Exposing Marco Rubio’s Notorious Criminal Past
“According to a search of the Miami-Dade and Duval County court dockets, the Rubios have been cited for numerous infractions over the years for incidents that included speeding, driving through red lights and careless driving. A review of records dating back to 1997 shows that the couple had a combined 17 citations: Mr. Rubio with four and his wife with 13....Mr. Rubio’s troubles behind the wheel predate his days in politics....”
— From a June 6 New York Times story by correspondents Alan Rappeport and Steve Eder, “Plenty of Notice for Rubios on the Road.”
No Complaints About Obama’s $18 Trillion National Debt, But...
“A review of the Rubio family’s finances — including many new documents — reveals a series of decisions over the past 15 years that experts called imprudent: significant debts; a penchant to spend heavily on luxury items like the boat and the lease of a $50,000 2015 Audi Q7; a strikingly low savings rate, even when Mr. Rubio was earning large sums; and inattentive accounting that led to years of unpaid local government fees....As Mr. Rubio, 44, seeks to counter questions about his stature and readiness for the presidency, his financial history creates particular complications.”
— From a front-page New York Times story by correspondents Steve Eder and Michael Barbaro, June 10.
“He is one of the Republicans’ fastest rising stars, just 44, the youngest presidential candidate in the field. But this morning, new scrutiny is focused on Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s financial struggles and spending habits....The New York Times this week detailed Rubio’s debt and mortgages, including his purchase of three homes, putting no money down on two of them.”
— Correspondent Peter Alexander on NBC’s Today, June 10.
Wacky Chris Matthews: “Most Democrats Are Not Lefties”
“If Hillary Clinton is a lefty, I didn’t know it, okay. She’s not a lefty. She is a centrist politician, a Democratic, a mainstream Democrat. Most Democrats are not lefties. I think one in three Democrats would even identify as liberal, much less the new term for progressive.”
— MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews on NBC’s Meet the Press, May 31.
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“It’s clear that with the base of the Democratic Party there’s a lot of resonance for Bernie Sanders, who is to the left of Hillary Clinton, who is growing more to the left of herself every day....When Bill Clinton ran for president, he was kind of the centrist. It won’t work to be a centrist anymore in the Democratic Party because it’s moved so far to the left.”
— CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger on Wolf, June 8.
Far-Right Shift Drove “Conservative” Chafee from “Shrunken GOP Tent”
“Thanks to Lincoln Chafee’s recent entrée into the 2016 primary, it would seem that a majority of the Democratic Party’s expected contenders are former conservatives who converted to liberalism later in life. That’s what you’d guess from their shifting party affiliations, at least: Chafee, James Webb and even Hillary Clinton all once proudly called themselves Republicans....But for Chafee and Webb, the transformation seems to have been less a result of shifting views than shifting goal posts. The candidates themselves didn’t get more liberal; the conservative party these moderates once identified with got radically more conservative...The polarization has been asymmetric, with Republicans having moved much further right than Democrats have moved left.”
— Washington Post opinion columnist Catherine Rampell, previously a New York Times business reporter, in a June 5 column: “The GOP’s Shifting Goal Posts.”
Touting Hillary’s “Brilliant” Call for More Early Voting
“It works politically. But I think she’s right on the issue....One of the great frauds that Republicans have perpetrated over the past generation has been this idea of voter fraud, that people are showing up — 31 cases in 14 years, Judy, of people stealing identity or voting improperly. So, I think she’s absolutely right.”
— Columnist Mark Shields on PBS’s NewsHour, June 5.
“Politically, it’s a brilliant move. For her base, it’s a brilliant move. And also, just as an American, it’s a brilliant move. Because the ideas that she put forth, I mean Governor Kasich called her out because there’s no early voting in New York. But one of her proposals is to have at least 20 days of early voting nationwide. So she’s forcing them to have a conversation on something she cares about on her terms.”
— The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC’s Up with Steve Kornacki, June 6.
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“A new Rasmussen Reports poll out Wednesday found support for photo ID laws at 76 percent, nearly exactly the 78 percent support registered in 2006 when the latest movement to scrap the laws kicked off. President Obama and several top Democrats have accused Republicans of attempting to keep minorities from the polls with the photo requirement, but even their own party faithful don’t agree. Rasmussen found that 58 percent of Democrats believe a photo ID must be shown before voting.”
— From a June 3 “Washington Secrets” article by Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard.
“Very Conservative” Views Make Ben Carson a “Sellout”
“Growing up in the predominantly black neighborhood of Forest Park in Baltimore, Erica Puentes considered Ben Carson her ultimate role model....But now, as Republican presidential candidate and the only African-American in the crowded GOP field, Carson may be losing that legacy and disillusioning legions of fans who grew up idolizing him....With his very conservative views and harsh criticisms of President Barack Obama, Carson has disillusioned many who once looked up to him.”
— June 8 MSNBC.com article by MSNBC Web producer Jane Timm, “From idol to ‘sellout’: How Ben Carson is losing his legacy.”
Oklahoma City Bomber’s “Ideals” Now “Mainstream” of GOP
“Anti-government militia sympathizer Timothy McVeigh....was executed in 2001, but since then, some of his militia ideals have gone mainstream and even been introduced as laws in many states, including Oklahoma. Legislators in dozens of states have submitted proposals to nullify or block federal laws — a longtime goal of militias. These have included exempting states from federal gun laws and educational standards, as well as, of course, ObamaCare. That doesn’t make these anti-federal statutes part of McVeigh’s madness, but Republican politicians now often echo conspiracy theories once relegated to troglodyte pamphlets....When politicians court a base that believes the federal government is the enemy, it becomes nearly impossible to negotiate. Judging by the gridlocked committee rooms of the Capitol, that metaphorical truck bomb has already detonated in the heart of the American political process.”
— Newsweek’s Nina Burleigh in a June 1 post, “How Timothy McVeigh’s Ideals Entered the Mainstream.”
Hastert’s Sins Mean All Conservatives Are Hypocrites
“Younger and/or foreign readers may not recall how big a role the alleged moral superiority of small-town America used to play in conservative politics (and still does, to some extent). Republicans portrayed themselves as the party of the ‘real America,’ of family values, as opposed to the decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts. Defense of traditional values played a big role in the 2004 campaign....But what we’re now learning about the Speaker of the House during those years is beyond anything one could have imagined....”
— New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in a May 31 NYTimes.com blog post.
Mocking Conservative Senator as Big-Screen Psychopath
“I call Tom Cotton, ‘Bates Motel.’ You figure it out....This guy, the Bates Motel, it’s always like that. He always reminds me of Tony Perkins in Psycho. I mean, this guy is so hawkish, it’s always, we’ve got to fight right now. We have to fight for the world because they’re coming to get us.”
— Host Chris Matthews talking about Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, a combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, on MSNBC’s Hardball, June 8.
Admitting to Using Mag for “Liberal Cheerleading”
Host Brian Stelter: “Do you have a rooting interest in having them [Cosmopolitan readers] vote for Hillary Clinton?”
Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles: “We have a rooting interest in them being part of the political process. We leave it to them if they want to vote for Hillary. Would we like to see more female candidates running? Of course we would....”
Stelter: “‘Liberal cheerleading,’ is that a fair phrase for some of the coverage from Cosmo and the other magazines in the category?”
Coles: “‘Liberal cheerleading’ probably is, because, for the most part, young women’s interests are better supported by liberal/Democrat candidates.”
— Exchange during segment about whether women’s magazines are biased in favor of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, CNN’s Reliable Sources, June 7.
Bob’s Liberal Groupthink: “Whole Political World” Impressed by Obama
Host Howard Kurtz: “Would you agree, looking back, that the media gave Barack Obama an incredibly easy ride in 2008, and for much of his presidency?”
CBS’s Bob Schieffer: “Well, I think, I think the whole political world was struck by this fella who sort of came out of nowhere with this very unusual name, and when he won out in Iowa, I think people sat up and took notice.”
Kurtz: “But isn’t it the job of journalists to be skeptical, even of the young phenom?”
Schieffer: “Yeah, it is. It is. And I don’t know, maybe we were not skeptical enough.”
— From a recorded interview shown on FNC’s MediaBuzz, May 31, noting Schieffer’s retirement as host of CBS’s Face the Nation.
Slapping Seinfeld for His Criticism of Today’s PC Culture
“I think it’s a really good thing that people, who have been marginalized and discriminated against and abused and insulted, can come forward and say, my experience is not unique; this happens to at lot of people. I think that that’s been a much better thing, and it’s actually sparked a really good conversation about sexism, about racism, about bias against gay and transgender and lesbian people. So, I kind of roll my eyes at Jerry Seinfeld. You know, he’s a billionaire — like I don’t feel sorry for him if people don’t laugh hard enough at his jokes.”
— New York magazine’s Annie Lowery on MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner, June 10, reacting to Seinfeld saying political correctness has gotten out of hand: “There’s a creepy PC thing out there that really bothers me.”
Geraldo Slams Vince Vaughn as Akin to Timothy McVeigh
“I support people having a gun in public, full stop, not just in your home. We don’t have the right to bear arms because of burglars; we have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government. It’s not about duck hunting; it’s about the ability of the individual. It’s the same reason we have freedom of speech. It’s well known that the greatest defence against an intruder is the sound of a gun hammer being pulled back...Take mass shootings. They’ve only happened in places that don’t allow guns.”
— Actor Vince Vaughn in an interview with the British edition of GQ, excerpts of which were posted on the magazine’s Web site June 1.
“Anybody who thinks they need guns — there’s a gun for every man, woman and child in the country to protect against the corrupt and arrogant and pervasive government. Is that what he [Vaughn] said? Doesn’t that remind you of Timothy McVeigh and the militias?...We are bathing in blood in the civil war that is racking the inner city of this country. The last thing we need now is guns.”
— FNC’s Geraldo Rivera on The Five, June 2.
PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
DEPUTY RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Dickens
RESEARCH ANALYST: Mike Ciandella
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INTERNS: Connor Williams, Spencer Raley