Dana Milbank Leaving Countdown With Keith Olbermann

August 5, 2008 09:51 AM


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Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank will no longer appear on MSNBC's Countdown. Keith Olbermann posted the announcement on Daily Kos:


Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, who notified us today that after four years appearing with us, he had accepted another television offer.

This saved your crack Countdown staff an increasingly difficult decision.

For nearly a week we'd been waiting for him to offer a correction or an explanation for his column from last week in which he apparently reported an Obama quote without a full context turned the meaning of the quote inside-out.

Then he called criticisms of his column "whines" even though the dispute was over whether Obama said the self-deprecating: "It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign -- that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions" -- or only the part about "I have just become a symbol..."

We had decided not to have Dana on this news-hour again until this was cleared up, and, sadly after some very happy years, he's apparently chosen to make that cloud permanent.


As the Huffington Post reported last week, Milbank took a quote from Barack Obama out of context, using it to label the Democrat "presumptuous."

Olbermann himself writes of Milbank's departure:

It was quite a surprise conclusion, obviously, and I'll take it (before anybody tries to take it back).

I'm sure that wasn't his intention, but often one's best work is inadvertent. I'm just as sure his version of the provenance of the original version of the quote the Post's source provided was accurate. What happened thereafter was the problem.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/05/dana-milbank-leaving-coun_n_116997.html

Biden calls Bush comments 'bulls**t'
Posted: 12:55 PM ET

From CNN Congressional Producer Ted Barrett


 
Biden had some strong words for the president.
(CNN) — The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden, D-Delaware, called President Bush’s comments accusing Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats of wanting to appease terrorists "bulls**t” and said if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran then he needs to fire his secretaries of State and Defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians.

“This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,” Biden said angrily in a brief interview just off the Senate floor.

“He’s the guy who’s weakened us. He’s the guy that’s increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States has. His intelligence community pointed that out not me. The NIE has pointed that out and what are you talking about, is he going to fire Condi Rice? Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down. So his first two appeasers are Rice and Gates. I hope he comes home and does something.”

He quoted Gates saying Wednesday that we “need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them.”

Filed under: Joe Biden

Obama picks up four more superdelegates

Posted: 12:30 PM ET
(CNN) – Barack Obama picked up four more superdelegates Thursday, his campaign announced.

Washington Rep. Jim McDermott, California Rep. Henry Waxman, California Rep. Henry Berman and Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen will all cast their superdelegate votes for the Illinois senator.

Waxman and Berman both have ties to the Clintons, and many of their prominent supporters in California are supporters of Hillary Clinton.

The CWA said Thursday that Cohen's endorsement is a personal one and does signal an endorsement by the union, which decided last year that it would not back a candidate. In a Thursday release, the union said that decision would be re-visited at its June convention.

According to CNN's estimate, Obama now has 291 superdelegates to Clinton's 274.

Filed under: Barack Obama

Edwards delegates in South Carolina move to Obama
Posted: 12:23 PM ET

From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby, CNN's Beth Rotatori


 
Obama picked up several of Edwards' delegates Thursday.
(CNN) – At least six of John Edwards’ eight pledged delegates in South Carolina will throw their support to Barack Obama following Edwards’ endorsement of the Democratic frontrunner on Wednesday, CNN has learned.

Daniel Boan, Christine Brennan-Bond, Robert Groce, Susan Smith, Mike Evatt and Lauren Bilton — all elected as pledged delegates for Edwards following his third place finish in the South Carolina primary on January 29 — announced Thursday they will follow Edwards’ lead and pledge their support to Obama at the Democratic National Convention in August.

John Moylan, the Columbia attorney who directed Edwards’ campaign in the state and is now serving as an alternate delegate for Edwards, appeared on CNN’s “American Morning” Thursday. He stated his support for Obama and hinted that more members of the Edwards delegation would soon follow.

“I didn't reach all eight of them, but I can tell you that at least six of the eight are prepared to endorse Senator Obama,” Moylan said.


He added: “I think you will see overwhelming support of John Edwards delegates standing with John Edwards and now standing for Barack Obama.”

Bilton appeared on the show alongside Moylan and confirmed that she, too, is now supporting Obama.

Boan, Brennan-Bond and Groce, all reached by phone or e-mail, confirmed they will switch their commitment to Obama. In a separate e-mail, Moylan said that Smith and Evatt will also move into Obama’s camp. The remaining two delegates supporting Edwards in South Carolina are Tim Moore and Marilyn Hemingway.

Obama had reached out to Edwards' South Carolina delegation even before winning the endorsement of the former North Carolina senator. Last Thursday while in Washington, Obama arranged a conference call with the delegates to introduce himself and take questions about his campaign.

Filed under: Barack Obama • John Edwards • South Carolina

Girl Who Lost Legs On Ride Takes First Steps
Kaitlyn Lasitter Continues Struggles After Accident

POSTED: 11:54 am EST December 5, 2007
UPDATED: 12:18 pm EST December 5, 2007


LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A teenager whose feet were severed on an amusement park ride has taken her first steps since the gruesome accident in June, the attorney for the girl's family said.

Kaitlyn Lasitter, 14, began walking last week with the help of a prosthetic leg and crutches, attorney Larry Franklin said.

"She's so proud of herself that she has gotten around on crutches," he told The Courier-Journal of Louisville. Franklin did not immediately return a call or an e-mail from The Associated Press on Wednesday.
 
 

Doctors were able to reattach Kaitlyn's right foot after the accident on the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, but her left foot was too severely damaged to repair and had to be amputated below the knee.

Kaitlyn also has regained her appetite and some weight after the various prescription medications she takes made her sick, her family has recently said.

Kaitlyn continues to battle pain, depression and the uncertainty of what will become of her reattached right foot. Doctors have said they will not know for months if Kaitlyn's body will accept or reject it, the family said.

Kaitlyn was on the ride June 21 when a cable broke, severing her feet. The ride, which was closed after the accident, lifted passengers 177 feet, then dropped them at speeds of more than 50 mph.

"To watch our daughter continually try to overcome such extreme pain and adversity has definitely been five of the most trying months of our lives," her parents, Randy and Monique Lasitter, wrote the newspaper.

The Lasitters sued Kentucky Kingdom in July, claiming the theme park failed to maintain the ride and ensure riders' safety. A judge ruled last week that the ride can be dismantled.

Meanwhile, Kaitlyn's medical bills total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, her father said. The doctors and hospitals have agreed to wait for payment until the family's case against the theme park is resolved, Randy Lasitter said.

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture, which oversees ride safety, is investigating the accident.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 http://www.wlky.com/news/14780620/detail.html

Pitt: Acting becoming 'less a focus'

Story Highlights
Brad Pitt calls acting "less and less a focus as I get older"

Actor focused on Make It Right, a project to rebuild New Orleans, Gulf Coast

Pitt says he gets upset when paparazzi "shove cameras in [kids'] faces"

     
(CNN) -- Actor Brad Pitt plans to focus on rebuilding New Orleans and extending his family, he told CNN's Larry King -- but acting may not be in his long-term future.





Brad Pitt recently announced plans to build 150 eco-friendly houses in New Orleans, Louisiana.

more photos »  "It's become less and less a focus as I get older," he said in the interview, scheduled to air Wednesday night on "Larry King Live." "I think it's really more of a younger man, younger woman's game."

He hasn't ruled it out completely -- "I'd like to drop in if I'm still invited every few years or so," he told King -- but he said he wants to pursue some other interests as well.

"At this point, I'd rather -- it takes so much time, [and] there's just other things I'd rather be doing," said Pitt, who soon turns 44, during the course of a freewheeling interview.  Watch Pitt speak lovingly of his children »

Right now, Pitt's primary goal is to help rebuild New Orleans. On Monday, the actor announced plans to build 150 eco-friendly homes in the Louisiana city's Lower 9th Ward, an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina. In the storm's aftermath, the community's housing stock was largely demolished, leaving many of its residents living in trailers.  Watch King tour the 9th Ward »

Pitt, who purchased a French Quarter mansion in New Orleans earlier this year with Angelina Jolie, said he's met 9th Ward residents who "did everything right" -- worked hard, bought homes, sent kids to college -- but now feel abandoned.


'Larry King Live'
In a prime-time exclusive, Brad Pitt talks about his plan to build affordable housing in New Orleans.
Tonight, 9 p.m. ET

see full schedule »
Impact Your World
See how you can make a difference 
"It wasn't just -- you can't call this an act of God," he said of Katrina. "This was a man-made failure. This should not have happened.

"These were levee failures ... mistakes with destroying the barriers that once protected this city. ... Now I don't [think] it was a dastardly evil move on someone's part. It was a chain of events that culminated into this horrific event.

"But it can be fixed," he said.  Gallery: Behind the scenes at the New Orleans project »

Pitt said his Make It Right project won't stop with rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward. The ultimate goal is to build eco-friendly homes throughout New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

He said his interest in the environment has changed the way he and Jolie live. They have installed a water capture system and solar power in their California home. There's no "concept of waste" in nature, he said.

"Anything that's discarded becomes fuel or becomes food for something else," he said. "We can be living the same way."

He urged people to go to his project's Web site -- www.makeitrightnola.org -- to learn how they could contribute. He also called on foundations, corporations and wealthy individuals to contribute.

Pitt gave $5 million to Make It Right.

He also acknowledged that he's uncomfortable being a celebrity.  Watch Pitt on the fulfillment of parenthood »

"Well, I duck and jive," he said about being in the spotlight. "Keep my head down."

Celebrity, though, is useful when he can leverage it for a good cause, he added.

"The press uses me," he said. "I use it."

He doesn't like, however, how the paparazzi use his four children.

"They call out my kids by name, shove cameras in their faces," Pitt said. "... My kids believe that any time you go outside the house, it's just a wall of photographers, people that take your picture. That is their view of the world. I worry about the effect it will have on them."

Despite the unwelcome attention, Pitt told King that he wants more children with Jolie. "We're just getting started," he said.

He called Jolie a "fantastic" mother.

"Dedicated, kids first," he said. "[She's] really inventive and great fun to them and very, very protective."


He and Jolie rarely argue, he said.

"No, not really," he said. "[We] challenge each other a lot. Have good fun with that." E-mail to a friend

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/05/pitt.lkl/index.html

December 5, 2007
Huckabee faces scrutiny for involvement in rapist parole Newly published letters are raising questions about how much then-Gov. Huckabee knew about a rapist's history.




WASHINGTON (CNN) — Following the release of several new polls suggesting Mike Huckabee has risen into the first tier of the Republican presidential candidates, the former Arkansas governor is facing a fresh round of scrutiny over supporting the parole of a convicted rapist in 1999.

Huckabee, then in his first term as governor, expressed support for the parole of Wayne DuMond, who was serving a life sentence for raping a 17-year-old girl. Less than a year after his release, DuMond was accused of murdering and raping a woman in Kansas City, Missouri, a crime he was eventually convicted of in 2003. He died in prison in 2005.

Huckabee has repeatedly said he wished he had more information about DuMond before advocating the release, and recently told CNN there was no indication DuMond remained a threat.

"There's nothing any of us could ever do," Huckabee said. "None of us could've predicted what he could've done when he got out." Huckabee also said that the process leading to DuMond's release began under former President Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas.

But new documents posted on the liberal Web site The Huffington Post indicate Huckabee had received letters from several victims of Wayne Dumond’s before his release. The letters detailed his past actions and pleaded that he remain incarcerated.

"I feel that if he is released it is only a matter of time before he commits another crime and fear that he will not leave a witness to testify against him the next time," one victim wrote. She described how DuMond had raped her at knifepoint.

In another letter, a woman documented how her mother was raped by DuMond, and said he had told her mother that he would **** her daughter if she did not cooperate.

The Huffington Post says it received the never-before-published letters from a "deeply troubled" former aide to Huckabee who believes the now-presidential candidate has "deliberately attempted to cover up his knowledge of DuMond's other sexual assaults."

Huckabee spokesman Alice Stewart denied to the Huffington Post that Huckabee ever received any of the letters, but now tells CNN he got at least one from a victim named “Onita” who lived in DeWitt, Arkansas.

It's not clear if this is one of the letters posted on the Huffington Post, because the site has redacted the names.

The Huffington Post has published three victims' letters, and says it will post additional files later Wednesday.

– CNN’s Dana Bash and Alexander Mooney




Filed under Mike Huckabee
Posted 12/5/2007 12:50:38 PM | Permalink
10 Comments  | Add a comment

Reagan Diaries: George W: "Find the Kid a Job"...

 
Global Research, August 19, 2007
The New Republic 


Direct quote from the just published REAGAN DIARIES.   

The entry is dated May 17, 1986. 

'A moment I've been dreading.  George brought his ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job.  Not the political one who lives in Florida.  The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless.  This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job.  Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something.  That looks like easy work.'

The above statement, while reflecting a certain element of truth, is false. It did not appear in the "Reagan Diaries".

See Below. 





Did Reagan call G.W. Bush a ne’er-do-well?
Status: False

Source www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/did_reagan_call_gw_bush_a_neer_do_well

This paragraph supposedly written by Ronald Reagan is currently circulating widely around the internet:

Direct quote from the just published REAGAN DIARIES.

The entry is dated May 17, 1986.

'A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work.'


Did Reagan really write this? Nope, he didn't. The quotation is pulled from an article titled "My Lunch with Reagan" by Michael Kinsley in the New Republic (vol. 237, issue 1, 7/2/07). And, not surprisingly, the quotation is taken out of context. In its original context it's easy to tell that it's meant as a joke:

The literary editor of The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier, brought the joyous news. "Guess what, Mike. You're mentioned in Reagan's diaries." The diaries were published recently by HarperCollins and were generally well-received. Edited by America's historian-on-steroids, Douglas Brinkley, The Reagan Diaries apparently reveal Reagan to be more thoughtful than he is normally given credit for. Of course, our standards in the area of presidential thoughtfulness have plummeted in recent years. Still, the fact that Reagan was writing it all down was news, and an interesting departure from presidential tradition. Traditionally, presidents use a hidden tape recorder.

But I was more interested in the me angle, frankly. And it was a puzzle. What on earth could Reagan have written? I indulged my imagination, and my ego: "January 22, 1983. Mommie [Nancy] says that Kinsley's column this week in The New Republic undermines the entire philosophical basis of my administration. O dear O dear, I had better not read it."

Or: "October 6, 1987. Why does Kinsley keep picking on me? He is the only thing standing between me and the total destruction of the welfare state. But, ha: I will destroy him--destroy him utterly-- or my name's not … not … not … . Say, they had 'State Fair' on TV last night. What a wholesome, clean-cut young man that Pat Boone is."

Or: "May 17, 1986. A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne'er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work."Further References on George W. Bush


Further Global Research References on George W.
 

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