Republicans vote against mother’s day

House republicans have been using delaying and obstructionist tactics against the Democratic majority for sometime now; however, the republicans’ vote against mother’s day as a delaying tactic is inane. As Dana Milbank suggests, What’s next for republicans, a vote against puppies and kittens?

From the Washington Post:

It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother’s Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day,” when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

“Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote,” he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt’s request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers. [Emphasis added.]

[…]

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.”

By voting against it?

Geoff Davis: What was he thinking?

Just what was republican congressman Geoff Davis thinking when he made such an asinine remark? Take a look here, you would think that in 2008 people would be smarter than this:

Kentucky congressman Geoff Davis “compared Obama and his message for change similar to a ’snake oil salesman.’ He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner [on Saturday] that he also recently participated in a ‘highly classified, national security simulation’ with Obama.”

“‘I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,’ Davis said.

Fox News: Propaganda Arm of the Bush White House

Just more evidence that Rupert Murdoch’s Faux News is the propaganda arm of the republican party and of Bush’s White House, via TalkingPointsMemo.com:

It’s 9:13 PM (September 10, 2007). If you have a chance, flip on Fox News at least for a moment. It’s Gen. Petraeus’s (and Crocker’s) one hour “exclusive” with Brit Hume on Fox. The chyron actually reads “A Briefing for America.” And that’s really pretty much what it is. It’s another briefing. It’s not an interview. It’s a continuation of today’s bamboozlement but in prime time on Fox with the expected soft-ball questions and credulous analysis.

Late Update: The “exclusive” is also helpfully interspersed with commercials from the White House-organized pro-Iraq War astroturf group Freedom’s Watch.

Later Update: As around 9:45, Hume is walking Petraeus toward explaining how the Iraq War is really a “war against al Qaeda.” Petraeus is playing along.

UPDATE: TPM.com has a video clip up.

F(au)x News: PR Arm of the GOP

Here’s enough reason for Democrats not to trust Fox News, and to correctly describe it as an extension of the republican party:

Journalists strive to report the news, not to be the news. So Fox News should have been a bit embarrassed to headline a story that ended with the Nevada Democratic Party canceling Fox’s sponsorship of a pre-caucus debate.

Then again, Fox is not a typical news organization. [...] Fox’s prime commitment is to the triumph of conservative politics, not to a well-informed public. From hiring hosts to selecting stories to framing questions for discussion, Fox demonstrates its dedication to advancing the ideological interests of the right.

As former Fox reporter/anchor Jon Du Pre put it in the documentary “Outfoxed,” “We weren’t necessarily, as it was told to us, a newsgathering organization so much as we were a proponent of a point of view … we were there to reinforce a constituency.”

[...]

What evidence, forged or otherwise, did Fox rely on in asserting that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) attended a Muslim madrassah? If CNN could go to the school and give the lie to the report, why couldn’t Fox? What outside panel was empowered to investigate how Fox could have aired such an outrageously inaccurate report? Who was fired for the inflammatory falsehoods?

A study by a University of Maryland center concluded, “Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions” about Iraq. For example, in 2003, 67 percent of those who relied primarily on Fox wrongly believed the U.S. “found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization.” Only 40 percent of those who relied on print media harbored this illusion, debunked thoroughly by the 9/11 Commission.

Instead of providing “fair and balanced” reporting, Fox has created an audience ignorant of the facts, but fully supportive of management’s ideology.

An audience that decides for itself, based on “fair and balanced” coverage, ought not to reach monolithic conclusions. Yet, in our 2004 polling with Media Vote, using Nielsen diaries, we found that Fox News viewers supported George Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.

Jewish Americans Strongly Opposed to the Iraq War

Based on mainstream media (MSM) coverage and on comments by the religious right (read republican party), one gets the sense that the Jewish public is supportive of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and of its other policies in that region of the world. Of course, as with anything that comes out of the right wing (read republican party) and its supporters in the MSM, the facts demonstrate a liberal bias that simply don’t support the claim.

The Gallup Poll is reporting: Among Religious Groups, Jewish Americans Most Strongly Oppose War — opposition goes beyond Jewish Americans’ political affiliations.

That bears repeating, because of how it refutes what seems to have been the conventional narrative over the past couple of years, that is: the right wing’s (read republican party) claim that Jewish Americans are abandoning the Democratic party (and their commitment to Progressive values) and joining the republican party due to Bush’s Middle East policies, including the Iraq war. So lemme repeat the Gallup Poll headline and quote from their poll: Among Religious Groups, Jewish Americans Most Strongly Oppose War.

PRINCETON, NJ — An analysis of Gallup Poll data collected since the beginning of 2005 finds that among the major religious groups in the United States, Jewish Americans are the most strongly opposed to the Iraq war. Catholics and Protestants are more or less divided in their views on the war, while Mormons are the most likely to favor it. Those with no religious affiliation also oppose the war, but not to the same extent that Jewish people do. The greater opposition to the war is not simply a result of high Democratic identification among U.S. Jews, as Jews of all political persuasions are more likely to oppose the war than non-Jews who share the same political leanings.

Gallup’s findings:

United States Made a Mistake in Sending Troops to Iraq,
by Religious Affiliation, 2005-2007 Gallup Polls

Of these major religious groups, three show more opposition than support for the war:

• Jewish people oppose the Iraq war by a better than 3-to-1 margin, 77% to 21%. 
• Americans without a religious preference are twice as likely to oppose (66%) as to support (33%) the war. 
• Catholics are somewhat more likely to oppose (53%) than to support the war (46%). 

[...]

[C]loser analysis of the data show that Jewish war opposition goes beyond their basic political leanings. Jewish people are more likely to oppose the war than non-Jews of the same political persuasion. For example, 89% of Jewish Democrats oppose the Iraq war, compared with 78% of all non-Jewish Democrats. 

For the full poll visit the Gallup Poll.