Day: 7/19/2012

Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Jobs Council Fraud?

Posted by on July 19, 2012 at 2:54 pm. NO Comments :

The headline story on Fox Nation today calls the President’s Jobs Council a fraud. There is nothing in the story that indicates what the nature of the alleged fraud is, but the charge stills hangs there like rotting fruit.

Fox Nation

The root of the complaint has something to do with the frequency with which President Obama meets with the White House Jobs Council. The Fox Nationalists appear to be upset that he doesn’t do it often enough. Coincidentally (wink), that’s the same theme that Mitt Romney has been pitching on the campaign trail recently.

But here’s the thing. The Jobs Council has mostly done its work already. They issued a report with some specific recommendations. Those recommendations have been addressed by both the administration and Congress. The White House has acted on 54 of the 60 recommendations for executive action. Congress passed the JOBS Act which contained many of the ideas proposed by the Council. There are many other proposals that Republicans in Congress are blocking because they are more focused on making Obama a one-term president than they are on helping Americans get back to work.

It’s ironic that Romney and Fox are so concerned with the meeting schedule of a Council that they so fiercely opposed. They have rejected many of its recommendations and they were never particularly fond of its formation. Fox News in particular was maniacally critical of its chairman, Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric. Bill O’Reilly called him “a despicable human being” on the air. So it’s rather peculiar that they are now upset that Obama hasn’t spent more time with them. Of course, if he did meet more often they would be crticizing that.

UNHINGED: Mitt Romney Lies About Obama Remarks He Agrees With

Posted by on July 19, 2012 at 12:00 pm. 8 Comments :

Ever since President Obama delivered a speech wherein he praised America’s innovators and entrepreneurs, the Romney campaign, and the press, have been distorting his remarks by extracting a single sentence in order to imply that Obama is anti-business. The segment of the speech below shows what Obama said with the out-of-context sentence in bold:

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.“

Obama was obviously referring to roads and bridges in that quote. He went on to cite as examples firefighters, the GI Bill, and the Golden Gate Bridge. It could not be more clear. Nevertheless, Romney hit the campaign trail to intentionally lie about what the President said. But the absurdity of his distortion just went up a notch. In his stump speech, Romney is now blasting the President’s remarks even while he is saying exactly the same thing. Just prior to his criticism of Obama, Romney says…

“I know that you recognize a lot of people help you in a business. Perhaps the banks, the investors, there’s no question your mom and dad, your schoolteachers, the people that provide roads, the fire, the police. A lot of people help.”

So how is that different from what Obama said?

Mitt Romney's Debt Reduction PlanActually, there is a difference. Obama supports firefighters, teachers, and police. He wants to expand their ranks, which would also create thousands of new jobs while benefiting society. Romney is opposed to such spending that he regards as government bloat. Last month he came out fiercely objecting to more government jobs of this specific type:

“[Obama] wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

Try to follow along here. First Romney knowingly misquotes Obama. Then Romney castigates Obama for saying the exact same thing that he is saying. And what he is saying is something he has previously objected to bitterly. Makes perfect sense – if you’re a lobotomized chimpanzee in a coma. Otherwise you have to be scratching your head. As I previously wrote, Romney is very concerned about helping the American people:

That’s right. The American people need help, and not the kind that President Obama is proposing. They don’t need fires extinguished by lazy civil servants. Real Americans will pick up their garden hoses and attack the blaze from their rooftops. Forest and prairie fires are actually a cheap method of clearing unsightly trees and brush. And paramedics only serve to exacerbate the socialist notion that victims of heart attacks and car accidents are “entitled” to life-saving emergency care.

The American people don’t need more police either. Protection from robberies and assaults is only sought by pussies and the French. And besides, if you really want police protection you can just start earning more money and move to a wealthy community where more officers are deployed and private security can be acquired for hefty fee. This is America, dammit. If you can’t get rich and pay for your own security, that’s your fault. And if you don’t stockpile weapons in your home, then you don’t really love your family. Just ask Mitt Romney (shooter of varmints) if he relies on the government for protection (well, except for all those secret service agents that cost taxpayers millions of dollars).

And don’t even get me started on teachers. What a waste of money that could have been spent on invading Iran. It’s not like America is the stupidest country in the world. At 37th worldwide there’s like 100 other countries that are stupider (and 36 that are smarterer).
Mitt Romney - We're Not StupidAgain the solution is simple. Send your children to expensive private schools like Romney’s Cranbrook, where they can get a superior education while traumatizing other students because they look different than you. The kids that are stuck in overcrowded public schools should stop whining and be grateful for community colleges and the jobs awaiting them at McDonalds. Romney has finally shown the courage to put an end to the fallacy that our children are the future when, in reality, they are just a bunch of germ-ridden fiscal burdens. Although the end result of this might make it harder for Romney to live up to his campaign slogan: We’re Not Stupid!

The Obama campaign has released this video that nicely summarizes how Romney will say anything to smear Obama:

Fox News Again Ignores Key Results Of Its Own Poll

Posted by on July 19, 2012 at 4:00 am. NO Comments :

You may not have heard that Fox News released a poll yesterday. The reason for that is that Fox News barely made any mention of it themselves. And when they did bring it up, it was to trumpet results that advanced their partisan agenda. Here is a selection of what Fox considered to be the pertinent headlines from their survey:

    Fox News: Nearly two-thirds of voters say government is the problem
    Fox News: 37 percent of voters say they are better off than four years ago
    Fox News: Voters pick Condi Rice as Romney running mate
    Fox Nation: 37% of Voters Say They Are Better Off Than Four Years Ago
    Fox Nation: 64% of Voters Say Government is the Problem

Notice anything missing? How about:

If the presidential election were held today, how would you vote?
Obama 45% / Romney 41%

That’s right. Fox decided to bury what any other news enterprise would regard as the lede. And it’s not the first time they’ve done this either. In fact, the only time Fox ever publishes the result of any Obama/Romney poll is when Obama is behind.

Another interesting question in the poll that Fox swept aside was this curiously phrased inquiry:

“Some people support a tax increase on high-income earners because they believe the country needs more revenue to reduce the national debt and the better-off can afford it. Others oppose tax increases on high-income earners because they believe high earners are the people who own small businesses, create jobs and spend a bigger share of the money to keep the economy going. Which do you agree with more – those who support or oppose tax increases on high-income earners?”

That is not exactly a testament to fairness and balance. First of all, it makes those who favor higher taxes appear to be interested only in gouging the rich. The truth is that higher taxes for the wealthy is actually aimed at reversing a trend wherein the middle class has been burdened with more and more of the nation’s debt over the past thirty years. It’s an acknowledgement that an equitable nation does not tax the most fortunate at a lower rate than everyone else.

The Real Job CreatorsSecondly, the question falsely characterizes the rich as “job creators” (click image to enlarge chart). However, most independent economists agree that jobs are created by consumer demand, not the wealth of entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the assertion that the rich spend a bigger share of their money is utterly absurd. Poor and middle class citizens spend nearly 100% of their earnings on trivialities like rent and groceries and medicine. The rich put far more of their funds into savings, retirement, and investments.

Despite the grossly biased phrasing of the question, a clear majority, 52 percent, of the respondents said they support tax increases on high-income earners, with 42% opposing. Imagine how much more support there might have been for raising taxes on the rich if the question had not been so biased. And imagine how upset Fox must have been to see the results after working so hard to produce the opposite.

It’s no wonder that Fox has tried to sweep their own poll under the rug. These surveys are expensive and they aren’t undertaken for recreation. The fact that Fox would shell out for this data and then downplay it shows how desperate they are to skew their reporting to advance their conservative agenda. And that goal far outweighs any sense of duty to be ethical journalists.

Update: To elaborate on the tendency of Fox News to only report polls that are unfavorable for Obama, This morning they published the results of a New York Times/CBS News poll that had Romney leading 45-43 (within the margin of error). But they still have not reported the results of their own poll showing Obama ahead 45-41.