TV News LIES

Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin overcame weeks of Republican attack ads to win the West Virginia governor's race Tuesday, successfully distancing himself from the Obama administration and the president's health care plan.

Tomblin, who has been acting governor for the past year, will finish the final year of a term left vacant by Joe Manchin, a well-liked governor who stepped down after he won a U.S. Senate seat.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) told Fox News host Mike Huckabee this weekend that he would support an amendment to his state’s constitution to define life as beginning at conception, which would outlaw abortion and potentially many forms of contraception as well.

Noting that the state supreme court forced the inclusion of abortion coverage in Romney’s universal health care law, the GOP presidential front-runner said the only way to undo the decision would be a constitutional amendment. Asked if he would support such a move, Romney replied, “absolutely”:

n the spring of 2010, the conservative political strategist Ed Gillespie flew from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh, North Carolina, to spend a day laying the groundwork for REDMAP, a new project aimed at engineering a Republican takeover of state legislatures.

Gillespie hoped to help his party get control of statehouses where congressional redistricting was pending, thereby leveraging victories in cheap local races into a means of shifting the balance of power in Washington.

On the campaign trail, Rick Santorum says his career since the Senate has been a paid commentary role at Fox News and as a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. But a mandatory disclosure requirement for presidential candidates reveals something new: Santorum has maintained his lifestyle through a well-paid consulting gig with Consol Energy Inc and a lobbying firm called American Continental Group.

The disclosure, revealed earlier this week, comes as a surprise because Santorum has never mentioned the fact that he works for a lobbying firm, nor do any state and federal lobbying disclosures have him listed as a lobbyist or contractor to such a company.

The times they are a changin'. John Judis has written a piece I'd never thought I'd read at TNR. It's an elegant, factual, calm dismemberment of where the Obama administration has ended up on Israel-Palestine: on AIPAC's extendable leash, wagging its tail for a treat.

On the pure principles of UN recognition of a Palestinian state, John shows exactly how American politics has been slowly but fatally corrupted by the Greater Israel lobby in recent years with respect to Middle East policy. One logical stiletto:

Over the past year, I have obtained public records that shed light on how the Israel lobby works on US campuses. At UC Berkeley, my alma mater, as well as at UC Hastings School of Law, the documents reveal how the Israel lobby pressures university administrators to interfere with campus activity - both academic and political - that addresses Israel's policies towards and treatment of the Palestinian people.

My requests were made in the shadow of two high-profile backlash campaigns to counter events at UC Berkeley and UC Hastings School of Law. In March 2011, esteemed legal academics and practitioners attended a conference called "Litigating Palestine" at UC Hastings School of Law.