Bad Deeds for 7-21-2010

 

The Myth of Republicans’ Economic Stewardship – Just days after the Washington Post documented that George W. Bush presided over the worst eight-year economic performance in the modern American presidency, the New York Times in January featured an analysis comparing presidential performance going back to Eisenhower. As the Times showed, George W. Bush, the first MBA president, was a historic failure when it came to expanding GDP, producing jobs and fueling stock market growth. And across almost every indicator, Democrats outperformed their Republican counterparts:

As it turns out, as the New York Times also showed in October, the Democratic Party “has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole.” To make its case, the New York Times asked readers to imagine having put their money where its mouth is. Contrary to Republican mythology, Americans fare better – much, much better – under Democratic administrations.

 

Glenn Beck Smears President Obama’s Dead Mother – On Fox News yesterday, Glenn Beck said, “This administration is into character assassination without due process.” Then only a few moments later, Beck himself indulged in yet another of his serial “character assassinations without due process” by again smearing Obama’s dead mother:

Beck: You know, it’s weird that no member of the media found it noteworthy that Obama’s mom wasn’t just a regular girl from Kansas. She was actually a little red girl — a communist who left her son to go study Marxism.

This is just an outrageous, utterly false smear. Obama’s mother was never a communist. The “little red church” she attended was simply a liberal Unitarian Church that was regularly accused of harboring communists by the then-rampant McCarthyite Red hunters who lived nearby. And never, ever, did she “leave her son” or abandon him for any reason — and certainly never to “go study Marxism”!

Of course, the real irony is this: Fox News operates on the core principle of “character assassination without due process.” Without that, it wouldn’t be Fox News.

 

Right-Wing Media Critic Offers Cash For Assault On Democratic U.S. Representative – Prominent conservative media critic Dan Gainor has offered $100 to the first member of Congress who punches “smary [sic] idiot” Alan Grayson (D-Fl.) in the nose. Gainor is the vice president of the Media Research Center, a $6 million-a-year organization that has been praised by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Newt Gingrich, and he is often cited, interviewed and otherwise taken very seriously by Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander. The outburst was prompted by comments that Grayson made on the House floor last night regarding unemployment: namely, that Republican lawmakers are “taking food out of the mouths of children” and “trying to revive the America of desperate straits and cheap labor” by blocking the passage of legislation that would extend unemployment benefits.

 

Conservatives Rehash Debunked Myths and Caricatures for Kagan Hearings – Republicans and their conservative media counterparts are pushing tired falsehoods and myths about Elena Kagan. Fox News, The Washington Times, the New York Post, and The Weekly Standard, Laura Ingraham, Jeff Kuhner, CNN’s Erick Erickson (last seen touting his wife’s shotgun and calling Justice David Souter a “goat f#%king child molester), Michelle Malkin, Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Fox’s Megyn Kelly have all been promoting falsehoods for votes, money, and viewers. How many liars does the right-wing need?

 

AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Are Spreading Misinformation About Internet Regulation – The FCC is considering is whether to “reclassify” Internet access services under a category – Title II – that would allow it to protect Net Neutrality and foster universal access to broadband. Both of these goals are priorities of President Obama’s economic recovery plan.
The FCC wants to restore open Internet protections. Under the Bush administration, the FCC deregulated high-speed Internet providers by relinquishing its Title II authority. At the time, the agency claimed this shift would foster competition and drive down broadband prices for consumers. Instead, it unleashed a torrent of industry consolidation that raised prices, slowed broadband services and otherwise left the United States far behind in every international measure of Internet success.

This radical move undermined the long-held assumption that nondiscriminatory communications networks were essential to free speech, democratic participation and economic opportunity.
A phone and cable-funded “think tank” with the misleading name “Progressive Policy Institute (PPI)” says the an open Internet will kill jobs. They are calling for a two-year moratorium on all FCC efforts to restore the agency’s role in safeguarding our Internet rights and spreading broadband adoption.

The study is part of a desperate strategy to spread fear and obscure the facts about Internet regulation, and pave the way for carrier control over online content.

What the study doesn’t say is that PPI has received funding from AT&T, as well as from the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation. The Bradley Foundation funds a right-wing cabal of anti-Neutrality groups, including the American Enterprise Institute, The Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

“Policymakers should recognize this ‘study’ for what it is — part of a transparent attempt by the biggest phone and cable companies to raise unfounded fears about job losses in an election season,” says Free Press Research Director Derek Turner.

 

The Problem is Not One Bad Oil Well; It May be Many (Thousands) – The federal government’s oil spill chief says seepage detected two miles from BP’s oil cap is coming from another well.

There are two wells within two miles of BP’s blowout, one that has been abandoned and another that is not in production.

There around 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf, and an Associated Press investigation showed this month that they’re not checked for leaks. And then there’s all the underwater oil pipelines from the wells that may be leaking.

 

Republican Party Lies About It’s Debt – The Republican Party’s national organizing body failed to report more than $7 million in debt to federal election officials this year, making it appear to be in better shape than it was as mid-term elections approach in November.

 

Republicans Torture Unemployed Americans for Another 30 Hours for No Reason – Under inexplicable Senate rules, after a filibuster is broken, the minority trying to block passage can delay a final, up-or-down vote for 30 hours. Democrats hoped Republicans would agree to waive this pointless delay, and allow the Senate to vote on jobless aid. Republicans, who know the bill is going to pass anyway, refused without explanation.

I hope the American people understand how callous this is. People are desperate, can’t make house payments, car payments, can’t pay for kids’ food. And they are having us wait for 30 hours after cloture’s been invoked. We only need a simple majority to pass this bill now, but they’re making us wait. I just can’t articulate in strong enough feelings how unfair this is to 2.5 million people…. Every hour that is delayed is more misery for 2.5 million people.

 

Do You Think This Might be a Cause of the Deficit? – The United States has spent $1.15 trillion on wars since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to a recently released Congressional report.

 

Typical Right-Wing Solution for When You Disagree With Someone: Shoot Them, Start a War – Police say a California man arrested after a freeway shootout with authorities was planning to attack people at the American Civil Liberties Union and another nonprofit group. Oakland police Officer Jeff Thomason says Byron Williams was upset with the ACLU and Tides Foundation for their political views.

This 24/7 barrage of right wing propaganda is driving weak-minded folks over the edge. The Limbaughs, Hannitys and the O’Reillys should be held accountable. They spew paranoia through their microphones suggesting the ACLU and others are enemies.

 

While We Sit Around, China Moves on Clean Energy – China may spend about $738 billion in the next decade developing cleaner sources of energy to reduce emissions from burning oil and coal. China erected more wind turbines in 2009 than any other country and may install a record 18 gigawatts of wind-power capacity in 2010. The world’s fastest-growing major economy will get more than 11 percent of its energy from non-fossil fuels by 2015.

 

Republican Smoke-Filled Rooms Still Going Strong – Lobbyists for major banks, insurers, pharmaceutical firms, energy companies and at least one foreign government have been helping organize lavish gatherings of staffers and members of Congress since early 2009, funneling K Street money through an officially chartered staff organization called the Congressional Cigar Association, founded by Republican staffers and sponsored by Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.)

 

BP Sends Out Fake Photo of Their Command Center – The latest curio in the ongoing exhibition of BP obfuscation comes via John Aravosis at AmericaBlog, who examined an image from BP’s website and determined it to be a fake. The image depicts BP’s “Command Center” in Houston, where ever-vigilant BP employees sit in a dark room, monitoring screens. BP’s website has been running a photo in which three men appear to be watching a ten-screen display of oil-spill footage. Here’s the thing: it’s a Photoshop job.

Well (no pun intended), if BP can Photoshop their command center, so can others. Here’s a sample:

 

The Myth of Republicans’ Family Values – Conservatives love to preach about morality, but they don’t follow their own advice:

• John McCain, Senator (R- Ariz.) who began dating his present wife, Cindy, while still married to his first wife, Carol.
• Newt Gingrich cheated on his second wife with a woman 23 years his younger (who would later become his third wife). And then there’s the matter of his first wife, with whom Gingrich initiated a divorce while she was recovering from cancer surgery.
• Mark Sanford, Gov of SC, disappears during Father’s Day weekend, returning to confess an extramarital affair in Argentina.
• Vito Fossella admitted to police to having a child out-of-wedlock when stopped for drunk driving.
• David Vitter, junior Senator from Louisiana, became one of the few high-profile politicians to be implicated as a client of “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey.
• Dan Burton, Republican Congressman who, while married, fathered a child by another woman.
• Robert Livingston, Congressman (R-Louisiana) resigned after only three (3) days as House Speaker ( he replaced Newt Gingrich) after admitting that he was an adulterer.
• Bob Packwood, Senator (R-Ore.), resigned in 1995 under a threat of public senate hearings related to 10 female ex-staffers accusing him of sexual harassment.
• J.C. Watts, Representative (R-Oklahoma), loud champion of “moral values.” Has out-of-wedlock children.
• Bob Barr, Republican Congressman from Georgia. Sponsored the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, saying “The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit.” Was married three times. Paid for his second wife’s abortion (she also suspected he was cheating on her). Failed to pay child support to the children of his first two wives and while married to his third and present wife was photographed licking whipped cream off of strippers at his inaugural party.
• Neil Bush, brother or G. W. Bush, in a March 2003 divorce deposition, admitted repeatedly having sex with strange women who just showed up at his room while on an Asian business trip.
• Jim Bunn Congressman of Oregon: With his success due in great part to support from the Christian Coalition, Bunn won his congressional seat, then immediately ditched his wife (and mother of his five children), married a staffer, and put his new wife on the state payroll for the unheard-of salary of $97,500.
• Richard Gardner, a Nevada State Representative (R), admitted to molesting his two daughters. 34% of those who voted in Assembly District 34 preferred Gardner to the Democratic candidate.
• Jeffrey Ray Nielsen, Christian conservative activist and lawyer with close ties to Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Scott Baugh, head of the Orange County Republican Party, was arrested for having sex with a 14-year old boy.
• Steve Aiken, campaign manager for a Republican candidate for Congress in Arizona, former Quakertown, PA, police officer and self-proclaimed reverend, was convicted of having sex with two underage girls.

Regards,

Jim