is -- is progressing and whether we need more troops and whether our NATO allies have fulfilled their commitment.

But what I worry about more than anything else is the -- the July of 2011 firm date, which the president has not -- certainly has not been positive as far as our commitment is concerned. In other words, we need a conditions-based situation, not a date for withdrawal.

A statement like, "We're not going to turn out the lights in the middle of 2011," is indecipherable and certainly sounds an uncertain trumpet. So I'm more concerned about the perception of our friends and our enemies, as well as the people in Afghanistan, as to the depth of our commitment. Our commitment must be: We will succeed, and then we will withdraw.

TAPPER: Let's talk about that uncertain trumpet that -- that you mentioned. What did the Bush trumpet sound like? There was an unlimited commitment of U.S. troops for an unlimited amount of time there, and that didn't seem to be effective, and yet you're criticizing this July 2011 deadline, which would be the beginning of a transition period. What did the previous strategy trumpet sound like?

MCCAIN: Well, the previous strategy was failing, and I said that it was failing, and disagreed with our then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, as well as the president. Then we initiated a surge with General Petraeus in charge, and we succeeded.

I just came from Baghdad. I went downtown with my two colleagues to a bakery and to a store. The success there is remarkable. There are still problems, but the success in remarkable.

But we didn't say that we were leaving until we had succeeded. I'm all for dates for withdrawal, but that's after the strategy succeeds, not before. That's a dramatic difference.

And I can tell you for sure, our people in the region are not sure about whether we are going to be here after the middle of 2011, whether we have succeeded or not. And it's clear that this strategy has not gone as well as we had hoped, so that right away brings into question the middle of 2011.

DOWNLOADS: (757)

PLAYS: (478)

Embed

In an interview on “This Week,” with Jake Tapper, CIA Director Leon Panetta said that making progress in Afghanistan isn't easy:

“There are some serious problems” in Afghanistan, Panetta said. “We’re dealing with tribal societies. We’re dealing with a country that has problems with governance, problems with corruption, problems with narcotics trafficking, problems with a Taliban insurgency,” he said.

But, the CIA director said, the U.S. is making progress in Afghanistan. “It’s harder, it’s slower than I think anyone anticipated. But at the same time, we are seeing increasing violence,” he told host Jake Tapper.

“Is the strategy the right strategy? We think so,” he said. “I think…the key to success or failure is whether the Afghans accept responsibility, are able to deploy an effective army and police force to maintain stability. If they can do that, then I think we’re going to be able achieve the kind of progress and the kind of stability that the President is after,” Panetta said.

“This is going to be tough. This is not going to be easy,” he said.

Gee, ya think? Look, I know Obama didn't get us into this mess, but he did decide to double down on the Afghanistan war - which makes it his problem now.

(h/t David at Video Cafe for the clip)