Day: December 7, 2012
Caught on Tape: Murdoch, Ailes Acted as Recruiters for GOP, Sent Fox News Operative to Invite Petraeus to Run for President
The release of a secretly recorded conversation between Gen. David Petraeus and a Fox News operative has erased all plausible deniability about the fact that Fox News is nothing other than a media and communications vehicle for the Republican Party. In the recording, which was apparently made by Petraeus, Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News “security analyst,” is heard asking Petraeus to run for president, an invitation she says she is delivering on behalf Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Newscorp, the parent company of Fox. The recording was made in Afghanistan in the spring of 2011 a few weeks before Pres. Obama appointed Petreaus as head of the CIA — and more than a year before Petreaus resigned from the CIA in disgrace after revealing he was engaged in an ongoing affair with one of his fans.
McConnell’s Embarassing Stunt: Forced to Filibuster Himself
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced legislation to raise the debt ceiling on Thursday, apparently with the intent of showing that even Democrats would not support such a bill.
However, McConnell’s plan backfired after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called for a vote on the legislation, which would have given the president the authority to raise the federal debt ceiling on his own. The top Senate Republican was forced to filibuster his own bill.
“What we have here is a case of Republicans here in the Senate once again not taking ‘yes’ for an answer,” Reid said, after McConnell announced his filibuster. “This morning the Republican leader asked consent to have a vote on this proposal, just now I told everyone we were willing to have that vote — up or down vote. Now the Republican leader objects to his own idea. So I guess we have a filibuster of his own bill, so I object.”
