tagged w/ GOP Misinformation
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Was the Civil War a Pyrrhic victory?
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"...
When pressed to clarify such statements later, Mr. West backed off slightly, but his campaign manager, Tim Edson, insisted when speaking with reporters that labels weren’t the point. And by that, I believe he meant “words in an actual dictionary.” Maybe none of the Democrats in Congress were actually card-carrying commies. So what?
“We can quibble about the terminology used to describe them,” Edson grumbled, “but it’s clear. Whatever you call people that oppose capitalism and free markets and individual economic freedom —maybe it’s ‘socialist,’ maybe it’s ’communist’ —but that’s the point the congressman was making, and he stands by the words.”
It struck me, on reading Edson’s response, that he would have been just as happy if his boss had called Democrats in Congress toaster ovens or card-carrying poltergeists. And that’s when it finally hit me. For fringe conservatives, at least, labels no longer meant what they meant in the English language.
You could call the president or any liberal a communist, a curmudgeon, or a cucumber. It wouldn’t make an ounce of difference.
..."
This is a fun read, but hits on a very salient point: We can't communicate when language is rendered meaningless by the barrage of ill used labels in our political discourse. Yeah, it's deliberate on the right. Soundbites move herds faster than facts and a common language.
Writer/lyricist Alan Jay Lerner had dear Professor Henry Higgens singing "Use proper English, you're regarded as a freak...." We often consider how Huxley and Orwell were prescient. Well, Lerner was too. "One common language I'm afraid we'll never get....""...
When pressed to clarify such statements later, Mr. West backed off... more
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Got Truth? Gotta share & spread it...
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If the Republicans have any solutions to America's problems, they sure aren't sharing. So what is the GOP's plan?
Go to http://www.dscc.org/gopplan to get a GOP Plan car magnet.If the Republicans have any solutions to America's problems, they sure... more
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AUSTIN – The liberal Green Party's uphill battle to get on the Texas ballot this fall has been fueled by a surprising benefactor: an out-of-state Republican consultant with a history of helping conservative causes and GOP candidates.
If the state validates the petitions the consultant arranged for the party – for free – a Green Party slate could drain support from Democrat Bill White in his bid to oust Republican Gov. Rick Perry.
What's unknown is who paid for the previously undisclosed arrangement, pieced together by The Dallas Morning News. Green Party officials said they don't know who funded the effort. The Perry campaign denied any involvement. And Arizona Republican operative Tim Mooney, who set up the petition drive, refused to say.
Green Party officials said an outside group gathered the 92,000 signatures and gave them as "a gift" to the party, which delivered them to the secretary of state, who oversees Texas elections. If the secretary of state determines that enough of them are valid, the party will be able to field a slate of candidates for statewide offices for the first time since 2002.
"It's good news for Rick Perry, in the sense that the Green Party label draws votes away from White rather than Perry," said Rice University political science professor Mark Jones. "It's likely to take a small amount from White. This is only going to have an effect if it's a very close election."
More... Just Follow The LinkAUSTIN – The liberal Green Party's uphill battle to get on the Texas ballot... more
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They used Philadelphia actors for that authentic WV look. Pulled the ad after being caught red handed.They used Philadelphia actors for that authentic WV look. Pulled the ad after being... more
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Over at the Washington Independent, Mike Lillis pulls a quote from the Republican Study Committee, pushing back on the EPA's greenhouse gas endangerment finding with bunk science.
Specifically, he notes the well-traveled nonsense that if human beings and critters of all sorts expire carbon dioxide, just like polluters, that makes the EPA's finding "good news for all those opposed to the despicable practice of breathing." Then there's some strange stuff about "puppies and kittens."
Every day, over 6 billion humans and an untold number of puppies, kittens, and other animals produce large quantities of this ubiquitous gas. Should they be required to stop breathing? And every day, trees, flowers, shrubs, and other flora use carbon dioxide to sustain their own existence. Liberals are supposedly more plant-friendly than the rest of us, so why would they try to limit a gas that is essential for plant life? If the rainforests could speak, would they be stunned by this betrayal?
I recognize this line of (what I'll loosely call) reasoning as the talking points of coal and oil industry green-washing organization CO2 Is Green. I previously disposed of this nonsense, but for the sake of repeating myself, here's the seventh-grade-level earth science you need to understand the distinction between CO2 produced in respiration versus CO2 produced from carbon fuel emissions:
Yes, human beings produce carbon dioxide and then plants, through photosynthesis, metabolize this exhaust and convert it back into oxygen. All of this is part of a naturally occurring cycle that functions well when it's in equilibrium. But what the good folks at CO2 Is Green -- fronted by "a veteran oil industry executive" and supported by the "chief executive of and leading shareholder in Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based owner of coal resources that lets other companies mine in return for royalties" -- want you to believe is that when the fossil fuels they shill for are burned, it's just as easy and natural as respiration. It's like breathing, only lots lots more of it!
But the carbon captured in fossil fuels is not a part of the naturally occurring process of respiration. That carbon is the result of centuries of organic decay. Left on its own, it would take millions of years for fossil fuels to "exhale" their carbon dioxide. When fossil fuels are burned, however, it's released into the atmosphere on a much shorter timeframe of a few centuries, thus increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment. That throws off the equilibrium established between respiration and photosynthesis. This is where the whole concept of "carbon offsets" come from as a means of restoring this healthy equilibrium.
As for what the rainforests would say, I would imagine if they could talk, they'd say something like:
Hey! Shut up, Republican Study Committee! That's a gross oversimplification. Plants need all sorts of things to survive, in different combinations. And many of us plants have internal biological regulators that limit our intake of carbon dioxide, so more of it isn't necessarily better.Over at the Washington Independent, Mike Lillis pulls a quote from the Republican... more
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Though they may rail against Hollywood personalities who become involved in politics when those personalities are on the left, conservatives have never turned down a little star power of their own. (See Reagan, Ronald.) Problem is, the pickings are a bit slim. So the guy who shows up lately is Jon Voight, who's been known to say some things that are pretty outlandish, even by an actor's standards.
Voight was back at it on Thursday, when he spoke at an anti-healthcare reform rally on Capitol Hill, organized by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. On Twitter, NBC's Chuck Todd reported that Voight asked if President Obama's agenda was really about "subconscious programming... to damn America" received from his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2009/11/05/voight/index.htmlThough they may rail against Hollywood personalities who become involved in politics... more
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Wearily familiar as he is with the "vast right-wing conspiracy," Bill Clinton says the network that sought to destroy him and his wife, Hillary, remains malignant as ever, yet lacks the might of a decade ago. "It's not as strong as it was, because America's changed," he told David Gregory on "Meet the Press." "But it's as virulent as it was."
Whether Clinton is correct about the current condition of his old adversaries can best be measured by the passage or wreckage of healthcare reform and the outcome of next year's congressional midterm elections -- the same early milestones that marked the beginning of Clinton's tumultuous White House tenure. Perhaps Barack Obama will be saved by political demography and decent intentions, as the former president tried to assure Gregory; perhaps he and his administration will prove less vulnerable to intrigue and propaganda and less flawed than their predecessors.
What Obama should anticipate -- indeed, what he is already encountering -- is a cascade of slurs, threats and rhetorical violence that reanimates all of the worst themes of the bad old days. That wave will inevitably damage the president and his hopes for change, even if the majority of Americans is less receptive to right-wing messages than they once were. The greasy machinery once used to grind Clinton down has grown larger and more sophisticated by orders of magnitude, from Fox News Channel (which did not exist during his first term) to all of the conservative digital outlets that enable echoing and organizing on a truly vast scale.
The negative mythologizing of Obama bears a remarkable resemblance in tone and style if not precisely in content to the attacks on Clinton. "It's like when they accused me of murder, and all that stuff they did," said the former president -- presumably a reference to the wilder fantasies circulated in conservative publications about Obama, from the forged Kenyan birth certificates to the president's supposed plans to inflict corruption, homosexual radicals and Muslim jihad on innocent Americans. While some of the current themes mimic those deployed against Clinton, there are generational differences and the obvious fact that Obama is not just notionally "the first black president." That status evokes a special animus on the far right, of course -- although Clinton at least had earned the lifelong hatred of his most dedicated enemy, "Justice Jim" Johnson of Arkansas, for fighting segregation and racism in Arkansas.
Back when videotapes still had to be circulated by mail order, the Clinton-hunters did a brisk business with "The Clinton Chronicles," a "documentary" alleging that as governor of Arkansas he oversaw an enormous, unchecked racketeering enterprise that encompassed international bank fraud, cocaine smuggling and multiple murders, facilitated by a kind of backwoods dictatorship. Nothing resembling that remarkable work of extremist art, once promoted by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, has appeared so far in the crusade against Obama -- but that doesn't mean nothing is in the works. Many of the same organizations and operatives behind the original Clinton smears are still active and some have amassed considerable wealth and influence over the intervening decade.
The signs of a resurgent right-wing smear industry, and the role that would be played by the old VRWC in the Obama era, first became clear toward the end of last year's historic election. Suddenly in the final months of the campaign, long after conservatives had despaired of another Swift-boat triumph, a curious outfit called the National Republican Trust PAC emerged from the shadows with two exceptionally nasty independent commercials -- and millions of dollars to spend airing them. Between the end of September and Election Day, the mysterious NRT PAC raised and spent enough money to qualify as the single largest non-party purchaser of airtime in the 2008 election.
much more....Wearily familiar as he is with the "vast right-wing conspiracy," Bill... more
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Senate Republicans are mailing out a "survey" insinuating that the president's health care reform agenda includes the creation of a lottery system to determine who gets medical treatment and a quota system that based on race and age.
Written under the vague and non-partisan title of "U.S. Senate Health Care Task Force," the mailing, which includes a fundraising letter, was commissioned by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and passed to the Huffington Post by a Democratic source. It asks recipients to respond to several misleading questions, including:
Are you concerned that health care rationing could lead to:
23. Denial of treatment in cases where the patient's prospects are deemed not good?
24. A "lottery" system of determining who will get priority treatment?
25. A "quota" system which would determine who would determine who would get treatment on the basis of race or age?
The mailer also suggests that the legislative proposals being considered by Congress would give the federal government the power to:
• Pick who is "eligible" for certain medical procedures? • Pick your doctor for you? • Restrict certain medical procedures on the basis of age? • Put strict price controls on medicine and drugs? • Penalize you for choosing to see a private doctor • Seriously undermine private health care insurers who currently serve tens of millions of Americans?Senate Republicans are mailing out a "survey" insinuating that the... more
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Companies that have run ads on the Glen Beck show are pulling them. (It's about time)Companies that have run ads on the Glen Beck show are pulling them. (It's about... more
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GOP politics are being reduced to a terrifying absurdity. Obama tags, right wing terrorists and a great white hope fill the Republican imagination. Republicans are praising right wing terrorists. Republicans are joking about Obama Tags and political assassination while longing for a great white hope. The sky is turning grey and Republicans are losing their collective mind.
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Are the Republicans really going crazy, or is this just politics as usual?GOP politics are being reduced to a terrifying absurdity. Obama tags, right wing... more
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One Marine said, "I see the way propaganda and information war is waged on America's sons and daughters, and how patients are treated when they have a vaccine reactions," adding, "That should trouble all Americans." (emphasis added)
One soldier that Wagner interviewed said that the military flu vaccine issue "is the worse cover-up in the history of the military. When the issue, I believe, of the use of the vaccine comes out, I believe it will make the Walter Reed scandal pale in comparison."
CDC targeting pregnant women for an H1N1 vaccine contradicts its own advice.
In New ACIP Guidelines: Guidance for Vaccine Recommendations in Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women updated version (May 5, 2008), CDC refers to the live attenuated influenza vaccine LAIV), commonly called “live vaccine,” reporting:
1. “If a live-virus vaccine is inadvertently given to a pregnant woman, or if a woman becomes pregnant within 4 weeks after vaccination, she should be counseled about the potential effects on the fetus.”
2. “Live vaccines pose a theoretical risk to the fetus.”
3. A chart in this CDC report specifically designates "pregnant women" as persons who “should not be vaccinated with LAIV.”One Marine said, "I see the way propaganda and information war is waged on... more
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As the title notes more advertisers are pulling their ads from the Glenn Beck program. Earlier this week, it was reported that 36 advertisers were pulling their spots, but now, that number has increased to 46. Some of the more notable companies that dropped their support are
Applebee’s, Bank of America, Bell & Howell, DirecTV, General Mills,Kraft, Regions Financial Corporation, Vonage, Geico, LexisNexis', Lawyers.com, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson.As the title notes more advertisers are pulling their ads from the Glenn Beck program.... more
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It's no longer the end of the beginning but the beginning of the end for the haters out there. The thin veil of decency and decorum as come clean off because the lack the intellectual prowess to maintain the facade. Now that they can no longer hide it will be easy to call them out and expose them for what they truly are. The man declaring himself a proud terrorist is well within his rights to do so. The elected official enthusiastically agreeing with him is in serious violation and needs to be removed from office.It's no longer the end of the beginning but the beginning of the end for the... more
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PLAYING THE HEALTH CARE GAME...
We have all watched in amazement as the defaced photos of President Obama as Hitler held by wild eye'd crazy people screaming loudly with no more of a purpose than to disrupt and to stop the Democratic process. These loud mouth antagonists following their seemingly well distrubuted scripts of Anarchy 101. These people who now claim, to be Blue Dog Democrats or, independents etc.. All also claim to be only wanting a different type of health-care reform? When the truth is self evident by any person that would quickly choose a sign of Hitler and swastikas' to taunt as if these evil signs and symbols had something remotely to do with health care. By their own professed actions they show more to be the apostles of the extremist far right locked in "goose-step" with others like them across the country... following the lead of organizations like: NEWSMAX and Christopher Ruddy, Rush Limbaugh's along with the other hate screaming Neocons and Fascists. It seems rather amazing as after eight years at the helm with Bush, leaving the country on it's knees ruined. Now these over-caffeinated and angry losers, who only want democracy- Only if "they win", are at it again!
We need not forget ~ That some of our goose-stepping colleagues have been assigned to be here.
You can hear some of their voices here among us everyday. They are on a mission... Their own mission to instigate hatred, conflict, discord to disrupt the process and ultimately to destroy Democratic process.
You might ask... Why would they do that? Because, A Democracy is not a "Republic".
You hear their voices twisting the honest need by real people for Obama's Health Care Reform as an "Evil Socialist Plot" to take over the country and the government. These people are deliberately trying to push everyones buttons to cause, a riot and revolt between each other. They want that!!! The truth is, they are nothing more than a group of people with their own agenda that has less to do with Health Care.... and more about their own twisted political beliefs. = > To them.... IT IS ONLY ABOUT THEM!
They want to disrupt this political process by yelling "FIRE" in a crowded movie theatre!
SO NOW.... LETS TALK ABOUT THE REAL ISSUES HERE...
"HEALTH CARE and THE MILKING OF THE CASH COW! "
FIRST.... IT IS NOT ABOUT HEALTH CARE: It is all it about MONEY!
The Huge Money that flows into all these MEGA BUSINESSES. Business like; BlueCross, Blue Sheild and all of the other major health care insurance companies. This is all about keeping that money coming into their pockets! This is huge money!!!! BILLIONS!!!! That these industries are making EVERYDAY, EVERY HOUR, EVERY SECOND. All coming from the wallets and the backs of the hard working people across America.
"ALL THEIR DISCUSSION ABOUT HEALTH CARE THIS IS ONLY ABOUT KEEPING THAT MONEY FLOWING INTO THEIR POCKETS!!!! "
The Obama Health Care Reform Plan, when passed will stop that cash flow and their Milking of the "Cash Cow" and that damages their bottom Line! >> THAT IS WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!
(2) IT IS NOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF HEALTH CARE:
Every one of these Paid Government elected Politicians are lying through their teeth about how bad Government run Healthcare is . Because All of them have "Government Run Healthcare" themselves. (AND THEY ALL LOVE IT !)
(3) WAKEUP!!!
Health Insurance Companies have been bleeding all of us with as much money as they can get from our pockets !
(4) THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRIES ARE ADDICTED THAT MONEY:
They are addicted to that cash flow like a drug. Like any addict or Junky... they will: LIE, CHEAT and, STEAL in order to continue that cash flow and keep that (MONEY/DRUG) coming in.
What we are all witnessing on all media everyday are these Addicts doing everything and anything to continue to protect their overcharging of population by Billions and Trillions of Dollars !!!
THAT IS WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT !PLAYING THE HEALTH CARE GAME...
We have all watched in amazement as the defaced... more
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Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican of California has sent a letter to White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, asking for more information into their effort to collect information about the opponents of Obama's health care reform by gathering what they were saying or writing.
It brings to mind the image of the "enemies list" that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican of California has sent a letter to White House Counsel... more
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Voight asks, "Is President Obama creating a civil war?"
Actor Jon Voight is on his way to Cincinnati, and Atlanta, in order to participate in Fox News host Sean Hannity's latest "Freedom Concerts." But first, he paused long enough to share some extra nuttiness with the Washington Times.
"There's a real question at stake now. Is President Obama creating a civil war in our own country?" Voight said in an interview with the paper.
He continued:
We are witnessing a slow, steady takeover of our true freedoms. We are becoming a socialist nation, and whoever can't see this is probably hoping it isn't true ...
Do not let the Obama administration fool you with all their cunning Alinsky methods. And if you don't know what that method is, I implore you to get the book "Rules for Radicals," by Saul Alinsky. Mr. Obama is very well trained in these methods.
The real truth is that the Obama administration is professional at bullying, as we have witnessed with ACORN at work during the presidential campaign. It seems to me they are sending down their bullies to create fist fights among average American citizens who don't want a government-run health care plan forced upon them. So I ask again: Is President Obama creating a civil war in our own country?Voight asks, "Is President Obama creating a civil war?"
Actor Jon Voight... more
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“First came the ‘birthers,’” Slate’s Christopher Beam noted Tuesday. “Now, as President Obama makes a final push for health care reform, we have the deathers.”
Republicans are trying to rally opposition to President Obama’s health care plan by suggesting it will literally kill people. One GOP legislator said the reform plan is a way to advance assisted suicide. Can scare tactics like this prevent Congress from voting on the health care bill? MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT to discuss these recent developments Tuesday night.
Earlier Tuesday, President Obama fielded a question at a town hall hosted by the American Association of Retired Persons.
“I have been told there is a clause in there that everyone that’s Medicare age will be visited and told to decide how they wish to die,” a woman named Mary hailing from North Carolina asked the president. “This bothers me greatly, and I’d like for you to promise me that this is not in this bill.”
Maddow remarked, “The president of the United States today answering whether or not he wants health care reform because it’s secretly a plan to kill old people. This is one of those moments where you go, ‘Huh, any questions?”’ Most of all, it‘s just a big misunderstanding, right? It‘s like a ‘Three‘s Company’ plot line.”
“It‘s a whole new crazy conspiracy theory, unfolding where the craziest of them seem to be unfolding these days—among Republican members of Congress speaking on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Maddow said.
Maddow played some clips of lawmakers and pundits advancing the “deather” argument.
REP. VIRGINIA FOXX (R-NC): Republicans have a better solution that won‘t put the government in charge of people‘s health care, that will make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans, and that insures affordable access for all Americans, and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.
REP. PAUL BROUN (R-G): A lot of people are going to die. This program of government option that‘s being touted as being this panacea, the savior of allowing people to have quality health care at an affordable price, is going to kill people.
RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: People at a certain age with certain diseases will be deemed not worth the investment, and they will just—as Obama said—they‘ll give them some pain pills and let them loop out until they die and they don‘t even know what‘s happened.“First came the ‘birthers,’” Slate’s Christopher Beam... more
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