Well, at least Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn is consistent — consistently heartless, even when it comes to his own constituents.

Never any hesitation about funding wars, bombs, and destruction — but people rendered homeless by natural disasters? Suddenly the right is very concerned about how it will be paid for.

And where do you think these “cuts” of Coburn’s will come from? If you guessed social programs like Medicaid, give yourself a gold star.

The tornado damage near Oklahoma City is still being assessed and the death toll is expected to rise, but already Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says he will insist that any federal disaster aid be paid for with cuts elsewhere.

CQ Roll Call reporter Jennifer Scholtes wrote for CQ.com Monday evening that Coburn said he would “absolutely” demand offsets for any federal aid that Congress provides.

Coburn added, Scholtes wrote, that it is too early to guess at a damage toll but that he knows for certain he will fight to make sure disaster funding that the federal government contributes is paid for. It’s a position he has taken repeatedly during his career when Congress debates emergency funding for disaster aid.

Scholtes points out that Coburn was one of 36 Republican senators who voted against disaster funding for Superstorm Sandy in January.

Also see:
Oklahoma Senators Jim Inhofe, Tom Coburn, Face Difficult Options on Disaster Relief

Here’s another thread to keep up on events in Moore, Oklahoma, with some sad news from the Associated Press:

BREAKING: State medical examiner’s office: 37 killed in Oklahoma tornado; death toll expected to rise -RJJ

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 21, 2013

BREAKING: State medical examiner’s office: 51 killed in Oklahoma tornado, with children among the dead -RJJ

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 21, 2013

Closeup video of the monster from a storm chaser:

The huge tornado that touched down today near Moore, Oklahoma, has caused terrible devastation; here’s a shot from MSNBC of one area of completely leveled homes and buildings.

More photos of the destroyed areas:

Worst tornado damage I have seen since Joplin. Picture of what’s left of a daycare in Moore, Oklahoma. Brings tears. twitter.com/StormCoker/sta…

— Georgia Storm Chaser (@StormCoker) May 20, 2013

Here’s Ben “Friends of Hamas” Shapiro peddling the angry black man meme today like a rabid weasel. “CULTURE OF INTIMIDATION!” he yells.

I think young Ben is honestly intimidated. Cowed, even. His dissent is being chilled. You can tell by the giant 73-pixel all-caps screaming headline.

Also featured today at the hate site that Andrew Breitbart built, Judicial Watch is filing Freedom of Information Act requests to find out how much the black President is spending on his vacations.

Continue reading…

I can hardly wait to see the comments at right wing blogs about this.

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama plan to travel to Africa in late June and early July, the White House said Monday.

The first couple plans to visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania from June 26 to July 3,the National Security Counsel said on Twitter. The White House hasn’t yet released an official announcement of the trip.

Via: Obamas to Africa This Summer

Reuters columnist Jack Shafer has a very interesting piece on the AP leak investigation, taking a position that’s rather contrary to the rest of the media:

The AP story that has so infuriated the government described the breakup of an al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula plot to place an underwear bomber on board a U.S.-bound airliner. Published on the afternoon of May 7, 2012, the story patted itself on the back for having heeded the White House and CIA requests to not publish the previous week, when the AP first learned of the operation. The AP states in the article that it published only after being told by “officials” that the original “concerns were allayed.” In a chronology published in today’s Washington Post, we’re told that the CIA was no longer resisting publication of the AP story on the day it hit the wire (Monday) and that the White House was planning to “announce the successful counterterrorism operation that Tuesday.”

That may be the case, but the government was still incensed by the leak. In fact, it appears that officials were livid. As my Reuters colleagues Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria reported last night, the government found the leak so threatening that it opened a leak investigation before the AP ran its story.

Now, what would make the Obama administration so furious? My guess is it wasn’t the substance of the AP story that has exasperated the government but that the AP found a source or sources that spilled information about an ongoing intelligence operation and that even grander leaks might surge into the press corps’ rain barrels.

At the risk of making the Department of Justice’s argument for it, a leak once sprung can turn into a gusher as the original leakers keep talking and new ones join them, or as the government attempts to explain itself, or as others in the government begin to speak out of turn. From what I can tell, all of the above happened after the AP story appeared.

Read the whole thing…

Here’s a look back over this week’s numerous fake scandals and right wing wild goose chases — and this is not an exhaustive list by any means:

Whoa! Obama’s Twitter Account Includes a ‘Fallen Eagle’

Heritage Immigration Study Co-Author: ‘I Do Not Apologize’

National Review Defends White Nationalist-Linked Heritage Immigration Expert

Pat Buchanan Calls for ‘Southern Strategy’ Against Latinos, Immigrants

White House Email Contradicts Weekly Standard/ABC Benghazi Leaks

WaPo Fact-Checker Says Obama ‘Got Away With’ Stating a Fact

Republicans Oddly Silent Over DOJ Raid on AP Records

Stephen Colbert on the Heritage Foundation Immigration Study

Pickering and Mullen Don’t Trust Darrell Issa - and They Shouldn’t

GOHMERT!

Glenn Beck’s Crazy Crypto-Racist Rant of the Day: Whites Lynched by KKK Would Be Tea Partiers Today

CBS Evening News: Republican Sources Caught Doctoring Emails

Umbrellagate! Daily Caller Cooks Up Another Stupid Scandal, Commenters Spew Vile Racism

Colbert Report: Why Does Eric Holder Hate Louie Gohmert’s Asparagus?

Glenn Beck: AP and IRS Scandals Are Just Cover-Ups for the Benghazi Cover-Up

ABC’s Jonathan Karl: Yes, the Story Was False but It ‘Entirely Stands’

ABC’s Jon Karl Posts to Twitter, Still Refuses to Retract False Story

Drudge Report Falsely Attributes Quote to President Obama: ‘I’m a Black Man’

And now, Drudge Report is getting into the false quotation game.

This morning, President Obama gave the commencement speech at Morehouse College, a historically African-American university; it was an inspiring speech calling on members of the African-American community to be good role models and strive to do what’s right.

So naturally, the right wing media are completely losing their shit again. This is Drudge’s take on it, and notice that he went frame by frame through the video until he found what he obviously thought was the most unflattering image possible:

Here’s a transcript of the prepared speech — the words “I’m a black man,” which Drudge put in quotation marks, do not appear in the speech. The link for Drudge’s headline goes to a Washington Post article, and the words “I’m a black man” do not appear in that article either. Drudge simply made it up.

Pure-D race-baiting dishonesty from the right wing. In other words, business as usual.

Breitbart hack Matthew Boyle is fake outraged:

Sorry to break it to you Mr. President, but your race is IRRELEVANT to all the problems and scandals facing the country right now.

— Matthew Boyle (@mboyle1) May 19, 2013

Posted a little while ago on Twitter by ABC News’s Jonathan Karl:

In case you missed it, I sincerely regret the error I made describing an email from Ben Rhodes. 1/2

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) May 19, 2013

I should have stated, as I did elsewhere, the reporting was based on a summary provided by a source. I apologize for the mistake. 2/2

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) May 19, 2013

The facts are:

• Karl stated in no uncertain terms that he had “obtained” the emails. This was FALSE.
• Karl’s story also claimed that ABC News had “reviewed” the emails. This was FALSE.
• Karl’s story put the made-up email in quotation marks, when it was NOT A QUOTE.

Jonathan Karl clearly does not intend to retract his story, even though he lied outright about the circumstances and passed on false information from a Republican source. And just as clearly, he does not intend to reveal who gave him this false information.

It’s impossible to see this as anything other than a complete lack of journalistic ethics. Not to mention simple decency. What a disgrace.

If you’ve been following the story of the Benghazi “talking points” emails, you know that it’s now been confirmed beyond any doubt that Republican sources fed false information to the media, especially to ABC News’s Jonathan Karl. Karl claimed that he had “obtained” these emails, and we now know that this was completely untrue — he was quoting the words of his anonymous source, who lied to him. He did not “obtain” or even see the actual email in question.

The ethical thing to do at this point would be to correct and retract the story, and reveal the name of his dishonest source. But that’s not the path Karl is choosing:

On the Sunday, May 19 edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources, host Howard Kurtz read a statement from Jonathan Karl, chief White House Correspondent for ABC News in response to his reporting on altered emails related to the Sunday talk show talking points following the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya in September 2012. Karl now expresses regret about his original reporting on May 10th on the Benghazi emails. The statement reads:

“Clearly, I regret the email was quoted incorrectly and I regret that it’s become a distraction from the story, which still entirely stands. I should have been clearer about the attribution. We updated our story immediately.”

-Jonathan Karl, ABC News Chief White House Correspondent

Amazing. ABC News should be ashamed of this kind of egotistical ass-covering. Their credibility is at stake, and they’re letting their anonymous right wing sources get away with lying to them.

Via: ABC News’ Jonathan Karl Addresses Criticism on Reporting of the Benghazi Talking Points Controversy - CNN Press Room Blogs

Also see:
Jon Karl got played by a confidential source and now ABC News has a big Benghazi problem » Pressthink
What do Jonathan Karl and James O’Keefe have in common?