The banksters strike back.

 

By Jonathan Larsen and Ken Olshansky, MSNBC TV

A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.

According to the memo, if Democrats embrace OWS, “This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street. … It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.”

The memo also suggests that Democratic victories in 2012 should not be the ABA’s biggest concern. “… (T)he bigger concern,” the memo says, “should be that Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies.”

Two of the memo’s authors, partners Sam Geduldig and Jay Cranford, previously worked for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Geduldig joined CLGC before Boehner became speaker;  Cranford joined CLGC this year after serving as the speaker’s assistant for policy. A third partner, Steve Clark, is reportedly “tight” with Boehner, according to a story by Roll Call that CLGC features on its website. 

Jeff Sigmund, an ABA spokesperson, confirmed that the association got the memo. “Our Government Relations staff did receive the proposal – it was unsolicited and we chose not to act on it in any way,” he said in a statement to “Up.”

CLGC did not return calls seeking comment.

Looks like some movement is striking a chord.

read more

Oh my, the hate speech is just coming out of the woodwork.

Today, in a World Net Daily op-ed, failed presidential candidate and conservative pundit Pat Buchanan offers an example of the ethnic bigotry and racial insensitivity that has come to define him.

Offering his take on the horrendous terrorist attacks in Norway, Buchanan joined the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post in arguing that the far-right extremist perpetrator Anders Breivik may have had a valid point. Arguing that Breivik was bringing attention to his cause, “a Crusader’s war between the real Europe and the ‘cultural Marxists’ and Muslims,” Buchanan declares that, on the “climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world…Breivik may be right“…

Buchanan is certainly free in our system to spout such nonsense, and we are free (still, I hope) to just as vigorously propose an alternative.

read more

brooklynmutt:

President Obama said the word “compromise” in his speech last night 6 times. 

Speaker of the House John Boehner? Nada.

via MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

Could it happen here? Perhaps we need to worry less about phone hacking than all of the other nefarious practices of News Corp, like lobbying to change the regulations that curb media consolidation.

thenationmagazine:

The Nation’s John Nichols joins The Last Word to explain the history of Murdoch’s extreme influence over British politics and also how this translates to who is—and who isn’t—elected in Washington. For more, read Nichols’s post on the US fallout from Murdoch’s News of the World crisis.

Release the Cackle (of Deliciousness)!

June 23, 2011 9:08 am ET by Eric Boehlert

This week, Keith Olbermann debuted his Countdown show on Current TV, having left MSNBC earlier this year. According to Nielsen numbers released by Current, Countdown’s Monday night debut attracted 179,000 viewers between the ages of 25-54. It was an impressive showing for Current, a cable channel whose primetime audience in the past has hovered around 30,000 viewers.

Countdown did well enough to beat out its CNN competition in the 8 p.m. time slot. What’s also telling is how, in just one night, Olbermann managed to completely obliterate the ratings of Fox’s Eric Bolling, whose nightly Fox Business show continues to be mired in a ratings wasteland. 

read more

Clearly, if the sense of the resolution were true, we wouldn’t need the resolution now, would we?

addyfox:

Because this is really what politicians should be focusing on, what with how perfect the world is and all.

msnbc:

This combo of photos shows, left, the full moon behind clouds and, right, the earth’s shadow casting over the moon a few minutes later during a lunar eclipse on early Dec. 21, seen from the northeastern German town of Petersdorf. (Patrick Pleul / AFP - Getty Images)

More lunar eclipse photos on Photoblog

The GOP figures so prominently into my lamentations on the human condition these days that I welcome the opportunity to highlight a member talking sense, which may be to say, thinking for himself. Tip ‘o’ the hat to Standing on the Side of Love.

This afternoon, Ted Olson — whose wife died in the September 11th attacks — distanced himself from other conservatives and told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he did not oppose the building of a mosque near ground zero. “It may not make me popular with some people, but I think probably the President was right about this,” he began:

OLSON: I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices or structures, places of religious worship or study where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws and that sort of thing. And that we don’t want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith. And I don’t think it should be a political issue. It shouldn’t be a Republican or Democrat issue either. I believe Governor Christie from New Jersey said it as well, that this should not be in that political partisan marketplace.

watch