It's Official. The GOP's New War Is Actually On Facts

Aug 28th, 2012

It's one thing to note for the umpteenth time that Team Romney lies regularly and without shame. Steve Benen has found that to be a full time job. It's quite another to see what has happened today; the "conservative" movement has actually rallied around a war on facts.

When GOP pollster Neil Newhouse declared earlier that Team Romney is "not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers," it was not some isolated gaffe. As far as the "conservatives" are concerned, it wasn't a gaffe at all. In fact, it seems to be part of a coordinated effort to discredit the provable.

There is a stunning piece of venom from the Weekly Standard. Mark Hemingway smarms:

"Perhaps if we all ignore PolitiFact, they'll go away. But for the time being, the supposedly independent organization continues to crank out skewed and partisan work. There's no better example of this than the the current jihad the "fact checking" organization is waging against the Romney-Ryan health care plan." EMPHASIS OURS

Roll that one over for a minute. Bill Kristol's magazine is likening the act of trying to determine the veracity of political pronouncements with irrational superstition and violence. Specifically, they are coding it with a term designed to evoke images of Islamic supremacists.

They are not alone in this campaign against "fact-checking." 

NRO's editors are carrying Romney's water as well:

"The website PolitiFact is going to be truth-squadding the Republican convention speakers this week, delivering verdicts on which claims are “mostly true” and which deserve a "pants on fire" rating. Our advice: Pay no attention to those ratings. PolitiFact can’t be trusted to get the story right." EMPHASIS OURS

We are witnessing one of the only two major parties in America, the one with deeper pockets I might add, openly sneer at the truth.

Put aside the fact that Rachel Maddow's ongoing battle with PolitiFact puts the lie to arguments that they are some sort of shifty, leftist cabal.

That's not the point. The right is not suggesting that the electorate should take PolitFact or even "fact-checking" with a grain of salt or, perhaps, even do their own research.

Team Romney's mouthpieces, both official and unofficial, are signalling to the base that it is acceptable to dismiss facts altogether.

That's what they are counting on. 

Romney Watch - The Guy Simply Can't NOT Lie

April 9th, 2012

Regarding a campaign appearance by Mittens last week, Dana Milbank notes just how shocking the candidate's distaste for the truth really is:

"PolitiFact has awarded Romney its “Pants on Fire” or “False” ratings for 32 claims. Among them are these: that Obama “didn’t even mention the deficit or debt” in his State of the Union address, that “our Navy is smaller than it’s been since 1917,” that Obama “never worked in the private sector,” that Obama “gave” the automakers “to the UAW,” and that “we’re only inches away from no longer being a free economy.”

Wednesday’s speech alone had more than a dozen distortions, including allegations that: Obama “has failed to even pass a budget” (Congress passes budget resolutions, which the president doesn’t sign); Obama created a panel empowered to deny treatments under Medicare (the board can only make recommendations, and only if Congress fails to find Medicare cuts), Obama “has added regulations at a staggering rate” (the Business Roundtable just said it “lauded” the administration’s attempt at regulatory reform).

No fewer than three Romney claims in that one speech merited PolitiFact’s “Pants on Fire” rating: that Obama led “a government takeover of health care,” has been “apologizing for America abroad” and is ending “Medicare as we know it.” Romney’s assertions that Obama “is the only president to ever cut $500 billion from Medicare” and that eliminating Obamacare saves “about $100 billion” were rated false.

That Romney resorts to such gratuitous falsehoods discredits his leadership more than his opponent’s."

Panicky Gasbag Cries Conspiracy

Feb 21st, 2012

Dick Morris has no legitimate way to counter the recent wave of positive economic data that benefits the President. His solution? Crazy talk.

via Media Matters

Quote Of The Day - Just A Reminder Edition

Jan 3rd, 2011

In light of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and his press secretary denying that Reagan raised taxes...

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

-- George W. Bush

Fox Lie Of The Year Nominee

Dec 2nd, 2011

Wow. This one is whopper. Nearly on par with the imaginary costs of the President's trip to India, which you may recall did not require $250 MILLION a day, Fox News' Brian Kilmeade claimed this morning that the proposed Keystone XL project would create "250,000 permanent jobs."


So provable is this lie, as shown HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE, that this does rate as one of the worst acts of propaganda in Fox history. But why listen to me? Listen to the TransCanada official who admitted, on camera, that the total number of "permanent" jobs after the completion of construction would be at most in the "hundreds." That's it.

Why I Won't Be Watching...

Nov 12th, 2011

A number of readers have asked if will be liveblogging tonight's GOP "debate." My answer is NO. Of course... no. I just can't take it anymore. BooMan explains why it's pointless:

"Voters are not learning anything by watching these debates. They're just being misinformed and presented with an alternate reality that is quite different from anything normal people experience in their lives. Unless you are immersed in right-wing talk radio and Fox News, most of what they're saying doesn't even have a passing relationship to your understanding of the world. Their statistics are fabricated. The problems they identify don't even exist. Their solutions are not plausible on any level you might want to consider. It's really a lot more like pro wrestling than actual politics. Except it's actually less entertaining than actual politics, which proves they're doing it wrong. Even Herman Cain, who was providing some consistent comedic value for a while, is no longer funny now that he's trying to explain how many women he's never harassed. I know it's hard to write about a presidential campaign if you don't watch the debates, but I just can't do it. My capacity to imbibe The Stupid has been maxed out."

"You Want A Job, Right?" cont...

Nov 7th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker NSFW

Cain accuser Sharon Bialek via the LA Times

Considering the conservative establishment's race to double down on their defense of Herman Cain after today's explosive revelations, one needs to wonder whether, perhaps, the GOP front-runner might not actually be doing even better had he actually raped someone.

The only accuser to come forward publicly, Sharon Bialek, is a lifelong Republican and a Tea Party supporter. Not good enough. For those in the GOP elite who have been so desperate to, as Ann Coulter notably intoned, prove that their "blacks are better," any allegation against Cain must be met with a savage response. Its veracity is of no consequence. After all, the GOP was just on the verge of showing us all how open minded they are.

We'd already listened, this afternoon, to the world's foremost overweight, balding, multi-millionaire liar and doctor-shopping, pill-popping drug-fiend as he lowered himself to previously unsuspected depths. We'd also heard that slicked back little GOP-pimp and Nerf-football-enthusiast they call Sean Hannity dismiss the allegations with a big 'so what.'

I genuinely thought it could not get much worse. Silly me. I was wrong. There was still plenty of broadcast day left.

The sputtering shit-bag known as Dick Morris charged onto the Murdoch Device to smear Cain accuser Sharon Bialek further. She's a "gold digger." She "wants money." She wants "a book, a movie, a film deal, a spread in Playboy, who knows?" By the way, Morris went out of his way to make sure Fox viewers knew that Ms. Bialek has "an out of wedlock child."

That bit, in particular, is as venomous as anything I have ever heard. The GOP, the ban-abortion-and-even-contraception party, is now sending its media heavyweights to use Ms. Bialek's embrace of the challenge of single motherhood, rather than choosing to terminate her pregnancy, against her.



Hannity couldn't resist the chance to outdo his afternoon antics. The graphic behind his introduction to footage of this afternoon's presser reads "Anatomy Of A Smear Campaign."



Morris apparently stuck around the vermin-ridden filth that is Fox studios to get a chance to repeat his "Playboy spread" slur. Hannity made sure to plug Morris' children's book at the top of the segment. I shit you not. Again, Morris says "this woman is in search of money." 



As I said to a colleague earlier, after all the years that the GOP paraded and manipulated the case of Paula Jones in an attempt to teach us how much "character matters," this propaganda is beyond reason.

The institutionalization of situational ethics is now more damning for the GOP than anything of which Cain is accused.

Remember, women of the GOP, it's not good enough for you to prove your pro-life position through action, vote with your party and also act on behalf of your party's causes. You have to let the men around you do and say whatever they want, whenever they want, no matter how disgusting it may be.

After all, baby, you really are only good for "a Playboy spread" if they turn on you.

Dick Morris, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity say so.

Quote Of The Day - We Were Warned Edition

Nov 5th, 2011

"The Republican Party of today is not the party of Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan that I was once a member of; it stands for nothing except the pursuit of power as an end in itself, with no concern whatsoever for what is right for the country. In a recent interview with The Economist magazine, I characterized the Republicans as the greedy, sociopathic party. I stand by that."

-- former Reagan adviser and noted economist Bruce Bartlett telling it like it is in the late Summer of 2009

Mayor Bloomberg's "Marie Antoinette Moment"

Nov 4th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker - NSFW

The only thing more annoying than the dissemination of certifiably provable bullshit is the constant and calculated repetition of that bullshit. People that do so, when they know better, are referred to as as 'bullshit artists.'

In pushing back against the Occupy Movement recently, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg demonstrated a true mastery of that form. 

The "Uncertainty" Lie

Oct 10th, 2011

To hear the Republican party's current ranking members tell it, everything wrong with the American economy stems from "over regulation." This has created too much "uncertainty" and is the reason the engine of job creation has collapsed.

In particular, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-VA) entire economic message is based on this premise. A few weeks ago, he repeated his position, "By pursuing a steady repeal of job-destroying regulations, we can help lift the cloud of uncertainty hanging over small and large employers alike, empowering them to hire more workers."

There are more examples of this nonsense HERE, HERE and HERE.

Most experts have been growing increasingly annoyed listening to this skipping record. You don't have to be an ardent Keynesian to understand that the problem starts with demand. Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute recently observed:

"There is a ... story, widely told by Republican politicians and business trade associations, which claims that business investment and hiring is being held back by uncertainty over future regulations and taxation. As Maine Senator Susan Collins said in introducing her bill to put a moratorium on all new regulations: “Businesses, our nation’s job creators and the engine of any lasting economic growth, have been saying for some time that the lack of jobs is largely due to a climate of uncertainty, most notably the uncertainty and cost created by new federal regulations” (Kasperowicz 2011). Her view has been repeated by others, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (2011) and the Chamber of Commerce (Donohue 2011)."

Is it true? Are America's businesses desperately crying out against "regulation?" 

In a word, "NO." 

As it turns out, not only is it provable that this is bullshit but, even better, it is former Reagan aide and stalwart conservative economist Bruce Bartlett who has done just that.

"Evidence supporting Mr. Cantor’s contention that deregulation would decrease unemployment is very weak. For some years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has had a program that tracks mass layoffs. In 2007, the program was expanded, and businesses were asked their reasons for laying off workers. Among the reasons offered was “government regulations/intervention.” There is only partial data for 2007, but we have data since then through the second quarter of this year.

The table below presents the bureau’s data. As one can see, the number of layoffs nationwide caused by government regulation is minuscule and shows no evidence of getting worse during the Obama administration. Lack of demand for business products and services is vastly more important."

Here is the same data from the BLS crunched by the EPI in the form of a graph.

I have opined in the past that this "uncertainty" meme is not only dishonest, it is actually anti-Capitalist.

What the GOP has been arguing in favor of over the last decade is not unfettered markets. They want to rig the game, not set it free.

Pure Capitalism is built on the concept of accepting risk.

Today's Republicans are stipulating that there should be little or no risk.

They are determined to shield capital investors from the consequences of stupid or even dangerous decisions. Their message and their mission is to eliminate responsibility.

The sick irony, now that they also have declared that "corporations are people," is that they are actually doing what they have been arguing "liberals" have been trying to do for the last two generations.

The GOP is actively conferring victimhood on a group and trying to confer special rights and a special status.

It's not the corporation's fault... it's everybody else's fault.

The little dears... 

As If We Didn't Know

Sept 23rd, 2011

via Media Matters:
"Ari Rabin-Havt on Current TV's Countdown: News Corp. is "a news company that exists to lie to its viewers."

GOP Sabotaging America, Ctd...

June 30th, 2011

Yesterday evening on MSNBC's The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell drew attention to a blistering editorial lamenting the intellectual decline of the GOP. It appeared what many regard to be one of the stalwart conservative papers from the American heartland, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The full text follows the video. It is essential reading.

The Natural Reaction To Watching The GOP "Debate"

May 5th, 2011

Okay. Here's the deal. We can parse, analyze, dissect, collate and inter-referentially interpret tonight's GOP (FOX lackey) "Debate" tomorrow. This is how I felt watching it. I hope you did not watch it. I watched so you didn't have to.

Total Lack Of Surprise

May 4th, 2011

Hats off to Johnathan Cohn for his piece at The New Republic. The opener is pure money:

"It’s becoming pretty clear how Republicans plan to defend their budget. They’re going to lie about it."

The breakdown:

"The cuts in the Affordable Care Act hit the providers and producers of health care more than the consumers, at least directly, and include changes to the delivery of medical care that will, with any luck, make it possible for people to get better, more efficient health care even as it costs less. The Republican budget actually includes most of these same cuts for the first ten years, but then puts almost the entire onus for cost-cutting on individual beneficiaries via the vouchers.

Do Rubio and his colleagues care that they are completely distorting reality? Do they even realize it? Your guess is as good as mine. And quite possibly theirs."

Read the whole thing HERE