The Year 2011 Was The Year That Anti-American Conservative Talking Points About Obama's Foreign Policy Crumbled

The Year 2011 Was The Year That Anti-American Conservative Talking Points About Obama's Foreign Policy Crumbled

Since President Obama took office, right-wing (conservative) media have argued that his foreign policy is making the United States less safe and is bent on attacking Israel. Those attacks have continued in 2011, even as the Obama administration has overseen the death of Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Anwar Al-Awlaki, repeatedly supported Israel, and been praised by Israeli leaders.

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Making The U.S. Less Safe

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Actions In Libya Were Incoherent And Dangerous For Israel

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Anti-Israel And His Administration Is Anti-Semitic

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Speech On Israeli-Palestinian Peace Based On '67 Borders With Agreed Swaps Condoned "Potential Genocide"

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Supporting "Intifada" Against Israel By Restating U.S. Policy Regarding Settlements
RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Making The U.S. Less Safe

Since Obama Took Office, Right-Wing Media Have Repeatedly Suggested That He Is Weak On Terror And Not Serious About Defending America From Terrorism Threats.

REALITY: Obama Administration Oversaw The Killing Of Osama Bin Laden And Other Terrorist Leaders

    [The New York Times, 5/2/11]

Obama Authorized The Operation That Resulted In The Death Of Osama Bin Laden. Following the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Washington Post reported that the "surgical" special forces operation that resulted in the terrorist leader's death was authorized by President Obama on Friday, April 29 after months of intelligence gathering, and was carried out early the following Monday morning (local time) as a small force of elite American troops descended on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. According to the Post, the U.S. "did not share any intelligence with foreign governments, including Pakistan's."

Obama Ordered Drone Strike That Killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, An American-Born Al Qaeda Leader. Reuters reported on September 30:

    The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen on Friday by a U.S. drone strike is the culmination of two years of extensive U.S. efforts to track down the American-born member of al Qaeda and put him out of action.

Under Obama, FBI And DEA Agents Foiled Alleged Iranian Plot To Assassinate Saudi Ambassador To The U.S. ABC News reported on October 11:

    FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States" tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.


Numerous Other Terrorist Leaders Have Been Killed During Obama's Presidency. In a September 30 blog post, ABC's Jake Tapper compiled a list of senior terrorist leaders killed during Obama's presidency. From Tapper's post:

    Earlier this month officials confirmed that al Qaeda's chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed in Waziristan, Pakistan.

    In August, 'Atiyah 'Abd al-Rahman,  the deputy leader of al Qaeda was killed.

    In June, one of the group's most dangerous commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri,  was killed in Pakistan. In Yemen that same month, AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa'ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan were killed. In Somalia, Al-Qa'ida in East Africa (AQEA) senior leader Harun Fazul was killed.

    Administration officials also herald the recent U.S./Pakistani joint arrest of Younis al-Mauritani  in Quetta.

    Going back to August 2009, Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud was killed in Pakistan.

    In September of that month, Jemayah Islamiya operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top was killed in Indonesia, and AQEA planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in Somalia.

    Then in December 2009 in Pakistan, al Qaeda operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and 'Abdallah Sa'id were killed.

    In February 2010, in Pakistan,  Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Beradar was captured; Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani was killed; and Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar was killed.

    In March 2010, al Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Pakistan, while senior Jemayah Islamiya operative Dulmatin -- accused of being the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings -- was killed during a raid in Indonesia.

    In April 2010, al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed.

    In May, al Qaeda's number three commander, Sheik Saeed al-Masri was killed.

    In June 2010 in Pakistan, al Qaeda commander Hamza al-Jawfi was killed. [Political Punch, 9/30/11, via ABCNews.com]

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Actions In Libya Were Incoherent And Dangerous For Israel

REALITY: With U.S., NATO Support, Libyans Overthrew Gadhafi      

Wash. Post: Libyan Rebels Captured, Killed Gadhafi Following "Unprecedented NATO Air Campaign." The Washington Post reported on October 20:

    Former Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi was killed Thursday after being seized in a sewage tunnel in his home town -- the final triumph for pro-democracy fighters who have struggled for eight months to take control of the country.

    Gaddafi's death came on a day of intense military activity in Sirte, the last loyalist holdout in Libya, where his supporters had fended off better-armed revolutionaries for weeks. Before his capture, a U.S. drone and French fighter jets fired on a large, disorganized convoy leaving the city that he appears to have been in. It was not clear whether the airstrikes hit Gaddafi's vehicles, NATO officials said.


RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Anti-Israel And His Administration Is Anti-Semitic

REALITY: Obama Has Stood By Israel And Lobbied Against Palestinian Statehood At The UN

    [WhiteHouse.gov, 9/21/11]

Obama Declared His Opposition To Palestinian Statehood Bid At The UN

Obama: "Peace Will Not Come Through Statements And Resolutions At The U.N." The New York Times reported on September 21:

    President Obama declared his opposition to the Palestinian Authority's bid for statehood through the Security Council on Wednesday, throwing the weight of the United States directly in the path of the Arab democracy movement even as he hailed what he called the democratic aspirations that have taken hold throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Has Repeatedly Praised Obama

Netanyahu On Obama's Opposition To A Unilaterally-Declared Palestinian State: "I Think This Is A Badge Of Honor And I Want To Thank You For Wearing That Badge Of Honor." From a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

Netanyahu  "Offered A Special Thank You" To Obama For Helping To Free Israelis Detained In Cairo. From a Jerusalem Post article:

    Israel will continue to adhere to the peace treaty with Egypt, which serves the interest of both countries, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Saturday night, at the end of a dramatic 24-hours during which an Egyptian mob laid siege to Israel's embassy in Cairo.

    All of Israel's emissaries to Cairo -- including six security guards who were holed up behind a metal door in the embassy and extracted by Egyptian commandos -- returned to Israel on Saturday, with the exception of one diplomat who will remain to represent Israel in the Egyptian capital.

    Netanyahu, in a televised announcement on Saturday night, offered a special thank you to US President Barack Obama who "said he would do everything he could" to extricate the six security guards, "and did.

Netanyahu "Expressed His Deep Appreciation" For U.S. Funding For Missile Defense System For Israel. From an April 18 Agence France-Presse article:

Former Israeli Prime Minister And Current Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "I Can Hardly Remember A Better Period Of ... American Support" For Israel Than "Right Now." From the August 3 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:


A Majority Of Jewish Israelis Have A Favorable View Of Obama

Brookings: "A Majority (54%) Of Israeli Jews Polled In 2011 Expressed A Favorable View Of [Obama]." A "2011 Public Opinion Poll of Jewish and Arab Citizens of Israel" by the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy found that a "majority" of Israeli Jews support Obama:

Just another year in which the deeply anti-American movement known as conservatism has the nerve to wrap its lies and Anti-American agenda in the flag and the Bible to deceive and mislead the American people. It is time for real Americans to stand up and push back at this dangerous anti-democracy political radicals known as conservative Republicans.

Politifact Lied -The Ryan Plan Did End Medicare in Exchange for Vouchercare

Politifact Lied -The Ryan Plan Did End Medicare in Exchange for Vouchercare

The fact-checking website PolitiFact has announced its “Lie of the Year” for 2011. It made a poor, credibility-killing choice.
Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April that they said would take an important step toward reducing the federal deficit. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the plan kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies.
Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad that said seniors will have to pay $12,500 more for health care “because Republicans voted to end Medicare.” […]
PolitiFact debunked the Medicare charge in nine separate fact-checks rated False or Pants on Fire, most often in attacks leveled against Republican House members.
Now, PolitiFact has chosen the Democrats’ claim as the 2011 Lie of the Year.
This is simply indefensible. Claims that are factually true shouldn’t be eligible for a Lie of the Year designation.
It’s unnerving that we have to explain this again, but since PolitiFact appears to be struggling with the relevant details, let’s set the record straight.
Medicare is a single-payer health care system offering guaranteed benefits to seniors. The House Republican budget plan intended to privatize the existing system and replace it with something very different — a voucher scheme. It would still be called “Medicare,” but it wouldn’t be Medicare.
It seems foolish to have to parse the meaning of the word “end,” but if there’s a program, and it’s replaced with a different program, proponents brought an end to the original program. That’s what the verb means.
I’ve been trying to think of the best analogy for this. How about this one: imagine someone owns a Ferrari. It’s expensive and drives beautifully, and the owner desperately wants to keep his car intact. Now imagine I took the car away, removed the metallic badge off the trunk that says “Ferrari,” I stuck it on a golf cart, and I handed the owner the keys.
“Where’s my Ferrari?” the owner would ask.
“It’s right here,” I’d respond. “This has four wheels, a steering wheel, and pedals, and it says ‘Ferrari’ right there on the back.”
By PolitiFact’s reasoning, I haven’t actually replaced the car — and if you disagree, you’re a pants-on-fire liar.
Indeed, reading through PolitiFact’s defense of its dubious honor, the explanation is effectively a semantics argument — its Lie of the Year, the editors argue, didn’t include the caveats and context that would make it more accurate. But let’s not forget, there were actual, demonstrable, unambiguous lies among the finalists for Lie of the Year. PolitiFact overlooked all of them.
When an outlet puts “fact” in its name, the standards for accuracy are especially high. When its selecting a Lie of the Year, standards dictate that the falsehood should be overwhelmingly obvious and offensive.
Today, PolitiFact, which relies exclusively on its credibility to affect the political discourse, ought to be ashamed of itself.
Update: I’ve seen some suggestions that Paul Ryan influenced the process by stuffing the ballot box. Here’s some additional analysis on this point.
Second Update: I didn’t realize this until later, but my friend John Cole used a similar car analogy two weeks ago. I guess great minds do think alike.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also did a thorough analysis of the Ryan plan and found that for all practical purposes - as per the car example - his plan would end Medicare. It would have shifted everyone under 55 and than eventually everyone to a voucher plan. After your voucher was spent - easily done since it would have been so small - seniors would have been stuck with 100% of their medical expenses.

Newest Hacked Climate E-Mails Still Fail to Disprove Global Warming

Newest Hacked Climate E-Mails Still Fail to Disprove Global Warming

The UK Guardian reports today that the deniers are serving 2-year-old leftovers for Thanksgiving:

    Fresh round of hacked climate science emails leaked online

    A file containing 5,000 emails has been made available in an apparent attempt to repeat the impact of 2009's similar release….

    The initial email dump was apparently timed to disrupt the Copenhagen climate talks. It prompted three official inquiries in the UK and two in the US into the working practices of climate scientists. Although these were critical of the scientists’ handling of Freedom of Information Act requests and lack of openness they did not find fault with the climate change science they had produced.

    Norfolk police have said the new set of emails is “of interest” to their investigation to find the perpetrator of the initial email release who has not yet been identified.

Actually nine independent investigations have vindicated climate science and climate scientists on the hacked University of East Anglia emails (as Skeptical Science explains, for those who want the full history).

As one scientist put it to me today:

    “Two years ago, emails were released and the American people were lied to about their content.  Now, we are expected to be gullible enough to believe the original liars a second time.”

Media Matters also has a good post, “Memo To Media: Research First, Then Report On Climate Emails.”

The bad news is that, as Media Matters explains in its latest post, “Media Already Botching Reports On Hacked Climate Emails,” with some awful “reporting” by the Washington Post already (see below).

The good news is that the perpetrators and their fellow deniers apparently think the international climate talks in Durban are actually important enough to try to trick the media once again into prematurely running stories on out-of-context excerpts from private emails from scientists, most of which were written years ago, discussing science that has long since been resolved.

Leftovers, again? One climate scientist calls the email dump, “Two-year-old turkey from Thanksgiving 2009.”

These are the “second string” emails.  The Varsity team couldn’t derail the science so it’s  really hard to see how the Junior Varsity team could. In other words, if multiple independent investigations showed that climate science was unscathed by the original batch of emails — which must have been the ones the deniers thought were the best they had — then what precisely are the chances these even weaker second-stringers are going to beat the climate science team?  After all, the climate science team has gotten considerably stronger in recent years.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences concluded its 2010 review of climate science, saying it is a “settled fact” that “the Earth system is warming.”  As for the cause, last year, Time reported on a comprehensive new review paper of “100 peer-reviewed post-IPCC studies” in an article titled, “Report: The Case for Global Warming Stronger Than Ever”:

    By looking at a wide range of observations from all over the world,  the Met Office study concludes that the fingerprint of human influence on climate is stronger than ever. “We can say with a very high significance level that the effects we see in the climate cannot be attributed to any other forcings [factors that push the climate in one direction or another],” says study co-author Gabriele Hegerl of the University of Edinburgh.

ironically or maybe just a joke on everyone gullible enough to stumble across their crazy rants a site called Junk Science is using the newest old e-mails as proof there ain't no such thing as global warming. They have no science to back them up. Perhaps they're called Junk Science because that is what they believe in, junk.

This Thanksgiving, Many Who Once Donated To Food Banks Are Asking For Help Themselves

Why Should Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan recuse herself from ruling on the Affordable Care Act

Why Should Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan recuse herself from ruling on the Affordable Care Act

The proto-fascist National Review Online's Increasingly Dishonest Push For Kagan To Recuse Herself From Health Care Case

National Review Online's Carrie Severino is still pursuing her quixotic quest to have Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan recused from any cases dealing with the Affordable Care Act. In a recent blog post and report, Severino has concluded that based on the evidence she has seen, Kagan should "recuse herself from any consideration of [the Affordable Care Act's] legality before the Supreme Court."

The charge is baseless. Kagan has said that she had not been involved in any substantive discussions of the health care reform law, the constitutionality of the law, or litigation involving the law.

And importantly, faced with the same evidence that she's now citing, Severino acknowledged back on April 11 that she didn't  "see enough evidence to know whether Justice Kagan must recuse herself from considering the upcoming Obamacare challenges."

The facts haven't changed, but Severino's conclusions certainly have. It seems that Severino hoped she would find a smoking gun that required Kagan's recusal. And when she failed in that attempt, Severino simply reversed herself on what those facts mean.

Severino's Judicial Crisis Network put out a report arguing that Kagan took part in strategizing about health care reform litigation when she was solicitor general in the Obama administration and therefore must recuse herself from considering the case as a judge.

Severino's report cites a January 2010 email from Kagan's then-deputy in the solicitor general's office, Neal Katyal, responding to an Obama administration request that the solicitor general's office send a representative to a meeting to discuss how to defend the health care bill from legal challenges. In the email Katyal said, "Let's crush them. I'll speak to Elena and designate someone [to attend]." Katyal then became the solicitor general's office's point person on health care litigation.

But Severino already knew about this exchange on April 11 when she said there was no evidence requiring Kagan to recuse herself. Indeed, Severino cited that e-mail in an April 1 blog post about the recusal issue.

Severino next cites an email in which Katyal said he would "bring in Elena as needed." Severino noted this exchange in her April 1 blog post as well.

Severino then cites an email in which Katyal said he wanted to make sure the office was "heavily involved even in the dct [District Court]." Severino noted this exchange in her April 1 blog post as well.

Severino also argues that, because some material has been redacted from FOIA disclosures due to an exemption for certain privileged materials, Kagan needs to recuse herself. As an example, Severino cites an email in which Katyal says, "In light of this, for what it is worth, my advice (I haven't discussed this with Elena, but am cc'ing her here) would be that we start assembling a response, [material redacted] so that we have it ready to go." This email (including the redaction) was the third in a set of documents to which Severino linked in her April 1 blog post. As a whole, the redactions were almost impossible to miss in that set of documents.

So almost every piece of evidence Severino cites in her report consists of something she already mentioned on April 1. And all of the evidence was available by then. And yet on April 11, she concluded that there was nothing she had yet seen that required Kagan's recusal.

Furthermore, Severino is not the only conservative who has come to the conclusion that these documents did not require Kagan's recusal. Based on the same set of documents, Terry Jeffrey of the conservative CNS News wrote on March 29:

    Did Kagan at any time as solicitor general express an "opinion concerning the merits" of the lawsuits filed against the health care law -- an act that would trigger one of the recusal standards in 28 U.S.C. 455? In the text of the emails the Justice Department provided to CNSNews.com, Kagan does not do so.

So what has changed since Severino said that she didn't see anything that required Kagan's recusal? Well, for one thing, conservative judicial icons Jeffrey Sutton and Laurence Silberman have written decisions upholding the constitutionality of the individual mandate.

Maybe the anti-health care reform forces are just getting desperate.

As is usually the case with conservatives their arguments are not based on honor or principles but what they want. They want things the way a child is obsessed with wanting something. There is no rhyme or reason, they're just going to whine and cry until they get what they want. That is actually most of what the radical right-wing National Review stands for - they demand things and they're going to throw a temper tantrum until they get it.

Koch Brother Front Group Americans For Prosperity Pushes Smear Campaign Against Me By Lee Fang

Levi Russell, Americans for Prosperity Director of Public Affairs, contributed to a blog post calling Lee a "liar." Russell, however, erroneously quoted the conversation and has refused to issue a correction.

Levi Russell, Americans for Prosperity Director of Public Affairs, contributed to a blog post calling me a “liar.” Russell, however, erroneously quoted the conversation and has refused to issue a correction.

Yesterday, Americans for Prosperity, the corporate front group founded and financed by the Koch Brothers, posted a blog post titled: “Lee Fang Lies.” The post, which was Tweeted and promoted by other conservative groups, accuses me of misrepresenting myself at the Americans for Prosperity Defending the Dream Summit last Friday. The allegations are all demonstrably false. I called AFP on the phone today to explain that their post was false and gave them an opportunity to retract it. The Americans for Prosperity’s Levi Russell, the press person involved in the smear, responded: “No, I’m not going to correct it.”

The Americans for Prosperity blog post claims that, in order to receive a press credential, I said that I was a student from California (view a copy of the post here):

    Lee Fang, a blogger with “Think Progress,” lied to event organizers about his residency and status in an attempt to gain media access to the Defending the American Dream Summit, held this past weekend at the Washington Convention Center. Fang told Americans for Prosperity Foundation that he is a student “visiting from California,” who “had to fly home tomorrow” and had really hoped to cover the event.

    However, Fang is listed as a “resident of Prince George’s County, Maryland” on his ThinkProgress author page. His wikipedia page says that he “attended college at the University of Maryland, College Park.” [...] Fang regularly impugns conservative authors as dishonest, yet characteristic of his reporting, his preferred tactic is dishonesty and lies.

I did say that I live in California, and that I was hoping to attend the conference before going home the next day. That is because I live in California and was traveling home that Saturday. Despite Americans for Prosperity’s best research efforts, I moved away from my native Prince George’s County several years ago, and relocated finally to northern California about seven months ago. The biography page cited by Americans for Prosperity is obviously out of date. Moreover, Americans for Prosperity never reached out for a clarification and, if they had looked past Wikipedia, I broadcast the fact that I now live in California on a regular basis when I appear on television and radio.

Unfortunately for Americans for Prosperity, I had been interviewing folks going into to the event on my way into the conference, and had a voice recorder still on in my pocket during the exchange with the group’s media staffers. The transcript of the entire conversation between myself, my ThinkProgress colleague Travis Waldron, and the Americans for Prosperity media staff is on tape, and clearly shows that I introduced myself as a ThinkProgress reporter, not a “student.” Click more at the bottom of the screen to read a transcript of the tape, or listen below here:

Contacted today, Americans for Prosperity public affairs director Levi Russell said he was responsible for the post because he “wanted to call you out.” Russell would not tell me the last name of the other Americans for Prosperity staffer I spoke to, who identified himself as Adam. Asked to issue a correction and apology for the smear, Russell said: “No, I’m not going to correct it.”

The fake patriots who call themselves conservatives smear for the same reasons they whine and throw temper tantrums. bringing truth and honor into the discussion just makes their pointed heads spin.

Herman Cain, the right-wing cretin who wouldn't know what honorable behavior was if he tripped over it Calls Democratic Minority Leader Princess Nancy

Anti-American Fox News Tries to Hide Connection Between Fox and Georgia Based Domestic Terrorists

Anti-American Fox News Tries to Hide Connection Between Fox and Georgia Based Domestic Terrorists

Fox News is now actively concealing a link between an Alabama-based blogger repeatedly featured on the network as an expert and allegations of a domestic terrorist plot.

This morning on America's Newsroom, Fox News ran an extensive report on yesterday's arrest of four Georgia men accused of plotting an attack on federal employees and U.S. citizens using explosives, guns, and the biological toxin ricin. At the end of the segment, correspondent Jonathan Serrie pointed out that one of the defendants "allegedly cited the online novel Absolved, which discusses small groups of citizens attacking U.S. officials," with the defendant allegedly "saying that the attacks would be based on events in that novel."

Charging documents indeed state that accused plotter Frederick Thomas repeatedly cited as an inspiration the novel Absolved, in which underground militia fighters declare war on the federal government over gun control laws and same-sex marriage, leading to a second American revolution. But Fox's report neglected to mention the allegedly inspirational novel's author, who is no stranger to Fox viewers.

Indeed, the author, Mike Vanderboegh, has been mainstreamed by the network, which has repeatedly featured him as an expert on the ATF's failed Operation Fast and Furious. Fox has identified Vanderboegh as an "online journalist" and an "authority on the Fast and Furious investigation," and has consistently failed to acknowledge his extremist views, actions, and affiliations.

Vanderboegh, a former member of the militia and Minuteman movements and now a leader of the "anti-government extremist group" the Three Percenters, which claims to represent the three percent of gun owners who "who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act" but will instead, "if forced by any would-be oppressor, ... kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution."

The complaint against Thomas details a similar scenario:

    THOMAS described a scenario in which he felt would be the "line in the sand" that would result in the activation of militias. THOMAS believed that soon, during a protest action, a protestor would be shot. It is his opinion the militias would act and respond by openly attacking the police. He then openly discussed having complied what he called the "Bucket List" which is a list of government employees, politicians, corporate leaders and members of the media he feels needed to be "taken out" to make the country right again."

Vanderboegh has stated that "another civil war in this country is the last thing I want,"writing in the introduction to Absolved that the novel is "a cautionary tale for the out-of-control gun cops of the ATF," who "need to know how powerful" the "armed citizenry" "could truly be if they were pushed into a corner."

Fox News has repeatedly presented Vanderboegh as a credible source. Their failure to mention his authorship of a novel that allegedly inspired a terrorist plot is telling.

UPDATE: In a subsequent report, Fox's Serrie said that Absolved was written by "the former leader of an Alabama militia," and briefly flashed an image of the book's cover that showed Vanderboegh's name. Serrie did not note Vanderboegh's connection to Fox News.

As Congressional Republicans do everything they can to stop employment programs and make life harder for the unemployed, the conservative media id trying to hide its ties to radical anti-American Republicans. P.T. Barnum once said there was a sucker born every minute. He might as well have been talking about modern day conservatives who keep falling for the conservative movement hiding its anti-American agenda behind the flag and the Bible.  


Subprime Loans, Foreclosure, and the Credit Crisis. What Happened and Why? - A Primer(pdf)

By 2007, subprime loans accounted for 29% of total home loans. The vast majority of the subprime loans causing today’s massive foreclosures were issued by institutions and independent mortgage brokers not covered by the CRA.

What Liberal Media - ABC News Fisker "Exclusive" Is Actually A Recycled Fox News Story From 2009

What Liberal Media - ABC News  Fisker "Exclusive" Is Actually A Recycled Fox News Story From 2009

A story touted as "an ABC News exclusive" actually rehashes a flawed narrative pushed by Fox News more than two years ago.

In collaboration with iWatch News, Brian Ross and ABC's "investigative unit" reported late last week that Fisker Automotive, a hybrid car maker that received a federal loan, "is assembling its first line of cars in Finland." The loan itself, however, can only be used to support operations based in the U.S.

ABC published the story, titled "Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland," on Thursday night and Ross reported the "ABC News exclusive" on Friday's edition of Good Morning America. Ross said that World News and Nightline would also feature the story on Friday, but ABC did not run those segments.

Instead, Ross appeared on the Fox Business Network Friday night, where he told host David Asman that those in the administration criticizing his reporting "just don't like the takeaway, which is that they got the loan and they're building the car in Finland."

But this news isn't new. In fact, it was explained by the Department of Energy (DOE) in a September 2009 press release announcing the conditional loan. According to the release, "final assembly" of the high-end Fisker Karma "will be done overseas." Indeed, Fisker had a contract to assemble the Karma in Finland before the company ever received funds from DOE. ABC failed to note this fact and the misunderstanding was compounded by other news outlets covering ABC's report.

The loan supports design work carried out in Michigan and California for the Karma, as well as the assembly of Fisker's lower-cost hybrid, Project Nina, which will take place at a former GM factory in Wilmington, Deleware. Fisker began hiring for the Delaware plant in June.

Following the DOE announcement in September 2009, Fox ran a series of segments and an online article exclaiming that the government "gave a half a billion dollars" to "a car company that is creating jobs in Finland," in the words of America's Newsroom anchor Martha MacCallum. Fox characteristically botched some important details, spurring a response from Henrik Fisker, who criticized news reports that "ignored or marginalized the truth, or sensationalized irrelevant aspects of the loan and our company." "It is unfortunate how false information can be disseminated and it is our intention to correct as much of it as possible," Fisker said in a press release at the time.

Fox is now using the ABC report to launch another round of outrage. Fox News and Fox Business have already devoted at least 18 segments to the story since Friday.

It's worth noting that Ford Motors, which received by far the largest of DOE's loans, has numerous overseas manufacturing plants. Oil and gas companies that benefit from taxpayer subsidies also conduct business all over the world. So the notion that federal incentives should not be available to companies with multinational operations has implications far beyond Fisker.

The recent media storm surrounding ABC's report has some at Fox scratching their heads. "I've been talking about it for literally two years," Eric Bolling said Friday night on his Fox Business show. "What happened yesterday that all of a sudden this story is on every single show that I watch?"

ABC's framing might provide a clue. The network's October 20 article referred to "intense scrutiny" of DOE's clean energy investments "in the wake of the administration's failed $535 million investment in solar panel maker Solyndra" and asked if "another Solyndra is in the offing."

On Thursday night, the Drudge Report hyped the ABC report as a "SOLYDRA-like story" before it was even published, citing unnamed "sources":

Drudge Headline

And on Good Morning America, Ross mentioned "questions about whether [Fisker] could end up as another taxpayer boondoggle." ABC followed up Monday with an article titled, "Obama Admin. Defends Fisker Cars From Solyndra Comparison."

CNN also adopted the Solyndra association, despite the lack of any indication at this point that Fisker -- which included in the Wall Street Journal's 2010 list of "Top 10 Cleantech Companies" -- will default on the federal loan. Introducing the story, CNN's Wolf Blitzer said on Friday: "It might, repeat, might just be another Solyndra in the making. That's what some of the critics are charging."

ABC News was among the media outlets that most persistently pursued the Solyndra story. As we showed last month, ABC dedicated more airtime to Solyndra than did CBS and NBC during the month after the solar panel maker announced its bankruptcy filing. In the same month, ABC virtually ignored a report by the Commission on Wartime Contracting which concluded that $31-60 billion has been lost to waste and fraud through contracts related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, costing taxpayers 56 times more than Solyndra's failure.

ABC's Solyndra reporting was at times misleading and littered with unsupported insinuations that political favoritism played a role in the company's loan guarantee. ABC also reported excerpts from emails leaked by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee which were later shown to be taken out of context.

After the Obama administration pointed out that the Bush administration intended to give Solyndra the loan guarantee, a claim backed up by internal documents, ABC posted the headline: "Blame It On Bush, Say Obama Officials." 

As in Fisker's case, Fox News embraced ABC's Solyndra reporting and Bill O'Reilly hosted Brian Ross on September 14. During his appearance, Ross said "there are serious questions about whether influence was involved" in the loan guarantee. Asked by O'Reilly if Solyndra "is Enron 2," Ross replied: "It has that aspect. And you know, there are lots of big names that could be drawn in. I think we will be hearing about this all the way through next November."

Like the loan guarantee program that provided financing to Solyndra and other solar companies, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program was designed to fund innovative projects that inherently carry some risk.

The program was signed into law by President Bush in 2007 and Congress allocated $7.5 billion to cover the costs of any defaults. The $529 million Fisker loan is 7 percent of that amount. The Department of Energy told ABC that Fisker has not missed a loan payment or asked to restructure the agreement.

UPDATE (10/26/11):

ABC posted another report last night titled, "Republicans Call for Probe of Obama's Green Car Program." Brian Ross also appeared on Nightline and World News with Diane Sawyer to discuss the loans to Fisker and Tesla Motors. ABC is promoting the World News segment with the title, "Another Green Company Going Bankrupt?"

On Nightline, Ross said Fisker promised to create jobs in Delaware, "but so far the only cars being made have come off the line at this plant in Finland." Of course Ross didn't explain that when Fisker got the loan in 2009, the company said it would produce the cars in Delaware starting in late 2012.

The major take-away from the story. Bush signed off on the Fisker loan. it was understood even than that Fisker would be assembling the car in Europe. None of the loan money was used for the overseas part of the Fisker company operations. The loan did create American jobs. Ross and ABC have slanted the story along Obama hating right-wing talking points. ABC and Brian Ross have been caught previously acting as a fax machine for right-wing conservative talking points about the "war on terrorism". Finally, Fisker is making the repayments on its loan on schedule. All the negative publicity coming from anti-America conservatives may do more to hurt the company's chances of success than anything else. Why are conservatives always cheering for the failure of American technology and science.

What Liberal Media - Most of President Obama's Accomplishments Go Unreported

What Liberal Media - Most of President Obama's Accomplishments Go Unreported

The teeming crowds of supporters who had cheered candidate Barack Obama’s agenda for “change you can believe in” receded quickly. The 2008 presidential election energized Americans who had never participated in politics before, particularly the young and minorities, and it attracted the interest and hopes of many independents, people who are usually less engaged in the political process. Once elected, the young president held to his word and pursued transformations in American social policy — healthcare reform, new tax breaks, and enhanced aid to college students — that vast majorities of Americans had long told pollsters they favored. Despite the usual travails of the legislative process, exacerbated in 2009 and 2010 by greater political polarization in Congress than at any other point in the post–World War II period, within 15 months Obama had already achieved much of what he set out to do on these issues. Yet Americans generally seemed unimpressed and increasingly disillusioned. The problem was that most of what was accomplished could not be seen: It remained invisible to average citizens.

The public had no trouble noticing the jockeying of special interests that sought favored treatment in legislation — that was plain to see — but the majority of Americans remained unaware of the contents of the president’s signature achievements, and they lacked a basic understanding of how they and their families might be affected by them. The first major piece of legislation that Obama had signed into law, the stimulus bill of February 2009, included a vast array of tax cuts: They totaled $288 billion, 37 percent of the cost of the entire bill. Among them, the Making Work Pay Tax Credit, one of his campaign promises, reduced income taxes for 95 percent of all working Americans. Yet one year after the law went into effect, when pollsters queried the public about whether the Obama administration had raised or lowered taxes for most Americans, only 12 percent answered correctly that taxes had decreased; 53 percent mistakenly thought taxes had stayed the same; and 24 percent even believed they had increased!

Healthcare reform represented Obama’s chief policy goal, and he expended a vast amount of political capital in pursuing it over his first 15 months in office. But in April 2010, just weeks after he signed the healthcare bill that extended coverage to the vast majority of working-age Americans and prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage to people who are ill, 55 percent of the public reported that they would describe their feelings about it as “confused.”

That same legislative package also contained sweeping changes in student aid policy that aimed to help more people attend college and complete degrees. Yet when Americans were asked how much they had heard about these changes, only 26 percent reported “a lot,” while 40 percent said “a little,” and fully 34 percent said “nothing at all.”

All told, the public seemed largely oblivious to the president’s major policy accomplishments.

While many who had voted for Obama grew complacent, grassroots mobilization emerged from another quarter, the insurgent Tea Party movement. Wielding placards at protests on tax day, town hall meetings and other public events, its supporters decried what they termed “government takeovers” of healthcare and student loans. At a gathering in Simpsonville, S.C., in August 2009, one man told Republican Rep. Robert Inglis, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.” Inglis said later, “I had to politely explain that ‘Actually, sir, your healthcare is being provided by the government,’ but he wasn’t having any of it.”

While as of March 2010 only 13 percent of Americans reported that they considered themselves “part of the Tea Party movement,” nonetheless the frustration that it embodied resonated with growing numbers of Americans: 28 percent considered themselves supporters.

With the content of Obama’s legislative accomplishments appearing so opaque and incomprehensible even as the calls of opponents resonated loud and clear, most Americans registered reactions that were tepid at best, and many grew increasingly hostile. By the fall of 2010, 61 percent of likely voters told pollsters they favored a repeal of healthcare reform.

It was a sharp contrast to the warm reception given to sweeping social welfare laws achieved by earlier presidents. After Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act of 1935, 68 percent of the public voiced support for its “contributory old age insurance plan … which requires employers and workers to make equal contributions to workers’ pensions” — even though its benefits were not scheduled to begin for six years.

When Congress passed Lyndon Baines Johnson’s plan for Medicare in 1965, strong majorities repeatedly said they approved of it, as high as 82 percent in a December survey that year.

Until Obama’s presidency, perhaps never before had major laws that aimed to improve the lives of vast numbers of ordinary Americans gone so unrecognized and unappreciated by so many.

What explains the public’s reticence, frustration and confusion? Certainly its reactions owe partly to the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, with more than two years of near 10 percent unemployment. Some of the lackluster response was inevitable, furthermore, given the sheer scope and complexity of the policy tasks Obama took on. And a share of the blame belongs to his administration’s own public relations efforts, which many observers considered underwhelming. Yet while each of these commonly cited factors undeniably played a role, they do not, by themselves, explain Americans’ blasé response to major social policy accomplishments that reflected broadly shared values. Historical comparisons make this evident. The public voiced its high approval for the Social Security Act of 1935, for example, when the nation was still mired in the Great Depression and when twice the proportion of Americans, 20 percent, remained jobless. That legislation was also multifaceted and complex, and it was even more novel for the United States than the 2010 healthcare package, marking the first major involvement of the U.S. federal government in social provision for people besides veterans and their relatives.

The main difference confronted by Obama emanated from the types of policies that he sought to reform, ones that generate particularly formidable obstacles. Any leader who seeks to transform “politics as usual” is bound to confront resistance — challenges emanating from the policies, practices and institutions already in place.

But the nature and difficulty of the task vary depending on the particular goals that reformers select and the historical context in which they pursue them. Roosevelt confronted a political landscape that presented its own challenges — not least, a Supreme Court that served as a major roadblock to his policy ambitions. His administration had to attempt to fashion policies that would circumvent the court’s reach and to build as much as possible on what already existed, such as social policies adopted by some states. But Obama’s policy agenda, in the current political context, requires him to engage in a struggle more akin to that undertaken by Progressive Era reformers, who had to destroy or reconstitute deeply entrenched relationships if they were to achieve change.

He could not follow the path of Roosevelt, finding a way around political obstacles or merely building on top of what existed; rather, he had to find ways to work through them, by either obliterating them or restructuring them.

This is because Obama, given his policy agenda, had steered directly into the looming precipice of the submerged state: existing policies that lay beneath the surface of U.S. market institutions and within the federal tax system. Contrary to opponents’ charges that his agenda involved the encroachment of the federal government into private matters, Obama was actually attempting to restructure a dense thicket of long-established public policies, but ones that are largely invisible to most Americans — and that are extremely resistant to change. Efforts to transform these policies, which have become entrenched fixtures of modern governance, generate a deeply conflictual politics that routinely alienates the public, hindering the chances of success or the sustainability of the reforms.

The “submerged state” includes a conglomeration of federal policies that function by providing incentives, subsidies or payments to private organizations or households to encourage or reimburse them for conducting activities deemed to serve a public purpose. Over the past 30 years, American political discourse has been dominated by a conservative public philosophy, one that espouses the virtues of small government. Its values have been pursued in part through efforts to scale back traditional forms of social provision, meaning visible benefits administered fairly directly by government. In the case of some programs geared to the young or to working-age people, the value of average benefits has withered and coverage has grown more restrictive.

Ironically, however, the more dramatic change over this period has been the flourishing of the policies of the submerged state, which operate through indirect means such as tax breaks to households or payments to private actors who provide services. Since 1980 these policies have proliferated in number, and the average size of their benefits has expanded dramatically.

Most of these ascendant policies function in a way that directly contradicts Americans’ expectations of social welfare policies: They shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans. Take the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction (HMID), for example, which is currently the nation’s most expensive social tax break aside from the tax-free status of employer-provided health coverage. Let us assume that a family buys a median-value home and to finance it borrows $230,000 at an interest rate of 6.25 percent for 30 years. The richer the household, the larger the benefit: In the first year, the average family, with an income between $16,751 and $68,000, would owe around $3,619 less in taxes; those in the next income group, with earnings up to $137,300, would reap an extra $5,146; and so forth, on up to the wealthiest 2 percent of families, with incomes over $373,650, who would enjoy a savings of $6,673. Of course, in reality, these differences are likely to be much greater. Low- to moderate-income Americans usually do not have enough deductions to itemize, so they would forgo this benefit and receive instead only the standard deduction. Meanwhile, the most affluent are likely to purchase far more expensive homes; if a family in the top income category opts for a more upscale home and borrows $500,000 for a mortgage, it will reap a benefit of $14,506 from the HMID; if this family purchases a truly exclusive property and borrows $1 million for a mortgage, it will qualify to keep a whopping $29,012!

This pattern of upward redistribution is repeated in numerous other policies of the submerged state: Federal largesse is allocated disproportionately to the nation’s most well-off households. Such policies consume a sizable portion of revenues and leave scarce resources available for programs that genuinely aid low- and middle-income Americans.

Yet despite their growing size, scope and tendency to channel government benefits toward the wealthy, the policies of the submerged state remain largely invisible to ordinary Americans: Indeed, their hallmark is the way they obscure government’s role from the view of the general public, including those who number among their beneficiaries. Even when people stare directly at these policies, many perceive only a freely functioning market system at work. They understand neither what is at stake in reform efforts nor the significance of their success. As a result, the charge leveled by opponents of reforms — that they amount to “government takeovers” — though blatantly inaccurate, makes many Americans at least uncomfortable with policy changes, if not openly hostile toward them.  ***Rest of the article continues at the link.

What with internet access to many government sites and public policy think tanks if the public, especially right-wing conservatives uses the internet at all it is go to sites whose bias is evident in the serial lies that tell about Obama and Democrats. Some minds are simply closed to the truth and new ideas. The example above of the tea nut who wanted government to keep their hands off his Medicare is a good example - Medicare is a government health insurance program, what conservatives derisively call an entitlement program. It is an entitlement because individuals pay for it through their payroll taxes. It is not a government giveaway. It is not giving anyone a free ride.

The Latest Desperate Smear Of Occupy Wall Street Protests: The Nazis Like Them

The American Nazi Party put out a statement on Thursday that was supportive of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Rocky Suhayda, the party's chairman, said, "My heart is right there with these people."

The right-wing blogosphere saw an opportunity to associate the protests with Nazis, and the pile-on began. The Blaze quoted the statement, as did Fox Nation and Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft.

On the Monday edition of Fox News' flagship "straight news" program Special Report, anchor Bret Baier also treated this endorsement as if it were significant:

Interesting fact about Suhayda: During the 2008 presidential campaign, he declared his preference for Barack Obama over John McCain.

In a June 2008 piece, Esquire magazine interviewed Suhayda along with three other white supremacists -- and three of the four preferred Obama. Esquire also interviewed a black nationalist who chose McCain.

Similarly, an Al Qaeda affiliate expressed its hope that George W. Bush would win re-election in 2004, and an Al Qaeda website offered its support for McCain in 2008.

So, does this mean that Obama is just like the Nazis, or that Bush shares Al Qaeda's goals, or that McCain is a black nationalist?

Of course not. These are all ridiculous associations to make. Fringe groups make provocative comments like this all the time, often in the interest of attracting publicity.

The right-wing media's promotion of Suhayda's statement reveals an agenda that is dead-set on delegitimizing the message of the protests, to the extent that they're willing to employ comically flimsy logic in an attempt to do so.

Reminder: If a Nazi says something nice about you, that doesn't make you a Nazi.

Avowed America Hating Fascist Andrew Breitbart And His New Black Panther Smear

Avowed America Hating Fascist Andrew Breitbart And His New Black Panther Smear

Andrew Breitbart wants you to know that he doesn't think President Obama is "a secret member of the New Black Panther Party." But he's more than willing to hide the truth in order to conjure up the ridiculous smear that sometimes, they hang out.

Under the headline "Shock Photos: Candidate Obama Appeared And Marched With New Black Panther Party in 2007," Breitbart reports that at a March 2007 march in Selma, "then-Senator Obama was joined by a group of Panthers who had come to support his candidacy."

Breitbart is providing some publicity for charges that New Black Panther Party fabulist J. Christian Adams leveled at the president in his new book Injustice: Exposing The Racial Agenda Of The Obama Justice Department, which comes out tomorrow. Breitbart provided a blurb for the back of the book, and in the acknowledgements Adams thanks Breitbart, whom he describes as his "soul brother and pied piper."

In claiming that Obama was "joined by" the Panthers, "appeared and marched with" them, and "shar[ed] the same podium" with them, Breitbart carefully avoids explaining just what the event in question was. References to Obama campaigning "in Selma, Alabama in March 2007" and a mention of how "then-Senator Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton were also in Selma at the same event" do more to confuse the readers than explain it to them.

What Breitbart is trying to avoid acknowledging is that several thousand people "appeared and marched" with the New Black Panthers that day. The event in question was the 42nd anniversary of the 1965 march from Selma, which ended when the civil rights marchers were attacked by law enforcement at Edmund Pettus Bridge. The Birmingham News reported:

    Former President Bill Clinton and presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama locked arms with civil rights icons Sunday and marched through thousands of wellwishers, crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge to cap the 42nd anniversary Right to Vote and Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

It wasn't Obama's event. It wasn't the Panthers' event. They were all in Selma for an annual celebration of an historic civil rights moment. During that event, Obama and New Black Panthers leader Malik Zulu Shabazz gave speeches from the same podium, and both were part of the crowd that then marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Breitbart says that the Panthers "explicitly came to Selma to support Obama," and basically establishes that they followed Obama around that day. For Breitbart, this constitutes "an association between a vile racist organization and a future President of the United States."

Breitbart provides this photo, which he says shows that the Panthers and Obama "departed together for the main march itself":

But a less-cropped version of the image and the YouTube video Breitbart pulls it from shows Obama walking several feet ahead of the Panthers in the middle of a crowd of people:

Looks a little different in context, doesn't it? Photos at link.

In an attempt to further prove Obama's "association" with the Panthers, Breitbart claims that "Obama's own campaign website would post an endorsement by the New Black Panther Party in March 2008," later asking, "Who posted the Panthers' endorsement on the Obama campaign's website, and at whose instructions?" As a matter of fact, the Washington Times reported the answer to this question three years ago: the website, my.barackobama.com, allowed users to set up their own blog pages, and the Panthers themselves put up the endorsement. When the campaign became aware of the post, they took it down.

Breitbart also raises the specter of the New Black Panthers leader receiving invitations to the Oval Office, writing:

    I have been calling for the White House to disclose which Malik Shabazz visited the private White House residence on July 25, 2009, two months after the DOJ voter intimidation case was dismissed.  So far, the White House has refused to do so, leaving open the question of which "Malik Shabazz" appears in visitor logs released to the public.

But whichever Shabazz visited the White House, the administration has made clear that it was not the New Black Panther Party leader.

Fake patriots like Breitbart are using the same tactics history's worst despots and propagandists have used for centuries. They cannot win on the facts so they have to create false narratives, distortions of the truth, wild-eyed crazy conspiracy theories. The only people who are guilty of extremism are Bretibart and his mindless sheep followers. They are using the blessings of this democratic republic to undermine our freedom and national morality.

Conservative Republican Media Tell Bald-faced Lie About EPA and New Bureaucrats, Than Refuse To Correct Story

Conservative Republican Media Tell Bald-faced Lie About EPA and New Bureaucrats, Than Refuse To Correct Story

We talked earlier about the Daily Caller’s massive screw-up yesterday, on an important story about the Environmental Protection Agency. I figured the conservative outlet would grudgingly bury some awkwardly-worded correction and move on. I assumed wrong.

To briefly recap, the Daily Caller reported that the EPA is eyeing new greenhouse gas measures, which would in turn ask American taxpayers “to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules.” The piece was quickly embraced by the conservative message machine, with Fox News, National Review, and others trumpeting the story.

The problem, of course, is that the story isn’t true. The EPA, which only has 17,000 employees, is specifically “tailoring” its rule so that it won’t have to hire 230,000 officials. It’s right there in the court filings the Daily Caller relied on to publish its bogus piece.

Instead of backing off its obviously-wrong reporting, though, Daily Caller executive editor David Martosko is doubling down.

    “The EPA is well-known for expanding its reach, especially regarding greenhouse gas emissions. What’s ‘comically wrong’ is the idea that half of Washington won’t admit it. The EPA’s own court filing speaks volumes,” Martosko said in an email.

    “What’s more likely: that the Obama administration’s EPA wants to limit its own power, or that it’s interested in dramatically increasing its reach and budget? Anyone who has spent more than a few months in Washington knows the answer,” he added. “The suggestion that the EPA — this EPA in particular — is going to court to limit its own growth is the funniest thing I’ve seen since Nancy Grace’s nipple-slip.”

Look, I realize conservative media outlets like to play fast and loose with the facts. I also realize the right’s version of reality is often, shall we say, malleable.

But this is just ridiculous. Martosko is trying to make an argument based on assumptions and evidence-free predictions, and while I’m sure that’s more fun than journalism and abiding by professional ethics, the question here is plainly empirical. The Daily Caller reported — in black and white, and without qualifiers — that the EPA agency is “asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats.” Either that’s true or it’s not. What’s “well known” or perceived as “likely” is irrelevant. The claim is either accurate or it’s inaccurate.

And in this case, what the Daily Caller reported is plainly wrong.

It happens. Media outlets get things wrong. I’ve been a professional writer for a while and I’ve made plenty of embarrassing mistakes. The responsible thing to do is correct the record and try not to do it again.

The conservative media world, though, just doesn’t seem to care. It explains a great deal about why those who rely on outlets like these seem so woefully uninformed about current events.

Conservatives have a long history of contempt for ant efforts to protect American families and children to add a few more dollars to the bottom-line of corporations like Exxon - who already make millions in profits per day. Add to their contempt for the average American's health a morally bent attitude toward the truth and no wonder the right-wing conservative press just makes things up in their ongoing propaganda. Conservatives have been accusing descent hard working Americans of being socialists for years, yet they are the ones that act most like Stalin's old Politburo.

Is Obama Phasing Out Asthma Inhalers

Conservatives Launch Bogus Attack On Obama Over FDA's Phase Out Of Certain Inhalers

The conservative media today attacked the Obama administration by attempting to link them to the Food and Drug Administration's decision to phase out "over-the-counter asthma inhalers containing chloroflouorocarbons (CFCs)." The Weekly Standard published a piece by Mark Hemingway headlined "Obama Administration Set to Ban Asthma Inhalers Over Environmental Concerns," which claimed that the "Obama administration would rather make people with Asthma cough up money than let them make a surely inconsequential contribution to depleting the ozone layer."

But it turns out that the FDA was simply following through with plans put in place when George W. Bush was president.

Hemingway reported:

    Remember how Obama recently waived new ozone regulations at the EPA because they were too costly? Well, it seems that the Obama administration would rather make people with Asthma cough up money than let them make a surely inconsequential contribution to depleting the ozone layer

Hemingway went on to cite an Associated Press article that explains some details of the inhaler ban, but Hemingway must not have read the AP article too closely. That's because the AP reported that "[t]he FDA finalized plans to phase out the products in 2008" when Bush was president, not Obama. From the AP article:

    The FDA finalized plans to phase out the products in 2008 and currently only Armstrong Pharmaceutical's Primatene mist is available in the U.S. Other manufacturers have switched to an environmentally-friendly propellant called hydrofluoroalkane. Both types of inhalers offer quick-relief to symptoms like shortness of breath and chest tightness, but the environmentally-friendly inhalers are only available via prescription.

Moreover, the FDA stated in a September 22, 2011, press release that it began "public discussions about the use of CFCs" for inhalers as early as January 2006 and that it had "finalized the phase-out date for using CFCs in these inhalers and notified the public in November 2008." From the FDA press release:

    The FDA began public discussions about the use of CFCs in epinephrine inhalers in January 2006. The FDA finalized the phase-out date for using CFCs in these inhalers and notified the public in November 2008. Many manufacturers have changed their inhalers to replace CFCs with an environmentally-friendly propellant called hydrofluoroalkane (HFA).

The United States has been committed to reducing CFCs ever since it signed The Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that was originally adopted on September 16, 1987, under the Reagan administration.

Despite the fact that The Weekly Standard's attack on Obama was refuted by the very source the Standard cited, other conservatives immediately pounced:

Among other brain-dead conservatives who regularly display a lack of respect for the facts was radio moron Tammy Bruce, little parrot Amanda Carpenter and the proto-fascist website Pajamas Media. All conservatives. America waits for the day these conservatives have something other than the values of brown-shirted thugs. Everyday these bitter right-wing misfits have a decision to make, fidelity to American values like the truth or to use lies and half-truths to attacks America loving Democrats who only want the best for the nation.

Associated Press Pushes False "fact check" of President Obama's statements on Buffett Rule

Associated Press Pushes False "fact check" of President Obama's statements on Buffett Rule

The conservative media have echoed the criticisms made by a misleading Associated Press "fact check" of President Obama's statements about taxation and the Buffett Rule he has been promoting. Progressive economists have rebutted the AP's criticisms and lent support to his proposals.
AP: Millionaires Already Taxed More Than Their Secretaries

AP: "The Data Say" Millionaires "Are Already Taxed At Higher Rates Than Their Secretaries." From an Associated Press "fact check" by Stephen Ohlemacher:

    President Barack Obama says he wants to make sure millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries. The data say they already are.

    "Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it," Obama said as he announced his deficit-reduction plan this week. "It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million."

    On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

    The 10 percent of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70 percent of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. [Associated Press, 9/20/11]

Progressive Economists Back The Buffett Rule, Refute AP

Krugman: "The Obama/Buffett Claim Is Absolutely, Totally True." From Nobel laureate Paul Krugman's New York Times blog:

    Well, it seems as if a number of people in the media have decided that Obama was fibbing when he said that some millionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries -- because, as the usual suspects triumphantly declare, on average millionaires pay higher average taxes than middle-income Americans.

    This is, of course, stupid: the operative word is SOME.

    And we're not talking about one or two exceptional guys, either. Look at the IRS data on returns for the 400 highest incomes in America (pdf) -- specifically, Table 3. If you look at the numbers since 2004, you'll see that in a typical year between 30 and 40 percent of those super-high-income players paid an average tax rate of less than 15 percent; most of them paid less than 20 percent. Bear in mind that for the very wealthy the payroll tax -- the main burden on working-class Americans -- is trivial, because of the cap on Social Security and the fact that it only applies to earned income. And what becomes clear is that the Obama/Buffet claim is absolutely, totally true.

    So why the attack? Probably because it's such an effective line. And we can't have populism that actually strikes a chord with the public, can we? [The Conscience of a Liberal, The New York Times, 9/21/11]

CEPR's Dean Baker: Obama "Made A Simple And True Statement In His Speech On The Budget." From Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research:
    President Obama made a simple and true statement in his speech on the budget Monday. He said that there were millionaires and billionaires who pay tax at a lower rate than middle income families.

    Many news outlets went to town to point out that on average millionaires and billionaires pay tax at a higher rate than middle income families. Of course this is not what Obama said. He was pointing out that some of the richest people in the country (Warren Buffet was his model), get most or all of their income as capital gains and therefore only pay taxes at the 15 percent capital gains rate.

    The NYT gets this right today. Other outlets could have saved a lot of trees and better served their readers if they didn't work so hard trying to refute something that President Obama did not say. [Beat the Press, Center for Economic and Policy Research, 9/21/11]

Jared Bernstein: Buffett Rule Is A "Principle," A "Guideline For Tax Reform." From Jared Bernstein, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

    Actually, let's look at this principle for a moment, for "principle" it is--in fact, it doesn't factor at all in the $1.5 trillion in revenue raised in the President's budget plan.   The administration laid it out as a guideline for tax reform, a kind of tripwire in the tax code to avoid the problem identified by billionaire Warren Buffet: because much of his income gets special treatment in the tax code, he faces a smaller effective tax rate than many in the middle class.

    [...]

    Now, it's not the case that every millionaire pays a smaller share in taxes compared to middle class families.  But, as my colleague Chuck Marr points out on the CBPP blog, if much of their income derives from non-labor earnings, like capital gains and dividend payouts from their equities, then they likely do pay less as a share of their income.

    And in fact, Chuck features a graph showing that the effective tax rate (taxes paid as a share of income) on income and payroll taxes are about 15% for a middle-class family with mostly earned income, compared to 12% for a millionaire (or higher) household with at least 2/3 investment income.

    Here's another look at the same data from the Tax Policy Center.  This figure shows the effective tax by share of investment income.  The effective rate drops by half going from left (more labor income) to right (more capital income).

    Source: Tax Policy Center, link above.

    Is there a rationale for such favorable, and potentially distortionary, tax treatment?  As noted here, I don't see it, and the research is supportive of that view.  It's just another loophole (and another victory for the winning side in the class war, but that's another issue...) [On the Economy, 9/20/11]

CBPP's Tax Policy Director Chuck Marr: "A Significant Group Of Very Wealthy People Pay A Smaller Share Of Their Incomes In Federal Income And Payroll Taxes Than Large Swaths Of The Middle Class." From Off The Charts, a blog of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

 Funny how conservatives suddenly decide, when convenient, that facts matter. They have lied, distorted and told half truths for fifty years to manipulate the American public into voting against their own best interests. Now that they have left president Obama with few tools to fix the economy they broke, they're lying in their tactics to once again avoid responsibility for keeping millions of Americans unemployed. Keeping Americans unemployed is their major campaign theme heading into 2012. They figure the worse the economy, the more they can shift blame.

President Obama and The Economy

President Obama and The Economy

Every political failure in a democracy begins with bad storytelling. When false narratives and incoherent story lines dominate public conversation, poor decisions are sure to follow.

So it is with the presidency of Barack Obama. This brilliant orator's inability to tell a simple tale of how America has ended up mired in an economic recession blighting the lives of millions borders upon pathology.

Writing in the New York Times, psychologist Drew Westen imagines how Obama might have framed it: "I know you're scared and angry," he could have said. "Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn't work out."

Ah, but that would be needlessly confrontational. It would be playing the "blame game." Every Republican commentator from sea to shining sea agrees that telling the plain story of how George W. Bush turned the balanced budgets he inherited from Bill Clinton into a $10.6 trillion National Debt, an ongoing $1.3 trillion annual deficit, and an economy in free fall is terribly rude.

They prefer a bogus tale of wild over-spending by the current administration, which the White House does little to correct. A born conciliator, Obama seemingly hates to make anybody angry, with the result that hardly anybody's happy with his leadership, while his GOP rivals treat him with open contempt.

"The real conundrum," Westen adds "is why the president seems so compelled to take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him ... That a large section of the country views him as a socialist while many in his own party are concluding that he does not share their values speaks volumes -- but not the volumes his advisers are selling: that if you make both the right and left mad, you must be doing something right."

The failure, however, isn't Obama's alone. With a few signal exceptions, journalists aren't doing much better. Part of the problem is the lazy he said/she said convention reporters use to cover their ignorance and to avoid criticism, mainly from the right.

Economist Dean Baker, one of the few -- along with Paul Krugman -- who warned against the real estate bubble that caused Wall Street's near-collapse in 2008, regularly skewers pusillanimous reporting on his "Beat the Press" weblog.

He recently quoted a CBS News report archly chiding Obama for blaming "policies inherited from his predecessor's administration for the soaring debt." The site notes that Obama "singles out:

-- 'two wars we didn't pay for'

-- 'a prescription drug program for seniors ... we didn't pay for'

-- 'tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that were not paid for'

[Obama] goes on to blame the recession, and its resulting decrease in tax revenue on businesses, for making fewer sales, and more employees being laid off. He says the recession also resulted in more government spending due to increased unemployment insurance payments."

But, contrary to CBS's presentation, these aren't debatable assertions by a politician seeking to deflect criticism. They are facts, and should be reported as such.

Some more facts: Total U.S. government spending under Bush rose almost 88 percent, from roughly $2 trillion in FY2002 to $3.5 trillion in FY2009. On Obama's watch, it's increased another 7.2 percent

President Obama states the truth once, maybe twice. Phone and privacy hacker Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and the AM radio right-wing hate merchants tell lies about the economy over and over again everyday. Which message do you think sinks in with the average American. Conservatives and conservative economic polices ( sometimes carried out by DINOS - democrats in name only) trashed the family car. Gee, what do you know it takes longer and more efforts to rebuild a car than it does to crash it. Not only that but conservative Republican in the House of Representatives have tied one of Obama's hands behind his back by obstructing every effort to create jobs and repair the economy. There might not be a new jobs bill because conservatives who said deficits didn't matter from 2000 to 2008 now claim we have a spending problem(see chart). Conservatives will only stop screwing up the lives of ordinary hard working Americans when those Americans put their foot down and say enough. If conservatives will not respect America they need to pack up and leave.