Romney, Rnc Hit Obama On Spending

One day after his administration publicly acknowledged that the U.S. drone program had killed 4 U.S. citizens, one of whom was specifically targeted, President Obama is scheduled to deliver a 2:00 PM ET speech at the National Defense University on the future of the program and U.S. counterterrorism policy more generally. According to the New York Times, which first reported the public acknowledgment, the president will announce policies that will curtail—but not discontinue—the drone program. According to the report, the president will also address efforts to close the Guantánamo prison. You can watch the speech live in the video embedded at the top of this post. We'll post a copy of the president's speech when it becomes available.

President Barack Obama is condemning what he calls an "appalling attack" that killed a British soldier Wednesday.

The bill would head off a doubling of interest rates, instead tying the rates to prevailing market trends, an approach not favored by Senate Democrats.    

Rep. Lee Terry of Nebraska makes a point Wednesday about the bill he sponsored   to yank presidential authority for approving the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In statement after statement on the House floor Wednesday, Republicans clearly were tracking the same talking points on why representatives should vote for legislation to transfer to Congress the president's authority to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the Keystone XL pipeline. They might as well have been on the payroll of TransCanada, the pipeline's builder. And they might as well have been playing tiddlywinks since President Obama has indicated that he will veto the bill that some have called unconstitutional if it makes it to his desk. With those 19 Democrats in tow, including eight of the 14 remaining Blue Dogs, all but one Republican voted for the bill, 241-175-1. As  noted by Stephen Kretzman, executive director of Oil Change International, supporters have taken six times more campaign contributions from the oil industry than did the opponents, a total of $56 million. The pipeline requires a presidential permit because it crosses an international boundary. The legislation would not change authority for approval of any other cross-boundary pipelines. The Republicans at the podium Wednesday spouted permanent job numbers from the project as high as 20,000, long since debunked along with the 250,000 projected by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the million Foxaganda once claimed. They noted that the State Department's March 1 supplemental environmental impact statement on Keystone gave a green light to the project without noting that the Environmental Protection Agency stated the SEIS had contained "insufficient information" to make a good decision. They touted the alleged independence from OPEC oil that the United States would obtain from boosting the capacity of TransCanada to transport tar sands petroleum from the Alberta tar sands deposits to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. In a choice bit of hypocrisy, they did that even as they voted down an amendment by Democratic Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey that would have required all petroleum carried by the pipeline to be refined and sold in the United States. They even talked ridiculously about how the pipeline would reduce the price of gasoline at the pump even though TransCanada itself said as far back as 2009 that the price of petroleum from the tar sands would rise by $3 a barrel, meaning so would the price of gasoline. Among the several Democrats pushing back—including Holt, Henry Waxman of California, Peter DeFazio of Oregon—Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona called the bill a “reckless attempt to avoid environmental review.” Other Democrats even dared to bring up the impact the especially dirty product extracted from the tar sands has on climate change, a term which a large number of House Republicans believe or pretend to believe describes a hoax. The outcome of the debate was preordained. The only variable from the outset was how many Democrats would vote for the legislation. Nineteen of them joined the all-but-one Republican (who voted "present") saying "aye." The legislation now moves on to the Senate. Whether it will reach there DOA or Majority Leader Harry Reid will decide to allow it to be considered is unknown so far. If it were to get a Senate vote, there is a chance it would be approved. Seventeen Senate Democrat previously have voted in support of the pipeline. But that was a symbolic vote. Fewer would no doubt vote to pull the president's authority over approval, but there might still be enough to pass the bill. As noted, however, if it were actually to pass the Senate, there still wouldn't be enough votes to override a presidential veto. So, in reality, all the hyperventilating Wednesday represented little more than a tantrum by the congressional right wing. They had no problem offering a unique exception from long-standing rules to a foreign corporation by thumbing their noses at the processes mandated by the National Environmental Protection Agency and executive orders dating back to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 and reiterated by George W. Bush in 2004. Not exactly a surprise, but certainly more evidence of what they really mean when they talk about patriotism. Below the fold is the list of Democrats who voted for the legislation. ••• Liberty Fraternity Equality and Trees has a good discussion on the subject going on here.

Fox News ignored the brutal murder of a gay man in New York City, which has been labeled a hate crime by local police, while CNN underreported the story. Even though the attack is part of a disturbing spike in anti-gay violence in New York, the cable networks instead focused on covering the proceedings in the trial against Jodi Arias.Gay Man Murdered In New York City Subjected To Anti-Gay Slurs Mark Carson, A Gay Man, Was Shot And Killed By Man Screaming Anti-Gay Slurs. According to The New York Times: Mark Carson did not hide that he was gay, and when he went out on the town he would often head to Greenwich Village, where years before he was born, much of the struggle for gay liberation unfolded. Yet late Friday night, just blocks from the Stonewall Inn, among the most important landmarks of that struggle, he was confronted with a man screaming antigay slurs, who then stalked him before pulling out a silver revolver and fatally shooting him, the police said. [The New York Times, 5/18/13] The Murder Has Been Labeled An Anti-Gay Hate Crime By Police. According to Slate: A 33-year-old man with a criminal past was charged on Sunday with gunning down a gay man on a busy stretch of New York City's West Village, only blocks from what is considered to be the birthplace of the American gay rights movement. The alleged killer, police say, was motivated by only one thing: that his victim was gay. "It's clear that the victim here was killed only because and just because he was thought to be gay," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a press conference. "There is no question about that. There were these derogatory remarks. The victim did nothing to antagonize or instigate the shooter in this case. It's only done because the shooter believed him to be gay." Elliot Morales was charged Sunday with murder as a hate crime, along with weapons charges, in the death of Mark Carson. [Slate, 5/20/13] Carson's Murder Sparked A Rally Against Anti-Gay Violence In New York City. According to Mother Jones: Blinding afternoon sun lit the biggest gay rights demonstration in years in New York's West Village Monday. The LGBT community and its supporters, including a couple of mayoral candidates, marched in the wake of a murder that has capped a month-long spate of homophobic violence. Demonstrators--police say 1,500, organizers say many hundreds more--marched through the leafy streets that gave birth to the gay rights movement to the  corner where Mark Carson, 32, was shot in the face and killed Friday night as he walked with a friend. [Mother Jones, 5/21/13, emphasis added] Analysis: Cable News Coverage Of Jodi Arias Trial Overshadowed Coverage Of Carson's Murder Fox News, CNN Prioritized Jodi Arias Trial Over Ben Carson's Murder. According to an Equality Matters analysis, between May 19 and May 21, both Fox News and CNN underreported Ben Carson's murder, spending significantly more time covering the sentencing of Jodi Arias - a woman convicted of murdering her boyfriend: Fox News Completely Ignored Carson's Murder But Spent More Than 30 Minutes Covering The Arias Trial. CNN Devoted More Than 90 Minutes To The Arias Trial And Less Than One Minute Covering Carson's Murder. CNN Mentioned Carson's Murder Only Once. According to an Equality Matters analysis, CNN mentioned Carson's murder only once, during the May 19 edition of Weekend Early Start: MSNBC Was The Only Cable News Network To Devote A Full Segment To Covering Carson's Murder. Anti-Gay Violence, Hate Crimes Are On The Rise Carson's Murder Is The Latest In A Spree Of Anti-Gay Violence In New York. New York's police commissioner reported that anti-gay crimes in the city have spiked 70 percent this year. According to Business Insider: There's been a spate of other anti-gay attacks in New York City recently. A man said he was gay bashed in the East Village just Monday. There were three other apparent anti-gay hate crimes in New York in May, Gothamist has reported. On Tuesday, New York's police commissioner Ray Kelly said anti-gay hate crime in New York has spiked 70% this year. The New York City Anti-Violence Project -- which collects data on hate crimes against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people -- saw a 13% increase in hate crime reports from 2010 to 2011. [Business Insider, 5/21/13] FBI Statistics: Anti-Gay Violence Is On The Rise, Even As Other Hates Crimes Are Decreasing. According to the Los Angeles Times, hate crimes based on the victim's sexual orientation are on the rise: More than 6,000 hate crimes were reported to U.S. law enforcement agencies in 2011 -- a 6% decrease from 2010, the FBI said Monday. But crimes based on the victim's sexual orientation increased slightly. [] "The increase in the number of reported hate crimes directed against gays and lesbians, now the second most frequent category of crime, is especially disturbing," the [Anti-Defamation League] said in a statement. There were 1,508 reported sexual orientation hate crimes in 2011, up from 1,470 in 2010, an increase of about 2.6%. Overall, nearly 21% of hate crimes were motivated by sexual orientation bias, the FBI said, with men victimized the majority of the time. [Los Angeles Times, 12/10/12] Methodology Equality Matters searched news transcripts provided by TV Eyes for the words "Carson," "gay," "hate crime," "Jodi," and "Arias" between May 19 and May 21. Reruns and teases for upcoming segments were included. One mention of Carson's murder during the May 19 edition of MSNBC's Weekends with Alex Witt was excluded because it was brought up by a guest and not by the show's host.