8 Things People Shouldn't Know

This is awesome. I'm simply quoting in full:

There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.

Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and beganbefore the 2008 election of President Obama.

4) The stimulus didn't work.
Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.

7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.
Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.

This stuff really matters.

If the public votes in a new Congress because a majority of voters think this one tripled the deficit, and as a result the new people follow the policies that actually tripled the deficit, the country could go broke.

If the public votes in a new Congress that rejects the idea of helping to create demand in the economy because they think it didn't work, then the new Congress could do things that cause a depression.

If the public votes in a new Congress because they think the health care reform will increase the deficit when it is actually projected to reduce the deficit, then the new Congress could repeal health care reform and thereby make the deficit worse. And on it goes.

Bret and Presidents

A funny 2 minutes of video:



Bret interrupted Obama 16 times in 19 minutes. Compare that with the exit interview for Bush, who exited office with one of the lowest approval ratings ever. It's fun.

MSNBC not Liberal Like Fox is Conservative / Falsehoods about Torture

Joe Scarborough falsely claimed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah "were not asked" by the CIA about a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. In fact, according to a Senate report, the CIA questioned both about an Iraq/Al Qaeda relationship.

Of course, multiple sources confirm that both KSM and Abu Zubaida were interrogated with the Al-Qaeda/Iraq Link being a key area of interest. Remind me, when you torture someone to give you information that doesn't actually exist, what are the odds that you'll get an answer that's useful in any way other than politically?

Good old Media Matters. So useful.

Cheney Used Torture to Justify Iraq War

From the best damned journalists around, McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of Iraq, asserted in 2004 that detainees interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp had revealed that Iraq had trained al Qaida operatives in chemical and biological warfare, an assertion that wasn't true.

Cheney's 2004 comments to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News were largely overlooked at the time. However, they appear to substantiate recent reports that interrogators at Guantanamo and other prison camps were ordered to find evidence of alleged cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — despite CIA reports that there were only sporadic, insignificant contacts between the militant Islamic group and the secular Iraqi dictatorship.

They tortured people to obtain false confessions to justify the Iraq War after the fact. And apparently, the mainstream media is fine with that. Accountability would just be so divisive.

KO Takes Down Bill-O on Torture

Once again, Keith-O catches Bill-O wrongfully turning our friends into War Criminals. If you recall, he did the same thing with our own soldiers in WWII, when it was in fact the Nazi's that perpetrated the crimes at Malmedy he accused our boys of committing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Once again, Keith is indispensable.

Can't Give the Queen what She Wants?

I just don't understand what gives the Fox/Talk Radio crowd the vapors these days.  They're hyperventilating now about the fact that the Obamas gave the Queen a video IPod, and the horrible breach of etiquette this represents.  It's funny, cuz I remember these same Republicans being appalled by this:

Wait, was it "appalled," or "never mentioned?" I can't remember.

Of course, this is made doubly ridiculous by the fact that the Queen requested the Video IPod. She had a previous generation IPod already, but she wanted the neat toy that could play video.  She should have gone for the Touch.

Update: DKos put together a video of the outrage, and a British spokesperson's succinct rebuttal.

Europe doesn't hate Obama?

I thought I had heard that Europe thinks Obama is taking America "to hell" with his stimulus plans and regulatory ideas?  Well, apparently not.  But I thought I heard that over and over again on talk radio and Fox News.  Do you think they didn't check their sources?  They wouldn't run with a story that wasn less than the truth just to make Obama look bad, would they?

Reporting from Los Angeles and London -- The G-20 leaders will pour at least $1 trillion into the global economy in an effort to stimulate recovery from a worldwide downturn and will push for greater regulation of the financial industry, officials said this morning.

In a televised news conference from London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the key elements of the plan, including an additional $500 billion for the International Monetary Fund, $250 billion in IMF Special Drawing Rights and $250 billion to boost trade.

The leaders of the major economies also pledged to work on such regulatory issues as pay and bonuses for executives and bringing financial instruments such as hedge funds into tighter government control. Many blame the new investment instruments, including derivatives and credit swaps, for the economic contraction around the world.

"This is the day that the world came together to fight back against the global recession," Brown told reporters.

"Our message today is clear and certain. We believe that in this new global age, our prosperity is indivisible,' he said. "We believe that growth, to be sustained, must be shared, and that trade must once again become an engine of growth. The old Washington consensus is over; today we have reached a new consensus."

"There are no quick fixes. But with the six pledges that we make today, we can shorten the recession and save jobs."

The six pledges may not have been everything Obama said he wanted, but it is excellent nonetheless.  And when you're dealing with someone like Obama, a cautious poker player, it's difficult to say that his "Ask" wasn't merely a strategic opening, leading to the outcome he originally desired.  A trillion dollars is no slouch, and the work to strengthen regulations is key to establishing a healthy period of real economic growth.

The Republicans really need to learn how to set expectations.  They've turned this trip from an impending disaster, where the EU rebukes Obama harshly, into a remarkable accomplishment, with Obama brokering deals and closing the breach between American and the rest of the world.

Fournier!

Remember Ron Fournier, the partisan that nearly took a Senior Advisor job in the McCain campaign, but instead decided to go be the DC Bureau Chief for the Associated Press?  You know, the objective wire service?  He's doing a bang-up job.  Here's Fournier take on last night's White House press conference.

What kind of politician brings a teleprompter to a news conference?

A careful one.

President Barack Obama took no chances in his second prime-time news conference, reading a prepared statement in which he took both sides of the AIG bonus brouhaha and asked an anxious nation for its patience. [...]

One of the few times he summoned raw emotion came after a reporter demanded to know why it took him so long to express outrage over the AIG executive bonuses.

"It took a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."

Even better, he likes to have it up on the teleprompter.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is presented as an "analysis" piece.  Just like his "analysis" of Clinton's convention speech was to count the number of times she used a variation on the pronoun "I."  The answer was in the teens.  You'd think, if that were interesting analysis, the same would be the case of McCain's speech - where he used the word "I" itself over 100 times.

And once again, we've got the AP parroting the Republican talking point of the week.  It's simply amazing that they're trying to make this stick.  They think they can paint the guy who writes with surpassing eloquence, went through 27 Democratic Debates, then another 3 with McCain, as someone who cannot think without the teleprompter doing it for him.  They make this case after Bush.

Astonishing.

Obama Presidency a Success!

According to the guys at CNBC and the WSJ, that is, since NASDAQ is now above where it was when Obama became President:

What a stupid way to look at a Presidency.

Media Makes up Obama Campaign Promises

That damned librul media!

Dastardly!

Global Warming is Fake!

Take a gander at the following graph, depicting the climate for last winter as deviating from the 1951-1980 average:

Of course, basically the entire national press corps lives in the area that got colder, so what kind of stories do you think we got?

Fox News Plagiarises from GOP

Saying that Fox News is an outlet for the Republican Party wont come as a surprise to anyone - we've known they receive Republican talking points for quite some time based on whistle blower accounts and statements from Bush's own Press Secretary. But now we've got hard documentary evidence.

The following graphic was presented as the product of Fox News' network research department.  "We took a look at how..." the Stimulus Bill grew, they said. But, in fact, it's straight from the Republican Party press release from that morning. How do we know? Check out the date at the bottom.


December 2009, huh? Unsurprisingly, that's the exact same typo that appeared in the Republican press release.

Go ahead and continue being a mouthpiece for the GOP, Fox. But at least tell us when you're copying and pasting.

The Maddow Era: Stimulus

It's about time we had a truly liberal voice on TV - not that I agree with a lot of classical liberalism, but the deafening silence from the Left on TV has been unhealthy. Some might cite Olbermann, but he's truly just a reaction to Bush's unprecedented awfulness. I don't see him as pushing a Liberal Agenda. Maddow, however, is a pusher, and she does it with style.

Here she is on the Stimulus Plan:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

She's great.

Our Liberal Media, Part a million

After seven years of Bush screwing it up, it is now Obama's Vietnam.

Biden Finally Does It

Behold, an interview that even Sean Hannity would call "hard hitting:"



Biden has been a little weak so far in his role as VP nominee.   I don't have a big problem with his putative "gaffes," but rather his less than full-throated offense.  This quells that sentiment nicely.

DOJ Partisanship Continues

Two senior officials in the Bush Justice Department have just leaked the fact that the FBI is conducting a nationwide investigation into Acorn.  Why did they leak it, you might ask, instead of issuing a press release?  Because they are breaking the law by doing so, that's why.

Luckily a Democrat has finally decided to fight this when there was still a chance to do something about it.  Obama's campaign is pursuing legal options as we speak, not after they've already lost.

Fortunately for us there's a special prosecutor looking into the U.S. Attorney/Bogus Vote Fraud thing already, and this dovetails perfectly. The Obama campaign is fighting back preemptively, not when its too late to do anything.  About time!

In fact, David Iglesias, the most troubling of the nine political firings, said the following:

Iglesias, the most important of the 9 dismissed attorneys, says he's seen this all before, and is astounded that the current US attorneys are falling for this. It looks like a real strong possibility that the politicisation has succeeded.

People who would know are saying so, like the DOJ's ex voting right's chief:

Gerry Hebert described the investigation, word of which was leaked off the record to the Associated Press less than three weeks before the election, as "a continuation of injecting DOJ into what has clearly become a political issue."

He continued: "That's really not the proper role for the DOJ, and why their policies counsel otherwise."

...

Hebert, noting that he had been at DOJ during the administrations of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, added: "During the twenty-one years I was there, even though there were political appointees who I worked with, never did we inject partisan considerations into our law-enforcement responsibilities. That has clearly not been the case in recent years under this administration. And it's going to take a long time to cleanse the Department of Justice."

Politicisation succeeded!  Rove can put a check in that box!  If only that Permanent Republican Majority he hoped to use a politicized DOJ to enforce had materialized, huh?  Instead, he's helped create a new precedent - one of the many that a President Obama could use to make himself the most powerful President  in American history.  Obama the Monarch.  Reap what you have sown, Republicans, and weep bitter tears.

PA Laughs at Fox News

Fox News just can't get a break this cycle.  In this video a reporter takes a poll of the room and only Obama supporters respond.  He reports "an even split here," to which people guffaw:



It's never good when your subjects laugh at you on camera.

Our Liberal Media

Joe Scarborough, former Republican Congressman, on the supposedly liberal MSNBC:

MATTHEWS: Now, it'll die, as we said, it'll jump the shark. Two days ago, no, we're all talking about -- you're waving the tabloids around, come on. Two days from now -- I want to ask you, what will we talk about two days from now?

SCARBOROUGH: Whatever the McCain campaign wants us to talk about, because the McCain campaign is assertive.

That's about right.

The Biased AP

Bad Ron Fournier! Why didn't you take that job with McCain instead of screwing up what's left of our objective press?

Last week, in an apparent effort to paint Sen. Hillary Clinton as self-absorbed, the AP's Ron Fournier counted the number of times she used "some variation of the pronoun 'I'" in her convention speech. Fournier came up with 17. Media Matters checked his work, and found 21 such uses. But Fournier's point was undermined by the fact that at least 13 of those uses of the pronoun were about Clinton's support for Obama, the importance of the 2008 election, or what matters in the election.

So ... when can we expect Fournier to tally up the number of times John "cause greater than self" McCain used the pronoun "I" in his convention speech? It's well over 100 -- and that doesn't even count variations.

Or has Ron Fournier suddenly realized that such an exercise would be pointless? He'd be right, but you have to wonder about the timing of his epiphany.

Oy.

Tax Cuts are Welfare?

You must be joking! The Wall Street crumb bums and fat cats, to whom tax cuts for the ultra-rich are an item of religious devotion, have decided that when a Democrat cuts taxes it is really just a welfare program in disguise! So much for starving the beast and encouraging personal responsibility, eh?

For the Wall Street Journal to make this argument is just stunningly audacious. It's like they believe all money truly belongs to them - it's just temporarily in other people's pockets until they can swindle it out of them. Why else would they oppose tax cuts that aren't ruthlessly biased towards the top 1%? Remember, 52% of Bush's tax cuts went to the top 1%.

And this comes after decades of pleading with the Democrats to support tax cuts so that the country-club crowd could support them. Outrageous!