RNC features racist Obama photo on Facebook page

On the Republican National Committee's Facebook page the attached photo of President Obama eating fried chicken was featured for six days. Below his face, the words: Miscegenation is a Crime against American values. Then lower, it also reads "Repeal Loving V. Virginia.

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Did Texas Gov. Rick Perry knowingly kill an innocent man?

Forensic experts, looking into the possible wrongful conviction of a deathrow inmate in Texas, were suddenly and apparently without cause, fired by Gov. Rick Perry. Within days, that man, Cameron Todd Willingham, was put to death.

Back in 1991 Willingham’s three young daughters were killed in a house fire in the middle of the afternoon. Willingham’s trial lasted all of two days in which he was convicted and sentenced to death for the crime. During the trial, and since, he has maintained his innocence. He never waivered even when his defense attorneys and family told him the prosecutors had an air-tight case and that the only way to avoid death was to plead guilty. Even in the moments before his execution, he penned a letter proclaiming he was wrongfully accused.

But his words fells on deaf ears, actually the more he professed his innocence, the more prosecutors believed he was an unrepentant killer.

“This is like the Saturday night massacre,” Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck said. “The Commission, doing the job the Legislature intended it to, appointed an independent arson expert to examine the reliability of arson evidence in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham."

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Michelle Obama On Jay Leno Show: First Lady Does

Michelle Obama On Jay Leno Show: First Lady Does “10 @ Ten”

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Buying political office

You want to talk fascism for real and not that made up Glenn Beck/ Fox News shit, then it's buying political titles. And in America, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at the top of the list. This week it was announced that Bloomberg will go down in history -- not for his profitable news network (hold on, he holds a political title and owns one of the largest media outlets in the nation. Isn't that? No, it can't be?) , not for philanthropy, which is what I think most country-loving ridiculously rich guys should do.

Instead, Bloomberg will take his place in history for spending the most -- that's more than Ross Perot, Steve Forbes and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine -- in a political campaign. As of Friday he has spent $85 million in his most recent re-election bid. By Nov. 4, that numbers is expected to be btween $110-$140 million. Now, for the three mayoral election bids together, we're talking $250 million. And let's not forget he had to spend some additional cash to avoid being term-limited out of the race.

Now we've seen rich guys throw their money around to get elected but $140 million for one campaign, and it's not even a statewide office? Geese. It's no wonder they hate us.

Here are some other top spenders.

New Jersey Governor and former Goldman Sachs chairman Jon Corzine spent about $130 million in two races for governor and one for the U.S. Senate.

Steve Forbes: $114 million for two presidential bids.

Obama v. Fox News: Who really started it

Pundits say President Obama is making a mistake by avoiding Fox News and taking a public jab at the conservative news outlet. Folks like Eugene Robinson and Ruth Marcus say it is not wise to start a fight with an organization that has a 24-hour news cycle in which to retaliate against you. Then, there have even been a few Black conservatives who say it is a missed opportunity.

My take: Obama knows exactly what he is doing. He is playing shrewd defense in an ongoing battle between Fox News and this administration, the Democratic party and liberalism. The battle didn’t begin when Obama skipped Fox News during his recent round of Sunday morning talk shows or when his top advisers and communications director began calling Fox News out by name. To be honest, it didn’t even begin on Election Day or during the campaign, when they went after him mercilessly -- calling him the affirmative action president, his wife an angry black woman, etc.

This battle began when Rupert Murdoch first decided to go on the air. The strategy was clear from the onset. It positioned itself as the aggressively conservative alternative to the "so-called liberal media," and from the beginning the plan was quite simple -- it planned on waging a war against liberalism and it would do and say whatever necessary to get that message across. It was clear when hired Sean Hannity and then Glenn Beck, two shock jocks who earned their stripes in far right hate radio. It was clear when they went on a campaign to impeach former Pres. Bill Clinton. Obama didn't start this feud. Hell, it began before he was ever elected to the Illinois Senate.

This may not be the smartest move in the sense that it elevates Fox News, but it is a necessary battle. And in this era of Balloon Boy-style journalism, the timing could not be more perfect.

Now is the right time to have a real debate about bias in the media, and about the lack of fact-based news reporting as opposed to attention-grabbing sensationalism. Obama's public stand against Fox News provides a context for those lowering standards and an opportunity for us to distinguish between actual news reporting and blatant attempts at influencing public opinion.

Ultimately the Obama administration is right, Fox News is not on the same level of CNN, ABC, CBS or any of the mainstream media outlets. Its “fair and balanced” moniker is utter cynicism. They believe their viewers are too dumb to know the difference. The slogan is also an attempt to marginalize anyone who disagrees with their right-wing conservative perspective and label them as liberal crazies. It is not only appropriate for the administration to call them out on this, but it is also smart, since nowhere within the spectacle of journalism is there anyone with the credibility or willingness to do so.

Understand that there are no more Walter Cronkites. We no longer have our Tim Russerts. What we have are opinionated blowhards who dissect and critique the work of real journalists. Their viewers are either there to have their own beliefs and biases parroted back at them, or they understand their biases and digest their commentary with a grain of salt.

Two can play that game

Conservatives have done an effective job of labeling the media as “liberal.” They have been “playing the refs” quite effectively for years, particularly during the Bush administration, as a way of defusing their own scandals. The corporate-backed media, however, is centrist at best and routinely ignore minority perspectives. (Don’t believe me, check out the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University.) It is logical and warranted that the Obama administration point out the conservative biases at Fox News. It is hypocritical to expect Obama not to cry foul when this administration has been targeted, especially considering this was the modus operandi of every conservative administration we have had in the last 30 years.

The risk here is that the administration could be perceived as trying to quiet dissent, supporting the sentiment that he is an out-of-touch, liberal politician not concerned with nor interested in reaching out to Middle America.

But this is the dynamic created by conservatives and the conservative media. And through its completely biased anti-journalism, Fox News has repeatedly illustrated it must be marginalized, if for no other reason than to mute the "news" long enough so a few facts can be heard.

Devona Walker is TheLoop21.com's lead political/finance reporter and blogger. She has worked for The New York Times Regional Newspaper company and The Associated Press. She may be reached at devona@theloop21.com.

You Can’t Shame the Banks

They, meaning the White House and Wall Street, are at it again. Several banks including American International Group are planning to hand out hundreds of millions in bonuses. AIG bonuses alone amount to $198 million. Those bonuses will go, once again, to its financial products unit, the same unit that led to the financial crisis and forced taxpayers to shell out billions to the troubled financial giant.

And the Obama administration is once again trying to shame, as opposed to actually prevent, them from doing it. This is one moment where I agree with many of the administration’s critics, we need less talk and more action. We need the legislation that stalled last spring when the banks first got away with this crap. Let them object to taxing the bonsues up to 90 percent. Let the executives come out of the shadows and plead their case before the U.S. Supreme Court. If they win, so be it, but fight them every step of the way. And stop talking about how badly they are behaving.
Here’s just a few of White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod’s choice words:

“The American people have limited tolerance for this,” he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week. “They don’t begrudge success, and we ought not be in the business of micromanaging how companies compensate. But they ought to do the things that they should to help this country, and that’s lending...and that’s standing down on financial regulatory reform, letting us move forward on the reforms we need."

The White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told John King on CNN’s ‘State of the Union that "the American people have a right to be frustrated and angry."

"As soon as stability was achieved and things had a sense of a normalcy, what do some of the titans of the financial industry do?… They’re literally going and fighting the very type of regulations and reforms that are necessary to prevent, again, a crisis like this happen[ing]…They assume everybody else has, basically, short-term memory problems around here.”

Harsh words. The problem is they are only words. They are meaningless. Think about the reality TV show Fear Factor, proof that positive people will endure many things for money. Think about Bernie Madoff, proof that people will pillage the retirement plans of senior citizens. These bank executives, whose identities are still hidden, can surely withstand a little shaming in the public square as long as they walk away with millions.

The reality is, you cannot shame the banks from taking millions of dollars of your money. If they con you out of your money twice, it’s your shame, not theirs.

You must legislate, understanding completely that this is America and money always wins out in the end.

Deja vu

This whole bonuses issue may sound familiar. That’s because it is. We were just outraged last spring. We already heard Obama say the bank’s behavior was inconceivable. We heard vague promises about executives giving the money back. Now its fall, and out of the $168 million in bonuses that were handed out by AIG, less than $10 million came back.

This unwarranted civility, when there is so much money at stake is inconceivable. When you have an unemployment rate of 10 percent, one out of five homeowners who owe more on their home than its worth, a record deficit and bank executives, who caused it all, taking home millions in bonuses, harsh words simply won’t suffice. This administration— as if Afghanistan, health care reform, the recession, the record deficit, gays in the military and right wing conspiracy theories weren’t enough— could be destroyed by legitimate populist rage.

Devona Walker is TheLoop21.com's senior financial/political reporter and blogger. She can be reached at devona@theloop21.com.

Hypocrisy Watch: CNN's 'Latinos in America' vs. Lou Dobbs | TheLoop21.com

Hypocrisy Watch: CNN's 'Latinos in America' vs. Lou Dobbs | TheLoop21.com

Obama's slap down on Wall Street must include Congress

Just as the "Obama might be a little too wimpy to get it done,"narrative started gaining steam, he's put the slap down on Wall Street. The White House has ordered mandatory executive pay cuts for the top bailout recipients, which include Bank of America, CitiBank, AIG, GM and Chrysler. The top-paid executives at companies that have not paid back bailout money will see pay cuts of 50 to 90 percent. The White House is also demanding a 90 percent reduction in bonuses at those companies.

Watch video of President Obama talking about Wall Street reform.

But this glimmer of fiscal and ethical responsibility is already being threatened on Capitol Hill. Financial industry-backed legislators like minority whip Eric Cantor, among others, are trying to water down finance reform. Why? Well, consider that in the 2008 election cycle, the commercial banking industry alone shelled out nearly $40 million in campaign contributions. This election cycle, it has only handed out $4 million. Are the banks withholding money, awaiting results, in a pivotal mid-term election? Very likely. Is it working? Looks like it.

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