Source: TPM



<SNIP>

But Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, who was standing just feet away from the president and the governor on Wednesday during their now-infamous encounter, told TPM that Obama seemed calm the whole time.

“He wasn’t tense at all,” Stanton said on Friday. “The guy’s a pro.”

Though Stanton declined to discuss exactly what the governor and president said to each other, he said Obama’s classic coolness was evident.

“He doesn’t get animated, but he looks you in the eye and tells you what he thinks,” Stanton said. “And I think that’s honestly what he did is he looked the governor in the eye and spoke and told her what he was really feeling.”

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/2nd_mayor_says_obama_wasnt_tense_at_all_during_bre.php?ref=fpb

Source: Think Progress



Latinos in East Haven, Connecticut delivered hundreds of tacos to the town’s mayor Thursday, just two days after he made a flippant, derogatory comment about them while discussing alleged police discrimination and violence in his community.

In the wake of those allegations, Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. was asked what he would do to reach out to the Latino community. “I might have tacos when I go home, I’m not quite sure yet,” Maturo said. The comment drew strong rebukes from area Latinos, and one group responded with a campaign to respond, as CNN reported today:

<SNIP>

The 500 tacos that were placed in Maturo’s office were eventually donated to a food-assistance charity, but even that drew controversy. Maturo issued a statement after the drop-off saying his office donated the tacos to charity. The group that delivered the tacos to his office, Reforming Immigration for America, then took to Twitter, saying Maturo’s claim was false.

“Now, Mayor Maturo claims they’re donating tacos to the soup kitchen. WE did that, he left knowing we were on our way,” the group posted on its Twitter account. Another post called the mayor’s statement “false and misleading.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/27/413426/group-delivers-hundreds-of-tacos-to-connecticut-mayor-who-insulted-latinos-with-tacos-comment/

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) made the case in Lowell, MA on Friday that letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire would create a burden for well-off teachers, firefighters, and police officers.

From the Lowell Sun, which held an editorial board meeting with the Senator:

Brown also took on President Barack Obama for proposing tax hikes on families who earn more than $250,000 per year, saying that would hurt “teachers, firefighters, policemen, folks who work two jobs.”

Asked which public servants earn that much money, Brown said it is common for police officers to earn well over $100,000 annually when overtime is factored into their pay.

“You throw in a teacher who’s working, plus a summer job, it adds up pretty quickly,” he said. “There’s quite a few of them.”

Newt Gingrich launched a now-infamous tirade against moderator Juan Williams during Monday night’s GOP debate after Williams dared to ask him if he could understand why some African-Americans were offended by Gingrich’s obsession with food stamps and child labor. “No, I don’t see that,” Gingrich sneered back.

<snip>

Today, during a campaign stop in South Carolina, Gingrich recalled his exchange with Williams and used the same kind of suggestive language that Williams had objected to — this time directed at Williams himself:

GINGRICH: I had a very interesting dialogue Monday night in Myrtle Beach with Juan Williams about the idea of work, which seemed to Juan Williams to be a strange, distant concept.

Many pundits have seen racial undertones in Gingrich’s belittling of Williams during the debate. “That’s the way I like to spend my Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: watching Newt Gingrich sneer at Juan Williams, a black man, for having the temerity to ask him” a tough question, New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote.

Mitt Romney regularly incorporates lyrics from “America the Beautiful” into his stump speeches. Little does he probably realize that the hymn was written by a progressive feminist lesbian who composed it to critique country’s greed, excess, and growing economic inequality. The original third-verse lyrics Katharine Lee Bates wrote in 1894 were as follows:

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

She later rewrote the stanza, toning down the rhetoric but maintaining that wealth was not what made America great:

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!