2010 Senate Race

The Globe and Southeast Missourian both have editorial today criticizing the extreme plan pushed by Senate candidate Ed Martin, Sen. Brian Nieves, Sen. Jason Crowell and Sen. Jim Lembke in which Missouri would reject $189M in federal education money to make some sort of point about federal spending  at the expense of Missouri's schoolchildren.  Lost on all of them, apparently, is the fact that their ideas would cause real harm in Missouri communities, and if the Show-Me State doesn't take the money, it just goes to other states. 

Here's what The Globe had to say:

It’s one thing to talk about excessive federal spending as a topic of election-time rhetoric. But political talking points are shaping up to become drastic cuts that will harm Missouri’s children...

One of the worst ideas involves sending it back...

We hope Missouri’s Republican lawmakers in the General Assembly remember that they were elected to represent Missourians, not the entire country. We need them to do what’s best for the Show-Me State, not try to address national political talking points.

Fox News has backed down in its "ridiculous" partisan lawsuit against the Robin Carnahan for Senate campaign, agreeing to a settlement with the campaign and walking away without any of the monetary damages it had sought. Fox and their lawyers are apparently unwilling to test their "dubious" and "strange" claims in court, and political speech remains protected.

As you may recall, Fox sued the Carnahan campaign in September, upset that they'd found footage of Sunday morning personal Chris Wallace committing journalism in a 2006 interview with Roy Blunt, questioning his credibility as a reformer in the House of Representatives.  Never mind that all sorts of Republican candidates, including Blunt, John McCain and other GOP candidates were allowed to use Fox footage for their campaigns without so much as a whimper from the propagandists.  (Also left unmentioned in the Fox complaint: their PAC has been donating to Blunt's campaigns for a decade.)

In the settlement, Fox News agreed to walk, and the Carnahan campaign agreed it had used more footage than a Democratic candidate for office is permitted if it wishes to avoid a retaliatory lawsuit from Fox.

No word yet on the current status of Wallace's "self esteem and dignity," which Fox alleged had been significantly damaged by the re-airing of his act of journalism.

Related:

• Post-Dispatch: "Fox v. Robin: Caught being objective, Fox News retaliates."
• Slate Magazine: Why the Fox News suit against Robin Carnahan's campaign is bogus
• TPM: Fox News Took 'Dramatic Step' In Suing Political Campaign, Says Copyright Expert
• Politico: Fox News sues Carnahan over ad
• Fired Up!: Legal Experts Call Fox Complaints "Dubious" & "Strange"
• Fired Up!: FOX and Chris Wallace Really, Really Annoyed That They Were Critical of Roy Blunt
• Fired Up!: Kraske: Fox Lawsuit A "Mystery"

The Post-Dispatch weighed in on Fox News' lawsuit against the Robin Carnahan Senate campaign this weekend, in piece headlined "Fox v. Robin: Caught being objective, Fox News retaliates."  It provides a good summary of Fox's claims in the suit, along with a number of good examples of Republican campaigns using Fox footage in their ads -- campaigns that that the propagandists at Fox haven't yet gotten around to suing, for some reason. 

"We'd hesitate to call the lawsuit frivolous," they write. "Ridiculous is more like it. With a whiff of spite."

"That complete Website...probably the best Website on the Internet."

Jerry Beck, Constitution Party candidate for US Senate, describing his recently hacked campaign website

Over at the blog for the "Church of Lazlo" radio show, host Lazlo Geiger has posted audio of an on-air conversation he had yesterday with KMBC's Micheal Mahoney about Roy Blunt's angry and evasive response to a question of whether or not he knew a woman who previously did housekeeping work (perhaps illegally) for his family.   It was an unorthodox interview worth listening to in its entirety, but this exchange between Lazlo and Mahoney really stands out:

HOST:  Did you get the feeling in the response of that -- or at least what I got from watching the video and listening to it -- was that he did not want to answer that question and he wished you were somewhere else.

MAHONEY:  I think he wished he were somewhere else.  I don't think he was -- I think he would like this episode behind him. And he thinks that it's -- that it's a, you know, a put-up job by the Democrats who are trying to campaign against him. So yeah, it's not something he'd like to talk about.

The full interview is online here.   The exchange between Lazlo and Mahoney at the very beginning of the clip is pretty amusing. 

h/t @BHIndepMO

From the Missouri Democratic Party: "In this final episode, Congressman Roy Blunt cements his position as a true power broker and the ultimate Washington insider. In a revolutionary move, Blunt and DeLay actually outsource some of the business of lawmaking to corporate special interest lobbyists. This lobbyist-fueled political machine becomes known as “Blunt-Inc”, and it creates an “institutionalized alliance” with the most powerful lobbyists in Washington. [Washington Post, 5/17/05] In fact, Blunt's meetings with lobbyists grew to hundreds. According to the National Journal: “Blunt and his staff...regularly consult with roughly 500 lobbyists with K Street shops, trade associations, corporate Washington offices, and interest groups, according to Blunt's office.” [National Journal, 11/5/05]"

h/t Turner Report

Via the Hollywood Reporter: "Now that Carnahan has dutifully pointed out that Fox News was a bit tardy in filing its copyright registration, Fox has decided to take advantage of Rule 15(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. What's that? It basically allows a party to amend its pleading within 21 days of the other party raising a defense based on jurisdictional or procedural grounds (i.e. serving a copyright lawsuit before registering copyright). So Fox News is amending its lawsuit to include the copyright registration. In addition, the cable news network is adding new charges against the Carnahan campaign for continuing to use the commercial on its website, even after taking the ad off TV.  The move hardly will change the outcome of the case, but it allows Fox News more time."

No word yet on how the protracted legal battle is affecting Chris Wallace's self esteem and dignity.

Fox News' amended complaint is embedded below the jump.