Washington Examiner Needs Editors' Heads Examined

Today's Washington Examiner's editorial, "Time to admit Obamanomics has failed" is a doozy. Whipping their readers up in a frenzy, they claim that President Obama is going to "raise everybody's taxes by allowing the Bush [tax] cuts ... to expire" and that the stimulus bill "has failed to create jobs." It also criticizes the Wall Street reform bill because of its regulation. Really? We all know that deregulating the markets is what got us into this mess in the first place.  The whole piece reads like a nutball teabagger screed.

I'm reposting my response here, as I doubt it'll get past the moderators at their site.

Do the editors of the Washington Examiner bother to fact check what they write or are they purposely misleading their readers?

President Obama's FY 2011 budget calls for the expiration of the Bush tax cuts only for those making UNDER $250,000. Not "raising everybody's taxes" as the editors claim. Making the Bush tax cuts permanent would add $3.1 TRILLION to the deficit. So much for fiscal conservative hawks.

And claiming that the stimulus has not created jobs is laughable on its face. The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) stated: "The CEA estimates that as of the second quarter of 2010, the ARRA has raised employment relative to what it otherwise would have been by between 2.5 and 3.6 million. These estimates are broadly consistent with the direct recipient reporting data available for 2010:Q1."

Even the conservative Wall Street Journal has reported that 70% of economists surveyed said the stimulus helped.

If I can look this stuff up in ten minutes, I would hope that your readers could as well, instead of blindly taking these "editors'" words as fact.

The Blame Game

POSTED BY JHW22

As proud as I am of President Obama, I tend to find myself falling in the rut of hating the right more than celebrating our accomplishments on the left. I guess it has something to do with the idea that if you hear ten compliments but one criticism, you're likely to focus on that one criticism.

But what Obama and his team have been doing is attempting to highlight their accomplishments by reminding people where he started from on January 20, 2009. In doing so he's accused of still blaming Bush as if poor W didn't do anything wrong and all the messes are Obama's. Fine. Whatever. But the point remains that Obama MUST highlight the past to spotlight the present. And all presidents have done it.

Let's take a look at what W was saying in his radio address about his predecessor this far into his own administration -- well, a little further actually. Let's look at December 2002 which was four months further into his own administration than Obama is now:

Good Morning. 2002 Brought Great Challenges to America, and we had many successes at home and abroad. In 2002, our economy was still recovering from the attacks of September the 11th, 2001, and it was pulling out of a recession that began before I took office.

Many will argue that we were NOT in a recession at the end of Clinton's administration and that the actual recession began a month or so after Bush took office. But you can see where he'd want to give some of the blame to Clinton. Sure. I'll give him that. But geez, Obama can't criticize the worst recession since the Great Depression without getting in trouble for blaming Bush.

Well, surely Bush stopped blaming Clinton by the election... right?

But a senior administration official says the budgetary problems stem from what he called inadequate defense, intelligence and homeland security resources that were handed down from Clinton.

I should probably add that by "election" I meant the 2008 election. Did I forget to mention that? Yes, the Bush administration was still blaming Clinton for its financial problems in July of 2008.

We could argue forever about the nuances of who is to blame and who is just making excuses. But the point stands: all presidents put blame on previous presidents and they do it for as long as they are seeking to pass bills, get elected or keep their party in power.

As a regular ol' citizen, I plan on blaming Bush for the wars and the economy until I die or until dementia sets in. But that's just me.

Beyond Crazy

POSTED BY JHW22

Give me the "Sarah Palin isn't Trig's Mom" conspiracy any day over the "Obama and Soros are emailing each other and want Glenn Beck dead" conspiracy. Glenn Beck hasn't exactly said that there's a plot to kill him (well, maybe he has but I'm not going to listen to him enough to find out) but he has sprinkled enough seeds about some relationship between Soros and Obama and has planted the seed that Soros would possibly try to kill him. Water those seeds a bit with references to Obama as Lucifer (when we ALL know that Cheney is Lucifer), Obama wants to take your guns, religion, money (do I really need to provide links for any of that?) and all of a sudden, you have people who think that Obama AND Soros want to kill Glenn Beck.

Now, as a former X-Files fanatic, I can say that some conspiracies do exist. I have some serious doubts about a few things that if I asked questions about would have me tagged as crazy. But I'll tell you what, when Democrats cling to conspiracies, we tend to have a few more facts that raise more questions than answers. When right-wing freaks cling to conspiracies, they make even Fox Mulder roll his eyes.

The only conspiracy going on with Glenn Beck is his own. He is a charlatan manipulating viewers into not thinking. He doesn't want them to think because he makes money off zombies. Now, even zombies are more believable than anything Glenn Beck can come up with -- just LOOK at his viewers.

(Now, Mr. Soros, I will be looking for that check that I have heard you'll be sending me.)

h/t to Desert Crone for the heads-up on the latest crazy.

Welcome to Ohio

I'm visiting my in-laws and you just can't get away from it.

Here's the world famous Hannity charity scam bus sitting in a Marriott hotel parking lot in Deerfield, Ohio.  Apparently there's some sort of teabagger rally going on.



And check this out. Bumper stickers are no longer good enough. Now they spread the Gospel (and probably cause more drivers to meet their maker) with fender stickers!



"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." That's the quote. But in between Jebus and the heavy ladened one on the fender sticker, reads "The Valley of Unbelief." The Valley of Unbelief? Is that like the Pit of Despair? Or the Cliffs of Insanity?

Must Reads

Karoli: Prop 8 Ruling Exposes the Right's Moral Bankruptcy

Joe Conason: Democrats Deserve Credit -- Not Blame -- on Ethics

Steve Benen: Cantor Chooses Not To Celebrate Good News

Jason Linkins: First Punish The Unemployed, Then Declare War On The Employed

Daniel Stone: The Faux Scandal of Michelle Obama’s Spain Trip

Robert Reich: The Enthusiasm Gap and You

Fareed Zakaria: Build the Ground Zero Mosque

NPR, Radio Diaries: Strange Fruit: Anniversary Of A Lynching

Set Your DVRs!

TLC President Eileen O'Neill told reporters at the annual Television Correspondents Association press tour that "Sarah Palin's Alaska," the TLC series that was announced in March, will debut on November 14 at 9 PM.

...The announcement of the series in March had created a stir, since TLC is owned by the Discovery Network, which is known for its nature shows, and Palin is no friend of the environmental movement.

O'Neill told reporters that "the early selects are looking great."

"It's become clear it takes a special individual to thrive in Alaska," she said.

The initial run is slated for eight episodes. I can't for "Episode Five: Special Individuals Make Wasilla the Crystal Meth Capital of Alaska."

President Obama's Weekly Address - August 7, 2010

Medicare Officially Safer After Health Reform

More Wingnut E-Mails

I've begun ignoring these things for a while, but every once in a blue moon, I get all riled up when I receive a bullshit e-mail like the one that just popped up in my box from a friend (he likes to poke the bear sometimes), knowing I'd respond to it... and reply to everyone else on the list.

To: Broadway Carl
Subject: Obituary-Very Interesting!
Born 1776, Died 2008

It doesn't hurt to read this several times.
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning last November's Presidential election: 

Number of States won by:
Obama: 19
McCain: 29 

Square miles of land won by:
Obama: 580,000
McCain: 2,427,000 

Population of counties won by:
Obama: 127 million
McCain: 143 million 

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Obama: 13.2
McCain: 2.1 

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country. 

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..." 

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase. 

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years. 

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message. 

If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

Well... you know me. I couldn't just let it sit:

To: [Wingnuts]
Subject: Re: Obituary-Very Intersting! REAL NUMBERS AND REAL FACTS 

Here are some real numbers and some real facts in response to this email: 

Number of votes received:
OBAMA: 66,882,230
McCAIN: 58,343,671 

Number of States won:
OBAMA: 28
McCAIN: 22 

Population of States won:
OBAMA: 210,846,555
McCAIN: 95,538,235


I won't go on, but you get the point. This email is obviously false. Oh, and by the way, this email has been going around since the 2000 election. Whoever decided to resend it just substituted Obama's name for Gore and McCain's name for Bush. 

So by all means, "pass this along to help everyone realize how much is at stake," knowing that fear mongering, political smear jobs and bald-faced lies are the greatest dangers to our freedom. 

Is that all you got?

Quote of the Day

"Perhaps the alleged misconduct of Rangel and Waters is so deplorable that they must be punished. Let the evidence be set forth for their colleagues to evaluate. But if the House punishes any wrongdoing, that will happen because Pelosi’s reforms were real and the majority has enforced them. The only thing more foolish than blaming the Democrats for the alleged misconduct of Rangel or Waters would be to believe that the Republicans would enforce ethical standards with any semblance of rigor. They certainly never did so when they were in power."

~ Joe Conason

Ben Nelson Hides Behind Constituents On Kagan Vote

What a cowardly, little simp.

Ben Nelson (DINO-NE): “As a member of the bipartisan ‘Gang of 14,’ I will follow our agreement that judicial nominees should be filibustered only under extraordinary circumstances. If a cloture vote is held on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, I am prepared to vote for cloture and oppose a filibuster because, in my view, this nominee deserves an up or down vote in the Senate.

“However, I have heard concerns from Nebraskans regarding Ms. Kagan, and her lack of a judicial record makes it difficult for me to discount the concerns raised by Nebraskans, or to reach a level of comfort that these concerns are unfounded. Therefore, I will not vote to confirm Ms. Kagan’s nomination.”

Did Ben Nelson consult his constituents (especially the ones out of work) when he voted against extending unemployment benefits? Or does he not care about them because Nebraska is well below the national average? Did Nelson consult his constituents when he voted for permanently extending the Bush tax cuts that would effectively add over $3 TRILLION to the debt?

Ben, don't expect us to believe you listen to your fellow Nebraskans when it comes to your votes. You're transparently in the pocket of big business and couldn't give a shit about your constituents. Just switch parties and get it over with already.

(H/T Bob Cesca)

A personal note

POSTED BY JHW22

I had to take my son to the dentist for the first time ever today. I had to endure Glenn Beck in the waiting room. I think that experience was worse for me than it was for my son.

Thank you. Good night.

Breitbart Just Can't Let The Sherrod Thing Go

Just admit you were wrong, Andrew. I know it's really hard for you, but be a man and eat crow like a big boy. Instead, you continue to take a hatchet to your credibility, as if you have any left or had any to begin with, by hiring Dr. Kevin Pezzi to write for your sorry excuse of a website without even vetting him. Did you take a lesson from the McCain campaign in their VP nominating choice?

Unless you really did know his background but thought you'd just get another dig in at Shirley Sherrod before the shit hit the fan as yet another one of your bullshit "journalists" gets outed as a con man and then decide to take down his posts and bio without even mentioning Pezzi by name.  What's the harm, right? Your aim is to make waves, cause damage and then walk away with shrugged shoulders, arms outstretched as if you had no clue.

Another "oops," Andrew? Another, "the video was already edited when I received it"?

You fucking child.

Congratulations, Justice Kagan

NY Times: The Senate confirmed Elena Kagan to a seat on the Supreme Court on Thursday, giving President Obama his second appointment to the high court in a year, and a political victory as the Senate neared the end of its business for the summer.

Ms. Kagan, a former dean of the Harvard Law School and a legal adviser in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, was approved by a vote of 63 to 37 after hearings and floor debate that showcased competing views of Democrats and Republicans about the court, but exposed no significant stumbling blocks to her confirmation.

The five Republican Senators voting for Kagan: Collins, Graham, Gregg, Lugar and Snowe. The DINO voting against: Ben Nelson.

The Party of "Just you wait til you see our plans..."

POSTED BY JHW22

The suspense is killing me. Apparently the Republican Party has known what they are against (everything) but are still formulating what they are for. After a year and a half of being asked what they are for, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says we only need to wait one more month to find out what that is. Woo hoo! One more month and THEN we will FINALLY know what the Republicans plan on doing with the control they ass-ume they will gain in November. Phew. And I thought they had no clue what a plan even was or what they actually stood for. So, come on September. Bring it on! Yeah!

But wait, remember last year when they teased us with their "we have a budget that isn't really a budget" scheme? The press was all a flutter with the countdown to the Republican budget. And then it was released! And it didn't have any numbers.

So I am feeling a little, what's the word, oh yeah, giggly over the new wait. I figure they'll either look silly or stupid. Oh, why does August have to have that extra day!?

Sarah Palin's Facebook Scrub

Not too long ago, I joined Sarah Palin's Facebook page just to comment on her page. It took about 30 seconds before I was banned from commenting. I thought that was pretty efficient, even for Team Palin, but as I scrolled down the thousands of comments, I realized that not one of them was even close to controverisal or disagreeable, and that almost all of them were a tribute to the Mama Grizzly.

My thoughts have been confirmed.

There are a host of benign posts deleted from supporters who simply disagreed with the person Palin chose to endorse in a particular note. A typical one addressed her endorsement of Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire for U.S. Senate: "I can't believe Sarah endorsed Ayotte. Ayotte is not a Momma Grizzley, she's just another progressive in Rep. clothing. The 912 group I belong to and some of the other groups in the state are disappointed by this endorsement."

This caused a little stir among the commenters. "Why are the few comments expressing disagreement with this endorsement being deleted?" wrote one. " Just because some of us disagree with the endorsement doesn't mean that we don't follow Sarah Palin." Alfred Petross wrote, "I just wish you would listen to me as a resident of the 3rd Congressional District. All I am doing is voicing my opinion and my posts keep getting deleted...." (These comments were then deleted.) "Having my posts deleted were extremely disappointing," says Petross, who went on to post his letter to Palin on his Facebook page, "because I was under the impression that Sarah Palin was in fact a political activist who was all about hearing the opinions and voices of the constituents of the United States."

Oh, poor, deluded Alfred Petross. He doesn't realize that Sarah Palin is all about Sarah Palin. Are so many people really that naive? Sarah doesn't care about opinions other than her own.  She doesn't care about the voices of constituents. Sarah is about advancing Sarah's agenda.  How people don't see through her thin veneer is beyond me.

I Call Bullshit

The oil is "gone"?

The “vast majority” of crude from BP Plc’s damaged Gulf of Mexico well is gone and the rest is being broken down by waves and bacteria, reducing the threat of further pollution from the largest maritime oil spill, White House energy adviser Carol Browner said.

“The vast majority of the oil has been contained, it’s been burned, it’s been cleaned,” Browner said on CBS’s “Early Show” today. The remaining oil “will weather, it will break down naturally. Mother Nature will do her part.”

Where did it "go"?

Sorry, but there is no possible way that 75% of the oil has been cleaned up, evaporated or broken down especially when the estimate was reassessed just this past Monday to 170 million gallons of oil. How could all that oil be cleaned up when President Obama has been refusing international help because of the Jones Act? Oh, right, that was bullshit too.

And even if we were to take the oil is 75% "gone" talking point at face value, at 170 million gallons spilled, that still leaves 42.5 million gallons out there. As Bob Cesca points out, that's still nearly five times the amount of the Exxon Valdez spill. And you can still find oil there just by turning over a rock. And this doesn't even begin to address the unknown environmental consequences of the possibly millions of gallons of dispersant they used to break up the oil.

What Was Laura Ingraham Thinking...

...in going on The Colbert Report to plug her awful book, The Obama Diaries?

Good for Stephen to play along and point out the racial stereotypes that Ingraham writes in the book as Barack Obama. But it's not about race, right?

Was there anything left of her after the interview was over?

Lou Dobbs Said What?!

When the likes of Lou Dobbs even says the GOP is wrong on the crazy notion of repealing the 14th Amendment, you know they have a problem.

"The idea that anchor babies somehow require changing the 14th Amendment, I part ways with the Senators on that because I believe the 14th Amendment, particularly in its due process and equal protection clauses, is so important," Dobbs said. "It lays the foundation for the entire Bill of Rights being applied to the states."

Remember this quote?

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I didn't realize that excluded brown people.

Limbaugh is a Birther

Tomorrow is Obama's birthday, not that we've seen any proof of that... What? We haven't seen any proof of that! They tell us August 4th is the birthday; we haven't seen any proof of that! Sorry. It is what it is.

And Rush Limbaugh is a lying douchbag. It is what it is.

Oh, The Humanity!

"It's over. I broke up with him," Bristol Palin tells PEOPLE exclusively of her second try at an engagement to Levi Johnston, father of her 19-month-old son Tripp.

..."The final straw was him flying to Hollywood for what he told me was to see some hunting show but come to find out it was that music video mocking my family," she says. "He's just obsessed with the limelight and I got played."

Oh, Bristol... a hunting show? ...In HOLLYWOOD?!  At least we know you take after your mom in the brains department.

And here I was all set to watch the Wasilla Wedding on television, just like Charles and Diana, except with sled dogs instead of horse drawn carriages.  And she couldn't wear white.  And Levi in his hunting jacket plaid tuxedo.  And you know it would have been televised; I doubt that the Palins would have shut out the press the way those snooty, elitist Clintons did. There's no such thing as bad publicity after all.  Speaking of which... whatever happened to that Palin/Alaska reality series? Has than been canned yet?

UPDATE (8/4/10 9:25am): JHW22 makes a great point in the comments:

Bristol has already spoken with People and TMZ and Levi hasn't spoken to anyone. YET she suggests he is the media whore and blames his seeking the limelight as part of the reason for the break-up! She told celebrity mags and he is the media whore? When will that family just stop!?!

Like mother like daughter?