Posts by Matt Corley

Matt Corley is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.

Palin, Perry and Jindal Are Refusing to Talk to Biden About the Stimulus
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on July 3, 2009 at 6:23 AM.

In a new article, Time’s Michael Scherer describes how Vice President Biden has been aggressively reaching out to mayors on the their use of stimulus money. “My rear end is on the line just like yours,” said Biden on a recent conference call with five mayors and county executives. “I’m the guy in charge of this deal. So if this doesn’t work, it’s me.” In a follow-up blog post, Scherer reveals that Biden has talked to “dozens of mayors and 47 of the 50 state governors about the Recovery Act”:

One interesting fact that didn’t make it into the story. Since March, Biden has talked, usually in conference calls, to dozens of mayors and 47 of the 50 state governors about the Recovery Act. The three governors who have not yet been on the line, though they have been invited: Alaska’s Sarah Palin, Texas’ Rick Perry and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal. You can draw your own conclusions.

Gay Sailor Found Dead on Military Base in a Suspected Homicide
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on July 2, 2009 at 11:00 AM.

Yesterday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the body of openly gay Seaman August Provost was discovered in a guard shack at Camp Pendelton. A “person of interest” in connection to the suspected homicide is now being held in the Navy brig at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. According to Provost’s sister, he had recently complained to his family that “someone was harassing and bothering him.” According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Provost likely didn’t report the harassment because of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:

The Navy would not comment on whether Provost’s orientation had anything to do with the death.

“While ‘Don’t ask, Don’t tell’ is in place, anybody in the military who is a homosexual has no place to go to get assistance or counseling,” said Ben Gomez of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group for gays in the military.

(HT: Raw Story)

Looney Oklahoma Legislator: Gays to Blame for Econopocalypse ... 'Bigger Threat than Islam'
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on June 30, 2009 at 3:04 PM.

Last year, Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern (R) drew well-deserved criticism for an outlandish rant against the gay community, in which she compared homosexuality to “toe cancer” and said “it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.” “Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death knell of this country,” said Kern. Listen here:

Though activists responded to her comments with protests, Oklahoma conservatives rallied around her, saying that they “stand with and support Sally.” Now, Kern is back, once again sparking controversy for her attacks on the LGBT community.

Kern is now pushing a “Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality” that blames America’s “economic woes” on “abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse ,and many other forms of debauchery”:

WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and

WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery;

Though Kern denies that her proclamation is timed to coincide with gay pride celebrations across the country, critics say otherwise. Kern’s proclamation specifically criticizes President Obama for recognizing June as LGBT Pride Month. “Whereas, deeply disturbed that the Office of the president of these United States disregards the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to an immoral behavior,” reads the proclamation.

Watch an Oklahoma News 9 report on Kern’s proclamation:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Sharks Vs. Very Mean Pirates: Michael Steele's Latest Incoherent Analogy
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on June 25, 2009 at 2:20 PM.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele is known for his creative analogies. In April, he declared that regional differences in the GOP were just like people who wear their hats in different ways, a metaphor he used again at a recent College Republican conference. On Frank Beckman’s radio show on Wednesday, Steele broke out a new metaphor to describe why he thinks its bad for government to step in and help save jobs in private industries:

BECKMAN: And the people who are out of work, you know, they’re not much concerned right now about, about who saves them, whether it’s the private sector or public, they just want to be saved.

STEELE: Yeah, that’s true, but there’s a danger that lies in that. And I think that’s where an appreciation, if not an education, of the consequences of certain policies has got to get talked about and people really need to understand. You know, it’s like the guy who, you know, is in the water and you know, he wants to get saved from the sharks, but then — from the sharks — but then he gets picked up by a bunch of pirates or, you know, or some bad guys. You know, what’s worse being in the water or being in the boat where they’re beating the heck out of you every day? So, you know, the reality of it is, it does matter who saves you.

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After Attacking Obama For it, Charles Krauthammer Calls Khamenei 'Supreme Leader'
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on June 23, 2009 at 4:30 AM.

Last Friday, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer disdainfully attacked President Obama for referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the “Supreme Leader” of Iran. “‘Supreme Leader’? Note the abject solicitousness with which the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator,” wrote Krauthammer. But during an interview on Dennis Miller’s radio show Monday, Krauthammer himself referred to the ayatollah as “Supreme Leader”:

KRAUTHAMMER: And the reason he did it is that he thinks he needs to preserve his relations with the existing regime so that he can negotiate nuclear disarmament with them, which in and of itself is a lunatic fantasy. It’s not going to happen. There’s no way he’s going to sweet talk, you know, the Supreme Leader out of his nukes. So, that was the point. He thought that if I support the protesters too much, I alienate and I prevent the relations with the government and I can’t.

Listen here.

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Despicable: Bill O'Reilly Continues to Attack the Late George Tiller, Referring to Him as 'Dr. Killer'
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on June 3, 2009 at 9:21 AM.

As Salon’s Gabriel Winant has documented, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly regularly demonized Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered on Sunday, as “Tiller the Baby Killer.” But as ThinkProgress noted yesterday, O’Reilly is not “backpedaling” from his incendiary attacks on Tiller. In fact, while debating former National Organization for Women president Patricia Ireland last night, O’Reilly referred to Tiller as “Dr. Killer” without realizing it. “You call him Dr. Killer and he was murdered,” replied Ireland, adding “that that is just outrageous.” Watch it:

Transcript: More »

Karl Rove Launches Gender-Loaded 'Emotion' Attack on Sotomayor
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on May 28, 2009 at 9:35 AM.

Even before President Obama announced Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, former Bush adviser Karl Rove began attacking her credentials. Since then, Rove has claimed that she’s “not necessarily” smart and has acted “like sort of a schoolmarm” on the 2nd court of appeals. Today, in his Wall Street Journal column, he implies that her judicial decisions are led by “emotion“:

“Empathy” is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn’t pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash.

There is a certain irony in a president who routinely praises America’s commitment to “the rule of law” but who picks Supreme Court nominees for their readiness to discard the rule of law whenever emotion moves them.

Rove isn’t the first conservative to use the gender-loaded “emotion” attack against Sotomayor. In a blog post for the American Enterprise Institute, torture advocate John Yoo wrote that Republicans needed “to make sure that she will not be a results-oriented voter, voting her emotions and politics rather than the law.”

Steele Invokes Reagan to Argue that the GOP Should Never Look 'Backward'
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on May 19, 2009 at 8:49 AM.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is set to give a speech today at a gathering of RNC officials in Maryland, in which he will call on the party to “focus all of our energies on winning the future.” As part of his call for looking forward, Steele did what Republicans always do and looked back to Ronald Reagan:

Despite those setbacks (or perhaps because of them), Steele will insist that the future of the GOP lies not in looking back but in pushing forward — using the tried and true example of conservative icon Ronald Reagan.

“Ronald Reagan never lived in the past,” Steele will say. “Ronald Reagan was all about the future. If President Reagan were here today he would have no patience for Americans who looked backward.”

Earlier this month, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said that the party needed to get over Reagan “nostalgia.”

57% of GOP Insiders Think Cheney Has 'Hurt the Republican Party Since Leaving Office'
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on May 15, 2009 at 9:54 AM.

Since leaving office, former Vice President Dick Cheney has been perhaps the most prominent conservative critic of the Obama administration. But his refusal to leave the public stage has many Republicans wincing. In the latest National Journal poll of GOP insiders, 57 percent said that Cheney has “hurt” the party since leaving office:

Speaking to National Journal anonymously, many of the insiders harshly denounced how he has acted since leaving office. “Cheney represents the grumpy intolerance that has come to characterize the GOP. Get off the stage!” said one. “There is nothing Dick Cheney can say or do to help the Republican Party today,” said another. “The best thing he can do is disappear for the next 10 years.”

Poll: 71 Percent Believe That Waterboarding Is Torture
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on April 28, 2009 at 7:55 AM.

Greg Sargent notes that despite the media's reluctance to describe it as such, a new poll out today by the New York Times and CBS News found that 71 percent of Americans consider waterboarding to be "a form of torture":

The poll also found that 87 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. health care system needs to be fundamentally changed or rebuilt completely. Additionally, 42 percent said that they believe gay couples should be allowed to marry, an increase of nine percentage points from March 2009. In total, 67 percent support either same-sex marriage or civil unions.

Pentagon Allows Media to Cover Returning War Dead for First Time in 18 Years
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on April 6, 2009 at 9:55 AM.

At Dover Air Force Base in Delaware last night, the Pentagon granted the news media access to the arrival of a fallen soldier from overseas for the first time in 18 years. In February, the Obama administration lifted the ban on news coverage of returning war dead, which had been in place since the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Following the new policy, the media were allowed to cover the return after the military received consent from family members of the soldier. Below is the return of 30-year old Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers, who was killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan on April 4:

Petraeus: Israel Might Decide to Attack Iran
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on April 1, 2009 at 1:23 PM.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today, Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said that Israel may take “preemptive military action” against Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb:

Army General David Petraeus told Congress that “the Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it.”

While Iran insists its nuclear program is intended for peaceful power generation, Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said “Iranian officials have consistently failed to provide the assurances and transparency necessary for international acceptance and verification.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment to Bloomberg on Petraeus’ comments, which come a day after the new Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that President Obama “must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly—or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself.”

Fox News Executive: Fox Opposes President Obama
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on March 23, 2009 at 2:31 PM.

Though Fox News is widely known to be biased in favor of conservatism, the network likes to claim that is "fair and balanced" and that the objectivity of the "hard news" they do is "is not in question." But in an interview with NPR, Fox News’ Senior Vice President for Programming, Bill Shine, admitted that the network is consciously aiming to be "the voice of opposition" to the Obama administration "on some issues":

There were a couple of people who basically wrote about our demise come last November (and) December and were, I guess, rooting for us to go away,” said Bill Shine, senior vice president for programming at the Fox News Channel. “With this particular group of people in power right now, and the honeymoon they've had from other members of the media, does it make it a little bit easier for us to be the voice of opposition on some issues?

Fox News has wasted no time in opposing the Obama administration's agenda. For example, the network has unleashed a steady drum beat of misinformation and propaganda against the Employee Free Choice Act. In fact, when it comes to challenging the Obama administration, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes has compared the network to "the Alamo."

GOP's Civil War Rages on: Gingrich Strikes Back at Limbaugh
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on March 9, 2009 at 5:47 AM.

In his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh repeated his assertion that he hopes President Obama “fails.” In the same speech, Limbaugh took a veiled shot at former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is one of his rivals for the leadership of the conservative movement, saying that people who say the GOP needs to move on from Ronald Reagan must be stamped out.

On NBC’S Meet The Press today, Gingrich fired back, saying that “you’ve got to want the president to succeed.” “You’re irrational if you don’t want the president to succeed because if he doesn’t succeed, the country doesn’t succeed,” said Gingrich.

Asked by host David Gregory if that clashed with the views of people like Limbaugh, Gingrich warned against calling for Obama’s failure:

GREGORY: Do you think that Republicans are discordant on that point, about whether they want him to fail or succeed?

GINGRICH: I don’t think anyone should want the president of the United States to fail. I want some of his policies to be stopped, but I don’t want the president of the United States to fail. I want him to learn new policies.

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GOP Civil War: Gingrich Strikes Back at Limbaugh
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on March 8, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

In his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, hate-radio talker Rush Limbaugh repeated his assertion that he hopes President Barack Obama "fails."

In the same speech, Limbaugh took a veiled shot at former House Speaker Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who is one of his rivals for the leadership of the conservative movement, saying that people who say the GOP needs to move on from Ronald Reagan must be stamped out.

On NBC's Meet the Press today, Gingrich fired back, saying that "you’ve got to want the president to succeed."

"You're irrational if you don’t want the president to succeed, because if he doesn’t succeed, the country doesn’t succeed," said Gingrich.

Asked by host David Gregory if that clashed with the views of people like Limbaugh, Gingrich warned against calling for Obama's failure:

Gregory: Do you think that Republicans are discordant on that point, about whether they want him to fail or succeed?

Gingrich: I don't think anyone should want the president of the United States to fail. I want some of his policies to be stopped, but I don’t want the president of the United States to fail. I want him to learn new policies.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »