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Lupe Fiasco reportedly created a bit of a row on Sunday by insulting President Obama during an inaugural event.

Although Fiasco was booked as the headliner for the StartUp RockOn concert in celebration of Obama’s reelection, the 30-year-old Chicago rapper apparently had no plans to cheer the current administration. Instead, after taking the stage at The Hamilton in Washington, he reportedly announced that he didn’t vote for the president in the 2012 election and spent more than 30 minutes performing an anti-war song.
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Matt Damon went on a populist hitting streak on Saturday, giving voice to progressive frustration simmering in the nation. Damon, as has been previously reported, spoke at the Save Our Schools March, and afterward, ripped both a reporter who challenged the notion of motivated teachers and a cameraman who insisted 10% of teachers are bad at their jobs. He also took to task Republicans, the Tea Party and what he called the lack of shared sacrifice in both the economy and the just-passed debt ceiling bill.

“I’m so disgusted,” he told a reporter about the protracted negotiations. “I mean, no, I don’t know what you do in the face of that kind of intransigence. So, my heart does go out to the President. He is dealing with a lot.”

Still, despite any sympathy, he was furious with the negotiations’ outcome, as well as the greater thrust of American economic policy. “The wealthy are paying less than they paid at any time else, certainly in my lifetime, and probably in the last century,” Damon said. “I don’t know what we were paying in the roaring 20′s; it’s criminal that so little is asked of people who are getting so much. I don’t mind paying more. I really don’t mind paying more taxes. I’d rather pay for taxes than cut ‘Reading is Fundamental’ or Head Start or some of these programs that are really helping kids. This is the greatest country in the world; is it really that much worse if you pay 6% more in taxes? Give me a break. Look at what you get for it: you get to be American.” (more…)

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Ed Schultz sparred with Prof. Cornel West about President Obama after a day after the high-profile scholar and leading black intellectual gave a scathing interview condemning Obama’s term in office.

On Monday, an interview with West appeared on the website Truthdig. In it, West called Obama “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”

Schultz did not agree with this critique, and on his Tuesday show, he asked West to explain what he meant. West had also said that Obama didn’t have “backbone.” Schultz mentioned the killing of Osama bin Laden and said, “what are you talking about?” West said he was referring to having “backbone for poor children, misabused workers, those unfairly incarcerated, those middle-class folks who are experiencing downward mobility.” (more…)

Media Matters has released audio the group says it recorded of Bill Sammon, Fox News’ Washington managing editor, speaking on a Mediterranean cruise in 2009. On the tape, Sammon seems to suggest that he talked up the president’s possible belief in Socialism, while privately dismissing the idea as “far-fetched.”

Sammon’s on-air comments about the president included saying “I have read Barack Obama’s books pretty carefully, and he in his own words talks about being drawn to Marxists…now all this stuff’s coming out about whether he’s a socialist. I don’t know why anyone is surprised by it, because if you read his own words…it’s not a huge shock.”

“Last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to ’spread the wealth around.’ At that time, I have to admit that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.”

On the tape, Sammon implies that was merely a put-on:

According to The New York Times, last year General Electric (GE) made over $14.2 billion in profit, but paid NO federal tax. None. In fact, thanks to the millions GE spent lobbying Congress, we American taxpayers actually owed GE $3.2 billion in tax credits.

Now GE is slashing health benefits and retirement benefits for new employees among non-union workers and is expected to push unions to accept similar cutbacks, while its CEO, Jeff Immelt, gets a 100% pay raise.
What’s worse? Immelt now sits as chair of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (Jobs Council), representing corporate America to the President on matters like job creation and corporate taxation. That’s a slap in the face to every hardworking, tax-paying American—especially GE employees.

That’s why we’re teaming up with Russ Feingold and his new group Progressives United today to call for Immelt to go. Will you join the call?