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On his Monday radio show, Glenn Beck highlighted claims that before he started targeting a little-known, left-leaning organization called the Tides Foundation on his Fox News TV show, “nobody knew” what the non-profit was.Indeed, for more than a year Beck has been portraying the progressive organization as a central player in a larger, nefarious cabal of Marxist/socialist/Nazi Obama-loving outlets determined to destroy democracy in America. Beck has routinely smeared the low-profile entity for being staffed by “thugs” and “bullies” and involved in “the nasty of the nastiest,” like indoctrinating schoolchildren and creating a “mass organization to seize power.”As Media Matters reported, the conspiratorial host had mentioned read: attacked the little-known progressive organization nearly 30 times on his Fox program alone since it premiered in 2009, including several mentions in the last month. Beck’s the only TV talker who regularly references the foundation, according to our Nexis searches.So yes, Beck has done all he can to scare the hell out of people about the Tides Foundation and “turn the light of day” onto an organization that actually facilitates non-profit giving.

And guess what? Everybody in America would have found out about the Tides Foundation last week if Byron Williams had had his way. He’s the right-wing, government-hating, gun-toting nut who strapped on his body armor, stocked a pickup truck with guns and ammo, and set off up the California coast to San Francisco in order to start killing employees at the previously obscure Tides Foundation in hopes of sparking a political revolution.

via Eric Boehlert: Glenn Beck’s Incendiary Angst Is Dangerously Close to Having a Body Count.

Fox News’ handling of the Shirley Sherrod controversy “was absolutely racist,” former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean charged on Sunday.Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Dean, who’s also a former Democratic National Committee chairman and hero of liberals, asserted Fox News failed to vet video footage of a speech misleadingly excerpted to make it appear that Sherrod was boasting of using her post as an Agriculture Department official to discriminate against a white farmer.“I don’t think Newt Gingrich is a racist, and I don’t think you’re a racist,” Dean told Fox News host Chris Wallace, “but Fox News did something that was absolutely racist. They took a — they had an obligation to find out what was really in the clip. They had been pushing a theme of black racism with this phony Black Panther crap and this business and this Sotomayor and all this other stuff.”When Wallace interrupted Dean to point out that Fox News did not air the excerpted Sherrod footage until after the Obama administration had fired her based on it, Dean shot back: “It was about to go on Glenn Beck, which is what the administration was afraid of.”

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press Writer – 13 mins agoWASHINGTON – Reveling in victory, President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression, a package that aims to protect consumers and ensure economic stability from Main Street to Wall Street.The law, pushed through mainly by Democrats in Washington’s deeply partisan environment, comes almost two years after the infamous near financial meltdown in 2008 in the United States that was felt around the globe. The legislation gives the government new powers to break up companies that threaten the economy, creates a new agency to guard consumers and puts more light on the financial markets that escaped the oversight of regulators.Obama described them all as commonsense reforms that will help people in their daily life — signing contracts, understanding fees, being aware of risks.He went so far as to call the reforms “the strongest consumer protections in history.” The president added to a burst of applause: “Because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes.”

via Obama signs sweeping financial overhaul into law – Yahoo! News.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will call on Republican lawmakers to stop blocking an extension of unemployment benefits as the Senate prepares to take up the issue again this week.A White House official says Obama will have “strong words” for Republicans when he delivers remarks Monday in the Rose Garden. Obama will argue that the GOP shouldn’t be calling for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while denying benefits to the unemployed.Benefits for 2.5 million people ran out at the end of May. Republicans say they will only support an extension if the bill is paid for and doesn’t add to the national debt.

via Obama to GOP: Restore jobless benefits – Yahoo! News.

Democrats are gleefully passing around a video clip of Rep. Pete Sessions’ (R-Tex.) appearance on “Meet The Press” this Sunday, and for good reason. Pressed repeatedly by host David Gregory to explain exactly what the GOP would do to cut the deficit — should it regain congressional power — the National Republican Congressional Committee chair stammered and offered platitudes:

“We need to live within our means.”

“We need to make sure we read the bills.”

“We are going to balance the budget, we should live within our means and we should read the bills and work with the American people.”

“We need to make sure that as we look at all that we are spending in Washington D.C.”

“We have to empower the free enterprise system.”

Sessions was, as Gregory noted, dabbling in talking points; or, to distill it even further, just repeating the question in the form of an answer. (How are you going to balance the budget? We are going to balance the budget.)

“Tell me how you do it,” a frustrated Gregory interjected. “Name a painful choice that Republicans are prepared to say we have to make?”

Sessions had none, save to hint that the policies he wanted to pursue were the ones tried by the previous administration. “We need to go back to the exact same agenda that is empowering the free enterprise system rather than diminishing it,” he said.

And hence, the Democratic glee.

But a more telling answer may have come right after Sessions was let off the ropes. Gregory turned to the National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and asked him to put forward the specifics his colleague would not.

“Well,” said Cornyn, “the president has a debt commission that reports December the 1st. And I think we’d all like to see what they come back with. … My hope is they’ll come back with a bipartisan solution to the debt and particularly entitlement reform, as you mentioned.”

Pinning your policy platform to the findings of a commission is a tried-and-true way of avoiding tough questions and kicking tough choices down the road. More importantly, if, as Cornyn says, a commission is an important ingredient to charting a path toward fiscal solvency, then he ceded that the Republican party is on the wrong side of the debate. The Senate voted on creating a bipartisan deficit commission in late January, and the GOP (skeptical that it would recommend tax increases) helped kill the idea — forcing the White House to put together a commission of its own.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid D-Nev. said on Wednesday that Republicans want the economy to tank and hope jobs legislation fails so that Democrats will lose the midterm elections.”They’re betting on failure,” Reid said of Republicans at a press conference Wednesday focused on measures to help small businesses. “They think that the worse the economy is come November, the better they are going to do election-wise.”Reid says the Republican approach “was indicated very loudly in the health care bill when one Republican Senator said that he wanted this to be Obama’s Waterloo — another Senator said he hoped somebody died during the night so that we couldn’t get our 60 votes.”Whether the small business jobs bill passes is in the hands of the Republican party, said Reid, and so far negotiations have been strained.”We are not getting a lot of cooperation,” said Reid. “I had a conversation on the floor this morning with Senator McConnell and I hope they are willing to support us. The initial amendments they’ve got have nothing to do with small business.”

via Harry Reid: Republicans Want Economy To Tank So Democrats Will Be Battered In Midterms.

(CNN) — The Obama administration has sent a fourth bill for $99.7 million to BP and other responsible parties relating to the energy company’s oil spill, according to a statement from the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center.

The government said BP is financially responsible for all costs associated with the response to the spill, including efforts to stop the leak at its source, reduce the spread of oil, protect the shoreline and mitigate damages, as well as long-term recovery efforts for individuals and communities.

The government bills BP and other parties regularly for costs incurred by the federal on-scene coordinator to support federal, state and local response efforts and ensure the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund is reimbursed on an ongoing basis.

This is the fourth bill the administration has sent to date. BP and other responsible parties have paid the first three bills, totaling $122.3 million, according to the statement.

via Administration’s fourth bill to BP totals $99.7 million – CNN.com.

With the votes for a financial reform bill in hand, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid D-Nev. will move to end debate on the bill Tuesday and set up a vote Thursday to send the final bill to President Barack Obama. On Tuesday, Obama thanked “three Republican senators [who] have put partisanship and politics aside” to support the bill — referring to Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts. “I am grateful for their decision,” Obama said.Reid also dodged a potential roadblock to the bill Tuesday when Sen. Ben Nelson D-Neb. publicly committed to voting “yes” on the legislation — after telling reporters Monday evening he was not yet ready to support the bill because of concerns over a consumer protection agency the legislation would create.“I will support the Wall Street reform bill to end bailouts, add common sense consumer protections and make sure that Nebraska Main Street businesses are not adversely affected as we rein in recklessness on Wall Street,” Nelson wrote in a statement Tuesday morning.Nelson’s vote gave Reid a filibuster-proof threshold of 60 votes to end debate.

via Harry Reid sets vote on Wall Street reform – Meredith Shiner – POLITICO.com.