Liar, liar, pants on fire. Part deux

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At GOP convention in Tampa, full truth is sometimes missing

By William Douglas, August 30, 2012

Beyond the hoopla, politics and glitz, the Republican National Convention has been marked by speeches filled with half-truths, misleading statements, obfuscations and downright falsehoods.

From economic issues to welfare to Medicare to President Barack Obama’s work history, the convention’s headlining speakers often stretched the truth – to the point of breaking, in some cases.

Here’s a look at some of what was said:

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney repeated a line often used by Republicans that Obama traveled overseas and apologized for American behavior early in his presidency.

"I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour," Romney said. "President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators."

Obama made a several speeches overseas early in his presidency to introduce himself to the world. He never issued a formal apology in any of those speeches. In a speech in Paris, Obama said: "In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

Obama did issue a formal apology to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in February for the burning of Korans by U.S. troops. Romney made no reference to that apology.

Vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech Wednesday was chock-full of inaccuracies and misleading statements. The Wisconsin House of Representatives member said the Obama administration had “funneled out of Medicare” $716 billion to pay for the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act. Romney echoed the line Thursday night.

“You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in Washington still didn’t have enough money” to pay for the law, he said. “So they just took it away from Medicare.”

Not so. Obama didn’t gut $716 billion from Medicare to pay for the health care law. Instead, the administration instituted changes in Medicare to lower health care costs in the future, according to PolitiFact, a fact-checking website run by the Tampa Bay Times. The changes amount to a projected savings of $716 billion over 10 years, an amount calculated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The changes the administration made primarily affect insurance companies and hospitals, and not Medicare recipients directly.

Ryan also told conventioneers that Obama did nothing with the recommendations of a bipartisan presidential commission tasked with advising on how to reduce the federal budget deficit, a panel of which Ryan was a member.

“They came back with an urgent report,” Ryan said of the panel. “He thanked them, sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing.”

Obama wasn’t the only one, however. Ryan helped block the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform from being voted on in Congress.The report by the 18-member panel called for deep spending cuts in domestic and military spending and for changing the tax code. While some Republicans on the commission embraced lowering tax rates, they balked at defense cuts.

The report needed to be approved by a super-majority of 14 to be taken up by Congress. Eleven panelists voted for the report. Seven, including Ryan, voted against it.

“Although I could not support the plan in its entirety, many of its elements surely are worthy of further pursuit,” Ryan said in a statement in December 2010. “They establish a much-needed foundation and justification for fundamental policy reforms.”

Further, Ryan blamed Obama for Standard & Poor’s lowering the United States’ credit rating from AAA to AA in August 2011. Ryan said Obama’s presidency “began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.”

Standard & Poor didn’t specifically blame Obama for the lowered rating. Instead, it cited the unpredictable, partisan political environment in Washington and the difficulty Democrats and Republicans had in agreeing on almost anything. In other words, the blame was everyone’s.

“The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective and less predictable than what we previously believed,” the rating agency wrote in a report. “Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee (of Congress) decisions on more comprehensive measures.”

Ryan wasn’t the convention’s only truth-offender. On Tuesday evening, former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., told the convention that Obama has waived the work requirement for welfare, gutting the major component of the landmark 1996 bipartisan welfare-overhaul law.

“This summer he showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the work requirement for welfare,” Santorum said in a prime-time speech.

It’s a line often repeated by the Romney campaign, and it’s a line that’s false.

At issue is the Obama administration’s decision last month to consider granting waivers to states that seek more flexibility to run welfare programs. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote that waivers would be granted only to states that move at least 20 percent more people from welfare to work. She added that states must demonstrate “clear progress towards that goal.”

In 2005, 29 Republican governors sought similar authority. One of them was Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. PolitiFact gave Santorum’s charge a “Pants on Fire” rating.

Continuing Tuesday night’s convention theme blasting Obama for his truncated “You didn’t build that” line, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, claimed Wednesday night that the president “never started a business – never even worked in business.”

While it’s true that Obama never started a business, he’s worked in business. In 1983 and ‘84, he worked as a research assistant at Business International Corp. in New York. He helped write a newsletter, according to PolitiFact.

From 1993 to 2004, Obama was an associate and later a partner at the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. He worked on employment discrimination and voting rights cases.

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MORE:

The GOP’s steady diet of whoppers

By Eugene Robinson, August 30, 2012

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Strange bedfellows

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Billionaire Koch backs gay marriage
Posted by Joel Connelly, August 31, 2012

Billionaire conservative David Koch was a delegate to the Republican National Convention,  is spending millions to back GOP candidates, but disagrees with his party and presidential nominee on same-sex marriage.

“I believe in gay marriage,” Koch told Ken Vogel of Politico outside a reception in Tampa.

Asked about nominee Mitt Romney’s opposition to marriage equality, Koch replied:  “Well, I disagree with that.”

Romney spent much of the Republican primary season trying to appease the religious right on same-sex marriage.  He backed the embattled Defense of Marriage Act, said he would support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and appoint like-minded federal judges.

(Two federal courts have ruled against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which denies spousal and survivor benefits to same-sex partners, and allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in neighboring states.)

The Republicans’ platform contains an endorsement of the Defense of Marriage Act, and defines “marriage as a union of one man and one woman.”

Koch and his brother Charles are expected to channel as much as $400 million into anti-Obama and pro-Republican advertising during the fall campaign.  They are behind one of the major “SuperPACs” — Americans for Prosperity — that has been hitting the airwaves for months.

Asked if money is playing too great a role in politics, David Koch replied:  “Well, it’s a free society and people can invest what they want..”
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Did "Dirty Harry" miss his mark?

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Did Clint Eastwood lose the plot at Romney's convention?
By Matt Spetalnick and Claudia Parsons, August 30, 2012

Republicans may have made Mitt Romney's day with the presidential nomination he long sought, but it was Dirty Harry himself who nearly hijacked the show with a rambling diatribe against President Barack Obama - addressed to an empty chair.

Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood brought his star power and trademark gravelly voice to the stage of the convention hall in Tampa on Thursday, jetting in as a surprise last-minute speaker to warm up the crowd for Romney's acceptance speech.

Eastwood's cameo appearance, including an ad-libbed monologue with an imaginary Obama in an empty chair, seemed to thrill many in the audience, but was widely panned by observers across the political spectrum.

"Clint, my hero, is coming across as sad and pathetic," legendary Chicago film critic Roger Ebert said in a message on Twitter.com. "He didn't need to do this to himself."

Former Romney adviser Mike Murphy tweeted: "Note to file: Actors need a script."

The 82-year-old Academy Award-winning director and actor, who endorsed Romney earlier this month, strode to the podium serenaded by the theme music from his classic western, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."

Eastwood delivered an off-the-cuff, deadpan discourse, at times biting in its criticism of Obama, at times supportive of Romney's candidacy, whom he lauded for a "sterling" business record.

But more often he was nearly incoherent, meandering from one topic to another, including the state of the economy, the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

At one point, Eastwood said he "never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to be president," apparently unaware that Romney holds a law degree.

In one of his lucid moments, Eastwood - squinting, with his gaunt face framed by thinning, disheveled gray hair - told the cheering crowd: "When somebody does not do the job, we've gotta let them go."

Occasionally, he paused to berate the chair, telling an absent Obama to "shut up."

The phrase "invisible Obama" went viral on the Internet, and pictures of people with empty chairs filled Twitter. Obama's own Twitter account posted a picture of Obama sitting in a chair marked "The President" with the comment, "This seat's taken."

DID CLINT BOMB?

Many felt that Eastwood bombed on the political stage.

"What the heck is THIS?" Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod tweeted.

"A great night for Mitt Romney just got sidetracked by Clint Eastwood. Wow. That was bad," tweetedJoe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who currently does commentary for MSNBC.

Some in the audience, however, were left starry-eyed.

"He's a fabulous actor," said Rita Wray, a member of the Mississippi delegation, who praised Eastwood's "dry wit." She said she was a fan of his movies, though she couldn't name a single one.

It took some coaxing from the crowd, but Eastwood finally led the delegates in declaring "Make my day" - the signature line of the gun-slinging detective he played in the "Dirty Harry" movies.

Eastwood was reluctantly drawn into the 2012 campaign earlier this year when an ad by Chrysler, titled "Halftime in America" and narrated by Eastwood, ran during halftime of the Super Bowl.

Many people saw it as Eastwood promoting, and possibly endorsing, the Democratic president because Chrysler had received a government bailout.

Eastwood, who backed Republican John McCain's unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid, flatly denied that, saying at the time that he was "certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama."

Eastwood, a long-time Republican, has himself dabbled in politics. He served as mayor of his small upscale hometown, Carmel, California, in the 1980s.

Convention organizers preparing for the final night of the carefully scripted event had fueled buzz about a celebrity mystery speaker by leaving a spot open on the official program.

Just hours before the session began, Romney's campaign confirmed that Eastwood was coming to town. His speech came just before Florida Senator Marco Rubio introduced Romney for the biggest test of his White House bid.

Republicans have long criticized Obama for his cozy relations with a bevy of liberal Hollywood stars like George Clooney, but convention planners apparently wanted to show that they too could bring a touch of show-business glamour to bear.

Despite Eastwood's Republican affiliation, many of his views differ with the party. Though he has described himself as a fiscal conservative, he backs gay marriage, favors gun control and abortion rights and supports environmental causes.

That may reinforce some conservatives' suspicions that Romney is himself insufficiently conservative.

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Paul Ryan's weaseling

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Ryan doesn't see the link between being forced to bear a child resulting from rape and economic issues!  What a damned fool!!
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TRANSCRIPT: NBC's BRIAN WILLIAMS’ INTERVIEW WITH REP. PAUL RYAN
30 Aug 2012 6:24 PM

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
A lot of your speech was devoted to leadership. That could also be construed as ownership. Are you prepared to leave this gathering and own the fact that the platform of this party allows a woman who has been raped no exception but to carry that child to term?

PAUL RYAN:
Well, I think the platform is-- is silent on that particular issue. Mitt Romney has a position on this. The president of the United States sets the policy. And Mitt Romney's position is that there are exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
There's no exception in the platform.

PAUL RYAN:
Well, I think the platform's silent either one way or the other on that. The platform-- of which I think is a great document. I'm proud of the platform-- it's something that produced by the delegates, and the president of the United States sets policy on this issue. And Mitt Romney's policy is well known.

//

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Well, I ask about this because it's the third cycle now where there's a disconnect between the platform and the candidate running. And in a business where you and your opponent are trying to attract especially suburban women. Does it send the right message?

PAUL RYAN:
You know, I think what suburban women are mostly worried about is jobs. I mean, look who got hit hardest in this economy. It's women. Poverty among women is at a 17-year high. Women are worried about the education of their children, they're worried about economic growth and opportunity. They're worried about the fact that we're mortgaging their kids' futures. So, that's what most women are asking us about.

//
[snipped]
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Do we need more proof?

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Sorry Mitt Romney, Good Businessmen Rarely Make Good Presidents: Businessmen like Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, and the Bushes went on to be some of the worst presidents
By PETER ALLAN, February 17, 2012

Successful business experience is the central rationale for former Gov. Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. To support Romney one must, at a basic level, believe that being good at business either generates experience or hones qualities that are likely to produce successful presidential leadership at a reasonably high rate. One assumes that the validity of this proposition is testable against the historical record. If Romney is correct, presidents with significant business experience should outperform those without—and this fact should be reflected in the presidential rankings that have been compiled by a bipartisan group of historians since 1948. If Romney is wrong, if business leaders perform as well or less well than the average, then business success is at best immaterial and may actually be detrimental to presidential leadership. In that case a core tenet of Romney's presidential candidacy evaporates.

We have had 20 presidents in the modern era (i.e., since 1900). Five of those had significant business careers before entering politics. Unfortunately for Romney, the results are not good for the businessmen.

None of the great or near-great presidents—Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or Woodrow Wilson—was a businessman. Truman was a failed businessman (a haberdasher) before entering politics, but that hardly constitutes a ringing endorsement of Romney's claim for private sector ascendency.

For that matter, none of the better-than-average presidents was a businessman either. In this category think of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton.

Probably the most successful president with real business experience (and success) was George H.W. Bush. Before going into politics he founded Zapata Petroleum, which ultimately became Pennzoil. Bush 41 ended up a one-term president unable to kick-start an economy in a recession and seemingly out of touch with the problems of the common man. Sound familiar?

It gets worse from here. Jimmy Carter, another one-term president beset with economic woes, was a success in agribusiness (peanut farming) before getting into politics. He generally falls into the lower half of the historians' rankings.

And then we get the big three—the men widely considered by historians to be the worst presidents of the modern era: Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover, and George W. Bush. One left the country on the verge of a depression, one left the country in a depression, and one presided over such corruption and ineptitude that despite the failings of the other two he still manages to get the lowest ranking of them all. And yet all three made millions of dollars in the private sector before entering politics. All three were successful businessmen (a newspaper publisher, a mining tycoon, and the owner of a professional baseball team). Bush 43 even went to Harvard business school, like Romney, and like Romney promised to bring business principles to the Oval Office.

With this kind of track record, maybe voters should apply some market principles to the core Romney Rationale and choose a different brand of dog food.

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Liar, liar, pants on fire

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FACT CHECK: Ryan takes factual shortcuts in speech
By CAL WOODWARD and JACK GILLUM.  August 30, 2012

GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts during the Republican convention when he attacked President Barack Obama's policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit. His running mate, Mitt Romney, was expected to speak later Thursday in the convention's culmination.

A closer look at some of Ryan's remarks Wednesday at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla.:

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RYAN: "And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. ... So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama."

THE FACTS: Ryan's claim ignores the fact that Ryan himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the House in the past two years as chairman of its Budget Committee, using the money for deficit reduction. And the cuts do not affect Medicare recipients directly, but rather reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance plans and other service providers.

In addition, Ryan's own plan to remake Medicare would squeeze the program's spending even more than the changes Obama made, shifting future retirees into a system in which they would get a fixed payment to shop for coverage among private insurance plans. Critics charge that would expose the elderly to more out-of-pocket costs.

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RYAN: "The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal."

THE FACTS: Ryan himself asked for stimulus funds shortly after Congress approved the $800 billion plan, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ryan's pleas to federal agencies included letters to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis seeking stimulus grant money for two Wisconsin energy conservation companies.

One of them, the nonprofit Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp., received $20.3 million from the Energy Department to help homes and businesses improve energy efficiency, according to federal records. That company, he said in his letter, would build "sustainable demand for green jobs." Another eventual recipient, the Energy Center of Wisconsin, received about $365,000.

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RYAN: Said Obama misled people in Ryan's hometown of Janesville, Wis., by making them think a General Motors plant there threatened with closure could be saved. "A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: 'I believe that if our government is there to support you ... this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year."

THE FACTS: The plant halted production in December 2008, weeks before Obama took office and well before he enacted a more robust auto industry bailout that rescued GM and Chrysler and allowed the majority of their plants — though not the Janesville facility — to stay in operation. Ryan himself voted for an auto bailout under President George W. Bush that was designed to help GM, but he was a vocal critic of the one pushed through by Obama that has been widely credited with revitalizing both GM and Chrysler.

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RYAN: Obama "created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing."

THE FACTS: It's true that Obama hasn't heeded his commission's recommendations, but Ryan's not the best one to complain. He was a member of the commission and voted against its final report.

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OK, so who's right?

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Florida’s GOP governor touts recovery; Tampa convention to disagree
By Holly Bailey,  Aug 26, 2012

Rick Scott, the Republican governor of Florida, likes to tell voters that his state has experienced a major economic turnaround since he took office 19 months ago.

In a press release last week, Scott's office pointed to numbers indicating that Florida's unemployment rate had the "fastest in the nation" decrease since early 2011. On the stump, the first-term governor—whose approval rating is only 41 percent, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll—regularly touts rising median home prices and positive job growth numbers in the state.

"Throughout our state, we see signs our economy is moving in the right direction," Scott said during a jobs event in July.

Mitt Romney tells a different story. When the presumptive Republican nominee talks, he describes a Florida with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, its sunny skies darkened by record-high foreclosure rates and rising poverty rates.

Job numbers, Romney frequently says in his stump speech, aren't improving in Florida and other states because people are finding employment. "It's because people have simply stopped looking for work," he says.

The clashing messages between Romney and Scott made people wonder what the Florida governor would say during his speech at the Republican National Convention this week. But on Saturday, Scott canceled his appearance at the RNC to focus on preparations for Tropical Storm Isaac.

More important is how Romney will handle the narrative of economic improvement as he tours battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and Virginia, where the state's Republican governors have all touted improving jobs numbers in recent months.

While he continues to rail against Obama's "failed" presidency, Romney has tweaked his message to include a line acknowledging that the economic environment has improved—and could continue to do so before November. But he argues that it is "in spite" of the president's policies that jobs numbers have been on the upswing, and he insists the nation should be in a better place.

"He doesn't understand how the policies he put in place made it harder for this economy to recover," Romney told voters in Iowa in June. "And so today, I hope things are getting better. I think they are, the economy. I sure hope so. But it's no thanks to him. It's in spite of him."

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"Muddy on facts"? Yes, indeed.

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FACT CHECK: Anti-Obama film muddy on facts
By BETH FOUHY, August 28, 2012

 "2016: Obama's America," a new conservative film exploring the roots of President Barack Obama's political views, took in $6.2 million to make it one of the highest-grossing movies of last weekend. The film, written and narrated by conservative scholar Dinesh D'Souza, argues that Obama was heavily influenced by what D'Souza calls the "anti-colonial" beliefs of his father, Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan academic who was largely absent from the president's life.

To document that claim, D'Souza travels to Kenya to interview members of Obama's extended family as well as to Hawaii and Indonesia, where Obama grew up. He also cites several actions and policy positions Obama has taken to support the thesis that Obama is ideologically rooted in the Third World and harbors contempt for the country that elected him its first black president.

The assertion that Obama's presidency is an expression of his father's political beliefs, which D'Souza first made in 2010 in his book "The Roots of Obama's Rage," is almost entirely subjective and a logical stretch at best.

It's true that Obama's father lived most of his life in Kenya, an African nation once colonized by the British, and that Obama's reverence for his absent father frames his best-selling memoir. D'Souza even sees clues in the book's title: "Notice it says 'Dreams From My Father,' not 'of' my father," D'Souza says.

But it's difficult to see how Obama's political leanings could have been so directly shaped by his father, as D'Souza claims. The elder Obama left his wife and young son, the future president, when Obama was 2 and visited his son only once, when Obama was 10. But D'Souza frames that loss as an event that reinforced rather than weakened the president's ties to his father, who died in a car crash when Obama was in college.

D'Souza interviews Paul Vitz, a New York University psychologist who has studied the impact of absent fathers on children. In Obama's case, Vitz says, the abandonment meant "he has the tension between the Americanism and his Africanism. He himself is an intersection of major political forces in his own psychology."

From there, the evidence D'Souza uses to support his assertion starts to grow thin.

D'Souza says Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, shared his father's left-leaning views. After living in Indonesia for several years, D'Souza said, Dunham sent the younger Obama to live with his grandparents in Hawaii so he would not be influenced by her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian who worked for American oil companies and fought communists as a member of the Indonesian army.

"Ann separates Barry from Lolo's growing pro-Western influence," D'Souza says in the film. Obama has said his mother had sent him back to Hawaii so he would be educated in the United States.

In Hawaii, D'Souza asserts with no evidence, Obama sympathized with native Hawaiians who felt they had been marginalized by the American government when Hawaii was becoming a state. D'Souza also asserts — again with no evidence — that Obama had been coached to hold those views at Punahou, the prestigious prep school he attended in Honolulu.

"Oppression studies, if you will. Obama got plenty of that when he was here in Punahou," D'Souza says, standing on the campus.

In Kenya, D'Souza interviews Philip Ochieng, a lifelong friend of the president's father, who claims the elder Obama was "totally anti-colonial." Ochieng also discloses some of his own political views, complaining about U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Iraq and saying the U.S. refuses to "tame" Israel, which he calls a "Trojan horse in the Middle East." D'Souza seems to suggest that if a onetime friend of Obama's late father holds those opinions, so too must the president himself.

D'Souza then goes through a list of actions Obama has taken as president to support his thesis. Many of them don't hold water:

— D'Souza rightly argues that the national debt has risen to $16 trillion under Obama. But he never mentions the explosion of debt that occurred under Obama's predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, nor the 2008 global financial crisis that provoked a shock to the U.S. economy.

— D'Souza says Obama is "weirdly sympathetic to Muslim jihadists" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He does not mention that Obama ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the drone strikes that have killed dozens of terrorists in the region.

—D'Souza wrongly claims that Obama wants to return control of the Falkland Islands from Britain to Argentina. The U.S. refused in April to endorse a final declaration on Argentina's claim to the islands at the Summit of the Americas, provoking criticism from other Latin American nations.

—D'Souza says Obama has "done nothing" to impede Iran's nuclear ambitions, despite the severe trade and economic sanctions his administration has imposed on Iran to halt its suspected nuclear program. Obama opposes a near-term military strike on Iran, either by the U.S. or Israel, although he says the U.S. will never tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.

— D'Souza says Obama removed a bust of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office because Churchill represented British colonialism. White House curator William Allman said the bust, which had been on loan, was already scheduled to be returned before Obama took office. Another bust of Churchill is on display in the president's private residence, the White House says.

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So, who is Dinesh D'Souza and why does he hate Obama?  Check out these sites:
*  Why Does Dinesh D'Souza Hate America?
*  Dinesh D'Souza's "2016: Obama's America": The Five Most Hilarious Lowlights
*  Only in His Dreams
*  Fear And Loathing In 2016: Obama's America
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Please! Teach evolution, not creationism

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Bill Nye the Science Guy says creationism not good for kids
By Lily Kuo, August 28, 2012

Scientist and children's television personality Bill Nye, in a newly released online video, panned biblical creationism and implored American parents who reject the scientific theory of evolution not to teach their beliefs to their youngsters.

"I say to the grownups, 'If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we've observed in the universe that's fine. But don't make your kids do it,'" said Nye, best known as host of the educational TV series "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

The video, titled "Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children," was posted on Thursday by the online knowledge forum Big Think to YouTube and had netted more than 1.3 million views as of Monday.

In it Nye said widespread public doubt in the scientific concept of evolution -- which holds that human beings and all other forms of life developed from a process of random genetic mutation and natural selection -- would hinder a country long renowned for its innovation, intellectual capital and a general grasp of science.

"When you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in (evolution) it holds everybody back, really," he said.

According to a Gallup poll that surveyed 1,012 adults in May, 46 percent of Americans can be described as creationists for believing that God created humans in their present form at some point within the last 10,000 years.

Education advocates have argued for decades over what children should be taught in public schools in regard to the formation of the universe, life and humans.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that requiring biblical creation to be taught in public schools alongside evolution was unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment separation between church and state.

In April, a law was passed that protects teachers in Tennessee who wish to critique or analyze what they view as the scientific weaknesses of evolution, making it the second state, after Louisiana, to enable teachers to more easily espouse alternatives to evolution in the classroom.

Nye said that while many adults may believe in creationism, children should be taught evolution in order to understand science. Absent a grasp of evolution, he said, "You're just not going to get the right answers." And he called evolution the "fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology."

Teaching children the building blocks of science is essential for the country's future, he added, saying, "We need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future."

Nye's popular show, produced by Disney's Buena Vista Television, aired from September 1993 to June 1998 on PBS and was also syndicated to local television stations.

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PBS: a litmus test for conservatives

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Conservatives, Let’s Save PBS!
Tyrades! By Danny Tyree, August 23, 2012

I guess Mitt Romney thought he was preaching to the choir when he told “Fortune Magazine” some juicy details of his economic plan. But the choir is not a monolith; it’s made up of distinct individuals.

Romney indicated that his actions as president would include COMPLETELY ELIMINATING federal subsidies for public broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Before we go any further, let’s nail down the staggering figures that supposedly have the Founding Fathers (who did favor “promoting the general welfare”) turning over in their graves. The amount distributed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting each year amounts to less than $1.50 per American!

I have no doubt that a Republican landslide could steamroll right over those appropriations (as well as whatever federal money goes to ballets, orchestras and art museums), but it would be a Pyrrhic victory. As with heaping indignities upon the military foes we conquer, it could create generations of ill feelings for Republicans/conservatives. We need to take the high road.

I know, Democrats/liberals will always find something nasty to say about the other side; but, the Second Amendment notwithstanding, Mitt doesn’t have to give them AMMUNITION!

I think the idea of “compassionate conservatism” can still be salvaged. But giving arts projects a sneering “sink or swim” edict will not serve that cause.

If (and that’s a mighty big if) we were going to have a true bare-bones, scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners budget, I would grudgingly say that arts funding needs the old heave-ho. But if we’re going to have a dog and pony show and then retain congressional perks, “nonessential employees” and mega tax breaks for targeted industries, making the arts an early target is just chintzy, petty and counterproductive.

Yes, in a perfect world, arts projects would “stand on their own” — but not even the oil companies do much standing. They’re sitting at the table 24-7, wolfing down tens of billions of dollars in subsidies!

I dread seeing “disdain for the arts” become a litmus test for conservatives. Yes, the firebrands in the GOP Establishment (the ones who supported the Children’s Television Workshop until they realized it didn’t involve sweat, beatings or gruel) are licking their lips at the prospects of yanking the rug out from under elitist pinkos; but other Republicans/conservatives serve on the boards of local public TV stations, and millions of salt-of-the-earth folks with traditional values feel no guilt about learning from public TV or adding a little culture to their lives by occasionally admiring a sculpture exhibit.

These people may shake their heads at the excesses of the liberal elite in Hollywood, but they do not feel obligated to walk in lockstep with the right-wing elite with their gated communities and country clubs, either.

Don’t take the easy way out if you perceive a liberal slant to the arts. Create programming that is as intellectually compelling as conservative icon William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line” — programming that public TV station programmers won’t be able to turn down. If scurrilous lies come across on PBS or NPR or a neighborhood mural, counter those lies through talk radio, blogs and the grapevine.

Here’s a litmus test for conservatives: true conservatives do not throw out the baby with the bathwater! Support the arts!
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More fear mongering by National Organization for Marriage

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NOM Sounding More Desperate For Money
Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on August 25, 2012

The National Organization for Marriage appears to be entering into panic mode. Back when Maggie Gallagher ran the show, there was at least some semblance of intellectual discourse, even if it was often a pack of lies coming out of NOM. Now, it’s just fear mongering.

Brian Brown recently wrote:

“I need to update you with some distressing news. As I write this update from Tampa, in preparation for the 2012 GOP convention, it appears our fight to defend marriage this fall will be even tougher than we anticipated…Bottom line: if people of faith don’t immediately stand up to match the homosexual lobby’s money, gay “marriage” will be imposed as the law of the land for all of us. We can win this fight but not unless Christians and marriage supporters step up their contributions right now.

So please read my email below to support our action plan with an immediate contribution. I’m counting on your urgently needed support as this fight is bigger than even we originally thought.

Um…so, if same-sex marriage is passed, straight people are going to be forced into gay marriages? That seems to be what Brown is saying. Brown recently had a bunch of vacuous (on his part) debates with Dan Savage about same-sex marriage. Brown and his buddies had to pay for a misleading study that has gotten their pet researcher into some serious trouble with his University as well.

Brown and company know that their arguments for marriage inequality are on shaky ground. They do not have any legitimate data that backs up their position, and they are terrified that their cash cow is about to be headed for a few hundred pounds of ground beef.

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GOP policies-- dangerously wrong

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Romney accuses Obama of engaging in 'low' politics
By DAVID ESPO, August 26, 2012

His Republican National Convention curtailed by a threatened hurricane, Mitt Romney conceded Sunday that fresh controversy over rape and abortion is harming his party and he accused Democrats of trying to exploit it for political gain.

"It really is sad, isn't it, with all the issues that America faces, for the Obama campaign to continue to stoop to such a low level," said Romney, struggling to sharpen the presidential election focus instead on a weak economy and 8.3 percent national unemployment.

[snipped]

Polls make the race a close one, with a modest advantage for President Barack Obama.

For all the Republican attempts to make the election a referendum on the incumbent's handling of the economy, other events have intervened.

An incendiary comment more than a week ago by Rep. Todd Akin, the party's candidate for a Senate seat in Missouri, is among the intrusions. In an interview, he said a woman's body has a way of preventing pregnancy in the case of a "legitimate rape." The claim is unsupported by medical evidence, and the congressman quickly apologized.

Romney and other party officials, recognizing a political threat, unsuccessfully sought to persuade Akin to quit the race. Democrats have latched onto the controversy, noting not only what Akin said but also his opposition to abortion in all cases.

"Now, Akin's choice of words isn't the real issue here. The real issue is a Republican Party - led by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan - whose policies on women and their health are dangerously wrong," said a recent letter from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party.

The party also posted a Web video that emphasizes the Republican Party's opposition to abortion and digitally alters the Republicans'"Romney-Ryan" logo to say "Romney Ryan Akin."

Interviewed on Fox, his comments broadcast on Sunday, Romney said the controversy over Akin "hurts our party and I think is damaging to women."

[snipped]

In a presidential race defined by its closeness, Republican office-holders past and present said the party must find a way to appeal to women and Hispanics, and they said the economy was the way to do it.

"We have to point out that the unemployment rate among young women is now 16 percent, that the unemployment rate among Hispanics is very high, that jobs and the economy are more important, perhaps, than maybe other issues," said Arizona Sen. John McCain, who lost to Obama in 2008.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush agreed, saying that Romney "can make inroads if he focuses on how do we create a climate of job creation and economic growth." If he succeeds, "I think people will move back towards the Republican side," Bush added.

Obama leads Romney among women voters and by an overwhelming margin among Hispanics, but he trails substantially among men.

The result is a race that is unpredictably close, to be settled in a small number of battleground states.

Making his case for the support of female voters, Romney said in the Fox interview: "'Look, I'm the guy that was able to get health care for all of the women and men in my state. ... 'I'm very proud of what we did."

It was a rare voluntary reference to the legislation he signed as governor of Massachusetts that required the state's residents to purchase coverage, the sort of mandate that is at the heart of Obama's federal legislation that conservatives oppose and Romney has vowed to see repealed.

[snipped]

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Rift between the Republican Party's two core wings

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Analysis: Akin row shows GOP's social-fiscal rift
By Charles Babington, August 26, 2012

Every now and then, an event awakens the ever-slumbering tensions between the Republican Party's two core wings: social conservatives and corporate interests.

A Missouri congressman's comment about rape and pregnancy was one such moment, and it came just as Republicans were hoping for a united front at their convention to nominate Mitt Romney for president.

A full-blown rupture - such as the one at the 1992 convention, when a defeated candidate declared a national "culture war" - seems unlikely. But even a modest squabble between key party factions might raise concerns in a tight presidential race.

Romney joined other mainstream Republicans in denouncing the Aug. 19 remarks by Rep. Todd Akin, the party's Senate nominee in Missouri. Akin said rape victims can generally avoid pregnancy because "if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Romney called Akin's comments "offensive and wrong." He unsuccessfully urged Akin to quit the Senate race.

Like many other top Republicans, Romney stopped short of criticizing Akin's stand on abortion, as opposed to his comments about rape and conception. Akin opposes abortion in all cases, including rape.

Romney would allow abortions in instances of rape and incest. He showed no interest, however, in picking a fight with his party's most ardent abortion opponents, a crucial source of GOP votes and volunteers. And he downplayed the fact that his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, has often joined Akin in anti-abortion measures, including some that sought to differentiate between forcible and non-forcible rapes.

It's hardly surprising that Romney, who's running mainly on economic issues, is trying to maintain a quiet balance between fiscal and social conservatives. The Republican Party cannot win national elections without an alliance between the two groups.

Corporate titans know they must hold hands with anti-abortion crusaders to elect politicians who will keep government regulations and taxes low. Evangelicals and other social conservatives realize they must join ranks with business executives - even if they would never mingle at a country club - to elect champions of public prayer, abortion limits and so on.

Romney, who made a fortune heading the private equity firm Bain Capital, comes from the corporate wing. He seems less convincing when talking about the social issues that animate many on the right.

As Massachusetts governor, Romney supported abortion rights, gun control and gay rights. He abandoned those positions as he prepared to run for president in 2008, but many "movement conservatives" remain wary of him.

Romney had to struggle for their support during the Republican primaries, when Newt Gingrich briefly depicted him as a "vulture capitalist." Romney's most persistent rival was Rick Santorum, a hero to anti-abortion activists and home-schoolers.

Now that the primaries are over, and unaffiliated voters are crucial this fall, Republican leaders would rather keep the abortion debate to a simmer, not a boil.

Last week, the party's platform committee approved a provision that backs the "Human Life Amendment," a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Republican platforms in 2004 and 2008 did the same. That might surprise some GOP-leaning centrists, who rarely hear Republican presidents or congressional leaders make loud, full-bore pushes to outlaw abortion.

"Ronald Reagan used to talk about the party's three-legged stool: fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and national-security conservatives," said Dan Schnur, a former Republican adviser who now teaches political science at the University of Southern California.

"At best, it's a three-legged stool," Schnur said. "At worst, it's three scorpions in a bottle."

The party's factions usually coexist peacefully, he said, but "the Akin matter makes it a lot harder."

The visibility and prominence of national-security conservatives have waned in recent years, partly because of widespread disillusionment with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But business-oriented fiscal conservatives remain vitally important, as do social conservatives, who play big roles in swing states including Iowa, Florida and North Carolina.

The Akin episode ignited new tensions between the groups. Mike Huckabee, the Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, ripped into establishment Republicans for trying to force Akin from the Senate race.

In a conference call monitored by CNN, Huckabee, who ran for president in 2008, likened the National Republican Senatorial Committee to "union goons" trying to kneecap rivals.

Romney needs as much peace between the factions as possible.

Corporate conservatives provide a disproportionate amount of funding for the GOP. Casino owner Sheldon Adelson, for instance, has pledged more than $10 million for groups opposing President Barack Obama. The wealthy industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch have donated and helped raise millions more.

Religious conservatives and anti-abortion activists, meanwhile, provide thousands of foot soldiers to knock on doors and make phone calls for candidates they support.

"The Akin case shows that the Republican establishment will pander to the social conservatives until they become a liability," said Democratic strategist Doug Hattaway. "But the Wall Street/country club set still rely on the right-wing religious vote to prop up the party at the polls."

Some veteran Republican operatives question why Romney maintains ties with Donald Trump, who continues to question whether Obama was born in the United States.

A hard, clean break with Trump, however, might alienate a small but fervent group of conservatives who, for now, are in Romney's corner. In a presidential race that conceivably could turn on a few votes in one or two states, the loss of a tiny faction - led by Donald Trump, Todd Akin or someone else unloved by the Republican establishment - could prove crucial.

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More Republicans willing to consider the "C" word

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“RINOS” Getting Honest
Posted by: Linda Carbonell on June 26, 2012

First it was Maine’s senior Senator, Olympia Snowe, retiring because the atmosphere in Washington has become so toxic. Then it was former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, criticizing his party for their intransigence. Now, it’s Missouri’s Senator Roy Blunt and former Representative Tom Davis of Virginia expressing their frustration with their party.

At the Reuters Washington Summit, Blunt was discussing the current state of affairs in Congress, “I’m bothered by our politics generally that suggest that if you don’t get exactly what you want, that’s somehow a failure.” He even had the audacity to use the “C” word banned from Republican vocabulary: compromise. Speaker Boehner gave up last year talking about compromises, using the term “common ground” to describe attempts to find a workable place between the Democrats and his own party extremists. Blunt admitted, “I could get in lots of trouble in the current environment saying I think we should have more compromise…[but] what I’ve said about that is what I believe – compromise is the price for living in a democracy.”

Like Jeb Bush, Blunt invoked the memory of Ronald Reagan, saying “The real strength of President Reagan was the ability to explain that if someone was your friend 85% of the time, they were not your enemy. Governing is never the choice between the perfect and the possible. It is always the choice between the possible and deciding you’d rather not get anything done. There are times that when the possible is so unacceptable that you’re better off saying, ‘I’d just rather walk away and start this fight another day.’ But most of time in a democracy accepting what is possible and coming back the next day and starting to work for what you couldn’t get is the way to get things done.” Gov. Bush noted that in today’s climate, President Reagan would not be comfortable in his own party.

Blunt has signed the infamous “Norquist No Tax” pledge, and will not say that he is willing to vote against the pledge. He still believes that we have a spending problem instead of a revenue problem. But he does agree that “Pledges would make compromise more difficult.”

Davis head the Republican Main Street Partnership, a centrist group, the kind of Republicans that Tea Partiers call RINOS – Republicans In Name Only. He faults the growing influence of both parties’ far wings for the gridlock. “You don’t get rewarded for compromise. You get punished for compromise.”

We certainly saw that during last year’s credit ceiling battle. President Obama and Speaker Boehner reached a compromise that the Democrats were comfortable with, but the Tea Party side of Republicans blocked the compromise. The final deal was even less favorable to the Tea Party than the one the President had agreed to.

While Blunt did not blame either party more than the other, he did note, “Only in recent politics of the country has compromise been seen as an evil as opposed to a positive.”

Nicely put, Senator. It’s a pity the far side of your party can’t understand that.

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