Archive for the ‘USA News’ Category
Gay “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert (touted by fans as “Glambert”) knows he’ll have a sympathetic ear at National Public Radio. On Sunday night’s All Things Considered newscast, anchor Guy Raz promoted Lambert’s latest album as a “great record.”
As the interview drew to an end, Raz must have tried his hardest to craft the softest, slightly stupid-sounding question about the lyrics, which protest the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality. “I wonder whether you’re addressing that issue”?
RAZ: I’m speaking with the singer Adam Lambert. His new record is called “Trespassing,” and it’s in stores now. The last track on the record is called “Outlaws of Love.” And in it, you sing: “Nowhere to grow old. We’re always on the run. You say we’ll rot in Hell. Well, I don’t think we will. They’ve branded us enough, outlaws of love.”
You, of course, are gay. You’re openly gay. I can’t help but hear those lyrics and wonder whether you’re addressing that issue or a memory of that.
LAMBERT: Yeah. And when I wrote that song, I wrote it with two very talented people: BC Jean, who’s our writer, and a guy named Rune Westberg, who’s a great producer. And we all kind of — we started putting our thinking caps on about what we wanted to write about. There had been a lot going on with, you know, the gay marriage, kind of going back and forth in California [with Proposition 8].
And I was talking to them about being a member of the gay community, because neither of them are gay, and just expressing some of my frustration with the situation. And it just made me sad. And so I wanted to write something about that sadness, about that feeling where sometimes it’s like a hopelessness that kind of comes over you when you look at the situation, how you’re probably not going to change these people’s minds because they’re set.
LAMBERT: (Singing) Everywhere we go we’re looking for the sun. Nowhere to grow old, we’re always on the run. You say we’ll rot in Hell, well, I don’t think we will. You’ve branded us enough, outlaws of love.
NPR never minds laying down the message that traditional Christians are intolerant bigots. Raz couldn’t ask “So, tell me how the Bible is a silly book that’s wrong for anyone to read?” So it’s just implied.
Article source: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2012/05/22/npr-touts-adam-lamberts-version-hell
The NATO summit meeting in Chicago this weekend was the target of a diverse collage of left-wing groups as people with the Occupy movement streamed into Chicago for protests that culminated in violent clashes with cops and 45 arrests on Sunday. Before the summit the Times reported the protest would be a sign of how strong Occupy remained. Yet once the violence and terrorism charges began flying in Chicago, the Occupy movement all but disappeared from the paper’s coverage.
It’s a pattern for the Times, which routinely downplayed violence in the Occupy movement, yet fretted over hypothetical threats of violence posed by the Tea Party.
Last Thursday Monica Davey and Steven Yaccino set the table with “Big Gathering For NATO Puts Chicago On High Alert.“
The formal meeting of NATO is to start on Sunday, but by Wednesday evening, buses carrying demonstrators from Occupy movements in eight cities around the nation were expected to begin converging on Chicago. The concerns of demonstrators vary widely: among them are those who say they oppose war, and those who say foreign military spending — and the work of NATO — has taken away from efforts for health care, education, immigration and other pressing matters.
On Saturday Davey and Yaccino again mentioned the Occupy involvement in “Chicago Protests Draw Thousands Before NATO Event.”
A far larger “anti-NATO” march was expected on Sunday, and violent images from earlier global gatherings, like a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999, have left some in Chicago on edge — businesses closed, windows boarded and the Loop oddly quiet.
For some, the outcome of the weekend’s protests will be viewed as a trial of the strength of the Occupy movement months after the groups emerged in cities around the nation with messages about income inequality. Demonstrators have been arriving on buses from Occupy-related groups around the country, and some observers have suggested that the number of protesters who ultimately appear here will serve as a sign of the movement’s current state.
“This is the spring — this is the rising,” said Christina Cooke, a member of an Occupy group from Buffalo who took part in the march here. “Everyone is still here after the long winter. We are still active with more passion than we’ve ever had.”
Yet when actual terrorism and violence erupted in Chicago, the Occupy link mysteriously vanished from Times coverage.
Sunday’s dispatch from Chicago by Idalmy Carrera and Steven Yaccino was titled “3 in Chicago Face Charges Of Terrorism In Protests.”
Tensions were increasing here on Saturday, the eve of a NATO summit meeting, after three men were accused of planning attacks on President Obama’s re-election campaign headquarters, the house of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, police stations and financial institutions in downtown Chicago, according to prosecutors.
The men, who were among thousands of people from out of town who traveled to Chicago for a weekend of NATO-related protests, were charged with criminal acts relating to terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and possession of explosives. Bond for the three men — Jared Chase, 27, of Keene, N.H.; Brent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla.; and Brian Jacob Church, 22, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — was set at $1.5 million each. The state’s attorney, Anita Alvarez, said that this was the first time she knew of that defendants had been charged under the state’s antiterrorism statute. She declined to comment on possible federal charges.
Note that the accused plotters couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the protesters “arriving on buses from Occupy-related groups around the country,” but are now merely a few of the “thousands of people from out of town who traveled to Chicago” to protest NATO. What happened to the Occupy push?
On Monday the Times raised the Occupy link covering the Sunday violence in which 45 protesters were arrested, only to squash it: “Police Officers and Protesters Clash in Chicago Outside Meeting of NATO Leaders.”
The Times outlined terror-related charges against two more men:
Lawyers for both men denied the charges, and suggested that the authorities in Chicago were overstating the claims as a warning to the thousands of protesters, some of them linked to the Occupy movement, who have descended on the city for the summit meeting.
The paper insisted (as it always does) that it was a mostly peaceful vibe, while suggesting “the mood” set by Chicago authorities carried at least some of the blame for violence.
At times, the march was calm. Some protesters could be seen joking with the police. But some protesters said the mood — and all the talk of arrests and plots — had raised emotions.
Article source: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/clay-waters/2012/05/22/nato-protests-were-sign-potential-occupy-strength-nytimesuntil-terror-p
Newark’s Democratic Mayor Cory Booker started a firestorm Sunday when he said on NBC’s Meet the Press the Obama campaign’s attack on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s private equity career is “nauseating.”
“To continue his damage control efforts,” Booker’s only interview Monday was with his “good friend” Rachel Maddow, and despite having a twelve minute exclusive with the mayor, the MSNBC anchor never once asked him what his opinion was of private equity (video follows with commentary, full transcript at end of post).
For the record, Booker said the following Sunday:
CORY BOOKER, NEWARK MAYOR (D): As far as that stuff, I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, it’s just this–we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know. I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, it ain’t–they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses, And this, to me, I’m very uncomfortable with. [...]
MAYOR BOOKER: Well, again, I talk to the White House quite often. I’m a surrogate for the Obama campaign. The messages that they’re sending me out to do, out to talk about is nothing about this. [...]
MAYOR BOOKER: But the last point I’ll make is this kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity, stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on. It’s a distraction from the real issues. It’s either going to be a small campaign about this crap or it’s going to be a big campaign, in my opinion, about the issues that the American public cares about.
As a result of these comments, many in the media and throughout the political realm believe the Obama campaign has lost a key issue – in their mind, anyway – to attack Romney on.
Maddow’s colleague Chris Matthews was so angered by this that he called it a “betrayal” and an act of “sabotage.”
Yet when Maddow had twelve minutes Monday evening to speak to the mayor exclusively about this subject, she not once asked him specifically about his opinion of private equity firms or to clarify what he said Sunday.
Instead, these were her questions:
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: Joining us now for his first interview since his “Meet the Press” appearance caused all this hullaballoo is Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker.
Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here. It’s nice to have you here. [...]
MADDOW: What is the line that they crossed that made you feel that way? What is it about the way they have reacted to this that made you change your mind about talking about this issue again? [...]
MADDOW: Cory, the Republican Party’s hook for saying they stand with you is that you have been a victim of the Obama campaign. You’re not being allowed to say what you really say, that you only issued that clarifying response after “Meet the Press” because of pressure from the Obama campaign.
What is your response to that and are you being pressured by anybody to say something that you don’t believe or to take back something that you do believe? [...]
MADDOW: Cory, when you say you heard the president`s remarks today talking about the substantive matter, the substantive matter that started all of this, when you heard him talking about private equity and you say now that you wanted to be clear that talking about Mitt Romney’s record as a self-proclaimed job creator is on the table, what exactly are you saying ought to be part of the political discussion and what ought to be off the table? Where is the line for you and what do you think is appropriate? [...]
MADDOW: Cory, as a practical matter, you are in — it’s sort of weird because the idea of collateral damage is it`s unintentional. But in this case, I think you are intentional collateral damage, that the attack is directed at the president by using you as a weapon against the president. You as collateral damage are also supposed to be silenced in this debate.
You were effectively supposed to be rendered inoperable as a campaign surrogate and a person who speaks on behalf on his own support for the president. Has that aspect of it do you think worked? Do you feel like you have to sit out national campaigning for now or for the long run because of this incident? Are you just going to keep doing what you`ve been doing? [...]
MADDOW: Mayor Cory Booker of the great city of Newark, New Jersey — my friend, I know it was a hard decision to talk publicly today as you just described. I appreciate that you’re willing to talk with me here, man. Good luck.
And that was it. Not one question about his position concerning private equity.
Wouldn’t it have been appropriate to say, “On Sunday, you defended Bain Capital and private equity. You said, ‘I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, it ain’t–they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses.’ Do you stand by that, or would you like to correct it?”
Assuming he altered his view, a real journalist would have asked, “Then why did you say what you said Sunday? How could private equity have been good for Newark Sunday, but now it’s bad?”
Maddow also neglected to ask, “You said Sunday you want the Obama campaign to ‘Stop attacking private equity’ because it’s ‘nauseating to me’ and it’s ‘nauseating to the American public.’ Do you still feel that way, and if not, what changed your mind in 24 hours?”
Instead, quite clearly, Booker knew he was going to have to walk back his comments further than the “hostage” video he posted at YouTube Sunday.
As such, he contacted Maddow, who Wikipedia claims Booker “became good friends with” at Stanford University, so that he could do a far more lengthy correction with a far larger audience knowing full well she’d toss him softball after softball allowing him to say exactly what he wanted without actually having to clarify the key elements of his statements on Meet the Press.
This was even made clear at Maddow’s blog at MSNBC.com: “Cory Booker went on The Rachel Maddow Show Monday to continue his damage control efforts.”
How brazen! These shills are so upfront with their advocacy they’re willing to put it in writing!
And, like a dutiful Democrat shill, Maddow came through.
Now clips of this interview will be broadcast by other dutiful shills across the fruited plain in the hopes that this issue will be put to rest, and Obama along with his supporters in the media can go back to beating up Romney for his affiliation with Bain Capital.
Brava, Rachel. You’re one hell of a journalist.
Here’s the full transcript for those that can stand it:
MADDOW: If you go to the homepage of Republican Party right now, if you type GOP.com into your web browser, the front page of the National Republican Party`s Web site comes up.
And today it looks like this: “I stand with Cory.” I stand with Cory? With Cory Booker?
I don`t think I need a spoiler alert here if I let you know that the Republican Party in reality is very unlikely to actually stand with Cory Booker. Mr. Booker is the Democratic progressive firebrand mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who supports President Obama`s re-election emphatically.
The Republican Party is making a big show of saying they are standing with him because they say that Cory Booker is a victim, who needs people to stand up for him because he can`t stand up for himself. Because it`s the Republican Party, the person that is victimizing Cory Booker is Mothra, I mean Godzilla. I mean, I`m sorry, President Obama.
Today, while President Obama was at the NATO summit in Chicago, the Republican Party chairman sent out these email to Republican Party supporters.
It says, “Do you know what Obama does with people who stand up for job creators? He silences them. That`s right. By Sunday evening, the Obama campaign had pressured Booker into taking back support of the free market.
This is how far President Obama has sunk running an all-out assault on job creators. And in his own Democratic Party, anyone who dares to defend them must be silenced.
Don`t let the White House silence free enterprise. If you agree, then please sign our petition: I stand with Cory Booker.”
And if you do sign that petition, you will thereby give your e-mail address to the Republican Party, which will make infinite use of your e- mail address from here to spam-ternity.
What all of this is about is a comment made by Cory Booker, excuse me, on “Meet the Press” yesterday, where he — excuse me — where he criticized negative campaigning on both sides of the presidential campaign this year. He said he found the negative campaigning nauseating.
He said that event though the president`s reelection campaign which he supports has criticized Mitt Romney`s tenure at Bain Capital, he said he does not think that private equity per se is always bad. That`s the sort of thing that people in Washington call off-message, for someone who was functioning in that instance as an Obama campaign surrogate. It was off- message.
Off-message like when Marco Rubio endorsed Mitt Romney for president and then promptly followed up that endorsement by saying, quote, “There are a lot of other people out there that some of us wish they had run for president, but they didn`t.”
Off-message like when former Congressman Tom Davis endorsed Mr. Romney this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM DAVIS (R), FORMER CONGRESSMAN: He may not be Mr. Personality. You know, this is the guy who gives the fire side chat and the fire goes out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Off-message like when Jon Huntsman endorsed Mr. Romney with this love song to the Republican nominee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON HUNTSMAN (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Gone are the days when the Republican Party used to put forward big, bold visionary stuff. We`re going to have problems politically until we get some sort of third party movement or some alternative voice out there that can put forward new ideas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Oh, and by the way, please vote for Mitt Romney.
Off message like when Nevada Congressman Joe Heck endorsed Mitt Romney by saying, quote, “Mitt Romney and I don`t agree on every issue and certainly housing is one of them.”
Off message like when Michigan Congressman Fred Upton said his candidate, Mitt Romney was wrong on the auto bailout.
Off-message like when Chris Christie joined the Democrats in demanding that his candidate, Mitt Romney, release more years of his tax returns.
Actually, it should be noted that the platonic form of off message surrogate this year came in the form of Chris Christie as well. Do you remember this one from him?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: In terms of me, I`ll be much more ready four years from now than I am now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)(
MADDOW: In stomping for the guy who is running right now, you`re talking about how you`re going to be ready to run in four years? Why, because your guy is going to lose this year and so the Republicans will have another shot at it in four years? Or are you thinking that he will win and you`ll run against him after his first term? That`s off message.
Off message happens. Off message happens a lot. It`s happened a whole heck of a lot with people acting as Mitt Romney`s surrogates this year — which Democrats and the Beltway media have tended to react to by softly chuckling if they notice it at all.
But when off message happens on the Democratic side, even when Mayor Cory Booker clarifies his remarks and says he does not think that Mitt Romney`s tenure at Bain shouldn`t be off limits, even when President Obama expresses the same basic idea that private equity per se is not bad, it`s just that in Mitt Romney`s case, it`s not a great, great qualification for running for president, no matter.
When off-message happens on the Democratic side, there`s no mitigating factor that can distract from the feeding frenzy. Democrats join right in with the attack. Liberals join right in. The Beltway media joins in with the attack in way that they can almost not control.
The Republicans not only attack but they caricature this Democrat in this case into a helpless victim who they supposedly want to rescue from being silenced since he obviously isn`t allowed to speak for himself.
Let`s let him speak for himself.
Joining us now for his first interview since his “Meet the Press” appearance caused all this hullaballoo is Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker.
Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here. It`s nice to have you here.
MAYOR CORY BOOKER (D), NEWARK, NEW JERSEY: Rachel, thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate this because actually you and I talked earlier. I told you I was doing no interviews.
It wasn`t until the GOP went across that line that I said forget it. I`ve had all I can stand, and I can`t stand no more. So, thank you for giving me a chance to be on tonight.
MADDOW: What is the line that they crossed that made you feel that way? What is it about the way they have reacted to this that made you change your mind about talking about this issue again?
BOOKER: Anybody who watched the entire “Meet the Press” saw not only was I defending Obama`s position on numerous issues, but I also talked about super PAC money and the negative campaigning, and my outrage and really my frustration was about the cynical, negative campaigning, the manipulating of the truth.
And so, here they are plucking sound bites out of that interview to manipulate them in a cynical manner, to use them for their own purposes. That slogan is really what had me and basically my entire staff really fit to be tied.
In the beginning, I think I used if metaphor my staff is going to have hold me back because — to say “I stand with Cory Booker,” I have not seen a Republican national candidate, with maybe the exemption of Jack Kemp a long time ago, be willing to stand with me in places like Newark, New Jersey, Camden, New York, Patterson, places they seem want to imagine doesn`t exist.
And so, what I really feel strongly is anybody in the GOP who wants to stand with me, please stand with me. Stand with me for marriage equality, as Barack Obama stands up for. Stand with me for not turning the back, the clock on women in terms of medical issues and other things like Barack Obama is standing against.
Stand with me on making health care more accessible to all. Stand with me for making college more affordable as President Obama is doing.
If anybody listens to the entire “Meet the Press” and they want to stand with me, they`ll see I stand firmly with the president. What really, really unfortunately has me frustrated is not only does the GOP tend to overlook urban areas like the one I`ve been standing for and working in for my entire professional career, but the one time they seem to pay attention to it, they want to exploit a mayor who for my entire has been standing for something different.
And I`ll tell you this — I`ve been standing for Barack Obama before most people were standing with Barack Obama, as one of his earliest supporters in New Jersey, if not his first major political endorsement. This is a president that in my opinion rejects so many of the things, the tired rhetoric, the distractions, the kind of things that get America not focused on the problems that we need to solve.
So, today to the GOP, I say — I welcome you to stand with me. Stand with me for moving America forward. Don`t stand with me for the kind of things that Mitt Romney is advocating, they`re going to further bankrupt our city, close off opportunity, discriminate against gays and women, and do the kind of things that I think are sending America in the wrong direction.
MADDOW: Cory, the Republican Party`s hook for saying they stand with you is that you have been a victim of the Obama campaign. You`re not being allowed to say what you really say, that you only issued that clarifying response after “Meet the Press” because of pressure from the Obama campaign.
What is your response to that and are you being pressured by anybody to say something that you don`t believe or to take back something that you do believe?
BOOKER: Well, for anybody that knows me and really knows my career, I`ve been an independent Democrat for a long time, standing up on issues. And actually, I`m comfortable to say I disagree with the president before marriage equality and now he stands for that issue.
But the reality is that the Barack Obama team in the White House and their political team have been good to me for many, many years. I`ve worked with them early in the primaries in the last election. They have never pressured me to do anything. They have done nothing but encourage me.
In this case in particular, I certainly did talk with campaign officials, but they didn`t force me to do anything. They had good conversations with me. And after having conversations with them especially after hearing the president`s remarks on this issue where he was not condemning all of private equity. He was not condemning any particular firms. He was focusing in on a guy who is bragging about his job creation record. To me, I think that`s fair game.
All of those things made me say I need to go on and clarify, because obviously, I did things in the “Meet the Press” interview that did not land the points that I was trying to make, and in some ways, you know, frustratingly, I think I conflated the attacks that the Republicans were making with Jeremiah Wright with some of the attacks on the left.
Those can`t even be equated. The noxious nature of the some of the attacks that we`ve seen going on our president, where you poll many people in the GOP who still believes he`s a secret Muslim, and these other things, it`s gotten so ridiculous. You can`t even equate the negativity on the right with what`s happening by some sectors in the left.
And so, at this point, I`m grateful to the president who came out today and said very kind words to me. Some cynical folks in his camp probably wanted the president to go on attack on me, God bless him, because I think his team listen to the totality of what I was doing, heard me defend the president on “Meet the Press” on health care, heard me defend him on job creation, heard me defend him on doing tax reform that actually helped people in my community in Newark, New Jersey.
It`s a partnership I`m going to continue to have no matter what role they want me to play. I play it proactively, not reactively to them.
MADDOW: Cory, when you say you heard the president`s remarks today talking about the substantive matter, the substantive matter that started all of this, when you heard him talking about private equity and you say now that you wanted to be clear that talking about Mitt Romney`s record as a self-proclaimed job creator is on the table, what exactly are you saying ought to be part of the political discussion and what ought to be off the table? Where is the line for you and what do you think is appropriate?
BOOKER: This is my independence. I`m not going to shy away from being one of those people that says, I`m tired of presidential campaigns, the primary we just watched with Republicans talking about all kinds of issues that don`t make sense for my community, who is struggling with foreclosures — things that Obama — excuse me, things that Romney`s against helping or not in favor of giving tax breaks to middle class families in my community. I`m not going to remain silent when people try to bring up issues and negativity that distract from the core issues, that in my community right now, there`s a high level of urgency that we`re talking about and doing something about.
And so, I reject that negativity. I`m not going to come back from that point. But when it comes to what I think is appropriate questions, when Mitt Romney, himself, says “I was a job creator,” not a successful guy in private equity, that I wasn`t — hey, I didn`t return great investment for my people and my firm, but when he says “I was a job creator,” I think that`s a characterization of his record that deserves inquiry.
I think the way the president himself is talking about that is something I will defend. In fact, something I will echo.
But let`s just be clear, in this election, and this is why I wish if Romney wanted to pull my remarks from “Meet the Press” where I went after super PACs and Citizens United, and the incredible flood of tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to flow into this campaign, one of the most extensive campaigns we`re going to see in terms of money spent, and the majority will be negative, cynical vicious attacks in distracting this country from dealing with the issues and substance that we want to do with. I`m sorry, I`m going to reject that every day.
But I`m happy and I`m proud to have been a friend of the president before he started talking about running for president. I`m proud that we have a guy who`s got the Obama cool who`s focusing on the issues that matter.
I`m hoping that both sides, my side of the aisle, which can sometimes go too far, and their side that`s bringing up to stuff to me that is in many ways the dirtiest aspect of politics, I`m going to call that for what it is.
But in terms of me, I`m a mayor of a city. I have to deal with urgencies every single day. People looking for jobs, people looking for access to education, people looking for hope. And right now, from the cynical right and from even this Congress on the right, I see very little coming out that`s actually going to help people in urban issues.
And this is why if Mitt Romney and his campaign want to say, “I stand with Booker,” come stand with me in Newark, stand in Camden, stand in Detroit, and talk about issues that effect people, like the auto industry, substantive issues like Obama is talking about.
That`s really what I want to continue to talk about in this campaign. I`m upset. This is why I`m on your show that I`ve been taken out of context, I`ve been used to support a — if there`s any honor in what they were saying, Mitt Romney would have come out and said, you know what, like Obama did, Citizens United decision is going to hurt our democracy. He would have come out and said the negativity on our side, I`m going to talk about us, has got to stop.
If he wanted to come out and stand with me, he would say, you know what? I stand with Cory Booker. Let`s stop the super PAC money. Let`s stop the negative campaigning.
Let`s talk about the issues. I`ll meet with President Obama to talk about those.
And for him to use that slogan in a way that manipulates my record and my entire professional career working in the streets of my community with good people trying to make Newark better, I`m sorry. People knew (ph) Newark before, but to exploit it or its mayor, it`s something I`m not going to sit still for.
MADDOW: Cory, as a practical matter, you are in — it`s sort of weird because the idea of collateral damage is it`s unintentional. But in this case, I think you are intentional collateral damage, that the attack is directed at the president by using you as a weapon against the president. You as collateral damage are also supposed to be silenced in this debate.
You were effectively supposed to be rendered inoperable as a campaign surrogate and a person who speaks on behalf on his own support for the president. Has that aspect of it do you think worked? Do you feel like you have to sit out national campaigning for now or for the long run because of this incident? Are you just going to keep doing what you`ve been doing?
BOOKER: Well, one, I`m going to serve the president and what his team thinks is the best use for me. Two is every opportunity I have for within my city, wherever I go, as I`ve done consistently for a very long time for the White House, as well as for the president, as well as for his campaign, I`m going to continue every single day to pour my heart and soul into making sure that he gets re-elected because I`ve seen what happens under Republican president.
I`ve seen what happened under George Bush within my city. I`ve seen the challenges of money pouring into a war we shouldn`t have been into and not into programs that could empower our community. I`ve seen this investment in education, I`ve seen this investment in middle class job creation. And that`s something I can`t sit still for.
It hurts me. I feel disappointed if anyway that now I`m being used to undermine the president in this kind of cynical of being a way. I`m going to work harder. If anything they have turned me on, even to work harder the next six months, from fundraising to whatever need be, to ensure our president gets re-elected.
I`m not going to be quiet on my disappointment with the nature of campaigns. I think we as a democracy really now, and especially after this election, need to start looking at the things that we can do to get all this money out of politics and to begin to start focusing on what we can do to ensure our democracy is advanced and ensure the voices of average people can be heard and not drown out in the way they are right now by super PACs.
But as far as where my heart is right now, I`m very upset that I`m being used by the GOP this way. And it`s — well, I thought today I was going to be quiet, being pushed so far that you`re going to hear a lot from me to the extent possible, and to the extent that President Obama and his campaign want to hear from me.
MADDOW: Mayor Cory Booker of the great city of Newark, New Jersey — my friend, I know it was a hard decision to talk publicly today as you just described. I appreciate that you`re willing to talk with me here, man. Good luck.
BOOKER: As always, Rachel.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: — over the next few days as this continues to unfold. Thanks.
BOOKER: Thank you.
Article source: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/05/22/rachel-maddow-does-12-minute-interview-cory-booker-without-asking-his
As time goes on, the hastily constructed second-degree murder case against George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin is continuing to collapse as more evidence formerly known only by the prosecution is released to the public.
The first is that Martin seems to have been less interested in running away from Zimmerman and more in bashing him, according to a witness interviewed by police within minutes of the shooting. But that’s not all:
Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit relates the discovery of video from Trayvon Martin’s YouTube account, removed at some point during the last month, that shows he was actually involved in some sort of underground “fight club.”
Also fatal to the prosecution’s case is the discovery that Martin had THC in his system [...]
Despite the prosecution’s awareness of the autopsy reports and eyewitness testimony, they included none of it in their affidavit against Zimmerman. Criminal lawyer and Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who has been beside himself ever since the Zimmerman charges were filed, writes in the New York Daily News that it’s time to drop the charges, but doubts State Attorney Angela Corey “will do the right thing,” because “until now, her actions have been anything but ethical, lawful, and professional.”
As Dershowitz points out, the evidence released in this case means Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law isn’t even a factor in Zimmerman’s defense. Much political hay has been made out of this law, but if Zimmerman was on the ground getting beaten to a pulp, withdrawal from the encounter was physically impossible for him. “A defendant, under Florida law, loses his ‘stand your ground’ defense if he provoked the encounter,” observes Dershowitz, “but he retains traditional self-defense if he reasonably believed his life was in danger and his only recourse was to employ deadly force.”
Does this mean Zimmerman won’t be convicted of some lesser offense? Not at all. But it does indicate the media’s earlier reporting which effectively smeared him as a racist murderer is starting to look more and more ridiculous.
Article source: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2012/05/22/open-thread-continued-collapse-george-zimmerman-case
One almost has to feel sorry for Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt. He showed up on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 yesterday probably expecting the type of softball questions that MSNBC hosts would toss at him. Instead, Anderson Cooper took a page from Cory Booker’s criticism of “nauseating” attacks on private equity firms such as Bain Capital and kept asking LaBolt how the Obama campaign can criticize Bain while simultaneously raising funds from the same type of companies.
The clearly unprepared LaBolt spent the interview filibustering with a flurry of words that were designed not to answer the questions about the obvious fundraising hypocrisy by the Obama campaign. Watch LaBolt as he filibusters his way to the end of the interview without giving any answers:
LaBolt probably knew he was in extreme hot water while listening to Cooper introduce his segment with the Cory Booker reference:
ANDERSON COOPER: President Obama essentially double downed on the Bain attacks today, saying this is not a distraction from the campaign, this is going to be a centerpiece of the campaign. At the same time, critics say the attacks on Bain are hypocritical. As we pointed out a couple of nights ago, the same day last week that the previous Bain ad came out, President Obama was fund-raising at the home of this guy, Tony James. Mr. President is president of Blackstone. Blackstone is a private equity firm that is actually a lot bigger than Bain and like Bain has bought companies and cut payrolls. Now, in that ad, a laid-off worker likens the head of Bain to a vampire, the same night Mr. Obama sits down for dinner with the head of Blackstone. There’s the contradiction. This weekend’s events with Mayor Booker show why many within the president’s own party think the Obama campaign’s Bain strategy is very much a double-edged sword. Joining me tonight, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.
At this point one can speculate that LaBolt’s thoughts went something like, “Oops! What have I walked into?” And now Cooper asks his first question followed by LaBolt’s first non-answer:
COOPER: Ben, how can President Obama attack Mitt Romney on his time in private equity at Bain highlighting only times when Bain cost company jobs and at the same time hold high-priced fund-raisers with the head of another private equity firm who has done with Bain, the Blackstone group, or hire people who have worked in other private equity firms in his own administration?
BEN LABOLT: Well, Mitt Romney hasn’t been — he hasn’t been forthright with the American people about what he did during his tenure as a corporate buyout specialist and what his goals were. He’s been campaigning across the country telling people that he was a job creator, but he’s never been able to substantiate a number of jobs that were created. That’s because he — his partners have admitted that the goal was wealth creation for themselves.
Cooper tries again with another question but LaBolt continues non-answering him:
COOPER: Private equity is about wealth creation for investors. And I know that’s not what he’s saying, but that’s what it is about. But I don’t understand why it’s OK for the president’s private equity supporters to bankrupt companies and put people out of work, but it’s not OK for Mitt Romney’s equity firm to do that.
LABOLT: The president has support from business leaders across industries who agree with his vision of building an economy that’s built to last, where hard work and responsibility are rewarded, where everybody from Main Street to Wall Street plays…
The third time is a charm, right? Wrong when trying to wring an answer from the completely unresponsive LaBolt who is acting like he never even heard the question:
COOPER: You yourself said that’s not what private equity is about, and yet the president is accepting money from private equity firms. Isn’t that hypocritical?
LABOLT: … who believe that the right thing to do was put in place those protections to ensure that we never have a financial crisis like we did in 2008 and that middle-class families across the country are not held hostage by risky financial deals.
Finally Anderson Cooper has a “revelation” about LaBolt’s evasions and LaBolt responds with yet another non-answer:
COOPER: But you’re not answering any of the questions. I’m trying to figure out what is different between Bain and Governor Romney’s experience in private equity and the experience of private equity firms that the president is taking money from.
LABOLT: Well, here are the facts, Anderson. Governor Romney has based his candidacy for the Oval Office on his tenure as a corporate buyout specialist. He said that that’s the economic record that we should evaluate, that that’s the type of philosophy, economic philosophy that he would bring into the Oval Office. And we took a look at the record. We took a look at the fact that he loaded up companies with debt across the country. This case of Ampad, a plant in Marion, Indiana, 250 workers lost their jobs. Romney and his partners came in. They loaded the company up with debt, laid off all the workers, force them to reapply for their jobs. Security guards bolted the doors. They went through the…
You will look in vain in the rest of the interview for anything resembling an answer by LaBolt. Next time he should appear on Rachel Maddow’s show for guaranteed softball questions.
Article source: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/pj-gladnick/2012/05/22/anderson-cooper-goes-cory-booker-obama-campaign-spokesman
File this one under wishful thinking — or simply just another case of a liberal newspaper trying to help President Barack Obama’s floundering re-election effort. The Tennessean, the daily newspaper in Tennessee’s capital city Nashville, over the weekend trumpeted this headline: “Vanderbilt Poll: Obama Closes Gap With Romney.”
According to the article, Obama is just one point behind Romney in one of the reddest states in the South, a state John McCain won in 2008 by 15.1 percentage points over Obama. It’s also a state where the Republican Party captured near two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state legislature in 2010 and where voters chose Republicans in 7 of 9 congressional districts. The state has a popular Republican governor elected in landslide that same year, and both its U.S. Senators are Republicans.
So … how does it appear that Obama has “closed the gap” with Romney?
By some basic polling trickery, judging from this part of the story:
The poll of 1,002 Tennessee residents who are 18 and older found 42 percent would vote for Romney and 41 percent for Obama if the election were held now. The survey, conducted May 2-9 by Princeton Survey Research Associates International for Vanderbilt, had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
They polled residents. Not “likely voters.” Not even “registered voters.”
Good pollsters know that you get the most accurate poll results when you poll likely voters, since elections are won by getting more people to vote for you than vote against you.
Interestingly, as the paper reports, when the pollsters in this case delete the non-registered from the results, Romney leads Obama by 7 among registered voters.
The Vanderbilt Poll didn’t try to find out where the race is among “likely voters,” but it’s a pretty good guess that Romney is well ahead. Why is that a good guess?
The Democratic National Committee isn’t sending big checks to Tennessee to help put Obama over the top here. Because they know Tennessee and its electoral votes are out of reach.
It’s impossible to know whether the editors at the Nashville newspaper really believe the race is close, or wrote the headline in fervent desire to help make it so.
But whatever the reason for the headline, Adam Nickas, the executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party isn’t buying the notion that Obama is virtually tied with Romney in the Volunteeer state
Nickas teased the Tennessee Democratic Party via Twitter shortly after the story was published: ”All of @tndp’s candidates should attach themselves to Obama this year since he’s doing so well in TN.”
You can be sure that’s not going to happen.
I suppose it’s possible that perhaps the Tennesseean’s executives didn’t realize what was going on when they approved the release of this embarrassing poll but if that’s the case, the ownership ought to be really concerned that such uninformed people are spending their money.
Article source: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2012/05/22/tenn-newspaper-tries-new-polling-standard-residents
On Tuesday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer pleaded with former Secretary of State Colin Powell to again endorse Barack Obama for president: “…it sounds like you’re on his [Obama's] team still, four years later….why hesitate at this stage of the game here? I mean, it’s basically Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney. Why not just come out right now and throw your weight behind somebody?” [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
At the top of the show, fellow co-host Ann Curry excitedly teased the upcoming interview: “Four years ago, one of the country’s most prominent Republicans threw his support behind Democrat Barack Obama. Will he endorse him again?”
Early in the segment, Lauer teed up Powell to praise Obama: “You endorsed Barack Obama back in 2008. You called him a transformational figure who represented generational change. Did you get from President Obama the kind of generational change, was he the transformational figure, or has he been, that you counted on?”
Powell proclaimed:
I think he has been. Not completely. There are some things that he has done that I wish he had not done. For example, leave Guantanamo open. I would have closed that rapidly. He tried, he was stopped by Congress. He stabilized the financial system. He brought about a stability in the economy. He fixed the auto industry. I think he took us out, not completely out, but he took us out of the most difficult problem we were facing at that time, which was an economy that was collapsing. And it’s improving, but not fast enough. So his number one – his number one goal for the rest of this year, as it should have been for the whole four years, is to get the economy running again.
Lauer happily concluded: “If I’m Barack Obama, I’m sitting here listening to you say all these things, I think that sounds like a pretty good campaign endorsement.”
However, Powell didn’t cooperate with Lauer’s eager assertion: “I ought to listen to what the President says and what the President’s been doing. But you know, I also have to listen to what the other fellows say. I’ve known Mitt Romney for many years, good man.”
After Lauer insisted Powell “throw his weight behind somebody,” Powell replied: “I don’t want to throw my weight behind somebody….I’m still listening to what the Republicans are saying they’re going to do to fix the fiscal problems we have, to get the economy moving. And I think I owe that to the Republican Party…”
Having failed to get the headline he was after, Lauer moved on to Powell’s new book, “It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership.” Specifically Lauer seized on Powell’s recollections in the memoir about the lead up to the Iraq war:
In your book you talk about that famous appearance you made before the United Nations during the buildup to the war in Iraq and you write that the office of then-Vice President Dick Cheney tried to select the intelligence you’d use in that appearance. You describe the case presented to you as a disaster and incoherent. You even said that Vice President Cheney urged you to use assertions that linked Iraq and 9/11, which had been discredited months earlier. Did the Vice President knowingly try to mislead the American people and leaders around the world prior to the war in Iraq?
Lauer was likely disappointed by Powell’s response: “Prior to the war in Iraq, I have no reason to believe that. We all were operating off the same basic intelligence. And it wasn’t anything new that was put together for the U.N. speech. The Vice President kept pushing, kept encouraging us to look at everything.”
Here is a full transcript of the May 22 interview:
7:00AM ET TEASE:
ANN CURRY: The General. Four years ago, one of the country’s most prominent Republicans threw his support behind Democrat Barack Obama. Will he endorse him again? We’re going to ask him as he joins us to talk about politics, leadership and his time in the public eye.
7:07AM ET SEGMENT:
MATT LAUER: General Colin Powell, who served as secretary of state under President George W. Bush, made some headlines four years ago when he endorsed Barack Obama for president. He’s out with a brand-new book called, “It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership.” General, it’s always nice to see you. Welcome back to the show.
COLIN POWELL: Thank you, Matt. Good to be back.
LAUER: Let’s talk about Afghanistan. Chuck [Todd] just talked about it. Here’s what you said on Meet the Press two years ago. Quote, “We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place in Afghanistan a government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al Qaeda didn’t come back and make sure the Taliban wasn’t resurrecting. It didn’t work out.” You said that two years ago. 700 Americans or so have lost their lives in that country since then. We still aren’t out of there. Was it worth the sacrifice?
POWELL: I think it was worth the sacrifice to give the Afghan people a chance to create a government that was representative of all of the Afghan people and to bring some stability to the country. Now, a few years later, the Afghans are showing that they have more and more capacity. Their forces have been built up, military and police forces. And you know, we can only do so much and go so far. They have to be in charge of their country.
LAUER: Do you think we’ll leave behind a stable country that will accomplish the things you talked about?
POWELL: That is what remains to be seen. I’m not totally satisfied, in fact I’m not hardly satisfied with the nature of the regime, the corruption that exists and a lot of the other problems that exist. But at the same time, you have to draw the line at some point. And I think the decision that’s been made over the weekend that we would stop active combat operations at the end of next year, and then stay in place and finally withdraw in 2014, but leave behind whatever is necessary to give the Afghans the support they need, and whatever capacities they need, they don’t now have.
LAUER: But you endorsed Barack Obama back in 2008. You called him a transformational figure who represented generational change. Did you get from President Obama the kind of generational change, was he the transformational figure, or has he been, that you counted on?
POWELL: I think he has been. Not completely. There are some things that he has done that I wish he had not done. For example, leave Guantanamo open. I would have closed that rapidly. He tried, he was stopped by Congress. He stabilized the financial system. He brought about a stability in the economy. He fixed the auto industry. I think he took us out, not completely out, but he took us out of the most difficult problem we were facing at that time, which was an economy that was collapsing. And it’s improving, but not fast enough. So his number one – his number one goal for the rest of this year, as it should have been for the whole four years, is to get the economy running again.
LAUER: If I’m Barack Obama, I’m sitting here listening to you say all these things, I think that sounds like a pretty good campaign endorsement. That it sounds like you’re on his team still, four years later.
POWELL: Oh, he knows better. He knows that I always keep my powder dry, as we say in the military. I feel, as a private citizen, I ought to listen to what the President says and what the President’s been doing. But you know, I also have to listen to what the other fellows say. I’ve known Mitt Romney for many years, good man. And it’s not just a matter of weather you support Obama or Romney, it’s who they have coming in with them, what policies do they-
LAUER: Yeah, but why hesitate at this stage of the game here? I mean, it’s basically Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney. Why not just come out right now and throw your weight behind somebody?
POWELL: Because I don’t want to throw my weight behind somebody. The beautiful part of being a private citizen is you can decide when you want to throw your weight, if you want to throw your weight. I’m still listening to what the Republicans are saying they’re going to do to fix the fiscal problems we have, to get the economy moving. And I think I owe that to the Republican Party, I owe that. And I also think it is the right way to go about it. Too often in this country we simply stick with, you know, whatever you said last year is it, even if it doesn’t, you know, work out or make sense. So I like to listen to everybody, examine everything, and then in due course make a judgment and vote the way I think is the correct way to vote is.
LAUER: In your book you talk about that famous appearance you made before the United Nations during the buildup to the war in Iraq and you write that the office of then-Vice President Dick Cheney tried to select the intelligence you’d use in that appearance. You describe the case presented to you as a disaster and incoherent. You even said that Vice President Cheney urged you to use assertions that linked Iraq and 9/11, which had been discredited months earlier. Did the Vice President knowingly try to mislead the American people and leaders around the world prior to the war in Iraq?
POWELL: Prior to the war in Iraq, I have no reason to believe that. We all were operating off the same basic intelligence. And it wasn’t anything new that was put together for the U.N. speech. The Vice President kept pushing, kept encouraging us to look at everything. And he probably felt more strongly about-
LAUER: At everything or selective intelligence?
POWELL: Everything. Everything. And select – well, selected is part of everything. And he felt strongly about some particular issues – say the linkage between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein and how al Qaeda might have played in that – and he kept pressing to see if there was anything there. But at the end of the day, there was nothing there. And I did not use it, because there was nothing there. You have to remember that this was a National Intelligence Estimate that was used by the President long before my speech, that Congress used that National Intelligence Estimate three months before my speech. And the decision to go to war had already been made before my speech.
LAUER: In the book you also say people want leaders who have moral and physical courage, who always do the right thing when asked and will risk their careers in doing so. You’ve also written about that appearance before the United Nations, and you referred to it as one of your most momentous failures. That will earn a prominent paragraph in your obituary. So did you live up to, at that moment, your own definition of leadership and what people want in this country?
POWELL: When I was asked to make that presentation, I was given four days to get ready for it. I did everything I could, by going out to the CIA with an entire team of people and going through all the intelligence they had. And being assured that they had multiple sources for everything that I would be saying at the U.N. Every word in that presentation was certified by the CIA and the intelligence community. The director of the CIA sat right behind me when I presented it. He was up most of the night before, verifying it.
It just turned out that subsequently, a lot of it was right, but the guts of it, the existence of weapons of mass destruction, in existence in Iraq, were not there. It was not there. The sources were bad. Now the good part of this is that Saddam Hussein is gone. That terrible regime has been eliminated. And the Iraqi people now have the chance of a better life with a new regime and we don’t have to worry about whether they have weapons of mass destruction or not anymore. Saddam Hussein is not there to terrorize his people.
LAUER: General Colin Powell. General, it’s always nice to have you stop by the studio. We appreciate it.
POWELL: My pleasure.
LAUER: I want to tell people that the book is now in bookstores.
Article source: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2012/05/22/nbcs-lauer-begs-colin-powell-throw-his-weight-behind-obama-again
SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Warriors are ready to announce what many have long suspected: The franchise wants to move back to San Francisco.
The NBA team, Commissioner David Stern and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee scheduled a news conference at 10 a.m. local time Tuesday to announce the decision to leave Oakland. The earliest the team could move would be 2017, when it can escape its lease at Oracle Arena.
The Warriors will unveil plans to build an arena at Piers 30-32. The waterfront site near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge – one of the most beautiful views in one of the world’s most beautiful cities – is just blocks from the Giants’ ballpark and the downtown financial district.
The announcement comes as no surprise to Bay Area fans.
Joe Lacob and Peter Guber have been working to return the team to the City by the Bay since buying the Warriors for a league-record $450 million in 2010. The Warriors played in San Francisco from 1962 to 1971 after moving from Philadelphia.
Lee sent a letter to the owners this month saying the city would work with Warriors executives to bring the team to San Francisco in time for the 2017-18 season. The note, signed by all 11 city supervisors and numerous business and labor leaders, floated the possibility of building a waterfront arena. It was sent a few days after Lee met with new Guber in Los Angeles.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan responded last week by sending the team her own letter. Quan says Oakland is committed to keeping the Warriors in the East Bay.
That now seems like a lost cause.
Of course, building anything in San Francisco is never easy.
Overcoming the environmental concerns on the shoreline, the addition of a high-rise structure on the pier – not to mention the adjacent condominiums and businesses that could fight to keep their Bay Bridge views – and political wrangling in the politically charged city are among many obstacles for the project. The team was expected to release details of the financing plan at the news conference.
While the Warriors upgraded parts of Oracle Arena and remodeled its downtown Oakland offices and practice facility before last season, the owners have made no secret of their intentions.
All of Golden State’s important news conferences in the last two years – when Lacob and Guber bought the team, coach Mark Jackson’s hiring and executive board member Jerry West’s signing, to name a few – have been held in San Francisco.
The Warriors are counting on the 16-mile drive between the team’s Oakland arena and the waterfront site in San Francisco to make all the difference.
Team executives believe more corporate sponsorship and national notoriety will come in San Francisco and give the franchise the ability to land marquee free agents. Most teams that play at Golden State already stay and practice in San Francisco.
One thing that hasn’t been a problem are the fans.
Despite only one playoff appearance since 1994, the basketball-booming Bay Area has supported the Warriors surprisingly well. The team ranked 10th in attendance this past season, averaging 18,857.
The move is still sure to upset some in Oakland, the center of the area’s basketball roots. Many NBA players past and present – Bill Russell, Gary Payton and Jason Kidd, among scores of others – were raised in Oakland. The NFL’s Oakland Raiders and baseball’s Oakland Athletics, which share a stadium next to Oracle Arena, are also looking for new facilities.
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Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/22/golden-state-warriors-san-francisco_n_1536111.html
On the one-year anniversary of the tornado that claimed 161 lives and injured 1,150 people, Joplin, Mo., residents can take comfort in reflecting on the stories of their heroes. The men, women and children who stepped up to make a difference during moments of severe crisis.
Heroes such as Mark Lindquist, the 51-year-old who risked his life to save three developmentally disabled people. There was also 9-year-old Maddox Prier who only learned speak at age 5, yet managed to warn his family in time to find shelter.
Read through the slideshow below to learn of the hope that arose during a time of utter destruction.
SLIDESHOW:
Related on HuffPost:
Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/22/joplin-tornado-anniversary-heroes_n_1536112.html
ArtPadSF by day…
…and by night.
Despite its California location, San Francisco is rarely warm. It may have been a clear early evening, but a cold wind whipped up around the time the second edition of ArtPadSF, a poolside hotel art fair had its VIP opening. Which is to say, that it looked deceptively like a balmy Miami affair, but with a bracing chill to the air. The two story Phoenix Hotel, where the fair is held, has a mid-century, affordable hip hotel feel, something affirmed by its location bounded by the gritty streets of the Civic Center and Tenderloin — it’s a place where it wouldn’t be a surprise to see folks smoking crack, or worse, just outside. But there always is something wonderful about cocktails by a pool, and as it was, literally, a week before, for the San Francisco Art Institute’s MFA show (which was held in the same rooms), conviviality may have trumped much of what was on view. Certainly there was decent art to be seen — and purchased — but they couldn’t exactly compete with the theatricality of the event itself.
Jason Fritz at Unspeakable Projects
Annie Vought, at Unspeakable Projects
The Luggage Store room at ArtPadSF
Francesca Pastine at Eleanor Harwood Gallery, ArtPadSF
James Mitchell Perley and Eliane Lima, in the SFAI room at ArtPadSF
ArtPadSF, which along with the concurrent San Francisco Fine Art Fair, and ArtMRKT, followed New York’s Frieze Art Fair by just over a week, and at this opening, there may have not be many crossover attendees. The opening night benifitted SECA, an SFMOMA auxiliary group that collects work and supports an award exhibition for Bay Area artists, and that constituency was well represented, as were museum curators and an audience of collectors and a few artists — and it was great fun to mingle, and peer over the balcony at the rippling pool.
Michele Pred, ArtPadSF
Michael Loggins, ArtPadSF
On my drive over, the news radio chatter was all about Greece’s financial crisis and its potential ripple effects, though that impending gloom didn’t enter into much conversation. Only Mark Moore Gallery, one of the few Los Angeles dealers at ArtPad had multiple red dots on the editioned photographs, though an astute dealer in another room offered that those pictures had been sold previous to their appearance here. Psyching people out is a decent strategy, and one addressed in Michael Loggins terrific bathroom installation in the Creativity Explored room. The narrative based project borrowed from Loggins’ legendary book, “Fears of Your Life,” but also allowed visitors to add theirs to a wall of mulit-colored Post-It Notes. Earthquakes were written far more than financial melt-downs.
Michael Loggins’ toilet intervention
VIP Room, ArtMRKT
Jeremiah Jenkins’s sign
The next day, over at artMRKT, a slicker presentation in a more conventional setting, things seemed solid — a few dealers said they were making sales and that their opening party was a smashing success, with endless hors d’ouevres platters and long lines at the open bar (ArtPad’s moved to cash status fairly quickly). There was nothing much out of the ordinary — most of the galleries were San Francisco based — other than the somewhat expected presence of Occupy by Jeremiah Jenkins, and young artist who constructed a tent on a carpeted throughway.
Jeremiah Jenkins, artMRKT
Even if it was sanctioned by the fair — and sponsored by his gallery, the upstart Ever Gold Gallery. Jenkins may have gotten his equations confused claimed to be just a miniscule fraction of the 1% — the playful funkiness of his hand scrawled signs had a proletariat quality. But the issue of marginalization might just be a fitting thing, in San Francisco, where the art market has always been on the edge of more prominent art cities. It’s a stable situation that even three battling fairs won’t change. But they might sway us with parties.
Tim Etchells, artMRKT
Daniela Comani’s Top 100 Films, Charlie James Gallery, artMRKT
Eli Ridgway, with work by Elisheva Biernoff
Amir Mortazavi, Highlight Gallery, artMRKT
Popular Workshop sandwich board, ArtPadSF
Artists Nick Karvounis and Bessma Khalaf, ArtPadSF
Juan Bocca in front of work by James Chronister, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, ArtPadSF
Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glen-helfand/artpadsf_b_1530467.html
