Elections 2012: VIDEO

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Thứ Năm, 23 tháng 2, 2012

The Caucus: Caucus Video: The Last Debate?

February 23

Michael D. Shear reports on the what could be the final debate of Republican primary season.

February 22

Times reporters take a closer look at some of the statements made by the Republican presidential candidates in Wednesday night's debate.

February 22

Rick Santorum said he opposed a major funding vehicle for family planning programs, but ultimately voted for it as part of a larger spending bill.

February 22

Rick Santorum's rationale for an education vote was a curious -- and unusual -- acknowledgement of politics trumping values.

February 22

Newt Gingrich, as speaker, did preside over a period in which the number and total cost of earmarks spiraled upward.

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Thứ Hai, 13 tháng 2, 2012

Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler commercial viewed as Obama campaign ad [VIDEO]

What appeared to be a simple, patriotic commercial during the halftime of the Super Bowl has turned into a political football between the right and left.

Clint Eastwood starred in a two-minute Chrysler commercial which suggested that it was “halftime in America,” and that the second half would be a better one for the country. The commercial had political undertones that did not go unnoticed. The Hollywood Reporter wrote:

The Super Bowl is televised advertising’s equivalent of the Cannes Film Festival, so White House political strategists must have been smiling when what’s generally being hailed as this year’s best spot — the Chrysler “Halftime in America” commercial — subtly echoed the themes of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

The commercial concedes that the past few years have been rough for Detroit, the auto industry and the country, but that we can pull together, like Detroit did. ”They almost lost everything,” Eastwood says. “But we all pulled together. Now Motor City is fighting again.”

It’s hard to ignore the nod to the 2010 bailout, when the Obama administration loaned $60 billion to auto companies to pull them out of bankruptcy.

The commercial finishes with some fighting words in Eastwood’s signature gruff voice: “This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.”

To some, the commercial was viewed as a very good campaign ad for Obama — the “halftime” being the 2012 election, before a second term as president.

Top Democrats applauded the commercial during the game on Twitter.

David Axelrod, senior policy advisor to President Obama, tweeted: “Powerful spot. Did Clint shoot that, or just narrate it?”

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted: ”And Clint, the consensus is u done a good thing standing up 4 Detroit–& your sermon seemed 2 b a call 2 give O his “second half.” #sellcars”

But conservatives were less than thrilled by the commercial. On Fox News Monday, Karl Rove stated that he was “offended” by the ad:

I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.

The commercial is seemingly contradictory to Eastwood’s rightward-leaning views. As a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative and social liberal, the actor told the LA Times last year:

“I’ve always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves. But I’m a big hawk on cutting the deficit. I was against the stimulus thing too. We shouldn’t be bailing out the banks and car companies. If a CEO can’t figure out how to make his company profitable, then he shouldn’t be the CEO.”

Eastwood also said that he has been disillusioned with the Republican Party over the past few years. He told GQ last year: “[O]ver the years, I realized there was a Republican philosophy that I liked. And then they lost it. And libertarians had more of it.”

WATCH:

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Obama attack-ad touts free condoms in 2012 race [VIDEO]

Democrats moved Saturday to make contraception an issue in the 2012 election by releasing a video attack-ad that portrays opposition to the White House’s proposed regulation of churches as a GOP-led effort to deny free contraception to all women.

The ad shows President Barack Obama speaking on Feb. 10 saying that his revised church regulation would ensure “the insurance company, not the [church-run] hospital, not the charity, will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without copays, and without hassles.”

The Democratic National Committee ad next shows a stark message on a black screen: “The Republicans want to take that right away … who do you think think should make decisions about contraception? You or your employer?”

Unmarried women lean Democratic, partly because of the Democrats’ support for federal aid. In contrast, married women lean Republican, partly because of Republican aid and applause for families.

The same message showed up on Obama’s campaign website, where a Feb. 10 headline described Obama’s Feb. 10 message as “Moving Forward with Contraceptive Coverage”.

The 70-second attack-ad came the day after a variety of religious groups decried Obama’s Feb. 10 announcement that he would require insurance companies to provide free contraceptive services and abortion-related drugs to the religious groups’ employees.

The announcement was a symbolic side-step by Obama around his controversial Jan. 20 regulation.

The regulation — which is based on the 2010 Obamacare health-sector law — said religious congregations would be fined by the state if they did not use their own money to buy services and drugs they abhor.

The new attack-ad marks a White House effort to recover from the resulting controversy.

The opposition came from Catholic, evangelical, Baptist and Jewish denominations, civil-liberties groups, establishment media, plus most Republicans and some Democratic legislators. A Rasmussen poll, for example, showed that 65 percent of Catholics opposed Obama’s insurance directive to religious groups. That number matters because it could indicate much lower support support among Midwestern white Catholics and Southern Hispanic Catholics.

Under the Feb. 10 sidestep, Obama simply declared that the cost of the birth-control services was zero so religious groups would not have to pay for these services their insurance company provided to their employees.

Many progressive organizations lauded the president’s revised semantics.The Washington Post, for example, described the maneuver as an “effort by the White House to walk a careful middle line that would retain the support of women’s groups and liberal lawmakers… while easing tensions with Catholic critics, who reacted with cautious optimism and even praise to the shift.”

The Catholic Church criticized the Feb. 10 announcement, saying it sidestepped their worries about the Jan. 20 regulation.

The opposition to the regulations is spurred by critics’ charges that it is a progressive effort to use the power of the state to regulate their religious groups.

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, which operates the largest chain of abortion clinics in the country, was repeatedly invited to lobby for the regulations at the White House in the months leading up the Jan. 20 announcement.

Democrats have been trying to portray the church regulation as a health-care mandate and as a dispute between Obama and the Catholic bishops.

This spin has been partly successful because many media outlets portray the dispute as an effort by the Catholic Church to curb contraception.

However, this portrayal hides the broad opposition among many religious groups to the federal directive, and it downplays the White House’s ideological and political calculations.

Those ideological priorities were highlighted in early February when a White House official said that they had no idea how many women would be aided by the requirement that church pay for contraceptive and birth-control services that they abhor.

Only a small proportion of American women work in church-run facilities that do not cover contraception and abortion services. Contraceptive services, however can be bought on the free market — there are few regulations limiting access — and the government also subsidizes birth-control services.

For example, the government spent $1.85 billion on Title X services in 2006, according to an August 2011 report by Planned Parenthood. Most of that spending is done via Medicare, which provides cheap or free contraceptives to poor women.

Critics’ skepticism of the White House’s motives were also boosted by the timing of the Jan 20 announcement that churches would have to pay for contraception and abortion-related drugs. The announcement came only two days before the Jan. 22 anti-abortion “March For Life” in Washington, D.C.
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Thứ Ba, 7 tháng 2, 2012

This week and the Constitution: Egypt, stump speeches, and pay freezes [VIDEO]

News headlines, politicians, and hot-button issues come and go, but one 225-year-old document continues to emerge in our conversations about our nation’s most important questions and challenges: the Constitution. The Constitution is a big buzzword for Election 2012, and more than ever, citizens, pundits, and politicians are turning to the Constitution for answers–and sometimes ammunition, as they try to prove the Constitution is on their side.

Here’s a brief look at the top constitutional news stories and commentaries from this week.

Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard who taught both President Barack Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts, appeared on The Colbert Report on Jan. 30 to discuss the Constitution, particularly his theory that the Constitution is a verb, not a noun. “You sort of live the Constitution, you don’t just look at it,” Tribe said.

A Jan. 30 National Law Review opinion article declared Congress’ current pay freeze unconstitutional because it “violates both the letter and the spirit of the 27th Amendment.” With the widespread concern about budget deficits, it may seem like a good idea. The authors put it this way: “Our argument is not that members of Congress deserve a higher salary. It is merely that a constitutional republic must operate within the confines of its articles and amendments, even when doing so might seem inconvenient.”

It wasn’t exactly a victory lap for Ron Paul, who finished last in the Florida Republican primary. But in a Jan. 31 speech to voters, he exuded confidence in his message (if not in his campaign), echoing his call for “personal liberty.” He said, “The answer: send only people to Washington, send only people to the White House, that know and understand and read the Constitution and enforce the Constitution.”

On Feb. 1, Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg finished off a visit to Egypt, where she was meeting with legal experts and law faculty and students to discuss Egypt’s constitutional transition to democracy. In one television interview, she lauded the virtues of the U.S. Constitution and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers but also encouraged Egyptians to look to other countries’ constitutions for inspiration–and to remain focused on freedom. She stated: “A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom. If the people don’t care, then the best constitution in the world won’t make any difference. The spirit of liberty has to be in the population.”

Well, maybe George Stephanopoulos’ debate question about contraception wasn’t so silly after all. President Obama has faced criticism from various religious and congressional leaders for his administration’s choice to include religious-affiliated institutions in a provision of the health care reform law that requires employers and insurance plans to cover birth control. Speaker of the House John Boehner, who is Catholic, called the mandate unconstitutional, saying it violated the institutions’ religious freedom. The White House defended its choice as a step to promote women’s health.

“Privacy, Technology and Law” — Barry Friedman, New York Times

“Rand Paul to challenge appointments” — Seung Min Kim, Politico

“Senator Mike Lee: Constitutional Charlatan” — Doug Kendall, Huffington Post

“Myanmar’s Suu Kyi calls for changes to constitution” — Jason Szep, Reuters

Holly Munson is Assistant Editor of Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center.

Thứ Hai, 6 tháng 2, 2012

Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler commercial viewed as Obama campaign ad [VIDEO]

What appeared to be a simple, patriotic commercial during the halftime of the Super Bowl has turned into a political football between the right and left.

The Super Bowl is televised advertising’s equivalent of the Cannes Film Festival, so White House political strategists must have been smiling when what’s generally being hailed as this year’s best spot — the Chrysler “Halftime in America” commercial — subtly echoed the themes of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

It’s hard to ignore the nod to the 2010 bailout, when the Obama administration loaned $60 billion to auto companies to pull them out of bankruptcy.

To some, the commercial was viewed as a very good campaign ad for Obama — the “halftime” being the 2012 election, before a second term as president.

Top Democrats applauded the commercial during the game on Twitter.

David Axelrod, senior policy advisor to President Obama, tweeted: “Powerful spot. Did Clint shoot that, or just narrate it?”

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted: ”And Clint, the consensus is u done a good thing standing up 4 Detroit–& your sermon seemed 2 b a call 2 give O his “second half.” #sellcars”

But conservatives were less than thrilled by the commercial. On Fox News Monday, Karl Rove stated that he was “offended” by the ad:

I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.

The commercial is seemingly contradictory to Eastwood’s rightward-leaning views. As a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative and social liberal, the actor told the LA Times last year:

“I’ve always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves. But I’m a big hawk on cutting the deficit. I was against the stimulus thing too. We shouldn’t be bailing out the banks and car companies. If a CEO can’t figure out how to make his company profitable, then he shouldn’t be the CEO.”

WATCH:

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