Hannity Should Really Avoid Debating On Live TV. Rick Perry Sent Meadows Text Outlining 'Aggressive' Strategy To Invalidate Election. Here's a news story from 2011: After six years of fierce partisan battling, the legislative war over voter ID in Texas is officially over. Gov. Rick Perry signed the voter ID bill into law this morning. The legislation requires voters to present one of five acceptable forms of photo ID—a drivers license, military ID, passport, concealed handgun license or a special voter ID card provided free of charge by the state.
Note that the law let Texans vote with a concealed handgun license but not a student ID. I'm pointing this out so we're not surprised at the news today about Rick Perry: As I always say, Donald Trump didn't turn the GOP into an anti-democratic party. Fox And Friends Gaslights British Boos For Ivanka Trump And John Bolton. Sen. John Thune blames shooting victims for failing to ‘take precautions’ and ‘get small’ to avoid gunfire. Scarborough Remembers Some Iraq Words–But Not His Own. This morning (3/19/13) MSNBC host Joe Scarborough's commentary looking back at the Iraq War took aim at some politicians and media outlets who were supportive of removing Saddam Hussein from power. But somehow he forgot to include his own words. "George W. Bush was far from being the only politician in Washington" who advocated for the Iraq War, he explained, digging up comments from Democrats like John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
As he put it, "The very same people who spent years beating up George Bush were the very ones beating the drum for Iraq's regime change and Saddam Hussein's ouster. " Fair enough. Well, that's not true for all of us. On April 9, 2003, the very pro-war Scarborough bashed the media outlets he thought were too negative about the war: I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative pronouncements were over the past four weeks. White House Reporters Pepper Jay Carney With Questions About Drone Memo. White House reporters tried in vain to get information from press secretary Jay Carney about a newly released paper that deals with the Obama administration's killing of American citizens.
The paper, which was obtained by NBC News, lays out some of the government's justification for the assassination of Americans with drone strikes. The memo says that the US can order the killing of Americans if they are believed to be senior Al Qaeda members, even if they are not actively plotting attacks. Carney was asked about the paper at the very beginning of Tuesday's briefing. He called the strikes "legal, ethical and wise," and said that they were constitutionally sound. “The president takes his responsibilities very seriously,” Carney said. “And first and foremost that’s his responsibility to protect the United States. " He added that the strikes were conducted “in a way that is fully consistent with the Constitution and all the applicable laws. " "But it was leaked," Welker pointed out.
The P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2012. They're back: The P.U. -litzers, FAIR's annual rundown of some of the stinkiest moments in American journalism. As usual, there were more contenders than we could possibly consider. So think of this as just a sampling of the bias, spin and misinformation that we noted over the course of the year. Without further ado... --Factchecking the Dark Arts Award: Alex Altman, Time When Time set out to compare Obama and Romney distortions, there was a big problem: Romney's campaign produced bigger, more substantive lies.
--CEOs Know Best Award: CBS Evening News With the Beltway media in full panic mode over the "fiscal cliff," CBS Evening News turned to some curious experts: Corporate CEOs. --Factchecking Your Friends Award: David Gergen, CNN When a debate broke out over whether the Obama campaign was exaggerating claims about Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, the long-time TV talking head weighed in with a CNN.com column, "Facts Don't Support Obama's Charges Against Romney" (7/16/12). Mitt Romney's Entirely Untrue, Objectively False Statements. Soledad O'Brien Calls Out Peter King Over Obama 'Apology Tour' Myth. Lambasted Chinese solar panels placed on government building. Government officials blame unfair competition from China for the collapse of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, but such concerns didn’t stop the federal government from breaking stimulus program rules to use Chinese solar panels atop a federal building housing the offices of a senator, congressman and several agencies.
Even the contractor questioned whether Chinese-made panels could be used under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus program that mandated use of U.S. -made products. His query in early 2010 was dismissed and the General Services Administration moved forward with using the Chinese panels on the Sen. Paul Simon Federal Building in Carbondale, Ill., records show. Since last summer, Solyndra LLC and another solar company, Abound Solar, have filed for bankruptcy despite receiving generous federal loan guarantees.
Meanwhile, the contractor on the Illinois building project, J.R. Democrats and Republicans Are Both Addicted to Lying. NEWS ANALYSIS - To Critics, Obama's Terror Policy Looks a Lot Like Bush's - News Analysis. Allen West: Obama Campaign Has 'Soviet Union, Marxist-Socialist Theme' New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism. The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, “Forward” — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism. Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name “Forward!” Or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called “Forward (generic name of socialist publications).” “The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology.
It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications,” the online encyclopedia explains. The slogan “Forward!” Reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism. The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. Ann Romney Flip-Flops: 'We Have Not Had a Financial Struggle in Our Lives'
Mittens: Big Scary Obama WantsTo Take God Off Our Coins! O'Donnell: Fact Checking on Ryan Meaningless for Swing Voters. When Candidates Lie, REAL Journalists Say They 'Finessed the Facts' On the subject of why politicians aren't worried about corporate media factcheckers, a New York Times article from last week (8/31/12) by Alessandra Stanley is worth a second look. Rachel Maddow: ruining it for everybody else (JD Lasica) Under the headline, "How MSNBC Became Fox's Liberal Evil Twin," Stanley wrote: "You can agree with everything that Rachel Maddow or Ed Schultz say on MSNBC and still oppose their right to say it. " Stanley's problem was that "all that attitude" on MSNBC "leaves fewer choices for viewers who like their election coverage with informed commentary without a twist of bias": All that arch sarcasm and partisan brio may rev up the cable channel’s fans, but it constrains–and stains–NBC News, its corporate sibling, which is still the country’s No. 1 source in the evening.
But what's really interesting is the first example Stanley gives of the kind of beyond-the-pale commentary that so taints the reputation of the good people at NBC News: On Thursday, Mr. Day 2: More Convention Canards. CHARLOTTE, N.C. — On the second night of their convention, Democrats misled viewers with claims about Republican economic and social policies. Among the convention canards: Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said the Republican platform would “take away a woman’s right to choose even if she is a rape victim.”
The GOP platform strongly opposes abortion, but is silent on exceptions — leaving that up to the states.The president of Planned Parenthood said Romney and Ryan “are committed to ending insurance coverage for birth control.” That’s not true. Note to ReadersOur managing editor, Lori Robertson, is on the scene in Charlotte at the convention center. Coverage for Birth Control Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, was wrong when she said Romney and Ryan “are committed to ending insurance coverage for birth control.” Ryan, too, lambasted the mandate on religious grounds. Romney said he also supported an amendment from Missouri Sen. Rape and Incest, Again Gov. Ing Obama and Biden.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a rousing double-header, Democratic delegates heard Barack Obama and Joe Biden both accept renomination on their convention’s final night. And we heard some facts being spun. President Obama boasted that his plan would cut the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, citing “independent experts.” But one such analyst called a key element of the plan a “gimmick.”Vice President Biden quoted GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney as saying “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth” to catch Osama bin Laden. Actually, Romney said he’d target more than just “one person.”The president said U.S. automakers are “back on top of the world.” Nope. GM has slipped back to No. 2 and is headed for third place in global sales this year, behind Toyota and Volkswagen.Biden said “the experts” concluded Romney’s corporate tax plan would create 800,000 jobs in other countries.
One expert said that. . $4 Trillion Deficit Reduction? Biden’s bin Laden Baloney Not Quite ‘on Top’ A Disputed Jobs Figure. Mitt Romney Is Lying. Again. | Tim Dickinson | Politics News. Obama Plays to Win, in Politics and Everything Else. By Elaisha Stokes Presidential Zeal: Whether shooting pool, reading to children or working to raise his bowling scores, President Obama cannot contain his competitive nature. Jae C. Hong/Associated Press Whether he is shooting pool, preparing for a meeting on world affairs or trying to pick up a tough spare at the bowling alley, President Obama seemingly always has his game face on. All in all, he joked at a recent New York fund-raiser with several famous basketball players in attendance, “it is very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth or sixth most interesting person.”
Four years ago, seemed as if he might be a deliberate professor of a leader, maybe with a touch of Hawaiian mellowness. As he faces off with Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, Mr. Even by the standards of the political world, Mr. “He has a general philosophy that whatever he does, he’s going to do the very best he can do,” Marty Nesbitt, a close friend, said in an interview. Mr. Joan Walsh. Mitt Romney's Federal Bailout: The Documents Pictures. Mitt Romney tells 533 lies in 30 weeks, Steve Benen documents them. Fact-checkers: Talking crap in Holland v America. Romney World’s: Freedom from Fact. Perhaps it was inevitable when you combine the Republican “do-anything-to-win” strategies, honed from the days of Richard Nixon, with the Right’s vast media machine, built over the past several decades, that America would have a campaign like the one waged by Mitt Romney and a GOP convention like the one just completed in Tampa. A t-shirt from Mitt Romney's campaign.
(Photo credit: mittromney.com) In a speech to the 1988 Republican National Convention, President Ronald Reagan blundered in quoting John Adams’s famous remark that “facts are stubborn things,” except that it came out of Reagan’s mouth as “facts are stupid things.” Reagan’s mangled quote would have fit nicely at the GOP convention 24 years later.
Today’s Republicans appear to have decided that facts are also irrelevant things. The GOP convention had the feel of a cult meeting in which everyone agrees on the same false premises. So, speaker after speaker repeated the lies and delegate upon delegate cheered the lies. Republicans vs. straw men. We were sitting just outside the Tampa Bay Times Forum minutes after Mitt Romney spoke at the Republican National Convention Thursday night, and Berden, a grandmotherly delegate from Michigan, was talking about Ann Romney’s declaration that women’s lives are a little harder than men’s. Berden agreed with Romney about that, and also, apparently, that it wasn’t government’s role to do anything about it. She’d told me that we’d been hearing so much this week about women because while “Democrats pander to women on reproductive rights, Republicans really respect women as joint partners.”
I was surprised to hear her use the phrase “reproductive rights,” which I’d never heard a conservative use. Berden blamed it on seeing Sandra Fluke on TV all the time, volunteering with a chuckle, “She’s a grown woman, we shouldn’t have to pay for her stupid birth control. She could cross her legs.” “To be fair,” I replied, with some hesitation, “she never talked about herself. A convention is not a debate. Paul Ryan: The definitive fact-check. Paul Ryan delivered a blistering assessment of President Obama aided by a casual disregard for facts. Many, including Salon’s Joan Walsh and Steve Kornacki, have already pointed out the speech’s mendacity, but here is a comprehensive guide of every single lie, misrepresentation or omission from the speech, in the order they were delivered: GM plant — Ryan: blamed Obama for the closing of GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis.
Truth: One of the biggest whoppers of the night; the plant closed before Obama was even sworn into office. His position also contradicts the Republicans’ position of opposing President Obama’s auto rescue. Stimulus — Ryan: “The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst. Jobs — Ryan: “We have a plan for a stronger middle class, with the goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the next four years.” Everyone lies. UPDATE: Paul Ryan’s challenger, Democrat Rob Zerban, called Ryan a “liar” for his speech. Peter King: AP has “no moral integrity” TAMPA — In order to enter the Republican National Convention, one had to pass through multiple layers of security, which involved so many different law enforcement agencies that I literally lost count.
So police issues were on my mind on Wednesday when I spotted Rep. Peter King, the cranky Irish Republican Army apologist from Long Island. I asked if he thought there was any merit to arguments leveled — by both the left and right alike — that police departments across the country have been excessively federalized and/or militarized, with the Tampa security situation being a prime example. “No,” King stated plainly. “Obviously, we always have to be looking out at all times that the police maintain their proper role. I asked King if he believed the highly renowned journalists responsible for the reports, Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, had integrity. “No, it’s a left-wing publication,” he rebuffed. Was he even familiar with the ProPublica report? “Yeah, sure. “How about the New York Post?”
Ignoring and defending Paul Ryan’s lies. Paul Ryan’s speech last night was so shamelessly dishonest that it seemed designed not just to stir up the crowd in the arena but also to give media fact-checkers aneurysms. There’s really no other reason for Ryan to have made the closure of the GM plant such a prominent part of his address. That wasn’t just a misleading interpretation of events, it was straight-up dishonesty. It was an attempt to break the mainstream political press. CNN is constitutionally unable to say “that was a load of tendentious bullshit.” Every actual non-idiot reporter present made note of how shameless the entire thing was, but only some feel comfortable saying so. Ryan’s GM plant story was the most blatant outright lie. That’s why the Washington Post editorial board found themselves sadly forced to sorta call Ryan a liar.
Mr. They wanted to love Ryan so, so much. The right-wing response to the Ryan-is-a-liar coverage has been basically glee that the liberal media is ganging up on their guy. That’s all true! How Paul Ryan gets away with BS. Press turns on Paul Ryan. Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach. Fact-Checkers Howl, but Both Sides Cling to False Ads.