Liar in Chief, Libeler in Chief

I'm thinking maybe Obama, if he is serious enough about getting rid of Trump, might go ahead and do this. I for one would LOVE to see a libel suit against "their" president.

Donald Trump, DON'T do black Americans any more of your "favors"!

There was no positive thing done by Donald Trump for ANY Americans, least of all black Americans in promoting birtherism, or in the goal of birtherism to de-legitimize the first black President by attacking his citizenship.

That is a spin too far.

Rather than quote his self-congratulatory toxic sludge, here is the video of the worst of his comments during the debate.




Hat tip to the Washington Monthly for the video link that demonstrates the reality of black American feeling, with which Trump is dangerously, tragically out of touch.  This kind of thinking portends policies that will incite a firestorm of racial unrest, the furthest possible antithesis of national healing.

I commend the eloquence of Mr. Thurston's video.

Jade Helm trophy?

Via FB Occupy Democrats:

Anti-Immigration Lies and the Fundamentals of Propaganda

There are three essential, defining characteristics of propaganda.

The first characteristic is that it is fully, substantially, or significantly false, not accidentally but deliberately inaccurate.

The second characteristic is that it elicits emotional thinking rather than logical or critical thinking. The emotions it is supposed to arouse are usually negative, most often fear and/or suspicion, anger, resentment or hatred, and intolerance and bias such as racism or anti-religious feeling leading to demonizing or demeaning an individual or group, or both, by linking them together.

The third characteristic is that it is part of a larger pattern demonstrating that it is part of a planned, intentional, calculated agenda that serves someone's purpose, usually political in nature, such as contrived wedge issues used to turn out voters. A perfect example of that would be the anti-gay marriage campaign issue used by Karl Rove and George W. Bush, for which the Bush campaign leadership later apologized, or the use of racial politics, dog whistle for ginning up racism, especially southern conservative racism.

A fourth characteristic, not as essential as the preceding three, but common, is to create a sense of belonging to an aggrieved group of people with shared negative feelings towards the individual or group targeted as the subject of the propaganda. Examples would be Islamophobic propaganda, anti-LGBT propaganda, and anti-immigrant or racist propaganda.

The following image from Face Book features all of the defining characteristics.



The clear implication is that Obama is offering preferential treatment in employment to undocumented immigrants, and that Obama is somehow responsible for anyone who is not employed.

This is factually inaccurate -- the first criteria or characteristic of propaganda.

From fact check.org, back in 2010 (conclusions which continue to be true as supported by additional years of data and research):

Summary

Do immigrants take American jobs? It’s a common refrain among those who want to tighten limits on legal immigration and deny a "path to citizenship" — which they call "amnesty" — to the millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. There’s even a new Reclaim American Jobs Caucus in the House, with at least 41 members.
But most economists and other experts say there’s little to support the claim. Study after study has shown that immigrants grow the economy, expanding demand for goods and services that the foreign-born workers and their families consume, and thereby creating jobs. There is even broad agreement among economists that while immigrants may push down wages for some, the overall effect is to increase average wages for American-born workers.

So, who are those economists, those experts?  What studies?

Nat Journal has some specifics, from 2013:

Left and Right Agree: Immigrants Don't Take American Jobs

March 22, 2013 As Congress considers immigration reform, experts across the political spectrum say American jobs are safe.

That immigrants take the jobs of American-born citizens is “something that virtually no learned person believes in,” Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, said at a Thursday panel. “It’s sort of a silly thing.”

Most economists don’t find immigrants driving down wages or jobs, the Brookings Institution's Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney wrote in May. In fact, “on average, immigrant workers increase the opportunities and incomes of Americans,” they write. Foreign-born workers don’t affect the employment rate positively or negatively, according to a 2011 analysis from the conservative American Enterprise Institute. And a study released Wednesday by the liberal Center for American Progress suggests that granting legal status to undocumented workers might even create jobs.

The CAP study, led by the visiting head of the Washington College economics department, sought to predict what would happen under immigration reform. The researchers considered a handful of scenarios. In each, it was presumed that the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants would be immediately granted legal status. They then looked at the effect of those undocumented immigrants not being granted citizenship at all over a decade, getting it immediately, or getting it in five years.

Legal status alone would lead to the creation of 121,000 extra jobs annually over the next 10 years, they found. Getting citizenship within five years would increase that to 159,000 jobs per year. And receiving both legal status and citizenship this year would create an extra 203,000 jobs annually.

So, clearly NOT FACTUAL; tick off the first requirement of propaganda.

Undocumented people STEALING American jobs? That gins up fear, resentment, anger, a sense of being victimized, especially if you accept the premise without fact checking or critical thinking. Tick the box for the second requirement of propaganda as well; this propaganda creates the perception of a threat.

This kind of propaganda is rife on the internet, routine on right wing sources like F*cks News, and other right wing 'media' and right wing politicians.  For example we have this from Sarah Palin, via the propaganda site Breitbart.com:

To make matters worse, Palin said that the “forgotten man” who cannot catch a break will now see their tax dollars go to help take care of illegal immigrants while they are forced to compete with them for shrinking resources and jobs.

And we have Ted Cruz, presidential candidate in the running for the 2016 election, making the same claim as Palin -- and while Palin is an empty-headed dunce, clearly Cruz knows, or should be expected to know that his claims about joblessness is a lie.  Cruz is well educated, but all too willing to pander to the worst elements on the right.
From the Washington Examiner:

Ted Cruz: Immigration will increase US joblessness

But March organizers — including the Black American Leadership Alliance and Tea Party groups — do support curbing legal immigration, saying it could take jobs away from “millions of American citizens.” Cruz also claimed the Senate immigration reform would cost Americans’ jobs but without specific reference to legal immigrants.
“If this bill is passed, it will increase unemployment,” Cruz, R-Texas, said. “If this bill is passed it will increase African American unemployment. If this bill is passed it will increase youth unemployment. If this bill is passed it will increase Hispanic unemployment.”

Palin and Cruz are just two of many pushing this propaganda lie, giving us the third criteria of propaganda, that it is repetitive in serving a larger, calculated agenda; tick off that box as well.

And lastly, we see the demonizing of immigrants (both documented and undocumented)and the link to the president in an attempt to discredit him, and to portray both immigrants and President Obama as the enemy, as the villain, as the bad guys, when they are the opposite factually.

We have conservatives banding together in their ignorant, manipulated animosity. Tick off the fourth box identifying the criterion of propaganda.

Propaganda is the tool of tyrants and dictators, of the corrupt in power, or seeking power.  It is propaganda and those manipulated by it, not immigrants, that is the enemy of democracy and of America.

Just NUTZ! Right wing nuts.

Actor Slim Pickens, riding a nuke to destruction
in Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to stop worrying
and love the bomb

The right 'wingaloos', via Wonkette, because the right really IS crazier than anything you could make up.  Sadly, this is increasingly the norm on the right.

Rick Santorum took a few questions from the audience at last weekend’s South Carolina National Security Action Summit, an annual Gathering Of The Wingaloos sponsored by conspiracy theorist, rightwing hack, and Islam-panicked freak Frank Gaffney. So it’s not too surprising that Santorum got this long “question” from a nice lady named “Virginia.” She started by explaining John Boehner’s secret deal with Obama to let illegal aliens into the country, and eventually built to a beautiful crescendo of Pure Weird.

Obama?

Nuking Charleston?

What the HELL? 

That this woman was a teacher explains a lot about why red states drag this nation down in comparison with other nations educational outcomes. It's not the only reason, but it is a contributing factor. The party of Stupid is dumbing down America.


So where did THIS insanity come from this time? Sane people want to know who's feeding the crazy.

And sure enough, it's the right wing propaganda machine.

Via Bloomberg News Whoa, Conspiracy Theories:

That's easy. In September 2013, the conspiracy news site InfoWars published an "exclusive" story, citing "a high level source inside the military," about the transfer of nuclear warheads to the East Coast. The story was shared nearly 25,000 times on Facebook, aided by a video introduction by Alex Jones and by a follow-up that quoted South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham's worry that a military build-up would lead to nuclear weapons moving through the port of Charleston. "This ultimately reeks of yet another false flag being orchestrated by the United States government in order to send us into war," Jones wrote in a follow-up.

In October 2013, the European Union Times—a "news" site that combines real stories with rumors -- cited a "Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today" to report that a nuclear weapon had been detonated off of Charleston's harbor, as proven by an Oct. 8 earthquake that happened hundreds of miles from the coast. This, according to the website, was a botched "false flag" attack, which was carried out, strangely, in the middle of the government shutdown. On Reddit, discussion swirled that the "false flag" attack led to the dismissal of US Navy Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, US Air Force Major General Michael Carey, Major General Charles M. Gurganus and Major General Gregg A. Sturdevant.

The appearance of those names in the story recalled the scam in Paper Moon, in which the names of the recently deceased were used by a salesman to sell Bibles to the surviving family members. Giardina was sacked, but this was later found to be related to a poker-rigging scheme that had been uncovered by the Navy's Inspector General. Carey was removed from his job after an investigation into a drunken bender that took him around Moscow; though Carey remains a special assistant to the commander of Air Force Space Command. Gurganus and Sturdevant were forced into retirement in September 2013, after a yearlong investigation into a Taliban attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. Both men were removed, in other words, before the alleged "false flag" attack—and neither had anything to do with nuclear security.

And it goes without saying that the "false flag" attack, according to an alleged Russian intel report as translated by a fringe site, happened fifteen months ago, hundreds of miles from America's coastline. Santorum's questioner swore that it had happened "a few months ago" and "in Charleston." If the potential 2016 candidate was wondering if he missed a major news event, he shouldn't. He didn't.

Yipppeeee! Lovin' this iteration of Obama

Obama just vetoed the Keystone XL Pipeline!

Tis the season ------for the 2014 PENNIES!

For those of our readers who have forgotten (or never knew), the pennies are our two cents worth, good penny or bad penny, for the preceding year in news.

First penny of the year -- A hooray for President Obama, for finally being the president post-mid year second term elections that we had hoped he would be post 2012.

Hooray for the executive orders, hooray for the status of the economy, hooray for him standing up to and challenging more aggressively the right wing thugs in Congress, and for his handling of racial conflicts, especially police violence related incidents.

And a second good penny to Stephen Colbert, for his ending of the Colbert Report in fabulous style.  To borrow a few lyrics from an old James Bond 007 movie theme:

"Nobody does it better
Makes me feel sad for the rest
Nobody does it half as good as you
Baby, you're the best

And nobody does it better
Though sometimes I wish someone could
Nobody does it quite the way you do
Why'd you have to be so good?"

(although if anyone can follow Colbert's act, it's Larry Wilmore)

Smoke and Mirrors, and Gum - because you can't make up stuff this stupid from the right

Numb-nuts Bo Dietle, some 4 minutes in, personifies the idiocy of the radical right and their appalling lack of knowledge of other countries, customs or cuisine. You'd expect better from a former New York City cop, given the cultural diversity of that city, but it's best to expect dumbed down from a right wing nut who mostly appears on Imus in the Morning on Fox Business rather than Fox not-news, although in this case apparently the sole perpetual topic is offensively (Not) funny-business.

Then again, the Rush Limbo variety of conservative has to be talked down to, somewhere around an elementary school level.

Then there was this clear example of unprofessional standards of correction, of the kind of mistake one would expect from a child not an adult -- however this is typical of conservative propaganda, which follows the coverage of the Obama trip to China.

Conservatives believe things which are factually false on a daily basis -- and it diminishes us all, damages us all, dumbs down all of us.

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Eric Holder Ferguson success ENRAGES Right

now

then [c.1970]

I've been watching the response from the radical right to the events in Ferguson, Missouri, particularly since the visit Wednesday by Eric Holder.

Those who protest the apparent murder of Michael Brown have spoken out quite positively about how they feel after the visit by AG Eric Holder.

They are more positive, more hopeful, and more encouraged, and that has been reflected in the more peaceful tone in the town (along with the literal dampening effect of a night of rain).

Holder is promising to look into a specific investigation into the possible violation of civil rights of Michael Brown. Further, Holder has promised to look at a broader pattern of civil rights by police as well.


That positive result in the town of Ferguson has sent conservatives off the deep end where they live, on the fringe.


In response, the right dredges up an old smear -- another fact-averse smear, of the propaganda model loved by conservatives. I've made a habit here and elsewhere of pointing out that conservatives consistently believe things which are factually false, which are lies, which are ugly propaganda.

Propaganda is manipulative, emotional rather than rational, and dishonest.


The big lie about Holder is that he is a dangerous, violent extremist, who has somehow nefariously risen to be the first African American AG in our history. They claim that when he was at Columbia University, he was the leader of an armed group of black power radicals who took over a building and held off authorities.


Of course, the REALITY, the FACTS are nothing like that.

According to Columbia, Holder was never armed, or acted inappropriately. Holder and a group of other black students approached the administration about using an empty, unused part of a ROTC building.  They went ahead and used the space, while waiting for formal approval from Columbia which came a few days later.

No weapons. No stand-off with authorities. No violence. No radical extremists, no black power group.

It's an old lie. It's been published in the Daily Liar, er, Daily Caller.  It's been spread in the Blaze.  It's been smeared around like feces in Before It's News.
There are endless examples of other right wingers who have promoted the smear, the lie, the propaganda.

Now the conservatives who live by emails sent by other crazy conservatives, and the lies promoted by Faux News, have revived it.

It was entertaining to watch conservative heads explode (figuratively speaking) when confronted with the FACTS about Holder's career.  No, not his career at Columbia; they won't be dissuaded by any factual information about that, including from the University.  No, I'm talking about the rise of Holder to his current position -- which is not the first time he's headed up the DoJ.

Think about it for a moment; who is the dead conservative MOST idolized by a majority of Conservatives?

No doubt about it - that would be the late President Ronald Reagan, or more colloquially, (secular) St. Ronnie Ray-gun.  Yes, THAT is who gave Eric Holder his entrance into a prominent role in the Judiciary.  In 1988, Ronald Reagan appointed Eric Holder to the Superior Court bench for the District of Columbia.

In 1988, he was selected by President Ronald Reagan to be an associate judge of the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. In 1993, he became the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1997, President Bill Clinton named him deputy attorney general, the first African-American to hold that position.

Holder briefly served as acting AG for George W. Bush, during the confirmation process for AG Ashcroft as well.

He [Ashcroft] later met with Eric Holder, who had served as acting attorney general since President Bill Clinton left office Jan. 20. Ashcroft thanked Holder, previously the deputy attorney general, on his last day at the Justice Department.

And of course, Holder has a few other rewards and acknowledgements that he is an excellent attorney, very qualified, influential.


But either you believe that NEITHER Ronald Reagan, while president, NOR the Senate, which approves judicial appointments to the Superior Court D.C. bench, NOR George W. Bush while President vetted Eric Holder, and chose to overlook ----- ALL OF THEM ---- such radical armed violence at Columbia, OR...........you have to concede that the Columbia story of guns and extremism is false.

Confronted with the facts, Conservatives fall silent.  They cannot relinquish the hate, the smear, the ugly propaganda.  But they are caught in a double bind, a kind of check-mate of comment.

Conservatives believe things which are not true.  Conservatives embrace and celebrate and disseminate lies.  The facts are not their friends. And there is no mystery why so many people view conservatives as racists; this is a perfect example of why.

There is something uniquely tragic about the political orientation that so loves to pat themselves on the back for their superior values, which is nothing more than holier-than-thou hypocrisy, that supports and promotes this kind of deliberate dishonesty.  There is something uniquely ugly, hateful and un-patriotic about people who WANT FAILURE of people in our government trying to intervene in a painful and chaotic situation, no matter how much misery, damage, and injury might result from failure.

A President Dealing with the Taliban? Scandalous......

Russia has a problem, and they know it. It's Putin.

Putin, playing bad ass dress up

No need to get one's knickers in a twist. 

No need to invest in a cold-war era bomb shelter, or if you have one, to try to drag everything out of it that is stored there so you can use the space for the original intention.

Yes. Putin is in the Ukraine. For now. So? He has likely put his foot in it, badly.

Putin has bigger problems at home.  This is at best a distraction, at worst, flaming stupid on his part.  His own people do not support him.  And as his economy crumbles, no amount of propaganda is likely to save him if the Russian economy continues to tank and dissatisfaction with Putin grows.

Russians Ambivalent As Putin Threatens Ukraine Invasion

Competing rallies in Russia's two biggest cities have laid bare divisions among Russians over a possible military intervention in Ukraine.

The rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg each drew hundreds of participants on March 2, one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that his country had the right to invade neighboring Ukraine.

Lawmakers unanimously authorized him to use force.

Ordinary Russians, however, appear divided over the prospect of a war with Ukraine.

Independent opinions polls conducted before the crisis show that an overwhelming majority of Russians opposed Russian meddling in Ukrainian politics as well as a possible military intervention in the country.

Raise your hand if you know why the former Soviet Union failed and collapsed.  

Lower your hand if you think it was because of Ronald Ray-gun.  It wasn't. 

It was a mix of disenchantment with Soviet militarism -- just like this latest Ukraine militarism -- combined with problems with corruption -- just as Russia has now, and most obviously demonstrated in hosting the Olympics (a 30 mile stretch of railroad costing $8.7 billion as just one example of many).  And lastly, under Putin, Russia has a similar oppression of civil rights and internal schisms and factions to those that brought about the demise of the USSR.

Putin, it appears, may have had to follow up the scandal ridden Olympics with some new move to make him look strong, and perhaps to grab the Crimean peninsula to appease those who think the Ukraine loans were a burden on Russia. 

It remains highly questionable if, having taken the land and military bases, Putin can then hold them. Trying to do so would certainly be an attempt to unify the country under renewed pseudo-nationalism and conservative hyper-patriotism.  Trying to back down the west would bolster his crumbling image.  His actions only make sense from the perspective of domestic perception, a perception Putin largely controls.

But the west doesn't have to do anything much other than financial sanctions to cut Putin off at the knees, and to wait.  In the long run, it is more likely that little or no fighting takes place, and that in the long run, Russia actually might LOSE their naval base in Sevastopol.

Rasputin - see the similarities in appearance and expression to Putin?
Ok - so Rasputin had more hair.......but with bad ass sunglasses and a shave?
It's almost the same guy!

Even if Putin has more lives, political and otherwise in the early days of the 21st century, than Rasputin did in the early days of the 20th century, his country does not, and Russia is more vulnerable now not less.  Putin presumably knows it.  The NATO countries most certainly do, and I'm confident so do Obama, Kerry and Hagel. 

It's a toss up, and a relatively insignificant one in our own politics, how much of this the radical right knows and understands.  I think it is a safe bet that another success for Obama does not bode well for the radical right in either the 2014 election cycle, OR the 2016 cycle.

From Sky News Australia:

Russian ruble at new low against euro

Updated: 22:24, Wednesday February 26, 2014

The Russian ruble fell to a new record low against the euro on Wednesday amid fears of a Ukrainian default and a slowdown in the Russian economy.
The euro surged to 49.42 rubles at around 0940 GMT, with the ruble dropping below the record set last week of 49.35 rubles.
The US dollar has risen to 35.94 rubles, its highest rate since 2009.
The ruble has lost more than eight per cent against the euro since the start of the year, as investors are reluctant to put money into emerging economies and Russia's economic activity has slowed.
Analysts at VTB Capital said that 'tensions over Ukraine once again started weighing on the ruble.'
Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak had said on Tuesday that Russia had 'no legal obligations' to pay out the full $US15 billion ($A16.68 billion) loan secured last year by Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.
Fears are growing that Ukraine will default on its obligations and Russian banks are greatly exposed to the crisis-hit ex-Soviet country.
Fitch ratings agency warned on Tuesday that Russian state-owned banks are holding the bulk of Russian banks' total exposure to Ukraine of an estimated $US28 billion.
Growth of the Russian economy slowed down sharply to 1.3 per cent in 2013 from 3.4 per cent in 2012 and 4.3 per cent in 2011. Figures published this year show this slowdown growing more marked.

With or without Putin's sun glasses, I don't think our side is going to blink.  Our side knows real (not revisionist) history, and can do math.  Well, at least the Democrats can; the tea baggers, not so well. But who really cares what they think anyway? The radical right in the U.S. has put themselves beyond the bounds of reason, and therefore outside serious consideration.

As for Putin, the questions we should be asking, how will he go, and - like Rasputin - how many attempts will it take before he's gone.

Well, just for giggles, we could ask one more question: if Putin is overthrown while Obama is President, will the radical right give him credit for it the way they did Reagan?

Right Wing busted with Lies and Hypocrisy -- Jon Stewart Shoots Down the media vermin, Fox

Did you happen to notice how the right edits things on a regular basis so as to misrepresent the content?

This is a perfect example of the kind of very dishonest editing done by that sleazy weasel who is NOT a legitimate journalist, James O'Keefe.

Seriously, it has become the right wing's standard operating procedure, both candidates and elected politicians, and right wing media. 

Did anyone else happen to notice that when the opposition has to LIE like this, they clearly must be losing, must be utterly without a valid point or facts supporting their side?  If he right didn't have racism and bigotry working for them, it is hard to know what else they WOULD have for immigration issues, or anything else.

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Politifact.com Fact Checks the NRA with a Bang and a Bust!

from their latest updates:

Fact-checking the National Rifle AssociationNever mind that President Barack Obama has done little on gun issues -- so little, in fact, that gun control advocates are unhappy. The National Rifle Association continues to portray him as a relentless threat to the Second Amendment who wants to take your guns away.

A reader sent us an NRA flier that offers "10 reasons why Obama is bad news for the Second Amendment," so we put some of the claims to the Truth-O-Meter.

The NRA claimed that "Obama supported Ted Kennedy’s ammo ban to outlaw all deer-hunting ammunition." We found little evidence that's really what the bill would do and rated the claim False.

The flier said Obama’s regulatory adviser Cass Sunstein, "wants to ban hunting and says animals should be represented in court." We found he said that but has since walked it back. A Half True.

The NRA earned a True for its claim that Obama tried to slash funding for the armed pilots program.

And finally, for its claim that "Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar,’ " the NRA earned a Pants on Fire.

Here is their full treatment of the topic:

Is the NRA right that Obama is 'coming for our guns'?

By Aaron Sharockman
Published on Friday, June 15th, 2012 at 1:42 p.m.

Related rulings:

Says Barack "Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar.’ "

National Rifle Association, Monday, June 11th, 2012.
Ruling: Pants on Fire! | Details

Says Barack Obama is "trying to slash funding for the Armed Pilots Program designed to prevent terror attacks."

National Rifle Association, Tuesday, June 12th, 2012.
Ruling: True | Details

Says Barack Obama’s regulatory adviser Cass Sunstein, "wants to ban hunting and says animals should be represented in court."

National Rifle Association, Monday, June 11th, 2012.
Ruling: Half-True | Details

Says Barack Obama "supported Ted Kennedy’s ammo ban to outlaw all deer-hunting ammunition."

National Rifle Association, Tuesday, June 12th, 2012.
Ruling: False | Details

Share this article:

The NRA's top 10 reasons on why Obama is bad for the Second Amendment. (See the full list in our individual fact-checks.)

Here are some facts you probably won't hear from the National Rifle Association: The Second Amendment is fading as a wedge issue in American politics, gun owners are winning, and President Barack Obama is doing little to alter the scales.

Nearly one in two Americans now have a gun in their home and just 26 percent favor an all-out ban on handguns, down from 60 percent in 1959, according to a recent Gallup survey. The number of Americans who support tighter gun laws is at an all-time low.

And Obama?
Gun talk has been almost anathema at the White House. Obama signed a bill in 2009 that allows people to carry loaded guns into most national parks; in 2011, he largely avoided a discussion -- to the anger of many activists -- about strengthening gun laws following the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Obama received a failing grade from the nation’s preeminent gun control group, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
We couldn’t find a word about gun policies on Obama’s re-election website.
"The gun control debate is over," said Rick Wilson, a GOP political consultant. "We live in a country where guns are a fundamental part of mainstream American culture. The moment I saw that Walmart now sells AR-15s (a type of semi-automatic rifle), I knew the debate was over."
Yet, you won’t hear much of that as the NRA campaigns against Obama in 2012.
In a new campaign mailer -- the contents of which we expect to be repeated in emails and at dinner tables -- the gun rights group is casting Obama as a gun control crusader who is "coming for our guns."
PolitiFact decided to put some of the NRA's claims to the Truth-O-Meter.
The gun rights group says Obama supported former Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s proposal "to outlaw all deer-hunting ammunition."
That’s False.
The NRA claim is cherry-picking an extreme, worst-case interpretation of a 2005 amendment to expand the definition of armor-piercing ammunition, which is legal to own or use in the United States but illegal to purchase or make.

Kennedy’s proposal had nothing to do with deer hunting, but the NRA contended it could be threatened by the bill. Yet Kennedy said his proposal wasn’t meant to target rifle ammunition commonly used to hunt deer, and since the language was never approved, we don’t know how it would have been applied. More importantly, we have no idea if Obama would have supported a hypothetical deer ammo ban as the NRA claims.
"It is absolutely ludicrous to believe that a Democratic administration would have risked the political fallout of trying to use this section to prohibit rifle ammunition," said William Vizzard, a criminal justice professor at California State University-Sacramento and a former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms agent. "The Democrats have avoided all gun control controversies assiduously."
To ban deer-hunting ammunition "would be suicide politically," added David "Mudcat" Saunders, a pro-gun Democratic strategist. "There might be some way the NRA could twist the facts. But it’s not true."
Other NRA claims on the mailer include a 1995 quote from now-Attorney General Eric Holder. The mailer quotes him saying we need to "really brainwash people" against guns. The comment came in a discussion about the need to change public opinion about firearms. Holder, then a U.S. attorney, said, "What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we’ve changed our attitudes about cigarettes."
The NRA's mailer also targets Obama’s regulatory adviser, Cass Sunstein, for saying in 2007 that he wants to ban hunting and that animals should be represented in court.
Sunstein, a law professor at Harvard University, said those things -- but he also walked back most of his comments in 2009 as he was joining the Obama administration.
"I strongly believe that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess and use guns for purposes of both hunting and self-defense," Sunstein said in part.
We rated the claim against Sunstein Half True.
The NRA earned a True for its claim that Obama is "trying to slash funding for the Armed Pilots Program designed to prevent terror attacks."
However, it’s not necessarily clear that the cut to the program -- which was scrapped by the Republican-controlled House -- should be considered anti-gun.
The federal government has budgeted $25 million a year since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to deputize and train volunteer commercial pilots to carry firearms on commercial flights. But as part of his proposed 2013 budget, Obama wanted to cut funding for the program in half.
"In an ideal world, one without budget constraints, we would fully fund the program. We’re not in that environment, so we are taking reductions," Transportation Security Administrator John Pistole said.
Critics say the move was political. The $12 million-$13 million in potential savings comprises about 0.15 percent of the entire TSA $7.6 billion proposed budget.
"The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that this was being done for anti-gun reasons," said Brian Darling, a senior fellow for government studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has been following the issue.
The evidence for another claim was completely underwhelming, we found.
Relying on a secondhand quote of Obama -- relayed to Washington Post by gun control advocate Sarah Brady -- the NRA claimed that "Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar.’ "
The genesis of the quote is a brief 2011 White House meeting between Obama, Brady, her husband Jim, and former Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence president Paul Helmke.
Helmke told PolitiFact there was no promise from Obama on gun policy, and certainly no dramatic pledge to come for anyone’s firearms.
Likely, the president was talking about an in-the-works program to get gun dealers in border states to forward some gun purchases to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Helmke said.
Brady told us her quote has been misinterpreted and that she herself never spoke with Obama about gun policy. "What ever I might have said or agreed to was purely speculative as I never spoke to the president myself about this issue," she said.
Whatever was said and what it was referring to is murky, but the NRA took a fragment of an unclear quote and prescribed the most far-reaching, conspiratorial conclusion -- when there simply isn't enough evidence for such a sweeping claim. We rated that claim Pants on Fire.

Bristol Palin Disses Obama, Dumb Hits the Second Generation

The dumb apple doesn't fall far from the stupid tree.
Bristol Palin made the following less than thoughtful observation about President Obama's interview describing the many factors which formed his change of heart about same sex marriage:

Suggesting that Obama might have appointed Dora the Explorer Attorney General had his daughters been a few years younger, Palin dismissed the announcement as the presidential equivalent of a teenage flirtation. “Sometimes dads should lead their family in the right ways of thinking. In this case, it would’ve been nice if the President would’ve been an actual leader and helped shape their thoughts instead of merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee.”

Palin has been a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, which has featured gay contestants and a transgender contestant, both of whom are arguably more deserving of being considered stars in any sense of the word than Bristol Palin.  Clearly her experiences on Dancing with the Stars supposedly changed her lifestyle - notably being a chance for her to make a lucrative financial deal by making it to the finals, after which she bought a very expensive home in Arizona; but also at the time she noted that the television experience was life changing for her.
Her mother has had a few 'life changing' experiences on television as well, unfortunately they do not seem to have expanded either her knowledge level or her understanding; Sarah Palin is as ditzy and ill-educated as ever.  So perhaps it is understandable that her daughter thinks that other people get their in-depth information and inform their ideas from entertainment rather than reading books - or actually writing them themselves.  Because clearly Bristol Palin's ideas are as shallow and trivial and just plain silly as her mother's, and as insensitive to an entire group of people with same -sex orientation.
As to the 'leadership' role of fathers, it would seem that Bristol's father has taken a backseat and subordinate role to her mother for a long time.  The man is no rocket scientist; his big claim to fame is he rides around on a snow mobile and he does manual labor in the oil fields and goes fishing for a living.  I have to wonder what kind of leadership role in shaping Bristol Palin's life he has had, given that the first dude and her mother got married several months AFTER the conception of her oldest brother.  It seems that Dad passed on the premarital sex lesson as his leadership contribution.
On the whole, I think President Obama showing a willingness to learn from a variety of serious sources, and his concern that he set an example to his daughters - which is what he was doing in matching actions and words to his thoughtful change of position on this subject - IS leadership.
Perhaps no one in the Palin household when Bristol was growing up set that kind of example, because clearly no one set an example where opinions are formed on facts and critical thinking; this is how the woman thinks, this is how her mother thinks - in shallow, fact-averse and intellectually dishonest terms.  No one knows how her father thinks, or if he thinks; he's relegated to the background, holding Sarah Palin's purse, not speaking roles.
Until Bristol Palin's social positions or political savvy or intellectual accomplishments in ANY area can match those of the President, perhaps she would be wiser to just shut up and stop embarrassing herself, or drawing more attention to her parental intellectual deficiencies.  It was no accident that while commenting on Obama's cartoon illustration, Sarah Palin was compared unfavorably AS a cartoon in the McCain campaign on a recent Jon Stewart's the Daily Show.  It was funny, because it was true; Sarah Palin is an even dimmer bulb than Michele Bachmann.

Not He Said / She Said; He Said / He's Dead

The above is from the HuffPo.
President Obama said that if he had a son, his son would look like Trayvon. Presumably he was speaking generally, rather than literally. But even in a general context, he was not that far off the mark. While I couldn't quickly locate a photo of President Obama IN a hoodie, I did find one of him ON a hoodie, that I share here for fun. Of course the Nutjob Gingrich had to call the President's comment disgraceful, criticizing Obama because he didn't apparently make it sufficiently inclusive for the Nut that he meant ALL American kids and adults should be safe. The very dishonest Nutjob did that by omitting to reference Obama's full statement where he identifies the common concern of EVERY American, especially every parent.   Clearly however, as a person of color who himself has on occasion experienced discrimination and suspicion because of being a black man, and a black teen, he can identify with the victim.   Here is what the Nutjob Gingrich had to say, in a vain effort to appeal to his tiny slice of an already small, fearful white old people base.  Clearly the President did not suggest it would be OK if a white teen or a teen of any other gender or ethnicity than Trayvon Martin had been shot.  The Nutjob Gingrich is pandering, as the current crop of GOP Presidential candidates so consistently have done, to racial division and fear of racial preference that would not favor white dominance any longer.  It is the pasty Nut Job playing the reverse race card.  From the Huff Po:

What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful. It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.

Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.

President Obama now, left, Trayvon Martin right

a young  Obama, at a similar age to Trayvon Martin
(thank goodness, he isn't wearing a hoodie, or he
might not have lived to become
the first black President of the United States -sarc.)

from Amazon.com  Cybertela

Cybertela Barack Obama 2012 Sweatshirt Hoodie President Democrat Hoody

1332608534

The message on a hoodie (or hoody), the human equivalent along with buttons of "bumper sticker think" on cars that I most enjoyed was this one. If you can't see the wording clearly, it says Hope over Fear, with the name of Barak Obama underneath. What we are pushing back against is inappropriate fearfulness in taking the side of Trayvon Martin, in opposing people being racially profiled, in opposing people being victimized by vigilantes under too-loose gun laws. That is what we need to oppose, where we need to push back against conservative paranoia and special interest exploitation for profit of our legislative system.

Guns and Politics - Update on the Arizona gun culture of violence

This is rerun from last month when we were still trying our wordpress experiment.

I want to post it here, because we have legislation in this state, and in the nation, which addresses how we regulate guns and how we use guns.  Our gun culture creates problems, and those are never more acute than in an election year.

So, by way of an earlier penigma publication, and by way of my writing on mikeb's blog, and crooks and liars -

Update: Disturbing and Possibly Racist

From ABC, we have the photo,and we have the casual treatment of this act, of shooting at an item of clothing as if it were a person, a human target.


It is one thing to shoot at an anonymous human silhouette target. It is another thing altogether to personalize that target in some way that makes it represent an actual human being, particularly as in this case where it would be an unarmed human being.

It is at the very least bad taste to treat shooting a sitting President as humorous, given the number of assassinations and assassination attempts in our history. It is insensitive to the man in office, it is vile to do to his wife and children and colleagues, who legitimately fear those who are political extremists that threaten his life. What it is NOT is a reasonable expression of free speech; there is no expounding of ideas here, no wit, no political position, only hatred and violence.

“I don’t think that the shooting of that T-shirt is that big of a deal,” Sgt. Pat Shearer, who took the photo, told ABC 15.

I don’t think one of these police officers would find it nearly so acceptable if this was done to one of his uniforms, or to a silhouette with a photo of one of their colleagues on it, or to a sports uniform of one of these kids. I don’t think their families would either. No supervisor would tolerate this as a simple expression of dissatisfaction with a work relationship, for example.

No one would find it funny, or just kidding around. Guns are not for kidding around about shooting other people. This IS the state where a year ago Gabby Giffords was shot, where other members of Congress had their offices shot up or otherwise violently vandalized in conjunction with verbal threats made to office staff.

This is another instance of the kind of dubious judgment that calls into question the expertise and intelligence and decision making when done by people in authority and with the power of force entrusted to them. The reality of what they did should be explained to them, if they are too stupid to understand it on their own. I don’t really believe they have failed to understand it. Rather they simply believe that such hatefulness is acceptable even admirable. The taking of this photo, and the way it is posed, is a kind of boasting, a macho swaggering attitude towards guns and what guns empower them to do.

And that is NOT acceptable from law enforcement officers, or their buddies. It is especially NOT the correct example to be setting for teenaged males who fall into the worst possible demographic for gun violence.

Mitch Berg Fails Another Fact Check: Endemic Intellectual Dishonesty on the Right

I'm writing this because I'm annoyed, out of patience completely with the rampant intellectual dishonesty on the right.  It is a pattern, an unacceptable pattern, one which beggars any hope of honesty or progress.

Let me hasten to add that this, clearly, is not true of all conservatives; but it IS true of an appallingly large segment of the right wing politicos, and the right-wing media, including the right wing-nut blogosphere.

So to a degree, my friend Mitch is being made the whipping boy, the example, for what is a far larger offense beyond his own responsibility; but it is not completely unfair either, because Mitch also does this regularly.

This morning, Mitch wrote:

Limousine LiberalsBy Mitch Berg

Number of federally-owned limousines  Limous soars on Obama’s watch;

Limousines, the very symbol of wealth and excess, are usually the domain of corporate executives and the rich. But the number of limos owned by Uncle Sam increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of records by iWatch New. .

In related news; Strib still biased.

So, I followed Mitch's link to the iWatch News, the source of the claims that the Obama administration is indulging in wealth and excess. The purchasing limousines claim is completely debunked, not supported, by Mitch's OWN SOURCE. 

The very site that he links to in order to make his claim says the exact opposite of what he wrote:

State Department dominates the limo count, says purchases reflect need to protect diplomats and foreign visitors in a dangerous world (caption to photo OVER headline)

Most of the increase was recorded in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

According to General Services Administration data , the number of limousines in the federal fleet increased from 238 in fiscal 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush administration, to 412 in 2010. Much of the 73 percent increase—111 of the 174 additional limos—took place in fiscal 2009, more than eight months of which corresponded with Obama’s first year in office. However, some of those purchases could reflect requests made by the Bush administration during an appropriations process that would have begun in the spring of 2008.

The GSA said its limousine numbers are not reliable, even though the federal fleet numbers are officially recorded every year. In a statement, GSA spokeswoman Sara Merriam said, “The categories in the Fleet Report are overly broad, and the term 'limousine' is not defined,” adding that “vehicles represented as limousines can range from protective duty vehicles to sedans.” Asked whether the GSA actually knows how many limos it has in its fleet, Merriam responded that GSA “cannot say that its report accurately reflects the number of limousines.”

So, apparently, the limos that Mitch refers to aren't really limos; they're not luxury vehicles, they are sedans and vehicles for protective duty. 

And there aren't really as many of them as claimed; it is apparently a clerical category. 

And they weren't all purchased under the Obama administration, an unknown number appear to be from the Bush administration.

Rumsfeld & the Right Are Wrong: Factcheck.org Fact Checks Revisionist History by Former Sec.Defense Rumsfeld,

Rummy continues his efforts to diminish the effectiveness and improvements of the Obama administration, while apparently trying to re-write the history of the Bush administration to improve a deplorable presidential legacy, of which he was a part.  Seems kind of self-serving to me, and typical of the Right's refusal to give Obama credit in world affairs where credit is due.  This provides an interesting context to evaluating Obama's handling of the upheavals in the middle east, and conservatives efforts to try to sabotage a second Obmama term.

Rumsfeld on the World’s View of America

February 21, 2011
Donald Rumsfeld wrongly denied that the U.S. is viewed more favorably under President Barack Obama than it was under President George W. Bush. In fact, residents of several nations including Britain, Germany, France and China view the U.S. more favorably, according to a survey released last year by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project.

Rumsfeld, who served as Defense Secretary under Bush, told CNN’s Candy Crowley that he didn’t think there was any evidence to support claims that residents of other nations have a more favorable opinion of America than they used to:

Crowley, Feb. 20: The president’s supporters say that in two years he has been able to return this country to a status of being liked across the world in a way that America was not liked during the Bush administration, that he has once again made America a beacon. Do you agree with that? Do you think that the U.S. is now looked at much differently than it was, and much more positively than it was during your tenure?

Rumsfeld: No, and I don’t think there’s data that supports that. I think he has made a practice of trying to apologize for America. I personally am proud of America.

Crowley: Well, he seems to be quite popular overseas in a way that President Bush was not. The streets aren’t full of people burning him in effigy. There does seem to be a new — a chance to look at America in a different way than it did during the Bush administration. You don’t think that’s true.

Rumsfeld: I don’t think that’s true, and I don’t think that there’s data that would support that.

But there is support for such claims. Pew reported in June 2010 that President Obama was pretty popular around the world. "In turn, opinions of the U.S., which improved markedly in 2009 in response to Obama’s new presidency, also have remained far more positive than they were for much of George W. Bush’s tenure," the report said.

In fact, in 16 out of 19 nations (not including the United States), those surveyed had a more favorable view of America in 2010 than they did in the last year of Bush’s presidency. Here is the Pew Research Center’s chart:

Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act Passes both House and Senate

McChyrstal and Obama: Sticks and Rolling Stones, and Names Will Never Hurt Me -- Except, Maybe This Time (Part l)

UPDATE: General McChrystal has resigned from the army, not only from his command, and will retire.


It has been front-and-center in the most recent news cycle: "The Runaway General" by Michael Hastings, in The Rolling Stone magazine. It won't be on news stands until Friday, June 25th, 2010; although technically, it is the issue for July 8-22, 2010 issue.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236

For a story only available online, in advance of print publication, it has had amazing 'legs', resulting in the resignation of one of the highest ranking generals among the many serving in the United States armed forces.